Daniel Eran DilgerThe ULV (ultra low voltage) parts consume only 17 watts, making them suitable for the slim design of the Mac Book Air, as opposed to the mainstream Sandy Bridge chips Apple uses in its full size MacBook Pro lineup.
The standard Sandy Bridge chips in Apple's Pro notebooks dissipate 25 to 35 watts, making them too hot (and too battery taxing) to use in the considerably thinner Air machines, according to a report by CNET .
The new lineup consists of three part numbers:
Core i7-2677M: dual cores running at 1.8 GHz (peaking to 2.9GHz), 4MB cache, listing for $317
Core i7-2637M: dual cores running at 1.7GHz (peaking to 2.8GHz), 4MB cache, listing for $289
Core i5-2557M: dual cores running at 1.7GHz (peaking to 2.7GHz), 3MB cache, listing for $250
Intel sees a big market for notebooks similar to Apple's MacBook Air, which the chipmaker calls "ultrabooks." When Apple first released the Air, it was criticized for not being thin enough and giving up too many features while using a full sized keyboard.
Apple has since made the Air lineup thinner and reduced the price while retaining a full size keyboard and moving exclusively to SSD storage, which supports very fast booting, wake and program launching.
The report cited analyst Doug Freedman of Gleacher & Company, who refers to machines like the Mac Book Air as "SSD notebooks," as commenting that "In the 4-year lifespan of [Apple's] iconic MacBook Air, units sold as a percentage of its total notebook supply was 8 percent in 2008, 9 percent in 2009, and 17 percent in 2010 to an estimated 48 percent in 2011."
"We expect total notebook SSD penetration at a conservative 5 percent in 2011 growing to 30 percent in 2014," Freedman stated. He noted that Intel is planning to bundle its own SSD storage devices with its CPUs to sell PC makers packages of components, something the company already does with CPUs and chipsets.
However, Apple introduced SSD options for its latest MacBook Airs using specialized components rather than conventional SSDs built to fill the same space as a conventional notebook hard drive, such as those built by Intel. That has enabled the company to further reduce weight and thickness in the Air designs.
Christine McKee
Chip Loder
Marko Zivkovic
Malcolm Owen
Amber Neely
20 Comments
Seriously? What kind of sentence is that?
First, I don't recall any criticism about the Air not being thin enough. Second, while I understand the comment about giving up too many features, sticking "while using a full sized keyboard" at the end of the sentence makes no sense.
Core i7-2677M: dual cores running at 1.8 GHz (peaking to 2.9GHz), 4MB cache, listing for $317
Core i7-2637M: dual cores running at 1.7GHz\t(peaking to 2.8GHz), 4MB cache, listing for $289
Core i5-2557M: dual cores running at 1.7GHz\t(peaking to 2.7GHz), 3MB cache, listing for $250
Was really hoping they would get a quad core i7 into this form factor! Want the power of a Pro in the weight of an Air. Should still beat the pants of the Core2Duo though...
Was really hoping they would get a quad core i7 into this form factor! ...
No problem... when they make them at the 15 nm process node in 3 years.
I feel like this article is totally wrong, at least for the 13" air.
I was under the impression that because the Sandy bridge processors have the gpu built in, the Air no longer needs to use the ULV processors and can use the LV processors.
It thought the current ones used the 17 w processors plus a 10 w gpu. So now that the cpu and gpu are combined in sandy bridge, they have 27 w available for usage. So that would consistute a LV processor, not a ULV.
Also, I thought AI reported on this before. I feel like AI has really started to just BS articles. I know they always have to some extent, but I feel like the number of these crappy articles has seriously increased.
EDIT: Whoops. aiolos beat me to it.
Would 25 watts vs 17 watts really be a problem now that they will no longer be using a discrete GPU in addition to the CPU? I heard the GPU itself uses 12 watts in the current models. 17 + 12 = 29 watts vs 25 watts. I know it's not as simple as that but it's still a few watts less overall. I would think these new Sandy Bridge chipsets would be destined for the 11" model only.