Chipmaker Intel has given the world a first glimpse of what technology might drive Macs in 2011 as the company officially unveiled their next generation processor architecture known as “Sandy Bridge.”
MacRumors is reporting on Intel’s official announcement Monday of the “Sandy Bridge” core processors (also known as 2nd Generation Core processor). “The new processors are built on the 32nm process and integrate the processor, memory controller and graphics on the same die,” MacRumors notes. “In particular, the new integrated graphics performance is significantly improved over Intel’s previous chips.”
“Sandy Bridge is, essentially, a next-generation replacement for Intel's primary CPUs for desktops and laptops,” The TechReport explains. “At the heart of Sandy Bridge is an essentially new processor microarchitecture, the most sweeping architectural transition from Intel since the introduction of the star-crossed Pentium 4. Nearly everything has changed, from the branch predictors through the out-of-order execution engine and into the memory subsystem. The goal: to achieve higher performance and power efficiency, even on single-threaded tasks, where the integration of multiple CPU cores hasn't been much help.”
According to AnandTech, the new processor architecture “is a major step forward for laptops, significantly closing the price/performance gap between desktops and laptops.”
Of course, that bodes particularly well for Apple, whose powerful MacBook laptops are often favored over the company’s desktop computers. AnandTech found that the graphics performance of Sandy Bridge “generally exceeded that found in the NVIDIA 320M that is presently used in the MacBook and MacBook Airs,” according to MacRumors.
“Again, Sandy Bridge delivers playable performance in every single title at 768p and ‘Low’ detail settings,” Anandtech reveals. “What’s more, it actually surpasses the GeForce 320M in Apple's MacBook Pro 13 in five out of six games (the exception being STALKER).” One area where the performance lagged was in the Medium detail settings, where Apple pairing Intel processors with NVIDIA graphics outperformed Intel’s integrated graphics.
Despite this, AnandTech is overall impressed with the battery life and performance of Intel’s latest Sandy Bridge offering, which is expected to debut next month in dual core and low-power versions. How soon Apple might implement the new technology -- assuming they do -- is anyone’s guess.
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(Image courtesy of MacRumors)
