Is the MacBook Pro about to receive a quad-core speed bump?

Mike,

Curious as to why you got the 2.53 13" MBP anyway. Especially if you just got it. The new white macbook is nipping at the heels and is heaps cheaper.

Sure 8gig option, SD, FW and hard case, but the base 13" mbp does all that as well if they are things you want. The CPU is totally whatever.

Having looked at the current models the only two worth buying are the WhiteMB and the 15" MBP with dedicated GPU. Or the 13" MBP base model if you need the hard case due to usage.

Some people might argue the FW but I reckon without the 2nd audio port that is on the 15" those 13" are questionable FW or not.

The 17" is irrelevant unless a person REALLY needs the Express Card slot and I mean REALLY needs it, not just thinks they need it for some alleged purpose. I reckon if someone was wanting to buy one through me, unless they could show me the Express Card module they wanted with it I would refuse to be part of it. A SATA slot for example is a good reason.

As for Quad Core, I would not be expecting them in the 13", probably the 17" since there is all that wasted space just to support the screen which could be used for heat management and there needs to be a compelling reason to get the 17"

http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/#iPhone

They just remove the 9400 chipset. The i5/i7 has chipset on die. All that is left is the southbridge chip which could easily be accommodated by Intel -- I doubt nvidia has a serious performance advantage in the wide-open world of SATA transfer.

This change wouldn't be too drastic -- the i5/i7 has chipset (memory controller, QPI, PCIe) on die so they're saving space by removing the need for the nVidia chipset.

Even though it's 90W, That's 90W for the entire die -- including QPI, memory controller, and PCIe (formerly the Northbridge) as well as the processor cores. When you recalculate the watts for the C2D and the Northbridge -- the gap narrows considerably. I know the desktop C2Ds were 65W + about 25W for the north bridge = 90W. Not sure about the MBP mobile architecture.

They can also downclock it and fiddle enough with the Turbo settings to keep the watts low enough to not wreck battery life but still see marked performance gains.

I would know, I've just done this with a desktop Core 2 Duo moving to an i7 860 -- both at spec and heavily OC'd.

While they're at it, they ought to get the 9400 and 9600 working together, too.