Mac pro with Intel i5 & i7

Judging by the current trending on Twitter you'd think we'd seen the second coming, but in fact Apple has simply gotten around to putting those tasty Intel Core i5 and i7 processors into its MacBook Pro ranges - you know, about 2 months behind everyone else.

Completely entitled moaning apart, the spit and polish does bring the 15.4in and 17in lines up to date. Core i5 2.4GHz (520M), Core i5 2.53GHz (540M) and Core i7 2.66GHz (620M) CPUs will be available and Apple has paired them with Nvidia's rather excellent GeForce GT 330M graphics chips and Optimus.



This latter point is possibly the most exciting since the power savings from Nvidia's dynamic GPU switching technology leads to greatly increased battery life and Apple is boldly proclaiming the new models will last up to ten hours from a single charge. Naturally enough this can be sliced in half depending on the work you're doing, but it's a jolly good start. Also worth a mention is the new option of a 512GB SSD, though at a whopping £1,040 you could buy a second 13in MacBook Pro instead.

Both 15.4in and 17in MacBook Pros have 4GB of RAM by default along with 320GB or 500GB HDDs. Pricing starts from £1,499 (yes those It's-just-an-over-priced-PC accusations aren't going to die down any time soon) and shipping begins immediately.

Less encouraging is the short shift given to the 13in MacBook Pro, which sticks with Intel Core 2 Duo processors and receives a less powerful GeForce 320M CPU. At least 4GB of RAM is standard now, though with the entry level model (2.4GHz Core 2 Duo, 250GB HDD) coming in at £999 and the step up a monstrous £1,249 (2.6GHz CPU, 320GB HDD) I don't need to tell you where the better value for money is.

Interestingly, all MacBook Pros (and indeed all Macs) continue to eschew Blu-ray drives for now. Odd since Apple was one of the format's earliest backers way back in March 2005...



Optimus Technology 


The problem with performance and battery life is they are always a trade off. Or at least they used to be...

Today Nvidia announced 'Optimus' - an exciting new technology that believes in the philosophy of having your cake and eating it too. What it brings for the first time is smart, application aware switching between integrated and discrete graphics chips.

In practice this means low power, low performance integrated graphics are used when you are doing basic tasks like word processing or web surfing and when you switch to games or HD video playback the higher performance discrete graphics instantly jump in. The switch back to integrated graphics is made the moment you return less demanding applications.

So what is new here is the automation process since laptops have long been on the market with switchable graphics. The problem is they tend to require restarts to implement and even then users forget to switch off the discrete graphics and suddenly realise they have drained their laptop batteries. In fact, Nvidia claims its research shows just one per cent of users with switchable graphics laptops use this feature.

The best part? Optimus is designed to work with ION in netbooks, is compatible with all GeForce 200M and 300M laptop GPUs and plays nicely with Intel 's Pine Trail-based Atom, Penryn-based Core 2 Duo and Core i3, i5 and i7 processors. If you're AMD on the other hand - with its ownership of ATI - then you're left in the cold.

Real world Optimus availability? Nvidia says any minute and it has racked up a wide array of design wins. The first of these will be the Asus 'UL50VF' - the successor to the UL50VG - and many other manufacturer announcements, including new Apple MacBooks with Optimus, are expected very soon