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If Apple could sell you a quad-core CPU as an purchase-time $1000 upsell they would. They don't because it doesn't fit the power budget.
by TazeTSchnitzel 8y ago
If Apple could sell you a quad-core CPU as an purchase-time $1000 upsell they would. They don't because it doesn't fit the power budget.
- philjohn 8y agoAnd thermal envelope budget.
- ngcazz 8y agoWouldn't that be an equivalent way of putting it?
- Dunedan 8y agoI'm pretty sure there would enough power budget, as the new Macbook Air has a similar volume than the 13" MacBook Pro and the MacBook Pro is already offered with quad-core CPUs. My guess is that they want to have a clear differentiation between MacBook Air (= Dual-Core) and 13" MacBook Pro (= Quad-Core).
- kristianp 8y agoOnly two cores for the air is bad. I would guess that only Apple will be selling a machine with a 2 core 8th gen i5. I can't see one on ark, they're all 4 core: https://ark.intel.com/products/series/122597/8th-Generation-Intel-Core-i5-Processors#@mobile https://ark.intel.com/products/series/122597/8th-Generation-...
- Dunedan 8y agoAnandtech is suspecting that Apple is using an unannounced 5W TDP Amber-Lake CPU in the new MacBook Air [1]. That'd be an interesting choice as it'd bring the CPU performance closer to the 12" MacBook, than to the 13" MacBook Pro. That sounds especially plausible as Apple claims that the MacBook Air has a ~20% longer battery life than the 13" MacBook Pro, albeit having a ~8% smaller battery. [1]: https://www.anandtech.com/show/13531/apple-2018-macbook-air-announced https://www.anandtech.com/show/13531/apple-2018-macbook-air-...
- ksec 8y agoAnd now confirmed.
- Lio 8y agoWhat's interesting to me is that the current Dell XPS 13 (9370) is physically just a little bit bigger than an 11" MacBook Air and quad-core i7. Its CPU and GPU aren't as fast as the new 13" MBP but as a rival to the MacBook Air it's very competitive. I have a Developer Edition for evaluation and keep it in an old MacBook Air 11" case.