• Intel Ivy Bridge Drivers For Macbook Pro

Advertisement has just released its new updated processor, code-named Ivy Bridge, for both desktops and laptops. You’ll find these new products listed as the 3000 series and you can buy at least some of them now (stock levels permitting, of course). You may be wondering what the new processors bring to the table. Are they worth the upgrade, or are they just an incremental improvement? Ivy Bridge Basics Intel’s business strategy revolves around a “tick-tock” business strategy. As the name suggests, it is a model that focuses on putting out new products with rhythmic precision.

Each “tick” is die-shrink, while each “tock” is a new architecture. With this model Intel constantly improves the design and production of its processors. Ivy Bridge is a tick – and a particularly significant one. The company is moving to a new 22nm production process (down from the previous 32nm process) and is also introducing its new tri-gate transistor. The new processors are the first consumer products based on these technologies. Since this is not an entirely new architecture, you won’t be seeing new features.

Instead, the new products are a refinement of existing processors. They’ll be quicker and more efficient than before while retaining features (like Intel's Turbo Boost feature is quite useful but may not be so easy to understand for those who have never used it. Here's what you need to know.) that made previous processors great. The chipsets have been updated, as well. Most of the improvements are under-the-hood enhancements that don’t impact the end user significantly, but the new chipsets do offer integrated USB 3.0 support. This represents the turning point in USB 3.0’s proliferation – from here on, new computers will have many USB 3.0 ports available.

Intel has unleashed its newest lineup of processors. Sandy Bridge, it was good knowing you. Ivy Bridge, nice to meet you, see you soon in the 2012 MacBook refresh. The new i5s and i7 chips – 13 in all – feature quad-core processors, lower power consumption, and, of course, higher performance.

Processor Performance – A Decent Boost A die shrink of microprocessor architecture improves efficiency. This means that it’s possible to extract more performance within the same thermal and electrical limits. New processors made with a better process will be slightly quicker and more efficient than those before. Ivy Bridge is no different. You’ll see a performance boost of 5% to 20% in most situations, which is significant. In my testing I found that converting video with the new Ivy Bridge mobile processors are 10-20% quicker no matter what software is used to do the conversion.

If you already have a 2000 series Intel Core processor there’s no reason to upgrade. The performance boost is nice, but it’s far from essential for most users, and there are no new features that will lure you towards the new processors. Big Gains For The Integrated Graphics Processor While Ivy Bridge makes no significant changes to the processor architecture there are some changes to the integrated graphics processor, or IGP. Intel has improved it yet again and will be offering two new versions – Intel HD 2500 and Intel HD 4000. Intel HD 2500 is a minor improvement over the previous Intel HD 2000.

It has the same maximum clock speed in desktops and a slightly higher clock speed in some laptops. The number of execution units remains at six. Intel HD 4000, on the other hand, has four more units than Intel HD 3000 – making a total of 16.

Combine this with improved drivers and other tweaks and you have a respectable graphics solution and a significant improvement over the preceding hardware. In fact, Intel HD 4000 is on par with low-end discrete graphics solutions such as the GT 525M or GT 620M. In some games the new IGP is twice as fast as the outgoing Intel HD 3000. The performance of the IGP is more impressive for laptop users than for desktops.

This is because of the lower average resolution of a laptop display. Intel HD 4000 can handle 95% of games on the market at 1366×768 and medium detail, but at desktop resolutions like 1680×1050 or 1980×1200 the IGP is barely adequate. AMD Is Left Behind Intel processors from the previous generation Back in late 1999, I built my first computer. It used an AMD Athlon processor clocked at 500 MHz which was quick enough to play most games at the time, and also a better value. In most benchmarks. The Ivy Bridge update only rubs salt in the wound.

At this point it is difficult to justify buying an AMD processor at any price point unless you want to do so in protest of Intel’s near-monopoly on the consumer processor market. This is particularly true in the mobile market. The Ivy Bridge processors are much quicker than anything AMD has available in laptops and Intel HD 4000 is generally quicker than the IGP found in an AMD Fusion A4/A6/A8 APU.

Expect Limited Availability The launch of a new processor often results in stock shortages. Ivy Bridge is unlikely to be an exception. Intel is leading off with just a few processors, particularly on the mobile side, where quad cores are the first to market. In May and June we’ll see some Core i5 dual-cores become available, but the new processors won’t be ubiquitous in laptops until this fall. You may be wondering if the wait is worthwhile.

That depends on your usage. While the new processors are undoubtedly quicker, the existing 2000 series processors offer more than enough performance for today’s users. If you really need a new processor or laptop now, you shouldn’t feel terrible about buying the older product – but if you can wait, you should wait. Don’t expect to see huge discounts on the old product, either. The limited initial availability of new processors will give stores plenty of time to sell off their old stock. You may see $50 shaved off a laptop here or there, or $25 shaved off some desktop processors – but that’s all you should hope for. Explore more about:,.

As noted by, one of the areas of focus in Intel's next generation Ivy Bridge processors is the graphics processing unit (GPU). Reports that Intel expects there to be a 60% improvement in graphics benchmarks over Sandy Bridge's integrated graphics.

Sandy Bridge is the current generation Intel CPU that ships in Apple's computers. During this week's developer's conference, CNet relays that Intel also confirmed that Ivy Bridge's integrated GPU will offer OpenCL support for the first time. OpenCL is an Apple-backed framework that makes it easier for developers to offload general non-graphical work to GPUs.

It was first introduced in Apple's Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, and was described by Apple: Snow Leopard further extends support for modern hardware with Open Computing Language (OpenCL), which lets any application tap into the vast gigaflops of GPU computing power previously available only to graphics applications. I'm sitting here with my 2011 Air.

A 60% graphic power would actually make playing games feasible. I mean, I didn't buy this specifically for gaming (that'd be pretty dumb), but I like to play some sandbox games for fun. I can't wait till I can hook up an external GPU and a cheap monitor to thunderbolt. Instant gaming mac, and extremely easy to upgrade too. Come to think of it, Thunderbolt itself may have been Apple's answer to all those people who wanted to customize their macs. It essentially gives you what you need to do so, but externally so you don't have to open your machine up.

Interesting thought. Technically USB3 is crap, when compared to Thunderbolt. Most Macs have 4 Thunderbolt (2 full duplex) channels on the 1 port, which gives 40Gbps (10Gbps per channel) throughput!

Besides any port you like can be surfaced through a single Thunderbolt port, and WITH none of this 'burst mode' for the quoted maximum bandwidth. USB2 can't guarantee 480Mbps all the time and USB relies heavily on the CPU for most of its transfer functionality, that's why it's cheap (because it's pretty dumb). Thunderbolt on the other hand, like Firewire before it, has quite sophisticated hardware controller chips that include error-correction/QoS (another overhead that USB has to deal with). All of this guarantees that quoted 10Gpbs per-channel (as long as the device can push/pull the data that fast). Will one USB3 port be able to provide ALL of these at the same:.

2560x1440 Video using the native GPU (USB doesn't). Audio Output. 3x POWERED USB2 ports. 1x Firewire 800 port. 1x Gigabit Ethernet Port. 1x FaceTime HD Camera (a USB 2.0 device, independent of the 3 USB2 ports). I'm sure 1 Thunderbolt port could do a hell of a lot more too, it's just that's all the I/O the Apple Thunderbolt display exposes down ONE connection.

The only thing USB ever had going for it was that it was cheap (and underpowered), just like most Windows PCs really. I am so sick of hearing this crap about this wonderport. You aren't going to have a Tbolt mouse. You aren't going to have an affordable Tbolt external drive bay. So what, you don't want to have USB around so that every time you want to plug something in, you need a $50 dongle from Apple? Especially when the USB3 functionality is built into the chips and it's crazy cheap to add the port? Tbolt may be a great port.

Right now, it's very expensive and does very little. I'm not interested in promises about how fast it will be in the future, or what will be available. I've heard all those promises before. What can it do that I couldn't do before? At the moment, the answer is 'very, very little'. In the future it may do more, but hoping to not have USB3 because you have Tbolt is very. But since FCP-X requires OpenCL there is a strange situation: FCP-X even runs on older MacBook Air models, but not on current(!) 13' MBP or some current MacMinis.

Intel Ivy Bridge Drivers For Macbook Pro

Requires OpenCL or OpenCL compatible GPU? There is a difference. OpenCL is part of the OS whether the GPU supports it or not. That's the whole point of OpenCL; to distribute tasks to whatever processor is available at the time, this includes CPU, GPU, DSP, and any other specialized processors the system may contain. It's a big deal to have an OpenCL compatible GPU, because it gives the system another resource for general purpose processing; a resource that needs to exist within the system anyway.