After questions from many readers, we will recall some details on the processors equipping our new portables.
Here are the principle new features:
- fabricated in 45 nm process: this along with other optimizations allows the reduction of power used by the processor. Note that Apple has revued its method for calculating the time to discharge the battery; this gives the impression that the new portables have a shorter time on battery power - however the numbers now are really just more realistic. The old figures were never really attainable except by switching off wifi and turning down the brightness of the display ie doing nothing with the computer.
- Increase of L2 cache that is now 3 MB (compared to 2 MB previously) on the base model MBP and the MacBooks, and 6 MB (compared to 4 MB) on the high range MBP: this increased cache will improve the performance in certain conditions.
- Addition of SSE4. This new instruction set is expected to have a big performance enhancement for mult
