MacBooks

MacBook Pro (Santa Rosa)

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LEM's Tiger Group is for those using Mac OS X 10.4.
LEM's Leopard Group is for those using Mac OS X 10.5 and 10.6.

Overview

The June 2007 MacBook Pro came in two sizes. Both use Intel's "Santa Rosa" chipset and an 800 MHz system bus (up from 667 MHz). The 15" was Apple's first notebook with LED backlighting, and this was the first time Apple offered a 1920 x 1200 screen for the 17" model.

The included Nvidia GeForce 8600M GT graphics, an improvement over the ATI Mobility Radeon X1600. 2 GB of RAM is standard, with a 6 GB ceiling (up from 3 GB). And they run their CPUs a tiny bit faster.

Note that the built-in display is only capable of 18-bit color, not the full 24-bit color you might expect.

This model includes built-in dual-DVI support for Apple's 30" Cinema Display and an ExpressCard/34 slot (replacing the older PC Card). The 17" MBP has 3 USB 2.0 ports, one more than the 15" MBP offers.

Unlike earlier models, where every USB port could provide 500 mA of power, only a single high-powered device can be attached to the USB ports, and software will enable one of its downstream ports to supply 500 mA of power. If a second high-powered device is attached, it will behave like a normal bus-powered hub and only provide 100 mA per downstream port.

Closed Lid Mode: All Intel 'Books support "lid closed" (or clamshell) mode, which leaves the built-in display off and dedicates all video RAM to an external display. To used closed lid mode, your 'Book must be plugged into the AC adapter and connected to an external display and a USB or Bluetooth mouse and keyboard (you might also want to consider external speakers). Power up your 'Book until the desktop appears on the external display and then close the lid. Your 'Book will go to sleep, but you can wake it by moving the mouse or using the keyboard. The built-in display will remain off, and the external monitor will become your only display. Since all video RAM is now dedicated to the external monitor, you may have more colors available at higher resolutions. The TiBook is designed to run safely in closed lid mode, but if yours runs hot (perhaps due to overclocking or high ambient temperatures), you may want to open the lid when in closed lid mode: The screen will remain off and the computer will more readily vent heat from the CPU.

To resume use of the internal display, you need to disconnect the external display, put the computer to sleep, and then open the lid. This will wake up your 'Book and restore use of the built-in display.

Intel-based Macs use a partitioning scheme known as GPT. Only Macintel models can boot from GPT hard drives. Both PowerPC and Intel Macs can boot from APM (Apple's old partitioning scheme) hard drives, which is the format you must use to create a universal boot drive in Leopard. Power PC Macs running any version of the Mac OS prior to 10.4.2 cannot mount GPT volumes. PowerPC Macs won't let you install OS X to a USB drive or choose it as your startup volume, although there is a work around for that.

Details

For full specifications and online resources, see the individual profiles for the 15" 'Santa Rosa' MacBook Pro and the 17" 'Santa Rosa' MacBook Pro

introduced 2007.06.05
requires Mac OS X 10.4.9 or later
Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard compatibility
- Grand Central Dispatch is supported.
- 64-bit operation is supported.
- OpenCL is supported.
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo (2nd generation Merom), soldered in place, no upgrade options
bus: 800 MHz
RAM: 2 GB, expandable to 6 GB using PC2-5300 DDR2 RAM
Level 2 cache: 4 MB shared cache on CPU
Video: Nvidia GeForce 8600M GT on PCI Express with dual-link DVI support, faster GPU speed than Core Duo model
VRAM: 128/256 MB
Video out: DVI connector (VGA supported with included adapter; S-video and composite video supported with optional adapters)
allows mirroring to external display or extended desktop mode
hard drive: 120/160 GB 5400 rpm Serial ATA; optional 160 GB 7200 rpm and 250 GB 4200 rpm drives
optical drive: 8x dual-layer SuperDrive writes DVD±R at up to 8x, DVD±RW at up to 4x; reads DVDs at 8x (double-layer at 6x), writes CD-R at 24x, writes CD-RW at 10x, reads CDs at 24x
floppy drive: external USB only
expansions bays: none
USB: 2/3 USB 2.0 ports, only 1 high-powered device device allowed
FireWire: 1 FW400 port, 1 FW800 port
IR port: none
IR receiver: supports Apple Remote
ethernet: 10/100/gigabit
modem: optional v.92 56k external USB modem
WiFi: 802.11n AirPort Extreme built in
Bluetooth: BT 2.0 built in
ExpressCard/34: 1 slot

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