While increasingly more information has been surfacing in regards to the next MacBook Pros with Ivy Bridge processors, 9to5Mac has taken a step further and detailed exactly what to expect from the new 15-inch MacBooks. 9to5Mac based its report on "trusted sources in Apple's supply chain, who have handled prototype components for the new Apple notebook."

According to 9to5Mac's sources, the new laptop is currently undergoing test production rounds. The new MacBook will reportedly feature an ultra-thin, flattened design, ditch the optical drive, add a high-resolution Retina Display, and have several super-fast USB 3.0 ports.

Design

The new 15-inch model will reportedly be slimmer than current models, due to the lack of optical drive. It will, however, be a bit thicker than the MacBook Airs, and it will lose the tapered design in order to avoid hinge issues with the larger size. The new MacBook Pro will also adopt the tweaked MacBook Air keyboard design, locating the power button on the keyboard itself, to the top right above the keyboard. The round aluminum power button will replace the disk eject key. The rest of the external design remains largely unchanged: the typical MagSafe port, ThunderBolt ports, and an SD card reader.

Retina Display

Furthermore, the new MacBook Pro will reportedly feature a "jaw-dropping" Retina display, as previous rumors have indicated. Apple has also been adding high-resolution graphics into Lion and Mountain Lion. The clarity and sharpness of the Retina display will reportedly be in line with the displays found on the iPhone 4/4S and the new iPad, and is "definitely the most important Mac innovation in years," according to 9to5Mac's sources in the far-east.

USB 3.0

Apple will also introduce super-fast USB 3.0 ports, which will happily coexist with ThunderBolt. Mountain Lion features software strings that support this information, with references indicating 5Gbit/s transfer speeds and two specific mentions of USB 3.0. According to 9to5Mac, Apple has been testing the technology for some time now, and the new MacBook Pro will be the first shipping Apple device to get it, due to native Ivy Bridge support.

GPU

When it comes to GPU, it has not yet been confirmed what type will the new MacBook Pros use, but Mountain Lion does contain references to the NVIDIA GT 650M. So far, AMD has been the one providing mobile GPUs for the last generations of MacBook Pros and iMacs, but the new model could mark a departure from AMD. Meanwhile, Intel's Ivy Bridge chips will mainly be quad-core offerings, and some with improved power efficiency. The sources cited by 9to5Mac did not indicate how much will the new MacBook Pros cost, nor when to expect a release, but all signs indicate a June unveiling.

(reported by Alexandra Burlacu, edited by Surojit Chatterjee)