semi_guy

Disabling and limiting for price points is to save test time and improve yields. Not testing a part of the CPU can save precious test time which leads into a cheaper part. Also portions of the chip might not be as fast as the rest due to longer paths to memory, main busses, power rails, etc. Thus, it is faster to test and produce higher yields leading to savings in manufacturing costs. Moreover, a portion of the chip might add too much power consumption or noise to the system, so it is better to shut it off. There could be a bug with a portion of the chip where timing closure was tight and a subsequent version addresses this issue or reduces the power consumption. Given that Apple is the only customer for their own parts, disabling a portion is probably one of these concerns rather than pricing for additional features or speed.

He doesn't know what he is talking about! He complains that MacBook Pro has a poor performing DAC that converts all those digital bits into an analog signal. No audio producer is going to directly plug in a recording system, mixing board, or mic input to the analog audio output of any computer. These under $2 DACs are 100-110 dB SNR. They are not bad, but they are not great, just good enough. First, computers have a lot of inherent noise with those chargers banging away, then processors running at hight speed with a lot of ground noise, added with LCD displays, etc. In summary, Laptops are inherently noisy. Second, an audio expert, would keep its music digital and connect to a pro-audio interface for final analog recording. But who converts their digital audio into an analog recording these days? This digital audio is transcoded into different sample rates and bit widths at the end product to maintain the most resolution of the audio signal. Third, at his age and exposure to loud noises from his many concerts, his hearing has the high probability of being damaged. Some people claim he wears a hearing aid. By the way, today's best hearing aids only operate for speech, (bandwidth of 4KHz), not the full audio spectrum. It is hard to amplify frequencies that are so damaged you can't hear them at any volume.

Best calculator for engineers. I have used it on my Mac and iPhones for decades, My favorite features are its large library of constants, doing unit conversions, hex calculations,  ability to move buttons to my need, and RPN support.