Rumors swirl over Apple's iMac Blu-ray, quad-core plans - Page 5

Abster2core - I wouldn't haved believe this unless I had seen it linked. Sony really seems to have hedged it's bet in multiple areas. Their actions kind of acknowledge that Blu-ray may not become the defacto standard for all media but they'll profit and dip their toes into other distribution methods.

That being said I'm happy with my Blu-ray player (just ordered 3 more movies today) and eventually I'll get more into downloading movies but I think that downloads should offer something beyond what a disc can do before I value them as much as a physical disc. I think Apple's going down the right path with iTunes LP and the ability to create fancier starting pages.

Then exercise your right and buy and internal or external Blu-ray burner.

Well hopefully we can help you out. In short do not buy todays models as the expectation is that they will be replaced before the end of the month. Maybe even next week. In any event buying a computer should be about finding one that fits your needs


Well we are all hoping for better hardware and right now I believe that is coming. The important thing in my mind is quad core processors and significantly improved GPU hardware. If these don't come then you might be justified in looking at different hardware. Honestly though leaving Mac OS/X behind is not going to do it for many. After all a computer is more than it's hardware.

They are rumors what do you expect. By the way responses here aren't much more.

Actually what you know has to be qualified. First; it is only useful to compare clock rates with in the same architecture. Second; because i5 & i7 do more per clock it is hard to project how well a two GHz machine will perform with todays applications code. Third; Apples new Snow Leopard is designed from the ground up to support multiple cores very well, you do not want to buy todays two core machines.

So you have to wait for performance info. Early reports have i5 performance numbers all over the map. Some of that due to early BIOS releases and other issues. In any event when Turbo Boost and other features can be fully leveraged i5 can be very fast even with the low speed clocks.

The big catch here is good cooling. This is something you have to worry about on Apple hardware. We won't really know what to expect performance wise until the hardware is in hand and tested under load.

1.60 means nothing until bench marking is done.

I can not read the collective minds of Apple but the potential is there for a fast machine. Especially if those machines adopt XEON processors. The low end could end up pathetically slow if the processors are not allowed to crank up the clock.

Different processor!! You can not compare clock rates. The only thing you can compare is the performance of the apps that you use.



Dave

One possible hang up that I haven't seen mentioned (apologies if I missed it) is regional encoding and whether that has to be also integrated in the OS. The regional encoding of BR is far more strict than DVD and also, for someone like me who does not live in the U.S., incredibly annoying. The strict encoding does not affect all BR's of course, only about 25%, but that includes all of the Criterion Collection movies that I most want.

(Anyone who has not seen Black Narcissus on BR has not experienced one of the best 90 minutes that movies can offer.)

Hmmmmm

Speak of the Devil. Today on Macworld

Apple aims to syncronize movies among multiple devices


It's really the killer feature of digital content. Hell pretty soon you will just walk in your home and your content will follow you (I know Motorola did a RFID demo of this a few years back)


When you look at what Sonos is doing with their zone audio with iPhone/iPod Touch you see that consumers are going to become spoiled quickly and expect their "paid for" content to be available across multiple devices.

A perfect example: the 17" MacBook Pro I have at work.

Load something processor intensive like one of those distributed computing things. Run the benchmark tool to see how fast it is. Confirm this number by running it for 1 minute.

Then turn it on and let it run for 10 minutes. Watch your processor temperature go through the roof and the performance drop 40%.

Without adequate cooling it doesn't matter what Apple puts under the hood because after a few minutes it'll be throttling itself to keep from overheating.

I'm still going to wait and see what Apple has up its sleeve, but I can hear a Lynnfield based hackintosh calling my name.

try including outside the USA as well, their market share drops a lot then.

But it is the same argument has most of your make as to why blu-ray isn't high, you claim DVD and iTunes (pretends to be) HD downloads are good enough, if that is the case, why aren't you all running machines other than Macs, because at the end of the day, they are all good enough.

What do you mean "far more strict than DVD", there are three regions in blu-ray, eight in DVD, has is three more restrictive than eight?

That is because you fail to see that Windows or a $400 PC is not "good enough" for all of us. Just as there are some of you that want Blu-ray for backup on your PC, you have that option with certain caveats, just as us nasty Mac users has certain caveats if we want to use certain HW and SW. You keep failing into your OCD where it has to be all or nothing, but what you war is not necessarily what anyone else wants and may not be a good business move for a company.

You need to learn to see things fom that perspective. I don't care if Apple makes Blu-Ray a BTO option or not. I don't think will add them due tontge cost of the 9.5mm drives, there push or digital media via iTunes and constantly trying to make their machines smaller, but that is just a theory. I certainly won't get a BRD in a Mac and would prefer optical drives go away from their notebooks completely in favour of a larger battery and a 2nd HDD, but I don't I'll get my wish. I certainly won't take it personally and scream "Apple is teh doomed" when
it doesn't happen. It's not about you or me; a company should do wht they think is best for their bottom line.

This is a huge problem on Macs and has me concerned about the coming iMacs. If they can't shift to Turbo Boost mode then the lower clocked models will suffer. Combine Apples usual hot machines with rumored thinner models and you have a combo that could lead to worst performance on average than todays models.

That is why I'm hoping the reports about thinner iMacs are an error. Either that or Apple has become far more proactive in heat removal. IMac is a lot of money and the last thing you want is performance regressions due to thermal issues.

At least on my MBP I'm giving up some of that performance for portability. An iMac should be able to harvest all the CPU cycles available.

Exactly. Even more important is that we could see thermal throttling in the GPUs too. I'm really hoping for some ethical benchmarking of these new machines so that people can buy well informed.

By ethical I mean a real system in a real office like environment. Not like Intel does with open boards sitting under an air conditioner duct.

Now given all that concern I have high hopes iMac won't be that bad. Even if it is less than ideal the next rev ought to get 32nm chips which hopefully further address the heating issues.

Personally I have to resist the urge to buy. To many other things pulling at the wallet. Besides I really want an iMac that is hopefully designed not to have these issues. However a heavily refactored iMac could change my mind. If the difference is as dramatic as the differences between my early 2008 MBP and todays model I might be interested. That is a total over haul of the iMac but it is past due anyways.


Dave

Don't forget the prices of these mobile hyperthreaded processors....

i7 720QM (1.6GHz/2.8GHz with TurboBurst) -- $364 each per thousand
i7 820QM (1.73GHz/3.066GHz with TurboBurst)-- $546 each per thousand
i7 920XM (2.0GHz/3.2GHz with TurboBurst) -- $1054 each per thousand

The first two processors have a maximum thermal design point of 45W, while the last one is 55W.

I'm sure anyone wanting an upgraded processor is still going to pay a premium over cost for these mobile processors, as I have seen elsewhere:

http://configure.us.dell.com/dellsto...&~lt=alienware

In comparison, these faster desktop CPUs are at a lower price point, but have a higher TDP:

i5 750 (2.66GHz/3.2GHz with TurboBurst) -- $196 each per thousand -- 95W TDP
i7 860 (2.8GHz/3.46GHz with TurboBurst and is hyperthreaded) -- $284 each per thousand -- 95W TDP

The i5 750 is not hyperthreaded, but still probably outperforms the i7 920XM in most tasks at about a fifth of the cost.

What isn't Apple seeing in this? Besides wanting to deliver a low power consuming 'Green Machine' at the consumer's expense.

Perhaps not enough of a profit margin....

Sadly, I'm not having much hope in Apple using the i5 750 or the i7 860. I'm still debating whether I should just buy a cheap Windows 7 laptop and wait until the next iMac rollout (circa May 2010) or just build a far more cost effective Windows 7 machine.

I'm sure I'd still be disappointed in the components of the May 2010 iMac....

Each year it is becoming clearer and clearer why they killed the clone program. Nobody would buy their limited overpriced hardware selection!

I haven't failed to see anything (and don't call me nasty), I don't really care what device anyone purchases, I don't like the fact the decision is make for us, there isn't any think different anymore.

I'm not worried about blu-ray recording, I would like the option of blu-ray playback as I live in a country with poor internet infrastructure and data caps (20GB don't download you much movies, a lot of people here have 1 or 5GB caps). I also don't like the restictions that movie downloads lump you with (currently very high region coding and non interdevice operations)

Correction: in my previous post I said that the "first 2 pages" of this thread are dedicated to Blue-Ray. I now would have to say all pages are. Let the Blue-Ray topic die, folks! Performance is what matters most! Speaking of which...


So long as the "real world performance" for single-threaded apps matches or best the current top of the line iMac, I will be happy. But seeing that the 2GHz version of the CPU spoken of in this article is priced rather high, Apple may not choose it. Hence we may end up with iMacs that are slower in "real world performance."


I have "multiple apps open" at the same time all the time, but I believe you are referring to "having multiple apps open and actively working hard on something" which is a different matter. I agree that there are cases where multiple CPUs gives a big boost, but there are many situations where a super-clocked single CPU will yield the best performance. But again, if these new CPUs can crank themselves up beyond 3GHz, then all may be well.



Exactly.

HAHAHA. Well, OK, we have to have Blu-ray, then.

If your PC is from 2004 you should see a considerable speed up on todays hardware.

A key consideration here is Photoshop which is not modern software. Unfortunately PS ability to leverage modern software and hardware is very limited. So what I'm saying is that when you buy a new Mac you will need to budget for a PS upgrade. An upgrade that we would hope can and will take advantage of multiple cores and OpenCL.

Depending on the game, they can be very dependant upon the GPU. Since I'm not a gamer the only thing I can offer is that GPU cards are a lot better than what you would get from 2004.

In any event you are in the same boat as the rest of us. That is waiting for Apple to deliver new hardware. Nowthis might not go over well but if you are in a hurry for a game and PS machine you will get a lot more with a PC running Windows. Especially considering that PS is way ahead on Windows.



Dave

The quality of Blue Ray is better then regular DVDs. Further, the storage is better as well. Still those limited reasons to like Blue Ray do not come any where near the reasons to dislike Blue Ray.


First, Blue Ray disks are typically quite a bit more expensive then regular DVDs. Second, although the price of players are coming down, a $200 Blue Ray player doesn't satisfy the same quality level that a $50 DVD player does. The cheap Blue Ray players are made from low quality parts. You get what you pay for. Third, Apple doesn't want to put Blue Ray players on a Mac because Sony's license requires the OS and hardware to be locked down to prevent any possibility of the ripping of Blue Rays movies. This effects the quality of hardware performance even when the disks aren't being used. In other words, the putting a Blue Ray drive in a Mac will lower all Mac Blue Ray equipped Macs performance as the processors will be more taxed to comply with all the DRM requirements imposed by Sony. The Blue Screen of death will become far more common. Fourth, I legally rip movies all the time. For instance, all my DVDs are copied to a server so I can access them from a central location. Blue Ray prevents this.

Although slightly old, this link explains the reasons consumers should dislike Blue Ray. Don't buy the hype. Blue Ray really is a bag of hurt.


http://www.savedpennies.com/?p=112

I think that is a little optimistic as the infrastructure in the US is no where near able to support the speed need to make that practical especially as both DSL and Cable have caps as low as 3 Mbps. In some areas due to phone line issues DSL is limited to a maximum of 1.5 Mbps. You need a more uniform and higher throughput than that to make digital streaming real practical.

I think everyone's right. We don't need more optical drives [more hardware failures], but we do need the OS to reliably support BR recorders across the board. This means a system that gives us the aforementioned capabilities without compromising our Mac hardware -> a BR burner that is swappable with HDs and extra batteries in one bay. People have always talked about swappable bays in notebooks. No Mac hardware failures and an extra bay for optical haters to use an extra HD or carry a lighter machine.

There is no reason why a machine should be without a current tech burner. BR actually has nothing to is with it. It's simply current tech. Video will always increase in size. It will never decrease. After BR there will be another format requiring more space. This means BR now and it means another format in the future.

In the past DVD burners were not a Mac Pro first option so why should a BR burner be in the Pro machines only. Why am I not able to simply swap my HD, battery or BR burner in a drive bay in 2010?

It's true that no format is fail safe for data but optical is the safest format. I recently consolidated my books of DVD data backups from 2005 and filled up my new 1TB HD. The discs were still readable even with scratches by a Mac several generations newer.

Those of you who are saying you do all of your backups etc online are on crack or you must have backups measured in MB's. Ever try uploading GB or TB backups to MobileMe or other service? Painfully slow. For anything over MM's 20GB it's unrealistic really and I gather that's why it's set at 20GB. Didn't you catch the latest memo regarding the biggest cloud failure in history? Yeah, have fun relying on "the cloud". For now optical is the way to go for serious backups. [Or multiple redundant raids that none of us will have].

Btw, BR media is quite cheap when you consider that 10 DVD5's fit on one BR DL disc. But heck if it's just data backups we're talking about [because I too have no need to watch BR on my computer], then just throw everything away and release $100.00 1TB SD cards so we can easily backup data. There's would be no need for HD's, the cloud or optical media if we had cheap 1TB SD cards.



.

As long as those "21st century media technologies, BluRay, CableCARD, etc" are available elsewhere, as they are, Apple is not cutting off your access. Try for more rational thoughts, less drama, ok?

To store 125GB would cost you $18.75 a month on Amazon S3.

Or $60 a year using Carbonite.

From a backup perspective Time Machine + Carbonite beats Time Machine + BR unless I happen to be parking those BR disks offsite. Why? The most likely failure mode (single disk...either in the Mac or Time Machine) is covered. I need a two disk failure before I need to go to either Carbonite or BR.

What is the most likely 2 disk failure scenario? My house burns down or someone breaks in and steals all my stuff. Will they actually take the TC in the equipment closet? Meh. If they find it anyway.

actually they were probably pulled, if there was anything to pull, about the same time they started putting SD slots on the laptops and extras on the digital downloads (which required lead time to have had titles ready for the Sept release so that wasn't a last minute idea)


but are they slot loading, use the same connections required in an imac, what about drivers, license fees etc.

there's more than just the price of the burner to consider


key is RUMOUR. as in not a fact. not something Apple has said.

so it is possible that, where feasible a blue ray drive would be included. it might only be the Mac Pro and online but those are the machines they are trying to put on the desks of the folks using things like Final Cut Studio so one can see the train of thought going there

or consider that they aren't going with native Blu-ray because of itunes and Apple tv, period.


none of which would be that major an issue.


cue the rumors that the drives were being made by the same factory that was making the cameras for the ipod touches (that were so bad they 23rd hour pulled them and made up some malarky about 'game devices')


i see if anything, itunes being renamed to iMedia and the Sept event being about both audio and video as needed

Personally I'd rather Apple get rid of the optical drive altogether on a MBP and give us three bays for at least 3 SSD drives. I'm very much of the sort that wants his movies carried internally. The problem is the extra effort to carry all those optical disks and keep them scratch free. Frankly Apples iTunes is good enough for that.

As for a TV in the house I gave up on that. Between cable costs and the price on DVDs it is cheaper to go the movies once a week.

The problem here is that performance on these processors will be all over the map. This due to a number of issues. But I think you are right in that a 2GHz processor will have a hard time competeing with the Core 2 processors running at 3GHz. That due to the Turbo Boost not always cranking up to max clock speed.

Many will argue that only one processor is used for for single threaded programs and that they will run just as well. Well it may or may not. The problem is a modern Mac is almost never running just one program. Plus you have GCD trying to do it's best to leverage all those cores, so it is not likely that the processor will have many opportunities to run in single core mode. This doesn't even discuss the temperature of the processor which is always a problem on Apple computers (no turbo boost when hot)

Lately I've been hearing that you might get 20% more performance clock for clock. That is very possible but it still doesn't hit the performance of the top of the line Core 2 processors. This is why I say things might actually suck if Turbo Boost can't kick in. What it comes down to is that it will depend and eclipsing todays iMacs is not a given.

Well I think that might be a bit strong. The potential is there for good performance in certain situations. But I don't think people understand how modern computers work. First they may have many processes running at the same time even if they aren't user processes. Second programs use system resources which may be highly threaded. The idea that we are in a single threaded world just isn't true anymore. So how often will the processor actually be able to Turbo Boost. No body knows but in many cases single thread performance will suck.



This isn't the case either. The problem is there are few programs that I would call hard single threaded programs anymore. Many common programs that users take advantage of are already threaded and more are every day. Even the lowly word processor is threaded these days. Many apps will run just fine on these processors. Combined with SL and the better multi processing behaviour of the i5 & i7 processors the performance may be very acceptable. But (it is a big one) hard single threaded portions of a program will suffer if the processor can't Turbo Boost.

Will people be disappointed with the new iMacs if they go this route(mobile processors)? I'm not sure because it will very much depend on each users load on the computer and software choices. Will it feel slower, well maybe, you might be uderestimating just how responsive the machine might feel with quad cores. GCD and other feature of SL really have had a significant impact on how my MBP fells. Until I see and work with one of these new machines, I'm not going to guess at performance or feel.

Well when you talk about clock speed this way I think you don't know what you are talking about. Todays processors do one hell of a lot more than the Core 2s of yesterday, clock for clock. The other problem is that intel simply doesn't have faster clock rate mobile processors right now.

Well that would be nice but we will likely have to wait for 32nm processors for a good clock rate. Again that is if Apple goes with these new mobile processors. If they go the XEON route we might get closer. But right now +3.0 GHz is only going to be hit via Turbo Boost when it can kick in. But you are right in a sense to get the same performance at the chips base speed we will need a 2.5 GHz processor, otherwise you will have to rely on the variability in Turbo Boost. In any event we will have to watch carefully for thermal throttling on the new machines.

Don't let the dark clouds in yet! We will know in the near future what will actually be in the machines. But yeah if the machines have the rumored mobile processors I wouldn't buy until I see some ethical testing. Apple however has choices and maybe they will make the right choice.

OK but realize clock rate isn't an indicator of real world performance relative to older machines. This idea that clock rate means anything relative to different generations of processors have to die. At best you can say that 2.5 GHz is the minimum you need to get similar performance to Core 2. Even then that has to be qualified by saying that it excludes Turbo Boost.

All in all I have to agree with the pessimism you display. If Apple goes the mobile processor route performance will be all over the map with more variables than most people are use to. Interesting times ahead.



Dave

I think he means a DVD/CD burner that also plays Blu-Ray media.

LET'S REPLACE BLURAY WITH "mac" AND DVD WITH "pc" AND LET'S SEE:-

The quality of MAC is better then PC. Further, the LOOKS is better as well. Still those limited reasons to like MAC do not come any where near the reasons to dislike PC.


First, MAC's are typically quite a bit more expensive then regular PC. Second, although the price of MACS are coming down, a $2000 MAC doesn't satisfy the same quality level that a $500 PC does. The cheap MAC are made from low quality parts. You get what you pay for.

The MAC Screen of death will become far more common.

Don't buy the hype. MAC IS really is a bag of hurt.

Any word on the new mouse?

I don't blame you for the smoking icon .... after reading your post I wanted to have a smoke, then I remembered ... I haven't smoked in 20 years!

Now I definitely have to start smoking again.

She's a guy dude. Long live the internet.

You're assuming I'm a guy because I'm interested in iMacs and joke about sex? Or just because I'm posting on an internet-forum?

Then, I'm assuming you're a fat, american guy who base all your prejudice against women based on Desperate Housewives and Sex and the city, since you have never got the chance to be with a real one (maybe except for your mom).

For more inspiration on how to become even more of a sexist: Join Usama bin Laden and his 'gang'!

I don't smoke, I just put the smokey-smiley there because it looked cool...

Don't start! It's disgusting!

And in other news, adoption of expensive PCs has also been shown to be low...looks like Apple should stop selling computers then

Blu-ray appeals to the average consumer as well as professionals.



As a side note - did I miss the people who always say that Apple are moving away from optical drives and no one needs them anymore?? I miss those guys

Now look who's whistlin' Dixie. Americans are fat? You said it not me. If you've bumped into my posts/questions you'd know that not only am I the furthest place from North America but also post remotely while enjoying my sushi and sometimes macha tea latte exactly where they both originated.

You have a big FAT chip on your shoulder that probably matches the rest of you just fine. I said "She's a guy" and you reply with the above? Wow you have some issues to sort out. Good thing you have forums to fall back on when you're lonely. Don't watch Larry David. You might get angry and throw the TV out the window.

You believe Usāmah bin Lādin carried out 911 don't you. You poor thing.

.

That wasn't what I was referring to. DVD players that were region free came out not too long after DVD's became mainstream in Australia at least, but I think the world over. The encryption that enforced regionality on dvds was not very strong and quickly became meaningless. But the companies that want strict region encoding on BR have learned their lesson. There are no region-free players in my country or, i am pretty sure, all of Europe (we are in the same region for BR, though not for dvd).

My point was that if Apple have to enforce this strict region encoding in a BR player through differences in the OS then it would indeed be "a bag of hurt" for the consumer and for Apple.

I know that these issues may be largely invisible in the U.S. where most people will only ever think about one region, but they are not invisible to the rest of the world. They are brought home every time we see what is available on Amazon.

I don't see why people keep repeating this.

The 24" iMac has full 1080p resolution... How is this of no benefit in watching HD movies?

Nope, I didn't say Americans are fat, that was purely you. I made a random assumption about you like you did of me concerning my gender. Maybe you should focus more on your reading skills than the sushi. Now I just think you're an idiot living in Japan.

Again you make an assumtion based on nothing: "You believe Usāmah bin Lādin carried out 911 don't you. You poor thing." No, I never said that. You made an offensive comment, accusing me of lying about my sex for no apparent reason - probably just because you have nothing better to do than "eat sushi, drink tea" and post nasty things on various internet forums. I wonder who's the lonely one.

My point was and still is: You don't have to be a dude to post here or show interest in Mac. I've been accused of being one before because some guys just can't handle the fact that women have other interests than family and being a house-wife. And thus, the comparison to an islamic fundamentalist who probably shares that view on women.

Moving on.

Just because you can get region free DVD players does not mean that the DVD forum agree with them.

You can purchase region free blu-ray players, you just need to look in the right place. And the real fact is, with the smaller number of regions now, you don't hit as many issues as you did with DVD, and unlike DVD they actually sell region free blu-ray discs.

You said fat American. Why not fat Bulgarian? Don't play miss innocent now. Stereotyping hypocrite.

Hey you're smart. You figured out that sushi + macha latte = Japan. Not that I threw that out there for you to guess at or anything.

Who said you have to be a dude to post here? Not me. Show me the quote. Again you're the one making assumptions and that ASSumption illustrates that you have a big FAT chip on your shoulder. You don't even know why I said "she's probably a guy dude" do you? It's called a joke. I was teasing that other guy because he was getting all excited when you mentioned some sexual stuff and on the internet many girls are guys pretending to be girls. I wasn't even talking to you until you had to bud in. I bet if I winked at you at work you'd get all flushed and then sue me when you realized I wasn't winking at you.

I'm on to another thread big mamma. Enjoy.

Replies in bold.

The drive I spoke of would be the kind I would put in a Mac Pro which I'd also be buying. As such, I don't have to worry about it being slot loading, drivers usually don't cost anything and I've never had to pay separate licensing fees for optical drives before (that weren't transparently built into the price of the drive). Since I won't be watching movies on my Mac, there really isn't anything much more I need to consider. I also own FCS and Toast and they all support Blu-ray burning, so for me, it's really just the price of the drive (and blank discs) and a new Mac Pro (which will be a whopper).

Turbo Boosts for Clarksfield: