I think hes being anal about the apostrophe. I left a few out deliberately to annoy him's.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Outsider
I would love to see their drives as options at the Apple Store for the new Mac Pros.
I suppose as its the only machine with a PCI slot, it would have to be limited to the Pro. The Fusion-IO drives are very fast. Fairly pricey too though:
Even the 160GB would be $4800. This stuff is for server storage. Its nice to know its their though so that consumers have something beyond the SSD drives we are familiar with. Copying 1 DVD size in 5 seconds.
This is where we will all reach eventually. Essentially having 100GB+ of non-volatile Ram.
The OS will no longer matter because virtualization software opens in seconds. You even get server companies doing this already. Instead of selling a dedicated machine, they sell a virtual machine for a lower price and it means that you aren't limited to your own hardware failures.
Edit: on the subject of the Mac Pro, the Mac OS Rumors site have an article saying they are using prototype Mac Pro hardware. I can't remember if that was the site that was full of crap. The ads suggest it was.
I'll copy/paste the stuff in instead of linking:
"A prototype Mac Pro with twin 2.93GHz Core i7 processors was made available to two of Rumors’ senior editors who streamed their experience to the home team in New England for a series of reviews and articles that will be progressively coming out from under embargo in the next few weeks.
For now, we can report on publicly known specs of the Core i7 platform and non-unique features of the hardware, which actually deviates quite a bit from Intel’s reference board for single-chip Nehalem systems.
Bridging the Core i7 design to a dual-chip system, and making all of its advantages work in that arrangement, along with nVIDIA chips intended to support Apple’s new SLI multiple-graphics-processor technology, has been brutal work and sources at Infinite Loop say that this has been their most challenging project since the Mac Pro team was the PowerMac team and they brought the seminal G5 to market with far less help from IBM than they are now getting from Intel….
Although much of our hands-on experiences are still under a very nervous embargo by the sources who continue to provide us with hands-on access, often at a great distance from Cupertino, to high-end next generation Mac hardware, we can say this — Core i7 lives up to the hype, and with the help of Intel & nVIDIA, Apple has put together a machine that will easily rank among the best Core i7 workstations on the market.
We also will have the chance soon to play with the i7-based Xserve, but for now, just the few minutes we’ve had thus far with the mid-December built Mac Pro were more than enough to give us fodder for any number of articles. To say it’s fast would be an understatement, and the improvements are remarkable."
"Its power usage will be as little as 1/3 that of the 3.2GHz current-generation model in typical usage; under very heavy loads such as 3D gaming & the rendering of intensive video effects in Motion, the difference can approach double that."
The top end Core i7 will top out at 2.93GHz, and I imagine an 8-core variant will be Apple's top end.
It all sounds like it could be made up including the following:
"we were working with a build of which is after 10.5.6 but isn’t fully integrated into the 10.5.7 build tree either. From what we hear, a significant part of 10.5.7 will be drivers, hardware support and processor/platform optimizations centered around Nehalem — remember, Core i7 starts on the desktop but will also reach into the laptop space soon as well with dual and even quad-core, single-chip designs that also sport the triple-channel, DDR3-1066 based architecture which makes Core i7 so powerful.
We’re playing with a “late alpha” quality build of Snow Leopard (10.6) and although it will be a few more days before we get more hands-on time with that silver-and-black Nehalem beast of a Mac Pro prototype, we’re hoping to bring the two together as soon as possible to do comparative benchmarks. Precise numbers will probably get embargoed until closer to the announcement date (roughly six weeks out, if memory serves, though that could shift either way depending on cost and availability ramping curves from Intel), but stopwatch/ballpark results ought to be available in a week or two at the outside with any luck.
In short…..yes, we are working with what is basically 10.5.6 plus a basic set of Nehalem optimizations. Grand Central, which is at the heart of Snow Leopard, does a far better job we’re told and comes pretty close, even in its present form, to the most optimized system in existence for Core i7 according to sources at Intel and Infinite Loop. So we would expect considerable improvements indeed out of 10.6."
Now these posts were made mid-January. I doubt they hold any weight whatsoever but there's a possibility Mac Pros could come sooner than the end of March. Intel have also confirmed 8-core Xeon chips:
I think hes being anal about the apostrophe. I left a few out deliberately to annoy him's.
I suppose as its the only machine with a PCI slot, it would have to be limited to the Pro. The Fusion-IO drives are very fast. Fairly pricey too though:
Even the 160GB would be $4800. This stuff is for server storage. Its nice to know its their though so that consumers have something beyond the SSD drives we are familiar with. Copying 1 DVD size in 5 seconds.
This is where we will all reach eventually. Essentially having 100GB+ of non-volatile Ram.
The OS will no longer matter because virtualization software opens in seconds. You even get server companies doing this already. Instead of selling a dedicated machine, they sell a virtual machine for a lower price and it means that you aren't limited to your own hardware failures.
Edit: on the subject of the Mac Pro, the Mac OS Rumors site have an article saying they are using prototype Mac Pro hardware. I can't remember if that was the site that was full of crap. The ads suggest it was.
I'll copy/paste the stuff in instead of linking:
"A prototype Mac Pro with twin 2.93GHz Core i7 processors was made available to two of Rumors’ senior editors who streamed their experience to the home team in New England for a series of reviews and articles that will be progressively coming out from under embargo in the next few weeks.
For now, we can report on publicly known specs of the Core i7 platform and non-unique features of the hardware, which actually deviates quite a bit from Intel’s reference board for single-chip Nehalem systems.
Bridging the Core i7 design to a dual-chip system, and making all of its advantages work in that arrangement, along with nVIDIA chips intended to support Apple’s new SLI multiple-graphics-processor technology, has been brutal work and sources at Infinite Loop say that this has been their most challenging project since the Mac Pro team was the PowerMac team and they brought the seminal G5 to market with far less help from IBM than they are now getting from Intel….
Although much of our hands-on experiences are still under a very nervous embargo by the sources who continue to provide us with hands-on access, often at a great distance from Cupertino, to high-end next generation Mac hardware, we can say this — Core i7 lives up to the hype, and with the help of Intel & nVIDIA, Apple has put together a machine that will easily rank among the best Core i7 workstations on the market.
We also will have the chance soon to play with the i7-based Xserve, but for now, just the few minutes we’ve had thus far with the mid-December built Mac Pro were more than enough to give us fodder for any number of articles. To say it’s fast would be an understatement, and the improvements are remarkable."
"Its power usage will be as little as 1/3 that of the 3.2GHz current-generation model in typical usage; under very heavy loads such as 3D gaming & the rendering of intensive video effects in Motion, the difference can approach double that."
The top end Core i7 will top out at 2.93GHz, and I imagine an 8-core variant will be Apple's top end.
It all sounds like it could be made up including the following:
"we were working with a build of which is after 10.5.6 but isn’t fully integrated into the 10.5.7 build tree either. From what we hear, a significant part of 10.5.7 will be drivers, hardware support and processor/platform optimizations centered around Nehalem — remember, Core i7 starts on the desktop but will also reach into the laptop space soon as well with dual and even quad-core, single-chip designs that also sport the triple-channel, DDR3-1066 based architecture which makes Core i7 so powerful.
We’re playing with a “late alpha” quality build of Snow Leopard (10.6) and although it will be a few more days before we get more hands-on time with that silver-and-black Nehalem beast of a Mac Pro prototype, we’re hoping to bring the two together as soon as possible to do comparative benchmarks. Precise numbers will probably get embargoed until closer to the announcement date (roughly six weeks out, if memory serves, though that could shift either way depending on cost and availability ramping curves from Intel), but stopwatch/ballpark results ought to be available in a week or two at the outside with any luck.
In short…..yes, we are working with what is basically 10.5.6 plus a basic set of Nehalem optimizations. Grand Central, which is at the heart of Snow Leopard, does a far better job we’re told and comes pretty close, even in its present form, to the most optimized system in existence for Core i7 according to sources at Intel and Infinite Loop. So we would expect considerable improvements indeed out of 10.6."
Now these posts were made mid-January. I doubt they hold any weight whatsoever but there's a possibility Mac Pros could come sooner than the end of March. Intel have also confirmed 8-core Xeon chips:
Since that article was from MOSR, we can pretty much disregard it altogether. While they occasionally make a few lucky guesses, they don't know anything.
I brought this up to the writer of another site when he linked to it, and he said "Oops!" I didn't realize it was them.
Why would Apple ever give them something in advance to work on? It makes no sense. Then for them to report on it? Even crazier!
No NDA? Impossible?
And then they say it's the i7. I'd be shocked at this point if it turns out to be the i7 rather than the Xeon.
There's really no excuse for taking this long if they're just going to use the i7 that has been on the market for three months now. Nevermind the fact that it can't be used in a dual-socket config (or so Intel says).
I also don't buy the line about Apple using Nvidia's SLI technology. Apple has never given a damn about graphics performance, they're only paying lip service to it now because of the GPGPU stuff coming in the next few years.
There's really no excuse for taking this long if they're just going to use the i7 that has been on the market for three months now. Nevermind the fact that it can't be used in a dual-socket config (or so Intel says).
Yes. I was going to mention that as well. Why wait?
Yes. I was going to mention that as well. Why wait?
None of this makes sense. Why wait to upgrade the mini and iMac when appropriate processors have been available for months (talking about low power Core 2). With the Mac Pro, it makes sense Xeon 5500 series processors are only now starting to show up and not even officially released yet. Apple is already pretty much using the fastest Xeons they can.
There is going to be a huge shakeup for the desktop lines this quarter.
On February 23rd, Intel is planning to launch an R0 revision of its Core 2 Quad Q8200 chip, which is currently using M1 stepping. Additionally, it plans to launch an energy efficient 65w TDP model of the same chip with the same stepping revision, the Q8200s, as we've mentioned previously.
These chips will be manufactured with "all green" materials and will now be halide free, which means no halogens or halide compounds such as bromine and antimony. This is just another one of Intel's steps to go above and beyond basic "lead-free" manufacturing to produce safer, smarter, and more energy-efficient technologies.
The CPUID number on the Q8200 will change from 10677 to 1067A, while the Q8200s will also be 1067A. Additionally, sSpec numbers and part numbers have also been changed. More importantly, however, there will now be Power State Indicator (PSI) support with Intel 4-series chipsets along with three low power states - Extended Stop Grant State, Deep Sleep State and Deeper Sleep State.
Finally, two new instructions have been added, XSAVE/XRSTOR, which manage the existing and future processor extended states on Intel's x86 architecture.
I think they will want an event for the introduction - that's just Apple's way - so we will probably have to wait until we hear word of a press invite.
None of this makes sense. Why wait to upgrade the mini and iMac when appropriate processors have been available for months (talking about low power Core 2). With the Mac Pro, it makes sense Xeon 5500 series processors are only now starting to show up and not even officially released yet. Apple is already pretty much using the fastest Xeons they can.
There is going to be a huge shakeup for the desktop lines this quarter.
That's not exactly what I meant when I said "Why wait?"
I was only talking about the Mac Pro, which is a business oriented machine, unlike the others, which is bought for performance.
I said why wait in the context of MOSR's article stating that it would be using the i7, which is already a much better performing chip than what is currently being used.
Since I said in previous posts that it's not likely the Mac Pro will be using the i7, but rather the not yet released Xeon, I wasn't saying that it should have been released already.
You should have read the dialog between FuturePastNow and myself on this. Neither of us think it should have been released with the i7.
That's a good exercise in 3D but in reality, the LCD on the front is redundant, and impractical for a desktop machine that is likely to be sitting on the floor. That form factor and size can definitely support full sized optical drives.
The display looks nice and fresh but honestly, why rehash the same old design, but smaller, for the tower? Given the opportunity to come up with a new design I don't think Apple will just miniaturize a current design.
That's a good exercise in 3D but in reality, the LCD on the front is redundant, and impractical for a desktop machine that is likely to be sitting on the floor. That form factor and size can definitely support full sized optical drives.
The display looks nice and fresh but honestly, why rehash the same old design, but smaller, for the tower? Given the opportunity to come up with a new design I don't think Apple will just miniaturize a current design.
The mini display is redundant on the tower, but on a revised Mini, it would work well as an interface for a HTPC.
That's an impressive processor but it's Beckton, the enterprise level Xeon. It'll have 4 QPI links, 1567 pins, and require FB-DIMMs added in fours. I posit that it'll be the Xeon 7500 series.
What we assume the Mac Pro will egt is Gainestown, the LGA1366 Xeon 5500 series that will still be 4 core (for now) but with 2 QPI links, so it can connect to the Tylersberg IHC and the other processor.
I'm willing to bet that Apple could have sold a large number more of the Mac Pro line the past year, more as the year went on of course, if they had made a good upgrade during that time. Since they did nothing, there was no reason to upgrade. Companies and people with models that were old enough would do so, but it cuts out many that upgrade on a regular schedule. Particularly during difficult economic times.
A good point. Why does Apple moan that 'Pro' sales are in a slump when they haven't touched the thing in over a year. Tiny ram. Tiny H/D and a poor standard GPU. And a less than mainstream GPU after two revisions since by Nvidia and at least one by ATI.
And whhhhhhhhhhhlyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy they can't use the i7 as a 'mid-tower' option I don't know. They can use they same bleedin' case. We'd get a decent £1000-£1500 tower option that way.
All this 'one size fits all' naffness of the iMac/Mini with there design dead ends I don't know. They can't blame Motorola this time. They painted themselves into a corner. No wonder 30% of their sales are desktops. Their desktops are ancient.
Lemon Bon Bon.
PS. LIke the Mac Pro mock up. Silver and black would be nice. Hope it matches the new LED monitor look. But I'm hoping for a new look instead of the 'grater' styling of the last 5 years now? It's been that long...
A good point. Why does Apple moan that 'Pro' sales are in a slump when they haven't touched the thing in over a year. Tiny ram. Tiny H/D and a poor standard GPU. And a less than mainstream GPU after two revisions since by Nvidia and at least one by ATI.
And whhhhhhhhhhhlyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy they can't use the i7 as a 'mid-tower' option I don't know. They can use they same bleedin' case. We'd get a decent £1000-£1500 tower option that way.
All this 'one size fits all' naffness of the iMac/Mini with there design dead ends I don't know. They can't blame Motorola this time. They painted themselves into a corner. No wonder 30% of their sales are desktops. Their desktops are ancient.
Lemon Bon Bon.
PS. LIke the Mac Pro mock up. Silver and black would be nice. Hope it matches the new LED monitor look. But I'm hoping for a new look instead of the 'grater' styling of the last 5 years now? It's been that long...
Dunno about the grate, but I could definetely see it looking like his mockup, but with the light aluminum metal sides & handles, and a black-backed glass center.
A good point. Why does Apple moan that 'Pro' sales are in a slump when they haven't touched the thing in over a year. Tiny ram. Tiny H/D and a poor standard GPU. And a less than mainstream GPU after two revisions since by Nvidia and at least one by ATI.
And whhhhhhhhhhhlyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy they can't use the i7 as a 'mid-tower' option I don't know. They can use they same bleedin' case. We'd get a decent £1000-£1500 tower option that way.
All this 'one size fits all' naffness of the iMac/Mini with there design dead ends I don't know. They can't blame Motorola this time. They painted themselves into a corner. No wonder 30% of their sales are desktops. Their desktops are ancient.
Lemon Bon Bon.
PS. LIke the Mac Pro mock up. Silver and black would be nice. Hope it matches the new LED monitor look. But I'm hoping for a new look instead of the 'grater' styling of the last 5 years now? It's been that long...
Ah, you know better by now. Apple won't do what it doesn't want to do.
The fact that they can do it doesn't matter. They have a long term plan, and they stick to it.
The only reason why desktop sales slumped by 36% this quarter is because customers were expecting newer machines, as usual, before a major show, esp. when nothing new has been out for many months. I'll bet that if Apple had made decent upgrades to all of its desktop lines, sales might have slumped by less than half that, and their computer sales for the quarter might have reached 2.75 million.
Apple is willing to give up what they see as short term gains for what they believe will be long term gains. Maybe they're right. Overall, their sales, despite some people whining about prices, has been moving up much faster that the PC industry as a whole. That's astonishing!
I just read an article about phones, in which thy mentioned that Dell may be coming out with one in a desperate attempt to move beyond computers. An area in which they are being trampled upon by Apple in the high end, and Hp everywhere else.
I can't pretend to know why Apple refuses to make some less expensive mid tower, though many of us (yes, I said US) would like to see one, but they obviously do have a reason, otherwise they wouldn't be so resistant to the idea. They must also think that their concept is working. They aren't so stupid that they would refuse to change course if their roadmap wasn't working. Don't forget how quickly Apple abandoned the Cube, even though the problems could easily have been fixed.
Comments
But I differ about the Mac Pro's.
The Mac Pro's what?
The Mac Pro's what?
real problem is not the Mac Pro
I differed with that.
I differed with that.
I think hes being anal about the apostrophe. I left a few out deliberately to annoy him's.
I would love to see their drives as options at the Apple Store for the new Mac Pros.
I suppose as its the only machine with a PCI slot, it would have to be limited to the Pro. The Fusion-IO drives are very fast. Fairly pricey too though:
http://www.gadgettastic.com/2007/10/...ie-hard-drive/
http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/34065/135/
640GB = $19,200
Even the 160GB would be $4800. This stuff is for server storage. Its nice to know its their though so that consumers have something beyond the SSD drives we are familiar with. Copying 1 DVD size in 5 seconds.
This is where we will all reach eventually. Essentially having 100GB+ of non-volatile Ram.
The OS will no longer matter because virtualization software opens in seconds. You even get server companies doing this already. Instead of selling a dedicated machine, they sell a virtual machine for a lower price and it means that you aren't limited to your own hardware failures.
Edit: on the subject of the Mac Pro, the Mac OS Rumors site have an article saying they are using prototype Mac Pro hardware. I can't remember if that was the site that was full of crap. The ads suggest it was.
I'll copy/paste the stuff in instead of linking:
"A prototype Mac Pro with twin 2.93GHz Core i7 processors was made available to two of Rumors’ senior editors who streamed their experience to the home team in New England for a series of reviews and articles that will be progressively coming out from under embargo in the next few weeks.
For now, we can report on publicly known specs of the Core i7 platform and non-unique features of the hardware, which actually deviates quite a bit from Intel’s reference board for single-chip Nehalem systems.
Bridging the Core i7 design to a dual-chip system, and making all of its advantages work in that arrangement, along with nVIDIA chips intended to support Apple’s new SLI multiple-graphics-processor technology, has been brutal work and sources at Infinite Loop say that this has been their most challenging project since the Mac Pro team was the PowerMac team and they brought the seminal G5 to market with far less help from IBM than they are now getting from Intel….
Although much of our hands-on experiences are still under a very nervous embargo by the sources who continue to provide us with hands-on access, often at a great distance from Cupertino, to high-end next generation Mac hardware, we can say this — Core i7 lives up to the hype, and with the help of Intel & nVIDIA, Apple has put together a machine that will easily rank among the best Core i7 workstations on the market.
We also will have the chance soon to play with the i7-based Xserve, but for now, just the few minutes we’ve had thus far with the mid-December built Mac Pro were more than enough to give us fodder for any number of articles. To say it’s fast would be an understatement, and the improvements are remarkable."
"Its power usage will be as little as 1/3 that of the 3.2GHz current-generation model in typical usage; under very heavy loads such as 3D gaming & the rendering of intensive video effects in Motion, the difference can approach double that."
The top end Core i7 will top out at 2.93GHz, and I imagine an 8-core variant will be Apple's top end.
It all sounds like it could be made up including the following:
"we were working with a build of which is after 10.5.6 but isn’t fully integrated into the 10.5.7 build tree either. From what we hear, a significant part of 10.5.7 will be drivers, hardware support and processor/platform optimizations centered around Nehalem — remember, Core i7 starts on the desktop but will also reach into the laptop space soon as well with dual and even quad-core, single-chip designs that also sport the triple-channel, DDR3-1066 based architecture which makes Core i7 so powerful.
We’re playing with a “late alpha” quality build of Snow Leopard (10.6) and although it will be a few more days before we get more hands-on time with that silver-and-black Nehalem beast of a Mac Pro prototype, we’re hoping to bring the two together as soon as possible to do comparative benchmarks. Precise numbers will probably get embargoed until closer to the announcement date (roughly six weeks out, if memory serves, though that could shift either way depending on cost and availability ramping curves from Intel), but stopwatch/ballpark results ought to be available in a week or two at the outside with any luck.
In short…..yes, we are working with what is basically 10.5.6 plus a basic set of Nehalem optimizations. Grand Central, which is at the heart of Snow Leopard, does a far better job we’re told and comes pretty close, even in its present form, to the most optimized system in existence for Core i7 according to sources at Intel and Infinite Loop. So we would expect considerable improvements indeed out of 10.6."
Now these posts were made mid-January. I doubt they hold any weight whatsoever but there's a possibility Mac Pros could come sooner than the end of March. Intel have also confirmed 8-core Xeon chips:
http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=17103
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Intel...0-103440.shtml
I think hes being anal about the apostrophe. I left a few out deliberately to annoy him's.
I suppose as its the only machine with a PCI slot, it would have to be limited to the Pro. The Fusion-IO drives are very fast. Fairly pricey too though:
http://www.gadgettastic.com/2007/10/...ie-hard-drive/
http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/34065/135/
640GB = $19,200
Even the 160GB would be $4800. This stuff is for server storage. Its nice to know its their though so that consumers have something beyond the SSD drives we are familiar with. Copying 1 DVD size in 5 seconds.
This is where we will all reach eventually. Essentially having 100GB+ of non-volatile Ram.
The OS will no longer matter because virtualization software opens in seconds. You even get server companies doing this already. Instead of selling a dedicated machine, they sell a virtual machine for a lower price and it means that you aren't limited to your own hardware failures.
Edit: on the subject of the Mac Pro, the Mac OS Rumors site have an article saying they are using prototype Mac Pro hardware. I can't remember if that was the site that was full of crap. The ads suggest it was.
I'll copy/paste the stuff in instead of linking:
"A prototype Mac Pro with twin 2.93GHz Core i7 processors was made available to two of Rumors’ senior editors who streamed their experience to the home team in New England for a series of reviews and articles that will be progressively coming out from under embargo in the next few weeks.
For now, we can report on publicly known specs of the Core i7 platform and non-unique features of the hardware, which actually deviates quite a bit from Intel’s reference board for single-chip Nehalem systems.
Bridging the Core i7 design to a dual-chip system, and making all of its advantages work in that arrangement, along with nVIDIA chips intended to support Apple’s new SLI multiple-graphics-processor technology, has been brutal work and sources at Infinite Loop say that this has been their most challenging project since the Mac Pro team was the PowerMac team and they brought the seminal G5 to market with far less help from IBM than they are now getting from Intel….
Although much of our hands-on experiences are still under a very nervous embargo by the sources who continue to provide us with hands-on access, often at a great distance from Cupertino, to high-end next generation Mac hardware, we can say this — Core i7 lives up to the hype, and with the help of Intel & nVIDIA, Apple has put together a machine that will easily rank among the best Core i7 workstations on the market.
We also will have the chance soon to play with the i7-based Xserve, but for now, just the few minutes we’ve had thus far with the mid-December built Mac Pro were more than enough to give us fodder for any number of articles. To say it’s fast would be an understatement, and the improvements are remarkable."
"Its power usage will be as little as 1/3 that of the 3.2GHz current-generation model in typical usage; under very heavy loads such as 3D gaming & the rendering of intensive video effects in Motion, the difference can approach double that."
The top end Core i7 will top out at 2.93GHz, and I imagine an 8-core variant will be Apple's top end.
It all sounds like it could be made up including the following:
"we were working with a build of which is after 10.5.6 but isn’t fully integrated into the 10.5.7 build tree either. From what we hear, a significant part of 10.5.7 will be drivers, hardware support and processor/platform optimizations centered around Nehalem — remember, Core i7 starts on the desktop but will also reach into the laptop space soon as well with dual and even quad-core, single-chip designs that also sport the triple-channel, DDR3-1066 based architecture which makes Core i7 so powerful.
We’re playing with a “late alpha” quality build of Snow Leopard (10.6) and although it will be a few more days before we get more hands-on time with that silver-and-black Nehalem beast of a Mac Pro prototype, we’re hoping to bring the two together as soon as possible to do comparative benchmarks. Precise numbers will probably get embargoed until closer to the announcement date (roughly six weeks out, if memory serves, though that could shift either way depending on cost and availability ramping curves from Intel), but stopwatch/ballpark results ought to be available in a week or two at the outside with any luck.
In short…..yes, we are working with what is basically 10.5.6 plus a basic set of Nehalem optimizations. Grand Central, which is at the heart of Snow Leopard, does a far better job we’re told and comes pretty close, even in its present form, to the most optimized system in existence for Core i7 according to sources at Intel and Infinite Loop. So we would expect considerable improvements indeed out of 10.6."
Now these posts were made mid-January. I doubt they hold any weight whatsoever but there's a possibility Mac Pros could come sooner than the end of March. Intel have also confirmed 8-core Xeon chips:
http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=17103
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Intel...0-103440.shtml
Since that article was from MOSR, we can pretty much disregard it altogether. While they occasionally make a few lucky guesses, they don't know anything.
I brought this up to the writer of another site when he linked to it, and he said "Oops!" I didn't realize it was them.
Why would Apple ever give them something in advance to work on? It makes no sense. Then for them to report on it? Even crazier!
No NDA? Impossible?
And then they say it's the i7. I'd be shocked at this point if it turns out to be the i7 rather than the Xeon.
I also don't buy the line about Apple using Nvidia's SLI technology. Apple has never given a damn about graphics performance, they're only paying lip service to it now because of the GPGPU stuff coming in the next few years.
But who knows?
There's really no excuse for taking this long if they're just going to use the i7 that has been on the market for three months now. Nevermind the fact that it can't be used in a dual-socket config (or so Intel says).
Yes. I was going to mention that as well. Why wait?
Yes. I was going to mention that as well. Why wait?
None of this makes sense. Why wait to upgrade the mini and iMac when appropriate processors have been available for months (talking about low power Core 2). With the Mac Pro, it makes sense Xeon 5500 series processors are only now starting to show up and not even officially released yet. Apple is already pretty much using the fastest Xeons they can.
There is going to be a huge shakeup for the desktop lines this quarter.
I'm betting there will be a big apple event in two weeks (the 24th), dedicated to refreshing the desktops. Totally random speculation though.
If they are going to be using the desktop quads, it would make sense in terms of marketing for them to wait for the green versions due on the 23rd:
http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?op...11680&Itemid=1
Halide free, new instructions, power states
On February 23rd, Intel is planning to launch an R0 revision of its Core 2 Quad Q8200 chip, which is currently using M1 stepping. Additionally, it plans to launch an energy efficient 65w TDP model of the same chip with the same stepping revision, the Q8200s, as we've mentioned previously.
These chips will be manufactured with "all green" materials and will now be halide free, which means no halogens or halide compounds such as bromine and antimony. This is just another one of Intel's steps to go above and beyond basic "lead-free" manufacturing to produce safer, smarter, and more energy-efficient technologies.
The CPUID number on the Q8200 will change from 10677 to 1067A, while the Q8200s will also be 1067A. Additionally, sSpec numbers and part numbers have also been changed. More importantly, however, there will now be Power State Indicator (PSI) support with Intel 4-series chipsets along with three low power states - Extended Stop Grant State, Deep Sleep State and Deeper Sleep State.
Finally, two new instructions have been added, XSAVE/XRSTOR, which manage the existing and future processor extended states on Intel's x86 architecture.
I think they will want an event for the introduction - that's just Apple's way - so we will probably have to wait until we hear word of a press invite.
None of this makes sense. Why wait to upgrade the mini and iMac when appropriate processors have been available for months (talking about low power Core 2). With the Mac Pro, it makes sense Xeon 5500 series processors are only now starting to show up and not even officially released yet. Apple is already pretty much using the fastest Xeons they can.
There is going to be a huge shakeup for the desktop lines this quarter.
That's not exactly what I meant when I said "Why wait?"
I was only talking about the Mac Pro, which is a business oriented machine, unlike the others, which is bought for performance.
I said why wait in the context of MOSR's article stating that it would be using the i7, which is already a much better performing chip than what is currently being used.
Since I said in previous posts that it's not likely the Mac Pro will be using the i7, but rather the not yet released Xeon, I wasn't saying that it should have been released already.
You should have read the dialog between FuturePastNow and myself on this. Neither of us think it should have been released with the i7.
That's a good exercise in 3D but in reality, the LCD on the front is redundant, and impractical for a desktop machine that is likely to be sitting on the floor. That form factor and size can definitely support full sized optical drives.
The display looks nice and fresh but honestly, why rehash the same old design, but smaller, for the tower? Given the opportunity to come up with a new design I don't think Apple will just miniaturize a current design.
http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/41371/135/
That's a good exercise in 3D but in reality, the LCD on the front is redundant, and impractical for a desktop machine that is likely to be sitting on the floor. That form factor and size can definitely support full sized optical drives.
The display looks nice and fresh but honestly, why rehash the same old design, but smaller, for the tower? Given the opportunity to come up with a new design I don't think Apple will just miniaturize a current design.
The mini display is redundant on the tower, but on a revised Mini, it would work well as an interface for a HTPC.
Intel is showing off the Nahalem processor this week at the ISSCC in San Francisco according to this article...
http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/41371/135/
That's an impressive processor but it's Beckton, the enterprise level Xeon. It'll have 4 QPI links, 1567 pins, and require FB-DIMMs added in fours. I posit that it'll be the Xeon 7500 series.
What we assume the Mac Pro will egt is Gainestown, the LGA1366 Xeon 5500 series that will still be 4 core (for now) but with 2 QPI links, so it can connect to the Tylersberg IHC and the other processor.
I'm willing to bet that Apple could have sold a large number more of the Mac Pro line the past year, more as the year went on of course, if they had made a good upgrade during that time. Since they did nothing, there was no reason to upgrade. Companies and people with models that were old enough would do so, but it cuts out many that upgrade on a regular schedule. Particularly during difficult economic times.
A good point. Why does Apple moan that 'Pro' sales are in a slump when they haven't touched the thing in over a year. Tiny ram. Tiny H/D and a poor standard GPU. And a less than mainstream GPU after two revisions since by Nvidia and at least one by ATI.
And whhhhhhhhhhhlyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy they can't use the i7 as a 'mid-tower' option I don't know. They can use they same bleedin' case. We'd get a decent £1000-£1500 tower option that way.
All this 'one size fits all' naffness of the iMac/Mini with there design dead ends I don't know. They can't blame Motorola this time. They painted themselves into a corner. No wonder 30% of their sales are desktops. Their desktops are ancient.
Lemon Bon Bon.
PS. LIke the Mac Pro mock up. Silver and black would be nice. Hope it matches the new LED monitor look. But I'm hoping for a new look instead of the 'grater' styling of the last 5 years now? It's been that long...
A good point. Why does Apple moan that 'Pro' sales are in a slump when they haven't touched the thing in over a year. Tiny ram. Tiny H/D and a poor standard GPU. And a less than mainstream GPU after two revisions since by Nvidia and at least one by ATI.
And whhhhhhhhhhhlyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy they can't use the i7 as a 'mid-tower' option I don't know. They can use they same bleedin' case. We'd get a decent £1000-£1500 tower option that way.
All this 'one size fits all' naffness of the iMac/Mini with there design dead ends I don't know. They can't blame Motorola this time. They painted themselves into a corner. No wonder 30% of their sales are desktops. Their desktops are ancient.
Lemon Bon Bon.
PS. LIke the Mac Pro mock up. Silver and black would be nice. Hope it matches the new LED monitor look. But I'm hoping for a new look instead of the 'grater' styling of the last 5 years now? It's been that long...
Dunno about the grate, but I could definetely see it looking like his mockup, but with the light aluminum metal sides & handles, and a black-backed glass center.
A good point. Why does Apple moan that 'Pro' sales are in a slump when they haven't touched the thing in over a year. Tiny ram. Tiny H/D and a poor standard GPU. And a less than mainstream GPU after two revisions since by Nvidia and at least one by ATI.
And whhhhhhhhhhhlyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy they can't use the i7 as a 'mid-tower' option I don't know. They can use they same bleedin' case. We'd get a decent £1000-£1500 tower option that way.
All this 'one size fits all' naffness of the iMac/Mini with there design dead ends I don't know. They can't blame Motorola this time. They painted themselves into a corner. No wonder 30% of their sales are desktops. Their desktops are ancient.
Lemon Bon Bon.
PS. LIke the Mac Pro mock up. Silver and black would be nice. Hope it matches the new LED monitor look. But I'm hoping for a new look instead of the 'grater' styling of the last 5 years now? It's been that long...
Ah, you know better by now. Apple won't do what it doesn't want to do.
The fact that they can do it doesn't matter. They have a long term plan, and they stick to it.
The only reason why desktop sales slumped by 36% this quarter is because customers were expecting newer machines, as usual, before a major show, esp. when nothing new has been out for many months. I'll bet that if Apple had made decent upgrades to all of its desktop lines, sales might have slumped by less than half that, and their computer sales for the quarter might have reached 2.75 million.
Apple is willing to give up what they see as short term gains for what they believe will be long term gains. Maybe they're right. Overall, their sales, despite some people whining about prices, has been moving up much faster that the PC industry as a whole. That's astonishing!
I just read an article about phones, in which thy mentioned that Dell may be coming out with one in a desperate attempt to move beyond computers. An area in which they are being trampled upon by Apple in the high end, and Hp everywhere else.
I can't pretend to know why Apple refuses to make some less expensive mid tower, though many of us (yes, I said US) would like to see one, but they obviously do have a reason, otherwise they wouldn't be so resistant to the idea. They must also think that their concept is working. They aren't so stupid that they would refuse to change course if their roadmap wasn't working. Don't forget how quickly Apple abandoned the Cube, even though the problems could easily have been fixed.