I don't understand the thin tv thing. I mean, my family has a 52" samsung, and it's probably what, like 3-4 inches thick? We wouldn't know any better if it was .000001 inches thick! We're looking at the front, not the side lol.
When it comes to laptops, thin is better because lighter is better. But then again, if a laptop twice as thick as the mbp weighed half as much, people would suspect it was cheap as crap. Remember in jurassic park? "Is it heavy?" "Yes" "Then it's expensive, put it back!"
Hear hear! The first time I moved to a LCD at home it became evident that you can make a LCD thin as paper but depending on the size/resolution I have to place it at an optimal distance for comfort. This means an iMac sitting on my desk needs to be at a certain distance and once it's there it really doesn't matter if it's 2 inches thick or 4 inches.
However the difference in cooling requirements and internal design required to shave those two inches down from the 4 inche model are extensive IMO. Is it really worth it?
I can see it for a laptop where size and weight add up quickly. But a desktop? Noooooo.
Here's hoping for Quad core Macbook Pro based on Calpella and sensible Quad core iMacs based on Lynnfield.
I'd rather have Apple redesign the imac to look beefier and more menacing and support a 95W Lynnfield processor. If I have a computer on my desktop then I want desktop performance.
I think that the new low-power C2Qs for AIOs are pretty likely at some point. I think they are 65W, but even now they can't seem to handle the 45W as well as we'd like.
That must explain why computers in ATX cases are the dominant form factor <tsk tsk>
People buy thin iMacs because that's what they've been presented with for Apple desktops and in turn they buy boxy ATX cases for PC because that's largely what they've been presented with.
I don't have a proble, with either form factor "until" it begins to hamper sound design.
Intel desktops are efficient but the fact is even with a 45nm process you're going to have 95 watt CPU. The iMac's current case cannot accomodate this and thus needs to be changed.
You're assuming that most people actually care about a 95 watt cpu. They don't. They wouldn't understand the difference if it were carefully explained. They want these for the living room where they will look good along with their other gear and furniture.
The ugly PC case computers are usually hidden away. But even the major PC makers have been selling AIOs that are after the Apple fashion. They're selling much better than the old really ugly, thick AIOs of the past.
Most people are opting for laptops, which are even thinner when set up and can be put away completely when not being used.
I don't understand the thin tv thing. I mean, my family has a 52" samsung, and it's probably what, like 3-4 inches thick? We wouldn't know any better if it was .000001 inches thick! We're looking at the front, not the side lol.
When it comes to laptops, thin is better because lighter is better. But then again, if a laptop twice as thick as the mbp weighed half as much, people would suspect it was cheap as crap. Remember in jurassic park? "Is it heavy?" "Yes" "Then it's expensive, put it back!"
Did you buy an LCD or Plasma rather than a rear projection DLP (with a better picture)?
The practical thing to do would have been to buy the cheaper, better quality image, and also cheaper DLP.
But DLPs are dying because people want the even thinner LCDs and plasmas.
In fact, the plasmas, which are noticeably thicker than LCDs are dying out for the same reason, people want the thinner LCD models.
Hear hear! The first time I moved to a LCD at home it became evident that you can make a LCD thin as paper but depending on the size/resolution I have to place it at an optimal distance for comfort. This means an iMac sitting on my desk needs to be at a certain distance and once it's there it really doesn't matter if it's 2 inches thick or 4 inches.
However the difference in cooling requirements and internal design required to shave those two inches down from the 4 inche model are extensive IMO. Is it really worth it?
I can see it for a laptop where size and weight add up quickly. But a desktop? Noooooo.
Here's hoping for Quad core Macbook Pro based on Calpella and sensible Quad core iMacs based on Lynnfield.
Murch, we talking about us, not the average consumer. I don't care either. But when friends come over and look at either my wife or daughter's iMac, one of the first things they comment on is how thin it is. They love that. My daughters friends think the same thing.
You have to understand that fact. Apple may lose some sales to people who are more concerned with that last iota of speed, but they will more than make up for it from sales to people who care about that last 1/2".
And the truth is that iMacs are plenty fast enough for most people, esp. for the large majority of software that doesn't do much with more than 2 cores. My daughters' 3.0.6 GHz iMac is faster than most Mac Pro's when working on Photoshop, a program she uses all the time.
So true but Apple is furthuring this impracticality.
Say i'm editing a video in iMovie 09. My shot was extremely shaky but it can be saved with iMovie's stabiliztion feature. The difference between a laptop CPU and a desktop CPU though could be minutes of processing time.
I like thin too but when it begins to cost me what is most precious (my available free time) the value of that svelte shape wears a bit "thin".
I think laptops simply come with inherent tradeoffs that are easier to accept.
So true but Apple is furthuring this impracticality.
Say i'm editing a video in iMovie 09. My shot was extremely shaky but it can be saved with iMovie's stabiliztion feature. The difference between a laptop CPU and a desktop CPU though could be minutes of processing time.
I like thin too but when it begins to cost me what is most precious (my available free time) the value of that svelte shape wears a bit "thin".
I think laptops simply come with inherent tradeoffs that are easier to accept.
Right now, even my dual cpu 2.66 Mac Pro has a hard time with that. I know because for the fun of it, I tried.
So when an iMac is two or three times as fast, maybe it will work quickly.
But no matter what they can reasonably do know, it won't make much difference for work like that. That's a future technology if you want speed. Otherwise, you'll do what most others will, either hit the button can come back after dinner, or if it's long enough, in the morning.
This is a really tough decision to make one way or the other for Apple.
Apple could be selling 3GHz dual core Core 2 Duos very soon in the Macbook Pro. For non-multithreaded applications these will far outperform a 1.73GHz core, even if that core is slightly better per clock than Core 2 Duo (probably around a 2GHz Core 2 Duo core).
Also the chipset will be different - it isn't a matter of offering two options on the same motherboard - fast dual core or slow quad core, depending on what the user wants.
More multithreaded applications, the quad core will be lovely. Apple might go this route just to show off about Snow Leopard. They might keep the current Macbook Pro around as well with the faster Core 2 Duo + NVIDIA 9400M for people that want that.
What are those non threaded applications Apple uses that aren't daemons, shells or other low level tasks which are usually just run in a thread to do their tasks while being managed by a larger daemon which is threaded?
All applications that can run their threads simultaneously by spreading those threads across the available cores will benefit far more than timing delays in a single core to manage those threads.
All Apple needs to do is back away from highlighting form or function and thicken the iMac up a bit. If its sitting on my desk ...I don't need it to be wafer thin.
My ideal iMac would be a thicker chassis with easy to access RAM and HDD bays. I'd like two 2.5" bays rather than one 3.5" bay.
I totally agree. The emphasis on thin is important when trying to reduce the bulk of a notebook, but makes no sense for a desktop machine.
Burying the HDD and everything else under the LCD only makes sense from a "sealed box" standpoint, but computers aren't sealed boxes that get tossed into the recycling bin when something goes wrong. Apple service technicians must hate the fact that it takes suction cups, 21 screws and assorted other fiddling with cable connectors and adhesive tape to do any work on an aluminum iMac. Then they have to put it all back together without leaving the slightest finger print or speck of dust inside. The white iMacs were far from perfect, but taking out 3 screws enabled the entire rear case to come off.
I'm not sure I'm ready for 2.5" HDDs. They don't have the speed of a 3.5" drive and are less than half the capacity per dollar. SSDs are fast, but you get almost no storage for the money.
If I bought a refurbished iMac with a 320GB internal drive I'd have to run multiple external drives or pay someone to open up my iMac and install a 1TB drive. Of course then I'd be worried that the replacement drive might run too hot for the ultra thin enclosure to handle and that whoever did the installation would leave smudges and/or dust inside the glass.
Why do I need multiple drives? Ask Apple why two users can't share an iPhoto library unless it's on a separate volume with permissions disabled. Once you do that Time Machine can't back up the entire computer because it's impossible for a single volume to back up one volume with permissions and a second without.
I think using slow quad core chips is a bad idea. Not only will it take time for developers to adjust to writing for OpenCL, some applications are by their very nature highly linear and simply cannot take advantage of parallel processing.
Over on the desktop side where quad core chips are clocked almost as high as dual core chips, the situation is completely different. Quad core desktop PCs have been available at aggressive price points since the summer of 2007 and hackintoshes made from such machines make the iMac look like a joke.
I like the direction Mac OS X is going, but there isn't a single machine in the lineup that interests me.
Personally I'm in the mode of you want more cores even if they run slower.
GPUs are good examples of lower clocked but numerous cores and I'd say in a lot of cases they work out pretty well. But I can't help but think of the odd case that crops up more than it should where say a video encoding process or Finder preview chokes up just one CPU core and those odd examples can take much longer - I wouldn't expect the new chips to make up for a 40% decrease in clock through more efficient design.
It may not be significant enough to notice though. Clarksfield is hyper-threaded too so it should show up as 8-cores. This can add 10-15% on top of a non-HT system. It can also be slower in some cases and likely won't effect how single threads perform.
The TDP of the T9550 2.66GHz CPU is 35W so if the Clarksfield is 35W as rumors are suggesting then it could go in the MBP. The MB processors are 25W. This could certainly be a way for Apple to push those models further apart.
The integrated GPU goes in Arrandale, which wouldn't be too good if the Macbook depended on that alone and it may do if it increases the power consumption. Clarksfield doesn't have the GPU integrated so it shouldn't affect the options there.
I am not sure SL will compensate for the clock speed drop for the majority of the apps. Not Photoshop and Lightroom for sure. Let's hope for Aperture...
It wouldn't require only SL technologies (Grant Central) to compensate.
Lightroom, for example, has multi-core support built-in. Quad Cores would come in handy.
Did you buy an LCD or Plasma rather than a rear projection DLP (with a better picture)?
The practical thing to do would have been to buy the cheaper, better quality image, and also cheaper DLP.
But DLPs are dying because people want the even thinner LCDs and plasmas.
In fact, the plasmas, which are noticeably thicker than LCDs are dying out for the same reason, people want the thinner LCD models.
That's just the way it is.
(I have a 61" LED backlight DLP).
Television thickness is a whole different matter than computer display thickness. People don't mount their computer displays on the wall for obvious reasons. A large number of people hang their TVs on the wall. That makes thickness and weight serious considerations.
Plasma has been at a serious disadvantage up until recently on the whole resolution thing. Uninformed consumers always believe more is better so LCDs with horizontal resolutions of 1366 or 1920 sold far better than plasmas offering only 840. Plasmas also consume vast amounts of electricity.
To be honest I haven't seen a DLP advertised in years. People buy what the retailers tell them to buy. If it's not in the weekly Best Buy flyer it doesn't exist.
I understand why people prefer light, thin displays over bulky CRTs, but things have gone too far. After all, the stand holding up the display is already several times deeper than the display itself so it's not like a thinner display actually saves any space.
Thin is also creeping into the shape of displays. 4:3 and 5:4 are gone in favor of "thinner" wide screens sporting 16:10 or 16:9 dimensions. This, of course, is inefficient for most content viewed on computer screens, but people don't seem to care about that. Don't get me started on the prevalence of TN displays with their bad, uneven color or super glossy displays that have to be cranked up to headache inducing brightness to hide the reflections.
It's all about fashion and form. Nobody seems to care about performance anymore.
I think that quad core is definitely the correct direction. I have a feeling that Apple (keep in mind my fairly limitied developer knowledge) will make all of their programs (if not already) multi-threaded, while allowing it to be fairly easy to incorporate it into a developer's application.
But even more so, I would not be suprised if Apple came out with a feature (yes I could actually see Jobs presenting this) in Snow Leopard that will simply allow you to "combine" cores for processing power. Perhaps the OS could assign tasks among processors on its own, independently of the application itself.
My bottom line: Multi-threaded applications and 64-bit have been kind of a lagging feature among PC programs. This is/will be less of an issue for Mac applications. I feel like apple can pull a little bit more tweaking than Windows because THEY CHOSE THEIR OWN SPECIFIC UNIFORM HARDWARE AND THEY DEVELOP FOR THEIR OWN UNIFORM HARDWARE.
But even more so, I would not be suprised if Apple came out with a feature (yes I could actually see Jobs presenting this) in Snow Leopard that will simply allow you to "combine" cores for processing power. Perhaps the OS could assign tasks among processors on its own, independently of the application itself.
Yup that's what Grand Central does you can coalesce multiple threads onto one core or split tasks across multiple cores actually I shouldn't say "you" because GCD is supposed to do this with little developer interaction other than setting things up. The "Blocks" aspect is pretty unique for Apple as I believe the Smalltalk language uses a Blocks to encapsulate code for efficient processing. I'll let the propellerheads expound more as I've tapped my fledgling brain cells on this one. It should be interesting
The clock speeds are low because Intel's desktop and mobile processors now (since the transition to 45nm) are essentially the same silicon. So 95W on the desktop, 45W on mobile, the tradeoff is lower speeds. And the speeds will ramp up with the introduction of 32nm.
Comments
I don't understand the thin tv thing. I mean, my family has a 52" samsung, and it's probably what, like 3-4 inches thick? We wouldn't know any better if it was .000001 inches thick! We're looking at the front, not the side lol.
When it comes to laptops, thin is better because lighter is better. But then again, if a laptop twice as thick as the mbp weighed half as much, people would suspect it was cheap as crap. Remember in jurassic park? "Is it heavy?" "Yes" "Then it's expensive, put it back!"
Hear hear! The first time I moved to a LCD at home it became evident that you can make a LCD thin as paper but depending on the size/resolution I have to place it at an optimal distance for comfort. This means an iMac sitting on my desk needs to be at a certain distance and once it's there it really doesn't matter if it's 2 inches thick or 4 inches.
However the difference in cooling requirements and internal design required to shave those two inches down from the 4 inche model are extensive IMO. Is it really worth it?
I can see it for a laptop where size and weight add up quickly. But a desktop? Noooooo.
Here's hoping for Quad core Macbook Pro based on Calpella and sensible Quad core iMacs based on Lynnfield.
I'd rather have Apple redesign the imac to look beefier and more menacing and support a 95W Lynnfield processor. If I have a computer on my desktop then I want desktop performance.
I think that the new low-power C2Qs for AIOs are pretty likely at some point. I think they are 65W, but even now they can't seem to handle the 45W as well as we'd like.
That must explain why computers in ATX cases are the dominant form factor <tsk tsk>
People buy thin iMacs because that's what they've been presented with for Apple desktops and in turn they buy boxy ATX cases for PC because that's largely what they've been presented with.
I don't have a proble, with either form factor "until" it begins to hamper sound design.
Intel desktops are efficient but the fact is even with a 45nm process you're going to have 95 watt CPU. The iMac's current case cannot accomodate this and thus needs to be changed.
You're assuming that most people actually care about a 95 watt cpu. They don't. They wouldn't understand the difference if it were carefully explained. They want these for the living room where they will look good along with their other gear and furniture.
The ugly PC case computers are usually hidden away. But even the major PC makers have been selling AIOs that are after the Apple fashion. They're selling much better than the old really ugly, thick AIOs of the past.
Most people are opting for laptops, which are even thinner when set up and can be put away completely when not being used.
Most people are rarely practical.
I don't understand the thin tv thing. I mean, my family has a 52" samsung, and it's probably what, like 3-4 inches thick? We wouldn't know any better if it was .000001 inches thick! We're looking at the front, not the side lol.
When it comes to laptops, thin is better because lighter is better. But then again, if a laptop twice as thick as the mbp weighed half as much, people would suspect it was cheap as crap. Remember in jurassic park? "Is it heavy?" "Yes" "Then it's expensive, put it back!"
Did you buy an LCD or Plasma rather than a rear projection DLP (with a better picture)?
The practical thing to do would have been to buy the cheaper, better quality image, and also cheaper DLP.
But DLPs are dying because people want the even thinner LCDs and plasmas.
In fact, the plasmas, which are noticeably thicker than LCDs are dying out for the same reason, people want the thinner LCD models.
That's just the way it is.
(I have a 61" LED backlight DLP).
Hear hear! The first time I moved to a LCD at home it became evident that you can make a LCD thin as paper but depending on the size/resolution I have to place it at an optimal distance for comfort. This means an iMac sitting on my desk needs to be at a certain distance and once it's there it really doesn't matter if it's 2 inches thick or 4 inches.
However the difference in cooling requirements and internal design required to shave those two inches down from the 4 inche model are extensive IMO. Is it really worth it?
I can see it for a laptop where size and weight add up quickly. But a desktop? Noooooo.
Here's hoping for Quad core Macbook Pro based on Calpella and sensible Quad core iMacs based on Lynnfield.
Murch, we talking about us, not the average consumer. I don't care either. But when friends come over and look at either my wife or daughter's iMac, one of the first things they comment on is how thin it is. They love that. My daughters friends think the same thing.
You have to understand that fact. Apple may lose some sales to people who are more concerned with that last iota of speed, but they will more than make up for it from sales to people who care about that last 1/2".
And the truth is that iMacs are plenty fast enough for most people, esp. for the large majority of software that doesn't do much with more than 2 cores. My daughters' 3.0.6 GHz iMac is faster than most Mac Pro's when working on Photoshop, a program she uses all the time.
Say i'm editing a video in iMovie 09. My shot was extremely shaky but it can be saved with iMovie's stabiliztion feature. The difference between a laptop CPU and a desktop CPU though could be minutes of processing time.
I like thin too but when it begins to cost me what is most precious (my available free time) the value of that svelte shape wears a bit "thin".
I think laptops simply come with inherent tradeoffs that are easier to accept.
So true but Apple is furthuring this impracticality.
Say i'm editing a video in iMovie 09. My shot was extremely shaky but it can be saved with iMovie's stabiliztion feature. The difference between a laptop CPU and a desktop CPU though could be minutes of processing time.
I like thin too but when it begins to cost me what is most precious (my available free time) the value of that svelte shape wears a bit "thin".
I think laptops simply come with inherent tradeoffs that are easier to accept.
Right now, even my dual cpu 2.66 Mac Pro has a hard time with that. I know because for the fun of it, I tried.
So when an iMac is two or three times as fast, maybe it will work quickly.
But no matter what they can reasonably do know, it won't make much difference for work like that. That's a future technology if you want speed. Otherwise, you'll do what most others will, either hit the button can come back after dinner, or if it's long enough, in the morning.
That's life.
Slow Quad Core or Fast Dual Core?
This is a really tough decision to make one way or the other for Apple.
Apple could be selling 3GHz dual core Core 2 Duos very soon in the Macbook Pro. For non-multithreaded applications these will far outperform a 1.73GHz core, even if that core is slightly better per clock than Core 2 Duo (probably around a 2GHz Core 2 Duo core).
Also the chipset will be different - it isn't a matter of offering two options on the same motherboard - fast dual core or slow quad core, depending on what the user wants.
More multithreaded applications, the quad core will be lovely. Apple might go this route just to show off about Snow Leopard. They might keep the current Macbook Pro around as well with the faster Core 2 Duo + NVIDIA 9400M for people that want that.
What are those non threaded applications Apple uses that aren't daemons, shells or other low level tasks which are usually just run in a thread to do their tasks while being managed by a larger daemon which is threaded?
All applications that can run their threads simultaneously by spreading those threads across the available cores will benefit far more than timing delays in a single core to manage those threads.
All Apple needs to do is back away from highlighting form or function and thicken the iMac up a bit. If its sitting on my desk ...I don't need it to be wafer thin.
My ideal iMac would be a thicker chassis with easy to access RAM and HDD bays. I'd like two 2.5" bays rather than one 3.5" bay.
I totally agree. The emphasis on thin is important when trying to reduce the bulk of a notebook, but makes no sense for a desktop machine.
Burying the HDD and everything else under the LCD only makes sense from a "sealed box" standpoint, but computers aren't sealed boxes that get tossed into the recycling bin when something goes wrong. Apple service technicians must hate the fact that it takes suction cups, 21 screws and assorted other fiddling with cable connectors and adhesive tape to do any work on an aluminum iMac. Then they have to put it all back together without leaving the slightest finger print or speck of dust inside. The white iMacs were far from perfect, but taking out 3 screws enabled the entire rear case to come off.
I'm not sure I'm ready for 2.5" HDDs. They don't have the speed of a 3.5" drive and are less than half the capacity per dollar. SSDs are fast, but you get almost no storage for the money.
If I bought a refurbished iMac with a 320GB internal drive I'd have to run multiple external drives or pay someone to open up my iMac and install a 1TB drive. Of course then I'd be worried that the replacement drive might run too hot for the ultra thin enclosure to handle and that whoever did the installation would leave smudges and/or dust inside the glass.
Why do I need multiple drives? Ask Apple why two users can't share an iPhoto library unless it's on a separate volume with permissions disabled. Once you do that Time Machine can't back up the entire computer because it's impossible for a single volume to back up one volume with permissions and a second without.
I think using slow quad core chips is a bad idea. Not only will it take time for developers to adjust to writing for OpenCL, some applications are by their very nature highly linear and simply cannot take advantage of parallel processing.
Over on the desktop side where quad core chips are clocked almost as high as dual core chips, the situation is completely different. Quad core desktop PCs have been available at aggressive price points since the summer of 2007 and hackintoshes made from such machines make the iMac look like a joke.
I like the direction Mac OS X is going, but there isn't a single machine in the lineup that interests me.
Personally I'm in the mode of you want more cores even if they run slower.
GPUs are good examples of lower clocked but numerous cores and I'd say in a lot of cases they work out pretty well. But I can't help but think of the odd case that crops up more than it should where say a video encoding process or Finder preview chokes up just one CPU core and those odd examples can take much longer - I wouldn't expect the new chips to make up for a 40% decrease in clock through more efficient design.
It may not be significant enough to notice though. Clarksfield is hyper-threaded too so it should show up as 8-cores. This can add 10-15% on top of a non-HT system. It can also be slower in some cases and likely won't effect how single threads perform.
The TDP of the T9550 2.66GHz CPU is 35W so if the Clarksfield is 35W as rumors are suggesting then it could go in the MBP. The MB processors are 25W. This could certainly be a way for Apple to push those models further apart.
The integrated GPU goes in Arrandale, which wouldn't be too good if the Macbook depended on that alone and it may do if it increases the power consumption. Clarksfield doesn't have the GPU integrated so it shouldn't affect the options there.
I am not sure SL will compensate for the clock speed drop for the majority of the apps. Not Photoshop and Lightroom for sure. Let's hope for Aperture...
It wouldn't require only SL technologies (Grant Central) to compensate.
Lightroom, for example, has multi-core support built-in. Quad Cores would come in handy.
IIRC, this is true for Photoshop, too.
Did you buy an LCD or Plasma rather than a rear projection DLP (with a better picture)?
The practical thing to do would have been to buy the cheaper, better quality image, and also cheaper DLP.
But DLPs are dying because people want the even thinner LCDs and plasmas.
In fact, the plasmas, which are noticeably thicker than LCDs are dying out for the same reason, people want the thinner LCD models.
That's just the way it is.
(I have a 61" LED backlight DLP).
Television thickness is a whole different matter than computer display thickness. People don't mount their computer displays on the wall for obvious reasons. A large number of people hang their TVs on the wall. That makes thickness and weight serious considerations.
Plasma has been at a serious disadvantage up until recently on the whole resolution thing. Uninformed consumers always believe more is better so LCDs with horizontal resolutions of 1366 or 1920 sold far better than plasmas offering only 840. Plasmas also consume vast amounts of electricity.
To be honest I haven't seen a DLP advertised in years. People buy what the retailers tell them to buy. If it's not in the weekly Best Buy flyer it doesn't exist.
I understand why people prefer light, thin displays over bulky CRTs, but things have gone too far. After all, the stand holding up the display is already several times deeper than the display itself so it's not like a thinner display actually saves any space.
Thin is also creeping into the shape of displays. 4:3 and 5:4 are gone in favor of "thinner" wide screens sporting 16:10 or 16:9 dimensions. This, of course, is inefficient for most content viewed on computer screens, but people don't seem to care about that. Don't get me started on the prevalence of TN displays with their bad, uneven color or super glossy displays that have to be cranked up to headache inducing brightness to hide the reflections.
It's all about fashion and form. Nobody seems to care about performance anymore.
That must explain why computers in ATX cases are the dominant form factor <tsk tsk>
Actually they are not.
It's been several years that laptops outsell desktops.
http://www.engadget.com/2005/06/04/l...st-time-again/
But even more so, I would not be suprised if Apple came out with a feature (yes I could actually see Jobs presenting this) in Snow Leopard that will simply allow you to "combine" cores for processing power. Perhaps the OS could assign tasks among processors on its own, independently of the application itself.
My bottom line: Multi-threaded applications and 64-bit have been kind of a lagging feature among PC programs. This is/will be less of an issue for Mac applications. I feel like apple can pull a little bit more tweaking than Windows because THEY CHOSE THEIR OWN SPECIFIC UNIFORM HARDWARE AND THEY DEVELOP FOR THEIR OWN UNIFORM HARDWARE.
I realize that's certainly out of the question for 2009 but it would seem to me inevitable in 2010, especially if the Macbooks go there.
I could well imagine the desire for a midrange desktop sitting between the mini and the Mac Pro would be significantly diminished were that to happen.
Actually they are not.
It's been several years that laptops outsell desktops.
http://www.engadget.com/2005/06/04/l...st-time-again/
By Jove you're right!
But even more so, I would not be suprised if Apple came out with a feature (yes I could actually see Jobs presenting this) in Snow Leopard that will simply allow you to "combine" cores for processing power. Perhaps the OS could assign tasks among processors on its own, independently of the application itself.
Yup that's what Grand Central does you can coalesce multiple threads onto one core or split tasks across multiple cores actually I shouldn't say "you" because GCD is supposed to do this with little developer interaction other than setting things up. The "Blocks" aspect is pretty unique for Apple as I believe the Smalltalk language uses a Blocks to encapsulate code for efficient processing. I'll let the propellerheads expound more as I've tapped my fledgling brain cells on this one. It should be interesting
My question is, how long will it take for quad core Nehalem to trickle down to the Mac Mini form factor.
I realize that's certainly out of the question for 2009 but it would seem to me inevitable in 2010, especially if the Macbooks go there.
I could well imagine the desire for a midrange desktop sitting between the mini and the Mac Pro would be significantly diminished were that to happen.
The Intel Arrandale will be a Dual Core SMT processor that's perfect for the mini. It's not Quad Core but it is a Dual Core 4 thread computer.
Heat and battery life are more important to me than processing power.
I've got a desktop and it does the processing, don't need a laptop for that.
But I'd certainly love a quad core MacBook once a lower TDP is possible.