Intel's Napa Platform with Yonah

MacRumors · Dec 14, 2005

eWeek reports on Intel's new mobile platform called Napa, which was detailed yesterday to reporters.

According to Intel, the new laptop platform (Napa) which incorporates their dual-core Yonah processor will outperform their current laptops by 68%. Along with this will be a reduction in power consumption by 28%, which will extend battery life beyond 5 hours.

The chip benefits from a two-pronged assault on power usage, cutting amps by completing tasks faster and employing a new feature termed Dynamic Power Coordination, which allows its two cores to be power-managed independently, making it possible for one core to shut down while the other performs the heavy lifting.

Napa/Yonah is expected in 2006 and Intel is expecting over 230 laptop designs. Intel was reportedly tight lipped, however, about whether or not Apple would adopt the entire platform. The expected release for Yonah is indeed January as rumored.

Yonah has been widely expected to be used by Apple in the first Intel Macs, also rumored to be released in January.

Lacero · Dec 14, 2005

All the more reasons I see Apple adopting the Yonahs for the upcoming PowerBooks.

"Maloney said the Napa platform has been shrunk over 30 percent since its initial design. The chip set will be 69 percent smaller, in terms of board space, than the original Centrino chip set."

Now, if we could see Apple adopting some of AMD's lower-priced dual-core offerings.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/prn/texas/3520799.html

RJP31484 · Dec 14, 2005

Wow

That all sounds truly amazing

twoodcc · Dec 14, 2005

RJP31484 said:
That all sounds truly amazing

yeah it does. january will be interesting ....

Peace · Dec 14, 2005

Dual-Core Yonah Powerbooks at MWSF

FoxyKaye · Dec 14, 2005

2006, the year of the (HD) laptop?

So, the Intel-based stuff is going to cost less, last longer, and potentially come with dual-core chips that feature a 68% improvement in speed (at least over previous Intel designs)? Wow, watch those used G4 iBook and Powerbook prices bottom out...

LaMerVipere · Dec 14, 2005

I'm more interested in what will be in the Rev. B Intel PowerBooks, since buying a Rev. A version just seems crazy to me. Problems and "issues" seem almost assured.

GFLPraxis · Dec 14, 2005

68% faster, 28% lower power consumption, lower price, dual core, HD screens (remember, ThinkSecret claims 1280x720 WXGA screens- that's 720p, which is HD), and the ability to boot Windows and/or run Windows apps through WINE?

Sign me up!

However, I bet someone, somewhere is going to find some way to rate this negative. They always do.

AoWolf · Dec 14, 2005

Everything is pointing to WWDC I can't wait hopes its the iBooks.

hhlee · Dec 14, 2005

GFLPraxis said:
68% faster, 28% lower power consumption, lower price, dual core, HD screens (remember, ThinkSecret claims 1280x720 WXGA screens- that's 720p, which is HD), and the ability to boot Windows and/or run Windows apps through WINE?

Sign me up!

However, I bet someone, somewhere is going to find some way to rate this negative. They always do.

shizza.... screw the fact that its rev a. i think i'm gonna need to sell my 15'' powerbuuk pronto!

Darwin · Dec 14, 2005

Bring it on

tristan · Dec 14, 2005

So the Intel iBook is going to smoke the G4 Powerbooks? That'll be interesting. 2006 is going to be a crazy year with lots of crazy rumors.

Lacero · Dec 14, 2005

AoWolf said:
Everything is pointing to WWDC I can't wait hopes its the iBooks.

I don't see it going into iBooks quite yet. Maybe next year? There's going to be a premium on the dual-core Yonahs, so it'll likely make its debut on the higher margined PowerBooks. Professionals need this power... not the sophomore in college surfing for music and pr0n.

Apple's got to offset the cost of development, plus Intel charges more per chip than IBM's PPC. (at least that's what has been reported).

Here's to the Crazy Ones

polinho · Dec 14, 2005

Sorry, just want to clarify something...What makes you think that Powerbooks are to first ones, and not Ibooks? Haven't the rumors been more incisive on Ibooks? Really, I'm just trying to figure out why are you still talking about PB's...Did I miss something...?

Peace · Dec 14, 2005

tristan said:
So the Intel iBook is going to smoke the G4 Powerbooks? That'll be interesting. 2006 is going to be a crazy year with lots of crazy rumors.

That will be one heck of a marketing scheme tho..

I can see Jobs saying:

Here's the new iBook..Wait till you see the new Powerbook!

840quadra · Dec 14, 2005

article said:
In addition, the chip maker is working with Cisco Systems Inc. deliver network capabilities that can be easily deployed and managed.

I wonder if this is going to be a partial SOAC that can offload some of the old cisco logic board tasks to one chip? If this chip were to contain networking intelligence of a higher power, it could also mean possibility of faster copper (or fiber) interconnects, and or more localized processing, as opposed to having many chips on the logic board to do networking. If that were true, and installed in a Powermac or Xserve, users of clusters or other high bandwidth hogging systems could see major improvements in performance! (Okay I am reaching out).

Koodauw · Dec 14, 2005

Lacero said:
I don't see it going into iBooks quite yet. Maybe next year? There's going to be a premium on the dual-core Yonahs, so it'll likely make its debut on the higher margined PowerBooks. Professionals need this power... not the sophomore in college surfing for music and pr0n.

You'd be surprised how much CPU power P2P takes up. We need that ish now!

Randall · Dec 14, 2005

Peace said:
Dual-Core Yonah Powerbooks at MWSF

I can almost guarantee it. *chomps at bit*

Koodauw said:
You'd be surprised how much CPU power P2P takes up. We need that ish now!

Try using bittorrent (not Azureus) for more CPU friendly file sharing. Transmission for OS X uses less then 3% CPU, and it's just as fast at downloading/seeding as Azureus, which tends to use close to 80% CPU in contrast.

tristan said:
So the Intel iBook is going to smoke the G4 Powerbooks? That'll be interesting. 2006 is going to be a crazy year with lots of crazy rumors.

Any laptop that has a Yonah processor in it will smoke any G4. That is why it makes sense to replace all of the G4 laiden hardware with Intel at once. "Get the G4 out the door"

york2600 · Dec 14, 2005

So now the question becomes: Do I want to be cheap and get an ibook with the single core Yonah or a PowerBook with a dual core. Dual 2Ghz in my lap would be pretty sweet.

It'll also be nice to have a 'Book named after my town. Perhaps Apple can give me a discount when it gets mailed to Napa

Macrumors said:
eWeek reports on Intel's new mobile platform called Napa, which was detailed yesterday to reporters.

According to Intel, the new laptop platform (Napa) which incorporates their dual-core Yonah processor will outperform their current laptops by 68%. Along with this will be a reduction in power consumption by 28%, which will extend battery life beyond 5 hours.

Napa/Yonah is expected in 2006 and Intel is expecting over 230 laptop designs. Intel was reportedly tight lipped, however, about whether or not Apple would adopt the entire platform. The expected release for Yonah is indeed January as rumored.

Yonah has been widely expected to be used by Apple in the first Intel Macs, also rumored to be released in January.

Hattig · Dec 14, 2005

I can see iBooks adopting the 1.5 or 1.66GHz dual-core Yonahs, whilst the Powerbook adopts the 1.83, 2.0 and 2.16GHz versions.

Given the performance increase (probably twice as fast per clock overall than a single core G4), and total lack of care from the PowerPC companies, Apple has no choice, it has to turn the PowerBook Intel sooner rather than later despite many of the third party pro applications not being intel-ised until late next year.

Which is a reversal on what I thought a couple of months ago, but then I thought Apple would be changing nearer June than January, and I thought they might hold out with a 7448 or that dual-core G4 until 2007 ...

aaronsullivan · Dec 14, 2005

Unless running PowerPC code on these things (Rosetta) has been vastly improved, it will be iBooks first. Steve said consumers first then professionals in that Intel keynote didn't he? I'm 80% sure he did.

Remember, it's going to take some time to get the big professional apps transitioned over to Universal binary so they can run at better than snail speeds on an mactel machine. Apple jumping the gun on the Intel transition makes it even more likely that most professional apps will still be stuck with PowerPC only code.

I have no idea how Apple marketing would handle it if the iBooks smoked the Powerbooks for in general computing, but it's pretty much assured that programs still running PowerPC code (like most every professional app) would still run quite a bit faster on even today's Powerbooks than on a smokin' fast mactel iBook.

It will be iBooks and Powerbooks, or just iBooks, but I'd be VERY surprised to see JUST the Powerbooks updated.

I'd say the tiny iBook reaching into broader market territory with a good price and lower speed is the most likely announcement along with a redesigned mac mini/media device and a big focus on Leopard because Vista is now set to mid 2006 and Steve said they'd meet the release date.

Randall · Dec 14, 2005

york2600 said:
So now the question becomes: Do I want to be cheap and get an ibook with the single core Yonah or a PowerBook with a dual core. Dual 2Ghz in my lap would be pretty sweet.

It'll also be nice to have a 'Book named after my town. Perhaps Apple can give me a discount when it gets mailed to Napa

I personally would go for a dual core Yonah Powerbook (as soon as one exists of course

) I think it will be well worth the wait. All kinds of speed and power improvements are on thier way. This is a very exciting time for the mobile computing world.

Randall · Dec 14, 2005

aaronsullivan said:
Unless running PowerPC code on these things (Rosetta) has been vastly improved, it will be iBooks first. Steve said consumers first then professionals in that Intel keynote didn't he? I'm 80% sure he did.

Remember, it's going to take some time to get the big professional apps transitioned over to Universal binary so they can run at better than snail speeds on an mactel machine. Apple jumping the gun on the Intel transition makes it even more likely that most professional apps will still be stuck with PowerPC only code.

I have no idea how Apple marketing would handle it if the iBooks smoked the Powerbooks for in general computing, but it's pretty much assured that programs still running PowerPC code (like most every professional app) would still run quite a bit faster on even today's Powerbooks than on a smokin' fast mactel iBook.

It will be iBooks and Powerbooks, or just iBooks, but I'd be VERY surprised to see JUST the Powerbooks updated.

I'd say the tiny iBook reaching into broader market territory with a good price and lower speed is the most likely announcement along with a redesigned mac mini/media device and a big focus on Leopard because Vista is now set to mid 2006 and Steve said they'd meet the release date.

It would be a crime against humanity to make the iBooks run faster then the Powerbooks, regardless of the PPC emulation factor. That is why it's my opinion that they will release both. Let's face it, anything with a G4 in it is screaming for an upgrade.

gnasher729 · Dec 14, 2005

FoxyKaye said:
2006, the year of the (HD) laptop?

So, the Intel-based stuff is going to cost less...

Excuse me, where did you read "cost less"?

Just because there are plenty of cheap laptops with cheap Intel celery processors around, doesn't mean that their high end chipsets will be cheap.

crazydreaming · Dec 14, 2005

So does this mean that when deciding between an apple or a windows laptop, the Mac will finally outperform the windows laptop? Instead of just buying mac for form factor and OS X, they might actually perform better?

...I'm still happy with my Powerbook... but that might change soon

, but I knew this was coming. I'll wait for the quadruple core powerbooks

Intel's Napa Platform with Yonah

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