Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

wizard

macrumors 68040
May 29, 2003
3,854
571
The problem is crap clock rates.

Anybody can achieve lower power levels buy lowering clock rates. Clock rates directly affect power usage in CMOS electronics. In this regard these chips suck.

I think a lot of people are waiting for the mobile CPUs more than this.

I'm especially interested in seeing the kind of performance the 10W Haswell CPUs will be able to achieve.

The upcoming 10W Ivy Bridge Y series already gives us an idea:

Image

They went for the same iGPU and same L3 cache as the 17W series which is a good thing.

On the flip side Intel apparently still has a ways to go with their 22nm process so we can always hope that Haswell will do better. In the end if performance isn't there low wattage means nothing.
 

termite

macrumors member
Oct 30, 2003
96
7
Wouldn't it be weird if Apple put the top of the line Haswell in a new Mac Pro ?

Anybody know if you can have dual or triple quad cores in Haswell ?

I think you are asking if you can put more than one Haswell processor onto a motherboard. The answer is no, at first.

Even worse: you couldn't put more than one Sandy Bridge into a motherboard until Sandy Bridge had been out for a full year. Ivy Bridge has now been out for nearly a full year, and you still can't put more than one into a motherboard. The trend is clear: Intel multiprocessors will now ship a full year after each architecture is introduced. As a result, the Mac Pro will permanently be stuck a year behind on architecture.
 

chrmjenkins

macrumors 603
Oct 29, 2007
5,325
158
MD
Anybody can achieve lower power levels buy lowering clock rates. Clock rates directly affect power usage in CMOS electronics. In this regard these chips suck.

Lowering clock rates but increasing performance is a good sign because it means IPC is going up. Remember the good old netburst days? The pentium 4 was at these very same frequencies. For power saving, lowering voltages and making architecture improvements is the name of the game.
 

wizard

macrumors 68040
May 29, 2003
3,854
571
Honestly I think you are wrong.

While I am sure, there are power users that need faster and faster processors, I think the majority does not.
I'd have to call baloney on this. My MBP is never fast enough and I'm far from a power users.
If I would have the choice of upgrading a HDD to SSD or getting the latest, greatest, fastes processor, I would get the SSD - as a matter of fact, I upgraded all my machines to SSD and the effect is much better than getting a faster processor. Just wish they drives would get bigger and cheaper faster.
That is a totally different issue. SSDs address system performance they do not help at all with CPU bound usage.
Nevertheless, good to see the processor technology is not standing still, even though it is no longer the big bottleneck in computers these days.

Who says it isn't a bottleneck? It might not be fore you but it is for many. Consider too that modern processor improvements aren't just about the ALU, there is much within the chip that is outside the ALU improving user experience. For on the GPU in these units are supposedly vastly improved. I say supposedly because I have no faith in Intel when it comes to GPUs. Beyond that you have improved vector processors, video decode units and other functional units. All of these work together to drive a far better user experience.

As other have already indicated, mobile versions of Haswell ought to make for very nice Mac Book AIR chips. Why. Because many of the improvements, in Haswell, focus on things that make the current Mac Book AIRs poor performers.
 

shaunp

Cancelled
Nov 5, 2010
1,811
1,395
I wish ...

Wouldn't it be weird if Apple put the top of the line Haswell in a new Mac Pro ?

Anybody know if you can have dual or triple quad cores in Haswell ?

I would love them to do this so it didn't have a £2000 starting price for a machine that hasn't been updated in 2 years. Come one Apple, make a core i7 desktop that's not an appliance.
 

wizard

macrumors 68040
May 29, 2003
3,854
571
That isn't what they are doing here. These are still Ivy Bridge chips (see the referenced graphic) that are sorted to run at low power levels. Intel may have made some process changes to lower power a bit more but in the end the are Ivy Bridge cores running real slow. So relatively speaking they suck.

Lowering clock rates but increasing performance is a good sign because it means IPC is going up. Remember the good old netburst days? The pentium 4 was at these very same frequencies. For power saving, lowering voltages and making architecture improvements is the name of the game.
 

chrmjenkins

macrumors 603
Oct 29, 2007
5,325
158
MD
That isn't what they are doing here. These are still Ivy Bridge chips (see the referenced graphic) that are sorted to run at low power levels. Intel may have made some process changes to lower power a bit more but in the end the are Ivy Bridge cores running real slow. So relatively speaking they suck.

Not sure what you're talking about. It's the process that's the problem. Their finFETs don't behave like normal planar transistors. One symptom of this is poor overclocking.
 

Renzatic

Suspended
That isn't what they are doing here. These are still Ivy Bridge chips (see the referenced graphic) that are sorted to run at low power levels. Intel may have made some process changes to lower power a bit more but in the end the are Ivy Bridge cores running real slow. So relatively speaking they suck.

No they're not. They're built on top of the tech introduced with Ivy Bridge, but the way it takes advantage of the tech and balances power usage is vastly different.

It's not just an Ivy Bridge slowed down.
 

thekev

macrumors 604
Aug 5, 2010
7,005
3,343
Wouldn't it be weird if Apple put the top of the line Haswell in a new Mac Pro ?

Anybody know if you can have dual or triple quad cores in Haswell ?

You'd have to go with LGA2011 to use multiple cpu packages. The top or second best Haswell cpu out of the ones that are referenced here will end up in the imac anyway, so I don't think Apple would go that redundant.

Behold as the new iMac gets the shortest life cycle ever.

This isn't necessarily true. They've always released notebooks first. This means the imac could launch several months after this date. That will at least give them time to make design and process corrections with what they learn from this generation.
 

alfistas

macrumors regular
Jun 28, 2012
191
0
Helios Prime
Cuz starting with Haswell, they're going from crappy to "...eh, pretty alright". The high end integrated GPUs of the line are supposedly a little over twice as powerful as the HD4000.

They don't play games, at least not above medium or low graphics settings.

Games are only half of it. Most new CAD programs require a decent GPU. What am I to do with an intel HD4000??

This is an inconvenience for me as the cheapest mac with modern day graphics costs almost €1500.:(
 

Wuiffi

macrumors 6502a
Oct 6, 2011
686
78
Don't know if this has been mentioned, but there is an i7 quad core with 35W TDP in the list. As far 35W is the limit Apple has set (themselves) for the Processor of the 13" Macbook Pros. I can see a quad core 13" MBP and rMBP coming :)

Awesome!!!
 

Eidorian

macrumors Penryn
Mar 23, 2005
29,190
386
Indianapolis
I caught the Intel Mobile Y Series at the end of the last Intel thread. I also forget that something like this would be news for MacRumors. I would have submitted it two days ago, d'oh!

Anyways, Xbitlabs and some others are pointing to an APRIL 2013 release. Geez, Ivy Bridge was not around for long. But keep in mind these are going to be the mainstream desktop LGA 1150 chips. I have not seen a mention of mobile yet.

I will be on the bandwagon for a new system come tax time and I am glad I waited for Haswell!

How about a Sandy Bridge-E in Mac Pro. I would buy that. I don't need a server cpu.
Maybe when Ivy Bridge-E is out.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.