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6 Gb/s SSD MBA Coming (maybe)

Looks like I am going to have to wait to buy my next Mac

I have the 2010 13 inch ultimate Air and was getting close to buying the 2011 11 inch ultimate but that article has convinced me just to hold out until the new baby arrives. I knew the next Mac Air upgrade would be faster but from the sound of that article it appears the new Mac Air will be as significant an upgrade as the current Mac Air is to the previous version. It seems like everything I own is made by Apple or Samsung, except the stuff I buy at the 99 cent stores!
 
John.B said:
Looking forward to this, plus (hopefully) OpenCL support in Ivy Bridge.

Got my pennies already saved...
Click to expand...

OpenCL support is already there. The applications need to support it though. I am not sure what you're hoping ivy bridge will change in this regard.
 
theSeb said:
OpenCL support is already there.
Click to expand...
Not in the GPU (where it should be) on any of the Sandy Bridge MacBooks w/ Intel's notoriously craptacular integrated graphics.

N.B. Emulating OpenCL on the CPU defeats the purpose of offloading key tasks to the GPU.

theSeb said:
The applications need to support it though.
Click to expand...
When applications can get an actual performance benefit from OpenCL, I think they'll start to support it.

theSeb said:
I am not sure what you're hoping ivy bridge will change in this regard.
Click to expand...
:confused: I am not sure you're up to speed on this:

Intel next-gen chip to support key Apple tech - CNET News

OBTW, since USB 3.0 support will be built in to Ivy Bridge, that would be a nice-to-have as well...
 
John.B said:
Not in the GPU (where it should be) on any of the Sandy Bridge MacBooks w/ Intel's notoriously craptacular integrated graphics.

N.B. Emulating OpenCL on the CPU defeats the purpose of offloading key tasks to the GPU.


When applications can get an actual performance benefit from OpenCL, I think they'll start to support it.


:confused: I am not sure you're up to speed on this:

Intel next-gen chip to support key Apple tech - CNET News

OBTW, since USB 3.0 support will be built in to Ivy Bridge, that would be a nice-to-have as well...
Click to expand...
My apologies. I consider myself schooled as I had always thought the 3000HD already had OpenCL support. I don't know why I assumed that. :eek:

Yes, I am hoping for USB 3 across the board.
 
John.B said:
Emulating OpenCL on the CPU defeats the purpose of offloading key tasks to the GPU.
Click to expand...

No. OpenCL is not a GPU-only language.

From:
http://www.khronos.org/opencl/

OpenCL (Open Computing Language) is the first open, royalty-free standard for general-purpose parallel programming of heterogeneous systems. OpenCL provides a uniform programming environment for software developers to write efficient, portable code for high-performance compute servers, desktop computer systems and handheld devices using a diverse mix of multi-core CPUs, GPUs, Cell-type architectures and other parallel processors such as DSPs
Click to expand...
 
Mr. Retrofire said:
No. OpenCL is not a GPU-only language.

From:
http://www.khronos.org/opencl/
Click to expand...

Yes that is true, it isn't a GPU only language, but as many of us are hoping for, is that the GPU goes relatively unused in many situations with OpenCL can be helpful. Meanwhile the CPU is already being taxed. Further, the GPU is extremely good at parallel processing. In fact, GPU's are MUCH better than CPU's at parallel tasks, because that is what they are designed to do.

Basically, OpenCL will allow us to harness all the power in our computers, not just the CPU. Why would anyone care about OpenCL at the CPU level? It really offers no benefit.
 
Whilst we're talking about offloading tasks from the CPU... why are there no movie encoders that benefit from quicksync? Or are there?

From what I've seen, quicksync is being used during playback of H.264 encoded files, but I don't see the benefits during encoding.
 
The question is, will Apple stick with Toshiba+Samsung combo or move 100% Samsung. I haven't see any sign of a 6Gb/s controller from Toshiba and mixing 3Gb/s and 6Gb/s drives would be a bigger mess.

theSeb said:
Whilst we're talking about offloading tasks from the CPU... why are there no movie encoders that benefit from quicksync? Or are there?

From what I've seen, quicksync is being used during playback of H.264 encoded files, but I don't see the benefits during encoding.
Click to expand...

Media Espresso and Media Converter 7 support QS at least.
 
Has Apple even enabled QuickSync drivers in it's OS? What I mean, is there any way to even take advantage of QuickSync if something was written for it in OSX? I'm just asking. I have no idea either way.....
 
John.B said:
What developer is going to go to all that trouble if there isn't a performance benefit?
Click to expand...

paulrbeers said:
Why would anyone care about OpenCL at the CPU level? It really offers no benefit.
Click to expand...

From what I gather, it makes a lot of sense writing complex parallel tasks in OpenCL. Then, depending on the user's system, the program will decide at run-time which processor(s) to use for a given task.

The user with the Air won't notice anything different, while a user on a MBP, iMac or MacPro will get the added benefits from the GPU using the same program code.
 
austinguy23 said:
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3)

http://9to5mac.com/2012/01/11/the-macbook-air-samsung-ssd-is-about-to-get-twice-as-fast/

I suspect we'll see them in the 2012 refresh.
Click to expand...

Other than someone telling you, how will you now it is twice as fast. There is no way you can "see" the difference in reality testing. Bench testing, yes. Most practical uses, nope....
 
sapporobaby said:
Other than someone telling you, how will you now it is twice as fast. There is no way you can "see" the difference in reality testing. Bench testing, yes. Most practical uses, nope....
Click to expand...

That's absolutely true, but people love benchmarks.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3)

With disk intensive tasks it will be obvious. Booting up is an easy example.

Granted, if all you do is surf the web, you're probably not very amped about it; to each their own...
 
austinguy23 said:
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3)

With disk intensive tasks it will be obvious. Booting up is an easy example.

Granted, if all you do is surf the web, you're probably not very amped about it; to each their own...
Click to expand...

Again good point but I am using two SSD's in my MBP. I use Aperture daily with photo editing as well as Photoshop. I find it very hard to believe that without bench marking equipment anyone will know the difference between my Intel SSD's that run at 3 Gb/s or an SSD running at 6 Gb/s. Mainly it is about bragging rights, and this too is okay but to think that it really makes a difference is unrealistic.
 
austinguy23 said:
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3)

With disk intensive tasks it will be obvious. Booting up is an easy example.

Granted, if all you do is surf the web, you're probably not very amped about it; to each their own...
Click to expand...

Intensive tasks and booting up? I am sorry, but you've lost me with your logic.

Read this

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4341/ocz-vertex-3-max-iops-patriot-wildfire-ssds-reviewed/3

Also read this:

Here are some real world tests that I did between a "fast" Vertex 3 Pro SSD and a "slow" Samsung SSD in a MBA

The slow MBA SATA II SSD manages up to keep up quite well with the fast SATA III Vertex 3

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1293809/

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resize140imagesandwatermark.png
 
The easiest way for apple to respond to this shortage of 470 SSDs is to fully switch to using Toshiba SSDs for current MBA models. In the MBP they already seem to use toshiba SSDs exclusively.

For the next Air of course it would be nice if they switch to SATA III SSDs.
 
theSeb said:
Intensive tasks and booting up? I am sorry, but you've lost me with your logic.
Click to expand...

I said *disk* intensive tasks. Read posts carefully and quote people accurately. One such example is booting. If you don't understand that, there's not much we can do for you.

Not all SATA drives are created equally even within their respective revisions (2.0, 3.0) but it is safe to say that a fast SATA 2.0 drive is generally trounced by a fast 3.0 drive. The following article shows that not only does the OWC SATA 3.0 drive beat the MBA's fastest SATA 2.0 SSD (the Samsung), it THRASHES it. To save you the read, it was found to be an average of 243% faster.

http://www.storagereview.com/owc_mercury_aura_pro_express_6g_review
 
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