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Apple Gains Early Access to Intel's Z68 Chipset for New iMacs
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This isn't very hard to do today. Easier to complain about it than spend an hour figuring out how to do it?
That Engadget author apparently doesn't know how to move his iTunes settings between computers, or how to manually manage music on any iPod/iPhone.
Come on, you know how this works. Some random techie guy finds an obscure thing that only a small portion of the populace might use, layman blogger or forum troller latches onto said thing and beats it to death as something they (and everyone else who isn't speaking) must have without understanding why they need it (or in this case, don't need)!
That said, I would much rather have wireless syncing.
A Preview of Summer Attractions
I'm willing to wager that this chipset implements an as-yet undisclosed low-level feature in Lion.
Remember all those Macs that had undisclosed N networking that Apple later revealed and activated? My MacBook Pro only supported a 32-bit kernel and 4GB of memory for two years. When Snow Leopard came out, it suddenly supported a 64-bit kernel. When Apple updated the EFI, it suddenly supported 8GB of memory.
This chipset is sleeper that will wake up when Lion roars.
I'm willing to wager that this chipset implements an as-yet undisclosed low-level feature in Lion.
Remember all those Macs that had undisclosed N networking that Apple later revealed and activated? My MacBook Pro only supported a 32-bit kernel and 4GB of memory for two years. When Snow Leopard came out, it suddenly supported a 64-bit kernel. When Apple updated the EFI, it suddenly supported 8GB of memory.
This chipset is sleeper that will wake up when Lion roars.
The Z-68 will be the choice for overclockers. Read the Tom's report. And check out the pc forums for a lot more info about this chipset.
The kicker though is what happens then... You clearly don't need a $500 SSD to take advantage of the hybrid SSD/HDD speeds. This should be a $20 (20gig) SSD chip. So what will Apple do? Offer a small SSD option for the iMac when Lion is out??
If Apple officially allows users to overclock their iMacs that would be historic.
Interesting chipset usage but nothing to show right now. My Core i5 750 is still plenty of power for now.
Tom's Hardware took another look at Z68 before release.
Tom's Hardware took another look at Z68 before release.
Since this intel chipset includes SATA III, why are the new iMacs only showing up as SATA II?
Personally I'm very excited about the SSD caching technology. I hope Apple supports it and I hope it works with any combination of SSD and HD sizes (and ideally, with one SSD and multiple HD). It may not be that useful for some users, and for some users it might be best with a fairly small SSD, but for the work I'm doing I would get a huge benefit from being able to do it with a fairly large SSD. I have gigs of data on disk but I only use a small subset of that data on a regular basis, and I need to access that data at SSD speeds. Something like this would be perfect for my use, I hope macs get that feature (and I hope it gets included with future Mac Pros).
Personally I'm very excited about the SSD caching technology. I hope Apple supports it and I hope it works with any combination of SSD and HD sizes (and ideally, with one SSD and multiple HD). It may not be that useful for some users, and for some users it might be best with a fairly small SSD, but for the work I'm doing I would get a huge benefit from being able to do it with a fairly large SSD. I have gigs of data on disk but I only use a small subset of that data on a regular basis, and I need to access that data at SSD speeds. Something like this would be perfect for my use, I hope macs get that feature (and I hope it gets included with future Mac Pros).
Or maybe Intel is using them as a showcase for their integrated graphics.
You're right, that's not going to happen, but in the pc forums this chipset is really being looked forward to.
I would probably opt for a full SSD in anything beyond a Mac Book and a Mac Mini, but in each of those cases, I can see that a small amount of SSD cache would give a great bang for the buck. Interesting that these both, along with the Mac Book Air and Mac Pro, are due for an update.
Wasn't that idea to package the SSD cache with the drive, in which case, wouldn't it make sense just to offer a HD option such as the Seagate Momentus XT?
Wasn't that idea to package the SSD cache with the drive, in which case, wouldn't it make sense just to offer a HD option such as the Seagate Momentus XT?
Guys, you're making a lot of assumptions on very little data. You clearly admit you don't know how it can be used, then say it has to use some specific types of apps to do its job.
How about simply accepting the data as it is given and wait to see what comes of it--hmmm?
How about simply accepting the data as it is given and wait to see what comes of it--hmmm?
Unless I'm reading this wrong.....
Apple did a great deal in getting early versions of new Intel chips which have a brand new feature built into them, which Apple are failing to correctly utilise.
Errrr, great
How do we know they're failing to utilize it? Just because they're not using it at this very minute, isn't it possible that Lion may? Remember, this chipset isn't even on any other MoBo at the moment.
I thought the whole point of this was that you used a small SSD drive coupled with a fast and very large HDD so you got the benefits of both without the limitations of either.
SSD = Very Fast, but very expensive and small capacities.
HDD = Fast, and very cheap, just not quite as fast as a SSD
So, when the two are combined, you will probably get near full SSD speeds most of the time combined with the capacity of a HDD all in one device.
The speed increase comes from storing commonly used files on the SSD. It's like RAM. The bigger your SSD for caching, the faster your computer will be over time as it gets filled up.
All nice ... but really worth going down that road?
SSD prices are falling fast and I think there is no need to use some patch work to make it a little bit faster and a little bit more affordable to bridge just some small amount of time until SSD is affordable for everyone - At least I want 100% SSD power - that cache probably will be to small to cache my iPhoto library so iPhoto will startup as slow as from a old HD, since I upgraded to full SSD, iPhoto is finally usable with my big library and everything is instant instead of beach ball.
I hope they are using other features of that cheap and are not doing it (only) for the caching.
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The big thing about the Z68 chipset is that it allows you to use quick sync AND discrete gpu.
Not sure about quick sync output quality yet. If it's as good as the software x264 as used by handbrake then we'd be on a winner (if supported by the os / QuickTime)
Eg, eyeTv exports to AppleTv would take a few minutes. Export to iPod could take seconds etc!!
The big thing about the Z68 chipset is that it allows you to use quick sync AND discrete gpu.
Not sure about quick sync output quality yet. If it's as good as the software x264 as used by handbrake then we'd be on a winner (if supported by the os / QuickTime)
Eg, eyeTv exports to AppleTv would take a few minutes. Export to iPod could take seconds etc!!
Oh I agree, in an ideal world, Today we would have 2TB SSD's for a couple of hundred dollars.
And also Warp Drive, Transporters and Food Replicators.
Unfortunately for all those products that day is not here yet.
One day we will have SSD's large enough to store everything, and Yippeeee, I look forward to that day, but if we can link a Super Fast SSD to a Super Cheap and BIG HHD and get great speed for "Most" people when they are doing "Most" tasks then that's the best compromise we can have today.
As time goes on of course, things will change, but at any point in time you have to come up with the best and most practical/affordable solution to any given problem.
That's why CPU's have a small amount of ultra fast memory cache on them, it's exactly the same.
You can't realistically have all your memory running at CPU speeds, so the CPU uses it's onboard memory as best it can and pulls in or writes to slower cheaper memory when it has to.