Still think you're part of the majority?
The Pentium Ds in my office are too much for 90% of people just in my office. I really gotta say that their desk is more common than yours.
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Apple to Skip Intel Arrandale? Demands Alternative Chip?
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Still think you're part of the majority?
The Pentium Ds in my office are too much for 90% of people just in my office. I really gotta say that their desk is more common than yours.
What????? Intel is going to put someone else's Intellectual Property into their own production line?
To connect the CPU to the memory controller you are going to need a license to QPI. You know, exactly the IP that Intel is not licensing to anyone (without forking over stupid money). Even if Apple could license it what is the point of paying all that much more money to license in order to get a more inexpensive chip. That's robbing Peter to pay Paul logic.
Far more likely would be a request that Intel kill/switch off the graphic's subsection and Apple just pays less for less function. The CPU package isn't likely going to get any smaller if the graphics functionality is switched off. It is one of two dies in the package. The first die with the CPU is still just as big.
Seems far more likely that Apple wants to pay less for the CPU package for which they are not going to use the GPU of. There is nothing "new" or additive to pack into the package if permanently turn off the graphics.
There is nothing wrong with integrated graphics. Practically the whole current line up has it. Integrated graphics don't have to be poor performing graphics. Granted you aren't going to get upper percentile performance, but "good enough" is doable. Intel just hasn't delivered solutions with the right set of trade-off's to make many folks happy.
To leverage one memory controller for both CPU and GPU usage is a something that isn't going around. It is more efficient solution which will be increasingly hard to displace if not pushing hard on the graphics performance envelope.
If you are running a VM then quad core is preferable if you want everything else to remain fluid. For most mundane tasks, even an Atom is acceptable.
No, it is not the consumer market. The text you quoted even says that. Only the spin-meisters around here keep equating the two and/or with the overall market. All you can say about the NPD numbers is that they cover retail. That's it. Retail is not the consumer nor overall market. Sophisticated consumers are not any more slaves to retail storefronts than businesses are.
RE: Apple and Arrandale by: Theo Valich on 12/5/2009
After publication of the story, we have received information that sheds new light on the situation.
We'll try to confirm, but it looks like Apple is going to wait for Sandy Bridge, coming later in 2010.
Ed.
--- This was posted in the comment section of the article from the author. If this turns out to be true I'm going to strangle something...
After publication of the story, we have received information that sheds new light on the situation.
We'll try to confirm, but it looks like Apple is going to wait for Sandy Bridge, coming later in 2010.
Ed.
--- This was posted in the comment section of the article from the author. If this turns out to be true I'm going to strangle something...
I wonder why Apple doesn't consider the intel 4500 integrated solution. or does that not even apply to this kind of processor?
Hmmm, I wonder how many people go to work and solely looking at the operating system all day?
Major Office applications the OS isn't the primary factor of what they are doing with the computer.
Probably a few since Apple TV is running Pentium class silicon.
The Snow Leopard advantage is crippleware. The real question is if Snow Leopard in running on 80386? How much memory is in Apple TV or iPhone? Not much.
Remember, nobody really needs more than 640k . . . . .
Rocketman
Apologies. Yes, it only covers retail, and mostly brick-and-mortar stores. Which is a big chunk of the consumer market.
As for "sophisticated consumers", however, there are far fewer than you think.
Everything nowadays is about cloud computing...
I mentioned this before, if they ever put a HD 5xxx series card, they have to introduce new GPUs for the Mac Pro and the iMac, to keep their superiority but is still welcomed nonetheless.
And about the IGP's performance, it can run Crysis at low settings (it's faster than the X4100(?)) but we still want discrete graphics.
Late 2010 for Sandy Bridge seems a bit optimistic.
If that means Penryn until Sandy Bridge I can see why. If it's true then I won't be far from doing so too, especially if Clarksfield isn't going to make it to the MacBook Pros.
no more like
Steve: I hear that AMD has good low end GPU'S.
And then Intel said Yes so fast that there head spined.
What do the PC makers do?
Intel will definitely be offering versions of Arrandale without the integrated graphics chip in the package.
Look at PC laptops today. Most of the cheap ones for people that don't care about graphics have built-in X4500HD (which is what's into Arrandale), and the higher-end performance laptops have a discrete NVidia or ATI graphics chip. This will not change when Arrandale shows up.
Apple would love to use Arrandale for all their higher-end laptops that already have discrete graphics, but it remains to be seen if they have enough leverage to get early access to more powerful Intel integrated platforms. My best guess:
- they refresh the "pro" macbook pros (the ones with discrete graphics) when arrandale comes out
- they do a very basic refresh of the integrated graphics models, just as we now have Core i5/i7 iMacs & Core2 iMacs in the same product lineup
- they badger Intel to give them early access to integrated Larrabee graphics that do not suck so that they can refresh the lower-end macbooks in time for the start of the 2010 back-to-school season.
Intel will definitely be offering versions of Arrandale without the integrated graphics chip in the package.
Look at PC laptops today. Most of the cheap ones for people that don't care about graphics have built-in X4500HD (which is what's into Arrandale), and the higher-end performance laptops have a discrete NVidia or ATI graphics chip. This will not change when Arrandale shows up.
Apple would love to use Arrandale for all their higher-end laptops that already have discrete graphics, but it remains to be seen if they have enough leverage to get early access to more powerful Intel integrated platforms. My best guess:
- they refresh the "pro" macbook pros (the ones with discrete graphics) when arrandale comes out
- they do a very basic refresh of the integrated graphics models, just as we now have Core i5/i7 iMacs & Core2 iMacs in the same product lineup
- they badger Intel to give them early access to integrated Larrabee graphics that do not suck so that they can refresh the lower-end macbooks in time for the start of the 2010 back-to-school season.
Possibly one of the best things I've seen in the last year.
2nd Place
OT. This can be an interesting point. However, I don't believe PA Semi chips are designed for computers in general, just portable devices that need low power chips. Maybe this would work for the MBA but, I don't know.
As others have said, this is if it's true at all
Steve,
Your computers suck anyways, so why do you care? If you want CPUs without integrated GPUs, use PowerPC.
-Paul
BTW, what's iPhone?
Sent from my PC.
I wonder how many of you "Quad Core now for Pro Apps" people are actually you know professionals. Especially since many professional studios aren't up with the latest and greatest tech.
What would the point of this be? Apple would still have to get Intel to make them an IGP-less Arrandale, so they might as well just use a GPU they don't have to beg for. Larrabee was supposed to be discrete, and making an integrated version now just for Apple would be much more troublesome than just cutting out the present IGP.
Actually, I think this bodes well for the choice of next MBP GPUs. To me, this means that Apple has determined that there is no point in having a low power GPU for conserving battery, as well as a high power GPU for performance. This suggests they will use modern GPUs with excellent power saving modes when idling. Like the AMD 5 series
EDIT: Apple probably determined that most people don't bother switching their 9600's off, and using only the 9400 either.
WTF, get outa here! Dont you have something better to do than be a niggly little annoying noise?
PowerPC is not evil / trade IGP for cache
Not sure where all the hate for PowerPC is coming from. It served Apple well enough until the last year or two. It also is still used by many other companies as well as the POWER series.
The POWER series continues to evolve and now includes VMX (Altivec). The G5 is related to the POWER4. Since then IBM has released POWER5, POWER5+, POWER6, and soon POWER7. It is probably feasible to run OSX on POWER6 but would require optimization for full performance benefits. The cost, heat, and power of just one dual core processor running at up to 5.0 GHz would limit it to servers and workstations. Nevertheless, it is an option available to Apple in the highly unlikely event that they decide to release another PowerPC compatible computer.
So, Apple actually has several options besides Intel including shifting focus away from x86 if there is some competitive advantage to be gained by the switch. Apple could move fairly quickly if not without difficulties to AMD, PA Semi ARM or PPC, IBM PPC or POWER. This is good news for consumers as it gives Apple leverage in negotiations with Intel even if they are not seriously considering these other options.
As for Arrandale, I wonder if Intel could replace the GPU with just a large cache? Could it be done quickly and at modest expense? Perhaps something like this has been already tried in their labs?
Not sure where all the hate for PowerPC is coming from. It served Apple well enough until the last year or two. It also is still used by many other companies as well as the POWER series.
The POWER series continues to evolve and now includes VMX (Altivec). The G5 is related to the POWER4. Since then IBM has released POWER5, POWER5+, POWER6, and soon POWER7. It is probably feasible to run OSX on POWER6 but would require optimization for full performance benefits. The cost, heat, and power of just one dual core processor running at up to 5.0 GHz would limit it to servers and workstations. Nevertheless, it is an option available to Apple in the highly unlikely event that they decide to release another PowerPC compatible computer.
So, Apple actually has several options besides Intel including shifting focus away from x86 if there is some competitive advantage to be gained by the switch. Apple could move fairly quickly if not without difficulties to AMD, PA Semi ARM or PPC, IBM PPC or POWER. This is good news for consumers as it gives Apple leverage in negotiations with Intel even if they are not seriously considering these other options.
As for Arrandale, I wonder if Intel could replace the GPU with just a large cache? Could it be done quickly and at modest expense? Perhaps something like this has been already tried in their labs?
Any references where this has been stated by Intel or leaked in some timeline?
Arrandale has a PCI-e connection for an external discrete graphics.
Same set up as higher-end Mac laptop and iMacs have now which is two graphics engines.
Apparently, even Intel thinks Larrabee is no where near ready for prime time. Latest news/rumor is that they canceled the initial silicon for Larrabee:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-10409715-64.html
So that isn't something for the start of anything in 2010. Apple is going to bet-the-farm on a graphics vendors who had to toss version 1.0 of the silicon? Don't think so. Maybe after they get something onto the market that proves itself. One reason why Macs are stable is that they often don't have version 1.0 of initial try of a underlying major component.