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core 2 duos obsolete?

garybUK said:
I have a 2.4ghz Intel Core 2 Duo with 4GB RAM with the Nvidia 8600GT graphics, there is absolutely nothing wrong with these graphics chips, please who are advising against them have probably never used one or are scaremongering..... Mine failed way back, apple replaced the logic board (after blaming me!!! I had a big row with the "Genius")....

Anyway, now it's done it's been running games and such for about 2 years without problem, I'm sure if they have been replaced, the issue has been resolved and you will be good.
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Unfortunately you are wrong, that is why NVIDIA, put aside literally 100`s of millions to deal with this very issue. The premature failure of the GPU`s was extensive affecting many notebook manufacturers. Some will get lucky, my own Early 2008 MBP is still on it`s original Logic Board, some not so; going through several boards, some lucked out with Apple`s great customer service, getting a completely new replacement MBP.

One of my corporate Dell Notebook`s suffered the same fate and the motherboard was replaced three times, each time for NVIDA GPU failure. There is no fix, the 8600GT GPU`s are prone to premature failure what exact percentage only NVIDIA knows and they are not exactly wanting to spill the beans.

Point being for someone on a tight budget this is an increased risk, especially as these machines are starting to go beyond Apples agreement of four years. Apple will only honour the agreement is the machine boots and can be tested, if not it`s on your $$$ a machine this old is just not worth such an expensive repair, and in the OP`s case it would put him straight back to a NetBook....
 
maril1111 said:
Next time you compare geekbench scores please use machines that are in a similar range cuz right now its like you are comparing a ford fiesta to a porsche.
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It`s the real world comparison I have and can experience, as you say, the C2D and iCore notebooks are vastly different in performance. My wife`s 11" MacBook Air 1.4 i5 scores 4608 versus the 2008 C2D Penryn`s 3167, like I said the C2D has had it`s time. The OP will be better served by waiting a little longer and getting a better machine, a little patience can go a long way ;)
 
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bill-p said:
No. Lion is disproportionately faster on a quad-core i7 vs anything else that is dual-core. But that's only if Lion was the only metric.

If I were to include Snow Leopard in the picture, then the iMac 24" with its 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo actually runs Snow Leopard even faster than the quad-core i7 runs Lion. The Macbook Air actually ran Snow Leopard the fastest, but it was the slowest machine when running Lion.

So it was like this:

Lion: MBP 15" 2011 > MBP 13" 2010 > iMac 24" 2007 > MBA 13" 2010
SL: MBA 13" 2010 > MBP 13" 2010 > iMac 24" 2007 > MBP 15" 2011 on Lion

So the question is... why didn't I just stay at C2D? Well, I figured the quad-core chip would help in some key applications (AutoCAD and the likes), and it did. But general UI performance of Lion is just terrible compared to Snow Leopard. General UI performance under SL maxes out at around the performance of a 1.86GHz Core 2, and then the difference was only with SSD and app launching speed, but it's not the same with Lion. A prime example is you can try to go to Launchpad and see if the animation does not stutter or hesitate.
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I really like most people here disagree with what you say beyond comprehension. Lion doesn't use significantly more processor than Snow Leopard. as I sit here and type this in Safari with mail, cal, itunes, pages and word open I'm using 2% ish cpu and 2.65GB RAM and my CPU temp is 41 Deg. When snow Leopard was on this machine it used more RAM because it was not as efficient but the same CPU. There is no significant day to day performance improvement going to the Core i processors it's truly only noticeable when transcoding video and the like.

OP your C2D will not be obsolete meaning unusable before you have no use for it. My 12" PowerBook is ow being used by my daughter. It's back on Tiger and will even play YouTube, Facebook and other flash based games more slowly but still plays them. What you getting now is last years stuff sucked and only the newest will work. People are trying to justify purchases that tey really didn't need just wanted. 10.8 will most likely work on C2D 10.9 may have issues but probably not..BUY THE COMPUTER YOU CAN AFFORD AND DON'T WORRY ABOUT US

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Queen6 said:
It`s the real world comparison I have and can experience, as you say, the C2D and iCore CPUs are vastly different in performance. My wife`s 11" MacBook Air 1.4 i5 scores 4608 versus the 2008 C2D Penryn`s 3167, like I said the C2D has had it`s time. The OP will be better served by waiting a little longer and getting a better machine, a little patience can go a long way ;)
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there is more than CPU effecting that score...
 
bill-p said:
Core 2 Duo on Macs from 2010 and prior are about the same in capability to Core i5 and Core i7 dual-core on 2011 Macs. If I have to guess, you'll still be able to use Core 2 Duo until the end of Lion's lifetime, which is... many years from now.
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I agree with this, too.

The C2D is not that "old", having been replaced rather recently as far as processors go. I am still running a Core Duo iMac and it's fairly snappy. If you are talking G5 then that's truly obsolete. I would say expect a good three years with your 2010 C2D Macbook.

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dba415 said:
Dual core is still dual core in the end. Upgrade RAM or add an SSD and you will be fine with a C2D
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For now until probably 2014, this statement is true. I don't think quad core laptops will become universally standard until the end of this year. The dual core laptops, PC and Macs, are still good enough for almost everything (or 95% percent like another poster mentioned).

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GermanyChris said:
there is more than CPU effecting that score...
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Exactly, and Intel themselves mentioned that the then new Core i chips, while a big jump, was still only 10% percent faster than C2D.

Not many of us here will really feel that or care. The next generation of Core i, or the second generation Core i Series, had improvements over the first generation of the Core i, but not as much in speed.

I think if anything, the second generation of Core i chips will have noticeably better battery time than Core 2 Duo if you want to find something. As for performance the C2D will take a long time to be considered slow by any measure.
 
GermanyChris said:
I really like most people here disagree with what you say beyond comprehension. Lion doesn't use significantly more processor than Snow Leopard. as I sit here and type this in Safari with mail, cal, itunes, pages and word open I'm using 2% ish cpu and 2.65GB RAM and my CPU temp is 41 Deg. When snow Leopard was on this machine it used more RAM because it was not as efficient but the same CPU. There is no significant day to day performance improvement going to the Core i processors it's truly only noticeable when transcoding video and the like.
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Of course Lion wouldn't use more CPU than SL when you aren't doing anything. It's only when you swipe your fingers on the trackpad or launch Launchpad or do anything to invoke an animation that the CPU kicks in, but only briefly. Apple knows how to keep it snappy by imposing a time limit for animations, so if the animation can't complete in time, it'll just jump or not show at all.

But that's the point. On a quad-core i7, most animations would start and complete almost in time, but that's not the case with dual-core processors at all, and it's really hard to keep track because these things happen in a split second, and they don't show up on your Activity Monitor at all.

But you wanna see it soar, right? Try sliding two fingers up and down the trackpad in Safari on a webpage with a lot of images. In fact, try this page:

http://www.theverge.com

Scroll up and down on it, continuously. On my Mac Mini 2011, which is practically the fastest dual-core computer I have in the house, the graph shows 2 threads maxing out and 2 others jumping up and down. Activity Monitor reports 220% CPU usage. Considering it's 2 cores 4 threads, I'll consider that 220/400.

But on the quad-core i7? The graph shows 4 of the 8 threads barely moving at all. Activity Monitor reports 100%. Considering it's 4 cores 8 threads, that's 100/800.

Not convinced? The same page on the Macbook Pro 13" 2010 gives 125% under SL, and 190% under Lion. Considering it's 2 cores 2 threads, it's 125/200 and 190/200 respectively.

I never said the difference was between a Core i and a Core 2. The difference was between a quad-core and a dual-core CPU. But in any case, it's evident that Lion itself still uses more CPU than Snow Leopard.
 
bill-p said:
Of course Lion wouldn't use more CPU than SL when you aren't doing anything. It's only when you swipe your fingers on the trackpad or launch Launchpad or do anything to invoke an animation that the CPU kicks in, but only briefly. Apple knows how to keep it snappy by imposing a time limit for animations, so if the animation can't complete in time, it'll just jump or not show at all.

But that's the point. On a quad-core i7, most animations would start and complete almost in time, but that's not the case with dual-core processors at all, and it's really hard to keep track because these things happen in a split second, and they don't show up on your Activity Monitor at all.

But you wanna see it soar, right? Try sliding two fingers up and down the trackpad in Safari on a webpage with a lot of images. In fact, try this page:

http://www.theverge.com

Scroll up and down on it, continuously. On my Mac Mini 2011, which is practically the fastest dual-core computer I have in the house, the graph shows 2 threads maxing out and 2 others jumping up and down. Activity Monitor reports 220% CPU usage. Considering it's 2 cores 4 threads, I'll consider that 220/400.

But on the quad-core i7? The graph shows 4 of the 8 threads barely moving at all. Activity Monitor reports 100%. Considering it's 4 cores 8 threads, that's 100/800.

Not convinced? The same page on the Macbook Pro 13" 2010 gives 125% under SL, and 190% under Lion. Considering it's 2 cores 2 threads, it's 125/200 and 190/200 respectively.

I never said the difference was between a Core i and a Core 2. The difference was between a quad-core and a dual-core CPU. But in any case, it's evident that Lion itself still uses more CPU than Snow Leopard.
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Never goes above 32%

Lion will not use significantly more CPU because it dual over quad..nor does it use more RAM
 
bill-p said:
No. Lion is disproportionately faster on a quad-core i7 vs anything else that is dual-core. But that's only if Lion was the only metric.

If I were to include Snow Leopard in the picture, then the iMac 24" with its 2.4GHz Core 2 Duo actually runs Snow Leopard even faster than the quad-core i7 runs Lion. The Macbook Air actually ran Snow Leopard the fastest, but it was the slowest machine when running Lion.

So it was like this:

Lion: MBP 15" 2011 > MBP 13" 2010 > iMac 24" 2007 > MBA 13" 2010
SL: MBA 13" 2010 > MBP 13" 2010 > iMac 24" 2007 > MBP 15" 2011 on Lion

So the question is... why didn't I just stay at C2D? Well, I figured the quad-core chip would help in some key applications (AutoCAD and the likes), and it did. But general UI performance of Lion is just terrible compared to Snow Leopard. General UI performance under SL maxes out at around the performance of a 1.86GHz Core 2, and then the difference was only with SSD and app launching speed, but it's not the same with Lion. A prime example is you can try to go to Launchpad and see if the animation does not stutter or hesitate.
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this comes off as a post just to diss lion, which amuses me because I think it's a fine OS.

and I am finding Lion runs just as fast, if not faster, than SL did on my machine (early 2011 17" MBP)
 
I greatly prefer Lion, but it does seem to make the user interface significantly slower than when I ran SL.
 
GermanyChris said:
Never goes above 32%

Lion will not use significantly more CPU because it dual over quad..nor does it use more RAM
Click to expand...

I didn't say it uses more RAM. But it definitely does use more CPU, and if you can't see that, good for you. Unfortunately, I can see it plain as day, on many different machines. If I have the time, I would go through each one and record actual hard numbers that I know are right, but I don't.

GuitarG20 said:
this comes off as a post just to diss lion, which amuses me because I think it's a fine OS.

and I am finding Lion runs just as fast, if not faster, than SL did on my machine (early 2011 17" MBP)
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Why would it be a post to diss Lion? I'm using the OS myself, and it's perfectly fine. Couple of things about it I like better than SL even. Mission Control for one thing.

But the UI performance is just not up to my standards on anything less than a quad-core i7.

On a side note, your MBP 17" Early 2011 does have a quad-core i7, so Lion should run just fine on it.

BrickbookPro said:
Here is where you lost your credibility. I'm running it very well on a 2010 base 13".
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My credibility was never better than you, or the next guy over. It's simply my experience and assessment. Of course it runs fine. Lion should install and run just fine on a Macbook Air with a 1.4GHz Core 2 Duo. That doesn't mean its UI performance is okay for everyone.

I have experienced the same on a MBP 13" 2010 (2.66GHz, not base), a MBA 13" 2010 (this one is base), and an iMac 24" 2007. That's one too many computers for me to simply dismiss it as an anomaly.

If you are happy with yours, then good for you.
 
bill-p said:
My credibility was never better than you, or the next guy over. It's simply my experience and assessment. Of course it runs fine. Lion should install and run just fine on a Macbook Air with a 1.4GHz Core 2 Duo. That doesn't mean its UI performance is okay for everyone.

I have experienced the same on a MBP 13" 2010 (2.66GHz, not base), a MBA 13" 2010 (this one is base), and an iMac 24" 2007. That's one too many computers for me to simply dismiss it as an anomaly.

If you are happy with yours, then good for you.
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I don't see the UI as lacking at all and nor have I seen issues on any of the other C2D machines I've looked at. Swiping between desktops, scrolling, using the launchpad and any of the other gestures display no lag. Animations are smooth, etc.

I consistently run about 4-8 tabs open in Google Chrome, Mail, iTunes, Photoshop Elements, bridge CS3 and sometimes Call of Duty 4 (I'll close PS for this).

There must be something wrong with your installs or something. Are you using a common time machine back up that could have corrupted files?

Either way, if you're speaking to your experiences, then perhaps you should mention that rather than speaking in broad sweeping statements that are not true. The fact is Lion can and should run quite well on a C2D.
 
BrickbookPro said:
I don't see the UI as lacking at all and nor have I seen issues on any of the other C2D machines I've looked at. Swiping between desktops, scrolling, using the launchpad and any of the other gestures display no lag. Animations are smooth, etc.

I consistently run about 4-8 tabs open in Google Chrome, Mail, iTunes, Photoshop Elements, bridge CS3 and sometimes Call of Duty 4 (I'll close PS for this).

There must be something wrong with your installs or something. Are you using a common time machine back up that could have corrupted files?

Either way, if you're speaking to your experiences, then perhaps you should mention that rather than speaking in broad sweeping statements that are not true. The fact is Lion can and should run quite well on a C2D.
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I'm with him, there is something wrong with your installs..OS's simply don't use that much CPU, programs on your computer do but the OS naaa..
 
I used to love to look at benchmarks as the processors evolved. But to keep things fair, it was hard to get a good feel as to how the computer seemed to perform because I would move, like the processors, from Windows 98 to 2000 to XP, etc and OS 9 to Jaguar to Tiger to Snow Leopard.

As the processors became faster and ran cooler, the operating systems, at least with Windows and Macs, grew at a faster rate and bogged down the system. My C2D 2.53 Ghz Mac mini is nice with Snow Leopard and 4 gigs of RAM but doesn't hold a candle, speed wise, to C2D 2.0 Ghz Mac mini with Tiger but 2 gigs of RAM. Where I didn't use to see the beachball that much, it's much more common with Snow Leopard and newer machine. That being said, Snow Leopard is a lot more of an OS than Tiger was.

I am curious to see how both machines run Lion.
 
Core2Duos work just fine. Definitely not the fastest machine around for your power hungry tasks, but more than adequate.

I've got an old 2,1 MacBook 2 GHz C2D running 10.5.8 and just recently upped from 1GB to 4GB (or 3.3) RAM. I can run multiple tabs in Chrome and Firefox (use both for different tasks), iTunes/Spotify, and Illustrator CS5 without issue.

CPU intensive tasks - like maybe ripping a DVD with Handbrake - will certainly be slower than a newer/more powerful processor, but it's not ant-crawling slow either.

About to hit 5 years on this laptop. Kinda hoping I can squeak 1-2 more out of it before I replace it, as long as nothing major breaks. Knock on wood.
 
My Macbook Pro (see signature) does run Lion quite decent, although it does feel a tad slower than Snow Leopard. I do have to mention that I also run the full disc encryption FileVault 2 on this Laptop.

I will upgrade the Ram from 4 Gigabyte to 8 Gigabyte soon, as Lion and the most Basic Apps (Safari, Mail, iTunes, Finder) use to eat up almost all of my 4 Gigabytes. My guess is Lion should run much faster with 8 Gigabyte of Memory.

Anyone has any experience in terms of Performance Gains with a Ram Upgrade from 4 to 8 Gigabytes on such a machine? Checking Activity Monitor, I really seem to be using up almost my entire 4 GB of RAM since Lion.
 
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tblrsa said:
Anyone has any experience in terms of Performance Gains with a Ram Upgrade from 4 to 8 Gigabytes on such a machine?
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It's like breathing new life into your computer. Running Lion on 4GB can be frustrating as memory left is always low but with the extra, the computer never slows down when opening applications or using them. I don't miss the spinning beach ball at all. At about $40 for 2x4GB Ram modules it's definitely worth the investment.

EDIT: Although Safari and itunes are pretty basic apps, they can each use up 1GB of memory each pretty easily. Lion seems to eat up memory like there's no tomorrow.
 
Alright, Memory is cheap these days, so no reason not to upgrade to 8 Gigabyte. Next update will be an SSD, if the drives will ever go down in price that is. At the moment I´m having my eye on the Intel 320 SSD with 300 Gigabyte, but its too expensive at this point.

Those upgrades should prolong the life span of a C2D machine quite a bit.
 
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From a technical standpoint, the C2D has been obsolete for a while - since the 1st generation Core i3/5/7 CPU's came out. But, it depends on what you are doing with the machine. For example, I have the low-end model of the first 11" Macbook Air - 1.4GHz C2D, 2GB RAM, 64GB SSD. The machine works perfectly fine for surfing the web, light programming, managing the Linux machines at work. Combined with a 22" monitor at home, I could get by with it being my only PC - for home.

At work, I have a last-gen i3 iMac with 8GB of RAM. But I do web development on this machine, and I could really use an i5 or i7, and maybe an SSD. It'd be a real chore to do this on my 11" Air. I'd have to make quite a few changes to the way I work. For one, I'd probably have to do all my work on a staging server and not run a web/database server on my local machine. I'd probably need an external drive because I'd need around 60GB for SVN checkouts and test databases.
 
C2D system will be viable for quite a while and as other pointed out there are always things you can do to improve overall performance such as maxing out memory and adding a SSD.

Heck, my original MacBook 2.0 Core Duo (no 2) is still preforms very well for what I use it for (email, calendar, web browsing). I rarely if ever think it feels slow. Of course since iCloud isn't supported on 10.6 and it can't do 10.7 that part is frustrating as it no longer can sync my contacts and such. But that is a different issue.
 
azentropy said:
Of course since iCloud isn't supported on 10.6 and it can't do 10.7 that part is frustrating as it no longer can sync my contacts and such.
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You could just use google's services which can do all the syncing for free as opposed to the quite expensive service from Apple. Porting is bit of a hassle but iCal/Contacts all support google's sync.
 
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