Full Laptop Refresh By Holidays?

[Multimedia]

Yeah Eric!

And yeah, she has Tiger on her G4. I guess I could just upgrade them both at the same time. Never thought of that!

Now you're thinking like a true believer. Don't wait and get your C2D as soon as they ship. You will love it and she'll thank you for not hogging her Mac as much as you do now. 😉 Plus then she can hog yours instead. 😛

Then next Spring you can surprise her with a shared upgrade to Leopard right away.

 

[Multimedia]

MacBooks Randomly Shut Down With No Warning?

Random Shut Down. There's a lot of it about. And who is "us"?

"Us" is all the forum members who are too shy to admit their ignorance. Are you saying that MacBooks would shut down - fully turn power off with no warning at all? I did not know that. Wow! That's a very heavy design flaw.

I guess I was out to lunch that month. 😛 😱

 

[skunk]

"Us" is all the forum members who are too shy to admit their ignorance. Are you saying that MacBooks would shut down - fully turn power off with no warning at all? I did not know that. Wow! That's a very heavy design flaw.

I guess I was out to lunch that month. 😛 😱

There have been umpteen threads about it on this very forum, and Apple have acknowledged the problem.

 

[ergle2]

I think the biggest fault in your assumption is that you think that the amount of Apple customers who base their purchase on processor speed is significant.

But that's the point -- we're talking about people who are not yet Apple customers but who might switch. They don't need to know anything about specs, they just need to be able to read and compare a bullet-point list.

Are they a majority? No, maybe 10%. That's a significant 10% when it's people who might go Apple but might go Dell/Toshiba/anyone not Apple, because unlike the majority you describe, they'll go elsewhere. The existing Apple base will buy a new Mac, it's just a case of when. The potential "switch" market will buy a computer, and chances are they'll buy when they need it. So not only are those lost sales this gen, but they make it less likely they'll go Apple with their next computer, and the computer after that, and...

It's all about expanding the Apple-buying universe.

That's where the risk comes in if Apple doesn't update this year.

When Apple decided to go x86, it meant they could finally be competitive in processor speed, features, etc. on all fronts, something they hadn't been for some time. The price of being able to compete is that you have to compete. Apple's advantage is they have a core group of fanatical users who aren't going anywhere. Dell doesn't have that. Beyond that, though, they're still fighting for "switchers", and unlike Dell, Toshiba, etc., Apple's also in a MacOS X vs Windows fight for mindshare.

Apple's still fighting the "Apple is over-priced" thang, too. Selling a premium laptop with an older CPU will feed right into that...

 

[ThunderLounge]

I think the biggest fault in your assumption is that you think that the amount of Apple customers who base their purchase on processor speed is significant.

From what I've seen hanging out at our new Apple retail store (and walking by the Dell kiosk), that's not the case. The average person almost always asks the sales person "Oh, is this model fast enough for me to do [x,y,z] on it? OK, I'll take one". Seems like they have NO clue about what the latest Intel processor is.

I think your point is dead on about people like us that hang out in forums like this, but I really really doubt that we're anywhere near representative of Apple's main user base.

ThunderLounge, unfortunately, I think you're wrong. Every time I've set foot in my local Apple store, I've seen a slew of people in there who know *very* little about computer hardware and technical specs. They look at the Mac Pro towers and ask "This is the real fast model, right?" They often rely heavily on computers for their jobs (anything from writing to wedding photography), but their more technical questions tend to focus sharply one one or two apps they use in-depth.

All this talk about people not wanting to buy a Macbook Pro until it includes the latest Intel CPU is hogwash. Might be true for the crowd that frequents Slashdot and these forums - but we're a MINORITY of the Mac-using public, by far. Most Apple customers buy a Macbook Pro only because they're told "If you get that cheaper Macbook, Final Cut isn't going to work very well for you on it." or what-not. They're trying to buy a machine that solves specific problems for them. They're not all worked up over exactly what CPU revision or model they're getting inside of it compared to the latest Window notebooks from HP or Dell.

Both very valid points. And right now I don't see it as an issue. But in what I was replying to, being a wait until late 2007 for "Penryn" would bring that into focus.

I don't disagree one bit that there are people out there that purchase on need. But then again, regardless of their knowledge level wouldn't they also tend to ask how long the model has been out?

If someone is in an Apple store, then they already know they want a Mac most likely. No question about it. At that point, it doesn't make a difference.

However a year from now if someone is shopping and comparing I can't see that there wouldn't be at least some doubt or wonder in their mind if they compare a 2.66GHz PC notebook (or whatever the C2D speed is at the time), and wonder why the Mac still says 2.16GHz Core Duo. They would see a bigger number and "Core 2", then wonder what the deal was. If they want a Mac, and are set on it, then by all means they will buy the one available. It's the ones considering either or, and doing a little homework, that might be swayed.

Remember, it was a reply to no update until late 2007. Which on its own makes absolutely no sense (to me) whatsoever.

 

[Multimedia]

Final Cut Studio Runs Great On MacBooks

Most Apple customers buy a Macbook Pro only because they're told "If you get that cheaper Macbook, Final Cut isn't going to work very well for you on it." or what-not.

I realize this was not the main point of your post, but I would like to make sure anyone here is not misled by your example. For the record, we know for certain Final Cut Studio runs fantastically well on the "lowly" MacBook. Gonna run even better on the new 2GHz 4MB shared L2 cache C2D MacBook. So just in case any of the newbies here - I see quite a few - were buying into your example of bad advice, wanted to make sure everyone is aware that you only need a MacBook to have a great Final Cut Studio operational experience. 🙂

And in case any of you newbies didn't notice, MacBooks can drive up to 24" 1920 x 1200 WideUXGA Monitors in spanning mode so screen real estate at base is not a problem either. The integrated graphics in a MacBook are plenty strong for video and even Motion 2 has been found to work acceptably well on the MacBook.

I participated in quite a heated discussion on this topic here immediately after MacBooks went on sale. Sorry but I can't find the thread. It was the one announcing that they are shipping back in May. Several FCS College Students bought MacBooks and reported total success running the whole FCS suite on that platform complete with screen shots despite nay-sayers from the sidelines.

 

[ergle2]

For the record, we know for certain Final Cut Studio runs fantastically well on the "lowly" MacBook. Gonna run even better on the new 2GHz 4MB shared L2 cache C2D MacBook.

Yup. Especially if it -- and I assume it does -- takes advantage of SSE. SSE is MUCH quicker on Merom compared to ... well, everything pre-Core 2.

 

[Multimedia]

What Is SSE?

Yup. Especially if it -- and I assume it does -- takes advantage of SSE. SSE is MUCH quicker on Merom compared to ... well, everything pre-Core 2.

I really don't know what SSE is Ergle. What do those letters stand for and what is it? Links? Thanks and I apologize in advance if you're having to repeat yourself and I overlooked an earlier explanation. Just a few sentences will suffice please.

 

[Am3822]

But that's the point -- we're talking about people who are not yet Apple customers but who might switch. They don't need to know anything about specs, they just need to be able to read and compare a bullet-point list.

[...]

That's where the risk comes in if Apple doesn't update this year.

When Apple decided to go x86, it meant they could finally be competitive in processor speed, features, etc. on all fronts, something they hadn't been for some time. The price of being able to compete is that you have to compete. Apple's advantage is they have a core group of fanatical users who aren't going anywhere. Dell doesn't have that. Beyond that, though, they're still fighting for "switchers", and unlike Dell, Toshiba, etc., Apple's also in a MacOS X vs Windows fight for mindshare.

Apple's still fighting the "Apple is over-priced" thang, too. Selling a premium laptop with an older CPU will feed right into that...

Exactly. I might be misguided on this, but as much as I have been won over by OS X's many features, the prospect of paying a top-of-the-line price for a not-so-top-of-the-line hardware with its share of various problems (assorted farmyard noises, heat, etc.) is not very appealing.

 

[ckodonnell]

Yes, and I believe that Core Duos only support up to SSE3. The Core 2 Duos support up to SSE4. I haven't read much about what has changed from SSE3 to SSE4, but these ops have always been relatively helpful in optimization (though, based on experience, it seems your greatest speed-up is if you can clump SSE calls together, which I bet something like FC would be doing).

SSE4 (I'm excited to play with SSE3 too) + 64-bit = Fun new toys

It would also be really great if the GPU was upgraded. It isn't a deal breaker for me though. X1600 will be just fine. No jumping for joy, but I'm not going to gripe.

While I don't have hope for a case redesign (I barely have hope for the C2D on a short term timeline really), I'd love better ventilation, because when the current MBP's start getting warm, they crank down the GPU and CPU speeds. Better ventilation would mean that those two things could stay higher. Someone mentioned a cooler? Wassat?

I'm also iffy on putting random vents into systems though too (Dells have lots of holes), because stuff other than air gets into them! So it's a really tough line that is being walked. I think most of us understand that.

Yup. Especially if it -- and I assume it does -- takes advantage of SSE. SSE is MUCH quicker on Merom compared to ... well, everything pre-Core 2.

 

[ckodonnell]

I know you didn't ask me... but. 🙂

A good way to think about SSE is to think about it like Altivec, only different. Here is an interesting forum post on the differences:

http://episteme.arstechnica.com/gro...31/m/452007527731/r/265009527731#265009527731

Here are some quotes from Wikipedia regarding SSE and it's evolution.

* SSE2, introduced with the Pentium 4, is a major enhancement to SSE (which some programmers renamed "SSE1"). SSE2 adds new math instructions for double-precision (64-bit) floating point and 8/16/32-bit integer data types, all operating on the same 128-bit XMM vector register-file previously introduced with SSE. SSE2 enables the programmer to perform SIMD math of virtually any type (from 8-bit integer to 64-bit float) entirely with the XMM vector-register file, without the need to touch the (legacy) MMX/FPU registers. Many programmers consider SSE2 to be "everything SSE should have been", as SSE2 offers an orthogonal set of instructions for dealing with common datatypes.

* SSE3 called Prescott New Instructions, is an incremental upgrade to SSE2, adding a handful of DSP-oriented math instructions and some process (thread) management instructions.

* SSSE3 is an incremental upgrade to SSE3, adding 16 new opcodes which include permuting the bytes in a word, multiplying 16-bit fixed-point numbers with correct rounding, and within-word accumulate instructions.


* SSE4 is rumored to include 50 new instructions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streaming_SIMD_Extensions
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SSE2
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SSE3
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SSE4

I really don't know what SSE is Ergle. What do those letters stand for and what is it? Links? Thanks and I apologize in advance if you're having to repeat yourself and I overlooked an earlier explanation. Just a few sentences will suffice please.

 

[Multimedia]

Anyone interested in a Hi-def (1920 x 1200) mod for PB/MBP?

Yeah, definitely. Thus far tho', it seems Apple doesn't do cheap upgrades...

1920x1200 is the computer panel size -- widescreen panels are usually 16:10DAR, vs 16:9DAR of HDTV resolutions...

I've vaguely wondered why. I guess it works better for notebook shapes.

Hey look what I found. There's another thread here specifically about retrofitting the existing base of 15" and 17" PowerBooks and MacBook Pros to 1920 x 1200 WideUXGA:

Anyone interested in a Hi-def (1920 x 1200) mod for PB/MBP?

already rolling. So we won't have to wait for Apple to offer it after all - just muster the courage to do it ourselves. 😱 😀

Look at this 15" MacBook Pro with a 1920 x 1200 did-it-him/her-self screen.

Look how lonely the Safari Browser looks on that screen.

Baxter Brittle's System Profiler Describing the screen as if it came from Apple.

And look at what a slow old 1GHz PowerBook G4 Baxter did it on first.

Nice wide shot of the 15" MacBook Pro installation.

 

[jordan.breeding]

Improvements To SSE in Core Microarchitecture

Also,

Here is a link to the page regarding some of the SSE improvements (the improvements to the implementation, not just SSE3 vs. SSE4) that were put into the Core Microarchitecture:

SSE Improvements

I know you didn't ask me... but. 🙂

A good way to think about SSE is to think about it like Altivec, only different. Here is an interesting forum post on the differences:

http://episteme.arstechnica.com/gro...31/m/452007527731/r/265009527731#265009527731

Here are some quotes from Wikipedia regarding SSE and it's evolution.

* SSE2, introduced with the Pentium 4, is a major enhancement to SSE (which some programmers renamed "SSE1"). SSE2 adds new math instructions for double-precision (64-bit) floating point and 8/16/32-bit integer data types, all operating on the same 128-bit XMM vector register-file previously introduced with SSE. SSE2 enables the programmer to perform SIMD math of virtually any type (from 8-bit integer to 64-bit float) entirely with the XMM vector-register file, without the need to touch the (legacy) MMX/FPU registers. Many programmers consider SSE2 to be "everything SSE should have been", as SSE2 offers an orthogonal set of instructions for dealing with common datatypes.

* SSE3 called Prescott New Instructions, is an incremental upgrade to SSE2, adding a handful of DSP-oriented math instructions and some process (thread) management instructions.

* SSSE3 is an incremental upgrade to SSE3, adding 16 new opcodes which include permuting the bytes in a word, multiplying 16-bit fixed-point numbers with correct rounding, and within-word accumulate instructions.


* SSE4 is rumored to include 50 new instructions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streaming_SIMD_Extensions
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SSE2
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SSE3
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SSE4

 

[david6545]

Hmmm. Personally, I really doubt we'll see any MBP updates until Penryn in late 2007 and even then only a simple drop-in processor refresh.

I don't think we're likely to see any changes in form factor (HDD access bay, case redesign etc) until early 2008. The current MBP design is fine, as it Yonah. Why change it?

For an easy access HD Bay and better ventilation. Your noiton it won't change for more than another year is the wildest I've seen posted here yet. 🙄 😱

I was joking of course. That said, I wouldn't put it past Apple to delay that long. 🙄 😉

 

[ergle2]

Yes, and I believe that Core Duos only support up to SSE3. The Core 2 Duos support up to SSE4. I haven't read much about what has changed from SSE3 to SSE4, but these ops have always been relatively helpful in optimization (though, based on experience, it seems your greatest speed-up is if you can clump SSE calls together, which I bet something like FC would be doing).

SSE4 (I'm excited to play with SSE3 too) + 64-bit = Fun new toys

Apologies for the pedantry up front 🙂

Core 2 Duo only supports SSE3 + SSSE3 ("Suplemental SSE3" -- commonly mistakenly called SSE4. Why they didn't, I don't know...).

SSE4 (partial) will be in in Penryn and the other refresh/die-shrink parts, with full SSE4 in Nehalem.

At least such is my understanding of Intel's current roadmap.

Wikipedia has a quick explanation of the new SSSE3 instructions.

As you say, FC should (and if not, will!) take advantage of SSE bigtime. The only reason I see for it not doing so already could be the time it takes to get the software written and tested...

 

[ergle2]

I really don't know what SSE is Ergle. What do those letters stand for and what is it? Links? Thanks and I apologize in advance if you're having to repeat yourself and I overlooked an earlier explanation. Just a few sentences will suffice please.

SSE is the name for Intel's SIMD instruction set. (MMX was a prior, integer-only SIMD extension to x86). SSE = "Streaming SIMD Extensions".

My attempt at a simple explanation for non-programmers:
For certain types of highly repetitive work - video, compression, 3D graphics, etc., SIMD allows you to load multiple data points in one go (say, multiple pixels), and process them in one fell swoop -- so you can load, say, four pixel instead of one.

As you can imagine, this gives a very nice speedup.

Merom gives a huge speedup for SSE due to all instructions now completing in a single cycle. In the past, the 128bit instructions required at least 2 cycles due to it loading 64bits of data per cycle.

As another poster said, AltiVec on the G4/VMX on the G5 is also a SIMD instruction set extension.

I've not looked at it (AltiVec) at all, but perhaps someone au fait can tell me if the new SSSE3 stuff in Core 2 is adding stuff that AltiVec programmers were used to having.

 

[daneoni]

Just got back from another Apple store visit. Saw the 24" iMac and it was HUGE!!!!. Makes the 20" look like the 17" and the 17" like a 15".

The screen is amazingly bright and easily mesmerising. All those who used it couldnt/wouldnt leave the system alone for a good 40 mins i was there. Weird thing the About This Mac showed the processor to be "2.16 Intel Core Placeholder". Dunno what that means and wonder why it didnt simply say Intel Core 2 Duo.

All the MBPs i tested seem cooler than initially when they came out...maybe its just me though. The glossy screens arent that bad either.

If only they had Core 2 Duos in them. Sigh.

 

[macman2790]

how early do you guys think that santa rosa/leopard will be released next year. I'm still trying to decide whether or not to buy the merom update or wait for that. It's a hard choice i don't need one now but i sure do want one but i'm willing to wait

 

[jfsouza]

hey wait... someone mentioned in the other thread on photokina that the iMac uses the Mobile Core 2 Duos... if so... and if this trend is continued than won't the next iMac use Santa Rosa?

 

[Multimedia]

Early Spring For Leopard • Late Spring For Santa Rosa

how early do you guys think that santa rosa/leopard will be released next year. I'm still trying to decide whether or not to buy the merom update or wait for that. It's a hard choice i don't need one now but i sure do want one but i'm willing to wait

From what I've read here, looks like early Spring for Leopard and late Spring for shipping Santa Rosa Macs.

Nobody really knows - not even Apple and Intel. 😉 Plans change.

I think waiting for Santa Rosa or Leopard falls into the category of "I'm happy with what I'm using now and don't really need a higher performance Mac yet." I'm in the "Dual-Clovertown Mac Pro comes first and then if I really want a mobile C2D I'll assess that next" group.

I may just wind up with a white 2GHz C2D MacBook as it fits my idea of the best balance between power and money for a very casual mobile Mac user like myself right now. I'm thinking of it as a digital video recorder in the field more than anything else. I'm blabbing on and on now . . .

 

[Multimedia]

iMacs May Get Santa Rosa Motherboards As Well Next Year

hey wait... someone mentioned in the other thread on photokina that the iMac uses the Mobile Core 2 Duos... if so... and if this trend is continued than won't the next iMac use Santa Rosa?

Could be. 😀

 

[macman2790]

hey wait... someone mentioned in the other thread on photokina that the iMac uses the Mobile Core 2 Duos... if so... and if this trend is continued than won't the next iMac use Santa Rosa?

maybe the next imac will use santa rosa, hopefully

 

[david6545]

Who cares if it does or doesn't? Santa Rosa is a platform and will probably make only a little difference. Nothing to get excited about.

 

[Apple Corps]

The PAIN is OVER Finally 🙂

Enough is enough already - I've got a business to run and just placed an order with Amazon for a 17" MBP - DONE !!!

A nice $200 rebate and superb (almost free) expedited shipping as a "Prime Account" customer. AND - no taxes - what more could I ask for from the retailer?

If it is a lemon it goes back to Amazon for an exchange or refund right away - screw the Apple "repair a brand new product defective out of the box" game. If it works as I hope, my needs will be met and I can look at whatever is new whenever it is released and make an informed decision at that time.

A burden has been lifted - 😉

 

[macman2790]

have there been any processor specs released for the santa rosa platform other than the ultra low voltage models?