Intel Core 2 Quad in January

[Clive At Five]

None at all. The iMac uses the mobile platform.

I wouldn't say "none at all." It would take a Mo-Board redesign (since I think the desktop and laptop variants are not pin-compatible) and major airflow redesign as you can be sure that these babies produce more heat than the Core 2 Duos.

I would give it a "Very Slim."

-Clive

 

[AppliedVisual]

I wouldn't say "none at all." It would take a Mo-Board redesign (since I think the desktop and laptop variants are not pin-compatible) and major airflow redesign as you can be sure that these babies produce more heat than the Core 2 Duos.

I would give it a "Very Slim."

-Clive

I agree, but think it's possible for the 24" and potentially larger (30"???) future products. I don't know if it would make a whole lot of sense though... But I do think Apple needs an offering between the iMac and the Mac Pro in the form of a smaller mini tower or cube style system. Even though the price doesn't reflect much of a gap, there is a huge gap in performance and configurability between the iMac and Mac Pro lines that is begging to be filled.

 

[QCassidy352]

Wouldn't make it faster on my Macbook (2GHz Core Duo 1st gen), the bottleneck is the superdrive.

huh? I've been ripping a DVD on my macbook (see sig) with handbrake for the past 3 hours and it's not done (H.264, 1100 bitrate, 2-pass encoding). both cores have been at 100% use the entire time, so I'm pretty sure more horsepower would make a significant difference.

 

[a456]

Looks like Core 2 Quad PCs are already on sale in the UK. Advent PCs, which I think are PC World's own brand and usually the cheap option have a three thousand pound model with this processor in, 2 x 400GB hard drive and 2 X 512MB Graphics Cards: http://www.pcworld.co.uk/martprd/editorial/intel-quad-core?camp_id=ppc_google_2_core_quad

If I thought there was any possibility that Vista would put all this to good use it would be make me very excited, but unfortunately it has the same flaw as every other PC and we all know what that is.

 

[mark88]

The fact that there are no plans for this chip in any Apple computer merely proves that there is a huge gaping whole in Apple's product line-up.

They really need an upgradable machine with no integrated display to sit between the iMac and Mac Pro.

 

[Clive At Five]

I agree, but think it's possible for the 24" and potentially larger (30"???) future products. I don't know if it would make a whole lot of sense though... But I do think Apple needs an offering between the iMac and the Mac Pro in the form of a smaller mini tower or cube style system. Even though the price doesn't reflect much of a gap, there is a huge gap in performance and configurability between the iMac and Mac Pro lines that is begging to be filled.

I would love to agree with you, and I'd buy that system in a heartbeat, but I don't think it's in the cards. Why? Because every time the gap between the iMac and the MacPro widens, Apple shoves a pricier iMac inbetween (your speculated 30", maybe). It's their excuse not to introduce a new model which will inevitably canibalize part of the MacPro sales and a significant portion of iMac sales. Apple doesn't want either of these things to happen because selling MacPros and iMacs mean premium prices for hardware and a built-in display, respectively. They know that if there's a mid-range tower, that cost-cautious prosumers will buy it and, very likely, turn around and buy a third-party display. Apple makes less on cheaper hardware than the MacPro, or nothing on the lack of an iMac display.

Both of these mean less $$ for Apple.

-Clive

 

[Clive At Five]

If I thought there was any possibility that Vista would put all this to good use it would be make me very excited, but unfortunately it has the same flaw as every other PC and we all know what that is.

Does it start with "W" and end with "indows," perhaps?

-Clive

 

[weldon]

It's their excuse not to introduce a new model which will inevitably canibalize part of the MacPro sales and a significant portion of iMac sales. Apple doesn't want either of these things to happen because selling MacPros and iMacs mean premium prices for hardware and a built-in display, respectively.
Both of these mean less $$ for Apple.

I understand what you are saying, but Apple could make such a product, hold their margins where they want, and fill a need that will allow more people to switch and thus grow their overall revenue without sacrificing anything. I think the only argument against a mini-tower Mac that holds water is that it would be more expensive to support than the iMac as people mess around with video cards and replacing their own drives and such. Still, they do this with the Mac Pro, so they should know the cost.

 

[Rod Rod]

I do believe Moore's law has met its demise. Simple physics results in processor speeds and capacities being limited by nanometer mask limits and power blow-thru limits.

Moore's Law pertains to the number of transistors, not clockspeed.

edit: ok, you said capacities... but you said clockspeed too.

 

[AidenShaw]

Santa Dell just brought me an Octo and 6 Quads

How many other manufacturers offer quad core chips already?

I just received a Dell PW490 (two quad Xeon 5355s (2.66GHz)), and 6 PW 390s with C2 Extremes (quad 2.66GHz).

Dell has quite a few server and desktop models availabe with quad cores at the full range of speeds.

Same for HP and IBM. Most big vendors seem to be able to offer a quad-core option for the high end of their models with Core 2 or Xeon 5100 chips. Usually it's just a CPU upgrade option, not a special quad core model.

For example, the Dell PW490 has the options:

• Dual Core Intel® Xeon® Processor 5060 3.20GHz, 2 X 2MB L2,1066 [add $130]
• Dual Core Intel® Xeon® Processor 5160 3.00GHz, 4MB L2,1333 [add $930]
• Dual Core Intel® Xeon® Processor 5150 2.66GHz, 4MB L2,1333 [add $520]
• Dual Core Intel® Xeon® Processor 5140 2.33GHz, 4MB L2,1333 [add $260]
• Dual Core Intel® Xeon® Processor 5130 2.00GHz, 4MB L2,1333 [add $130]
• Dual Core Intel® Xeon® Processor 5120 1.86GHz, 4MB L2,1066 [add $60]
• Dual Core Intel® Xeon® Processor 5110 1.60GHz, 4MB L2,1066 [Included in Price]
• Quad Core Intel® Xeon® Processor E5320 1.86GHz, 2 X 4MB L2,1066 [add $620]
• Quad Core Intel® Xeon® Processor X5355 2.66GHz, 2 X 4MB L2,1333 [add $1,290]
• Quad Core Intel® Xeon® Processor E5345 2.33GHz, 2 X 4MB L2,1333 [add $1,030]

My octo and quads were ordered on the 15th, and delivered yesterday and today. Less than two weeks for CTO, even with the holidays.

 

[Rocketman]

Moore's Law pertains to the number of transistors, not clockspeed.

edit: ok, you said capacities... but you said clockspeed too.

I should have said "or", but my point was made.

Rocketman

 

[Rocketman]

Grossly expensive? From what I read at AppleInsider the price of the incoming 2.33 Quad processor is the same that Apple was paying for the 2.33 Duo processor last year - essentially, they could replace the whole line with Quad Core chips and keep the same price points.

I could be mistaken.

However, you would not be.



Rocketman

 

[aswitcher]

So would a quad be a good choice for a Mac Mulitmedia centre, because it can use the cores to allow dual HD recording whilst conducting playback of a recorded image?

 

[AidenShaw]

So would a quad be a good choice for a Mac Mulitmedia centre, because it can use the cores to allow dual HD recording whilst conducting playback of a recorded image?

Yes.

 

[weldon]

So would a quad be a good choice for a Mac Mulitmedia centre, because it can use the cores to allow dual HD recording whilst conducting playback of a recorded image?

Depends. You don't really need a lot of hardware power to do HD recording because your only current option is to record ATSC broadcasts. In that case, you just need to keep up with the 19.2Mbps stream, which is fairly easy. The decoding (MPEG-2) is also pretty easy and can be done with a fairly cheap Broadcom chip. Where you need power is in doing transcoding from MPEG-2 to H.264 or something else, or decoding H.264, VC-1, etc. All the current HD DVR solutions rely on just sending the stream to disk and decoding the MPEG-2 from the stream just as it was sent. That doesn't take a lot of horsepower.

 

[AidenShaw]

The decoding (MPEG-2) is also pretty easy and can be done with a fairly cheap Broadcom chip.

A dedicated chip is "cheap"?

When was the last time you designed a mass-market consumer product? Adding dedicated hardware is usually a second choice if the CPU (which you need anyway) can do the job.

Look at Apple's recommendations for HD playback (http://www.apple.com/quicktime/guide/hd/recommendations.html) and tell me again that "it doesn't take a lot of horsepower".

 

[weldon]

You missed what I said. You pointed to H.264 decoding requirements to refute my point about MPEG-2 decoding. Of course, I already said that H.264 is where you need more power. Try again.

If you want to record HD material, your only option right now (at the consumer level) is to record an ATSC stream to disk (or possibly QAM with CableCard). These streams contain MPEG-2. This is not hard.

Adding dedicated hardware is usually a second choice if the CPU (which you need anyway) can do the job.

This is not born out by observing what actually happens in the industry. Consumer electronics almost always use dedicated IC's rather than general purpose CPU's. Look at TiVo, Motorola DVR's, SA, etc. All these use low-power CPU's and dedicated IC's for decoding. Shoot, look at the iPod for goodness sakes.

As for cheap, the Broadcom BCM7411D can do everything you need and is used in the Toshiba HD-DVD player available at around $450. Certainly a lower price point than anything with a quad-core chip in it.

 

[SeaFox]

This is not born out by observing what actually happens in the industry. Consumer electronics almost always use dedicated IC's rather than general purpose CPU's. Look at TiVo, Motorola DVR's, SA, etc. All these use low-power CPU's and dedicated IC's for decoding. Shoot, look at the iPod for goodness sakes.

As for cheap, the Broadcom BCM7411D can do everything you need and is used in the Toshiba HD-DVD player available at around $450. Certainly a lower price point than anything with a quad-core chip in it.

I agree. Aiden's thought of a quad-core in a low-slung entertainment box sounds like a recipe for crispy transistors. I as a consumer would rather have smaller, dedicated MPG encoding hardware handling the steams instead of having all the processes sharing time on a central CPU (cue rebuttal that the quad-core can be split with different cores handling the tasks separately).

 

[Erasmus]

But the quad-core can be split with different cores handling the tasks separately!

(I just want to see this rebuttal)

 

[Spanky Deluxe]

But I do think Apple needs an offering between the iMac and the Mac Pro in the form of a smaller mini tower or cube style system.

*Not* *going* *to* *happen*, I'm afraid. People have been dreaming about this for ages but at the end of the day Apple feel that consumer machines are replaceable. When it gets old and slow you don't upgrade it, you get a new one. You might want a machine that you can upgrade yourself but from Apple's point of view you don't need that and if you really want upgradeability you'll get a Mac Pro. Apple will probably release a 30" iMac at *some* point but I don't envisage it happening for a good while yet (they only released the 24" one a few months ago). Maybe in a year or two and I'd expect only after there's been a larger display available separately for a year or so.
A mid ranged headless mac does not make good business sense in the slightest, the profit margins would be lower, it would take away sales from the Mac Pro and the iMac 24" and would require significant R&D costs towards using the Intel Core Desktop processors and platform for one model. The workstation/server platform is used by two high cost model lines, the mobile platform is used by 7 different packaged products. Using a whole new platform for one low profit unit which users will upgrade using third party upgrades is just bad business sense.

 

[BenRoethig]

I wouldn't say "none at all." It would take a Mo-Board redesign (since I think the desktop and laptop variants are not pin-compatible) and major airflow redesign as you can be sure that these babies produce more heat than the Core 2 Duos.

I would give it a "Very Slim."

-Clive

It would either have to become about 5 inches thick and loud as hell for the extra airflow or be something akin to the lamp shade iMac with a bigger base. If quad core CPU are coming to Mac consumers it will be a new product line.

 

[MacsAttack]

huh? I've been ripping a DVD on my macbook (see sig) with handbrake for the past 3 hours and it's not done (H.264, 1100 bitrate, 2-pass encoding). both cores have been at 100% use the entire time, so I'm pretty sure more horsepower would make a significant difference.

If you use MacTheRipper to rip the DVD onto the HD, and then Handbreak from there you get better performance in the long run. I was testing out my 3GHz Mac Pro by ripping and converting a season of Stargate (just a test to see how fast this machine was)... All you have to do is rip onto HD and set up a queue and let it churn away...

Good point was the Mac Pro remained fuly responsive so I could do other work on it at the same time. Bad point was that Handbreak looks like it only uses two cores effectivly.

Problem with adding exta cores is that all too few programs actually will use them. Thankfully I use other software that DOSE use all four cores, but for the average consumer I fear the software developers are still floundering around in the 20th century.

Hardware manufacturers need to keep pushing cooler less power hungry desktop hardware - not just slap a few more cores in there (which brings everything back up to being too hot and too power hungry). For servers the rules are a little different - but lower power consumption is still where they need to be going there as well.

 

[AidenShaw]

This is not born out by observing what actually happens in the industry. Consumer electronics almost always use dedicated IC's rather than general purpose CPU's. Look at TiVo, Motorola DVR's, SA, etc. All these use low-power CPU's and dedicated IC's for decoding. Shoot, look at the iPod for goodness sakes.

We are talking about a Mac here, not a Slingbox.

Those custom ASICs are not very flexible, and sometimes not even very good. (http://www.anandtech.com/multimedia/showdoc.aspx?i=2778&p=5) You're stuck forever with whatever algorithms and compromises went into the silicon. (If the ASIC doesn't provide the 320x168 pixel ratio for the new video iPod, you're stuck.)

One of the tasks of a media centre is real-time transcoding of video. You don't send a 1080p stream to a laptop on WiFi - you don't have the bandwidth and many laptops don't have the resolution.

The media extender component of Intel's Viiv platform includes transcoding support - one of the reasons why only multi-core systems carry the "Viiv" label.

For specific tasks, an ASIC is good. For a flexible home media centre - it's nice to have lots of CPU power for flexibility.

Multi-core (and Cell) are going to be seen in a lot of home theatre applications. ASICs in the iPods and portable players, of course.

 

[weldon]

A mid ranged headless mac does not make good business sense in the slightest, the profit margins would be lower, it would take away sales from the Mac Pro and the iMac 24" and would require significant R&D costs towards using the Intel Core Desktop processors and platform for one model.

I don't believe this. Why would it have lower profit margins? Couldn't they maintain the same margins as the Mac Pro, just with cheaper parts?

And how much R&D is really involved? They are using complete chipsets from Intel. Sure, they need a new case, but that can't be a huge problem, can it?

My argument is that a mini-tower would attract a new segment of the market that has stayed away from the Mac platform. You're going to get gamers (especially w/ Boot Camp) and the prosumer market looking for a fast, upgradeable box that doesn't have all the fancy features of the Mac Pro (two opticals, four quick-swap drive bays, etc.). I say it makes good business sense because such a product would grow the market for Apple and bring in new customers.

Of course, I don't get paid to run the required market studies or make such decisions for Apple, so they may disagree.

 

[AidenShaw]

Of course, I don't get paid to run the required market studies or make such decisions for Apple, so they may disagree.

They may disagree, or they might just be distracted by the task of trying to stay out of jail....