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Intel Introduces Core i7 Quad-Core Mobile Processors

AidenShaw said:
Sadly, if recent history has any bearing, you're more likely to see an Atom CPU in an Imac that's 2mm thinner than the current one - rather than seeing a capable CPU.
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Actually, an Atom-ic Imac isn't a bad idea per se.

It would be interesting for people looking for the "greenest" light duty computer.

It wouldn't be interesting for anyone doing any CPU intensive applications.

If Apple believed in choice, then both an Atom-ic Imac and a quad core Nehalem Imac could be in the lineup.

But please, none of them with chins.
 
If Apple do not get their act together and ship a quad core Macbook Pro soon I will just give up and get the Alienware. Now in 15in with a choice of 3 quad processor speeds and up to 8M RAM. I have been using Macs since 1984 and despair of their engineers now worrying more about making laptops out of one piece of metal than delivering power. The Alien' also has a newer GPU. I hope Apple sack the fashionistas and hire more real engineers.
 
Given that memory bandwidth halves every time the number of cores double, wouldn't it makes sense for Apple to use Hyper threading and go with an intentionally 2 core + 2 hyperthreading configuration?

They'd end up with something like this which a lot of people would be very happy about: -

3 or 6 RAM slots to accommodate DDR3 for maximum bandwidth (I've seen nearly 20Gb/s in PC Core i7 benchmarks).

2 core + hyper threading enabled by default for maximum bandwidth/clock speed.

Apple could state the speed as up to 2.8Ghz, up to 3.06Ghz etc and just use some benchmarking etc... to show the speeds of the systems. The Mhz Myth is pretty much irrelevant to people these days.
 
barkmonster said:
*stuff*

Apple could state the speed as up to 2.8Ghz, up to 3.06Ghz etc and just use some benchmarking etc... to show the speeds of the systems. The Mhz Myth is pretty much irrelevant to people these days.
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pfft maybe for those of us in the know! literally 95% of people i know have no idea about computers - they think that a P4 3.2GHz CPU is better then a 2.0GHz dual core. i think there should be a mandatory test result with each computer sold, that would make it much easier for the...uhh... less informed ;)

care to explain how memory bandwidth halves with every double core? what if the core isnt currently being used, does that open up 100% bandwidth for the other cores, or are the bandwidths reserved?
 
DoFoT9 said:
pfft maybe for those of us in the know! literally 95% of people i know have no idea about computers - they think that a P4 3.2GHz CPU is better then a 2.0GHz dual core. i think there should be a mandatory test result with each computer sold, that would make it much easier for the...uhh... less informed ;)

care to explain how memory bandwidth halves with every double core? what if the core isnt currently being used, does that open up 100% bandwidth for the other cores, or are the bandwidths reserved?
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I don't know precisely how the Core i7 distributes clock speed and bandwidth. If it literally switches off 1 core to clock up the remaining 3, then it's a hell of lot more complicated than the explanation of Mac Pro bandwidth in Quad and 8-Core systems below...

http://www.barefeats.com/octopro1.html

"Memory bandwidth is inadequate for 8-cores. It's already a limiting factor with the current quad-core 3.0 GHz Mac Pro. Memory copy speed is at best 2.9GB/sec on the Mac Pro, in spite of Apple's highly misleading claims of 21.3 GB/sec (maximum processor bandwidth of up to 21.3 GB/s. bandwidth is a bit more than double the memory copy speed). That's a measly 700MB/sec per core on a quad-core machine, and only 350MB/sec per core on an octa-core machine. By comparison, a 6-drive hard disk RAID array can easily perform at over 400MB/sec!"
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Something to look forward to if it related to the performance of the new mobile cores in the slightest...

2.66Ghz Core i7 920 "Hackintosh" with 6Gb of 667Mhz DDR3: - Geekbench Score 7598

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ig1_YJeze18

2.66Ghz Core i7 920 "Hackintosh" @ 3.61Ghz with 12Gb of 1600Mhz DDR3: - Geekbench Score 11801

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xOYB-fYcZM&feature=fvw
 
Performance...

In terms of performance,interrogating an Corei7 processor into the iMac G6 probably would increase heat due to it's streamlined looks and weight.I know it's small but obviously the SuperDrive sort of like revs up while reading a disc.So obviously this will increase the speed but may effect the iMacs interior hardware design.
 
DoFoT9 said:
pfft maybe for those of us in the know! literally 95% of people i know have no idea about computers - they think that a P4 3.2GHz CPU is better then a 2.0GHz dual core. i think there should be a mandatory test result with each computer sold, that would make it much easier for the...uhh... less informed ;)
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Exactly.

I'd venture to guess that a large percentage of people who buy from places like BestBuy think that the larger the HD, the faster the computer. Or going from 2GB of RAM to 4GB means twice the performance.

When it comes it selling computers to the general public, you're dealing with the truly ignorant.
 
zw-gator said:
Exactly.

I'd venture to guess that a large percentage of people who buy from places like BestBuy think that the larger the HD, the faster the computer. Or going from 2GB of RAM to 4GB means twice the performance.

When it comes it selling computers to the general public, you're dealing with the truly ignorant.
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I know a gentleman who bought more RAM for his computer because he thought it would make his "downloading stuff faster."

And yes, he bought the wrong RAM. :D
 
AidenShaw said:
But it just might make it faster....
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But many people have this idea that the speed of the system is determined by the amount of RAM installed, which isn't exactly true. A netbook with 16 terabytes of RAM installed would still perform relatively slowly thanks to its Atom CPU.

Also, most everyday users don't understand the concept of 32 and 64-bitness, and how that relates to how much RAM can actually be seen and used by applications and the system itself.
 
Terminal.app said:
But many people have this idea that the speed of the system is determined by the amount of RAM installed, which isn't exactly true.
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It's not *exactly* true, but it's often true. ;)

Two things about my comment...

  • IE8 uses more RAM than IE7 (the process-per-tab-group is a big reason). Systems that were on the edge as far as memory (the 256 MiB systems from 6 years ago) are going over the edge with IE8. Adding memory to these systems will make surfing and downloading noticeably faster.
  • Excess memory is used for filesystem caches, so extra memory does make the system seem snappier™. Windows 7 and Vista, in fact, will pre-load frequently used applications into cache so that they're ready for the first use. (Some people look at the fact that Win7/Vista seldom have much completely free memory available because of this - and decide that it's bloat, rather than a useful optimization.)
 
It seems surprising to me that, at this point, Apple still doesn't have a quad core iMac. If, early last year, Apple had had a quad core iMac that supported at least 8GB of RAM I probably would have gone that route rather than a more expensive, larger, Mac Pro. Instead, I overbought with an 8 core system, which now has 14GB of RAM because it can take it.
 
kevink2 said:
It seems surprising to me that, at this point, Apple still doesn't have a quad core iMac. If, early last year, Apple had had a quad core iMac that supported at least 8GB of RAM I probably would have gone that route rather than a more expensive, larger, Mac Pro. Instead, I overbought with an 8 core system, which now has 14GB of RAM because it can take it.
Click to expand...

That's a +1 for Apple and a -1 for an Apple customer. Just think of the Dual 24" screens, 8Gb RAM, huge external drive or even BTO SSD drive you could have spent all that Mac Pro money on if you'd had an iMac model with the features you needed.
 
kevink2 said:
It seems surprising to me that, at this point, Apple still doesn't have a quad core iMac. If, early last year, Apple had had a quad core iMac that supported at least 8GB of RAM I probably would have gone that route rather than a more expensive, larger, Mac Pro. Instead, I overbought with an 8 core system, which now has 14GB of RAM because it can take it.
Click to expand...

It has to do with the thermal constraints. The imac as it stands today is basically a jumbo MBP
 
kevink2 said:
It seems surprising to me that, at this point, Apple still doesn't have a quad core iMac.
Click to expand...

zw-gator said:
It has to do with the thermal constraints. The imac as it stands today is basically a jumbo MBP
Click to expand...



Nope. The iMac would have the capability of carrying a quad,even without any large re-engineering.
The TDP of old G5 were much higher than present cpu´s, so there still is overhead with the heat.

The problem would be that it would compete with and undermine the quad Macpro...
It would be very close in raw computing speed,and apple would have their hands full trying to explain why "1500$ iMac beats their 3000$ workstation".
They would take a hit in their their sales/profits off the low end Macpros in a hartbeat.They wont do that.

iMacs will go quad core,just propably not yet.
And if they go now,they would use that lower clockspeed quads that would have enough difference with the MPs.
 
barkmonster said:
Excellent article. This page shows that even with 4 cores being used, there's still over 17Gb/s of bandwidth available but based on the "per core" analysis of barefeats, that would make it even less than the Mac Pro gets wouldn't it?

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=3634&p=7
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I thought they claim that the way Apple counts up bandwidth isn't accurate. It appears that the memory itself has more bandwidth than the CPUs can handle.
 
barkmonster said:
I don't know precisely how the Core i7 distributes clock speed and bandwidth. If it literally switches off 1 core to clock up the remaining 3, then it's a hell of lot more complicated than the explanation of Mac Pro bandwidth in Quad and 8-Core systems below...

http://www.barefeats.com/octopro1.html
Click to expand...
reading that article it doesnt really show us if it "switches" memory bandwidth priorities or not, as most of those tests are completely pegging the CPU.

zw-gator said:
Exactly.

I'd venture to guess that a large percentage of people who buy from places like BestBuy think that the larger the HD, the faster the computer. Or going from 2GB of RAM to 4GB means twice the performance.

When it comes it selling computers to the general public, you're dealing with the truly ignorant.
Click to expand...
some are ignorant, most are uninformed. its more because of the social images that people dont know anything about computers. it is considered "geeky" to know stuff, you get teased by your friends and plastered by your non-friends for being a nerd. dont i know it. then their computer breaks and you're their best friend.

computers are the way of the future and there NEEDS to be an emphasis on teach everyone the basics (or maybe not so that it keeps me in the job haha).

Terminal.app said:
I know a gentleman who bought more RAM for his computer because he thought it would make his "downloading stuff faster."

And yes, he bought the wrong RAM. :D
Click to expand...
what a silly g00se haha.

AidenShaw said:
But it just might make it faster....
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well yes it may or may not. it really depends on the configuration of the computer. if he had 2gb in his system running XP and IE8 then yea putting in 4gb wont make much difference.. if he had 512mb and upped to 2gb then the differences may be more apparent, but we cannot speculate as there are MANY other factors that could be causing the slowdown.

kevink2 said:
It seems surprising to me that, at this point, Apple still doesn't have a quad core iMac. If, early last year, Apple had had a quad core iMac that supported at least 8GB of RAM I probably would have gone that route rather than a more expensive, larger, Mac Pro. Instead, I overbought with an 8 core system, which now has 14GB of RAM because it can take it.
Click to expand...

well you were the smart one werent you. as others have said there are many reasons why there is no quad core imac. i personally think its because apple is waiting for the right price, type of CPU and the right time for them to implement it. they will bring out something that will be different (i feel). they will probably wait for the 32nm quads, less heat and more power. hopefully that will be the right time :)
 
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