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Intel Mac mini at MacWorld San Francisco in January?

define "better"

EricNau said:
Because they cam do better ;)
Click to expand...
Would it be "better" to have an entry MiniMac at a lower price point, or to lose the sale to a Windows system?

You can still put the faster Pentium M chip in the higher end consumer systems....

BMW can "do better" as well, but they still sell the 3-series 2.0 L models to the people who would not be able to afford the same car with a 3.0 L engine....
 
AidenShaw said:
These chips are not yet available on the market (although the next-generation Yonah chips are now sampling (low volume pre-production)).

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentium_m and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conroe for more info about these upcoming chip families.



It's very unlikely that Apple will sell Itaniums - it is a different ISA which is not binary compatible with x86. Itanium would require another transition as serious as the PPC->x86 transition. The only way that this would happen would be if the x64 architecture hits a stone wall in a few years, and a radical change is required.


On your next plane trip, grab and save the barf bag - you may need it!

A Celeron would make a lot of sense for low-end Apple products. The Celeron M is the same chip as the Pentium M, just with smaller L2 cache and usually a lower range of FSB speeds.

Just perfect for Apple to use to put a real differentiator between lower end and mid-range models - while keeping the margins high by using the Celeron on the low end....

The "gack - Celeron" attitude around here is rather misinformed, Celerons offer good value and more than adequate performance. They're a bit slower, but quite a bit cheaper.

Why do you think that BMW sells a new 3-series with a 1.8 Litre engine?

Why shouldn't Apple put a Celeron M in an entry MiniMac or iBook?
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AidenShaw said:
Would it be "better" to have an entry MiniMac at a lower price point, or to lose the sale to a Windows system?

You can still put the faster Pentium M chip in the higher end consumer systems....

BMW can "do better" as well, but they still sell the 3-series 1.8 L models to the people who would not be able to afford the same car with a 3.0 L engine....
Click to expand...
I guess for Mac mini's and iBooks it's ok. My original question was about iMacs and Powermacs...I just really don't want to see a celeron for higher-end computers.
 
What about the graphics?

My only concern is the GPU for the intel macs. For some, integrated Intel graphics are okay for the average user but what about those who do like a little more graphics muscle?:confused:
 
heartsglory said:
My only concern is the GPU for the intel macs. For some, integrated Intel graphics are okay for the average user but what about those who do like a little more graphics muscle?:confused:
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What do you mean by graphics muscle?

Photoshop?

Integrated will eat it just fine.
 
heartsglory said:
My only concern is the GPU for the intel macs. For some, integrated Intel graphics are okay for the average user but what about those who do like a little more graphics muscle?:confused:
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Don't think the mainstream Mac Mini owner really expects "muscle" in the GPU.
Afterall it is the Mini and not a Powermac.It's not designed to sport a lot of muscle..
 
Anyway does anyone know the exact date for MWSF?

I still stand by my prediction that there will be a PB release that day (a 7448!) so I will probably sell my current one before then :)
 
Sma

I was merely concerned about SMA, shared memory architecture. SMA is NOT cool. Wish it would just come with something that is known for decent rendering. Maybe even something like a decent (9600+) Radeon or a Geforce 5200FX go. Sure the laptop in my sig is an Emachines laptop (wish it was a mac) BUT because it has at least a decent gpu, I can still enjoy the occasional game on top of the average use of emails, internet, programming assignments (Computer Science major), etc. In my opinion the intel Extreme Graphics card is weaker than the current GPU in the mini. (Don't flame me for my opinion :) ) But why go backwards in features, you know?
 
Intel 900 is optional...

heartsglory said:
In my opinion the intel Extreme Graphics card is weaker than the current GPU in the mini. (Don't flame me for my opinion :) ) But why go backwards in features, you know?
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Your opinion might change if you actually check some of the graphics benchmarks for the Intel graphics - it's pretty strong on some important tasks, although weak on high end 3D.

Like the Celeron M, the integrated graphics would be a good fit for the entry-level MiniMac/iBook to keep the price down. It would also meet the needs of most people who are looking for an entry-level system. Not everybody needs great 3D, nor do they want to pay for it. It also saves power (heat) and space, useful in very small systems like the MiniMac and laptops.

Just because you may not want integrated graphics, doesn't mean that it doesn't have a place in the lineup.

The Intel graphics is not required - some Intel chipsets don't have it, and some motherboards have both integrated graphics and a PCIe bus for discrete graphics. (Note how integrated graphics appears in the low end of the PC lineups, and discrete chips as you move up the range. Some lower/middle boxes have both integrated graphics and a PCIe slot for graphics, so one can choose - even after purchase.)

Low-end MiniMac - Celeron M, integrated graphics
High-end MiniMac - Pentium M, embedded nVidia or ATI 3D

Note that there are many reports on the web that the Apple Intel Developer Kit systems are very fast and snappy - and those systems have integrated graphics.
 
AidenShaw said:
Would it be "better" to have an entry MiniMac at a lower price point, or to lose the sale to a Windows system?

You can still put the faster Pentium M chip in the higher end consumer systems....
Click to expand...
I often shake my head in disagreement with AidenShaw's posts (although I don't think I've ever actually argued with him) but he's absolutely right about this. This review link is for a 1.3GHz Celeron M vs a 1.4GH Pentium M. Any performance difference can be explained by the difference in clock speed. The Celeron M falls down on battery life, but that's not a problem for desktops.

There is absolutely no advantage in using an expensive Pentium M in a Mac Mini over using a Celeron M, except that the clock speed tops out at 1.6 GHz (I think).

On the other hand, the Celeron version of the P4 is crap, not even useful for overclocking these days.
 
AidenShaw said:
It's very unlikely that Apple will sell Itaniums - it is a different ISA which is not binary compatible with x86. Itanium would require another transition as serious as the PPC->x86 transition. The only way that this would happen would be if the x64 architecture hits a stone wall in a few years, and a radical change is required.
Click to expand...

the only place where it would make sense is in the xserves. besides, darwin is as portable as apple touts it to be, they can easily accomplish this.
 
huh?

jhu said:
the only place where it would make sense is in the xserves. besides, darwin is as portable as apple touts it to be, they can easily accomplish this.
Click to expand...
Like I said, an Itanium (IA64) port would be as major as the PPC->x86 transition.

Getting Darwin running might be easy, but you'd have no applications... Not even OSX (note that OS X (even on PPC) is basically a 32-bit O/S - everything on Itanium needs to be true 64-bit).

Who'd want an Xserve without any applications?
 
AldenShaw's Opinion Rules!

AidenShaw said:
Would it be "better" to have an entry MiniMac at a lower price point, or to lose the sale to a Windows system?

You can still put the faster Pentium M chip in the higher end consumer systems....

BMW can "do better" as well, but they still sell the 3-series 2.0 L models to the people who would not be able to afford the same car with a 3.0 L engine....
Click to expand...
Or to those who do NOT WANT TO pay more for gas to a guzzling 3 liter model when they can SAVE ON GAS with the 2 Liter model. It is not necessarily an economic decision. It can also be a GREEN choice. So the analogy is not a good one. Nevertheless, I think AldenShaw's roadmap info combined with his/her intimate understanding of how these Intel chips perform leaves him/her in charge of knowing what's what when it comes tot he transition. :p
 
AidenShaw said:
Like I said, an Itanium (IA64) port would be as major as the PPC->x86 transition.

Getting Darwin running might be easy, but you'd have no applications... Not even OSX (note that OS X (even on PPC) is basically a 32-bit O/S - everything on Itanium needs to be true 64-bit).

Who'd want an Xserve without any applications?
Click to expand...

it depends on what the xserve is used for. all opensource programs can be recompiled it. i don't have any experience with xserves, so i don't know what types of proprietary applications people run on these things.
 
SiliconAddict said:
Three words: Access and MapPoint
Add to that the several thousand dollars of software I have on hand that would be virtually flushed and I hope you get a small idea of where I'm coming from. And please. Please don't tell me to get a PC desktop. I do most of my work on the road. I need these tools on the road. Would you suggest I drag a PowerBook and my ThinkPad with me everywhere I go?
A dual booting PowerBook running Tiger/Leopard with Vista would rock.
Click to expand...

I completely agree -- and thought of your comment when I saw this article today: http://www.architosh.com/news/2005-11/2005a1108_tb-multi-os.html


Could be interesting....

JT
 
back in high school, 9th grade, around 1995...i wrote a fantasy newarticle for the year 2010 or something... Back then, they were still using Motorola Chips and I had a powerbook 190C at the time. one of the mock up ads I put in it was the Merging of Apple and IBM and I called it IBMAC running a Power Pentium chip...:p
 
jhu said:
it depends on what the xserve is used for. all opensource programs can be recompiled it. i don't have any experience with xserves, so i don't know what types of proprietary applications people run on these things.
Click to expand...


That would require Apple to change it's price and marketing model for the Xserv. The biggest draw to it (for some) is it's unlimited licensing for connections, and the fact that it can run easy to use OS X. Yes you can recompile code for non itanium supported programs, but you have to build the compile algorithms before you can do this. This is quite a bit of programming in itself.


backdraft said:
Might as well buy a DELL
Click to expand...

Please do so, and stop such pointless posts. ;)
 
I think a lot of Mac users will be suprised at how well osx runs on x86 machines. I've played around with the OSX86 on my desktop pc which is a SFF with a 1.8ghz Pentium M in it. This 'release' has been hacked about and fudged to work with all sorts of generic pc's that it was never intended for. It'll keep up the an imac.

I may be wrong but i feel a lot of people who (quite often rightly) bash windows have unfairly transfered this 'hate' on to x86 hardware.
 
$$$

jhu said:
it depends on what the xserve is used for. all opensource programs can be recompiled it. i don't have any experience with xserves, so i don't know what types of proprietary applications people run on these things.
Click to expand...

Intel's price list for Itanium 2 chips goes up to $4226 per chip... The price for a 1.6 GHz 3 MiB cache dual-capable (w/ 533 MHz FSB) is $1172.

http://www.intel.com/pressroom/archive/releases/20041108comp.htm (a year old)

Considering that Apple wants $4K for a dual-CPU Xserve already, what would they charge for an Itanium Xserve where $4K only buys the pair of chips (plus margin)?

If you're going to recompile open-source apps for Itanium, stick with Linux....
 
AidenShaw said:
Would it be "better" to have an entry MiniMac at a lower price point, or to lose the sale to a Windows system?

You can still put the faster Pentium M chip in the higher end consumer systems....

BMW can "do better" as well, but they still sell the 3-series 2.0 L models to the people who would not be able to afford the same car with a 3.0 L engine....
Click to expand...

You're limiting yourself to Intel x86? Why not put a Sempron in it? :) Oh, I guess the lack of extensions. Too bad, as Apple already knows the HyperTransport bus.
 
artifex said:
You're limiting yourself to Intel x86? Why not put a Sempron in it? :)
Click to expand...
Apple won't be using any AMD CPUs for some time, you can be sure of that.

And why not Turion instead of Sempron?

artifex said:
Too bad, as Apple already knows the HyperTransport bus.
Click to expand...
Judging from the complaints about the bridge chips in the PMG5, they don't know it very well....
 
No Celeron M in an iBook

plinden said:
The Celeron M falls down on battery life, but that's not a problem for desktops.
Click to expand...

This is exactly why I can not see Apple putting a Celeron M in an iBook.
 
It'll be Yonah

Why torture yourselves? Might as well be a Xeon for that matter. No, all points lead to Yonah...good old 945M.

Why? Other than the coincidental introduction, it also seems to do away with the need for a jury rigged graphics card.

From The Register...
The 945 will feature Intel's GMA 950 graphics core, which it introduced earlier this year in its desktop-oriented 945G integrated chipsets. The 950 brings to Napa improved video playback, thanks to 4x pixel rate motion compensation, adaptive de-interlacing and support for video anti-piracy techniques, including COPP, HDCP and CGMS-A. It will support a 667MHz power-efficient frontside bus and Intel's Matrix Storage Technology.

Hmmn. Anti piracy. Think Stevo would be interested in something like that while he's selling Pixar's latest movie online?

Also, Yonah will be part of Intel's VIIV (VIVE?) platform that is designed for Home Entertainment centers.

I just wish this damn Mac Mini Rev B would get here soon! I'm getting tired of waiting.
 
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