Intel is in business, not high school.
Intel On Track To Deliver Penryn, Nehalem
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AidenShaw
macrumors P6
Tick. Tock.
Tick. Tock. Tick - shrink. Tock - new architecture.
Here at IDF Intel is talking about systems and chipsets out through 2010. Each year there will either be a shrink to new process (e.g. Penryn this year) or a new architecture (e.g. Nehalem next year).
Nehalem first booted 3 weeks ago - about 2 months before the announcement date for Penryn. Intel is showing wafers with 32nm chips (which will be used for Westmere in 2009).
Yep, the "settled days" are over.... You can count on today's Mac to be out-of-date in a year, and painfully out-of-date in two years. Waiting to buy won't change this - it just means that your current machine will get further and further behind the curve.
Don't stick with your old "obsolete" computer because of fear that your new one will become obsolete. It will happen, accept it.
Tick. Tock. Tick - shrink. Tock - new architecture.
Here at IDF Intel is talking about systems and chipsets out through 2010. Each year there will either be a shrink to new process (e.g. Penryn this year) or a new architecture (e.g. Nehalem next year).
Nehalem first booted 3 weeks ago - about 2 months before the announcement date for Penryn. Intel is showing wafers with 32nm chips (which will be used for Westmere in 2009).
Yep, the "settled days" are over.... You can count on today's Mac to be out-of-date in a year, and painfully out-of-date in two years. Waiting to buy won't change this - it just means that your current machine will get further and further behind the curve.
Don't stick with your old "obsolete" computer because of fear that your new one will become obsolete. It will happen, accept it.
Speak for yourself!
I absolutely positively refuse to give up my PowerMac dual 533Mhz G4 until Apple comes out with a sixteen core, 8.9Ghz, 256GB Mac Pro with quad nVidia 17800 Ultra Pro GTX 32 lane PCIe 3.0 video cards. Until that time, I think I can stick with running OS 9 on my G4. I just don't see the current upgrades as that big of an improvement for my needs.
EagerDragon
macrumors 68020
EagerDragon
macrumors 68020
I still think that a direct tap into the brain, offers a better interface and better imaging.
I never heard someone said, "My computer is too fast". Applications and features will always eat up the spare cycles and as we get used to the new power, someone else will write something that needs more power to run smootly.
Besides it takes time for software to be developed for the new hardware, so rarely do you see the absolute advantage / features of the new hardware.
netdog
macrumors 603
I know. I am just marvelling at how fast Penryn and then Nehalem Mac Pros are going to be.
diamond.g
macrumors G5
Intel has complete platform changes every 18-36 months or so. I would stick to refreshes though, as the new platforms can sometimes be buggy.
MikeTheC
Guest
netdog, AidenShaw and ktlx:
I think you may have misinterpreted, in different ways, what I said and what was offered after it.
With each category of processor that Intel -- or anyone else -- puts out, there is a roadmap for it. The roadmap helps to ensure forward-looking compatibility, and also helps them to plan out what changes there will be, generationally, in each incremental step on that roadmap. That's the "stability" I'm talking about. Nothing in the computer world is static any longer, and hasn't been static to any great degree going back as far as I can remember. The only thing that's changed is the rate of change has increased, but there's always been change.
I'm interested in making sure I don't jump into a CPU and/or motherboard roadmap until it's far along enough to ensure some degree of maturity (that is, viability, efficiency, value for money, stability... all that good stuff.)
This is part of the reason you don't see me on this message board complaining and whining about how my purchase was just obsolesced or how it's a pile of junk because of a whole bunch of bugs that are yet to be fixed. I buy into mature technology, not the bleeding edge stuff. But at the same time, please don't try and accuse me of log-daming the river (so to speak), because that isn't true, and never has been.
As it is, there is a serious debate going on in my head whether or not to even continue with the Mac OS X platform, when clearly the GNU/Linux platform offers nearly all the same benefits which are of relevance to me, and in fact usually is quite ahead of Apple (to say nothing of Microsoft, but that's another story and probably a lost cause anyhow) in terms of the adoption -- and therefore the perfection -- of various technologies, or the improvements of the underpinnings in how given categories of technology are implemented.
Clearly, the next computer I buy will be x86-based, no matter what I do. Equally clearly, it will open the door to various possibilities, none of which I'm about to shut the door in the face of. However, and again I can't stress this enough, they will be stable and mature by the time I choose to adopt them, whether it's Leopard or Linux.
I still stand by my earlier comment that these are good technological times, and I look forward to what Silicon Valley is and will be cooking up.
I think you may have misinterpreted, in different ways, what I said and what was offered after it.
With each category of processor that Intel -- or anyone else -- puts out, there is a roadmap for it. The roadmap helps to ensure forward-looking compatibility, and also helps them to plan out what changes there will be, generationally, in each incremental step on that roadmap. That's the "stability" I'm talking about. Nothing in the computer world is static any longer, and hasn't been static to any great degree going back as far as I can remember. The only thing that's changed is the rate of change has increased, but there's always been change.
I'm interested in making sure I don't jump into a CPU and/or motherboard roadmap until it's far along enough to ensure some degree of maturity (that is, viability, efficiency, value for money, stability... all that good stuff.)
This is part of the reason you don't see me on this message board complaining and whining about how my purchase was just obsolesced or how it's a pile of junk because of a whole bunch of bugs that are yet to be fixed. I buy into mature technology, not the bleeding edge stuff. But at the same time, please don't try and accuse me of log-daming the river (so to speak), because that isn't true, and never has been.
As it is, there is a serious debate going on in my head whether or not to even continue with the Mac OS X platform, when clearly the GNU/Linux platform offers nearly all the same benefits which are of relevance to me, and in fact usually is quite ahead of Apple (to say nothing of Microsoft, but that's another story and probably a lost cause anyhow) in terms of the adoption -- and therefore the perfection -- of various technologies, or the improvements of the underpinnings in how given categories of technology are implemented.
Clearly, the next computer I buy will be x86-based, no matter what I do. Equally clearly, it will open the door to various possibilities, none of which I'm about to shut the door in the face of. However, and again I can't stress this enough, they will be stable and mature by the time I choose to adopt them, whether it's Leopard or Linux.
I still stand by my earlier comment that these are good technological times, and I look forward to what Silicon Valley is and will be cooking up.
And in twenty years we'll marvel that we ever used anything as slow and primitive as a Penryn or Nehalem.
But, yeah, I'm looking forward to buying a Penryn Mac Pro.
AidenShaw
macrumors P6
Ummm, Penryn will be the first refresh since Apple went to Intel - all the current CPUs are new architectures.
(One might argue that Yonah was a refresh, but a pretty dramatic "refresh" since the Dothan was single core.)
Eidorian
macrumors Penryn
http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3144&Itemid=51
I expected such from Nehalam.
I expected such from Nehalam.
flopticalcube
macrumors G4
Its a shame things are changing so fast with regard to CPU interoperability. I don't remember sockets and chipsets changing so fast in the last 10 years. It used to be that you could buy a mobo and be assured that in 2 years a new CPU with a new architecture or fabrication technology would be available to plop right in. Not any more. It now looks like a 12 or 18 month upgrade cycle. Socket M is now end-of-line. Socket P (Santa Rosa) will be in Q2 08 after less than 12 months. Wow!
Eidorian
macrumors Penryn
The chipset and VRM appear to have the biggest impact. Intel wants to push more power efficient chips and now an entirely different bus system.
Super Socket 7, Socket 370, or Socket A anyone?
Don't forget 440BX, 865G, 965P, or nForce 4.
SPUY767
macrumors 68020
HT only failed, because at the time, the netburst architecture was crap, and they were running the wrong OS on most of the chips. A linux box was able to gain a real performance boost from HT.
SPUY767
macrumors 68020
It's just like the fact that the first 775 MBs, the ones that were designed for the last of the Pentium D series, wouldn't run core chips when they came out, this is nothing new.
SPUY767
macrumors 68020
True, but, Intel likes that Apple releases very high performance machines. Also, it allows Intel to roll out new chips faster, as they can put them in the high end Macs while yields are still low. Dell is too busy trying to convince grandmothers that they need a QX so that they can make a higher margin. So before they can produce numbers necessary for a wide rollout of a new chip, Intel is giving them to Apple. Intel knows, Apple may not sell the most PCs, but for each computer produced, Apple gets loads more attention.
diamond.g
macrumors G5
AMD:
Socket 7 -> Super Socket 7 -> Slot A -> Socket A (462) -> Socket 754/940 -> Socket 939/940 -> Socket AM2 -> Socket AM3
Intel:
Socket 7 -> Super Socket 7 -> Slot 1 -> Socket 370 -> Socket 423 -> Socket 478 -> LGA775 (Socket T)
Chipsets are a whole can of worms. Although I'll say AMD hasn't really made there own chipset till the purchased ATI. I woud say Nvidia has always made the best chipsets for AMD. Intel has pretty much always made the best chipset for their own platform (I dunno how the nvidia chipset fares with Intel).
Overall the pin count really hasn't changed a whole lot. The real issue can be electrical differences. Once Nelahem has been released then you will have to worry about memory technologies changing. Which is why AMD went to the AM2, it is the same pin count as the 940, but it is electrically different.
suneohair
macrumors 68020
Intels plans seem to change monthly. I was saying it would be at least 6 months off if anything happened. That was an error on my part I should have stuck with long way off
I don't know where the octo-core chip came from. I was saying an octo Mac Pro, or in effect dual quad core Harpertowns are hardly a year off as the OP was stating.
Thanks for lesson on Intel architecture anyway. I had no idea, really.
Fanboy?
You DO understand that technology is always upgrading and if you wait until the next thing coming you'll never have anything good now right?
If you don't like what mac is offering, get something else.
So basically, you want a laptop, a mid range price, and Desktop grade upgradeability, all rolled into one?
Why not buy a laptop? Well let's see, price for one, screen size (a 24" laptop would be a bit much i think), power/hd size (250-500GB hard drive anyone?)
A tower? Mac Pro...$2200. Upgrade to your hearts desire. Think it's to much? get a dell...hopefully by the time it reaches your doorstep it will still turn on, and then maybe it will work for a few months. Also hopefully it won't have issues with all the drivers, hardware compatibility. Then you are stuck with xp or worse, Vista.
If you don't like what sony offers move on.
If you don't like what apple offers move on.
etc...
Wow. What a PC mentality. All I was saying is if you need a computer now, get one. If not, Don't.
My rant was about the mindless question..."is it worth it to wait until xxxx?"
Worth it how? For who?
Thats seems like a pretty clueless question with no REAL answer. So why ask?
Maybe to convince your self that you are ACTUALLY going to get a new computer someday? Just not today.
Or maybe just becuase you (the poster) had no real contirbution to the subject. Who knows. It just gets tiring, that's all.
P.S. Sorry for the randomness of this post. There is so much to complain about it seems.
You DO understand that technology is always upgrading and if you wait until the next thing coming you'll never have anything good now right?
If you don't like what mac is offering, get something else.
So basically, you want a laptop, a mid range price, and Desktop grade upgradeability, all rolled into one?
Why not buy a laptop? Well let's see, price for one, screen size (a 24" laptop would be a bit much i think), power/hd size (250-500GB hard drive anyone?)
A tower? Mac Pro...$2200. Upgrade to your hearts desire. Think it's to much? get a dell...hopefully by the time it reaches your doorstep it will still turn on, and then maybe it will work for a few months. Also hopefully it won't have issues with all the drivers, hardware compatibility. Then you are stuck with xp or worse, Vista.
If you don't like what sony offers move on.
If you don't like what apple offers move on.
etc...
Wow. What a PC mentality. All I was saying is if you need a computer now, get one. If not, Don't.
My rant was about the mindless question..."is it worth it to wait until xxxx?"
Worth it how? For who?
Thats seems like a pretty clueless question with no REAL answer. So why ask?
Maybe to convince your self that you are ACTUALLY going to get a new computer someday? Just not today.
Or maybe just becuase you (the poster) had no real contirbution to the subject. Who knows. It just gets tiring, that's all.
P.S. Sorry for the randomness of this post. There is so much to complain about it seems.
Intel
one last thing, this post was about intel processors.
this post was not about:macbooks, macbook pros and why they need gpu upgrades, or when you need to buy a new computer...
Guaranteed...when the next post comes out about a new intel processor, within the top 5 posts someone will ask...is it worth it to buy one now, or should I wait until...
one last thing, this post was about intel processors.
this post was not about:macbooks, macbook pros and why they need gpu upgrades, or when you need to buy a new computer...
Guaranteed...when the next post comes out about a new intel processor, within the top 5 posts someone will ask...is it worth it to buy one now, or should I wait until...