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Is Apple going too far in it's quest for thin computers?
- Thread starter Evangelion
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PlaceofDis said:
While 1mm reduction in thickness is peanuts, it does represent a significant reduction in the internal volume of the machine.
killr_b said:
read up on FACTS. The GPU in 15" MBP is clocked WAY below Ati's specs! I believe that the RAM is about 40% slower than what Ati has specced, and the core itself is consierable below specs as well! If that is NOT underclocking, then what is it?
And the 15"? Why does 17" have proper GPU, when the identical GPU in 15" is underclocked? Could it be that the internals of the machine are so cramped that they can't run it according to the specs?
No, I don't. If company says "this product runs at X Mhz", and then apple runs it at x - 40% MHz, then that's underclocking, no matter how you slice it.
I think that the problem is that Apple set out to make a statement about their computers with the PowerBook G4 and its thickness.
However, more airflow and less statement would have made the PowerBook G4 a cooler computer, temperature-wise. I'm not advocating the 1.5+ inch Pentium 4 machines but there is a point of compromise to make better products and they can still look good.
Hopefully, they'll come up with something new and interesting with the newer MacBook Pro that won't compromise airflow so that it runs cooler than the current design, even with the Merom processors.
However, more airflow and less statement would have made the PowerBook G4 a cooler computer, temperature-wise. I'm not advocating the 1.5+ inch Pentium 4 machines but there is a point of compromise to make better products and they can still look good.
Hopefully, they'll come up with something new and interesting with the newer MacBook Pro that won't compromise airflow so that it runs cooler than the current design, even with the Merom processors.
ImAlex said:
And run very hot. MBP ran so hot, that the CPU started throttling itself (in other words, it underclocked itself) in order to prevent it from overheating. I don't know yet how firmware-update have altered the situation, though.
Evangelion said:
The Mobility X1600 in the MacBook Pro is clocked after its total Thermal Design Power. It is not underclocked but clocked differently. ATI does not decide the final clockspeeds of their mobile offerings but the ODM/OEM who uses them does that and in the end it all depends on the Thermal Design Power of the laptop.
It could also be that Apple wanted to differentiate the MacBook Pro 15" and MacBook Pro 17" from each other. In the end, it have absolutely nothing to do with ATI but Apple. They made the decision.
Remember that the Mobility X1600 support dynamic clock gating (power management), so it dynamically can change voltage and speed on the go, after what is needed. Just like the Core Duo currently used in the MacBook Pro but we also hear people complaining about that <cough>
I am still amazed how they fit all those powerful components inside the 1" thick laptop and with the newest Logic Board and Cooling System, it isn't as scorching hot as some are led to believe.
In the end I have to ask you a simple question: Do you even own a MacBook Pro yourself or are you simply just complaining about something you do not have?
If I had the choice between two computers, I would take the one which is one mm thicker and had as DL DVD writer. 1mm difference seems to be more like a maketing thing and you shouldn't sacrifice functionality for something like that.
I always found my 15" powerbook to be a bit thin for the size of 15". I wouldn't like to go thinner than that. The proportians seem to be already too far streched. For smaller laptops with 10", 12" or 13" screens this is a different story. There I have seen a couple of very nice and very thin laptops. I remember one extremely thin by Sony and one by Dell, which was at least clearly thinner than my powerbook. But then these machines are of the ultra portable class, where Apple does not provide any competition model.
I always found my 15" powerbook to be a bit thin for the size of 15". I wouldn't like to go thinner than that. The proportians seem to be already too far streched. For smaller laptops with 10", 12" or 13" screens this is a different story. There I have seen a couple of very nice and very thin laptops. I remember one extremely thin by Sony and one by Dell, which was at least clearly thinner than my powerbook. But then these machines are of the ultra portable class, where Apple does not provide any competition model.
Pressure said:
Oh yeah, that's right. It's not underclocking, they are clocking it "differently".
If that is the case, why aren't they advertising that difference anywhere?
Ati gave them a GPU with certain specs. Apple chose to not run it at those specs, but at lower specs. In other words, they are underclocking it.
Apple advertises the MBP as having At Mobility Radeon x1600. But the fact is that the GOU inside the MBP does NOT run at the specs the x1600 should run at.
And fact is that while it does adjust the speed on the 17" MBP so it reaches the specced speeds, it does NOT reach the specced speeds on the 15". It's like buying a laptop that has a "2Ghz CPU", but the system constantly runs it at 1.66GHz at most. Is it then a 2Ghz CPU? No it's not.
I'm sorry, but you are comparing apples to oranges here.
I don't actually have one yet, but I have read lots of reviews on the product, since I might be getting one in the future.
Evangelion said:
They are, right here you can see that the MacBook Pro 17" is performing better in games and other applications compared to the MacBook 15". They both have the same processor, Core Duo 2.16Ghz.
Evangelion said:
But it does have an ATI Mobility X1600. It features exactly the same specifications as any other Mobility X1600 out there. It has 12 pixel shader pipelines and 5 vertex processors.
The clock speeds, however, is whatever Apple orders them to run at.
ATI gave Apple chips specified for what they wanted, not what their maximum obtainable speed is.
Evangelion said:
It's called Power Management. When the extra performance is unneeded, the processor throttles back while still delivering enough power to run the current load.
The ATI Mobility X1600 reaches its safe threshold that Apple has set on their notebook design. Again, ATI does not set the speed but the ODM/OEM does.
If you want the full power and best performing notebook, then clearly the MacBook Pro 17" is for you.
Evangelion said:
So you don't actually have any first hand experience with the product? Use the features you complain about? And lastly, you don't seem to have done your "research" particularly well . . .
Is it a top priority for you to burn Dual-Layer DVDs? Sure, it's a nice check-box feature but I haven't even burned a DVD yet on my MacBook Pro.
In the end, wouldn't a normal Windows-based notebook be best for you? You can get everything you want there but not with Apple.
I own one of the first MacBook Pro 15"s, manufactured in the 9th or 10th week of this year or something. I think the heat issues are pretty exaggurated: Mine only gets warm to the touch after long periods of doing something intensive, and even then, really, are you going to be resting your hand on anything but the keyboard and front? It's not like you touch it and bam, instant 3rd degree burn, just a slightly warm surface. It's actually quite nice and on a cold day 
McKellar said:I own one of the first MacBook Pro 15"s, manufactured in the 9th or 10th week of this year or something. I think the heat issues are pretty exaggurated: Mine only gets warm to the touch after long periods of doing something intensive, and even then, really, are you going to be resting your hand on anything but the keyboard and front? It's not like you touch it and bam, instant 3rd degree burn, just a slightly warm surface. It's actually quite nice and on a cold day
That is our experience/opinion, but I had three macbook pros and they were all scorching. There are thousands of similar reports and I doubt we're all just exaggerating. When I used Aperture the left palmrest was so warm that my hands were sweating (the Hard drive sensor right under there showed 56C!). Underneath was so hot that I could not comfortably hold it for more than a few seconds. Did I burn myself? No, of course not, but a portable computer should not be this hot. The cause? aluminum case, thinness coupled with the CPU/GPU/HDD. The just don't go together.
Maybe the newer units are better. I hope they are
Pressure said:
Call it what you like but Apple have made an intentional performance drop to satisfy style. With a little more volume inside the case and better airflow, they could have clocked the GPU at a much higher speed and not exceeded the current heat profile.
Is keeping the case 1 inch thick truly a benefit, especially if you want 3D performance? I don't think so. The 17 inch machine is nice but it's not nearly as portable or affordable and isn't an alternative in most situations.
PDE said:
Please do link to all these thousands of similar reports? I am eager to see and read them. Did they all measure the temperature or was it simply the ol' trick of touching and see if it left them with a scar?
Do you know for sure that the heat generated is due to the aluminum case, the thinness of the notebook and a combination of the processor, graphic card and hard disk? Or are you just guessing? In general, it could be any of those alone or is it simply the added heat of them all together that makes it an issue?
Pressure said:
I don't see any text there which says "17" model has a faster GPU".
it just runs slower.
It's called thermal throttling. That was the issue in the early MBP (and maybe current ones as well, I dunno). they were advertized as having "x.xx Ghz CPU", but actual tests showed that they didn't run at that speed, because the system was running so hot, that the CPU was resorting to throttling. I believe that it was Ars Technica that found out that MPB was simply incapable of running the CPU at it's rated speed. Therefore the claim that it ships with 2GHz (for example) CPU was dubious at best, since the system could not function at that speed.
you fail to see that there are two different cases here. First one is what you describe: when performance is not needed, the CPU runs at slower speed. And that's normal, and desireable. The other case is that when the CPU is working hard, it gets so hot, that it resorts to thermal-throttling (in other words: it reduces the clock-speed) in order to lower the temperature. And MBP has been suffering of the latter case, and it is NOT desireable! Thermal throttling is basically the last resort the CPU has to prevent itself from overheating.
I have read NUMEROUS reports and reviews about MBP, and just about every one of them say that "the laptop runs very hot". So, I'm not allowed to comment on the issue, unless I have experiences it firsthand?
Pressure said:
You are asking for the impossible, and you know it. But if you haven't noticed that the common theme in just about all MBP-reviews is a mention that the system runs very hot, then I guess you are just seeing what you want to see.
Some measured, and others touched it. And if it runs so hot, that touching the machine is uncomfortable, then it's IMO too hot.
It doesn't really matter what causes the issue. What matters is that it IS an issue. And logically thinking, if you have more space inside the case, you can have more effective cooling-solution. Why was it again that we never had a G5 PowerBook?
Evangelion said:
Evangelion, I don't know why you humor him with an answer... He'll just come right back with some sort of cult worshiper's apology... Just look at his last 4 posts... they just scream fanboy!!!!
The damn thing is underclocked and the specs on the website are missleading and there's no arguement there. A normal buyer will go to a website, check the specs, and buy the computer with the cpu, gpu, and size he/she is interested in, they are not going to spend a week reading forums to ensure that his company of choice is not forgeting to mention that they clock their chips/memory modules at different speeds. Thats just me, because I have way too much spare time.
Also, I'm not going to lie, I once fell for it with my dell D800... Dell did underclock the geforce 4200, but by 6mhz, and for power consumption, which is easier to solve on windows with coolbits, with no side effects. But apple dropped nearly half of the clock speed, to avoid HEAT PROBLEMS, and there doesn't seem to be a solution, and if there was, you'd probably cook your testicles is the process, and the cpu would probably throttle down to 600mhz or something...
Evangelion said:
### My fav topic for whining! Thank you.
I own a 17" PB..and I love that's it's thin...YET...when *I* look at the Alienware laptops, I become quite jealous of their big performance advantages over Apple laptops. Some of Alienware's products are pretty thin too..BUT...they give you the **choice** for true high end performance. It comes in the form of a 2" thick enclosure. Inside that enclosure you get **desktop** level performance in *CPU*, *FSB* and *GPU*. There are trade offs, but lets not be confused as to what set of tradeoffs Apple had chosen. There *are* functional advantages to Apple's thin enclosure...light weight, etc. which *is* nice...but overall, the moral of the story with Apple is: their priority is being sexy versus performance. Vanity over substance. Clearly, there is a market for that... Read these forums.
*I* would like to see the balance go back the other way..at least just a bit..so we can get a decent mobile gpu! In other words, would I give up a quarter of an inch for the choice of the FX2500m gpu??? In a heartbeat. Instead, the new MBPs will probably have the X1800 as the *only* choice...clocked at half speed!!!...but they'll sure look pretty.peace
Edit: Some of the comments in this thread are embarassing. The way some of you rationalize Apple's obvious lack of integrity (as of late)...advertising X1600 then underclocking it...offering the FX4500 for the G5 Quad with horrendous drivers that cripple its performance..shall I go on? It's unacceptable. It's dishonest..and when you apologize for it...you are supporting it. Do you really want to cheer for these business practices??? Scary.
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/08/28/1437209&from=rssjaduffy108 said:### My fav topic for whining! Thank you.
I own a 17" PB..and I love that's it's thin...YET...when *I* look at the Alienware laptops, I become quite jealous of their big performance advantages over Apple laptops. Some of Alienware's products are pretty thin too..BUT...they give you the **choice** for true high end performance.
On the right side mouse over the 15 and the 17 and you can see that the Doom 3 gaming performance is 2.2x faster for the 15 in. and 2.4x faster for the 17 in.Evangelion said:
View attachment 15.bmpView attachment 17.bmp
1. The GPU is not underlocked.
2. True, there has been heat issues, bot the extra 0.1" on the 15" PB wouldn't have helped. It is due to the CD processor. Emits more heat. Example is the 1" thin TiPB. Used a G4, and didn't get too hot.
3. True, they had to abandon the DL burner, but Apple know what they are doing. For one revision, they have to abandon a feuature that hardly anybody uses. Steve is smart. What makes a MacBook?
Conclusion: They don't go too far. They have always had the sweetest computers, and will continue doing that. Their only sacrificen was the DL burner, which will return before the Paris Expo is over.
EDIT: grockk, they compared the 17", which has a 2.16 GHz proc. to the 2.0 GHz 15" model. Before the speedbumd, the hi-end 15" was 2.0 GHz with 256 MB VRAM.
2. True, there has been heat issues, bot the extra 0.1" on the 15" PB wouldn't have helped. It is due to the CD processor. Emits more heat. Example is the 1" thin TiPB. Used a G4, and didn't get too hot.
3. True, they had to abandon the DL burner, but Apple know what they are doing. For one revision, they have to abandon a feuature that hardly anybody uses. Steve is smart. What makes a MacBook?
Conclusion: They don't go too far. They have always had the sweetest computers, and will continue doing that. Their only sacrificen was the DL burner, which will return before the Paris Expo is over.
EDIT: grockk, they compared the 17", which has a 2.16 GHz proc. to the 2.0 GHz 15" model. Before the speedbumd, the hi-end 15" was 2.0 GHz with 256 MB VRAM.