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Kentsfield, Cloverton Quad-Core CPUs Arriving Early?

Not that I wouldn't mind more processing power :D ...

but to me it doesn't make much sense for the majority of tasks/applications.

There might be rare exceptions in the professinal area and of course it makes lots of sense for a server, but for a single user machine?

Whatever, bring them on... in this case I like to be proven wrong.
 
Out of countrol?!

reallynotnick said:
Anyone else think this is getting out of hand? Two cores, great improvement. Four cores, ehh it's faster but Joe can't tell. Eight cores, now thats just stupid.
Let me guess it will only come with 512mb of Ram :p (ok it will be at least a GB).
Click to expand...
The riduculous speculation is certainly getting out of control! A quad core iMac... I don't think so! Not for a long while. 8 Cores (ie dual-quads) will only become available in the top-end of the MacPro (assuming the MacPro does indeed go with the Xeon CPU), and the top-end XServes.

If you want wild speculation, here goes....
Apple might use the Conroe and ConroeXE in the first Mac Pros and then add in support for Kentsfield (quad) when it becomes available. This could well be the reason why Intel has brought forward the release of Kentsfield.

Back to reality: Apple wil use Xeon 51xx (5150 and 5160) in the MacPro, and Core 2 Duo (Merom) in the iMac and MBP to be announced at the WWDC. The top iMac config will get a boost to 2.33GHz. In addition, Apple will use the price-drops for the Yonah to upgrade the Core Solo mini to Core Duo.

Any further speculation is just farcical! :eek:
 
Macnoviz said:
It's the future, you know, soon the clock speed will be irrelevant and we'll be expressing processor speed in number of cores octocore, hexacore, tricontradicore, hexacontetracore, hecticosoctocore, and such and such
Click to expand...

At some point your going to have deminished returns. Sure multimedia apps can take advantage of a few more cores, but I dont see Mail running faster on 4 cores, nevermind 2! The nice thing about intel is that they seem to realise that, and have invested in improved IO as well, look at Pci express and SATA, you can have the fastest processor in the world, but if your running it with 512megs of memory your going to slow down fast!

(and no Im not a Intel rep, just think they are doing a good job at this point)
 
TangoCharlie said:
Back to reality: Apple wil use Xeon 51xx (5150 and 5160) in the MacPro, and Core 2 Duo (Merom) in the iMac and MBP to be announced at the WWDC. The top iMac config will get a boost to 2.33GHz. In addition, Apple will use the price-drops for the Yonah to upgrade the Core Solo mini to Core Duo.
Click to expand...


I concur. Personally I'd like to see the MBs go to merom at some point relatively soon too but that's just wishful thinking as that's when I plan to get one.
 
Lollypop said:
At some point your going to have deminished returns. Sure multimedia apps can take advantage of a few more cores, but I dont see Mail running faster on 4 cores, nevermind 2! The nice thing about intel is that they seem to realise that, and have invested in improved IO as well, look at Pci express and SATA, you can have the fastest processor in the world, but if your running it with 512megs of memory your going to slow down fast!

(and no Im not a Intel rep, just think they are doing a good job at this point)
Click to expand...

I agree, increasing the number of cores can't be the only solution on long term. In my opinion it's time to rethink CPUs: Single, maybe dual core, high processing* power with extremly low power consumption, much lower than we have nowadays.


* Whatever that exactly means, I don't know.
 
satty said:
I agree, increasing the number of cores can't be the only solution on long term. In my opinion it's time to rethink CPUs: Single, maybe dual core, high processing* power with extremly low power consumption, much lower than we have nowadays.


* Whatever that exactly means, I don't know.
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Is having more cores more energy efficient than having one big fat ass 24Ghz processor? Maybe thats a factor in the increasing core count.
 
stuartluff said:
Is having more cores more energy efficient than having one big fat ass 24Ghz processor? Maybe thats a factor in the increasing core count.
Click to expand...

I think you're a bit confused, 8x 3GHz cores doesn't equal 1x 24GHz processor.
 
All these rumors are making it so hard to decide when to get a new computer... my desktop and laptop are both about five years old. Though I don't have an urgent need to get a new ones, something new would surely be nice and useful.

At first I was waiting for a portable with Merom, but now I'm interested in portable with Santa Rosa platform and Merom... and that's not available until March 2007. For desktop I was waiting for Conroe, but it all depends how Apple is gonna use that chip. If they release a minitower (which I'm hoping for), I'm not sure would I get it right now or some months later (if Kentsfield is going to be released this year).
 
stuartluff said:
Is having more cores more energy efficient than having one big fat ass 24Ghz processor? Maybe thats a factor in the increasing core count.
Click to expand...

It depends on the architecture, its possible to have 24 1ghz cores being more power hungry than a single 24ghz processor.

Processor manufacturers are having problems increasing the amount of instructions they can execute, intels latest goal is to have the most amount of instructions executed with the least energy consumtion, but given constraints manufacturers are finding it easier to add a second processor than to scale a single processor to deliver the same performance as two "simpler" processors.
 
Lollypop said:
At some point your going to have deminished returns. Sure multimedia apps can take advantage of a few more cores, but I dont see Mail running faster on 4 cores, nevermind 2! The nice thing about intel is that they seem to realise that, and have invested in improved IO as well, look at Pci express and SATA, you can have the fastest processor in the world, but if your running it with 512megs of memory your going to slow down fast!

(and no Im not a Intel rep, just think they are doing a good job at this point)
Click to expand...

Where you are going to see the difference is when you multi-task.

For Example: Burn a Blueray disk, render a FinalCut Pro movie, download your digital camera RAW files into Adobe Lightroom and run a batch, and watch your favorite movie from the iTunes Movie Store all without a single hiccup.
 
teme said:
All these rumors are making it so hard to decide when to get a new computer... my desktop and laptop are both about five years old. Though I don't have an urgent need to get a new ones, something new would surely be nice and useful.

At first I was waiting for a portable with Merom, but now I'm interested in portable with Santa Rosa platform and Merom... and that's not available until March 2007.
Click to expand...

So going on the new release dates this might move forward to xmas now?

I'm not helping am I? :)

See normal PC users don't really hold out like Mac users have been used to doing. They just buy if they need a machine.
 
nighthawk said:
Where you are going to see the difference is when you multi-task.

For Example: Burn a Blueray disk, render a FinalCut Pro movie, download your digital camera RAW files into Adobe Lightroom and run a batch, and watch your favorite movie from the iTunes Movie Store all without a single hiccup.
Click to expand...

You're going to run into the hard disk being the bottle neck then. In principle though I agree with you.
 
I wonder just how Apple would react to news that the next processor update is ahead of schedule. Presumably their plans are carefully laid out, and if a PC competitor can jump on Intel updates faster than they can without having to conform to a similar timeline, then Apple might get burned, if only slightly.

That's one aspect of the transition that I've always wondered about. Apple has often marketed new "products" more than "updates" in the past, but with Intel's speed of development, perhaps Apple will now focus more on updates and minimize redesigning/new releases. I don't think it's bad, just something of a departure from what I've grown accustomed to.
 
Mr_Ed said:
I got it!

The Macintosh Quadra!

No, wait . . . .
;)
Click to expand...


You realize there are probably only four people on this board who are old enough to get that joke, right?

My "vote" goes for "Hex" - "The Mac Hex. Buy one and see." Then again, maybe not.
 
nighthawk said:
Where you are going to see the difference is when you multi-task.

For Example: Burn a Blueray disk, render a FinalCut Pro movie, download your digital camera RAW files into Adobe Lightroom and run a batch, and watch your favorite movie from the iTunes Movie Store all without a single hiccup.
Click to expand...

Bingo. Check how many processes are running on your computer right now, and you'll see why more cores can help. Writing a program to use multiple CPUs is complicated, yes, but OS X is already written to spread programs across multiple CPUs automatically.

It will take a while for people to come up with effective uses for that, but given the power we will find it.
 
stuartluff said:
Is having more cores more energy efficient than having one big fat ass 24Ghz processor? Maybe thats a factor in the increasing core count.
Click to expand...

But as some already pointed out, many applications can't use multiple cores, therefore you won't get any performance improvements with multi cores.
 
boncellis said:
I wonder just how Apple would react to news that the next processor update is ahead of schedule. Presumably their plans are carefully laid out, and if a PC competitor can jump on Intel updates faster than they can without having to conform to a similar timeline, then Apple might get burned, if only slightly.
Click to expand...

Remember Apple will be privvy to a lot more information that we as consumers are. They are probably on a level playing field at least with Intel compared with other PC vendors. They may even have a special relationship with Intel to get stuff slightly before people like Lenovo and Dell.
 
Chundles said:
I think you're a bit confused, 8x 3GHz cores doesn't equal 1x 24GHz processor.
Click to expand...

No I think you are confused. :) I meant "Is having more cores, lets say 8, more efficient than one big core equal in processing power to the 8 cores?"
 
satty said:
But as some already pointed out, many applications can't use multiple cores, therefore you won't get any performance improvements with multi cores.
Click to expand...

Not on an application level, but we will on a system level.
 
yeah i have a suspicion they were pushed for Apple's intel power macs.

it just feels like it.

a tingling in my.... er.... um.... let's say "eyelid". ;) :rolleyes:
 
emotion said:
Remember Apple will be privvy to a lot more information that we as consumers are. They are probably on a level playing field at least with Intel compared with other PC vendors. They may even have a special relationship with Intel to get stuff slightly before people like Lenovo and Dell.
Click to expand...

That's a good point, I'm sure Intel gives them a heads-up because they are such a major vendor. My larger point though is whether Apple's modus operandi will have to change to accomodate, or take advantage rather, such an increase in availability of new technology.

Before I would look forward to a new form factor or case or structure--now I tend to think their designs will remain a little longer.
 
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