Mac Hardware Trends (1984-2022)

[Analog Kid]

Dang, you must be a joy at parties.




Steve Jobs had been dead for nearly three years when Apple opted to produce these consciously underpowered models, coincident with the period in @ahurst’s data plots when speed improvement across the entire Apple Mac product line plateaued and, for the desktop models, even slipped slightly — no doubt dragged down by this product release decision.

That was the point of mentioning these products. Corporate spin and fanboy spin, Analog Kid, doesn’t alter the outcome. They were downclocked products relative to their immediate and direct generational predecessors. Their performance scores actually dropped relative to their immediate, entry-level predecessors — something unprecedented in Apple’s product release history. And Apple’s practice of this kind of product release was, at least this time, halted by 2018.




Referenced citations and supporting technical descriptions from company web sites are difficult for you. I get it, and hey, that’s OK. You can continue to enjoy many other venues and forums across the internet where you can indulge in your bubble of semantic reasoning. But on here, you will enjoy no such bubble.

This seemed to get unnecessarily personal…. In any event, you’ve heard what I’m trying to say and if your response is to go ad hominem and keep repeating your misuse of terms, then I’ll leave you to your opinions. If you can cite a document that shows Apple clocked these parts slower than they were specified to run, I’m happy to review it and concede the point.

 

[ahurst]

Incorrect. The Blueberry slot-load could be bought with the 400MHz speed, with airport and firewire https://everymac.com/systems/apple/imac/specs/imac_dv_400.html

Huh, I guess I mis-read the MacTracker info last time I was looking something up. Thanks! Of course, I’ve already got a 350 MHz Blueberry iMac without any of those niceties so I can’t really justify tracking down another.

I wonder if it’s possible to swap in a logic board from a later G3 without swapping out the whole bottom case to make room for the FireWire ports. There’s an indigo G3 in the store room at my old lab with a failed CRT fly back transformer I’m sure they’d like to get rid of, I wonder what revision it is...

 

[B S Magnet]

This seemed to get unnecessarily personal…. In any event, you’ve heard what I’m trying to say and if your response is to go ad hominem and keep repeating your misuse of terms, then I’ll leave you to your opinions. If you can cite a document that shows Apple clocked these parts slower than they were specified to run, I’m happy to review it and concede the point.

OK. Have a nice day.

 

[Amethyst1]

If you can cite a document that shows Apple clocked these parts slower than they were specified to run, [...]

Useless fact: All 12" MacBooks shipped with CPUs configured to use a higher-than-default base clock... but these CPUs are designed to have variable base clocks to begin with, so it's not like they were overclocked.

 

[B S Magnet]

Useless fact: All 12" MacBooks shipped with CPUs configured to use a higher-than-default base clock... but these CPUs are designed to have variable base clocks to begin with, so it's not like they were overclocked.

Also key to note how the 2015 and later MacBooks weren’t succeeding a previous generation model the way, say, the underpowered, downclocked, and altogether slower 2014–2017 era base model iMacs and Mac minis they succeeded. Not even Turbo Boost variable clocking could make up for this shortcoming.

 

[Amethyst1]

[...] the underpowered, downclocked, and altogether slower 2014–2017 era base model iMacs and Mac minis [...]

Yanno, they missed the opportunity to really screw up the 2015-2017 base iMacs and Mac minis by putting in a Core M

 

[B S Magnet]

Yanno, they missed the opportunity to really screw up the 2015-2017 base iMacs and Mac minis by putting in a Core M

“NOW… WITH CORE-M… M IS 13TH LETTER IN ALPHABET, MORE NUMBERS THAN CORE i5…”

 

[Amethyst1]

“NOW… WITH CORE-M… M IS 13TH LETTER IN ALPHABET, MORE NUMBERS THAN CORE i5…”

I did actually see a 15.6" (!) Core M laptop being advertised on a discounter's website.

 

[B S Magnet]

I did actually see a 15.6" (!) Core M laptop being advertised on a discounter's website.

Core-M(agnaminouslypainful)

 

[Analog Kid]

Useless fact: All 12" MacBooks shipped with CPUs configured to use a higher-than-default base clock... but these CPUs are designed to have variable base clocks to begin with, so it's not like they were overclocked.

Yeah, but the i5’s used in the education iMacs don’t have configurable TDP-ups though… If they were run at their specified TDP-down clock, you might make they argument that they were downclocked, but they weren’t.

 

[ahurst]

Just to keep them all in one thread, here are some plots I made in the Apple Silicon subforum about Mac Mini, iMac, and Apple Laptop trends over time.

Here's the Mac Mini data, adjusted for inflation:

As you can see, the current M1 Mac Mini is about the same base price as the Mini's always been, with the exception of the rather-limited $499 1.4 GHz 2014 Mac Mini.

Here's the same data for the iMac:

Note that the bottom row of prices from 2005-2020 are mostly the "education special" iMacs: the 17" white, the 20" Aluminum, and the non-retina 21.5" models. The current base iMac is priced just above that price tier, but below all the previous 21.5" 4K iMacs.

For the laptop data, there's been a general downwards trend in base price for the past two decades (thank goodness!). Two things that stand out to me: 1) the original polycarbonate MacBooks were more expensive than I thought!, and 2) the original top-tier MacBook Air SKU costing the equivalent of almost $3750 USD. Man, how quickly that design went from "preview of the future" to "the basic laptop formula"... I remember a story of an MBA early adopter missing his flight because the TSA agent who scanned his bag wouldn't believe the MBA was a real laptop given the lack of spinning HDD and optical drive!

 

[Amethyst1]

[…] Man, how quickly that design went from "preview of the future" to "the basic laptop formula"... […]

And 2015 saw the reprise of the preview of the future theme with the “MacBook.”

[…] I remember a story of an MBA early adopter missing his flight because the TSA agent who scanned his bag wouldn't believe the MBA was a real laptop given the lack of spinning HDD and optical drive!

I’m lucky I didn’t have to fly between 2005 and 2007 because my Sharp Muramasa might have thrown the agent off as well