Macintosh Moving to Intel Processors [Updated]

[vaslav]

Well I am more worried about an emac or mac mini with a shared video memory design. Yuck. We just cannot tell everything is rumor other then the next Macs will use intel x86 processors. We dont know more then that. Lets wait a year and see. Hey lets wait 2 weeks for someone to rip apart a dev kit and then we can speculate!

I doubt that Apple will begin to produce machines with shared video memory as it is my understanding that you need at least 64MB of dedicated video memory on a card with a programmable GPU to take advantage of certain Tiger features such as Core Image. I can't imagine that Apple would develop new machines that weren't able to fully take advantage of their current operating system.

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[iN8]

What's a shared video memory design? What does it do and why is that bad?

The video is built into the motherboard and uses system RAM as video RAM instead of having its own dedicated video ram.

 

[iMeowbot]

What's a shared video memory design?

That's when a video card (or more commonly, on-board chip) uses the CPU's main memory to store image data, rather than having its own separate memory. Not too many years ago (before display chips started growing their own processors), this was pretty much standard.

What does it do and why is that bad?

The worst problem is that the CPU and graphics hardware compete for access to the same memory chips, so they have to wait for each other. A second problem is that the video hardware reserves some of your main memory, so it's no longer available for programs.

 

[scarletspider]

shared memory

Depending on your point of view, it can be good or bad. My opinion is that it is very bad. Your video card uses memory from your installed sticks for your video card, thus decreasing the amount of ram in your computer and allocating it to your video card. Screen refreash is slow, and everything takes forever. Also it should be noted my exprience with shared video as always been bad. The computers I service that have it I always insist that people get a "real video card" it can just be a cheap $60.00 POS but it makes a world of difference, even for just redrawing the screen.

It is bad.

My how the mighty have fallen if apple uses shared video memory...

 

[eVolcre]

So does that mean Apples DON'T use shared memory today? If true (and if they continue to have their dedicated memory or whatever it's called) doesn't that reduce even further the impact of the new processor? It's imporance is even less. does that make sense?

 

[Savage Henry]

Apple will likely keep its options open again this time "just in case".

It's good business practice to keep all your options open.

I'm just watching the Stevenote (in a kinda 'wiser after the event' exercise), and I notice that Steve has been unusually reticent in the beginning... he knows he's going to upset people.

Time will tell. I'm stick hollow at the thought of intel, but I'm sure I'll get used to it.But I am curios as to whether the Mac stigma of absolute non-compatability will remain.

 

[eVolcre]

Depending on your point of view, it can be good or bad. My opinion is that it is very bad. Your video card uses memory from your installed sticks for your video card, thus decreasing the amount of ram in your computer and allocating it to your video card. Screen refreash is slow, and everything takes forever. Also it should be noted my exprience with shared video as always been bad. The computers I service that have it I always insist that people get a "real video card" it can just be a cheap $60.00 POS but it makes a world of difference, even for just redrawing the screen.

It is bad.

My how the mighty have fallen if apple uses shared video memory...

So how can it be good? seems like, from what you guys have said, it can only be bad, right?

 

[tdewey]

Correct me if I am wrong, but isn't pentium M ready for production? If so why wait? Am I missing something here?

Apple will wait for Yonah (dual-core). Want a significant performance jump for switching.

 

[HyperX]

The only advantage to shared video memory design is more profit for big buisness. It sucks for users. Looks bad, works bad, and its BAD! The only upside is it makes you want to get a better video card REALLY quickly cause.. ITS BAD!

I just fear the more PC apple goes the more tempting it will be fore JOBS to cut costs for increased profits. Otherwise, I see no real downside.

I love PPC but to be honost one can only get **** so may times by 2 different companies before you decide its TIME TO GO!

 

[iMeowbot]

Well I am more worried about an emac or mac mini with a shared video memory design. Yuck. We just cannot tell everything is rumor other then the next Macs will use intel x86 processors. We dont know more then that. Lets wait a year and see. Hey lets wait 2 weeks for someone to rip apart a dev kit and then we can speculate!

Shared memory video isn't specifically an Intel thing. If Apple wanted to do things that way, they could do it now.

 

[wala]

88 pages... good going, guys! Has anyone been following this whole thing? Could you tell the rest of us what has happened so far? Have you even gotten anywhere?

 

[vaslav]

What's a shared video memory design? What does it do and why is that bad?

Shared video memory is where your main system memory is also being used as video memory. This is a 'cheap' way to produce PCs and is one of the reasons that you can get a Dell for $299. Basically, your performance is slowed down because the main system memory has to perform system memory functions as well as video functions and can slow down a machine especially when doing anything graphically intense.

I find that it is one of the main reasons (other than Windows) that people I know who have PCs are frustrated because they experience extremely slow screen redraws and general computer sluggishness. Macs do not use shared video memory.

I hope this helps.

 

[eVolcre]

Shared video memory is where your main system memory is also being used as video memory. This is a 'cheap' way to produce PCs and is one of the reasons that you can get a Dell for $299. Basically, your performance is slowed down because the main system memory has to perform system memory functions as well as video functions and can slow down a machine especially when doing anything graphically intense.

I find that it is one of the main reasons (other than Windows) that people I know who have PCs are frustrated because they experience extremely slow screen redraws and general computer sluggishness. Macs do not use shared video memory.

I hope this helps.

OK I'm asking idiot questions because I realy don't know much about this. Now, what kind of dedicated video memory (is that the right term?) does my 12" G4 have? AND - if I buy a better computer - a 17" powerbook or a PowerMac does that dedicated memory go up> Is it like system memory where 640 is better than 256 and the more memory you have the better?

 

[cmkrnl]

Depending on your point of view, it can be good or bad. My opinion is that it is very bad. Your video card uses memory from your installed sticks for your video card, thus decreasing the amount of ram in your computer and allocating it to your video card. Screen refreash is slow, and everything takes forever. Also it should be noted my exprience with shared video as always been bad. The computers I service that have it I always insist that people get a "real video card" it can just be a cheap $60.00 POS but it makes a world of difference, even for just redrawing the screen.

It is bad.

My how the mighty have fallen if apple uses shared video memory...

That's just the crappy PC bus architecture. The SGI O2 workstation uses system memory for graphics and is quite excellent. One big advantage is that it gives you access to large amounts of memory for textures.

 

[vaslav]

OK I'm asking idiot questions because I realy don't know much about this. Now, what kind of dedicated video memory (is that the right term?) does my 12" G4 have? AND - if I buy a better computer - a 17" powerbook or a PowerMac does that dedicated memory go up> Is it like system memory where 640 is better than 256 and the more memory you have the better?

Your 12" G4? Powerbook or iBook?

If it is an iBook, it has a ATI Mobility Radeon 9200 with 32MB of DDR SDRAM. If it is an early 12" PowerBook, it would have the NVIDIA GeForce4 420 Go graphics processor with AGP 4X support and 32MB of DDR SDRAM, the next 12" had the NVIDIA GeForce 5200 with 32MB and the current model has the same card with 64MB.

New 15" PowerBooks come standard with 64MB or you can upgrade to 128 (standard on the 17") and the PowerMacs come with 64MB to 256MB depending upon the configuration.

And yes, more is BETTER!

 

[sacear]

With Apple switching to Intel processors, will we see Blue Man Group doing Macintel shadow dancer commercials similar to current iPod commercials?

That would be very cool actually! From an artistic director's POV. I'd like to make that video ad.

 

[eVolcre]

Your 12" G4? Powerbook or iBook?

If it is an iBook, it has a ATI Mobility Radeon 9200 with 32MB of DDR SDRAM. If it is an early 12" PowerBook, it would have the NVIDIA GeForce4 420 Go graphics processor with AGP 4X support and 32MB of DDR SDRAM, the next 12" had the NVIDIA GeForce 5200 with 32MB and the current model has the same card with 64MB.

New 15" PowerBooks come standard with 64MB or you can upgrade to 128 (standard on the 17") and the PowerMacs come with 64MB to 256MB depending upon the configuration.

And yes, more is BETTER!

WOAH That's a crapload of acronyms and numbers I think I understood every 4th word. I bought the first 12" powerbook when it came out. I'm tempted to ask you what the above things mean (what the heck is AGP or DDR or SDRAM) but I'm not going to since it will probably confuse me more.

My takeway = seperate video memory = good. The higher the number = the better the computer!

 

[eVolcre]

I lied. Can't resist myself. Plus, I like learning new things anyway

If it is an early 12" PowerBook, it would have the NVIDIA GeForce4 420 Go graphics processor with AGP 4X support and 32MB of DDR SDRAM, the next 12" had the NVIDIA GeForce 5200 with 32MB

Soo , since they both had 32 megs are they the same? Or are there actual differences in the processor that make one better than the other?

And how would you tell which one is better. Typically the newer models have higher numbers (in most products) but in this case one is called GeForce4 420 and one is called GeForce 5200. Don't seem to be related to each other.

 

[onlysublime]

You do know that the Xeon is based on the P4 core with some minor changes. Intel did this so that people couldn't drop cheap P4's into multiple processor boards because server chips fetch a much higher price even though it's virtually the same chip.

It's the same idea as the Opteron is basically the same as the Athlon64 except it's 940 pins instead of 939 pins and uses ECC memory. I have no problem with someone calling the Opteron an Athlon64 as long as they know that it is a server chip version.

Where do you get your information? That's complete and utter rubbish.

THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A COMPUTER WITH MORE THAN ONE PENTIUM 4 PROCESSOR.

Geddit?

The Intel family runs like this:

Pentium M (plus Celeron versions). Single CPU. For portables.
Pentium 4 (plus Celeron versions). Single CPU. For desktops.
Xeon DP. Dual CPU. For workstations and servers.
Xeon MP. Four (and more) CPUs. For servers.
Itanium. Dual and >= 4 CPUs. For servers.

Pentium 4s have never, do not currently and will not ever run in multiple CPU configurations. You can get Pentium 4s with dual cores, but that's not the same thing.

Here are the Intel pages on the Pentium 4:

http://www.intel.com/products/processor/pentium4/

Please read them and provide the following:

1. Evidence that Intel says that Pentium 4s are available in configurations of more than one CPU.
2. Evidence from manufacturers and resellers of Intel-based personal computers that feature multiple (>1) Pentium 4 CPUs.
3. Links to motherboard manufacturer websites (Supermicro, Tyan, Iwill, Asus, Gigabyte, MSI, ECS, Abit, etc) that sell motherboards capable of running more than one P4 CPU.

When you fail to find this information, please post to that effect so we can all laugh at you.

 

[vaslav]

WOAH That's a crapload of acronyms and numbers I think I understood every 4th word. I bought the first 12" powerbook when it came out. I'm tempted to ask you what the above things mean (what the heck is AGP or DDR or SDRAM) but I'm not going to since it will probably confuse me more.

My takeway = seperate video memory = good. The higher the number = the better the computer!

Sorry about all of the specs. I was just copying and pasting from the Apple site. Don't worry about the AGP, DDR, etc. There are different interfaces (slower and faster) for video cards/memory, but your last sentence summed up what you should be worried about - separate video memory and more of it.

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[shabbasuraj]

I want my PowerBookCentrino H5 to be 5.0 GHz and have 15 hour battery life.

THANKS.

 

[joeboy_45101]

The video is built into the motherboard and uses system RAM as video RAM instead of having its own dedicated video ram.

You didn't mention that this is also a very bad idea when you want graphical performance. Because the graphics card doesn't have enough or any memory of it's own to utilize then it has to eat away at the system's memory.

I don't want anybody to think that because they have maybe 64mb of Video RAM that this would increase it to 128mb(64mb Video RAM/64mb System RAM) or 256mb(64mb Video RAM/192mb System RAM). No, that technology is used for cheapo Wal-Mart PC's to save money on not having to put a real graphics card in the box. A dedicated graphics card with it's own dedicated memory is the way to go. It doesn't have to leech off of the CPU or the System RAM.

 

[Peace]

Could be wrong here so please feel free to correct me but I don't think any G4 or G5 has shared memory..

Only the low-end cheepie MB's made for Wintel use shared memory in the IA-32 architecture..

and yes..it IS a business thing to make more money with them and imho worthless.

 

[eVolcre]

I want my PowerBookCentrino H5 to be 5.0 GHz and have 15 hour battery life.

THANKS.

No problem. We'll get right on it.

 

[vaslav]

I lied. Can't resist myself. Plus, I like learning new things anyway

Soo , since they both had 32 megs are they the same? Or are there actual differences in the processor that make one better than the other?

And how would you tell which one is better. Typically the newer models have higher numbers (in most products) but in this case one is called GeForce4 420 and one is called GeForce 5200. Don't seem to be related to each other.

Both have 32 megs but are not the same - I would agree that the newer models generally have higher numbers, but also that Apple seems to always improve upon the technology with new machines, not go backwards. So, with that, a newer Mac with 32 megs compared to an older Mac with 32 megs should be better. It is best to check out the video card manufacture's site for specific specs on a card (in this case nvidia.com).

Most of your video card specs have to do with how fast can the video card process the graphics and things like how fast AGP, which is the interface to the rest of the computer, can transfer video data (bandwidth) to the video card to process. DDR is double data rate memory (faster) and SDRAM is just the type of RAM memory used (SDRAM is fast).

So, to sum up: More video memory is good, but also depends upon the video card processor and the interface to the computer (i.e., AGP 4x, AGP 8x, etc).

Clear as mud?