New MacBooks by November?

[sblasl]

Should we start a petition?

You're kidding right?

This kind of post makes me want to join the guys who think newbies shouldn't be allowed to post for their first 6 months of membership.

 

[Tumeg101]

If they are expecting new MacBooks to be in the hands of consumers by mid November... then they have to be released the same time as leopard, if not then a few days later....

What do you guys think the processor speed bump will be??
2.16ghz for low end, and 2.2 for the others??
If this is so.. is .04ghz enough of a speed increase for me to wait a few weeks longer for a macbook?



What do you guys think the chances are of it just being a minor processor bump?? And the santa rosa chip set...

 

[Multimedia]

2 & 2.2GHz Santa Rosa + Better Integrated Graphics

If they are expecting new MacBooks to be in the hands of consumers by mid November... then they have to be released the same time as leopard, if not then a few days later....

What do you guys think the processor speed bump will be??
2.16ghz for low end, and 2.2 for the others??
If this is so.. is .04ghz enough of a speed increase for me to wait a few weeks longer for a macbook?

What do you guys think the chances are of it just being a minor processor bump?? And the santa rosa chip set...

To repeat myself several pages down the thread, I think 2GHz and 2.2 GHz with 4GB ram capacity thanks to Santa Rosa & finally better new integrated graphics (IG). So from my point of view it will be a big deal because they've been offering the same tired old IG since the first MacBook last year plus it will see and use 4GB of RAM which will both make its performance a lot better than just the speed of the C2D.

 

[Tumeg101]

To repeat myself several pages down the thread, I think 2GHz and 2.2 GHz with 4GB ram capacity thanks to Santa Rosa & finally better new integrated graphics (IG). So from my point of view it will be a big deal because they've been offering the same tired old IG since the first MacBook last year plus it will see and use 4GB of RAM which will both make its performance a lot better than just the speed of the C2D.

What all does Santa Rosa do...
if it is mainly just raising the ram capacity, I don't think it is worth it for me to wait a few more weeks to get my first macbook... and would the .04ghz dif be big enough to make me wait??

 

[Multimedia]

The 4GB High Ram Capacity Is A Very Big Deal

What all does Santa Rosa do...
if it is mainly just raising the ram capacity, I don't think it is worth it for me to wait a few more weeks to get my first macbook... and would the .04ghz dif be big enough to make me wait??

You would be mistaken. Having 4GB ram capacity makes a huge difference in performance when you are running multiple applications like normal.

You would regret not having waited soon enough. There are testimonies to that effect above in this thread. Go back and read it all.

 

[Tumeg101]

You would be mistaken. Having 4GB ram capacity makes a huge difference in performance when you are running multiple applications like normal.

I would never add more than 2gb of ram...
So the current model seems perfect for me... the only thing they can do to make me want to wait for the new ones... is maybe increase the battery life, add an extra USB port... and uhh... 2.3ghz,

I have simple needs, I have no need for 4gb of Ram... or .04ghz more, or even more battery life...
The biggest app I would run is photoshop, and I don't even know if I will be getting that... so I don't even need 2gb of ram... but if they did update a little more then just a small .04ghz speed boost... I might be interested in waiting anyway... but .04ghz and santa rosa, I don't even think I would wait for that either,

 

[Multimedia]

4GB MacBook RAM Costs $194

I would never add more than 2gb of ram...
So the current model seems perfect for me... the only thing they can do to make me want to wait for the new ones... is maybe increase the battery life, add an extra USB port... and uhh... 2.3ghz,

Having 4GB of ram increases battery life. 4GB of MacBook ram costs $194. You would spend $1200 for a MacBook and not $194 for 4GB of ram?

If you are going to run Photoshop CS3 then you will want 4GB of ram.

 

[Tumeg101]

Having 4GB of ram increases battery life. 4GB of MacBook ram costs $194. You would spend $1200 for a MacBook and not $194 for 4GB of ram?

If you are going to run Photoshop CS3 then you will want 4GB of ram.

I am only 14, I only have $2 more than the MacBook would cost me (with the $140 discount my dad can get)
So not really, lol... if they update the MacBook's to where they either just drop the price and a small speed bump, or maybe make 2gb ram standard in them... then I would wait, so I can have some extra cash for some extras

 

[leekohler]

You're kidding right?

This kind of post makes me want to join the guys who think newbies shouldn't be allowed to post for their first 6 months of membership.

Agreed. I'll always buy towers as well as laptops.

Whoops! I didn't realize you had written more than one of those zingers:ROTFLMAO... Since when is $5,000 a lot of money for a really fast loaded 16GB 8 core computer? How much money did you spend for your last car?

Your idea of what is expensive and Mac Pro users' idea of what is expensive are radically different ideas.

That all depends on how much you make with your MP in your respective career. I thought $1999 was appopriate for my dual core G5. However, now the lowest end MP starts at $2,200. I do feel that Apple could make a somewhat lower-end desktop tower. Some of us still need the capabilities of a desktop (multiple HDs, lots of RAM, etc), but don't necessarily need a quad or 8 core machine. And no, an iMac won't do either. And I don't own a car, MM. I live in the city.

 

[mox123]

The current MacBook has the Napa64 platform - the CPU is fully 64-bit capable. 64-bit virtual memory and 64-bit instructions are fully supported by the hardware (but not in a very useful way by OSX).

The restriction is that Napa64 has 32 physical address lines to memory - and since some physical addressing is needed for hardware and OS purposes only about 3.4 GiB of RAM is usable by the system.

And guess what - Santa Rosa adds 4 bits, it has 36 physical address lines on the chipset instead of 32.

Santa Rosa may be faster because of its faster memory bus, it may be faster because the chips clock slightly faster, it may be faster because you can use 4 GiB instead of 3.4 GiB (if you have a true 64-bit OS) - but it's not faster because it's "fully 64-bit".

hmmmm so there's really not much difference then between 32-bit and 36-bit chipset then? why do they not have a true 64-bit chipset? i'm confused; i thought they can only do powers of 2 when talking about bits, so like 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, etc...no?

 

[Gherkin]

If you are going to run Photoshop CS3 then you will want 4GB of ram.

I run CS 2 through Rosetta on 1 GB of RAM and Photoshop runs just fine. I had the CS 3 beta while it was available and it ran AWESOME.

You are kidding yourself if you think you need 4 GB of RAM of RAM to run CS 3.

 

[jdhayes117]

The Mac Pro was never going to be the biggest seller. It is a true pro machine which by definition is a much smaller market. It was never meant to compete sales-wise with the consumer laptop market which is much larger.

However it is still the flagship machine for Apple. It is their best offering in terms of pure computing power and is the only platform that is a true pro video authoring, 3D modeling workstation, scientific workstation, and software development platform.

If the Mac Pro model dies on the Apple vine, so too does high-end scientific, graphics, video, and future innovative software for the entire OS.

The Mac Pro is still an elegant beauty with plenty of muscle. The current octo runs like a beast under Leopard. People just complain too much. Frankly there is very little that can't be done with the current Mac Pro.

What is does need is more mature software, more video card offerings, and more peripheral offerings such as Blu-Ray / HD-DVD authoring devices.

Concur on multiple levels. If you want to see what a MacPro is capable of, go to the Apple "Mac at Work" website (http://www.apple.com/macatwork/) and see how they are used by "pros".

I also agree about the capability of the current Mac Pro. I've been holding out for a refresh, not because the current system isn't capable, but because I don't want to get stuck with Aug '06 technology in Nov '07. I'd be content with upgrades to basic RAM capacity, basic storage capacity, a current video card (Nvidia 8800 or RADEON 2900), and the option for a High Def optical drive. All of the above have dropped in price significantly since introduction of the MP 429 days ago but the price hasn't budged a cent. I'm suggesting that Apple bring the current MP capability back in line with the price they are charging.

Finally, all of these are easily doable on/about 26 Oct. They require no change to the basic hardware and, at best, a couple of new drivers.

 

[~~Hello~~]

I am only 14, I only have $2 more than the MacBook would cost me (with the $140 discount my dad can get)
So not really, lol... if they update the MacBook's to where they either just drop the price and a small speed bump, or maybe make 2gb ram standard in them... then I would wait, so I can have some extra cash for some extras

Surely you would want to wait for the updated Intel graphics though?

 

[Multimedia]

New IG Is A Big Deal Too

Surely you would want to wait for the updated Intel graphics though?

Yes I forgot how important that change will be - that's as important or moreso than the 4GB ram limit. Having the 4GB ram limit will also make the resale value higher even if you're not going to use it to begin with.

 

[Tumeg101]

The resale value is a good point to bring up...
So is the possible graphics upgrade...

But what exactly would I need the graphics upgrade for? (Besides resale value)
I guess I will just have to wait and see, because as people have been saying... the MacBook might need a graphics upgrade to work smoothly with leopard, but then developers might have said something about that by now, unless none of them downloaded leopard on there MacBook's...

And for resale value... if you look at the iBooks resale values... they actually aren't that different, a G3 and G4.... about the same, only like $100 difference...
And I don't really care about the resale value, because I am planning to keep my MacBook, even when I am ready to upgrade... for the same reason people keep clamshells... just because it would be nice to keep around, and I would like to have my first mac for a while, lol...
And the cash would be nice for when I am ready to upgrade, but if I do sell it to buy a new one, I would be without a computer for a while...

 

[triobot]

gonna wait till xmas to get my mb, getting it from HK rather than UK cos the taxation is toooooooooooooooo high here than in asia !!!

So i'll wait till the leopard to come out then see if the MBs get the aluminium make-over !!!

 

[OdduWon]

I run CS 2 through Rosetta on 1 GB of RAM and Photoshop runs just fine. I had the CS 3 beta while it was available and it ran AWESOME.

You are kidding yourself if you think you need 4 GB of RAM of RAM to run CS 3.

who runs just one app while their photoshoping? i would have a 3d app open for exporting renderings for my large format presentation, music, internet for research (and macrumors), and external drive with archived photos, possibly iphoto, and acrobat for presentation requirements. try doing all this on a MB with 1 gig of ram, I’m sure it would "crawl" not "run". if you need speed as you multi-task I’m sure you would want more than 1 gig of ram, no?

 

[kzin]

a. Not many people actually use those windoze machines with touchscreens, because they are a little hard to use. It's just something techie people like to say they have. But Multi-touch will be a big hit. Note how Apple is making Leopard touch compatible with coverflow in finder, resolution independent (works on screen of any size!)

Actually, the people I know who have them make extensive use of them. Taking notes in meetings, etc. And it's much less disruptive to the meeting than having the laptop open in regular form factor (which tends to act like lots of little communication barriers). I wouldn't have mentioned it as a desire if I hadn't seen how well it actually works.

b. No 60 CF cards are available. They do make a 64GB solid state drive but I think it's either $1000 or $1500 for the drive alone.

Ahh, you're right. 16GB is the current limit. Still, one of those is probably more than enough for my laptop. Two would be a great fit.

c. yeah that'll be cool, but a user can also tether the iPhone to the Mac (only Safari works the last time I checked), wink, wink.

I've never heard it confirmed that the iPhone can do Bluetooth DUN... do you know for sure that it can?

 

[flopticalcube]

hmmmm so there's really not much difference then between 32-bit and 36-bit chipset then? why do they not have a true 64-bit chipset? i'm confused; i thought they can only do powers of 2 when talking about bits, so like 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, etc...no?

When it comes to memory addressing you can do some pretty funky things. The original IBM PC CPU had a 16-bit internal structure but an extra 4-bit register to give it the ability to address 20-bits of memory a maximum of 1MB of addressable memory. The original Mac CPU was 32-bit internal with only 24-bits of memory addressing outside. That gave it a 16MB memory limit. The extra lines or lack thereof are usually due to cost or design constraints. Up until this year it was not really worth putting more address lines out on the Napa chipset as the biggest laptop memory chips available in quantity were 1GB. Furthermore, Napa had to be used by both 32-bit (Core Duo) and 64-bit (Core 2 Duo) CPUs.

But what exactly would I need the graphics upgrade for? (Besides resale value)
I guess I will just have to wait and see, because as people have been saying... the MacBook might need a graphics upgrade to work smoothly with leopard, but then developers might have said something about that by now, unless none of them downloaded leopard on there MacBook's...

Spaces and other eye-candy will require more GPU punch. Watching 1080p films would be helped by a better GPU. Multiple screens would see an improvement.

I would not place to much emphasis on the new GPU. The X3100 is only about twice as fast as a GMA950. Dedicated cards are faster by an order of magnitude or greater. The addition of hardware T&L will help a lot in 3D games, however.

 

[Eidorian]

hmmmm so there's really not much difference then between 32-bit and 36-bit chipset then? why do they not have a true 64-bit chipset? i'm confused; i thought they can only do powers of 2 when talking about bits, so like 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, etc...no?

Well 64 GB of RAM addressing is nice when compared to 4 GB.

 

[iDAG]

A MacBook update is very important to me seeing that it would be the best choice to replace my PowerBook G3 Would the new X3100 graphics have 128MB of intagrated VRAM instead of 64MBs?

 

[Eidorian]

A MacBook update is very important to me seeing that it would be the best choice to replace my PowerBook G3 Would the new X3100 graphics have 128MB of intagrated VRAM instead of 64MBs?

The GMA X3100 can address up to 384 MB of system RAM.

 

[Tumeg101]

Spaces and other eye-candy will require more GPU punch. Watching 1080p films would be helped by a better GPU. Multiple screens would see an improvement.

I would not place to much emphasis on the new GPU. The X3100 is only about twice as fast as a GMA950. Dedicated cards are faster by an order of magnitude or greater. The addition of hardware T&L will help a lot in 3D games, however.

So for spaces and others, the current integrated graphics wouldn't be too good??
In what way? Would it just be slower?
Only thing I would need the extra graphics for, is basically just leopard... most likely not photoshop,

After reading my prev posts in this thread, what do you think I should do? Wait for the update (if they update the graphics, a .04ghz boost, and santa rosa) or buy the current model, but with leopard

 

[Eidorian]

So for spaces and others, the current integrated graphics wouldn't be too good??
In what way? Would it just be slower?
Only thing I would need the extra graphics for, is basically just leopard... most likely not photoshop,

After reading my prev posts in this thread, what do you think I should do? Wait for the update (if they update the graphics, a .04ghz boost, and santa rosa) or buy the current model, but with leopard

The GMA X3100 has a higher peak bandwidth capability and can address more system RAM. There's also the matter of OpenGL 2.0/2.1 support as well.

It's more then just clock speed for Santa Rosa. You have to take into account the 800 MHz front side bus as well.

http://barefeats.com/rosa02.html

You can see that the 2.2 GHz can hold its own and win against the older 2.33 GHz models.

 

[virduk]

Heads will roll if the GMA 950 shows up again.

Yeah. I really don't want to be forced to buy a Dell or something.