NVIDIA Powered MacBooks on October 14th?

[filmguy15]

1. Pushing the boundaries of thin? MBA is not even the thinnest notebook ever like Steve-o claimed

http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9852240-7.html

2. When I say innovative I mean dust off those cool prototypes and patents and bring them to light. Also add extra features people want in innovative way. Sure you may think usb ports, 3g, etc is overrated and if someone wants those features they need to go somewhere else. But add all of that in a package that is .75" thick package. How would that not be innovation? Innovation would be pushing a product to its max potential. Look at the ipt 2g so much could have been done with instead it became thinner with buttons and a feature that very very few will every use. Wow? Now if it came out with a camera and a built-in mic that can be used for added gaming experience. WOW!

p.s I am fine with Apple and I do not need to go to another company since no other offers OSX

I see your point, and yes, OSX is my weakness as well. That and I think my Mac Pro is sexy.

 

[shadowmoses]

And built-in fingerprint reader would be a really nice addition. All the cheap laptops have got them now. Apple could easily integrate this with "keychain".

Mainly because it creates a solution to a problem that doesn't exist and that is something Apple are not keen on......I agree though it would be cool but they would have to find an aesthetically pleasing way to integrate it.

 

[jade]

the big experiment

I am starting to think the MBA is really the beta MB 2008. Apple wanted to know how much stuff can we live without? How many adapters do we need or will tolerate? What can we do with form factor, and new components.

I expect the new MBs will basically be MBA with optical drives. (aka no firewire, mini dvi, crazy usb ports.)

 

[hiimamac]

It's possible that the graphics would be the nVidia equivalent to Intel's integrated set, rather than a beasty dedicated solution.

It's Apple, you can COUNT ON IT.

If they went out of their way to take the Intel interegrated chipset from 70% all the way up to Xbench's 171% on a macbook (OPEN_GL) with Leopard and then release X300 to cripple users from running MOTION, YOU CAN BE SURE THAT APPLE WILL INDEED CRIPPLE THE CHIPSET.

You will never ever be able to run MOTION or play a good 3D GAME on a MACBOOK. Why, that would just make to much sense. Apple feels the need to cripple the <1% PRO USER market share. If they do, it would be a breakthrough for them and I would be stunned. Sure hope it happens but I wouldn't count on it.

 

[Clayne]

Fingerprint reader? No thanks.

 

[Loge]

I am starting to think the MBA is really the beta MB 2008. Apple wanted to know how much stuff can we live without? How many adapters do we need or will tolerate? What can we do with form factor, and new components.

I expect the new MBs will basically be MBA with optical drives. (aka no firewire, mini dvi, crazy usb ports.)

I expect the MB will keep Firewire (but possibly moving to the 800 port). If they have any sense it will be the TI chipset too.

 

[Thepilot76]

yah i agree with you, he a "macrumors newbie" so I doubt his "source" is even a source. I'd like to see this, but dont think it will stop me from buying a MBP

try one of the longest-serving members of MR. Sometimes you have to do things to protect your identity.

 

[reflex]

Apple Stores don't get info about new products until the day before they are released when their shipment gets in and the employees get trained on them.

Especially since there are no actual Apple Stores in Belgium, just various retailers.

 

[Shagrat]

Because everybody hates Monday.

Well THESE guys certainly do..

 

[macshill]

It's The Bangles 'Manic Monday'.

 

[christian_k]

I'm pretty sure it's completely Apple's fault that the GMA only supports OpenGL 1.2. The GMA950 has hardware support for OpenGL 1.4 and the GMA X3100 has hardware support for OpenGL 1.5. And the drivers on the Windows side have now enabled OpenGL 1.5 support, although it did take a while. It's just a matter of whether Apple will bother releasing Intel drivers that fully take advantage of the hardware. Just like Apple advertised Leopard as having OpenGL 2.1 support yet the Radeon HD2000 series and nVidia 8000 series still do not have OpenGL 2.1 drivers. Apple may not be using fast GPU hardware, but they certainly aren't helping things with driver support.

You say it. The GMAs support 1.4 or a.5. That is not 2.0, but still 1.x.

With 2.0 you can use programmable shaders without having to use extensions that can be present or absent in many any combinations. Getting rid of any chip that does not support 2.0 would make OpenGL 2.0 a reliable base for OSX and life much easier for developers.

Christian

 

[mdriftmeyer]

Well OpenCL is GPU agnostic because it separates programmers form the specific hardware in question. But someone still needs to develop the interface between the GPU and the OpenCL API. And the hardware itself needs to have some basic functionality such as scheduling control, cache structure, type of execution units available and how the output is formatted (to IEEE 754 standards). My question is that it's unclear whether Intel's GMA X3100 and X4500 are incompatible in hardware to GPGPU functionality, like their execution units can't output with sufficient accuracy, or it's simply that Intel hasn't bother to develop and interface to the GPU that OpenCL can be supported on top of.

The OpenCL API are the C Interfaces. How Apple writes Cooca Interface wrappers in ObjC and extend C for C++ depends on their applications and device driver uses, respectively.

The rest of the Industry is responsible for how their Operating system of choice interfaces with those OpenCL C APIs and GPU/CPU assembly code, where necessary.

Apple isn't just giving this away because they want to be Santa. They are tired of disparate Parallel Computing approaches (AMD/Nvidia come to mind, plus Intel's) and how they are a complete clusterf*** for the higher level APIs.

Intel's VTune supports their Core2, Xeon and IA-64.

http://www.intel.com/cd/software/products/asmo-na/eng/239142.htm

Their processors won't be crippled and incapable of working with OpenCL.

 

[mdriftmeyer]

You say it. The GMAs support 1.4 or a.5. That is not 2.0, but still 1.x.

With 2.0 you can use programmable shaders without having to use extensions that can be present or absent in many any combinations. Getting rid of any chip that does not support 2.0 would make OpenGL 2.0 a reliable base for OSX and life much easier for developers.

Christian

Intel X3500 and above are OpenGL 2.x compliant.

Those chipsets equal or above this threshold include:

G35, G41, G43, G45, Q43 and Q45 chipsets. All x41 and above use the Intel X4500.

This chart gives a hint at what the Macbook, Macbook Pro and iMac systems will work within.

iMac/Mac mini
http://compare.intel.com/pcc/showchart.aspx?mmID=54987,29003,34469,36520&familyID=10&culture=en-US

For the Macbook, if they went this far people would be shocked
http://www.intel.com/products/notebook/chipsets/gm45/gm45-overview.htm

For the Macbook Pro we already know they'll have a dedicated GPU.

Even then, the Intel Chipsets will be modified for Apple goals.

 

[Yixian]

In regards to GPU, I'm hoping that Apple goes with the Mobility Radeon 4670 with 512MB of GDDR3. (The 1GB versions on desktop seems to use lower clocked DDR3 rather than GDDR3). The desktop 4670 performs pretty much like the previous desktop 3850, so if the Mobility 4670 can perform like the Mobility 3850, we'll probably get something competitive with the nVidia 9700M GT and possibly 9700M GTS. Basically a lower range high-end card, which seems fairly reasonable. Plus the 4670 supports 64-bit double precision floats for OpenCL use while the nVidia 9xxx series doesn't.

Dude we'd all love that card but it's not even out yet! And if Apple makes the new MacBook Pros any thinner then you can count those out too.

And if Apple can't give up on it's obsession with keeping it's high end notebooks cripplingly thin, introduce a new line, a MacBook Extreme! Something for those of us that want bang for buck.

 

[Mackan]

Dude we'd all love that card but it's not even out yet! And if Apple makes the new MacBook Pros any thinner then you can count those out too.

And if Apple can't give up on it's obsession with keeping it's high end notebooks cripplingly thin, introduce a new line, a MacBook Extreme! Something for those of us that want bang for buck.

Thinner also means a louder fan as well, ramping up for nothing, very annoying.

 

[Yixian]

Thinner also means a louder fan as well, ramping up for nothing, very annoying.

I'm currently listening to streaming radio and browsing MR, and both my fans are running at over 6000rpm..

Before Apple makes any technological breakthroughs, it needs to make a cognitive breakthrough and allow the MBPs to be a practical thickness.

 

[teme]

I just hope that Apple doesn't cripple those new Macbooks with Steve's obsession for thinness. Thin is fine, but removing features or shortening battery life because of that is not okay.

The next update is probably the 'big' one, and I'm quite worried. I really hope that the new Macbooks are competitive in specs and price... not just in design and operating system. For some reason I'm quite pessimistic... I can see Steve shouting how thin the new Macbook is, while audience is wondering why Apple has removed some features and why the specs are not up to date.

 

[iOrlando]

is this is a good upgrade or not?

you think this is any sort of game-changer when it comes to base-level macbook? aka people are going to now buy it whereas they wouldnt buy it without this upgrade?

 

[dernhelm]

is this is a good upgrade or not?

you think this is any sort of game-changer when it comes to base-level macbook? aka people are going to now buy it whereas they wouldnt buy it without this upgrade?

I would. Alu macbook with decent graphics? Heck yes. Not everyone needs a macbook pro. Especially if they can drop the entry level under $1K

 

[dambro1978]

When do invitations get sent?!? (and random thoughts)

Really hoping for some site tomorrow to show up with an invitation from Apple for the 14th October.

I'm in the market for whatever attracts me on the release date.
My 12" PowerBook 1.5 Ghz can't keep up with heavy graphic load.
My ideal machine would be a 13" MBA with 2 USB ports instead of one.
For what performances are concerned, 7200rpm drive, the new Nvidia chipset with integrated GPU, whatever Core2Duo.
When I'm on my desk I hook it on a perfect and cheap Samsung 20", with a mighty mousy and a sleek flat Apple keyboard.
When I'm at home, 13" just suits the IKEA sofa.

External Superdrive is ok for me. I use it so rarely, back-up is done on external hard-disks, small files are carried around on USB keys, and music and videos go wirelessly or from the external drives (AppleTV et similia).
Cds and DVDs are so 90ish.

I think Steve knows it.

 

[johng2222]

More plugs, easier connections!

Hear, hear!

Stronger battery, stronger graphics, plenty of ports to plug into...

I too can skip the internal DVD.

Just give me some places to plug into without a gillion adaptors!

Really hoping for some site tomorrow to show up with an invitation from Apple for the 14th October.

I'm in the market for whatever attracts me on the release date.
My 12" PowerBook 1.5 Ghz can't keep up with heavy graphic load.
My ideal machine would be a 13" MBA with 2 USB ports instead of one.
For what performances are concerned, 7200rpm drive, the new Nvidia chipset with integrated GPU, whatever Core2Duo.
When I'm on my desk I hook it on a perfect and cheap Samsung 20", with a mighty mousy and a sleek flat Apple keyboard.
When I'm at home, 13" just suits the IKEA sofa.

External Superdrive is ok for me. I use it so rarely, back-up is done on external hard-disks, small files are carried around on USB keys, and music and videos go wirelessly or from the external drives (AppleTV et similia).
Cds and DVDs are so 90ish.

I think Steve knows it.

 

[Adidas Addict]

Really hoping for some site tomorrow to show up with an invitation from Apple for the 14th October.


External Superdrive is ok for me. I use it so rarely, back-up is done on external hard-disks, small files are carried around on USB keys, and music and videos go wirelessly or from the external drives (AppleTV et similia).
Cds and DVDs are so 90ish.

I think Steve knows it.

I totally agree, I would not miss a built in optical drive at all.

 

[vendettabass]

really looking forward to my MacBook, NVIDIA or not!

I'd rather have LED & aluminium

 

[CyberBob859]

Remove the drive!

I totally agree, I would not miss a built in optical drive at all.

I really hope Apple will remove the optical drive, keep it as a external option (like the MacBook Air), and, instead of trying to make the laptop very thin, use the extra real estate for a bigger battery or an extra hard drive.

The MBA removed the drive to get thin. The MB and/or MBP should remove the drive for extra features and functionality.

 

[TouchYourHead]

I hope that I can see Apple's invitation tomorrow!