Snow Leopard in September, Xserve in June, Mac Pro Speed Boost, and More?

[deconstruct60]

The published snow leopard benchmarks will be done on a 3.2. The 2.26 octo will be dropped they will keep the 3 options and keep it simple.

What is magical about only 3 options. Why is 4 options significantly more complicated? Especially one which probably won't get pulled all that often, but will be priced with even higher margins.

(Small upside for Apple can wait to see if there are buyers for 3.2 machines at those prices before commit to it. Lots of companies are not buying anything these days. The minimal 2.93 machine is close to $6K. Does Apple really need the pub of a $6+K workstation right now. The 17" laptop has already been spun into a effective "Apple is expensive" commercial. )

The only real question i still have is when will the mac pro have 12 ram slots ? This i think involves a larger case as they would have done it last time if possible.

Not until a new MacPro case design which likely means serveral years... at which point it wouldn't matter. (since the memory density would have dropped).

12 slots run counter to the objective that Apple has for their "pop out" CPU/Memory tray. (http://www.apple.com/macpro/design.html#memory)
By making the tray perpendicular to the rest of the motherboard they are constrained in width by the width of the MacPro case. There is no room for 12 slots on that tray.

Maybe on the single CPU tray. But that also means a different design approach. Apple did 1 DIMM / controller approach ( and a mode where one of the controllers does 2 if fill all 4 slots). The 12 DIMMs in the dual CPU package setup means each of the three controller has two DIMMs. So perhaps could do 6 on the Single CPU tray.

Once 4GB DIMMS drop in price won't be as big of a deal. Folks are using 12 to go "large" with only affordable 2GB increments.

 

[iMacmatician]

What is magical about only 3 options. Why is 4 options significantly more complicated? Especially one which probably won't get pulled all that often, but will be priced with even higher margins.

The Clovertown addition in 2007 gave 4 options, and the Harpertown Mac Pros also had 4 CPU options.

We kinda have 5 CPU options with Gainestown: 1x 2.67 GHz, 1x 2.93 GHz, 2x 2.27 GHz, 2x 2.67 GHz, 2x 2.93 GHz.

 

[JGowan]

Sickening..yes but also obvious. Apple's in the content selling business with iTunes. They'll eventually support Blu-ray but my guess is they'll attach it to $$$ Mac Pro purchases.

I don't think it has anything to do with iTunes business... Apple knows that if people want Blu-ray, they'll buy it and hook it to their HDTVs... Blu-ray is sooo much more than a very clear video... it's got enough space on one disc to put a TON of other content that iTunes will never provide. A dual layer disc will hold 50GIGS!!! iTunes is never going to really compete with this.

The argument from what I understand is that Sony wants Apple to open up the OS kernal to put in copyright protection and Apple won't do it. It has nothing to do with selling a movie.

 

[deconstruct60]

You are making still far more complicated than it is, probably because you aren't clear what the capabilities of the traditional northbridge and southbridge are.

....

This is functionality will be replicated in Nehalem chips. Specifically Bloomfield and Gainestown are high-end chips and so they have external northbridges with at least 32 links just like previous high-end chipsets. Clarksfield and Arrandale which are mainstream processors will have integrated northbridges with 16 links, just as was common before.

I understand. What I'm not seeing is an incremental improvement here. The mainstream Nehalem are going to be roughly equivalent to the 2 generations back high-end chips. If those chips were better matched to the external northbridge with the equivalent of 32 links, you are going backwards in terms of being able to take full advantage of the bandwidth that workloads the leverage that power require.

Pragmatically, you are probably right, but that is more so because mainstream folks aren't going to fire up all 4 cores and have them run full blast. It also helps give Intel the market segmentation to push you into the current generation high end Northbridge if you need to max out performance.


Removing bottlenecks was part of what initial Nahalem Xeons have done with respect to memory. Reshuffling the deck chairs doesn't do much with these other Northbridge moves do much other removing the options for choice in terms of performance. Going to same some space and perhaps a tad cheaper.

The only thing you are losing is some flexibility since you can't really select your northbridge anymore.
...
In regards to being forced to pay for Intel IGPs, the IGP will only be included in Arrandale which is a dual core part and would be pretty low-end by the time it's released in 2010.

For these next two iterations yes. However, where Intel consistently makes moves to remove your ability to select a options from other vendors. (It isn't so much that the intel options were pragmatically paired, as it was that you had other option. You didn't HAVE TO buy a Intel Northbridge.) Your explanations seems bounded by the presumption that you are going buy Intel chipsets anyway.

If Intel is going to herd you into your Northbridge choice now, it is just a matter of time before they will try to herd all the mainstream folks into their IGP solution also.

 

[mark.kroes]

When to buy

Dear all,

I want to buy a new MBP 15" but really don't know when to buy it when I'm reading al this information. Someone please help and provide me with tips because I want it now but don't want to read in 2 months that there is a new one coming with new ghz and gigabites .......

 

[Eric S.]

I want to buy a new MBP 15" but really don't know when to buy it when I'm reading al this information. Someone please help and provide me with tips because I want it now but don't want to read in 2 months that there is a new one coming with new ghz and gigabites .......

This is the best place to start:
http://guides.macrumors.com/MacBook_Pro_Buyer's_Guide

Unfortunately Apple is very secretive about new product plans, so previous trends and speculation are about the best you can do.

 

[runningman1228]

"- Notebooks to move to Nehalem in November"

Does this mean the iMac will move to Nehalem as well. I couldn't see the laptops being Nehalem and the iMac not?
Any idea as to when we will see a quad iMac....?

 

[grue]

That's a recipe for a bug-filled release, of course. Nobody tests "hidden" features.

That's how Apple rolls with OS X. Every single 10.x release has been buggier than Paris Hilton's panties. They use the public as beta testers because they know they have a faithful legion of idiots who'll dive onto the software just so they can brag about having the new OS, and they won't complain about the inane bugs.

 

[finalcut]

bah september for snow leopard. Hope to get it sooner hehe

 

[Eric S.]

bah september for snow leopard. Hope to get it sooner hehe

Sooner and buggier?

 

[Plymouthbreezer]

My feelings:

• While September feels like a long way away, I'd rather Apple take their time and give us a trouble free release. Anyway, Leopard has been decently stable with the last few updates, I'm in no rush to upgrade.
• The prospect of getting a 17" anti-glare MBP come this rumored updates is tempting... I could use the extra screen-space, and the upgraded processing power. I wonder how much I could get for my current MBP...

 

[IronRoses]

It's all good upgradiging the mac pro...again....but what about graphics. It seems to me the only reason apple went for nvidia in the first place is because most mid-range nv cards don't need seperate power.

Since apple are so tight about wires showing their unable to put REALLY high end graphics cards int heir machine and so are we.

I'd love to put in a 4890 ATI in a amc pro, if i owned one but i wouldn't be able to because it need it#'s own power connecter.

They are going to have to do it soon because sep[erate power is the way forword as it looks.

I'm sure that'll be the point when apple buy out ati or nvidia and designs their own cards. i hope not though....

My other problem is mac pro updates. why so many, yet again, a great way to piss us off apple....thanks for ripping us off. Reminds me a bit like the iphone releases.....once again, thanks Apple we still love you. hmmmm

 

[maestro55]

I was looking for to getting Snow Leopard over the summer. I am sad to see that it is rumored we will have to wait until the fall to get Snow Leopard. Exchange 2007 support in mail.app will make my job supporting mac users in the field so much easier. Entourage is AWFUL!