wait for snow leopard or buy mac now?

[Africangecko]

Hi all, I posted this in the top sticky, but it seems not many people read that so:

The WWDC has been announced for June 8th.
I'm going to be buying a new Mac Pro 2.26, but was planning on waiting the 2 months until snow leopard comes out, but now I'm reading that it probably won't go on sale until August, which is quite a long time to wait.

Is it likely that they will only release it about 2 months after the WWDC and is it just a bit of a waste waiting that long when I can just update the OS when they ship it.

I'm a bit torn as you can read, but my currest PC is really slow so I'm going to get a big boost with a new Mac.

Cheers for any help and predictions.

 

[p.luik]

Buy mac now. NEw OS can be purchased separately when it arrives. Get the most out of your new mac and buy it now if you're not waiting for that to be updated.

 

[Plutonius]

Hi all, I posted this in the top sticky, but it seems not many people read that so:

The WWDC has been announced for June 8th.
I'm going to be buying a new Mac Pro 2.26, but was planning on waiting the 2 months until snow leopard comes out, but now I'm reading that it probably won't go on sale until August, which is quite a long time to wait.

Is it likely that they will only release it about 2 months after the WWDC and is it just a bit of a waste waiting that long when I can just update the OS when they ship it.

I'm a bit torn as you can read, but my currest PC is really slow so I'm going to get a big boost with a new Mac.

Cheers for any help and predictions.

Most people are saying that Snow Leopard will come out 2 months after WWDC which would put it in early August. I was going to wait on Snow Leopard but I probably will not now.

 

[DaveF]

If you need the new Mac now, buy it now. If you want it, but can easily wait several more months, then wait. You're trading schedule against money.

When I upgrade to a MacBook Pro in '07, I bought it 3 months before Leopard was released. I wanted to wait, but 10.5 was pushed off into the Fall and I needed a new computer and could not wait any longer. Three months later, I'm paying for 10.5 and the iLife 08.

My wife gets a new Mac this year; her upgrade can wait another 9 months if necessary and so I'll wait until 10.6 is released for her new iMac.

 

[Anuba]

Hi all, I posted this in the top sticky, but it seems not many people read that so:

The WWDC has been announced for June 8th.
I'm going to be buying a new Mac Pro 2.26, but was planning on waiting the 2 months until snow leopard comes out, but now I'm reading that it probably won't go on sale until August, which is quite a long time to wait.

Is it likely that they will only release it about 2 months after the WWDC and is it just a bit of a waste waiting that long when I can just update the OS when they ship it.

I'm a bit torn as you can read, but my currest PC is really slow so I'm going to get a big boost with a new Mac.

Cheers for any help and predictions.

I would buy a Mac Pro now. It was recently updated with Intel's latest i7 processors so it's gonna be a long while before there's any major shakeup... only small incremental speed bumps in clock frequency are to be expected.

I'd hold off buying a MacBook, though. A whole new processor generation is due out Q4 this year. Sure, technology always evolves, but sometimes it takes a major leap overnight, and you don't want to be on the wrong side on that paradigm shift.

 

[Tallest Skil]

I would buy a Mac Pro now. It was recently updated with Intel's latest i7 processors so it's gonna be a long while before there's any major shakeup... only small incremental speed bumps in clock frequency are to be expected.

Little point: IT ISN'T CORE i7. Do buy now, though.

I'd hold off buying a MacBook, though. A whole new processor generation is due out Q4 this year. Sure, technology always evolves, but sometimes it takes a major leap overnight, and you don't want to be on the wrong side on that paradigm shift.

Arrandale in Q1 2010.

 

[Anuba]

Little point: IT ISN'T CORE i7. Do buy now, though.

It isn't? Are they not Nehalem processors, or are the Xeon models not called i7, or what does "isn't" mean in this context?

 

[Consultant]

Is waiting >2 months (and potentially longer) worth the daily frustration just to save buying the OS which cost $129 (or you can often find it for less)?

If yes, wait, if not, buy now.

 

[sboerup]

Considering the price of the new OSX when released is $99/$129 or whatever it is, thats a small price to pay for such a great advancement.

On the contrary, you could select from 5 different Windows versions and pay quite a bit more . . .

 

[Stratoukos]

It isn't? Are they not Nehalem processors, or are the Xeon models not called i7, or what does "isn't" mean in this context?

They are nehalem but they are not i7. i7 is the name that intel gives to consumer level processors while Xeon is the name for the server level processors.

 

[Anuba]

They are nehalem but they are not i7. i7 is the name that intel gives to consumer level processors while Xeon is the name for the server level processors.

Oh, that distinction. Well, technically it's inaccurate to refer to the as i7, but since Intel has called the server class processors simply "Xeon" for aeons, no matter which generation they belong to, they're often referred to by Xeon + the consumer line name that designates the generation, and in turn the consumer line is sometimes referred to as "non-Xeon".

"I have a Xeon machine" could mean anything. It could be from the Pentium 4 era.
"I have a Xeon E5410 machine" only means something to the 5% who keep track of Intel's hundreds of model names.
"I have a Xeon i7 machine" conveys all the relevant info.

 

[skye12]

I'd wait because not only do you get the new OS included, but its possible
you could see some minor hardware updates by then too.

 

[Tallest Skil]

"I have a Xeon i7 machine" conveys all the relevant info.

Nope. There are three Nehalem Xeons, two of which are in the Mac Pro.

I find it MUCH easier to circumvent this whole thing, say, "Screw i7/Xeon," and just call the processors by their actual names.

Like the MacBook family, iMac, and Mac Mini use Penryn, and the Mac Pro uses the 3500 (quad-core; no name... yet) and Gainestown (eight-core).

 

[Anuba]

Nope. There are three Nehalem Xeons, two of which are in the Mac Pro.

I find it MUCH easier to circumvent this whole thing, say, "Screw i7/Xeon," and just call the processors by their actual names.

Like the MacBook family, iMac, and Mac Mini use Penryn, and the Mac Pro uses the 3500 (quad-core; no name... yet) and Gainestown (eight-core).

Right, but these XNNNN designations where NNNN is a 4-digit number and X is one of several letters of the alphabet are exactly why people just give up and call them "i7 Xeons".

In my 3-year old desktop machine is an E6700 (C2D 2.66 GHz). Sounds way more impressive than E5450, when in fact the latter is a quad beast with 12 MB cache. Furthermore the E6700 is a consumer-line Conroe, and the E5450 is a pro-line Nehalem and should have vastly different designations.

OK, so they're doing the "lower numbers = better" thing. Or not. Because in my notebook is a T2500, and that's way lamer than a T9600, which is lamer than a P9600.

I don't think Intel's own engineers understand the structure of their seemingly random nomenclature...

 

[NewWorldMac]

Will I be able to upgrade to snow leopard with my 2009 Imac 2.6ghz? I ask this because I was under the assumption that snowleopard would need a processor capable of 64 bit processing.

 

[Anuba]

Will I be able to upgrade to snow leopard with my 2009 Imac 2.6ghz? I ask this because I was under the assumption that snowleopard would need a processor capable of 64 bit processing.

Sure you will. PowerPC users will be left out, but they never said anything about omitting 32-bit support. That would be too harsh even for notorious legacy-screwers Apple.

 

[Tallest Skil]

Will I be able to upgrade to snow leopard with my 2009 Imac 2.6ghz? I ask this because I was under the assumption that snowleopard would need a processor capable of 64 bit processing.

Uh... yeah. Every processor sold by Apple since September 2007 is guaranteed to work.

Sure you will. PowerPC users will be left out, but they never said anything about omitting 32-bit support. That would be too harsh even for notorious legacy-screwers Apple.

So you don't believe they'll cut out Core Duo support?

 

[Anuba]

So you don't believe they'll cut out Core Duo support?

Not this time... maybe for the next cat, where they will probably also cut out support for Firewire 400, USB 2.0, physical keyboards, and iPods/iPhones older than 2008.