THX1139 said:
Couldn't agree more!
I just wonder if Intel have managed to convince Apple to try an Itanium based XServe in the high end. I doubt it
I also doubt Apple will go for the Core 2 Extreme Edition - these chips change too often.
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Xserve July, Mac Pro (PowerMac) in August?
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Couldn't agree more!
I just wonder if Intel have managed to convince Apple to try an Itanium based XServe in the high end. I doubt it
I also doubt Apple will go for the Core 2 Extreme Edition - these chips change too often.
My guess is that the PowerMac line will widen. There will be low-end power macs that are really just expandable iMacs with no LCD. These could use a single Conroe chp and there will be quad core Woodcrest Mac Pros. The Xserve will be a repackaged Mac Pro. The low-end Mac Pros might even be caled simply "Mac" but I kind of doubt it.
I'd like to see Apple build a $1500 headless box, posably in a reduced size tower. the imac is nice but do you really want to throw away a nice 20" LCD in three years when you want to upgrade the computer?
Itanium uses a different instruction set. It can not run the came software as the other Intel Macs. None of the Universal binaries could run on Itanium.
I was surprized the Apple went exclusively with Intel. Had they done a mix of Intel and AMD then they could have used Opteron chips in the high-end Power Macs.
I'd like to see Apple build a $1500 headless box, posably in a reduced size tower. the imac is nice but do you really want to throw away a nice 20" LCD in three years when you want to upgrade the computer?
darrens said:I just wonder if Intel have managed to convince Apple to try an Itanium based XServe in the high end. I doubt it
Itanium uses a different instruction set. It can not run the came software as the other Intel Macs. None of the Universal binaries could run on Itanium.
I was surprized the Apple went exclusively with Intel. Had they done a mix of Intel and AMD then they could have used Opteron chips in the high-end Power Macs.
ChrisA said:
I know, I know - hence the
If Apple's software is as easily portable as they say, supporting another instruction set shouldn't be a huge issue. I didn't think universal binaries were an x86/PowerPC concept, more of a concept of having multiple binary executables in the same app.
Backwards compatibility with apps is not as big a deal on a server (most unix-based server apps would just need a recompile - I doubt there are many with Carbon dependencies). Intel is also working with Transitive on Rosetta-like software for Itanium.
I'ts also my vague understanding that the chipsets aren't that different between Itanium and x86 - certainly not as different as PowerPC chipsets and x86 chipsets.
So it's not that far fetched, but still very unlikely!
Aye, aye ...darrens said:
In fact, iMacs are getting less tinker friendly (since they put the camera) ...
With the Mini we have some nice external extensibility for its size (stacking up stuff), the Mini is OK except the basic model is a little bit expensive for its target. But the iMac is now really closer to the eMac, not really faster than the best laptops and less serviceable! At least they have a socketed CPU (not like laptops
) ... Apple should allow more options for the 20'' model (and maybe release a bigger model) and make the 17'' (maybe removing optionally some stuff) the eMac. This is what they have made to the laptop line ...
In regards to Xserve and OS10.4 server. Will the server software work on an intel Mac? we got a copy about a month ago and tried to install on an Intel iMac......it didn't work.....not even a little bit anyone else had this problem?
anyone else had this problem?javierbds said:
If you compare the expandability of the MacBooks and "desktops"
MacBook = Mac mini, except Mac mini is not as user serviceable
MacBook Pro > iMac, because it has an express card slot.
At least there will be a range of options to expand the MacBook Pro - perhaps even a TV Tuner express card, but certainly nothing for the iMac unless you use Firewire (400 only!) or USB which are nowhere near as fast as an internal bus.
G.Kirby said:In regards to Xserve and OS10.4 server. Will the server software work on an intel Mac? we got a copy about a month ago and tried to install on an Intel iMac......it didn't work.....not even a little bit
It's my understanding that there is no way to buy a boxed copy of MacOS X (client or server) for Intel, or a universal version. The only way to get it is to purchase an Intel based Mac.
As there is no Intel based Mac that Apple would consider as server level (XServe or possibly Mac Pro), I think you may be out of luck. I may be wrong though!
MacMan93 said:
Yeah, I'm even thinking we might actually see 2 different tower lines.
1 or 2 Conroe based, consumer/gamer level mini towers @ $1,000 - $1,500 [simply called "Mac" or "Mac Pro mini"], and also 2 or 3 Woodcrest based, professional level full size "Mac Pro" towers starting @ $2000, probably priced just like the currrent PowerMac line-up, with the highest end model being a Core 2 Quattro/Quad @ $2999 - $3299.
Possibly even a high end model for $200 more @ $3499... with 20 gigs more hard drive space and in black.
Someone contact MacOSRumors to see if they'll actually be called "Mac Pro's" though, since they were DEAD RIGHT in predicting that the iBook replacement would not be called a MacBook and would retain the iBook name... morons.
Agreed. But I think Fw400 is more than enough for many things, and there is a ton of stuff for USB2 ...darrens said:
What worries me is, as someone said above, what happens after 2-3 years with an iMac? You cannot upgrade much of the internals ... (And now Intel changes socket for the 2nd rev of Merom, just before summer 07 ...). What is left is a just a cute TFT?
The situation with a box now is not much better anyway: in 3 years everything in the box could be hw incompatible with what the market will be selling ...
On x86 world people really don't upgrade much their boxes (except for more RAM, HD or DVD-CD recorders ...) because mainboards, sockets, size formats, buses ... keep changing faster than your need to upgrade. So by the time you are upgrading you can only keep the HD and the sound card !
If Apple is going to ride the x86 wagon then maybe this things are going to happen to Apple hw too ... No longer the: Apple machines last longer, they are usable more years that in Windows world, you can upgrade this and that ...
Hey I'm not a n00by any more !
(33 posts)
risc said:Is the Conroe even capable of doing SMP? A single dual core Conroe versus a dual dual core G5... I wonder which will be faster?
Yes, it is SMP capable, just like the old Yonah chip. You have two cores in one chip. What it cannot do is have two or four chips working together, for four or eight cores.
In the end, I think Thinksecret is down to pure speculation, because everyone knows that the next time Thinksecret gets some real information, Apple _will_ find the source and hang them up by their balls. But their speculation is not good at all.
Intel says that Woodcrest is aimed at the server market and Conroe is aimed at desktop. But Apple doesn't care what Intel aims their chips at. People who bought a quad G5 box will be very happy with a quad Woodcrest box (eight cores), and you won't find anyone complaining that Woodcrest should go into servers and they would prefer a single Controe (dual core) because it is the proper chip for a desktop machine.
And people who need a server, but one that is cheap and easy to set up and maintain, will be quite happy with a cheap XServe machine with a single Conroe if it does the job.
MacQuest said:
I did a little digging and found this:
Intel will sell the 5160 Woodcrest, a 3GHz, 1333MHz part for $850; the 5150 2.66GHz 1333MHz part for $690; the 5148T for $520 - this is a 2.33GHz part; the 5130 2GHz at $315; the 5120 1.86GHz 1066MHz bus part at $250, and the 5110 1.60GHz 1066MHz CPU at $210. Ultra dense server Woodcrests will eat 40W
As there's no point using a Woodcrest in a single configuration (not really any performance difference with a Conroe at the same clock), the CPU prices alone would be twice the above.
I can't see Apple releasing anything below a 2.33GHz as a Quad, so the minimum CPU cost (without discount) is $1040 for Woodcrest.
I still think Conroe is more likely for the low end Mac Pro.
ChrisA said:
The deal with Apple was a big marketing win for Intel. An enormous amount of free advertisement, and winning Apple when Intel looked very much behind in the game was very important to them. I am sure that Apple gets the best possible treatment from Intel, with all the help they need to build machines, with first access to new chips in large numbers, and so on.
When the deal with Intel was cut, AMD looked ahead in the high end, but Steve Jobs probably was told things about future developments that we were not told (at that time), and now it looks like Conroe and Woodcrest will put Intel in the lead. Even if they were not ahead of AMD, an exclusive deal with Intel will be better for Apple because they will get much better treatment from Intel.
There are even rumors that Intel is keeping the announced Conroe clock rates artificially low at the moment, so that AMD doesn't try to desperately to improves theirs, so that when AMD announces their next product Intel can just increase Conroe clock rates by 600 MHz.
javierbds said:Agreed. But I think Fw400 is more than enough for many things, and there is a ton of stuff for USB2 ...
What worries me is, as someone said above, what happens after 2-3 years with an iMac? You cannot upgrade much of the internals ... (And now Intel changes socket for the 2nd rev of Merom, just before summer 07 ...). What is left is a just a cute TFT?
The situation with a box now is not much better anyway: in 3 years everything in the box could be hw incompatible with what the market will be selling ...
On x86 world people really don't upgrade much their boxes (except for more RAM, HD or DVD-CD recorders ...) because mainboards, sockets, size formats, buses ... keep changing faster than your need to upgrade. So by the time you are upgrading you can only keep the HD and the sound card !
If Apple is going to ride the x86 wagon then maybe this things are going to happen to Apple hw too ... No longer the: Apple machines last longer, they are usable more years that in Windows world, you can upgrade this and that ...
Is this really different from the macs with ppc CPUs? I mean there are cpu upgrade cards for some of them, but aren't they usually a similar price as a PC mainboard plus cpu? And upgrades of CPU, mainboard and ram advance the whole system to a new architecture, while the CPU upgrade alone does not help as much.
By the way, amoung the common upgrades of PCs you forgot the GPU, which presently seems to be the fastes aging component in a computer.
For the macs I guess upgrade cards for CPUs will still be available for Intel as long as the demand is high enough. The advantage of macs is in this case that there are still quite large numbers of computers with the same hardware sold. This makes the design of upgrade cards simpler than for generic PCs.
What do you think the new XServes will be called?
After Steve Jobs announced that every Mac should have the word Mac in the name and XServes are Macs, what might they be called?
A few suggestions:
Mac Serve(r)
xMac
Mac X
RackMac
Mac Pro X
Any other ideas?
After Steve Jobs announced that every Mac should have the word Mac in the name and XServes are Macs, what might they be called?
A few suggestions:
Mac Serve(r)
xMac
Mac X
RackMac
Mac Pro X
Any other ideas?
gnasher729 said:
No, it is *not* SMP compatible. SMP stands for Symmetric Multi Processing. That means two or more CPUs, in two or more sockets. Not one CPU in one socket, as with Conroe.
Don't confuse cores with processors.
risc said:Is the Conroe even capable of doing SMP? A single dual core Conroe versus a dual dual core G5... I wonder which will be faster?
No SMP, and not as many PCI-e lanes as the woodwrest/5000x combo. I'm hoping that the Mac Pro ends up being the prosumer machine and there's an woodcrest based xStation above it or something. Then again, this is Apple we're talking about.
Hector said:
Meaning it wouldnt be out until Q1 or Q2 2007, comepletely throwing off the "intel transition will be completed by the end of the year" promise.
Core Trio said:
I tell you what, if they do that then i'll be chucking £1500 at my PC in preperation for Vista.
I will only "switch" when a high end mac is out, due to Flight Simulator and the new version flight sim X.
I'll need a directX 10 GPU or the option to upgrade to a dx10 GPU.
If we get to mid Aug and still no high end mac then i'll just upgrade my PC to a conroe cpu and top of the range DX10 GPU.
Yonah is SMP...
Why is the quad PMG5 called a "quad" and not a "twin"? Easy - it has 4 CPUs, or 4 processors, or 4 cores. It has 4 times the potential of a single chip with one core (where we all agree that "CPU", "core" and "processor" all mean the same thing).
Hyper-Threading and dual-core require SMP to be turned on in the operating system - otherwise there would be no way to control two separate hardware threads.
A pair of single-core chips and a single dual-core chip are both SMP capable systems -- you have to use a multi-processor operating system for them.
To wit:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symmetric_multiprocessing
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/games/demos_updates/quake4.html
Don't confuse cores with processors with CPUs with sockets.
For the operating system software, for the most part "core" == "processor" == "CPU". Two exceptions
The OS usually doesn't need to worry about "sockets" (unless you're doing TCP/IP programming).
But "processor" is just a name. A "core" is a complete processor (or CPU) in the classic sense - it just happens to share a piece of silicon with another processor/CPU/core. Intel calls the chip a "processor", but that's mainly for licensing reasons (a "single processor" license covers a "chip with 2 CPUs").Glen Quagmire said:
Why is the quad PMG5 called a "quad" and not a "twin"? Easy - it has 4 CPUs, or 4 processors, or 4 cores. It has 4 times the potential of a single chip with one core (where we all agree that "CPU", "core" and "processor" all mean the same thing).
Hyper-Threading and dual-core require SMP to be turned on in the operating system - otherwise there would be no way to control two separate hardware threads.
A pair of single-core chips and a single dual-core chip are both SMP capable systems -- you have to use a multi-processor operating system for them.
To wit:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symmetric_multiprocessing
"The most popular entry level SMP systems use the x86 instruction set architecture and are based on Intel’s Xeon, Pentium D and Core Duo processors or AMD’s Athlon64 X2 or Opteron 200 series processors."
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/games/demos_updates/quake4.html
"Intel Core Duo based Apple computers, which use SMP, will have a performance jump of 15 to 30 percent."
Don't confuse cores with processors with CPUs with sockets.
For the operating system software, for the most part "core" == "processor" == "CPU". Two exceptions
- For licensing purposes, the number of processors might be reduced. For example, XP Home won't run SMP on a dual-socket machine, but it does enable SMP for Hyper-Threaded or Dual-Core systems.
- If the architecture is not symmetric (non-uniform), scheduling and memory routines might optimize based on the actual topology.
The OS usually doesn't need to worry about "sockets" (unless you're doing TCP/IP programming).