Apple + Intel =

Joel · 10 January 2006

[size=+3]= Macbooks! [/size]

Not Powerbook, Macbook!
http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/

Oh my ga-ga!

You apple geeks, should I get one? Should I, should I? Or should I wait til they work the bugs out...Damn I've got an itch and it needs to be scratched!

I was gonna get a G5 iMac for Christmas but glad I held out!

rickysals · 11 January 2006

I almost wanna cancel my date so I can sit here and research it!!

le sigh... i'll have to wait til later.

spyderplayer2002 · 11 January 2006

Yeah I read about apple using intel today, and was surprised they did it. But that new computer looks awesome.

Motegi · 11 January 2006

spyderplayer2002 said:
Yeah I read about apple using intel today, and was surprised they did it. But that new computer looks awesome.

Mac on Intel (Mactel) was announced some time ago but nobody really expected any of the new computers to be out until mid-year. The engineers at Apple and Intel really worked their butts off to get the first products out so quickly!!!

I watched the pre-recorded keynote introduction this evening and OH BOY! The new Intel dual-core processors and faster frontside busses make these new Macs 3-4x faster in raw integer and floating point! Of course the real world difference will probably be less. But still quite impressive nonetheless.

The new laptop is much more impressive than the intel iMac. I cant wait to see the media reviews!

And the new iPod radio attachment is pretty neat too!

Arshad · 11 January 2006

The engineers at Apple and Intel really worked their butts off to get the first products out so quickly!!!

Nobody mentions ATI, but the graphics subsystem was a huge part of this overall project and we've all been working like crazy in close coordination with Apple for the past 7-8 months as well to get this product out for this launch date. The challenges to get this machine completed on time were mind-boggling since a lot of the chips and standards being used (all new CPU, all new GPU, all new EFI BIOS standard etc.) were not even ready until very late in the project.

If you have any questions about the new systems, feel free to ask.

Motegi · 11 January 2006

Arshad said:
Nobody mentions ATI, but the graphics subsystem was a huge part of this overall project and we've all been working like crazy in close coordination with Apple for the past 7-8 months as well to get this product out for this launch date.

So sorry Arshad. Didn't mean to neglect you. Congrats to you and the ATI team for getting this together so quickly!!!

I'm excited to try one out at the local Apple Store!

Joel · 11 January 2006

Arshad said:
If you have any questions about the new systems, feel free to ask.

Don't know if you know the answer but here goes:

Why the new screen size on the macbooks (15.4") vs powerbooks (15.2") ?
Is it to finally address powerbook owners complaints about bothersome horizontal lines that pop up in their computer screens?

NetViper · 11 January 2006

Funny how MACs always claimed they were so much faster than PC's. Now that they are using intel chips they are saying how much faster they are than old macs! :biggrin:

Arshad · 11 January 2006

Why the new screen size on the macbooks (15.4") vs powerbooks (15.2") ?

Just a wider aspect ratio panel.

Funny how MACs always claimed they were so much faster than PC's. Now that they are using intel chips they are saying how much faster they are than old macs!

Well, two things:

1) This new CPU is dual core in addition to other microarchitectural enhancements which make it more than 2x the theoretical performance of the older Intel CPU's that Mac's were being compared against. So it's no longer the same comparison -- the older Intel CPU's had less than half the computational power.

2) The G4 has always done poorly at the Spec benchmark for a number of reasons (a lot of which comes down to the compiler actually, and not the HW). Now Apple is using Spec as a benchmark to compare the two platforms and naturally this makes the delta seem even larger over the older machines.

3) In a lot of ways the PowerPC architecture is still technically superior, but that's a moot point now (with Apple anyways)

NetViper · 11 January 2006

Arshad said:
2) The G4 has always done poorly at the Spec benchmark for a number of reasons (a lot of which comes down to the compiler actually, and not the HW). Now Apple is using Spec as a benchmark to compare the two platforms and naturally this makes the delta seem even larger over the older machines.

3) In a lot of ways the PowerPC architecture is still technically superior, but that's a moot point now (with Apple anyways)

My comparison will always be games. They stress the computers more than anything else.

Given G4 or G5 or whatever vs the top PC, with an equal video card, the PC has always done better.

I don't care if I can render a photoshop frame .25 seconds faster, but I sure care about 10FPS in a game of COD2.

NeoNSX · 11 January 2006

NetViper said:
Funny how MACs always claimed they were so much faster than PC's. Now that they are using intel chips they are saying how much faster they are than old macs! :biggrin:

LOL... DITTO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now what's Jimbo got to say about that?

just teasing.

Arshad · 11 January 2006

My comparison will always be games. They stress the computers more than anything else.

Given G4 or G5 or whatever vs the top PC, with an equal video card, the PC has always done better.

I'm going to sound like an apologist, but there are good technical reasons for why the above has been the case. In some instances it has been as simple as the port to the Mac being done poorly. There are some obvious reasons for this, such as not converting the MMX/SSE optimized x86 code to Altivec on the Mac, and using the slower non-vectorized paths, and other not as obvious ones such as a larger penalty on int<->fp conversions on PPC (so a lot of x86 code unnecessarily does these conversions because it's not a hit on their HW, but slows down when you run the same thing on PPC). Another reason is many games are originally written for DX, and then run through a translation layer to run under GL on the Mac since there is no DX on the Mac. Anyways, the bottom line is that due to a multitude of reasons the games that are not natively written on the Mac often suffer from "PC-isms" that slow it down. Many of these issues could be addressed if the developer doing the port spent more time optimizing specifically for the platform.

Aside from porting issues, there are also issues with the graphics pipeline and what types of shortcuts and tricks the drivers take. Ever wonder why the "pro" drivers for ATI and nVidia (Quadro/FireGL) run games slower than the "consumer" drivers? At the same time, why do the "consumer" drivers run the pro apps slower than the "pro" drivers? Apple has taken the path of pleasing both sides of the camp resulting in slightly slower, but more comprehensive, more accurate rendering in the GL layer.

Anyhow, we've done extensive testing in this regard for every game that runs slower on the Mac to isolate and understand exactly why it's slower. For games that are properly optimized at the same level as the PC version, the difference in performance is usually negligible or nonexistant.

NeoNSX · 11 January 2006

<B>Arshad</B>: Man, why are you taking the Mac side? You work for ATI and we forgive you for that.

...but publically defending the Mac ...well, I can't help you here.

Anyone got some marshmallows? I could use some for the ensuing flame-war...

redshift · 11 January 2006

Don't forget about us Intel chipset guys, we had a hand in it too. Oh wait, I just left Intel... nevermind :biggrin:

IsR · 11 January 2006

Wonder if they take trade-in:biggrin: I still have my Titanium Powerbook?!!
Mac or PC, all depends on user, like the PC, love the Mac
But lately Apple are rolling out new models quite regularly, meaning apple computers you bought will be out-of-date in about a year:frown:

heySkippy · 11 January 2006

IsR said:
apple computers you bought will be out-of-date in about a year:frown:

Out of date doesn't mean useless. I'm still using a G4/400 that's pushing 6 years old.

I've been waiting for the IntelMacs and believe I'll upgrade this year.

IsR · 11 January 2006

bodypainter said:
Out of date doesn't mean useless. I'm still using a G4/400 that's pushing 6 years old. I've been waiting for the IntelMacs and believe I'll upgrade this year.

Very true, experienced with 1st gen imacs and powerbook. I think I'm just a bit frustrated that I need to upgrade my video card to run aperture,bought my powermac about a year(dual 2Ghz G5).
Would be interesting to see what Apple+intel 'powermac' products would be

fannsx · 11 January 2006

bodypainter said:
Out of date doesn't mean useless. I'm still using a G4/400 that's pushing 6 years old. I've been waiting for the IntelMacs and believe I'll upgrade this year.

I still use my PowerPC 7500. Now that's old.

0ctan3 · 11 January 2006

IsR said:
I'm just a bit frustrated that I need to upgrade my video card to run aperture.

It's possible to override the hardware requirements for Aperture. I have it running on my 12" powerbook. 'slow, but it works!

rickysals · 11 January 2006

I don't care how fast games supposively run on a comparable PC...

my computer is for work, not play.

plus you have to use a windows OS. unnacceptable, it's so horrible to use, i despise it... and I was a windows person since I was 10 or so.

0ctan3 · 11 January 2006

rickysals said:
I don't care how fast games supposively run on a comparable PC...

my computer is for work, not play.

plus you have to use a windows OS. unnacceptable, it's so horrible to use, i despise it... and I was a windows person since I was 10 or so.

actually, NOW you could use OSX on a PC. not legally though.

I use both os'es at work and FOR ME windows is speedier and crashes less when pushed hard.
But that's just me. I like them both.

rickysals · 11 January 2006

righton,

what works for someone won't for someone else.

that's why variety is good

i just personally have never been able to crash my mac, and i somehow tortured windows machines. the look/feel/shortcuts/organization/simplicity/networking i just prefer all of them on the mac as opposed to windows. some people feel the exact opposite and i can respect that.

one thing which is big with me is keyboard shortcuts, and they're just heads/shoulders above windows here IMO. right hand mouse..left hand shortcuts and it's all in range of my hand. I can't reach the keyboard shortcut to close a window on a PC (and i have huge hands) Alt+F4, as opposed to Cmd+W or Cmd+Q. just little things like this.

I'll be in webdesign soooo, i have to still know Windows, and try to appreciate it. Just don't prefer to use it

Arshad · 11 January 2006

The biggest and most annoying thing for me under Windows is dealing with the absurd number of viruses, malware, spyware, popups, etc. It's ridiculous. System restore doesn't solve everything, and the idea of all kinds of crap running in the bkgd slowing down my machine (if it's not the malware, it's the virus scanners) just doesn't appeal to me. I also don't consider "Oh just format and reinstall" very useful advice either.

I suspect there's a lot of Windows users (especially novice users) who are in this camp as well. The sucky part for a lot of the novice users is that they don't even realize why their machine is running so slow (compared to when they first bought it).

Pacemaker Kid89 · 11 January 2006

you guys put up a good fight, makes me want to sell my dell and buy a Mac and use it for Architecture (does anyone know if it runs Microstation?) and for some music stuff. Problem is it would take me a while to get used to it and transfer everything before I get it to how I want to set it up. It seems like a good idea to switch becuase I am getting (silent profanity) mad at the viruses and all of the hard boots and all this crap...I think I am going to go Apple

rickysals · 11 January 2006

Pacemaker Kid89 said:
you guys put up a good fight, makes me want to sell my dell and buy a Mac and use it for Architecture (does anyone know if it runs Microstation?) and for some music stuff. Problem is it would take me a while to get used to it and transfer everything before I get it to how I want to set it up. It seems like a good idea to switch becuase I am getting (silent profanity) mad at the viruses and all of the hard boots and all this crap...I think I am going to go Apple

I used windows for 10 years, Mac never... until i bought one.

It took me 30 minutes to put my $2800 Vaio in the closet, and an hour total to learn the Mac OS. It's really not hard.

Go to an applestore and try one out, so you don't waste $1500 on something you can't work with.

Apple + Intel =

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