Some of the rumors came true and I'm not sure how impressed I am with them, at least on paper.
The MacBook Pro uses Intel's Core Duo processor clocked at either 1.66GHz or 1.83GHz, in model number terms that would be the T2300 or the T2400. Apple (thankfully) doesn't use Intel's model numbers and just sticks with the raw clock speeds, but since they don't use the model numbers I can't tell whether or not the 1.66GHz part is an Low Voltage version of the chip or not. I would guess not, but anything is possible.
I am surprised that Apple didn't opt to use any of the higher clocked versions, either the 2.0GHz or 2.16GHz offerings; it may just be that these were fast enough for Apple's needs as they are claiming that the new notebooks are 4x faster than the old PowerBook G4. Next quarter Intel will introduce the 2.33GHz Core Duo which should give Apple even more options. I'm guessing that the 17" version will bring the 2.0GHz+ offerings, while the replacement to the 12" PowerBook will feature the low voltage chips.
I am not surprised that they aren't shipping today, simply because Intel has clearly not been able to deliver enough chips for all of the PC makers either. Dell, Lenovo, Gateway, etc... all are talking about first shipments of their Core Duo notebooks occurring in February, so Apple's timing makes sense as well.
The notebook has PCI Express and features an ATI Mobility X1600 GPU, both of which should be nice in Tiger.
The new iMacs are also interesting, this time using the 1.83GHz and 2.0GHz Core Duo processors. I am surprised that they are shipping immediately, which leads me to believe that the shortage with notebook components may be a chipset rather than a processor thing.
Apple has refrained from calling anything a Centrino or Centrino Duo, which makes sense since arguably the Apple brand has a bit stronger name recognition than the Centrino brand (it has at least been around longer). The other obvious reason behind the lack of Centrino branding is to distance Apple's MacBook Pro line from every other Core Duo based notebook that's already been announced. Apple has lost one element that made them different by moving to Intel, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, it just means that they will have to rely on their styling even more than before.
I am extremely curious to see how every day tasks feel with a Core Duo running OS X 10.4.4, based on some of Apple's overwhelmingly vague benchmarks you can expect some pretty decent speedups in normal application usage. It would be nice to have some scripted application test suites under OS X to actually compare things between the G4/G5 and Core Duo platforms, but it's more likely that I'll have to dust off the old stopwatch for this one.
I will post impressions as soon as I can get my hands on one or both of the new products.
The MacBook Pro uses Intel's Core Duo processor clocked at either 1.66GHz or 1.83GHz, in model number terms that would be the T2300 or the T2400. Apple (thankfully) doesn't use Intel's model numbers and just sticks with the raw clock speeds, but since they don't use the model numbers I can't tell whether or not the 1.66GHz part is an Low Voltage version of the chip or not. I would guess not, but anything is possible.
I am surprised that Apple didn't opt to use any of the higher clocked versions, either the 2.0GHz or 2.16GHz offerings; it may just be that these were fast enough for Apple's needs as they are claiming that the new notebooks are 4x faster than the old PowerBook G4. Next quarter Intel will introduce the 2.33GHz Core Duo which should give Apple even more options. I'm guessing that the 17" version will bring the 2.0GHz+ offerings, while the replacement to the 12" PowerBook will feature the low voltage chips.
I am not surprised that they aren't shipping today, simply because Intel has clearly not been able to deliver enough chips for all of the PC makers either. Dell, Lenovo, Gateway, etc... all are talking about first shipments of their Core Duo notebooks occurring in February, so Apple's timing makes sense as well.
The notebook has PCI Express and features an ATI Mobility X1600 GPU, both of which should be nice in Tiger.
The new iMacs are also interesting, this time using the 1.83GHz and 2.0GHz Core Duo processors. I am surprised that they are shipping immediately, which leads me to believe that the shortage with notebook components may be a chipset rather than a processor thing.
Apple has refrained from calling anything a Centrino or Centrino Duo, which makes sense since arguably the Apple brand has a bit stronger name recognition than the Centrino brand (it has at least been around longer). The other obvious reason behind the lack of Centrino branding is to distance Apple's MacBook Pro line from every other Core Duo based notebook that's already been announced. Apple has lost one element that made them different by moving to Intel, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, it just means that they will have to rely on their styling even more than before.
I am extremely curious to see how every day tasks feel with a Core Duo running OS X 10.4.4, based on some of Apple's overwhelmingly vague benchmarks you can expect some pretty decent speedups in normal application usage. It would be nice to have some scripted application test suites under OS X to actually compare things between the G4/G5 and Core Duo platforms, but it's more likely that I'll have to dust off the old stopwatch for this one.
I will post impressions as soon as I can get my hands on one or both of the new products.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
19 Comments
View All Comments
ProviaFan - Tuesday, January 10, 2006 - link
You evidently don't know what you're talking about. Apple's desktop systems have been 64 bit, and my humble and inexperienced but logical opinion is that Apple can't/won't release Intel-based desktop systems until Intel's 64-bit enhanced version of Yonah is released, because that would be a downgrade. Since their laptops have never been 64 bit, going to Intel's current 32 bit offerings is quite a step upward from the G4s that the Powerbooks used, and isn't really a disadvantage - tell me, are any Turion 64 laptops capable of holding more than 4GB of RAM (let alone more than 2GB)?slashbinslashbash - Wednesday, January 11, 2006 - link
The iMac G5 was 64-bit (right? All G5's should be 64-bit?) and they just moved the iMac to the 32-bit Intel processor. So there's your downgrade, although overall performance increased quite a bit.It's my guess that we'll see the Power Mac successor relatively soon, using Intel's desktop chips (Presler Pentium D) in the 3+ GHz range. Apple can get away with normal cooling options (no need to water-cool the Presler like the high-end G5) and still get the highest possible performance with Intel chips, probably with a large marketing focus on floating-point and HyperThreading (and maybe even dual-socket dual core like the high-end PowerMac G5's). But yeah, I agree with you that Apple probably won't ship PowerMac replacements with anything other than a 64-bit CPU.
Also, look at what Apple has done with the clock speeds on the announcements today. We all know that clock speed means jack crap when comparing different architectures, but simplistic perception still counts somewhere in the marketing hype. Clock speeds have not gone down. iMac G5 was offered at 1.8GHz and 2.0GHz; iMac Core Duo at 1.83GHz and 2.0GHz. PowerBook G4 at 1.5 and 1.67GHz, now at 1.67 and 1.83GHz. My guess is that Apple is trying to stay as close as possible to the old clock speeds (iMac) or "speed-bump" them like a normal upgrade (PowerBook/MacBook, which didn't receive a bump in clockspeed during its last upgrade). So I doubt we'll see a high-end desktop Mac with a speed less than 2.5GHz. Also there's the aforementioned 64-bit issue. So I really think they'll end up using Presler.
Eug - Wednesday, January 11, 2006 - link
The G5 iMacs were/are 1.9 GHz and 2.1 GHz.SLCentral - Tuesday, January 10, 2006 - link
AMD probably does not have the capacity to pump out enough chips for Apple at this point.GTaudiophile - Tuesday, January 10, 2006 - link
Anand: As soon as you get one, try to get to the nuts and bolts of it. Try installing XP or some Linux distro? What about dual-boot? Heck, could you somehow burn the X86 version of OSX to CD and see if it will take on PC hardware? These are the questions we need and want answered!nlr_2000 - Tuesday, January 10, 2006 - link
Anyone know if Apple has enabled hardware acceleration feature Tiger had for GUI speed-up using the ATI Radeon x1600?nlr_2000 - Tuesday, January 10, 2006 - link
Related to Core Graphics?ninjit - Tuesday, January 10, 2006 - link
He can't do that.Apple would reign all hell down on any established publication that showed the public how to run Mac OS X on anything other than Apple hardware.
ViRGE - Wednesday, January 11, 2006 - link
Eh, it's not like Apple has taken a particular interest in AT in the first place, I doubt them reigning hell on it would be much of a problem.