MacBook Pro (Apple & Intel)

[Niko_Fx]

http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/

This is the first Mac notebook built upon the revolutionary new Intel Core Duo — which is actually two processors (up to 1.83GHz) engineered onto a single chip. It provides 2MB of Smart Cache, L2 cache that can be shared between both cores as needed. It delivers higher performance in 2D and 3D graphics, video editing, and music encoding. And the new engine is only part of the story. MacBook Pro has a frontside bus and memory that, at 667MHz, runs faster than any previous Mac notebook. It’s the first Mac notebook with PCI Express, a Serial ATA hard drive and the ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 for superfast graphics performance.

[johnnynumfiv]

Hopefully I can get my poewrmac G5 before they are replaced, mmmm ......quad core g5......

[taz_rocks_miami]

I wonder if it'll be compatible with older versions of OS X and software??

[johnnynumfiv]

They are making universal software now, it runs on both.

[taz_rocks_miami]

They are making universal software now, it runs on both.

Cool thanks for the info.

[Spastik_Roach]

:O

So how does the price of this compare to the old Powerbook pricing?

I'm not sure wether to get a G5 I-mac or a Intel I-mac when I get one later on in the year. They say intels faster so I guess I'll get Intel...just whatever I can afford.

[Matra et Alpine]

Hopefully I can get my poewrmac G5 before they are replaced, mmmm ......quad core g5......

You want to be sure ...

According to "god" himslef at CES ....


Apple boss Steve Jobs also launched a newly branded laptop called the MacBook Pro which also uses an Intel processor. The new generation of iMac would be two to three times faster than the current iMac G5, he said.

[Lagonda]

I wonder if it'll be compatible with older versions of OS X and software??

OS X (as of 10.4.4) is fully native along with all the Apple apps like Safari, iMovie, iTunes, Keynote, Pages etc etc*. Older OS versions (like 10.2 and 10.3) do not run on these new machines. But why would you want to install an older OS ?

Software that is compiled as a Universal Binary will run at full speed on these machines. Older PowerPC only software will be emulated through an emulation layer called Rosetta. Rosetta is fully transparent so you won't even notice that it's running. A bit like the Classic environment in OS X. Steve demoed Office running in Rosetta and it seemed speedy enough for normal use (faster than on my machine!). So untill Intel native versions come out you'll be running a lot of software in emulated mode.

I'm personally holding out for the new Intel PowerMacs to switch (and an Intel version of Adobe Photoshop).

*except for Apple's Pro apps Final Cut, Logic, Shake etc. They will begin shipping as a universal binary in March.

That said the new PowerBook name, MacBook Pro, sounds ridiculous IMHO.

[Lagonda]

According to "god" himslef at CES ....

MacWorld, not CES. Apple wasn't even at CES I think.

Oh and the Quad G5 still destroys the Yonah powered Intel macs

[Matra et Alpine]

MacWorld, not CES. Apple wasn't even at CES I think

Yeah it was from SF MacWorld. Sorry been reading press releases from both events and got them crossed
Apple stopped going to CES years and years ago.
A couple of years back demonstrated the best reason after Gates had a disastrous CES presentation with PCs crashing and then Jobs could make fun of it at MacWorld the next week Class !!!!!

Oh and the Quad G5 still destroys the Yonah powered Intel macs

Why will a quad processor SLOWER processor technology beat a quad processors twin core FASTER Intel "Duo" ??
Jobs said the COMPLETE APPLE FAMILY will move to the Intel chips in the following year.

[Lagonda]

Yeah it was from SF MacWorld. Sorry been reading press releases from both events and got them crossed
Apple stopped going to CES years and years ago.
A couple of years back demonstrated the best reason after Gates had a disastrous CES presentation with PCs crashing and then Jobs could make fun of it at MacWorld the next week Class !!!!!

You mean the Win98 demo where it bluescreened ? Yeah, that was funny stuff.

Why will a quad processor SLOWER processor technology beat a quad processors twin core FASTER Intel "Duo" ??
Jobs said the COMPLETE APPLE FAMILY will move to the Intel chips in the following year.

Say what you will but the G5 isn't slow. It has bandwidth far beyond anything Intel offers.

I meant the Quad G5 still destroys the dual core Yonah iMacs. I never said that the Quad G5 would beat a theoretical Quad Yonah Mac. I never said anything about quad yonahs

Either way, the Intel PowerMacs will probably be based on the Intel Conroe chips. The Conroe will be a desktop chip based on the Merom which is the chip that will replace the Yonah that currently sits in the iMac and PowerBook (MacBook Pro, whatever, I hate the name).

[Matra et Alpine]

Say what you will but the G5 isn't slow. It has bandwidth far beyond anything Intel offers.

NO. It had more b/w in consumer machines USED to offer.
It didn't match Intel server bandwidths OR latest gen.

I meant the Quad G5 still destroys the dual core Yonah iMacs. I never said that the Quad G5 would beat a theoretical Quad Yonah Mac. I never said anything about quad yonahs

Yeah, but then you're being far too seletive.
Once the DUO intels are in the Apple G5 architecture then you ahve a faster machine.
Steve Jobs words and actions

Either way, the Intel PowerMacs will probably be based on the Intel Conroe chips. The Conroe will be a desktop chip based on the Merom which is the chip that will replace the Yonah that currently sits in the iMac and PowerBook (MacBook Pro, whatever, I hate the name).

So you DO realise that the Yonah is "old" already
Jsut as it's wrong to take a 2 year old P4 and imagine that is the "power" of a Intel chip, it's invaliud to compare the first Intel in Mac as inidicativbe of wht ate family will use during the coming year.

The facts however are now VERY simple, Apple have dropped their "architecture" because they couldnt' afford to develop it to compete with the Intel/AMD developments. Just as 10 years ago they stopped developing their own video cards. A good business move. What is ALREADY being discused and mooted is will their be a version of Windows made available to run on the Mac boxes as then all the apps would be available along with the good looks of Apples

[Lagonda]

Sigh.

NO. It had more b/w in consumer machines USED to offer.
It didn't match Intel server bandwidths OR latest gen.

Seriously. You know we are talking about consumer machines and you start about server chips. Whatever.

And I seriously doubt that the Pentium Extreme 955's 1066mhz bus beats the Quad's 1250mhz bus in terms of bandwidth. And please don't start comparing the Pentium EE with the iMac because the Pentium EE is a $1000 chip.

Don't take this personally but: "It had more b/w in consumer machines USED to offer." That's no English and it makes it annoying to debate.

Yeah, but then you're being far too seletive.
Once the DUO intels are in the Apple G5 architecture then you ahve a faster machine.
Steve Jobs words and actions

I have no idea what your point is and how I'm being "selective". The intels are not dropped into the "G5 architecture". The Intel macs have nothing Apple specific in their architecture. Anything "G5" is gone. They are generic intel boards with EFI. Thanks to Intel we lost FW800. I hope that's only temporary.

And, I am not claiming that the G5s are faster than the dual core Yonahs. I never said that. I do claim that the QUAD G5 is faster than the DUAL Yonah. okay ?

So you DO realise that the Yonah is "old" already

Get real. It's not old already. It'll be old when Intel SHIPS it's next gen chips. Which is, what, 6 months from now ?

Jsut as it's wrong to take a 2 year old P4 and imagine that is the "power" of a Intel chip, it's invaliud to compare the first Intel in Mac as inidicativbe of wht ate family will use during the coming year.

I never used them as an indication of what's to come. Don't put words in my mouth.

The facts however are now VERY simple, Apple have dropped their "architecture" because they couldnt' afford to develop it to compete with the Intel/AMD developments. Just as 10 years ago they stopped developing their own video cards. A good business move. What is ALREADY being discused and mooted is will their be a version of Windows made available to run on the Mac boxes as then all the apps would be available along with the good looks of Apples

Apple dropped the PowerPC because IBM and Motorola couldn't deliver. End of story. Apple had nothing to do with the development and design of the G5. It's all IBM. So, Apple had no power over the development and advancement of the G5, they were at the mercy of IBM. And IBM screwed them just like Motorola did a few years ago with the 500mhz G4 debacle.

Mark my words. Someone will hack windows within a month after the first Intel Macs ship. The only need a specific bootloader (or CSM) for EFI and maybe a driver for the iSight. The Intel Macs use generic intel boards so nothing special there. And I honestly hope that you don't believe that Microsoft will develop a special windows version for Macs.

[Matra et Alpine]

Seriously. You know we are talking about consumer machines and you start about server chips. Whatever.

LETS get "serious" then
The quad G5 is NOT a "consumer machine". IT is targeted by Apple at server and number-crunching type activities.
You can equally take a "server oriented" machine and use it on the home desktop if you want.
Mind you finding a desktop large enough tot take an HP Superdome would be a challenge
THAT was the point you are avoiding by being far too selective in your comparisons. "Server" and "desktop" are just price and marketing segmentation !!

And I seriously doubt that the Pentium Extreme 955's 1066mhz bus beats the Quad's 1250mhz bus in terms of bandwidth. And please don't start comparing the Pentium EE with the iMac because the Pentium EE is a $1000 chip.

You are using RAW bus clock and not real bandwidth. The memory architecture and smart cache come to play too and the ability of the chipset and processor cache and chip to USE the bandwidth.
Especially when MULTIPLE processors are sharing that FSB. THEN latency has much more impact than bandwidth.
It's being able to USE that that can make the difference in the real world and traditionally where Apple made "better" (ie different) choices than mainstream Intel developers ( I was a lover of the Velocity internals on the G5 architecture but that was because our apps were power hungry ) Also their early adoption of dula FSBs to match processors ! Shame they didnt' go quad FSB with the Quad G5

Don't take this personally but: "It had more b/w in consumer machines USED to offer." That's no English and it makes it annoying to debate.

I wont as long as you "debate" and don't get all anal and picky. EVERYONE is entitled to grammatical errors in written English
In context with the comment it was in response to I had thought the "in" instead of "than" was obvious and the meaning clear.

[quote]I have no idea what your point is and how I'm being "selective". The intels are not dropped into the "G5 architecture". The Intel macs have nothing Apple specific in their architecture. Anything "G5" is gone. They are generic intel boards with EFI. Thanks to Intel we lost FW800. I hope that's only temporary.

And, I am not claiming that the G5s are faster than the dual core Yonahs. I never said that. I do claim that the QUAD G5 is faster than the DUAL Yonah. okay ?

Yeah BUT that's like saying a car is fast because a Ferrari is faster than a Fiat Panda ?
Of course you can make up comparisons to "prove a point", but so what ??
You "claimed" G5 faster then started picking machines to somehow prove it.
The HP Superdomes piss all over all of them. SO WHAT !!!
G5 are going Intel and STEVE JOBS says they will be faster. I go with the man

Get real. It's not old already. It'll be old when Intel SHIPS it's next gen chips. Which is, what, 6 months from now ?

THAT is old.
AMD and Intel have been popping out new chips every 4-6 months for the last 2 years as the competition hotted up. IBM couldn't' develop at that rate to retain Apple's business. Smell the coffee on that pulaease
You are again I think being too selective and wanting new ARCHITECTURE ? Intel don't do that, they evolve, even when the HP/Intel tried to develop a completely new architecture it got lost in the business sense of what can be achieved incrementally ( sadly so )

I never used them as an indication of what's to come. Don't put words in my mouth.

Sorry I saw no recognition of the path that Jobs is taking Apple along and the performance curve it will follow once he is mainstream on Intel and has his design teams as knowledgeable on squeezing power from it that he has achieved on the PowerPC architecture. As said before Apple are smart at making use of what is available and I expect to see them produce faster Intel-based architectures than the mainstream competition thus retaining their niche market shares. It's companies like SGI who will worry most as that is their market

Apple dropped the PowerPC because IBM and Motorola couldn't deliver. End of story. Apple had nothing to do with the development and design of the G5.

Not entirely true. Apple were HEAVY influencers in bus architectures and especially had a recognised lead in multiprocessor comms and usign it in an OS application space. IBM listened to what they wanted.

It's all IBM. So, Apple had no power over the development and advancement of the G5, they were at the mercy of IBM. And IBM screwed them just like Motorola did a few years ago with the 500mhz G4 debacle.

IBM was the mass-market user and the foundry. They wanted things IBM didnt' need for their mainstream use of PowerPC and couldn't' fund it themselves so were at their mercy. That's business

Mark my words. Someone will hack windows within a month after the first Intel Macs ship. The only need a specific bootloader (or CSM) for EFI and maybe a driver for the iSight. The Intel Macs use generic intel boards so nothing special there. And I honestly hope that you don't believe that Microsoft will develop a special windows version for Macs.

It was an unofficial "hack" I perceived also. BUT I've not seen what Mac have committed on core components as MS requires a very specific set of low level capabilities in the surrounding chipset which Apple COULD block and prevent Windows from being supported without a LOT of effort.
I also wouldn't put it past Gates to fund the Windows on Apple hardware himself just to piss Jobs off
I never see an official Windows from Apple as Jobs will never pay Apple the $ for the license for each ( unless he's already being forced that route )

[Lagonda]

LETS get "serious" then
The quad G5 is NOT a "consumer machine". IT is targeted by Apple at server and number-crunching type activities. You can equally take a "server oriented" machine and use it on the home desktop if you want.
Mind you finding a desktop large enough tot take an HP Superdome would be a challenge
THAT was the point you are avoiding by being far too selective in your comparisons. "Server" and "desktop" are just price and marketing segmentation !!

The Quad G5 is not a server machine. The XServe is.

The G5 is oriented at people who design and are into music and movies etc. Creative pros. People who do this kind of stuff on wintels don't use Xeons (maybe a select few) or Itaniums either. It's not aimed at number crunchers.

I'm not "avoiding" anything.

And server and desktop is not all marketing and price segmentation. It comes down to features as well. Like hot swappable hard drives and power supplies amongst other things.

You are using RAW bus clock and not real bandwidth. The memory architecture and smart cache come to play too and the ability of the chipset and processor cache and chip to USE the bandwidth.
Especially when MULTIPLE processors are sharing that FSB. THEN latency has much more impact than bandwidth.
It's being able to USE that that can make the difference in the real world and traditionally where Apple made "better" (ie different) choices than mainstream Intel developers ( I was a lover of the Velocity internals on the G5 architecture but that was because our apps were power hungry ) Also their early adoption of dula FSBs to match processors ! Shame they didnt' go quad FSB with the Quad G5

You really think that the G5 chipset and memory architecture is inferior and much slower? I would SERIOUSLY doubt that. It's not that the PowerPC 970 is stoneage technology, now is it ?
But again, you're compairing a $1000 chip here with the G5 (no idea what it costs per 1000 units tho' but it sure isn't $1000).
But we can't really debate this as we do not know the correct numbers here. And it's a bit beside the point of the original comments.

I wont as long as you "debate" and don't get all anal and picky. EVERYONE is entitled to grammatical errors in written English
In context with the comment it was in response to I had thought the "in" instead of "than" was obvious and the meaning clear.

I'm not anal and picky. It seems, to me, a very weird mistake to make (or was it intentional, since your saw it ?). Especially for someone who's mother tongue is English.

Weird mistakes like these can make someone interpret a sentance in a whole different way. And it's not the only sentence with a, let's say, awkward construction that you have made. You type a lot of these weird sentences. (probably becuase you think fast and type slow). That's why I made that comment. It was not my intention to insult you or anything.

Written language is very different from spoken language.

Yeah BUT that's like saying a car is fast because a Ferrari is faster than a Fiat Panda ?
Of course you can make up comparisons to "prove a point", but so what ??
You "claimed" G5 faster then started picking machines to somehow prove it.
The HP Superdomes piss all over all of them. SO WHAT !!!
G5 are going Intel and STEVE JOBS says they will be faster. I go with the man

I still don't get your point. The only thing I said was that the CURRENT Quad G5 is still faster than Apple's Intel offerings. THAT IS ALL. I never claimed that the future Intels will be slower, nor will I ever claim that because the Intels ARE indeed faster.

THAT is old.
AMD and Intel have been popping out new chips every 4-6 months for the last 2 years as the competition hotted up. IBM couldn't' develop at that rate to retain Apple's business. Smell the coffee on that pulaease

Great. But, I still can't see how you can possibly claim that the Yonahs are already "old" when the replacement doesn't even exist yet and when Yonah notebooks have just been introduced in PC laptops at CES and in Macs at MacWorld. Saying that they are old is just bull.

You are again I think being too selective and wanting new ARCHITECTURE ? Intel don't do that, they evolve, even when the HP/Intel tried to develop a completely new architecture it got lost in the business sense of what can be achieved incrementally ( sadly so )

No idea what you mean here. Me wanting a new architecture ?. Please don't assume things that I don't mention. It's called straw man and it's not done in debates.

Not entirely true. Apple were HEAVY influencers in bus architectures and especially had a recognised lead in multiprocessor comms and usign it in an OS application space. IBM listened to what they wanted.

Right, I may not have been so clear with what I meant here. What I meant was that Apple had nothing to do with the design of the chips themselves so they could not help IBM out with designing a lower power version of the chip. If Apple was able/allowed to help them then the switch probably wouldn't have occured and we'd have 3Ghz G5s and G5 PowerBooks by now.

IBM listened and delivered what Apple wanted in the beginning because IBM used the PowerPC 970 in some of their own blade applications. Now that IBM is moving away from the POWER4 to a newer generation they lost interest in the POWER4 and it's derivatives (like the PPC 970). So they slow down development to such a slow pace that the G5 becomes virtually useless for Apple. Add to that that IBM is shifting a lot of it's capacity over to the fabrication of the chips used in the next gen game consoles.

It was an unofficial "hack" I perceived also. BUT I've not seen what Mac have committed on core components as MS requires a very specific set of low level capabilities in the surrounding chipset which Apple COULD block and prevent Windows from being supported without a LOT of effort.
I never see an official Windows from Apple as Jobs will never pay Apple the $ for the license for each ( unless he's already being forced that route )

Err what do you mean by unofficial hack ?

What do you mean exactly by "core components" ? All I know is that apple uses generic intel boards with EFI instead of BIOS. From what I've read is that the only thing WinXP needs is the BIOS and that the EFI can be adapted to emulate the BIOS using some sort of plugin. Win2003 and WinXP64 and Vista boot natively on EFI boards.

Apple's Phil Shiller has stated multiple times that Apple will not do anything to prevent you from installing Windows but nor will they support it. So they could care less if you installed windoze on it.

I also wouldn't put it past Gates to fund the Windows on Apple hardware himself just to piss Jobs off

I don't see why this would matter. Steve could care less. Apple's still a hardware company. If people want to buy a Mac and run that abomination of a Microsoft OS on it than all the power to them.