[Spheric Harlot]

The 400 MHz and extra cache finally make the difference worth it to me.

[indigoimac]

Very nice upgrade. Now the debate is whether to go quad and 15" or dual i7 and 13"... also we've gotta find out what they did with 6gbit SATA.

And why the hell is the store still down, wasn't the idea of moving away from webobjects to have no downtime? there's not even a dramatic value since everything is on the front page, lol

[imitchellg5]

Wow, this seems like one of the strongest updates in terms of internals for the MacBook Pro perhaps since the MacBook Pro was created.

[Eug]

Originally Posted by CharlesS 

Not really. The iMac was basically a Performa with pretty colors, and the G3 tower was... a G3 tower. The only thing that separated them from their predecessors was their elimination of legacy ports.

And price. The beige Power Mac G3 cost twice as much as the original iMac.

Like I said, the original iMac was a completely different class of computer.

Backup drives?

USB floppy was available.

CD-RW?

It came with a CD-ROM drive, which at the time is all that it needed. Remember that average low end users (the ones at which the iMac was targeted), weren't people that already had CDRW drives. SCSI CDRW was extremely expensive, and more importantly, painful to deal with. Furthermore, the media cost a fortune. Not something you'd be pining for on an entry level machine.

Modems?

??? It had one built-in.

Originally Posted by imitchellg5 

Wow, this seems like one of the strongest updates in terms of internals for the MacBook Pro perhaps since the MacBook Pro was created.

I agree, but part of that is because the previous MacBook Pros were behind the times.

Anyways, at this point I have no need to upgrade. I don't really need a lot of CPU power for my laptop, since my main machine is a quad-core Core i7 iMac. I'd actually prefer to have an 11" MacBook Air with Firewire (or some sort of Firewire over Lightpeak adapter).

BTW, I have 8 GB RAM in the iMac, but AppleCare spec'd it as 2 x 4GB at no extra cost when they replaced my defective iMac, so I could theoretically upgrade it to 16 GB. I'm tempted to upgrade to 12 GB just for the heluvit, even though I probably don't need it.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by Eug 

And price. The beige Power Mac G3 cost twice as much as the original iMac.

Like I said, the original iMac was a completely different class of computer.

The predecessor to the iMac was NOT the Power Mac G3.

It was the G3 All-in-one.
Power Macintosh G3 All-in-One



That started at $1599, while the iMac debuted at $1300.

[Eug]

^^^ Interesting, I had never heard of that machine. Was it edu only?

I will note that it is in fact a Power Mac though. Also, I see that it only lasted a few months before it was discontinued. In a way, it almost reminds me of the 1 GHz TiBook, before the Alubook was released... except the 1 GHz TiBook was ubiquitous.

I guess one could say that to satisfy CharlesS, one could buy the iMac, or else one of the last Power Mac All-In-One machines if all the extra ports were needed, for 23% more $.

[P]

Originally Posted by Salty 

1/3 turbo bins? What sort of real world difference is that going to make when the processor goes turbo?

Yes, that might need explanation. That i5 clocks up 3 bins max when using both cores and 6 bins max when using one. The i7 clocks up 5 and 7, respectively. One bin is 100 MHz in this generation.

[fisherKing]

age-old question (apologies), but is the speed difference between the 2 13" mbps that significant?
the hard drive difference isn't important to me, but $300 for a slight speedbump...could pay for applecare (for example).

guess will have to wait for real-world tests, but...any thoughts?

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by fisherKing 

age-old question (apologies), but is the speed difference between the 2 13" mbps that significant?
the hard drive difference isn't important to me, but $300 for a slight speedbump...could pay for applecare (for example).

It's 400 MHz, which is quite a bit more than 10% CPU cycles. It won't be that much in real life, as the MLB is still at the same speed, but the CPU clock alone should be noticeable.

Also the graphics boost.

Bigger, though, will be the extra cache - at least for media work, which IIRC is a factor for you. The extra MB cache makes a substantial difference there.

[Eug]

Originally Posted by fisherKing 

age-old question (apologies), but is the speed difference between the 2 13" mbps that significant?
the hard drive difference isn't important to me, but $300 for a slight speedbump...could pay for applecare (for example).

guess will have to wait for real-world tests, but...any thoughts?

I'm perfectly happy with Core 2 Duo class speeds in a laptop, but that's because my laptop needs are not extensive. Basic business tasks, surfing, light photo editing. I'm not usually editing video on the thing.

What do you do?

[fisherKing]

Originally Posted by Eug 

I'm perfectly happy with Core 2 Duo class speeds in a laptop, but that's because my laptop needs are not extensive. Basic business tasks, surfing, light photo editing. I'm not usually editing video on the thing.

What do you do?

logic, my main app. sometimes, when i've been doing a lot (surfing, dreamweaver, photoshop, etc), logic will freeze (a window to click ok, and i'm back in). a reboot fixes that...

also...LOL...my GF is on a g4 powerbook; would love an excuse to give her my 2.4g macbook...

[imitchellg5]

Originally Posted by Eug 

I'm perfectly happy with Core 2 Duo class speeds in a laptop, but that's because my laptop needs are not extensive. Basic business tasks, surfing, light photo editing. I'm not usually editing video on the thing.

What do you do?

I'm still editing video and Photoshop and Illustrator on my Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro and honestly it doesn't seem sluggish to me at all. Then again, I haven't used an i5 or i7 MacBook.

[Eug]

Originally Posted by fisherKing 

logic, my main app. sometimes, when i've been doing a lot (surfing, dreamweaver, photoshop, etc), logic will freeze (a window to click ok, and i'm back in). a reboot fixes that...

I wonder how much of that is memory related, vs. CPU speed. How much memory?

[fisherKing]

Originally Posted by Eug 

I wonder how much of that is memory related, vs. CPU speed. How much memory?

4gigram. my HD is 250g, 127g avail...i have thought to bump up ram, but...may go for a new mbp anyway. just weighing the differences in the 2 13"'s....

[Big Mac]

I'm kind of surprised that Apple is being so low key about the change to Sandy Bridge. Many potential customers are going to think these are the same i5s and i7s as before.

[generationfourt]

what do you guys think?

15" 2.53ghz i5/antiglare refurb vs. new 15" 2.0 i7 + antiglare

$1569 vs. $1950

mainly using CS5 for design work. illy, pshop, id, dreamweaver. also wouldn't mind doing a little video editing + motion (after effects) in the future.

would the new processor be worth it?

[P]

Originally Posted by generationfourt 

what do you guys think?

15" 2.53ghz i5/antiglare refurb vs. new 15" 2.0 i7 + antiglare

$1569 vs. $1950

mainly using CS5 for design work. illy, pshop, id, dreamweaver. also wouldn't mind doing a little video editing + motion (after effects) in the future.

would the new processor be worth it?

A million times yes. The 15" has a quadcore now, and that alone should be enough reason. That it also has a new, significantly improved microarch only increases this gap.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by fisherKing 

logic, my main app. sometimes, when i've been doing a lot (surfing, dreamweaver, photoshop, etc), logic will freeze (a window to click ok, and i'm back in). a reboot fixes that...

Um…what's the message in the window to click "ok"?

[mduell]

No higher res (like the MacBook Air) or antiglare option on the 13"? How un-Pro.

[Salty]

Well I just ordered the i7 13 inch!

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by mduell 

No higher res (like the MacBook Air) or antiglare option on the 13"? How un-Pro.

I dunno. Matte and glossy sound the same to me, as do the resolutions.

I wouldn't mind a higher res, but it's certainly no deal breaker.

[davidflas]

I just ordered a fully loaded 17" MBP to replace the one in my sig. I'm stoked about the quad-core CPU and Thunderbolt. I work in Aperture a lot and am looking forward to speed boosts and the external storage options made possible by the new i/0 tech.

NOOb question: the new MBP models use the same RAM as the ones they replaced, right?

[Spheric Harlot]

The old ones used PC 8500 AFAIK. The new ones are PC 10600.

[fisherKing]

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

Um…what's the message in the window to click "ok"?

something like "disk too slow or system overload"
i'd have to catch it again to be more specific.

[P]

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

The old ones used PC 8500 AFAIK. The new ones are PC 10600.

Which means: Same type (DDR3 SO-DIMM) but a higher speed.

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by Eug 

I will note that it is in fact a Power Mac though. Also, I see that it only lasted a few months before it was discontinued. In a way, it almost reminds me of the 1 GHz TiBook, before the Alubook was released... except the 1 GHz TiBook was ubiquitous.

The only reason it was a Power Mac was because Apple rebranded all the Performas as Power Macs in 1997. The Performa 6400 was replaced by the Power Mac 6500, which started at $1800. The Power Mac G3 All-In-One was indeed an edu-only model. They were both replaced by the iMac.

CD-RW (or at least CD-R) was not as inaccessible as you're making it out to be — I'm pretty sure my dad had a SCSI CD-R drive back in the day. Those Que! drives were actually fairly popular at the time, IIRC, and they had USB versions as well — which of course never did anything but make coasters due to USB 1.1's speed limitations. The reason Apple left out CD-R for so long was because their market research miscalculated. I recall Steve eventually apologized for missing the party on that one in a keynote.

[davidflas]

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

The old ones used PC 8500 AFAIK. The new ones are PC 10600.

Thanks, just ordered a 8GB kit from OWC.

[imitchellg5]

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

The old ones used PC 8500 AFAIK. The new ones are PC 10600.

My late-2008 is 1067 MHz.

[Spheric Harlot]

Yes, and the new ones are 1333 MHz.

That's why they need the faster RAM (8 bits at 1333 MHz = 10666 Mbits/sec vs. 8 bits at 1067 MHz = 8536 Mbits/sec).

[Salty]

Hey can the RAM from the new ones work in a 2008 MacBook? I'm wondering since I'm probably gonna spec it out to 8 gigs (or 16 if it'll take it!) but my dad has an old MacBook with 1 gig, if I can save the cash I'd like to boost his machine.

[fisherKing]

have been considering the new 13" (all day! LOL), but think i'm gonna wait till summer; i mean, i can do everything i need right now. when they'll ship with 10.7, then, a great reason to move from my current 'book.

still, an impressive hardware update.

[P]

Originally Posted by Salty 

Hey can the RAM from the new ones work in a 2008 MacBook? I'm wondering since I'm probably gonna spec it out to 8 gigs (or 16 if it'll take it!) but my dad has an old MacBook with 1 gig, if I can save the cash I'd like to boost his machine.

If it's white or black - no. If it's a unibody aluminium - yes.

[indigoimac]

Originally Posted by fisherKing 

something like "disk too slow or system overload"
i'd have to catch it again to be more specific.

Do you work of your internal or an external? Firewire, eSATA, USB2? That's a throughput issue that neither cpu or ram is likely to address. Or you need to increase or decrease the hardware buffer. I get this issue on ProTools as well with too much disk activity.

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

I dunno. Matte and glossy sound the same to me, as do the resolutions.

Have you ever seen the difference? It's a personal decision, but for many no matte is a no go.

Back to my sata shenanigan: anyone been able to crack open system profiler on one of these and figure out what bus they are using?

[Eug]

Originally Posted by CharlesS 

CD-RW (or at least CD-R) was not as inaccessible as you're making it out to be — I'm pretty sure my dad had a SCSI CD-R drive back in the day. Those Que! drives were actually fairly popular at the time, IIRC, and they had USB versions as well — which of course never did anything but make coasters due to USB 1.1's speed limitations. The reason Apple left out CD-R for so long was because their market research miscalculated. I recall Steve eventually apologized for missing the party on that one in a keynote.

SCSI CD-R most definitely existed. They were just a pain, and damn expensive.

Most people I know just used floppies or zip drives in that era. The CD-RW era IMO didn't really hit mainstream until a couple of years later. I believe the drives showed up in the mid 1990s for about $1000 each, and then came down to several hundred bucks by the end of the decade.

Anyways, I was disappointed (but not surprised) that the new Airs had no Firewire. However, I do suspect they'll get Thunderbolt. If they do, I'll be happy, and will likely retire my 13" MacBook Pro. I don't like the dongles, but I find the 13" too big for my preference. An 11" with Thunderbolt would solve the problem, as I could spend say $39 on a Firewire dongle, and still get my tiny laptop.

However, I wonder if this will ensure the continued existence of Firewire, or if it's the final nail in the Firewire coffin. Right now I'm not sure.

[fisherKing]

[QUOTE=indigoimac;4054886]Do you work of your internal or an external? Firewire, eSATA, USB2? That's a throughput issue that neither cpu or ram is likely to address. Or you need to increase or decrease the hardware buffer. I get this issue on ProTools as well with too much disk activity.

internal drive, actually. i don't generally record audio on my macbook, but i do mixes and remixes on it...
and like NOT carrying an extra drive... thanx for the info!

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by Eug 

SCSI CD-R most definitely existed. They were just a pain, and damn expensive.

Not as expensive as you are suggesting. According to the CD-RW buyer's guide in the Sept. 1998 issue of Macworld, there existed Mac-compatible SCSI CD-RW drives as cheap as $400, and the others tended to be around the $450-$479 mark. There were a few drives hovering around $600 according to the article, but those were clearly high-end for the time, and even they were a far cry from the $1000 you were claiming. Same article claims the media was $2 a disc. I also found an article in Computing Canada (Sept. 14, 1998) claiming that HP cut their IDE and parallel port 7200 series CD-RW drives to $300 that month. So CD-RW drives weren't cheap per se, but they weren't prohibitive either.

And of course quite shortly after this time period, they took off like wildfire.

Anyways, I was disappointed (but not surprised) that the new Airs had no Firewire. However, I do suspect they'll get Thunderbolt. If they do, I'll be happy, and will likely retire my 13" MacBook Pro. I don't like the dongles, but I find the 13" too big for my preference. An 11" with Thunderbolt would solve the problem, as I could spend say $39 on a Firewire dongle, and still get my tiny laptop.

Indeed. This is why Thunderbolt is so great — you can get any ports you want, regardless of whether Apple sees fit to support them or not. It can even replace ExpressCard. We can also now use cheap eSATA hard disk enclosures and get full speed.

However, I wonder if this will ensure the continued existence of Firewire, or if it's the final nail in the Firewire coffin. Right now I'm not sure.

My guess? FireWire's toast — at least, as a standard feature of the Mac's port complement. There's really no point to it anymore except for supporting legacy peripherals. I guess we still have to see if LightPeak can do Target Mode, but I see no reason why it shouldn't be able to.

[Salty]

What I'm REALLY hoping for is a Thunderbolt hub (at a decent price) with a few USB ports, a firewire port, and a few more Thunderbolt ports. I'd love to have an external Thunderbolt HDD, and I'd love to have a monitor hooked up to it. Then if they could start powering the MacBook via the Thunderbolt cable (Not sure that's an option but who knows) it'd mean you only needed to connect one cable!

[Eug]

Originally Posted by CharlesS 

Not as expensive as you are suggesting. According to the CD-RW buyer's guide in the Sept. 1998 issue of Macworld, there existed Mac-compatible SCSI CD-RW drives as cheap as $400, and the others tended to be around the $450-$479 mark. There were a few drives hovering around $600 according to the article, but those were clearly high-end for the time, and even they were a far cry from the $1000 you were claiming.

My $1000 number was for the mid 1990s, not 1998.

Originally Posted by moi

I believe the drives showed up in the mid 1990s for about $1000 each, and then came down to several hundred bucks by the end of the decade.

--

Originally Posted by CharlesS

And of course quite shortly after this time period, they took off like wildfire.

Indeed, with USB too. No problem with USB 1.1. The speeds were just limited to slow speeds - 4X.

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by Eug 

My $1000 number was for the mid 1990s, not 1998.

We were talking about the original iMac and the situation at the time it was released, with regards to what it replaced.

Indeed, with USB too. No problem with USB 1.1. The speeds were just limited to slow speeds - 4X.

And there was that little problem where you had to ratchet the speed down to 1X or else you'd get buffer underrun errors and end up with a coaster because USB 1.1 couldn't supply the data fast enough. Of course, only the technically literate knew to do this, so most people just got stuck with a CD burner that never worked.

Bottom line: a Thunderbolt-only machine would work far better than the USB-only iMac did, and probably isn't as far off as you think.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by CharlesS 

We were talking about the original iMac and the situation at the time it was released, with regards to what it replaced.


And there was that little problem where you had to ratchet the speed down to 1X or else you'd get buffer underrun errors and end up with a coaster because USB 1.1 couldn't supply the data fast enough. Of course, only the technically literate knew to do this, so most people just got stuck with a CD burner that never worked.

Oh yeah, do I remember.

And once I got it working properly with a combination of disk burning and ISO extenstions and patches, it was about a year before the OS X update rendered it a doorstop (since LaCie claimed it would be impossible to write updated drivers for that particular bridge).

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by indigoimac 

Have you ever seen the difference? It's a personal decision, but for many no matte is a no go.

Sure, I get to compare them all the time.

I'm actually kind of happy that there's no choice on the 13" - that way, I won't have to agonize over better image quality and usefulness in direct sunlight vs. fewer reflections in an uncontrollable indoor environment.

I'd probably go for glossy, anyway, as the greater flexibility and higher contrast are slightly less irrelevant to me. This is a minor detail to me, though, as an audio guy: They sound the same to me.

A much bigger issue is that the black bezel design looks much cleaner and less distracting IMO.

IMO.

[P]

Originally Posted by Eug 

However, I wonder if this will ensure the continued existence of Firewire, or if it's the final nail in the Firewire coffin. Right now I'm not sure.

It's the final nail as a standard port, and it also kills any possibility of eSATA. One big point about Thunderbolt is that the latency is so low (8ns - even SSD access times are in the microsecond range, more than 1000 times as long) that you can add an external converter to eSATA or Firewire without losing any real performance. It's just PCIe x4, so you'd put a real Firewire or SATA controller on a cable outside the box and the performance is like you put a PCIe card in the box.

USB will live on for things like mice, keyboards, printers, scanners, phones, iPods and memory card readers (including those in cameras), but we might be heading for a future with 2 types of ports on a computer. That's pretty good.

Originally Posted by Salty 

What I'm REALLY hoping for is a Thunderbolt hub (at a decent price) with a few USB ports, a firewire port, and a few more Thunderbolt ports. I'd love to have an external Thunderbolt HDD, and I'd love to have a monitor hooked up to it. Then if they could start powering the MacBook via the Thunderbolt cable (Not sure that's an option but who knows) it'd mean you only needed to connect one cable!

A Thunderbolt hub doesn't really make sense. Hubs are for USB, because the devices had to be dirt cheap to compete with PS/2 and basic serial. Thunderbolt devices will likely be a little more expensive, so everyone will just put two ports on them, like SCSI in its day.

No, you can't power a Macbook through Thunderbolt, and you also can't power a display through it. Thunderbolt can deliver 10W power through the cable, which is a curious number. It's more than USB even with the charging supplement but less than Firewire. It's enough to drive a 3.5" drive, but (crucially) not to spin one up. That should be easy enough to fix in future 3.5" drives, though, if manufacturers bother with it.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by P 

It's the final nail as a standard port, and it also kills any possibility of eSATA. One big point about Thunderbolt is that the latency is so low (8ns - even SSD access times are in the microsecond range, more than 1000 times as long) that you can add an external converter to eSATA or Firewire without losing any real performance. It's just PCIe x4, so you'd put a real Firewire or SATA controller on a cable outside the box and the performance is like you put a PCIe card in the box.

Or even an external ExpressCard chassis for things like Magma expansion connections, where a $100 Thunderbolt EC reader is going to be preferable to a $1200 Thunderbolt upgrade to the chassis.

Originally Posted by P 

USB will live on for things like mice, keyboards, printers, scanners, phones, iPods and memory card readers (including those in cameras), but we might be heading for a future with 2 types of ports on a computer. That's pretty good.

Indeed - especially with the apparently trivial legacy support offered by Thunderbolt.

Originally Posted by P 

A Thunderbolt hub doesn't really make sense. Hubs are for USB, because the devices had to be dirt cheap to compete with PS/2 and basic serial. Thunderbolt devices will likely be a little more expensive, so everyone will just put two ports on them, like SCSI in its day.

Daisy-chaining is cool and everything, but it has its limits.

I am currently daisy-chaining six Firewire devices (five drives and an audio interface), and running off an external display. That's already more than the six-device limit of Thunderbolt.

I'm on Firewire for now, so I can deal with TB --> FW800 breakout boxen, but once everything gets moved over to LightPeak, that might not suffice.

It's also awesome annoying to troubleshoot if disconnecting one device means all the others in series must be disconnected as well, and then rewired, and then done over again.

[Waragainstsleep]

Originally Posted by Salty 

Hey can the RAM from the new ones work in a 2008 MacBook? I'm wondering since I'm probably gonna spec it out to 8 gigs (or 16 if it'll take it!) but my dad has an old MacBook with 1 gig, if I can save the cash I'd like to boost his machine.

The new 1333MHz RAM should be fine in the Aluminium MacBooks. I have 1333 in my Late '08 MBP. It won't run in the 2008 White 667MHz MacBooks though.

[Eug]

Originally Posted by CharlesS 

We were talking about the original iMac and the situation at the time it was released, with regards to what it replaced.

I guess you still didn't read my post. I said they were $1000 a couple of years earlier and then by the end of the decade were still several hundred dollars. The point being there was not a large installed base of external CD-RW writers in the entry-level market, the market which the iMac was targeting. So again, not having SCSI CDRW support was a non-issue for the iMac... just like it is a non-issue to have no FW support for the entry-level MacBook.

Having no Firewire support is a significant issue for many MacBook Pro users, however.

Originally Posted by CharlesS 

And there was that little problem where you had to ratchet the speed down to 1X or else you'd get buffer underrun errors and end up with a coaster because USB 1.1 couldn't supply the data fast enough. Of course, only the technically literate knew to do this, so most people just got stuck with a CD burner that never worked.

Was this an iMac on OS 8 thing?

Because I used USB 1.1 at 4X no problem for CD-R in Windows 2000.

Originally Posted by P 

A Thunderbolt hub doesn't really make sense. Hubs are for USB, because the devices had to be dirt cheap to compete with PS/2 and basic serial. Thunderbolt devices will likely be a little more expensive, so everyone will just put two ports on them, like SCSI in its day.

That would be true if it all worked like you said. I'm not convinced.

I use FW hubs for example, since sometimes certain devices will work better through a 3rd party hub than it will daisychained to another device. This is probably a hub compatibility issue, but you can't change an integrated hub in an existing FW peripheral. Plus, I have a non-powered FW device - FW 800 Compact Flash reader - which obviously doesn't include a second FW port.

The worst though is when you do have things daisychained, and then you shut down one device, only to have everything else after that device shut down because the port no longer is active.

Also, it would be great to have a breakout hub, a device that breaks out the MiniDisplayPort Thunderbolt connection into USB 2/3, Firewire 400/800, eSATA, etc. all in the same box, for all the existing devices that lots of us have. (I have all of the above.)

[Spheric Harlot]

It was an OS 9 thing due to driver situation and lack of pre-emptive multitasking, in combination with lack of buffer underrun protection in the drives.

BTW, the timeframe in question is Windows 95-98, which I'm sure had considerably more difficulty dealing with burning CDs than Windows 2000.

[Eug]

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

BTW, the timeframe in question is Windows 95-98, which I'm sure had considerably more difficulty dealing with burning CDs than Windows 2000.

Probably, but nobody I knew in the entry level market had CD-RW during that time frame anyway, which again is why think it wasn't a significant issue.

To put it another way, CD-RW in the entry level market had much less penetration at the iMac's launch than FW does in the Pro Mac market does now at the Thunderbolt launch.

BTW, the inclusion of a physical FW port in the new MBP suggests to me that FW dongles will be a long time coming. In fact, I have to wonder just how well FW over MiniDisplayPort/Thunderbolt will actually work in the real world.

[Spheric Harlot]

Definitely.

[P]

Intel's info page says that the spec supports star configurations, ie hubs, so you will all get your wish.

A breakout hub like Eug describes will likely be the very first product to hit the market. I also expect all future Apple displays to have a USB hub running off TB.

[mduell]

Originally Posted by P 

One big point about Thunderbolt is that the latency is so low (8ns)

Note the 8ns claim was regarding clock synchronization along a chain of devices, not latency.

In 8ns you won't even make it 3m in copper, much less the return trip.