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Author Topic: Apple does something they should have done 10 years ago  (Read 9934 times)

Mnementh

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Later this year Intel will be introducing pin compatible upgrades to its Core 2 and Xeon lines, except instead of two cores these processors will feature four.  Codenamed Kenstfield (Core 2) and Clovertown (Xeon), Intel's new quad-core processors will dramatically increase the amount of processing power you can have in a single system.  Given that the Mac Pro features two LGA-771 sockets, you could theoretically drop two Clovertown processors in there and you'd have an 8-core Mac Pro.

Without a doubt Apple will release a quad-core version of the Mac Pro, either by the end of this year or early next year, but are users who buy the Mac Pro today missing out?  While we're still a couple of months away from being able to test a retail Clovertown CPU in the Mac Pro, we wanted to see if the current engineering samples of the chip would work.  

We grabbed a pair of 2.4GHz Clovertown samples and tossed them in the system, and to our pleasure, they worked just fine.  Our samples used a 1066MHz FSB, although we're expecting the final chip to use a 1333MHz FSB, but the most important part of the test is that all 8 cores were detected and functional.

We ran a handful of stability tests on the Mac Pro equipped with two Clovertowns and didn't encounter any crashes with the processors, so it would seem that Clovertown will work in the Mac Pro's motherboard.  We can't say with 100% certainty that you will be able to upgrade to Clovertown when it comes out, but so far the results are looking good.  


I'm hells of happy about this, as I plan on getting a MacPro soon.
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Valrus

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Apple does something they should have done 10 years ago
« Reply #1 on: 13 Sep 2006, 05:07 »

I thought this was going to be about gapless playback in iTunes. :P
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Melodic

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Apple does something they should have done 10 years ago
« Reply #2 on: 13 Sep 2006, 12:22 »

8 cores? Great! Now I can afford to run 350 applications without strain on my computer!

Isn't it a bit much? Developers have barely gotten around to optimizing programs for dual-core and increased-cache systems, let alone quad-cores. At least wait for other computer technology to catch up, to the point that 4, or even 8, CPU cores will actually be practical.
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Mnementh

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Apple does something they should have done 10 years ago
« Reply #3 on: 13 Sep 2006, 13:39 »

Isn't it a bit much, yes.

But damn if it doesn't make my nerd penis bigger.
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Ocarina654

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Apple does something they should have done 10 years ago
« Reply #4 on: 13 Sep 2006, 14:24 »

Quote from: Mnementh
Isn't it a bit much, yes.

But damn if it doesn't make my nerd penis bigger.

And thats the whole point of everything, is it not?

But yeah, exciting, but I really don't see how Apple could have done this 10 years ago...

Still though, the best and the fastest is the way to be when possible.
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est

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Apple does something they should have done 10 years ago
« Reply #5 on: 13 Sep 2006, 17:08 »

I am really really really starting to hate/get sick of Apple, Dan :(
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Mnementh

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Apple does something they should have done 10 years ago
« Reply #6 on: 13 Sep 2006, 17:19 »

Quote from: Ocarina654

But yeah, exciting, but I really don't see how Apple could have done this 10 years ago...


Oh, what I mean is that Apple used to solder in the chip, so you couldn't take one out and pop a faster one in.  This is the first system by them that I'm aware of that uses any sort of socket that you can swap shit with.

Est, why?
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est

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Apple does something they should have done 10 years ago
« Reply #7 on: 13 Sep 2006, 17:41 »

I think they have an attitude problem.  Actually, I'm not sure why I'm talking about this in here, I might either start another thread or just talk to you about it in irc or something.
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Catfish_Man

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Apple does something they should have done 10 years ago
« Reply #8 on: 13 Sep 2006, 20:56 »

Quote from: Melodic
8 cores? Great! Now I can afford to run 350 applications without strain on my computer!

Isn't it a bit much? Developers have barely gotten around to optimizing programs for dual-core and increased-cache systems, let alone quad-cores. At least wait for other computer technology to catch up, to the point that 4, or even 8, CPU cores will actually be practical.


Increased cache doesn't require special optimizations. As for multicore... it makes my compiles faster, and it makes my renders faster. The rest is for someone else to worry about :D
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nihilist

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Apple does something they should have done 10 years ago
« Reply #9 on: 14 Sep 2006, 20:31 »

You only need to worry about cache if you are doing something seriously low-level, at the OS/kernel level.

As to multi-core...  Once your shit is threaded, it is done.  Doesn't matter how many cores you have, as long as you have many threads, they can run on many cores.

Which is why game design needs to change.
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Catfish_Man

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Apple does something they should have done 10 years ago
« Reply #10 on: 14 Sep 2006, 22:19 »

Quote from: nihilist
You only need to worry about cache if you are doing something seriously low-level, at the OS/kernel level.

As to multi-core...  Once your shit is threaded, it is done.  Doesn't matter how many cores you have, as long as you have many threads, they can run on many cores.

Which is why game design needs to change.


Well... they all have to be doing useful work as well. Adium runs ~40 threads these days, but most of them are idle-waiting on downloading buddy icons or some ridiculous shit (I'm not a huge fan of the library responsible for most of this...).
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nihilist

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Apple does something they should have done 10 years ago
« Reply #11 on: 15 Sep 2006, 08:21 »

Shitty design is shitty design, I guess.  :)
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not_inspired

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Apple does something they should have done 10 years ago
« Reply #12 on: 15 Sep 2006, 10:31 »

yeh now watch the prices go up
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elcapitan

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Apple does something they should have done 10 years ago
« Reply #13 on: 18 Sep 2006, 07:03 »

Fuck prices, watch the temperatures go up. I have no idea how they can cool a quad-core laptop, or even deal with it power-wise.

Still a freakin' cool idea though.
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Mogman

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Apple does something they should have done 10 years ago
« Reply #14 on: 18 Sep 2006, 07:16 »

hrm, multi-purpose then, paperweight and heater in one =P
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Chesire Cat

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Apple does something they should have done 10 years ago
« Reply #15 on: 21 Sep 2006, 18:42 »

I liked apple before it got all popular
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Apple does something they should have done 10 years ago
« Reply #16 on: 22 Sep 2006, 18:37 »

I really should've become friends with Anand when I lived in Raleigh.
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Catfish_Man

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Apple does something they should have done 10 years ago
« Reply #17 on: 23 Sep 2006, 10:17 »

Quote from: elcapitan
Fuck prices, watch the temperatures go up. I have no idea how they can cool a quad-core laptop, or even deal with it power-wise.

Still a freakin' cool idea though.


Multicore chips actually have very interesting power consumption properties. Increasing the clock frequency of a chip by a factor of 2 will, if even possible, basically always require more than double the power (power consumption is quadratic with input voltage and linear with clock speed, and major speed increases require voltage increases).

As a result, you can sometimes get better performance/watt with multicore by having a dual 1N GHz chip requiring 2M power, because the single 2N GHz chip would require >3M power. The trick, of course, is how well you can take advantage of the parallelism. If your task is serial, then you'll really have low power consumption... because one core will just be sitting idle :(
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morca007

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Apple does something they should have done 10 years ago
« Reply #18 on: 24 Sep 2006, 22:33 »

Quote from: Mnementh
Isn't it a bit much, yes.

But damn if it doesn't make my nerd penis bigger.
No, no it doesn't. No REAL nerd would give the smallest bit of respect to a mac owner.
Just other Mac owners.
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Luke

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Apple does something they should have done 10 years ago
« Reply #19 on: 25 Sep 2006, 07:28 »

The insinuation that respect is even remotely related to being a nerd amuses me greatly.
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Ozymandias

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Apple does something they should have done 10 years ago
« Reply #20 on: 25 Sep 2006, 11:14 »

Shucks. I thought the body of this thread would just be:

"Add right mouse buttons."
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Mnementh

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Apple does something they should have done 10 years ago
« Reply #21 on: 25 Sep 2006, 14:44 »

Quote from: morca007
No, no it doesn't. No REAL nerd would give the smallest bit of respect to a mac owner.

Just other Mac owners.


If you don't like macs because you are accustomed to other things that is fine.  If you don't like them because they don't serve your purpose, that is fine.  If you don't like them because you don't like the company, i'll look at you oddly until you can prove that they're any worse than any other corporation, if you can I'll respect that, but since you own an iPod, I don't think that's the case.

If you just like being an idiot or dislike them because it's the new popular thing to do, I can't respect that.

Ad Hominem attacks do nothing but earn you enmity.  If that's your goal I suggest you go elsewhere before you get banned.  Consider this your warning.
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nihilist

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Apple does something they should have done 10 years ago
« Reply #22 on: 25 Sep 2006, 15:01 »

I don't like Apple, and I had an Apple ][ and the first Mac.  Oh man.  I dislike the OS is what is my problem.

That, and the Cult of Jobs.  Zombies scare me.
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mberan42

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Apple does something they should have done 10 years ago
« Reply #23 on: 25 Sep 2006, 15:47 »

See, Apple is like Notre Dame. If you went to Notre Dame, you're a Domer: all hard-core ND-green-and-gold-running-through-your-veins. If you didn't go to there, you don't particularly care for the school and you fucking hate the ND fanatics.

The same is true for Apple. If you own an Apple product (minus the iPod - that's a whole different argument), you're an Apple Geek: white-and-grey-coursing-through-your-veins want-to-have-Steve-Jobs'-babies/job/power/money. If you don't own an Apple product, you don't particularly care for the products and you fucking hate the fanboys.

I can't stand Notre Dame. Sure, they provide a great education, I don't doubt that. But the fans / fanatics I can't fucking stand.

I don't particularly care for Apple products - pure preference, I was raised on IBMs (minus the ][gs I owned in 1987). I don't care to support Apple and its thick-upper-lip attitude. I wanted an mp3 player, so I bought a Creative Zen Vision:M. Apple, admittantly, has a great line of products. I'm not saying their stuff is crap - it is, in fact, quite good.
But I can't fucking stand Apple fanatics and their my-way-or-fuck-you attitude.

That pretty much sums me up.
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Ravenbomb

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Apple does something they should have done 10 years ago
« Reply #24 on: 25 Sep 2006, 19:57 »

Quote from: Valrus
I thought this was going to be about gapless playback in iTunes. :P


iTunes has gapless playback (the latest Windows one, at least)
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Kana

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Apple does something they should have done 10 years ago
« Reply #25 on: 25 Sep 2006, 20:32 »

Quote from: Mnementh

If you just like being an idiot or dislike them because it's the new popular thing to do, I can't respect that.

Ad Hominem attacks do nothing but earn you enmity.  If that's your goal I suggest you go elsewhere before you get banned.  Consider this your warning.


I have to note that I am not at all advocating blind idiocy/dislike without a reason or flaming, but I do pose a question to you Mne.

While his attacks seem blatantly prejudiced and unfounded (or just a completely lazy poster), it can be argued that his persona is a reasonably expected one around any conversation concerning Macs at the current time.

Macs latest advertisements while sometimes pointing out facts are blatantly snidy, ill-made, and while I can see humor in them I still think they could of found a much more successful approach to market their products.

Pieces of trash computer manufacturers, ex: Dell/Gateway (completely founded/justified if you're any sort of computer specialist and not some huge company needing cheap computing power for simple solutions) advertise hype just the same but also in a manner that appeals to the consumer and hopefully entices them to buy into their gimic and appeal.

Mac's commercials seem nothing more than to be "Mine's better than yours and I'll say it with a big ass stick stuck far up my ass" kind of mentality which I'm sure still gets plenty of mac fanatics and maybe even some new consumers, but fails miserably for those in-between buyers like myself.

So the question is, how can you either be surprised or upset rather that some flamer/troll/idiot/whatever came into the thread to say "MACS SUXORS" when technically it wasn't perhaps the Mac users but Macintosh themselves that instigated the whole matter?  You tell a bafoon he's stupid for doing something and you have to be prepared to accept he's going to come back with something or other to defend himself or prove how much of a bafoon he is.

And just to note I am a graphic designer/3d modeler educated and at the moment freelancer as I work as a teacher in technology applications.  I built my own pc box with top of the line stuff keeping in mind to for easy upgrades so that this box can do heavy graphics and computing power and still be around in a few years easily enough without having to replace everything.  I used Macs the whole time while I was in college getting my degrees and even then some afterwards although I never owned one.  I seriously want to buy a Mac but the pricing is not worth the supposed edge in computing power to me (altho I am going to buy a new laptop and it will probably be a mac if I can scrap enough change by) at the time I made/bought the computer.  So I am not a Mac hater per se, but I am someone in the middle who quite frankly being a designer and experience in ad design wonder why Mac would go through the trouble to instigate and rile the pc fanatics against the mac fanatics.

P.S. No bans prz.. :)
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Mnementh

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Apple does something they should have done 10 years ago
« Reply #26 on: 25 Sep 2006, 22:46 »

Rudeness is rudeness.  I went back and researched some of his other threads before warning him.

And as for the fanatics, yes, sadly you find them everywhere.  It isn't just Apple though, go to slashdot and try suggesting that someones favourite little peice of open source software just doesn't get the job done compared to an MS product.  Take your flame retardent keyboard with you.

Computers are tools, I'm more comfortable with a Mac since I've been using them all my life and as such I prefer owning them.  I also own a compaq that runs Ubuntu, as it is a useful tool.

As for the holier than though marketing campaign.  I enjoy the tongue in cheekness of it.  I also enjoy the fact that my apple stock is worth 6.7 times what it was worth when I bought it.  Beyond that, I don't care what people thing about it.  It's just marketing, you can choose to pay attention or not.
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Catfish_Man

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Apple does something they should have done 10 years ago
« Reply #27 on: 25 Sep 2006, 23:08 »

Quote from: mberan42
See, Apple is like Notre Dame. If you went to Notre Dame, you're a Domer: all hard-core ND-green-and-gold-running-through-your-veins. If you didn't go to there, you don't particularly care for the school and you fucking hate the ND fanatics.

The same is true for Apple. If you own an Apple product (minus the iPod - that's a whole different argument), you're an Apple Geek: white-and-grey-coursing-through-your-veins want-to-have-Steve-Jobs'-babies/job/power/money. If you don't own an Apple product, you don't particularly care for the products and you fucking hate the fanboys.


Amazingly enough it is possible to own an Apple product and have a clue (i.e. not be a platform bigot). Most technical Mac users that actually have a clue tend to use all three major platforms to some degree, and have a laundry list of problems with both Apple and the MacOS ( FTFF stands for "fix the fucking finder", an acronym that no longer needs explaining on Mac forums, much to my annoyance"). Basically, the fanatics give the rest of us a bad name. See http://funroll-loops.org/ for the Linux example of the same type, and this thread (or basically any other tech forum thread that Apple is mentioned in) for the Windows example.

That said, one of the reasons why the Apple fanboys tend to be so defensive is that attitude others have towards them. I have been punched, insulted, ignored, yelled at, discriminated against, and scorned for using a Mac. I've had the head of the CS dept. at a local college tell me to "get a real computer". In my case this has just led to a generalized hatred of platform bigots, but it's remarkably easy for it to turn into retaliatory bigotry.

In summary: I'll use whatever fucking computer I want to, and you can use whatever fucking computer you want to, and if you try to mock me for my choice you had damn well better have at least some knowledge of all three major operating systems, cpu and system architecture, programming, and UI design, because otherwise you're going to come off as looking really silly.

Summary of the summary: All computers suck.. I happen to prefer the way mine sucks.

</failed_attempt_to_not_feed_the_trolls>

<edit> Just to be clear here, this was targeted at several people, not just mberan's post (which seemed mostly reasonable aside from the stereotyping). </edit>
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Ozymandias

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Apple does something they should have done 10 years ago
« Reply #28 on: 25 Sep 2006, 23:17 »

I was just saying today that doing CS on a Mac seems perverse. It just...doesn't compute in my head. But, OTOH, neither does using Windows.

I prefer Linux if I'm doing anything CS related. I'm not a regular Linux user. I run XP on my computers. I can't stand the Cult of Torvald. But it just feels right to be using Linux, like I'm doing dirty CS work and I'm in the cave of CS just a-doin' it. Doing it on a Mac feels like sitting in a shiny room with pretty paintings and trying to mine for coal.

I'm reminded of one of my CS classes where the professor explains how to get some required file to work for Windows. Then someone asks 'What about Linux?' and he goes into some detail on that. Then one meek hand raises: 'What about a Mac?" and the class erupts into laughter.
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Catfish_Man

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Apple does something they should have done 10 years ago
« Reply #29 on: 25 Sep 2006, 23:58 »

Quote from: Ozymandias
I was just saying today that doing CS on a Mac seems perverse. It just...doesn't compute in my head. But, OTOH, neither does using Windows.


Well, really it depends on whether you mean CS or programming. CS is arguably best done on paper ;) I always ended up getting out a notebook for datastructures class, although OmniGraffle came in handy as well. <3 that program :)

Programming, on the other hand, is generally best done on whichever platform you intend to sell your program on (or for non-money-making projects, the platform with the best API for the task).
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mberan42

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Apple does something they should have done 10 years ago
« Reply #30 on: 26 Sep 2006, 07:55 »

Quote from: Catfish_Man
<edit> Just to be clear here, this was targeted at several people, not just mberan's post (which seemed mostly reasonable aside from the stereotyping). </edit>

Thanks, I tried not to do anything but stereotype. (Heh, as if only stereotyping is a good thing - I tried not to rip on anyone's opinions / preferences, at least...)
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Grawsith

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Re: Apple does something they should have done 10 years ago
« Reply #31 on: 03 Oct 2006, 02:24 »

8 cores. SWEET.

Whenever I get a new computer with more power, I always play UT2004 with at high-res with max bots  and watch it die from over-powering.

MUHAHAHA!!!
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arthur barnhouse

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Re: Apple does something they should have done 10 years ago
« Reply #32 on: 03 Oct 2006, 14:04 »

Oh, what I mean is that Apple used to solder in the chip, so you couldn't take one out and pop a faster one in.  This is the first system by them that I'm aware of that uses any sort of socket that you can swap shit with.

They actually haven't soldered the processors on the most Macs.  A lot of the desktops were fairly upgradable, and whole ecosystems (similar in many ways to the iPod ecosystem) sprung out of the desire of average consumers wanting to upgrade the unusual processors of the Mac.  Laptops, on the other hand, often had soldered processors in order to cut down excess space in the machine.  Now, I can't quite remember, but I believe that they still follow that policy for laptops.  Let me do a little digging.

Update:  I'm correct, if Wikipedia is to be trusted.  Laptops still have soldered processors, even in the Intel upgrade.  But to be fair, it does make the unit much thinner.
« Last Edit: 03 Oct 2006, 14:06 by arthur barnhouse »
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Catfish_Man

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Re: Apple does something they should have done 10 years ago
« Reply #33 on: 03 Oct 2006, 17:40 »

bleh, the old G3/G4 processor upgrades were nasty. Big expensive daughtercards, mostly.
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EmoFan

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Re: Apple does something they should have done 10 years ago
« Reply #34 on: 04 Oct 2006, 00:04 »

Apple does something they should have done 10 years ago

Sorry, but isn't it unreasonible to expect Apple to have the hardware to do 8 cores 10 years ago? If your talking about switching to Intel chipset, then it's old news since they been telling people this for a few years. Their labtops are already Intel as they're doing the switch over. Still, I think Apple want to hit the profession areas. Being the "Work" computer which when you see someone with a Apple you know they're actually doing work on that machine instead of playing video games, surfing the web, and other activies.
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Catfish_Man

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Re: Apple does something they should have done 10 years ago
« Reply #35 on: 04 Oct 2006, 10:26 »

The original post referred to being able to upgrade the processors by just dropping new ones in.
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