“During a speech at Computex today, Intel senior vice president Anand Chandrasekher introduced products and technologies in its upcoming Intel Core2 Duo processors. Saying that the company’s innovation will ‘redefine how PCs are used today and attract more buyers’ around the world, the Intel exec touted the new Intel 965 Express ‘Broadwater’ chipset, which it said would enable breakthrough PC performance, greater power efficiency, quieter systems and theatre-like sound quality when combined with the company’s Core2 Duo platform. Already benchmarks have shown that the new Core 2 Duo outperforms previous generation chips by a signficant margin. As previously disclosed, he also noted that Intel will introduce the Intel Core 2 Extreme processor at speeds of 2.93GHz in July, and a faster 3.2GHz version later in the year. The company’s revamped Core 2 Duo for mobile applications, code-named Merom, is due in August,” MacNN reports.
Full article here.
“Intel wouldn’t confirm a launch date, but processors will be shipping to its partners some time this month, so one can only presume that the launch isn’t too far away. Yields are said to be very good and there shouldn’t be any shortages of processors, although officially Intel doesn’t comment on yields, so we’ll just have to wait and see,” Reg Hardware reports.
Reg Hardware has more in-depth information here: Intel Core 2 Duo performance preview.
“Conroe will be 40 percent faster than Intel’s best desktop chip today, but consume 40 percent less power, [said Anand Chandrasekher, an Intel senior vice president, in a speech at the start of Computex trade show in Taipei]. The Merom notebook chip will offer 20 percent better performance and about the same battery life. Woodcrest, the server chip, will offer an 80 percent lift in performance but use 35 percent less power, according to Chandrasekher,” James Niccolai reports for IDG News Service. “The boost comes partly from the new Core architecture, but also from a move to more advanced manufacturing techniques.”
“Chandrasekher likened the significance of the Core 2 Duo chips to the introduction of Intel’s first Pentium processor a decade ago,” Niccolai reports. “Perhaps ironically, he also announced a marketing shift in which Intel will relegate its Pentium line of processors to what the company calls its “value PC” segment, or those for cheaper PCs, alongside the Celeron. The Celeron brand in turn will be used for very low-end PCs, such as those sold in emerging markets, the executive said.”
Full article here.
Advertisements:
• Introducing the super-fast, blogging, podcasting, do-everything-out-of-the-box MacBook. Starting at just $1099
• Get the new iMac with Intel Core Duo for as low as $31 A MONTH with Free shipping!
• Get the MacBook Pro with Intel Core Duo for as low as $47 A MONTH with Free Shipping!
• Apple’s new Mac mini. Intel Core, up to 4 times faster. Starting at just $599. Free shipping.
• iPod. 15,000 songs. 25,000 photos. 150 hours of video. The new iPod. 30GB and 60GB models start at just $299. Free shipping.
• Connect iPod to your television set with the iPod AV Cable. Just $19.
• iPod Radio Remote. Listen to FM radio on your iPod and control everything with a convenient wired remote. Just $49.
You heard it here first. The mac books will remain with intel Core processors, The Mac Book pro’s will get the Core 2. The only reason the two machines are so closly matched now is because Apple had to bring the Powerbook replacement to market as soon as possible ,thus forcing them to go with the Core 1.
Also, we as apple users will see a faster rate of improvment now that the intel switch has been made. Intel has come out with processor and mobo improvments much more rapidly then IBM did with the PPC.
Thats my 2 cents.
Here Sammy! Come on, girl. Where are you, Sammy?
Does anyone else agree that these will make it in to Mac Book Pros soon? I ask as I’m about to purchase a MacBook Pro and if waiting a month or two would give me 4 processors, I’d hold.
TIA,
M
the future PowerMac aka Mac Pro will have Woodcrest … if you visit http://www.intel.com you will se the DC Xeons are listed both under Servers and Workstations … the Mac Pro are Workstations to the bone …
We will most likely see iMac & Mac mini with Core 2 …
regarding to the PowerMac series we will se 3 modells all featering Woodcrest … Apple needs to take it to the absolute extreme and the Woodcrest processor is the answer … its a Pro “top-of-the-line” and the processor inside will be the same …
PowerMacs are NOT Desktop comuters its Profesional Workstations .. the iMac and Mac mini are Apples Desktop computers ..
remember that the Quad G5 is still a extreamly fast computer and Apple and Intel are going to blow our minds with the performance ono there new colaberated PowerMacs .. aka Mac Pro … this is going to be a statement in the leap ahead in professional Workstation.
also .
if you check all the features regarding FSB and cache 2 in the PowerMac series you see the the feature of Conroe is lower but the Woodcrest are higher … and we want higher .. right ?
the Mac Pro series will be about 2x-3x times faster that the current PowerMac series …
once again .. the PowerMac is a pice of profesion equipment .. and so is Woodcrest …
Apple 3Q-4Q:
Mac mini (Core 2 Duo)
iMac (Core 2 Duo)
Mac Pro (Woodcrest)
Xserver (Woodcrest)
see you at the WWDC 2006
Sounds like Conroe will go into the Mac Pro tower and Merom will go into the MacBook Pro. I agree with emax that the MacBook will keep the core 1 duo.
I wonder whether the Mac Pro will debut at WWDC. Might as well get it out and keep the G5 PM available for those Adobe folks. I’m sure there are plenty of people waiting for the Mac Pro who use primarily universal apps.
Andrew… are you drunk?
Core 2 Duo looks to be clock for clock faster than AMD’s current lineup, however the Intel “advantage” may be a little skewed because of the controlled environment. “The overall PCMark 2005 score is more than 1,100 points higher than the FX-62’s score which is nothing short of incredible as the FX-62 is a higher-clocked processor, although some of this has to be credited to the graphics cards.”
The problem with benchmarking Conroe is that its always done in an Intel controlled environment. The POV benchmark above was noted to have Intel specific optimizations. Yet a benchmark like Cinebench shows roughly only a 100 point advantage over an Opteron 285. Factor in the fact by the time Core 2 Duo is released in July, AMD will have faster AM2 processors available (Opteron 290, 295 and FX variants), this looks like to be an interesting year of CPU’s.
Too bad clueless idiots like “Sammy’s owner” aren’t intelligent enough to follow the industry.
Yes, yes I am…
here is how i see the eventual Mac product line breaking down –
first, a lexicon-
Core Duo – Yonah
Core 2 Duo (mobile) – Merom
Core 2 Duo – Conroe
Core 2 Duo Extreme – Woodcrest
—————————————-
Mac mini and MacBook – Core Duo
iMac and MacBook Pro – Core 2 Duo (mobile)
“Mac Pro” – Core 2 Duo with Core 2 Duo Extreme option on the high end
Xserve – Core 2 Duo Extreme
Sammy failed physics.
Awww – good Sammy!
Believe me, when Photoshop CS3 ships, every professional photographer in NYC will be maxing out their credit cards to buy quad- or octo-processor Mac Pros, CS3, and probably Aperture or Lightroom. I know I will, and I’m just a small fish in this big pond.
Digital camera file sizes are rising fast, and the aging G4 and early G5 workhorses under most photographers’ desks just can’t keep up. When I was shooting 6-megapixel RAW files, my 12″ Powerbook was perfectly adequate. But, now that I’m working on 11-megapixel files and applying PhotoKit Sharpener actions and Smart Sharpen, Lens Correction and Noise Reduction filters in Photoshop, prepping a couple dozen images can take hours. Dual-core 2GHz processors are now the absolute minimum requirement in professional imaging. A quad-core machine for <$3,000 will fly out the doors at the Apple Stores in NYC faster than they can be trucked in.
The anticipation is killing me, and I’m putting off every other discretionary purchase to save my pennies.
“3.2GHz later in the year.”
What the hell ever happened to all those “we’ve hit 10GHz in the lab” and “the G6 has already reached 4GHz in our testing” and “within 18 months a baseline configuration will be something like 6GHZ and 40megs of RAM” types of articles that we used to hear regularly from this industry?
You know, the kind of stuff that the people making the statements SWORE were true . . . and coming next?
The kind of stuff you also see in Popular Science all the time — like the 500GB of storage data on a platter the diameter of a dime?
Where the hell IS all this neat stuff?
“3.2GHz later in the year.”
Big whoop.
Sammy’s stuff don’t smell, biatches.
Sammy, what about power consumption? Slight speed improvements aren’t worth it if the processor uses twice as much power to do it.
If Apple does decide to go with Woodcrest with the Mac Pro’s, I hope they also introduce a tower computer that works on Conroe.
There NEEDS to be a tower computer available to consumers. If there isn’t, I might seriously consider switching to Windows. I’m writing this on an iMac G5, and I have nothing but regret for buying this instead of a PowerMac G5.
I hope to never purchase an all-in-one again if I can help it, but I also don’t need a professional workstation and the associated pricetag.
Why can’t Apple introduce a $2000-ish consumer-oriented tower? They could easily place it inbetween the iMac and the Mac Pro.
I will be seriously annoyed if this does not happen. iMacs just don’t cut it for some users, but that doesn’t mean I want to upgrade to a full-fledged workstation either.
Processor frequencies have been stuck between 2GHz to 3GHz range this 2 years mainly because of the AMD MHz myth. “speed not equals to performance”. In which it drives the chip making companies into discovering new technologies instead of plainly increasing the frequencies.
Thats one big reason why we do not see 4 GHz and above processors commonly available these days unless you’re talking about overclocking which i personally think its something only geeks will do.
I know that Intel is supposed to release new Duos that support 64-bit by the end of the year. But why must we wait?
Many of the P4’s already support 64-bit. Furthermore, AMD and IBM both supported 64-bit in their consumer lines many months before Intel did. So before Intel concentrates on making “faster” chips, I would like to see them support existing technologies — such as 64-bit.
“Why can’t Apple introduce a $2000-ish consumer-oriented tower? They could easily place it inbetween the iMac and the Mac Pro.”
Apple already sell an entry level tower for 2000. I am pretty sure that they will continue that level in the Intel based Pro Mac range. Eventually it will get cheaper once the processor prices drop and Apple start selling more Pro Macs again.
JUST REMEMBER!!
All new MacTels will have EFI, which is a extra firmware level between the OS and firmware/hardware.
Drivers can be written for EFI that can contact/download from the internet even before a OS is loaded.
It will bring about a new concept, the industry controls your machine and you don’t. It’s called Trusted Computing.
Right now we have the ability to prevent our computers from making internet connections and downloading using programs like Little Snitch (outging firewall) and packet sniffers under the OS.
With EFI and Trusted Computing, that will NO LONGER BE THE CASE.
Right now Intel is providing software to hack EFI firmware, but that can be revoked at anytime.
Are you a programmer that you can alter your EFI firmware?
Read more of the horrors here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trusted_computing
http://www.lafkon.net/tc/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extensible_Firmware_Interface
Static Mesh,
EFI also sounds like a good way to install something on your computer that you don’t want…
– Mark
EFI also sounds like a good way to install something on your computer that you don’t want…
Oh yes the potential for malicious behavior is awesome.
First a word of caution. You can leave your system in a state where Mac OS X won’t start up again. You can fix it by booting with the install CD (hold down C as you turn on your computer) then using the Start-up Disk utility).
Now, on to the instructions.
1. Download the EFI Sample Implementation from Intel.
http://www.intel.com/technology/efi/main_sample.htm
2. Unzip the file to /efi (or anywhere else, but /efi is what I’ll be using)
3. In terminal do ‘sudo bless –folder /efi –file /efi/Binary/BIOS32/Bin/GraphicsConsole.efi –setBoot’
4. Reboot your computer.
5. You’ll get the familiar chime and gray screen, wait about 10 seconds then hit the spacebar.
6. You’re now in EFI!
Let’s head over to the shell…
1. Select Boot Maintenance Manager
2. Select Boot From File
3. Select the option that begins with “NO FILE SYSTEM INFO”, this is your start-up volume
4. Navigate your way to /efi/Binary/BIOS32/SHELLBios32/Shell.efi
To get your machine booting Mac OS X again, you have a few options. Probably the easiest is to put the restore CD in the drive, and reboot while holding down C. Once in Installer, go to Utlities, Start-up Disk and select the System folder on your hard drive. Another way to boot back in to OS X from the EFI menu is to follow the same steps as for launching the shell, except navigate to /usr/standalone/i386/boot.efi. Once back in OS X, change your start-up disk back to the system folder on your hard drive using system preferences.
Important system recovery instructions:
Thanks to a commentor and Dave Schroeder’s testing, I am able to give you this information for restoring your iMac should it refuse to power on. Unplug your iMac and wait 10 seconds. Hold down the power button as you plug it back in. You should now be able to boot from the restore DVD.
It would appear Apple is ready to continue rev-ing the MacBook Pro with the latest and greatest Intel has, ensuring when buying a MacBook Pro, it’s the best the market has to offer in any brand of product.
This will increase turnover as units will no longer hold their value as they have in the past.
But is there a slot between the MacBook and MacBook Pro? One rumor site (highly unreliable) has claimed a “MacBook Thin” will arrive shortly. With Intel’s Core Duo low-volage processor announced today this seems all the more likely.
Add in the fact Apple could easily bring the black MacBook down $100 to a reasonable price and a $1,599 and %1,799 MacBook Thin version of product with 14″ widescreen would fit the lineup nicely.
What that “MBT” product would be is a business laptop. Graphics and video folk need the power of the Core Duo 2 and ATI chip sets. Consumers and educators need only the MacBook. But small business professionals need a product that looks like a MacBook Pro (not something hanging around a grade school), and a product that has long, long battery life, a large enough screen, and power enough to present and do all that business shtuff with.
Don’t believe Apple is not mounting a business attack. Leopard will be the final piece to this emerging puzzle. The HW, however, will be first to market.
Static Mesh, meet MacDude.
MacDude, Static Mesh.
‘enable breakthrough performance’
Isn´t that the hype on every chip that Intel or AMD or whoever releases???