“There are a couple of ways to approach the question of what Apple’s upcoming pro desktops might look like. The first is to look at Intel’s CPU lineup and see what fits logically and where. The second is understanding what Apple has done historically with its machines and try and extrapolate that to an all-new architecture,” Eric Bangeman writes for Ars Technica. “Let’s do both.”
“There are four CPUs on Intel’s Core roadmap for 2006. In order of appearance, they are Yonah (Core Solo/Duo), Woodcrest (Core Xeon), Conroe (Core 2 Duo), and Merom,’ Bangeman writes. Bangeman outlines each of the four CPUs in the full article.
• Yonah—Core Solo/Duo: 32-bit. Used in: iMac, Mac mini, MacBook Pro, MacBook
• Woodcrest—Xeon 5100 series: 64-bit. Likely to be used in: Xserve, Mac pro desktop
• Conroe—Core 2 Duo: 64-bit.Likely to be used in: Mac pro desktop, iMac
• Merom—Core 2 Duo: 64-bit. Likely to be used in: MacBook Pro, MacBook, Mac mini
“Apple is prone to sudden and unexpected changes of course, but I don’t expect one to happen here. Apple will keep a “God Box” at the top of its Pro Mac lineup, and I’m all but certain that it will be another Quad: a four-core, dual-chip machine. In order for that to happen, that means Woodcrest at the top of the line. That’s right, the next desktop Mac you buy may have a Xeon inside; if it has two of them, it won’t cost much more than the current Quad G5,” Bangeman predicts.
“Apple will continue to offer at least three models of the pro Mac, possibly four. The midrange models—one or two, depending on how many models Apple wants to have—will also be Woodcrests. By offering two or three Woodcrest machines, Apple may be able to leverage economies of scale to get some price breaks on the motherboards they’ll be using,” Bangeman predicts. “Speaking of motherboards, forget about Apple using an off-the-shelf solution. None of Intel’s chipsets currently support Firewire 800 natively—Woodcrest or otherwise—although they have in the past. As a result, whatever solution Apple uses will require some degree of customization to support what has sadly—as I glance over at my dual-drive Firewire 800 enclosure—become something of a niche technology.”
“It’s all but certain that we will be seeing the end of the now-familiar brushed aluminum tower. Although elegant and quite capable of cooling the torrid PowerPC 970 CPUs, it’s not the best solution for a pro desktop,” Bangeman predicts. “Since the Xeon 5100s and Core 2 Duos will run much cooler than the RISC processors they will be replacing, they should allow Apple to radically redesign the interior of the case… As far as the exterior goes, I’m not making any predictions, other than it won’t be beige plastic. We should see at least four PCIe slots (I doubt we’ll ever see more than four slots in a Mac), with the possibility of some sort of dual-SLI or Crossfire solution, depending on whether ATI or NVIDIA is currently in Apple’s good graces, and if the board contains two PCIe x16 slots.”
This is just a taste of a very comprehensive article from Ars Technica (as usual). Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” and “Too Hot!” for the heads up.]
Related MacDailyNews articles:
RUMOR: Apple’s Mac Pro to sport slightly modified Power Mac enclosure (link to images) – July 14, 2006
Apple chose well: Anandtech – Intel Core 2 Duo ‘the fastest desktop processor we’ve ever tested’ – July 14, 2006
RUMOR: Intel’s Woodcrest to power Apple’s next-gen high-performance Mac Pro desktops – July 11, 2006
RUMOR: Apple to unveil ‘Mac Pro’ with new enclosure design, Intel Core 2 Duo at WWDC next month – July 03, 2006
The interesting bit of this for me is that the MacBook Pro may have a core 2 duo in it soon. I want to buy a 17″ one ready for college in september, but don’t know whether I should hang fire for a new model to come out. Does anyone have any thoughts on the chances of an update coming out soon?
This may be slightly off topic, but does anyone know if the new chips have the same pins as the Core Duos? I’d love to be able to pop one into my iMac.
Mudflapper: The Merom will have the same pin layout as the Core Duo. Conroe and Woodcrest have different pin layouts so are not compatible.
at the very least Sharris i’d wait until the developer conference in early august. only a few weeks away now. you never know.
sharris: I’d hold off on the mbp if I were you. I’m waiting for the next rev, which shouldn’t be long. Also, i want the screens to be higher res (like the last rev of the powerbook) and a dual layer superdrive.
Yes – people seem to have done the swap in Minis and iMacs.
Carlo – Thats what I was thinking, I’m just wondering now what to do if they don’t release them at WWDC…maybe in January? Guess I’ll have to wait and see!!!
Thanks!
When Intel bring Merom out I would expect them to also drop the prices of Core Duo’s. The Macbook Pro’s should at least see a price drop but I’m pretty sure that Apple would like a bigger performance differential from the Macbook’s and would probably like to get back to running on 64bit processors at the high end.
Eiscir – With all the problems with heat, whines and so on, I think its best to do like you said. One thing though…I thought the MBP screen was the same resolution (highres) as the last revision of the powerbook? Am I wrong about this?
Thanks
Please use a black matte enclosure like that black macbook!!
Thank you for this:
• Yonah—Core Solo/Duo: 32-bit. Used in: iMac, Mac mini, MacBook Pro, MacBook
• Woodcrest—Xeon 5100 series: 64-bit. Likely to be used in: Xserve, Mac pro desktop
• Conroe—Core 2 Duo: 64-bit.Likely to be used in: Mac pro desktop, iMac
• Merom—Core 2 Duo: 64-bit. Likely to be used in: MacBook Pro, MacBook, Mac mini
God I miss the days when Intel would just number the processors so you could tell them apart.
Yonah, Woodcrest, Conroe, Merom.. gimmie a break.
I agree.
BTW, what’s the actual difference between a Conroe-Core 2 Duo and a Merom-Core 2 Duo?
And why use Xeons and Core2 Duos in the Mac Pro?
And, how will customers know that they’re not getting a Merom-Core 2 Duo instead of a Conroe-Core 2 Duo in their MacPro?
I hope Apple keep a Core Solo Mac Mini and make them soooo cheap that I can buy them for all my ‘heathen box’-using friends for Christmas to relieve them of their pain on their crippled Win 98 antiques and avoid the yearly £50 anti-virus tax. They will never upgrade, but if I do it I will be able to sleep at night, we can swap files, and I can bring them into the 21st century.
The linked article is great. But I think Apple will follow their current Power Mac G5 formula and not make a significantly different low-end Mac Pro model. The article predicts that the two (or three) highend models will use Xeon and the low end will use Core 2 Duo.
Seems to me it would be more economical to use the same motherboard, and just vary the speed and number of Xeons (along with features such as video card, installed RAM, and storage capacity), as Apple does for the current G5s.
Then Apple can distinguish the product lines by Intel chip used. After the next set of product refreshes, the lineup could look like this.
Mac Pro (and Xserve) – Xeon
iMac and MacBook Pro – Core 2 Duo
Mac mini and MacBook – Core Duo and Solo