“It has been said that buyers should generally avoid the first year of a new model car, Version 1.0 of just about any application and most Rev. A computers — especially Rev. A computers,” Ken Mingis reports for Computerworld.
“Well, if you held off buying the first Intel-based versions of Apple Computer Inc.’s MacBook Pro laptops, you can safely venture forth to the nearest computer store and take one home. I base that on my hands-on experience with Apple’s latest updated consumer MacBook lineup, the recently revamped 15-in. MacBook Pro and — now, finally — the 17-in. variation of Apple’s professional laptop line,” Mingis reports.
“To paraphrase Victor Kiam, the late Gillette CEO, I liked the latest 17-in. MacBook Pro so much that I bought my own,” Mingis reports. “In case you’ve missed the latest specs on these portable workstations, the MacBook Pro — both 15-in. and 17-in. models — sport Core 2 Duo processors from Intel Corp. that are marginally faster in terms of clock speed but noticeably faster in real-world use. One factor behind that speed increase is the 4MB of dynamically allocated Level 2 cache RAM used by the new chip — twice what the Core Duo offered. It’s not a huge jump in processing power, nor would you expect it to be when moving from Rev. A to Rev. B hardware. But it’s more of an increase than Apple used to provide back in the not-so-halcyon PowerPC days.”
“When buying technology, it’s always best to try to future-proof yourself as much as possible. Apple’s 17-in. MBP is about as future-proof as they come. It offers 64-bit hardware and maybe even, eventually, 802.11n wireless networking capabilities (though 802.11g is just fine for now),” Mingis reports. “Apple is due to release its next operating system, Leopard, before spring. Once that 64-bit operating system is out, the MacBook Pro will really shine. And it’s pretty darn bright already.”
Full article here.
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Washington Times: Apple MacBook, MacBook Pro portables are ‘superb values’ – November 21, 2006
Apple now shipping 17-inch MacBook Pro Core 2 Duo units – November 13, 2006
PC Magazine Editor’s Choice: Apple Macbook Pro Core 2 Duo; best mainstream laptop – November 07, 2006
CNET: Apple MacBook Pro Core 2 Duo ‘provides great overall computing experience, at a premium price’ – November 03, 2006 (We dispute the “premium price” bit within the article)
Computerworld: Apple’s new MacBook Pro Core 2 Duo ‘one cool customer, fastest Apple laptop ever’ – November 02, 2006
Apple MacBook Pro Core 2 Duo dissection photos – October 30, 2006
Why MacBook Pro Core 2 Duo units are limited to 3 GB RAM – October 30, 2006
Apple redesigns, hides iSight indicator on MacBook Pro Core 2 Duo models – October 28, 2006
Apple does it again: New Macbook Pros much cheaper than Dell – October 25, 2006
Yager: New Apple MacBook Pro is ‘mobile landing pad for Leopard in plenty of time for Macworld Expo’ – October 24, 2006
Apple MacBook Pro notebooks go Intel Core 2 Duo; up to 39-percent faster – October 24, 2006
<< It offers 64-bit hardware >>
Gee, I hate to break it to him..the hardware is only 32 bit, hence the 3GB memory limit.
this is due to the chip set on the motherboard…
IF it could handle 64 bit, it would sell like hotcakes…
Gee, I hate to break it to him..the hardware is only 32 bit, hence the 3GB memory limit. this is due to the chip set on the motherboard…
You’ve misunderstood a few things.
The Merom CPU in all current Macs except the mini (for now) actually is a 64 bit chip. It offers a full 64 bit CPU architecture complete with 64 bit registers, ALUs and addressing range.
The only thing is that the amount of physical RAM happens to be limited to only the lower 32 bits by the connected chip set which has to connect the CPU to the memory, but not by the CPU. This chip set is identical for the older 32 bit and the new 64 bit CPUs as far as I’m aware.
But processes can still make use of the 64 bit virtual addressing range (as far as the swap disk allows).
IF it could handle 64 bit, it would sell like hotcakes…
It can – and it does!
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waitingfor64bit, also 32bit systems handle 4Gbytes of RAM, not 3.
you go, boy! tell him!!!
“When buying technology, it’s always best to try to future-proof yourself as much as possible. Apple’s 17-in. MBP is about as future-proof as they come.”
I bought one of the original 17-inch PowerBook’s almost four years ago. It has a gig of RAM, Airport, and had an 80-gig HD. I’ve upgraded the HD to 120 gigs (first HD died after nearly 3 years of never being turned off).
I’d sure love to have another one but this one just runs so damned well, that… when I do get another, and I will, I’ll make someone in the family very, very happy.
The screen real estate on the 17-inch Mac is awesome; much better than the 15-inch model. The slightly larger size doesn’t feel like anything with the right slipcase bag.
Sweet.
I don’t know what the excitement is all about. Dell sells an 18-pound 20-inch notebook. I mean how’s Apple gonna compete against the XPS M2010?
@ ping: You’re right of course, and if we were only talking about the MacBook I’d say ‘so what’ regarding the memory limitation. But for a pro-level notebook that’s supposed to be more … professional … I think it’s an inexcusable limitation. If I was a graphics professional or a scientist, where more memory is always needed, I wouldn’t go for the MBPro until 4-6GB is possible.
I’m not a graphics pro or scientist, so the MacBook is where my interests lay. which leads me to my second beef; I won’t spend anything close to Apple prices on integrated graphics (or, at the very least, Intel’s weakeast-of-the-weak ass version). If they could sell an iBook G4 with a dedicated graphics card, they can do the same with MacBook. and until they do, my money stays in my pocket.
That said, I agree that Merom has finally made the MacBook & MBPro finally worth buying for some people. Yonah was not worth switching for IMO, if for no ther reason than 64bit is the future and it makes no sense to by any machine these days that doesn’t support it.
From the article: “Core 2 Duo processors … are marginally faster in terms of clock speed but noticeably faster in real-world use [than CoreDuo]. One factor behind that speed increase is the 4MB of … Level 2 cache … twice what the Core Duo offered. It’s not a huge jump in processing power, nor would you expect it to be when moving from Rev. A to Rev. B hardware. But it’s more of an increase than Apple used to provide back in the … PowerPC days.”
Actually, the 4MB of cache is the ONLY reason you see a performance increase, as Apple’s Intelized software & OS are ust as 64bit aware now as they were before (which is to say, not enough to make a difference). Under Tiger, the only thing that would provide increases in performance are increases in clockspeed, cache, and system memory. Once the OS and software all become totally optimized for 64bit CPUs, you’ll see a substantial boost from that (as AMD showed when they went 64bit and Intel lagged behind), but until Leopard debuts it’s all ‘potential’ – or “future proofing” as the author says.
However, this is exactly the same situation that held sway in the “PowerPC days”, and back then clockspeed boosts & increased cach sizes were a regular occurance. More/faster system memory advances was just as constrained – if for different reasons – as they are now. And the measured speed boosts you got from the new revs of every PPC Mac made were about the same as what’s being measured for CoreDuo-to-Core2Duo Macs now. And when the product moved from a G3 to an altivec’d G4, or a G4 to a 64bit G5, there really was no comparsion in the measured performance bumps you saw then vs what we see right now.
I’m not trolling for hits here folks. Just trying to keep things real. Appreciate the Macintels for what they are, not for ‘imagined failures’ of PPC that never were.
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“And when the product moved from a G3 to an altivec’d G4, or a G4 to a 64bit G5, there really was no comparsion in the measured performance bumps you saw then vs what we see right now.” should say:
“And when the product moved from a G3 to an altivec’d G4, or a G4 to a 64bit G5 (where you really did get much more & faster sys memory), there really was no comparsion in the measured performance bumps you saw then vs what we see right now.”
sorry
I don’t give a shit, my MacBookPro is gorgeous beast and I love it. I als love all this mass of ridiculously positive press about Apple and the Mac..
The tipping point is coming closer…
This Macbook Pro Core 2 duo 2.33 is FAST it feels way faster than a core duo – this is the best laptop I have ever had..
The size of the 17inch MBP should allow for at least 4GB RAM. The pro machines need to have as little limitation on RAM as possible.
I thought Victor Kiam bought the Remington Company after his wife gave him his first electric shaver.
I took a look at the Dell XPS M2010 i can’t tell what that thing is. Is it a laptop or desktop? Why would you compare that to anything from apple?
Merom does not just have a bit more cache, it also has an improved internal execution architecture which also contributes to the speedup (which is apparently quite significant in practice).
Intel Tiger doesn’t have any 64 bit code right now as far as I know, so exploiting the more efficient 64 bit instruction set instead of the old IA32 now will give another boost once Leopard will be out.
To memory: Lay the blame at Intel – the support chip set is the issue here. That and the rather expensive prices for DIMMs with more than 1GB each. It is silly to complain about the current models – they’re the best Apple could reasonably provide at this point, and they are very, very good and will see mostly speed bumps in their successors, but no significant architectural changes for a long(ish) time.
That’s why this is an excellent point to jump for anyone waiting for the changeover to be complete.
And by the way: iBooks with separate GPUs were not particularly “generous”, they were simply a necessity since a) there were no integrated graphics chip sets for PowerPC CPUs and b) the severely limited memory bandwidth would not have allowed it in the first place. All that changed with the Intel switch and helped compensate for some of the added expense for the Core Duo CPUs.
For by far the most users of a MacBook its limited 3D capability is not a problem, and for the rest there’s always the MacBook Pro.
So what?
The current system can take 4GB of ram but only use 3GB of it. If you want a full all out 64 bit machine, you need to wait for the Intel Santa Rosa chip set.
It is also interesting that Intel is pricing its quad core chips the same as its dual core product. So it is obvious that when Santa Rosa and a mobile quad core version of the CPU are available, they will appear in a Leopard powered MacBook Pro.
“IF it could handle 64 bit, it would sell like hotcakes…”
Oh yeah… despite the fact that none of you geeks has been able to clearly explain to us why we need 64 bits in the first place… You got your finger on the pulse…
@ ping:
“Merom does not just have a bit more cache, it also has an improved internal execution architecture which also contributes to the speedup (which is apparently quite significant in practice).
Intel Tiger doesn’t have any 64 bit code right now as far as I know, so exploiting the more efficient 64 bit instruction set instead of the old IA32 now will give another boost once Leopard will be out.”
Granted, Merom has some improvments over Yonah, but what you mention is related primarily to integrating the 64bit instruction set. When it comes to branch prediction, integer performance, FPU performance, SSE1,2,3 etc… it’s pretty much the same beast as before. Therefore, what you say next (and what I also mentioned) about Leopard being a true 64bit OS should allow Merom to get more of a boost over Yonah than we currently see. I think we’re in fundamental agreement on this.
BTW – Tiger (and even Panther to a lesser degree) does have 64bit features. They’re just not integral to the OS.
“To memory: Lay the blame at Intel – the support chip set is the issue here. That and the rather expensive prices for DIMMs with more than 1GB each. It is silly to complain about the current models – they’re the best Apple could reasonably provide at this point, and they are very, very good and will see mostly speed bumps in their successors, but no significant architectural changes for a long(ish) time.”
I do lay the blame at Intel’s poor design. But this wouldn’t be a problem for Apple’s products if Apple hadn’t adopted it. I don’t agree that it’s the best Apple could have reasonably provided, and I’m certain there will be a major revision in the future, as Intel is well-aware that no one is happy with the present state of their FSB affairs. Also, there was nothing inevitable about this for Apple; they once designed all their own mobos, and also did signifigant tweaking of the Intel-based MacPro & XServe Mobos to partially overcome FSB problems there. So while I’m willing to make some allowances for the more consumer oriented MB, for the MBPro – no. This 3GB limitation shouldn’t be there & Apple should have done more to address it if Intel couldn’t.
As for the expense of more memory: It’s best to leave that problem up to the people who pay for it. Professionals certainly would buy it if it were offered, and the rest of us would upgrade as soon as prices came down (as they always do, eventually) if we had that option. Unfortunately, b/c of this techical failing, we don’t.
“That’s why this is an excellent point to jump for anyone waiting for the changeover to be complete.”
I agree that it’s the best point so far. What with some professional grade programs (>cough< ADOBE >cough<) still being better on a PPC platform than a Macintel by far, the Merom/Woodcrest change has actually been where I’ve actually encouraged people to begin buying Macintels. As I said, 64bit is the future and 32bit Yonah was clearly not going there, so buying rigs based on it (except for the iMac which can be upgraded to Merom), with all the other UB/Rosetta issues bundled in, made no sense to me.
So yes, I’m on board now, and will continue to be until AMD’s next Great Leap Forward comes in next year
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”wink” style=”border:0;” /> . Nonetheless, more needs to be done. Apple needs to get rid of the memory limitation on the MBPro, and the graphics limitation on the MB. And since I’m bitchin, I’ll also throw in that the sooner they dump FBDIMMs in the MacPro & XServe, the better – that technology is a dead end and their are plenty of DDR2 (soon-to-be-3) options available.
But hey … first things first.
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DELL! Did someone say Dell? Oh pullheeeeeese!
@ ping: “And by the way: iBooks with separate GPUs were not particularly “generous”, they were simply a necessity since a) there were no integrated graphics chip sets for PowerPC CPUs and b) the severely limited memory bandwidth would not have allowed it in the first place. All that changed with the Intel switch and helped compensate for some of the added expense for the Core Duo CPUs. For by far the most users of a MacBook its limited 3D capability is not a problem, and for the rest there’s always the MacBook Pro. So what?”
I didn’t say they were generous, only that they were better. And they were. The 9550 ATI on my iBook is essentially a lower clocked version of the 9600, and there isn’t a website around that will say that when it comes to transform & lighting effects and so forth that Intel’s integrated GPU measures up to the lowball version that I have.
Jobs used to make a big deal about how no Mac had crappy integrated graphics. It had nothing to do with no integrated graphics being available – the lower cost of PPC parts meant that Apple didn’t need it to hit their price points. It was only when the high costs of switching to Intel became fully realized did he drop that, and even then the MacBook was still about $200 more expensive than it’s predecessor. And now I should be expected to pay another $500 on top of THAT … just to get a decent GPU?
Sorry. I think you’re being an apologist here. there are plenty of options from both Nvidia and ATI that makes Intel’s solution a complete waste of time. Apple is using it, most likely, b/c Intel wouldn’t give them good deals on the CPUs unless they adopted the whole ball of wax. I anticipate the same strong-arming was used to make sure the Woodcrest MacPro & XServe used much more expensive (and also lower performing) FBDIMMs.
Well, maybe Apple had no choice in the beginning. But now their sales are going through the roof, and AMD is wooing them at every turn. If I were Jobs I would be telling Intel Apple will no longer be using it’s crappy graphics, FSB, and memory technologies, and still expected good prices on the chips, otherwise the company will be walking once again.
And like I said, for me, until they do correct probs one and two, I won’t be buying a new MacBook or MBPro. In the past I have happily paid a premeium for the Apple hardware/software combo. Now that they are using the same hardware as everyone can sell, I have even higher expectations regarding what I’m paying for.
Welcome to the Jungle, baby! The x86 world can be a real bitch
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Yep, I want one. Whens the BlueRay/Multi Drive one coming out. Feb, March..? I’ll wait just a bit longer. Need time to save the dosh anyway.
MW poor. Hmm, cash poor, asset rich.
I’m tired of all these negative reviews! Have these reviewers even USED a Mac?? This is why we’ll always be just low small market player in the big world of computers. Sad. Very sad. Well, as for me, I’m not paying any attention. I’m getting one of those nice new PowerBooks with that upgraded screaming G3 processor! I don’t care what reviews like this say! Idiots all!
Hmm… Wrong century.
Ignore that last post.
“This is why we’ll always be just low small market player in the big world of computers. Sad. Very sad.”
Closed architecture? Oh.. shit.. logic.. my bad..
I have a 2Ghz Core Duo MBP 15″ with 2GB of RAM. The second that a MBP appears that can handle 4GB of RAM I’m upgrading. I run a few sessions of Parallels at all times, and it eats available RAM like Oprah in a donut shop.
MDN Magic Word: “million” as in “Hi. I’m Oprah Winfrey, and I just spent a MILLION bucks on donuts!”