Core 2 Duo Macbook released

[CSMatt]

The Core 2 Duos are also the first Intel processors to feature LaGrande Technology, Intel's take on Trusted Computing.

 

That is why I hate them. At least you can tamper with and/or destroy a TPM if it becomes impossible to find a laptop without one. I'm switching to AMD processors because of this alone.

[vandetta]

What pisses me off is that they still aren't using x3000 video. If they implement that, man, I'd buy it in a heart beat.

 

That graphics haven't came out yet, right? It will be in MB next year, don't worry

[macprodan]

I was not expecting these to come out so soon, shame like others said they did not upgrade the graphics system. Because of this i will have to go with the MacBook Pro, well that, the screen size, lighted keyboard and stylish aluminum fininsh...

 

Im so looking forward to getting one i even started dreaming about it, Lol. in just over a week now i should have my hands on this little baby.

 

 

 

Its true, once you go mac you dont go back.

[br0adband]

Its true, once you go mac you dont go back.

 

I had a black MacBook. Wasn't enough, so it went back.

 

I had a 15" MacBook Pro 1st gen. Too many problems with it, so it went back.

 

Now I've got a 20" iMac, and it's up for sale for a variety of reasons, so... the idea that you don't go back is pretty much lost on me now that I've owned 3 Macs, all brand new outta the boxes and I'm simply dissatisfied with the overall performance of OSX in general. It's slower than Windows by a big margin to me, not only in Desktop GUI performance but in day to day activity.

 

Everything is faster under XP, even on Mac hardware for me. DVDs rip faster, compression happens faster, video plays better, I get better performance from my softmodded X1600 drivers for 3D work, etc.

 

It's weird, I'll admit, and I had much higher hopes for my actual Mac ownership, but suffice to say I'm done with it. It's just not enough to justify the cost and I need the cash back to pay for some medical bills from my Wife's recent surgery and expenses.

 

bb

[sandmanfvrga]

I had a black MacBook. Wasn't enough, so it went back.

 

I had a 15" MacBook Pro 1st gen. Too many problems with it, so it went back.

 

Now I've got a 20" iMac, and it's up for sale for a variety of reasons, so... the idea that you don't go back is pretty much lost on me now that I've owned 3 Macs, all brand new outta the boxes and I'm simply dissatisfied with the overall performance of OSX in general. It's slower than Windows by a big margin to me, not only in Desktop GUI performance but in day to day activity.

 

Everything is faster under XP, even on Mac hardware for me. DVDs rip faster, compression happens faster, video plays better, I get better performance from my softmodded X1600 drivers for 3D work, etc.

 

It's weird, I'll admit, and I had much higher hopes for my actual Mac ownership, but suffice to say I'm done with it. It's just not enough to justify the cost and I need the cash back to pay for some medical bills from my Wife's recent surgery and expenses.

 

bb

 

 

Wow, that came out of nowhere. I am sorry you had that experience. I am beginning to wonder if all this Mac wanting and such is worth it. I do love OSX and the way it works, but I am wondering should I just get over it and move on? I am trying to sell my pc, that is very powerful for a Mac Mini. What do I love about OSX? It's ease of use, the interface etc. *scratches goatee* I wonder if , just IF, my dislike and distain for Microsoft justifies going to Steve Jobs and all his {censored}. I still am done with PC gaming (barring NWN2 when it gets good and playing online with friends) but Steve Jobs and Apple is doing the same thing: ripping us off. Now all the people paying for Macs left and right, good for you guys. I am glad you can but do you realize these trivial updates and {censored} are just to take more money? I have had a sick feeling in my gut for a few months. Why? I don't know, till today. I am System Administrator with two college degrees and I manage a network, that is Windows based. I loathe Microsoft, and I just need to have a change from them. Linux, is good. I have bashed it, but it is good in it's own right. OSX is awesome, just awesome but for all this {censored} Apple does, it is not worth it. $1500 for a Macbook with good options? I have went to many sites and build Windows laptops, half the price. *shrugs* Ridiculous. br0adband here has went back, and I think I am going to STAY. Why? Until Apple changes who they are, realize it is OSX and not that f***ing hardware they have that people want, I am not going to do this to myself.

[macprodan]

Well seeing as we can install XP / Vista on our macs it does not matter that it is faster, we can have the best of both worlds. Vista i still feel is way over bloated and is still legacy bound... (MS will always be stuck in the past) i doubt that leopard will be slower.. i see a big boost in performance in leopard when it arrives.. your right that XP is faster in some ways than OS X in its current incarnation due to limitations with the kernel (apple know this and is addressing it)

 

Everything is faster under XP, Hehe, Right. , I dont have experience of everything being faster.. in some situations yes but everything is a big statment, anything to back this up.?

 

As for you having three macs and getting rid of them all i dont know what to say, i hope i dont feel this way once i make the switch to Mac Hardware.

[Alessandro17]

On my (powerful) hackintosh OS X is a lot faster and more responsive than XP.

[sandmanfvrga]

I was venting a little, overall I came to great conclusion today:

 

Many like me that loathe Microsoft for the way they do things when Apple does the same thing. I still want a Mac, yes even after my ranting. BUT, I am going to be VERY choosy. If/when my PC sells, I am getting a stock/standard core duo mac mini. Nothing more. The laptop scene for Apple is ridiculous. How is Apple like Microsoft? Price gouging and knowing that loyal followers will keep on coming back. I have been fighting with my love of gaming, using pcs, and my education/career. I started loving pcs in the days of MS-DOS and now it is out of hand. Gaming on Windows is out of control and I will not be apart of it. It is ridiculous in how Microsoft has got, but Apple is the better of the two, but not innocent. After I vented today, talked to a buddy that has sworn off Microsoft completely (Linux/Ubuntu user now) I feel better, but I know that Apple isn't innocent, just better of the two.

[Mebster]

Thanks for the replies to the question guys.

 

I'm really disappointed that the graphics card was not updated. Surely if you're going to spend $1500 on an Apple laptop and not a Dell, then you at least expect it to closely match some of the Dell specs. At the moment it isn't. And that is a huge deterrent.

[TvvqKMZ72bsklauw5]

I plan on getting it once I raise some more money. I just got an iMac Core 2 Duo the day it came out.

 

I want to get the $1,299 White MacBook model.

[BRP]

Everything is faster under XP, even on Mac hardware for me. DVDs rip faster, compression happens faster, video plays better, I get better performance from my softmodded X1600 drivers for 3D work, etc.

If indeed this is true, you'll have to spill your Windows startup secrets. I'd tolerate Windows' need for many reboots more if it took less time.

[munky]

i agree with br0adband to an extent... winxp does seem to run faster on the same hardware than OS X. but to me, xp just feels.... flimsy, whereas OS X feels more 'solid' somehow. almost like xp is a 2-dimensional cardboard cutout of an OS, whereas OS X is a deep, 3-dimensional entity.

 

so xp is a little faster (perhaps)... i'll still take a slight speed hit to have a solid and reliable OS, under which I can run amazing software like Aperture, iPhoto, Final Cut Pro etcetc.

[aberracus]

As ususal i agree with munky, winxp is like a fast cheap car i can accelerate it very fast, but it have very bad brakes, you know you are gonna crash, sooner or later.

 

Macs are like cats more stylish, more elegant, they can do anything a windows machine can do , but they do it with style, not only supeficially, but in its robustness, and workflow.

 

I have assembled HINDREDS of windows machines and i much support more thatn that, sometimes i feel like saying "just buy a mac man, that will solve all your problems", and i think its true, most of the problems in any computer are user driven, the way windows is made its just a bomb waiting to explode (usually happens at the worst moment). Obviouslky none of Windows machines got viruses or addware (mos of the tiem at least) or crash, but im very experienced and i know im not the usual windows user.

 

Im now in love with macs, i have tied real macs and ihacks and never ever have any real problem.

 

I used to have amds they made a good cpu with the X64 tech, but now, lets hope they catch intel sometime in the future, because nowdays they are very far behind.

 

 

About COREDUO 2 vs Core duo , here is what anandtech says...

 

"General application performance can improve a bit by switching to Core 2 Duo, but the biggest performance gains are associated with 3D rendering and media encoding tasks. Considering the nature of the improvements to Intel's Core 2 processor, the areas in which it succeeds are not surprising. If you use your notebook as a professional rendering or encoding workstation with no desktop in sight, then you'll probably consider Core 2 Duo a lot more carefully than most.

 

One of the items that clearly stands out is that discussing gaming performance on laptops is largely an academic endeavor, as the vast majority of shipping laptops are going to be completely GPU limited. We will hopefully have some results from a high-end gaming laptop in the near future, at which time we can detmine how much of an advantage Core 2 Duo really has over Core Duo. The designs are similar enough that we don't expect a huge difference, and the lower FSB bandwidth will certainly limit performance potential more than on the desktop. However, we would expect a difference somewhere in the range of 5-15% in most games if we can remove the GPU bottleneck as is evidenced by the Oblivion results.

 

While Core 2 Duo does look nice, as long as you've got a good notebook today you'll probably want to wait until Santa Rosa before upgrading (at the earliest). With Santa Rosa, clock speeds will go up slightly but more importantly we'll get access to a faster FSB. Unfortunately a side-effect of keeping Core 2 Duo fed with a faster FSB is that while performance may go up, battery life may go down. It'll be interesting to see what Intel can pull off with the new platform; one of the funny things about performance and battery life is that if you can complete a task quickly enough thus returning your CPU to an idle state faster, battery life will grow even though instantaneous power consumption may be higher.

 

For Apple users this means that early adopters of the new MacBook or MacBook Pro won't be too pressured to upgrade again by the end of this year. Of course Apple has this way of making incremental changes irresistible.

 

Overall, Merom may not be as big of an upgrade to Yonah as Conroe was to NetBurst, but the bottom line is that you get equal or better performance in every test without increasing cost or decreasing battery life. Owners of Core Duo laptops really have no reason to worry about upgrading for now, and waiting for the Santa Rosa platform before your next laptop upgrade seems reasonable. Those looking to purchase a new notebook on the other hand have no reason to avoid Core 2 Duo models, assuming pricing is consistent with what Intel is promising. There will be a delay of at least a few more weeks as we await availability, and testing and validation by laptop manufacturers may delay things a bit more, but within the next month or so you should be able to get a Core 2 laptop."

 

 

 

a little more info from anandtech

 

"Core Duo vs. Core 2 Duo

 

We've spent a lot of time comparing Intel's Core architecture to NetBurst and AMD's K8; however, we've stayed away from quite possibly one of the most confusing comparisons: Core 2 Duo vs. Core Duo.

 

Unlike its desktop predecessor, Core 2 Duo comes from the same genealogy as the Core Duo. Despite the similarities in name and in architecture, there are some fairly major differences between the two CPUs, some of which won't become apparent until next year. The table below should help summarize the differences:

 

Core Duo (Yonah) Core 2 Duo (Merom)

Manufacturing Process

 

65nm

 

65nm

 

Die Size

 

90.3 mm^2

 

144.9 mm^2

 

Transistors

 

151M

 

291M

 

Clock Speeds

 

1.20GHz - 2.33GHz

 

1.06GHz - 2.4GHz+

 

FSB Frequency

 

533MHz - 667MHz

 

533MHz - 800MHz

 

L1 Cache Size

 

32KB + 32KB

 

32KB + 32KB

 

L2 Cache Size

 

2MB Shared

 

2MB - 4MB Shared

 

Pipeline Stages

 

12

 

14

 

Decoders

 

1 complex + 2 simple

 

1 complex + 3 simple

 

Maximum Decode Rate

 

3

 

4+1

 

Reorder Buffer

 

80

 

96

 

Issue Ports

 

5

 

6

 

Scheduling

 

Unified Reservation Station

 

Unified Reservation Station

 

Scheduler (# of Entries)

 

24

 

32

 

FP Units

 

FMUL/FADD: 1

 

FMUL: 1

FADD: 1

FSTORE: 1

FLOAD: 1

 

SSE Units

 

1

 

3

 

Integer Units

 

ALU: 2

 

AGU: 2

 

ALU: 3

 

AGU: 2

 

Load/Store Units

 

Load: 1

 

Store: 1

 

Load: 1

 

Store: 1

 

Socket Interface

 

Socket-M (PGA/BGA)

 

Socket-M (PGA/BGA) & Socket-P (PGA/BGA)

 

 

 

Compared to the desktop Core 2 Duo (Conroe), the mobile version is architecturally no different. Obviously clock speeds (both CPU and FSB) are lower because these things will be going in notebooks where power consumption is more of a concern, but other than that the architectures are identical.

 

Compared to Yonah, Merom has some very clear advantages; on the surface the larger L2 cache is responsible for the 140M increase in transistor count, but architecturally the improvements extend far beyond that. You can get the details from the table above or from our previous articles on Intel's Core 2 processors, but simply put Merom is wider and slightly deeper than Yonah. The slightly deeper pipeline helps increase clock speeds on Merom (which will bump performance a bit), but the added decode and execution width will increase overall performance.

 

Not listed in the table above are the improvements to the cache subsystem and memory accesses on Core 2 Duo. Merom features more aggressive prefetchers than Yonah, as well as Intel's Memory Disambiguation technology that allows for out of order loads. In other words, not only is Merom able to operate on more data at once, at a faster speed, but it can also get access to that data quicker. "

 

this is the source

http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showd...?i=2808&p=4

[Danyel]

On my (powerful) hackintosh OS X is a lot faster and more responsive than XP.

 

 

Hi Alessandro:

 

I'm running OSx86 10.4.5 and Windows XP SP2 on my box (MSI mPC 915). Both Operating Systems run fast and responsive. The graphics and interface are much nicer on the OS X.

 

--danyel

[Lostgame]

Surely if you're going to spend $1500 on an Apple laptop

 

Where is this number coming from? If you're stupid enough to buy the black model it's your own damn fault for wasting a minimum of $150...

 

The $1099 model is more than sufficient, or for that matter, buy a refurb for $899. It's at 1.83 ghz, and has 512 MB RAM, now tell me that's not good enough for basic tasks. Seriously.

[Mebster]

Where is this number coming from? If you're stupid enough to buy the black model it's your own damn fault for wasting a minimum of $150...

 

The $1099 model is more than sufficient, or for that matter, buy a refurb for $899. It's at 1.83 ghz, and has 512 MB RAM, now tell me that's not good enough for basic tasks. Seriously.

Firstly people who buy the black edition are not stupid. They are rich!

 

Secondly the black edition has the major advantage of the 120GB hard drive. Yes you can buy external storage but it's a laptop!!! If you can pack it all in wouldn't you like to?

 

Also the $1099 model maybe sufficient, but that's like saying eating bread will get you through life. For me personally I need to burn way too much stuff on DVD for it to only have a combo drive. And now that the $1299 and $1499 both have DL super drives, it’s tastier to get them now than ever before. After all people who get Apple are likely to try and upload and edit they home videos. Exactly how are you supposed to burn that on a DVD?

 

And for me a refurb is almost never an option. Not for a laptop. Sorry.

 

Finally if someone did only basic tasks (how many of us actually limit us to that when we buy a pc), I would tell them to save $500 and get a Dell.

[SquidCombo]

The current C2D Macbook black and the top end white is less than $30 in difference for the color (try bumping up the configuration of macbook white to 120 gb hard drive, you'll see that the total price is very close to the black one). So it's just my personal choice in getting a black macbook coz the spec and price is pretty much the same for both.

 

However, the CD Macbook has a huge price gap. Now that's paying premium!

[Bearcat]

OK, Just my personal opinion, but one of the things that really annoys me is:

 

The high end white and black macbooks now get DL superdrives, while the low end one still has a combo drive.

 

Why oh why, couldn't Apple put the SL superdrive in the low end model.

[i1sam]

for those thinking of "jumping over the gun" on this.. but have already their CD MB.. look here http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2006/10/18/in...re2duo_roadmap/

on 2007Q2 (just 7-8 months) waiting... existing C2D will be revamp to a much higher cpu freq and fsb... maybe by that time .. I already have my ROI on my macbook CD..

[Don Luca]

OK, Just my personal opinion, but one of the things that really annoys me is:

 

The high end white and black macbooks now get DL superdrives, while the low end one still has a combo drive.

 

Why oh why, couldn't Apple put the SL superdrive in the low end model.

 

Because there are guys like me that already own 4 DVD writer DL, and doesn't want a fifth.

In fact, what is annoyng me is the exact opposite of what you are saying:

I wish there would be an option to replace the Super Drive with a Combo one...

 

BTW, I'm going for the middle white one, because the lower one has slower CPU with half of L2 cache (the structure is a bit different compared to its bigger bro).

[Bearcat]

Because there are guys like me that already own 4 DVD writer DL, and doesn't want a fifth.

In fact, what is annoyng me is the exact opposite of what you are saying:

I wish there would be an option to replace the Super Drive with a Combo one...

 

BTW, I'm going for the middle white one, because the lower one has slower CPU with half of L2 cache (the structure is a bit different compared to its bigger bro).

I didn't say put a DL superdrive in the low end one.

 

I said use the SL superdrive in the current CD Macbooks in the low end one, because the one you are purchasing now has DL superdrives.

[macprodan]

Finally got my 15" C2D Macbook Pro and to say i am happy is an understatement.. wow this baby flys, 0 probs so far and the Glossy screen on this is amazing.

 

Thank you OSX86 if it was not for you guys i doubt i would have discovered how good Mac and OS X is...

 

Once you go mac you dont go back.

[retroz]

Well, I have a hackntosh, runs fairly fast, never encounter problems with Mackie Fire Wire audio, high end Blue Sky Monitors, $500 mic's (not that expensive say compared to Neumann), but the point is it runs fast and for about $300.

 

I also have two PC's and a third PC laptop with X600 *runs Unreal 2004 fine...

 

I think for $1500, it would be better spent on the iMAC 20 inch, more realestate, and is semi portable, of course, duh, it is not a laptop.

 

Then again, I like the idea of dropping maybe $2000 for the 24 inch or the newer workstations as I have dual displays side by side in my audio.video studio.......but like the idea of playing a game now and then.

 

My prediction will be and I stand on this, the high end GPU and Firewire 800 will hit the Macbook lines once the .45 micron QUADcore x2 hit the MACBOOK PRO....and workstations (which will probably be 4xquad cores)...

 

We are then talking serious power and the macbook with dual core 2 and a strong GPU will be the trickle down bottom of the barrel. Patience is needed. As I stated months ago, Apple would indeed keep up with the chipsets and CPU's and they have, they are releasing CPU updates as fast as intel releases them.

 

I agree with the other poster that the MB will have a stronger GPU for say Aperature and gaming and will be seperated by the performance gap of the quadcore x 2 MB pros and 4x workstations by which at that time, will make the MB look weaker, the only real irony is that we will see APPLE technology and power for the first time at a price that is easy to live with say $1200 US dollars and it is sufficient enough to run the mamoth (spelling) programs for audio and video.......the apple market right now (although it did see its share increase to 6.3% according to gardner statistics (stock market), they (apple) will have to start tayloring to the video enthusiast and gamers who demand the GPU's....

 

Its just a matter of time - - and with Vista requirements needing a strong GPU, the statement WINDOWS will run on a MAC will no longer be true without a stronger GPU.

 

So.....yay and more yay, as MSFT (Microsoft) will also help in this push, and oh the irony (LOL), so we will indeed see a stronger GPU, and I hope to see a stronger firewire 800 interface.

 

This should happen sometime around Feb/Mar no later than April 07!

 

Just something to think about and the good news is that there will also be more mini macs coming out that I predict will be double, if not tripple the power of the present day mini's and this will enable more users and thus the non-needed releasing of the Apple OS to the en' masses' as Apple's share will start to grow and grow....

 

Off the record and semi off topic, I notice a lot of binary groups (apple software) are growing and growing, still not as large as the PC usenet, but this is a sign that the vendors and software developers are indeed working on UB and are taking apple very very seriously!

 

peace