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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

New MacBook Pro's next week?

it would be speculation i guess then-whats the point in that.
 
http://www.macrumors.com/

has been essential in informing my big mac purchases. The Buyer's guide is very helpful.

Yes the word on the street (based on intensive following of trends, timing, etc) is that Oct 14 will offer new MB and MBP releases - at long last. Let's hope it's a real overhaul! We shall see what happens!
 
I paid for a Build To Order 17inch MBP 9 weeks ago.

After initially being told it would take 2 - 3 weeks - I still haven't got it and have been told by my Apple guy to wait it out another week because Apple are basically not configuring any BTO MBPs right now - you can only buy what is in stock.

Seems like a pretty good indication that something new will drop next week. Lots of rumours and mumblings out there and my gut feeling is we will see some new machines on the 14th. It's been a long time coming.
 
If it isn't quad-core and if I can't put 8GB in one, I won't buy it...
 
What about the flagship...mac pros, any updates on the new arrival?
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Mac Pro will be the last to be updated...

Personally I could care less of MacBook or MacBook Pro.

My PowerBook G4 still making its job.

Can't say the same of the Quadcore G5 2,5Ghz
Can't say the same of the MacPro Quadcore 3Ghz
 
Haskell said:
What about the flagship...mac pros, any updates on the new arrival?
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Hopefully after Apple learns how to use all cores in the current ones.
 
omen said:
Hopefully after Apple learns how to use all cores in the current ones.
Click to expand...

Its not apple who needs to learn, its the user... I max it out everytime
 
Apple could learn a few things... So could Microsoft and the Linux community. Current thread and process scheduling in mainstream OS's isn't anything special.

Beyond that I know of very few applications that actually make efficient use of multiple CPUs (cores). Note the key word here is "efficient". Redcine renders will max out an 8 core Mac Pro, showing all 8 CPUs continuously loaded to 80% or higher in the CPU meter, but it's hardly efficient. It's spinning its wheels in the mud. I can restrict Redcine to run on only 4 cores instead of all 8 and it hardly has any effect on render speed.

That was just an example. Apple could learn, Adobe could learn, Autodesk, Luxology, etc.. Even systems that have a long history of multi-CPU support like 3D applications typically only do so for rendering operations. It would be nice if the multithreaded support could be translated to particles, dynamics, boolean constructs, etc.. Kinda sad that with all this power under the hood of a workstation these days, we still have to work on something else while ParticleFX in Lightwave grinds away on one CPU core for an hour when it could be theoretically done in less than 10 minutes.

Over the next few years, both AMD and Intel are going to be pushing the multiprocessor paradigm. CPUs have essentially reached their limit in terms of MHz and overall efficiency of the x86 architecture. Intel stresses this with nearly every announcement relating to multi-core CPUs and developer notes. Yet software developers are still slow to adapt. It's like they all just seem content to keep waiting it out until compilers are capable of doing it all for them -- not going to happen. Even game developers, who are usually at the forefront of using new hardware, hare pulling up lame on this one. The hot new thing after using multiple GPUs (tell me again why they can't use multiple CPUs as well?) is the new physics / dynamics CPU cards. Or a "GPU" for simulated interactions. Well, that's cool, but what's the point of the add-in card when most new gaming PCs are quad-core boxes and most games are leaving 3 of those cores mostly un-tapped. Oh wait... It's because these add-in card makers have essentially lobbied game developers to support the hardware so they can sell it, even bundle it with hot new game titles.

Yes, it's true there are some applications that will load up an 8 core box, some even do it well (Mental Ray). But I won't be so excited to see upcoming 16-core workstations when most software can't even scale beyond 2, maybe 4 cores in most situations.
 
I'm a software developer and I dont think that writing software that efficiently uses multiple cores is an easy thing. It really depends on the architechture of how the program was created and also what its used for.

The reason that a lot of software engineers may be waiting for a compiler is that once that is made, the porting of these programs to effectively use multicore is much easier and mush less error prone.

But i think one of the things that needs to be understood, is that some programs just dont lend them selves to parallelism. Some things have to be done one after the other. So not all programs will necessarily benefit form parallelism.
 
ralf.luethy said:
... I wish they would add stability to the current OS and give developers the chance to get their drivers and stuff up and running smoothly instead of throwing out a new major version every 18 months ... :umm:
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I thought that was the point of Snow Leopard, a release without much new features but with most of the work done under the hood.

It is supposed to have a much smaller footprint (takes up less space) and be more powerful.
 
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