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carry on then posted:Maybe they'll use the highs end integrated to further distinguish the 13" and keep dedicated for the 15". But if they could put out the same product with a massive battery life increase would be pretty cool. But it would definitely make me think twice about going from my current MBPr to an new one. But 802.11ac sounds soooooooo good.
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Jun 8, 2013 19:58
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I'll be interested to see what they introduce for OS X, or their other applications. If they come out with some new GPGPU features for, say, FCPX that benefit greatly from a fast GPU, I could see the 15" getting a 750M, at least as an option.
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Jun 8, 2013 20:09
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ptier posted:But if they could put out the same product with a massive battery life increase would be pretty cool. But it would definitely make me think twice about going from my current MBPr to an new one. But 802.11ac sounds soooooooo good. At what point do people stop caring about battery life? I remember the laptops I had around 2000-2002, if you got 2, maybe 3 hours of battery you were happy. Apple was pushing 5 with the G3 Powerbooks. But it seemed like PC's stayed there for a while, and then when Apple went Unibody they started getting into 7-8 hours and that's basically a whole workday. If they had 10, 12, or 15 hours, would that really benefit people?
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Jun 8, 2013 20:35
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Bob Morales posted:If they had 10, 12, or 15 hours, would that really benefit people? I suppose it depends on the person. Those who travel, battery life is pretty important, right? For me it's not an issue because I always have a place where I can plug the laptop in if I need to.
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Jun 8, 2013 20:39
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Bob Morales posted:At what point do people stop caring about battery life? Yes. I would like to not *need* to bring my charger with me. It would also be beneficial for environments where there are no plugs around or you are in an extended meeting or airport, etc. Or a conference or something of that nature. Any extended usage situation where it would not be appropriate/convenient to have outlets for everyone.
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Jun 8, 2013 20:50
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Meh, I could see 12-15 hour life going unused by most people, but if it has that battery when new and 8-hours a few years down the line, I could see that as a definite improvement for many people.
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Jun 8, 2013 20:53
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I think that sounds like a better goal. Amazing battery life during the early years of the laptop and even when it gets older it's still totally usable. Considering how long people hold on to their machines on average, and with user replaceable parts becoming a thing of the past, it would be nice to not have to worry about battery age becoming a big obstacle as the computer itself ages.
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Jun 8, 2013 21:04
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Gunjin posted:If you're editing HD or higher resolution video internal storage isn't fast enough. Wait, a quick question on this. Is TB 1.0 faster than an internal x8 PCIe SSD or even x8 PCIe SATA card? Because I thought when it came to the Mac Pros, that was one of the great things about its internal expandability - the fact that you could install the PCIe SSDs and see amongst the fastest transfer rates possible?
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Jun 8, 2013 22:17
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carry on then posted:Meh, I could see 12-15 hour life going unused by most people, but if it has that battery when new and 8-hours a few years down the line, I could see that as a definite improvement for many people. When I watch Netflix or Hulu my 2011 13" Air gets shredded in <2 hours. I would appreciate being able to use my laptop and not have to only run 1 program and half light my laptop to get more than 2-3 hours out of it. I can't really speak to what most people would use, and I don't think you should either. I would definitely appreciate the feature, you wouldn't. Overall it would push the industry forward and challenge competitors to improve, is that a bad thing?
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Jun 8, 2013 22:31
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I... agreed with you in that post. 
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Jun 8, 2013 22:36
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ONEMANWOLFPACK posted:When I watch Netflix or Hulu my 2011 13" Air gets shredded in <2 hours. I would appreciate being able to use my laptop and not have to only run 1 program and half light my laptop to get more than 2-3 hours out of it. No, it's not a bad thing. I've been there, where I smoked my battery in 2 hours doing some crazy workload like dumping a USB hard drive while running a packet capture and browsing through a bunch of PDF's with file conversions going on in the background. But that's not a normal workload-if I get 6 hours doing web+programming I'm fine. More battery life is always a good thing, but you have to make compromises somewhere. Price, size, removing things like the optical drive...I think they're at a good balance right now. Could they make a thicker Air and go form 7 hours to 12 hours? Sure, and then you've got another $100 worth of battery in there and some people would love it. How long do you want the battery to last? 24 hours? 48 hours? You have to chalk up your 2-3 hours of netflix/Hulu to the inefficiencies of both sites. Engadget got 6.5 hours out of the 2012 Air with the wifi on, looping a video. Engadget posted:In fact though, the 2012 Air lasted six hours and 34 minutes in our rundown test, which involves looping a video with WiFi on and the display brightness fixed at 65 percent (in the case of Macs, 10 out of 16 bars). That's about an hour longer than what we got when we ran the 2011 Air through the same test last year.
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Jun 8, 2013 22:50
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Bob Morales posted:You have to chalk up your 2-3 hours of netflix/Hulu to the inefficiencies of both sites. Engadget got 6.5 hours out of the 2012 Air with the wifi on, looping a video. Real-world numbers trump testing numbers. I want a battery with eight hours of real-world use. Web browsing, watching movies, streaming videos, etc. i.e., no change from normal use at all. If I have to go to special settings or whatever or limit myself to certain things, that's artificially inflating the battery life in my opinion.
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Jun 9, 2013 00:38
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Siguy posted:This crazy in-depth look at Haswell's best on board GPU option makes it sound like it would be close to current performance but still slower. Actually, for compute it may not be slower. Page 17 of the review has the OpenCL compute benchmarks. Haswell actually beats the GeForce GT 650M (the current rMBP discrete GPU) in almost all of them, sometimes by large margins. According to page 2 of the same review, Haswell GT3 has significantly more general purpose compute power than 650M, but less pixel/texel/polygon throughput. Most GPU compute applications ignore the fixed function GPU hardware responsible for pixel/texel fillrate etc., so the raw compute FLOPS have a chance to shine. carry on then posted:Maybe they'll use the highs end integrated to further distinguish the 13" and keep dedicated for the 15". Current rMBP 13" uses a 35W TDP CPU, and the current 15" uses a 45W TDP CPU plus a 45W TDP GPU. The new high end integrated is only available at 47W, and really shines in "cTDP up" mode, where under software control TDP is bumped to 55W. I suspect it wouldn't be easy to use that chip in the 13" chassis. It would be real easy in the 15" though. The more likely scenario would be Apple switching to 28W GT3 Haswell ("Iris 5100" graphics) in the 13" rMBP. It's a big graphics performance upgrade over the current model, and reduces power too, so they could choose between making it smaller/lighter or giving it longer battery life. (The 15" should be able to either slim down or gain battery life with integrated graphics too, but even more so.)
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Jun 9, 2013 01:02
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Can you upgrade the RAM in the MacBook Air or Pro (retina) yourself? I'm waiting on the refreshed models but I'm not sure I really need 8 GB and it would be great if I can just order it later...
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Jun 9, 2013 02:30
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Vinlaen posted:Can you upgrade the RAM in the MacBook Air or Pro (retina) yourself? I'm waiting on the refreshed models but I'm not sure I really need 8 GB and it would be great if I can just order it later... Nope. Soldered to the board. Only thing you can replace is the SSD.
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Jun 9, 2013 02:32
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tarepanda posted:Real-world numbers trump testing numbers. Both are real-world numbers. The problem with Hulu and Netflix is that those sites use Flash and Silverlight, respectively. Those plugins frequently do video decode in software, or even when they do make use of hardware acceleration, still have too much software overhead. That's very bad news for battery life, makes your fans run loud, and so on. Watch web video on a site which serves H.264 to you through HTML5, and CPU load should be minimal. (This is WHY_APPLE_HATES_FLASH.TXT in a nutshell.) Your point about it not mattering what the reason is when what you want is 8 hours of Hulu is valid, but the disparity isn't because the testing was unrealistic. Things should hopefully improve over the next few years as more sites switch to HTML5 / H.264. (And a million slashdotters cry out in agony.) If you're a Safari user, you might also want to try ClickToPlugin. Its plugin killer feature substitutes a HTML5 player for the Flash players on many video websites, and it also makes annoying battery sucking Flash ads 100% opt-in. Another tip: don't install Perian. Not only is it no longer supported, it will cause QuickTime to support WebM, and Safari will dutifully report the new capability to YouTube. Makes no difference when you're using the default Flash player, but if you sign up for YouTube's HTML5 trial or use ClickToPlugin to force the issue, YouTube will always choose WebM if it's supported by your system. (WebM is Google's pet video codec. Google owns YouTube. You do the math.) WebM isn't hardware accelerated on Macs, so this is bad news. And: Chrome on Mac has built-in WebM even if there's no systemwide WebM codec installed, so you probably don't want to use Chrome for HTML5 YouTube either. (This is all a bag of hurt. But everyone in the industry seems to want to squabble about how to do video so it's where we're at.)
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Jun 9, 2013 02:35
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SourKraut posted:Wait, a quick question on this. Is TB 1.0 faster than an internal x8 PCIe SSD or even x8 PCIe SATA card? Because I thought when it came to the Mac Pros, that was one of the great things about its internal expandability - the fact that you could install the PCIe SSDs and see amongst the fastest transfer rates possible? Doing some math, 20Gbps is 2560MB/s, while x4 is 2000MB/s. No clue if that's usable bandwidth or some overhead in the spec though. BobHoward posted:If you're a Safari user, you might also want to try ClickToPlugin. Its plugin killer feature substitutes a HTML5 player for the Flash players on many video websites, and it also makes annoying battery sucking Flash ads 100% opt-in.
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Jun 9, 2013 03:45
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Successfully upgraded the processor in a first generation Intel iMac to a Core 2 Duo: Time to install Mountain Lion.
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Jun 9, 2013 03:56
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Instrumedley posted:Successfully upgraded the processor in a first generation Intel iMac to a Core 2 Duo: You're gonna want more RAM. If you even can.
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Jun 9, 2013 04:58
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Bob Morales posted:You're gonna want more RAM. If you even can. He can't. Max is 2GB. I had a late 2006 iMac with that CPU and RAM. 10.7 ran like dog poo poo. I can't even imagine how 10.8 would run. He's better off sticking with 10.6.
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Jun 9, 2013 06:46
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My parents use my old iMac with 10.8 and 2 gigs of RAM. It runs like dogshit but they just use it for streaming movies.
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Jun 9, 2013 06:51
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japtor posted:Doing some math, 20Gbps is 2560MB/s, while x4 is 2000MB/s. No clue if that's usable bandwidth or some overhead in the spec though. Usable (in theory). You've already accounted for PCIe 2.0's 8b10b line coding overhead in that 2000MB/s (16Gbps) figure, and it turns out you have with Thunderbolt too (you just didn't know it). Thunderbolt's line rate is actually 10.3125Gbps, with 64b66b line coding, which works out to exactly 10.0Gbps (or 20.0Gbps when bonding 2 lanes together). Thunderbolt and PCIe also have packet header overhead, so true data rates are less. Header sizes are relatively fixed, but payload size isn't, so the amount of overhead depends on average packet size, which varies. The "in theory": Existing Thunderbolt controllers (Intel's "xyz Ridge" chips) dedicate one 10G TB link to x2 PCIe, the other to DisplayPort. They have no provisions for using excess Thunderbolt bandwidth in either link for other things. So in practice one TB port is exactly equivalent to x2 PCIe 2.0 + DisplayPort. (The TB chips which connect to the chipset with x4 PCIe are doing so in order to provide two independent Thunderbolt ports -- each TB port gets x2 PCIe to itself.)
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Jun 9, 2013 07:20
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Joe Don Baker posted:He can't. Max is 2GB. I had a late 2006 iMac with that CPU and RAM. 10.7 ran like dog poo poo. I can't even imagine how 10.8 would run. He's better off sticking with 10.6. There's a firmware modification to enable the use of 4GB RAM, though I think only 3GB is addressable in most applications. Going to give it a go.
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Jun 9, 2013 08:08
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Bob Morales posted:No, it's not a bad thing. I've been there, where I smoked my battery in 2 hours doing some crazy workload like dumping a USB hard drive while running a packet capture and browsing through a bunch of PDF's with file conversions going on in the background. But that's not a normal workload-if I get 6 hours doing web+programming I'm fine. I appreciate your points. I don't think running .mail or Outlook is a crazy workload, but if I run a few Microsoft Office programs, an email program, and a note program with a browser open- my battery doesn't do so hot either.
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Jun 9, 2013 08:18
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I'm getting ready to make the jump from my Mid-2009 MBP to a used Mid 2012 MBP. Is there anything special I need to do with taking the SSD from the old one and putting it in the new one (i.e. restoring/repairing) or is it just a plug and play? Is this even possible without flattening/re-installing?
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Jun 9, 2013 18:32
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BobHoward posted:Usable (in theory). You've already accounted for PCIe 2.0's 8b10b line coding overhead in that 2000MB/s (16Gbps) figure, and it turns out you have with Thunderbolt too (you just didn't know it). Thunderbolt's line rate is actually 10.3125Gbps, with 64b66b line coding, which works out to exactly 10.0Gbps (or 20.0Gbps when bonding 2 lanes together). Thunderbolt and PCIe also have packet header overhead, so true data rates are less. Header sizes are relatively fixed, but payload size isn't, so the amount of overhead depends on average packet size, which varies. I found a test showing two displays can slow down stuff so how's that work exactly, is the controller muxing DP with data at that point or something? JayKay posted:I'm getting ready to make the jump from my Mid-2009 MBP to a used Mid 2012 MBP. Is there anything special I need to do with taking the SSD from the old one and putting it in the new one (i.e. restoring/repairing) or is it just a plug and play? Is this even possible without flattening/re-installing?
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Jun 9, 2013 19:26
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WWDC thread is up and will be opened in the morning, if you want to bookmark it now.
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Jun 9, 2013 22:03
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I've got a late 2009 27" iMac with a 2.66ghz i5, upgraded to 12gb of ram and a 1tb HDD. It's been three years sent I got it. It's feeling a little sluggish these days, and I've been looking at upgrading. When I first bought the iMac, it kind of ruined me on keeping up with hardware knowledge, because I was just so happy with it I stopped following the latest info. From my non technical point of view, the latest are still i5 or i7, but I'm guessing there are architecture changes that would be a good leap in performance over my machine now? I use my computer for internet, some MS Office work, movies, Youtube and games. Typically I'll be working on something, browsing the internet or playing a windowed game while watching a movie, TV show or random stuff of Youtube. The gaming isn't that intensive, mostly what you can find in the Mac store on Steam, but occasionally I'll want to play a PC title. The last one was Far Cry 3, which was playable in bootcamp but just barely so. My iMac has a 512 mb Radeon HD 4850. I really only find something I want to play once a year or so. Now for the upgrade, I'm sure most iMac owners have this dilema. I could wait for a new Mac Mini, which potentially updated on board graphics. It's a cheaper option, although I'm not sure if game-wise it's a upgrade over what I have now. I'd use my current iMac as a monitor with the Mac Mini. Alternatively, the latest iMac can be had with the Nvidia 680mx and a 1tb fusion drive for $2,200 in the refurb store. That gets me a better screen in terms of glare. I'm guessing connectivity is better as well. Currently use a NAS + USB 2.0 external drive for backups and additional storage. But that's a lot of money, and leaves me with a second iMac. I'd think I could get ~$1,000 for it, but don't really look forward going through having to sell it. I don't think an even new iMac is worth considering, because $2,200 is pretty steep already. I want an SSD for sure, although I think I can compromise to a fusion drive. I'd guess a new iMac later this year would be closer to $2,500 or $2,600 after I add some options, but that's anybody's guess. I'm sure this thread is sick of posts like this, but any options or thoughts? I like the thought of a Mac Mini for ~$900 - $1,000 that I can pop an SSD and ram in myself, but I worry that even after whatever the next update is, on board graphics just won't cut it. I'm in no rush, so we'll see what news comes out in the next weeks or months, but any comments or things I'm maybe not thinking about would be appreciated.
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Jun 9, 2013 22:36
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Consider an optical drive bay caddy (i.e. Optibay) and putting an SSD in there as the OS / apps drive. A sub-$200 project that will yield a pretty incredible difference and give you more time to think about. I have that iMac and have upgraded nearly every component, but an SSD made the most upgrade-dollars difference. I'd do that and wait 1 year from now to make any other decisions if you already find your machine very usable. edit: I will go ahead and say that it _is_ incredible being able to play today's games at high settings in Windows on this iMac via the very involved MXM video replacement upgrade (a 6970 from dvwarehouse) but salty at $300-400. Between that, an i7 870 upgrade, and the SSD, any other person should really just build a PC. I can't exactly use this chassis in the future. kuskus fucked around with this message at 04:51 on Jun 10, 2013 |
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Jun 9, 2013 23:16
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I like the SSD idea. I put one in my core2duo MBP last year, and it made a world of difference. The install on the iMac has scared me off though, and frankly I had kind of written off the option long ago because I didn't (and still don't) want to open up my iMac. Keeping the standard HDD and adding an SSD in place of the optical drive would be great though. I've been checking out what I can find on the process and if there are any companies in my area who would do the install. Not turning anything up yet, but there have to be 3rd parties out there willing to tackle the job.
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Jun 10, 2013 00:32
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zaha posted:I like the SSD idea. I put one in my core2duo MBP last year, and it made a world of difference. The install on the iMac has scared me off though, and frankly I had kind of written off the option long ago because I didn't (and still don't) want to open up my iMac. Put your old hdd in the optibay, ssd on the old place, because if I recall correctly you can't run OS X off it otherwise. It's an easy enough job to do yourself if you check ifixit, and I don't think you'll be touching any screws that would void the warranty.
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Jun 10, 2013 00:43
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My PIN is 4826 posted:Put your old hdd in the optibay, ssd on the old place, because if I recall correctly you can't run OS X off it otherwise. Doesn't make any sense: main drive is 3.5". Only a 2.5" drive will fit in the typical optical caddies. You can boot fine from either SATA connection. The issue with replacing the main HDD is that the temperature sensor is inside the stock drive. Easiest to leave that where it is unless you also purchase an OEM temperature sensor and plug that into the board instead. There is no warranty because it's so old. Any Apple Care should have likely also expired. Go hog wild! But if you don't want to lift off the plexiglass and LCD, yes, a local AAR will hopefully do it with glee (for a fee). If you care to tackle it you'll need a couple of torx bits for all the screws. Plus a couple of cheap clamp suction cups. Once you do a repair you'll wish you did it sooner!
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Jun 10, 2013 02:03
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japtor posted:Question from another forum for ya: "Which does not explain how you can have two Thunderbolt Displays (>10.6 Gbit/s even without blanking) and other devices like the Pegasus daisy chained on one Thunderbolt port." That is an excellent question, and it seems I misspoke! After some searching it seems that Intel's DSL3510 and CV82524EF/L chips ("Cactus Ridge 4C" and "Light Ridge" respectively) have two DisplayPort inputs (sinks), not one: http://vr-zone.com/articles/intel-finally-shipping-2nd-gen-thunderbolt-controllers-just-in-time-for-new-macs/15539.html So when you have two Thuderbolt Displays daisy chained, it's probably PCIe+DP muxed on one Thunderbolt lane, and DP alone on the other. Makes me wonder if they're also already more flexible about PCIe routing than I'd supposed.
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Jun 10, 2013 02:26
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japtor posted:. How?  The mini version was keyed wasn't it?
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Jun 10, 2013 04:20
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All Firewire connectors were keyed but the keying was not particularly good especially on cheapo PC gear. Still, the fusing can't have been that great if they allowed people to burn out gear so easily.
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Jun 10, 2013 04:35
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Having the motherboard headers for USB and FireWire pinned the same on PC boards was the stupidest idea ever.
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Jun 10, 2013 05:25
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~Coxy posted:All Firewire connectors were keyed but the keying was not particularly good especially on cheapo PC gear.  . I'm thinking melted Pismo PowerBooks (first PB with FW) were the most common one.  While yeah it was keyed, it wasn't much, particularly taking into account that you couldn't really tell by feel since it was still mostly rectangular, whatever possible loose tolerances in plugs/ports, and some people's apparent stubbornness when trying to force something in that feels like it's close enough to fitting. Looking at the port and plug it probably wasn't too hard if you pushed the wrong side in first at an angle then forced in the rest.
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Jun 10, 2013 05:37
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japtor posted:I only knew about it cause reader reports on some Mac sites If anyone has that much trouble with a FW400 plug I shudder to think what happens when they try to use a standard USB A port.
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Jun 10, 2013 06:10
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I feel I'm smart and I have never, EVER, plugged in a USB plug the correct way on the first attempt. loving Christ.
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Jun 10, 2013 06:37
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Mu Zeta posted:I feel I'm smart and I have never, EVER, plugged in a USB plug the correct way on the first attempt. loving Christ. If you mean normal USB plugs, they have reversible ones. I use them with pretty much everything I can. No second-guessing myself!
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Jun 10, 2013 06:42
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