Mac Hardware - 5k Supremacy - The Something Awful Forums

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japtor: Oct 28, 2005

Re: that MBA benchmark, Geekbench is CPU and memory/other main hardware voodoo, it doesn't take into account the HD or GPU. And as mentioned it's comparing to a 2010 MBP, the Sandy Bridge stuff is just that much awesomer.

Star War Sex Parrot posted:

Yeah just PM me if you have any additions that way it's not posted multiple times on the first page. Thanks!

...but I don't have PMs

. I posted these in the last thread and figure it's mostly relevant just for the immediate future (cause many were asking about them):

MacBook Air CPUs
Mac mini CPUs

For the OP it'd probably be better if all the Macs' CPUs were listed. Edit- or just ark.intel.com for the :spergin:

guys can look themselves.

japtor fucked around with this message at 22:29 on Jul 20, 2011

# ¿ Jul 20, 2011 22:20

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# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 04:46

japtor: Oct 28, 2005

SourKraut posted:

Regarding SSDs, I admittedly haven't done too much research in this regard when it comes to OS X, but is it possible to buy the TRIM-capable SSDs that Apple uses/provides support for in Lion, commercially?

Or can we get a list going or link perhaps to a list of SSDs that are TRIM supported in Lion, since I'm guessing SSD usage will only increase with time.

The only ones that I know of are the OEM Apple drives. To get it working with others there was some hack (I think it essentially added your drive to a whitelist, or just opened up the whitelist completely) but there's no official support afaik.

# ¿ Jul 20, 2011 22:31

japtor: Oct 28, 2005

Binary Badger posted:

Any MiniDisplayPort to DVI adapter should work.

Or buy this card and just use a regular MiniDisplayPort cable.

If he's the guy that asked in the last thread too, he's referring to the Thunderbolt display, which requires Thunderbolt according to the store description.

# ¿ Jul 20, 2011 22:38

japtor: Oct 28, 2005

Kalix posted:

What about Relative to the 2.13ghz?

Just over 3000 for that vs 5000-6000 (according to the pic on the last page) for the 1.6-1.7ghz models...close enough to 100% basically, albeit in ideal conditions for both.

# ¿ Jul 21, 2011 02:46

japtor: Oct 28, 2005

Corbet posted:

I really hope Dell utilizes ThunderBolt with DaisyChaining in their next refresh of displays. While that feature is great, it's definitely not worth $1000 to me.

Note that if you're wanting a 27-30" you'll probably be looking near $1000 anyway.

# ¿ Jul 21, 2011 05:30

japtor: Oct 28, 2005

The CPU will destroy it, and the GPU will hopefully have roughly 4x the performance...I wouldn't expect anything super great from it since it's still a low end card, but it should still be a decent improvement over what you have.

The HD speed is a liability as always, but going from an old computer drive to a fresh one could help, depending on the state of your current drive.

# ¿ Jul 21, 2011 11:04

japtor: Oct 28, 2005

dissss posted:

I thought you could use the Display port on iMacs as an input? Or is that not compatible with Thunderbolt?

(I think this was to a guy with an older iMac)
Yeah it should work since the new computer will just output a DP signal when hooked up to a DP display. You need TB if you're connecting to a TB iMac/display since those can't take DP as input apparently.

flyboi posted:

I'm contemplating selling the 27" iMac and my 2 24" LED LCDs and getting 2 cinematic displays for the mbp what the gently caress is wrong with me

You have too much money and are sick of syncing things between the MBP and iMac? Is your MBP faster than the iMac at least?

Epic Fail Guy posted:

Now that I have an iPad, I want to replace my 15" MacBook Pro with one of those shiny new Minis and a big screen.

What's the going rate for:

15" MacBook Pro 2.53GHz (Mid 2009)
6GB Memory
GeForce 9400M (no GT)
320gb 7200rpm HDD
AppleCare until sometime next year
New style (right angle) power adaptor

Mac2Sell says $890, but that doesn't factor the AppleCare or the faster HDD.

I remember people saying they've gotten better prices than Mac2Sell...so I say shoot for the moon! I guess try $1000 and deal down from there. Or just check Craigslist to see what other ones are going for.

DEUCE SLUICE posted:

Are there any takeaparts out there of the new base model Mini? I'm curious whether it has the necessary bits for adding the second hard drive after the fact, or if it needs an additional sled or something.

I think my plan would be to get the base 500gb one, add a 100gb-ish SSD now, then eventually bump the 500gb drive up to a 1TB drive.

Some guy over on the MacRumors forum swapped his drive...doesn't sound good

. He said it looked like you'd need some bracket for the other drive and a cable of some sort. I assume the pieces will pop up on the various repair sites, but still it'll be more than just taking it apart and popping the drive in.

And I assume it'll be a pain in the rear end like the 2010s too.

# ¿ Jul 21, 2011 22:00

japtor: Oct 28, 2005

Mu Zeta posted:

I use a Western Digital "My Passport" external drive between my computers. It just uses a USB cable and takes power from the computers. I've been using a 320gig one for several years as well as a 500 gig one last year and both work fine.

Format the drive to FAT32 and you'll be able to read/write on both OSX and Windows. You won't be able to transfer single files over 4gigs though.

Use ExFAT instead unless you need to connect to something that doesn't support it. MS has drivers available for it all the way back to XP, and OS X has had support since one of the 10.6 updates.

# ¿ Jul 21, 2011 22:40

japtor: Oct 28, 2005

iFixit has their Mac mini teardown (2.3ghz model) done:
http://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Mac-Mini-Mid-2011-Teardown/6131/1

Looks like the HDs in the dual models are probably just stacked in the same spot so it should be easy to get to now, rather than having to take the whole thing apart to get to the optical drive area like before. Definitely need a connector as the guy before said, but looking at the part for the included drive I'm guessing it won't be too expensive of a part. Otherwise it looks like you'll need some bracket piece to hold the drive in place.

Overall a bit annoying but better than I had feared.

Scienter posted:

On this point: I currently use a Seagate 1TB External HD. I wanted it to be compatible between my PC and my PS3 (and eventually my Mac) at full capacity so I formatted in FAT32. Little known fact is, you can format in FAT32 as one giant partition instead of x times 32GB. Here's how to do it on a PC but I don't know how easy it is to do on a Mac; should be possible though.

This may be an obvious tip to others here but I was intrigued when I learned it after running up against an uncooperative OS and pricey apps claiming to be the only way to do it. They warn it may result in slower performance but at least for streaming videos and music I've never had a noticeable lag so far at 66% capacity. From what I can tell the file size limit of 4GB still has no workaround though.

I've always heard that's just a Windows thing to discourage using FAT on HDs (not without reason, NTFS is more robust), on the Mac you can format the full capacity with FAT no problem.

# ¿ Jul 22, 2011 01:12

japtor: Oct 28, 2005

(edit-re: bloodysabbath) System requirements for it say you need a TB Mac so no, it won't work with your current MBP...at least until someone makes some adapter, but take into account that (if it ever exists) it'll probably cost a bit.

If you want to save a little just wait for refurbs to show up, the ACD is $850 there right now. Or get a 27" iMac for $1269 :v:

# ¿ Jul 22, 2011 01:21

japtor: Oct 28, 2005

DoctorOfLawls posted:

I plan to buy a new Mac Mini as it seems to be the perfect HTPC. What would you guys recommend as external storage? USB 2.0 hard drives are portable but slow, and I guess I would benefit from either the Firewire 800 or Thunderbolt interface (is there even such a thing as a Thunderbolt hard drive?) - any particular recommendations?

Would this just be for media storage and playback? If so, USB is more than enough to play media, even a straight BD rip barely touches what USB can do, the speed will mainly come into play when copying files around (and perhaps other file modifications like tagging or decompressing files).

FireWire is better of course, the only question is whether you're willing to pay for the premium. I think a good portable enclosure will run about $50, while I'm not sure about desktop ones these days. Just basically assume a $20-50 premium over USB (even 3.0 + eSATA). The only recommendation I can think of is this Oyen Digital portable one...cause it looks like an old Rosewill I have :shobon:

. Pop in whatever 2.5" drive and you should be good to go. It'd probably be cheaper to get an external from one of the big drive companies though for whatever reason.

The only Thunderbolt stuff any time soon will probably be aimed at the pro market with a massive markup. If you want to make a vain attempt at future proofing you could get something with USB 3.0 and/or eSATA, in hopes you'll be able to attach it through Thunderbolt eventually. I'd only suggest it if you were willing to use the drive at USB 2 speeds. On the plus side it'd probably be cheaper than FireWire.

flavor posted:

My situation is that I have a late 2009 iMac which is essentially like a Cinema Display with a built-in Mac that can take Mini-DP input. After some research it looks like the only way to connect a PC to it is to get a graphics card with DP or Mini-DP out and carefully check if it supports the 2560x1440 resolution. There are crap cards out there that do have DP but max out at 1600x1200 or somesuch when using it.

I think there's a dual link DVI to MDP adapter, but it's expensive enough that you might as well pick up a decent video card. I'm kind of surprised that there's any cards that have DP but can't do 2560x1440.

Foiltha posted:

So I found this: http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2388873,00.asp

They benched Crysis on the mid-Mini with the 6630M and got ~48 fps at 1280x720 on medium settings. Seems pretty decent, no? Now could someone just bench Starcraft 2 for me I'm getting the Mini mainly for programming and making music but I'd love to be able to play SC2 every now and then.

Keep in mind that 720p is pretty low resolution on a computer...but if you're fine with that concession then it sounds decent. At least that'll be my logic for getting one.

Corin Tucker's Stalker posted:

I've actually been considering an iPad + Mini combo, with the Mini doing HTPC duties, light gaming, and whatever the iPad can't do. My only concern is that I do a lot of long-form writing, and I'm a little wary of how that would work out with that setup.

It depends on what you need when you write, and simply if you can get used to the soft keyboard. The biggest issue I've run into is just needing another window for reference or something, and that's just not possible on the iPad (barring random apps that do it). If you're just writing entirely from your head without any outside info it's ok, barring the keyboard again.

I'd like to get an Air, but I fear the main thing I'd use it for is as a second screen while using my iPad, and rare times when I need a desktop OS away from home (a Mac mini is my main machine). I use an old netbook for those duties currently, but I've only needed it a few times this year.

SERIOUS posted:

Yeah I have a Time Capsule, and about 3 other external drives just in case (I tend to get paranoid about protecting important projects I've worked on...)

Double check the Time Capsule to make sure all the data is there...there's been some horror stories about it not backing up now and then. If you have a clone on one of those other drives it's less of a concern of course.

japtor fucked around with this message at 04:54 on Jul 23, 2011

# ¿ Jul 23, 2011 04:47

japtor: Oct 28, 2005

jfreder posted:

Any suggestions on what to spend the $100 gift card on? I'm not finding much I'm interested in.

Just use it when you do find something for yourself (or songs/videos/books as mentioned).

That said, if you need some Photoshop type app, Pixelmator is still on sale for $30 and decent, and Adobe just released Photoshop Elements for $80. If you want general system utility type stuff Many Trick's apps are pretty nice, particularly Name Mangler, Moom, and Witch (...well those are the only ones I've used). BetterZip is pretty great as far as an archive handling app, probably excessive if you just need to compress/decompress stuff though. And of course there's the iWork apps if you need to do some Office-y type stuff.

Or just keep it around for 10.8 :v:

# ¿ Jul 23, 2011 22:09

japtor: Oct 28, 2005

Wikipedia Brown posted:

This stresses me out. As I sit here obsessively ing the tracking info (Alaska!), I'm now going to be worrying about whether or not I got stuck with a lovely display.

I would rather have not known there was a difference!

Keep in mind that replacements are probably a roulette too :v:

# ¿ Jul 24, 2011 02:36

japtor: Oct 28, 2005

movax posted:

Ah yeah, it wasn't too bad in the store, I guess it's because of that coating then.

Now I just need to check some benchmarks on the 128GB SSD vs 256GB SSD (if it's like Sandforce drives where the number of flash die/channel can have a huge effect on IOPS) and I think I will pick one up.

Even if it is faster, will the difference be noticeable in your actual use? And worth $300 for that and the extra 128GB?

# ¿ Jul 24, 2011 09:24

japtor: Oct 28, 2005

Momonari kun posted:

Stupid question, but if I get a new Mac Mini, can I use a cloned image of my current iMac's hard drive to boot Snow Leopard? I'm kind of worried about some Power PC apps I have that i don't want to upgrade yet (some old Power PC OS X games, old Final Cut of which I need to install to use the upgrade I have). Would running Snow Leopard as a VM be possible?

Edit: I would assume the graphics card would be the biggest issue, as it's the first time a 6630m has appeared in a Mac.

Keep track of this MacRumors thread I guess: http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1193637
Looks like some people have gotten it working but the cursor turns into a frozen beachball or something. I guess you might basically be using it as a semi hackintosh, especially if you get the 6630m model (...there's also new Bluetooth to watch out for too).

You can run 10.6 in a VM, albeit the licensing only allows the Server version, so for client you'd need to do some simple hacking from what I've heard. No clue whether or not it'll have the performance you need. Does your old version of Final Cut not work in Lion for sure?

shodanjr_gr posted:

Any hard drive recommendations for a 2011 MBP? I need to be able to run a Win7 VM and it beach-balls like crazy while the VM is on (I guess due to swapping choking the 5400rpm drive). Would a Momentus XT make a noticeable difference? Or should I upgrade to 8 gigs of ram instead?

If you're swapping for sure upgrade the RAM first. How much do you have now and how much are you giving the VM? The Momentus XT won't help if you're swapping, but general performance should improve a bit just from being a 7200rpm drive.

# ¿ Jul 24, 2011 11:08

japtor: Oct 28, 2005

shodanjr_gr posted:

I'm at 4 gig worth of ram. Would bumping to 8 make a huge difference? I'm assigning 4 cores and 2 gigs of ram to the VM.

I'd need a huge 512GB SSD to satisfy my storage needs and I can't afford to sell my kidney yet :/.

Yeah it'd probably help, again assuming you're swapping. And does the VM need 4 cores? If not I've heard using extra cores can be detrimental to performance, so try maybe 1-2 out (...although since it's running off the BC partition I wonder if it'd mess with the Windows activation). Otherwise the kidney money for SSD may be the way to go, ~$400 for 256GB if that's big enough. I'm sure your kidney is worth much more!

Momonari kun posted:

The old Final Cut is PowerPC, along with my old Final Draft. I have an intel upgrade for Final Cut, but it needs the old version installed. Final Draft is just ancient software, but it works perfectly. I'm currently deciding which direction to go for software (get Avid, Premeire, upgrade Final Draft or use open source software, etc.), but also need access to my old files in the future, just in case I go in a different direction. Money's tight too, so I can't keep around this iMac if I get a new mini. I think the only way my wife agrees is if it costs only $300 or so to upgrade, which my whole sell iMac before get mini scheme is all about.

Well that's a pickle. I'm guessing Final Draft may be acceptable in a VM, but I'd be worried about FCP, if it installs (sounds like the FCP 7 refuses). If you can transfer the install over (whether migration or manually) without needing to do the upgrade from PPC business there's a chance it'll work in Lion I guess...got any Apple Stores nearby? I wonder if they'd let you try that out.

# ¿ Jul 24, 2011 13:25

japtor: Oct 28, 2005

Leempi posted:

I was looking at grabbing a couple of minis for the home and the office, but $600 bucks for the 256 gig SSD gave me a bit of a pause.

Looking at price watch, it seems a 256 gig drive will be in the range of 450-500 bucks? The more expensive ones seems to go up to 550.

I was wondering which ones would be equivalent to what apple uses, and if it was worth it for me to get a stock mini with 8 gigs of ram, and put in an SSD myself with the 500 gig drive as an extra storage drive, or just go gently caress it and let apple do it (and cry a bit for how much it costs).

Apple has been known to use Toshiba or Samsung controllers, but I don't know if anyone has known the exact ones. That said the Samsung 470 has appeared to be reliable, and I think the Kingston's have Toshiba controllers...but those aren't as hot performance wise last I checked. They do go on crazy sales occasionally though so they can sometimes be a good cheaper option, as long as you get the latest, which I think is V100+? (I'm not entirely sure of their naming scheme other than having many variations involving V, 100, and +). Intel's drives are good, but I'd wait until they address the power cycling bug. If you want a larger size it'll cost you cause their 300GB drive is around $600, but if you can go down they have a 160GB around $300.

I think the main thing to wait on though is to see how much the extra HD part will be. I'm guessing it shouldn't be too much but you never know :ohdear:

lemmiwinks posted:

So I bought a new high end mini with the intention of hooking it up to an LG 47" HDTV, but noticed that the user experience in OS X is somewhat lacking. Moving the windows around seems jumpy/laggy, and sometimes even typing can hang for a while before catching up suddenly.

I've switched between 1080p, 1080i and 720p display settings, and while the 720p is much improved performance-wise, there's still a noticeable hit in comparison to the normal experience on my laptop. Is there any specific reason for this? I thought the resolution on a 720p wasn't so high as to be incomparable to a laptop and shouldn't be slowed down as a result.

Please advise, I might be taking this thing back today if I can't figure it out.

All I can think (if it's not some hardware issue) is either some Lion bugginess and/or something was chewing up resources for some reason, like Spotlight indexing has the ability to eat up performance or Safari's webpage preview generator. Have you installed any software yet or just using it completely stock?

# ¿ Jul 24, 2011 17:57

japtor: Oct 28, 2005

Doc Faustus posted:

Doctor Zero, that's pretty much what I thought. And given that all 15" MPBs are already running on an i7, I couldn't imagine what tech they'd stick in an update (aside from Thunderbolt, which I don't think I care about.)

Yeah there's nothing major new tech wise until next year with Ivy Bridge. They could potentially do a redesign finally (like they did late 2008) but with iPhone seemingly coming out in the fall I doubt that'll happen.

lemmiwinks posted:

^^^^ Sometimes it's better to be patient and wait for a good reply rather than googling for 30 minutes

Thanks. I think I have to enable it through quartz which is an xcode developer tool. Downloading right now to test.

Also update that the performance seems to be much faster, it must have been a spotlight indexing issue after all. If this HiDPI thing works out then this machine is a definite keeper for media center and general mac goodness with a wireless keyboard and trackpad.

As a ghetto temporary thing if you go back to the normal res, you can zoom in the screen by holding control and scrolling up (and down to zoom back out). You may have to enable this somewhere under the mouse or universal access prefpanes. There's also a keyboard shortcut, I think it's cmd-opt-plus/minus.

shodanjr_gr posted:

Well I am using the VM for development. The reason it's my bootcamp partition though is that I still wanna be able to game on that fancy 6750m.

Unfortunately 256GB is too little for me to work with...my previous machine, a Vaio Z with the 128GB SSD and a secondary 340GB HDD was practically full. And I didn't even have an OSX partition on that!

Ah well, just get the RAM and if that still isn't enough pick up some 7200rpm drive and hope it becomes acceptable. Merely acceptable is what you have to live with on a platter once you've used a SSD.

# ¿ Jul 25, 2011 01:44

japtor: Oct 28, 2005

jfreder posted:

That combined with the faster SSD in the 11s (the benchmarks I've seen show a 25% increase in read speed for the Samsung SSD)

Note that you'll likely never notice the difference, and isn't the Toshiba/Samsung SSD selection a luck of the draw?

dissss posted:

The 11" is 1366x768, just like any other netbook and personally I don't think you'd want anything higher at such a small screen size.

IMO its the 13 and 15" MBP that are looking really weak as far as resolution goes, the 15" especially is so close to being a desktop replacement in most other regards.

My old netbook is 1024x600 :suicide:

And the 13" MBP could get some Mac mini like treatment: kill the optical and stick a (cheap low end) discrete GPU in the higher end model, hopefully increase battery capacity with that extra space too.

# ¿ Jul 26, 2011 02:49

japtor: Oct 28, 2005

A Duck! posted:

I've used the optical drive on my 2010 to of the line 15" MBP like, twice.

I'm giving serious thought to a maxed out 13" 2011 Air and a TB display to replace my 3008WFP. Only the default 4g ram is holding me back.

I'd love to see a lighter weight 15" with standard SSD, no optical but still with discrete graphics.

And you'd then be able to keep the 3008 around to daisy chain off your new TB display!

I was debating getting the TB display just cause 1920x1200 has been feeling small, but I think I'll wait a year in hopes that they'll get upgraded with USB 3.0 ports whenever Ivy Bridge comes around. Then again they'll probably be massively overpriced in a year vs being competitive with other 27-30" screens right now.

flyboi posted:

It's the Apple resale tax. 99% of people reselling their Apple hardware are jerks.

Ain't their fault if people are willing to pay for it :colbert:

# ¿ Jul 27, 2011 02:09

japtor: Oct 28, 2005

On Unicornback posted:

Does anybody use a Mini for their home server? I am thinking about making the leap, but the whole external storage thing is throwing me off a bit. I suppose I could go the hackintosh route so I could build in a more traditional form factor, but I would hate for it to be unstable or a pain to keep updated.

Edit: not new to Apples, all of our laptops/phones are Apple. My current home server is running Win7 because I could build out the hardware I wanted but I'm tired of dealing with Windows even as a server OS.

I use mine as my main machine/server. Depending on the speed you need and other requirements it can be a pain or pretty simple.

Like if you just need a bunch of dumb drives to store and use around the network a basic four drive enclosure would probably work fine. If you need to RAID things up you could mess with soft RAID which will more easily run into USB/FW bandwidth limitations, or a hardware one which may or may not come with it's own issues. What specific use cases do you have in mind?

madprocess posted:

If you knew anything about screen tech you'd know it is. Also what dpi are these "retina" displays you're talking about?

I'm guessing he's referring to the 300 dpi ones demoed two months ago.

That said I doubt they'll make their way into Macs until they're more widespread, mainly cause the Macs are a relatively small part of their business now, vs ridiculous iPad growth.

japtor fucked around with this message at 05:12 on Jul 27, 2011

# ¿ Jul 27, 2011 05:08

japtor: Oct 28, 2005

On Unicornback posted:

I specifically don't want redundancy, just backup. I customize backup jobs to several disks as I am more worried about accidentally deleteing poo poo than having uptime.

I think firewire would definitely be fine speed wise as it would just be sharing video and music content around the LAN. My concern is the added on cost of having to buy a 4 drive enclosure, the cheapest seems to be about $250 shipped. Now I know that pain, that pain I have failed to understand, of the Apple users who wish there was a midsized Mac with expandability options.

If you want a JBOD setup you might be screwed with one of those 4 bay FW ones anyway, it seems like nearly all the ones I've found only do a form of RAID. I looked into it for a while a few years back and the main issue appeared to be that the popular Oxford controllers only did RAID for their 4 drive ones.

All that said, USB might work for you. If you have a gigabit network you'll run into the limits when doing straight file transfers, but for media USB's bandwidth is more than enough, although transferring from disk to disk (or writing to multiple disks at once) within the enclosure could get annoying cause the limit (figure at best they're all sharing a single 35MB/sec connection). That may be more tolerable considering you'll save around $100, and could semi future proof yourself with a USB 3.0/eSATA one.

Another option is a dual USB one and dual FW one, but it's kind of annoying having an extra power brick and cable to deal with, and if they have fans it could be noisier (2 small fans vs 1 bigger one).

evensevenone posted:

who was producing 360 DPI phone displays before the Iphone 4 came out?

I'm not exactly sure how they could add "High DPI" modes to the OS, tell developers to start working on resolution-independence, and you could come to any other conclusion than "They are planning displays with significantly higher DPI". Especially because they did the exact same thing with the iPhone.

And especially especially because they can say "your pictures, clearer than ever with the first Retina display on the desktop" or whatever the gently caress on the commercials, which is all Steve Jobs actually cares about.

I think it's 320, and a slight difference is that many other phones weren't hugely off for a while before then...then again you could arguably compare those to the other overly tiny high res displays that have been on the market for a while (mostly in Sony's expensive rear end ultraportables).

# ¿ Jul 27, 2011 11:03

japtor: Oct 28, 2005

Binary Badger posted:

Yep, in this case it's not the cable but the revision of the machine that's got to do with it. Pretty much any Mac model made in 2010 will pass audio out over the mini-displayport to proper HDMI adapters.

Oh yeah, now there's one more reason to install nVidia's CUDA software (other than waiting for BOINC project support):

http://kb.roxio.com/search.aspx?URL...S=set-locale=en

Toast Titanium 11 will use the GPU to speed up video conversions, they're calling it VideoBoost technology. It supports select nVidia chips, even the integrated 320M in the 2010 MacBook Airs! Dunno if it's a bigger boost than you'd get upping to a 2011 MBA's i5..

Is this the first GPU accelerated encoder on the Mac side of things? If it's using the same CUDA path as the one in this comparison, quality may not be too hot if that's a concern.

Now where's Mac Quick Sync support, I want to encode my BDs at 100-200fps :pcgaming:

# ¿ Jul 28, 2011 11:10

japtor: Oct 28, 2005

Take it Sleazy posted:

So I have one of the discontinued 2 ghz unibody aluminum macbooks, that is, not pro, they were only sold for like six months between 2008 and 2009. Anyway it only has 2gb ram, and I am thinking of upgrading it to 8gb.

I have found some discussion on the internet saying that they were limited to 4gb by some firmware issue, but maybe aren't anymore...? All the writing on these things seems to be pretty old, will the 4gb thing be a problem or can I go ahead and put in 8gb? I have Lion & all the recent updates, etc. Thanks

edit: also this is the RAM I'm looking at, is it a good choice? Anything in particular I should look out for when selecting which ram to buy?

OWC says it can go to 8GB going by this page. I'm not sure there's anything to look out for, outside of searching for "mac" or "macbook" in the user reviews, that'll tend to be enough to tell you whether there's any problems with them.

FCKGW posted:

Since your MacPro has ECC ram, I'm starting to think it may be your mobo slots instead of the memory.

Guess you can move the sticks around to check that right? Like just figure out which ones are filled then appear missing (TechTool or System Profiler should have that), then swap around and see if it happens to the same slots or if it follows the sticks.

And for the memory tests, I've heard it's best to run them off some special bootable disc, although I'm not sure of the reasoning. Either it can't test the full range or the system possibly taking up some of the bad memory.

# ¿ Jul 28, 2011 20:24

japtor: Oct 28, 2005

beefnoodle posted:

I hooked mine (13" 2011) to a Dell E2311H, which has a native resolution of 1920x1080. Poor results - poor contrast (whereas the same display works great with my Dell E6500 notebook). I moved the MBA to an older Dell 2005PFW running at 1680x1050 and it's working really well.

This sounds like a basic calibration thing that can be taken care of within a minute or so with the built in calibrator. Or just see if any of the other default display profiles look better.

King of all Machines Operate posted:

Anyone know how long until the old iMacs started showing up on the refurb store with ssds? I'm looking to get the new 27'' iMac but 500 for the ssd is a bit hard to stomach..

Actually, does anyone know if the 27'' with only ssd is installed where the primary hard drive would go or under the optical drive like the hd+ssd version? If it's the latter, might as well save $100 and add a faster hd myself. I'm just not comfortable removing the logic board to get the ssd in but a standard hd swap seems pretty straightforward.

By old do you mean the 2010s? Cause I've seen them on there a lot for a while now, including the 27� with SSD...even better, they may have been 2011s. Just keep the iMac 27" refurb page open and check daily I guess.

# ¿ Jul 29, 2011 04:18

japtor: Oct 28, 2005

FCKGW posted:

http://refurb-tracker.com/

They have RSS and email alerts for stuff in the refurb store.

Ooh nice, I'll use this to keep an eye out for new Mac minis.

King of all Machines Operate posted:

They've got the 2010s but I'm waiting for a 2011 with SSD.
Does anyone know the answer to my other question though? Is the SSD in the SSD only iMac installed in the main hard drive area or under the optical drive where it'd go if the primary spot were filled with the regular drive?

Going by the iMac specs page it doesn't sound like there's an SSD only iMac: "Configurable to 2TB hard drive or 256GB solid-state second drive"

And why is the store down on a Thursday night :ninja:

# ¿ Jul 29, 2011 05:06

japtor: Oct 28, 2005

kingfet posted:

I just purchased a new 15" MBP any recommendations for ram in order to take it up to 16GB? The stock 4 I bought it with is killing me after coming from the 8 on my 2010 13"

Do you have $1200-1500 to spare on 16GB? I'd probably just go with 8GB and get a big SSD, and either save or buy another computer with the leftover $1000.

Binary Badger posted:

I am at an Apple Store and some chick is using her 3GS to take photos of MBA specs being displayed on iPads.

Quicker than loading up the store over a cellular connection to look at later :v:

# ¿ Jul 31, 2011 02:37

japtor: Oct 28, 2005

Anyone remember Village Tronic? Apparently they're still around, and now asking if people want them to make Thunderbolt stuff:
https://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=89321949134&topic=17768

quote:

Dear Mac Community,

we had a lively discussion here on facebook if there is a large enough market for a Thunderbolt ViDock. I was convinced that there is not. But there have been so many passionate promoters that there will be a large enough Mac Communnity who would want to buy a Thunderbolt ViDock, that I now leave the final decision to you!

Spread the word inside the Mac Community. Make people who want to buy a Thunderbolt ViDock to come here and leave a comment with:

1) Which computer you have ?
2) What do you want to use the Thunderbolt ViDock for ?
3) Do you want 1 slot x4 or two slots x2 ?
4) Any other feature you want?

I promise, if more than 50 people make the comment, we will start the development of a Thunderbolt ViDock.

Guangzhou, July 27, 2011
Hubert Chen
CEO, https://www.villagetronic.com

P.S. For those new to ViDock: It is the technology and price leader for PCIe expansion chassis. It is widely used in all walks of life and profession to connect any PCIe cards to Notebooks, e.g. Sound Cards, Video Editing Cards, 3D Gaming, GPU Computing, Data Acquisition, Medical Imaging, etc ... you can read more:
http://www.villageinstruments.com/tiki-index.php?page=ViDock

# ¿ Jul 31, 2011 06:53

japtor: Oct 28, 2005

Mu Zeta posted:

So my 3 day old Macbook Pro started doing this. I tried restarting and it would work fine for a couple minutes and completely freeze. Rebooted again and the lightshow happened again. I'm guessing it's the video card? I also tried swapping the hard drive and RAM, no change.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmbwYGoINy4

The sound is coming from my TV, not the laptop by the way.

Yeah it looks like a video hardware issue, I'd just take it back in at that point...but if you're willing to try other stuff, have you rebooted from the recovery partition (assuming it came with Lion)? Hold down option on start and it should be one of the startup drive options. That should narrow it down to a hardware or software issue if there is any doubt.

# ¿ Jul 31, 2011 10:51

japtor: Oct 28, 2005

flyboi posted:

Highly doubtful considering the last refresh was less than 6 months ago.

They did a short cycle when they introduced the unibody ones back in October 2008, the preceding models were released in February of that year...just like the ones this year :tinfoil:

.

I don't expect it but I wouldn't be surprised either.

# ¿ Aug 1, 2011 00:00

japtor: Oct 28, 2005

Residency Evil posted:

I did, but thanks for your concern!

The link I posted was to an amazon reseller where it looks like people are selling old boxed copies of applecare for cheap. The question is whether an "old" code for a macbook/mba will work for a new macbook air or if there's some sort of expiration date, and whether amazon would be better since they're not ebay/paypal.

50 bucks either way isn't going to break me, but if I can save the cash I figure why not.

Amazon would be better, but not necessarily some random reseller on Amazon selling it marked as "used".

# ¿ Aug 1, 2011 07:00

japtor: Oct 28, 2005

vas0line posted:

Oh man. I would buy that in a heartbeat.
(Provided it wouldn't cost more than just building a gaming pc)

I posted about it a few days ago :ssh:

. I looked into the pricing for their existing ExpressCard stuff, they started at either $200 or $300 and went up another hundred or two for higher end support (like massive video cards that are power hogs). And I'm pretty sure that's an empty box, so add the video card on top of that price, and realize that you're limited to stuff that works with OS X (but could be fine in Windows).

DEUCE SLUICE posted:

Would have been super cool for Apple to build a video card into the Thunderbolt Display, though...

I thought of that too then realized it'd be nice...up until it becomes old and then you'd be stuck with it as long as you have the display :v:

, barring a way to bypass it or something.

movax posted:

What they proved there was that performance was capping out due to the GPU itself, and not a bottleneck in getting data between the CPU and GPU. This might not always be the case, but those are some fairly interesting results with the cards they tested.

I figure the main thing to take away from that is that you can get something better than the built in graphics. Another nice possibility with external cards is if you want a multi display setup. Stuck with a MBA with only one output? Get an external card that can run more.

# ¿ Aug 1, 2011 22:25

japtor: Oct 28, 2005

Bob Morales posted:

My 13" boots in about the same amount of time. More than half of it is spent at the stupid grey Mac screen.

Video!

Have you reset PRAM/SMC/other acronym since installing the SSD? I've heard it can shorten the time on that gray screen after a drive swap, supposedly it's looking for the old drive before proceeding to the new one...no clue if that's actually the case or not though :shobon:

flyboi posted:

Thanks newegg

...did they screw up or did you just spend $1000+ on RAM? :psyduck:

# ¿ Aug 2, 2011 03:28

japtor: Oct 28, 2005

echobucket posted:

He bought the same $39.99 8GB DDR3 1333Mhz ram I did.

And for anyone wondering, those 1333Mhz chips work fine in my Late 2009 27" iMac i5 at 1067Mhz

I tried opening a bunch of raw files from Lightroom into Photoshop CS5. I finally ram out of ram, but it took a lot of images. It was a beautiful thing.

Oh iMac

. I was thinking of the dual 8GB set for that costs like $1400.

# ¿ Aug 2, 2011 04:25

japtor: Oct 28, 2005

SERIOUS posted:

Seriously, this is complete bullshit. I've NEVER dealt with customer service this horrible.

I apologize to you all for this wall of text but I've gone from feeling annoyed to disrespected and furious.

Well that sucks and you have a right to be pissed. If you want someone else to vent to you could try sjobs@apple.com (or whatever other aliases), for situations like yours you might get a reply from some higher up support person...and hopefully a lot more pressure on the store to not gently caress around.

To help the rest of us avoid this store like the plague, where is this one?

# ¿ Aug 3, 2011 02:15

japtor: Oct 28, 2005

Mu Zeta posted:

And why do optical drives break so much goddamn they suck poo poo. Just ship desktops with the external drive from now on, Apple.

Does it count if they don't ship the external at all? One down, two to go!

Yoshifan823 posted:

I've always had to rely on visiting Apple Stores on vacation, because I live a good hour and a half away from the nearest one (which I've never been in, oddly enough). I've had laptop batteries replaced in Orlando and New York, an iPod replaced in Chicago, and most recently, a new laptop in San Diego. All of these places had some really great customer service. The guy replacing my battery in New York did it for free, saving me a good $150, and the guy in San Diego said he would have replaced the laptop that I spilled Diet Pepsi all over if it had been under warranty still, despite the water damage (it was past the two years of Applecare I got for it when I bought it).

The last part reminds me of this thing I saw recently, particularly:

quote:

Portable computers can still be sent out for flat rate mail-in repair. The cost of a flat rate repair outside of the standard warranty it almost equal to the cost of AppleCare. If you own a portable computer that is outside of its original one year warranty you only need to have it repaired once before the cost of AppleCare pays for itself.

Desktop Macs are never eligible for flat rate repairs. Each part must be purchased individually, and the cost of a single Xeon Mac Pro processor or 27 inch iMac display is several times the cost of AppleCare.

Mu Zeta posted:

I read third-party drives have some incompatibility with things like iDVD or DVD Player

No clue about iDVD, but I'm playing a DVD in mine (a desktop USB BD-RW) right now to test out that claim. Either in System Profiler or Disk Utility it says something like "burn support: no", while the other app says yes, so I don't know what it's limited at, if anything. Not sure I've tried a Finder burn, but I've burned CDs and DVDs in Disk Utility, some other random app, and booted off of it.

Well I just remembered one thing while ejecting the disc, the eject key doesn't work. No clue if it's cause I have two drives (internal + external) or just something with the drive itself. Ejecting from the Finder works, and apparently the menu extra which I just used for the first time right now.

japtor fucked around with this message at 08:44 on Aug 3, 2011

# ¿ Aug 3, 2011 08:42

japtor: Oct 28, 2005

Electric Bugaloo posted:

Saw this on macrumors today, thought it was interesting to share:

Intel Ultrabooks Unable to Undercut MBA Prices

Intel apparently expects computers like this to make up about 40% of the market by the end of next year. If they're forced to drop their prices, I wonder if we'll see those savings trickle into the MBA's price (probably not). At any rate, if this holds out to be true, I guess we could see the "Apple Tax" get a little smaller in relation to PC Land, at least for notebooks.

If MBAs make up 40% of the market next year Intel still gets paid :smug:

Bob Morales posted:

I think the problem is that Apple doesn't lower prices over time. It's always the same price, from when it comes out, until the day the new model is release. Dell's machines get cheaper. You could buy the same model 8 months later, and you'll get more RAM, HD, and a faster CPU while the computer itself is cheaper. A $999 Macbook is always going to be $999.

Yeah that's probably a big part. Macs tend to be fine when new, but they only get updated like twice a year at most so towards the end of a cycle the specs tend to be outdated for a while, or longer like when they stuck with the C2D for the lower end.

SourKraut posted:

If that's the PowerBook G3 as I recall, it's around 1999/2000.

Seems about right, I got my 500mhz Pismo in 2000 so that was probably the predecessor...I think they kept the high end at $3,499 too.

Now I only buy Mac minis :shobon:

(on the plus side I no longer hold out for 5-7 years like I did with my expensive machines)

# ¿ Aug 4, 2011 09:08

japtor: Oct 28, 2005

shodanjr_gr posted:

I just bought these, they should show up in a couple of days.

Also it was interesitng to see that there are no 8GB SODIMMS out there...Is this due to lack of high-density chips or what?

OWC sells them...it's something like $1400-1500 for a pair.

Electric Bugaloo posted:

Well, I'm not looking at the 17" MBP and a base model iMac wouldn't come close to a spec'd out MBP in terms of performance for what I need.

Maybe Sinestro does need that kind of performance though, hmm?

Post the configurations you're comparing, just wondering cause it doesn't seem like the base iMac is super slow compared to the MBP. If you get an iPad rather than a notebook you could spend a bit more on the iMac too.

And you don't need a TB display. If you get a TB device it should have another port, from which you would connect any MDP display/adapter.

# ¿ Aug 5, 2011 01:50

japtor: Oct 28, 2005

Ultimately how much you plan to edit on the road should pretty much determine it I think. If you do it a lot the MBP is probably the only real choice...but if you plan on getting a non portable Thunderbolt enclosure for storage it could cancel that out a bit (then again that's what offline stuff is for I guess). One nice thing about going this path is that you don't have two devices to deal with, like if you want to work on something at home, then take it on the road.

If you only do limited editing the MBA is probably ok performance wise, although drive space could be an issue, particularly once you load up whatever big rear end video apps. As for the iPad, well uh, you could do storyboarding or something :downs:

.

The only thing about the lower end (i5) iMacs vs the quad MBP is that they may not have hyperthreading, although I'm not sure how much of a difference it'd make in the apps you will be using. They do have a higher clock at least which probably helps.

# ¿ Aug 5, 2011 06:17

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# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 04:46

japtor: Oct 28, 2005

Electric Bugaloo posted:

It's also good to note that an iMac isn't exactly completely "unportable." It's an all-in-one, so loading it in its box and driving it to a temporary homebase isn't super difficult or unheard of (hell, I know plenty of small teams that load up Mac Pros and Cinema Displays, rent out an apartment, and set up shop on folding buffet tables for 6 weeks). It isn't remotely ideal or exactly safe, but if it needs to happen it can.

I used my first mini like that :v:

, basically cause it was my only Intel Mac at the time. I had a setup at work so I could just plug a few cables in to get going, and the same thing at home.

MEET ME BY DUCKS posted:

On this topic of comparisons, and I hate to bring it up and I'm sure I'll get the canned answer, but is there any indication to believe the MBP line will get a sizable revision any time soon? I know macrumors and people are guessing October based on averages, but everything I've seen indicates there isn't much to be done until Intel releases their Ivy chips, which could be mid next year.

I hate getting caught in the middle of a product revision cycle but I'm trying to figure out if it really is the middle or if it is the end. I can hold out (if I really try) until October. I can't hold out until Feb or later.

All the indications are rumors which may or may not be true...as always. Not sure they can do much spec wise at this point so it'd be for a redesign if there is anything new this year, probably killing the optical and all that stuff. If performance is your main concern just buy now. If no new rumors pop up after the iPhone comes out there's probably nothing coming, or the rumor mongerers are just busy camping out for new iPhones.

MEET ME BY DUCKS posted:

yeah, that's my dilemma. 15 inches is big, but I don't think I could use a laptop for hours upon hours of research and writing without that hi-res screen. I'm also guessing the higher-end one is recommended if I want to do any sort of light gaming on it. of course buying a MBP for gaming is sort of sickening, but I don't think I can justify/afford building a new PC any time soon, and I need a laptop.

also what's the verdict on SSD or no SSD? I have an external drive so I could get away with the small size, but is it worth it?

Depending on what "light gaming" is, the HD3000 in the MBA/MBP 13" might be fine, and if you need more space you could use a big external screen at home. And SSDs are worth it, depending on how much you're spending I guess. Like the config where it's ~$200 for the 128GB drive is a decent deal, but something like $600 for 256 would be overpriced compared to an aftermarket one.

# ¿ Aug 5, 2011 10:10

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > Mac Hardware - 5k Supremacy

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