The New MacBook Pro: Unfixable, Unhackable, Untenable

Re:The New MacBook Pro: Unfixable, Unhackable, Untenable by raverbashing on Friday June 15, 2012 @09:16AM (#4116291)

Yeah, but really, the thing is, the growth curve is bending down

Processors have barely became faster in the last couple of years. Even a 5 year computer (with some upgrades) is good for doing what 99% of the people do today (internet)

So chances are upgrades today are moot. Unless you're hitting the limits constantly like video editing, compiling software, etc

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Re:The New MacBook Pro: Unfixable, Unhackable, Untenable by martingordon on Friday June 15, 2012 @09:30AM (#4116353)

> Processors have barely became faster in the last couple of years.

Funny you should mention that. I will be picking up one of the new MacBook Airs and when mulling over the 1.8 vs 2.0 GHz processors, I realized that my last three notebooks (including the new Air) have each had successively lower clock speeds while posting faster Geekbench scores.

2008 - Aluminum MacBook 2.4 GHz - 3374

2010 - MacBook Air 2.13 GHz - 3475

2012 - MacBook Air 1.8 GHz - 6398

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Re:The New MacBook Pro: Unfixable, Unhackable, Untenable by blazingice on Friday June 15, 2012 @02:29PM (#4117918)

Don't forget about "Turbo Boost" - that "1.8 GHz" runs at 2.8 GHz when you're only using one of two cores.

Combined with a more efficient architecture, this helps explain the performance gains.

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Re:The New MacBook Pro: Unfixable, Unhackable, Untenable by Evbn on Friday June 15, 2012 @10:24AM (#4116626)

That's because the boards are getting more cycles in GPU and cache and things, which are more important than straightahead serial speed.

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Re:The New MacBook Pro: Unfixable, Unhackable, Untenable by martingordon on Friday June 15, 2012 @11:49AM (#4117075)

Yes, I'm well aware of the reasons why my computers get faster even at lower clock speeds. I think of the megahertz myth, I picture clock speeds staying the same and getting more done at those clock speeds (e.g., all my computers would forever be pegged at 2 GHz but would continue to get faster). It was only today that I realized that clock speeds (at least in my case) are going down (rather than staying constant) while computation ability and battery life continue to increase.

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Re:The New MacBook Pro: Unfixable, Unhackable, Untenable by bnegreve on Friday June 15, 2012 @10:36AM (#4116687)

It's also because the power consumption is quadratic with the frequency. This is important if you agree that an additional hour on battery is worth much more than few cylces per sec.

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Re:The New MacBook Pro: Unfixable, Unhackable, Untenable by Dave_Rosenthal on Friday June 15, 2012 @12:34PM (#4117324)

No, the first-order model is that power consumption is quadratic with voltage, and linear with frequency.

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Re:The New MacBook Pro: Unfixable, Unhackable, Untenable by bnegreve on Sunday June 17, 2012 @03:01PM (#4123546)

Ok, but isn’t increasing the voltage required to keep the transistors stable as you increase the frequency ?

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Re:The New MacBook Pro: Unfixable, Unhackable, Untenable by Karunamon on Friday June 15, 2012 @04:41PM (#4118611)

That's kind of irrelevant anyways, all modern CPU's have speed stepping functionality that can reduce the clock speed while on battery.

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Re:The New MacBook Pro: Unfixable, Unhackable, Untenable by gcb on Friday June 15, 2012 @11:06AM (#4116859)

That's why your cpu runs on different paths to save power when not needed. Using a lower cpu is just lazy and cheap.

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Re:The New MacBook Pro: Unfixable, Unhackable, Untenable by CountSessine on Friday June 15, 2012 @08:33PM (#4119447)

Agreed, but I think the point is that while the growth curve may indeed be 'bending down', for non-upgradeable components like cache memory, memory controllers, GPUs, AND CPUs, the growth curve certainly hasn't leveled out.

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Re:The New MacBook Pro: Unfixable, Unhackable, Untenable by CamperBob2 on Friday June 15, 2012 @10:31PM (#4119695)

Processors have barely became faster in the last couple of years.

That's true in the low/mid-range market, but the high end is a different story. A Sandy/Ivy Bridge chip with 4+ cores is ridiculously fast compared to everything else. Meanwhile, today's low-end CPUs are no faster than the mid-market parts of 5 years ago.

The gap between the low and high end of the CPU performance spectrum causes problems for those of us who have to figure out what to target with new products.

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Re:The New MacBook Pro: Unfixable, Unhackable, Untenable by rayiner on Friday June 15, 2012 @11:21AM (#4116946)

I've got a '10 MacBook Pro, but it's got an ancient '08 Core 2 Duo. I can't imagine needing a faster machine, and I even do moderately CPU intensive stuff (compiling, etc).

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Re:The New MacBook Pro: Unfixable, Unhackable, Untenable by swah on Friday June 15, 2012 @11:46AM (#4117061)

I feel like compiling isn't a big problem, because you can always wait a little longer...

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