Forums | MacLife

pja · 2008-10-27 6:46 pm

Intel has already started shipping its new Core i7 processors based on the Nehalem micro-architecture, announced Intel’s chief executive officer Paul Otellini during a conference call with financial analysts...

The Intel Core i7 processor 965 (3.0GHz) is expected to deliver around 52% performance improvements over current Core 2 micro-architecture at the same clock speed....
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Intel-Is … 5785.shtml

The wait for a new Mac Pro is killing me!

Last edited by pja (2008-10-27 6:49 pm)

dv · 2008-10-27 7:18 pm

I can has quad core?

(Damn, they're not on newegg yet...)

Bat · 2008-10-27 9:14 pm

You haz $$? Launch is being pegged for mid-November, depending...

We believed that Intel plans to launch Nehalem in week 46, but it looks like this CPU will launch on the first day of week 47.

Multiple sources have told Fudzilla that Intel has fixed its launch date for the Bloomfield/Core i7 generation of CPUs for November 17th.

This is also the day when most motherboard manufacturers are going to launch their new boards, and there will be many triple-channel DDR3 kits launching at the same time.

The Core i7 920 will be the cheapest of them all with a 2.66GHz clock, and it will sell for $284; the one in the middle, Core i7 940 at 2.93GHz, will sell for $562, while the Core i7 Extreme 965 with 3.2GHz core clock and unlocked multiplier will sell for $999 at launch.

http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?optio … ;Itemid=35

macnuke · 2008-10-28 9:26 am

smile the old home sold....

MacPro bucks collecting interest ( however low ) waiting to score one of those babies.

just need to get all the video I can for my 30" display... and no. I am not gunna even think about the 5 digit card.

Bat · 2008-10-28 4:28 pm

Graphics. The next generation.
Introducing all-new, high-end, blow-you-away graphics.

Not enough? smile

For motion graphics, 3D modeling, rendering, or animation, you’ll need the greater graphics horsepower offered by the NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT with 512MB of GDDR3 memory and latest-generation NVIDIA GPU technology.

Yeah. The 8800GT is embarassingly blown away by the new ATi 4830... which lists for $130.

Hopefully by the time you buy Apple will have a better consumer card available.

Bat · 2008-10-28 5:43 pm

dvpierce wrote:
I can has quad core?

(Damn, they're not on newegg yet...)

Just for you, dv.

AUSTRIAN CPU cooler brand, Noctua, has given Core i7 upgraders an early Christmas gift of sorts.

The company has announced it’ll be giving away LGA775-to-LGA1366 adapters so that any Noctua – and probably most CPU coolers on the market after 2005 – will be able to mount on Intel’s new flagship CPUs.
...

Post-sales service. Someone in Austria’s heard of it. µ

(Not planned obsolence. Value, loyalty live. Win).

Free Core i7 mounting adapter tips up

pirloui · 2008-10-28 5:50 pm

Bat wrote:
Yeah. The 8800GT is embarassingly blown away by the new ATi 4830... which lists for $130.

Mmm; it's more like a margin of 10%; which isn't really embarassing, especially considering that's about the price gap between the two..
Anyhow I'd still like better ATI support, as the 4xxx line is really good.

Bat · 2008-10-28 11:26 pm

pirloui wrote:
Bat wrote:
Yeah. The 8800GT is embarassingly blown away by the new ATi 4830... which lists for $130.
Mmm; it's more like a margin of 10%; which isn't really embarassing, especially considering that's about the price gap between the two..
Anyhow I'd still like better ATI support, as the 4xxx line is really good.

The margin varies both by app and by tester, as a number of early review samples (and an estimated <400 HIS cards; use GPU-Z to find out) shipped with a preproduction BIOS that failed to utilize all the available SPs, skewing test results low. It's not a total blowout, but it's a decided edge to the new card... anyway the embarassing part is that the 8800GT continues to be the best consumer option available in the otherwise mighty (and mighty expensive) MP.

After re-running all of our test, we updated the original article with the new charts and data. The final conclusion really doesn't change that much, but we did tweak things a little bit. There will still be a heavy emphasis on price and finding the lowest one possible when deciding between the Radeon HD 4830 and the GeForce 9800 GT. But the Radeon 4830 does look a little better in this new light and there is less of a threat from the myriad overclocked 9800 GT versions.

Edit: A quick check of the Apple store shows the 8800GT still as a $150 option.

Last edited by Bat (2008-10-28 11:59 pm)

personified8 · 2008-10-30 2:36 pm

that's because apple gpu's have always been limited and overly expensive. What I wouldn't give for whoever is in charge of apple gpu's (nvidia, ati, or apple) to get rid of the necessity for an "Apple only" card. I'd like to go to newegg or wherever and say, "Why yes I would like to blow my load on a GTX 280 and shove it into my MacPro." The mac gpu's offered are comparatively smurfy and usually outdated rather quickly.

If the mac GPU's were updated independently of the Macs being updated it wouldn't be such an issue. Hell it only looks like the Quadro FX 5600 has been the only GPU updated as that is rather new (and sinfully delicious, but expensive).

I've heard people say here that the only way for Mac GPU's to be updated quicker is for the manufacturers to get on the ball, well I bet you Apple has a hand in it too. Why upgrade a part when you can upgrade the machine eh? Ultimately it's just annoying and frustrating.

IMO there are three key things that should always be readily upgradable in a computer (mainly towers of course, but the iMac would be nice too), RAM, HD, and GPU. Of course on the software end: OS, apps, etc.

I still love my apples.

Edit: I'm looking at apple's tech specs for their FX5600 and the memory interface is 256-bit as opposed to the one on nvidia's site which is 384. other than that they appear identical. This is an interesting issue, and the difference might be there because the 5600 on nvidia's site might be a newer revision of the card. Who knows. Of course it could be a misprint on apple's site.

Oh and before peeps rag on me, yes the 8800GT is still a good card despite the 9800 and GTX 280 series having been released. I have the 8800GTS based on the G92 core in my PC which is used primarily for 3D modeling and secondly for games. If I could afford a workstation card, I would.

Last edited by personified8 (2008-10-30 2:44 pm)

pirloui · 2008-10-30 6:06 pm

personified8 wrote:
the 8800GT is still a good card despite the 9800 and GTX 280 series having been released. I have the 8800GTS based on the G92 core

The G92 8800GT and 9800GT are exactly the same card, just the sticker differs smile
As someone said, the 8800 G92 should have been 9800 from the start, as it's GPU was the 9x00 generations G92..

personified8 · 2008-10-30 7:02 pm

that is odd. the gts versions however are different. the 8800gt and gts are more price to performance though. the 9800 series should have never been released.

Bat · 2008-11-01 5:35 am

personified8 wrote:
...the Quadro FX 5600 has been the only GPU updated as that is rather new (and sinfully delicious, but expensive)...

Edit: I'm looking at apple's tech specs for their FX5600 and the memory interface is 256-bit as opposed to the one on nvidia's site which is 384. other than that they appear identical. This is an interesting issue, and the difference might be there because the 5600 on nvidia's site might be a newer revision of the card. Who knows. Of course it could be a misprint on apple's site.

It's likely a misprint. I don't remember the FX5600 being updated in a long time; it came out in March '07. It's a 65nm G80 chip with the 384-bit memory interface of that generation, when the high-end consumer card had 768MB VRAM. Personally I don't lust after it.

Oh and before peeps rag on me, yes the 8800GT is still a good card despite the 9800 and GTX 280 series having been released. I have the 8800GTS based on the G92 core in my PC which is used primarily for 3D modeling and secondly for games. If I could afford a workstation card, I would.

The 3870 is still a good card, too, but it's been superceded by better.

personified8 wrote:
that is odd. the gts versions however are different. the 8800gt and gts are more price to performance though. the 9800 series should have never been released.

NV's been playing the name game a lot. See a mostly-on, slightly dated scorecard here, under

Here's the full NVIDIA lineup: [table]

The 65nm to 55nm process shrink saves them money and improve performance a bit without introducing a new architecture. The GT200-class chips at 65nm are ginormous, 576^mm chips with 1.4 billion transistors apiece. You can only get about 105 per 300mm wafer... no wonder NV still sells older chips. 55nm GT200Bs (GT206 now) should be coming out this month; don't be surprised to see GTX 270s and 290s. Now you know about what they'll be like, and a dual-chip GTX is possible with the reduced power consumption at 55nm.

Last edited by Bat (2008-11-01 6:12 pm)

personified8 · 2008-11-01 10:52 pm

that's some cool information.

re: 5600 nvidia's site makes it look like the 5600 is a revamped version. I guess I could just be reading it wrong

Do you know why the CS4 card is so awesome just specifically for Adobe? Wouldn't the card also benefit 3d apps?
Also, what do you think of the Tesla series (C-something I think). It's a Graphical Processing Unit not meant as a display adapter but purely for processing tons of data in huge chunks.

Finally, so 270's and 290's eh? ought to be interesting to read up on those when they are released. It would be nice to see how the prices go as the gtx280's are overpriced IMO. I still wonder how Nvidia beats out ATI when ATI's cards have 4x the streaming processors and use GDDR5 (I don't know enough to know what the trade-off is with using GDDR3 vs. GDDR4 or 5. It's crazy to believe that all the performance comes from nvidia's better drivers (according to others).

Bat · 2008-11-04 9:13 pm

A bit much overall to go into right now; update on the 270/290 and X2 here.

Bat · 2008-11-10 4:06 pm

personified8 wrote:
that's some cool information.

re: 5600 nvidia's site makes it look like the 5600 is a revamped version. I guess I could just be reading it wrong

NVIDIA Launches 4GB Quadro FX 5800 Graphics Card

Mr. T · 2008-11-10 6:52 pm

Bat wrote:
pirloui wrote:
Bat wrote:
Yeah. The 8800GT is embarassingly blown away by the new ATi 4830... which lists for $130.
Mmm; it's more like a margin of 10%; which isn't really embarassing, especially considering that's about the price gap between the two..
Anyhow I'd still like better ATI support, as the 4xxx line is really good.
The margin varies both by app and by tester, as a number of early review samples (and an estimated <400 HIS cards; use GPU-Z to find out) shipped with a preproduction BIOS that failed to utilize all the available SPs, skewing test results low. It's not a total blowout, but it's a decided edge to the new card... anyway the embarassing part is that the 8800GT continues to be the best consumer option available in the otherwise mighty (and mighty expensive) MP.

I don't think it's so decided; at best, it's too close to call. Also worth consideration.

Not that I'd buy another NVIDIA card right now, anyway; main reason being SLI: I'd need an nForce motherboard to use SLI (or a driver hack, which I'm considering). But I'm using an Intel chipset, since those are natively supported by OS X. Initially, I figured NV would've lifted this ridiculous limitation by now, but apparently not.

Bat · 2008-11-10 9:48 pm

Mr. T wrote:
..
I don't think it's so decided; at best, it's too close to call. Also worth consideration.

Prices are constantly shifting, so a 'value' of 2.43687 is sort of meaningless. NV's been slashing prices (hurting their partners, e.g. you lose money selling GTX 260s these days), while ATi cards are on allocation, pushing them up a bit recently. Anyway and again, the embarassing part is the top consumer card for the MP being a card currently worth a bit over $100 (and charging $150 for it at that). No 4870X2 option, no GTX 280 option, and even the workstation card is obsolescent, especially now, with the above announcement. The line damn well better get a refresh no later than MWSF.

Not that I'd buy another NVIDIA card right now, anyway; main reason being SLI: I'd need an nForce motherboard to use SLI (or a driver hack, which I'm considering). But I'm using an Intel chipset, since those are natively supported by OS X. Initially, I figured NV would've lifted this ridiculous limitation by now, but apparently not.

I warned you about the NV/Intel war months ago, but did you listen? Noooo... wink

Pariah · 2008-11-11 5:37 am

Sweet, just checked and the 3ghz C2Ds have fallen well under $200. I love transition pricing smile

Onanum · 2008-11-11 7:51 am

pirloui wrote:
The G92 8800GT and 9800GT are exactly the same card, just the sticker differs
As someone said, the 8800 G92 should have been 9800 from the start, as it's GPU was the 9x00 generations G92..

And my 9800GT came with a set of "9800" stickers on top of a layer of "8800" ones, if I didn't know that they were the same card I would be really ticked off. For $89 Canadian after rebate, I can't complain.

Manufacturers take note; the less paper you stick onto a heatsink the better it will work.

Last edited by Onanum (2008-11-11 7:52 am)

Bat · 2008-11-18 1:52 am

dvpierce wrote:
I can has quad core?

(Damn, they're not on newegg yet...)

Intel Core i7 officially launches

In case you haven't noticed, today is the official launch day for Intel's next-generation Core i7 (previously codenamed Nehalem) CPU. Starting today you should be able to go out and buy Core i7 processors, PCs, and motherboards from your favorite retailer of choice.

Ours happens to be Newegg. Already the site has listings for all three launch CPUs as well as eight Core i7 motherboards:

CPUs
Core i7 920 (2.66GHz, 4.8GT/s QPI): $319.99
Core i7 940 (2.93GHz, 4.8GT/s QPI): $599.99
Core i7 965 Extreme Edition (3.2GHz, 6.4GT/s QPI): $1,069.99

X58 Motherboards:
ASUS P6T Deluxe: $299.99
ASUS P6T Deluxe/OC Palm: $338.99
ASUS Rampage II Extreme: $398.99
Gigabyte GA-EX58 Extreme: $328.99
Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD5: $298.99
Intel BOXDX58SO "Smackover": $278.99
MSI X58 Platinum: $220.99
MSI X58 Eclipse SLI: $352.99

Haz quad yet? smile http://www.firingsquad.com/news/newsart … chid=21015

avkills · 2008-11-18 6:25 am

Bat wrote:
Graphics. The next generation.
Introducing all-new, high-end, blow-you-away graphics.
Not enough?

For motion graphics, 3D modeling, rendering, or animation, you’ll need the greater graphics horsepower offered by the NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT with 512MB of GDDR3 memory and latest-generation NVIDIA GPU technology.
Yeah. The 8800GT is embarassingly blown away by the new ATi 4830... which lists for $130.

Hopefully by the time you buy Apple will have a better consumer card available.

Yet a 3 year old GPU was just fine for those tasks... wink

I have a MacPro with a 8800 and it isn't a slouch of a card. In fact it works just fine for motion graphics, 3D Animation and Modeling and Editing and Compositing and running super high res screen blends.

-mark

Bat · 2008-11-18 7:14 am

avkills wrote:
Bat wrote:
Graphics. The next generation.
Introducing all-new, high-end, blow-you-away graphics.
Not enough?

For motion graphics, 3D modeling, rendering, or animation, you’ll need the greater graphics horsepower offered by the NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT with 512MB of GDDR3 memory and latest-generation NVIDIA GPU technology.
Yeah. The 8800GT is embarassingly blown away by the new ATi 4830... which lists for $130.

Hopefully by the time you buy Apple will have a better consumer card available.
Yet a 3 year old GPU was just fine for those tasks...

I have a MacPro with a 8800 and it isn't a slouch of a card. In fact it works just fine for motion graphics, 3D Animation and Modeling and Editing and Compositing and running super high res screen blends.

-mark

The ATi 3870 trounces it at most of those, but if you need more I guess you missed this. tongue

wink

pirloui · 2008-11-18 3:05 pm

I don't doubt a second you know this better than me, but I can't see a single bench on the link you provided, where the 3870 beats the 8800.. Maybe I just didn't get it right..
( http://www.barefeats.com/harper19.html )

Bat · 2008-11-18 11:12 pm

pirloui wrote:
I don't doubt a second you know this better than me, but I can't see a single bench on the link you provided, where the 3870 beats the 8800.. Maybe I just didn't get it right..
( http://www.barefeats.com/harper19.html )

I tried it after posting and got the same. Then I tried barefeats.com, and apparently the whole site was down. It's back now.

yelowpunk · 2008-11-20 12:40 pm

I remember the days of explaining the difference between big-endian and little-endian systems, and why are are mostly incompatible, although sometimes perfectly compatible with nothing but a firmware/rom/whatever flash.

But now that all Macs are running on Intel hardware, what's the issue? Is the open firmware bs keeping the cards at bay this time? Is there some kind of conspiracy against Mac game players, who are obviously more leet, to keep their framerates - and kill-to-death ratio - artificially low?

-Tim

Forums | MacLife

#1 2008-10-27 6:46 pm

Intel Is Now Shipping Core i7 Nehalem...

#2 2008-10-27 7:18 pm

Re: Intel Is Now Shipping Core i7 Nehalem...

#3 2008-10-27 9:14 pm

Re: Intel Is Now Shipping Core i7 Nehalem...

#4 2008-10-28 9:26 am

Re: Intel Is Now Shipping Core i7 Nehalem...

#5 2008-10-28 4:28 pm

Re: Intel Is Now Shipping Core i7 Nehalem...

#6 2008-10-28 5:43 pm

Re: Intel Is Now Shipping Core i7 Nehalem...

dvpierce wrote:

#7 2008-10-28 5:50 pm

Re: Intel Is Now Shipping Core i7 Nehalem...

Bat wrote:

#8 2008-10-28 11:26 pm

Re: Intel Is Now Shipping Core i7 Nehalem...

pirloui wrote:

Bat wrote:

#9 2008-10-30 2:36 pm

Re: Intel Is Now Shipping Core i7 Nehalem...

#10 2008-10-30 6:06 pm

Re: Intel Is Now Shipping Core i7 Nehalem...

personified8 wrote:

#11 2008-10-30 7:02 pm

Re: Intel Is Now Shipping Core i7 Nehalem...

#12 2008-11-01 5:35 am

Re: Intel Is Now Shipping Core i7 Nehalem...

personified8 wrote:

personified8 wrote:

#13 2008-11-01 10:52 pm

Re: Intel Is Now Shipping Core i7 Nehalem...

#14 2008-11-04 9:13 pm

Re: Intel Is Now Shipping Core i7 Nehalem...

#15 2008-11-10 4:06 pm

Re: Intel Is Now Shipping Core i7 Nehalem...

personified8 wrote:

#16 2008-11-10 6:52 pm

Re: Intel Is Now Shipping Core i7 Nehalem...

Bat wrote:

pirloui wrote:

Bat wrote:

#17 2008-11-10 9:48 pm

Re: Intel Is Now Shipping Core i7 Nehalem...

Mr. T wrote:

#18 2008-11-11 5:37 am

Re: Intel Is Now Shipping Core i7 Nehalem...

#19 2008-11-11 7:51 am

Re: Intel Is Now Shipping Core i7 Nehalem...

pirloui wrote:

#20 2008-11-18 1:52 am

Re: Intel Is Now Shipping Core i7 Nehalem...

dvpierce wrote:

#21 2008-11-18 6:25 am

Re: Intel Is Now Shipping Core i7 Nehalem...

Bat wrote:

#22 2008-11-18 7:14 am

Re: Intel Is Now Shipping Core i7 Nehalem...

avkills wrote:

Bat wrote:

#23 2008-11-18 3:05 pm

Re: Intel Is Now Shipping Core i7 Nehalem...

#24 2008-11-18 11:12 pm

Re: Intel Is Now Shipping Core i7 Nehalem...

pirloui wrote:

#25 2008-11-20 12:40 pm

Re: Intel Is Now Shipping Core i7 Nehalem...

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