NetDepot’s website shows its new dedicated server configuration among other unmanaged servers
(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — Web hosting provider NetDepot (netdepot.com), a GNAX (gnax.net) company,
they might be testing it, but it won’t be until a6 or a7 that a solid “desktop” system (as opposed to ios) can be built on arm. Anyone who thinks otherwise is clueless.
Agree that full-blown Mac OS X needs more than just one A5 to run well. So maybe Apple could put two A5s in a MacBook Air and use Grand Central Dispatch to coordinate tasks among the 4 cores on the two chips.
Inevitably, the ARM chips will get faster, so in the future Apple will be able to use A6, A7, etc. Of course, Mac Pros would still need to use Intel chips until GCD can efficiently handle 8, 16, 32, or more cores.
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The writing is nowhere near on the wall for ARM taking over x86 in anything but the mobile handset business. Now, if ARM starts to make a serious threat to their business, it will become a more serious discussion if they still have a 1 generation process advantage over the rest of the world’s foundries. However, by doing so, they would only make ARM’s products better, undercutting their own. I’d say them making ARM cores is a long long way away, if it ever happens.
Now, if you want to start talking about custom Intel cores that Apple collaborates with to make their logic boards, and by extension their products, more compact, I think that’s a high value proposition for both sides.
But it looks like Intel is seeing ARM as a serious threat. These recent announcements of Tri-Gate, lower TDP CPUs and now this are starting to look like Intel seriously tries to do something. Sure, Tri-Gate was in development for years so Intel didn’t decide to design it yesterday but still, they could have pushed it further away.
ARM lets OEMs do their own chips which can be a huge advantage. If Intel allows the same, ARM has one less advantage. Great news I think, I would appreciate some extra competition between OEMs and this would definitely provide it if every OEM had a slightly different chip.
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AppleInsider reports on a new research note from Concord Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo claiming that Apple is set to begin production on new Thunderbolt-equipped MacBook Air models late next month, setting the stage for an update to the company’s popular ultra-thin notebooks.
Kuo tells AppleInsider that his latest round of checks with suppliers and system builders in the region reveals that MacBook Air shipments are set to rebound during the current calendar quarter, fueled by an upgrade to Intel’s latest Sandy Bridge microprocessors, integrated Intel graphics, and the expected adoption of the new Thunderbolt high-speed I/O technology that made its debut on MacBook Pros earlier this year.
Specifically, he said the new models will “go to mass production in late May,” which corroborates an earlier report that cited reliable sources as saying Apple would be ready to publicly announce and ship to consumers MacBook Airs with Sandy Bridge processors during following month of June.
A production ramp in late May would set the stage for a June launch for the new MacBook Airs, a timeframe that had been rumored several months ago.
While Apple’s current MacBook Airs launched in October 2010 with a new 11.6-inch model joining the redesigned 13.3-inch model, they still rely upon aging Intel Core 2 Duo processors as Apple has struggled to find a suitable pairing of CPU and graphics performance in the wake of a dispute between Intel and NVIDIA over chipset production. But with new Sandy Bridge processors from Intel sporting improved graphics performance now available, Apple now has better options for its small form factor machines utilizing integrated graphics.
Kuo notably revealed Apple’s plans for an 11.6-inch MacBook Air a full three months before the product debuted last year.
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CNET reports that Intel has publicly committed to supporting both USB 3.0 and the company’s new Thunderbolt connectivity standard developed in cooperation with Apple on its forthcoming “Ivy Bridge” platform due for introduction next year.
“Intel is going to support USB 3.0 in the 2012 client platform. We’re going to support Thunderbolt capability. We believe they’re complementary,” said Kirk Skaugen, a vice president at the Intel Architecture Group, speaking at Intel’s developer conference in Beijing today. The event was streamed over the Web.
The “2012 client platform” that Skaugen referred to is known more commonly by the code name “Ivy Bridge,” which is the family of chips that will follow the “Sandy Bridge” processors shipping in PCs today.
USB 3.0 offers ten times the speed of current USB technology, but has not yet been embraced in Intel’s current platforms, leaving USB 3.0 compatibility a fairly rare feature for most Intel-based computers given the need to rely on a separate part from NEC rather than having it built directly into Intel’s silicon.
Intel is still encouraging peripherals developers to embrace Thunderbolt, which can support data and video on a single cable and made its debut in Apple’s new MacBook Pros introduced earlier this year. Notably, Apple was recently granted a patent for a new iOS device dock connector that could support both Thunderbolt/DisplayPort and USB 3.0 connectivity, as well as the existing USB 2.0 standard.
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IDG News reports that Intel has announced that it will release developer kits for Thunderbolt, its new high-speed data connection standard, sometime this quarter, accelerating deployment of the standard that so far has been limited to Apple’s new MacBook Pro and a small handful of peripherals companies.
Intel is already working with some partners to develop products as it tries to build out an ecosystem around the interconnect. LaCie and Western Digital have already demonstrated portable storage products, but are not yet selling devices. Companies including Canon have announced support for Thunderbolt, and products from AJA, BlackMagic, Matrox and Sonnet are being shown at the NAB trade show, which is going on in Las Vegas through April 14.
According to the report, Sony is also firmly behind the standard but has yet to announce plans for bringing it to its products. Other computer manufacturers such as HP are continuing to evaluate Thunderbolt before committing to it.
High-speed data transfer protocols such as Thunderbolt are of course key for moving large files quickly, meaning that the standard will likely play an integral role as power users gear up with the latest hardware and look to deploy such cutting edge software as Apple’s forthcoming Final Cut Pro X.
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Pegasus R4 RAID w/ Thunderbolt, photo by @josh_diamond
The 2011 National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) trade show is underway. While the event is primarily targeted at Audio/Video/Film professionals, Apple fans will be interested to see that companies are finally starting introduce Thunderbolt-compatible devices into the market. Jigsaw Broadcast posts a brief summary of the some of Thunderbolt solutions introduced so far. They include products from AJA, Blackmagic, Promise, and Matrox. All are targeted at video professionals, but finally shows some industry adoption of the new connectivity standard.
Apple and Intel launched Thunderbolt alongside the new MacBook Pro revisions in February. Thunderbolt promises faster connectivity than USB 3.0 and FireWire and we expect it to be included in all future Mac products.
Promise was one of the first companies that announced support for RAID Thunderbolt drive enclosures back in February. Those enclosures aren’t yet shipping, but at least a couple of early prototypes are being demoed on the NAB floor. @sforde reports on one at the Adobe booth:
Wow! We have 1 of only 2 promise raids in world with thunderbolt at the Adobe booth at #NAB. CS5.5 screams on it.
The other must be at the Blackmagic booth which is pictured above. Meanwhile, the big anticipated news from NAB is Apple’s announcement of a new version of Final Cut Pro. That news should arrive tomorrow night if rumors prove true.
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As reported by Fudzilla and HardMac, Intel is about to launch its next generation Sandy Bridge ultra low voltage CPUs suitable for the MacBook Air.
Due to the MacBook Air’s thin form factor, it has required the use of particularly low power CPUs from Intel. Apple has stuck with Core 2 Duo processors with a maximum Thermal Design Power (TDP) of 10-17W. Apple is believed to have continued to use this older processor design in order to keep NVIDIA’s graphics chips powering their ultracompact notebook. Due to licensing disputes, NVIDIA was prohibited from building newer chipsets that supported Intel’s newest processors.
With the release of Sandy Bridge, Intel upgraded the performance of their integrated graphics chipset. This was good enough for Apple to offer in their latest 13″ MacBook Pros, so we expect it will be good enough for the upcoming MacBook Airs as well. Apple had been previously rumored to be introducing the “Sandy Bridge” MacBook Airs this June.
HardMac pinpoints the Core i5 2537M (17W) as the possible chip to be used, at least in the 13″ model:
Fortunately, Intel has low consumption processors, well for now, one processor, the Core i5 2537M. It is clocked at 1.4 GHz and features an impressive turbo mode reaching 2.3 GHz. It would be a huge gap with the power currently offered in the MacBook Air, even in the 13″ model. Plus the bus is now 1333 MHZ, while it is only 800 MHz currently.
Meanwhile, the current 11″ MacBook air uses an even lower power (10W) processor, but it’s not clear how much power savings is offered by removing the need for the NVIDIA graphics chipset, as the Intel solution is integrated within the processor itself.
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Electronista over the weekend noted a growing thread in the Apple Discussions forum regarding flickering issues being experienced by users of the new MacBook Pro paired with a 24-inch LED Cinema Display. A couple of users in our own forums have also reported the issue.
Both the 13- and 15-inch models, and likely the 17-inch model, produce intermittent flickering, brief blackouts and other periodic but noticeable flaws when attached to the out-of-sale screen. The built-in notebook display is unaffected.
Users have already tried some of the more common tricks, such as resetting the SMC, but haven’t had any initial success. It also applies whether or not the AMD or Intel graphics are being used.
The Apple Discussions thread has continued to grow in the days following the original report, with at least one user reporting experiencing the issue with a 17-inch MacBook Pro.
Apple support staff are reportedly investigating the issue, having swapped out one user’s affected machine specifically to examine a unit known to be experiencing problems.
Well, it appears Apple is aware of the issue. An Apple Discussions Host called me a few days ago after seeing one of my recent posts. He offered to swap my MacBook Pro for a new one so Apple Engineers can get their hands on a known bad unit. I shipped it off last night and anxiously await my replacement.
Apple officially discontinued the 24-inch LED Cinema Display last July alongside the introduction of a new 27-inch model, but the company did continue to sell off its remaining stock for some time after the discontinuation.
Update: French site MacGeneration has posted a video showing the issue. The flicker occurs at about 1:45 in the video.
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Winners:
- As long ago as last December, CNET reported that Apple would move even its smaller notebooks to Intel’s Sandy Bridge platform, necessitating the use of Intel integrated graphics on the machines unable to utilize a discrete GPU for space reasons. Apple did just that with Sandy Bridge and with the integrated Intel HD Graphics 3000 serving as the sole graphics processor on the 13-inch model. The report also claimed that Apple would tap AMD for the graphics in the company’s larger MacBook Pro, displacing NVIDIA as the GPU provider for the line, another development that did in fact occur in the update.
- Last Friday, a pair of Italian blogs, iSpazio and Slide to Mac, pinpointed Apple order numbers for the new machines, with one of them accurately claiming a release on Thursday or Friday of this week. Later that day, we confirmed that the launch would in fact take place on Thursday, Feburary 24th.
- On Sunday, CNET reported that Apple was expected to introduce a “new high-speed connection technology”, referring to Intel’s Light Peak standard, in the “near future”. Light Peak did in fact make its debut in the new MacBook Pros under the name “Thunderbolt”. Later that day, AppleInsider accurately reported that shipments were en route to resellers, with delivery set for early in the week. Best Buy also slipped its placeholder information into public-facing inventory lists.
- On Wednesday of this week, 24 hours before official launch, fscklog and Mac4Ever posted photos of specs from the box of the new entry-level 13-inch MacBook Pro, as well as shots of the machine itself. The sources of these shots were obviously resellers who had received Apple’s shipments of the new machines and opened the packages early.
Losers:
- In early February, a Best Buy inventory screenshot appeared showing a new Apple notebook with a dummy SKU and an in-stock date of March 11th, but the update actually occurred more than two weeks ahead of that date. The evidence continues to suggest that Best Buy’s inventory databases are an inaccurate source of information until shipments are actually en route to stores, as the company appears to use placeholders that are simply based on circulating rumors and guesses up until that point.
- Danish blogger Kenneth Lund claimed earlier this month that a reseller had informed him of a March 1st date for MacBook Pros.
- An Intel ad published earlier this month sparked significant speculation that the notebook pictured was a leaked next-generation MacBook Pro. But as we noted at the time, the picture was simply a generic mockup and not related to any revamped MacBook Pro design.
- On Monday of this week, BGR reported that the new MacBook Pros would offer larger trackpads, a small SSD boot drive for system files, and reduced weight compared to the previous generation. None of the claims came true.
- On Tuesday, French site MacGeneration offered a list of claimed specs for the revamped MacBook Pro (repeating the hybrid SSD claim), with essentially none of these claims coming true with the exception of the “new technology” that had already been widely rumored to be coming as Light Peak/Thunderbolt.
Mixed Bag:
- In mid-December, DigiTimes predicted that Apple would update the MacBook Pro and iMac in the first half of 2011. While certainly not a stretch given that the previous update had occurred in April 2010, Apple did indeed easily meet this prediction for the MacBook Pro. The report claimed that Apple would launch “at least four” upgraded MacBook Pros, and the company did in fact introduce five standard configurations yesterday. The report also claimed, however, that the new MacBook Pros would ship with Mac OS X Lion. In addition, the report claimed that there would be a “slight change in chassis design”, but the new MacBook Pros are for all intents and purposes identical to the previous generation.
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