Enter the Quad-Core Intel Xeon Nehalem” processor. Its single-die, 64-bit architecture makes 8MB of fully shared L3 cache readily available to each of the four processor cores. The result is fast access to cache data and greater application performance. Combine that with the other technological advances and you get a Mac Pro that’s up to [...]
We all know that iTunes can be a bit of a resource hog when you’re
playing music through it while Photoshopping cats’ faces onto your
friends’ heads and browsing for pictures. But apparently for some users,
it can be even more of a problem.
If you’ve got the latest Mac
Pros with the Nehalem-based Xeon multicore processors, you may have
noticed it too. According to Ars Technica, a glitch in audio processing
is reportedly driving up processor temperatures to almost double their
usual while sucking hard on the CPU power. The issue in question only
appears to apply to the latest Mac Pros running OS X and does not turn
up in MacBook Pros.
Weirdly enough, the increases aren’t
triggering the fans and aren’t showing up in CPU performance measures,
just heat and power, while triggering corresponding sluggishness in
other programs. So far, according to the article, Apple Care has
soft-pedaled the issue, claiming temperature ranges are within normal,
leaving many users frustrated.
Even more telling, users who have
booted their Mac Pros into Windows 7 have reported the problem is
eliminated. This led someone in the hackintosh community to create his
own power management kernel extension that disabled SpeedStep and Turbo
Boost, completely eliminating the problem.
Hopefully, the more
this is reported, and the fact that a simple hack can resolve the issue
leads to Apple putting out a software update relatively soon to fix the
problem. Meanwhile, if you’re experiencing the same issues with your Mac
Pro, until you get a software update consult the headline above.
Enter the Quad-Core Intel Xeon Nehalem” processor. Its single-die, 64-bit architecture makes 8MB of fully shared L3 cache readily available to each of the four processor cores. The result is fast access to cache data and greater application performance. Combine that with the other technological advances and you get a Mac Pro that’s up to [...]
Enter the Quad-Core Intel Xeon Nehalem” processor. Its single-die, 64-bit architecture makes 8MB of fully shared L3 cache readily available to each of the four processor cores. The result is fast access to cache data and greater application performance. Combine that with the other technological advances and you get a Mac Pro that’s up to [...]
Apple hasn’t announced new MacBook Pros yet, but the Arrandale processor presumed to be included in them just got a chance to rev their engines for the press.
MacRumors is reporting that the embargo is up for news and reviews on Intel’s latest Arrandale mobile processors. As previously reported, Arrandale is the 32-nm die shrink of the former Nehalem processors, and will be the first of their type to be usable in laptops such as the MacBook Pro.
Of course, there have been unconfirmed rumblings of late that Apple may skip this generation of chips entirely. Arrandale offers improved integrated graphics on the same processor, which still make them the best option to upgrade the MacBook Pro at this time.
Anandtech has an overview of the newly announced chips, clocking in as fast as 2.66 GHz Dual Core as a base speed with Turbo speeds as high as 3.3 GHz. The chart above demonstrates notable improvements in clock speed, even with a direct comparison of the 2.53 GHz Arrandale alongside the 2.53 GHz Core 2 Duo currently in use by the MacBook Pro.
Anandtech also found the battery life to be on par with the current Core 2 Duos: “From the balanced notebook perspective, Arrandale is awesome. Battery life doesn’t improve, but performance goes up tremendously. The end result is better performance for hopefully the same power consumption. If you’re stuck with an aging laptop it’s worth the wait. If you can wait even longer we expect to see a second rev of Arrandale silicon towards the middle of the year with better power characteristics.”
Also notable is the impressive performance advantage that Arrandale brings for video and media creators thanks to the integrated graphics, particularly with x264 HD encoding.
