New Mac !!!

Dorian_Gray

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Ok, so i've been on my iBook since 2001 and I finally decided to upgrade last week. I went to the perimeter Apple Store in Peachtree near ATL and picked me up a new Unibody Macbook Pro 15.4. I have to say this is the coolest computer I think i've ever owned. I think what pleasantly surprised me was just how good the damn thing sounds... Mac geeks on the board sound off!! What ya runnin? I'm going to post my desktop... (can you tell, it's like christmas for me...lol)
 

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Mem

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Ok, so i've been on my iBook since 2001

That's a long time to have a computer. I usually upgrade my Windows computers within 2 or 3 years because the technology advances so quickly that as soon as you buy one it is outdated.
 

Dorian_Gray

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That's a long time to have a computer. I usually upgrade my Windows computers within 2 or 3 years because the technology advances so quickly that as soon as you buy one it is outdated.

See thats what I've always loved about the macs... my 700mhz G3 iBook still runs prefectly and with only 640mb of ram. It only has 10.3 but it actually runs better than it did the day I took it out of the box. I've been through about 5 batteries I use the damn thing so much, I just felt it was time to get into the new macbooks. I have an aluminum imac and I friggin love that thing, and my new notebook matches..lol

I did have one question about it though, if anyone knows... Since the new MBP's have dual graphics cards a la 9400m and 9600m GT I know that the NViDia boards that are in these things support Hybrid SLi and since it has the capability to run windows could one possibly take advantage of that? Maybe with the windows graphics drivers? I know mac only lets you choose between the two.
 

joyboytoy79

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I upgraded from a iBook G4, to a MacBook in april. The G4 still works great and Jason co-opted it to replace his failing Dell computer. I do love that I can run windows in Leopard using VMware Fusion. Not that I love windows, cuz I hate it, but there are some applications out there that are handy, but are windows-only. I really love that OSX has a near-nothing fail rate. My G4 crashed exactly 5 times, and that was because of a hardware malfunction (that apple fixed for me). When I used windows, it would crash once a week, minimum.
 

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DUDE! Best background EVAR!
Clean up that desktop, man; Macs are supposed to be uber neat and minimalist. That is 42% abomination. (Yes, I calculated.)


To XGX: ...no. These cards do not actually run in Hybrid SLI, the 9400M (in both Macbooks and Pros) serves as the northbridge and southbridge on one chip, making things flabbergastingly efficient compared to standard PC motherboards. (This is why a Dual Core iMac @ 2.4 GHz with this tech. can outperform my Q9550 on a standard Dell mobo (sigh)) Anywho, this chip ALSO pulls the weight of being the GPU in the Macbook in the entire freaking Mac Lineup. (Yes, it is THAT powerful) However, all down the line (except in the Mac Mini and Macbook) when you activate the more powerful GPU solution, all GPU work is shunted to that chip, leaving the 9400M core with the IO tasks. While virtualizing, both (or just the 9400M) are (is) shared by both sides. So no, you cannot just make windows use the 9600M chip only, and leave Mac with the 9400M, as the windows side would have no northbridge or southbridge. (*KABOOM*)

Why? Just because windows is a bitch like that.

JK, that last line about windows has zero credibility. I cant back that one up.
 
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Dorian_Gray

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DUDE! Best background EVAR!
Clean up that desktop, man; Macs are supposed to be uber neat and minimalist. That is 42% abomination. (Yes, I calculated.)


To XGX: ...no. These cards do not actually run in Hybrid SLI, the 9400M (in both Macbooks and Pros) serves as the northbridge and southbridge on one chip, making things flabbergastingly efficient compared to standard PC motherboards. (This is why a Dual Core iMac @ 2.4 GHz with this tech. can outperform my Q9550 on a standard Dell mobo (sigh)) Anywho, this chip ALSO pulls the weight of being the GPU in the Macbook in the entire freaking Mac Lineup. (Yes, it is THAT powerful) However, all down the line (except in the Mac Mini and Macbook) when you activate the more powerful GPU solution, all GPU work is shunted to that chip, leaving the 9400M core with the IO tasks. While virtualizing, both (or just the 9400M) are (is) shared by both sides. So no, you cannot just make windows use the 9600M chip only, and leave Mac with the 9400M, as the windows side would have no northbridge or southbridge. (*KABOOM*)

Why? Just because windows is a bitch like that.

JK, that last line about windows has zero credibility. I cant back that one up.

Interesting, I think that will be some functionality in snow leopard. Seeing as how it'll be focusing on GPGPU processing and Grand Central. Imagine playing COD 4 for mac and the 9600mGT handling the graphics while the 9400m would handle physics... that would be kick ass, I honestly don't know why they wouldn't include that functionality. Just make it to where if you don't have it on AC power the SLi wouldn't work... but no, we have to choose. I know it's in the hardware but you'd think apple would notice that.
 

splitface

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Just make it to where if you don't have it on AC power the SLi wouldn't work... but no, we have to choose. I know it's in the hardware but you'd think apple would notice that.

...eh? The MBP can run both cards on at the same time on battery power, It just drops the battery life significantly.:cool:

As for adding th feature you mentioned to Snow Leopard. Can you freaking imagine the hoops they would have to go through to code that? I mean, yeah, that would be kick ASS but extremely hard. :eek:
 

Dorian_Gray

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...eh? The MBP can run both cards on at the same time on battery power, It just drops the battery life significantly.:cool:

As for adding th feature you mentioned to Snow Leopard. Can you freaking imagine the hoops they would have to go through to code that? I mean, yeah, that would be kick ASS but extremely hard. :eek:

Nope, not on my MBP... I have to choose between the 9600 or 9400 and I have to log off to switch between the two. I mean they both have power, but both can't be utilized at the same time. I think it's all in the drivers. I don't really know that much about .kexts or I'd look into that, I do windows drivers. Primarily WIN7 at the moment.
 

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Congrats on the new mac. I would love to rationalize a new mac, but my dual G5 circa 2004 is still adequate - and I earn my living on it. I (ridiculously) still have every mac I have ever owned, including the Mac Plus I started with in 1986 - and they all still work, although I never use the old ones. I'm thinking the release of Snow Leopard may be the excuse I need to upgrade (after the kinks get worked out).
 

Dorian_Gray

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Congrats on the new mac. I would love to rationalize a new mac, but my dual G5 circa 2004 is still adequate - and I earn my living on it. I (ridiculously) still have every mac I have ever owned, including the Mac Plus I started with in 1986 - and they all still work, although I never use the old ones. I'm thinking the release of Snow Leopard may be the excuse I need to upgrade (after the kinks get worked out).

10.6.2 will be the release that I get it at. Because they had a few hiccups on 10.5. I stuck with 10.4.10 for forever. Oh and BTW... I loved my G5 right up until the fedex guy took it to it's new home. I had the quad 2.5 G5 and it was a beast literally... when I was doing something processor intensive, it literally sounded like it was fixing to start to lift off the floor. 9 cooling fans when spinning at full RPMs is something to witness..lol
 

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Nope, not on my MBP... I have to choose between the 9600 or 9400 and I have to log off to switch between the two. I mean they both have power, but both can't be utilized at the same time. I think it's all in the drivers. I don't really know that much about .kexts or I'd look into that, I do windows drivers. Primarily WIN7 at the moment.

NOW I see the root of you confusion. When you choose "Better Battery Life" or "Higher Performance", you are not choosing to deactivate the 9600M chip or the 9400M chip respectively. You are telling the OS to use the 9400M for graphics + IO duties or use the 9400M for IO and the 9600M for graphics.

The 9400M chip is ALWAYS on, and ALWAYS acting as the Northbridge and the Southbridge. It only takes care of the graphics when you tell it to.

lol. Trust me on this one, man.

/nerd.
 
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ZOS23xy

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Congrats on the new mac. I would love to rationalize a new mac, but my dual G5 circa 2004 is still adequate - and I earn my living on it. I (ridiculously) still have every mac I have ever owned, including the Mac Plus I started with in 1986 - and they all still work, although I never use the old ones. I'm thinking the release of Snow Leopard may be the excuse I need to upgrade (after the kinks get worked out).

I still have an Apple IIe somewhere in my house...I know what you mean. Mac will turn on and work five years later. So my house has some 16 computers in it. They worked so well and so much fun to deal with, it is like getting rid of a friend, or putting a dog down.
 

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I still have an Apple IIe somewhere in my house...I know what you mean. Mac will turn on and work five years later. So my house has some 16 computers in it. They worked so well and so much fun to deal with, it is like getting rid of a friend, or putting a dog down.

Wow! I've only got 9 macs (and a PC) in my house. When I added RAM to the Mac Plus, I noticed the signatures of the design team are molded to the inside of the case. I'm hoping that someday it will have some value as a collectible; otherwise, I'll feel like an idiot for keeping it around. I remember paying almost a thousand dollars for a 20 meg external hard drive for that machine.
 

Dorian_Gray

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NOW I see the root of you confusion. When you choose "Better Battery Life" or "Higher Performance", you are not choosing to deactivate the 9600M chip or the 9400M chip respectively. You are telling the OS to use the 9400M for graphics + IO duties or use the 9400M for IO and the 9600M for graphics.

The 9400M chip is ALWAYS on, and ALWAYS acting as the Northbridge and the Southbridge. It only takes care of the graphics when you tell it to.

lol. Trust me on this one, man.

/nerd.

That is a very interesting driver model. Putting the north and south bridge on a single chip is beautiful (literally and speed wise). 1600fsb in a notebook is insane.
 

ZOS23xy

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History of computers has that the initial board for an Apple I is valued. As is an Altaire Computer (the one you hooked up to a TV, it has two or three bits of memory. It sold fairly well in the sixties.) Apple made a large number of mistakes with the 1 Megabyte LISA, opting to bury a lot of them rather than given them away to schools for a tax break. They initially cost $10,000. There's small market for the computer, which will bring a $1000 or more.

This house doesn't just have Macs/Apples...my son in law has some IBM, my son has a Compaq, and there's a few the SIL hasn't unpacked. A couple of xBoxes and other platform games abound. I am not a game player and often find it difficult to get time for the computers...

I have all this stuff and hang out on a big dick board.
 

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I'm so glad I'm not the only Mac geek here. I just bought the Mini, to run as a "media center" on my new flat screen (Yay, tax return, and me doing my part to single-handedly revive the economy :rolleyes: ). The Mini is slick, but I had to do the 10.5.7 upgrade to somewhat combat the vid lags. I've seen others complain about this. It's the only time I seen this happen (anyone else?).

BTW, my SE/30 still fires up like a champ. :biggrin:
 

Dorian_Gray

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I'm so glad I'm not the only Mac geek here. I just bought the Mini, to run as a "media center" on my new flat screen (Yay, tax return, and me doing my part to single-handedly revive the economy :rolleyes: ). The Mini is slick, but I had to do the 10.5.7 upgrade to somewhat combat the vid lags. I've seen others complain about this. It's the only time I seen this happen (anyone else?).

BTW, my SE/30 still fires up like a champ. :biggrin:

I noticed the same thing after the .5.7 update... I didn't read the list of fixes, but the damn thing was 449mb. Thats quite large. Since the new mini and the macbooks have the same graphics processor, the 9400m, I could also say that I noticed a huge improvement in graphics performance after the update. My dock is no longer choppy and minimizing and maximizing windows is silky smooth now. I never though about it but since the new mini has been upgraded it would make an awesome media center... congrats.
 

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I want a mini or an iMac SO BAD. You honestly have NO clue. I am a virgin, and I would undoubtedly suck cock to get a pimped out mini or iMac.

<3 Macs forever. (sadly, I am stuck with a shitty as Dell right now.)
 
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I (ridiculously) still have every mac I have ever owned, including the Mac Plus I started with in 1986
wish I still had my Apple ][ bought in Feb 1978. it was s/n #1333... met Woz once and he said I was a real pioneer. Apple was located upstairs in a two-story building on Stevens Creek Blvd in San Jose; Bandley Drive and Infinity Loop came a lot later in its history. :usa2: