Oh Dear, intel integrated graphics

[isgoed]

You have a link to anything to back that up? cube was responding to the Macintouch benchmarks which most certainly do not test the Core Duo Mini. There's also little reason to believe the Core Solo's hardware acceleration are remotely different from the Core Duo, unless far more is being done in software, even when, supposedly, using hardware acceleration, than should be being done.

I hope you're wrong and the Core Duo and Core Solo have equivalent "hardware" OpenGL speeds, because if you're not, it's worse than we thought.

My first claim (geForce 6200 versus Radeon 9200) was based on looking up scores in futuremarks compare section.

You are right about your hardware reasoning, but it is really an artificial problem you are creating. You are saying in fact that the great OpenGL performance of the Core Duo *CPU* is irrelevant because it is not a GPU. Who cares which unit does the processing as long as it is fast.

And let me clarify these results for you. The hardware lighting test requires a graphics card that support this feature. The fact is that the GMA950 does not have hardware acceleration for this, *but* the drivers for the card make any program assume that it does. Any call for a hardware lighting instruction gets intercepted by the driver and it instead applies a highly optimized software routine. Now for the Core Solo this pretend game actually yielded lower performace, but for the Core Duo the drivers were apparrently so optimized they could take full advantage of the second core. The core is so powerfull that it actually performs better than a dedicated graphics chip; even better than the x600 on a G5 imac. So wouldn't you be glad if you can actually use both chips of your core duo to such an extent that you are better off than with a dedicated card?

edit:
RECTIFICATION: My explanation is pointless, because I misread "iMac Core Duo" as "Mini Core Duo". Seems we have to wait untill someone else posts cinebench core duo results.

edit 2:
OK Cinebench results were actually already posted. They just barely beat the G4 Mini in the hardware test. Forget what I said about being better than a G5 iMac with an x600. Summary:

Software OpenGL
730 // iMac G5 iSight
981 // iMac Core Duo
427 // PowerPC Mini
869 // Mini Solo
1075 // Mini Duo

Hardware OpenGL
1075 // iMac G5 iSight
1687 // iMac Core Duo
530 // PowerPC Mini
438 // Mini Solo
545 // Mini Duo

Well at least the Core Duo Mini's software rendering is twice as fast as the Mini G4's hardware rendering

 

[peharri]

Y
Contrary to all intuition and reason, some people don't give a rat's butt if it runs Office well. And, of course, there are no reviews yet showing it won't do so anyway. It runs on my iMac with one core shut off. I'm sure it will run on a solo. Fast? No. Buy iWork. It's cheaper anyway.

iWork is a bundle of a desktop publisher and a slide show manager. It's not an office suite. And I'm sure Office runs, it just isn't going to be terribly usable. Like 3D games.

But, that's ok, I mean, some people don't give a rats arse about Office. Or Games. Or anything, actually. They just want a PC to... erm. They can get X-Boxes, right? Yeah, an X-Box to play games, a Dell to run Office, and a Mac mini to sit there and look pretty. That's the market.

I am saying that the ability to run 5-year-old (or older) apps is not a major consideration when I buy a new system, given that, in order to have such apps, I likely have an older system which will still run them just as well as it always did.

Again, not relevent to the point I was making. I'm trying, desperately, to find apps for users to run on their brand new, shiney, Mac mini Core Solos. And they're in short supply. It doesn't run much that's come out in the last year or so. It's too slow to run them. And even if we turn the clock back to a time when computers were much slower than Rosetta on a Core Solo is the equivalent of, we can't run those apps, because they need Classic. So where are the apps? What are you going to do with a $600 Mac mini, at least, this year?

The benchmarks don't seem to be on your side. Slower? Yes, at times, than a 1.5GHz G4. "Poorly" compared to much slower G4's? No.
Well, I guess we'll just have to see if Apple makes a profit on them. If they do, it was a good call for them to make them as they did.

The benchmarks suggest that the only reason the iMac Intel is faster than the iMac G5 is because they never upgraded the latter to the dual core version of the G5. Everything else is conjecture. We don't know if IBM, given the time, would have produced a mobile 970. As time moves on, it becomes more and more difficult to sustain the "Intel was necessary" argument, because everything ends up being compared not to what IBM would be doing if it was still developing the G5, but to the G5 in 2005.

Whatever the case, this isn't relevent. What's relevent is that the Mac mini Core Solo doesn't appear to be terribly useful, that, right now, it's underpowered. Like, it's actually harmful to the Mac's reputation. The Mac mini Core Duo is "ok", but its lack of serious graphics does, objectively, let it down.

My personal feeling is that the low-end Mac mini should have continued with the G4 for a year, while waiting for the Universal Binaries to come online. A Core Duo version should have been released now for the medium end, the $800 model pretty much as it is except with better graphics (and a slightly higher price, if necessary), just as with the iMac.

The Core Solo could have replaced the low end in 2007 (or earlier if, at the very least, Adobe and Microsoft got their professional stuff universalized by then.) There'd have been little risk of damaging the Mac mini's reputation, and market, had Apple done that.

 

[Macmadant]

iWork is a bundle of a desktop publisher and a slide show manager. It's not an office suite. And I'm sure Office runs, it just isn't going to be terribly usable. Like 3D games.

But, that's ok, I mean, some people don't give a rats arse about Office. Or Games. Or anything, actually. They just want a PC to... erm. They can get X-Boxes, right? Yeah, an X-Box to play games, a Dell to run Office, and a Mac mini to sit there and look pretty. That's the market.

Again, not relevent to the point I was making. I'm trying, desperately, to find apps for users to run on their brand new, shiney, Mac mini Core Solos. And they're in short supply. It doesn't run much that's come out in the last year or so. It's too slow to run them. And even if we turn the clock back to a time when computers were much slower than Rosetta on a Core Solo is the equivalent of, we can't run those apps, because they need Classic. So where are the apps? What are you going to do with a $600 Mac mini, at least, this year?

The benchmarks suggest that the only reason the iMac Intel is faster than the iMac G5 is because they never upgraded the latter to the dual core version of the G5. Everything else is conjecture. We don't know if IBM, given the time, would have produced a mobile 970. As time moves on, it becomes more and more difficult to sustain the "Intel was necessary" argument, because everything ends up being compared not to what IBM would be doing if it was still developing the G5, but to the G5 in 2005.

Whatever the case, this isn't relevent. What's relevent is that the Mac mini Core Solo doesn't appear to be terribly useful, that, right now, it's underpowered. Like, it's actually harmful to the Mac's reputation. The Mac mini Core Duo is "ok", but its lack of serious graphics does, objectively, let it down.

My personal feeling is that the low-end Mac mini should have continued with the G4 for a year, while waiting for the Universal Binaries to come online. A Core Duo version should have been released now for the medium end, the $800 model pretty much as it is except with better graphics (and a slightly higher price, if necessary), just as with the iMac.

The Core Solo could have replaced the low end in 2007 (or earlier if, at the very least, Adobe and Microsoft got their professional stuff universalized by then.) There'd have been little risk of damaging the Mac mini's reputation, and market, had Apple done that.

only skimmed through the above, i take it your against intel graphics, correct me if i'm wrong

 

[peharri]

You are right about your hardware reasoning, but it is really an artificial problem you are creating. You are saying in fact that the great OpenGL performance of the Core Duo *CPU* is irrelevant because it is not a GPU. Who cares which unit does the processing as long as it is fast.

We care, honestly, we do. The problem is that if the GPU isn't doing it, then the CPU is, which means the CPU isn't doing what it also has to do. You might be able to achieve a fly-through of a static map with this kind of power (and it very well may look awesome), but a modern game, for example, has a great deal of work going on behind the scenes.

I certainly hope the increased power of the Core Duo will reduce the problems imposed by the poorer GPU, but I doubt it'll make a massive difference. I've heard of cases where "minimum requirements" have been specified as a 800MHz Pentium for a machine with a decently accelerated graphics card, and a two or three GHz Pentium for a machine that uses "Integrated Intel Graphics." That's, admittedly, with older Intel chipsets, but it gives you some idea of the kind of strain we're looking at.

Of course, the other disappointment about this approach is that the $600 Mac mini has effectively had 64Mb knocked off its memory compared to the machine it replaces. But, that said, I wouldn't buy a Mac with less than a gigabyte these days anyway.

 

[kiwi-in-uk]

... That means no (modern, non-trivial) games. No Office X. No Photoshop. etc. ...

Wow.
So does that mean I should get rid of the software that I've been running for two years on my 1.33MHz PB because it won't run properly on a dual [edit: corrected: single] processor intel Mini?

Software like Office X/2004, iWork, iLife, PE3, VPC, Motion ...
Granted, some (like Motion) is slow, but it gets the job done when I need it to.

I guess I'd better tell all my clients and publishers that the work they received from my Office X/2004 was a figment of my imagination because it wasn't "terribly usable".

 

[peharri]

only skimmed through the above, i take it your against intel graphics, correct me if i'm wrong

No, I *love* Intel graphics. Especially their logo with the swirl thing. It's awesome. That font they use now is pretty good too, it looks kind of technical, yet it's also restrained, I'd almost even say friendly.

 

[jsw]

I'm trying, desperately, to find apps for users to run on their brand new, shiney, Mac mini Core Solos.

iLife.

Laugh if you will, but a lot of Mac buyers are perfectly content with just that.

 

[peharri]

Wow.
So does that mean I should get rid of the software that I've been running for two years on my 1.33MHz PB because it won't run properly on a dual processor Mini?

No. The dual core mini (which I assume is what you meant ;-) will run these applications perfectly ok, as I said. As I said, the Core Solo will have major problems. The Core Solo is the single core version, as the word "solo" implies.

I guess I'd better tell all my clients and publishers that the work they received from my Office X/2004 was a figment of my imagination because it wasn't "terribly usable".

You want to delete your "rebuttle"? I'll delete this if you do.

Edit: You're saying, if I understand this correctly, that I'm saying that the notion you've used Office X/2004 is a figment of your imagination if my comments about Rosetta crawling on a Mac mini Core Solo are true. I'm sorry, but I don't get it. How does the fact it's not terribly usable on Rosetta running on a Core Solo imply that you haven't done useful work on an entirely unrelated, G4 based, machine?

 

[kiwi-in-uk]

No. The dual core mini (which I assume is what you meant ;-) will run these applications perfectly ok, as I said. As I said, the Core Solo will have major problems. The Core Solo is the single core version, as the word "solo" implies.


You want to delete your "rebuttle"? I'll delete this if you do.

And you base your "major problems with Office X" assertion on what? Real life experience using a Core Solo on a day to day basis?

No thanks, I won't delete my "rebuttal". I think it was fairly clear what meaning I intended.

 

[generik]

Honestly, if Apple does a $999 version of the Core Duo version with decent graphics and a gig of RAM, I'll buy it. Maybe they'll listen to the criticisms and do that. I really hope they're not expecting people who want a combination of power and a small form factor to throw the latter out the window and get an iMac, 'cos the latter's just not going to work for me.

No thanks, save that $999 version of the mini for yourself, I for one would not have bought it at that price, unless all of that $200 went into the graphics solution used, and we all know it will be yet another case of "cost to Apple: $30, mark up price: $200"

 

[generik]

No. The dual core mini (which I assume is what you meant ;-) will run these applications perfectly ok, as I said. As I said, the Core Solo will[/b[ have major problems. The Core Solo is the single core version, as the word "solo" implies.

So.. what qualifications do you have?

PhD in computer science?

Because obviously you have not used the solo just yet as your post so brilliantly shows, which means what.. you are pulling statements literally out of your ass?

I doubt Microsoft Office will have major problems, Microsoft Office's CPU usage is probably around 1% most of the time, and even if Rosetta would somehow impose a 100% penalty it is probably... 2%!

Wow, huge performance impact!

 

[generik]

I certainly hope the increased power of the Core Duo will reduce the problems imposed by the poorer GPU, but I doubt it'll make a massive difference. I've heard of cases where "minimum requirements" have been specified as a 800MHz Pentium for a machine with a decently accelerated graphics card, and a two or three GHz Pentium for a machine that uses "Integrated Intel Graphics." That's, admittedly, with older Intel chipsets, but it gives you some idea of the kind of strain we're looking at.

You do realise that clock for clock the Pentium M (as with the Core obviously) is more powerful than the Pentium 4 right?

A 1.6Ghz P4 approximately equates to a 2.4Ghz P4 in benchmarks. A Duo... well if you have multithreaded tasks it should scale pretty nicely...

That's quite a fair bit of computational power right there, so please stop sprouting your opinion on how the solo will perform and bring us some concrete evidence of how it will perform.

I don't care about what you "doubt" or what you think "will" happen. The machine is right there, prove it.

 

[kiwi-in-uk]

I doubt Microsoft Office will have major problems, Microsoft Office's CPU usage is probably around 1% most of the time, and even if Rosetta would somehow impose a 100% penalty it is probably... 2%!

Pretty close.
The attached from my PB 1.33

 

[peharri]

So.. what qualifications do you have?

PhD in computer science?

Because obviously you have not used the solo just yet as your post so brilliantly shows, which means what.. you are pulling statements literally out of your ass?

I doubt Microsoft Office will have major problems, Microsoft Office's CPU usage is probably around 1% most of the time, and even if Rosetta would somehow impose a 100% penalty it is probably... 2%!

Wow, huge performance impact!

Personally I do have to use, from time to time, Office X on a 350MHz G3. It crawls. It's certainly not something I use unless I absolutely have to.

Rosetta has been extensively benchmarked. On a fast Core Duo, speeds approximately around 6-700MHz G3/4 speed are generally considered comparable. Rosetta is also well known to be heavily dependent on dual processors. It's reasonable to suggest that comparable speed to a 300MHz G3 is likely for Rosetta on a Core Solo.

Now, if you like, you can pretend that because Office X uses "1% of CPU" when idle, that means it's an absolute speed demon. I'm not sure I know anyone who'll agree with that assessment.

 

[peharri]

You do realise that clock for clock the Pentium M (as with the Core obviously) is more powerful than the Pentium 4 right?

A 1.6Ghz P4 approximately equates to a 2.4Ghz P4 in benchmarks. A Duo... well if you have multithreaded tasks it should scale pretty nicely...

That's quite a fair bit of computational power right there, so please stop sprouting your opinion on how the solo will perform and bring us some concrete evidence of how it will perform.

I don't care about what you "doubt" or what you think "will" happen. The machine is right there, prove it.

I'm not sure what point you're getting at, or how it relates to the text you quoted, except that you apparently don't like what I'm writing and want to argue against it somehow. Whether it's a Pentium M, a P4, a 6502, or a 4004, it's fairly clear that a program that requires an 800MHz version with hardware support, or a 2-3GHz version without it, gets substantial benefit from the hardware support.

Meanwhile, I know what I think, and what I hope, and I'm not sure it's anything but hypocritical to say my opinion doesn't matter until either of us have the hardware to test it. If mine doesn't matter, your's clearly doesn't either. Whatever. I clearly suck because I think the Mac mini Core Solo doesn't sound like a particularly useful machine compared to its predecessor, and as such, I've probably angered The Steve, and have little time to on this Earth left.

 

[peharri]

No thanks, save that $999 version of the mini for yourself, I for one would not have bought it at that price, unless all of that $200 went into the graphics solution used, and we all know it will be yet another case of "cost to Apple: $30, mark up price: $200"

I did say a gig of RAM. The $800 version has a mere half gig. $200 for good graphics and an extra half gig strikes me as reasonable. Not cheap, just reasonable. I don't buy Apple stuff because it's cheap, I buy it because it's a pleasant experience.

I don't think a $999 machine that:

* Runs OS X
* Runs a variety of software apps at an acceptable speed
* Is capable of running the latest mainstream games at acceptable frame rates.
* Can burn DVDs and otherwise be a good media center
* Has 802.11 and Bluetooth

is a bad deal at all.

 

[peharri]

And you base your "major problems with Office X" assertion on what? Real life experience using a Core Solo on a day to day basis?

No thanks, I won't delete my "rebuttal". I think it was fairly clear what meaning I intended.

No, alas, it wasn't. The fact I said Rosetta is slow on a Core Solo really doesn't in any way imply that native PowerPC programs run slow on 1.2GHz G4s, which appears to have been the assumption your comment was based upon.

I had offered to delete my comment because I thought I was genuinely correcting a misunderstanding about what I'd written that, on the face of it, was silly (ie you'd thought I was refering to Rosetta on a Core Duo, because initially that's what you wrote.) But, well, I'll leave it up now. Perhaps the misunderstanding is mine, but you're not explaining yourself terribly well. And please don't tell me I'm wrong because Office X only uses 1% of CPU when not in use!

 

[matticus008]

Core Solo is a bad choice. The right choice for the low end would be Celeron M.

Of course, this is assuming that the Celeron Ms to be released in April have the same packaging as the Cores. You couln't offer it today and use the same motherboard for Duos (and using the current Celeron Ms would result in an uglier installed base, as they don't have SSE3).

If they offer a Celeron M mini for $499 in April, everything will be fine in the CPU department (except for the inflated price difference between Solo and Duo).

Celeron M is an impossible choice! SSE3 is required by the OS or Rosetta doesn't work.

The thing with the 9200 is that it's old. The GMA950 supports that damned ripple effect that everyone whined about when Tiger came out. It supports CoreImage. It supports all reasonably current graphics technologies. Yeah, it sucks at significant hardware 3D. But as a low-end system, intended purchasers aren't buying it to push it to the limits. The 9200 is irrelevant because it just doesn't have the features Apple needs to move forward. This move lifted their bottom end considerably in terms of technology and will let them move on. Maybe an X300 will show up in the future, but thankfully they've cut the 9200 loose.

Gamers should know that the best bang for your buck is a console or a PC and shouldn't try to make Apple's cheapest computer outdo your "sweet gaming rig I put together for $700"...HD enthusiasts should know that if you want 1080p on your $3000 HDTV, you shouldn't buy the cheapest damn computer you can find. As a living-room PC for the huge majority (like 90% huge) of people, it has more than enough horsepower because they still have SDTV. As a gaming computer for the casual gamer, you can rate it as fine to mediocre. As a day-to-day computer for iLife and the internet, it's far beyond competent.

 

[NeuronBasher]

Rosetta has been extensively benchmarked. On a fast Core Duo, speeds approximately around 6-700MHz G3/4 speed are generally considered comparable. Rosetta is also well known to be heavily dependent on dual processors. It's reasonable to suggest that comparable speed to a 300MHz G3 is likely for Rosetta on a Core Solo.

Provide me a link that proves your assertion that Rosetta on a Core Duo performs like a 600-700 MHz G3/G4. Everything I have read seems to double your figures, comparing it to a 1.5 GHz Powerbook. I don't have anything to compare the performance on my machine with, other than my old G3 500 iBook, and that's not a comparison at all. Night and day, even under Rosetta. Likewise, the only non-Universal binary that I use is Office. Everything else I've needed to this point has been Universal or has had source available which I have compiled Universal.

 

[NeuronBasher]

You do realise that clock for clock the Pentium M (as with the Core obviously) is more powerful than the Pentium 4 right?

A 1.6Ghz P4 approximately equates to a 2.4Ghz P4 in benchmarks. A Duo... well if you have multithreaded tasks it should scale pretty nicely...

In my experience, you're selling the Pentium M short. A 1.6 GHz Pentium M feels faster than a 2.8 - 3.0 GHz Pentium 4, though I don't have the benchmarks to back this up, I only have subjective use.

 

[NeuronBasher]

I don't think a $999 machine that:

* Runs OS X
* Runs a variety of software apps at an acceptable speed
* Is capable of running the latest mainstream games at acceptable frame rates.
* Can burn DVDs and otherwise be a good media center
* Has 802.11 and Bluetooth

is a bad deal at all.

I agree. What it isn't, though, is a Mac Mini.

 

[kiwi-in-uk]

No, alas, it wasn't. The fact I said Rosetta is slow on a Core Solo really doesn't in any way imply that native PowerPC programs run slow on 1.2GHz G4s, which appears to have been the assumption your comment was based upon.

I had offered to delete my comment because I thought I was genuinely correcting a misunderstanding about what I'd written that, on the face of it, was silly (ie you'd thought I was refering to Rosetta on a Core Duo, because initially that's what you wrote.) But, well, I'll leave it up now. Perhaps the misunderstanding is mine, but you're not explaining yourself terribly well. And please don't tell me I'm wrong because Office X only uses 1% of CPU when not in use!

OK - no worries about the mistake - my fault for misreading.
However, this brief Anandtech test of Rosetta on Solo and Duo iMacs suggests that even though it was a limited test ... and in those machines there was little or no difference between the Solo and Duo.
The comparison was between an iMac G5 and the two iMac intels [edit: both 1.83] , each with 512MB, so an extrapolation to 1.5 Solo and 1.66 Duo Minis bumped to 1MB could be tenuous, but (given anecdotal evidence that Rosetta is a memory hog) there may be reason for you to be more optimistic.

I think we are all looking forward to real world assessments (and I am particularly interested in how Office will run - so I have been following your comments with interest).

Edit: my real concern, however, is the lack of VPC at the moment. While it is s-l-o-w on my 1.33 PB it is just adequate for my needs (MS Project and occasional Visio work) and I would be up a creek if I did not have access to it.

 

[cube]

Celeron M is an impossible choice! SSE3 is required by the OS or Rosetta doesn't work.

I said not the current Celeron M. But the ones coming in April.

 

[MacsomJRR]

I don't understand why people are using the words "Mac Mini" and "games" in the same sentence. Mini's are super cheap macs not OOTW gaming machines. C'mon people.

 

[thies]

I don't understand why people are using the words "Mac Mini" and "games" in the same sentence. Mini's are super cheap macs not OOTW gaming machines. C'mon people.

Might be because Apple has and continues to market them as capable for gaming purposes. I'd also not consider them to be super cheap anymore after the recent price increase to a minimum of 640eur.