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More specifics: 15-inch to be top model, with a 2560 x 1600 retina display. (old model was 1440 by 900) Performance will be nearly 20% higher than the old model, with a 2.7GHz 4-core Ivy Bridge processor. See the Geekbench entry for benchmarks and components. No Ethernet jack, the new model is too thin but it will have USB 3.0, and a converter dongle to Ethernet is available. Nvidia graphics chip is likely. The higher-res screen has an extra $92 parts cost which will likely be passed on, plus profit.

Benchmarks, benchmarketing, if you want some non-rigged results take a look at Geekbench. I see that an AMD system was top of the chart for over 9 months and after many thousands of submissions from Intel and IBM users: http://browse.geekbench.ca/geekbench2/top

I really don't get this, GeekBench has been around - on all three major platforms for several years...
It has a results browser too - http://browse.geekbench.ca/

Yeah, but it's got a Canadian domain. Who wants to go to a ca site? Mostly joking, but you know there's some truth to this, stupid as it may be.

So what is the best benchmark (however that is defined)?

Phoronix test suite

The venerable UnixBench BYTE magazine lineage, updated by Yahoo.

Geekbench

I really don't get this, GeekBench has been around - on all three major platforms for several years...
It has a results browser too - http://browse.geekbench.ca/

1) Your laptop isn't a laptop if it's got a 95W desktop CPU in it.
2) Actually, you need to remember sandy bridge is a complete architecture redesign –it may still be called i7, but it's as big a jump as from Core2 to i7 was. The result of this is that actually, that i7-2720qm indeed isn't close to how fast your i7 960 is – but not for the reason you think – it's because it's so much faster than it!

Benchmarks
i7 960 at stock clock – about 8300
MacBook Pro 15" at stock clock – about 11000

1) Your laptop isn't a laptop if it's got a 95W desktop CPU in it.
2) Actually, you need to remember sandy bridge is a complete architecture redesign –it may still be called i7, but it's as big a jump as from Core2 to i7 was. The result of this is that actually, that i7-2720qm indeed isn't close to how fast your i7 960 is – but not for the reason you think – it's because it's so much faster than it!

Benchmarks
i7 960 at stock clock – about 8300
MacBook Pro 15" at stock clock – about 11000

It may have a faster clock speed than the 11" MacBook Air but it does *not* have a faster processor. Your Aspire One has an Atom processor while the 11" Air has a Core 2 Duo processor, which does more, clock for clock. Looking at the GeekBench Results Browser, It looks like the 11" Air scores are at least double what your Aspire One's score would be.

http://browse.geekbench.ca/geekbench2/view/198947

The discussion was comparing blades to minis on the basis of cost, not density, but if you want to talk density...

Well, the cost argument works just as well for rackmount machines. An appropriately specced 1U rackmount is about $6.5k. 8 Mac Minis is about $8k.

I've just measured the rack in my garage - it's 30" deep by 19" across, and a mac mini fits handily into a 7" square by 4 holes in the rack with space to spare. 6U is 18 holes, so I can get 4 slide-out racks of minis into 6U, and 8 minis (including PSUs and wiring) per rack in a 2-across by 4 deep configuration. That's a total of 8x4x2 CPUs (because they're core-2 duos in the mini), or 64 CPUs.

Yes. I estimated you'd get about 8 Minis per 2U. You've measured it out at about 8 Minis per 1.5U - though I suspect you'd have trouble keeping the density you're talking about properly cooled, given the lack of high-volume forced cooling in the Mini. The ones at the upper rear of the rack, in particular, would suffer.

I'm getting less and less convinced about the need for keeping computers cool, and it seems I'm not alone. Certainly the linux boxes in my garage (which isn't at all cooled) have had no problems over the Summer here in the Bay Area. Those boxes suck a *lot* more power than the minis and run a *lot* hotter.

Actually, it works out extremely well. Those rackmount servers have Nehalem based CPUs, which are roughly twice as fast as Core 2 CPUs at the same clock speed. Even being conservative, the 48 cores in 6U of rackmount servers will be quite a bit faster than the 64 cores in the Minis. The same is true of using Xserves, though the price comparison probably won't be quite as favourable.

I include part of my other post below

Sometimes good things come in small packages. The Nehalem chips *are* better chips, but core-for-core they're nowhere near 2x as fast (let alone the ridiculous 10x as fast!).

I invite you to look at the mac-mini benchmarks (which are obviously the right ones :) and the MacPro2,1 benchmarks (which use the same processor, and run slightly faster than the blades above). Here's a summary of the relative ratios for different types of computing:

• Integer. 7127 : 3162. E5405 is 2.25x
• Floating point: 11849 : 4927. E4505 is 2.4x
• Memory: 2752 : 2650. E4505 is 1.03x
• Stream: 2062 : 1912. E4505 is 1.07x

Bear in mind that the E4505 above is a dual quad core, and the mini is just a dual-core when you compare these. Also bear in mind that they're weighted averages - in some of the individual tests, the E5405 is almost 4x the speed.

Given that the minis are matching (or beating) the number of cores you're talking about, I'd say the advantage is on the mini's side, not the 1U servers. Odd but true.

The thing is, a Mac Mini is not designed to be a 24/7 server. It also lacks numerous "standard" server features like power supply redundancy, remote management capabilities, and hot-swap hard disks. A Mini comes with a 1 year warranty standard, while even a low-end Dell server will come with a 3 year warranty. A Mini is difficult and time-consuming to service. A typical rackmount is trivial to break down and nearly any arbitrary component can be replaced in a matter of minutes.

It's only anecdotal, but I have had a mini running almost constantly 24/7 for a few years now, almost constantly under load since it does the image-processing for network cameras linked up inside the house and garage. Traditional servers are designed around performance and they run hot, therefore needing all this industrial design to keep them c

The discussion was comparing blades to minis on the basis of cost, not density, but if you want to talk density...

Well, the cost argument works just as well for rackmount machines. An appropriately specced 1U rackmount is about $6.5k. 8 Mac Minis is about $8k.

I've just measured the rack in my garage - it's 30" deep by 19" across, and a mac mini fits handily into a 7" square by 4 holes in the rack with space to spare. 6U is 18 holes, so I can get 4 slide-out racks of minis into 6U, and 8 minis (including PSUs and wiring) per rack in a 2-across by 4 deep configuration. That's a total of 8x4x2 CPUs (because they're core-2 duos in the mini), or 64 CPUs.

Yes. I estimated you'd get about 8 Minis per 2U. You've measured it out at about 8 Minis per 1.5U - though I suspect you'd have trouble keeping the density you're talking about properly cooled, given the lack of high-volume forced cooling in the Mini. The ones at the upper rear of the rack, in particular, would suffer.

I'm getting less and less convinced about the need for keeping computers cool, and it seems I'm not alone. Certainly the linux boxes in my garage (which isn't at all cooled) have had no problems over the Summer here in the Bay Area. Those boxes suck a *lot* more power than the minis and run a *lot* hotter.

Actually, it works out extremely well. Those rackmount servers have Nehalem based CPUs, which are roughly twice as fast as Core 2 CPUs at the same clock speed. Even being conservative, the 48 cores in 6U of rackmount servers will be quite a bit faster than the 64 cores in the Minis. The same is true of using Xserves, though the price comparison probably won't be quite as favourable.

I include part of my other post below

Sometimes good things come in small packages. The Nehalem chips *are* better chips, but core-for-core they're nowhere near 2x as fast (let alone the ridiculous 10x as fast!).

I invite you to look at the mac-mini benchmarks (which are obviously the right ones :) and the MacPro2,1 benchmarks (which use the same processor, and run slightly faster than the blades above). Here's a summary of the relative ratios for different types of computing:

• Integer. 7127 : 3162. E5405 is 2.25x
• Floating point: 11849 : 4927. E4505 is 2.4x
• Memory: 2752 : 2650. E4505 is 1.03x
• Stream: 2062 : 1912. E4505 is 1.07x

Bear in mind that the E4505 above is a dual quad core, and the mini is just a dual-core when you compare these. Also bear in mind that they're weighted averages - in some of the individual tests, the E5405 is almost 4x the speed.

Given that the minis are matching (or beating) the number of cores you're talking about, I'd say the advantage is on the mini's side, not the 1U servers. Odd but true.

The thing is, a Mac Mini is not designed to be a 24/7 server. It also lacks numerous "standard" server features like power supply redundancy, remote management capabilities, and hot-swap hard disks. A Mini comes with a 1 year warranty standard, while even a low-end Dell server will come with a 3 year warranty. A Mini is difficult and time-consuming to service. A typical rackmount is trivial to break down and nearly any arbitrary component can be replaced in a matter of minutes.

It's only anecdotal, but I have had a mini running almost constantly 24/7 for a few years now, almost constantly under load since it does the image-processing for network cameras linked up inside the house and garage. Traditional servers are designed around performance and they run hot, therefore needing all this industrial design to keep them c

• Integer. 7127 : 3162. E5405 is 2.25x
• Floating point: 11849 : 4927. E4505 is 2.4x
• Memory: 2752 : 2650. E4505 is 1.03x
• Stream: 2062 : 1912. E4505 is 1.07x

Bear in mind that the E4505 above is a dual quad core, and the mini is just a dual-core when you compare these. Also bear in mind that they're weighted averages - in some of the individual tests, the E5405 is almost 4x the speed.

It's the law of diminishing returns, you get a lot of bang-for-the-buck at the lower end, and you pay increasingly more as you get towards the upper end.

Simon.

• Integer. 7127 : 3162. E5405 is 2.25x
• Floating point: 11849 : 4927. E4505 is 2.4x
• Memory: 2752 : 2650. E4505 is 1.03x
• Stream: 2062 : 1912. E4505 is 1.07x

Bear in mind that the E4505 above is a dual quad core, and the mini is just a dual-core when you compare these. Also bear in mind that they're weighted averages - in some of the individual tests, the E5405 is almost 4x the speed.

It's the law of diminishing returns, you get a lot of bang-for-the-buck at the lower end, and you pay increasingly more as you get towards the upper end.

Simon.