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MacBook Pros Upgraded and Shipped

Moby Cock writes "Apple Insider is reporting that Apple has started shipping the new MacBook Pro with an upgrade to the CPU clock speed. The two models now sport 1.83 GHz and 2.0 GHz Core Duos (up from 1.67 GHz and 1.83 GHz). A 2.16 GHz upgrade is also available. The price point remains the same." Dear Apple: Slashdot needs to review 5 of these indefinitely. Thank you XOXO ;) Seriously, i'm waiting for someone to give good benchmarks on these- especially testing for Warcraft. Now that it has a new Universal Binary I can't wait to see how it holds up against a modern windows machine.

18 of 467 comments (clear)

  1. Great! by FunctionalMethod · · Score: 5, Funny

    So that means it is 6 times faster right? RIGHT?

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    -- TRUST ME! I KNOW WHAT I'M DOING!
  2. So many upgrades, so little time. by Mattness · · Score: 5, Funny

    I was just warming up to the idea of a 1.8 this 2.16 Ghz is gonna take some getting used to. Can I handle that much speed?

  3. WoW by gEvil+(beta) · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Ahhh. WoW - the single most important universal binary released so far. I hope Blizzard listens to their customers and releases universal binaries of thier existing OS X compatible games (WC3, SC, Diablo2). With regards to the story, cool that Apple bumped everyone up a notch on the speed pole for free.

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    This guy's the limit!
    1. Re:WoW by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      I wouldn't hold your breath. Blizzard has already said (can't find the link) basically that you can use Rosetta for all their other OS X games. If you want to install Starcraft or Diablo 2, they tell you to download the OS X installer.

      They've implied that there will be no fat binaries for their existing games other than WOW.

      I'm not too upset, and I play a Warcraft 3 custom map almost daily. I really haven't noticed any speed issues, but it does crash sometimes.

  4. I can't wait until you guys realize by cyberbian · · Score: 5, Interesting

    That there's a TPM chip installed shipping enabled, with no end-user controls to verify the trust settings match the security context in which it's installed. Like my maxed out iMac Core Duo... Privacy Commissioner in T-10 days... still no response from Apple Privacy... Check the documentation http://www.trustedcomputinggroup.org/specs/bestpra ctices/ You'll see what I mean... Caveat Emptor.

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    if I claimed I was emperor just because some watery tart lobbed a scimitar at me they'd put me away!
    1. Re:I can't wait until you guys realize by Pope · · Score: 5, Funny

      OK, so you can't get the TPM reports for another 10 days, that's fine. The important question is could you just go ahead and use the new cover sheets? That'd be great, thanks.

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      It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
  5. Re:what about preorders? by mccalli · · Score: 5, Informative
    ppened to the people who preordered a 1.66GHz for the same price as the 1.83 when they hard launched? Did they get the prototype they ordered or the real deal? Note to self: never preorder new tech!

    macrumor.com says that they're getting the upgraded model.

    Cheers,
    Ian

  6. Why, kiddies? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Does anyone else here get the irony of /.-ers spending virtual lifetimes bashing 'Doze, hating every byte of M$ kruftware, and yearning for an environmental catastrophe in Redmond, then getting all excited about the potential of running XP on a new MacBook?

    Am I alone here when I utter a collossal WTF?

    Now, I do think native speed virtualization would be a major boon for the platform. And, yes, native x86/DirectX gaming on a Mac would be nice.

    However, with all of the talk about Mac performance gap, *NIX on the desktop, Win Sux, etc, one would think that the community would get very excited about fast portable, Darwin on dual-core, i.e all of the great native things already going on, and more extensible than Doze will ever be.

    Yet, what we hear is crying that, unless it runs Windoze, it is useless or somehow disappointing. WTF, again I ask.

    My 550 TiBook is a classic piece of machinery, like the NeXT Cube (got one), Sparc 10/20 (got two), the compact Mac (got two), and other timeless designs.

    These new machines signal new life for Apple's manufacturing, and innovation for years to come, thanks to a high-speed portable line and its revenue stream. Get excited about that!

    First time I see someone booting XP on a Mac, I'm gonna kick them in the nuts, Roshambo style.

  7. Battery life? by merdaccia · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Does anyone have any idea what the battery life of these things are? It was previously unannounced because they were still testing pre-shipping versions. Well, now they're shipping. And the only thing on the technical specs page is a footnote that says

    1. Battery life depends on configuration and use.

    Yeah, that helps.

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    *blinking cursor*

  8. Price Drops? by richdun · · Score: 5, Interesting

    So, we all know that Intel releases incremental speed bumps nearly every quarter or even more frequently, and this seems to have worked well for Apple here. But what about the quarterly (or more) price drops? A series of cuts is scheduled for the Pentium D over April and Q3 2006 that will almost half some prices. Will Apple catch things into even better margins, or will we see much more quickly update specs AND prices?

  9. That is an exceedingly bad idea. by jcr · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Wait for VPC or VMWare. Letting Windows boot your hardware is just begging for a world of pain.

    -jcr

    --
    The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
  10. Re:OS is not everything by Bazzalisk · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Yes we know that macbooks aren't exactly cheap ... and nor are gaming capable PC laptops -- they come out quite comparable pricewise. You certainly can't buy a PC laptop with all of the features of the MacBook for much less than the MacBook costs.

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    James P. Barrett
  11. Re:Happy with Windows machines by Golias · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So my question is, why should I switch?

    My question is, why should we care?

    If you're actually happy with your Windows box, good for you. Why even post in this thread?

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    Information wants to be anthropomorphized.

  12. 64 bit by dusanv · · Score: 5, Interesting

    You do realize these laptops are 32 bit only? The 64 bit portable CPU (Merom core) will be available by year end (together with the matching desktop core - Conroe). It also seems that the current core (Yonah) has 64 bit instruction set support (AMD64/EMT64/x86-64, whatever you want to call it) although it has been disabled by Intel. The interesting bit for me will be the upcoming iBook. I want to see how Core Solo stacks up against the G4 (seeing that Duo doesn't really clean out the house against the single G5). I think there may be a couple of surprises.

  13. Re:More Important: What Doesn't Work by BurntNickel · · Score: 5, Informative

    As a long-time Mac user (with Macs at work) I am more interested in learning what doesn't work on the new Intel Macs than what does.

    Here is the compatibility report from MacInTouch. They have complied a quite a bit of reader feedback. There is also a report on Rosetta compatibility.

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    And the knowledge that they fear is a weapon to be used against them...
  14. Re:Now it makes me all more impatient by dasil003 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    While I like the specs of the new MacBooks, at their price point they don't quite cut it. Perhaps the second revision will make changes. Its just so hard to justify $600+ MacTax for 1lb of less weight and a few minor extras. Case in point CompUSA is selling an Acer duo, (1280x800 display x1400 graphics, 2GB memory, 120gb hdd, for 1299). While I understand that to some their is better engineering in the Mac I doubt the assembly lines used by either is much different). Yeah I know, its the software/experience/quality. There are levels to which all of us assign imporantance to these items. However most of it is opinion and we can all find pro and con examples to back our case. To me the justification of owning one of the new Intel based macs is being able to run any x86 OS.

    These machines are for the pro users; the people who need the absolute fastest Mac laptop they can get and they need it right now. If your livelihood is based directly on Mac platform then the MacTax is incidental. Personally I wouldn't recommend anyone getting a rev1 Mac of any type. You'll be better served by waiting til the intel ibooks are released anyway. Might as well at least wait until universal binaries are out for everything you use.

    I bought a top of the line PBG4 last May, and for the first time in my life I feel like I bought a machine at the best possible time. They've bumped the screen resolution and improved battery life, but that's basically the only improvement in 9 months. By the time I'm ready to upgrade they'll be deep into Intel revisions with every program universalized. This was not the case when I bought my Mac SE, Centris 610, Performa 6200, or even my G4 Tower. And don't get my started about my 286, or K6.

  15. Re:Faster, better, funner by mattsucks · · Score: 5, Funny

    So you are spending close to $2000 so you can have slightly better graphics in WarCraft? ;)

    You must be new here.

  16. Re:what about preorders? by Echnin · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Wow, being upgraded from 1.83 GHz to 2.0 GHz for free constitutes being "screwed" now. That's some way to twist it!

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    Lalala