OSNews: http://www.osnews.com/story/26104/Predicting_the_next_Mac_desktops Exploring the Future of Computing en-us Copyright 2001-2013, David Adams adam+nospam@osnews.com Fri, 24 May 2013 16:04:55 GMT http://www.osnews.com/images/osnews.gif OSNews.com http://www.osnews.com Other possibilities... http://www.osnews.com/thread?523365 http://www.osnews.com/thread?523365 Thunderbolt may only be 2 lanes per direction per port, at 10 Gbps per, but DisplayPort 1.2 can be 4 unidirectional lanes per port, at 5.4 Gbps per lane.

So, two DisplayPort 1.2 ports together can just do it, not using Thunderbolt at all.

And, what does the MBPR have? Two MiniDP/Thunderbolt ports. Wouldn't be surprised if they support DisplayPort 1.2.

Other thing is, there are display compression protocols - DisplayPort 1.3 supports panel self refresh, the beginning of such a protocol, and IBM was doing research on a standard for only doing updates over the video link (to allow cheaper video link hardware to drive their T221), which ended up being used as a low power video link (I can't recall the name of it (edit: DPVL, which actually inspired DisplayPort: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Packet_Video_Link ).Edited 2012-06-22 19:07 UTC Fri, 22 Jun 2012 18:56:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (bhtooefr) Comments Comment by robojerk http://www.osnews.com/thread?523366 http://www.osnews.com/thread?523366 deleteEdited 2012-06-22 19:02 UTC Fri, 22 Jun 2012 19:00:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (robojerk) Comments RE: Comment by robojerk http://www.osnews.com/thread?523370 http://www.osnews.com/thread?523370 It's probably not so much Intel is having problems with Thunderbolt on Xeon, but more along the lines of Thunderbolt is a non-option without on-CPU graphics, or at least excessively complex, considering the other options that are common on systems in Xeon's market vs. consumer market, i.e. Fibre Channel, 10Gbit networking, etc. Fri, 22 Jun 2012 19:06:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Drumhellar) Comments Apple is waiting for Xeons with on-CPU graphics. http://www.osnews.com/thread?523372 http://www.osnews.com/thread?523372 Apple is probably waiting for Xeons with on-CPU graphics. This would eliminate the difficulty of routing the PCIe available from the CPU or mainboard and the graphics from an add-in board to the same port.

With on-CPU graphics, it makes it much easier to add a thunderbolt port, and add-in graphics boards can still output via the integrated chip. Fri, 22 Jun 2012 19:11:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Drumhellar) Comments Comment by smashIt http://www.osnews.com/thread?523373 http://www.osnews.com/thread?523373 nice read but he is wrong on the retina-part

those displays have been around for more than 10 years now and the big question is not availability but price (and apple wants it cheap) Fri, 22 Jun 2012 19:19:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (smashIt) Comments Too inexpensive?!? http://www.osnews.com/thread?523401 http://www.osnews.com/thread?523401 Is that even proper english?!? What about "cheap enough" or, if you're swimming in money, "very cheap"?

But, nitpicking aside, credit where credit's due: not only can Marco Arment predict the future (at least when it comes to the next Macs) he must know a definition of "inexpensive" I wasn't previously aware of. I mean:

MacBook Air 11" starts at 1.049 Eur
MacBook Air 13" starts at 1.249 Eur
MacBook Pro 13" starts at 1.249 Eur

I won't argue whether they're worth every cent or not, and I agree that they can't probably be equipped with a Retina Display at that price point, but... "too inexpensive"?!? C'mon! ;-)


RT. Sat, 23 Jun 2012 00:03:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (karunko) Comments waiting for... http://www.osnews.com/thread?523439 http://www.osnews.com/thread?523439 Well, if they are waiting for tech enabling high-fps (100+) rendering on 24"+ retina displays with >1200 line resolution (needing to effectively render at least 2x that size iirc), that could be a long wait. Sat, 23 Jun 2012 06:22:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (l3v1) Comments Lame guesses are news now? http://www.osnews.com/thread?523461 http://www.osnews.com/thread?523461 Zero information provided .. Sat, 23 Jun 2012 12:47:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (kragil) Comments RE: Apple is waiting for Xeons with on-CPU graphics. http://www.osnews.com/thread?523484 http://www.osnews.com/thread?523484 Thunderbolt is basically a transceiver which allows PCI Express lanes to operate over longer distances.

I don't see why you think it would depend on the onboard graphics. Sat, 23 Jun 2012 16:11:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (tylerdurden) Comments RE[2]: Apple is waiting for Xeons with on-CPU graphics. http://www.osnews.com/thread?523493 http://www.osnews.com/thread?523493 Thunderbolt isn't just PCIe; the controller multiplexes PCIe and a DP video signal, then send it over the cable. It is this video signal that is used to drive displays, not the PCIe data. Sat, 23 Jun 2012 17:44:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Drumhellar) Comments RE: Comment by smashIt http://www.osnews.com/thread?523551 http://www.osnews.com/thread?523551
nice read but he is wrong on the retina-part

those displays have been around for more than 10 years now and the big question is not availability but price (and apple wants it cheap)


2880x1800 resolution displays in 15 inch form factor? There's never been a laptop display like that before.

1920x1200 (and more recently 1920x1080) has been the highest rez you could get on most laptops for 10 years or so, that actually became more rare over the past few years.

To get more than 1920x1200, you'd have to go to a 27 inch display usually (and most 27 inch displays are actually 1920x1200/1080). Sun, 24 Jun 2012 04:25:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (tony) Comments RE[2]: Comment by smashIt http://www.osnews.com/thread?523609 http://www.osnews.com/thread?523609
2880x1800 resolution displays in 15 inch form factor? There's never been a laptop display like that before.


the panel doesn't care if it's put into a stand-alone device or a laptop

but for the panel you can take a look at the ibm t220 from 2001
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_T220/T221 Sun, 24 Jun 2012 16:00:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (smashIt) Comments RE[3]: Apple is waiting for Xeons with on-CPU graphics. http://www.osnews.com/thread?523664 http://www.osnews.com/thread?523664 If anything the would implement thunderbolt as a connector coming off the graphics board, or having the PCH generate the displayport data from a PCI-e board. No one in their right mind would buy a Mac Pro class machine to run graphics off a crappy intel IGC. Mon, 25 Jun 2012 01:47:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (tylerdurden) Comments RE[4]: Apple is waiting for Xeons with on-CPU graphics. http://www.osnews.com/thread?523679 http://www.osnews.com/thread?523679 Well, using an add-in board for Thunderbolt would require either sacrificing some PCIe lanes for Thunderbolt, or using a slot design that is out of spec. Considering Apple's ongoing commitment to using open specs for their desktops (standard memory, ports, slots, etc etc), the latter isn't likely. The performance hit also makes the former unlikely as well.

Alternatively, an internal ribbon cable could carry DisplayPort data to a location to a pinout on the mainboard. However, this requires some messy, messy routing (Thunderbolt is already a complex beast to route on a mainboard on it's own), and is aesthetically ugly. Apple likes their Mac Pro internals to be aesthetically pleasing, too.

No, the likely scenario is something akin to nVidia's Optimus, or an enhanced version of Apple's own Switchable Graphics tech (Which is already part of OS X), or maybe something along the lines of BumbleBee (a Linux implementation of Optimus that isn't necessarily tied to nVidia tech). Basically, the CPU graphics is used for output, as well as rendering of OS graphics. However, the graphics card does the heavy lifting for more demanding tasks, but instead of outputting rendered graphics to the display, the output is directed to the integrated graphics, which then actually displays it.

Again, OSX already has this capability. This also has other benefits. When the user isn't doing anything that requires the graphics card, it can be put in a low power state, and only draw power when actually used. Mon, 25 Jun 2012 04:09:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Drumhellar) Comments RE[2]: Comment by smashIt http://www.osnews.com/thread?523753 http://www.osnews.com/thread?523753
1920x1200 (and more recently 1920x1080) has been the highest rez you could get on most laptops for 10 years or so, that actually became more rare over the past few years.

How exactly do you figure it became rarer? Mon, 25 Jun 2012 15:31:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (zima) Comments RE[5]: Apple is waiting for Xeons with on-CPU graphics. http://www.osnews.com/thread?523755 http://www.osnews.com/thread?523755
using an add-in board for Thunderbolt would require either sacrificing some PCIe lanes for Thunderbolt, or using a slot design that is out of spec. [...] The performance hit also makes the former unlikely as well.

Every time the effects of limiting GFX bus performance are tested over the years (within limits - like, "just" halving it), the differences turn out to be marginal at most...

It seems the push for higher speeds is more a "just in case" kind of thing. And/or a lingering legacy of AGP marketing claims (about outright usage of main memory as the primary place to store textures), which didn't really materialise. Mon, 25 Jun 2012 15:38:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (zima) Comments RE[6]: Apple is waiting for Xeons with on-CPU graphics. http://www.osnews.com/thread?523774 http://www.osnews.com/thread?523774 This is true. For graphics, cutting the bus down from 16 lanes to 8 doesn't have much of an effect (Are devices capable of operating on a number of PCIe lanes that isn't a power of two? Say, 14 lanes?), but I'm not sure that the same can be said about GPU computing. At least, I haven't seen any benchmarks testing the effects of reducing bandwidth for compute loads on GPUs. Mon, 25 Jun 2012 17:37:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Drumhellar) Comments RE[7]: Apple is waiting for Xeons with on-CPU graphics. http://www.osnews.com/thread?523782 http://www.osnews.com/thread?523782 I doubt it would be much different - after all, the GPGPU computations are of a kind similar in nature to graphics processing ...that's why we nowadays try to do them on GPUs in the first place.

Are devices capable of operating on a number of PCIe lanes that isn't a power of two? Say, 14 lanes?

Well, if you're really curious, that's nothing a small slice of duct tape can't answer ;p (but seriously, OTOH this could be just as well a drivers thing at most) Mon, 25 Jun 2012 19:17:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (zima) Comments RE[2]: Comment by smashIt http://www.osnews.com/thread?523831 http://www.osnews.com/thread?523831 You could get 15" the Thinkpad R50P, an NEC Versa Pro NX VA20S/AE or NEC LaVie G Type C at 2048x1536 a decade ago:
http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=555206
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=43774

So no, we are just now catching back up to where we where years ago with pixel density tech.

As for "most" laptops on the market today, They are running the pitiful resolution of 1366x768, not by choice of the buyer, but because the companies got very cheap and only offer that resolution unless you are paying for a gaming class notebook when even the most crappy of today's IGPs can handle a much higher resolution for non 3d tasks. You'd think they'd go for 1280x800 instead since at least then 720p video wouldn't look distorted by being stretched across pixels. Tue, 26 Jun 2012 06:55:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Kivada) Comments