only 1.8 ghz

Is there a reason apple is only running their notebooks at 1.8 ghz max? I see other companies running with a anywhere from 2 - 2.26 ghz.

The reason is that Apple uses different processors in their notebooks then every one else. The chip they use is the G4 chip, which is old and will be slower then Intel/ADM chips (what everyone else is using). Apple also uses a new G5 chip in its desktops but that processor is way to big and hot for a notebook. But the Apple laptops are going to be getting a lot faster due to the switch to Intel chips. Now you may be asking well then why is the MacBook Pro only 1.83 GHz. Well that is because Apple is looking at the grand scheme of things, the processor speed isn't really all that important in the reality of things. What really matters is the bus speed, your processor can only be as useful as how fast you can put information into it. With the slower processors you also get better battery life, the laptops that have 2.26 GHz processors have horrible battery life and again you have all that wasted speed of the processor due to the slow bus speed. To sum it up; the processor speed is more of a "advertising point" rather than an important number now, you must look at all the speeds (RAM, bus speed, ect.)

I hope that explains it for you

--Cheers

Yea it does explain alot, i know exacly what you mean by an advertising point as well. So do the macbook pros match up to the competition of the other notebook brands out there. Such as a toshiba or dell?

The Mac Book Pro is a Dual Core CPU. (aka 2 CPU's in 1 chip) The current lineup of Windows Laptops are running Centrino Pentium M Single core CPU's or worse P4 or Celeron based. The Dual core is the next Generation up from the Pentium M. High CPU cycles does not mean faster performance when comparing a Dual Core Intel (Aka Yonah) to Pentium M, P4 etc.

Dell has also started selling Laptops with the Dual Core CPU and they too are only offering 1.6 and 1.8 Ghz versions.

Gordy77 said:

Yea it does explain alot, i know exacly what you mean by an advertising point as well. So do the macbook pros match up to the competition of the other notebook brands out there. Such as a toshiba or dell?

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I haven't had a chance to use one and I haven't read any comparisons between their speed and that of PC notebooks (mostly because no one has any MacBook Pros yet) but I would imagine that the mac speeds would be close if not better (assuming that the PC is dual core too)

Intel, as well as the rest of the world, is starting to advertise less and less on Ghz speed. Steve Jobs had to explain it to us with the PowerPC chips. Intel used to be able to say "3.2 ghz" and people would go crazy, but when AMD came around and proved that even if an AMD chip says 2.2 Ghz it will own any Intel. What's starting to matter now is 64bit.. b/c most of AMD chips being stuffed into boxes are 64 bit and it is quickly becoming the new standard.

I guarantee that MBPs will get the Merom chip, which is a Dual core 64 bit mobile chip. That will come out late summer, if memory serves me correctly.

Pierre said:

Intel, as well as the rest of the world, is starting to advertise less and less on Ghz speed. Steve Jobs had to explain it to us with the PowerPC chips. Intel used to be able to say "3.2 ghz" and people would go crazy, but when AMD came around and proved that even if an AMD chip says 2.2 Ghz it will own any Intel. What's starting to matter now is 64bit.. b/c most of AMD chips being stuffed into boxes are 64 bit and it is quickly becoming the new standard.

I guarantee that MBPs will get the Merom chip, which is a Dual core 64 bit mobile chip. That will come out late summer, if memory serves me correctly.

Click to expand...

Regarding processor speeds, normal chips (Pentium 4, Pentium M, etc.) between 2ghz and 2.8ghz feel about the same. The only one that has felt different to me is the 2ghz Athlon 64 Mobile chip in my laptop, which has killed everything else I've used. It creams my 2.8ghz P4 desktop, no question. Also, as mentioned above, the MacBook Pro's proc is dual-core, which will make a nice difference in the upcoming Universal software releases.

Then there's the battey life concern. Adding 400mhz+ the the processor would add more drain to the battery than the 1.83ghz version would. How much exactly, I don't know. But you also have to understand that there are heat and weight issues, too. The faster the processor, the more heat it generates. They've got it in a 5.6-pound box at about an inch thick. My a64 laptop is 1.6" thick and weighs 7.5 pounds. That doesn't sound like a lot more, but it feels like the kitchen sink compared to a Mac laptop. They've done an excellent job designing everything to work well. My laptop has a sub-2 hour battery life; the MacBook will probably have an extra hour or two over that.