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• There’s not much to say about the Intel Core 2 Duo other than the fact that the switch to Intel was the best move Apple ever made. The combination of Intel’s Haifa design team and international manufacturing prowess has helped produce some of the best CPUs in the history of computing. The Penryn core found in the Core 2 Duo is made possible with the use of 45nm manufacturing technology and the use of hafnium rather than silicon. While Dell allows entry-level laptops to ship with Pentium Dual Core CPUs or older generation Merom-based Core 2 Duo processors, Apple sticks with the Penryn architecture for their entire product line, relying on the 3MB L2 cache models for the MacBook and giving the option of 6MB L2 for the MacBook Pro. Our entry-level MacBook features an Intel Core 2 Duo P7350 running at 2GHz. GeForce 9400M The motherboard is considerably more exciting as it is the first implementation of Nvidia’s GeForce 9400M G, which integrates the GeForce 9400M and MCP71 chipset into a single package. Like any modern chipset, the GeForce 9400M has a full complement of support for SATA 3 Gb/s, Gigabit Ethernet, and dual-channel DDR-3 support. Power consumption of the GeForce 9400M line is on par with Intel’s Centrino 2 architecture at idle, an impressive feat in itself given Intel’s renowned expertise in chipset design. Under heavy load, the GeForce 9400M actually consumes less power than the Intel G45 chipset and from a pure chipset perspective, the GeForce 9400M is a solid choice over the Intel design. The real magic happens with the graphics. While gaming enthusiasts will still want to invest in the faster GPU than what the MacBook Pro includes, the GeForce 9400M is a veritable GPU, adding considerable benefits to the system. From a pure gaming standpoint, the GPU is about half the performance of the GeForce 9600 GT. In practice, traditional GPU-intensive games such as Call of Duty 4 will run at ~30 frames per second at resolutions of 1024x768 at high quality settings. With the exception of games such as Crysis, it appears that the 9400M is capable of running most modern games at medium or high image quality settings at 30 fps or greater, making it perfectly suitable for casual gaming. For more information on the performance of Nvidia's desktop GeForce 9300 chipset, check out that review.  Importantly, the GeForce 9400M has the same quality capabilities as its faster discrete counterparts. It’s just slower. That means that the GeForce 9400M is perfectly suited for the GPU accelerated capabilities of Adobe Photoshop CS4, including anti-aliased text, smooth zoom, rotation, and brush resizing. The integrated Intel X4500, in contrast, lacks all of the OpenGL features required for the full complement of GPU accelerated features in Adobe Photoshop CS4, such as rotation. In the Windows environment, GPU-accelerated H.264 encoding for the iPhone target resolution is about 50% faster than a quad-core CPU. The GeForce 9400M also features Nvidia’s third-generation PureVideo technology. This means full HD Codec offload support for H.264, VC-1, and MPEG-2 including support for Blu-ray’s Picture-in-Picture capabilities as well as Nvidia's excellent image quality and advanced cadence detection and superb region-based deinterlacing. When Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard is released, we anticipate seeing more Mac applications taking advantage of the computing-on-GPU capabilities.

• Apple has come a mighty long way since the first release of Mac OS X. Things have developed nicely and the next version of OS X, Snow Leopard is being primed for release. Things I would love to see Apple do: Provide more up-to-date hardware upgrades. The Windows PC world has far better hardware than the Mac crowd and it’s frustrating. Apple needs to provide more graphics card upgrade options and be quick to make them available. This is why I still have my Windows PC on stand-by, for times when I need to take a stab at the latest games. Apple doesn’t need to support every graphics card out there on the market but it needs to make at least some of the cutting edge products available. Sound products for consumers are also very limited. I’d like to see a little more variety here. There are several options out there like the Azuntech X-Fi Prelude 7.1 which does Dolby Digital Live and DTS Interactive. Apple needs to take a step forward and start working with a select few like Azuntech to bring more flavor for its users or those considering a switch. As for processors, Apple’s selection of Intel Xeon and Core 2 processors are pretty much up there. No complaints in this department. Memory wise, Mac Pro users are stuck with using expensive ECC memory, although this is understood, Apple’s online Store prices memory upgrades at stratospheric prices. This brings us to Apple’s pricing for upgrades and options. Most people already feel that a ticket into a Mac platform is already expensive and understandably so — an equivalent Dell laptop with similar specs to a middle of the ground MacBook Pro costs significantly less. But even if a customer already wants to buy a Mac, prices for options at order-time are ridiculously insane and need to be reduced to more real-world prices. Apple’s 750 GB SATA option for a Mac Pro costs $300 compared to a Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3750640AS 750 GB which costs just $119.99 at Newegg. C’mon Apple. Apple’s got an 8-percent market share now and boasted that it’s the third largest U.S. manufacturer of computers means that it needs to get real with pricing schemes if it wants to poach more users from the Windows world.

• Windows isn’t simply a choice for cheapskates or the ignorant. Once you set aside the security issue, Windows PCs remain one of the most technologically advanced platforms. Only Windows offers the constant evolution of new hardware and software. Want the latest Nvidia or AMD graphics card? Just plop it in. Want to activate the PhysX capabilities of your GeForce card? Just install new drivers. The 64-bit transition will also be a hallmark of the Windows platform. We’re already seeing 64-bit computing enter the mainstream. Dell and HP are now shipping notebooks and desktops with Vista x64 installed by default. For the average consumer, the transition to 64-bit means a more stable operating system. The gap between x64 and x32 driver support is quickly closing down although some popular devices such as digital cameras still lack x64 support. Mac OS X used to be the platform of choice for the graphics professional, but things may change in 2009 thanks to Adobe CS4. With professional digital still cameras producing increasingly large files, and 4K video becoming more popular, even for independent studios, the need for >4 GB support is clear. The 64-bit version of Adobe CS4 only supports Windows Vista–Mac users have to wait until CS5. In addition, Adobe Creative Suite 4 also marks the dawn of visual computing for the independent professional. Advanced effects and H.264 transcoding will all be accelerated on the GPU, and companies such as Nvidia are already developing optimized hardware for this market such as the Quadro CX. If I wanted the best system for Adobe CS4 today, I would spec a Windows Vista x64 machine with a pair of Intel Core 2 Quad or Xeon CPUs, the Nvidia Quadro CX, and an HP Dreamcolor LP2480zx running 10-bit DisplayPort. There’s nothing from Apple that can come close. The release of Snow Leopard (Mac OS X 10.6) may provide improved GPU capabilities, but that still doesn’t address the 64-bit limitation of Adobe CS4 on Mac OS X, or my ability to throw a faster AMD GPU or a GeForce “CX2” as they are released. The Windows Color System is a very sophisticated platform based on Canon’s Kyuanos technology, which improves the capabilities of color correction including expanded dynamic range (beyond 32-bits per channel) and extended gamut (beyond three-color channels). In the real-world, this is less effective because the majority of devices still run traditional color management features. Windows Vista also introduced a new printing system (XPS), which for practical purposes, means that 16-bit color processing can be achieved with Canon photo printers. Mac OS X has the edge in “real-world” color management in the sense that monitor profiles are automatically loaded and 16-bit printing support is available for both Epson and Canon printers. Windows Vista’s Future Remains Bright It doesn’t matter that some companies are choosing to stick with Windows XP, that more and more college students are switching to a Mac, or that Microsoft continues to patch critical vulnerabilities on a regular basis. For all the grandstanding, marketing, and finger pointing that exists, Windows will continue to be the dominant desktop operating system in the years to come. It covers all the bases: from the computer novice on a tight budget who walks into a Best Buy to the uber-geek who wants the more powerful system for gaming or multimedia creation. Even so, Windows will continue to see its market share dwindle over time. This is not a reflection of any inherent failure in Windows, but the simple fact that it’s virtually impossible to gain market share in a world that’s already saturated.