E3 2013

[ChadTower]

"That's a valid point, shmokes...


....FOR ME TO POUPON!"

 

[ark_ader]

Hey Smokes they are hiring.  Maybe you can get your macbook instead of a retainer!

[Rigby]

If you were gonna buy a mac tower, then I see the merit in a thunderbird port. On a netbook? Its an annoyance that pushes you to toss cash down the shitter.

Ah, the old "if I don't need it, no one else does" argument.  I see your point, but it doesn't hold water.  General purpose PCs are called "general purpose" for a reason.  There are valid uses for a Macbook Air, just as there are for a Mac Pro, and the overwhelming majority of those valid uses will overlap.  The presence of a thunderbolt port is definitely among the common things which are fully valid on just about any computing platform.

[ChadTower]

What bugs me most, perhaps, is the stupid naming conventions Apple often gives stuff. 

Does that have USB?  Hell no!  It has Firewire!

How about HDMI?  Why would we want that when we can have Thunderbolt?!

 

[Vigo]

If you were gonna buy a mac tower, then I see the merit in a thunderbird port. On a netbook? Its an annoyance that pushes you to toss cash down the shitter.

Ah, the old "if I don't need it, no one else does" argument.  I see your point, but it doesn't hold water.  General purpose PCs are called "general purpose" for a reason.  There are valid uses for a Macbook Air, just as there are for a Mac Pro, and the overwhelming majority of those valid uses will overlap.  The presence of a thunderbolt port is definitely among the common things which are fully valid on just about any computing platform.

Well, I am actually directly addressing shmokes' case there. Although he seems to be just rifiling out random stuff he doesn't really want for arguments sake. I personally really look forward to ports becoming much more universal. I doubt the thunderstruck port will take off. Macs have bad juju when it comes to introducing new technology. I am guessing we will all be usb 4 (or whatever they are gonna name it) and hdmi 2.

What bugs me most, perhaps, is the stupid naming conventions Apple often gives stuff. 

Does that have USB?  Hell no!  It has Firewire!

How about HDMI?  Why would we want that when we can have Thunderbolt?!

 

Lets not forget when apple pushed to be the computer that would natively work with a Jaz drive.

[Howard_Casto]

Man I think we've backed poor Shmokes into a corner on this one because his replies aren't making any sense. 

thunderbolt vs hdmi+usb 3...... they both do EXACTLY the same thing, only thunderbolt adds several hundred dollars to the price with the benefit of less cabling. 

It's not a matter of "if I don't need it, no one else does"  it's a matter of "nobody needs it unless they were conned into buying ridiculously over-priced tb monitors". 

Mac ports rarely take off because they rarely make any sense design wise.  Firewire didn't catch on because you were sending 12v along a line normally connected to devices that run on 5v, which is rather dangerous considering how tiny and fiddly the connector was.  Not only that, but the 12v made hubs really expensive due to the fact that they all needed some kind of power management.  Usb2 comes along... just as fast as firewire, only it can run unpowered hubs that cost next to nothing.  Boom firewire is virtually dead.  Thunderbolt has a similar issue.  I do realize that at this point most data signals are full on digital, but tb supports vga and other various analog outputs.  Imagine trying to get a clean video signal with a hub holding a harddrive, a printer, and some weird chineese gadget you bought off the internet.  You wouldn't put your video cable on the same hub as your garbage devices you say?  So then you'd have two cables... one for video an another for devices... EXACTLY like you are doing now.     Video signals, even digital ones, need s fair amount of shielding and isolation.  Taking the data and dumping it into a hub that's handling a hdd or any number of devices not only creates a bottleneck, but it just doesn't make much sense.  I won't even get into the fact that it's an extension of the pci bus, which is a serious no-no. 

And there's the price of cables.  tb Ethernet.... 30 dollar minimum, ditto for video, ditto for general data.  So go ahead and add an extra 100 bucks for bare minimum connectivity. 

And I'll also remind you that if you insist on going the "one port to rule them all" route, usb 3.0 can handle video, ethernet, hdds and all your other stuff if you so desire.  You might have to buy an adaptor or two, but considering you'd be paying 30 bucks a cable the other way, it would even out.   

[shmokes]

And there's the price of cables.  tb Ethernet.... 30 dollar minimum, ditto for video, ditto for general data.  So go ahead and add an extra 100 bucks for bare minimum connectivity. 

And I'll also remind you that if you insist on going the "one port to rule them all" route, usb 3.0 can handle video, ethernet, hdds and all your other stuff if you so desire.  You might have to buy an adaptor or two, but considering you'd be paying 30 bucks a cable the other way, it would even out.

Where are you buying your cables, Best Buy? And USB 3.0 cannot handle video. Don't be absurd. It has half the bandwidth of HDMI. I mean . . . I get that it can handle video. So can USB 2.0. But you wouldn't use it as a port for driving serious monitors. It's got 1/2 the bandwidth of HDMI. And thunderbolt isn't meant to replace USB 3.0 anymore than eSATA is. It's meant to compliment it. Which it does rather well.

[shmokes]

I thought you were trying to trying to explain a sensible reason why a person would want a thundercat port on their mac netbook when trying to save money.

You continue to miss the point. You put HDMI on a list of things that were better about that laptop. Regardless of your personal port preference, Thunderbolt is indisputably the more premium part. Like, you may prefer fabric to leather car upholstery. But when you're writing a generally applicable list of the features that make one car objectively superior to another, it would be senseless to put fabric upholstery on the winning side. I get it. There are good reasons to have fabric, even if you prefer leather. It's cheaper, for example. But it, like HDMI, doesn't belong on that sort of list.

[Malenko]

You continue to miss the point. You put HDMI on a list of things that were better about that laptop. Regardless of your personal port preference, Thunderbolt is indisputably the more premium part.

Lets say thunderbolt is the cat's meow. Why cant the Macbook air have a thunderbolt port AND a VGA or HDMI port? I used to think an HDMI port on a laptop was pointless, till I started plugging it into my TV to watch movies. If I want to plug a macbook air into my TV I'd need to buy a $30 adapter (either VGA or HDMI), and that's just silly. Silliest part being those adapters probably cost about 30 cents to make, including labor. Worst case, Apple should toss an adapter or 2 in for free, they do have like 100 billion dollars in the bank.

[Rigby]

Lets say thunderbolt is the cat's meow. Why cant the Macbook air have a thunderbolt port AND a VGA or HDMI port? I used to think an HDMI port on a laptop was pointless, till I started plugging it into my TV to watch movies. If I want to plug a macbook air into my TV I'd need to buy a $30 adapter (either VGA or HDMI), and that's just silly. Silliest part being those adapters probably cost about 30 cents to make, including labor. Worst case, Apple should toss an adapter or 2 in for free, they do have like 100 billion dollars in the bank.

If your TV is so awesome that you must watch all movies on it, then you can afford the adapter.  Few people who own laptops connect them to a television.  Each adapter would indeed be cheap if they were provided by Apple, but the number of wasted adapters would be astronomical.

You're evaluating Apple's decision making as if it were based on your own.  It isn't.  Apple has its own motivations, and one of them is to push Thunderbolt.  Don't like it?  Don't buy one. 

Additionally, including a VGA adapter adds a lot of analog circuitry and physical thickness, and HDMI and DisplayPort require per-port royalties that Thunderbolt does not.

[Malenko]

If your TV is so awesome that you must watch all movies on it, then you can afford the adapter.  Few people who own laptops connect them to a television.  Each adapter would indeed be cheap if they were provided by Apple, but the number of wasted adapters would be astronomical.

You're evaluating Apple's decision making as if it were based on your own.  It isn't.  Apple has its own motivations, and one of them is to push Thunderbolt.  Don't like it?  Don't buy one. 

Additionally, including a VGA adapter adds a lot of analog circuitry and physical thickness, and HDMI and DisplayPort require per-port royalties that Thunderbolt does not.

Who wouldn't rather watch a movie on a big TV over a 13 to 19 screen? Affording an adapter isnt the point, the fact you have to buy one IS the point. As for royalties, the mark up on their hardware can MORE than cover that, as for physical thickness, an HDMI port wouldnt add any thickness to the macbook air. So both of your points are moot at best.

For the record, its an annual $10,000 fee and the cost per port is 15 cents, its 5 cents if you use the HDMI logo on the product and literature. its another penny off if you use HDCP protection, for a total of 4 cents per port.

[SNAAKE]

What bugs me most, perhaps, is the stupid naming conventions Apple often gives stuff. 

Does that have USB?  Hell no!  It has Firewire!

How about HDMI?  Why would we want that when we can have Thunderbolt?!

 

I didn't know about these names.....

[shmokes]

Seriously . . . I'll ask again, are you people buying your cables from Best Buy? Plugging a Macbook Air into an HDMI input does not cost $30.

[shmokes]

Frankly, with HDMI cable prices what they are, I'm surprised you guys would even consider a laptop with an HDMI port.

[Rigby]

Frankly, with HDMI cable prices what they are, I'm surprised you guys would even consider a laptop with an HDMI port.

i could kind of see your point until you said this.  i know you're being facetious but come on.  the cheapest TB cable vs. the most expensive HDMI cable, and ... ugh whatever.  keep fighting your silly internet fight and keep egging people on if you're going to do that, but be more clever about it.  make us wonder if you're ---smurfing--- with us, rather than making it obvious.

[shmokes]

I actually thought my post re: HDMI cable prices was obvious, but it was apparently more subtle than I thought.

[ark_ader]

Frankly, with HDMI cable prices what they are, I'm surprised you guys would even consider a laptop with an HDMI port.

i could kind of see your point until you said this.  i know you're being facetious but come on.  the cheapest TB cable vs. the most expensive HDMI cable, and ... ugh whatever.  keep fighting your silly internet fight and keep egging people on if you're going to do that, but be more clever about it.  make us wonder if you're ---smurfing--- with us, rather than making it obvious.

Please do not give Shmokes too much credit.

We will never hear the end of it.

 

[Malenko]

Seriously . . . I'll ask again, are you people buying your cables from Best Buy? Plugging a Macbook Air into an HDMI input does not cost $30.

I was actually going by Apple's website:


Then I realized they dont even list an HDMI adapter, but if they did it'd probably be $29 like everything else.

[ChadTower]

Few people who own laptops connect them to a television.

I do all the time.  There is lots of stuff that only streams from the internet that my family sits and watches on the TV.  My laptop is also the only DVD player left in the house other than the ones in desktops.  We moved almost exclusively to streaming two years ago.  Still need a DVD now and then and the laptop is it.

Of course, I still usa VGA, because it's easier than all of this other BS.

[knave]

Few people who own laptops connect them to a television.

I do all the time.  There is lots of stuff that only streams from the internet that my family sits and watches on the TV.  My laptop is also the only DVD player left in the house other than the ones in desktops.  We moved almost exclusively to streaming two years ago.  Still need a DVD now and then and the laptop is it.

Of course, I still usa VGA, because it's easier than all of this other BS.

Me too...I have a spare HDMI cable connected to my entertainment system. It takes me all of two seconds to plug in the Laptop via HDMI and have whatever I want on the big screen with surround sound. I would never buy a laptop without HDMI until there's a new standard.

[Vigo]

I do too. I keep randome HDMI cables shoved all over my house, because I am horrible when it comes to misplacing cables. It is nice pretty much keeping it all to HDMI vs component or anything else just for the mere fact that HDMI splitters are very intelligent and I like to plug in a million and one things into my tv.

As far as the Tropic ThunderPort goes, I know I would be misplacing my adapter all the time, or at the very least not bother taking it with me and happen to need it during travel. An HDMI port and cables can be found everywhere. A thunderclease cable? Just not gonna happen.

Just wait until you have that work presentation and need to connect to a projector, but then you realize you left your Thunderstick adaptor behind. "OK everyone, gather around my 11 inch monitor!"

Frankly, with HDMI cable prices what they are, I'm surprised you guys would even consider a laptop with an HDMI port.

i could kind of see your point until you said this.  i know you're being facetious but come on.  the cheapest TB cable vs. the most expensive HDMI cable, and ... ugh whatever.  keep fighting your silly internet fight and keep egging people on if you're going to do that, but be more clever about it.  make us wonder if you're ---smurfing--- with us, rather than making it obvious.

Please do not give Shmokes too much credit.

We will never hear the end of it.

 

 

[ark_ader]

I bought two ATI  cards one 5750 and a 7750 (they run cool) and both came with a display port.

Now I like my eye infinity setup with three monitors, but if I bought an active DP to VGA the cost was nearly the price of a Dell with a DP.

Having the Startech passive DP to VGA (I'm going to sound like a commercial) for $25 it works pretty darn well. 

Display ports are coming into their own right now, why confuse the market with another similar device (which may or may not be compatible with similar passive adapters)?

Is Apple intentionally trying to distance itself from PC customers that have expensive displays that re incompatible?  It reminds me of the old PowerMac days.

I use a spare laptop to fire a dual projector using VGA (I like 5 screens really) but soon I will have to convert to HDMI  and that scenario will be pretty expensive.

If I attempted to replaced my mac book with a newer model it would be too cost prohibitive from the outset.  And those USB to VGA adapters plain suck.

I haven't heard on the news that the economy has recovered  to afford the price of the latest Apple kit for the average American.   

[shmokes]

What cracks me up is that you guys aren't just bustin' my balls. In spite of my links to directly competing PCs from multiple manufacturers, in spite of Vigo's own suggestion costing $1100 with no touch screen and a generation-old processor (hence fully half as good battery-life and slightly lower performance), you will insist that the Apple product is, simply must be, somehow overpriced.

[Howard_Casto]

Well if you go by that single example instead of the multiple ones the rest of us posted.  I showed you one in the same class for only 700, and that wasn't even that good of a deal.

Also you insist that the windows version be a touch screen, which adds a LOT to the price, but the equivalent mac version... oh you don't need a touch screen on that one. 

Just for the record, I bought a 5 dollar, 10 FOOT hdmi cable for hooking my desktop to the tv across the room.  I've routinely bought more reasonably sides ones for 1-2 dollars.  Thunderbolt(s are go!  )  cables start at 30 bucks and as the others suggested the adaptors are 30 bucks, because, again it's a proprietary connector that apple almost exclusively sells from their own store.  Even in the cheap knock-off dept, the cheapest I could find was 11 and that doesn't include the cables you have to provide... so again, 30 bucks. 

It's OK if you want to buy a mac, but considering all the hidden costs, and the lack of cross-compatibility (unless you are running a mac desktop, in which case never mind), the lack of features and the fact that despite what you are saying about the only benefit is a slightly faster processor, yeah they are overpriced. 

[ark_ader]

According to Shmokes, buying an Apple computer is like buying a new truck.

If you can afford to purchase it, then the little expensive extras like tax and insurance is a non issue.

I just hope the new truck I will be buying when I am rich (one day) will not need additional wires to connect to an amp that are at least $100. 

 

[SithMaster]

For what its worth newegg has had free after rebates deals on various length redmere hdmi cables for the past two months.

Hey apple products are great.  So great that so many people have their products that one has to schedule an appointment and wait four days to talk to someone to get a charging cable replaced.  Somehow the next closest store had an opening tomorrow somehow.

[shmokes]

Thunderbolt(s are go!  )  cables start at 30 bucks and as the others suggested the adaptors are 30 bucks, because, again it's a proprietary connector that apple almost exclusively sells from their own store.  Even in the cheap knock-off dept, the cheapest I could find was 11 and that doesn't include the cables you have to provide... so again, 30 bucks. 
 

Howard, I swear you were either laughing your ass off as you typed that or you have brain damage. I responded to you the last time you said this. And since then I reiterated it for someone else's benefit. For the third time: no they don't.

And, again, Thunderbolt doesn't belong to Apple. It belongs to Intel. Apple was just the first manufacturer to use it. Just like some company was the first to put an HDMI port on a product. Also, Thunderbolt is no more proprietary than HDMI. It's owned, like HDMI, and to use it in your product you have to pay the owners a royalty, like HDMI.

[Howard_Casto]

And.... the only company to decide to use it was apple.  Doesn't matter who thought it up. 

[ark_ader]

And.... the only company to decide to use it was apple.  Doesn't matter who thought it up.

Don't get too carried away Howard   

[shmokes]

And.... the only company to decide to use it was apple.  Doesn't matter who thought it up.

It very much appears to matter to a number of people in this thread . . . but I can at least agree that, generally speaking, it shouldn't matter. Fanboys will be fanboys, though . . .

[Vigo]

in spite of Vigo's own suggestion costing $1100 with no touch screen and a generation-old processor

Hey man, that was listed for $800 when I posted it, and it will be $800 on off again. I only posted it because the specs mirrored the macbook completely. It's funny how all you can get on that laptop is that it also doesn't have a touchscreen, and that it has a previous gen processor. (I will talk about that later). You complain like a troll about computers with different specs and features and when I mention specs and features that are better than your precious macbook air, you say that it doesn't matter to you. Just another piece of horse crap argument like you saying you wanted to get dual ultra 4k monitors for your laptop, and then after I call you out, you say "Oh yeah, that was just hypothetical."

Whatever man, I'm not gonna get irked about it. You can sit and be the apple troll.

You lot all credibility regarding wanting to save money when you were talking about getting thunderpants monitors with a 700 dollar markup each monitor for being able to plug in your laptop without a converter. Yet at the same time you keep talking about how it is no big deal to get a cable converter for anything you need to plug in that port. You lost more credibility when I pointed out how a $250 laptop offers the same ability for a fraction of the cost. But you poopoo'ed it because it didn't have that ultra cool processor you like. (I will get to the processor you have a hard on for in just a second.)

You lost all credibility about what features are important when you said that its ok to have a mac without touchscreen support, because macOS is does not to take advantage of a touchscreen, but somehow on windows, it is uber important. You readily say your would rather have windows 8 in a heartbeat, but won't touch them because you would have to wait a few months for some haswell options to pop up. You lost further credibility when you failed to mention what you could be doing with this macbook that you couldn't do with a $250 netbook. You just voiced displeasure because they were not in the same "class" Just like any modern apple shill, you care about how you look holding the device more than what you can do with the device.

You lost all credibility on specs when you talk about a 4th gen i5 being faster and less power consuming than a 3rd gen i5. You seem to think that newer always equals better, but there is quite a bit out there showing how dead wrong you are.  The haswell overheats, doesn't offer a real speed increase, can't be overclocked without serious heat issues, and only consumes less power than a 3rd gen while idle. When actually processing, it drains battery life more that a previous generation cpu. Laptop manufacturers, apple included, are actually underclocking them to fit them into the battery life specs they want to achieve.

So if you really want a laptop that you need to be and idle to get those decent battery specs, that needs a converter cable to plug it into anything, does not offer a touchscreen, oh yeah, and is the size of an ant's pecker, then I guess you got me. That crappletop is definitely the way to go. All you need are some skinny jeans and lensless glasses and you are all set to look cool all day at the organic coffee hut. But in the meantime, quite making crap up, you don't have much credibility left.

[ark_ader]

in spite of Vigo's own suggestion costing $1100 with no touch screen and a generation-old processor

Hey man, that was listed for $800 when I posted it, and it will be $800 on off again. I only posted it because the specs mirrored the macbook completely. It's funny how all you can get on that laptop is that it also doesn't have a touchscreen, and that it has a previous gen processor. (I will talk about that later). You complain like a troll about computers with different specs and features and when I mention specs and features that are better than your precious macbook air, you say that it doesn't matter to you. Just another piece of horse crap argument like you saying you wanted to get dual ultra 4k monitors for your laptop, and then after I call you out, you say "Oh yeah, that was just hypothetical."

Whatever man, I'm not gonna get irked about it. You can sit and be the apple troll.

You lot all credibility regarding wanting to save money when you were talking about getting thunderpants monitors with a 700 dollar markup each monitor for being able to plug in your laptop without a converter. Yet at the same time you keep talking about how it is no big deal to get a cable converter for anything you need to plug in that port. You lost more credibility when I pointed out how a $250 laptop offers the same ability for a fraction of the cost. But you poopoo'ed it because it didn't have that ultra cool processor you like. (I will get to the processor you have a hard on for in just a second.)

You lost all credibility about what features are important when you said that its ok to have a mac without touchscreen support, because macOS is does not to take advantage of a touchscreen, but somehow on windows, it is uber important. You readily say your would rather have windows 8 in a heartbeat, but won't touch them because you would have to wait a few months for some haswell options to pop up. You lost further credibility when you failed to mention what you could be doing with this macbook that you couldn't do with a $250 netbook. You just voiced displeasure because they were not in the same "class" Just like any modern apple shill, you care about how you look holding the device more than what you can do with the device.

You lost all credibility on specs when you talk about a 4th gen i5 being faster and less power consuming than a 3rd gen i5. You seem to think that newer always equals better, but there is quite a bit out there showing how dead wrong you are.  The haswell overheats, doesn't offer a real speed increase, can't be overclocked without serious heat issues, and only consumes less power than a 3rd gen while idle. When actually processing, it drains battery life more that a previous generation cpu. Laptop manufacturers, apple included, are actually underclocking them to fit them into the battery life specs they want to achieve.

So if you really want a laptop that you need to be and idle to get those decent battery specs, that needs a converter cable to plug it into anything, does not offer a touchscreen, oh yeah, and is the size of an ant's pecker, then I guess you got me. That crappletop is definitely the way to go. All you need are some skinny jeans and lensless glasses and you are all set to look cool all day at the organic coffee hut. But in the meantime, quite making crap up, you don't have much credibility left.

 

 

That was best part of the day.  Thanks!

[shmokes]

You lost all credibility about what features are important when you said that its ok to have a mac without touchscreen support, because macOS is does not to take advantage of a touchscreen, but somehow on windows, it is uber important . . . . You just voiced displeasure because they were not in the same "class" Just like any modern apple shill, you care about how you look holding the device more than what you can do with the device.

Christ . . . lmao. Vigo, this can't be that hard for you to understand. The touchscreen matters in Windows 8 because it is one of the, if not THE, main reasons that I prefer Windows 8 to Windows 7 or MacOS. Mother of god, exactly what I said about not caring about a Mac not having a Touchscreen applies to a Windows 7 laptop. You see that. It DOESN'T MATTER if those computers have touch screens. But the reason it matters with Windows 8 is that Windows 8 is no longer more desirable than those other OSes when you nullify that feature. Does this honestly not make sense to you? Like . . . I think my position here is super reasonable and I think that you are either being obstinate are actually aren't fully understanding me.

Not to mention that I'm having a slightly hard time buying your charge of me being an Apple shill when my entire complaint resolves around me preferring Windows 8. Shrug.

As for your article . . . I didn't read the whole thing. I skimmed. I got that it's apparently not for overclockers (doesn't affect me) and, like, the conclusion:

It’s also very important to remember that Haswell is a much more advanced chip than Ivy Bridge. In terms of transistor counts, disregarding any changes to the GPU, a quad-core Haswell CPU has roughly 200 million more transistors than a quad-core Ivy Bridge CPU (1.4 billion vs. 1.2 billion). A lot of these transistors were spent on increasing the chip’s IPC (instructions-per-clock) by adding more execution resources and beefing up out-of-order execution (OoOE) capabilities, but most of them are dedicated to brand new features such as AVX2, FMA3, and TSX. These are very powerful features, but for the most part they only boost performance when software  has been specifically written/compiled to take advantage of them. Today, we are merely seeing the ~10% speed-up provided by Haswell’s reworked execution core; tomorrow, when software uses AVX2, FMA3, and TSX, the speed-up could be 25% or more.

In this light, Haswell is a monster of a chip. Intel has produced a chip that decimates power usage on the low end — which, let’s be honest, is the market that Intel is really interested in — and yet will also provide a huge speed-up for power users once software and compilers are updated. It’s easy to be disappointed by Haswell’s performance on paper, but remember: There really is no other chip out there, especially from AMD, that comes anywhere close. Still, between the death of overclocking, Intel’s focus on mobile, and the shift to soldered-on chips, it’s clear that the writing is on the wall for desktop PC power users. [edit: emphasis mine]

So . . . yeah . . . pretty sure your article says Haswell is ---smurfing--- awesome.

[Vigo]

Sorry, credibility is already ruined when you said you only skimmed a 5 paragraph article, but put forth the effort to post the "pity paragraph" and spent all the time bolding and itialicizing the sentances you liked saying that things might get better in the future for the haswell if software authors design specifically to accommodate the chip. It is quite obvious you cover your eyes and plug your ears in front of anything negative.

And if the touchscreen win 8 is such a huge advantage over mac os for you, then why the hell do you shrug off a touchscreen win8 machine that malenko posted that was HALF THE PRICE simply because it was 1 pound heavier? Better specs, a nice touchscreen and over $500 savings is always worth adding 1 pound of weight. I smell complete BS from an apple toadie. And I honestly don't care if you are an apple toadie. Really, whatever. I used to shamelessly love them as well. It is just lame that you are an apple toadie in denial. You are far more of an apple toadie than you admit...heck, you probably even have an apple blog. Oh wait... 

Well, it is obvious you only hear what you want to hear. Have fun telling your yuppie friends how through your unbiased research, you found that your $1200 laptop was a huge, unparalleled money savings. Don't forget to wear a Steve Jobs turtleneck for that hint of sophistication.   

[edekoning]

These are very powerful features, but for the most part they only boost performance when software  has been specifically written/compiled to take advantage of them. Today, we are merely seeing the ~10% speed-up provided by Haswell’s reworked execution core; tomorrow, when software uses AVX2, FMA3, and TSX, the speed-up could be 25% or more.

Not to get into the way of your 'discussion', but that I just had to comment on that statement. The likeliness of this happening is really really small. I'd say only big budget applications (photoshop, maya, etc), or applications build for speed (encoder/de-encoders, etc) will invest in this maybe. The vast majority of the software world just does not give a you know what. How many of today's applications are writing to target multi-core CPUs, how many target the vast power of GPUs, how many actually use one of the existing instructions sets (SSE3, etc)?
The speed of most of today's applications can easily be speed-up by 25% just by using a profiler and optimizing for speed/memory/latency/whatever. The reality is that this usually never happens, as it takes time, costs money, and frankly nobody cares. CPUs are mostly idling all the time! Games are an exception of course, but we are talking about Macbook, so they don't apply

[ark_ader]

No it is obvious Shmokes got himself a job at Best Buy as a Geek Squad Cadet and he tells this tripe to all his nerdy customers, but that shyster part of him comes when a "PC Fanboy" comes along and starts making some sensible corrections to his diatribe and hilarity ensues.

So how many Macs did you sell last week Shmokes?   

[shmokes]

Are you retarded? Geek Squad? I work at the Genius Bar.

[Vigo]

[ark_ader]

Are you retarded? Geek Squad? I work at the Genius Bar.

That makes perfect non(sense).

 

[ChadTower]

I'm going to fix this thread.  Because it really, really sucks.