The Rough Story Of Intel Sandy Bridge Graphics For Mac OS X

[Luke_Wolf]

Okay even so this doesn't refute them making all of the parts to be then assembled by foxconn, which is a point you've talked around instead of addressing.

[deanjo]

Okay even so this doesn't refute them making all of the parts to be then assembled by foxconn, which is a point you've talked around instead of addressing.

The motherboards were being assembled by Foxconn. As well as the finished product assembly.

[Luke_Wolf]

The motherboards were being assembled by Foxconn. As well as the finished product assembly.

yes I got that, but are they also making the individual parts or just assembling?

[deanjo]

yes I got that, but are they also making the individual parts or just assembling?

Manufacturing of the individual parts is done by the electrical component manufacturers. Do you think that Asus makes caps, IC's, connectors, etc as well? No, those are all from third parties from the likes of motorola, TI, etc. Even the motherboard fabrication is third party.

[Luke_Wolf]

Manufacturing of the individual parts is done by the electrical component manufacturers. Do you think that Asus makes caps, IC's, connectors, etc as well? No, those are all from third parties from the likes of motorola, TI, etc. Even the motherboard fabrication is third party.

I'm talking of such things as the lithography that goes on the board

[deanjo]

I'm talking of such things as the lithography that goes on the board

Lithography layout is generally supplied by the the person requiring the manufacturing and supplied to the third party manufacturer. It is very rare for a company like foxconn to do the lithography for anyone else but their own line. Apple supplies their own lithography, as does Asus, and pretty much any other contractee.

[cmurphy]

don't think so

The new machines that were just released are EFI 2.0. (and various models use different EFI versions BTW, depends on the model of mac).

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1237

This is incorrect information. The kb article you cite does not correlated to the EFI or UEFI spec version but rather an Apple versioning scheme. The MacbookPro model is 5,2 and the BootROM version is MBP52.008E.B05. It's not EFI 2.0, there never was an EFI 2.0. There is an Intel EFI 1.10 which is what Apple has been basing all machines through March 2011. The next specs are rolled in under UEFI 2.x.

At the moment the only way I know to find the version of EFI/UEFI on Apple hardware is to install rEFIt, bless its EFI folder from command line and restart which will bring up the rEFIt menu. One of its options is an info button which will display information about the machine's EFI/UEFI version. At the moment the only part of UEFI I'm aware that Apple is using is GOP for video, but the primary basis for their firmware is Intel EFI 1.10. And Windows 7 doesn't support it and I have yet to get any Linux distro to boot into a GUI because, as the developers have suggested, they aren't able to extract necessary information from Apple's EFI about the video hardware. They are able to do this with the CSM (the emulated BIOS) but then this is a BIOS based booting, which requires the hybrid MBR hack.

If the most recent hardware from Apple just released does support UEFI 2.x that would be great news indeed. I would then like to believe they will eventually issue UEFI 2.x based firmware for other recently sold hardware.

[Veerappan]

Already been covered.

Oops. Apple fan boy's toes being stepped on. Sorry about that but you are aware that an Apple is a PC with a plastic apple stuck on to it?

When you've owned a Mac long enough to know how long they actually last in comparison to even DELL machines, I'm sure you will reassess your definition of quality. Unless that is, you become even further sucked into the cult of all that is Apple.
FYW. Sony are not dissimilar to Apple in their hardware. You are buying into the brand, the logo and the TV adverts. If you actually ever opened one of these machines to see poorly designed cheap components, you'd know what I'm referring to.

<snip>

A Mac is a personal computer. A Mac is a PC with a lower spec than it's competitor and a plastic apple stuck using glue to it's case.

It is my belief that Apple products are inferior to say HP's for example because I have seen how Apple try radical things in their designs which cause unreliability. The cheap components they shoe horn into the case consistently fail over time. Macs over heating after two years is the most common thing I have seen (It's cheaper to buy a new Mac than to fix that by the way. Which may also be deliberate.) Some people do get lucky though as with all things.
I therefore believe that Apple machines are garbage. That is my opinion, you don't have to subscribe to it. And finally if it offends you, then grow up.

You don't like Macs, we get it. There's plenty of hate going around for Apple, and some of it is justified. But to say that I will automatically see how inferior they are when comparing them to a Dell is not necessarily true. I've supported many dying/dead Dells for my family members over the last few years, and also several Macs. I've owned both. Honestly, I believe that Apple makes a very nice laptop/OS combination, and it is worth the price to me (OMG, a consumer making a value judgement with their own purchasing money!).

OS X is a slick OS. A polished GUI on top of a BSD base is hard to argue with (although I do tri-boot my 13" 2009 Core 2 Duo MBP with Win7, Mac 10.6, and Ubuntu 11.04). I bought my MBP specifically because I was sick of instability in my Ubuntu installs getting in the way of getting things done. At the same time, the BSD base gives a familiar system that I can write all of my C/Java/OpenCL code on.

It's not like you can't just fire up a terminal and GCC, or start installing whatever you want. Many people assume that Macs only run what Apple approves, similar to the iOS situation, which is untrue.

Their hardware does occasionally have issues, but every manufacturer does at some point. That said, I've replaced many more batteries, chargers, hard drives, keyboards, CD-ROMs, and other assorted hardware in Dells/HPs than in Apples.

[kgonzales]

Oops. Apple fan boy's toes being stepped on. Sorry about that but you are aware that an Apple is a PC with a plastic apple stuck on to it?
When you've owned a Mac long enough to know how long they actually last in comparison to even DELL machines, I'm sure you will reassess your definition of quality. Unless that is, you become even further sucked into the cult of all that is Apple.
FYW. Sony are not dissimilar to Apple in their hardware. You are buying into the brand, the logo and the TV adverts. If you actually ever opened one of these machines to see poorly designed cheap components, you'd know what I'm referring to.

I am interested in what cheap components you found in the Sony and Apple laptops, and what components should have been used instead. Then compare that to Dell or HP which you consider superior and what components they used that made them more reliable. Especially interested in your testing on the laptop casings. Finally, I am very interested to know why I should consider your opinion meaningful at all. Do you have some experience to base this off of, other than a hate of all things Apple?

It is my belief that Apple products are inferior to say HP's for example because I have seen how Apple try radical things in their designs which cause unreliability. The cheap components they shoe horn into the case consistently fail over time. Macs over heating after two years is the most common thing I have seen (It's cheaper to buy a new Mac than to fix that by the way. Which may also be deliberate.) Some people do get lucky though as with all things.
I therefore believe that Apple machines are garbage. That is my opinion, you don't have to subscribe to it. And finally if it offends you, then grow up.

You telling someone to grow up is the pinnacle of irony. I laughed. Alot.

[cmurphy]

criticism

The singular non-detail issue I have with Mac hardware is their continuing use of a proprietary EFI rather than fully standardized implementation of UEFI 2.x. Because their proprietary EFI is only supported by Mac OS X, it means we have to use the CSM (BIOS emulation) to boot all other OS's which means those OS's have inherited: slower boot times, have to use MBR instead of GPT, have a 2TB volume limitation, do not support USB booting.

I think for the premium we pay for Apple hardware, it's not too much to ask to get a standardized UEFI implementation for use with other operating systems.