HateEternal said:
Lets take the Mazda RX-8 as an example. When Mazda first introduced the RX-8 They advertised it has having ~218 HP (I can't remember the numbers exactly). Lot's of people bought the car expecting that level of performance. For the most part people were pleased with its performance on the road but as soon as they put it on a Dyno it pulled much less (~180). So is the car fast? Yea, its reasonably quick for a ~$30k car. Would it be faster if it had 40 more HP? Of course! Would it make a difference in a (legal) race? FOR F**K'S SAKE YES!!! Mazda actually ended up buying cars back from people that were not satisfied with its performance. As the guy that made this discovery noted; his MBP ran about 30 FPS faster, that is a BIG deal and can make the difference between usable/playable and aggravating.
Performance matters, if just fast was OK Apple would still be using G4s. In many ways they were 'fast' but the Core Duo is much 'Faster'.
That comparison would be valid if and only if Apple advertised the clock rate and memory rate of the X1600 they use -- but they don't. Apple doesn't make any claims as to the clock rate of the card like Mazda made with the horsepower of the RX-8.
My point is that you're not getting "gypped" simply because Apple didn't claim a certain performance rate, then under-deliver. Purchasers of the MacBook Pro are not being deceived into believing that their X1600s run at a certain clock speed, yet receive a MacBook Pro that doesn't meet the claimed speeds.
I understand that speed is better in certain situations, but not in all situations. Macintosh computers are not hot-rodded, modified, all-out performance demons -- they're elegant balances of form and function. Complaining that the X1600 is underclocked is like complaining about the CPU in your computer -- most likely, your CPU can run ~500MHz faster than it's clocked at... do you feel gypped about the fact that Apple underclocked your processor?
Underclocking is common in computers to find a balance between speed and power consumption. Apple most likely did this to save power or reduce heat. If leaving the X1600 at the full clock rate meant no added power consumption and no added heat, then we may have something to complain about. But, as it stands, big friggin' deal... so it runs slower than some 20 lb. "gaming" notebook from Acer.
Performance matters, if just fast was OK Apple would still be using G4s. In many ways they were 'fast' but the Core Duo is much 'Faster'.
Apple didn't go with the Core Duo simply because it was faster. Apple chose Intel-branded CPUs over Moto's G4 and IBM's G5 processors because the Intel roadmap made for better performance-per-watt. Just because the Core Duo is faster than the G4/5 doesn't mean that speed was Apple's sole, driving force behind the switch.
When I said, "Does it matter? It's freakin' fast!..." I meant that no one was upset until they saw numbers on paper. Everyone was very happy with the performance of the X1600 -- there weren't any negative things to say about it. Then some piece of paper gets out with the clock rate of Apple's X1600 implementation, and all of a sudden, people are complaining. Had they not seen the "real" numbers, they would have been completely satisfied and oblivious. Instead, they're nit-picking numbers on paper and getting in a tiffy over them. What you don't know can't hurt you, but in this case, it seems people wanna beat themselves up once they found out. I just find that a little weird and juvenile. Had I read reports about how the performance of the X1600 was lacking before people knew it was underclocked, I might be a little more forgiving of all the criticism -- but it's true: no one was complaining before they saw the numbers, so the only thing they're complaining about are the numbers themselves and not the raw performance of the card.
