Computer Systems News - Page 1

Fans of all-in-one computers are set to get three new Apple options according to a new report, and one of them will include a model that's larger than any that came before it.

Apple iMac - image: apple.com

Writing for his weekly Power On newsletter Bloomberg's Mark Gurman says that Apple is working to release two new iMacs with the same 24-inch display as the one that's currently available, but that isn't even the interesting part. Gurman says that Apple is already in the early stages of working on an iMac with a display that is over 30 inches in size.

If the report is accurate, it will mean that Apple is working on its biggest iMac to date, although it isn't clear whether it will carry the iMac Pro branding or just mean that two iMac display sizes will be offered. As for the 24-inch models, the fact that there are two codenames in use inside Apple - J433 and J434 - might suggest that there are M3 and M3 Pro variants in the works.

Quantum computers are extremely powerful, but are famously unreliable in providing a user with the same result. However, that may very well all change, according to scientists at IBM.

So, what is quantum computing, and how is it different from regular computing? The barebones of quantum computing rely on two phenomena or principles of quantum mechanics, superposition and entanglement. Superposition is the principle that a particle, in this case, a qubit, or a bit of quantum information, can be in two separate states at the exact same time. Entanglement is the principle that two particles can share the exact same location at the same time, despite a perceived distance between the two.

The difference between classical computers and quantum computers is that classical computing uses binary, or 1 and 0's. Qubits are able to be both 1 and 0 simultaneously, enabling much faster calculations to be performed as many calculations can be performed at once, compared to a classic computer that performs each calculation individually. Unfortunately, one of the main problems with quantum calculations is the inconsistency with results.

The very first Apple silicon Mac Pro is finally here and you can buy one right now starting from $6,999. But if you do, you might want to think twice about installing your SATA hard drives.

Mac Studio - image: apple.com

That's because Apple has already admitted that there is a problem that could cause some hard drives to disconnect when the Mac Pro wakes from sleep, leaving them in a state where they cannot be used for accessing the files that are saved on them. The good news? Apple says that it's already working on a fix.

In a new support document, Apple says that some models of internal SATA drives might disconnect from the Mac Pro when it's waking up from sleep. In the short term, the fix appears to be to simply disable the feature that automatically puts the Mac to sleep when it is idle. Otherwise. the only way to make the Mac reconnect to its hard drives is to restart it.

The brand-new Mac Studio and Mac Ultra can connect to up to eight different 4K displays at any one time, Apple has confirmed.

Apple Mac Pro and display - image: apple.com

The eight-display limit applies to the new Apple silicon Mac Pro as well as the Mac Studio when kitted out with the latest and greatest M2 Ultra. Both new Macs are available to buy now.

The news comes after Apple released new support documents for the two machines, both confirming that the new Macs can push pixels out to eight 4K displays at once. What's more, that doesn't mean that those displays will have to make do with a low refresh rate - instead, they'll all support 60Hz refresh rates no matter what.

If you expected the new Mac Pro to be fast, you've probably been waiting for the first benchmarks to arrive so that you could confirm whether you were right or not. And now they're here and sure enough, the M2 Ultra absolutely destroys everything that came in a Mac Pro before it.

Apple Mac Pro - image: apple.com

Before we move on we have to have some context. That context comes in the form of the previous best Mac Pro you could buy - it started at $13,000 and sported an Intel Xeon chip with 28 cores. It was fast. at the time, and it probably still is. Unless you happen to pit it against Apple silicon. It managed a Geekbench single-core score of 1,378 and a multi-core score of 10,390.

The early benchmarks for the new M2 Ultra Mac Studio give us scores that are barely believable - a single-core score of 2,794 and a multi-core score of 21,453.

Computex 2023 was jam packed with juicy announcements, and we have decided to gather what we consider to be our favorite unveilings.

From Monday to Thursday last week the TweakTown team wandered the Computex showroom floor, meeting with companies and their marketing teams to understand what is just around the corner for gamers.

TweakTown founder and director Cameron Wilmot, gaming hardware editor Kosta Andreadis, hardware editor Ryan Gendreau, and science, space, and AI reporter, Jak Connor were demoed countless products, from NVIDIA's CEO Jensen Huang showcasing GraceHopper on-stage at the NVIDIA press event, to the ASUS booth where we broke the news on the world's first 38-inch 4K 144Hz gaming monitor.

A relatively late addition to the WWDC 2023 rumor mill was the arrival of an updated Mac Studio and it turns out that the rumors were spot on. Apple has now announced the new Mac Studio powered by the M2 Max and an all-new M2 Ultra.

Mac Studio - image:apple.com

The new Mac Studio was joined by the first Apple silicon Mac Pro and a new 15-inch MacBook Air in the new-Mac section of the WWDC 2023 opening keynote. And it's set to become a popular option for people who need Mac Pro levels of power but don't need the expansion options that the high-end machine affords.

The new Mac Studio looks identical to the old model and comes with M2 Max and M2 Ultra options. The former comes with a 12-core CPU and up to a 38-core GPU configuration that maxes out at 96GB of unified memory with 400GB/s bandwidth.

Apple has finally announced a new Apple silicon Mac Pro, its first since the transition away from Intel chips began in June 2020. That transition was supposed to take two years, and for the most part, it did. But the Mac Pro was the last holdout - and now it's finally been refreshed.

Apple Mac Pro - image: apple.com

The very first Mac Pro to be powered by Apple silicon was announced during the WWDC 2023 opening keynote on June 5, and it's set to be quite the powerhouse.

Apple's new Mac Pro is powered by the equally-new M2 Ultra chip, complete with support for PCIe expansion - something that the Mac Studio couldn't offer than to the smaller, sealed form factor. That expandability is a key part of what makes the Mac Pro a big deal for specific workflows, particularly those that require dedicated expansion or acceleration cards.

While there were plenty of interesting announcements from various companies at Computex 2023, the case mods were one of the biggest attractions in terms of eye candy.

Special mention: Volcano build

The Computex 2023 showroom floor was littered with case mods from modders all around the world. I was lucky enough to be on the showroom floor, and as I met up with companies to discuss their new products, my eyes were constantly being drawn to the impressive designs case modders came up with.

Within this article, I will provide images of my personal favorites I spotted through my three days wandering around the two showroom floors.

Potential buyers of Apple's very best Macs should probably wait a little while before picking up a new one because a new report claims that the company has something new on the horizon.

A new report by Bloomberg's Mark Gurman says that Apple is now testing new versions of its Apple silicon with M2 Max and M2 Ultra chips in the works. And with WWDC taking place on June 5, we can only imagine that there will be a new high-end Mac or two on the docket.

Apple is already expected to announce the 15-inch MacBook Air during the event on Monday, but Gurman has previously said that several new Macs are on the way. In a new report, Gurman says that Apple is planning two new Macs which are labeled internally as Mac 14,13 and Mac 14,14. Gurman believes that the two Macs are running multiple chips including the M2 Max that was announced in January 2022. The other chip is thought to be another high-end chip, likely to be called the M2 Ultra.