I have a couple of questions about Leopard and "Santa Rosa".

I remember reading somewhere that Apple gave users of an older version of OSX a deep discount for an upgrade to the newer version. Have they announced anything about that for Tiger -> Leopard? If not, when are they likely to?

Also, what's the deal with Santa Rosa...can someone fill me in?

 

I don't really know much about Leopard.
Santa Rosa will include processors with higher fsb (800mhz vs. todays 667mhz) thus resulting in better performance. It will also include the new wireless standard called draft n as well as Intel's new integrated graphics chip, the x3000. Santa Rosa will likely be available in April/May.

 

Santa Rosa is the new Centrino platform that Intel will launch. It will consist of a Core 2 Duo processor (with an 800 MHz FSB), an Intel wireless adapter and Intel mobile chipset. The main difference is that 800 Mhz FSB and support for draft .n in the wireless adapter. Intel also says it will have reduced power consumption, because the FSB is decreasable, but we will have to wait and see if the difference is alot, or present at all.

Performance wise, in heavy processor applications, the 800 MHz may help out quite alot, but in gaming, where the limiting factor is the graphics card, the new processor won't make much of a difference. These new 800 Mhz processor are based of the Merom core we have in the present Core 2 Duo processor.

 

Seems to me like the gist of Santa Rosa is a 133MHz bump in bus speed and the inclusion of 802.11n. Admittedly, it's not very groundbreaking. Maybe there's more to it?

Has Apple announced any significant changes they'll be making to the MB/MBP lines along with the Santa Rosa refresh?

 

The 800MHz mobile processors for Santa Rosa are still Meroms and will still be referred to as Core 2 Duos, not Core 3 Duos. Besides the faster FSB and 802.11n, the Santa Rosa platform will also bring more advanced power management modes including the ability to run EIST with half FSB modes. This was necessary because otherwise a 800MHz FSB with the lowest 6x multiplier will only downclock to 1.2GHz, but with half FSBs, they can clock down to 600MHz which was the level of the Banias Pentium M. The power savings are countered though by the chipset which is getting increasingly power hungry. (Something like 2 times). Santa Rosa will also bring Robson cache with integrates flash cache into the motherboard for quick access to frequently used files without spinning up the HDD.

In terms of what Apples going to do, they will obviously refresh their existing products and the 15" MBP is rumoured to be receiving LED based LCDs. There have also be rumours of a 12" MBP and a 15" MB.

 

Keep in mind that Apple does not use Centrino, and will likely not use Centrino Pro (Santa Rosa). Centrino refers to a marketing platform whcih includes a certain chip, chipset and wireless card currently. So, just because Santa Rosa calls for certain specs, that does not mean Apple will adopt all of it. For instance, Apple has never used an Intel wireless card.

As for special pricing on Leopard, if there were any, it would be for those that bought right before it was released, like a week. Even that is unlikely.

 

In terms of Centrino, it's true that Apple doesn't use the whole package. Apple already beat Intel to the punch on the 802.11n availability anyways. The FSB throttling is inheirent to the chipset so Apple will recieve that. Robson is another question though since it requires OS support and is now part of Vista. I would hope that Apple does use Robson cache though since it is a good idea for saving battery power. Perhaps they will just use it in the MBP then since the price can support such a feature and it would match the power savings offered by using LED lit screens. Apple hasn't mentioned whether Leopard supports flash caches though. The other way Apple could do it is to just use hybrid HDDs, but their usage is not quite the same as Robson cache.

 

You can buy a Family Pack for $199 which includes 5 licenses. Sounds like a pretty good deal to me.