[Northy]

The state of play currently



As wiki on the Tick Tock strategy notes:
Tock - Intel Core microarchitecture of 2006
Tick - Shrink/derivative (i.e. Penryn) 45 nm of 2007
Tock - New Intel microarchitecture (i.e. Nehalem) for 2008
Tick - Shrink/derivative (Westmere) 32 nm for 2009
Tock - Future Intel microarchitecture (i.e. Sandy Bridge) for 2010

So Penryn's successor is expected to be Nehalem. Nehamlem will bring back hyperthreading, which will crop up soon enough. SL will release after Nehalem, and potentially around Westmere, and before Sandy Bridge in 2010.


Mac specs past, present & future
(No Mythical Midrange Mac Minitower yet. It's the new Octocore ;)

iMacs: From here and because the wiki doesn't have the useful stats, also from here

A large part of Apple's consumer desktop offerings, and bar the MacBook Pro, probably a favorite to be used in films, movies and commercials - it has appeal (See the excellent film "Inside Man" by Spike Lee, for an example). Introduced 1998, with an evolution to the iMac G3 (egg shaped with a CRT monitor), iMac G4 (hemispherical base +LCD on an arm), to the iMac G5 and Intel iMac (looking like an LCD, with everything behind it). Fair enough to call it the " Gold Standard of desktop computing". It has the Apple aesthetics? The first Mac to include a USB port - and bringing some cross-platform peripheral compatability with it.

MacBooks - From here
MacBook Pros - From here
Mac Pros: - From here

The biggest winner of actual (as opposed to relative) performance benefits. Not as constrained by thermal, nor space issues. It won't just be "non-linear digital editing" for HD video and high end Digital image work that will benefit (ZFS, Grand Central, GPGPUage and 64-bit tech with a huge maximum RAM possibility coming in very useful i'd imagine.)

As noted in the wiki, the Power Mac G5 had 4 processors, but fell down on expandability. SL may very well improve on the current level of expandability of the Mac Pro. As it's easier to swap out and put in new, compatiable Intel CPUs in a Mac Pro, it's less useful to talk about what they previously had as stock, so added just for reference. Of note, SL might also see around it's launch, the ushering of an iMac or mid-tower less bulky than the Mac Pro, that allows the user to change it's graphics card.



XServe: Currently: 3 independent hot-plug drive bays with support for SATA or SAS drives (i.e. up to ~ 3TB of hot-plug internal storage)

Apple - Xserve - Technology - System Architecture


CPU
iMacs:
Early 2003: 0.8/1.0Ghz
Late 2003: 1.0/1.25Ghz
Mid 2004: (iMac G5): 1.6/1.8 GHz PowerPC G5
Early 2005: 1.8/2.0 GHz PowerPC G5
Late 2005: 1.9/2.1 GHz
Early 2006: ?/2.0 (Core Duo)
Late 2006: 1.83/2.0/2.33 Ghz (Core 2 Duo)
Late 2007: ?/?/2.8Ghz C2D Extreme
Early 2008: 2.4/2.6/2.8/3.06Ghz* (*Custom Montevinalike chip)

MacBooks:
1st Gen Early 2006 - 1.83/2.0GHz Intel Core Duo (T2400/T2500)
2nd Gen Late 2007 - 1.83/2.0 GHz Intel C2D (T5600/T7200)
3rd Gen Mid 2007 -2.0/2.16 GHz Intel C2D (T7200/T7400)
4th Gen Late 2007- 2.0/2.2 GHz Intel C2D (T7300/T7500)
5th Gen Early 2008 - 2.1/2.4 GHz Intel C2D (T8100/T8300)
5th Gen Late 2008 - ??

MacBook Pros:
1st Gen Early 2006 - 1.83/2.0/2.16 GHz Intel Core Duo Yonah
2nd Gen Late 2006 - 2.16/2.33 Intel C2D Merom
3rd Gen Mid 2007 - 2.2/2.4/2.6 GHz Intel C2D Merom (2.6 came after Nov 2007)
4th Gen Early 2008 -2.4/2.5/2.6 GHz Intel C2D Penryn
5th Gen Late 2008 - ? GHz Nehalem, & Montevina?

Mac Pros:
2006: C2D Xeon
2008: 1/2 sockets of 2.8/3.0/3.2 GHz Quad Core Xeon 5400 (Harpertown 45nm) 64-bit CPUs to give a maximum of 8 cores.
Late 2008: Gainestown likely.

Graphics
iMacs:
Early 2003: Nvidia GeForce 2MX/4MX
Late 2003: NVidia GeForce 4 MX/GeForce FX 5200 Ultra
Mid 2004: NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 Ultra
Early 2005: ATI 9600
Late 2005: ?
Early 2006: ATI Radeon X1600
Late 2006: ATI Radeon x1600 128MB/NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT 128MB
Late 2007: ATI Radeon HD ?
Early 2008: ATI Radeon HD 2400 XT 128MB/ATI Radeon HD 2600 PRO 256MB/NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GS 512MB

MacBooks:
1st Gen Early 2006 - Intel GMA 950 graphics processor using 64 MB DDR2 SDRAM shared by main memory
2nd Gen Late 2006 - Intel GMA 950 graphics processor using 64 MB DDR2 SDRAM shared by main memory
3rd Gen Mid 2007 - Intel GMA 950 graphics processor using 64 MB DDR2 SDRAM shared by main memory
4th Gen Late 2007 - Intel GMA X3100 graphics processor using 144 MB of DDR2 SDRAM shared by main memory
5th Gen Early 2008 - Intel GMA X3100 graphics processor using 144 MB of DDR2 SDRAM shared by main memory
6th Gen Late 2008 - ??

MacBook Pros:
1st Gen Early 2006 - ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 with 128 MB (128 MB) or 256 MB of GDDR3 SDRAM and dual-link DVI
2nd Gen Late 2006 - ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 with 128 MB (128 MB) or 256 MB of GDDR3 SDRAM and dual-link DVI
3rd Gen Mid 2007 - nVidia Geforce 8600M GT with 128 MB or 256 MB of GDDR3 SDRAM and dual-link DVI
4th Gen Early 2008 - nVidia Geforce 8600M GT with 256 MB or 512 MB of GDDR3 SDRAM and dual-link DVI
5th Gen Late 2008 - ??

Mac Pros:
2006:
2008:

XServe:
2008: 1 or 2 sockets of 2.8/3.0GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon 5400

Memory
iMacs:
Early 2003: ?
Late 2003: 256MB DDR333 SDRAM
Mid 2004: 256MB DDR400 SDRAM
Early 2005: 512MB RAM
Late 2005: ?
Early 2006: ?
Late 2006: 512MB/ 1GB RAM
Late 2007: ?
Early 2008: 1/2GB

MacBooks:
1st Gen Early 2006 - Maximum of 2GB
2nd Gen Late 2006 - Maximum 4GB (3.25 GB usable)
3rd Gen Mid 2007 - Maximum 4GB (3.25 GB usable)
4th Gen Late 2007 - Maximum 4GB
5th Gen Early 2008 - Maximum 4GB
6th Gen Early 2008 - ? Probably Max. 4GB due to size issues.

MacBook Pros:
(Throughout 1-4th gen, the memory has been PC2-5300 DDR2 SO-DIMM SDRAM)
1st Gen - Maximum 2 GB
2nd Gen - Maximum 4 GB, but only 3 GB addressable (due to the chipset)
3rd Gen - Maximum 4 GB
4th Gen - Maximum 4 GB
5th Gen - ??

Mac Pros:
2008: Maximum 32GB (8 x 4GB)
2009: Maximum 15TB!

XServe:
2008: Maximum 32GB memory (8x4GB 800MHz DDR2 ECC fully buffered DIMM (FB-DIMM) memory


Future?

Mac Pro Future upgrade: Would Apple risk FB-DIMM memory? A 4 socket Beckton is more for a server, than a powerhouse desktop machine. Apple can get a lot of power from just a 2 socket mainboard, and have decent DDR3 memory, that will overclock much more easily than FB-DIMM2 memory.
As Nehalem chips release early 2009, i'd expect a 2.66/2.93/3.2GHz quad-core processor (Nehalem architecture) lineup. The QuickPath architecture , and the 4 PCI Express slots (capable of running at 8X bandwidth for systems with multiple video cards) would be useful, and give the possibility for high end GPGUage. That'll mean AMD's CrossFireX will be supported out of the box to use extra cards in accelerating 3D on a single display, with the possible addition of NVIDIA's SLI for GeForce cards. Apple may well not go with bog standard components if the graphics side is going to get limited due to board choice.


XServe:
Memory - How could Apple put 16TB of RAM into an XServe? Would there be a feasable way of creating a rackable bolt on that could link with an XServe at a fast enough rate to basically have the RAM outside of the XServe's box? With space inside, with the ability to link XServes together, or maybe create a slave external RAM only XServe has a chance to join the big boys.
Hard drives - ZFS will suit Snow Leopard XServe Servers well. With 4 drive bays currently for Serial ATA, & 1TB drives on the market, (e.g. Barracuda 7200.11) it isn't hard to see the usefulness. (I think ZFS will also be useful with external drives too, making it a lot more simple, and kind of destroying the Drobo marketplace to an extent. Hard core consumers, Mac Pro users etc, but we await to see if ZFS will make it into SL consumer OS). I'd imagine they'd probably go with a 2/4 socket Beckton design, but who knows.

iMac: Will get bumped, but unless they change the design, it'll be still hard to upgrade.

MacBook Pro: With 32GB RAM allowable in already, unless RAM gets smaller, the MBP won't see more RAM, just better graphics, chipset & processor.

MacBook: As the MBP, but less so?