Was it Palol Rossetti that one said, "People in glass house shouldn't throw stones?" Push away the Intel this, the Pentium-M that, or perhaps the ability to use the Dual Core Pentium 4, Apple has a much bigger challenge ahead of them. For years, they have been throwing down the MHz myth and now? They are sleeping with the "enemy" according to PowerPC zealots. 
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And where was the PPC going? It isn't going anywhere. IBM has failed to produce. Apple is doing the right thing.
Signed,
Apple Zealot
"According to Apple's benchmarks a Dell Dimension XP Gen4 that has a 3.6GHz Pentium 4 was 98% slower than a Power Mac G5 that has Dual 2.7GHz PowerPC G5 for a design and print benchmark."
I think maybe you means the PowerMac G5 was 98% faster in that benchmark.
If the PIV was 98% slower, the G5 would have been 50 times faster! 
Apple is not talking about NOW, Apple is talking about two years down the road. Listen to Steve Job's talk. He say NOTHING about Intel being better now, and lots about roadmaps and FUTURE plans.
Gregor
Emmm except they'll not be using a P4. It's more likely they'll use the Pentium M derived chip..which get this...has a lower clock rate than a G5, MHz myth in tact thanks very much. Pentium M is a very efficient chip, unlike the p4.
The Pentium M also won't burn a hole through your lap in 0.5 seconds.
My mum always said "People in glass houses... shouldn't walk around naked", and this is indeed true for Apple.
One thing that should occur to others as well is that Apple very likely went to great lengths to make sure that these applications ran faster on their platform. That means they probably spent a lot of time helping vendors optimise specifically for their systems. I don't see that changing. Also, as others said, it is unlikely that Apple will use P4's in their new systems...
Signed,
I don't own anything made by Apple
PowerPC did kill Pentium 4 in some benchmarks and still does in many cases, thanks to Altivec.
But having the dual-core Pentium M is more worth it.
I think this is an oversimplification. Do I wish that apple was sticking with PPC? Yes. Do I think that PPC os a cleaner platform? Sure. But that's not the point. This is simply all or nothing thinking. The G5 page says that the G5 kills the P4- and yes it is marketing hype. The G5 holds its own against the P4. The PPC in generaly has held its own against intel chips, pulling ahead only when a new rev was released (and falling behind when intel did the same).
What this switch is about is where PPC is going. Take a look at the size of the G5 case and the number of fans it requires and you have your answer. Jobs never said that the intel architecture is superior to PPC (and I'd have to think that anyone who's into chip design has to think PPC is a better design). What they said quite simply is that IBM's roadmap doesn't match their own and that intel's does. I have to imagine from a purely business perspective that's the truth- why else would they crap our corn flakes?
What lies ahead though will be a very real marketing challenge for apple. The knee jerk, over simplified reaction is to assume that apple will tout the new intel cpu as they did the PPC. We haven't seen any evidence of that just yet and if anything the tenor of the WWDC keynote suggests that they're going to cocentrate on the whole product rather than a part.
How are they going to sell this? We still don't know the answer as the campaign hasn't even begun. My guess is that we will not see an about face on intel vs. ppc or that apple will draw a lot of attention to the fact that there's even an intel in the box (I could be wrong though). I expect apple to push the next machines strictly on features. Your basic benchmarks, perhaps the mghz rating, battery life, and the same sleek design as ever.
The question I have is what are they going to call the new machines? The PPC has been a part of the marketing message- "PowerMac G4", "PowerMac G5". I doubt we'll see a "PowerBook Pentium" or that we'll even see intel mentioned on the case. We'll find out how they're going to spin these new boxes in a year.
I'll also mention the Pentium M. The chip has proven to be very fast in benchmarks, to use little power, and for the same cache size would actually be smaller than a G5 (current Pentium M chips have 2MB of cache).
In MIPS per watt for desktop/laptop CPUs intel seems to have the upper hand over motorola and IBM at the moment.
Pentium M is a 32-bit CPU, you can't realy compare it to G5.
Some people missed out on reading the Intel roadmap. And perhaps even more people missed out reading the small blurb within that roadmap that stated an "Improved FPU" (the only place the G5 was leading) is in the pipe. Sure it may not be better than Altivec, but it should be somewhere in the ballpark. This will not happpen today of course, but thats also the reason Apple is not planning on using today's hardware. All comparisons were made between the G5 and Netburst-based Intels. I believe what Apple will be using to be another story.
PowerPC zealots = former Motorola 68k zealots
They will get over it
Laptop has already outsell Desktop in USA. And hoefully Europe will follow soon. Asia computer desktop and laptop are gorwing in nearly double digit figure so doesn't really matter.
What that means is that Laptop has a much better future. And Intel Mobile roadmap is just about 10 times better than IBM.
And i belive those benchmark are not specific optimize for intel compare to heavy optimize for G5.
This is Adobe Code in Windows v. Adobe Code in PPC MacOS. Sure you can take statistics for what they are worth, which has been marketing. But for what it is worth but at no speed MHz do I find the Mac OS slow. I normally have 12-16 apps open and the OS always seems fresh.
I was asked in an interview today (sic.) "why not just put Red Hat on it?" and the answer is still a little naive. Apps and Packagesbundles. I never have to resolve dependancies in the Mac OS. I install it it works. If I choose to delete it I delete is. If I want to reinstall it then the SN# is still there as well as my App preferences. DLL's and tiny apps that link against huge libraries is an invation for disaster. Let's say I install Microsoft Office into a disk image and run the whole suite detached from the filesystem, and if god-forbid the app gets macro'd then I can scan where I know it happened.
I use APPLE HW to run MacOS. That is the rules. OS XRhapsodyNeXT have always run on Intel chips. The real task, the hard work that Apple and Adobe need to do is make sure that in the same *class* of HW that the apps perform the same. Will Final Cut work well in MacTel? as well as Adobe Premiere in Wintel?
Also will I be able to run X on OS X in Mactel certainly. So I will have two places to run everybody's favorite Unix
Processor, schmossesor. Intel chips do the job and with them Apple pretty much guaranteed to keep up with the competition. The powerPC development has consistently fallen behind at various points in processor history. I take this to be a simple function of the attempt to produce a high-end processor at relatively low volumes, compared to Intel (a guess).
As far as the MHZ wars, has anyone ever heard of MARKETING?
It's a bad for people have religious convictions about processors, but it's a great for Apple.
Apple's Benchmarks feature current Pentium 4's.
Not future Intel chips shipping in 2006.
I suggest OS news stops posting such low quality rubbish.
A running modern Intel processor in the hand will be faster than a 4 year old PPC, and that's what Apple is facing.
The MHz and the myth has been all about marketing. If you are currently leading in Mhz.. you use it in your favor. if you aren't leading, they it becomes the "myth".
Processor architectures will continue to change, hopefully get better. Mhz will rise and fall with those changes. MHz will be used by whoever is faster, and the "myth" will be used by those who are slower. Nothing will ever change -- unless everyone can come to agreement on some ultimate measure of performance. (yeah..like THAT will ever happen).
The bonus: OSX has been running on the x86 architecture for the last 5 years. While Apple is going to be using Intel chips for now, they would be nothing to stop them from jumping to AMD if they choose in the future. So they really don't need to play the MHz game anymore and just concentrate on OSX and all those great iApps.
I agree with Gregor. It's amazing how many people aren't bothering to listen to what Steve Jobs said, or the information coming out of Cupertino. They're just jumping to their own conclusions.
The fact that Apple is moving to Intel chips doesn't suddenly negate the current benchmarks. The G5 chip (and the PowerPC in general) is still an excellent chip, both in design and performance.
But Apple's decision was not for technical reasons. It was a business decision, plain and simple. It would have been much easier for them to continue on with the PowerPC line. But what do you do when your chip supplier doesn't really care about being competitive? Sure, the G5 and current Intel offerings are somewhat comparable speed-wise. But that's now. Pretend this change didn't happen and fast forward a year or two. Intel will have increased the performance of their chips, and Apple will still be begging IBM to please, please make some faster chips. IBM can just ignore their pleas, since they have three other major customers. The PowerPC family is a future dead end without a chip manufacturer willing to continue it.
No, as much as I like the PowerPC chip, this is a case where a superior design (PowerPC) lost out to a less elegant chip simply because one chip manufacturer (Intel) had more drive to compete than another.
Yes, you may be correct, but keep in mind that vendors like Apple HYPE their products to the nth degree.
Microsoft advertises Windows XP as having a "preemptive multitasking architecture". That's a complete crock of sh##.
So Apple is not alone. You have to fight your way through the hype to find bits of truth and verity.
That's how American high tech advertising works.
Apple never said that their current machines are slower than Intel chips. Indeed they are and have been. Your article is very trolish in that you reiterate the myth that it only occured in obscure circumstances.
One could just as easily argue that the same could be said for Intel chips. The truth is, is that both chips perform some functions better than others... depending on the task at hand.
Apple's reason for switching is because they know that ***future*** versions of the PPC chip do not allow it to retain the same speed advantage that they've benefited from.
Some people missed out on reading the Intel roadmap. And perhaps even more people missed out reading the small blurb within that roadmap that stated an "Improved FPU" (the only place the G5 was leading) is in the pipe. Sure it may not be better than Altivec, but it should be somewhere in the ballpark. This will not happpen today of course, but thats also the reason Apple is not planning on using today's hardware. All comparisons were made between the G5 and Netburst-based Intels. I believe what Apple will be using to be another story.
Apple never said that their current machines are slower than Intel chips. Indeed they are and have been. Your article is very trolish in that you reiterate the myth that it only occured in obscure circumstances.
One could just as easily argue that the same could be said for Intel chips. The truth is, is that both chips perform some functions better than others... depending on the task at hand.
Apple's reason for switching is because they know that ***future*** versions of the PPC chip do not allow it to retain the same speed advantage that they've benefited from.
the keynote focuses on cpu power per watt, remember.
and apple's bread & butter is laptops.
Steve Fellows
And where was the PPC going? It isn't going anywhere. IBM has failed to produce. Apple is doing the right thing.
Well, the 234 million transistor Cell provides an order of magnitude more theoretical GFLOPS while drawing less power than the 230 million transistor Pentium D.
The real question for Apple is "Where is PPC going in the laptop department? Not anywhere near the Pentium M"
Heh.
To paraphrase the old adage "Lies, damned Lies, and Statistics" - just replace Statistics with Benchmarks.
I generally have never really trusted Apples published benchmark numbers. Generally I've relied on sites like Barefeats (barefeats.com) for more objective benchmarks. Not to mention various video review mags. Needless to say, none of those sources have ever indicated that the Dual G5s were anywhere near 98% or 84% faster for Photoshop or Premier tasks (respectively).
Mostly this comes from Apple "cherry picking" specific tasks which relied on specific operations that the G5 (and previously G4) are good at... Things like arithmetic shift operations. Which while useful for many things are not the only thing. Seriously if these dual G5 systems were so very much faster, you'd think there'd be a little more noise about it.
Needless to say the G5 was Apple's last attempt to ditch the MHz myth. Jobs got hung out to dry by IBM on the 3GHz in 12 months boast (not unreasonably by IBM - Apple's demand for chips represents around 2% of chips sold by IBM, simply not worth the engineering effort). Additionally there has been, and will be no forthcoming G5 or comparably preforming PPC from Freescale for a laptop Mac. Anybody ever look inside one of those dual G5 cases? Wow that sure is a lot of cooling equipment for a chip that supposedly runs so very much cooler than a P4.
Apple is mostly looking at the next generation of processors from Intel - the Pentium M based cores. These run at low speeds with high performance and low heat. In most benchmarks a 1.6GHz Pentium M performs equivalently to a 3.0GHz Pentium 4. The G5 no matter how skewed the benchmarks couldn't honestly make that claim. The race for ever higher clock speeds is mostly over - Intels competition from AMD has left that in no doubt. The Opteron has a slightly better IPC (instructions per clock) than the G5, and when working on non-vectorized code, it's ideal. The move to dual core CPUs and better IPC is underway - along with better vectorization capabilities (witness the Cell and Xenon processors).
Oh yeah, and for the people who are hollering about, "why didn't they use the Cell or Xenon processors?" Keep in mind that these processors have been highly specialized for codec (compression decompression) tasks, and gaming oriented processing. They are somewhat anemic when it comes to general purpose computing involving branchy non-optimized code. Both feature stripped down PPC cores which are only capable of "in order" execution, with minimal or non-existant branch prediction capabilities. This will make them poor at AI and control code. Is that really the CPU you want for day-to-day tasks like browsing, emailing, etc.?
Would even remember Apple saying anything about the mhz myth.
I bought a Mac for OS X and I could give a rats arse about what hardware it ran on. If PearPC did a good job I'd be running it on a Intel platform.
Fact is that only the fanbois will remember or care about the PowerPC chip being dumped. Apple is being treated like a 2nd class customer and Intell will treat them as a first class customer. IBM cant fill the demand due to fab space being used for console chips, Intel has fabs that are not running at 100% capacity and would love the extra business.
So can we expect a discount on PPC Macs soon since buyers of those machines will be left at the mercy of Rosetta once the IntelMacs arrive?
they have been saying ppc is faster for years, they have been saying that intel was slow because it had some backwards compatibility.
Apple was wrong.
pc chips are faster, more power efficient.
pc chips use such a small portion of the chip for backwards compatibility, its so small that it means nothing negative for performance.
AND finally, pc chips are never going to have a focus change, or go out of business. Apple will have access to these kind of chips as long as there is a computer market.
and don't give me the 'AMD can't deliver sufficient quantities' BS argument......for Apple's server market it would be the perfect match
You can only say the G5 is better than Intel's offerings for so long. At the rate IBM is going, it is bound to be outpaced sooner or later (real or perceived).
Besides, it'll be just as easy for Apple to say "With OS X, Adobe's whatever program performs function xyz faster than Windows.
The G5 Was released it was released about a year or so ago. At the time it was the Biggest and baddest. In the mean time while it was taking gradual increases in speed. Intel Has been doing great strides in making their chips a lot faster and competitive with AMD, in which they were lagging behind at the time. While the G5 has shown only marginal increses in the year much slower then what IBM promiced. It is now considered on Par with Intells offering and will shortly lag behind. Also there is the lack of PowerBook G5 which we were hoping to have right now, and many powerbook customers are letting there powerbooks get too old waiting for a major processor upgrade. After over 3 years sience I bought my powerbook at 667 mhz the new models are less then 3 times the speed in Mhz then mine. By now for my powerbook I would want to be over 2.5 ghz But it is not happening. I am not going to invest in an other G4 chip just for a small speed increase. If the next Powerbook is a Pentuim M then so be it. The only serious investments in PowerPC software on my Mac are Office X which is getting old and Photoshop 7, which is getting old too. So Ill wait for the intel Powerbook and at the time Ill get updated Photoshop and Word.
this move means cheaper macs and access to the mass market. Apple has a better shot at the other 97% of pc buyers. That is important and crucial for apple.
I just smile when I see those quotes.
I would like to see benchmarks on the P4 Steve was using on that deadly day. And compare them with the G5 ones both running OS X now
May be the pervious benchmarks were all lies ?
I disagree, The P4 M is just as crappy as the P4...I have both and they suck
I'll admit though... a lot of apple fan boys have always slung mud at x86 in general.
I pray that in two years Apple has found a suitable x86 derived chip that will quench the fires of the fanboys.
I have had countless talks with apple fanboys... and most say that Intel and AMD suck in general... no matter what kind of benchs there are...
This will be an interesting 2 years to see the fanboys embrace a company that they have hated with a religious zeal.
He he, nice... suddenly the PentiumM is good enough for the apple crewsters. Oh, and yes, ofcause it is sooo much better than the lousy "PC cpus" P4.
Sah... PM has been around a long time and aplle folks have never praised it until now. Next thing you know we'll see benchmarks showing that P4 is 98% slower(he he) then PM.
is that if powerpc outperforms intel on the apps that cater to mac's niche, is transiting to an inferior x86 a smart business move?
if creative professionals are being enticed to go with powerpc/apple for higher performance on adobe, then switching to intel isn't smart.
also will osx86 apps outperform windows apps on x86?
Apple was and is right to point out that MHz is not the measure of performance. Right now I would prefer a G5 from a performance stand point. But the Pentiums blow away the G4 and that is all that apple can put in a laptop.
Intel offers apple an opertunity to get better performance in their bread and butter (PowerBook) line, and will not up the high end systems until 2 years from now when intel will have closed the gap (this is apple's bet).
This also has the side effect of making "swithers" more likely as they will be able to buy a mac and in the rare event that they do not like OS X they can install windows. Intel has a lot of positives for apple, and because OS X is cross platform then they can continue to produce PowerPC systems if conditions change to make that more desirable.
Apple may have found the ultimate position - complete control.
pentium M is a nice chip.... good clock speed and the important thing -- a good amount of fast cache onboard! BOOM!
The UNIX BSD kernel that MacOS is based on is very lean and very fast. it will provide a response time to desktop users far better than that provided by WinXP.
MacOS on Intel will FEEL faster than WinXP even if the throughput server benchmarks are not hugely different.
Not that I'm a Mac zealot or anything, this is Operating Systems Design 101 from my CompSci under grad days.
And where was the PPC going? It isn't going anywhere. IBM has failed to produce. Apple is doing the right thing.
Signed,
Apple Zealot
That's what I don't get though...where is any CPU going in terms of mhz. Absolutely nowhere, the P4 has been hovering in the same range for a while. Intel, AMD, IBM...they've all hit a large roadblock in their fight against the physics of transistors some just hit it at lower speeds than others.
That's what is causing dual cores to become much more viable option. There were Dual core G4's and there were dual core G5's on the way.
PPC did have some life in it but in the next few years it's going to leave the desktop scene and stay in the high end server area as well as the embedded area.
Did anyone really believe the hype put out by either intel or apple regarding speed? Sales pitches are just that, and don't forget; there lies, damn lies and (statistics) benchmarks has to apply.
I think we need a new acronym, DUD-Drama, Uncertaintly and Doubt. The amount of drama dredged up this week invoking betrayal, hypocracy, and I told u so's is nauseating.
First. Moor's law is on intels side since IBM stopped improving the G5. The current g5 offering is equal or better then many intel chips. This here is all about the future and Jobs stresses this at length in his keynote.
Second. Since we are on the topic of future development. Desktop computers peaked years ago. Mobile computing is what its all about. You can plug in a monitor into your laptop and make it a desktop on demand but you can't do the opposite. The performance hungry applications these days run on game consoles and servers not on run the mil PCs. Intel has by leaps and bounds the best current mobile CPU and they are dumping all their R/D into it as you can clearly see by their bastardization of their pentium4 proper cpus which they keep current by acquiring AMD patents until it can be replaced by whatever they are working on.
IBM's biggest thinker were screwing around with the Cell.
Which clearly won't be ready to handle real multi-user/Application workloads for a long time.
IBM dropped the ball big time and kissed off a huge market, just because they lost a few sales to Apple's XServer?
http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/cpu/cell-2.ars
Time Pressure, which Apple feels, didn't seem to affect the IBM team. Or was this an IBM upper mgmt screw up.
Only IBM knows for sure.
If you read benchmarks from anywhere but Apple's site, you'd know G5's never were faster than Intels or AMDs. It was always marketing BS. But Apple has nothing to worry about. The cult will follow...blindly.
sources:
http://www.barefeats.com/macvpc.html
http://www.digitalvideoediting.com/2002/05_may/features/cw_aeshowdo...
http://www.digitalvideoediting.com/2002/07_jul/features/cw_macvspc2...
http://www.creativemac.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=31238
http://www.digitalproducer.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=9806
http://www.digitalproducer.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=11624
You can also read the recently posted benchmarks showing Linux to beat OS X handily as a server.
It may be very good for Apple, performance-wise, that they're switching to a better architecture, but they still need to optimize their kernel for performance. We'll have a real test once they're on the same platform. It could get really interesting.
Intel plans to provide industry leading development tools support for Apple later this year, including the Intel C/C++ Compiler for Apple, Intel Fortran Compiler for Apple, Intel Math Kernel Libraries for Apple and Intel Integrated Performance Primitives for Apple.
I've always heard that the Intel compiler produces better binaries on Linux. Does this mean the same thing for Mac on Intel. If so, here's another advantage of the move to Intel (if the Intel C/C++ compiler can already be used with PowerPC, then disregard this post).
Good point about the MHz myth, but beyond it, IBM had a myth of it's own. It was call on time, mass production and distribution of PPC chips. Plainly put, if nothing else, Intel has been a lot more consisten on the development, manufacturing, and schedule delivery of processors. I think that will help apple, at the very least, with credibility on their future development and delivery schedules.
I've compared the P4 3 ghz to my Powerbook 1.5 G4 1 gig.
The powerbook get the work done faster. That's the real world.
Apple says that Intel will be where they want to be, two years from now. And where will that be?
According to The Inquirer (snip/synop):
The chips are based on the Pentium M philosophy of shorter and more efficient pipelines, 12 or 13 stages. Don't look for clock speeds anywhere near that of Netburst products, more in the 2.5GHz range for the desktop parts. Also, the chips will be "out" starting in late 2006 with Merom, followed by Conroe, then Woodcrest.
We expect them to be publicly shown at the next Spring IDF, and perhaps Chipzilla will lift the veil and show off a couple of early, early samples at Fall IDF, if there is one. Intel may not have functional silicon by then.
http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=23055
So, Will these better the G5 2.7DP w/ dual 1.35GHz bus Apple uses now? or that IBM could deliver in the same 2007 time frame?
Apple have been saying all along that the G4 and the G5 is better than the Pentium 4. While debatable, Apple said that they are switching to Intel not because of Pentium 4 but for their future roadmap. And their future roadmap is dominated by Pentium D and Pentium M - rather good products, quite unlike Pentium 4.
Though so far Apple haven't announced which model of Pentium they are using, following their vague timeline, I must say - Pentium 4 doesn't seem to be a major part of that.
Hypocrite? Hypocrite is only if Apple switches, uses the same Pentium 4's it condemn and calls it good.
Plus, while previously Apple's marketing have to deal with selling the processor and the platform itself, using a commodity processor frees Apple from marketing the Pentiums. They don't need to try convincing people that the Pentiums they know well is not as good as the processors they are using simply because they are using Pentiums. And since Apple's performance would be pretty much, more or less, the same as other PC makers with more direct comparisons that can be made, you would see less and less of those benchmarks on Apple sites.
If zealots decide to rough it out for a year more years on PowerPC - their loss. They would soon find more and more applications won't run on their beloved platform as over the years there is less and less justification to put out fat binaries.
"People in glass house shouldn't throw stones?"
Name one company that hasn't stretched the truth over the years.
In 6 months intel CPU's will smoke the current overclocked G5's. The information for right now is probably correct so why remove it? either way what still can't be factored yet but will be is Mac OSX vs. Windows on similiar hardware only then will we know the strengths of the OS.
Apple will in 2006 (and well into 2007) use whatever Intel will have to offer BY THEN. That could be (and will be) very different from what Intel had to offer at the time Apple was shouting about the G5 being better.
Apart from the Intel technical specs and benchmarks (ie. roadmap), Apple now chooses to go for other advantages of Intel, such as their ability to deliver, their huge name worldwide, and their business strategies.
And the MHz myth will still be in order.
Yes indeed, the P-M is very efficient, I have a 1.2 GHz clocked Mini and a 1.5 GHz clocked P-M machine, and the P-M machine runs circles around the mini in most tasks.
Intel did not recognize that almost for two years selling it as notebook processor only and trying to force the people towards the Pentium 4. While AMD was roasting them speedwise and from the power consumption (Amd has had a killer lineup of processors now for almost four years in a row, beating Intel technology wise left and right).
The main problem was that Intel sold the processors many years over the motto more GHz === better, but that did not work out for the Pentium-M which blows basically a P4 away which has one GHz more.
They simply could not figure out what to do with it. But now that things are moving into multicore, and that there is a huge demand for low power processors, finally intel got the clue, the last minute before it as to late.
If Intel never had the P-M (which in fact was not designed by Intel but by israelis) they now would have a much bigger problem on their hands, and basically would have lost any technological advantage over the other processor manufacturers for at least another five years.
Intel is always slow to notice if they have something significant on their hands, but they always have the last quantum of luck to just even dive through severe mistakes rather unhurt.
I can't understand why everyone has to hang on to this powerpc platform, aren't you guys concerned at all about the progress of Mac OS X rather than the drab details of hardware?
IBM cannot produce the breadth and depth of consumer and business chips like Intel. That's intel's game, chip making.
What does it matter anyway? Everyone says that x86 is such a kludgy architecture, but what does it matter? There's been enough engineering around that kludginess over the years to make it a very high performing architecture. Your iTunes app and iPhoto app will be much faster on intel, can't you rejoice in that?
And the other thing to mention is that the pricing is going to take a huge dive. IBM is just not in the business of mass production, yeah yeah you may say that the gc was a consumer driven product, but i beg to differ, that thing hasn't sold as many as ps2 or xbox. the cell processor is going to be r&d'ed by several companies, not just ibm, so that'll be more feasible. Apple wants out of the computer hardware business so that they can focus on the value add to their customer base--software and cool shit that helps professionals get their work done. That's not to say they won't work with Intel engineers to craft things up, but there will be less investment over time on the hardware side of things. Imagine dual core macs competitively priced. Didn't everyone always used to bitch about dual g5 top line prices? I don't think we're talking about sub $1000 top end macs, but definitely more bang for the buck that everyone's been wanting, more power, more compatibility, more progress.
I for one applaud the intel partnership, hardware is a commodity, focus on the value add. Now it's clear why tiger didn't have so many features as panther, they were focusing on the intel port.
bring us more powerful macs at better prices, who cares if one or two losers like Martin Girard decide to drop apple. Does anyone care if there's one less imac buyer? C'mon, give me a break, he's not even a high end customer, like anyone gives a rats ass. Go back to winblows you baby, or linux, i for one use multiple os's and hardware, it's all about whatever works in the end.
And lest not forget the true roadmap for computing: multicores, multi-os's running congruently to give end users the best user experience.
All those for progress say aye, all those for Martin Girard and company say fuck you.
AMD stopped selling chips by the speed just because.
Intel is phasing out speed in it's chip's descriptions.
The MHZ myth was put to bed a couple of years back, and still does today as an Opteron running at 2.6 ghz kicks the crap out of a 3 ghz xeon.
Both are still x86.
Apparently the authour has caught up to the rest of us.
Lots of people have been playing make-believe pundit since Jobs made his announcement. Like this rant, most of them create a bogus premise for Apple's decision and then proceed to beat on that bogus premise with equally bogus suppositions.
Unless you're on Apple's board, you're gonna hafta take Jobs at his word: Apple wants to sell things that IBM chips won't support.
Now, if Apple is really will to keep the few zealous customers who buy Macs solely because they've got PowerPC chips inside them at the risk of losing the rest of the world who don't care what's in the machine, then Jobs should be fired, quickly.
So, get a clue. If you were selling PC's and consumer electronic toys, and your current chip vendor was makng you unhappy, where else would you go but Intel? (Yeah, there's AMD. Wait two years and we'll know why they went to Intel instead. But, the simplest expanation is that Intel gave them a better deal.)
Yeah, because Intel hasn't innovated and changed since the stupid Burning Bunnyman commercial.
We must hold Apple to something created years and years ago and apply it to Intel's modern CPUs, which are drastically different in terms of both speed and power consumption...
The "megahertz myth" that Steve Jobs has been saying all these years is nothing but pure FUD. Maybe you should care about it if you do nothing but process huge Photoshop images all day, but otherwise, it's been misleading to say the least.
Here's the truth that I saw myself: from Apple you can get a mac mini for $600 with a 1.4ghz processor, 256M RAM, 32M video card, 80gig drive and no monitor or keyboard. 6 months ago for $650 from Dell I can get Dimension 8400 desktop computer with a 3.2ghz Pentium 4 processor, 512M RAM, 256M video card, 80gig drive minimum, DVD/CD drive, 17in flat screen monitor, keyboard, mouse. That isn't just twice the computer for the same price, it is closer to 3 times the computer Apple offers at that price. No way does Apple have a chance unless they let people run OS X on their own X86 hardware, and even then I don't see any benefit over Linux distributions like Ubuntu, Mandriva, Suse, ...
zealots
That's all you really have to know. It's beyond me how anyone who isn't directly tied to a microchip, whether it is financially or creatively, could really give a toss either way. Same goes for an OS.
You can get a 3.4GHz Dell for under $900, a 3.6ghz can't be a whole lot more. So why compare it against a machine *3* times more expensive? That's stupidity.
The simple fact of it is that the PowerPC is not developing as fast as it needs to in order to compete with x86 at the desktop level. Its pretty simple. When Steveo wasn't able to live up to his "3ghz" promise the writing was on the wall.
There's also the thought that Intel is doing this because they're attempting to push away from Microsoft. Microsoft wants to control the hardware of "their" platform and in doing so for the xbox360 they dumped Intel, so Intel is striking back by signing up a second major tier-1 (the other being Dell) OEM.
Damien
No doubt about it, the PPC is a great chip, but only a few times has it been faster than Intel or AMD, period! I really don't care what this zealot things. I have a G3,G4, Intel, and a AMD. I know how fast they all run PS, After Effects etc. Even with Altivect and hyperthreading.
Where is the new Powerbook? It's still on the drawing board or on some shelf wieghing 12 pounds from a 970 crambed into it.
Darwin was built to run on x86. So does this mean that it's running native now?
All accounts are saying it runs fast and matches and beats the deul Power Mac. That alone is great news and incredible. That a tester model with integrated video beats or matches the G5 in OpenGL and Quartz.
- "the thing is fast". All iLife apps are already universal binaries
- Pentium 4 660 at 3.6GHz, but will not be used in the shipping product" Macrumors
"The Intel Mac scored well in both the Quartz graphics and OpenGL graphics tests "almost matching or exceeding dual-2.5GHz G5 score"." Macrumors
Nice, we should have some smoking machines in the first generation of new Macs and Powerbooks.
Correction, the video card from Dell was a 128 megabytes ATI Radeon X300, not 256 megabytes.
Once again, we must look at the bases of these architectures.
CISC takes 15 calculations to perform a processes.
RISC takes 7.
Thus, multiply PPC ghz by 2 or so and you get an approximate amount of equivalent Mhz.
Comparing PPC to x86 by Mhz is like comparing apples to oranges. -_-;;
First, Apple isn't going to use any EXISTING Intel cpu in future Macs. They will use upcoming Intel cpus. I don't like current Intel cpus but their roadmap may offer something compelling in 2006/2007.
1. IBM didn't deliver the 3Ghz G5 as they promised years ago. So Jobs looked foolish when he failed to deliver 3Ghz G5 Macs as he had promised within 12 months (presumably based on IBM assurances).
2. IBM didn't deliver any G5 processors that can be used in notebooks. Given that notebook sales are now exceeding desktop sales, this is not good for Macs.
3. The decision to move to Intel was based on FUTURE CHIPS in the roadmaps of various CPU producers. Jobs saw something in Intel's roadmap that he didn't see in IBM's roadmap. Perhaps IBM told him to kiss their ass when he demanded mobile G5 chips because IBM captured XBox 360, Playstation 3 and Nintendo--why deal with Jobs demands for ever-changing chips when IBM can simply sell 50+ million console chips for 5+ years without having to upgrade the console chips?
After the Motorola fiasco, Jobs did the smart thing by having a "plan B" just in case IBM failed to deliver. This was probably seen a wasteful paranoia at the time but it looks like it was the wisest thing for Apple.
If you were Jobs, would you stay with IBM given that IBM seems much more concerned (rightfully so) on console chips? Can you imaging Apple trying to justify G4 laptops in year 2006 or 2007 when all of Intel-based laptops will be dual-core? I like the elegance of the PowerPC instructions over x86 but it won't be enough to offset G4 vs Yonah in 2006.
If you were IBM, would you bother investing substantial money in upgrading G5 CPUs to work in notebooks when that same money can be invested in ramping up production for the upcoming XBox/Playstation/Nintendo consoles that would outsell Macs by an unimaginable margin? Any revamp of the G5 will be outdated in 1-2 years so they'd have to revamp again, and again, and again--but this isn't the case with console chips.
Look for Intel to provide Yonah (or Yonah-based) CPU for Apple laptops initially (dual-core pentium M based) and then follow up with a brand new dual-core 64-bit cpu that makes their current dual-core crap look even crappier. Yonah will be a stopgap because I suspect whatever chip Intel is planning on shipping in 2007 is the real reason Apple chose Intel.
Apple isn't using the P4, so don't write this article. I'm pretty sure the benchmarks of the first Apple (pro) Intel mac will be faster than the G5.
You really need to get your facts straight along with 80% of the other people writing on the subject. If apple released a P4 based powermac right now and said it was better than the G5, then you have room for concern.
The MHz myth is still a myth. But there comes a point when CISC will catch up with RISC. No idiot would say that a 60 MHz PPC is faster than a 3.4 GHz P4.
This is like saying taxes are higher in Canada, so I'll take a $30,000 / year job in the U.S. rather than a $400,000 / year job there. *rolls eyes*
Jobs talks about IBM not delivering a 3 GHz chip by now, but if you google "pentium V" you can find lots of articles from 2003 predicting 5 GHz Intel chips by January 2005. Seems like all chip manufacturers are strugling to get more MHz out of their chips.
Although the PM is more effcient chip clock for clock then the P4, that is it has a higher IPC performence, it's FPU is very weak copaired to the P4's. Thus in any multimedia type benchmarks the P4's still fall out ahead of the PM. That could all change though since the PM right now is all about the mobile sector where battery life is king and not FPU performence which does infact kill your battery off.
Next year when Intel starts to phase out the P4 core and brings the a newer PM derived core for the desktop which doesn't keep all those "power saving" bit's but still runs cooler (maybe in the 35 to 50 watt range for dual cores) with it's beefed up FPU performence so that it will have the better IPC then even the Athlons do now AND have the multimedia power also.
These chips are probably going to show up around this time next year which is when Apple will bring out it's first MacTel system.
I'm going to make a new system of my own around that time for sure.
I for one do not want to see OS X on PCs from Dell, HP, etc... why? Because, besides the processor (which won't be anything special in 2007 anymore), the Mac OS is what makes it. If Apple were to let OS X run on PCs, I can see 1) It becoming unstable, like Windows because of the many many drivers you would have to support - basically, no hardware control and 2) Apple's hardware division would fall to the ground - Apple STILL is a hardware company.
AFAIK no-one ever said it's going to replace the G5 architecture. The places where PPC poses a problem at the moment are the iBooks/PowerBooks, and the low-end machines which use G4's. On the conference itself it was said that they already promised faster portables last year, but can't deliver because the G4 is not powerfull enough, and the G5 is not ready for low power machines.
So there's completely no need to change the "Mhz stories".
My only concern is that the Pentium M is 32-bit. I was hoping Leopard would be fully 64-bit.
And also kill off that moronic automatic ad markup deal: "web page" looks like it might have at one point led to something worthwhile before you click it due to the context, but then you get an annoying ad you weren't expecting.
Then there's the easily-checked-but-wrong stuff in the articles, such as this one. I know you aren't getting rich off of this, but such easily checked things like performance numbers referenced from within the article itself should be verified quickly. "98% slower" like mentioned above is a good example of that. The only logical conclusion I can draw is that the articles posted are those expected to cause high hit counts on the site, with hopes of ad revenue, regardless of quality of the articles in terms of getting what "facts" are quoted correct, grammar, spelling, etc. which makes the whole site worth much less to readers.
From my perspective I really dont care much about the underlying CPU, they are all "fast enough". The benefit I see is now being able to develop software for my clients on a single development system... an Apple. Each developer can write software for Windows, Linux and OSX on this single system vs. buying a minimum of 2. I see this transition as a good thing for my niche little world, it may not be a big saving in cost, but every penny helps when I have to bid against $10-15/hr. labor overseas.
If the matter is simply one of desiring a laptop chip that can be comparable to the desk top, then the move makes sense. If it is a simple matter of getting the highest GHz, then the move does not. However, I seriously doubt it is about the speed as much as it is about having a Mac laptop of the same generation be comparable to the Mac desktop.
Personally, I like the Pentium-M. I think it is the best Intel chip to date in terms of performance, power usage, and heat output.
The average consumer will not care nor notice, hopefully Apple can maybe drop the prices a little bit if they go with mainstream CPUs.
The are making the move because the road map of the PPC is going no where. it has nothing to do with the performance currently or in the past.
I think this uphill battle isn't the challenge some think. There are zealots in any sect of life. These groups represent a very small overall number of users. I am sure there are a few DOS stragglers out there but it doesn't seem to have hurt Microsoft from pitching Longhorn to the world. There are ways for Apple to market their stuff and the Powermac G5 still has 2 years of life ahead of it, even if the low end models have x86, so G5 bragging can go on.
As somebody already said, it seems that the PPC chip is going nowhere. If the Pentium hasn't surpassed it yet, it probably will in the near future, so you gotta look at the long-range forcast. And let us not forget, the Pentium 4 was actually slower than the P3 when it first came out, so some of these things just take time.
Let's be clear about something: pretty much everybody's marketing is bullshit, not just Apple's. Every once in a while, we get to see exactly how.
Not that there aren't great things about the PowerPC -- there are. But on balance, Intel chips will meet Apple's needs much better. (cough...PowerBook...)
"The zealots still wouldn't buy the Intel hardware though."
That's me.
Soon gonna buy Dual G5 2.0 Ghz and gonna enjoy it for very long time.
x86 is VHS
PS: Apple did do the right thing.
The MHz Myth was simply assuming a higher clock meant higher performance. This still holds true, you cannot judge performance by Clock speed along and Intel has begun to realize this with their M line of chips. Apple didn't switch to Intel so much as Intel came around to Apple's way of thinking. Why shouldn't Apple use the biggest chip supplier in the industry when their philosophies have aligned so perfectly.
Who said anything about using a Pentium??? They will use a Intel processor just like Microsoft used for development a PowerMac G5 for their XBox 360.
Here's the truth that I saw myself: from Apple you can get a mac mini for $600 with a 1.4ghz processor, 256M RAM, 32M video card, 80gig drive and no monitor or keyboard. 6 months ago for $650 from Dell I can get Dimension 8400 desktop computer with a 3.2ghz Pentium 4 processor, 512M RAM, 256M video card, 80gig drive minimum, DVD/CD drive, 17in flat screen monitor, keyboard, mouse. That isn't just twice the computer for the same price, it is closer to 3 times the computer Apple offers at that price.
Actually, if you go by volume, it's about 30 times the computer Apple offers at that price! =P
Honestly, why does everyone care what processor is used?
yes yes, we have all heard that x86 "suxxors" and ppc is the "roxers" but in reality, why does it matter to you as a customer which chip is used?
does anyone here that is affected actually realize which processor they will be coding under tobegin with, a thousand dollars says for nearly every developer ofhte mac platform a BIG NO.
they dont develop for the chip, they develop for the platform.
apple is still an apple regardless ofthe chip.move along realize that it is nota big deal
What do you mean by "X86 is VHS"?
VHS as in Very High Speed?
From Wikipedia (don't know where they got it from - probably IBM, but I'm sure they're not pulling our legs):
"IBM is currently developing the 970MP, which is due out in the 3rd quarter of 2005, and is code-named "Antares". The PowerPC 970MP is said to be a dual-core processor that can scale up to 3.5GHz. This chip should start at 90nm and then graduate to the 65nm process."
Funny...that would make a dual G5 a quad G5, and at 3.5GHz I'm sure it does well in benchmarks other than the Photoshop games Apple use to argue their beautiful aluminium cases. I'll have 3 of those 14GHz monsters, thanks!
Apple with a 3.0+GHz P4? No thanks. I've got too many of those heating elements sitting around already.
And yes, I know Jobs wants Pentium-M in his laptops, but I don't want a laptop for my daily work. Fiddly keyboard, monitor too small and at the wrong height. I want my workstations in cases, thank you very much, as do most professionals.
Should he wish to cater to the growing needs of your average Joe user, then a 1.67GHz G4 is MORE than enough. We're not going to have supercomputers at laptop sizes for quite a while anyways, Intel or no.
Two things Apple must do:
1. Window resizing should be fast on Intel-cause that gives the perception that OS is slow.
2. They should give an option to use full-speed scrolling-just for bench mark sake even though this will render scrolling down at the bottom to select the next few lines next to impossible.
3. Even if Os X or applications written for it are faster even on a lowly P4 when compared to G4 or G5, it only means that it pays to optimize the OS and software for a given processor. Thus comparing this newfangled fast MacIntel to the previous generation of G4 or G5s would not negate the previous bench marks by Apple.
Just because Apple changed processors, that is not sufficient reason to either buy or not buy Apple products. Because MS is now using PPC for XBox will all the PC users shun MS from now on.
4. Even if the Intel processor on which Os X will run proves 'inferior' to potential future PPC-that does not make Apple decision a stupid one. Haven't PC users using MS Windows and MS Office, both inefficient and filled with bloat, on their supposedly superior processors all along.
Apple will be just another PC maker only with a distinctively different OS bereft, at least initially, of viruses, trojans and malware. Now that the hardware comparison has been taken out of the equation, one can judge the OS and its included software on its own merits. This makes it really hard for the PC zealots, like the author of this article, who liked to say that they could always get a faster PC for lower price since they bought the Mhz myth and always claimed that any bench marks presented by Apple was always tainted.
Give it up already and rejoice. Now you doubters will be able to test and get a taste of a real OS for the first time!
...how does a 3.5GHz dual-core G5 make for "no future"?
If there's no better way to measure speed than Mhz, then how the hell will you explain to customers how your chip is faster than the next guys?
Apple has piled on the bullshit far too heavily regarding the "supercomputer" and "fastest desktop" and all the other hyperbole that has surrounded the Mac for a long time.
Now Apple will be competing head-on in benchmarks with Microsoft and Linux on the same hardware. There will be no more ability of Apple to lie on benchmarks.
While Apple will go through the pain of having to deliver value vs. lies, it may not mean much. Microsoft has fallen back further into their monopoly business and the value they deliver to the marketplace drops every year.
It will take a couple years, perhaps more, for most of the "faithful" to understand that their church was corrupt but it is still their church. Some few undoubtedly will not be able to handle the betrayal and will move to another church.
Of course the Church of Apple is happy as there are many more possible converts in the new land of Intel. So even if they go through some hard times, the future is bright.
interesting article at librenix.com:
http://librenix.com/?inode=6758
I've never had a Mac and most of my friends that own a Mac don't even know what a processor is. These are probably the people Steve Jobs have in mind to market Mactel. The fact that Apple dumped PPC wasn't really all that surprising, but the fact that Jobs chose Intel and not AMD is very disappointing. I'm not a geek at all, and I don't understand all the technical terms and benchmarks. But Intel has never seemed like a trustworthy company to me (besides that they completely changed their stories about MHz, what about the cover-up about a floating-point error that led to incorrect calculations years ago on their processor, which was later exposed by a college professor? I wish I had a concreter memory of this incident, I read it from one of Tanenbaum's books...I'd appreciate it if someone could help me out here!)
If Apple is running AMD it'll immediately become my next laptop. But I just don't see me buying an Apple with Intel inside...
The "Church" didn't betray it's users, IBM did.
IBM kissed off a FUTURE as the supplier of laptop and desktop cpu's.
Steve isn't as clue'd in to AMD.
And Apple may need the "Intel Inside" marketing money if it's got to compete with Dell.
From what I heard, Apple was unwilling to pay the money needed for "good" custom chips. One thing we know from Apple, they always are cheap on the hardware.
As Apple ended up being the only customer for PowerPC, the entire G5 experiment was a money loser for IBM. The volume was too low to economically support the project, much less see it prosper.
Largely because... The Church of Apple decided NOT to sell PowerPC machines at a reasonable price. And without a lower price to drive demand elasticity, IBM realized PowerPC on the desktop was dead in the water as long as the Church of Apple was in control.
The PowerPC costs less to make than a x86 PC. It is a smaller chip. But Apple never believed in expanding church membership enough to take advantage of this.
In the end I think everyone comes out a winner -- IBM gets rid of the Church of Apple and their money loser G5. IBM moves on to recoup their investment via PowerGC (Power GameConsole).
Apple gets to move to a mainstream architecture with some of the best chips in the business (network, system, cpu, etc). Apple is leveraging the giant PC industry vs. being out their on their own preaching the virtues of their custom chip.
And IBM is happy as Microsoft has a little bit more potential competition. And hopefully Apple is happy about that too.
Quote: "And where was the PPC going? It isn't going anywhere. IBM has failed to produce. Apple is doing the right thing. "
Unless your Microsoft: They are getting a triple core 3+GHz PPC chip for their game console. Interesting that Microsoft and Sony are going to IBM for more power and reduced heat while Apple has to go to Intel...
- Mark
I dont know what all the fuss is about! i think its a great move by apple going to intel cpu's... i really dont care what the hell is running under the hood because afterall its really all about OS X isnt it? I think we will get some great benefits out of this move such as wine and hopfully the ability to use PC video cards!!
At one time we would hear, "Its the OS, stupid". Then we heard, "Its the apps, stupid". Now we hear "Its the integration, stupid.". The whole, "Its the CPU, stupid" argument was something that become irrelevant years ago. CPU prowess is mainly a branding/marketing thing because all of the CPUs deliver about the same (unless you are in a niche application space, which is a very low volume business anyways).
Unfortunately, Apple was in a bind: they were stuck with a single supplier who was not producing either quantity or variety (where are the G5 portable chips?). Then they found themselves in the unfortunate circumstance that they would have to be explaining why their $4000 "supercomputer" desktop had less horsepower (and arguably the same chips but not as many of them) as the XBOX 360.
If you like the PPC, buy a game machine. That's what the new mantra is becoming and Apple, being a system provider trying to get into the enterprise space can't allow themselves to be measured against that stick.
Anyone who says they bought an Apple solely for the PPC is lying through their teeth. 100% gauranteed.
People, where did you see laptops nowadays?
In my (probably outdated) mind, laptop is lightweight thing which you can hold in hours on your laps without danger to burn something important inbetween and without need to have AC-power near you in hours (workday estimatelly).
So, show me such laptop with all your 4 GHz truths and myths.
Please!
In next two years laptop market will also turn in low-margin commodity market with lot of OEMS and weird "european" and "US" companies selling something form China under various names, like it happens, e.g. with bicycles, which is an mass such half-anoymous products assembled from unified parts made by noname subvendors.
As Apple was positioned itself as "exclusive HW manufacturer", in nearest future, especially with that transition it will get really hard time.
To get those margins they used with in competence with "Wallmart-laptops" for USD 400.
And i don't see High-clock rate -> Heat pollution ->Short battery life as argument which can help them.
So idea about G$ inability to catch Intel's clock rate don't play for me.
And again, in that future low-premium market i see idea to stay as "HW-vendor" very strange. If Apples gem is really OS X - why don't sell it for "usual" PC-s???
Those pro-Intel guys here, who said that PowerPC don't matter, OS X does now tend to omit that idea for misterious reason
are they(apple & intel) merging?????? are they planning to merge in the future??? i really wonder if this is the real plan and they want us to be ready. ahhhhhh!
maybe i am going crazy!!! pls, give your honest opinion.
thank you.
-2501
I just think you are all wrong.
Apple had to choose some other processor, since IBM does not desire to sell hardware with small margins.
IBM is good in selling mainframe hardware for million dollars, and adding to that millions in services.
PC market is difficult for them, they failed there many times. IBM has no PCs anymore, they sold to Lenovo.
"Small margins" is not IBM business.
They prefer to sell Power/Risc in their AIX Servers for a lot bigger margin than Apple sells the G5.
No, IBM will not sell the "good" chips to Apple, no business there.
Apple servers = undesired competition in the server market.
Game consoles do not compete in the server market, so you can get the cell for it, this makes busines sense.
So, Steve had to look for some other CPU supplier, or start selling used cars.
Adam, darling; the Mhz myth still exists, hence the reason Intel will be basing its future chips on the Intel P4 Mobile/Centrino; they'll dual core it, pump it full of cache, throw it on a massive FSB, and concentrate on the performance of the chip, not the clock speed.
Intel would never like to admit this, but their P4 product was technical stuff up, coupled with the grappy branch prediction and other limitations, little wonder it was beaten by Opteron being clocked at a lower speed.
They're finally realised that having a pipe line that can reach to the moon and back may sound great, and may be able to enable them to scale the clock rate higher, but it doesn't mean that the the performance will increase at the same rate as the Mhz does. They found this out the hard way, both in the lack luster performance and the heat/power consumption issues which forced them to work on a mobile chip which is nothing more than enhanced PIII with some tweaks around the edges.
My mum always said "People in glass houses... shouldn't walk around naked", and this is indeed true for Apple.
No, the correct saying is:
'Confucious say; man who live in glass better get changed in basement'
"If Apples gem is really OS X - why don't sell it for "usual" PC-s??? "
Oh that's an easy one. Why sell it for the "usual" PC when you can con people into giving you more money for hardware. Their gem trully is OS X, and they are using it to make people more for their slower hardware.
My point in this editiorial was to point out the MHz myth that Apple needs to address, NOT anything to do with future chips. Granted, my personal opinion is that they are going to do a Pentium-M *based* on EM64T. Everyone that saw the WWDC keynote watched the performance per watt (was that it), either way something in the terms of performance per power. A customized Penitum-M with EM64T really does fit the bill on that.
The MHz myth factor is a huge consideration. Look at the benchmarks listed in the editorial. Basically, they are starting that Intel can't make chips that can COMPARE to the G5; Intel Pentium 4 or Xeon. What does that mean? That means Steve is now going to PAWN off hardware from Intel, that Apple for the past few years has been doing nothing BUT discrediting it. At this point there is TWO options:
1)We made the benchmarks and they stand. Intel based CPUs we get from now on will be of LOW QUALITY still compared to the G5 and will not equal out performance. Yes, it is true. Your Intel based G6 will not be as good as the G5.
2)We made up the benchmarks. Intel has always made good hardware and we SOLD hardware based off inacurate benchmarks. Our PR rocks!
I suppose there could be two more options. Down playing everything or not even responding to the questions. If I was considering buying an Apple, I'd have to seriously think about all of this in depth.
My point was that in past Apple didn't compete with wall-mart-comps. In future it woul'd. And thus they cannot sell hardware with SUCH hight premium. And hardly will exceed
their 2 percent marketshare.
So - lower, maybe far lower margins than now, and still little marketshare. And 10 000 employees. Huh. And shareholders/investors.
And "real gem" in hand, which can be sold, in theory, for remaining 98% PC users.
Looks like having something for nothing.
Only reason why they don't and wouldn't do it - Microsoft.
To avoid suicide assisted from Redmond.
And that's sad
This isn't about the current PowerPC vs. Intel. In that case, much of what Apple has been saying is valid. PowerPC does beat current Intel processors at various things. This is about future roadmaps, and growth down the road. Perhaps Apple looked out 5 years, and saw that Intel had a better direction and more investment in the kind of products they wanted to produce than IBM. Perhaps IBM wasn't willing to make a G5 that would work in a powerbook, ever. Maybe, although the G5 is fast at things now, it won't compare in the future. Steve announced this now, for the developers, so they can test their Apps on "a" intel chip. Thats no indication that the G5s are any slower than they were last week, or that the current Intel chips are what they made their decision on or even anticipate shipping.
http://apple.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=152340&cid=12784181
Bottom line is that Id did quite a bit of optimizations for the Mac and the performance was never there.
You still fail to address the criticisms people have of your opinion piece; the fact is, Intels processors were not as good as G5, however, looking at the future road map, which is what the *WHOLE* WWDC conference is all about, Intel will be *SIGNIFICANTLY* changing their P4/EMT64 direction.
The third option for Apple is simply this;
3) Intel processor sucked; Intel finally got their shit together, they showed us where they're going in the future, compared it to the undelivered road map that IBM kept hyping to us, and we found a compelling case to shift.
There was a megahertz myth; Intel has acknowledges that megahertz isn't everything, and thus, adjusting their product line up to reflect that change direction.
" the fact is, Intels processors were not as good as G5, however, looking at the future road map, which is what the *WHOLE* WWDC conference is all about, Intel will be *SIGNIFICANTLY* changing their P4/EMT64 direction." - Kaiwai
May be true, personally I'm a big fan of software. However, they is a huge problem with having bad software and good hardware and vise versa. I certainly hope that the future road for Intel in terms of Apple would be more Apple like. For the mean time, however, general non tech people will still wonder why Apple is going to a company that benchmarks very badly compared to PowerPC. "Apple going to slow, ineffecient Intel chips? What!?!?" seens to be the general opinion I've read everything. Since, Apple hasen't released much about the chip it is nothing but pure speculation at this time if it will infact be based off the Penitum 4. My point is that after years of downgrading Intel's best, they have to pull out a great PR stunt regarding using Intel. Regardless of Intel someday finally pulling CPU's the spec for Apple, the general uninformed public will still regard Intel on Apple as blasphemy. Bottom line: Apple needs to get into gear and start defending Intel or People will just think Apple just jumped to a cheap, less effiecent CPU company that is known as Intel. Perhaps some specs on future chips would help?
The only point of the article seemed to be that you feel that Apple should have to eat crow for switching to Intel. That is their 'major problem'.
Where was this article when the Pentium-M was released, and Intel had a 'major problem' in releasing a new chip with a lower clock speed than their previous processors? You act like tech is locked in stone, and what was once true will always be true.
The one disappointment about the PowerPC line was that it never left Intel behind. Whenever some new advance came that gave PowerPC an advantage, Intel quickly responded. When the RISC vs. CISC comparison first started, Intel responded to PowerPC's greater instruction set efficiency by simply cranking up the clock speed to double that available in the PowerPC line. When the power consumption advantage for PowerPC became a large enough issue, Intel responded with the Pentium-M.
Apple was never in control of PowerPC development, so had to just sit there and accept the seeming lackluster efforts of Motorola and IBM.
I think the PowerPC line still shows a lot of promise, and has momentum with the gaming consoles promising > 3GHz before the end of the year, and of course the interesting Cell processor. But I do believe Apple is much more in the know about this than you or I are, and has probably wisely decided that come next year Intel is still going to be competive or better what IBM will have available. Not to mention the fact that IBM hasn't even seemed to deliver really optimized compilers for the G5 yet, whereas Apple is going to be able to take advantage of the excellent Intel software right away.
So where is the 'major problem'? The truth is that processor architecture won't be a problem at all because it will no longer be a point of differentiation. Even if PowerPC development really took off and future processors left x86 behind, no PC manufacturer would have an advantage over Apple. CPU has now standardized, like IO ports, storage, and bus architecture. Advantage no one.
I wouldn't consider any benchmarks Apple has provided today as being lies. The interesting thing will be to compare Intel powered machines available next year compared to the machines of today. A G4 powered mini compared to a Pentium-M mini of next year. A dual 2.5 GHz G5 compared to some type of dual core Intel processor next year.
Year over year we always expect improvement; but will there be massive speed increases or merely incremental improvement? Will power consumption go up dramatically, stay the same, or decrease? Those are the types of comparisons that will show if Apple chose wisely; but as I said, even if it turns out the PowerPC path was competitive or better than what x86 could deliver, Apple will be no worse off than other PC manufacturers.
I am not the biggest fan of the x86 architecture, but if I have to use it, I want the Apple interface. I use a pentium-m laptop at work and Intel has made some nice advances in the last few years. The idea of dual booting Mac OS and Windows without Virtual PC seems like an odd thought to me, but it may come true soon enough.
the real problem for Apple will be 'why does a mac with the same specs cost 30% more than a Dell?'
Apple has to suppost an entire OS on sales of 2-3 million machines a year. Probably $100 per unit. Macs can never be price competitive.
Apple has to suppost an entire OS on sales of 2-3 million machines a year. Probably $100 per unit. Macs can never be price competitive.
Quite honestly, they don't have to be. They only have to appeal to those people willing to spend money.
Test results are just true.
P4s can be faster in raw speed but their problem with tested applications is bandwidth - ever wondered why intels have such a huge need for cache and good branch predictors?
Why trading 2CPUs with 1.25 Ghz each against 2 (faster) CPUs with 400MHz to share? It makes no sense by now imho.
Let's see what Apple HW dept will come up with.
Anyway, I was considering a switch to Mac (great architecture, great OS - and not just for shiny gfx), now i wouldn't mind that much...
Apple was never in control of PowerPC development, so had to just sit there and accept the seeming lackluster efforts of Motorola and IBM.
This would also irritate me to say the least.How can you make plans and innovate when your "partner" doesn't cooperate or thinks only in server+Linux+$.
Apple has to suppost an entire OS on sales of 2-3 million machines a year. Probably $100 per unit. Macs can never be price competitive.
Those Dells,HP's and compaqs have windows preinstalled.I personally think Intel is pretty fet up with MS not challenging the hardware enough with staggering innovation and development.Postpone and decrease included features.
One might argue over the prize,why would one prefer an Alfa 159 over a vauxal nova if both have 4 wheels and a steering wheel.It's the whole deal,from the moment you see the stylish box,fire up MacOSX, it makes a far better impression and gives you a far better experience.
Agreed a lot depends on how everything will work together when the transition is fact.And of course the road map Intel most likely shared with Steve.At least something happens, coming period will be interesting.
However there's:http://www.gamespot.com/news/2005/06/09/news_6127219.html
Interesting times indeed.
Software emulation is no good for customers who invested lot of money in PPC software. Apple should offer optional PCI-Express card with PPC processor on it and it's own RAM to allow customers to run Altivec software on Intel Mac.
Speed would be good even with something like dual core G4 because PPC wouldn't do anything more than running the applications, all OS tasks - like graphics, IO, networking would be done in parallel by main Intel CPU.
What was Apple suppose to do? I will miss the PowerPC as much as the next Mac fan, but I can understand. IBM either didn't, or wouldn't update the 970 fast enough. The PowerMac was stuck at 2.5 Ghz for about a year. The improvements never came.
Apple's hand was forced. They had to do what they had to do. I'm sure if IBM had updated the 970, we had a low heat version (able to put in a laptop), and possible a multicore version Apple would have kept the PowerPC
I'm still convinced this is bigger than CPU-A vs CPU-B, and development roadmaps.
Something smells, something's not right about all this, and we've all seen Jobs twist the truth before, more than any of us could a rubber band on a pencil!
Conspiracy theories? Well, I dunno. I was reading one of the more "creative" articles yesterday which talked about a possible Intel/Apple merger, and another related to DRM and aggressive rights protection. Both of these seemingly extreme analysis got me thinking, and I agreed with their sentiment that Apple's timing really sucks.
For instance, if apps are so easy to port (their example was "in hours"), then why do devs need a year? Oh wait, that's because we're waiting for the roadmap, right? Then why announce this now? WHY would you announce something like this which HAS to damage your sales figures, when you could have waited? Also, why announce it publically, not under the more usual wraps of Non Disclosure Agreements?
Hmmm....
Even folks who are non-technical are worried about buying Apple right now, three people in the last week have mentioned waiting another year before upgrading to me personally, and I've read many more on OSNews etc. Nobody wants to buy something which has no "life span", even if logically the old machines will be supported for another two-three years, people don't see it like that.
Is it that Apple currently has no stock of machines? They needed to slow down buying? What's going on?
So...sooooo odd.
..."Apple's hand was forced" ...well, the hand is quicker than the eye!
;)
Papa, you really need to lay off the caffeine.
Why a year? Because it is WWDC. Why would you leave the developers waiting a year for the news when you are going to start transitioning in the next 6-8 months? Remember the first machines will be released BEFORE next year's WWDC.
Also, remember what happened with the PPC transition. There were machines being sold to the public with absolutley NO software available because developers had not gotten test machines.
This will also give those devs on Codewarrior time to move to XCode.
There are just as many people who are still going to buy new Macs as there are people who say they will wait. In fact I would venture a guess that most of the computer buying public has no clue what this really means to them,, nor do they care. OSNews readers accepted... we are to geeky for our own good.
As much as I am loathe to admit it this move was necessary. IBM has basically told Apple, "No more development for you, you are to small for us."
I am really confussed are these guys saying it is the OS and the chip doesn't matter a new bred of Apple users or did the faithfull turn over that quickly. The faithfull that stuck with Apple didn't know what chip they were using? is that a joke.
Intel is ignored as much as possible because of the DRMs, the call home, the chip ID that only Intel was suppose to have known, the new log on from anywhere.
But then again if Apple gets the faithful to argue over all these stupid things... they can slip the DRMs in that the Movie Studios want, and what the HELL, no one will even notice.
It is the DRMs and the ability to make down loading movie rentals that Apple wants, the new Ipod.
Apple turn over for the Movie Studios...end of story.
I actually agree with you, but for the timing and the lack of Apple's usual keep-it-secret mentality. It strikes me as odd, that's all. They could have announced it quietly.
The "theories" aren't mine, just journalists trying to predict the future - no doubt so they can say "I told you so" and really irritate us all, again 
Caffeine? Never touch the stuff, can't stand coffee or Red Bull
Now, the really scary part is that there is quite a lot of awareness out there in "userland" and people are talking about this, I've heard various things from "Apple are now building PCs" to "Apple are leaving PC hardware" from people who don't even usually talk about these things!
Suddenly everyones a geek! ...I'm just waiting for my window cleaner to stop me in the street and ask me about the comparitive merits of RISC processors 
I was just wondering, I like my AMD a lot, & they have a 64bit chip.
It's "Pentium M" NOT "P4 M".
OS X does NOT have a *BSD kernel. It's Mach 3.0 based with a bsd subsystem.. read up
http://www.kernelthread.com/mac/osx/arch_xnu.html
"The only point of the article seemed to be that you feel that Apple should have to eat crow for switching to Intel. That is their 'major problem'. "
I suppose when I write this or the responces, I didn't clearly write out everything. Personally that is the major problem. General non tech savy public will see this as a "What the F#@$!?". I respect what the G5 can do, not to mention I respect what Intel can do. However, Apple still needs to clarify their stance.
The switch was made because IBM can't deliver cpu's. After being promised a 3ghz chip 18 months ago, no appreciable gains for the PB line ( and none in the foreseeable future ) what choice did Apple have. Everybody in the Apple world wanted a future with the G5 and beyond but it ain't there.
"The switch was made because IBM can't deliver cpu's. After being promised a 3ghz chip 18 months ago, no appreciable gains for the PB line ( and none in the foreseeable future ) what choice did Apple have. Everybody in the Apple world wanted a future with the G5 and beyond but it ain't there."
Usually, I would disregard statements like this. However, it is, actually, you that can't read. If you READ the editorial, you would CLEARLY see it really isn't about what you wrote about at all. I'm not debating Apple's current or future hardware whatsoever about specs, production or otherwise. It is about how Apple NEEDs to do some fancy PR to make the switch to Intel work, considering Apple has had benchmarks for years that discredit Intel. Speaking of which, Apple could make a G5 notebook. It would be big, bulky, and the opposite of Apple's design.
"The average consumer will not care nor notice, hopefully Apple can maybe drop the prices a little bit if they go with mainstream CPUs."
WTF is a mainstream CPU?
Anyway, Apple customers don't mind paying for a quality computing experience. There is no other company today that can compare. I'm still surprised at all the numbnuts here that can't get this notion through their thick little skulls.
"Uh, duh, now maybe they'll drop their prices." Why the f**k should they? They've got tightest OS/hardware integration available and an awesome set of bundled apps. The switch is going to do wonders for the company.
"WTF is a mainstream CPU? "
One used by the mainstream, of course. The G5 is not this.
"There is no other company today that can compare. I'm still surprised at all the numbnuts here that can't get this notion through their thick little skulls."
Probably because you're presenting your personal opinion as a fact.
"The switch is going to do wonders for the company."
It'll certainly make it harder for the company to mislead the customer on the performance of their products....
Google "Conroe", "Westbrook", and "Merom". These chips are supposed to begin showing up next year, with the heavy hitters showing up in 2007. Which matches Apple's Intel Timeline. This is when I'll buy my next Mac.
Have a good one...zen
DP-867 / OS X 10.3.9
1.75 GB RAM
360 GB HDD
RADEON 9800 PRO
Intel IS VHS....
This whole discussion is a debate about how many angels fit on the head of a needle.
The point is this: Apple wants to sell Powerbooks [yes, that name again]. To do that it needs a top notch processor. IBM can't/doesn't want to make/sell them. There are no two ways to slice it. Either Apple sees its business going down the drain because they just can't deliver which is simply going to kill their business. Their only alternative is to obtain a part that will do the business. If that part happens to be an Intel processor, so be it.
Am I happy with that? Not particularly. Would I have preferred a G6 at 4 Gigs? Hell yes! Do I worry about the MHz myth though? Not one iota.
Apple has the choice of pumping life blood into its business or to shut it down completely.
This is not a decision you make one morning after a dodgy vindaloo. Count on it that a lot of hard, fast talking with a lot of people over many moons looking at EVERY alternative went into this. As said before: Apple must have been in a bind to be forced to this move or they wouldn't have done it at all.
The PR hit over whether the MHz myth is true or not and how the public perceives that is the lesser evil as compared to not having the parts that will drive the sales to make the business survive. It's a no-brainer.
How that is sold to the public I don't know but the boys and girls of the marketing department aren't shy of a few inventive strokes, they'll come up with something. Count on it.
If my user experience does not change because of the processor make-over and I get to buy a cheaper new machine that performs well [and has a better graphics card!], I will swallow my pride and take the plunge.
The real culprit IMNSHO is IBM for failing to make a profitable business. They've sold their own PC business because they couldn't make it profitable. Had they succeeded in producing a newer chip with better specs, people would have bought it. I would have bought it.
But if they're not making what Apple needs, short of building their own processors, Apple needs to shop elsewhere. You can bitch and whine about that, but it is what it is.
No use crying over spilt milk, boys and girls. The ship has sailed. You might as well enjoy the voyage.
Owen Linkmayer's Apple 2.0 Confidential details project Star Trek where Apple sent employees to a site near one of Intel's plants to put the Mac OS onto Intel chips. This project was killed when a new CEO was put in charge of Apple.
These articles are childish. There is no understanding about business in them. They seem to think that most people harbor grudges when they buy computers.
This may be true for a small minority, but most people are smarter than that.
All of the explanations have already been given for the switch. If they aren't understood, it's too bad.
This is small mindedness.