Linked by Thom Holwerda on Fri 1st Sep 2006 14:48 UTC, submitted by rangnar
PPCNUX-Team member Arno found a source that posts prices of the PowerPC970 (G5) CPUs. They conclude that that could not be the reason that there's no Apple machines running on PowerPC anymore. "G5 Quads for everbody! Thanks to IBM's pricing policy, the open-armed Power.org community, and Genesi's sustained commitment to the Power Architecture this could become a truely realistic option in the not-so-far future..."
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Member since:
2005-07-06
Pricing shouldn't be compared with MHz, they should be compared relative to performance. A 2.33 GHz Xeon 51xx is about 60% faster than a 2.5 GHz 970MP on SPECINT. If we normalize by performance, we're comparing a 2.5 GHz 970MP to a 1.6 GHz Xeon 5150. At $230, the Xeon is substantially cheaper.*
And as MatzeLoCal pointed out, the cost of motherboard and infrastructure shouldn't be underestimated. Designing your own chipset and motherboard isn't cheap, and if Intel can provide a ready-made solution that's most of the way there, it saves you tens of millions of dollars in R&D.
*) Of course, that's not really a completely fair comparison. The 970MP is essentially the same as the circa-2003 970. Meanwhile, the Xeon 5150 is a brand new design on a spanking new process. That's why Apple switched. Not because of any specific weakness with the G5 as a cheap, but with the inability of IBM and Motorola to keep pace.
Edited 2006-09-01 17:19