IBM vs Intel on dual core competitors

It is no longer relevant... no one cares. Apple is going Intel no matter what.

The PowerPC 970MP (dual-core G5) is an excellent CPU, and can compare well with even an AMD Opteron in raw technical terms.

But the 970MP is probably the last new PowerPC chip that will be used by Apple. The reason Apple is moving to Intel (at least officially) is because of the superior power consumption promised by future pentiums, making them suitable for portables (unlike the G5).

Lord Blackadder said:

The reason Apple is moving to Intel (at least officially) is because of the superior power consumption...

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Superior consumption eh. Sounds a bit backwards.

crees! said:

Superior consumption eh. Sounds a bit backwards.

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Whoops. I meant "superior power consumption properties", i.e. efficiency.

The PowerPC chip is far supieror to the 80x86 chip. The big endian scheme and risc instruction set clearly make it faster and better. Who needs 20,000 processor copmmands? Not me. Longlive PowerPC Any one who disagrees should take a basic computer organization & design class. Then you will truly see just how great the powerpc is and why it benifits better suit the people apple is marketing there machines to.

zoran said:

So what about the race between IBMs dual core cpus and Intels ones. Which will be better? any rumors? Which is thought to be faster?

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Dual-Core/Quad-Core PowerPC G5 > Dual-Core X86

currently the 970MP beats pretty much every dual core cpu available on price power consumption and performance, it's plain kick ass. however in a year an a bits time when apple switches the high end to intel intel will be in the lead, if intel would have much much better cpu's now apple would have announced the switch nearly two years ago and we'd all be typing on intel macs, yonah/conroe are going to be special, they would have to be for apple to switch cpu architecture for them.

powermacs will go intel in 2007.

zoran said:

so is that a rumor????? has jobs announced something like that?

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No, it is just a belief perpetuated by people who just spent 3K on a soon-to-be-obsolete workstation

Hector said:

powermacs will go intel in 2007.

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I think it will be alot quicker. If they release a powermac in 2007 then they will have no upgrade path for over a year and I bet these G5 dual core chips won't scale past 2.5ghz. Expect an intel dual core powermac mid next year.

zoran said:

Is there anychance of releasing the intel macs sooner than june, im intrested mostly for power macs!

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If you want a PowerMac, get one now. The current offerings are great, and the Powermacs will likely be the last machines to use the Intel chips because Apple doesn't need to worry about power consumption/heat too much in those machines.

Hector said:

powermacs will go intel in 2007.

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Um...didn't you go away relatively recently?

Athlon X2 is faster than a G5 dual core. Risc, big endian scheme, big deal, it's all a post risc world and in reality there are only minor differences between today's risc and cisc chips. x86 is really fast now days, years of effort by AMD and Intel have resulted in this. I'm not sure why anyone would want a powerpc chip anyway, it's not faster, and x86 gives you access to a lot more software.