Apple and IBM's PowerPC Potential

[ericdano]

Steve said at WWDC that the powermac would be the last to switch. Right now all the altivec optimizations in those programs need to be tested against the intel vector library(can't remember what its called) The pro users of those applications will switch to PC apps if the hop to intel hardware isn't dramatically faster and it won't be dramatically faster unless the optimizations work.

No he didn't. He said the transition will be done in 2 years. He did NOT say what or when. Give me a quote from his WWDC speech that says that.

I'd think that the PowerMacs will be the first to be switched mainly for those users who want a lot of power for their Final Cut Pro setups. I know a couple of people who are drooling at the idea of dual core, 3.6Gigahertz chips....

 

[AidenShaw]

Celerons and Xeons are almost identical

For the last time, the chips are are using are not PowerPC 970s. There are much simpler chips designed for playing video games, not general computer tasks. To compare them to the PC side, they'd be a step below the celeron.

There's very little difference between the core of a Xeon and the core of a Celeron - so your comparision isn't even close.

(Xeon has bigger cache, faster bus, SMP support - but the same internal logic, execution units, etc)

A better comparison would be between a P4 and the original Pentium - like the original Pentium, the Xbox PPC doesn't have out-of-order, etc.

 

[aegisdesign]

Yep, and Steve always told us the truth.... Sometimes business decisions are made and you live with it. But, never assume that business decisions made in th epast can't be changed. For now, the plan is to switch the complete line, but guess what? If tomorrow teh circumstances change, do you really think SJ will ignore those, just because he had mentioned before he was switching the complete line? Think different, think twice.

I know SJ has his foibles but if that was the thinking, you don't burn bridges with the current architecture killing sales for a year or so of your existing products whilst everyone is waiting on the new models. The Osborne effect has been quoted by various pundits, even if it's a bit of a myth, but the Apple PPC->Intel switch is pretty similar. Just as well they've plenty of cash in the bank and the iPod. Otherwise, you don't go wiping out 30% or so of your sales only to later say "Well, actually, we're doing PPC too now" in a years time.

If Apple switching puts a poker up IBM's arse and they deliver and Apple picks it up again then great. Otherwise we're at least no worse off than the Wintel world for hardware.

I do hope Apple use Intel's compiler on the Intel Macs though as GCC isn't the fastest of things.

 

[AidenShaw]

Of course, if you remember, Windows used to be architecture independant. Remember Alpha chips? Windows NT 4 ran on Alpha. It was, by all accounts, a lot faster/better than Intel chips..

Windows NT 4 was also supported on PPC systems, but that effort was stillborn because there were almost no PPC applications.

Windows is still hardware independent.

• XP/2003 : x86, x64, IA64
• Windows CE : ARM and several other architectures

 

[aegisdesign]

I'd think that the PowerMacs will be the first to be switched mainly for those users who want a lot of power for their Final Cut Pro setups. I know a couple of people who are drooling at the idea of dual core, 3.6Gigahertz chips....

Umm, those would most likely be slower than the current G5.

Dual Xeon 3.4Ghz setups generally gets beat by the 2.5Ghz Dual G5 at most things and is completely roasted by the G5 running AfterEffects, which probably the closest you're going to get to Final Cut Pro usage although I'd bet on Apple optimizing the hell out of Final Cut on the PPC using all the altivec and GPU tricks they can.

http://www.barefeats.com/macvpc.html

I'd imagine the 2.7Ghz G5 is easily a match for the Dual core 3.6 Pentium 4 which isn't a match for the Xeon.

Dual Xeon systems also cost a lot more than the G5.

It's not about Ghz entirely. AMD know that. Apple know that. Intel finally got that with the Pentium M. I'd be quite UNHAPPY if the PowerMacs went to 3.6 PentiumDs, unless they stick two of them in there and water cooled them. ;-)

We'll not see one of the existing Pentium4 based chips in a production PowerMac. It'll be something based on Pentium M after Yonah.

 

[MarcelV]

I know SJ has his foibles but if that was the thinking, you don't burn bridges with the current architecture killing sales for a year or so...

That's pure speculation. Don't forget, SJ also 'announced' a series of new products using PPC that are in the pipline during the WWDC. He did not provide more specifics, but he clearly stated that.

 

[Spazmodius]

As for IBM... I think their statement can be summarized as a spin on what everyone already knows... if Apple had paid them a lot of money, they could have done all sorts of special development, but it didn't really work as a business case for IBM (and Apple.) With Intel, Apple simply has to buy product that Intel is already building, and get a nice chipset in the bargain, which will probably end up being faster, cheaper, and better.

This is the first intelligent post in the thread. I don't wish to take anything away from your accomplishement by pointing out what an incredibly low hurdle some of the previous posters have erected in the path of this feat. Thanks for restoring my faith in at least a tiny percentage of individuals interested in the Mac platform.

 

[Makosuke]

There's sure a lot of amusingly turnabout discussion here, but I'm not as surprised as some people at the apparent irony of bashing IBM; two years ago there was a lot of excitement about the G5, but a lot of people were starting to feel the Motorola stall all over again, and that's just coming to the surface now. Heck, I remember hearing a lot of complaints about IBM at WWDC last year.

Really, this must've been a tough business decision, but as much as I don't like Intel as a company, and I'm uncomfortable about the transition, I can see why the decision was made.

The people noting that, even if x86 stalls now, at least everybody else will be stalled too have a very good point, particularly since "speed, speed, speed" is becoming a significantly less important factor in selling computers (thanks in part to Intel's finally having to abandon the MHz Myth they created themselves), so long as there's no major percieved gap.

I'm sure that the potential for dual-source supplying (AMD, even Via) also enters into it; both IBM and Freescale are around now, but Freescale's focus is on embedded processing and IBM's working on specialty and server chips, with the benefits apparently only being trickle-down to Apple.

But you can also look at it this way: The G5 is a solid architecture, but IBM has either had too much trouble with their fabs or not enough to put into development to get the desktop version where they expected it to be years ago, and the mobile version hasn't happened at all.

Intel isn't doing any better on the desktop (arguably worse), but they're doing much better in the mobile arena, and are probably ahead of even Freescale's near-future developments in that market. Add in the development dollars behind 95% of the world's PCs, and I can see where you'd be more comfortable banking on AMD and Intel's R&D machines than Freescale and IBMs, when there's not even a fraction of the money to be made for either of those companies and as such not a fraction of the development dollars to pour into architectural enhancements.

It'd have been a tough choice, but unless IBM or Freescale really hit a breakthrough, it may have been a wise one in the long run, particularly considering Apple's focus on portables. The'll always be something beefy on the desktop end from Intel or AMD to fill the PowerMac gap as necessary.

 

[Mass Hysteria]

do you think that ibm's going to come out with a stonking processor as their last G5 update, just to spite apple before they get dumped for intel?

I think they can do it when they can be bothered. The 2 - 2.5 seemed like a big jump when it happened.

 

[madmaxmedia]

do you think that ibm's going to come out with a stonking processor as their last G5 update, just to spite apple before they get dumped for intel?

I think they can do it when they can be bothered. The 2 - 2.5 seemed like a big jump when it happened.

No, because they'd only lose money. If they wouldn't do it when there were potential PowerMac sales, they're not going to do it just for a pissing contest...

 

[Mass Hysteria]

No, because they'd only lose money. If they wouldn't do it when there were potential PowerMac sales, they're not going to do it just for a pissing contest...

I was just wondering because it seemed at the start of this thread that ibm were sore loosers, and, from ibms point of view, it would be a bit of a marketing coup to say to the world 'look, see, we can make chips . . . so ner de ner ner neeer apple!'

 

[blitzkrieg79]

...........

Umm, those would most likely be slower than the current G5.

Dual Xeon 3.4Ghz setups generally gets beat by the 2.5Ghz Dual G5 at most things and is completely roasted by the G5 running AfterEffects, which probably the closest you're going to get to Final Cut Pro usage although I'd bet on Apple optimizing the hell out of Final Cut on the PPC using all the altivec and GPU tricks they can.

http://www.barefeats.com/macvpc.html

I'd imagine the 2.7Ghz G5 is easily a match for the Dual core 3.6 Pentium 4 which isn't a match for the Xeon.

Dual Xeon systems also cost a lot more than the G5.

It's not about Ghz entirely. AMD know that. Apple know that. Intel finally got that with the Pentium M. I'd be quite UNHAPPY if the PowerMacs went to 3.6 PentiumDs, unless they stick two of them in there and water cooled them. ;-)

We'll not see one of the existing Pentium4 based chips in a production PowerMac. It'll be something based on Pentium M after Yonah.

Isn't it funny how we all can find benchmarks that suit us well??? http://www.mediaworkstation.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=32951-1 Price to performance ratio Pentium D seems to be the winner, raw processing power Amd opteron seems to be the champ, and where that leaves the G5?

Personally I am glad Apple chose a porcessor supplier that can actually produce and deliver the projected processor chips, right now AMD has a slight performance lead in raw performance but somehow I have a feeling that the next big thing from Intel will once again crown it the speed champ, everytime the company introduces a totally new architecture it seems as if that company has a performance lead for the time untile the next company won't introduce another architecture evolution.

 

[madmaxmedia]

I was just wondering because it seemed at the start of this thread that ibm were sore loosers, and, from ibms point of view, it would be a bit of a marketing coup to say to the world 'look, see, we can make chips . . . so ner de ner ner neeer apple!'

They may seem like sore losers, but remember this all about spin and marketing. If Apple had decided to stay with IBM for whatever reason, they still be singing their praises now and badmouthing Intel and x86.

 

[DakotaGuy]

do you think that ibm's going to come out with a stonking processor as their last G5 update, just to spite apple before they get dumped for intel?

I think they can do it when they can be bothered. The 2 - 2.5 seemed like a big jump when it happened.

Even if they can and do I doubt Apple would use them. It would be hard to market an Intel PowerMac or iMac that was inferior to a new improved "highly muscled" G5.

 

[remingtonhill]

Hey, what happened? Look, I know you've been under a rock for awhile, but; IBM sold their PC biz to a Chinese company called Lennovo. Yes, I know this makes you sad, but please, accept this extended arm and outstretched middle finger as a gesture of my knowledge of your trollness.

XP on a PII? I've got OS X ia32 running on a PowerMac 8100!

Hey can't a guy express some frustration? I think my frustratation is waiting and waiting and waiting for an iBook update with a core-image compatible processor. I ain't asking for much. Hell, a geForce FX5200 would be just fine with me!

And then I ask myself why am I waiting so long when I could buy a more powerful windows laptop for less $$.

Look, I like mac, and I like OSX. Just frustrated that I can't get what I want now. I am getting impatient.

 

[dejo]

And then I ask myself why am I waiting so long when I could buy a more powerful windows laptop for less $$.

Look, I like mac, and I like OSX. Just frustrated that I can't get what I want now. I am getting impatient.

Just get the windows laptop, grab a copy of Mac OS X for Intel (or iOSX as someone I know calls it) off BitTorrent, install, and you're good to go. You'll have both a more powerful laptop and OSX.

 

[Scottgfx]

And then I ask myself why am I waiting so long when I could buy a more powerful windows laptop for less $$.

I've a 14" iBook 1.33Ghz running Tiger. Runs great.
My brother has a 15" widescreen PC laptop with an Athlon-64 processor. Clock, faster than the iBook. My brother wanted to trade laptops and take my iBook home. Take it for what it's worth, while the Mac laptops should be faster, they are still functional and in some cases, work better than what's in the PC world. That Athlon-64 laptop is a fine machine and comes with built in 802.11G and a memory card reader. It's still not as fluid as OS X on the `book.

 

[GregA]

This is the first intelligent post in the thread. I don't wish to take anything away from your accomplishement by pointing out what an incredibly low hurdle some of the previous posters have erected in the path of this feat.

Mate, you haven't been reading everything then. There are several people who have said similar things - that IBM's comment means nothing, all they're saying is that the PowerPC architecture is quite capable of doing what Apple needs, not that it does, or that it is economically viable at the scale Apple wants.

do you think that ibm's going to come out with a stonking processor as their last G5 update, just to spite apple before they get dumped for intel?

I think they can do it when they can be bothered. The 2 - 2.5 seemed like a big jump when it happened.

I'm sure IBM could, but why would they bother now? I do think we'll see some great new PPC products as Steve said (did he say "Great PowerPC products in the pipeline", or "Great IBM products in the pipeline"?).

Apple must already have had prototypes of newer Macs before the announcement, and Steve didn't complain so much about current processors - rather the roadmap and future. I doubt we'll see a great change for the PPC laptop (using IBM's rumoured chips or Freescale's dual-core), but it's all possible. So are faster PowerMacs, or even Power5+ Xserves.

There's sure a lot of amusingly turnabout discussion here, but I'm not as surprised as some people at the apparent irony of bashing IBM; two years ago there was a lot of excitement about the G5, but a lot of people were starting to feel the Motorola stall all over again, and that's just coming to the surface now. Heck, I remember hearing a lot of complaints about IBM at WWDC last year.

I agree. It is kinda like a "Paradigm Shift" for Apple. Just like big changes in our scientific knowledge, the facts of the world get interpreted according to our model of the world, until more and more facts don't quite fit, and suddenly our model of the world gets switched. All the old facts get reinterpreted and new areas of development emerge.

Have you seen how astronomers of the "flat earth" era explained the orbits of stars and planets around the earth? Planets had a special mini-orbit of their own to explain why they sometimes went backwards in their orbit (and they assumed we were stationary). As soon as they realised we (and other planets) were orbiting the sun all the facts made far more sense

 

[Scottgfx]

Have you seen how astronomers of the "flat earth" era explained the orbits of stars and planets around the earth?

No, but it sounds fascinating. Much better than the car analogies I keep reading here. Is the Mac a Ford?, BMW?, or a Holden?

Sorry, Holden is the only Australian car make I know. Does GM sell any other brands there?

 

[Nemesis]

Just simple economics and common sense

From my readings this has been a key claim from IBM- Apple didn't give us enough money to develop what they wanted. This seems like an arrogant claim. Implying Apple should pay for IBMs advancements.

PPC path was abandoned by Apple for, I believe, one reason: not that PPC is bad by itself (it's great, in fact), but because of the lack of interested parties in it apart from Apple. PPC made solely for Apple becomes insanely expensive design and production. Who else was interested in buying PPC 970 chips from IBM? (I'm not talking about PPC based console chips -- they're completely different league of products)

Let us not forget -- PPC 970 was a last straw for Apple to be saved from imminent death after Motorola hit the wall in G4 development and bankrupcy. In one way, they were saved, but they paid lots of R&D $$$ to make it happen. Are they going to do that every single time PPC architecture has to go forward? I'm sure they were blackmailed by IBM -- no extra $$$, no mobile PPC 970. Can you go forever like that?

In Wintel world every manufacturer supplies chips from Intel (and AMD) and that's why they're much cheaper and not a single company has to pay Intel extra $$$ to boost some R&D.

Just simple economics and common sense, nothing else.

 

[DakotaGuy]

No, but it sounds fsacinating. Much better than the car analogies I keep reading here. Is the Mac a Ford?, BMW?, or a Holden?

Sorry, Holden is the only Australian car make I know. Does GM sell any other brands there?

I agree man. I like cars and different types of powersport products, but come on people...a car and a computer HAVE NOTHING in common. People will come on here and say that Apple is like BMW. How so? I hope not in terms of reliability. The are two very different kinds of products in two very diffferent markets. The car analogies are nothing new though...they have been going on and gotten worse since I first joined about 2 1/2 years ago.

 

[minimax]

I agree man. I like cars and different types of powersport products, but come on people...a car and a computer HAVE NOTHING in common. People will come on here and say that Apple is like BMW. How so? I hope not in terms of reliability. The are two very different kinds of products in two very diffferent markets. The car analogies are nothing new though...they have been going on and gotten worse since I first joined about 2 1/2 years ago.

yeah car analogies suck. A much better analogy is that of apples and oranges.
Macs are apples and PC's are like...well, oranges you know.
Hope that clears up any misconceptions about the macintosh computer

 

[DonJuan]

Intel stuff better be good.

There better be some cool stuff coming to justify the switch.

 

[iMeowbot]

yeah car analogies suck. A much better analogy is that of apples and oranges.
Macs are apples and PC's are like...well, oranges you know.

But, but, oranges are generally yummier than apples. Can PCs be brussels sprouts or something?

Hope that clears up any misconceptions about the macintosh computer

Is there a catalog of inappropriate computer metaphors somewhere on the net? If not, I See A Great Need.

 

[KA2357]

I, for one, would rather see a dual-core Freescale G4 in a powerbook before I see and x86-based powerbook. But, that's just me it seems.

I'm in total agreement. I'd rather see a dual-core Freescale G4 PowerBook. Hey, I'd even be happy seeing them go to the 7448 with the dual-layer SuperDrive and maybe a faster hard drive.

I'm going to need to buy a PowerBook in the next month and wish that Apple would either update the PB now or at least give us a hint as to what/when. I'll be frustrated if Apple updates a week after I've ordered.