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Apple Wants Intel Chips Early?
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maya said:
Hi. Welcome to Macrumors. You must be new here since this has been talked into the ground over the last two months.
Seriously though. Reason is simple:
1. Like it or not the business world still trusts Intel over AMD. *shurgs* I don't make the rules I just report them.
2. Production capabilities. Intel kicks the snot out of AMD.
3. The Pentium M....enough said.
4. Intel's roadmap. When you look at Intel's roadmap looking forward and look at Intel's 4 year history its like coming out of a tunnel into the sunlight. Intel's roadmap looks inpressive. So any advantage AMD has right now is going to decrease in the next 12 - 24 months. Its pretty obvious that AMD lit a fire under Intel's butt.
shawnce said:
Before this deteriorates in a hardware vs. software argument, let me nip it in the bud. Apple sells complete systems that just work. They're elegant, easy to use, powerful, and don't freeze every other day or get corrupted by viruses. This is why people buy Apple computers, it's all about the whole package.
I'd argue another MAJOR reason they went with Intel over AMD is that AMD cannot match the low-power performance of Intel's new chips yet. Steve has said that Apple laptops now account for over 50% of the CPU units sold for Apple, so this is very important to them, and the line has languished for so long because of the G5's shortcomings (power/heat-wise) that Apple must have a new, high-performance, efficient, portable CPU ASAP. The Pentium M successors fit that bill nicely. AMD just isn't as far ahead in the portable space as they are in the desktop realm. And as others have mentioned, Intel still has buttloads more fab capability than AMD, virtually guaranteeing chip availability, something that has dogged Apple again and again in the past.fordlemon said:
fordlemon said:
It would seem that Jobs is caught in the MHz Myth himself. Something that he preached for years and now he is a victim of his own preach.
Why are we going backwards? Why?
I remember reading several articles in the past that the x86 structure is matured with less room to grow in the future, along with the end is nearing for the x86 path. And now we have Jobs here telling us its the future. I would LMAO, if in ten years Apple announces that we are, "making the transition to PPC and we have kept a copy of OS 11 updated for PPC.
If I were a Mac developer I would be pissed with all this change.
blitzkrieg79 said:
Probably not! there isn't any thing better than PM right now and rest including turion are few ages behind in power management or stuff that complete the processor. It is the 65nm that is going to clinch the battle for Intel. IBM, AMD finally moved to 90mm recently and play a huge catch up game with intel in manufacturing. Thus not only the product is much better but also cheaper for intel (seen the dual core prices lately or for yonah (projected)?)! People say that PM is probably the best processor intel ever made or probably made by any one.
blitzkrieg79 said:
Yeah, that whole vertical integration thing worked out great for Sun.
I think Apple would have killed themselves with such a move, they simply don't have the R&D budget to keep up on the hardware side with the likes of AMD, Intel, and IBM. It would overwhelm their company whose strong suit is industrial design & box engineering, marketing, and software devlopment. It would have easily spread Apple too thin, and placed them in an industry where they would not have been the innovators, but the laggards.
HiRez said:
AMD 64 Turion. Mobile processor. Read about it. More processing power then any Intel and much less power consumption. I own an HP laptop with one and the thing rocks, plus costs much less then any Intel.
By the way, that was never a reson given buy Apple but platform was.
SiliconAddict said:Hi. Welcome to Macrumors. You must be new here since this has been talked into the ground over the last two months.
Seriously though. Reason is simple:
1. Like it or not the business world still trusts Intel over AMD. *shurgs* I don't make the rules I just report them.
2. Production capabilities. Intel kicks the snot out of AMD.
3. The Pentium M....enough said.
4. Intel's roadmap. When you look at Intel's roadmap looking forward and look at Intel's 4 year history its like coming out of a tunnel into the sunlight. Intel's roadmap looks inpressive. So any advantage AMD has right now is going to decrease in the next 12 - 24 months. Its pretty obvious that AMD lit a fire under Intel's butt.
LOL, yeah I used to be a regular poster before life and work got busy.
Missed many articles and related news in regards to the benefits of Intel. Though it could be on purpose.
fordlemon said:
If IBM needs money from Apple for R&D, then something ain't right.
IBM is the powerhouse. IBM, sells their own laptops.
If IBM was serious about PPC, wouldn't they spend their own money to continue it's development?
No one else finds it ironic that IBM uses intel chips in their laptops?
And have done so for a LONG time.
It is irrelevant
It's irrelevant because smart power buyers aren't going to be buying MacIntels until the second generation anyways. I'm going to get the last best PPC based PowerBooks and iBooks for our installation. Then we wait and let the dust settle. There are major mistakes to be made. They are going to be hurt. We have real work to get done and real lives. I have no desire to be on the bleeding edge of technology while Apple switches over to totally new hardware.
Additionally, the software developers are going to have to make the transition as well. It won't be perfectly smooth sailing. Be prepared for some gotcha's.
Apple will get what Intel gives them. Apple will bring out a round of first generation of each of their machine groups (Mac mini, iBook, iMac, PowerBook, PowerMac - probably in that order) and then in late 2007 or early 2008 we'll see stable revisions. On the next round after that I might consider buying a MacIntel.
It's irrelevant because smart power buyers aren't going to be buying MacIntels until the second generation anyways. I'm going to get the last best PPC based PowerBooks and iBooks for our installation. Then we wait and let the dust settle. There are major mistakes to be made. They are going to be hurt. We have real work to get done and real lives. I have no desire to be on the bleeding edge of technology while Apple switches over to totally new hardware.
Additionally, the software developers are going to have to make the transition as well. It won't be perfectly smooth sailing. Be prepared for some gotcha's.
Apple will get what Intel gives them. Apple will bring out a round of first generation of each of their machine groups (Mac mini, iBook, iMac, PowerBook, PowerMac - probably in that order) and then in late 2007 or early 2008 we'll see stable revisions. On the next round after that I might consider buying a MacIntel.
fordlemon said:
HA! I love it. So what do you think the outcome would be if we polled 100 Mac users, as them what CPU is in their system, and WHY it is better then an x86 chip. What would be the results. $10 says at least 70% of them couldn't give you a legit reason. The average Mac user, and don't fool yourself. MR is not composed of AVERAGE users, doesn't give a crap what chip is in their system. Nor should they. Only geeks care about that. All they want to know is that "it just works". That is it. Nothing more.
Only people in certain fields care about the PPC and its architecture. The rest of us just want OS X and Apple's design flare all of which will be on the x86. a couple months after the transition I want a blind taste test between PowerBooks. Both connected to an ACD, both running Tiger, both running their native versions of some common OS X apps. Bet that short of going into About this Mac the average Mac user isn't going to be able to tell the diff other then the PPC PowerBook is slow as crap.
greenstork said:
Do you know the reason they are less virus prone? Obviously not. Well, it's because most of the programs written for the Apple are written to use special intruction sets availabe on the RISC cpu. Now that they are switching to x86 a ApDell will be just as vulnerable as any Windoze machine. By the way, my XP machine hasn't froze since I built it 2 years ago, neither has my 2 RH 6.2 servers or my BSD box. Hmm, what is this freezing that you speak of?
budugu said:that is the point! They can cut all those costs by taking intel and get the world domination and 150% profit margins !!
Have you used Intel Extreme Graphics
So what makes a MaTel any different from a Dell, nothing really other than OS X. So does that mean that Apple will have to drop they price to what Dell offers since everything inside is the same with the exception of the OS. Apple no longer has an excuse for charging more.
greenstork said:
Yeah the solution is one of the major factors, if not the major one (integration as I noted in my post).
This is one of the main reasons why Apple maintains customer loyalty as well in recent years has made in roads into markets / minds that never cared about Apple before (Mac OS X and of course iPod more recently have fueled this).
In general CPU has had little to do with this (for a large majority of Apple customers) and I am 100% sure the Intel switch will not negatively affect this.
willyjsimmons said:
Here here! I have a hard time seeing how it would benefit Apple to either be a chip manufacturer or contribute to R&D of chips. What financial benefit would they receive that they couldn't get by establishing a good relationship with an established chip manufacturer with a huge R&D budget of their own like say, Intel? It's not like they would receive a $$ cut of each chip produced.
Bear in mind that there is a huge, and I mean huge, capital investment to become a chip manufacturer and the only application left for the 4th, 5th, and 6th largest producers are in niche and integrated products because they just can't match the R&D and investment of the big boys in the mainstream computer market.
fordlemon said:
You must be a fanboy.
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2374
according to this article, the turion is just a rebranding of another chip.
And keep in mind, it's still 90nm.
Nice try though.
maya said:Have you used Intel Extreme Graphics
So what makes a MaTel any different from a Dell, nothing really other than OS X. So does that mean that Apple will have to drop they price to what Dell offers since everything inside is the same with the exception of the OS. Apple no longer has an excuse for charging more.
Do you think there are no other standard graphics available other than GMA 900? (which is decent with shared PCIe) ... there is no good graphics card as windows does not use it! So when Vista is released i am sure Intel will revamp their line (given they hold >40% of the total graphics market ...lets hope they do!) .
May be they will buy 100% samsung production and put in flash hard disks ... then they will have a reason! I am sure apple will come up with some crapy reason to price it higher!
fordlemon said:
If you disagree with my only assertion that Macs just work, then please provide a cogent response instead of nitpicking at me.
News flash, your x86 machine hasn't froze because you're a geek, no disrespect intended.