Did Apple Court Other PPC Vendors Before Intel Switch?

[whatever]

Could have been 2 watts, but....

7 watts?! 7 WATTS?! That's rather impressive. Ah well we went Intel. We should be happy. I am happy.

*druel* Macbook ... although a Macbook with 3x longer battery...mmmm 18 hour battery life...mmm

Uber

Hey they could have announced they were making 2 watts chips and it wouldn't have mattered. Apple needs Intel's production/factories. Intel can announce a new chip and they will be available in mass quantities . But to go with a start up, that means Apple would be waiting forever for the chips. I know people are going to say that Apple is only 4 or 5% of the market, but their 4 or 5% of the market cannot be supported by a startup chip manufacture. If that was the case then Apple would have just bought them outright, but even they couldn't pull that off (building a factories to create the chips) in a timely manner.

Intel was the only answer, I don't believe that AMD can support the volume of chips that Apple needs!

Whatever

 

[zac4mac]

Ethanius - I'm no Intel-apologist, but I got a 2GHz MBP when they came out. I have a few issues with it, but as a radical change-RevA product I'm very pleased. Everything running native I throw at it, it bests my G5DP2.0 desktop, that as a system cost over 2X what I paid for the portable.

I'm thinking Apple could have done a LOT worse than going Intel - like stay with a dead dog called PPC. PPC/Moto/IBM/Freescale is history now for Macs and I'm really having a hard time missing them.

I'll keep my G5 for a long time yet(Not 'cause it's so powerful, I just hate to throw stuff out), but then, I still have a MacPortable, an Outbound Kangaroo(Mac clone portable) and a bunch of "antique" computer junk..

Z

 

[retroz311]

Ethanius - I'm no Intel-apologist, but I got a 2GHz MBP when they came out. I have a few issues with it, but as a radical change-RevA product I'm very pleased. Everything running native I throw at it, it bests my G5DP2.0 desktop, that as a system cost over 2X what I paid for the portable.

I'm thinking Apple could have done a LOT worse than going Intel - like stay with a dead dog called PPC. PPC/Moto/IBM/Freescale is history now for Macs and I'm really having a hard time missing them.

I'll keep my G5 for a long time yet(Not 'cause it's so powerful, I just hate to throw stuff out), but then, I still have a MacPortable, an Outbound Kangaroo(Mac clone portable) and a bunch of "antique" computer junk..

Z

You have to remember a few things...

First AMD and APPLE are part of the hypertranport consortium.
Second, AMD's new chip doesn't look to offer much, however, their quad core does.
Third, Intel has more $$$ for research and development, so, if you where Apple, why not let Intel do all the x86 R&D, then if and when the time is write, they can always pull the trigger and go with AMD as well.

Remember, AMD is mostly the reason, at least on the audio/video end, that MAC users went PC, not Intel and their overheating PIII and underperforming first generation P4 with too many long pipelines and rambus.

 

[nsjoker]

apple made the right choice. with that said, the core duo's still run rather hot and are causing some macbooks to overheat :/

will merom be more efficient??

 

[Core Trio]

With Apple's revenues increasing quarter over quarter. Someone obviously must be happy with the intel chips, any nay-sayers are probably just bitter...

 

[tortoise]

And the vector units and floating point on the x86's are still inferior.

That assertion needs to be qualified. For *some* floating point purposes Altivec/PPC is obviously better (e.g. anything that exploits the FMA instructions), for other purposes the x86 vector implementation (SSE2) is superior. It really depends on what you are going to do with it, and neither one dedicated the silicon required to make a really proper SIMD implementation. For general purpose floating point, one could argue that current x86 implementations are superior to current PPC implementations, both in terms of the basic specs (x86 has higher precision floating point -- 80-bit -- which gives noticeably better results for some types of scientific and engineering work) and in terms of raw performance (Opteron codes generated with the Pathscale compilers produce rather stunning floating point performance numbers on a broad range of code). PPC is a floating point monster on paper, but on real codes with real implementations it has pretty much lost its edge for any code that does not use the aforementioned FMA instructions.

 

[peharri]

What makes you think they could put a dual G5 into an imac. Have you SEEN the heatsinks required in the G5 towers? There's no way they could cram that into an imac, it would have to be way bigger to be able to cool a dual G5.

Those heatsinks were in PowerMac G5s from the beginning. If what you're saying makes any sense at all, then the iMac G5 is a ridiculous liberal myth. It never existed. It couldn't have done, because it didn't have the giant heatsinks of the PowerMac G5.

Year old G5's were the only thing cool enough to run in an iMac, they weren't crippling them.

Year old G5s were hotter than what came subsequently, such as the 970FX. G5s cooled down, they didn't get hotter.

And you completely overlook the laptop situation.

...no, I don't. You're just quoting the comments covering the fact that in at least one example, we know Apple deliberately withheld more powerful G5s from one model of the Macintosh line to ensure the Intel-based replacement would look more powerful. The laptop situation is both changing the subject and ignoring the point. We can pretty much deduce from what Apple did to the iMac G5 that if any PowerPC chips were suited for use in Powerbooks, Apple wouldn't have used them.

This forum thread is about a chip set that Apple would have found perfect for use in laptops. Even if they hadn't, there's simply no way they didn't know at the time of the Intel announcement that things like the 17W 970FX were not around the corner (they were announced a few days after Apple's announcement. What do you think IBM did, kept their existance a secret from Apple? Apple knew these were coming)

Apple made the right choice.

For whom? I guess I should be glad, once Leopard starts selling, someone will come up with an installer that allows it to run on beige boxes, so we can finally have a legal way of running Mac OS X on Thinkpads.

For Apple users, not to mention those computer users interested in competition and the future of computing, the switch doesn't appear to be a good one. Only if you deliberately ignore the fact that Apple has withheld PowerPC advances while it performs the switch over can you deduce that somehow this has resulted in better Macs. It hasn't. What it's lead to is years of pain as we switch from one architecture to another, and a stifling of innovation.

 

[Eidorian]

What makes you think they could put a dual G5 into an imac. Have you SEEN the heatsinks required in the G5 towers? There's no way they could cram that into an imac, it would have to be way bigger to be able to cool a dual G5.

Those heatsinks were in PowerMac G5s from the beginning. If what you're saying makes any sense at all, then the iMac G5 is a ridiculous liberal myth. It never existed. It couldn't have done, because it didn't have the giant heatsinks of the PowerMac G5.

Year old G5s were hotter than what came subsequently, such as the 970FX. G5s cooled down, they didn't get hotter.

The 970FX chips were a big improvement over the original 970. Still, have you ever looked inside at the iMac G5's heatsink? It's just a miniaturized of the same heat sink in the PowerMac G5 fins and all.

If some third pary comes along with a Dual 970MP Upgrade at 1.4/1.8 GHz for the iMac G5, I'd jump on it just to have a cool custom machine with more power.

 

[dr_lha]

For whom? I guess I should be glad, once Leopard starts selling, someone will come up with an installer that allows it to run on beige boxes, so we can finally have a legal way of running Mac OS X on Thinkpads.

You realise this will never be legal? Apple don't sell full-retail versions of OS X, they sell upgrades. Don't believe me? Tell me the last time anyone has bought an Mac OS boxed version who didn't already own a license to a previous version of OS X. I imagine with Leopard boxes, Apple will more clearly mark these as upgrades and fully specify in the EULA that they are not to be installed on anything other than an Apple box.

I'm sure you'll still persuade yourself you're in the right pirating the OS though, and with the above comment you've just invalidated everything else you've said in this thread.

 

[tortoise]

but it's still on an el-crappo x86 architecture....

Actually, the AMD64 ISA is a pretty decent architecture, retaining most of the advantages of the old x86 architecture (and x86 does have some nice performance enhancing advantages), while fixing most of the ugly bits. x86 may be a bit ugly, but native AMD64 is not so bad. I would rather have AMD64 than either x86 or PPC, particularly since the AMD64 implementations are so nicely done.

 

[Hunabku]

The Key to Growing Its Marketshare

I predict that several months from now, any decision to have gone a route other than intel and x86 will be considered absolutely stupid. Why? if apple continues to build on the, technology, momentum and attention it is garnering around supporting windows - it will see a dramatic shift in its market share - period. And that is afterall its main objective is it not?

The dialougue we should be concerned with is how Apple will leverage the fact that they ARE using intel chips - this is what is attracting so many new users. DON'T BLOW IT APPLE - no more lost opportunities critical to your really making it. Your so close!

As Apples marketshare increases, they of course will be in a better position to keep/add developers so that argument doesn't hold as much water - especially if the OSXeprience continues to be so much better than windoz.

 

[sam10685]

Very Interesting...so, G5 PowerBooks next Tuesday, then?

Still, the question this begs is: was the non-appearance of a comparable-spec chip from IBM due to technical incompetence or bloody-minded unwillingness?

WHY do people still think there will be a G5 powerbook??? APPLE ENDED THE G5 CHIP REIGN LAST YEAR BY SWITCHING TO INTEL!!! PLEASE GET THAT INTO YOUR HEADS... plus, i would think the release of the Macbook with an INTEL chip would pretty much seal the deal.

 

[Eithanius]

Actually, the AMD64 ISA is a pretty decent architecture, retaining most of the advantages of the old x86 architecture (and x86 does have some nice performance enhancing advantages), while fixing most of the ugly bits. x86 may be a bit ugly, but native AMD64 is not so bad. I would rather have AMD64 than either x86 or PPC, particularly since the AMD64 implementations are so nicely done.

If Apple had gone to that direction instead, I would have dumped my G5 in favour of AMD64 since some geniuses had taken the opportunity to optimise it on one of the DC projects....

 

[xStep]

I know people are going to say that Apple is only 4 or 5% of the market, but their 4 or 5% of the market cannot be supported by a startup chip manufacture. If that was the case then Apple would have just bought them outright, but even they couldn't pull that off (building a factories to create the chips) in a timely manner.

Their is no need to build factories. ALL of that work can be subcontracted out. The company designing & selling the chips is referred to as being a fabless semiconductor company. I work at such a company.

 

[Subiklim]

This forum thread is about a chip set that Apple would have found perfect for use in laptops. Even if they hadn't, there's simply no way they didn't know at the time of the Intel announcement that things like the 17W 970FX were not around the corner (they were announced a few days after Apple's announcement. What do you think IBM did, kept their existance a secret from Apple? Apple knew these were coming)
QUOTE]

Someone has a case of the mondays....

The problem here is that the chip has NOT yet been produced. Theoretically it could be a perfect chip, but it's not being produced.

I loved my PPC systems when I had them, it's time to move on. The new Intels are VERY fast, and other than a few obscure tests, the best the PPC systems in every way imaginable. You may still be bitter that Apple chose intel, because it's not as cool and different than what your nemisises the PC users use, but it's the better choice. It's time to accept that and move on.

Also, you do not know for a fact that Apple witheld procesors from the iMac. That's based on assumption.

 

[BenRoethig]

I would agree. To big advantages:

- Intel updates their chips faster than IBM.

- Macs can now dual boot into WindowsXP which is great for switchers.

-Due to the large user base, there is financial incentive to develop these chips. That's why PPC chips would never reach their full potential.

 

[Core Trio]

WHY do people still think there will be a G5 powerbook??? APPLE ENDED THE G5 CHIP REIGN LAST YEAR BY SWITCHING TO INTEL!!! PLEASE GET THAT INTO YOUR HEADS... plus, i would think the release of the Macbook with an INTEL chip would pretty much seal the deal.

you realize that no one REALLY thinks there is going to be a G5 powerbook and that "G5 powerbooks next tuesday" has been a running joke for quite some time...right?

 

[octoberdeath]

well Intel has is a reputable company that will surely be around for a while. they are the safer route to travel down. plus Intel must have some great things coming because Apple switched not just for whats coming out now, but for whats coming in the future.

 

[bretm]

You realise this will never be legal? Apple don't sell full-retail versions of OS X, they sell upgrades. Don't believe me? Tell me the last time anyone has bought an Mac OS boxed version who didn't already own a license to a previous version of OS X. I imagine with Leopard boxes, Apple will more clearly mark these as upgrades and fully specify in the EULA that they are not to be installed on anything other than an Apple box.

I'm sure you'll still persuade yourself you're in the right pirating the OS though, and with the above comment you've just invalidated everything else you've said in this thread.

I've never purchased an OSX upgrade. They don't sell OSX upgrades. There is no such thing as an OSX upgrade. So exactly where are you coming from? In fact, OSX does not use a license. There is no license. There is no serial number. There is no requirement for a previous version to be on your computer. There is no discount if you own a previous version.

Now I haven't checked, but they may call it an upgrade, but I'm pretty sure they don't. And the EULA may say it can only be installed on a Mac approved machine, etc. I don't know. But Apple does not sell OSX upgrades. They sell operating system versions that have requirements and limitations based on hardware. Not based on a previous version of OSX. They don't sell upgrades. No discounts, no previous version required. End of story.

 

[manu chao]

7 watts?! 7 WATTS?! That's rather impressive.
*druel* Macbook ... although a Macbook with 3x longer battery...mmmm 18 hour battery life...mmm
Uber

Yeah, if somebody managed to reduce the screen power, the graphics chip and harddrive consumption to a third as well, then we might see an 18 hour battery life.

 

[redkev]

how many of you Power PC proponents...

would have been loudly complaining because the G5 PowerBook was not going to ship until 2007? I was never too excited about the shift to Intel, but Apple's execution has been excellent. I recently bought a Mini Core Duo to test the Intel waters until the replacement for the G5 tower ships (and Photoshop goes Intel). The Mac Mini Core Duo is a great machine, and it runs circles around my single processor G5 Tower with native applications. Apple made the right decision and I expect that things will only get better. A MacBook is my next purchase, a drastically needed replacement for my early 12" PowerBook.

 

[dr_lha]

I've never purchased an OSX upgrade. They don't sell OSX upgrades. There is no such thing as an OSX upgrade. So exactly where are you coming from? In fact, OSX does not use a license. There is no license. There is no serial number. There is no requirement for a previous version to be on your computer. There is no discount if you own a previous version.

Now I haven't checked, but they may call it an upgrade, but I'm pretty sure they don't. And the EULA may say it can only be installed on a Mac approved machine, etc. I don't know. But Apple does not sell OSX upgrades. They sell operating system versions that have requirements and limitations based on hardware. Not based on a previous version of OSX. They don't sell upgrades. No discounts, no previous version required. End of story.

Regardless of this argument (which I don't agree with, the reason there is no discount is because there is only one version, an upgrade) the EULA to OS X states that you can only install it on an Apple-labelled computer. Apple didn't need to call it an upgrade in the past because you didn't have a choice, you were always purchasing the OS to upgrade an older version.

If you don't think boxed OS X is not an upgrade, then tell me, can you buy Tiger now and install it on a machine that didn't have a previously licensed copy of Mac OS on it? Nope.

I expect Apple to firm up their legal wording when x86 boxed versions of OS X become available to close this supposed "loop-hole" anyway.

 

[matticus008]

I thought whatever's Intel sucks no matter what....

Just look at those Intel Macs.... Intel chip here, Intel mainboard there, and Intel integrated graphics onto whatever s***hole there is....

Bottom line is, these stuff made Macs look a lot cheaper and "cheaper" and it doesn't justify well with Apple increasing prices on its hardwares.....

The prices increased on the low end G4-based products only. All in all, the value of their hardware has improved following the switch (the MBP and iMac are much cheaper than their PPC versions). How an Intel mainboard and Intel graphics (versus a Go5200 or a Radeon 9200) make the computers "cheaper" is beyond me.

The Core Duo is way more expensive than the G4, and yet they've managed to keep prices under control. Sounds like success to me.

 

[FocusAndEarnIt]

Well, I would expect this. I would think Apple would look at all PPC options before just making all developers redo all the code.

 

[Pancake]

While I know that a fast intel MacBook right now is better than a theorectical PPC Macbook, I can still dream about how much cooler it might run. I swear you can god eggs between your MacBook Pro and your desk, not that I'd try that.