Did Apple Do The Right Thing in Moving To Intel From PowerPC???

[rashdown_online]

Not that it's going to make any difference, but in terms of power and tech stuff alone, there's an interesting article on the Register about the release, probably on "Tuesday", of the Power6 chip from IBM running at 4.7GHz.

"average response time of .625 seconds when handling requests from 2,100 users" when crunching Oracle 11i.

IBM's Power6 spotted bashing Oracle at 4.7GHz
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/05/20/ibm_power6_oracle/.

I know that there's more to the Intel move than power (identity, brand, roadmap, product development, economies of scale, etc.) but an interesting development non the less.

 

[Henri Gaudier]

It's all too late... too late....

Wow. A G6 iMac with 4.2GHz would have been wonderful. A very serious music machine indeed.

My memory is hazy ... but wasn't there also something like a 10 core processor - 8 in use and 2 for the future that was a possibility too?

Last bit of nostalgia - didn't Freescale announce a dual core 2.0GHz laptop chip just too late?

Going with intel definately felt like presenting yer arse to the devil himself and now with Vista on Macs as well ... it's hotter than hell.

I'm on the cusp of a new machine which will inevitably be intel so my damnation is near complete.

Unless ... someone else starts making machines with these G6's and all we have to do is buy Leopard direct from Apple ... now that would be interesting. Brand new radical designs running OS X at 4.7 GHz!!!!!!
Ahhh ... Sunday morning ... feeling down.

 

[Sly]

If they hadn't switched we'd still be seeing 'G5 Powerbook next Tuesday' threads!

 

[Henri Gaudier]

Yeah and the switch to Intel has been updates every month hasn't it? Have a look at the buying guide - everything bar the Macbook needs updating. When I've said that recently people have said in reply "But to what?" QED. Intel is all tomorrow. If there was a choice between a G6 iMac @ 4.2GHz or even 4.7 GHz and an Intel@ 2.16 duo I'd go for the G6. I can get on with my art and wouldn't have to piss around with waiting for UB's, maintenance upgrades, Rosetta etc. When they do eventually get around to the next updates it will almost certainly be up from 2.16 to 2.33. Wow, overwhelming, yawn etc.

 

[Grimace]

are we still confused by the megahertz myth?

 

[mcarnes]

"Performance per Watt" in the distinct steve accent.

 

[Henri Gaudier]

are we still confused by the megahertz myth?

Perhaps. It's difficult to really tell what's going on without relevant tests that match your own work. Cinebench, integers er.... what? I want to know how many CPU sapping Absynths, Altiverb, Kontakts etc more I can use but I can't find anyone with a standardised test that is repeated with each revision to a model. It's only natural to be uncertain/confused by 3 generations of say a 2.0GHZ chip and each being "faster" than the previous. I mean is there going to be a speedbump from say a 2.33 C2D up to a 1.8GHz of a next gen chip? It was traditional to think that the 2.0's and the 2.16's and the 2.33's were telling you something about the performance of the chip.

And the megahertz myth was Apple's own argument. Did I believe a lie? More importantly did Apple knowingly lie for years?

Without any real info on this new G6 chip we can't argue its merits either way.

 

[cube]

Of course the megahertz myth is not a lie. Even Intel had to drop their stupid marketing-driven Pentium strategy.

 

[Evangelion]

POWER6 is very impressive cpu, as was power5 before it. but they are VERY hi-end cpu's, with pricetags to match. their main competitor in intel-land is the itanium. power6 would not have ended up in a mac, a cheaper derivative with less impressive specs would have. and what about laptops?

yes, appe did the right thing when they switched to intel.

 

[localoid]

... I want to know how many CPU sapping Absynths, Altiverb, Kontakts etc more I can use but I can't find anyone with a standardised test that is repeated with each revision to a model. ...

If you find any such benchmarks or real-world measurements, let me know. They'd be interesting to see.

But it's not just the clock rate: Intel's SSE extensions seem to be the real performance boost kicker, in regards to Intel's digital audio processing abilities. Along with Intel's use of (shared) hearty-sized L2 cache sizes on their CPUs.

As Intel adds new SSE instructions, they introduce the ability to do more processing per CPU cycle. Audio software that takes advance of the new extensions means support for more (audio) processors running in real time. Intel's SSE4 is the next (forward) step...

 

[islandman]

I say yes. Intel has proven to be much more energy efficient, allowing for cooler temperatures and better battery life.

 

[sushi]

POWER6 is very impressive cpu, as was power5 before it. but they are VERY hi-end cpu's, with pricetags to match. their main competitor in intel-land is the itanium. power6 would not have ended up in a mac, a cheaper derivative with less impressive specs would have. and what about laptops?

Exactly.

The switch to Intel has been good for Apple.

Additionally, the benefit of having an Intel based MB, is that those who need it, can run Windows effectively on their Mac. In this case via Boot Camp or Parallels.

 

[mkrishnan]

If they hadn't switched we'd still be seeing 'G5 Powerbook next Tuesday' threads!

Truer than just a joke. Although Jobs was burnt by this whole race to 3GHz thing, in truth, the pipeline of Power-based mobile processors was and is a much bigger problem than the pipeline of desktop processors. What Intel did for the Mac Pro was fairly impressive. What it did for the Macbook was nothing short of stunning.

 

[Henri Gaudier]

If you find any such benchmarks or real-world measurements, let me know. They'd be interesting to see.

I will.

Intel's SSE4 is the next (forward) step...

See ... always tomorrow!

 

[BigPrince]

power6 is all nice and dandy but we would still have slow laptops.

 

[Henri Gaudier]

I see. The whole megahertz thing was ... a myth ... but not a lie? What about the inscrutable gigahertz enigma? Is that a legend?

 

[cube]

Before it was overdoing clock rates, now it's overdoing core counts.

 

[BigPrince]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megahertz_myth

 

[zephead]

Ehh, didn't Apple not want to put a G5 in an iBook or PowerBook because of the heat issues? Imagine the heat issues with putting a 4.7GHz "G6" into a laptop!

And yes, Apple did do the right thing by switching to Intel.

 

[Henri Gaudier]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megahertz_myth

Very helpful. Cheers for the pointer.

Does anyone know who will be adopting these G6's? I mean, who are they aimed at?

 

[cube]

Does anyone know who will be adopting these G6's? I mean, who are they aimed at?

IBM servers.

 

[Glen Quagmire]

They should have gone to a 6502 processor. Imagine the power! All 1Mhz of it!

At the time of the switch, PowerPC was stuck in a rut. I would rather have Intel CPUs in my Mac. At least with x86, you know that with competition between Intel and AMD, the technology is going to improve pretty rapidly, as opposed to every now and then with IBM.

 

[zap2]

YES!! Intel was one of the best moves Apple had made in YEARS!


PowerMac/Mac Pro was a nice increase, although I'm sure PPC G5 would have been good enough. But Mac Mini, MacBook Pro/PowerBook, iMac, MacBook/iBook saw such an increase, imagine if we still were using G4 Mac laptop?! Or even G5, if IBM had gotten them low powered enough, they'd be like Core Solos!!

 

[Henri Gaudier]

IBM servers.

Hi Cube! Yes, of course ... I read that in the OP's link but completely forgot about it when I asked who they were aimed at. I was more wondering if anyone would adopt them outside of the largely faceless server environment and we'd see them in the shops.

 

[gnasher729]

Not that it's going to make any difference, but in terms of power and tech stuff alone, there's an interesting article on the Register about the release, probably on "Tuesday", of the Power6 chip from IBM running at 4.7GHz.

"average response time of .625 seconds when handling requests from 2,100 users" when crunching Oracle 11i.

IBM's Power6 spotted bashing Oracle at 4.7GHz
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/05/20/ibm_power6_oracle/.

The POWER processors (POWER3, POWER4, POWER5 and POWER6) are IBMs high end server chips, and I mean high end. POWER4 used to come as dual core, with four chips mounted together with a tens of gigabyte connection for their shared L3 cache, and usually four of these 8 core systems sold as a 32 processor server. G5 was the stripped down low-cost version of POWER4.

You will _never_ find POWER6 in any machine that sells for under $10,000. They are aimed at a completely different market.

Ehh, didn't Apple not want to put a G5 in an iBook or PowerBook because of the heat issues? Imagine the heat issues with putting a 4.7GHz "G6" into a laptop!

It would be a G7, because G5 is the stripped down version of POWER4

IBM will probably build portable machines with POWER6 - portable meaning that two strong men can lift the box