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Intel widens the gap - System Bus at 533MHz

Originally posted by sjs
Is 3.5% market share enough for Apple to succeed?

If you think it is, then you fail to realize that one of the reasons we lag behind in the chip speed, bus speed, memory, etc is VOLUME. How can Motorola keep pace technologically with Intel when they produce about 1/20th the chips and hence 1/20th the revenues, which are needed for R & D? The same applies to software.
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I love these hyper-simplistic business models.
<naive>
The more units sold=the better the product. More money for R&D right? Right!
</naive>

Tell that to all the elite manufacturers of goods in the world. If you sell something that is "top of the line" by the very nature of your product, it will be accessible to less people, and therefore less units will be sold.

I really hope Steve comes to MacRumors.com so he can get his business model straight. I can just see Steve rolling up to his next board meeting with a few note cards he was furiously writing from a late night of macrumors.com.

I love to come to this site and rap about whats good and bad about Apple, but I dont see the value in taking a quick look at their business models and marketing strategies, when not one of us understands their complete plan, or do you? If you do, back away from the web site and go get paid for it.




<Edit.... Having said all that, I think sjs is right on point with his ideas about marketing, iApps, public perception regarding 1Ghz, and the fact that we are already Apple fans. It just concerns me when discussion derail into "i know how to fix, apple...... just make more money and make faster things so i can play with them.>
 
I do get paid for operating in the business world and understanding business and marketing principles, especially ones as simple as this.

You seem to think that Steve would disagree with me. Betcha he doesn't. Betcha by either MWNY or at ltaest MWSF you will see exactly what I have said: every product at 1ghz.
 
Originally posted by buffsldr
How can you say its not about marketing strategy? Apple lags behind harley in design of motorcycles,

Harley has long waiting list's to get one, I know. Honda,Suziki,V-Max they all copy who??? HARLEY-DAVIDSON their motorcyles are not behind they are ahead.

I think Steve needs to start crapping or get of the Pot!!!!
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Originally posted by buffsldr


I love these hyper-simplistic business models.
<naive>
The more units sold=the better the product. More money for R&D right? Right!
</naive>

Tell that to all the elite manufacturers of goods in the world. If you sell something that is "top of the line" by the very nature of your product, it will be accessible to less people, and therefore less units will be sold.
Click to expand...

SJS is correct in saying that volume is the single most critical driver in Apple's disfavor. However, buffslder does make a good point about the complexity of the dynamics at play, albeit, rather harshly (why can't we all just get along :D ).

SJS failed, for example, to mention the volume benefit that Apple enjoys because Motorola sells many G4's to others such as Cisco, Cosine, ... a variety of vendors in the embedded market. This BTW, is a major reason why Motorola endeavors to keep PowerPC power consumption as low as it does, because a major driver in the embedded market is power consumption, more so than raw computing speed. But to Motorola, the embedded market takes priority over Apple. If by some slim chance that this is not true, one cannot possibly argue that Motorola's priorities w.r.t. Apple are not significiantly biased due to the embedded market.

The volume gap means that Intel, for example, can afford to pursue many more projects compared to Motorola/Apple. This doesn't mean that AIM cannot pick the right projects and do better. Clearly, AIM has selected a superior architecture that is enabling them to compete with high volume players such as Intel with considerably less resources.

When one thinks of R&D in semiconductors, production R&D is a critical part of it. This is where volume is critical. It enables Intel to manufacture an inferior architecture such that it can outperform a superior architected CPU. Well, its not that simple but you get the point: volume enables a manufacturer to invest more in production technologies.

Well, I've gotta run. I'll try to finish this post up later.

I really hope SJ has guru's looking at Apple's current business model w.r.t. semiconductor design and manufacturing. Total dependence upon Motorola, a struggling company with higher priorities than Apple's, is extremely risky. Apple has an option to buy out Motorola's interest in AIM. If this means that Apple buys relevant technologies from Motorola (at least in effect), then Apple should seriously consider doing so and improve upon Sun's semiconductor business model.

Eirik


Eirik
 
I'm probably not doing a great job of making my point. This thread is about bus speed, and everyone wonders why we are so far behind and when are we going to catch up?

My point is that Intel and all the other PC manufacturers have, lets say, about 20x more sales, and the sales provide revenues and the revenues pay for advances like 533 bus speeds.

Apple's hardware suppliers do pretty well on a tiny fraction of the revenues derived from products they sell to Apple. As soon as Apple doubles its market share the suppliers will have the cash and incentive to make similar advances for Apple.

Its as simple as that. In business, companies do not take their profits from other lines and invest them in developing Apple products unless there is a high likelihood of a financial return that outstrips what they could get by putting those dollars elsewhere.

Consequently, Apple must give them the incentive. Incentive is spelled d-o-l-la-r-s. So, how could Apple double its market share?
They have already done most of the things they need to do...better machines, better OS, etc. What remains undone? Apple must take away the last big excuse people have for not buying a Mac: lack of speed.

BTW, I think if chip speed was up to par there are enough people are not worried about price or software.

Finally, if you think corporations don't hold back on faster or better products for strategic reasons, well... Apple could go to all 1 ghz chips by MWNY if they wanted. They have also held back on porting OSX to x86, but thats different.
 
volume and dolllars absolutely

SJS, I don't think my previous post regarding your post adequately sounded my agreement with your points. Frankly, I think they're indisputable. One can only add on all of the nuances.

For Apple to go with the bleeding edge of bus speeds and hence the bleeding edge of high speed RAM, Apple's unit price is far more affected than Wintel makers because of Apple's inferior purchasing power due to lower volume.

Intel and AMD enable smaller box makers to hit low prices because these two chip makers make chip sets, motherboards.

Buffsldr pointed out that Apple can go forth with faster, more expensive components. No argument there. However, the subsequent increase in unit cost for Mac's would have to go up such that evidently Apple's conjoint analyses (or whatever methodology they apply for pricing) evidently suggest that Apple would sell significantly fewer units.

Why not maintain another product line based upon another high-end motherboard with all of the bleeding edge components? Perhaps, Apple's limited volume forbids this.

When Apple finishes adding up its acquisitions and strategic adjustments to cater to the high-end and ultra-high-end market segments, it may be able to attain a high enough volume for such an additional product line or motherboard/chip set to sustain itself, without leveraging the overall PowerMac segment.

With all that I've said, let me clearly state that I am grossly disappointed with Apple's stagnation in bus speed and memory speed growth.

Eirik
 
Ok, dumb question.

Why couldn't Intel have three chip lines? Why couldn't Intel produce the x85 P4, the celeron, and a PowerPC based chip?

If it did, would everyone still complain about Intel?
 
Look, I just want Apple to keep up. I don't think that's so much to ask.

I'm not talking processor speed or attacking Apple/Motorola using the "MHz Myth." I'm talking system Bus. I'm talking DDR. The details beyond clock-speed that Apple used to be good at attending to. I'm talking about Apple finding a chip manufacturer that can get the job done.

Intel - IBM - AMD - Motorola. I don't care. I just want the chip. I'm not one of these guys with a sticker of Calvin pissing on Ford/Chevy. I don't think that Microsoft puts out bad products (just bad OS'es). I don't worry about marketing or market share or about Apple becomming a bigger company. If anything, we're at a good place now. Apple's products are the best - even with slower chips.

I just can't stand excuses. The simple truth is that Motorola is dragging ass, and they're holding on to Apple by the pantleg.
 
just heard on the radio from paul harvey that intel and motorola had better than expected earnings

i know, i know, paul harvey is a conservative shock jock but how much of a fake spin could he put on something like this? and for shock jocks, the liberal ones are just as full of rating grabbing fabrications

i still think that elvis is hanging with jim morrison and jimmy hoffa and roseanne are the ones who really know about michael jackson and his longtime romance with liz taylor who will be on friends to replace matthew perry who lost 50 lbs and looks just like john travolta did when he was thin but gained weight when he ate just one bad ham sandwich he shared with momma cass...and now you have the rest of the story
 
dead rock stars and thugs

Originally posted by jefhatfield

i still think that elvis is hanging with jim morrison and jimmy hoffa and roseanne are the ones who really know about michael jackson and his longtime romance with liz taylor who will be on friends to replace matthew perry who lost 50 lbs and looks just like john travolta did when he was thin but gained weight when he ate just one bad ham sandwich he shared with momma cass...and now you have the rest of the story
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Jefhatfield, I don't know where you're getting your information but Jim Morrison can't stand Jimmy Hoffa. For that matter, while Elvis and Jim are cordial with one another, they're not very close.

If you're looking for Jim, you'd rarely find him without Jimmi Hendrix present. I had the pleasure of seeing them perform recently at a small club orbiting Saturn, just above its rings. At drums they had that guy from 'The Who',...Moon (?).

As for Elvis, he mainly sings gospel music now. He spends most of his time managing a small sandwich stand on a beach that looks a lot like Maui. BTW, his specialty is his peanut butter and bananna sandwich with fried something (?). Fortunately, no matter how much of his own food that he eats, he still looks like he did in the sixties.

I hope this helps clarify things.

Eirik
 
Originally posted by sjs
Ge real Eirik; there is no way Elvis is managing a small sandwich stand.
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Well, either that or he's such a regular there that he makes his own sandwichs as well as those for other customers. The man is insatiable. Oh, and then there're the women!!! Must be nice!

Eirik
 
the mac users complaining have a right to. those of you that are absolutely never critical of apple are the ones with the problems. (you're brainwashed)
 
everyone has to stop worrying about the P4. we should all be confident that the G5 will be very, very, very good. there will probably be lots of big changes as soon as the G5 is released.
 
A little bit of an DDR problem for intel (possibly)

DDR RAM works at 266Mhz Right ?

Assuming it actually is 266Mhz DDR not 133MHz DDR claimed to be 266 because of it's effective speed, A stick of 266Mhz DDR will be just as fast as intels new 533Mhz Ram and FSB because of the way DDR works. Take the cache on 1Ghz G4, it runs at 250MHz and uses DDR Ram giving it an effective speed of 250Mhz x 2 or 4Gb/s.

Intel's new FSB just adds yet another configuration for PC people to worry about when they have to replace their whole motherboard and buy new RAM everytime intel bring out a new CPU revision. AMD stick with DDR so everyone's free to upgrade later on without any additional cost.

Apple, although I think most of us are sick of this now, is sticking to the 133Mhz RAM type & FSB so any costly memory investment (a joke of a phrase these days) isn't wasted until we get DDR, then it will be the same for a few years till something better comes along and we'll all be puzzling over why apple don't use whatever technology intel/AMD come up with then just like we are now.

Don't get me wrong, I've seen how fast a 1.9Ghz Pentium 4 is, I know apple have got to do something to tip the balance in our favour on the speed issue across the board, not just a few non realtime benchmarks such as photoshop and video compression. I'm sick of reading some whiney zeliot's plea that his 600Mhz iMac is way faster than his brothers 2Ghz Pentium 4 or whatever, it's simply not true and never would have been even if it had a G4 in there. The design company my friend works for is a mac & pc based operation and there's some things that the guys with the 800Mhz dual G4s come and use the 933Mhz Pentium III systems for because they're a lot faster. Never found out what it was but they're an Adobe certified design company so it's not going to be photoshop!!!

My main point is this, 533Mhz might sound like a big number, it's way faster than 133Mhz we're stuck at but it's not really that impressive when you work it out. Also for me, I've seen CPU speeds on all platforms sky rocket over the 4 years of owning my 300Mhz Beige G3 and it's been nothing if not the most reliable machine I've ever had, I'm only in the position of needing a mac that's faster than what I'm current using so right now I think I'm spoiled for choice no matter what they have on the window end of things, I'm still holding out for a mac that will last me at least until 2005 when I buy it, plus I can't afford a new one right now so I guess the next mac I buy will have DDR and some other cool technology because it's going to a long time before I buy a new one.
 
re: having a mac that will last

my computers, one apple laptop and one pc laptop, are nowhere near state of the art both being close to three years old, but they have done the job...sometimes slowly

because of the great quality of every mac ever made, keeping a mac you buy now and expecting it to last until 2005 is not that unrealistic...unless you are a gaming or multimedia freak who buys every year or two and just likes to feel the speed for the sake of speed

now saying you want to have a pc last three years is not too realistic and since i have got my 1999 era compaq laptop, it's gone from windows 98, to a minor upgrade to 98se, a major upgrade to ME or windows 2000, and now a major upgrade to XP home or professional (the latter two operating systems, 2000 and XP, will not support my old laptop, no matter what)

since i have owned my mac, it's gone from 9.0 to minor upgrades of 9.0.4 to 9.1 to 9.2, and the only major upgrade was to os x (all of which are completely compatible with the computer) but os x will run slowly but it is still compatible

so three years for a mac, especially with a three year protection plan, is a very practical plan indeed

if you plan to do graphics as heavy as photoshop or illustrator and want to play some games every now and again, two years for any mac is a good compromise and won't cost you as much as getting a mac every year like a lot of the posters here do

my two cents:)
 
Nope: DDR266 uses a 133MHz FSB

To clear up any misconceptions about DDR and the like (in theoretical peak throughput):

DDR200 (DDR1600), a 100MHz bus double pumped = 1.6GB/s (1,603MB/s).

DDR266 (DDR2100), a 133MHz bus double pumped = 2.1GB/s (2,132MB/s). (Yes, it is marketing, it doesn't work on a 266 bus.)

DDR333 (DDR2700), a 166MHz bus double pumped = 2.7GB/s (2,661MB/s).

Intel's "400MHz" bus, a 100MHz bus quad pumped = 3.2GB/s (3,260MB/s).

Intel's "533MHz" bus, a 133MHz bus quad pumped = 4.3GB/s (4,264MB/s).

(Apple's 133 bus = 1GB/s (1,066MB/s).)

(Technically, because a GB is 1,024MB, Intel's 533 bus is 4.16GB/s, but Intel advertises it as 4.3GB/s... they seem to have the same weird misunderstanding as hard drive manufacturers who claim a 93GB drive is 100GB by thinking a GB is 1,000,000,000 bytes, not 1,073,741,824 bytes.)
 
techies like you and me have taken a backseat to the computer retailers who like to call 1000 a gig

look at the used car ads which state a two thousand dollar car at 2k with 100,000 miles on it as 100k miles or two years ago at y2k...it has become a part of the american culture

did you know that a wienerschnitzel was breaded veal and not a fast food hotdog...something useless i learned in junior high many years ago:p
 
Originally posted by eirik


SJS is correct in saying that volume is the single most critical driver in Apple's disfavor. However, buffslder does make a good point about the complexity of the dynamics at play, albeit, rather harshly (why can't we all just get along :D ).
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buffsldr is a lot like spikey, joeyj, monkeybusiness, and amonymous coward/poster in that he states important and useful facts in a harsh manner

gocyrus was just harsh with no useful macintosh information, but he would do well on a pc site

but we are all different people here and to expect anyone to behave to any certain standard of civility is completely f.u.c.k.e.d.

i have been flamed by all of the above mentioned trolls but i rather like them because they contribute to this site like everybody else
 
Originally posted by jefhatfield


buffsldr is a lot like spikey, joeyj, monkeybusiness, and amonymous coward/poster in that he states important and useful facts in a harsh manner

gocyrus was just harsh with no useful macintosh information, but he would do well on a pc site

but we are all different people here and to expect anyone to behave to any certain standard of civility is completely f.u.c.k.e.d.

i have been flamed by all of the above mentioned trolls but i rather like them because they contribute to this site like everybody else
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Thanks, Jeff......errrrrrrrrr I guess.
 
Its all in fun, in fact some of it is probably just meant to instigate more conversation, I would guess.

Anyway, I'm not offended. I just take solace in knowing that anyone who disagrees with me is WRONG, I TELL YOU, WRONG!

(BTW, the cursing really doesn't add to the enjoyment of the site.)
 
Originally posted by buffsldr


Thanks, Jeff......errrrrrrrrr I guess.
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you have been promoted as the head of the aniti-zealot campaign...let me explain...

he he...since monekybusiness split up a tree, joeyj went into seclusion, and spikey got arrested by the macrumors police, you are our new "spikey"

as a matter of fact i will call you spikey 2

can't we all just get along:D
 
Originally posted by jefhatfield


you have been promoted as the head of the aniti-zealot campaign...let me explain...

he he...since monekybusiness split up a tree, joeyj went into seclusion, and spikey got arrested by the macrumors police, you are our new "spikey"

as a matter of fact i will call you spikey 2

can't we all just get along:D
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Please explain. What is the anti-zealot campaign? I admit, at times I have been less than kind in my replies. I will work on it. Thanks, Jeff.
 
Originally posted by buffsldr


Please explain. What is the anti-zealot campaign? I admit, at times I have been less than kind in my replies. I will work on it. Thanks, Jeff.
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spikey originally came up with the term anti-zealot to counteract the mac users who tried to make the mac look good by stating how awful all pcs were, which isn't always true...some pcs are ok

an anti-zealot does not need to cut down pcs to make macs look good because a mac speaks for itself and mac users do not need to spend their whole life hating that the pcs dominate the market

i used to hate pcs with such a passion, especially microsoft and now i am one of their techies but it still does not dampen the love i have for the mac

even if pcs became really great and surpassed macs, i would still be a mac user because all macs fit my needs and are easy to use and maintain and the pc world is so far from being that way i don't feel a need to go all pc
 
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