Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Mac OS X on a PC?

RacerX said:
The main reason for wanting PC switchers... they tend to keep the 18 month upgrade cycle even after moving to Macs. Old Mac users tend to hold onto their systems longer than Apple would really want us to (around 3 years).
Click to expand...

Hear-hear! I'm still using my Pismo (July 2000) and expect to continue with it for the forseeable future. It runs OSX 10.3.7 just fine.

Apple needs to bring out hardware that is actually better rather than just different to get me to upgrade. Or my trusty, dusty 500MHz G3 Pismo needs to die. But fear not lads & lassies, it was built tough! (I have dropped it twice, while running - no, it was running, not me! Just call me butter fingers.) Takes a licking and keeps on ticking!

I do have one reason to upgrade - X-Plane 8 requires more VRAM than my Pismo has. :(

-Walter
in Vermont
with the butter washed off
 
Durendal said:
Wrong. MAYBE on a top-of-the-line dual Opteron system, but show me a 128-bit, 162 instruction vector unit on an AMD64 chip. Show me an Althon64 board with a 1.25ghz system bus. It wouldn't be faster than a dual G5. Anyway, it's not important, because for reasons stated earlier, we will never see OS X for x86 hardware.
Click to expand...

I'm sorry, but there is no system bus on my Athlon 64. The memory controller is on-die and the HyperTransport link is substantially faster than the G5 memory system. You can take your 128-bit vector unit and shove it, because I didn't say anything about a dual G5. I said a PowerMac, not THE FASTEST POWERMAC. If we wanted to compare along that vein, I'd be using a dual FX-55 setup, which would smash the dual G5, and still be cheaper. I was comparing unit for unit performance of my Athlon (not Althon) to a G5. That is, a fair, singular G5, and I already know mine's faster and that a 1.25GHz bus speed still can't touch HyperTransport. I'm not saying that the G5 isn't a good performer, just that my system is a better performer than a PowerMac at a savings of hundreds of dollars. I'm not promoting the AMD64 platform over the PowerPC, because I use both...I'm just saying that I would get much better cost/performance returns with a proper port. It's the truth. I don't care if it happens or not (note the condition "would").

Thanks, but take your angry bitching elsewhere.
 
I just want to point out the FACTS. PowerMacs are better than any PC box. If you don't believe me, ask why Multi-Million/Billion dollar companies are using PowerMacs for their video/music editing/production. I don't think they would make a poor investment.
 
Osx x86

I think it would be great if Apple licensed OSX to Dell for select x86 processors and only for 3-5 years. Then they could decide not to relicense OSX and then their would be a lot of people that would never go back to Micrsoft. Or they could only allow it on low end systems so that it wouldn't really affect the powermac and powerbooks.
 
drewyboy said:
I just want to point out the FACTS. PowerMacs are better than any PC box. If you don't believe me, ask why Multi-Million/Billion dollar companies are using PowerMacs for their video/music editing/production. I don't think they would make a poor investment.
Click to expand...

Several interesting fact people tend to forget about the sales statistics of Windows vs Mac:

1) Most of those Windows PC's are being used in very mundane applications like answering machines, cash registers, accounting, word processing, CSR, process control (eek!), etc. A great many of those Windows PC's aren't even being used by people or they just have a single dedicated function. Boring. Stop counting any instances for dedicated functions and no real human user and you'll instantly cut the Windows PC sales statistics in half.

2) Most of the rest of the Windows PC's are being used for games. How much processing power do you really need to play solitare (the most common game on the PC) - I mean get real. Yes, there are some great PC games as well. But a dedicated game console is a better buy for this task. A lot of those sales are really for glorified game machines. Cut these out or include all PPC game consoles and dedicated PPC process controllers under Mac sales. That would be as reasonable as including the similar things under Windows sales. Again, cut the Windows sales in half, or more.

3) Macs have a much longer useful life than Windows PC's. So while the sales of the Windows PC's is instantaniously higher the actual users are not as high as that would make it appear. Not only that, but when Windows users change over from an old machine to a new machine it is a major hassle to move their data over and a lot of it is lost. Most users of Windows accept this as a cost of upgrading - imagine losing all your data every time you have to reformat (frequently under Windows) or upgrade. Moving over their applications is even harder than moving their data on Windows. It has always been easy with the Mac. The reason the Windows users upgrade so fast is their machines die so fast and each time they get amnesia. Fortunately this isn't the case with the Mac.

4) Life time cost of ownership of Windows PC's is much higher than Macs despite the initial lower cost of purchase for Windows PC's. This is a very important issue that short sighted managers and purchasing agents fail to consider. But heck, it's not their issue one year down the road when the PC's need replacing. By then they'll have moved on, be fired or offshored - why should they care.

5) Windows PC's are notoriously insecure (and we're not just talking emotionally) and prone to viruses, etc. This further drives up the cost of ownership. This problem isn't caused so much by the hardware as the lack of design and programming ability as well attention to detail by the vendor of the operating system - Microsoft. Bill Gates is great at marketing, often by sly means. He and his minions are not so good at creating a great product as demonstrated by Windows OS and so many other products they've bought and ruined.

Moving OSX to x86 or increasing OSX's market share won't make it more likely to get malware. Users of OSX x86 machines would still have the problems with hardware failure that Windows PC users experience and that would be bad from Apple's point of view. The OS would get blamed all too often even if it was the hardware's fault.

Is a Mac better than a Windows PC? Definitely from both hardware and software perspectives speaking as a hardware designer and a programmer. Been there, done that, yuk.

Should Apple bring out OSX for x86? Probably not. It would be a support nightmare. The cost benefit ratio doesn't look good.

Will Apple bring it out for the Cell? More likely and easier. Will they incorporate the Cell into the Mac? Very likely. The Mac is all about high performance, often in some nichy kinda ways. e.g., How fast can the server run? How fast can Photoshop run? Will it make a difference to your wordprocessor? No.

Will they liscense to Sony/IBM/Toshiba/etc on Cell? Interesting possibility. Especially for nitch markets - everybody play nice now! :)

Cheers,

-Walter
Sugar Mtn Farm
Livestock Dog Pups Available: http://SugarMtnFarm.com/pups/
Vermont Cape House & Land: http://hollygraphicart.com/vermontcape/
 
This entire thread is RIDICULOUS

Hello? Testing...1...2...3..is this thing on?

Making OS X available for Intel/AMD platforms would DESTROY Apple.

Would it expand the user base for the OS? You bet. But making OS X operational on a plethora of different types of hardware would ruin the "hand in glove" beauty and uniqueness of buying a system built by the OS writers. As previously stated, only about 10% of Apple's profit comes from software--the rest comes from hardware. The iTunes Music Store barely generates a profit, even at the astronomical numbers of downloads they have achieved. It's purpose for existence is simple: to sell iPods..

Apple's business model is one of the most successful in the computer industry. Even though they have a very small market share, they generate huge profits per machine, and the "smallness" of their user base percentage vs. the PC world fosters a lack of incentive for virus hackers to bother with OS X: it's much, much harder to crack, and once you DO crack it and write a virus that actually works, it can potentially affect only 4% of all computer users worldwide.

The push for a PC-compatable OS X comes from two primary motivations: people want cheaper systems, and people want faster ones (esp. gamers). Apple's fastest systems are near the top, but certainly not AT the top, of raw computing performance, and yet are far more expensive. But factoring in TCO and security-related risks and countermeasures, Macs are a better deal in the long run for anyone who isn't a "gamer." Apple knows this. It is their primary selling point (after "chic" designs).

OS X for PC will NEVER, EVER happen . Every conceivable business consideration with regard to marketshare, branding, and future profitability shoots down the very idea in flames.
 
matticus008 said:
I'm sorry, but there is no system bus on my Athlon 64. The memory controller is on-die and the HyperTransport link is substantially faster than the G5 memory system. You can take your 128-bit vector unit and shove it, because I didn't say anything about a dual G5. I said a PowerMac, not THE FASTEST POWERMAC. If we wanted to compare along that vein, I'd be using a dual FX-55 setup, which would smash the dual G5, and still be cheaper. I was comparing unit for unit performance of my Athlon (not Althon) to a G5. That is, a fair, singular G5, and I already know mine's faster and that a 1.25GHz bus speed still can't touch HyperTransport. I'm not saying that the G5 isn't a good performer, just that my system is a better performer than a PowerMac at a savings of hundreds of dollars. I'm not promoting the AMD64 platform over the PowerPC, because I use both...I'm just saying that I would get much better cost/performance returns with a proper port. It's the truth. I don't care if it happens or not (note the condition "would").

Thanks, but take your angry bitching elsewhere.
Click to expand...
A dual FX-55 would smash the G5? In unoptimized tasks, most likely. In optimized tasks (64-bit, Altivec for the G5, latest OS versions), the G5 would stomp the FX-55's balls. And if you were to get a dual FX-55 rig with roughly equivelent specs to the G5, I don't think it would be a whole lot cheaper. You tout hypertransport, but what about the actual clock speeds?Last I knew, Athlon motherboards were still using regular ol' DDR memory, AGP/PCI-E, etc. So what would the high-end boards have for a FSB between the CPU and Northbridge? Nothing so high as 1.25ghz, I'd wager. AMD has some nice chips, no doubt, but when it comes down to raw, optimized speed, the G5 emerges the victor.
 
While I understand while alot of you do not want this, I think I would really like this to happen. This could be huge for apple. And it would finally make Jobs put his money where his mouth is. Is OSX really more secure? or is it just not as popular?
 
D*I*S_Frontman said:
Hello? Testing...1...2...3..is this thing on?

Making OS X available for Intel/AMD platforms would DESTROY Apple.

Would it expand the user base for the OS? You bet. But making OS X operational on a plethora of different types of hardware would ruin the "hand in glove" beauty and uniqueness of buying a system built by the OS writers.
Click to expand...


Does running iTunes on a PC ruin iTunes?
 
Durendal said:
A dual FX-55 would smash the G5? In unoptimized tasks, most likely. In optimized tasks (64-bit, Altivec for the G5, latest OS versions), the G5 would stomp the FX-55's balls. And if you were to get a dual FX-55 rig with roughly equivelent specs to the G5, I don't think it would be a whole lot cheaper. You tout hypertransport, but what about the actual clock speeds?Last I knew, Athlon motherboards were still using regular ol' DDR memory, AGP/PCI-E, etc. So what would the high-end boards have for a FSB between the CPU and Northbridge? Nothing so high as 1.25ghz, I'd wager. AMD has some nice chips, no doubt, but when it comes down to raw, optimized speed, the G5 emerges the victor.
Click to expand...

Um dual fx-55s don't exist. You'd have to use opterons, which are faster clock for clock than a G5. That is a simple fact. Also, this 1.25ghz fsb that you keep touting is meaningless. Athlon 64s and Opterons don't have a fsb or northbridge due to their on-die memory controller. The hypertransport bus clocks in at 1ghz (2ghz if you think that ddr400 runs at 400mhz and not 200mhz). I am sure that you would love it if the G5 had an on-die memory controller because it would increase performance by a fair amount. I can't believe you think that the G5 is faster clock for clock. It just isn't true. It lacks an on-die memory controller (has higher memory latency), has a 20-something stage pipeline, and runs at 2.5ghz with a 1.25ghz fsb. The fastest athlon64 runs at 2.6ghz, with an on-die memory controller (lower latency memory access), an 11 stage pipeline, and a 2GHZ hypertransport between it and the other components (no need for a northbridge). They both use dual ddr400.
 
Blue Velvet said:
I think amongst home users and educational users it's a bit higher than that... the corporate world is full of PCs.

User base is probably a more realistic figure to look at although I don't have those figures to hand... :eek:
Click to expand...


Yea, about 3.1% is correct.
 
Apple should lisence for Alienware computers only. Apple and Alienware can invest in creating thier own Mac/PC compatible Hardware but of course they patent the hell out of it. so only Alienware can use os X and mac's can have alienware manufacturing parts to apples standards for apple computers.
 
Hmm...

It would better if HP, Dell and Toshiba simply started using PowerPC chips and building computers with those... all OSX software would run on them just fine. Apple of would, of course, have the best looking hardware of any company.
 
SonComet said:
Um dual fx-55s don't exist. You'd have to use opterons, which are faster clock for clock than a G5. That is a simple fact. Also, this 1.25ghz fsb that you keep touting is meaningless. Athlon 64s and Opterons don't have a fsb or northbridge due to their on-die memory controller. The hypertransport bus clocks in at 1ghz (2ghz if you think that ddr400 runs at 400mhz and not 200mhz). I am sure that you would love it if the G5 had an on-die memory controller because it would increase performance by a fair amount. I can't believe you think that the G5 is faster clock for clock. It just isn't true. It lacks an on-die memory controller (has higher memory latency), has a 20-something stage pipeline, and runs at 2.5ghz with a 1.25ghz fsb. The fastest athlon64 runs at 2.6ghz, with an on-die memory controller (lower latency memory access), an 11 stage pipeline, and a 2GHZ hypertransport between it and the other components (no need for a northbridge). They both use dual ddr400.
Click to expand...
Barefeets disagrees with you. Anyway, dual FX-55 weren't my words, but his. Now, that may be an earlier revision of the Opteron and they may have a new one out under the same name. The G5 has a 20-something stage pipeline?? That's news to me. Last I knew the G5 has a 16 stage pipeline. The Opteron seems to have a 12 stage pipeline, although that may have been boosted a bit in the latest revision. The Athlon 64 goes up to 2.6, but the Opteron, commonly known as AMD's real powerhouse, goes up to 2.4. And there is still the Altivec unit making a huge difference in optimized tasks. Nothing on the x86 side even comes close to that. SSE3 is diddly squat in comparison. In unoptimized tasks, the Opteron will take the title. In optimized tasks, the G5 will take the title.
 
pubwvj said:
Will Apple bring it out for the Cell? More likely and easier. Will they incorporate the Cell into the Mac? Very likely. The Mac is all about high performance, often in some nichy kinda ways. e.g., How fast can the server run? How fast can Photoshop run? Will it make a difference to your wordprocessor? No.

Will they liscense to Sony/IBM/Toshiba/etc on Cell? Interesting possibility. Especially for nitch markets - everybody play nice now! :)
Click to expand...

"Cell" is a neutral OS CPU. So if apple does port OSX to Cell that same OSX would also run on PC's using Cell.

Ripped from another forum:

"Myth 3: Apple is going to use this processor in their new machine.

Doubtful. The problem is that though the main CPU is PowerPC-based like current Apple chips, it is stripped down, and the Altivec support will be much lower than in current G5s. Unoptomized, Apple code would run like a G4 on this hardware. They would have to commit to a lot of R&D for their OS to use the additional 8 processors on the chip, and redesign all their tweaked Altivec code. It would not be a simple port. A couple of years to complete, at least."

Some other tidbits about Cell:
CELL is a breakthrough in architectural design -- featuring 8 Synergistic Processing Units (SPU) with Power-based core, with top clock speeds exceeding 4 GHz (as measured during initial laboratory testing)
Cell is OS neutral -- supporting multiple operating systems simultaneously
Cell is a multi-core chip comprising 8 SPUs and a 64-bit Power processor core capable of massive floating point processing
Special circuit techniques, rules for modularity and reuse, customized clocking structures and unique power and thermal management concepts were applied to optimize the design
CELL Is Multi-Core Architecture
Contains 8 SPUs each containing a 128 entry 128-bit register file and 256 KB Local Store
Contains 64-bit Power Architecture with VMX that is a dual thread SMT design -- views system memory as a 10-way coherent threaded machine
2.5MB of on chip memory (512 KB L2 and 8 * 256 KB)
234 million transistors
Prototype die size of 221mm
Frabricanted with 90nm SOI process technology
Cell is a modular architecture and floating point calculation capabilities can be adjusted by increasing or reducing the number of SPUs


CELL Is a Broadband Architecture
Compatible with 64b Power Architecture
SPU is a RISC architecture with SIMD organization and Local Store
128+ concurrent transactions to memory per processor
High speed internal element interconnect bus performing at 96B/cycle
CELL Is a Real-Time Architecture
Resource allocation (for bandwidth management)
Locking caches (via replacement management tables)
Virtualization support with real-time response characteristics across multiple operating systems running simultaneously
CELL Is Security-Enabled Architecture
SPUs dynamically configurable as secure processors for flexible security programming
CELL Is a Confluence of New Technologies
Virtualization techniques to support conventional and real-time applications
Autonomic power management features
Resource management for real-time human-interaction
Smart memory flow controllers (DMA) to sustain bandwidth
 
markjones05 said:
Does running iTunes on a PC ruin iTunes?
Click to expand...
No, and that really wasn't the point. iTunes is not wear Apple makes their money in that area, it is with iPods (hardware).

Now the question you should ask is: Would iTunes working with other MP3 players hurt iPod sales?

Yes! :eek:

iTunes working with other MP3 players is just like Mac OS X working on other computers. Apple can't generate profits with iTunes or Mac OS X, but they sure can with iPods and Macs!
 
RacerX said:
No, and that really wasn't the point. iTunes is not wear Apple makes their money in that area, it is with iPods (hardware).

Now the question you should ask is: Would iTunes working with other MP3 players hurt iPod sales?

Yes! :eek:

iTunes working with other MP3 players is just like Mac OS X working on other computers. Apple can't generate profits with iTunes or Mac OS X, but they sure can with iPods and Macs!
Click to expand...

iTunes working with with other MP3 players would not kill the ipod. People don't buy ipods just for itunes.

As far as releasing OSX for the PC, well then no one would buy mac hardware anymore. But that does'nt spell the end of apple. They can just make PC's. Many companies do and make alot of money. Microsoft just makes software and as you know they do very well. Apple can make software and hardware. I think apple would then grow by leaps and bounds. If it happened I would certainly buy stock.
 
OS X on Intel. Seems like all the questions have been raised and both sides have made their arguments.

I only have one thing to add.....


the 'tar stays!
 
RacerX said:
Now the question you should ask is: Would iTunes working with other MP3 players hurt iPod sales?
Click to expand...

iTunes does (did?) work with other MP3 players. It was one of the reasons iTunes was created - so that people could synch their MP3 player with their Mac (because all the players at the time only came with Windows software). The iPod didn't come along until later.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back