Mac OS X Snow Leopard Does Require Intel Processors

[milo]

Heck, not even 1-2 year old Intel machines will be able to exploit some of the features in Snow Leopard like OpenCL and h.264 hardware decoding. Why one would expect a platform that Apple moved away from to get any major enhancements is beyond me.

Except that that older platform they moved away from actually COULD take advantage of things like OpenCL and 64 bit optimizations, they are giving it to users who have no need for it while shutting out others who would actually benefit.

but its unrealistic to expect Apple to invest significantly on obsolete hardware.

And I hope that every person who has posted that sentiment here finds themself just on the wrong side of the cutoff line when 10.7 ships. Of course none of you will be whining then, right?

And if apple shouldn't support obsolete hardware, why aren't the same people praising the PPC dump bashing apple for still wasting time supporting 32 bit intel? That hardware is obsolete, isn't it? Seems pretty hypocritical to me.

Not quite, they said it was the final stage of their 64-bit transition. That's very different than saying its fully 64 bit.

If they are going to ship with some things still 32 bit on 64 bit hardware, that's not especially "final", is it?

SL is 64-bit.

Actually, there are two versions since they are supporting 32 bit hardware. But I thought it was bad for apple to waste effort supporting "obsolete" hardware?

 

[cult hero]

Amen to that. It's hard to buy the "but Leopard is awesome!" consolation speech when out of the other side of their mouth Apple is telling users how inefficient Leopard is that it requires a major release to finally make it run well.

Leopard is awesome. (Now anyway. I stuck with Tiger till about 10.5.4. Tiger was rock solid from day 1 for me. That's the kind of launch I'm hoping for.)

Part of Snow Leopard's efficiency and awesomeness (well, proclaimed awesomeness anyway, if it runs like 10.5 at launch then "awesome" is not the word I'll be using) is the focus on new hardware. Hell, OpenCL's list of supported video devices is tiny. It's not that Leopard is inefficient, but rather that Snow Leopard is gonna be focusing on newer tech and newer hardware.

"Finally run well"? Leopard runs fine on my 1GHz PPC Mac Mini. It's a bit slow but it's not like the underlying hardware is greased lightning.

 

[milo]

I'm curious what support you have for that claim? I had a quad G5 and it was pretty easy to max out all four cores, with the proper tasks. The issue I saw with the G5 was it's memory subsystem had high latency and a smallish L2 cache, so only certain CPU bound tasks could really push it. I don't see how the kernel could wave a magic wand to fix the high memory latency and small L2 cache.

If the use of multiple cores and 64 bit hardware is really fully optimized, then what would be the point of 10.6?

And "with the proper tasks" is a pretty giant caveat.

 

[iMacmatician]

Apple would have been better served to preserve it's options to switch back to PPC someday. While Intel has been pretty stagnated on x86 development for awhile, IBM has been moving forward with the POWER chips pretty nicely. Remember how getting past 3 GHz was one of the big selling points of the switch to Intel? How did that work out?

3 GHz with Woodcrest.

 

[cult hero]

If the use of multiple cores and 64 bit hardware is really fully optimized, then what would be the point of 10.6?

And "with the proper tasks" is a pretty giant caveat.

Well...

1. Grand central has less to do with optimizing for multicore and more to do with making it easier for developers to write software for it.

2. Generally, pro grade apps are optimized for multiple procs/cores if they need that sort of thing, however, your "average" software isn't because your "average" programmer doesn't know how to write multithreaded apps. (Because it's hard.)

It also shows a paradigm shift. Multi-proc/core machines were toys for the big boys 5 years ago. Now, they're layman's tech so average programmers need to be able to handle NEWER HARDWARE. Snow Leopard is for... NEWER HARDWARE.

I really want to hear, from the G5 whiner crowd, what yesterday's announcements have done to make your machine any less than it was a week ago? You've known since the Intel announcement that PPC's days were numbered and Apple has a history of this. Grow up. Your old (and 3 years is old with computers) machine won't be running the latest and greatest. *rolls eyes* I can't run Vista on my Pentium III machine either. I can't play Crysis on my Voodoo 2. However, that hardware still does exactly what I bought it for when I bought it and does it as well as it always did.

You haven't lost anything. You haven't been cheated. Apple isn't refusing to support you either. You really have two choices:

1. Backward compatibility forever that gums up the works when using new stuff.

2. Forward moving that depreciates older tech at a faster rate.

You wanna know what backward compatibility forever hell is? Look what IE 6 has done to slow down web development. To use the newest tech you have to spend a bunch of additional time hacking around the limitations of the old stuff and either gracefully declining it or dropping wizz-bang features from your code because IE 6 can't handle it. There are plenty of companies that do that. Thank goodness there is one that moves forward, even when it hurts.

 

[tirerim]

Oh well. I can certainly understand this, but I'm still a bit disappointed. My Power Mac is less than 3.5 years old, and still has a good couple of years left in it, and while Leopard works pretty well, it would extend the useful life of the machine to have something a bit faster, and it could certainly benefit from Grand Central and OpenCL. Yes, I knew Intel Macs were coming when I bought the G5, but Mac Pros were quite a ways off at that point, and an Intel native version of Photoshop, which is what I bought the machine to be able to use effectively, was even farther away (more than a year). And I know the lifetime of technology is short, but one of the nice things about Apple is that in most cases they last a bit longer than average. So I'm not angry at Apple, nor do I think that they owe me anything; I'm just disappointed.

 

[ktlx]

If the use of multiple cores and 64 bit hardware is really fully optimized, then what would be the point of 10.6?

You are changing your statement. You said:

The quad G5 never even got close to its full potential since the OS never really took advantage of those cores well.

I said in response:

I'm curious what support you have for that claim? I had a quad G5 and it was pretty easy to max out all four cores, with the proper tasks.

You still never provided any support for you claim.

As to the point of Snow Leopard, Apple has been focusing on scalability and making it easier to take advantage of the extra computing power. Apple's own graphs show significant improvements primarily on dual-Nehalem Mac Pro sized machines (i.e. > 8GB of memory and lots of running threads).

And "with the proper tasks" is a pretty giant caveat.

Of course. My experience from evaluating the quad G5 was the poor memory subsystem limited the machine's capabilities, not the kernel. In order to max out all four cores you needed tasks where CPU processing far outweighed memory I/O. The G5 was plagued by the same problem as the Core 2 Duos, but Intel threw massive L2 caches at the problem until Nehalem. IBM did not because they couldn't justify the cost on the older process technology.

 

[cult hero]

My Power Mac is less than 3.5 years old ... and it could certainly benefit from Grand Central and OpenCL.

Actually, given that Grand Central is Intel Only and OpenCL is for only the newest vid card, it couldn't.

 

[pdjudd]

Except that that older platform they moved away from actually COULD take advantage of things like OpenCL and 64 bit optimizations, they are giving it to users who have no need for it while shutting out others who would actually benefit.

So? Apple would still have to develop for it. Guess what, they stopped shipping PPC years ago. Why should Apple bend over backwards to enhance machines that they haven't sold for years? Machines that were almost certainly purchased well into the Intel transition.

It does not matter what is possible - if we were talking possible, Apple could have updated and re-implemented Classic. They haven;t and you don;t see anybody complaining about that.

And I hope that every person who has posted that sentiment here finds themself just on the wrong side of the cutoff line when 10.7 ships. Of course none of you will be whining then, right?

Guess what. When 10.7 comes out, I doubt that my Blackbook will run it well if at all. Of course its a couple of years old by this point. Heck, it's not going to benifit with Snow Leopard all that much (Open CL or h.264 hardware). I am still going to get Snow Leopard since I have a dual core processor. The only time I will replace it or upgrade is would be when the hardware I currently has failed or my needs exceed that. If it cannot run 10.7, well thats too bad. Hardware ages.

And if apple shouldn't support obsolete hardware, why aren't the same people praising the PPC dump bashing apple for still wasting time supporting 32 bit intel? That hardware is obsolete, isn't it? Seems pretty hypocritical to me.

PPC 64 bit and intel 64 bit are two different beasts. Second, PPC was dead as soon as Appe started releasesing Intel computers. Theird, you cannot compare a break between PPC and intel versus 32 intel and 64 bit intel. We are talking about a completley different type of obsolence.

If they are going to ship with some things still 32 bit on 64 bit hardware, that's not especially "final", is it?

I have no idea what Bertan was talking about, but more than likley he was referring to these facts:

All system applications except DVD Player, Front Row, Grapher, and iTunes have been rewritten in 64-bit.

And possibly:

To ensure simplicity and flexibility, Mac OS X still comes in one version that runs both 64-bit and 32-bit applications. So you don’t need to update everything on your system just to run a single 64-bit program. And new 64-bit applications work just fine with your existing printers, storage devices, and PCI cards.

My guess is that they did not want to say fully 64-bit becasue there were a few applications that they did not want to change.

Actually, there are two versions since they are supporting 32 bit hardware. But I thought it was bad for apple to waste effort supporting "obsolete" hardware?

The PPC archatecture is obsolete. They have not sold PPC Macs for years. The intel atchatecture (the core solo and core duo) are approaching obsolesence, but the necessary 32 bit compatability that SL offers makes it a smaller issue than maintaining support for a different archetecture.

 

[nuckinfutz]

Thank God I bought an Intel Mac.

Things will get fun by the time 10.7 hits and we have 8-core 32nm cores on a single die with multithreading.

How's 32 virtual cpu sound? We may need Grand Central Dispatch Extreme.

LOL

 

[Eidorian]

Thank God I bought an Intel Mac.

Things will get fun by the time 10.7 hits and we have 8-core 32nm cores on a single die with multithreading.

How's 32 virtual cpu sound? We may need Grand Central Dispatch Extreme.

LOL

Maybe if you buy a Mac Pro...

 

[zweigand]

The people complaining are the ones who most likely bought a PowerMac instead of an iMac when they had no real reason to. The whole idea that "I'll get me the biggest/best and have it last 6 years" can very well bite you in the arse. You can get 2 med- high-end iMacs for the price of that SuperDuper Mac. Buy one now …then buy one again in 3 years. The second iMac will almost definitely be faster than the 3yr old PowerMac/Mac Pro anyway. …and you aren't stuck with an obsolete machine if something drastic happens.

If you really NEED a Mac Pro, that should mean you NEED a NEW Mac Pro every 3 years. That being the case …it should be about time to upgrade when SL comes out.

Me? I'm loving my iMac …it was nice knowing you PPC

 

[nuckinfutz]

Maybe if you buy a Mac Pro...

I just might have to if Apple offers a SMP 16 core system.

Dream would be to have two PCI-E SSD cards (160GB) mirrored for the boot drive and four 2TB SATA drives in RAID-10 for my audio/video files.

 

[milo]

Dude, check your math. SL is released September... unless the calendar people put September before August, I'd say their 3-Year Apple Care would be over...

Dude, read the post again where he says NOVEMBER.

That's after september.

Isn't it?

Dude?

Leopard is awesome. (Now anyway. I stuck with Tiger till about 10.5.4. Tiger was rock solid from day 1 for me. That's the kind of launch I'm hoping for.)

Part of Snow Leopard's efficiency and awesomeness (well, proclaimed awesomeness anyway, if it runs like 10.5 at launch then "awesome" is not the word I'll be using) is the focus on new hardware. Hell, OpenCL's list of supported video devices is tiny. It's not that Leopard is inefficient, but rather that Snow Leopard is gonna be focusing on newer tech and newer hardware.

"Finally run well"? Leopard runs fine on my 1GHz PPC Mac Mini. It's a bit slow but it's not like the underlying hardware is greased lightning.

You're just declaring "awesome" with no frame of reference. Regardless of how well it runs on your machine, you don't think you'd welcome an improvement?

Leopard IS inefficient, if it wasn't there would be no improvement with 10.6.

And the actual improvements in SL aren't for "new" hardware - there are plenty of intel machines that are 32 bit, or only dual core, or don't have a supported GPU while G5s could actually take advantage of the improvements if they were supported.

Snow Leopard is for... NEWER HARDWARE.

But the point is that is an arbitrary distinction, particularly since much of the newer hardware that is supported is actually inferior to the older hardware. SL will run on the newer stuff, but many of the newer machines won't actually see any improvement.

My concern with the G5 is whether Logic 9 will support it or if it will be intel only (using 10.6 as an excuse). We'll see what happens.

And enough with the childish "grow up" comments, you're adding nothing to the discussion.

You still never provided any support for you claim.

And you still didn't answer my question. If the cores were used fully, what would be the advantage of 10.6? If you're saying there's no room for improvement, then you're calling Apple's claims for 10.6 lies.

My specific experience is using Logic and other similar apps - four cores are used, but extremely inefficiently (specifically, the app chokes even though none of the cores are maxed out).

So? Apple would still have to develop for it. Guess what, they stopped shipping PPC years ago. Why should Apple bend over backwards to enhance machines that they haven't sold for years?

My point is that they are dumping support for financial reasons, not technical ones, as is usually the case (machines that can't run the new OS because they are too slow or otherwise unable). Personally, I find that a bit disappointing.

And apple should support older machines because it helps with customer loyalty. Why should I shell out the cash for today's Mac Pro knowing that apple is more than happy to dump support while the machine is perfectly usable?

PPC 64 bit and intel 64 bit are two different beasts.

Of course they are. But 32 bit intel is dead as well, why are you in favor of dropping support one platform on the grounds that it is "dead" while favoring support for another that is just as "dead"?

Most of the comments sound like people simply take the position of "I favor apple dropping support of any machine older than the one I happen to own".

The PPC archatecture is obsolete. They have not sold PPC Macs for years.

And 32 bit intel is also obsolete, they haven't sold it for years either.

If you really NEED a Mac Pro, that should mean you NEED a NEW Mac Pro every 3 years.

Interesting theory, but doesn't apply in real life. There are plenty of pros who do need a machine like that, but are still fine using that machine 3+ years later.

 

[thedarkhorse]

maybe dropping that ppc code is where we get most of this 6gb of storage back.

 

[ktlx]

And you still didn't answer my question. If the cores were used fully, what would be the advantage of 10.6? If you're saying there's no room for improvement, then you're calling Apple's claims for 10.6 lies.

It would help if you actually read my post. I said:

As to the point of Snow Leopard, Apple has been focusing on scalability and making it easier to take advantage of the extra computing power. Apple's own graphs show significant improvements primarily on dual-Nehalem Mac Pro sized machines (i.e. > 8GB of memory and lots of running threads).

My specific experience is using Logic and other similar apps - four cores are used, but extremely inefficiently (specifically, the app chokes even though none of the cores are maxed out).

What evidence do you have the kernel is the limiting factor? I've never used Logic so I can't talk about it's memory I/O to CPU mix. But I worked on other applications where the problem lie in the memory I/O system not being able to keep the CPUs fed. Again, there's nothing magic a kernel can do to overcome high memory latencies and small L2 caches.

 

[kevink2]

Guess this means that the OS is still not fully 64 bit (or there are 2 kernels and libraries) since the first Intel macs were 32 bit systems.

I would bet that, in most cases, the programs on it are 32 bit. Do you REALLY need a 64 bit ls command? Since the system still supports 32 bit executables, it would make sense to limit 64 bit support to the programs that really need it.

It isn't like Microsoft in past transitions where the upgrade from 16 bit support to 32 bit support brought a lot of other benefits, like support for multithreading, etc.

 

[shonia]

Apple is leaving the PowerPC era behind and it should. I'm glad that Apple has only provided Intel support in Snow Leopard. Time to leave the past and push forward with innovative software and hardware.

 

[kevink2]

Core Duo... As in Core 2 Duo? I didn't think that Intel made any Core Duo processors that were 32-bit only.

My Core Duo processors on my 3 year old Toshiba are 32 bit only

 

[milo]

It would help if you actually read my post.

Yeah, I've never heard THAT one before on a message board.

What evidence do you have the kernel is the limiting factor?

I never said it was.

Dare I say it...

Wait for it...

It would help if you actually read my post.

Ouch, couldn't resist...


It's been fun. Toodles.

 

[nuckinfutz]

Guess this means that the OS is still not fully 64 bit (or there are 2 kernels and libraries) since the first Intel macs were 32 bit systems.

I would bet that, in most cases, the programs on it are 32 bit. Do you REALLY need a 64 bit ls command? Since the system still supports 32 bit executables, it would make sense to limit 64 bit support to the programs that really need it.

It isn't like Microsoft in past transitions where the upgrade from 16 bit support to 32 bit support brought a lot of other benefits, like support for multithreading, etc.

No Kevin it makes sense to make as much 64-bit so that you don't have to load 32-bit library and frameworks.

http://andymatuschak.org/articles/2008/07/02/why-you-need-to-build-64-bit/

Moving to 64-bit does bring more registers so there is a benefit that is tagging along.

 

[milo]

Regardless of how anyone feels about dropping PPC support, there's no question that the 10.6 release really shines a spotlight on how awful a job Apple has done so far taking advantage of multiple cores and 64 bit support.

64 bit support was hyped in 10.4.

It was hyped again in 10.5 (the 10.6 hype actually touts "more than 4 gigs of ram!" as something new even though it's already in 10.5).

And yet, still no 64 bit apps and minimal advantage from the "improvements".

Should we really be so confident that this one will live up to the hype?

I'll believe it when I see it. And that goes double for 64 bit versions of apps like Final Cut and Logic.

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

I really feel sorry for those that bought G5 Quads. Those machines are STILL faster than many dual-core Intels for many activities today and they get their support tossed in a little over 3 years. And for those that say Leopard will still support them, you must remember that those making software for Snow Leopard will have no need to make Universal binaries anymore. In fact, it'll be at odds with not wanting to maintain separate support for newer features versus older architectures tied to older operating systems. And so I think most companies will simply inevitably stop making Universal Binaries and that will then completely kill off the PowerPC machines, regardless of how well they still run, etc. In effect, I believe Apple has just killed support for nearly half their user base. Good job Apple. You just shrunk your user base from 9% to 4-5% (you seem to like it there for some reason). But that's right, now you count iPhone and iPod Touch sales as "OS X" sales....LOL. As if they were the same thing....

The real problem with OS X versus say WindowsXP/Vista/7 is that even if you don't upgrade XP to Vista, almost all new software will continue to work in XP and that will probably be true when Windows7 comes out as well. In fact, software designed for Windows95 will probably still work in XP fifteen years later while software for say OS9 won't work period today in OS X. Apple has no interest in maintaining software compatibility and this will only cement it even further. Already there is a lot of software that will not run in Tiger, even though there is no technical reason for it not to. People simply don't want to bother to support it. How much more so will that be with Snow Leopard versus Leopard if it means the developer can embrace new things like OpenCL while they have might have to maintain a completely separate codebase to keep support for Universal binaries? As I said above, Apple just killed PPC. Developers will not bother to release Universal binaries anymore even if Leopard itself is supported for a couple more years from Apple. I imagine iTunes will still get updated for awhile longer so may I can still use my PowerMac as an audio/video server awhile longer, but I can forget about most new software other than browsers, etc. And despite what some may think, this 1.8GHz upgraded PowerMac "feels" nearly as "snappy" as my 8 month old MBP (which despite being only 8 months old will not have H.264 hardware acceleration in Snow Leopard). Most software (other than video editing and games) runs fine on the PowerMac including all browsers which are very fast. But I'm afraid all Universal binaries will dry up by the end of the year. While it's mostly just a server, I tend to browse on it most of the time since it's always running.


Honestly, it just gives me one more reason to build a Hackintosh next time instead of buying from Apple. They don't care about their customers, only their bottom line. Most of the people praising the move don't have PPC machines anymore and like Apple, don't give a flying fig about other users, only themselves (surprise surprise). They mistakenly THINK that removing PPC support will make their machines significantly faster, which is just total technical NONSENSE. It'll save a LITTLE bit of hard drive space (compared to the size of today's hard drive, it's literally nothing) and that's it. But hey, that's great if you don't care about nearly half the installed Mac user base. Apple probably thinks they'll all now be forced to buy new hardware from them, but the truth is some may very well go buy a PC or make a Hackintosh instead either out of financial necessity or because they're sick of Apple dropping support for older machines (and as with OS9, older software as well) at the drop of a hat.

Heck, my brand new MBP from early October of last year (barely a whopping 8 months old!) won't even get H.264 hardware acceleration support in Snow Leopard. Apparently, like with the new iPhone (with video support, which clearly works on even the 1st generation model if you hack it), you have to buy the VERY LATEST hardware to get things like hardware acceleration support. Otherwise, even though there is not technical reason that it won't work on previous models, Apple artificially PREVENTS it from working so they can try and FORCE you to buy hardware you don't need from them. And since there is no other alternative supplier of Mac hardware, you're 100% out of luck. It might be legal, but I find it every unethical to try and force people to buy newer hardware they may not need.

I'll be watching Windows7 very carefully. I use OS X because I like it better than Windows, but that's certainly not a given over time. I prefer having good hardware choices and competitive prices. At some stage, OS X isn't worth it anymore, particularly if Windows improves to be "good enough" in the future.

And if apple shouldn't support obsolete hardware, why aren't the same people praising the PPC dump bashing apple for still wasting time supporting 32 bit intel? That hardware is obsolete, isn't it? Seems pretty hypocritical to me.

First of all, most people ARE hypocrites about some things and secondly most people only care about themselves. It shows on every face of society from people thinking it's their right to try and force their beliefs and/or will on others to taking joy out of the misery of others. I tend to think the Mac platform has more "shallow" people per capita than Windows or Linux, to be honest with you. You don't see much talk of things like "fan boys" on forums for those operating systems. You're only "cool" if you're current and ONLY if you agree with everything so-and-so person has to say. Otherwise, they attack and insult even if they don't know the first thing about computers and probably don't care either or else they might resent Apple taking advantage of them at every possible turn.

 

[zweigand]

Interesting theory, but doesn't apply in real life. There are plenty of pros who do need a machine like that, but are still fine using that machine 3+ years later.

A lot of people THINK they need a machine like that. In reality, they just want to tout specs. The scenario above would mean that you really don't need top-end performance …you just need expansion capabilities.

Sure, there are exceptions, but it's not a very large percentage of the userbase.

 

[nuckinfutz]

Regardless of how anyone feels about dropping PPC support, there's no question that the 10.6 release really shines a spotlight on how awful a job Apple has done so far taking advantage of multiple cores and 64 bit support.

64 bit support was hyped in 10.4.

It was hyped again in 10.5 (the 10.6 hype actually touts "more than 4 gigs of ram!" as something new even though it's already in 10.5).

And yet, still no 64 bit apps and minimal advantage from the "improvements".

Should we really be so confident that this one will live up to the hype?

I'll believe it when I see it. And that goes double for 64 bit versions of apps like Final Cut and Logic.

Performance is by design. Grand Central Dispatch, while not in competition with OpenCL, is IMO far more important for us all. I don't think Apple hyped 64-bit ..they were honest in stating that some processes could run in 64-bit but no kernel or GUI processes. The hype came from people of varying levels of technical proficiency that are naturally attracted to bigger numbers.

64-bit is no panacea and neither is multicore handling. The problems facing developers of multi-core is the age old thread management issues but there are also technical issues within the CPU itself. How does one CPU know what's in the cache of the other CPU ?

Intel has steadfast improved the cache snooping features of their processors and I'd hazard a guess that a Nehalem is light years beyond a Quad G5 in cache coherency features.

Thank God Apple wised up.