Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Macintosh Moving to Intel Processors [Updated]
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
- Status
Hector said:do you know how many times that has been said in this thread
what matters is what chip is better, if apple has made a good or bad decision in going with intel.
I think it's safe to say the Intel chips will be better as in the next 18 months , Power PC chips is remain stagnant. I think IBM might finally put out the 3ghz sometime late this year or by MWSF. then it's the end of the PPC Powermac line.
There is little reason for IBM to put out a 970MP now when it won't sell much , and will be EOL'd in little over a year.
Apple made the right choce , Intel will not have the manufacturing problems IBM and Moto had. Plus Apple is going to get alot of money from Intel to Spend on future products. Intel is already starting on thier 65nm and it seems to be going fine. IBM is still running too hot and AMD just now moved thier whole chip line including the FX-55 and FX-57 to 90nm.
Apple also get's
PCIe, DDR2 , 802.11n , Wi-Max, USB 3.0
Xenon Quad Core (Whitfield) for Xserves, Highend Powermac.
Pentium M DC (Yonah,Memron)..PowerBooks
Pentium M DC based(Conroe)...iMac/PowerMac
Celeron M(Single core Yonah/Memron) iBook, Mac Mini
Xscale..future Video iPod , or other things.
Plus they get all of Intels Chipsets.
Penitum 4 , Pentium D and Celeron D will all be EOL'd by the time Apple jumps on board...and good riddance.
vatel said:
I'm take a trip to Germany between now & spring next year. Specifically in governement offices around the entire country, and you'll notice the huge dramatic drop in EOL (end of life) contractual aggrements between Microsoft and the German governement vs the increasing use of Suse or other Linux OS used on x86 architecture in those same offices. Steve Ballmore (dont think I got that right), CEO of Microsoft went in person to Germany not too long ago as a last resort to console on keeping MS even reduce their contractual pricing, to no avail. the EU boards decision to fine MS for not coming with a worthy release of WinXP without EI is also evidence of a thorn in MS side.
(NOTE: Apple push big time in Europe now or suffer the same pain).Ravenflight, your 1st post in page 71 was excellent!!!
I never saw it that way. However, lets all hope that the US federal governing body of competition - sorry I'm Canadian, not sure what its called - will never allow such a merge/takeover of Intel/AMD. Another thing to hope for is some billionaire with the right people to start a new CPU business that can be competitive! Innovative. Besides Intel and AMD, possibly Matsushita (but their focus is on memory, right?) who else in the microprocessor business is there? I heard that Transmeta has begun folding.For some reason I'm still secretly hoping that IBMs current lack of desire to evolve the PPC970 is because their working, in private, on a POWER5 derivative = PPC980. And when the current fame dwindles, they'll once again approach Apple with the PPC980 and say we got a killer for ya hear! Just say the word and we'll give a test drive.
.Anyone remember the USA governement banning the Apple G4s (1st run) from being shipped to China because of it capable of powering a cruise missile with a NUKE? Featured with tanks in the Apple ad?!!
I agree that it is vital to have healthy competition between different technologies.Ravenflight said:
However, I wouldn't count PowerPC out. With the chips for XBox2 and also Cell, the development will continue. I must admit it'd be ironic if in 5 years time it was Mac-Intel versus Windows-PPC, but I am certain that if Intel did slow down Microsoft would be able to switch smoothly (then again so could Apple). The requirement here is that IBM keeps investing in their chips though, if that stops then competition slows (AMD is still around).
Good... but some prolems
I think the switch was great for apple. I'm really looking forward to these intel based macs. But my problem is the next few years. I've been looking to buy a mac..but i havnt found the perfect mac just yet. Im afraid that apple will lag over the next couple of years and ill end up with a mediocre mac.
I think the switch was great for apple. I'm really looking forward to these intel based macs. But my problem is the next few years. I've been looking to buy a mac..but i havnt found the perfect mac just yet. Im afraid that apple will lag over the next couple of years and ill end up with a mediocre mac.
Platform said:Yes I hope that this will help speed things up....meaning getting new technology
How fast is USB 3.0...........gigabit
Speed is important, obviously, but so is Bandwidth. If you've seen the difference between video conferencing with USB 2.0 and 1394a. I hope this improves, if it's possible.
Unlikely. The kind of custom system design we saw in the '80 isn't coming back. Today everybody seems to be heading towards using standard chipsets, which is both a good and a bad thing. Even though Apple might still design it's own motherboard (although they could settle for a Intel one as well) it will be very close to whatever other PC builders can offer. The only reason for Apple to build its own motherboard might be to be able to keep the platform closed. So they might add some special rom-chip but the features of the board will likely be very close to other offerings. The CPU was really the only main thing that separated the macs from the PCs. With that gone Apple can only be as fast as the competition and never faster again. So that basically means that the hardware race is over.steeldrivingjon said:
me354 said:I think the switch was great for apple. I'm really looking forward to these intel based macs. But my problem is the next few years. I've been looking to buy a mac..but i havnt found the perfect mac just yet. Im afraid that apple will lag over the next couple of years and ill end up with a mediocre mac.
That would be very sad it it happens. Mac owners aren't used to mediocre.
I was talking to a computer and sound geek yesterday about the switch that Apple is making to Intel. He didn't know if Apple was going to use the same Pentium chips that are available today or not. Mentioned that because of the need for back compatibility for Windows, there are a lot of flaws in the architecture. Any thoughts?
wdlove said:
Not neccessarily flaws, more of "leftover remnants". There are a few things that are kept around for backwards compatibility. Does this make the X86 Chips slow? Or "flawed"? I don't honestly believe so. Todays X86 processors are very powerful, and tommorrows processors will be even more so. Yes, there is some legacy stuff in there, but, it does not appear to hamper the ability to improve the chips. Now, COULD it be faster with a clean sheet design? Sure, I have no doubt it could be, but that just really isn't plausible due to the amount of legacy hardware and software out there. I have absolutely no problems with X86 hardware, the problems lie in the OS that is commonly used on it.
What are you saying? That japanese article was written before the Apple announcement.wrxsti86 said:
I haven't read the babelfished translation fully because it is a bit rough.
http://babelfish.altavista.com/babe...edia.co.jp/news/articles/0505/23/news080.html
GregA said:
you know, that's an interesting point - I wonder if MS has also secretly been keeping a version of longhorn that runs on ppc and therefore mac (it's been in development at least that long, right??). then follow that through to the next illogical proposition: steve found out that MS was developing a version of windows that would run on his boxes, so he decides to switch processors just to spite bill. ha! the man truly is an evil, beautiful genius.
Hehehe, yeah I was thinking the same thing when I first heard of the switch to Intel. That would really complete the 360. Whenever Apple switched to a new processor manufacturer that seemed great in the beginning they stalled after some time. So you would really expect that Intel will stall this timeGregA said:
Then all the windows guys would say, yeah Intel sucks, PPC is much better.At least if they get those universal binaries implemented correctly and all developers keep producing their software for both PPC and Intel x86 they can switch between them easily.
BillHarrison said:
This is a naive question I know, but are the current Pentium chips the same that will be put in a Mac in 2006? It would seem to me that Intel would design a chip specifically for the Mac. That would seem to answer the flaw issue, would be a clean slate and faster.
PPC To Intel & Back Again?
Can you imagine Adobe porting it's Mac software to Intel and then back to PowerPC? Or just about any other developer? Neither can I.
Prom1 said:For some reason I'm still secretly hoping that IBMs current lack of desire to evolve the PPC970 is because their working, in private, on a POWER5 derivative = PPC980. And when the current fame dwindles, they'll once again approach Apple with the PPC980 and say we got a killer for ya hear! Just say the word and we'll give a test drive.
Can you imagine Adobe porting it's Mac software to Intel and then back to PowerPC? Or just about any other developer? Neither can I.
I was looking at this from the hardware point of view, because the original argument was about the "hardware race" between x86 and PPC.tdewey said:
Although Mac-OS is a great operating system and most will agree much better than windows when it comes to user friendliness and things like multi-tasking. I personally don't think a Mac-OS running Intel Mac will be any faster on big apps like Photoshop than a similar Intel machine running windows. The memory subsystem of Mac-OS is not the best of all operating systems. Also Games that will be ported to Mac-OS on Intel will likely not run at the same frame-rates as under windows on the same hardware. This due to the not so well optimized OpenGL and the lack of DirectX on Mac-OS.
Therefore any performance advantages we have seen in the past were al due to the hardware, and much less the OS.
With the Universal binary they don't have to. Even after Apple switched completely to x86, software developers will keep on producing apps with universal binaries because of the huge PPC installed base. The only thing that will likely change is that developers will not spend much or any time at all in optimizing for Altivec or G5 optimized code.deanbo said:
If Adobe doesn't generate dual binaries for the next four or five years, they'll alienate almost all of their otherwise-potential customers. It's not as if most Mac OS X users will be on Intel until 2010, not, at least, unless Intel-based Macs suddenly sell at a better rate than their PowerPC predecessors.deanbo said:
- Status