Apple’s PowerMac line will see an upgrade in the near future, possibly before the close of the month. IBM’s July announcement noted that the PowerPC 970MP would be available in speeds of 1.4GHz to 2.5GHz. Apple is expected to adopt the 970MP at least at the high-end of the new Power Mac G5 line. So, what are your thoughts on the 970MP? Does it nullify Apple’s reasoning behind the switch to Intel? Also note the low-power G5 IBM has released alongside the 970MP.
the reason for the switch was most probably not at the high end, but as a replacement for the aging G4 in the mobile line up. So new G5’s mean nothing, unless the power consuption is low enough to fit it in a laptop.
So, what are your thoughts on the 970MP? Does it nullify Apple’s reasoning behind the switch to Intel?
Like a move planned, weighed and thought for years could be put in check by a signle datum, and nothing wondrous at that? Osnews has been abusing from ‘do you think’ and ‘my take:’ editorial comments for a while now.
This is an interesting question because Apple said Intel will deliver better performance-per-watt than IBM. However, that was before the MP and the low-power G5 were publically announced. Now that IBM has released both a dual-core and a low-power, laptop-ready G5, the question is: does IBM have more in store? Maybe there is more behind the switch than just what Apple is willing to tell us?
Obviously I’m not asking if the 970MP *itself* singlehandedly nullifies the switch. The combination of the low-poer G5 and the MP could make you question Apple’s reasoning. I’m asking IF, and if so, then why.
That’s all. Seems like an interesting thing to discuss.
I think most people assume that the switch was not the result of the limits of IBM’s technical capabilities. What they were is a matter of pointless speculation without the leaking of documents from Apple or Intel.
There is always something more. The mombo jumbo excuse of needing low powered processors in order to continue Apple’s relation with IBM is just absurd. And the reason to go with Intel as oppose to AMD on the same grounds is even dumber. Based on Jobs history, very possibly had personal problems with someone or some people at IBM and wanted out of the relationship. He certainly could not have pull this one a few years ago when he didn’t have iTunes and not much interest in his OS. Now things are different, and Apple should be able to survive one more transformation.
I suspect that Apple’s move is based on the long term product roadmap, not stuff that we will see this year or even next year. And as others have pointed out, their portable computers have really been suffering.
I am no Mac user (the only Apple computers I have are all 8 bit), but it would seem logical that, before Apple can switch completely to Intel, it has to satisfy the market for faster Mac computers – for the users’ and it’s own sake.
What’s controversial here?
It all depends on how good this chip is, Apple darn’t introduce this nice new chip if it out-performs their next intel offering it would be REALLY hard to get people to ‘upgrade’ to slower hardware
Apple darn’t introduce this nice new chip if it out-performs their next intel offering it would be REALLY hard to get people to ‘upgrade’ to slower hardware
Why, that never stopped Intel.
( P4 vs. P3 ).
the p4 was at a higher clock though, as intel has always sold cpus on mhz alone it was not all that hard marketing wise.
You are right however, it was a while before the P4 was as fast as the P3 was
And from the looks of things, the P3 still ended up winning in the long ru (or at least, descendant in the form of the P-M).
Why would anyone assume that it will be “faster” the Apple’s other offerings on the high-end in 2007? That’s when Apple will be selling desktop x86 computers, isn’t it? The G5 at those clock speeds is already not a performance-leader in most areas. So, depending on how IBM and Apple deal with the future of the 970MP, it likely won’t be outperforming Apple’x x86 Macs.
Even if it were for some reason, I’m not certain that Apple or its customers would care. Most of their userbase wouldn’t know, a percentage of the other would believe the ‘fake’ Apple benchmarks that would show otherwise, and the rest will make up their mind depending on the quality of the “experience” on the x86.
The benefit switching to x86 maybe will be the possibility to make easier and faster porting x86 hardware on macs, we are tired to have 1 year old video cards in our top products because this is the time before the producer consider to write a proper firmware for apple platform, or before Apple decide to order n-thousand new generation cards to a manifacturer for a new product line.
Deploy a Mac that would not require specifically written firmware and you will have real competition on internal peripherals, cutting down prices for competition and boosting the performance more than sheer cpu power can do.
Had you noticed that video card are doubling performances and performance per watt and cut prices month to month while cpu are laing on similar performances and prices from a couple of year or even more? Too bad we are left in last position in the real run to power and prices!
Apple darn’t introduce this nice new chip if it out-performs their next intel offering it would be REALLY hard to get people to ‘upgrade’ to slower hardware
Why, that never stopped Intel.
( P4 vs. P3 ).
“Does it nullify Apple’s reasoning behind the switch to Intel?”
Apple promised more PPC Macs for years to come. The Intel switch will be gradual and in the mean time new PPC models and upgrades will be in production. I figure the Migration from PPC to Intel will take 5-8 years before the bulk of the users to have switched to Intel, where they can drop rosetta support. Even after the Intel Upgrade starts they will me some newer models of PPC Apples. Perhaps they are going to move the iMac G5 and the PowerMac G5 last while using the intel chips to migrate the current G4 Models first. And finally put intel in the high end later. Or perhaps by we will get G5 Powerbooks and the intel PowerBook is not due to release until the end of the migration. Only apple knows and I really wish that they weren’t so secret about this stuff so I would know if they did release a G5 Powerbook to get one because by the time intel will be for it it will be out of date, or just wait an other year at 667mhz
Anyone care to guess the likelyhood of at least one hybrid Intel-PPC Mac? You know, for all those PPC applications that were not (and maybe never will be) ported over to Mac OS X86.
I think Rosetta emulation will have to do for those apps. It does not make sense to do a hybrid and it would cost too much for very little gain.
Well apple have made 68k-x86 hybrid macs before, such as this one:
http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/mac_performa/stats/mac_perfor…
However, this was basically two computers in one case with software controlled KVM switching, although it did allow the x86 system to display in a window on the Mac.
I don’t believe that it really is about the laptop chips. There are more benifits to moving to a mainstream processor than just short term performance. For instance… Virtual PC will no longer need to be emulate the x86 and a true Windows on Mac environment can be had at full native speed. Also cross platform software development becomes easier, and lastly this sets up Apple at some point to cross over to selling software that intentionally runs on an existing x86 hardware base. Don’t be fooled by them not wanting to release OS to the x86 masses today. In a couple years it may just be at the heart of their strategy when the MAC is a tight margin comodity and they shift to making Ipods and selling software.
Also cross platform software development becomes easier
ummm…how does this make cross platform software development easier?
oh, because you don’t have to make it cross platform?
– Jesse McNelis
It is still Cross platform although the platform is not as different. You are crossing software platforms rather than hardware platforms.
Speaks volumes.
Um, it’s no longer about Mhz.
Even Intel has finally realized that. Ever seen the clock speed for an UltraSparc or an Itanium? About 1.5Ghz and they’ll run rings around your fastest P4.
Assuming you have a good enough compiler…
It’s too little too late. In the long run it makes no difference at all. IBM is on the way out, Intel is on the way in. Right after the Intel switch announcement, IBM began spouting: “We could have made a dual core, low power G5.” The obvious question is: “Then why didn’t you?” The answer is, IBM isn’t interested in making desktop CPU’s anymore. They’d rather make high volume CPU’s for game consoles. If Apple gets hung out to dry because of it, oh well, too bad for them. This isn’t the first time this sort of thing has happened to Apple. They had a similar problem with Motorola. Apple was stuck with 700MHz processors for quite a while because Motorola was more interesred in making embedded chips for printers, routers and what not. Since speed was not paramount in that application, Motorola wasn’t interested in getting more clock cycles. They wanted volume. Apple had to turn to IBM to get a 1 GHz G5. Now Apple is having to turn to Intel for the low-power, high speed CPU’s for their laptops. I don’t begrudge IBM or Motorola for wanting to go where the money is. But they shouldn’t cry sour grapes when Apple jumps ship because IBM or Motorola isn’t willing to deliver what Apple needs to stay in business.
IBM wasn’t crying sour grapes, they were countering malicious implications by Apple that IBM’s technical capabilities were Apple’s motivation for dumping their platform. Just as IBM intended, it’s delivering dual-core and low-power chips. IBM isn’t going around saying, “WE WANT APPLE BACK. PLEASE. NO? FINE, I’M GOING TO PEE IN YOUR SANDBOX.”
That’s because, presumably, IBM is run by adults who have more sense than to make those sorts of public statements about a business partner.
This article tells me that people just don’t take Steve Jobs seriously. The transition will _start_ in June 2006 and end in December 2007. You can’t seriously expect them to release lackluster or no new hardware at all until then.
I agree completely. I cannot believe people were actually thinking they may see an Intel based Mac at MacWorld Paris (or even earlier this year).
Some people fail to realize that Apple cannot turn the PPC production line off and start the Intel line the next day.
Apple – finally making the hardware as irrelevant as it should be. I know as geeks we all have a bit of a hardware fetish, but in the end the hardware should always be the tool not the goal.
The only reason Apple is switching to Intel Chips…
Is because if you can buy a MAC that can also dual boot to Windows (and Linux) and still have MACOSX, people would be more likley to buy a MAC. Instead of buying a PC with Windows and then having to shell out for another computer running MacOS. That is it, plan and simple. This will help Apple sell more computers and help people to switch to the Mac full time.
Dual booting is likely to be a thing of the past. Intel’s new chips will have VT before an x86 Mac is released. VT runs multiple operating systems simultaneously without any need for special OS support.
Hardware vendors like it because it will move new chips. MS loves it because it will push more copies of Windows. Apple loves it because it will remove barriers to entry (i.e. games) for potential switches.
What does it matter if MacOS gaming performance is poor if you can switch between Mac and Windows as easily as you use Expose to switch between Mac apps? Of course, with the switch to x86 there may be more performance parity (due to using almost identical drivers).
Personally, I think this performance per watt thing is mostly smoke and mirrors for the Mac and x86 users to bicker about while the real advantages go relatively unnoticed. Like Apple getting decent motherboard chipset upgrades, such as support for PCIe without having to spend their own resources securing it. And solid drivers for said chipsets. And free testing for the myriads of supporting x86 motherboard chips such as those that control the peripheral ports. etc.
What are you talking about?
They were the first to push the bus system above 800MHz even intel learned from them how to steal, but didn’t reach their glory of 1.25GHz bus system; second 800Mbit/s firewire was their invention then PC croud started to copy. Don’t forget the short BIOS time that we rarely can see on PCs.
I was talking about motherboard chipsets, which is exactly what I said I was talking about at the time.
Apple has a terrible time keeping motherboard chipsets in sync with the rest of the world. The G4 was shackled to an aging memory controller and slow bus speed for a long, long time. The G5 is now shackled to an old pre-PCIe chipset. This isn’t debatable.
Basically, what happens is that Apple announces up-to-date chipsets every couple of years with over-the-top marketing (supercomputing jargon, anyone?) knowing full well that the Mac faithful will simply assume that Apple is always ahead of the industry in every respect; hence, they must have the best chipsets. But that’s far from true.
However, in the real world its ridiculous for Apple to waste time and money with their own chipsets when the x86 industry _already_ produces better ones at lower costs. With their new deal, Intel will provide chips, motherboards, and drivers which will all benefit from widespread use in x86 PCs. Apple should focus on OS X – that’s where their strength lies.
Your points about the BIOS and firewire are partially correct but are not relevant to my argument. However, Intel is drastically reducing startup and power recovery time. Frankly, I have no idea what you are babbling about with 800MHz+ bus speed; Intel’s current chips don’t really need a 1066 MHz bus, which is why although it’s been out there for a while there is simply not much interest in it yet.
I also don’t subscribe to the whole “copying is stealing” argument with 800Mbps Firewire. Did Apple steal PCI from Intel? Oh, shame on Apple. And what about multi-button mice? God, Apple is a rapist. Whatever.
And while we’re on the subject of system performance, Apple’s video cards were abysmal even in comparison to then-current x86 equivalents, which were quickly eclipsed some time ago. Not to mention SLI, the Geforce 7800 cards, and the next generation of ATI’s cards which IIRC is shipping this month. And what will Apple do about PCIe RAID cards?
The bottom line is simple: there’s no reason for Apple to paint itself into a corner with custom chipsets.
The only things that will improve Mac Platform performance are:
1. CPU (Frequency, cache, cores, Optimizations)
2. Memory Frequency
3. System Bus Frequency
4. Unix compiler Optimization
Graphics Cards are not gonna improve the performance except for gaming which is not justified over consoles when apple hardware could cost >2000 $
Chipsets will not improve the performace that much: Remember the intel 875 to 915 transition they never brought with it any noticable performance to me and to anandtech who just prove it; Chipsets change always brings features more than performance.
“I have no idea what you are babbling about with 800MHz+ bus speed” That’s because you lack the knowledge that apple produces motherboards with 1.25 Ghz Frequency while your intel champ produces a maximum of 1.06 Ghz; and as I said before it is a vital factor to performance.
The only things that will improve Mac Platform performance are:
1. CPU (Frequency, cache, cores, Optimizations)
2. Memory Frequency
3. System Bus Frequency
4. Unix compiler Optimization
That’s very nice. What does it have to do with my post? Why are you taking my posts as a pissing contest between x86 and PPC performance? I haven’t said one word of comparison between the two because I don’t want to enter into such a discussion here. It would be extremely off-topic and would likely start a flame war.
Graphics Cards are not gonna improve the performance except for gaming which is not justified over consoles when apple hardware could cost >2000 $
That is just plain silly. First, I never claimed that graphics cards would improve performance for general computing. Second, x86 PC users play games on their computers, and there is a big market for it as such. For these people to switch to a PPC Mac as the market is currently structured, they would have to buy two systems. With an x86 Mac, all they’d have to do would be to pick up a copy of Windows – much less expensive than a whole second system for PC gaming. And since the Mac will likely have VT, they could just run both operating systems at the same time.
Chipsets will not improve the performace that much: Remember the intel 875 to 915 transition they never brought with it any noticable performance to me and to anandtech who just prove it; Chipsets change always brings features more than performance.
Well, that would be why I never made such a claim. My only reference to performance improvements was with the G4 being tied down to very slow sub-200 MHz system bus. My other comments regarding chipsets were in reference to features. Thank you for proving my point, though.
“I have no idea what you are babbling about with 800MHz+ bus speed” That’s because you lack the knowledge that apple produces motherboards with 1.25 Ghz Frequency while your intel champ produces a maximum of 1.06 Ghz; and as I said before it is a vital factor to performance.
Please stop pretending that I made performance claims about the P4. I never said it was a champ, and in any case it’s not relevant to the discussion because the P4 is not likely the architecture which will be used in the future Macs. FYI, I use an Athlon 64. And no, I’m not interested in knowing where you got the impression that I’m an Intel fanboy.
I think that any competent CPU reviewer such as Anand would quickly tell you that bus speed is not directly comparable between such widely differing architectures.
The G4 was shackled to an aging memory controller and slow bus speed for a long, long time.
It still is and will remain so until the 8641 series show up.
The G5 is now shackled to an old pre-PCIe chipset. This isn’t debatable.
It’s very debatable.
The PowerMacs use a PCI-X chipset which for expansion is up to 2-2.5 times faster than the single channel PCIe slots many PC chipsets have. The AGP port is a bit behind now but that’s it.
It’s very debatable.
The PowerMacs use a PCI-X chipset which for expansion is up to 2-2.5 times faster than the single channel PCIe slots many PC chipsets have.
Faster, but for what? I don’t see many average consumer PCI-X cards becoming available. Servers and workstations: yes; desktops: no. The PC market has chosen PCIe. It is a good, flexible spec that will be more extensible in the long run. PCIe scales much higher: up to sixteen channels, which by your estimates would be nearly 8 times faster than PCI-X.
When PCIe takes off and replaces PCI Apple would then have to make the move to a new PPC chipset that supports PCIe. But that won’t be the case if they move to Intel because Intel has already designed working PCIe chipsets for their own use. D’oh. Which means Apple doesn’t have to parlay with IBM to get newer G5-compatible chipsets out the door. Which means Apple doesn’t have to pay as much for the chips. Which means they don’t have to spend as much time and money supporting the chips. Which means Apple can sell their systems at lower cost and/or higher profit margin. These same benefits will apply to all the new desktop board features Macs will need down the road.
Intel makes server boards, too, so PCI-X isn’t exactly being thrown out the window. I just don’t want anyone pretending that PCI-X is adequate for all of Apple’s markets. x86 Macs will allow Apple to expand their product line in virtually any direction without losing their great software and elegant system design – IMO the two things that make Macs what they are.
To me, it seems that if someone else is already producing what you will need for their own use, and if they are willing to sell it to you at reasonable cost/quantity, spending part of your own budget to contract a third party to develop a (mostly) competing solution is idiotic. Apple finally woke up and realized that hardware DRM can take care of all the exclusivity without having to burden themselves with the cost of supporting proprietary technology like PPC desktop CPUs, firmware, and chipsets.
I feel sorry to those who bought into Apple’s PPC markting. It’s a nice ISA, but there are a lot of other, much more important factors which go into making cheaper/faster/current systems. If the PPC sycophants cannot get over their irrational hatred of Intel, they should go buy an Amiga.
The AGP port is a bit behind now but that’s it.
If you just want to look at raw numbers, AGP is _way_ behind SLI PCIe. Because Mac’s are currently PPC, GPU makers have to write and support PPC drivers. This last fact coupled with Apple’s low market share is probably why 3D gaming on a Mac is ridiculously slower than even the same cards on an x86 PC. With more recent cards on the x86, the Mac is roadkill in this area. But what’s silly is that it’s all so unnecessary.
And another performance point: virtualization. With an x86 Mac running x86 apps for other OS’s there is obviously little need to translate machine instructions. This translation brings some compatibility annoyances (e.g. networking with the host OS, installing accelerated pass-though drivers, and so on…), and much inefficiency. So that’s another little problem with PPC Macs.
When these virtualization problems are removed with VT, suddenly it becomes possible to run resource-hungry Windows programs such as games. Intel will be implementing virtualization at the hardware level so that it can efficiently run multiple unmodified operating systems simultaneously. Don’t tell me Mac gamers wouldn’t like to have the same release dates, features, and speed that PC gamers enjoy.
It’s very silly for Apple to be worried with PPC and the production and support of special motherboard chipsets just for Macs when they have so little market share. If Apple had closer to 50% or even just 25%, I’d cheer them on because they would have had some chance to influence the direction of the PC market. But it simply doesn’t any make sense for Apple to stick with PPC in their present position.
You are right, its the total cost picture. A lot of the cost is what is associated with PPC, and its in Cupertino as well as in the box.
In John Lewis (UK) the other day. Dual G5, 1.8Ghz, 256MB, 80G disk: 700 Sterling, reduced from 900+. Looked gorgeous and weighed a ton. No screen.
Take a look anywhere. Brand name Pentiums, 3Ghz+, 512 memory, 200GB disks, flat screens included, same price or less. Also from mail order name brand people like Evesham, AMD 64s.
Never mind what Mac users like, this is about the comparison shopping public. Apple had to get the costs out somehow.
What else were they to do?
Here’s a link to a wikipedia article in case you are interested in learning about Intel’s OS virtualization technology:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypervisor
It’s all about the NanoNotebook
All Flash based, RAM is the hard drive
Cool dual core low watt Intel chips
Super long battery life, like a few days
Runs most Win software, Unix, Linux and Mac OS X software
Docking port for iPod Nano, doubles as a mass flash storage.
Case is twice as thin as a Nano (more thin surface area for battery and flash RAM)
Seperate powered Blue Ray DVD device (dock port perhaps) because it requires a internet connectiion to verify HDCP.
No mechanical parts, except for a hinge and keyboard
Just look at the Nano, you just see “Notebook”
No, no. It’s the Picobook with a battery life of several months, takes up less space than a postage stamp, and runs all of your old DOS games!
I thought it was a shame that Apple ditched IBM, but the marketplace has no room for the tune ” I love you for sentimental reasons”. You will see the opposite forces here, the dual core PM being an interesting machine yet people knowing that PPC is a lost cause. I think the lost cause part will mean slow sales for these expensive machines, and I also believe that the motherboard will not be featuring what some dual opteron boards offer.
Fancy frosting on a stale cake.
This has nothing to do with IBMs chips, nor Intel being better. Apple has been burned by its AIM (Apple IBM Motorola) deal at least 3 times in the past 3 years. Normally when that happens to you, you have to punish the vendor, either by using another product from another vendor, or by a lawsuit or a combination. Since no lawsuit happened, its safe to say that Apple is “spanking” IBM/Motorola, and showing that they can, and will use another vendor.
I dont think for a minute that Apple is truely commited to Intel. Not to say that They wont use intel for a time, but i think that this whole ordeal is more of an exercise in showing the market that they can change any part of their hardware without much fanfair. This puts them into a power position, not a dependent position.
If you turn Steve Jobs into a lair, Steve jobs will not be happy.say what you will about Steve Jobs but for what its worth, he wont make a statement unless he is very confident that it will happen. Thats part of the Steve Jobs “persona”
I dont think for a minute that Apple is truely commited to Intel. Not to say that They wont use intel for a time, but i think that this whole ordeal is more of an exercise in showing the market that they can change any part of their hardware without much fanfair. This puts them into a power position, not a dependent position.
It would certainly put them into a position to play Intel against IBM. But if that were the case, I think they would have simply announced they were going to add x86 Macs to their line-up, rather than announcing their abandonment of PPC outright.
Of course, anything can happen, and if IBM/Freescale do indeed stand and deliver, Apple is well positioned to take advantage of any improvements. Considering the effort and investment they’re going to have to put in to support both platforms for the next several years, they really have nothing to lose by continuing that arrangement indefinitely, if they have a good reason to do so.
Apple has been burned by its AIM (Apple IBM Motorola) deal at least 3 times in the past 3 years. Normally when that happens to you, you have to punish the vendor, either by using another product from another vendor, or by a lawsuit or a combination. Since no lawsuit happened, its safe to say that Apple is “spanking” IBM/Motorola, and showing that they can, and will use another vendor.
It’s hard to imagine Apple as an innocent victim fleeing a sinking ship when they did more than their share to help sink it.
.. wouldn’t be a problem if the first machine they migrate is the Mac Mini, which is of course the slowest machine in the line-up anyway. Mac Mini users are less likely to be waiting on expensive pro apps like Photoshop and Quark which may take a while to get ported anyway.
Hey, I don’t own any G5 systems, let alone a G4 system. I desperately want a new Mac. If they go ahead and update the PMs to use Dual Core G5s, then I will be one happy customer willing to put himself into debt for a fancy new Mac.
Better yet, if the top of the line model (currently USD$2999) is not only dual core but also dual processor, then I will probably mess my pants.
I’m also eagerly awaiting the arrival of PCI-Express on the Macs for the graphics card slot(s). And they should start using better HDDs in the PowerMacs. I see the Xserve now gets 500GB/16MB SATA drives. I only know of one of thiose on the market – that new Deskstar, so I can’t help but wonder if Apple calling them ADMs is just them putting a sticker on someone else’s drives…
So, what are your thoughts on the 970MP? Does it nullify Apple’s reasoning behind the switch to Intel?
The G4 is due to be replaced next year by the much improved 8641 and the 970 is finally seeing big compiler improvements. Apple was growing sales at 40%, there was no immediate reason to switch.
I don’t think we know the real reasons for the switch, I tend to agree with Robert Cringely and others assertion that it’s some form of partnership. Both companies want into the living room, Apple can do this better than any other PC or OS vendor so Intel persuaded them to join them.
Intel could have something up their sleeves (as I have already speculated) but we don’t know anything more than a year or 2 away. Then again so could everyone else…
OS X’s performance and web-browsing is faster on Intel. That alone made Apple switch.
When you have a developer Intel box with OS X that is outperforming Dual 970s w/os x,,,,doesnt take much common sense to decide what to use.
Why buy into the past? X86 Mac’s are the future i will wait till they come out.
So you still wait about a year. Makes sense if you don’t need a new computer. However: With early X86 Macs probably having some quirks, you might look at a 2 year wait. Okay.
That’s plainly untrue… in fact, according to at least one benchmark app compiled specifically to test the Mactel vs PPC machines, the Dev systems are no faster than my ‘lowly’ G4 Dual 1.42 system. The Dev systems aren’t anything fancy just high end P4’s.
So we replace one vague exaggeration with another?
Why waste effort working toward an evolutionary dead end?
In another year or so, these machines will be worthless to the consumer.
What a mess…and Apple is still single-sourcing their processors–to make sure they get screwed again. The two lessons of the past weren’t enough. They should have let AMD in the deal.
“That’s plainly untrue… in fact, according to at least one benchmark app compiled specifically to test the Mactel vs PPC machines, the Dev systems are no faster than my ‘lowly’ G4 Dual 1.42 system. The Dev systems aren’t anything fancy just high end P4’s.”
You’re just absolutely wrong on that one, performance was on par and faster than the current dual G5’s. Quartz was faster too.
http://www.osnews.com/comment.php?news_id=11213
Er, because that’s completely reliable. Rumor isn’t evidence.
Anyone that wants can look at G4/G5/P4 benchmark numbers and benchmarks for Intel’s integrated video chipsets. The G4 isn’t going to compare favorably, but the exaggeration of the P4’s performance before that was equally out of place. Even then we must cede that the P4 comparison isn’t representative of the units that will be shipping in ’06 and ’07.
actually I intend on grabbing one of the last production Power PC mac’s because I still contend (along with AMD) that the PowerPC is a far superior platform than anything Intel has.
as for obsolencence, give me a break, it’s well known Mac’s are useful for far longer than their PC counterparts – hell my upgraded IIci runs just fine.
Yet another fast chip for the Blastwave and Blastware guys to work with.
Yeahhhhh !!! I totally agree with you, I wish genesi upgrades its line of products with these new processors
The other thing that is likely to be a result is that the MAC OS will need to be optimized much better than it is today. It will be easier to benchmark the MAC’s against PC’s after they run the same processors. This will show that the current MAC OS is slow at a lot of different things because of the current kernel design. I am sure benchmarks will say ” We loaded windows on the MAC hardware and it operated x amount faster so we have determined that the MAC OS X is slowing the system down” and Apple will have to respond. Read this if you don’t believe me.
http://www.anandtech.com/mac/showdoc.aspx?i=2436