[Bobby]

http://www.macnn.com/news/20490

I'm a little confused? Does this guy think everybody is that stupid?

Oh, of corse he would say "no, our chips are way better". If Apple had decided to go with AMD instead of IBM, he would be saying the same thing.

It's not like the VP of Ford would go and say "nawwww, you're much better off getting a Honda"...

[AssassyN]

LoL, another pointless article. Your statements are dead on.

[kentuckyfried]

The article reeks of bitterness.

[Kenneth]

article? where.. please put a link first.

[kentuckyfried]

http://www.canada.com/technology/sto...2-E933BC367BF6
-------------------------------------
In response to whether Apple made the right decision by choosing IBM's G5 processor, Intel's senior VP and chief technology officer Pat Gelsinger said that "Steve Jobs has made the wrong CPU choice for 20 years, he just added a few more years to the life of his bad decisions. Steve's not an illogical guy, he's passionate and opinionated about the directions he wants is a poor path for the company as well as a poor path for the users.

[rezzi]

Yeah, yeah....Apple's been dying for what - about 10 years now? Same old song and dance.

[DBvader]

i think that intel will be better able to provide apple with chips more steadily than any other processor firm. apple on x86 architecture would distingiush itself less than before. i dont know if thats a good thing or a bad thing. right now, it seems that the G5s may have a performance edge on the abstract tests, but we really have no idea how much faster/slower they will be than P4s running @ 3.2 GHz until they come out. I have always that that it would be great for apple to put their iLines (iMac/Book) on intel processors (since they are the consumer line), so that they are always in step with their competitors (lets face it, 1 GhZ G4s and 900 MHz G3s are nothing special with 3.2 GHz P4s ane centrinos rolling about). Similarly, it would be graet for the powerlines (powerbooks and powermacs) to be on better, more powerful procesors (like the G5, for example).

that way the consumers have what they need (cheap, readily available, and fast processors) and the professionals chips catered to their needs (huge bus, 64-bit, etc)

[Bobby]

That falls under the old "megahertz myth" theory again... Wasn't it that the P4 was actually slower than a P3 at the same MHz? I remember that between two of them. They essentially made a change to the arcitecture which allows them to get higher clock speeds, but the overall performence is actually lower in the new chip...

[Hydra]

While I do believe Intel is a very impressive company, I think idiocy is not limited to executives in companies with 3% market-share only. Apple would have a tougher time using x86 chips than most people think. The Vector unit on the G4/G5 is not easily replaceable and would require a huge loss in code base with anything related to multimedia use on the Mac platform. Secondly, if Apple wanted to maintain a SMP/Dual processor marketing strategy Intel is not the way to go. Xeons, which can do MP, are very much more expensive because they are sold to the server/workstation market. If used by Apple the Power Mac line-up would have to become more expensive. If anything, the argument the Intel VP makes leads one to conclude that AMD would make a much better choice IMHO.

If Apple wanted to go away from the PPC toward the x86 world AMD offers 64 bit chips with excellent performance and at a cost effective price and as well a MP capable at many price points. Intel does not.

I wonder if the Intel VP ever had a talk with IBM about the G5's inadequacies or it's so-called bleak chip making future considering IBM buys allot of intel chips alongside the use of it's own PPC flavors?

The whole Centrino thing smacks of hypocrisy. For years all we have been hearing is how fast the clockspeed is on Intel's chips. For years it seemed that Intel didn't care much about the battery life of laptops. Now with the centrinos they care about battery life and the new Pentium M is better performing at much lower clock-speeds than previous P4 mobie chips ( or whatever they are called at this point - the whole centrino thing is confusing anyway).

I try to take the whole thing with a grain of salt. When is it really a good idea for a company to really pay attention to the FUD coming out of a competitor anyway? For Intel to be worrying about a company that has 3-5% market share Apple must have made a right decision on this one

Intel should just thank Apple for starting the whole USB revolution by standardizing it - try to find a PC w/o one anymore. In the future they can again thank Apple for making 64-bit desktop machines commonplace so they can finally start selling a 64-bit desktop based on the slow selling Itanium.

Sorry about the rant but I've been in a bad mood since I ordered my Dual G5 and saw that commercial with the guy being blown out of his house. I was hoping more for and ad campaign showing cute aliens using the G5 to turbo-charge their web surfing experience like the P4 ad on TV

-Jerry C

[Bobby]

Originally posted by Hydra:
... Sorry about the rant but I've been in a bad mood since I ordered my Dual G5 and saw that commercial with the guy being blown out of his house. I was hoping more for and ad campaign showing cute aliens using the G5 to turbo-charge their web surfing experience like the P4 ad on TV

Everybody knows aliens' computers run on H62's... C'mon, gimmie a break...

[NYCFarmboy]

You know what... just that someone from Intel would make those statements shows an obvious sign of desparation that they no longer are at the forefront of chip technology.... and now have some catching up to do.

competition is a good thing

[RealMac]

20 years of using the wrong processor?!!....

The G4 over the course of time probably wasn't the best choice for Apple. The problem was a manufacturing one. It just makes you wonder sometime what if Apple hadn't been stuck at the 400,450,500 stage for 18 months.

On a positive note I guess it helped improve market penetration of dual processor machines in personal workstations.

Altivec wasn't a total failure, it is still on the G5 machines... If anything it will benefit users more than with the G4 systems because of less dependency on the system bus speed (finally after 3 years we have a bus that is ahead of the pack!).

I'd say the most sorry looking processor was the powerpc 603 series. The performance on those was horrible, even slower in some instances than the 601 machines that came out 1-2 years earlier.

Unlike in the x86 world apple has maintained a relatively seemless transition from processor to processor. The fact that a RISC processor could run still run CISC code from up to 10 years earlier was a stunning achievement.

Intel isn't holding still either. One of their biggest advantages is the ability to roll out fast revisions to their processor lineup. The P4 still has some headroom left and once they see how much hooplah the Opteron and G5 are getting they will soon follow suit with 64-bit desktop processors.

I do wonder if like the Opteron, the user will need to boot into a 64-bit OS to run 32 and 64-bit binaries. If you boot into a 32-bit OS, the processor is stuck in that mode and can't do anything with 64-bit code.

Any guesses when we'll be a 64-bit version of windows coming out? I suspect recompiling all that code won't be as easy as it would appear.

As you know, Apple's been able to adopt the approach of gradually adding 64-bit enhancements to the OS while maintaining 99.9% compatibility with existing apps.

[DBvader]

i was under the impression that a 64-bit version of wincows has been in development for some time, and would arrive with the first wave of 64-bit PC procs.

[:XI:]

Oh, look! x86 macs.


again.

[Superchicken]

haha I read the article the guy is such an intel fan boi... and he works for the company hahaha

I also loved finding the typeos in there hahaha!

But yeah, the centrino is nothing to special it's basically just caught up to the G3, that's great intel this year you mannaged to pass a 5 year old chip, go you!
hahahaha

I do have to wonder if Apple is ever gona start revamping air port with power saving features like intel's. Intel does have some good ideas and does spend a wack of cash on R&D but they're hardly the perfect provider for Apple.

[ryarber]

One thing that you could read into it is that maybe Intel gave them a serious pitch about using their processor. If Apple was really considering the switch, that must mean Marklar is alive and well in Apple.

[Peder Rice]

Originally posted by Superchic[k]en:
But yeah, the centrino is nothing to special it's basically just caught up to the G3, that's great intel this year you mannaged to pass a 5 year old chip, go you! hahahah

Well, I'd have to disagree with you there. The Centrino is basically a PIII with a faster bus and a higher cache on a new manufacturing process. They're hitting 2.0GHz this year with the Centrino chip (a chip that is intended for low clock speeds and high laptop performance). Intel has been able to slaughter the G3 with the Centrino.

I'm sick of people that won't admit that Intel or AMD may be ahead in chip advancement. Who cares? It's the OS and the programs that matter most (also rather cliché). AMD currently makes slower chips than Intel, and cost isn't the only reason that people buy the Athlon; user preference and brand loyalty mean a great deal.

[Spliffdaddy]

Originally posted by ryarber:
One thing that you could read into it is that maybe Intel gave them a serious pitch about using their processor. If Apple was really considering the switch, that must mean Marklar is alive and well in Apple.

ding ding ding

Apple seriously considered x86.

[Simon]

Originally posted by Spliffdaddy:
Apple seriously considered x86.

Proof? Link?

Or did you just pull that out of ...

[Superchicken]

Apple probably has seriously considered a lot of things. If we find out that there was an iWhatever Movie Store, in plans that has been put on hold does that mean apple made a mistake?

Anyway, if the G3 is essentially the P3 with a bigger cache a higher speeds, then great, the G3 should be able to compette with it if Apple can get them to ramp it up to 2Ghz like IBM says they can. I really hope once the G5 moves to it's next fabbing point the G5 inhabits the Power Books, and the iBooks move up to the real work point with ultra hyped G3s, and there is a new edu low end consumer note introduced. This would encourage all buyers to move up. Look at the iMac, it has moved back to it's orignal price point with the eMac taking the lower ground, people would still Buy the Power Book if it was ultra expencive, if they are serious power book users, or they could "drop down" to a high speed G3 iBook, and the iBook users would move back up to the orignal price point, while the "eBook" would inhabit the current iBook's price point providing the same options.

With this you could have

12 inch PBs
15 inch PBs
17 inch PBs

13 inch iBooks
15 inch iBooks

12 inch eBooks

Make the iBooks look a little more chique like the current iMacs.

really right now the iBook seems more closely related to the eMac than the iMac.

[Eriamjh]

I really wonder what Apple would be like if they used x86 chips and hardware customized for Apple.

Apple would be par-for-par even with Windows machines, but still wouldn't run Windows software easily. A 3GHz Mac would be even with a 3GHz windows machine except for OS. Apple would still control the hardware (probably) and the MHz/GHz gap would be nonexistent.

However, there would have been a rift during the shift from PPC to x6 code. x86 macs would have run PPC code slower than previous PPCs.

But this didn't happen. The G5 is here to stay. Now we'll see if IBM can maintain the G5 and boost its speed or performance to compete Altivec aside. I found a website from '98-'99 that expected 1GHz G3s in mid-'99. What the hell happened to those? Shouldn't G3s be at 2 to 2.5GHz by now? Imagine a 2.5GHz iBook!

Maybe Apple should have had intel design the G4/G5 instead?

I am encouraged and am taking a "wait and see" attitude, but I am not switching back anytime soon.