[Lateralus]

It is arguable. The question of what exactly 'Macintosh' stands for is a little more difficult to answer with the processor switch on the horizon.

[Talleyman]

Bottom line: No one knows what the future holds. Will the PowerPC XXXX be the best chip in the history of time? Or will the move to Intel be the best move Apple ever made? We will know in 3-8 years. So stop guessing or acting as if you know. The new chips from IBM are vaporware at this point. They will be great chips, but they won't be a part of what Apple will be doing. Speculate away, but identify it as such. We will all know in a few years what the outcome will be.

[Lateralus]

Originally Posted by Talleyman

So stop guessing or acting as if you know. The new chips from IBM are vaporware at this point.

...

[Eug Wanker]

They will be great chips, but they won't be a part of what Apple will be doing.

I guessed you missed the memo. With CHUD 4.1.0 installed, typing "grep -binary 970MP MONster.app" gives you:

MONster.nib/keyedobjects.nib:879:71755:YPPC 970MP

[Simon]

Originally Posted by Lateralus

The question of what exactly 'Macintosh' stands for is a little more difficult to answer with the processor switch on the horizon.

That's not true.

The Macintosh has always been the same thing: an Apple built personal computer running Mac OS (or System x in the early days). The CPU has never defined the Mac. If Apple choses to use Intel CPUs for future Macs, they'll be Macs just as well as any other. It might be a problem for the ideologists, but from a technical POV it's just another generation of the Mac.

[Link]

So if apple decides to shut down their hardware operations and become a sole OS provider for Dell, you'd still call their machines Macs?

Sadly I bet half of you morons would cheer such a move on.

[Simon]

Um, no.

Apple wouldn't be building the hardware, hence no Macs. Is it that hard to understand?

[Big Mac]

Originally Posted by Simon

Um, no.

Apple wouldn't be building the hardware, hence no Macs. Is it that hard to understand?

I believe the scenario Link is posing is, what if Apple were to stop producing its own machines and instead were to simply rebrand PCs as Macs? Would you still call those computers Macs?

I have come to terms, to whatever extent possible, with Apple's switch. But let's face it, what we're most likely going to get are Intel boards to match those Intel processors. Apple may have some influence over components, but what we're most likely going to have are Apple PCs that run OS X.

[Simon]

Originally Posted by Big Mac

I believe the scenario Link is posing is, what if Apple were to stop producing its own machines and instead were to simply rebrand PCs as Macs? Would you still call those computers Macs?

Not unless Apple designed the boxes and just had a PC manufacturer assemble them (as they already do now with companies like Quanta).

Com'on people, from the outside no normal user ever noticed the difference between a Moto 604, G3, IBM G3, Moto G4 or IBM G5 Mac. With Intel it's likely it will stay that way too. There's no reason to panic. CPU competition is good. And it's good Apple is making use of competition among CPU manufacturers instead of trying to work against it.

But let's face it, what we're most likely going to get are Intel boards to match those Intel processors. Apple may have some influence over components, but what we're most likely going to have are Apple PCs that run OS X.

Well, so be it. PCI, USB, etc. - it's all Intel already. As long as Apple designs these machines with the same pretensions they always had, we have nothing to worry about. We should be getting the fastest and most efficient CPUs on the market. And if Intel fails to deliver, Apple can drop them, just the way they dropped Moto and IBM. Apple has been harmed in the past because they were tied to one manufacturer and got screwed. They've come a far way ever since they dropped Moto as sole supplier.

[Big Mac]

Originally Posted by Simon

Well, so be it. PCI, USB, etc. - it's all Intel already. As long as Apple designs these machines with the same pretensions they always had, we have nothing to worry about. We should be getting the fastest and most efficient CPUs on the market. And if Intel fails to deliver, Apple can drop them, just the way they dropped Moto and IBM. Apple has been harmed in the past because they were tied to one manufacturer and got screwed. They've come a far way ever since they dropped Moto as sole supplier.

Indeed, so be it. Bring on the BIOS. Bring on the PS/2 and Parallel ports. Dude, we're getting Dell Macitudes! So be it.***

***I'm not claiming Apple will not legitimately create its own hardware and continue to innovate. It's just that the way things are proceeding, one can envision Apple taking the seductively easy path outlined above. I think many of you are too easily seduced by performance claims, without taking into account the other substantive issues involved.

[Link]

We might as well go all the way and just make a Mac OS X skin for Windows!

Seriously I always saw the PPC thing as a benefit, and sure it hasn't always been the best thing to happen (from time to time there's delays in advances), but sometimes "being different" is a good thing for the whole mac thing! virusses and such can't just be "ported over", and well, I don't think vmware to run all your favorite windows apps will be any good at all for OS X development, imagine suddenly many apps just being 'Made for the Mac!' -- but only with a compatibility layer thrown in...

And thus things begin to suck: This is ALREADY a reality for Linux distros in a way, if you don't believe me, read about codega and crossover office.... "The Linux Version!!!one!!" ends up being a Windows app that happens to open on a Linux machine. I wouldn't be surprised if these suckers became reality for the Mac side too, maybe not for the biggest things, and depending on how much Apple kisses MS' ass, their stuff will still be native, but I wouldn't count on nearly as many new things...

Truly new, that is.. and not just a "translucent translation engine that runs behind the app"..

There's all sorts of other interesting things. Honestly, I don't see how the x86 will benefit Mac OS X, and OS X is the primary thing for Apple, not their hardware.. which is about the only place that will get any improvements at all.

I still just don't see that one, maybe I don't get the point, after all I didn't wait to hear about all this wonderful news until the keynote was available, and even then I didn't have the attention span to even skip through all the crap statistics and stuff I don't really care about. Sorry Eug, detail-mangling aint my thing!

I know, I know.. Intel stuff is waaaaay better than anything else on the market. That's why the IBM-based stuff is almost 3/4 of the things in the top 15... errrr.. *massive amount of ^Hs* I forgot Intel has no interest in supercomputers... and that's why most of the super battery life laptops have crappy graphics chips and overestimated battery life figures *ducks* AGAIN MY APOLOGIES FOR LYING!!!!one!!

I suppose that the Mac Mini sucks so bad it only sucks 14 watts in regular operation is another one of those really crappy things, ya know after all, if Apple chooses to sell x86 machines, they'll magically have $400 3.6ghz machines for sell if you head to Ben's Bargains.net and use 3 coupon codes, order, and then call that idiot in India and tell them a gazillion things to get them to drop the price another 5 bucks...

Options options options.. sometimes options stink. PS2, serial, crap like that... aint really what I call ideal. lol...

*tosses in another edit*

I know, I know.. I'm expecting to see a half dozen quotes out of this post including comments such as "OMG that's so wrong!" and "Link the idiot posts again" but just shoving an Intel board into an Apple case aint gonna cut it, remember this company is run by someone who used to tell Apple's engineers to try and redo their motherboards because "they didn't look right" -- okay that only happened once but it's still there!

BIOS aint gonna do us any good though, OTOH if Apple chooses to promote OpenFirmware on the x86 side, it'd be REALLY NICE to see more companies use it! Intel, being on Apple's side, would likely try to force feed the rest of the intel-using hardware market into running these sorts of things, and MS being intel's hardware b!tch would have to support em. Guess what guys, that means more video cards that work on Macs

[Eug Wanker]

I suppose that the Mac Mini sucks so bad it only sucks 14 watts in regular operation is another one of those really crappy things, ya know after all, if Apple chooses to sell x86 machines, they'll magically have $400 3.6ghz machines for sell if you head to Ben's Bargains.net and use 3 coupon codes, order, and then call that idiot in India and tell them a gazillion things to get them to drop the price another 5 bucks...

I trust you've heard of Pentium M? MUCH faster than the G4, but still low power. A Pentium M based mini would rock.

BIOS aint gonna do us any good though, OTOH if Apple chooses to promote OpenFirmware on the x86 side, it'd be REALLY NICE to see more companies use it! Intel, being on Apple's side, would likely try to force feed the rest of the intel-using hardware market into running these sorts of things, and MS being intel's hardware b!tch would have to support em.

Err... Apple has already said that Open Firmware is soon dead. They probably won't have BIOS, but will use Intel's Extensible Firmware Interface.

Sorry Eug, detail-mangling aint my thing!

Of course, that's why it's no surprise that you get so many of the details wrong.

[jasong]

I'm curious, if Macs are Macs because they use the PPC chip, what was the original Macintosh? Or the Macintosh 512? How about the II Ci, LC III, Centris 650, or Quadra 800? I'm pretty sure none of those had PPC chips in them.

Or are we saying the 68k based machines were Macintoshes, the PPC machines were Macs, and the Intel machines are something else?

[Big Mac]

That would be correct, sir. And we've already gone through the reasoning.

[Al G]

Link, relax man.

Repeat the following fact about upcoming Intel-based Macs as many times as necessary: "There will be no Pentium 4, no Netburst, there will be no Pentium 4, no Netburst..."



The Pentium 4 / Netburst architecture--bascially everything that you associate as bad about Intel processors--will never be used in a Mac except for the current developer-only machines which have to be sent back to Apple in a year.

[Obi Wan's Ghost]

There is only one problem and it is a big problem of the move to Intel.

If a Macintel and a Windows PC have the same hardware and same apps but the Windows PC benches higher in the same apps that will make the Macintel look bad even if it has a better user experience.

[Catfish_Man]

Al G: Of course, if they do release a netburst-based Mac, we're sure gonna look dumb (I agree it seems pretty darn unlikely)

Obi Wan's Ghost: yeah... having a firmer basis for comparison may or may not be good for OSX; certainly the comparisons I've seen against Linux haven't shown that it's particularly Snappy® in most microbenchmarks (thread/process creation time, etc...)

[Link]

Originally Posted by Eug Wanker

Err... Apple has already said that Open Firmware is soon dead. They probably won't have BIOS, but will use Intel's Extensible Firmware Interface.

Oh really? Let's see, let's dump a highly advanced OPEN SOURCE operating setup for an inferior closed source piece of ****.


I havemy bets OS X is simply going to end up being a fancy GUI for windows apps.

[Catfish_Man]

I hesitate to call someone with 4k+ posts a troll... but the alternative is just that Link has gotten so emotionally invested in Apple that he refuses to believe that anyone else can create credible hardware or software.

Link: Did you do ANY research on EFI before posting that? Have you read ANYTHING about the Pentium-M? Do you know the difference between a chipset and a motherboard (this is relevant because one likely avenue for Apple to take is to use Intel chipset components on an Apple motherboard)?

As far as I can tell, the only potentially valid point you've made is that making it easier to run Windows apps on OSX could hurt the chances of real OSX apps being created.

[Link]

I have flown off the handle immensely, mostly because I'm fed up of all the ... screwiness to this one, but here's some sensible stuff:

1. I'd much prefer NOT to see Intel boards, Apple boards using Intel chips is fine.
2. Why is EFI so much better than OpenFirmware?
3. I'm not a troll, nor is that my purpose of being here. I did want to piss some people off, but I think I've managed to do that . ... I post in the PowerMac forum because I like to help people, and I have a powermac myself (we have 2 in this house actually, along with a PB and an iMac, so yeah... ) ...

There's a bit closer to 7500 posts between my accounts on this site, though I retired the other names years ago.

[Catfish_Man]

Thank you

In response to your second point there, I'm not at all sure it is. OF is pretty darn cool in many ways. I wish I knew somewhat more about both EFI and OF so that I could have a better basis for comparison. My point was just that blindly dismissing it wasn't so wise

[Eug Wanker]

Originally Posted by Link

I have flown off the handle immensely, mostly because I'm fed up of all the ... screwiness to this one, but here's some sensible stuff:

1. I'd much prefer NOT to see Intel boards, Apple boards using Intel chips is fine.
2. Why is EFI so much better than OpenFirmware?
3. I'm not a troll, nor is that my purpose of being here. I did want to piss some people off, but I think I've managed to do that . ... I post in the PowerMac forum because I like to help people, and I have a powermac myself (we have 2 in this house actually, along with a PB and an iMac, so yeah... ) ...

There's a bit closer to 7500 posts between my accounts on this site, though I retired the other names years ago.

Just calm down and do a bit of research. You'll be much happier.

In the words of Apple itself:

We realize there are lots of folks that need to know what is going to be in the ROMs on these new machines, and what partition scheme will be used. Unfortunately, we are not yet in a position to make that information available, but we will communicate it as soon as we reasonably can. Don't assume that what you see in the transition boxes represents what will be present in the final product.

The general consensus I've heard from other developers is:
1) They don't want us to use BIOS
2) If they haven't heard of EFI, they want us to use OF
3) If they have heard of EFI, they want us to use EFI

This is not a statement about what Apple will use, just what I've heard from developers that have an opinion on the subject.

[booboo]

Does there exist the possibility that a dual dual-core 2.7+GHz PPC would be a hard act for Intel to follow, and for that reason, Apple won't go there?

[Catfish_Man]

Possibly... I wouldn't want to be in charge of designing the cooling system for such a beast though.

[Eug Wanker]

The low power G5 970FX at 1.6 GHz is only 21 Watts max.

Not bad.

[ashtoash]

it's still 1.6ghz.......

[Eug Wanker]

Originally Posted by ashtoash

it's still 1.6ghz.......

Yeah, but Apple releases Mac laptops up to around 30 Watts IIRC.

The G5 1.6 is only 21 Watts, which likely means Apple could put a 1.8 GHz G5 in a laptop. (I'm predicting the G4 7448 though.)

[OogaBooga]

Hopefully the PowerBooks won't stagnate for too much longer. I feel we're in for one more update around October or November, and then the Mactels next summer.

[Don Pickett]

Originally Posted by OogaBooga

Hopefully the PowerBooks won't stagnate for too much longer. I feel we're in for one more update around October or November, and then the Mactels next summer.

IBM said volume production in six months. . .

[Simon]

I'd be anxious to see how a 1.6GHz 970FX compares against a 1.67GHz 7447 in both terms of wattage and real-world benchmarks. It could reduce power consumption by 20%, but my guess is that it would offer only marginal improvement in terms of everyday demands (mainly due to the increased bus speed). Certainly the 970's FPU is much better than the 74xx's, but how much of that is seen in most people's daily tasks? OTOH if they keep wattage the way it is now, but use the 1.8GHz instead? A mere 10% speed increase maybe? Not really stunning either.

Is it likely that Apple designs a new PowerBook board with the 970 system controller and memory bus, just as a stopgap measure until we finally get Jonah or even Merom? I don't think so. OTOH, what does Freescale offer them to hold over for the next 12 months? Not much either. Tough times for Apple's PowerBook team.

[Eug Wanker]

Originally Posted by Simon

I'd be anxious to see how a 1.6GHz 970FX compares against a 1.67GHz 7447 in both terms of wattage and real-world benchmarks. It could reduce power consumption by 20%, but my guess is that it would offer only marginal improvement in terms of everyday demands (mainly due to the increased bus speed). Certainly the 970's FPU is much better than the 74xx's, but how much of that is seen in most people's daily tasks? OTOH if they keep wattage the way it is now, but use the 1.8GHz instead? A mere 10% speed increase maybe? Not really stunning either.

Is it likely that Apple designs a new PowerBook board with the 970 system controller and memory bus, just as a stopgap measure until we finally get Jonah or even Merom? I don't think so. OTOH, what does Freescale offer them to hold over for the next 12 months? Not much either. Tough times for Apple's PowerBook team.

Yeah, for non-FPU stuff (which is a lot of stuff) the G5 wouldn't be an improvement over the G4 at the same MHz. However, many apps where speed matters depend heavily on the FPU. (eg. Apps like Cinema4D absolutely suck on the G4, compared to the G5.) Thus, overall the G5 would still be quite the win IMO, if the combined CPU and controller power utilization were reasonable. And judging by those IBM specs, it seems they would be.

It would have to be a 1.8 GHz part though. 1.6 GHz would not be a win, since for some stuff it'd be slower than a 1.67 GHz G4. Mind you, if the decision is between a 1.8 GHz G4 7448 and a 1.8 GHz 970FX, Apple may very well go for the latter, since it's got 1 MB L2 (which for some non-FPU stuff would give it a distinct advantage over a 1.8 GHz G5) and it's an "easy" upgrade before the Intel switch, since it's a direct replacement for the G4 7447A. The G5 would as you know require a whole new PowerBook design.

Originally Posted by Don Pickett

IBM said volume production in six months. . .

Link?

[Talleyman]

Originally Posted by Don Pickett

IBM said volume production in six months. . .

Ummm...didn't they say 'volume' for the g5 was going to be plentiful and @ 3ghz within a year...wonder whay they mean by 'volume'.

I believe Apple had to make a move. IBM will be fine, and Apple will be fine. Win Win.

[Eug Wanker]

Originally Posted by Talleyman

Ummm...didn't they say... 3ghz within a year

Actually they didn't, at least not publicly. Steve did.

[bradleykavin]

which is faster..in reality...the intel chips that wiwll be put in the mac, or the g5...the g5 has so much expendability, and its 64-bit..will the new intels be 64-bit?

[Eug Wanker]

Originally Posted by bradleykavin

which is faster..in reality...the intel chips that wiwll be put in the mac, or the g5...the g5 has so much expendability, and its 64-bit..will the new intels be 64-bit?

There will eventually be 64-bit x86 chips in Macs, but the question is when. I believe the current developer boxes use 64-bit Intel chips, but I'm told that OS X Intel doesn't yet support 64-bit. Dunno if that's true or not, but it would not be unexpected that OS X support for 64-bit on Intel might not be finished for a year or so.

[Catfish_Man]

Originally Posted by bradleykavin

which is faster..in reality...the intel chips that wiwll be put in the mac, or the g5...the g5 has so much expendability, and its 64-bit..will the new intels be 64-bit?

First off, I'm pretty sure you didn't actually mean to type "expendability". Maybe "expandability"? That's got nothing at all to do with the chip though, so I'm really not sure what you're saying there.

As for which is faster, let's start with the assumption that Apple has some vaguely intelligent people, and lots of inside info. Given this intelligence and inside info, they decided to make the enormously expensive switch to x86. Conclusion: The x86 roadmap looks sufficiently better than the PowerPC one that smart people felt it would not be possible to remain competitive while using PowerPC chips.

Seriously, people. Apple isn't dumb. They've screwed up before, and they may again, but it's *very obvious* that they have strong reasons to go through with this switch, otherwise they'd never do it. Maybe it's a mistake, but I wouldn't bet on it.

<edit>
And yes, Intel makes 64 bit x86 chips. Some of the initial ones Apple uses (Yonah, for example) may not be, but if they're replacing the G4, that's not a big deal since it isn't 64 bit either. By the time the G5 gets replaced, they'll be 64 bit across the line.
</edit>

[Todd Madson]

Someone in this thread said "but it was only 1.6 ghz" regarding a potential dual core
chip but think of a dual core laptop 1.6 ghz G5. Or dual 1.8. I can easily see that
happening. That would be something that would provide a significant power boost
over a single core, single processor G4 based powerbook.

Imagine a machine with the portability of a laptop but the horsepower of a lower-end
G5 dual. That would be a nice machine.

And everyone who was in the know realizes the real reason for the Intel switch was
because of the fact that IBM was selling chips to competitors Apple didn't want having
access to.

[Don Pickett]

Originally Posted by Eug Wanker

Link?

Can't remember where I read it, but now that I search for it it looks even worse:

An IBM spokesperson was unable to comment on the availability of the new chips. . .

http://www.pcworld.com/resource/arti...RSS,RSS,00.asp

IBM did not reveal when the new chip hits the market.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/cpu/dis...711100203.html

And more like that. No specific ship date, no mentions of quantities, etc. I think we will be lucky to see these chips in volume before the end of the year.

[Don Pickett]

Originally Posted by Todd Madson

Someone in this thread said "but it was only 1.6 ghz" regarding a potential dual core chip but think of a dual core laptop 1.6 ghz G5. Or dual 1.8. I can easily see that happening. That would be something that would provide a significant power boost
over a single core, single processor G4 based powerbook.

But the low power chips are single core, and the dual core chips aren't low power.

[Eug Wanker]

Originally Posted by Todd Madson

Someone in this thread said "but it was only 1.6 ghz" regarding a potential dual core
chip but think of a dual core laptop 1.6 ghz G5. Or dual 1.8. I can easily see that
happening. That would be something that would provide a significant power boost
over a single core, single processor G4 based powerbook.

Imagine a machine with the portability of a laptop but the horsepower of a lower-end
G5 dual. That would be a nice machine.

If their "low power" G5 1.6 is 21 Watts, you can be sure they won't be releasing a laptoppable dual-core G5 1.6 any time soon.

And everyone who was in the know realizes the real reason for the Intel switch was
because of the fact that IBM was selling chips to competitors Apple didn't want having
access to.

Of course, that makes no sense whatsoever. The common belief is that one of the failings by IBM is to get additional customers for the G5, and thus G5 supplies were never a huge priority for IBM. Apple was the only customer, aside from IBM itself, as well as a few very, very small vendors. Had IBM been able to more widely market the G5, it would have had more reason to more quickly update the CPU and keep it reasonably priced.

Furthermore, they're going to Intel, whose chips are used by everybody and their dogs too.

Originally Posted by Don Pickett

Can't remember where I read it, but now that I search for it it looks even worse:

An IBM spokesperson was unable to comment on the availability of the new chips. . .

http://www.pcworld.com/resource/arti...RSS,RSS,00.asp

IBM did not reveal when the new chip hits the market.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/cpu/dis...711100203.html

And more like that. No specific ship date, no mentions of quantities, etc. I think we will be lucky to see these chips in volume before the end of the year.

You may be right, but then again you may be wrong. Those comments say absolutely nothing either way.

[Talleyman]

Originally Posted by Eug Wanker

Actually they didn't, at least not publicly. Steve did.

Gosh, I wonder who told steve 3ghz within a year? Did Steve Jobs, the master of marketing (love him or hate him) and the master of sell, make 3ghz up out of thin air? You really think that IBM didn't show a roadmap that had 3ghz by june 2004? Steve wouldn't just say that!

Ok, that's my opinion...take it for whatever you want.

[Eug Wanker]

Originally Posted by Talleyman

Gosh, I wonder who told steve 3ghz within a year? Did Steve Jobs, the master of marketing (love him or hate him) and the master of sell, make 3ghz up out of thin air? You really think that IBM didn't show a roadmap that had 3ghz by june 2004? Steve wouldn't just say that!

Ok, that's my opinion...take it for whatever you want.

Of course they told him they felt they could do it if all went well. However, IBM is much more about conservative estimates publicly. It seems like it was for good reason...

[Link]

Originally Posted by Talleyman

Gosh, I wonder who told steve 3ghz within a year? Did Steve Jobs, the master of marketing (love him or hate him) and the master of sell, make 3ghz up out of thin air? You really think that IBM didn't show a roadmap that had 3ghz by june 2004? Steve wouldn't just say that!

Ok, that's my opinion...take it for whatever you want.

Oh come on! Steve Jobs is just as capable of making a mistake as anyone else!

[Don Pickett]

Originally Posted by Eug Wanker

You may be right, but then again you may be wrong. Those comments say absolutely nothing either way.

I always take lack of definitive information from business to be a bad sign, because it means they don't have an answer. There's no reason for IBM not to give a volume or shipping date if they had one – it can only help. The only reason not to give one is because they don't have one. Given the problems they've had fabbing in the past, I'm not surprised.

[jcadam]

intel made motherboards are well-made and stable. They are not known for their performance, however.

Apple will probably continue to roll their own motherboards. They probably WANT non-ATX standard (to dissaude people from raping their pretty cases), and absolutely NO legacy PC interfaces (RS-232, Parallel, PS/2, floppy drive controllers, etc).

[Al G]

Another problem with the G5 in a Powerbook is the memory controller along with the complete motherboard redesign that would be necessary to accommodate the CPU/controller pair.

I'm sure Apple has been working on a suitable Powerbook G5 memory controller, but this controller might be part of the "mother of all thermal challenges" mentioned by Apple VP Tim Cook. The U3H memory controller in the Powermac G5 runs hotter than 75C and it has its own heat pipe and fan! Obviously, Apple wouldn't have to give the Powerbook the same memory bandwidth as a Powermac (and I'm not familiar with the iMac memory controller) but it still seems like a significant obstacle.

[G5man]

Well a G5 PowerBook would fly off the shelves in an instant for once apple has got king in the music and I was thinking that they were going to focus on the computer industry. But if they want quality computers I would say switch consumer lines to Intel and keep the big machines on POwerPC wouldn't that make sense?

[jcadam]

Originally Posted by G5man

Well a G5 PowerBook would fly off the shelves in an instant for once apple has got king in the music and I was thinking that they were going to focus on the computer industry. But if they want quality computers I would say switch consumer lines to Intel and keep the big machines on POwerPC wouldn't that make sense?

until the intel-based macs outperformed the more expensive professional systems.
Not to mention the pain and agony associated with supporting two completely incompatible processor families with a common OS and common Applications.

[Todd Madson]

Originally Posted by ashtoash

it's still 1.6ghz.......

I'd say of the last twenty laptops I've set up for work, the vast majority are
in the 1.6-1.8 ghz range. Not one has been over 2 ghz yet except one and
that was someone with deep pockets.

It's still competitive. Especially if it's dual core.

[Todd Madson]

Originally Posted by Talleyman

Gosh, I wonder who told steve 3ghz within a year? Did Steve Jobs, the master of marketing (love him or hate him) and the master of sell, make 3ghz up out of thin air? You really think that IBM didn't show a roadmap that had 3ghz by june 2004? Steve wouldn't just say that!

Ok, that's my opinion...take it for whatever you want.

Irrational exuberance perhaps?