[Scooterboy]

Head on over to arstechnica for John Siracusa's reaction to "the news".

[turtle777]

Good read. Just hope that we don't get a new thread for every morning PPC lover...

Btw, scooterboy, your sig is too long. 4 lines max.

-t

[budster101]

Does that mean he has to sell his Newton?

[BasketofPuppies]

Originally Posted by John Siracusa

Q: Will x86 Macs come with a two-buttons mouse?

A: Hey, we're just taking about moving an entire platform to a new CPU architecture (again). Let's not get crazy!

How true.

[krove]

Great summary of the emotions I've had surrounding this strange turn. I feel like I'm in a twilight zone....

The Mac has always had that something "extra," those special qualities that surround OS X with its stability and ease of use and the PowerPC ISA, which I've come to know over the last ten years since I went through the first transition from 68K to PowerPC. John is right that in losing the PowerPC, we are losing a part of that which sets us apart from all the other PCs out there.

It is sad. From a business standpoint, though, I can see the need for the decision Apple made: If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Processors have always been the weakness of our platform: witness the countless threads here that have bemoaned the lack of faster PowerBooks, faster towers for YEARS. If there is one positive thing to gain from this decision, it is that we will never have to compete with PCs on that playing field ever again.

Still, it is sad to see us moving away from the mystical power and magic of the superior PowerPC ISA to the backwards and arcane x86 ISA.

[Millennium]

Originally Posted by krove

If there is one positive thing to gain from this decision, it is that we will never have to compete with PCs on that playing field ever again.

This is part of the problem. By giving up the possibility of losing, Apple has given up the possibility of winning. With no measurable difference, a Mac will be nothing more than an expensive PC. Expect Microsoft to ensure that Longhorn works on it, then lure people away with the promise of more software. End result: the Mac withers away.

[thunderous_funker]

"no measurable difference"?

You're kidding right?

OSX compares very favorably to XP feature for feature. The only lag is performance which a move to Intel should correct nicely.

Apple/Intel should be a slam dunk for many biz buyers who have wanted to ditch MS on the desktop but were leary of Apple's constant CPU problems. Now they get all the advantages of Unix and none of the disadvantages of Linux.

For the home market Apple keeps all the same appeal it always had. Now it should boast faster rigs and better pricing and availability.

Bottom line: Apple is about to take Unix on Intel to the next level. That means (relatively) cheap Unix desktops that run Office and multimedia. That is the Holy Grail that Linux promised and never delivered.

[joltguy]

That is an excellent article. He clearly understands my pain.

[BasketofPuppies]

Originally Posted by Millennium

This is part of the problem. By giving up the possibility of losing, Apple has given up the possibility of winning.

Sticking with IBM and Freescale would have ensured Apple losing. Apple's old processor partners fell behind the competition years ago and clearly have no interest in general computing processors.

I don't see any decent alternatives for Apple. It's either stick with PowerPC and stagnate or switch to a processor architecture that, while old, has continued to evolve to meet current needs.

Either that or Apple makes its own PowerPC processors, but that isn't cost effective and would take too long to get off the ground, let alone into Macs.

(And no, switching to Sparc or MIPS or whatever processors wouldn't help much either.)

Microsoft is not going to make Longhorn Intel-based Mac-compatible. Beyond the resources required to do this and potential legal issues, doing it would make it easier for Windows users to switch to the Mac.

[DeathMan]

As wired wrote two or three days ago, I believe its all about DRM. this is why Apple is committed to Intel, rather than going with seems to be the obvious choice for X86, AMD. The IBM roadmap didn't include DRM, and Apple finally has enough people moved off of OS 9, that they can make the transition.

The real ace in the hole is Rosetta. If that works as advertised, things will go smoothly. Otherwise, it could be painful.



Millennium: You're wrong. PPCs didn't sell macs, or create loyal mac fans. In the mac world, the Interface is the computer. You are one of a miniscule number of people who even care about the elegance of design within the processor within their computer. If the user experience goes unchanged, no one will even care. I'd guess over 99% of Mac users don't even know what registers, or Endian-ness even are. Even some CS students think its "Big Indian"

The point is, CPU doesn't matter. The computer is not its CPU. The personal computer is, for all intents and purposes, the interface. And in that sense, Mac OS X, and its accompanying software have the alternatives beat, hands down.

[joltguy]

Originally Posted by DeathMan

As wired wrote two or three days ago, I believe its all about DRM. this is why Apple is committed to Intel, rather than going with seems to be the obvious choice for X86, AMD.

Wow, what an excellent reason to sacrifice excellence. DRM. w00t. Feel my excitement. And when some enterprising cracker circumvents that DRM (which they will), then what? Advantage lost.

Originally Posted by DeathMan

Millennium: You're wrong. PPCs didn't sell macs, or create loyal mac fans. In the mac world, the Interface is the computer. You are one of a miniscule number of people who even care about the elegance of design within the processor within their computer.

Millenium's not wrong. Just because someone posesses an unpopular opinion does not make them wrong. Count me in as one of those "miniscule" number of people who care about the elegance of design. Elegant design is important to Macintosh. It used to be important to more people around here too, until they were blinded by a garish bright neon 3-fricken-GHz sign.

Originally Posted by DeathMan

Mac OS X, and its accompanying software have the alternatives beat, hands down.

No argument there. That will continue regardless of processor, which is why I'm sticking with Apple.

[legacyb4]

Why are people so quick to assume that just because the CPU changes, that Apple will suddenly be producing less elegant hardware? The marketing blitz hasn't even started and people are bemoaning the fact that the Mac is "just another PC" when in fact, it's not. Hell, if Jobs hadn't come out and said that the keynote had been given on a Mactel, no one would have been the wiser.

It's almost guaranteed that we are going to see some absolutely stunning new designs from Apple with the rollout of the new desktops and laptops when they finally arrive.

Originally Posted by joltguy

Elegant design is important to Macintosh. It used to be important to more people around here too, until they were blinded by a garish bright neon 3-fricken-GHz sign.

[Millennium]

Originally Posted by DeathMan

Millennium: You're wrong. PPCs didn't sell macs, or create loyal mac fans.

No, DeathMan, you're the one who's wrong. PPCs did sell Macs, and they did create loyal Mac fans. The people buying Macs didn't know this, but that was the whole point: a computer and architecture elegant enough that you didn't have to know or care about things like that.

The point is, CPU doesn't matter. The computer is not its CPU. The personal computer is, for all intents and purposes, the interface. And in that sense, Mac OS X, and its accompanying software have the alternatives beat, hands down.

That won't last. Even now, I wouldn't call it hands down; OSX wins but the gap is small and shrinking. When that is gone -as it will be, if Apple doesn't move quickly, and their efforts are clearly going elsewhere right now- then we will have the very situation I describe, where a Mac is nothing more than an expensive PC.

[Millennium]

Originally Posted by legacyb4

Why are people so quick to assume that just because the CPU changes, that Apple will suddenly be producing less elegant hardware?

Because the CPU is part of what made the elegance possible. Seriously; have you ever studied the X86 architecture? IBM chose it for the original PC because it was so bad, so that "microcomputers" (what we now call desktops) would never be able to truly compete with its own higher-end offerings.

The marketing blitz hasn't even started...

Are you really so foolish as to believe that? The marketing blitz has been going on for years, and you've been suckered into it. How exactly are the current Macs not competitive with their PC counterparts? Yet now you somehow get the idea that Macs are not only uncompetitive now, but that they have never been competitive.

The computing industry is at least 20 years behind where it could be, because of the x86 architecture. Apple has just locked in another twenty years.

[thunderous_funker]

The Mac has always been "nothing more than an expensive PC." The only times PPC was a selling point were those few and far between moments when PPC was faster than Intel. I can remember 2 such moments, both of which lasting a matter of weeks. That kind of boom/bust performance cycle has been detrimental to Apple hardware sales.

Apples home user market will not be negatively affected by this decision at all. In fact, it should be improved since "Intel Inside" is a massive selling point. Exotic hardware might have enabled geek fetishism among a tiny fringe of home users but that isn't a viable strategy for the long term.

Apple's business market should be greatly enhanced. Exotic hardware that was subject to huge stagnation between innovations was major turn off to biz buyers that would absolutely love a stable Unix desktop alternative that actully increases productivity (unlike Linux).

Linux'e entire success has been due to being "not MS" and "free". Well, clearly neither of those has proven compelling enough for Linux to go mainstream. Along comes Apple with a slam-dunk solution.

[thunderous_funker]

Originally Posted by Millennium

Because the CPU is part of what made the elegance possible. Seriously; have you ever studied the X86 architecture? IBM chose it for the original PC because it was so bad, so that "microcomputers" (what we now call desktops) would never be able to truly compete with its own higher-end offerings.

Are you really so foolish as to believe that? The marketing blitz has been going on for years, and you've been suckered into it. How exactly are the current Macs not competitive with their PC counterparts? Yet now you somehow get the idea that Macs are not only uncompetitive now, but that they have never been competitive.

The computing industry is at least 20 years behind where it could be, because of the x86 architecture. Apple has just locked in another twenty years.

PPC is competitive right now but that edge is already eroding and doesn't look good for the future. IBM designers might have all the cool designs in the universe but if they can't fabricate them fast enough, often enough and at a competitive price then it doesn't really matter.

I also think you are grossly mistating things. MS is the biggest anchor on Intel, not the ISA. Intel has been trying to push cool tech for years and gotten nowhere because there are no innovative PC makers. I fully expect Apple/Intel to offer some very compelling designs and products.

We're talking about the best chipmaker in the world teaming up with the best PC maker in the world. There is risk involved, but there are tons of reasons to be optomistic.

[BasketofPuppies]

Millennium, your zealotry is making you ignore the facts.

Once again, yes, the PowerPC architecture is more elegant than the the x86 architecture (although the Velocity Engine made the PowerPC more difficult to work with), but unless we start seeing superior chips come out of that more elegant architecture once again, your point is moot.

IBM chose the 8088 chip, not the x86 architecture itself, because it was a weak. The 80286 and 80386 matched up quite nicely with the 68020 and 68030 respectively and the 80486 blew the 68040 out of the water. PowerPCs and Pentiums were about equal performance-wise until Motorola became unable to deliver on its promises with the G4 and we're seeing the same thing happen again now with IBM and its G5.

[Millennium]

Originally Posted by BasketofPuppies

Millennium, your zealotry is making you ignore the facts.

Whether or not I'm ignoring the facts, I seem to be the only one who even knows them.

Once again, yes, the PowerPC architecture is more elegant than the the x86 architecture (although the Velocity Engine made the PowerPC more difficult to work with), but unless we start seeing superior chips come out of that more elegant architecture once again, your point is moot.

They are superior right now.

IBM chose the 8088 chip, not the x86 architecture itself, because it was a weak.

The chip's weakness came from its architecture, more than anything else. The 8008 architecture came directly from the 4004, the very first microprocessor, which was never meant to be used in anything larger than a desktop calculator even in its own time. That's how inelegant it is: we're talking one bad hack piled on top of another into a tower of utter crap. When I say that the industry as a whole is twenty years behind because of x86, I am not kidding.

The 80286 and 80386 matched up quite nicely with the 68020 and 68030 respectively and the 80486 blew the 68040 out of the water.

No argument on this, however...

PowerPCs and Pentiums were about equal performance-wise until Motorola became unable to deliver on its promises with the G4...

Revisionism. Up through the early G4 years, PPCs consistently beat the pants off of the corresponding x86 chips, usually by a factor between 25% and 100%. Then, however, Moto's incompetence began to show through, though Jobs and his petty personal feuds didn't help either.

...and we're seeing the same thing happen again now with IBM and its G5.

Then IBM is going down in a hail of lawsuits, not from Apple but from three other well-known companies: you might call them Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft. IBM cannot make the promises it has to them unless it already has the capability. Why Apple is not taking advantage of this is anyone's guess.

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by Millennium

The computing industry is at least 20 years behind where it could be, because of the x86 architecture. Apple has just locked in another twenty years.

And IBM is hiding their real advantage in their roadmaps, making the PPC look inferior to the Intel processors exactly WHY ?

-t

[analogika]

You know what's odd?

All this time, Powerbooks and iBooks are SO MUCH BETTER designed in hard- and software functionality that they sell *quite* nicely DESPITE severe performance drawbacks over their equally-priced counterparts, and now that Apple has finally announced a brutal, but absolutely realistic, solution to that single drawback, and suddenly the Mac is dead.

I find your lack of faith disturbing.

[James L]

From a laymans perspective...

I just polled 19 people (customers) who I have on Mac right now, and of the 19, only 4 knew the difference between PPC and x86.

Of those 4, only 2 cared that Apple was switching.

Barring those 2 (and they are nerds in a big way!), everyone said the same thing, which was pretty much things like "will OSX still be the same? Will I still be able to use iLife? Will it still work with my iPod? Will Microsoft Office still work with it?" etc.

Unless you are a Mac fan who follows this kind of thing (like we all are on these forums), the elegance of the Mac has nothing to do with what is under the hood. It has everything to do with the stability of the OS, with being able to access your iTunes library in iPhoto, and then send it to iDVD. It has to do with dragging a photo from the desktop and dropping it into an application window. Yada yada yada. A whole bunch of people think the elegance has to do with the physical appearance too.

Personally, I am still undecided, though in the grand scheme of things I don't really care what is under the hood. If it is a Mac, OSX based, and can still handly the tasks I do daily with the same, or improved, performance, then I am happy.

I do know that it took IBM over 2 years to gain 700mhz on the G5, and they still are incapable of putting a next gen processor into a laptop. These signs don't bode well with me, and if it takes another company to do it, then so be it.

My loyalty is to the Mac, not IBM, Motorola, Intel, etc.

[thunderous_funker]

Originally Posted by Millennium

Then IBM is going down in a hail of lawsuits, not from Apple but from three other well-known companies: you might call them Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft. IBM cannot make the promises it has to them unless it already has the capability. Why Apple is not taking advantage of this is anyone's guess.

You're assuming IBM is going to meet those demands before they even happen. That remains to be seen. Apparently IBM was unable to convince Apple that they could do it and remain committed to providing Apple with parts it needed as well.

Anecdote alert: my friend is a technician for Applied Materials. They build/maintain the fab machines that Intel and IBM use. He spent 6 months at the IBM plant in NY and came back with serious horror stories. Not only were only a fraction of the machines in use, their yields were shockingly bad. He said it was bungled from top to bottom.

IBM might seriously have bitten off more than they could chew. It could also be that in order for them to satisfy the console makers they basically told Apple to get in line--the back of the line.

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by James L

My loyalty is to the Mac, not IBM, Motorola, Intel, etc.

Or, to be even more blasphemous, my loyalty is to OS X, not the Mac as we know it...

-t

[theolein]

Uhm , I should have "Faith" in a company, whose sole reason to exist is to make money? I find that disturbing.

I agree whole heartedly with John Siracusa. It is sad that apple is leaving the PPC. To me, the PPC is part of what makes a Mac a Mac. It isn't the whole thing, obviously, but it is part of it, to me. Whether you feel Apple's move is a good one is up to you.

I do think Apple's move has been a long time in the making. Apple's use and implementation of Transitive's emulation technoiogy is certainly not something that Apple only started working on a month ago. That certainly had to be in the works for about 6 months, at the very least. Steve Jobs admitting that Marklar has been a reality for the past 5 years also points out that Apple has been considering this for a very long time.

To me the best time to have done this transition would have been in 2001, when OSX was just out, and people didn't already have major investments in OSX hardware and software.

Now, the best people can hope for is that Rosetta gives them "acceptable" performance with their current software on Intel machines. I can guarantee you it won't be as good as the demo. Steve Jobs is known for his distorting of facts and his hype of everything Apple does.

NOt everyone is wild about the idea of having to purchase new upgrades for ALL their software once again, especially after the messy software transition to OSX that has finally started to settle down.

But back to Apple's decision:

It should be obvious that Mac sales are going to suffer badly until the Intel machines get here. It doesn't take a financial genius to see that buying PPC hardware now is not the best of business propositions if the platform is moving to a new architecture in the next two years.

And Apple knows that. This is a huge risk for Apple. You can call me what you like. You can insult me, call me a hater, pessimist, whatever. It IS a huge risk for Apple.

So why did Apple do it, apart from the Apple PR about Intel suddenly being better? Talking about Apple's PR about Intel being better, that very same PR was touting the huge benefits of PPC not so long ago. And almost everyone here was following that PR with blind "Faith" just as they are now following Apple's PR about Intel being better. If you like I can dig out a few thousand anti-Intel comments from this very board, and contrast them with the same people now being pro Intel.

I think Apple did it for a number of reasons:

1. IBM simply refused to make more powerful PPCs for the Desktop and server because especially the server G5's were eating into IBM's profits with XServes being used for HPC clusters, traditionally an IBM bastion.

2. Microsoft must have thrown one hell of a lot of money at IBM to make the XBox Xenon PPC cpu. It's a three core PPC running at 3.2GHz. For those who are numerically challenged, that's 0.2Ghz faster than what Steve Jobs wanted for the G5. The Xenon would have definitely been usable in a Mac. Considering that the XBox 360 is rather small, there is none of the heat problems associated with the G5. Now, I'm pretty sure that Microsoft has an exclusive agreement with IBM on this CPU, but it shows that IBM is more than capable of making PPC's that go above 3GHz. I simply think that either Steve Jobs was too angry with IBM for giving preference to Microsoft's dollars, or he simply didn't have enough of those dollars to make a similar offer to IBM for nice fast and low powered G5s. Technically it is obviously possible. Financially and Steve Jobs' control freak obsession wise, I'm not so sure. The fact of the matter is that as it stands now, Microsoft has the world's fastest PPC computer. (It also has the world's fastest x86 computers, but that's another point).

Think very carefully about that last point and what it would mean to a man who is as obsessed with being in control as Steve Jobs is.

In that light I think there was no real technical reason to move to Intel and x86. I think it is entirely a political move, and maybe a long term financial one in which Apple hopes to free itself from being constrained by IBM.

[theolein]

Originally Posted by James L

...

I do know that it took IBM over 2 years to gain 700mhz on the G5, and they still are incapable of putting a next gen processor into a laptop. ...

I think you should read my post above about the Xenon PPC, running very cool at 3.2GHz. Do you seriously think IBM would be incapable of making one of those at, say 2.0 GHz or 2.5 GHz and putting it in a Laptop?

[turtle777]

^^^ nice analysis, theolein.

I agree, it's was not IBM's technical inability, it was more a strategic (probably financial) choice by IBM not to give Apple what Apple wanted and needed.

As far as Apple's financial risk is concerned, I actually think it won't be too bad.
Yes, CPU sales will drop, but don't forget the soaring iPod sales. If Apple doesn't screw that up, these sales will compensate for temporarily lost or delayed CPU sales.

-t

[mitchell_pgh]

I agree that the PPC is a superior chip, but IBM simply can't deliver what Apple needs and wants. Steve was talking about the future... and nobody has a better understanding of the future than Steve. Only twice can I remember the PPC being much faster than x86 (and it was only at the highest end). When you get to the average CPUs (the ones most people buy) the PPC has never been king. Try telling me a G4 eMac is anywhere as fast as a POS $800 Dell.

Whenever I purchase a Mac, I assume it's slower then what the Intel world is offering... but I purchase for the OS. Just take a glance at what our competator is offering... Dell is offering a 2.80GHz P4s with 19" LCD screens for under $1000... and you can't even touch a 1.8GHz G5 for less than $1299.

I think for the average Mac users, we are finally going to have systems on par with the other side of the fence.

[mitchell_pgh]

Originally Posted by turtle777

Or, to be even more blasphemous, my loyalty is to OS X, not the Mac as we know it...

-t

If Apple could offer the same user experience on a crap Dell, I would love it. It just would never happen.

[Millennium]

Originally Posted by turtle777

And IBM is hiding their real advantage in their roadmaps, making the PPC look inferior to the Intel processors exactly WHY ?

Truth be told, I don't think it's IBM's fault. This decision is Apple's and Apple's alone.

I have to admit, someone else brought up the fact that we know IBM is capable of better chips because they're making them for Microsoft, and that IBM likely had to sign an exclusivity deal with Microsoft in order to land the contract. Might this explain why Microsoft is using PowerPC chips in the XBox360? Starve Apple out of the PowerPC market and force them onto X86, where they have to go head-to-head with Microsoft, a battle Apple can't hope to win?

Sneaky, but it makes a fair bit of sense.

[Zimphire]

Originally Posted by Millennium

No, DeathMan, you're the one who's wrong. PPCs did sell Macs, and they did create loyal Mac fans. The people buying Macs didn't know this, but that was the whole point: a computer and architecture elegant enough that you didn't have to know or care about things like that.

I don't know many people that did Mill. Most people I knew that owned Macs did so because of the OS.

They didn't care really what it ran,

But hey, that is only my experience.

[osxisfun]

Originally Posted by Millennium

Truth be told, I don't think it's IBM's fault. This decision is Apple's and Apple's alone.

and if the following link is true?

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthre...hreadid=130894

and ibm had laptops chips ready to go like these?

http://forums.macnn.com/showthread.php?t=259074

or IBM was giving apple (@ 2 million chips a year) the same attention and resources that they were going to give Sony-Nintendo-M$ at a 100 million chips a year?

IBM's fault is they did not deliver a 3 gig G5.
IBM's fault is that they did not deliver a g5 for the laptop.

How can this be apple and apple's alone if ibm was not giving them what they needed?

Apple trusted IBM and IBM failed.

If apple switched because of the reasons above then its IBM's fault.

[thunderous_funker]

So just because IBM can make a chip right now that is fast enough to power a game console, that means Apple is stupid for not believing they have chips (and plans for chips) to power the next 5-10 years of Macs?

Just because the current crop is good enough for Xbox doesn't mean they have a decent PC CPU roadmap. It also doesn't mean they were just begging to sell Apple anything at reasonable prices or committ to necessary supply demands.

IBM can't supply a decent mobile CPU today. No matter how many chips they can produce for consoles won't change that. In fact, the money they stand to make from consoles insures that they won't be bothering with figuring out that problem either. Why would they?

[theolein]

Originally Posted by mitchell_pgh

I agree that the PPC is a superior chip, but IBM simply can't deliver what Apple needs and wants. Steve was talking about the future... and nobody has a better understanding of the future than Steve. Only twice can I remember the PPC being much faster than x86 (and it was only at the highest end). When you get to the average CPUs (the ones most people buy) the PPC has never been king. Try telling me a G4 eMac is anywhere as fast as a POS $800 Dell.

Whenever I purchase a Mac, I assume it's slower then what the Intel world is offering... but I purchase for the OS. Just take a glance at what our competator is offering... Dell is offering a 2.80GHz P4s with 19" LCD screens for under $1000... and you can't even touch a 1.8GHz G5 for less than $1299.

I think for the average Mac users, we are finally going to have systems on par with the other side of the fence.

This Fall, Microsoft will be selling a three core 3.2 GHz PPC computer that runs cool in a small enclosure.

The Microsoft mini, aka the XBox 360 will be selling for $300.

Now tell me about how expensive PPC chips are again?

[osxisfun]

Originally Posted by theolein

This Fall, Microsoft will be selling a three core 3.2 GHz PPC computer that runs cool in a small enclosure.

The Microsoft mini, aka the XBox 360 will be selling for $300.

Now tell me about how expensive PPC chips are again?

some quick thoughts:

a) microsoft and sony lose money on their game consoles and make it up with games so that chip _could_ be expensive - i don't know 100%

b) the chip in the xbox will last them for 4(?) years. there will be no "speed bumps" so if ibm said we can do a 3.2 but not a 3.3 over the next 4 years then the m$ is still happy.

c) we don't know the power draw of this so the g5 laptop is still a no show.

[dlefebvre]

Originally Posted by osxisfun

and if the following link is true?

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthre...hreadid=130894

and ibm had laptops chips ready to go like these?

http://forums.macnn.com/showthread.php?t=259074

or IBM was giving apple (@ 2 million chips a year) the same attention and resources that they were going to give Sony-Nintendo-M$ at a 100 million chips a year?

IBM's fault is they did not deliver a 3 gig G5.
IBM's fault is that they did not deliver a g5 for the laptop.

How can this be apple and apple's alone if ibm was not giving them what they needed?

Apple trusted IBM and IBM failed.

If apple switched because of the reasons above then its IBM's fault.

Without this move to Intel, maybe we could have hoped for a 2.9GHz G5 next year. I can't imagine the tantrums that would have occured on this forum. Apple learned their lesson from the Motorola experience and were ready to save the furniture before the fire. Is it a good move? Only time will tell.

[thunderous_funker]

Again, how does Xbox help Apple?

Should Apple drop laptops from their lineup and convince people to lug around Xboxes?

Microsoft doesn't have to worry about an Xbox hardware roadmap, Apple does. Just because IBM has a chip that works for Xbox today doesn't mean they have a chips for Apple for 5-10 years down the road.

In fact, the opposite is true. Xbox means that IBM can happily produce the exact same chips for the next 3-4 years and always have a customer. Do I need to explain why that biz model isn't compatible with Apple's?

[osxisfun]

> I can't imagine the tantrums that would have occured on this forum.




This move was about the powerbooks and about the future.

[theolein]

Originally Posted by thunderous_funker

So just because IBM can make a chip right now that is fast enough to power a game console, that means Apple is stupid for not believing they have chips (and plans for chips) to power the next 5-10 years of Macs?

Just because the current crop is good enough for Xbox doesn't mean they have a decent PC CPU roadmap. It also doesn't mean they were just begging to sell Apple anything at reasonable prices or committ to necessary supply demands.

IBM can't supply a decent mobile CPU today. No matter how many chips they can produce for consoles won't change that. In fact, the money they stand to make from consoles insures that they won't be bothering with figuring out that problem either. Why would they?

I don't believe this. Just how far will people go to make excuses for Apple? Apple is a company. They exist only to take your dollars, and preferably as many of your dollars as they can, just like Microsoft, Intel or IBM does.

As for IBM being unable to supply a decent mobile chip, remember that the G4's were originally simply clocked down desktop cpus. Clock a Xenon PPC down to 2.0 GHz or 2.5 GHz and it will run just fine inside a Powerbook.

The fact is that Microsoft's most probably exclusive deal with IBM is what has driven Apple to switch to Intel. Microsoft's XBox competes in the home media computer space (It does a hell of a lot more than just play games), i.e. in the Mac mini space, except that it's nearly three times as fast, and almost $200 cheaper.

Think about the ramifications of that. The XBox 360 is not just a game console.

[osxisfun]

As for IBM being unable to supply a decent mobile chip, remember that the G4's were originally simply clocked down desktop cpus. Clock a Xenon PPC down to 2.0 GHz or 2.5 GHz and it will run just fine inside a Powerbook.

but it hadn't happen yet and we are still waiting... Apple looked at this (with more info then you or I) and said, were are switching.

read the macrumors thread i posted. if true , its very revelaing.

[analogika]

Originally Posted by Millennium

Whether or not I'm ignoring the facts, I seem to be the only one who even knows them.

They are superior right now.

the g5s are, yes.

The G4s are not.

Nevertheless, Apple is making - and selling - them right now.

You may have noticed that none of this is about right noe, though.

the 2006 ad 2007 figures are a dead giveaway.

[thunderous_funker]

By your own reasoning, why would IBM spend money to make Apple happy with constant chip innovation when they can sell the chips they already produce for the next 3-4 years?

This is exactly what happened with Motorolla. Once they figured out that they could make more money by making other customers happy (at the expense of Apple) they no longer need to worry about Apple not being happy.

[analogika]

Originally Posted by theolein

This Fall, Microsoft will be selling a three core 3.2 GHz PPC computer that runs cool in a small enclosure.

Those three cores will have, together, about half the transistors of ONE SINGLE G5, IIRC.

Why else do you think it will run at 3.2 GHz?

that machine will be good for games, and NOTHING else.

[analogika]

Originally Posted by theolein

Think about the ramifications of that. The XBox 360 is not just a game console.

it is certainly not a desktop pc alternative.

[thunderous_funker]

Originally Posted by analogika

Those three cores will have, together, about half the transistors of ONE SINGLE G5, IIRC.

Why else do you think it will run at 3.2 GHz?

that machine will be good for games, and NOTHING else.

And it still isn't a laptop.

Apple wanted IBM to figure out how to put a G5 into a laptop. Instead, IBM figured out they didn't need to because they could make 20x more money selling G5s for game consoles.

Apple needed IBM, IBM doesn't need Apple.

Say what you will about Intel, they are heart and soul committed to the PC CPU market. Apple will never have to convince them to solve a PC CPU problem. In fact, Apple will be lucky to keep up.

In 2008 Mac-heads will be complaining that a faster Mac comes out every few months. Won't that be novel?

[theolein]

Originally Posted by analogika

Those three cores will have, together, about half the transistors of ONE SINGLE G5, IIRC.

Why else do you think it will run at 3.2 GHz?

that machine will be good for games, and NOTHING else.

"IIRC"? Yes, exactly. If you remember correctly. There was one article on the entire web, by a game dev ranting against Microsoft and Sony during the middle of a big rant by every one else. He made wild claims about the Xenon PPC cores being one quarter the size of a PPC970 core.

One dev.

Meanwhile there are many articles pointing out how Microsoft is using the XBox as a tool to sell its XBox live service, along with Music and Video sales online and chatting and the future possibility of a browser.

The XBox 360 is much more than a game console. It is aimed squarely at the home media market. Obviously there is an overlap with Mac mini.

Do you think Microsoft does these things for fun?

[theolein]

Originally Posted by thunderous_funker

...

Say what you will about Intel, they are heart and soul committed to the PC CPU market. ...

I should do some searching on this board about your historical comments on the PPC vs. x86 thing. I can't remember if you are one of the legions who were following Apple's PR line on how good the PPC was compared to x86, but your post certainly does remind me of those.

But, enough of this. I don't actually care about the XBox. It is merely my speculation as to why Apple suddenly publicly went ahead with their switch to Intel although they are almost certain to suffer bad Mac sales in the next two years as a result of this.

And it does pain me for you, Spheric, because you work in a Mac store, and so your job is on the line.

Perhaps I'm just being too pessimistic in order to justify my own decision to switch to Windows and Linux.

Who knows. Time will tell.

My decision, however, is made.

[yukon]

What I liked about the Mac was that it seemed to always choose the best standards. I was running a GUI when my friends were running DOS, I had System 7 when my friends had Windows 3.1. My CPU was PowerPC, my drives were SCSI, my machines were quiet, they looked good...Apple dropped SCSI, but then I had 3 firewire ports and a cheap slow SCSI card. Apple dropped the floppy drive, but I had a built-in ZIP drive. My machine had one 120mm fan and one 80mm fan at the same time as my friends were bragging about how many 60mm and 80mm fans they fit into their machine (one guy had 9 fans, computer sounded like a dying vacuum cleaner). It just seems like the era of having a machine that was better in all areas has gradually ended and will end completely when the CPU is replaced.

[Sosa]

I for one look forward to what the Intel / Mac cooperation will bring. Perhaps Intel will succeed were Motorola failed and IBM appears to be failing, meeting Apple's expectations in producing competitive CPUs. Perhaps as someone else suggested, this alliance will encourage Intel to innovate and produce a CPU for Apple that will be outstanding.

If it doesn't though, I will be buying the last dual PPC Mac sold by Apple in 2007, and holding it until something better from Apple comes up!

Oh and just because Apple is out to make a buck, like everyone else, does not mean one cannot have a certain level of trust and preference for their products. Because of this preference I wish to see Apple do well, so I can continue to buy what I consider their superior products. Thus I can legitimately be happy or sad when the characteristics of those products change. Today my computer is the most important piece of equipment I own and it is a natural human instinct to feel affection for such objects.

Of course, one should be Stoic about these things. Ultimately everything will change, everything will end, and these arguments and competition will be petty. We should strive to not become emotionally attached to physical things ... eh, I'm getting off topic.

[Earth Mk. II]

Originally Posted by theolein

Clock a Xenon PPC down to 2.0 GHz or 2.5 GHz and it will run just fine inside a Powerbook.

I can't say that I agree. I don't like seeing Apple move to x86, but Cell and Xenon aren't the answer. Bred form the same family, perhaps... but nothing like the PPC970 in the end.

First of all, Cell and Xenon Altivec/VMX performance would be much weaker than the PPC970 series. Secondly, Xenon and Cell have in-order execution pipelines. This cuts down on control logic, but forces much of that burden onto the developer.

Cell and Xenon assume that all their instructions are sequential within their own threads. Any code that requires a lot of branching will run like sh*t. Most general purpose software requires a lot of branching and benefits greatly from the out of order pipelines in CPU's like the G4, G5, and yes, the P4.

Also, these chips are designed with streaming media in mind, and as such, have incredibly small caches. The Xenon, for example, has a 21 stage pipeline and only a 32k instruction cache. The G4, by comparison, has a 32k instruction cache but only a 7 stage pipeline, and the G5 a 23 stage pipeline, but a 64k instruction cache. There's no way in hell that the Xenon or Cell's branch prediction is on the same level as the G5 or G4, even if it didn't have all it's branch prediction logic removed (which is uncertain at this point).

These processors will shine in an environment that can guarantee that the effort spent parallelizing the program's instructions will not go to waste. The PS3 and XBox 360 are two such environments. Streaming multimedia and gaming graphics, the intended (and main) markets for both new consoles, are highly parallelizable processes.

However, a general purpose computing platform is not one of those environments. Much of the work done on these systems cannot be so easily parallelized.

IMHO, after reading up on the processors, Cell and Xenon would just suck in a desktop system.

Source articles:
Inside the Xbox 360, Part II: the Xenon CPU: http://arstechnica.com/articles/paed.../xbox360-2.ars
Introducing the IBM/Sony/Toshiba Cell Processor -- Part II: The Cell Architecture: http://arstechnica.com/articles/paedia/cpu/cell-2.ars

[yukon]

A lot of people are saying that they're going to buy the last PPC that Apple makes....I'd really advise against that. You end up paying a premium for a system that'll be outdated in a "almost entirely incompatible" sense....I was given more LC040 based machines than I knew what to do with. Better to go with the Intel system that Apple creates, or some other option you'd rather. My sawtooth was released in september 2000, and it still does quite well, the "last generation PPC Macintosh" won't have that luxury...a Mac Mini might not be a bad idea though, cheap and fast, does everything my G4 does better.