IBM unveils dual-core PowerPC chips up to 2.5GHz - Page 7

Exactly. For how many years Apple kept the PowerPC architecture? Around 10-12 years, despite the performance and yield issues that were not uncommon. Why expect something different now while going Intel? I would say that my estimate for 5 years after the completion of the transition, is rather conservative (that is it could be more).


The problem with mixed CPU architectures is not the look and feel of the machines. It is guaranteed that Apple will provide to the user a completely transparent system operation without needing to worry what is under the hood. The problem is that Apple is not the company that can afford to support more than one architecture, beyond the transition period. The other problem is the developers. Already asking them to switch is too much. Asking to support two architectures could lead to disaster. Or that's my opinion on the matter anyway.

We, of course, can't say "never". But realistically, Apple has no intention of going back. People who are hoping for this, and that is what it is. Keep thinking that there will be a compelling reason for Apple to do so. This is wishful thinking. You can't keep ignoring all of the reasons why Apple did this, and the fallout from the decision.

As I keep bringing up; Apple was 75% of IBM's G5 sales. Without Apple, it might be much too expensive for IBM to keep developing this line of cpu's. There may never be anything for Apple to come back to!

IBM is processor neutral. They don't care what processor they use. P4's Xenon's, Opteron's. They have a large choice for that computing space.

For all we know, they may be sighing relief at this because it gives them the graceful excuse to drop it.

And you guys who want Apple to go back think that IBM will have a "super" chip for Apple in the future. Unless Apple goes to the Power 6 chipset itself, it's not going to happen.

There was already speculation, before the announcement, that Apple was going to use the Power 5. Just speculation. No knowledge involved. Just like this discussion.

Yes, exactly!. I keep saying this in several threads, but people won't believe it.

They forget that Intel makes over 200 million desktop and server cpu's a year, plus millions of boards, GPU's, etc. MS sells over 200 million copies of Windows desktop and server OS's a year. Plus tens of millions of copies of Office + upgrades a year. Plus software tools such as VB etc.

Apple will sell maybe 4.5 million machines this year, but the development costs are almost the same.

People have no idea of what this means.

Let get this Power 5 and 6 out of the way, as it keeps coming up. I'm certainly not suggesting it and I don't know who is. Most discussions center around derivatives of the Power series. There was hope that IBM would have a Power 5 based PPC, but it looks like that project was never even started. IBM roadmap suggests that IBM wanted to skip the 5 and go directly to a Power 6 derivative. Nobody know when this might happen if ever now, unless IBM has plans to use it in blade servers. That's past history. These are not the CPUs we are looking for. Move along.


True. Nobody knows what IBM will do with the G5 once Apple has transitioned to Intel. Obviously a few are needed for replacements, but they may never go into another new product.

However, IBM has a very promising CPU now, maybe two. The game console business got IBM going in a different direction, and it took most of IBM's development resources. It was bad news for Apple at the time, and could have helped Apple decide to go with Intel, which was a smart move. Out of this shakeup is emerging some promising chips. Sony and IBM have very high hopes for the Cell processor for example. Both Sony and IBM seem willing, even eager, to have others adopt the chip. The current Cell is not appropriate for personal computers it seems, but the Cell project has a lot of momentum behind it now. I feel pretty certain it will be a chip to reckon with by the second or third generation, and might surpass anything Intel has to offer.

Is this a guarantee? No, but it is very possible. And a future Cell may not come as just a CPU with no support chips. If Sony, IBM and Toshiba are serious, there is more than enough resources between them to make it easier to apply the Cell to typical personal computer configurations. This is precisely the kind of thing than cannot be predicted, and it would be foolish for Apple to cut off its access to such a CPU for future Macs. If Apple needs to make it still easier to keep PPC support going, they can likely do it.

Well, Apple was betrayed if IBM took resources off the G5 chips to support the game console business, which I suspect they did. Yet I have confidence that IBM will eventually have CPU chips that Apple may want. It could take a few years, but I believe they are coming.

The transition to Intel is different from the 68K to PPC transition. Back then it was a certainty that Motorola would stop 68K development, and there was no reason to keep the door open for moving back. By contrast, the PPC is alive and well and we may get some surprises down the road.

You sond like you actually believe what you have written. That is a shame as PPC basically keeled over and died with Apples annnouncement.

Sure IBM will develope a few more chips but who is buying them, especially 970 derivatives? No one of significants and the few that do are ery likely chaning gears as we speak to avoid suffering along with the decline of PPC and IBM's 970.

IBM is sure to have interesting chips in the near future for large customers but it does look like they have given up on the idea of producing chips salable as general purpose processors. Instead they appear to be focused on customers big enough to buy custom hardware. Frankly this is a business model that won't pull PPC through for the long term.

IBM and PPC are dead it is only a question of how far to bury them and which side should face down.

Dave

Forget the Cell. There's one guy on these forums who thinks the Cell would be a good and easy transformation. But as it is now, that's not true at all. Two or three generations down the line, who knows?. But two or three generations could be ten years. If the Cell concept really does seem to be good for general purpose computing, Intel might have something as well that won't be as disruptive. They have learned from Itanium, I'm sure.

IBM dogged themselves.

They thought Apple could go nowhere else, so they treated our beloved company like the proverbial "red-headed step-child".

They put Apple on hold so that they could lure the game console companies which actually will do wonders for IBM in the short run.

However, they are now in a quandary. IBM has a lot invested in PPC and the Power server chips the 970 series is derived from. Without Apple, IBM will still develop Power chips, but the market is significantly smaller.

The amazingly stupid thing is that IBM was leaving Apple in the dust to lure bigger companies like Microsoft. The reason why this is stupid is the fact that Microsoft is beginning to show some rot.

The old marketing spin is not working anymore as the world has wisened up. They want stuff that just works wihtout paying an arm and leg to make it work and then to pay a guy to fix it when its broken and then to update every day and then to buy 7 software programs to stop it from breaking!

<Whew!>

Hence the rise of Apple. They have always provided this. Now,thanks to Apples iPod, people are taking notice and finding out that Apple really is what "Mac-Heads" claim. It just works. And it is cool to boot! Thus, AAPL market share begins skyrocket phase.

IBM pulled a bully move and got bullied worse in return.
Longhorn... oops I mean Vista is a hodgepodge junk heap. Even it's me too wannabe wow visuals look pretty sad.

I think the OS wars are over for a few years.

Apple will continue to gain marketshare and Windows machines will continue to be less than stellar. The Xbox 360 seems destined to fail, while the OS business seems destined to bow to OSX. The only thing MS MAY have going is Office. And then again, there is still no reason to upgrade from XP. Even Office 2003 for PC actually limits you in email capability. If someone sends you an email and you get offended, they can delete it from your computer with a built in Outlook feature! This is only with Office 2003 and later. Users of Office XP need not worry. Again, no reason to upgrade.

Why so much about Microsoft?

Because IBM truly wanted their business so much so that they co-designed an advanced custom processor while leaving Apples processors stagnant - without any hope for a notebook 970 that is worth anything.

Sure IBM developed the CEll with Sony, but that had been ongoing and did not interfere with Apple. And don't get me started on Sony. Sure their products sometimes have cool design, but reliability is very poor overall and they seem to have the same philosophy on hardware that MS does on software: "Just tack on more stuff".

In any case, IBM never would have dreamed Apple would dump them. They thought they had the upper hand. They thought Apple would never move to Intel. They thought Apple could not move due to the OS being PowerPC based. They thought Apple did not have the marketshare to have a voice.

They pulled a foolish maneuver and now they will pay and now we will get fast CPUs for our laptops.

The G5 is great, but any greatness gets leapfrogged if it stagnates.

As it is, I would prefer PPC over X86 ( and still out hope for high end Macs to use future Power 5 derived G6 CPUs, but not with the cost bloated code for 2 CPU families), but only if development were to get serious. As it is, IBM probably realizes they did a boo-boo. But corporate pride will keep them from going to Jobs with an apology and a strategy to make it right again.

buh-bye IBM.

holy crap you guys are still going on about this

mmm... i like redheads. of legal age, of course

It's the "Never Ending Story".

Hey; My cousin wrote the music for that!

no way...! what's his name? i will check imdb.com to verify....
the neeveer endding stooooryy..... wooooo

one of my childhood favourites. the bigass flying dog will probably freak me out nowadays though.

Klaus Doldinger. But he's only a third something on my wifes side.

I have more interesting (and much closer) relatives in the music business though.

Herb Alpert is a second cousin on my mothers side, and Barry Mann is a first cousin on my mothers side.

They have a site:

http://www.mann-weil.com/scrapbook.html

Check the biographies as well as the hits. For some reason a lot of stuff is just in there.

Some of us are in denial. Seriously though, if there is some truth to what you say, it would be a good discussion in itself. How much did Apple's departure hurt the PPC? Was it the death knell or just a major setback? Or even a wake-up call? We may not know for several years. You may be dead on, no pun intended. The advantages of Intel may be just too overwhelming for anyone to consider the PPC for a general purpose computing device.

Gezebezeus! H- for Holly- Christmas! I wish this thread would stop comming up to top, and people could think of something better to talk about. This freaking thread is a dead issue. \

yes, let us now move on to discussing the relative merits of....
MIGHTY MOUSE...!!

http://www.apple.com/mightymouse/

Here to save the DAAAAYyyyyyyy....!

Keep your day job, and get out of the shower.

What's that? First time to read or hear it. Not gee, not Jesus, not Zebedeus .

Worth to celebrate?
Apple will face an expensive transition,
shrinking down to an ordinary PC since Intel won't optimize their CPUs only for MacOX,
risking behind the AMD machines and fighting a tough war with Microsoft.
Ingenious of any can mend the Apple-IBM-Motorola?

You have it backwards. Apple doesn't need to have the chips optimized. The dev kits already show that the current chip works fine. Even better in some areas. The new lines of much better chips will only work better as well.

Screw AMD. They are getting a lot of press in the hobby forums, but the performance difference isn't that big. Do you seriously think that it will last? Amd is on a roll now as Intel put the ball down. But don't count on it for the long haul. AMD can go back to the old days and fail to deliver. That's been most of their history. This could be an abberation.

There's no evidence that the "war" with MS will be any hotter with Macintel then it is now. It could be just the opposite. If Apple continues to pick up marketshare with the PPC machines, MS loses. If Apple picks up marketshare with x86, and can run XP and Vista at full speed, MS might see more Macs being sold, but more of them might also be running MS OSes. Plus, Office sales won't suffer.

Being behind to AMD will only really matter if AMD gets closer to Intel in market share. Right now AMD clearly has better desktop CPUs, but their lack of ability to supply (due to FAB space) keeps them from scoring more OEM deals. Since most OEMs use Intel for the majority of their systems, Apple will remain competitive with the mainstream. AMD won't take that much market share overnight, so Apple would have plenty of time to adopt AMD should the need arise. Since AMD makes x86 processors, too, it wouldn't make a huge disturbance in Apple's software platform. Any changes would likely be at the OS level, and they wouldn't be huge changes either, more like optimizations.

Apple wasn't wrong to chose Intel. It's the best business choice, since Intel all but controls the market and its trends. Apple doesn't need to consider switching to AMD until AMD proves itself over the long run. I think Ruiz is a smart guy, so we may one day see AMplles.

What was the name that kid Sebastian gave to the princess? That happened to
be on a couple of weeks ago & I caught that part where he screams the name
out the window. Even with Tivo, I can't make out what that kid said.

You would have to ask Sunilraman. I haven't seen it for years.

Why don't we have these chips in Powermacs yet, Apple?

Which chips?

What make my PowerMacs gun down the Intels by 4 to 10 times faster on Photoshop? Namely, compare the things that the PCs don't want, the real sell-buy point, as what Apple said. Because simply Apple is one of the boss of PPC, IBM and Freescale must do something Apple wants, and the trouble in between is simply a dog-fighting.
There will be a completely different story when Apple follow the millions to put the 'Intel inside' banner on the forehead and labor in Intel's camp -- You must follow their discipline: CPU (must), chip-set (better), MB (best), in order to edge the top-of-line PCs.
But you still can't equal the top-of-line PCs in terms of performance as long as you are running MacOX. The reason is straightforward: Bill Gate is the great boss who commands Intel as well, Intel must do what he wants -- as a smart guy had figured out when A-I-M made the first PPC.
And ...... and ...... and our poor Apple just can make the case for the MacTel?!

Introducing chips doesn't mean that they are actually ready.

There is NO Powermac that will "gun down the Intels by 4 to 10 times faster on Photoshop" Period.

I don't know why you are bothering to make up those numbers, but these days it's pretty much a draw.

Back in 1999 the Powermacs were about 40% faster than x86's on integer and about twice on floats more with Altivec. but that slowly disappeared as Moto failed to keep up with Intels blazing advances. The G5, at first caught up, but then failed to advance. So here we are today.

As far as the rest of your post goes; I don't know what you are talking about.

I'd like to know that too. Last time I watched it I got the impression he said "Katherine", but I think it's purposely obscured. It's supposed to be his (recently deceased) mother's name, IIRC.

And melgross, that music is great.

Thanks. I'll relay that to him during the holidays.

It's "Moonchild," iirc. I forget what it's significance is...been so long...

Because the kid was a really big Cat Stevens fan...?!?

No, that was Moonshadow...

Nothing to see here, move along...

I think you just answered what you asked at the last.
As long as you are smart in organizing your force to strike back, you still have the chance to catch up and overtake.
However, MacTels will never equal or outerperform top-of-line PCs for a single reason: Bill Gates is Intel's Boss full stop.

That's one of the least intelligent analyses I have ever seen. All sideways ass extraction and no meat. Have your opinion, don't be surprised that most don't agree.

That's nonsense. More companies are going to Linux, more companies are going to OS X. Intel wants to get out from the "WINTEL" straightjacket as much as anyone.

One of the reasons given as to why Intel was courting Apple for 20 years was to be able to do just that. The idea that Apple would use advanced features that MS doesn't support is something that Intel is interested in. Intel has been trying to get companies away from the BIOS and to use their EFI, which is their equivilent to Open Firmware. They haven't had any success. It's thought that Apple will use it. Then others might follow.

Think about the possibilities. This will benefit Intel as well as Apple. Those who think that just because Apple is not the biggest customer they will have no advantage. But that might be upside down. Intel might be looking for other advantages from this other than sheer sales numbers.

++

Apple's first Mactel offerings are going to require ZERO backwards compatibility, I think we are going to see some hot stuff.

Sure, Apple will be using chip lines that aren't even out yet.

Intel could put features in that might benefit only Apple at first. The point being that if Apple gets a benefit, then customers might demand those features as well. If that happens, MS might be forced to support them as well.

Intel wins back control of its future. It hasn't been able to do this in the past because MS refused to support Intel's initiatives, and there was nowhere else for Intel to go. So now they go to Apple first, then Linux, and MS will follow behind.

The interesting part here is that they would be offering Apple the same chips that they are offering everyone else. This is what they said that they would be doing. So this would fit right into that statement truthfully. The fact that only Apple, at first, would be able to use those features is a different story. No one could say that Intel is building special chips for Apple at a higher, possibly unprofitable expense, as IBM was hinting, because ALL the chips in that line would have the features.

Of course, I'm not saying that it will happen, but from everything I've been reading about Intel's eagerness to get Apple, and why, it does make sense.

The 970FX dual-cores.


As somebody else pointed out, they aren't in mass production right now. But, as many opther people pointed out, neither were the dual 2.5s when they were announced.


Heck, even when they shipped.

Yep, this exactly why the Intel deal makes sense for Apple, they dont have any x86 backward compatibility issues (sure they have plenty of software ones, but not hardware) so they can use anything and everything that Intel can offer them (except maybe itanium ) I see Intel Apple hardware being significantly different to a standard PC in the details.

Well, I wait for a dual 3 gig and what do I get?

A dual 2.7.

...then Apple do the Intel switch which I always felt would and should happen for marketshare reasons.

Then we get dual core 2.5 chips announced. Disappointingly short of the 3 gig mark.

Intel are already driving the Pentium D into the mainstream.

It's far from the G4 debacle. But it is similar in that so much promise had gone unrealised. That seems to be the PPC: superior tech' without the will or muscle to make it succeed.

Never mind. PowerMacs have been out for five months now?

I wonder what the next update will bring?

Another almost 'non' update? Of the Mac Mini type?

I think I'm going to finally plump down for a tower of whatever they release next.

High end? Dual Dual Core 2.5?

Mid end? Dual Dual Core 2.0?

Low End? Dual Core 2.5?

...with PCI Express?

Given how abysmally PowerMacs perform at Open GL there barely any point putting in a decent card if Apple's GL implementation is so slack? Does anybody know when Open GL 2 will get off it's bacon and challenge Direct X?

I'd probably just get a low end tower to tide me over until an Intel G6 hits in 2007...

Eternally waiting for 'that' PowerMac.

Lemon Bon Bon

PS. Who said it? 'Hope Springs Eternal...'