Actually, their 3400 number is based off of an earlier Athlon chip, not an Intel one. I can't remember which one it is though.</strong><hr></blockquote>
It clearly isn't, since no they'd be basing the new PR number off a previous PR number, which is entirely ridiculous. And they wouldn't be basing it off a fictional chip anyway.
There's no linear scaling here. AMD's going from 2.25 GHz equaling 2800+ to probably the same 2.25 GHz equaling 3400+. They're obviously targeting Intel's high end P4 with that number. Of course we have no idea where the chips will actually be MHz-wise because the roadmap only lists the bogus PR rating, which is easily subject to having its curve recentered.
[quote]It is the Pentium 4 which will be at 3.4GHz. The Itanium will be at 1.something, as will the Hammer. The P4 gets this fast with a monstrously long pipeline. The MHz ratings on pentium 4s are illusory. It is very fast, no question -- yet a 3.06GHz Pentium 4 is NOT five times as fast as a Pentium 3 600MHz in doing ANYTHING.<hr></blockquote>
I wouldn't be so fast to say the 3 GHz P4 isn't 5x faster than a 600 MHz PIII in anything. For one thing, the P4 has SSE II, much more FSB and memory bandwidth, beefed up branch prediction, hyperthreading and other things to clearly make it more than 5x faster than a 600 MHz PIII in many tasks.
When the Athlon number rating came out AMD denied it was based on the pentium but based on the performance of the older althon (the thunderbird i think). Now they admit it is in relation to relative p4 performace (they are conservative however as a 2800+ will actually do as well or better than the 3.06 p4 on a lot of applications)
OK, we generally accept that the 970 is designed to really shine in multi-processor configurations, right? Given this, what single number gives the best indication of system performance, notwithstanding the obvious limitations of any single number?
a. MHz
b. SPEC (Int or FP)
c. Bus speed
I say c.
If I'm on the right track here, we have about 900 reasons to be cheerful about what's coming our way later this year....
<strong>OK, we generally accept that the 970 is designed to really shine in multi-processor configurations, right? Given this, what single number gives the best indication of system performance, notwithstanding the obvious limitations of any single number?
a. MHz
b. SPEC (Int or FP)
c. Bus speed
I say c.
If I'm on the right track here, we have about 900 reasons to be cheerful about what's coming our way later this year....
</strong><hr></blockquote>
You can't express performance in a single number unless you define what your task is. Are you running Photoshop? Maya? Web browsing? Mail? Apache? Databases? Scientific processing? Games? If you don't specify a task then you may as well just use SPEC... even then its 2 numbers.
<strong>When the Athlon number rating came out AMD denied it was based on the pentium but based on the performance of the older althon (the thunderbird i think). Now they admit it is in relation to relative p4 performace (they are conservative however as a 2800+ will actually do as well or better than the 3.06 p4 on a lot of applications)</strong><hr></blockquote>
Have you ever seen this mythical Athlon XP 2800+ though? It's just recently been listed at NewEgg for $395 (bare CPU.) It was launched months ago, but it didn't show up until about a week ago.
Dell doesn't sell any Athlons at all. Neither does Gateway anymore. Where are the Sony Athlon based desktops? Gone. HP doesn't even sell PCs using the 2700+, let alone the 2800+. Right now Intel has plenty of 3.06 GHz P4s at all the major OEMs while AMD is barely capable of trickling out 2166 MHz XP 2700+ chips.
And at these speeds, the AMD price advantage is non-existent too. The 2.8 GHz P4 *retail* package sells for $382, and it'll be just as fast as the Athlon XP 2800+ in a lot of those Tom's Hardware, Anandtech, HardOCP, SharkyExtreme, etc. benchmark centric reviews. The Intel price advantage goes all the way down to the P4 2.4B. I got my retail 2.4B for ~$190. The Athlon XP 2400+ (266 MHz FSB version) costs $197 at NewEgg. What's more? This P4 readily overclocks to 2.7 GHz at the bat of an eye. I didn't even have to up the core voltage or anything.
A few mentions of the 970's potential for PowerBook placement have been mentioned -- I've been very much out of the Apple rumor loop for the past six months (just sitting on G3s that work just fine right now) and missed the report about the 970 even being introduced (as of August I thought the Power4 might be the next thing for Apple).
Now I've refreshed quite a bit, but the details of the 970 still are vague to me --- would it be able to be placed in a PowerBook enclosure ----quite possibly the new aluminum design? From what I've read, it seems so, and even further a dual-proc. laptop could happen. Any clarifications are greatly appreciated!
According to the intel roadmap the P4 will be at 3.4GHz by the end of the year but this will also be with a 800MHz FSB (200MHz QDR).
I don't believe AMD will have the 4000+ Athlon64 by the end of the year; I mean they can call it anything they want but their rating scheme is becoming questionable (BTW: the ratings are meant to be linked with the Thunderbird version of the Athlon). It may perform up to it's rating in 64bit apps but they won't be common for a few years to come.
Have you ever seen this mythical Athlon XP 2800+ though? It's just recently been listed at NewEgg for $395 (bare CPU.) It was launched months ago, but it didn't show up until about a week ago.
Dell doesn't sell any Athlons at all. Neither does Gateway anymore. Where are the Sony Athlon based desktops? Gone. HP doesn't even sell PCs using the 2700+, let alone the 2800+. Right now Intel has plenty of 3.06 GHz P4s at all the major OEMs while AMD is barely capable of trickling out 2166 MHz XP 2700+ chips.
And at these speeds, the AMD price advantage is non-existent too. The 2.8 GHz P4 *retail* package sells for $382, and it'll be just as fast as the Athlon XP 2800+ in a lot of those Tom's Hardware, Anandtech, HardOCP, SharkyExtreme, etc. benchmark centric reviews. The Intel price advantage goes all the way down to the P4 2.4B. I got my retail 2.4B for ~$190. The Athlon XP 2400+ (266 MHz FSB version) costs $197 at NewEgg. What's more? This P4 readily overclocks to 2.7 GHz at the bat of an eye. I didn't even have to up the core voltage or anything.</strong><hr></blockquote>
This is definitely true (I wonder why AMD lost so much money and had to lay off all those people last year) this is also the reason they will release the "Hammer" quicker than they originally planned. Barton will come next month with 512 L2 cache and the 333 fsb. This of course will in turn require Intel to release chips quicker. I personally do not believe the p4 will be at 3.4 by the end of the year, but actually much higher. The only way it might be true is if the next proc. they have set to release mid year which could possibly become the p5 becomes the high performance and the p4 is deligated to the celerons place at the low end and is only scaled to 3.4. I think its unlikely however and 4 ghz is not going to be out of the picture by years end for intel.
I thought this was interesting too....
AMD, IBM team up for new chip technologies
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and IBM on January 8 announced cooperation to develop new processing technologies for future high-performance products. According to the two chipmakers, the new project includes collaboration on 65 and 45nm technologies to be implemented on 12-inch wafers.
<strong>I personally do not believe the p4 will be at 3.4 by the end of the year, but actually much higher. (snip) I think its unlikely however and 4 ghz is not going to be out of the picture by years end for intel.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I am not sure about that, there is only so much you can push a CPU without having to use an air condition to cool it. I don't think in 2003 Intel can push the clock rate to 4 GHz without reaching idiotic power consumption and needing a really good cooling solution for the chip. Surely they could deepen their pipeline a bit more but it's questionable whether such an "advance" is feasable at all (except for retaining the "fastest CPU on the block" title).
Is there any doubt that Intel has the best fabs in the world? They pushed Al further than anyone thought they could (I'm not up to speed, but are they still pushing it?) and process sizes too. They met .18, .13, and will have .09u ready, they're even talking about .065u !!! They seem to be able to find a way to "just make the design work" regardless of what they have to do. It's pretty amazing to watch from the layman's perspective. Kinda like we need an Intel to balance out the disturbance in the force caused by Motorola, Moore's Law is balanced out and the universe is saved from sudden devastating implosion, or something, iDunno, bye.
[quote]I am not sure about that, there is only so much you can push a CPU without having to use an air condition to cool it. I don't think in 2003 Intel can push the clock rate to 4 GHz without reaching idiotic power consumption and needing a really good cooling solution for the chip. Surely they could deepen their pipeline a bit more but it's questionable whether such an "advance" is feasable at all (except for retaining the "fastest CPU on the block" title).<hr></blockquote>Intel is now targeting power consumption. First step the Banias series, though running at lower speeds. Look for Intel to cut back on speed bumps, and to use fab expertise to improve power consumption and look at dual-cores and other goodies. Like Matsu said, Intel cannot be beat from a fab standpoint, and as Moto has shown you can design great chips, but if you can't make them...
It's 19W @ 1.2 GHz from memory. Can't recall the voltage but <1.3V. That's below current G4 offerings. It's a great PowerBook option.</strong><hr></blockquote>
... ahhh, thus the "Year of the Notebook" has two senses:
1 - PowerMacs at the moment are barely tredding water compared PowerBooks, so let's keep the spotlight on our strengths until the 970 can remedy this.
2 - However, even when the 970 remedy comes out, saving PowerMac's from total sillyhood compared to 3.6 GHz PIV's ... it will make PowerBooks more attractive, than even desktop PIV's for power users ... thus "The Year of the PowerBook".
Are not all the benchmarks for the G4's missleading, in that if only they had a much faster FSB their performance in relation to their mhz would be much more interesting. What I am trying to say is simply that the G4 is more powerfull then it can express because of the bottleneck.
When either the 970 or the MPC7457-rm arrives we could see truly amazing performance improvements. The prospect of the 970 arriving is so exciting as we will finally have a chip that has a real future and we already know that a 980 ius planned. This chip has a real roadmap in front of it and should put Apple back at the top of the desktop performance league......
....But I don't expect it will help them grow their market share, I think Apple have already lost that battle. Call me a defeatist if you like, and I hope that I am wrong, I just think things have gone too far and there are just too many apps around that are Windows only. I have an online banking application, but there are only Windows versions, etc.
Intel may not reach 4 GHz this year, but that doesn't mean that they won't continue to push their performance. There have been comments from Intel here and there over the last year regarding the problem of changing customer perceptioin that MHz is everything. This immediately applies to their IA-64 designs, but will soon apply to their new x86 designs as well -- the clock rates will be the same or lower but performance will be improved. How do you get somebody to upgrade from a 3 GHz Intel Pentium4 to a 3 GHz Intel Pentium5 when everybody has been stressing the importance of MHz/GHz? Suddenly Intel will have to fight the same battle that Apple and AMD have been fighting for some time now. Intel will be talking about the "MHz Myth". How ironic is that?!
<strong>....But I don't expect it will help them grow their market share, I think Apple have already lost that battle. Call me a defeatist if you like, and I hope that I am wrong, I just think things have gone too far and there are just too many apps around that are Windows only. I have an online banking application, but there are only Windows versions, etc.</strong><hr></blockquote>
No doubt it can be attributed to statistical noise, but market share numbers for the last year (or was it quarter?) were just published and Apple climbed from 2.9% to 3% and that was in a market that grew by 4% overall.
Apple has been in this situation for about 20 years now, but they continue to survive. The early - mid 90's were very damaging but since then their leadership has improved. Now the market has changed, and so have the competitors. It is not clear what is going to sell machines going forward, but it probably is not having the latest fastest processor.
[EDIT: woops, I said 3.9->4 when its actually 2.9->3]
[quote]When either the 970 or the MPC7457-rm arrives we could see truly amazing performance improvements. The prospect of the 970 arriving is so exciting as we will finally have a chip that has a real future and we already know that a 980 ius planned. This chip has a real roadmap in front of it and should put Apple back at the top of the desktop performance league......
....But I don't expect it will help them grow their market share, I think Apple have already lost that battle. Call me a defeatist if you like, and I hope that I am wrong, I just think things have gone too far and there are just too many apps around that are Windows only. I have an online banking application, but there are only Windows versions, etc.
<hr></blockquote>
I don't like the current G4 debacle in desktops. (Though, moving on to late 2003/early 2004, it looks okay with the subsequent G4 RM chips if applied to the imac2s and laptops...)
However, the 970 looks like it will arrest the decline of the 'power'Mac sales and put the 'sales engine' of Apple back on the map.
Apple will be less worried about round 2 in the CPU wars. As PPC and x86 move to 64 bit, Apple is well placed to answer the mhz critics as Intel and AMD owners wonder why their 64 bit chips aren't breaking 4 gighz! Intel will have a lot of explaining to do re: Itanic vs Pen' 4 and AMD Sledgehammer looks like it's mhz won't be as high as the current Athlon... x86 identity crisis pending... It may force everybody to get away from mhz as a benchmark and look at the 'real story'. The motherboard, the throughput, the ram, the harddrive. And when you get Sledgehammers and 970s walking the Earth...more and more, users may decide they're going to look harder at what OS they run that kind of speed on. Apple is well prepared here to evangelise the 'X' gospel.
I've been waiting years for something like this. As soon as they say: '970 shipping in...' I'm getting out the chequebook for a dual model.
The point is, the 970 should at least be able to hold its own in single cpu formation. But, if Apple or IBM run into a mini-delay...then there's dual and quad and...even more options with a chip like the 970. It's a huge leap forward for the Mac platform. And it's such a good Spec performer, I'm simply dying to see it dish out real world Photoshop and Lightwave performance. It's surely gonna kick arse (scuze me french, missus...) with that extra fpu in there.
Will it help them grow market share? Possibly. They went up from 2.9 to 3 % on December's sales I read somewhere. If they can do that with a stagnant 'power'Mac line...it only augers well for the future as the 970 hits the 'power'Macs and the G4 finally comes round the mountain with a decent RM revision. That will be quite nice in the iMac2 (that and with 19 inch screen? I'd buy...)
Got to remember the Switch campaign is working. And they've barely got started. They'll have a whole 2003 with at least 50 stores...and probably marching onto 100 over the next year or so. At the current rate of traffic in the stores...that's bound to have some kind of effect. Especially if they can trim prices (now that they have a more effective distribution model to get more sales/incentivise...)
I moan about the G4 situation.
However, if the economy picks up late 2003 early 2004, Apple is well placed to have a real shot at growth as the cpu ghost is finally laid to rest. The mhz perception may persist with the 970 but Apple will finally be able to counter 'the myth' with hard performance numbers...in spec and outsite spec. And the RM G4 should thump any Celeron wannabe.
Further more, the iPod demonstrates that Apple has the ability to produce a killer product for a beyond the box market whether PC or Mac. AND get it out there for under a £300 inc VAT. That's important. I'm not sure the iPod is the killer device to lead Apple to true mass market acceptance. Yet...I can't help but feel that 'killer product'...is just around the corner. Sooner or later...
<strong> How do you get somebody to upgrade from a 3 GHz Intel Pentium4 to a 3 GHz Intel Pentium5 when everybody has been stressing the importance of MHz/GHz? Suddenly Intel will have to fight the same battle that Apple and AMD have been fighting for some time now. Intel will be talking about the "MHz Myth". How ironic is that?!</strong><hr></blockquote>
Simple, you pull the same stunt as AMD and you call it the Intel Pentium 5 Ultra 6800++ SE.
Comments
<strong>
Actually, their 3400 number is based off of an earlier Athlon chip, not an Intel one. I can't remember which one it is though.</strong><hr></blockquote>
It clearly isn't, since no they'd be basing the new PR number off a previous PR number, which is entirely ridiculous. And they wouldn't be basing it off a fictional chip anyway.
There's no linear scaling here. AMD's going from 2.25 GHz equaling 2800+ to probably the same 2.25 GHz equaling 3400+. They're obviously targeting Intel's high end P4 with that number. Of course we have no idea where the chips will actually be MHz-wise because the roadmap only lists the bogus PR rating, which is easily subject to having its curve recentered.
[quote]It is the Pentium 4 which will be at 3.4GHz. The Itanium will be at 1.something, as will the Hammer. The P4 gets this fast with a monstrously long pipeline. The MHz ratings on pentium 4s are illusory. It is very fast, no question -- yet a 3.06GHz Pentium 4 is NOT five times as fast as a Pentium 3 600MHz in doing ANYTHING.<hr></blockquote>
I wouldn't be so fast to say the 3 GHz P4 isn't 5x faster than a 600 MHz PIII in anything. For one thing, the P4 has SSE II, much more FSB and memory bandwidth, beefed up branch prediction, hyperthreading and other things to clearly make it more than 5x faster than a 600 MHz PIII in many tasks.
[ 01-18-2003: Message edited by: Eugene ]</p>
a. MHz
b. SPEC (Int or FP)
c. Bus speed
I say c.
If I'm on the right track here, we have about 900 reasons to be cheerful about what's coming our way later this year....
<strong>OK, we generally accept that the 970 is designed to really shine in multi-processor configurations, right? Given this, what single number gives the best indication of system performance, notwithstanding the obvious limitations of any single number?
a. MHz
b. SPEC (Int or FP)
c. Bus speed
I say c.
If I'm on the right track here, we have about 900 reasons to be cheerful about what's coming our way later this year....
You can't express performance in a single number unless you define what your task is. Are you running Photoshop? Maya? Web browsing? Mail? Apache? Databases? Scientific processing? Games? If you don't specify a task then you may as well just use SPEC... even then its 2 numbers.
<strong>When the Athlon number rating came out AMD denied it was based on the pentium but based on the performance of the older althon (the thunderbird i think). Now they admit it is in relation to relative p4 performace (they are conservative however as a 2800+ will actually do as well or better than the 3.06 p4 on a lot of applications)</strong><hr></blockquote>
Have you ever seen this mythical Athlon XP 2800+ though? It's just recently been listed at NewEgg for $395 (bare CPU.) It was launched months ago, but it didn't show up until about a week ago.
Dell doesn't sell any Athlons at all. Neither does Gateway anymore. Where are the Sony Athlon based desktops? Gone. HP doesn't even sell PCs using the 2700+, let alone the 2800+. Right now Intel has plenty of 3.06 GHz P4s at all the major OEMs while AMD is barely capable of trickling out 2166 MHz XP 2700+ chips.
And at these speeds, the AMD price advantage is non-existent too. The 2.8 GHz P4 *retail* package sells for $382, and it'll be just as fast as the Athlon XP 2800+ in a lot of those Tom's Hardware, Anandtech, HardOCP, SharkyExtreme, etc. benchmark centric reviews. The Intel price advantage goes all the way down to the P4 2.4B. I got my retail 2.4B for ~$190. The Athlon XP 2400+ (266 MHz FSB version) costs $197 at NewEgg. What's more? This P4 readily overclocks to 2.7 GHz at the bat of an eye. I didn't even have to up the core voltage or anything.
Now I've refreshed quite a bit, but the details of the 970 still are vague to me --- would it be able to be placed in a PowerBook enclosure ----quite possibly the new aluminum design? From what I've read, it seems so, and even further a dual-proc. laptop could happen. Any clarifications are greatly appreciated!
I don't believe AMD will have the 4000+ Athlon64 by the end of the year; I mean they can call it anything they want but their rating scheme is becoming questionable (BTW: the ratings are meant to be linked with the Thunderbird version of the Athlon). It may perform up to it's rating in 64bit apps but they won't be common for a few years to come.
I think Q1 2004 is more likely.
This is simply due to the fact that building a notebook is more tricky and a desktop/tower.
The desktops/towers will see the 970 somewhere in oktober/november.
<strong>
Have you ever seen this mythical Athlon XP 2800+ though? It's just recently been listed at NewEgg for $395 (bare CPU.) It was launched months ago, but it didn't show up until about a week ago.
Dell doesn't sell any Athlons at all. Neither does Gateway anymore. Where are the Sony Athlon based desktops? Gone. HP doesn't even sell PCs using the 2700+, let alone the 2800+. Right now Intel has plenty of 3.06 GHz P4s at all the major OEMs while AMD is barely capable of trickling out 2166 MHz XP 2700+ chips.
And at these speeds, the AMD price advantage is non-existent too. The 2.8 GHz P4 *retail* package sells for $382, and it'll be just as fast as the Athlon XP 2800+ in a lot of those Tom's Hardware, Anandtech, HardOCP, SharkyExtreme, etc. benchmark centric reviews. The Intel price advantage goes all the way down to the P4 2.4B. I got my retail 2.4B for ~$190. The Athlon XP 2400+ (266 MHz FSB version) costs $197 at NewEgg. What's more? This P4 readily overclocks to 2.7 GHz at the bat of an eye. I didn't even have to up the core voltage or anything.</strong><hr></blockquote>
This is definitely true (I wonder why AMD lost so much money and had to lay off all those people last year) this is also the reason they will release the "Hammer" quicker than they originally planned. Barton will come next month with 512 L2 cache and the 333 fsb. This of course will in turn require Intel to release chips quicker. I personally do not believe the p4 will be at 3.4 by the end of the year, but actually much higher. The only way it might be true is if the next proc. they have set to release mid year which could possibly become the p5 becomes the high performance and the p4 is deligated to the celerons place at the low end and is only scaled to 3.4. I think its unlikely however and 4 ghz is not going to be out of the picture by years end for intel.
I thought this was interesting too....
AMD, IBM team up for new chip technologies
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and IBM on January 8 announced cooperation to develop new processing technologies for future high-performance products. According to the two chipmakers, the new project includes collaboration on 65 and 45nm technologies to be implemented on 12-inch wafers.
More here at DigiTimes
<strong>I personally do not believe the p4 will be at 3.4 by the end of the year, but actually much higher. (snip) I think its unlikely however and 4 ghz is not going to be out of the picture by years end for intel.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I am not sure about that, there is only so much you can push a CPU without having to use an air condition to cool it. I don't think in 2003 Intel can push the clock rate to 4 GHz without reaching idiotic power consumption and needing a really good cooling solution for the chip. Surely they could deepen their pipeline a bit more but it's questionable whether such an "advance" is feasable at all (except for retaining the "fastest CPU on the block" title).
[ 01-19-2003: Message edited by: cowerd ]</p>
<strong>
It's 19W @ 1.2 GHz from memory. Can't recall the voltage but <1.3V. That's below current G4 offerings. It's a great PowerBook option.</strong><hr></blockquote>
... ahhh, thus the "Year of the Notebook" has two senses:
1 - PowerMacs at the moment are barely tredding water compared PowerBooks, so let's keep the spotlight on our strengths until the 970 can remedy this.
2 - However, even when the 970 remedy comes out, saving PowerMac's from total sillyhood compared to 3.6 GHz PIV's ... it will make PowerBooks more attractive, than even desktop PIV's for power users ... thus "The Year of the PowerBook".
</speculation>
When either the 970 or the MPC7457-rm arrives we could see truly amazing performance improvements. The prospect of the 970 arriving is so exciting as we will finally have a chip that has a real future and we already know that a 980 ius planned. This chip has a real roadmap in front of it and should put Apple back at the top of the desktop performance league......
....But I don't expect it will help them grow their market share, I think Apple have already lost that battle. Call me a defeatist if you like, and I hope that I am wrong, I just think things have gone too far and there are just too many apps around that are Windows only. I have an online banking application, but there are only Windows versions, etc.
<strong>Call me a defeatist if you like, and I hope that I am wrong,</strong><hr></blockquote>
You defeatist, you! Bug your bank, send hatemail, stuff their voicemail, complain on your local TV station! Do something!
But we have been brainwashed by Intel that its the other way around!
They would be doing a 180 against all previous marketing efforts.
[ 01-19-2003: Message edited by: msantti ]</p>
<strong>....But I don't expect it will help them grow their market share, I think Apple have already lost that battle. Call me a defeatist if you like, and I hope that I am wrong, I just think things have gone too far and there are just too many apps around that are Windows only. I have an online banking application, but there are only Windows versions, etc.</strong><hr></blockquote>
No doubt it can be attributed to statistical noise, but market share numbers for the last year (or was it quarter?) were just published and Apple climbed from 2.9% to 3% and that was in a market that grew by 4% overall.
Apple has been in this situation for about 20 years now, but they continue to survive. The early - mid 90's were very damaging but since then their leadership has improved. Now the market has changed, and so have the competitors. It is not clear what is going to sell machines going forward, but it probably is not having the latest fastest processor.
[EDIT: woops, I said 3.9->4 when its actually 2.9->3]
[ 01-19-2003: Message edited by: Programmer ]</p>
....But I don't expect it will help them grow their market share, I think Apple have already lost that battle. Call me a defeatist if you like, and I hope that I am wrong, I just think things have gone too far and there are just too many apps around that are Windows only. I have an online banking application, but there are only Windows versions, etc.
<hr></blockquote>
I don't like the current G4 debacle in desktops. (Though, moving on to late 2003/early 2004, it looks okay with the subsequent G4 RM chips if applied to the imac2s and laptops...)
However, the 970 looks like it will arrest the decline of the 'power'Mac sales and put the 'sales engine' of Apple back on the map.
Apple will be less worried about round 2 in the CPU wars. As PPC and x86 move to 64 bit, Apple is well placed to answer the mhz critics as Intel and AMD owners wonder why their 64 bit chips aren't breaking 4 gighz!
I've been waiting years for something like this. As soon as they say: '970 shipping in...' I'm getting out the chequebook for a dual model.
The point is, the 970 should at least be able to hold its own in single cpu formation. But, if Apple or IBM run into a mini-delay...then there's dual and quad and...even more options with a chip like the 970. It's a huge leap forward for the Mac platform. And it's such a good Spec performer, I'm simply dying to see it dish out real world Photoshop and Lightwave performance. It's surely gonna kick arse (scuze me french, missus...) with that extra fpu in there.
Will it help them grow market share? Possibly. They went up from 2.9 to 3 % on December's sales I read somewhere. If they can do that with a stagnant 'power'Mac line...it only augers well for the future as the 970 hits the 'power'Macs and the G4 finally comes round the mountain with a decent RM revision. That will be quite nice in the iMac2 (that and with 19 inch screen? I'd buy...)
Got to remember the Switch campaign is working. And they've barely got started. They'll have a whole 2003 with at least 50 stores...and probably marching onto 100 over the next year or so. At the current rate of traffic in the stores...that's bound to have some kind of effect. Especially if they can trim prices (now that they have a more effective distribution model to get more sales/incentivise...)
I moan about the G4 situation.
However, if the economy picks up late 2003 early 2004, Apple is well placed to have a real shot at growth as the cpu ghost is finally laid to rest. The mhz perception may persist with the 970 but Apple will finally be able to counter 'the myth' with hard performance numbers...in spec and outsite spec. And the RM G4 should thump any Celeron wannabe.
Further more, the iPod demonstrates that Apple has the ability to produce a killer product for a beyond the box market whether PC or Mac. AND get it out there for under a £300 inc VAT. That's important. I'm not sure the iPod is the killer device to lead Apple to true mass market acceptance. Yet...I can't help but feel that 'killer product'...is just around the corner. Sooner or later...
Lemon Bon Bon
[ 01-19-2003: Message edited by: Lemon Bon Bon ]
[ 01-19-2003: Message edited by: Lemon Bon Bon ]
[ 01-19-2003: Message edited by: Lemon Bon Bon ]
[ 01-19-2003: Message edited by: Lemon Bon Bon ]</p>
<strong> How do you get somebody to upgrade from a 3 GHz Intel Pentium4 to a 3 GHz Intel Pentium5 when everybody has been stressing the importance of MHz/GHz? Suddenly Intel will have to fight the same battle that Apple and AMD have been fighting for some time now. Intel will be talking about the "MHz Myth". How ironic is that?!</strong><hr></blockquote>
Simple, you pull the same stunt as AMD and you call it the Intel Pentium 5 Ultra 6800++ SE.