I think we actually may see third party cards, probably g5 only as the min requirement...although i doubt it'd be worth it considering you'd still be stuck with the same bus speeds and whatnot
The PCI bus would seriously limit system performance, and since Apple uses butt-slow PCI, my guess is it would be faster to do Intel emulation on the PPC CPU than to have a real Intel CPU in a PCI slot. But even PCI express would be too slow.
I forget when it was, but Apple previously sold an x86 PCI card that could run Windows. This would have been back when CPUs were much slower, and so a PCI bus could move enough data to make it worthwhile. Now that I think about it, I'm not sure Macs even used PCI back then, but it's the same idea.
My question is, why would you want to put an x86 CPU in your Mac? Apple will support PPC for a long while yet, so our PPC-based Macs will have long lifespans.
I would think that he means upgrade cards (or chips) for future upgrade of the new Intel computers, not a daughter card for the current G5 PowerMacs that would turn them into Intel-i-Macs.
The PCI is not really a problem, since only I/O goes over it. And I wouldn't call PCI-X "butt-slow". I think the big problem is getting enough power to the slot.
Sun has something like this; I wonder how well it works.
My take on the question was "will intel CPU upgrades be available for existing PPC Macs". Like take out your G4 chip and drop in a Pentium or whatnot.
I'd say no, but who knows what the upgrade vendors will come up with. I'd expect to see Intel CPU upgrades for Intel macs long before I saw Intel upgrades for PPC macs.
Putting an x86 chip on some sorta PCI card is another story, but don't expect stellar performance.
The PCI is not really a problem, since only I/O goes over it. And I wouldn't call PCI-X "butt-slow". I think the big problem is getting enough power to the slot.
A bigger problem is that Apple's G5 mobos are ultra-stank.
I read on barefeats that slots 2+3 share the same bus (IIRC).
Comments
Short answer.
NO.
I forget when it was, but Apple previously sold an x86 PCI card that could run Windows. This would have been back when CPUs were much slower, and so a PCI bus could move enough data to make it worthwhile. Now that I think about it, I'm not sure Macs even used PCI back then, but it's the same idea.
My question is, why would you want to put an x86 CPU in your Mac? Apple will support PPC for a long while yet, so our PPC-based Macs will have long lifespans.
Sun has something like this; I wonder how well it works.
http://www.sun.com/desktop/products/sunpcipro/
I'd say no, but who knows what the upgrade vendors will come up with. I'd expect to see Intel CPU upgrades for Intel macs long before I saw Intel upgrades for PPC macs.
Putting an x86 chip on some sorta PCI card is another story, but don't expect stellar performance.
Originally posted by wmf
The PCI is not really a problem, since only I/O goes over it. And I wouldn't call PCI-X "butt-slow". I think the big problem is getting enough power to the slot.
A bigger problem is that Apple's G5 mobos are ultra-stank.
I read on barefeats that slots 2+3 share the same bus (IIRC).
Originally posted by slughead
I read on barefeats that slots 2+3 share the same bus (IIRC).
As opposed to a typical desktop x86 machine that has no PCI-X at all and where all the slots share the same bus.