The primary reason a Dell costs less than a Mac isn't component costs, it's profit margins. Dell sells high volumes at razor thin margins, and Apple of course deals with low volumes at margins that average ~30%. So if Apple is ever to lower their prices significantly, sales volume must expand.
Dell's price is based on hardware costs plus WinXP cost plus "razor thin" margin.
Apple's price is hardware costs plus ~30% margin.... OR put another way....
Apple's price is hardware costs plus OS development cost plus R&D plus "razor thin" margin.
It stuns me that people think OSX costs Apple nothing.
[B]Why do so many seem to assume that MacIntels will be lower in price than the current PPC fare?
I refuse to believe that Apple won't have negotiated a much lower price to use Intel's processors than their list price. They are a high profile company to have as a customer. I wonder if they got the price down to the price that Dell pays for processors?
Whatever a 1.4 with L3 is more CPU then a 1.6 but who gives a crap about motostink? they were left in Intel 's Dust years ago just as G5 is now. PPC is slow crap compared to Intel/AMD. It is why Apple is using 2 cpu's in their machines for years.
Oh boy. Lets bet, we will put 2 machines side to side, with top of the line memory , same graphics card, one runs 1800 mhz P4 (or Mobile!) one runs 1800 Mhz G5. Forget benchmarks, lets run a good coded game as Unreal (Carmack should fix mem.access method bug on Doom), lets act like joe sixpack, comparing FPS!
I was wondering for years why people bitch about "zealots" and "hopeless fanatics" in Apple world, I got my answer after this intel crap.
Mac OS X is Unix, it's got the power of Unix underneath (appealling to geeks and IT) and the Ease of Use of Apple.
I can't think of a way that migrating to x86 will not get MORE business for Apple, assuming that the prices come down accordingly. There are lots of people who want to use Mac OS X but refuse to pay Apple prices for hardware - the issue being that even though Apple prices have been slowly coming down, they aren't as low as the Intel prices for more powerful hardware. Whilst I expect the Apple hardware to be more expensive still, I don't expect it to be as high as it is now.
Also the risk is lower - if you don't like Mac OS X you can always install Windows.
Microsoft with generation 9 (10 when Mactel ships) frameworks like DirectX will use more of Intel than whatever OS X or unix deriative you ship your machine with.
Lets start telling the facts if we are all moving to Intel. BeOS V2 is all I say.
Dell's price is based on hardware costs plus WinXP cost plus "razor thin" margin.
Apple's price is hardware costs plus ~30% margin.... OR put another way....
Apple's price is hardware costs plus OS development cost plus R&D plus "razor thin" margin.
It stuns me that people think OSX costs Apple nothing.
Its costing nothing if you compare it to Windows XP from Redmond.
Those poor evil guys has to support every freaking chip taiwanese invents or copies with every kind of quality. They just package couple of chips with cheapest electronics available to a PCI case, code a amazing memory flooder driver (getting win32/64 SDK) knowing if it gets popular enough, Microsoft will take driver development from their hands.
You go and make a OEM PC at your own home, not even caring about what brand you put in, you plug XP CD and it installs. Next, you are just installing system updates, install directX, install any game of choice. It sounds normal as we are used to it.
If you think about it, that simple thing is result of BILLIONS of dollars millions of lines of code with thousands of tests.
Apple could ship a OS with broken modem driver (Microdash) which we STILL wait for updates (more than month?) to fix it. Its NOT possible for Microsoft to do it. They simply don't have those "fanatics" who forgot they are customer of a brand, being "more Steve Jobs" than the guy himself.
Apple has guts to tell "G5 sux" while still selling G5s, thanks to amazing ignorant, zealot so called community. I believe they spend too much, they should give Pentium 2 to such community, they will find a way to defend it.
Microsoft with generation 9 (10 when Mactel ships) frameworks like DirectX will use more of Intel than whatever OS X or unix deriative you ship your machine with.
Lets start telling the facts if we are all moving to Intel. BeOS V2 is all I say.
What are you talking about?
Windows XP is nasty, the only excuse to use it is if you want to play a PC game.
Mac OS X is so far ahead of Windows XP in many respect it is quite embarrassing. What this move will do is combine the market leading hardware with Mac OS X, which in my eyes is a win-win situation.
Dell's price is based on hardware costs plus WinXP cost plus "razor thin" margin.
Apple's price is hardware costs plus ~30% margin.... OR put another way....
Apple's price is hardware costs plus OS development cost plus R&D plus "razor thin" margin.
You're misreading my post. I agree with you, Apple needs to have fat profit margins to offset their R&D costs - that's the whole point!. What I'm saying is that because of Apple's need for high profit margins, MacIntels will not be appreciably cheaper than PPC-based Macs. Apple has to cover their R&D costs regardless of what chips are in their computers, because, as you pointed out, software makes up a large part of Apple's R&D budget.
You talk obviously about current laptops. If my memory does not tricks me, the last Powerbook that was CPU-upgradeable by the user (CPU on daughtercard) was the Pismo. And I don't remember of any problems like CPU popping up while moving the computer, though having difficulties to get the new CPU to work properly was not uncommon.
But yes, CPU on daughtercard means generally a more bulky and less reliable laptop.
Of course. The original poster was talking about using the 'drop in' replacement feature of the 7448 over the 7447A. It's only drop in if he can do SMT soldering.
I'd doubt very much a 7448 on a daughter card running a 200Mhz FSB would work at all never mind be reliable.
Just how well do you think Tiger will run on that Samsung notebook?
The point was that a 1280x768 12.1" screen would be nice to have, not that we we're running it on that Samsung. Personally I don't have a problem with a screen that small and that high a resolution. If you're eyesight isn't so hot, buy something else.
Those complaining about the anemic FSB, etc. of the 7448 don't seem to realize that the 8641 addresses those problems. However the 8641 requires a new motherboard and probably will come out about the same time as Intel's Yonah.
Also has a built in DDR2 memory controller, built in PCI Express IO, built in Gigabit ethernet, TCP/IP acceleration and runs at about 25W so potentially it's better than Yonah in some respects.
But, Freescale only quote speeds of > 1.5Ghz and mention it will scale above 2Ghz. And there was talk that the IO is more tailored to running it in a network switch or router than as a general purpose CPU.
Bearing in mind the current Pentium-M is hitting 2.13Ghz, Freescale need to get the clock speed up to compete. Yonah also has an interesting shared cache so running on 1 core it can use the cache from both and I'd bet on their power consumption being more battery friendly than Freescale's.
I suspect Apple has done the comparison already and worked out that going for a slower 8641(D) and having to redesign a whole motherboard rather than take the faster Intel chip and their 'platformization' would have just given a slower, more expensive laptop. And I presume Apple have seen roadmaps further ahead than 8641D and Yonah and know where the future lies.
Well first off I do understand that Apple won't be paying list. However don't expect them to get a deal far better than anyone else. The reality is that Intel has to be very careful with respect to anti trust issues. For a specifc volume I don't expect Apple to get a deal that is any better than any body else shiping that many units.
Dell being the big dog as far as shipments go is likely getting a very good deal. Probally the best deal Intel has to offer.
The reality is though that hardware price probally isn't even a concern. Apples pricing structure seems to be oriented to sqeezing maximum profit from middling hardware. Heck I would love to see a change with respect to that issue but frankly I don't think Apple wants anything less than the margins it has now. If anything the switch to Intel could result in higher priced hardware.
Thanks
Dave
Quote:
Originally posted by Hattig
I refuse to believe that Apple won't have negotiated a much lower price to use Intel's processors than their list price. They are a high profile company to have as a customer. I wonder if they got the price down to the price that Dell pays for processors?
If anything the switch to Intel could result in higher priced hardware.
somehow i doubt apple will break the 30+ year generic trend of declining computer prices and increasing power of the PC industry -- im not sure why this came up though...
While I'd like to think that sound reasoning was behind the move to Intel I just have this bad feeling that reason had nothing to do with it. I fully believe that no matter what Freescale came up with Apple had alread made the decison to stop doing business with them. Material attributed to Mr. Jobs indicate that he had no desire at all to continue any relationship with Freescale beyond what he was forced into.
IBM's stumbling with respect to functional PPC hardware was likely the cause of the switch. Even then though I have to think, from what we know know, that Jobs heart wasn't with PPC at all.
As to Freescales chips I do wonder how the recent seminar went. It would be nice to know where they stand performance wise. It is to bad that a vendor of low cost PPC hardware doesn't exist anymore. That is hardware for running user applications. As it is Freescale still has trouble with e600 in the sense that integer performance still sucks. So even if they hit 2.5GHz they would still have a hard time competeing with some codes.
Dave
Quote:
Originally posted by aegisdesign
I suspect Apple has done the comparison already and worked out that going for a slower 8641(D) and having to redesign a whole motherboard rather than take the faster Intel chip and their 'platformization' would have just given a slower, more expensive laptop. And I presume Apple have seen roadmaps further ahead than 8641D and Yonah and know where the future lies.
While I'd like to think that sound reasoning was behind the move to Intel I just have this bad feeling that reason had nothing to do with it. I fully believe that no matter what Freescale came up with Apple had alread made the decison to stop doing business with them. Material attributed to Mr. Jobs indicate that he had no desire at all to continue any relationship with Freescale beyond what he was forced into.
IBM's stumbling with respect to functional PPC hardware was likely the cause of the switch. Even then though I have to think, from what we know know, that Jobs heart wasn't with PPC at all.
As to Freescales chips I do wonder how the recent seminar went. It would be nice to know where they stand performance wise. It is to bad that a vendor of low cost PPC hardware doesn't exist anymore. That is hardware for running user applications. As it is Freescale still has trouble with e600 in the sense that integer performance still sucks. So even if they hit 2.5GHz they would still have a hard time competeing with some codes.
Dave
I'm surprised that this hasn't been thought of as a reason why the jump was made. Jobs, whether you care what he says or not, was quite specific when he said that the transition from PowerPC to Intel was driven by the future roadmap.
Now, to my mind, teh Steve wasn't talking about the PowerPC chips that are going to come out in the next 6 months...most likely to be e600 cores (7448 and 8641D?) from Freescale in laptops and Mini's and 970 MPs (Antares 970GX?) in desktops.
He was talking about what happens after this.
There has been no comment that I have seen regarding what IBM or Freescale were going to do after these processors. Freescale has a e700 on their site...some basic info (3Ghz, 64/32 bit) but no substance and a lot of history that says that these chips would be late and targeted at the embedded market. And at IBM, bugger all. Potential revision to the Power5 but thats it...
Thats where people's analysis should be...not on the near future but 2 years out. The movement to Intel is slightly more understandable in light of the chirping crickets and mangroves out there.
I'm waiting for this update. a 13" or 14" widescreen PB is my dream machine right now. 15" is just a tiny bit to bulky for my taste and the 12" screen just plain sucks! (no offense to the iBook users).
your right a widescreen pb 14 would be ideal for me and most, the 15 widescreen is bulky specially at meetings and tray tables. also i want thin and light with longer real life battery life. this is the year of laptops, most want them and the market shifted this year--more laptops sold than desktops.
compare a 14 widescreen to a standard 15 (it was done somewhere in the forums)
Good point. I never really heard much of anything for roadmaps from ibm in the first place, but i'm sure steve saw something missing from them... and intel had it.
Comments
Originally posted by Junkyard Dawg
The primary reason a Dell costs less than a Mac isn't component costs, it's profit margins. Dell sells high volumes at razor thin margins, and Apple of course deals with low volumes at margins that average ~30%. So if Apple is ever to lower their prices significantly, sales volume must expand.
Dell's price is based on hardware costs plus WinXP cost plus "razor thin" margin.
Apple's price is hardware costs plus ~30% margin.... OR put another way....
Apple's price is hardware costs plus OS development cost plus R&D plus "razor thin" margin.
It stuns me that people think OSX costs Apple nothing.
Originally posted by Junkyard Dawg
[B]Why do so many seem to assume that MacIntels will be lower in price than the current PPC fare?
I refuse to believe that Apple won't have negotiated a much lower price to use Intel's processors than their list price. They are a high profile company to have as a customer. I wonder if they got the price down to the price that Dell pays for processors?
Originally posted by Aurora
Whatever a 1.4 with L3 is more CPU then a 1.6 but who gives a crap about motostink? they were left in Intel 's Dust years ago just as G5 is now. PPC is slow crap compared to Intel/AMD. It is why Apple is using 2 cpu's in their machines for years.
Oh boy. Lets bet, we will put 2 machines side to side, with top of the line memory , same graphics card, one runs 1800 mhz P4 (or Mobile!) one runs 1800 Mhz G5. Forget benchmarks, lets run a good coded game as Unreal (Carmack should fix mem.access method bug on Doom), lets act like joe sixpack, comparing FPS!
I was wondering for years why people bitch about "zealots" and "hopeless fanatics" in Apple world, I got my answer after this intel crap.
Lets discuss this new PPC CPU and possibility of expansion card makers including it on new cards.
As apple is now another Intel based OEM PC vendor with custom locked OS, I am not very interested in Apple news anymore.
Originally posted by Hattig
Mac OS X is Unix, it's got the power of Unix underneath (appealling to geeks and IT) and the Ease of Use of Apple.
I can't think of a way that migrating to x86 will not get MORE business for Apple, assuming that the prices come down accordingly. There are lots of people who want to use Mac OS X but refuse to pay Apple prices for hardware - the issue being that even though Apple prices have been slowly coming down, they aren't as low as the Intel prices for more powerful hardware. Whilst I expect the Apple hardware to be more expensive still, I don't expect it to be as high as it is now.
Also the risk is lower - if you don't like Mac OS X you can always install Windows.
Microsoft with generation 9 (10 when Mactel ships) frameworks like DirectX will use more of Intel than whatever OS X or unix deriative you ship your machine with.
Lets start telling the facts if we are all moving to Intel. BeOS V2 is all I say.
Originally posted by GregAlexander
Dell's price is based on hardware costs plus WinXP cost plus "razor thin" margin.
Apple's price is hardware costs plus ~30% margin.... OR put another way....
Apple's price is hardware costs plus OS development cost plus R&D plus "razor thin" margin.
It stuns me that people think OSX costs Apple nothing.
Its costing nothing if you compare it to Windows XP from Redmond.
Those poor evil guys has to support every freaking chip taiwanese invents or copies with every kind of quality. They just package couple of chips with cheapest electronics available to a PCI case, code a amazing memory flooder driver (getting win32/64 SDK) knowing if it gets popular enough, Microsoft will take driver development from their hands.
You go and make a OEM PC at your own home, not even caring about what brand you put in, you plug XP CD and it installs. Next, you are just installing system updates, install directX, install any game of choice. It sounds normal as we are used to it.
If you think about it, that simple thing is result of BILLIONS of dollars millions of lines of code with thousands of tests.
Apple could ship a OS with broken modem driver (Microdash) which we STILL wait for updates (more than month?) to fix it. Its NOT possible for Microsoft to do it. They simply don't have those "fanatics" who forgot they are customer of a brand, being "more Steve Jobs" than the guy himself.
Apple has guts to tell "G5 sux" while still selling G5s, thanks to amazing ignorant, zealot so called community. I believe they spend too much, they should give Pentium 2 to such community, they will find a way to defend it.
Originally posted by Ilgaz
Microsoft with generation 9 (10 when Mactel ships) frameworks like DirectX will use more of Intel than whatever OS X or unix deriative you ship your machine with.
Lets start telling the facts if we are all moving to Intel. BeOS V2 is all I say.
What are you talking about?
Windows XP is nasty, the only excuse to use it is if you want to play a PC game.
Mac OS X is so far ahead of Windows XP in many respect it is quite embarrassing. What this move will do is combine the market leading hardware with Mac OS X, which in my eyes is a win-win situation.
Originally posted by GregAlexander
Apple's price is hardware costs plus ~30% margin.... OR put another way....
Apple's price is hardware costs plus OS development cost plus R&D plus "razor thin" margin.
People just ignore the difference between margin and gross margin.
Especially on this board
Originally posted by GregAlexander
Dell's price is based on hardware costs plus WinXP cost plus "razor thin" margin.
Apple's price is hardware costs plus ~30% margin.... OR put another way....
Apple's price is hardware costs plus OS development cost plus R&D plus "razor thin" margin.
You're misreading my post. I agree with you, Apple needs to have fat profit margins to offset their R&D costs - that's the whole point!. What I'm saying is that because of Apple's need for high profit margins, MacIntels will not be appreciably cheaper than PPC-based Macs. Apple has to cover their R&D costs regardless of what chips are in their computers, because, as you pointed out, software makes up a large part of Apple's R&D budget.
Originally posted by PB
You talk obviously about current laptops. If my memory does not tricks me, the last Powerbook that was CPU-upgradeable by the user (CPU on daughtercard) was the Pismo. And I don't remember of any problems like CPU popping up while moving the computer, though having difficulties to get the new CPU to work properly was not uncommon.
But yes, CPU on daughtercard means generally a more bulky and less reliable laptop.
Of course. The original poster was talking about using the 'drop in' replacement feature of the 7448 over the 7447A. It's only drop in if he can do SMT soldering.
I'd doubt very much a 7448 on a daughter card running a 200Mhz FSB would work at all never mind be reliable.
Originally posted by Hudson1
Just how well do you think Tiger will run on that Samsung notebook?
The point was that a 1280x768 12.1" screen would be nice to have, not that we we're running it on that Samsung. Personally I don't have a problem with a screen that small and that high a resolution. If you're eyesight isn't so hot, buy something else.
Originally posted by Maddan
Those complaining about the anemic FSB, etc. of the 7448 don't seem to realize that the 8641 addresses those problems. However the 8641 requires a new motherboard and probably will come out about the same time as Intel's Yonah.
Also has a built in DDR2 memory controller, built in PCI Express IO, built in Gigabit ethernet, TCP/IP acceleration and runs at about 25W so potentially it's better than Yonah in some respects.
But, Freescale only quote speeds of > 1.5Ghz and mention it will scale above 2Ghz. And there was talk that the IO is more tailored to running it in a network switch or router than as a general purpose CPU.
Bearing in mind the current Pentium-M is hitting 2.13Ghz, Freescale need to get the clock speed up to compete. Yonah also has an interesting shared cache so running on 1 core it can use the cache from both and I'd bet on their power consumption being more battery friendly than Freescale's.
I suspect Apple has done the comparison already and worked out that going for a slower 8641(D) and having to redesign a whole motherboard rather than take the faster Intel chip and their 'platformization' would have just given a slower, more expensive laptop. And I presume Apple have seen roadmaps further ahead than 8641D and Yonah and know where the future lies.
Dell being the big dog as far as shipments go is likely getting a very good deal. Probally the best deal Intel has to offer.
The reality is though that hardware price probally isn't even a concern. Apples pricing structure seems to be oriented to sqeezing maximum profit from middling hardware. Heck I would love to see a change with respect to that issue but frankly I don't think Apple wants anything less than the margins it has now. If anything the switch to Intel could result in higher priced hardware.
Thanks
Dave
Originally posted by Hattig
I refuse to believe that Apple won't have negotiated a much lower price to use Intel's processors than their list price. They are a high profile company to have as a customer. I wonder if they got the price down to the price that Dell pays for processors?
If anything the switch to Intel could result in higher priced hardware.
somehow i doubt apple will break the 30+ year generic trend of declining computer prices and increasing power of the PC industry -- im not sure why this came up though...
IBM's stumbling with respect to functional PPC hardware was likely the cause of the switch. Even then though I have to think, from what we know know, that Jobs heart wasn't with PPC at all.
As to Freescales chips I do wonder how the recent seminar went. It would be nice to know where they stand performance wise. It is to bad that a vendor of low cost PPC hardware doesn't exist anymore. That is hardware for running user applications. As it is Freescale still has trouble with e600 in the sense that integer performance still sucks. So even if they hit 2.5GHz they would still have a hard time competeing with some codes.
Dave
Originally posted by aegisdesign
I suspect Apple has done the comparison already and worked out that going for a slower 8641(D) and having to redesign a whole motherboard rather than take the faster Intel chip and their 'platformization' would have just given a slower, more expensive laptop. And I presume Apple have seen roadmaps further ahead than 8641D and Yonah and know where the future lies.
Originally posted by wizard69
While I'd like to think that sound reasoning was behind the move to Intel I just have this bad feeling that reason had nothing to do with it. I fully believe that no matter what Freescale came up with Apple had alread made the decison to stop doing business with them. Material attributed to Mr. Jobs indicate that he had no desire at all to continue any relationship with Freescale beyond what he was forced into.
IBM's stumbling with respect to functional PPC hardware was likely the cause of the switch. Even then though I have to think, from what we know know, that Jobs heart wasn't with PPC at all.
As to Freescales chips I do wonder how the recent seminar went. It would be nice to know where they stand performance wise. It is to bad that a vendor of low cost PPC hardware doesn't exist anymore. That is hardware for running user applications. As it is Freescale still has trouble with e600 in the sense that integer performance still sucks. So even if they hit 2.5GHz they would still have a hard time competeing with some codes.
Dave
I'm surprised that this hasn't been thought of as a reason why the jump was made. Jobs, whether you care what he says or not, was quite specific when he said that the transition from PowerPC to Intel was driven by the future roadmap.
Now, to my mind, teh Steve wasn't talking about the PowerPC chips that are going to come out in the next 6 months...most likely to be e600 cores (7448 and 8641D?) from Freescale in laptops and Mini's and 970 MPs (Antares 970GX?) in desktops.
He was talking about what happens after this.
There has been no comment that I have seen regarding what IBM or Freescale were going to do after these processors. Freescale has a e700 on their site...some basic info (3Ghz, 64/32 bit) but no substance and a lot of history that says that these chips would be late and targeted at the embedded market. And at IBM, bugger all. Potential revision to the Power5 but thats it...
Thats where people's analysis should be...not on the near future but 2 years out. The movement to Intel is slightly more understandable in light of the chirping crickets and mangroves out there.
Originally posted by MacTitan
I'm waiting for this update. a 13" or 14" widescreen PB is my dream machine right now. 15" is just a tiny bit to bulky for my taste and the 12" screen just plain sucks! (no offense to the iBook users).
your right a widescreen pb 14 would be ideal for me and most, the 15 widescreen is bulky specially at meetings and tray tables. also i want thin and light with longer real life battery life. this is the year of laptops, most want them and the market shifted this year--more laptops sold than desktops.
compare a 14 widescreen to a standard 15 (it was done somewhere in the forums)
Originally posted by a j stev
He was talking about what happens after this.
Good point. I never really heard much of anything for roadmaps from ibm in the first place, but i'm sure steve saw something missing from them... and intel had it.