<strong>What do you think would the real cost savings be if Macs had AMD chips? For a $1200 machine you might get to $999, but for a $1700 machine, would $1500 make that big of a difference?</strong><hr></blockquote>
I don't think the price issue and the processor issue are related. Most of the "OS X on x86" wailing seems to come from two camps:
1) Mac users suffering from clock speed envy;
2) Tech weenies who wouldn't be caught dead using a machine they didn't put together themselves out of "open" hardware.
Group 1 will hopefully be satisfied pretty soon, maybe even by MWNY. Group 2 fails to understand that "build your own" and "Macintosh" simply do not go together. In any event, price has no bearing on the issue: Apple has a lot of software development to subsidize and would likely charge high margins on its machines no matter what chips it was stuffing into the boxes. (In fact, I think PPCs are actually cheaper than Pentiums on a part-for-part basis.)
2) Tech weenies who wouldn't be caught dead using a machine they didn't put together themselves out of "open" hardware.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Yeah, you raised a good point here. What exactly does OS X on Intel mean? Does it mean Apple mobo with Intel chipset? Or, does it mean OS X running on generic Intel / AMD mobos?
IMHO, Apple would certainly not allow OS X on generic Intel/AMD mobos. This would be akin to allowing clones again. This would put Apple into a serious financial tailspin like before, that it might not be able to recover from because Apple is already running lean and mean.
If anything, Intel/AMD chips on an Apple mobo is much more likely. This way, Apple stays in parity regarding the MHZ race, yet still remains the only vendor for the hardware side. I still believe this is an unlikely scenario, but if Apple were to go Intel, I believe this would be their only viable course. Likewise, it still wouldn't appeal to those that wished to "build their own system".
Comments
<strong>What do you think would the real cost savings be if Macs had AMD chips? For a $1200 machine you might get to $999, but for a $1700 machine, would $1500 make that big of a difference?</strong><hr></blockquote>
I don't think the price issue and the processor issue are related. Most of the "OS X on x86" wailing seems to come from two camps:
1) Mac users suffering from clock speed envy;
2) Tech weenies who wouldn't be caught dead using a machine they didn't put together themselves out of "open" hardware.
Group 1 will hopefully be satisfied pretty soon, maybe even by MWNY. Group 2 fails to understand that "build your own" and "Macintosh" simply do not go together. In any event, price has no bearing on the issue: Apple has a lot of software development to subsidize and would likely charge high margins on its machines no matter what chips it was stuffing into the boxes. (In fact, I think PPCs are actually cheaper than Pentiums on a part-for-part basis.)
<strong>
2) Tech weenies who wouldn't be caught dead using a machine they didn't put together themselves out of "open" hardware.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Yeah, you raised a good point here. What exactly does OS X on Intel mean? Does it mean Apple mobo with Intel chipset? Or, does it mean OS X running on generic Intel / AMD mobos?
IMHO, Apple would certainly not allow OS X on generic Intel/AMD mobos. This would be akin to allowing clones again. This would put Apple into a serious financial tailspin like before, that it might not be able to recover from because Apple is already running lean and mean.
If anything, Intel/AMD chips on an Apple mobo is much more likely. This way, Apple stays in parity regarding the MHZ race, yet still remains the only vendor for the hardware side. I still believe this is an unlikely scenario, but if Apple were to go Intel, I believe this would be their only viable course. Likewise, it still wouldn't appeal to those that wished to "build their own system".
Steve
[ 04-11-2002: Message edited by: gafferino ]</p>