<strong>If the 7500 rumor is right, and if it's what the Register says it will be, Apple have an answer to Hammer by sometime around Christmas. Close enough.
The fact that enthusiasts are worried whether their products will compete with a future AMD processor and not Intel gives me a warm fuzzy feeling inside. Thanks for making my day James. I'll have to put this on my cube wall.</strong><hr></blockquote>
No prob, Eskimo.
Intel might have stolen the Alpha, but AMD got its engineers.
If the 7500 rumor is right, and if it's what the Register says it will be, Apple have an answer to Hammer by sometime around Christmas. Close enough.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
Amorph,
This quote from the Register article
"the third addition to the G4 family, the 7500 - slated for volume production by this time next year"
which was posted by the Register on 11/02/2002 tells me we'll have to wait at least another year for it.
And that could mean that the powermacs to follow once the chip starts shipping could be announced at the next WWDC and then start to ship within a month from the announcement.
And I'm sure before that time comes, we'll start hearing about the next generation Hammer chip.
"the third addition to the G4 family, the 7500 - slated for volume production by this time next year"
which was posted by the Register on 11/02/2002 tells me we'll have to wait at least another year for it.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Thanks for that catch. I was going from my memory of the article, and I really should know better.
All I can say is that: Given that PPC is already designed to scale easily to 64-bit, nothing anywhere says that the 7500 will be the first G4 to go there. Nothing says that Mot won't produce a 32-bit chip that can keep up in all ways except the few that require 64 bit pointers and integers. Certainly, nothing is preventing Apple from going MP across its professional line. PPC chips are inexpensive (relatively speaking) and they do MP well. And the OS they'll be running does MP better than any of its competitors (although it admittedly hasn't been tested for large numbers of processors).
The Hammer looks to be a real threat, but I think Intel's sweating it a lot more than Mot or Apple is, considering Intel's storied, years-long failure to produce a viable 64 bit platform. If Apple produced a screaming 32 bit workstation I don't think too many people would mind - especially if it had good FP performance (including 64 bit FP).
This should be an interesting year. But I can't imagine that Apple isn't confident, given the acquisitions they've been making. They must know they've got something hot in the pipeline.
<strong> But I can't imagine that Apple isn't confident, given the acquisitions they've been making. They must know they've got something hot in the pipeline.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Exactly. I can't seem to understand how or why (barring OBSCENE arrogance from SJ- could he believe the marketing BS?) Apple would be acquiring firms that would lead one to believe they're REALLY going after the low-end-workstation market- it just wouldn't make sense, if there isn't some good piece of hardware coming that will run these apps at a competitive speed.
a mystery indeed. I can only hope that they deliver this time. I don't care if its a G4, G5, GYourMomma. If it's got good SPEC and hammers the competition (har har har) then, well, wow.
Apple doesn't need a new model of CPU so much as it needs a new board. The fact that the dual GHz machine is as fast as it is when both processors are sipping data from the same 133MHz SDR bus, running code compiled with the legendarily unoptimized gcc, is frankly incredible."
Yes, I guess 'we'll see'. I think I'm one of those 'Mac watchers' who are dying to see the G4/G5 'debacle' resolved one way or another. It's like when we were 'waiting' for the 'flat panel' iMac. It came almost year after we expected it.
The 'G5' wait is becoming more infamous. It seems that the G4, in its numerous guises is going to take us until well into next year...
The irony will be that the G4 will almost be a G5 by the time it ends its 'reign' as the 'Powermac'..?
"A faster mobo means the same processors go much faster, and it means Apple can use more processors per machine. And, of course, newer chips and compiler optimizations are coming. It's not so hard to add another FPU."
Well, an exta FPU would be nice! But I'd like to see a couple in there. I think the changes you, the Register etc are all talking about will do...for New York Macworld. Well, it'll be interesting to see the 'actual' performance when the DDR mobo arrives. But, having seen the PC DDR benchmarks over PC133...we could be in for a disappointment...
"If the 7500 rumor is right, and if it's what the Register says it will be, Apple have an answer to Hammer by sometime around Christmas. Close enough."
Well, it's not essential the 'G5'/G4 be 64 bit. It will have a 32 bit version by all accounts.
The 32 bit Playstation 'hammered' the '64 bit' Jaguar console. Performance, like you say is more important than 'showy' marketing numbers...
"Macs do not have to beat x86 machines in every imaginable area in order to be competitive."
Of course not. But hammer them in most for the kind of money we pay? I think so
"They use a different architecture, and different approaches, so they'll always be better for some things and worse for others. If all you need is a number cruncher, you'll always be able to build a stripped-down PC for much less than a Mac, because Apple has always emphasized the "whole widget" and high-level utility."
I can see what you're getting at. But I think the reason most of all...that Pro sales are suffering is that most people resent the idea of paying almost £3000 for kit that is clearly behind in performance for MOST tasks.
"So your budget-conscious render farm might be all Athlon even if Apple rolls out a G5 PowerMac tomorrow, but your primary workstation might just be a Mac."
Yeah. I could take paying the moolah if the G5 was Apple's middle top end now.
Yes, I guess 'we'll see'. I think I'm one of those 'Mac watchers' who are dying to see the G4/G5 'debacle' resolved one way or another. It's like when we were 'waiting' for the 'flat panel' iMac. It came almost year after we expected it.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Who's we? Nobody with an eye on flat panel prices expected one last year. I don't think anyone predicted a flat panel and a G4 and a SuperDrive, either.
[quote]<strong>The 'G5' wait is becoming more infamous. It seems that the G4, in its numerous guises is going to take us until well into next year...</strong><hr></blockquote>
Yeah, well, strange how long the wait can be for something that doesn't exist in any (publicly) documented form...
[quote]<strong>Well, an exta FPU would be nice! But I'd like to see a couple in there. I think the changes you, the Register etc are all talking about will do...for New York Macworld. Well, it'll be interesting to see the 'actual' performance when the DDR mobo arrives. But, having seen the PC DDR benchmarks over PC133...we could be in for a disappointment...</strong><hr></blockquote>
Apple appears to be using an unconventional motherboard architecture (for a personal computer), so I wouldn't expect a direct comparison to PC implemetations - especially not the early ones.
[quote]"Macs do not have to beat x86 machines in every imaginable area in order to be competitive."
<strong>Of course not. But hammer them in most for the kind of money we pay? I think so </strong><hr></blockquote>
Price a PC with all the features a PM comes with, including internal bandwidth and free PCI slots, and see how much you end up saving (granting the fact that you will almost certainly be saving something). Sure, you can get a hot CPU on a stripped-down board in a generic case for a song, but that's not a fair comparison.
[quote]<strong>I can see what you're getting at. But I think the reason most of all...that Pro sales are suffering is that most people resent the idea of paying almost £3000 for kit that is clearly behind in performance for MOST tasks.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Most people seem to assume that the current PowerMacs are stopgap models. For all we know, they are. As for "behind in most tasks," depends on the task, doesn't it? Again, if the system and application integration is better, and the system and application design is easier to use, that addresses the biggest performance bottleneck in most workstation applications: The user. Not RAM. Not the CPU. The user. There are a couple of well-documented exceptions (3D apps, games, etc) but by and large, and particularly in Apple's traditional markets, this remains true.
A friend of mine bought a dual GHz G4 with ACD (just before the $500 off mail-in rebate expired). He's claiming he's getting about a factor of 10 increase in speed over his Pismo G3 laptop (400). This is primarily with apps like Lightwave.
So how much faster does Apple need to go to remain "competitive?"
What's funny is to look at the other major RISC architectures- there's Sun's UltraSparc, currently at 900 MHz, and MIPS is about 600 MHz. Power4 is above 1.2 GHz, but that implements the PowerPC ISA.
So, benched against non-Intel and non-AMD CPUs strictly on a MHz basis, Moto isn't doing that badly. Where they fall down is in CPU to memory bandwidth, narrow busses, fewer functional units and the like.
Don't forget that further, the 7455 is built on a .18 micron process- the jump to .13 is just around the corner, and should bring along a fair (prob. 30% or so- but this is just a guess!) increase in speed. Since it's the same HIP-7 process that AMD is using, the next 745x should show up about the same time as AMD's .13 micron (plus SOI) products.
So consider an incremental improvement to the current design, since 7455's are available at 1.1 GHz today (yes- check out Moto's ordering page!), a 30% improvement gets us to almost 1.5 GHz.
If they can somehow improve bandwidth to prevent starving a 1.5 GHz relatively short-pipelined CPU (shouldn't be impossible) which should be here relatively soon (next 6-12 months at the latest, following AMD's HIP-7 rollout), then I'd say that Moto's still very much in the hunt, if not in the lead.
It really does make for some interesting speculation, no?
<strong>So, benched against non-Intel and non-AMD CPUs strictly on a MHz basis, Moto isn't doing that badly. Where they fall down is in CPU to memory bandwidth, narrow busses, fewer functional units and the like.</strong><hr></blockquote>
But Intel and AMD is where Apple/Motorola compete. They are behind in clock rate, memory bandwidth, and functional units. I agree that if they can address 2 out of three, and make sure that the third isn't too far off the mark, then they are back in the game. There isn't holding anything them back except their own ability and willingness to invest the necessary resources. The problem is that Motorola is in fairly dire straights, and has been for a while, which impacts when anything new and competitive can be delivered. The rumours are generally positive about what is coming, and the sooner it arrives the better. Fingers crossed for MWNY.
"The problem is that Motorola is in fairly dire straights, and has been for a while, which impacts when anything new and competitive can be delivered."<hr></blockquote>
Exactly.
For a long time, basically since the G4 500MHz fiasco, I have wondered why Motorola didn't take a chance and really push the envelope on the G4 for the desktop market. After all the G4 is designed for the embedded market.
Granted, Apple is not a large percentage of the desktop market, but they had the ball rolling when the G4 first came out, gigaflops and all that.
I believe that Motorola,with a concerted effort in R&D and Production,they would now be close to reaping the benefits of a stronger Apple, with OS X maturing, inovative design and products,etc.
Where would Apple, and subsequently Motorola, be today if they had a 2.0 - 2.4 GHz G4 on a motherboard with DDRsdram and OS X?
Hmm... they would be exactly where they are today plus a mild increase in towers. The vast majority of Apple users are not preformance driven. Apple gets most of its users for its UI and styling. Apple has done everything right in terms of getting apps ported to OSX and putting the nicest UI on a Unix core that anyone ever has. The hardare is stable and Apple boasts selling more Superdrives than the rest of the market combined.
Do you really think that any large percentage of the population would switch to Apple if it were a bit faster. Gamers would not switch (there will be a lag between PC and Apple software releases unless Apple gets 20% plus of the hardware market). Corporate users will not move quickly and don't buy cutting edge anyways. Value sensitive consumers would not switch. So yes a handful of scientfic converts, some more Unix/Linux people and maybe a few more loyal Apple upgraders.
Most people buy a new system every 3-5 years. Todays systems are pretty nice compared to what you got 3-5 years ago. The G3/G4 gave Apple lovers to chance to jump on the bleeding edge of speed for a short time and we loved it but Apple's market share did not skyrocket last time they were ahead of intel/AMD and it won't the next time either (presuming this happens).
Apple is in a comfortable niche market and if it plays all its cards right may grow a few more points of market share but really that is all we can expect in a 5-10 year window.
[quote]"Hmm... they would be exactly where they are today plus a mild increase in towers."<hr></blockquote>
I beg to differ, maybe not huge overall increase in sales, but certaintly significant to Apple. If there was just a 2% increase in sales market share that would almost double the # of computers Apples sells.
Lamentably, we will never know the answer.
[quote]"The vast majority of Apple users are not preformance driven"<hr></blockquote>
My first reaction to this statement was, HUH? Then it came to me, most Apple users aren't performance driven because in most apps Apple computers lag behind, so logically most Apple users can not be performance driven. It's not the user's fault they aren't performance driven it's Apple's and Motorola's.
Also, tell that to the graphics artists whose livelihood depends on speed.
(I know, I know, these users aren't the vast majority, but in Apple's market they are most probably a lot higher a percentage of Apple's market that say a Dell.)
And another thing, I was primarily refering to NOW, with the maturity of Mac OS X, innovative designs and products, in my humble opinion, Apple would be very well positioned to have very significant increases in market share, except, for the performance gap.
On the subject of functional units: You do realize that the P4 has one FPU as well, don't you? It's also worth noting that the x87 is just about the worst FPU on the market. <a href="http://arstechnica.com/cpu/01q4/p4andg4e2/p4andg4e2-1.html"; target="_blank">This article</a> on Ars Technica explains this pretty well.
I still maintain that the main problem about current Apple offerings is the lack of DDR, and if Apple releases Powermacs with new G4 7470s (with DDR) this summer, like the Reg suggests in the article linked earlier in this thread, I'm almost satisfied. I agree that the pipe coudl be longer to increase the clock speed, and that hyperthreading is the way to go, but I would stop feeling behind the pack if they do that.
Comments
<strong>If the 7500 rumor is right, and if it's what the Register says it will be, Apple have an answer to Hammer by sometime around Christmas. Close enough.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
Here is a link to that article if anyone wants to read it. <a href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/archive/24018.html"; target="_blank">http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/archive/24018.html</a>;
<strong>
The fact that enthusiasts are worried whether their products will compete with a future AMD processor and not Intel gives me a warm fuzzy feeling inside. Thanks for making my day James.
No prob, Eskimo.
Intel might have stolen the Alpha, but AMD got its engineers.
I'm betting on the engineers.
[ 04-21-2002: Message edited by: Amorph ]</p>
<strong>
If the 7500 rumor is right, and if it's what the Register says it will be, Apple have an answer to Hammer by sometime around Christmas. Close enough.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
Amorph,
This quote from the Register article
"the third addition to the G4 family, the 7500 - slated for volume production by this time next year"
which was posted by the Register on 11/02/2002 tells me we'll have to wait at least another year for it.
And that could mean that the powermacs to follow once the chip starts shipping could be announced at the next WWDC and then start to ship within a month from the announcement.
And I'm sure before that time comes, we'll start hearing about the next generation Hammer chip.
<strong>
Amorph,
This quote from the Register article
"the third addition to the G4 family, the 7500 - slated for volume production by this time next year"
which was posted by the Register on 11/02/2002 tells me we'll have to wait at least another year for it.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Thanks for that catch. I was going from my memory of the article, and I really should know better.
All I can say is that: Given that PPC is already designed to scale easily to 64-bit, nothing anywhere says that the 7500 will be the first G4 to go there. Nothing says that Mot won't produce a 32-bit chip that can keep up in all ways except the few that require 64 bit pointers and integers. Certainly, nothing is preventing Apple from going MP across its professional line. PPC chips are inexpensive (relatively speaking) and they do MP well. And the OS they'll be running does MP better than any of its competitors (although it admittedly hasn't been tested for large numbers of processors).
The Hammer looks to be a real threat, but I think Intel's sweating it a lot more than Mot or Apple is, considering Intel's storied, years-long failure to produce a viable 64 bit platform. If Apple produced a screaming 32 bit workstation I don't think too many people would mind - especially if it had good FP performance (including 64 bit FP).
This should be an interesting year. But I can't imagine that Apple isn't confident, given the acquisitions they've been making. They must know they've got something hot in the pipeline.
<strong> But I can't imagine that Apple isn't confident, given the acquisitions they've been making. They must know they've got something hot in the pipeline.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Exactly. I can't seem to understand how or why (barring OBSCENE arrogance from SJ- could he believe the marketing BS?) Apple would be acquiring firms that would lead one to believe they're REALLY going after the low-end-workstation market- it just wouldn't make sense, if there isn't some good piece of hardware coming that will run these apps at a competitive speed.
a mystery indeed. I can only hope that they deliver this time. I don't care if its a G4, G5, GYourMomma. If it's got good SPEC and hammers the competition (har har har) then, well, wow.
Apple doesn't need a new model of CPU so much as it needs a new board. The fact that the dual GHz machine is as fast as it is when both processors are sipping data from the same 133MHz SDR bus, running code compiled with the legendarily unoptimized gcc, is frankly incredible."
Yes, I guess 'we'll see'. I think I'm one of those 'Mac watchers' who are dying to see the G4/G5 'debacle' resolved one way or another. It's like when we were 'waiting' for the 'flat panel' iMac. It came almost year after we expected it.
The 'G5' wait is becoming more infamous. It seems that the G4, in its numerous guises is going to take us until well into next year...
The irony will be that the G4 will almost be a G5 by the time it ends its 'reign' as the 'Powermac'..?
"A faster mobo means the same processors go much faster, and it means Apple can use more processors per machine. And, of course, newer chips and compiler optimizations are coming. It's not so hard to add another FPU."
Well, an exta FPU would be nice! But I'd like to see a couple in there. I think the changes you, the Register etc are all talking about will do...for New York Macworld. Well, it'll be interesting to see the 'actual' performance when the DDR mobo arrives. But, having seen the PC DDR benchmarks over PC133...we could be in for a disappointment...
"If the 7500 rumor is right, and if it's what the Register says it will be, Apple have an answer to Hammer by sometime around Christmas. Close enough."
Well, it's not essential the 'G5'/G4 be 64 bit. It will have a 32 bit version by all accounts.
The 32 bit Playstation 'hammered' the '64 bit' Jaguar console. Performance, like you say is more important than 'showy' marketing numbers...
"Macs do not have to beat x86 machines in every imaginable area in order to be competitive."
Of course not. But hammer them in most for the kind of money we pay? I think so
"They use a different architecture, and different approaches, so they'll always be better for some things and worse for others. If all you need is a number cruncher, you'll always be able to build a stripped-down PC for much less than a Mac, because Apple has always emphasized the "whole widget" and high-level utility."
I can see what you're getting at. But I think the reason most of all...that Pro sales are suffering is that most people resent the idea of paying almost £3000 for kit that is clearly behind in performance for MOST tasks.
"So your budget-conscious render farm might be all Athlon even if Apple rolls out a G5 PowerMac tomorrow, but your primary workstation might just be a Mac."
Yeah. I could take paying the moolah if the G5 was Apple's middle top end now.
Lemon Bon Bon
<strong>
Yes, I guess 'we'll see'. I think I'm one of those 'Mac watchers' who are dying to see the G4/G5 'debacle' resolved one way or another. It's like when we were 'waiting' for the 'flat panel' iMac. It came almost year after we expected it.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Who's we? Nobody with an eye on flat panel prices expected one last year. I don't think anyone predicted a flat panel and a G4 and a SuperDrive, either.
[quote]<strong>The 'G5' wait is becoming more infamous. It seems that the G4, in its numerous guises is going to take us until well into next year...</strong><hr></blockquote>
Yeah, well, strange how long the wait can be for something that doesn't exist in any (publicly) documented form...
[quote]<strong>Well, an exta FPU would be nice! But I'd like to see a couple in there. I think the changes you, the Register etc are all talking about will do...for New York Macworld. Well, it'll be interesting to see the 'actual' performance when the DDR mobo arrives. But, having seen the PC DDR benchmarks over PC133...we could be in for a disappointment...</strong><hr></blockquote>
Apple appears to be using an unconventional motherboard architecture (for a personal computer), so I wouldn't expect a direct comparison to PC implemetations - especially not the early ones.
[quote]"Macs do not have to beat x86 machines in every imaginable area in order to be competitive."
<strong>Of course not. But hammer them in most for the kind of money we pay? I think so
Price a PC with all the features a PM comes with, including internal bandwidth and free PCI slots, and see how much you end up saving (granting the fact that you will almost certainly be saving something). Sure, you can get a hot CPU on a stripped-down board in a generic case for a song, but that's not a fair comparison.
[quote]<strong>I can see what you're getting at. But I think the reason most of all...that Pro sales are suffering is that most people resent the idea of paying almost £3000 for kit that is clearly behind in performance for MOST tasks.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Most people seem to assume that the current PowerMacs are stopgap models. For all we know, they are. As for "behind in most tasks," depends on the task, doesn't it? Again, if the system and application integration is better, and the system and application design is easier to use, that addresses the biggest performance bottleneck in most workstation applications: The user. Not RAM. Not the CPU. The user. There are a couple of well-documented exceptions (3D apps, games, etc) but by and large, and particularly in Apple's traditional markets, this remains true.
(Yes, others make sense, too....)
Anecdote-
A friend of mine bought a dual GHz G4 with ACD (just before the $500 off mail-in rebate expired). He's claiming he's getting about a factor of 10 increase in speed over his Pismo G3 laptop (400). This is primarily with apps like Lightwave.
So how much faster does Apple need to go to remain "competitive?"
What's funny is to look at the other major RISC architectures- there's Sun's UltraSparc, currently at 900 MHz, and MIPS is about 600 MHz. Power4 is above 1.2 GHz, but that implements the PowerPC ISA.
So, benched against non-Intel and non-AMD CPUs strictly on a MHz basis, Moto isn't doing that badly. Where they fall down is in CPU to memory bandwidth, narrow busses, fewer functional units and the like.
Don't forget that further, the 7455 is built on a .18 micron process- the jump to .13 is just around the corner, and should bring along a fair (prob. 30% or so- but this is just a guess!) increase in speed. Since it's the same HIP-7 process that AMD is using, the next 745x should show up about the same time as AMD's .13 micron (plus SOI) products.
So consider an incremental improvement to the current design, since 7455's are available at 1.1 GHz today (yes- check out Moto's ordering page!), a 30% improvement gets us to almost 1.5 GHz.
If they can somehow improve bandwidth to prevent starving a 1.5 GHz relatively short-pipelined CPU (shouldn't be impossible) which should be here relatively soon (next 6-12 months at the latest, following AMD's HIP-7 rollout), then I'd say that Moto's still very much in the hunt, if not in the lead.
It really does make for some interesting speculation, no?
HOS
<strong>So, benched against non-Intel and non-AMD CPUs strictly on a MHz basis, Moto isn't doing that badly. Where they fall down is in CPU to memory bandwidth, narrow busses, fewer functional units and the like.</strong><hr></blockquote>
But Intel and AMD is where Apple/Motorola compete. They are behind in clock rate, memory bandwidth, and functional units. I agree that if they can address 2 out of three, and make sure that the third isn't too far off the mark, then they are back in the game. There isn't holding anything them back except their own ability and willingness to invest the necessary resources. The problem is that Motorola is in fairly dire straights, and has been for a while, which impacts when anything new and competitive can be delivered. The rumours are generally positive about what is coming, and the sooner it arrives the better. Fingers crossed for MWNY.
"The problem is that Motorola is in fairly dire straights, and has been for a while, which impacts when anything new and competitive can be delivered."<hr></blockquote>
Exactly.
For a long time, basically since the G4 500MHz fiasco, I have wondered why Motorola didn't take a chance and really push the envelope on the G4 for the desktop market. After all the G4 is designed for the embedded market.
Granted, Apple is not a large percentage of the desktop market, but they had the ball rolling when the G4 first came out, gigaflops and all that.
I believe that Motorola,with a concerted effort in R&D and Production,they would now be close to reaping the benefits of a stronger Apple, with OS X maturing, inovative design and products,etc.
Where would Apple, and subsequently Motorola, be today if they had a 2.0 - 2.4 GHz G4 on a motherboard with DDRsdram and OS X?
[ 04-23-2002: Message edited by: rickag ]</p>
<strong>
Where would Apple, and subsequently Motorola, be today if they had a 2.0 - 2.4 GHz G4 on a motherboard with DDRsdram and OS X?
[ 04-23-2002: Message edited by: rickag ]</strong><hr></blockquote>
Hmm... they would be exactly where they are today plus a mild increase in towers. The vast majority of Apple users are not preformance driven. Apple gets most of its users for its UI and styling. Apple has done everything right in terms of getting apps ported to OSX and putting the nicest UI on a Unix core that anyone ever has. The hardare is stable and Apple boasts selling more Superdrives than the rest of the market combined.
Do you really think that any large percentage of the population would switch to Apple if it were a bit faster. Gamers would not switch (there will be a lag between PC and Apple software releases unless Apple gets 20% plus of the hardware market). Corporate users will not move quickly and don't buy cutting edge anyways. Value sensitive consumers would not switch. So yes a handful of scientfic converts, some more Unix/Linux people and maybe a few more loyal Apple upgraders.
Most people buy a new system every 3-5 years. Todays systems are pretty nice compared to what you got 3-5 years ago. The G3/G4 gave Apple lovers to chance to jump on the bleeding edge of speed for a short time and we loved it but Apple's market share did not skyrocket last time they were ahead of intel/AMD and it won't the next time either (presuming this happens).
Apple is in a comfortable niche market and if it plays all its cards right may grow a few more points of market share but really that is all we can expect in a 5-10 year window.
I beg to differ, maybe not huge overall increase in sales, but certaintly significant to Apple. If there was just a 2% increase in sales market share that would almost double the # of computers Apples sells.
Lamentably, we will never know the answer.
[quote]"The vast majority of Apple users are not preformance driven"<hr></blockquote>
My first reaction to this statement was, HUH? Then it came to me, most Apple users aren't performance driven because in most apps Apple computers lag behind, so logically most Apple users can not be performance driven. It's not the user's fault they aren't performance driven it's Apple's and Motorola's.
Also, tell that to the graphics artists whose livelihood depends on speed.
(I know, I know, these users aren't the vast majority, but in Apple's market they are most probably a lot higher a percentage of Apple's market that say a Dell.)
And another thing, I was primarily refering to NOW, with the maturity of Mac OS X, innovative designs and products, in my humble opinion, Apple would be very well positioned to have very significant increases in market share, except, for the performance gap.
[ 04-24-2002: Message edited by: rickag ]
[ 04-24-2002: Message edited by: rickag ]</p>
I still maintain that the main problem about current Apple offerings is the lack of DDR, and if Apple releases Powermacs with new G4 7470s (with DDR) this summer, like the Reg suggests in the article linked earlier in this thread, I'm almost satisfied. I agree that the pipe coudl be longer to increase the clock speed, and that hyperthreading is the way to go, but I would stop feeling behind the pack if they do that.
<strong>The vast majority of Apple users are not preformance driven.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I wonder to whom Apple is trying to sell "PowerMacs" then.