It's not even a month and already the Mac community is relishing the excitement of an Intel-based Mac.
When was the last time we were this excited about a new PPC CPU? The PPC 970 was pretty cool, but it was only a one-time hit; we still don't know about IBM's roadmap, or if they can even fab what they say they will. Contrast the dark ages of the PPC with x86, where we know Intel's roadmap in exquisite detail, and furthermore we know that Intel can fab their chip designs at will! Reading about future Intel processors is like walking around a candy store with a hundred dollar bill you're pocket - you know you're going to walk out with exactly what you want, and then some.
My only concern is that Apple will go cheap on us and offer only midrange Pentium CPUs, basically preserving the "MHz Myth" gap between Macs and Wintels. Will Apple offer its hardware with the latest and greatest from Intel, or will Mac users get the shaft yet again?
I think that Apple will be on par with what Dell is able to offer. But I can bet that Apple will never be the first to offer the high end CPU immediatly. Generally only a couple of this chip is avalaible (just to say that Intel is already make it) immedialty, and the mass production is starting some months later.
whatever happens, be assured that whining, dissecting, investigation, bechmarking-up-the-wazooo will continue in full force
eg.
WTF? ONLY A MEASLY 700mhz FSB and 3GHZ? WTF? ONLY 2GB RAM? WHEN WILL APPLE F*KING START GIVING US SOME REAL RAM??!!! **
**an excerpt from a June 2006 post on AppleInsider.Com
Oh, it'll be worse.
WTF? For 15 minutes yesterday afternoon Dell had a closeout box with the exact same specs as Apple's so called Power Mac, and if you knew the coupon code and were a corporate buyer you could have that sweet hunk of casually assembled parts for hundreds of dollars less!
I'm sick of the Steve tax! I don't care about pretty plastic! Apple must build shitty commodity boxes just like Dell or they are going down! No more excuses! Nowhere to hide! Race Dell to the bottom, or get out of the kitchen! Or something!
WTF? For 15 minutes yesterday afternoon Dell had a closeout box with the exact same specs as Apple's so called Power Mac, and if you knew the coupon code and were a corporate buyer you could have that sweet hunk of casually assembled parts for hundreds of dollars less!
I'm sick of the Steve tax! I don't care about pretty plastic! Apple must build shitty commodity boxes just like Dell or they are going down! No more excuses! Nowhere to hide! Race Dell to the bottom, or get out of the kitchen! Or something!
Steve tax? well I like paying Steve tax, I call it the MacOSX tax and it's worth it.
Well your thing if you prefer shitty design.
But I doubt shitty design and good design makes much of a prize difference.
he's saying that in terms of production cost, a shit design doesn't cost any less than a good design, given materials are essentially very common across the line nowadays.
he considers the "steve tax" to be the premium he pays for mac os X, and he's perfectly happy to pay that tax to get the Mac OS X + iLife experience.... plus excellent product design thrown in 'for free'.
he's saying that in terms of production cost, a shit design doesn't cost any less than a good design, given materials are essentially very common across the line nowadays.
he considers the "steve tax" to be the premium he pays for mac os X, and he's perfectly happy to pay that tax to get the Mac OS X + iLife experience.... plus excellent product design thrown in 'for free'.
a 1.8ghz dual core g4 (that's what your looking at with the 7448 IIRC) will be sweet. but anything beyond September 2005 and i'm going to be a spec whore and say i wanna something better than 167 system bus and 'just' 512mb ddr ram and something better than 'just' ati mobility 9700.
Afraid not. The 7448 (Despite Freescale's marketing efforts to the contrary) is no e600 series chip with the dual core, high FSB, IMC, etc... It's just a 7447x with a 200 MHz bus, and 1.8-2.0 GHz clock speeds. It is a drop in replacement for the 7447x though, so unlike the e600's (sampling 2H 2005, production early 2006 - so no, not likely to be used) it doesn't require a new motherboard. For that reason I'll doubt Apple will bother with the e600.
Actually, Freescale classifies the 7448 as an e600 core. The e600 core is essentially today's G4+ core; and the 7448 is that core at 90nm with a slightly faster bus and a larger cache. The 8641 and 8641D are what you are refering to as e600; they are e600 cores with the newer 667mhz bus architecture and a bunch of on chip controllers for RAM and network interconnects. The different and extra buses are the drive for pin incompatibility, and the 8641D contains two e600 cores.
Freescale's classification is garbage. Or marketing. Which is why I noted that in my post by saying:
"The 7448 (Despite Freescale's marketing efforts to the contrary) is no e600 series chip..."
Like you say the 7448 is just a G4+ at 90nm, the process shrink easing the addition of the new 1 MB L2 cache, and I suppose some (long overdue) design improvements bump it up to a 200 MHz FSB.
When you take a look at a real e600 chip like the 8641's you can tell that the 7448 is not an e600, regardless of what Freescale says.
The e600 core is not todays G4+ with new buses, IMC, etc. The e600 is (for lack of a better term) G4++. For example the heat performance it has is highly improbable if the central CPU(s) were just a 7448 reconfigured. Hence while I assume the e600 CPU is somewhat similar to the 7448, it's on the order of the difference between the G4 and the G4+. Which are not, despite Apple's marketing, the same chip.
my guess is that we will probably see a 7448 powerbook g4 in sep/oct 2005 released for locking in christmas quarter sales, and it will be the LAST G4 powerbook.
</crystal-ball>
<talking-out-of-my-ass>
that would make mwsf2006 an announcement for g5 powerbook (bloody unlikely unless they are still refining Yonah) or Yonah powerbook "g6"(??) shipping mid-february.
WTF? For 15 minutes yesterday afternoon Dell had a closeout box with the exact same specs as Apple's so called Power Mac, and if you knew the coupon code and were a corporate buyer you could have that sweet hunk of casually assembled parts for hundreds of dollars less!
I'm sick of the Steve tax! I don't care about pretty plastic! Apple must build shitty commodity boxes just like Dell or they are going down! No more excuses! Nowhere to hide! Race Dell to the bottom, or get out of the kitchen! Or something!
If apple make commodity boxes, like dell, I will not be anymore one of their customers.
The e600 core is not todays G4+ with new buses, IMC, etc.
...
Sorry but it is. No big changes. The 8641 is a SoC! So e600 is still the same but many functions from other chips (e.g. northbridge and southbridge) are integrated on the die. A laptop can build with very few chips (CPU, GPU, I/O, RAM). Sadly it seems that we won't see that from Apple.
I have a few remarks about this Yonah. First a bit of history, whe IBM switched from 130nm to 90nm there were huge problems and I think for Intel to, but I don't know for sure. ATI and nVidia had problems switching to a smaller die.
Why wouldn't there be problems with the switch to 65nm? They say Q1 for first shipments, but I don't think there will be large quantities.
I have a few remarks about this Yonah. First a bit of history, whe IBM switched from 130nm to 90nm there were huge problems and I think for Intel to, but I don't know for sure. ATI and nVidia had problems switching to a smaller die.
Why wouldn't there be problems with the switch to 65nm? They say Q1 for first shipments, but I don't think there will be large quantities.
What do you think?
from what i have observed, Intel have performed better in this switch to 90nm. While Q1 65nm may be optimistic, i believe steve jobbie & gang have evaluated and clearly they see Intel delivering at 90nm and 65nm more convincingly than IBM, for Apple's needs, through the end of this decade.
Comments
Originally posted by Junkyard Dawg
This is so awesome!
It's not even a month and already the Mac community is relishing the excitement of an Intel-based Mac.
When was the last time we were this excited about a new PPC CPU? The PPC 970 was pretty cool, but it was only a one-time hit; we still don't know about IBM's roadmap, or if they can even fab what they say they will. Contrast the dark ages of the PPC with x86, where we know Intel's roadmap in exquisite detail, and furthermore we know that Intel can fab their chip designs at will! Reading about future Intel processors is like walking around a candy store with a hundred dollar bill you're pocket - you know you're going to walk out with exactly what you want, and then some.
My only concern is that Apple will go cheap on us and offer only midrange Pentium CPUs, basically preserving the "MHz Myth" gap between Macs and Wintels. Will Apple offer its hardware with the latest and greatest from Intel, or will Mac users get the shaft yet again?
I think that Apple will be on par with what Dell is able to offer. But I can bet that Apple will never be the first to offer the high end CPU immediatly. Generally only a couple of this chip is avalaible (just to say that Intel is already make it) immedialty, and the mass production is starting some months later.
WTF? ONLY A MEASLY 700mhz FSB and 3GHZ? WTF? ONLY 2GB RAM? WHEN WILL APPLE F*KING START GIVING US SOME REAL RAM??!!! **
Originally posted by sunilraman
whatever happens, be assured that whining, dissecting, investigation, bechmarking-up-the-wazooo will continue in full force
eg.
WTF? ONLY A MEASLY 700mhz FSB and 3GHZ? WTF? ONLY 2GB RAM? WHEN WILL APPLE F*KING START GIVING US SOME REAL RAM??!!!
**an excerpt from a June 2006 post on AppleInsider.Com
Oh, it'll be worse.
WTF? For 15 minutes yesterday afternoon Dell had a closeout box with the exact same specs as Apple's so called Power Mac, and if you knew the coupon code and were a corporate buyer you could have that sweet hunk of casually assembled parts for hundreds of dollars less!
I'm sick of the Steve tax! I don't care about pretty plastic! Apple must build shitty commodity boxes just like Dell or they are going down! No more excuses! Nowhere to hide! Race Dell to the bottom, or get out of the kitchen! Or something!
Originally posted by addabox
Oh, it'll be worse.
WTF? For 15 minutes yesterday afternoon Dell had a closeout box with the exact same specs as Apple's so called Power Mac, and if you knew the coupon code and were a corporate buyer you could have that sweet hunk of casually assembled parts for hundreds of dollars less!
I'm sick of the Steve tax! I don't care about pretty plastic! Apple must build shitty commodity boxes just like Dell or they are going down! No more excuses! Nowhere to hide! Race Dell to the bottom, or get out of the kitchen! Or something!
Steve tax? well I like paying Steve tax, I call it the MacOSX tax and it's worth it.
Well your thing if you prefer shitty design.
But I doubt shitty design and good design makes much of a prize difference.
Originally posted by punica888
Steve tax? well I like paying Steve tax, I call it the MacOSX tax and it's worth it.
Well your thing if you prefer shitty design.
But I doubt shitty design and good design makes much of a prize difference.
Laddy, get your sarcasm meter adjusted....
Originally posted by addabox
Laddy, get your sarcasm meter adjusted....
umm... i don't think he was being sarcastic...
he's saying that in terms of production cost, a shit design doesn't cost any less than a good design, given materials are essentially very common across the line nowadays.
he considers the "steve tax" to be the premium he pays for mac os X, and he's perfectly happy to pay that tax to get the Mac OS X + iLife experience.... plus excellent product design thrown in 'for free'.
Originally posted by sunilraman
umm... i don't think he was being sarcastic...
he's saying that in terms of production cost, a shit design doesn't cost any less than a good design, given materials are essentially very common across the line nowadays.
he considers the "steve tax" to be the premium he pays for mac os X, and he's perfectly happy to pay that tax to get the Mac OS X + iLife experience.... plus excellent product design thrown in 'for free'.
um... I think addabox was being sarcastic..
Originally posted by Gene Clean
um... I think addabox was being sarcastic..
Originally posted by sunilraman
a 1.8ghz dual core g4 (that's what your looking at with the 7448 IIRC) will be sweet. but anything beyond September 2005 and i'm going to be a spec whore and say i wanna something better than 167 system bus and 'just' 512mb ddr ram and something better than 'just' ati mobility 9700.
Afraid not. The 7448 (Despite Freescale's marketing efforts to the contrary) is no e600 series chip with the dual core, high FSB, IMC, etc... It's just a 7447x with a 200 MHz bus, and 1.8-2.0 GHz clock speeds. It is a drop in replacement for the 7447x though, so unlike the e600's (sampling 2H 2005, production early 2006 - so no, not likely to be used) it doesn't require a new motherboard. For that reason I'll doubt Apple will bother with the e600.
"The 7448 (Despite Freescale's marketing efforts to the contrary) is no e600 series chip..."
Like you say the 7448 is just a G4+ at 90nm, the process shrink easing the addition of the new 1 MB L2 cache, and I suppose some (long overdue) design improvements bump it up to a 200 MHz FSB.
When you take a look at a real e600 chip like the 8641's you can tell that the 7448 is not an e600, regardless of what Freescale says.
The e600 core is not todays G4+ with new buses, IMC, etc. The e600 is (for lack of a better term) G4++. For example the heat performance it has is highly improbable if the central CPU(s) were just a 7448 reconfigured. Hence while I assume the e600 CPU is somewhat similar to the 7448, it's on the order of the difference between the G4 and the G4+. Which are not, despite Apple's marketing, the same chip.
<crystal-ball: on>
my guess is that we will probably see a 7448 powerbook g4 in sep/oct 2005 released for locking in christmas quarter sales, and it will be the LAST G4 powerbook.
</crystal-ball>
<talking-out-of-my-ass>
that would make mwsf2006 an announcement for g5 powerbook (bloody unlikely unless they are still refining Yonah) or Yonah powerbook "g6"(??) shipping mid-february.
</talking-out-of-my-ass>
Originally posted by addabox
Oh, it'll be worse.
WTF? For 15 minutes yesterday afternoon Dell had a closeout box with the exact same specs as Apple's so called Power Mac, and if you knew the coupon code and were a corporate buyer you could have that sweet hunk of casually assembled parts for hundreds of dollars less!
I'm sick of the Steve tax! I don't care about pretty plastic! Apple must build shitty commodity boxes just like Dell or they are going down! No more excuses! Nowhere to hide! Race Dell to the bottom, or get out of the kitchen! Or something!
If apple make commodity boxes, like dell, I will not be anymore one of their customers.
You're still their customer, you're just not buying their machines.
Originally posted by Electric Monk
...
The e600 core is not todays G4+ with new buses, IMC, etc.
...
Sorry but it is. No big changes. The 8641 is a SoC! So e600 is still the same but many functions from other chips (e.g. northbridge and southbridge) are integrated on the die. A laptop can build with very few chips (CPU, GPU, I/O, RAM). Sadly it seems that we won't see that from Apple.
See
http://www.freescale.com/files/32bit...PC7448FACT.pdf
and
http://www.freescale.com/files/sndf/...ROPE_P1302.pdf
End of Line
Why wouldn't there be problems with the switch to 65nm? They say Q1 for first shipments, but I don't think there will be large quantities.
What do you think?
Originally posted by fieldor
I have a few remarks about this Yonah. First a bit of history, whe IBM switched from 130nm to 90nm there were huge problems and I think for Intel to, but I don't know for sure. ATI and nVidia had problems switching to a smaller die.
Why wouldn't there be problems with the switch to 65nm? They say Q1 for first shipments, but I don't think there will be large quantities.
What do you think?
from what i have observed, Intel have performed better in this switch to 90nm. While Q1 65nm may be optimistic, i believe steve jobbie & gang have evaluated and clearly they see Intel delivering at 90nm and 65nm more convincingly than IBM, for Apple's needs, through the end of this decade.