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Posted on 03/24/2006 12:00:29 PM PST by big'ol_freeper
Apple makes Intel 'think different' Apple's transition to the Intel-architecture has not only resulted in faster, more power-efficient Macs, but is also making Intel 'think different," according to an Intel representative. "That's really what's interesting about Apple, is they look at our technology in a very Apple way," said Deborah Conrad, vice president and director of Team Apple at Intel. Speaking to a group of CNET editors and reporters Thursday at Intel's Santa Clara campus, Conrad told the publication that Apple was pushing Intel for better technology, noting that the company's sales teams have been "impressed" with Apple's perspective on the tech world. "It's nice to have a customer that pushes us on a technology front," Anand Chandrasekher, senior vice president and general manager of Intel's sales and marketing team, told CNET.
I still say the PowerPC is a superior chip no matter how "fast" these Intels chips are.
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I have a big place in my heart for the PPC 970's architecture, but I have to admit Intel's current Core offerings plus their upcoming roadmap are pretty good. What's in the new Macs is far better than what was available when Apple announced the switch. Back then I was thinking "P4 in an iMac? No way!"
Until I see first hand what it can do, I better bite my tongue. Currently I have a dual G4 1ghz machine running Gentoo Linux and Mac On Linux which runs 10.3.7 in a window. There's no emulation of OS X so its very fast. Then if I'm suckered enough, I can start VirtualPC 6 with XP all without taxing the system that much. If these new Intel's can match that, I might consider a Mac Mini.
AMD64 X2 trumps Intel...
"Superior" is a matter of what you want to do with it. If, for instance, you want to put your "superior" chip in a laptop, you better get a battery the size of a cinderblock and a heatshield for the family jewels ;)
I'd say so, given that Intel is building virtualization into their chips. BTW, latest rumor is that Apple is planning seamless virtualization for the next version of OS X.
Right now, definitely. Next year, who knows?
I don't what you're thinking, but a Mac with a PPC chip has far superior battery life than an Intel based chip. For instance, I have an Inspiron 8100 with 850mhz CPU and an iBook with an 800mhz G4. Inspiron lasts maybe 2 hours while the iBook lasts 7 hours. And the iBook is half weight of the Inspiron. Now who's superior?
Or maybe later this year - who knows? ;)
I'd be surprised if any OS was bug-free. But the fact that Apple developed the Intel version alongside the PPC version the whole time is comforting. It's not like OS X Intel is a recent port.
I don't know - perhaps if you bought an x86 laptop from this century, you'd find the comparison a bit more apt ;)
Seriously, I have a P-M laptop running at 2 GHZ that'll run rings around that dual G4, and get six hours on the battery in the process - a single core P-M, to boot. This should hardly be a surprise - how old is the G4? Anyway, the comment about the cinderblock and the heatshield was a reference to the fact that the "superior" G5 simply doesn't exist in a laptop, and never will. Hence, if you want a powerful laptop, PPC is decidedly inferior. Just ask Steve Jobs.
Apple has lived in this space so it wasn't as much an issue to want to claim insanely high clock speeds as evidence of power. Because Apple users are used to G5 processors kicking Pentium 4 bootie. The Core processor has many similarities to the G5 and unlike the whole G# series, the Intel folks plan a future which had ended over at IBM as Big Blue and Microsoft have fallen into bed over the Xbox. Sony specifically excluded Apple from the development of the Cell Processor, and IBM was almost a year tardy meeting commitments for the Low Power G5 and Multi-Core variants and this was the last nail for Apple continuing to depend on IBM.
So, yes for the short time period.. a Core Single processor is not equal to a single G5 processor but the Core Duo beats the single G5 for the same cost. But this is just the starting point, not the end of the line like it was over at IBM.
What?! You don't wear Asbestos underwear???
Sounds kinda itchy, actually :)
The PPC is superior in SO many ways to anything Intel has or is putting out. Unfortunately, the scale of production for PPC chips, and lagging technology on the speed and efficiency (read that power consumption) fronts have really hampered PPC chips.
IF heat and energy use was no option, the PPC would rule the world. Unfortunately in a Notebook computer world where speed with efficiency and battery life is everythign - the Core Duo (and now the Centrino Duo as Winders notebooks are now moving too) holds a lot of promise.
After all is said and done, though I am disapointed in the move away from PPC for Apple, I see it as a long-range wise choice for Apple - even possibly boosting market share somewhat.
Someone posted on the other current thread on speculation regarding X.5 that Dell had better watch out. What we all have to keep in mind is that MS doesn't REALLY care who makes the hardware their stuff runs on - if Apple were to intentionally build a machine with a "virtualization" component to the OS allowing simultanious booting into OSX and XP (Or VISTA if it ever actually comes out...), then it just expands MS's prospective customer base and sales.
As a consumer - if I could buy a machine that could run two OSes at the same time, smoothly and without the penalty that VirtualPC takes in horrid performance, then I wouldn't feel so bad about shelling out some money for software that isn't available for OSX if it were something I needed. That, my friends is a new market where I wouldn't have considered buying it even if I had a need because it was inconvenient (or expensive to buy compatible hardware).
OK - It's been a long week and I have rambled plenty long enough...
Apple looks at something and says, "Okay, its fast, its cheap... but can it go faster if we pay a little more?"
Or... Apple looks at something and says, "Okay, its fast, its cheap... but does it come in pink?"
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