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Intel Inside For Apple?

Posted by pudge on from the slow-week dept.

iomud writes "Bear Stearns analyst Andrew Neff predicts that there's a better than 80 percent chance Apple will make the jump to Intel in two to four years. As the relationship with Motorola seems to be weaning the question may be what chip would you like to see in next-generation Macs and why?" It seems important to note that Bear Stearns owns shares of Intel and Dell, and has a banking relationship with Dell and HP. Oh, and even if it didn't, that I can't see any reason why anyone should care what Andrew Neff says. But that doesn't mean it can't be fun to talk about!

5 of 227 comments (clear)

  1. Re:64bit by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Ok, couple points here:

    1) I have no idea about Motorolla and 64-bit CPU's, however PPC cpu's do exist that are 64-bit, they are just made by IBM. (The POWER4) While I doubt Apple will team up with IBM, you never know. (Apple + IBM, boy wouldn't people have afield day with that one...)

    2) What with Apples innovative design strategies regarding space, I doubt we'll see AMD CPU's inside Apple computer's even more so than I believe we'll see Intel CPU's. (No space + lots of heat != A Good Thing(tm))

    3) Steve Jobs ran NeXT. NeXT sold both hardware and software. Before the end of NeXT they stopped selling hardware, and began making their software available for what's known as 'white boxes' or x86 machines (as opposed to NeXT's 'black boxes') This didn't save NeXT from dying, and I doubt we'll see Steve do it unless Apple enters into dire financial peril. Last I checked, this wasn't the case, and last I checked Apple made more money from hardware than from software, a financial source they lose if they switch to x86's. (This of course assumes that Steve learnt from his experience at NeXT)

  2. Re:"Performance Boost" a result of the MHz myth? by Tom7 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It's true that you can't compare chips directly, but try an actual benchmark (ie, not a photoshop filter commissioned by apple) and you'll see that the 2.5 GHz P4 beats the 1 GHz G4 pretty easily. Try cpuscorecard.com, for instance, which says a 1 GHz G4 is a little worse than the 2 GHz P4.

  3. Another possible thought by GORDOOM · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The really frustrating part of this whole mess is that IBM has been able to get G4s up to some mightily impressive clock speeds - not as high as the P4, perhaps, but certainly higher than any of Motorola's G4s - but they're not allowed to sell them. Why? Because Motorola doesn't want IBM selling G4s faster than it can make them, because that would make Motorola look bad. And since Motorola owns the Altivec routines, IBM has no recourse. And so, now Apple is caught in the middle of this mess, stuck with slow G4s!

    But Motorola has been having problems of late, and may be willing to sell off parts of the semiconductor division... if Apple could buy the code for the Altivec routines from Motorola, and then licence that code to IBM, but without the restrictions on processor speed... I wonder how fast IBM could get the G4 running then... :)

  4. If Apple goes to Intel chips... by greygent · · Score: 3, Interesting

    If Apple goes to Intel chips, it doesn't necessarily mean they become PC compatible. There are many other things to an architecture...

    I imagine if they did go to Intel chips they would do something similar to what SGI did with their x86-based machines, and use a custom architecture with a Pentium chip.

    I'm all for Apple going to Intel chips and a custom architecture. I firmly hope that Apple doesn't EVER start making PC compatible machines, and I would wager that if they did, it would lead to their eventual death. I absolutely despise the PC architecture, and aside from OS X, was a major reason for my jump. It's just so... clunky.

  5. nVidia by arloguthrie · · Score: 2, Interesting

    With all of the rumors going around that Apple may start using nVidia manufactured chipsets, and with nVidia GPUs being as powerful as they are, and with the CEO of nVidia telling WIRED magazine that he wants nVidia to take over CPUs since the bulk of a computer's work for the average user nowadays is rendering the graphics, and with the advent of QuartzExtreme in Jaguar...well, it seems to me that the next manufacturer of CPU's for Apple could very well be nVidia. And then all you gamers could quit whining about Macs. Hell, OS X or OS XI could come with a Cg compiler.

    Hey, it's possible. After all, all we're doing here is throwing around and debating CONJECTURE.

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