Intel Inside For Apple?

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!

Comments

"Performance Boost" a result of the MHz myth?

[Theaetetus]

"Neff, for instance, predicted Apple, which uses chips from Motorola and IBM that currently top out at 1GHz, will switch to Intel, whose chips run at 2.5GHz, to get a performance boost and gain more customers. There's a better than 80 percent chance Apple will make the jump in two to four years, he said." This seems to imply that the 2.5 GHz P4 is 2.5 times as fast as the 1 GHz G4... Which is a joke. However, a lot of people (primarily the ones buying their PCs at Walmart) are great believers in the MHz Myth and will compare the two chips based just on clock speed. This indeed might make more gain in terms of customers for Apple, but at what cost? Chips that run hotter and process fewer instructions simultaneously? How about instead of advertising chips in terms of clock speeds, start marketing them in terms of calculations per second (start comparing gigaflops... in which case, last I checked, G4s were way ahead of Pentiums). -T

Re:"Performance Boost" a result of the MHz myth?

[frooyo]

How about instead of advertising chips in terms of clock speeds, start marketing them in terms of calculations per second

You mean, cycles per second WHICH is Hz. Thus a Pentium IV at 2.5 MHz is 2.5million cycles per second.

Enough said

Re:"Performance Boost" a result of the MHz myth?

[Toraz Chryx]

No, calculations != cycles

Different processors can handle a different number of instructions per cycle.

and hence, require a different number of cycles to perform the same calculation.

Re:"Performance Boost" a result of the MHz myth?

[Toraz Chryx]

...

That was my point, the Xserve has more memory bandwidth, although the FSB is the same, it seems be better equipped to keep the processor fully fed whilst also servicing the NIC/disk controllers etc.

(and AFAIK the CPU northbridge on the Xserve was still 133Mhz SDR? )

Re:"Performance Boost" a result of the MHz myth?

[Tom7]

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.

Re:"Performance Boost" a result of the MHz myth?

[DavidRavenMoon]

(and AFAIK the CPU northbridge on the Xserve was still 133Mhz SDR?)

The specs

Processor Single or dual 1GHz PowerPC G4 processors Velocity Engine vector processing unit Full 128-bit internal memory data paths Powerful floating-point unit supporting single-cycle, double-precision calculations Data stream prefetching operations supporting four simultaneous 32-bit data streams 256K on-chip L2 cache running at processor speed 2MB DDR SRAM L3 cache per processor with up to 4GB/s throughput 133MHz system bus supporting over 1GB/s data throughput

Memory

256MB or 512MB of 266MHz PC2100 DDR SDRAM with up to 2.1GB/s throughput Four DIMM slots supporting up to 2GB of DDR SDRAM using the following: -- 128MB or 256MB DIMMs (64-bit-wide, 128Mb technology) -- 512MB DIMMs (64-bit-wide, 256Mb technology)

Re:"Performance Boost" a result of the MHz myth?

[DavidRavenMoon]

The ultimate smackdown: Mac versus PC

Dual 1GHz G4 versus 2.2-GHz Sony Vaio RX690G Digital Studio.

"Rather than argue the point, I decided to conduct my own comparison. Apple even provided the actual Photoshop picture used, a full-color photo over 44 megabytes in size, depicting seven bike riders with colorful bikes and helmets. This is the sort of file that graphic artists have to manipulate on a daily basis.

"Apple also sent me a copy of its actual test protocol, including a Photoshop Actions file, a set of scripts that automated the various rendering functions. They also provided a high-end twin-processor desktop Power Macintosh on which to run the tests.

"The Mac was upgraded to the latest version of Mac OS X, 10.1.5. The Sony had Windows XP. I installed the standard retail versions of Adobe Photoshop 7 on both computers."

"Running the tests proved exceedingly simple because Photoshop displays the actual timing of a rendering process rounded off to tenths of a second. Per Apple's directions, I conducted each test four times to deliver the most accurate results.

"Like all Adobe applications, Photoshop is a bit slow to launch. It took 15 seconds on both computers to get ready for the main event.

"In the nine test runs, the Mac came out on top five times, besting the Sony by up to 8.1 seconds. Where the PC emerged victorious, the margin was usually less than half a second.

"In all, the Mac took a total of 35.5 seconds to complete the nine rendering steps. The PC took 50.1 seconds, making it 41% slower according to my calculator's reckoning.

...

"The upshot of all this, however, is that, when someone tells you a Windows box is always faster than the Mac, point them to this article and tell them it isn't necessarily so."

Of course the PC beat the Mac in a game of Quake ;)

Re:"Performance Boost" a result of the MHz myth?

[Golias]

The tougher fact is this: The 2.5GHz P4 is significantly cheaper than the 1GHz G4. You can buy 1GHz G4's in top-of-the-line Macs. You can buy 2.5GHz P4's at Costco.

The ratio is, literally, "bang for the buck". At some point the bang for the buck for Intel will so outstrip the PowerPC that Apple simply won't have any choice but to make the jump. Thankfully, once Apple's got everyone on board on MacOS X, the procedure isn't too evil. NeXT did it once already.

P4's are cheaper to buy, yes. However, they consume more power and run hotter, which makes the G4 a vastly superior choice for laptops (even in bang for the buck comparisons).

As for the notion that the gap will widen and Apple will be forced to switch, keep in minds that in the desktop market the x86 archetecture has always had a ! for $ edge over any Motorolla/Apple system (with the exception of the original Apple ][, in which Woz chose a Moto knock-off over Intel chips because they were cheaper). I'm fairly sure that no Mac has ever given you more flops-per-dollar than whatever the prevailing Wintel box of the day was... Not so much because the chips are so much more expensive (although the do cost a little more), but because Apple's superior operating systems have let them sell their boxen with a much higher profit margin than companies like Compaq (RIP) and Packard Bell (Ditto), who had no way of really making their computer stand out from the budget systems from your local neighborhood screwdriver shop (or the no-name vendors who get all their sales from good scores on Pricewatch.com).

So yea, Apple could (in theory) save about $50 a system (their cost) by moving everything over to Intel. But they would also end up increasing the odds that somebody could reverse-engineer their ROMs (as Compaq once did to IBM), and suddenly all those "Pricewatch Special" shitbox PC's and PC Mo-Bo kits (and I say that as a big fan of "Pricewatch Special" shitbox kits) will be able to run OS X after a simple chip-mod, and Apple would die a horrible death shortly thereafter, making version 10.5 (or whatever) the last Mac OS ever.

Nobody can make enough money to sustain a company by writing operating systems for commodity PC's sold by other vendors. Microsoft doesn't; they make the big bucks selling their Office Suite (which is MS's Real Monopoly if you ask me). Red Hat also doesn't; they sell and support an OS that they did not have to write or buy, and is being constantly dev'd by people they don't pay. Remember when we were told in the pages of "In the Beggining Was the Command Line" that Be would be the wave of the future? Be is gone. Remember when they tried to revive the Amiga OS? Remember when Gateway bought it to port to x86? Remember when the chumps they sold it to were going to release something?

Apple learned the hard way during their 1-year attempt at "clone" licensing that the only way they can develop a desktop OS and make money doing it is if they sell every single computer that runs it. By using a chip that is not a commodity part, they raise the barrier of entry to somebody that wants to copy their ROM settings and make a rival motherboard. Switching to an x86 archetecture jeopardizes that plan. Some think that this is part of the reason why Apple became interested in StrongARM technology last time their relations with Motorolla became strained. If they were to drop Motorolla, I'm guessing that they would be far more likely to contact some other chip maker (i.e., IBM, Siemens, TI, Lucent, AMD, whoever) and contract them to make another non-x86 chipset for them... maybe even one that already understands the existing G3 instructions. For that matter, buying those high-performing G3's that IBM is already making for their servers might even make more sense than moving to Intel.

Still, I can't help but think that a lot of these rumors get started by Apple turf-layers, who are hoping to light a fire under the asses of Motorolla engineers.

Re:"Performance Boost" a result of the MHz myth?

[stux]

The trick is, the XServe's memory subsystem can saturate BOTH processors...

just because its saturating the processors doesn't mean they're not stalling waiting for memory accesses.

I've written quite a lot of altivec code, and the single largest problem with ALL G4s is that they DO NOT have a DDR type memory bus.

AltiVec code is almost ALWAYS stalled waiting for main memory.

But when you actually finding something compute intensive enough that the memory bandwidth is not really an issue, only then, do you truly see how impressive AltiVec is.

Damn, I wish they made G4s which had DDR!

Re:"Performance Boost" a result of the MHz myth?

[Tom7]

It's true that Photoshop has filters optimized for the Mac, and the benchmarks for those are somewhat irrepresentative of general performance. Most programs do not have this kind of parallelism available, and even fewer are actually optimized to use the processor's vector capabilities. (A better benchmark would compile the same C program using the vendor's compiler on both platforms and measure how the two stacked up. Or at least allow both vendors a shot at optimizing the filters in question...)

But the main problem with this test is that he's testing a dual processor G4 against a single processor Pentium in a multi-threaded app doing highly parallelizable work!! How can we make sense of those results?

Re:"Performance Boost" a result of the MHz myth?

[tunah]

And all of those cycles put together won't tell you why the hell you would want to underclock your P4 to 2.5MHz.

Re:"Performance Boost" a result of the MHz myth?

[Hes Nikke]

But the main problem with this test is that he's testing a dual processor G4 against a single processor Pentium in a multi-threaded app doing highly parallelizable work!! How can we make sense of those results?

easy, it is 2 off the shelf systems, you plug it in and see that one system performs better then a diffrent system. (last i checked, there wern't any dual P4 systems avalible.) this test shows that apples high end system beet out sony's system (i'm asuming it's their high end system but i didn't read the artical)

the test i'd like to see is apples high end system up against a high end athlon system 1, 2, 4 CPU's it doesn't matter, the athlon will smoke the apple in perfomance, but the apple will smoke the athlon in usability.

Re:"Performance Boost" a result of the MHz myth?

[DavidRavenMoon]

It's true that Photoshop has filters optimized for the Mac

Actually the filters are optimized for Intel processors too. Intel gave Adobe the assembly code needed (for MMX at the time, and I'd imagine newer code since). IIRC only two or three PS filters are optimized for AltiVec. I think Photoshop is used a lot because it's the same code base on both platforms.

And this isn't all about filters. There was a lot of transforming and compositing going on.

But I agree that some things run better on one platform or another, and it might have more to do with the OS than the CPU type, and how well a program has been written for that OS (i.e. MS Word).

But the main problem with this test is that he's testing a dual processor G4 against a single processor Pentium in a multi-threaded app doing highly parallelizable work!! How can we make sense of those results?

But the single Pentium was more than twice the clock speed, and we know that a dual 1 GHz computer is not 2 GHz, right? :) Photoshop is kind of buggy on dual G4s... its been known to lock up a lot, and some people remove the MultiProcessor Support Extension. In some tests single CPU G4s outperform the duals.

And as the tests showed, the PC did better at Quake, and other tests on the 'Net have showed PCs outperforming G4s in Adobe After Effects tests (AE runs like a dog in OS X)

The bottom line is that clock speed isn't everything.

Re:"Performance Boost" a result of the MHz myth?

[stux]

The problem is Apple's, but it is not Apple's fault.

Motorola needs to update the G4s to have a DDR memory controller.

Apple has done about as much as they can by moving their motherboards (at least the XServe's) to DDR even though the actual CPUs don't know what DDR is.

The truth is, DDR mobos with a single non-ddr cpu is practically useless.

Its motorola's fault and they need to do something about it :(

Re:"Performance Boost" a result of the MHz myth?

[MoneyT]

They just need to ditch motorola.

Re:"Performance Boost" a result of the MHz myth?

[Lars T.]

1) All valid benchmarks show that PCs are faster than Macs.
2) All benchmarks that show something else are thus invalid.

Re:"Performance Boost" a result of the MHz myth?

[BitGeek]

And it costs less too!

Thing is, nobody is ever going to convince a PC bigot that the PowerPC is a faster chip, they just cant' get the MHz out of their mind.

And nobody is going to convince a Mac fan that the Pentium is a bigger chip- the benchmark "standards" are so obviously contrived to distort the situation...

And nobody accepts applications resutls-- avid isn't optimized for the mac, PC people think nobody uses photoshop.

But if you look at the architecture, the physics, and the hardware, rather than relying on benchmarks, its obivous which ship provides higher performance for less cost.

Re:"Performance Boost" a result of the MHz myth?

[Reality Master 101]

This is so laughable. I'm still waiting for you to prove it... come on, the challenge awaits!

But if you look at the architecture, the physics, and the hardware, rather than relying on benchmarks, its obivous which ship provides higher performance for less cost.

LOL!!! So we should ignore ACTUAL PERFORMANCE and go by "theoretical" superiority??

In any case, PROVE IT. If what you say is true, it should be trivial to prove these things.

I'mmmmmm stilllllll waitinggggggg.......

Re:"Performance Boost" a result of the MHz myth?

[DavidRavenMoon]

But the main problem with this test is that he's testing a dual processor G4 against a single processor Pentium in a multi-threaded app doing highly parallelizable work!! How can we make sense of those results?

Part II

Here's something interesting:

Cheaper & faster, too
Several readers, including an Apple sales rep, sent me references to a set of Xserve benchmarks on the Apple site. All of these show the Xserve beating competitive models from other companies, including IBM, Sun, and Dell.

What makes two of these results particularly interesting is that they show the value of optimizing software to take advantage of the hardware, reversing an effect I think of as "regression to the dumb" to achieve impressive results.

"Regression to the dumb" reflects, I think, the marketing tendency to focus on simple things that are easy to communicate in a volume market and elevate these simplifications to the level of de-facto standards. Engineers then have to accommodate these standards in product or process design.

The "megahurtz" wars, long a sore point for both Mac and Sun users, seem to illustrate this perfectly. Each new generation of x86 CPUs does less per cycle than the one before, but it drives the claimed megahertz number up because that's the number that moves product. Along the way, some very good technologies have been abandoned, and software developers have been taught to avoid making their code dependent on chip-specific features that could easily go away with the next iteration.

What happens if you look carefully at the technical advantages you've got and optimize your code and hardware accordingly instead of just going with industry-averaging practices?

1. Apple's PowerPC has an underappreciated facility marketed as the "velocity engine." This is actually a short-array processor with powerful features such as hardware FFT, but, like SPARC's VIS/SIMD, it's more honored in the breach than the observance.

   In this case, Apple's Advanced Computation Group, working with Genentech, modified an application widely used in genetics and related research to make maximum use of the facility. As a result, the Blast benchmark, which searches a genetics database for matches, shows the dual 1-GHz Xserve beating an IBM x330 with dual 1.4-GHz P3 CPUs by factors ranging from 5.8 to 21 (and a Sun V100 by up to 52 times) depending on the length and precision of the matches.

2. Internally, the Xserve has DDR (double data rate) memory feeding a 4-gigabytes-per-second data path to the CPU cache along with four ATA controllers -- one for each disk -- that operate as one. Using Bonnie to compare I/O to a Dell 1650 with dual 1.4-GHz P3 CPUs; SDR (single data rate) memory; and, a single Ultra160 RAID card with 128MB of buffer, Apple finds that the Xserve can be more than twice as fast as the Dell.

   Technically, I believe that there are two factors at work here: the Xserve has faster memory and a cleaner data path to the CPU, and Apple's four-way ATA design is both faster and cheaper than the single-path RAID card.

In both cases, better technology used in smarter ways wins. As in, duh? But managerially what they've done here is pretty cool because they're standing up for excellence instead of collapsing the technical tent and going off in search of volume.

Re:"Performance Boost" a result of the MHz myth?

[BitGeek]

Been there, done that, you ignore what you don't like to hear.

There's no point in wasting time with you... hell your handle is the first clue.

Anyone who thinks a bus that is a quarter as wide but runs at twice the clock rate is "faster" is not worth wasting words on.

Bye.

Re:"Performance Boost" a result of the MHz myth?

[Reality Master 101]

Been there, done that, you ignore what you don't like to hear.

And you always accept the truth, even when you don't want to hear it?

Face it, you don't want to "waste time with me" because YOU CAN'T. You are the typical Mac advocate that can't face the fact that Mac is an overpriced, underpowered machine. People have been posting comparisons of REAL APPLICATIONS, yet you refuse to accept the fact that the G4 is only 20% faster clock-for-clock with a P4.

How long are you going to knowingly put that LIE in your bio, when you know it's not the truth?

But hey, maybe I'm wrong. So far, you haven't posted one SHRED of evidence in your favor. Many people have posted evidence NOT in your favor. PROVE US WRONG.

If the Mac is as superior as you claim, it should be EASY.

OK, enough games. You and I both know why you won't ever take this challenge. It's because if you did any real research, you couldn't honestly put that bullshit in your bio. As long as you honestly "think it's true" without any facts, you can put it in your bio and continue to make claims so as to fool people into buying a Mac. But as soon as you try and get real facts, that game will be over, won't it? You won't be able to advocate the Mac anymore, because you'll be knowingly putting forth a lie.

Look, I have no problem if want to like Apple. You might like the design. You might like OS X. You might think that twice the price is worth it, and the performance is adequate. And that would be fine.

But this bullshit that your spewing doesn't do Apple any good. It just makes everyone think that all Apple advocates will say ANYTHING to get people to buy Apple. That's the biggest problem I have with Steve's advertising. He has to mislead people into buying Apple, instead of just focusing on the positive points of the Mac.

Re:"Performance Boost" a result of the MHz myth?

[MORTAR_COMBAT!]

please post a comparison of distributed.net stats for Athlon XP, Pentium IV, single g4, and dual G4.

rankings:
1. dual g4
2. single g4
3. athlon xp
4. pentium iv

since all geeks care about is racing up the charts on distributed.net, what other rankings really matter?

False Information

[Sandman1971]

It's hard to take this article seriously when it attempts to spread false information.

Neff, for instance, predicted Apple, which uses chips from Motorola and IBM that currently top out at 1GHz, will switch to Intel, whose chips run at 2.5GHz, to get a performance boost and gain more customers. There's a better than 80 percent chance Apple will make the jump in two to four years, he said.

Everyone knows you can't compare speeds of Intel and Motorolla chips, as they do not equate to the same thing. I lost all respect and believability for the article after reading that piece of rubbish.

Not clawhammer

[Perdo]

Sledgehammer. Opteron. Whatever.

Not Itanic.

Not Pentium 4

Not C3 (heh, I just benched a C3 800. It performed about as well as a 266 PII except with the P4's weird imbalanced interger performance. the numbers looked about like a P4@500mhz)

Stick a few Opterons in an Apple and you take Apple back to the good old days where their hardware actually outperformed the x86 boxes and was still somewhat unique.

Let Apple shine again... not just on the outside, but on the inside too!

Re:Not clawhammer

[Perdo]

And IBM Power 4 dissipating 160 watts is better? Or the G4 that will not scale because of heat issues?....

Well?

How do you propose Apple exits the doldrums?

Prossesing information generates heat.

Do we let Apple slide into complete obsolesence because YOU don't like hot processors?

Whatever.

Switch and die

[jpt.d]

if ([apple switchTo intel])
[apple killSelf];

Re:Switch and die

[tb3]

I think your Objective C is a bit off. Try:

if ([apple switchTo:"@Intel"])
[apple dealloc];

Re:Switch and die

[zephc]

"or -autorelease."

but only if you added the object 'apple' to the autorelease pool, right? *tries to remember objc*

Re:Switch and die

[medcalf]

I belive that you mean @"Intel". Ah, debugging.

Re:Switch and die

[tb3]

Yeah, yours is much more elegant than mine. I was just trying to clean up the quick hack that would be made if they suddenly switched to Intel :)

The real question is...

[BitGeek]

We all know that PowerPC chips get far more done in a given clock than x86 chips.

This was the great promise of the PowerPC, actually. By going to a superscalar Risc architecture, IBM and Motorola spent the effort to get a chip that really did more per clock.

The clock rate, however, is less of an engineering issue than a process issue. Intel has processes that increase their clock rate rather fast-- and so rather than re-engineering their processors (and paying the backwards compatibility penalty that apple paid when they switched from 68k to PPC) they have simply increased the clock rate and integrated more on chip cache, etc.

The thing is, this means that the PPC was at a very significant competitive advantage-- its really hard to beat architecture engineering, which the PPC has in spades, but pentiums lack. Design is hard. Process is easy. So, the Processes that Intel was using should have migrated to Motorola and IBM, and we should be seeing PowerPCs that run at 2GHz and leave no question as to the fact that the powerpc is much much faster.

So, the real question to my mind is-- why hasn't the process side of the house for PowerPCs kept up with intel? Certainly motorola and IBM have the know how, and they have the motivation-- competition with each other for the sizable sales to Apple, and the possibly even larger embedded and workstation markets.

I can think of two possibilities:
1) The increased complexity of a super scalar architecture on the order of the PPC makes timing more problematic and while process is there for higher speeds, the synconization of the clocks hitting all the subcomponents of hte processor at the same time is an issue. At these levels, the speed of light is a real factor when one signal goes a little further than the other, they arrive at the same place at different times due to the relative slowness it takes for the signal to go down the longer path.

2) Conflict. Motorola created Altivec and apple jumped all over it, and I don't believe IBM has a license to Altivec, giving motorola a bit of a monopoly. This combined with apple embracing altivec so much means that Motorola may not have sufficient incentive to grow the speeds. Plus, since the PowerPC has not had the widespred platform support that was expected-- NT for PPC has gone away, other Unix box makers aren't using it extensively, the market is smaller than was originally intended.

This creates quite a problem for apple. As long as they suffer from the perception- despite the reality-- that their processors are slower because people think MHz = speed-- they are going to have trouble not being seen as more expensive. Hell, even people who post here make this mistake.

So, I think Apple is planning something big. But it won't be a switch to x86, certainly as we know it.

I can imagine a couple possibilities:
1) Apple teams with AMD and brings the PPC instruction set to a future AMD processor that can handle it and the x86 instructions simultaneously. Gets AMD's process speeds, along with PPC compatibility running at native speeds (rather than emulated.) The downside is that IBM would have to agree to this, and its not clear what IBM's upside is-- unless IBM is part of the alliance and gets a competitive advantage to using this technology in its products (maybe low end power workstations)-- but still Motorola which controls altivec would have to be involved.

2) A new AIM partnership, this time its the AAIM partnership, all four companies collaborate on a new chip that will run OS X and Windows, IBM and Moto make PCs that dual boot, AMD gets Altivec and Power4 Multichip module technology, and IBM and Moto get AMD process technology, and IBM, Moto fab the chips for AMD. This gives IBM a weapon against windows, namely OSX, gives AMD the backing of two big competitors- IBM and Moto, along with a new customer, gives Moto a new jumpstart into the box making business that it gave up when Apple stopped subsidizing the clones industry.

3) The Death By Numbers Approach -- Apple goes to IBM and gets the four chip Power technology and migrates there from PowerPC, greatly increasing the volumes of these chips for IBM which is only currently using them in their servers and workstations. This drives down the costs, apple doesn't have to rewrite software (like quicktime) that was never part of the NeXT OS, and at the same time can emphatically claim the "fastest PCs in the world" title it now holds but nobody recognizes. Oh, and they sell them with 2 to 4 processor units per box.

4) Death By Numbers part 2-- apple starts shipping quad and 8 way PowerPCs running at moderate speeds, 1-2GHz using Motorola (or IBM) chips, and being competitive on price because the powerpc costs them so much less per cpu than Intel CPUs. Thus people will instinctively know that 8 1GHz CPUs are going to get a lot more done than one 3GHz intel cpu.

5) The Second Rebel Alliance-- Apple, AMD and Nvidia team up on an x86 processor that uses NVidea and AMD Hyper IO (or is it rapid io?) technology, and apple does go the x86 way..

The thing is, 5 seems least likely to me. apple has just migrated accross platforms for the second time-- the first was 68k to ppc, and the second is classic Mac to OS X. Applications have to be re-written.

Are they really going to ask their developers to re-write their apps yet again, in only a few years? I really doubt it.

So, I think there is a new processor architecture or solution coming-- I'm sure apple recognizes that the PPC has not given it the marketability it needs.

But I think that solution will be PPC compatible natively.

Re:The real question is...

[iomud]

What about spec benchmarks? I know ppc is a fast chip but I just dont think it's as fast as it used to be. Along with moto's reluctance to put out literally anything lately makes me very concerned about the future of the chip. There's only so many ways you can repackage year old technology, apple.. aside from the xserve is struggling in the hardware department. The price goes up but the performance doesn't. That being said, I own a 933g4 powermac, I bought it about three months ago, it's system bus is slower than the pc system I built last year, just a bit discouraging.

Re:The real question is...

[BitGeek]

It costs billions to change the process of a chip.

Yes and no. It costs billions to develop new processes, or to build a new fabrication plant.

But it doesn't cost that much to move a chip from one process to another-- quite a lot less in fact. Intel, Motorola and IBM regularly develop chips for one process and move them to other processes and feature sizes.

Plus the cost isn't for one chip, or even one model of chip, but for a whole line-- in other words these costs are borne by not just the processors but the GPUs, network processors and any other chip that the company in question makes. all of them benefit by the process improvements.

I'm not sure Motorola has the size to make this investment, but IBM definitely does, and AMD *has* to-- even if it can't afford it.

Re:The real question is...

[danielwright]

You're oversimplifying things a little too much when you say that if a PowerPC chip were made with the same process that Intel uses for it's new P4s, it would have the same clock rate.

Modern CPUs are all pipelined, so they divide each instruction into several pieces - say Instruction Fectch, Instruction Decode, Execute, Load/Store, Write Back for example. Then, they interleave the execution of the different stages, so while one instruction is being decode, the next is already being fetched.

At a very rough approximation (it's much more complicated than this), the clock rate has to be low enough that the largest of the pipeline stages can execute in one clock tick, so if tou divide up the execution into more, smaller stages, you can raise the clock rate higher. However, there's a lot of complex machinery to avoid "hazards" where instructions depend on each other, so they have to stall some of the instructions, and this gets more complicated and slower with a longer pipeline. (This would be a gross simplification 10 years ago, and today's CPUs are much more complicated, but it gets the main point across).

The designers of the current PowerPC implementations chose fairly short pipelines (I'm not sure of the number of stages, but I think it's around 5), while Intel uses 20 stages for the P4. That means that the P4 can run at a higher clock rate, but get less done per cycle because more of the instructions are stalled.

So, my point is, at least IBM has CPU processes at the same level as Intel's, if not better - it's due to the fundamental design of the chip that the GHz number is lower, which makes the GHz a very uninteresting measure - hence the "MHz Myth".

Also, PowerPC is an instruction set, like IA32 or IA64, it's not a chip architecture. IBM and Motorola currently make chips that implement the PowerPC instruction set (and IBM's chip, the Power4, is currently the fastest chip available, BTW).

Just to add to the list of totally unfounded predictions, here's mine:

IBM released the Power4 a few months ago, as the fastest chip on the market. They want to use it for every server platform they make (AIX boxes, mainframes and AS/400 boxes). It's designed for servers, and that shows - you need something like 1 ton of force to attach it to the motherboard, and a pretty impressive cooling system as well. This makes it unsuitable for small desktop machines like the imac, and for laptops. Also, it doesn't support Altivec. I figure, they'll work out some licensing agreement so they can make a special, slightly slower version for Apple that does support Altivec.

The merits of this: they could use basically the same CPU design and processes (which are very, very good), and now software changes.

I don't think Apple can change to Intel chips because that would require new versions of all the software. They've just asked all their customers to replace old OS9 software with OS X software. If they came back in 2 years and said everyone should replace all their software again, their customers would start to get rather irritated by it...

Re:The real question is...

[g4dget]

We may all "know" that, but it seems to be a myth. At least on SPEC benchmarks, a 1GHz G4 PPC doesn't do a whole lot better than a 1GHz Pentium III. The SPEC benchmarks are a pretty good mix of real-world code. What Heise got on them is probably what you and I can expect when we compile our programs. One might also note that, despite Apple's constant claims about how powerful the G4 is, they have never submitted a SPEC benchmark result for the chip themselves.

I think the PPC is a dead end for Apple. Lack of a 64bit migration path is a problem. Intel's Itanium doesn't need to fear comparison architecture-wise with PPC either. But the mainstream will go to 64bit AMD and Pentium. That's perhaps where Apple should go as well.

Re:The real question is...

[Mr. Quick]

The thing is, 5 seems least likely to me. apple has just migrated accross platforms for the second time-- the first was 68k to ppc, and the second is classic Mac to OS X. Applications have to be re-written.

Are they really going to ask their developers to re-write their apps yet again, in only a few years? I really doubt it.

i believe that you have hit the nail on the head with this point. architecture shifts are huge and take a long time to complete. apple has pulled it off once, 68k -> ppc was quite well done. os9 -> os x has just started, but is going quite cleanly, given it's drastic nature.

i think your 2nd option is the most likely, but nvidia needs to be in there somehow. (AMAIN??? ;)

what i think would be quite interesting, is if apple took an even bigger roll in developing chips. they have alot of knowledge in-house, and partnering even closer to people like amd and ibm might be a good idea.
so servers/workstations get those giant power4 chips, and portables/consumer machines get the g(4||5).

a remaining question is what is apple's 64-bit strategy?

Re:The real question is...

[Elwood P Dowd]

Also, PowerPC is an instruction set, like IA32 or IA64, it's not a chip architecture. IBM and Motorola currently make chips that implement the PowerPC instruction set (and IBM's chip, the Power4, is currently the fastest chip available, BTW).

No. Power4 uses a slightly different instruction set. Running PPC code on a Power3 or Power4 chip would require recompile or emulation. It's a lot closer than x86 or something, so emulation might not be the worst idea, but it's definitely different.

Re:The real question is...

[Lars T.]

What Heise got on them is probably what you and I can expect when we compile our programs.

Depends on the compilers used.

One might also note that, despite Apple's constant claims about how powerful the G4 is, they have never submitted a SPEC benchmark result for the chip themselves.

One might also note that for years SPEC simply didn't run on Macs (not even running any *NIX). It may still not work too well on OS X (or Linux PPC).

I think the PPC is a dead end for Apple. Lack of a 64bit migration path is a problem.

PPC has been designed from the start to have both 32 and 64 bit implementations. And IBM does consider Power4 to be a PPC chip.

Intel's Itanium doesn't need to fear comparison architecture-wise with PPC either.

If you don't mind only being able to use one and only one compiler. At least if you want any speed.

Re:The real question is...

[BitGeek]

I don't consider the "SPEC benchmarks" to be a very good citation-- there are a variety of benchmarks in SPEC, and they certainly don't reflect the instruction mix of modern applications.

For instance, penitums are really good at doing integer calculations but very poor at floating point, yet almost all applications that are CPU INTENSIVE use floating point. Yet Spec gives integer a much higher rating, and generally ignores floating point optimizations that are used in real world situations.

Re:The real question is...

[BitGeek]

Well, compared to pentiums, they are tiny.

that's one of the great features of the PowerPC, much smaller area, making it much cheaper to manufacture.

If Motorola isn't getting at least a factor of 4 price edge, then their process really is behind... the pentium is a much much harder chip to manufacture.

Re:The real question is...

[Junta]

Though I agree the pipeline lengthening is mostly for the sake of marketing, the technical reasoning behind it, accepting their presumptions, is sound and not merely sacrificing performance for clock.

The thinking is that Intel further complicated the instruction set with SSE2. The nature of the SSE2 lends itself to be more predictable on branches. So if intensive operations are more accurately predicted at the branches, there are fewer mispredictions (duh) and thus the pipeline need not be flushed. As more companies jump on the SSE2 bandwagon, pipeline flushes will decrease and P4 behaves as it should rather than how it does currently...

IBM

[Toraz Chryx]

My wishful-thinking-cap is still firmly pointing at Apple ditching Motorola and going to IBM for their processors.

a POWER4-Lite would be vaguely feasible (eg, pair of G3 cores + SMP logic + Altivec execution hardware + 1MB of L2 cache) on .13, and I'd reckon it would be rather rapid :)

Of course, the chances of that happening are something like my chances of winning the lottery, which incidentally is also the only way in hell I could afford a PowerMac equipped to my liking :p

Re:What's the point?

[BitGeek]

Additionally, the size of the Mac user base has steadily eroded

I don't think you can say this. I'm aware of no information that expresses the size of the mac user base.

you often see the "%5 of the market" figure, but that is actually %5 of NEW PC SALES, (so it ignores the fact that People turn their PCs over every 18 moths, but macs are performance competitive a lot longer) oh, and these numbers also ignore most mac sales. So even saying "%5 of new sales" is a lie-- they count Dell, Ingram Micro and CompUSA. They ignore the Apple store, the Apple stores, and the hundreds or thousands of independent apple dealers around the world.

Put a better way, Apple has %5 of the Intel PC market- - because that's the market they count-- and of those people, %5 of the pcs they sell are actually apples!

The total addressable market-- that is, Macs out there in active use-- is much larger, probably %20.

Last time I had any reliable numbers, it was %30, but that was because they were the only company selling CDROM drives for computers and so you could look at the number of those sold and know how much market share apple had... so that would have been the early 90s.

I'm not saying I know what the TAM for Macs is, I'm just saying I've never seen any reliable figures, and the %5 one is clearly unreliable. ( But makes for good copy for those with "Apple is dying" stick who want to beat that dead horse.)

Re:64bit

[Anonymous Coward]

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)

Re:64bit

[Toraz Chryx]

Just FYI, Apple currently ship IBM processors, the IBM "Sahara" PowerPC 750FX (G3) is used in the iBook

They are quite sweet little chips too :)

Intel as a Co-Processor?

[zulux]

It is feasable for Apple to put a Pentium on it's motherboards as a co-processor. The extra prossessor could get used by apps that need another floating point unit. Normall, non processor-intensive apps could just ignore it.

It would be a stupid hack, but woulden't require any recompiles for curent apps and gould get rid of the 'MHZ Myth' once and for all.

Of course this would be non-elegent, and mostly for marketing reasons.

Re:Intel as a Co-Processor?

[Toraz Chryx]

It would be extremely non-elegant, and if the 68k / PPC hackjobs for the Amiga are anything to go by, it would be hellishly slow too..

Maintaining cache coherency between two processors that are opposite-endian... eek *shudder*
it was bad enough with the 300+ _Micro_second context switches on Amiga's with PPC accelerators

"MHz Myth" is a myth, MHz do matter ...

[AHumbleOpinion]

The "MHz Myth" is a myth, or more accurately RDF. MHz do matter but they are not everything. Historically the PowerPC has held up extremely well against Intel. Some programs really do excel on the PowerPC but in general you get about a 20-30% increase when comparing PowerPC and Intel of the same clockrate. Assuming properly compiled and equivalently optimized programs, no Apple PR games like using old 486 optimized code on a Pentium (ByteMark), G4 vs. Pentium 4 comparisons where the Mac code uses Altivec and the PC code does not use SSE2, etc.

If someone wants to argue that there is practically no difference between a 1.0 GHz G4 and a 1.4/1.6 GHz Pentium 4 I would readily accept that. You need a benchmark program or a good stopwatch to tell the difference. However with Pentium 4's up to 2.5 GHz (and 2.0/2.2 GHz being pretty inexpensive) you will find that raw brute force MHzs does matter. It may not be the 2.5:1 that the non-technical might assume, but it is noticable.

Comparing CPUs in terms of operations? Well that's what SPEC is all about. However Apple does not like SPEC since it is not RDF friendly and contradicts the arguement that MHzs don't matter.

Re:"MHz Myth" is a myth, MHz do matter ...

[Lars T.]

Comparing CPUs in terms of operations? Well that's what SPEC is all about.

Well, that's what SPEC is supposed to be about. But as long as a 1 GHz P3 is 30% (or more) faster than a 1GHz P3 depending on the compiler used...

The future

[TheOnlyCoolTim]

I see Apple making Mac OS XI for x86 but only allowing it to work on special Apple motherboards. Apple won't hype the switch that much. They will instead sell some sort of VMWare-like or dual-boot stuff and market the x86 Macs as being able to run Windows at full speed.

Then someone will hack Mac OS XI to work on any motherboard, or some company will reverse engineer the special Apple motherboards and make their own Mac compatible motherboards, and Apple will call out the lawyers.

Tim

Re:The future

[feldsteins]

I see Apple making Mac OS XI for x86 but only allowing it to work on special Apple motherboards.

I think that is exactly right.

Apple won't hype the switch that much. They will instead sell some sort of VMWare-like or dual-boot stuff and market the x86 Macs as being able to run Windows at full speed.

Can't see it. What I do see is that Apple will make the switch when a next-gen Intel or AMD processor comes out - and they will wait for it for two reasons. 1. Presumably one of them will find a way to make their stuff a little smaller and cooler. Apple likes things like TiBooks and fanless iMacs. Can't develop shit like that with brick-sized P4 modules can you? No. 2. Apple won't want to pull a "New Coke" on their market. Mac users are loyal to their brand and to their processors. They won't like seeing a switch to a part that has been touted as inferior for so long. This effect will be lessened when a next-gen part comes out which doesn't have quite the history of being bashed by Apple as the current one's do.

Then someone will hack Mac OS XI to work on any motherboard, or some company will reverse engineer the special Apple motherboards and make their own Mac compatible motherboards, and Apple will call out the lawyers.

Apple would never, ever make such a switch unless they were supremely sure that this couldn't happen. If the ability to sell proprietary hardware for the OS went bye-bye then so would Apple itself and they are fully aware of this. It's not just a dinosaur clinging to the old ways...it really is at the core of Apple being able to innovate the way they do. They have to control the OS and hardware of the platform to do what they do. That is the only reason why Dell or Microsoft can't be an Apple. it's not because Apple is "cooler" or even "smarter." It's because they control the entire platform.

Hell, if I worked at Apple I would want to make damned sure that those crown jewels never got lost. I'd rather run the boxes with hampsters in plastic wheels than risk that.

False Information comes from both sides

[AHumbleOpinion]

Everyone knows you can't compare speeds of Intel and Motorolla chips, as they do not equate to the same thing. I lost all respect and believability for the article after reading that piece of rubbish.

Of course you have blown your credibility with the above as well.

MHz can't be used as a precise measurement but it can not be completely disregarded. Especially when the ration is over 2.5:1. Is a 1.4GHz Pentium 4 faster than a 1.0GHz G4, for all practical measurements probably not. A 2.5 GHz Pentium 4, yes, raw brute force can overcome elegance and efficiency.

Re:False Information comes from both sides

[AHumbleOpinion]

Of course you have blown your credibility with the above as well.

Nope, you are merely misinformed. :)

It can be completly disgarded if the G4 performed 2.5x more instructions per cycle than the P4.

Only if x86 and PPC instructions are doing equal work which is not necessarily the case (CISC vs. RISC), only if these instruction do not need to access RAM or other resources outside the CPU, etc. You are substituting one erroneous metric, instructions per cycle, for a different erroneous metric, cycles per second.

Re:False Information comes from both sides

[AHumbleOpinion]

... it is possible that a 1g chip can outpreform a 2.5g chip, even significantly ...

Absolutely, it's just a pretty rare event. In general PowerPC seems to do 20-30% better than x86 of an equal clockrate.

... I'm not a mac user btw ...

I use both Macs and PCs which is why I recognize Apple PR events where Macs run twice as fast for what they are. :)

X86 != cheap PC parts

[AHumbleOpinion]

A switch to x86-based hardware does not mean Apple will be killing their hardware business. They do not have to switch to off-the-shelf PC parts. They can continue to use custom and proprietary designs, just substituting an x86 for a PowerPC. They can have the same high standard and reliability.

The real problem is getting developers to compile for both CPUs, and this is a big problem. I don't expect emulation to work as well as with the 68K to PowerPC move.

With respect to your efficiency comment, that's irrelevant. High overhead and brute force at 2.5G overcomes elegance and efficiency at 1G. Your suggestion to ditch Motorola for IBM may make things even worse if I am correct that IBM has no interest in Altivec. Perhaps this has changed, or are all G4's still Motorola?

Internal Contradiction - HPQ

[Shabazz]

I love how the article states that Neff says that the HP Compaq deal was a bad idea:

HP, meanwhile, has problems in the PC realm. Rather than try to become a low-cost leader, the company instead tried to bulk up by buying Compaq Computer. History in the computer market, though, shows that "the key is not scale, the key is low cost," he said in an interview.

And then later in the article they talk about his positive track record, including his recommendation for HP to buy Compaq:

While Wall Street analysts have created a cottage industry out of making grandiose (and often ultimately incorrect) predictions and recommendations, Neff can boast of a fairly strong track record of the industry adopting at least some of his ideas. In January 2001, he said that it would behoove HP to purchase Compaq. At the time, most analysts--and even some HP and Compaq execs--warned against buying PC companies, saying it was better to let them fade away.

So, if he's such a brainiac, why did he think it would be a good idea for HP to buy Compaq, and then call it a blunder after it actually happens.

It's not a great track record if you recommend something that you end up calling a mistake once it comes true. Bottom line, maybe the world would be a better place if the industry doesn't adopt his ideas.

Re:What's the point?

[Golias]

Actually, the "Apple is dying" crowd usually say 2%-3%. The 5% figure has often been displayed prominently in Apple's own ads. If that figure ignored Apple's in-store and on-line sales, don't you think Apple would have commissioned another study by now, or demanded a correction from the companies doing these surveys, rather than run adds on their website saying, "now if we can just convince 1 out of every 19 PC users to switch to a Mac, we would double our market share!"

Re:20% of user base on OS X?

[DavidRavenMoon]

Then, how about the figures of people still running 98 or 95? Or even 3.1?

This is true. I think many people buy a PC, or a Mac, and just leave on what ever OS it came with.

These are not people like us mind you.

My brother and his wife are perfect examples.

They each had a PC, my brother a whitebox PC running Windows 3.0 (!) and his wife an old Compaq laptop running 3.1.

This was fine for them, they mostly used it for writing (they are art teachers and poets) until they wanted to get online.

The laptop was the most capable, so they went and got a PCCard modem, but lacked the drivers, and MS removed all the Win 3.1 downloads ... so they bought a 333 MHz iMac (green) and are still running Mac OS 8.6... until I get around to upgrading it to 9.2 :)

They came over one day and looked at my G4 running OS X, and had this bewildered look on their faces... like a dear in the headlghts. Ha!

Most of my PC using friends are still running Win 98, and one runs NT 4.

What creds does this guy have?

[gmhowell]

Okay, he's a staff writer for 'news.com.com'. What journalistic credit does this guy have? "Hi, I own shares of Dell and Intel. Can I write a 'story' that would pimp their stock prices?" Gimme a break. Perhaps the 50 page report has more info in it, but this is incredibly lame.

Apple has historically gone to great lengths to be compatible. First they could read PC floppies. Then fat binaries let 68k machines last for a long time after they were no longer sold. There is the compatibility layer in OSX. The idea is simply absurd.

I know next to nothing about compilers, but doesn't it stand to reason that Apple would have to redevelop most/all of their libraries, to say nothing of the compilers themselves? Particularly if they go off for some 'pseudo-x86' architecture like some are suggesting.

At that point, what will be the difference between Mac and Windows? Would companies even bother with MacOS ports, or would they just make some bit of middleware, so that the same binary could use the ABI of either system? (I'm talking way beyond my knowledge, so if it sounds like I don't know what I'm talking about, I don't.)

What would be gained by this? Go from 5% market share to 6%? Not worth the effort. Having access/drivers to PCI/AGP slots, USB, IDE, etc. makes sense. Not for the main architecture.

Hell, even Transmeta makes more sense than this sort of malarky. Get it to emulate PPC for old apps, ia64 for new stuff, or something like that. But straight Intel hardware? I think not.

Remember, even though they don't say it, the Mac is the 'computer for the rest of us'. While it's no longer the company line, don't doubt for a minute that Steve likes being a member of the elite. He likes it that cool Hollywood types use iMacs for computer scenes. He likes it that the kids of yuppie hipsters carry iPods.

Steve is not a commodity guy. Ask the owners of StarMax machines.

This article (and the one 'proving' the existence of super-duper-top-secret military aircraft) prove that in the eyes of the editors, today was a slow news day. Not slow enough to answer the question "what happens when VA is delisted" but slow, nonetheless.

Re:What creds does this guy have?

[norwoodites]

I do not totally disagree with this post but:
The compiler bit is a little off the only part Apple will have to compile for ia32 (which they do not do already publicly) is the all libraries that go with Mac OS X instead of Darwin, this includes Cocoa, Carbon (since Cocoa is using Carbon for menus and other things) and the window server.

The kernel is almost compiled fat so is most of the UNIX apps for both ppc and ia32 for Darwin.
In fact you can compile gcc so it will make fat binaries with one command line.

Re:What creds does this guy have?

[norwoodites]

It is only possible because of the file format apple uses for executables, mach-o, no other OS uses it.
And it is apple's extensions to gcc to have the ability to make phat (as apple calls it in the source of gcc) binaries.

Re:Crusoe?

[dbrutus]

Even Better, why not just put out a PPC compatibility layer as a free upgrade and then all crusoe's shipping can run Mac OS X?

Re:Intel? Nah.

[feldsteins]

If they went to the 'build your own' x86 market

There is a huge leap between "using Intel processors" and what you're talking about. Using an Intel or AMD processor does not by any means mean that one could make a Macintosh out of off-the-shelf parts. No way, no how.

Apple could quite easily use totally off-the-shelf parts to build their own Macs and yet prevent you from doing it too...by adding one small thing: an additional chip (or chips) to the motherboard. Proprietary ones. One's that you couldn't buy anywhere, who's exact specification was unknown outside of Cupertino.

One's that the Mac OS specifically looked for before booting. Get the picture? No proprietary chip, no booting Mac OS. No build-your-own Mac. Someone feel free to correct me if I"m wrong but isn't that basically the reason why nobody could make Macintosh clones? Because of some proprietary ROMs or something? (Excepting the brief period when some companies were licensed to use them.)

So you see, Apple moving to an Intel processor doesn't mean that one could make a Mac by buying parts at some local white box dealer.

The MHz myth myth

[g4dget]

It would be really nice if Apple, in fact, showed some real, industry-standard benchmark results to support their performance claims, but they don't.

When others have looked at the G4 performance on a standard benchmark suite like SPEC (e.g., here), a 1GHz G4 is not significantly faster than a 1GHz Pentium III.

I just want to run software... What a headache.

[dpbsmith]

Oh, jeez, what a headache if they change.

Emulation sucks.

The transition from 68K to PowerPC went better than anyone might have expected, but it was still a headache. As it happened, I was using two Macs at the same time. One was the latest of the 68K generation, the other being the first of the PowerPC generation, and--although it did great on pure-processor benchmarks--the PowerPC was distinctly more sluggish. And crashed more. It really took about two or three years before PowerPC's FELT fast again, and before everyone had native PPC versions of their software.

I use Virtual PC on my Mac. It works, sort of. For $200-odd it's a great product. It works better than anyone might have imagined, in fact. But it's no substitute for a real PC.

So what will happen if Apple goes Intel? I assume they'll do their best to provide some kind of PowerPC emulation so that old software will RUN, but I'm sure it will be slow. And buggy.

And, darn it, old software is IMPORTANT. It's not just a question of the cost of upgrading; I have significant amounts of software that I still use whose companies are either out of business or not upgrading their products.

And it's always the beloved GAMES that don't run in emulation...

Another possible thought

[GORDOOM]

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... :)

PowerPC already went to 64 bits

[flimflam]

IBM is already on the second generation of 64 bit PowerPCs (POWER4). They can run either 32 or 64 bit code. Basically, PowerPC already made the transition that x86 is just beginning now.

Re:PowerPC already went to 64 bits

[Lars T.]

PPC has been designed from the start to have both 32 and 64 bit implementations. And IBM does consider Power4 to be a PPC chip.

2 Reasons that would never happen

[Leimy]

1) Apple needs to sell the total package to make money doing what they do. They do a really good job of it right now IMHO. If I could buy a PC clone and load OS X on it Apple only gets a *very* small portion of that total package. For Apple to make money doing this the cost of OS X would have to be more that even Microsoft Office!

2) Do you think Microsoft would sell Office for a new "competing" OS? I think they would drop support for OS X in a heartbeat if they did this.

I don't like to spread rumors of any kind about Apple but I think if they do choose a new CPU it *should* be derived from perhaps the IBM Power series. It has PPC compatibility and is 64bit. Existing software *should* be able to work on it and Apple users would have a lot to look forward to in next generation software.

The big issue is how much are those mothers gonna cost? In reality I know I don't *need* 64bits to get my work done and that CPU makers are really just cramming it down my throat because they feel the need to sell me something.

I bought a dual AMD MP 1600 system in the last 6 months and I tend to use my powerbook more often than that [which is only 667 Mhz G4]. I think that says a lot about what I need and what the industry wants me to want.

I can wait and so can 90% of the public wait for either faster G4's or 64bit Apples.

In the long term, anything could happen, but...

[jht]

I don't see this as likely, especially in Neff's timeframe. Here's why. The G4 processor doesn't have the legs that the P4 has right now, but Moto is known to be making at least 1.4 GHz parts right now.

Apple also has a policy of running duallys at the high end, and given XServe, we know they have a motherboard/chipset in-house that supports reasonably modern features like DDR and ATA-100. And unless all the rumor sites are wrong, there's a new PowerMac due no later than Seybold in about a month - possibly this month.

So I figure a high-end Mac with dual 1.4 GHz G4 processors, DDR PC2100 RAM, and ATA-100 support is in the cards shortly. That's going to be a reasonably competitive machine for a while, though not quite up to bleeding-edge Wintel specs. There's also likely a little bit more leg in the G4, at least enough to get up around 2 GHz.

Beyond that, Apple's got some options. They can go to quad processors pretty easily, or by next spring they have a good shot of being up on G5 processors, which are reputedly now in sampling. Should they be making the move to G5, that'll probably carry them another couple of years, so we're talking 2005 at the outside before they have to have the next stop in mind.

A lot can happen in that time. The likeliest thing is that they jump to a 64-bit contender that emerges by then - possibly AMD but who knows? Migrating to the IBM POWER processors would be another logical move because minimal work would be required and the additional volume would drive IBM's own costs down significantly. Remember, Apple sells more RISC systems in a year than Sun, SGI (though they don't control MIPS anymore), and IBM do combined - yet all those companies see it as worthwhile to continue investing in alternative architectures. If Apple decided to move their volume systems to a slightly scaled-down version of one of these workstation chips it would have a major impact on cost.

Or Motorola could get serious and start working hand-in-hand with IBM again - IBM's fab capabilities are way beyond Moto's, and IBM could probably build the same G4 as Moto at a higher clock rate with better yields. There is one key reason, though, why Apple doesn't have to worry too much about PowerPC dying - it's huge in the embedded marketplace. Versions of PowerPC are used in all sorts of devices, and I believe it's pretty popular in automotive and networking. That gets your volumes up, too.

WHY didn't NT non-ports hurt MS?

[dpbsmith]

Speaking of OS ports...

In the early nineties, one of the knocks on Windows, versus UNIX, was that Windows locked you in to a specific processor architecture.

When Nt was announced, Microsoft was at great pains to blunt the appeal of UNIX by asserting that NT was highly portable and promising that it would be available on lots and lots of processor architectures.

I'm not sure I remember all of them, but certainly MIPS, Alpha, and PPC were among them. (Remember the ACE initiative, anyone?)

All of the versions for non-Intel hardware were late, or had problems, or weren't supported, or never materialized at all. I believe PPC never materialized at all. Alpha never made it past NT 3.5. The promise that NT would be available for multiple processors was pretty much broken in a surprisingly short period of time.

I keep wondering why this didn't hurt MS in the marketplace. Windows locks you in twice--to Microsoft and to Intel architecture. Admittedly there are viable non-Intel sources for Intel architecture, but still...

Great Questions

[Spencerian]

Excellent, most excellent presumptions.

It should be noted that, of any personal computer, only Apple can even consider such moves without significantly affecting (adversely) the potency of their computers. No other mobo spec maker can, or has, dramatically changed their systems in the way that Apple does.

I presume the same, that is, that Apple is seriously considering a processor change. It may be for performance, but the decision will also be for a cost advantage. ANYTHING to reduce the cost of a Macintosh yet provide the same performance and convenience is a Good Thing for Mac sales.

Re:64bit

[blakespot]

Apple wouldn't necessarily lose hardware sales if they switched to x86s. Apple owns industrial design in this industry: they could sell *more* hardware if they had x86s and could run Windows. How pissed would MS be if they had an Apple logo on machines running Windows which could dual-boot OS X out of the box? If my TiBook were x86, I'd still own it. what else is out there that has this screen and runs Final Cut Pro? Eh?

If Apple went x86, the boxes would not run Windows (well, not without some sort of VirtualPC app anyway). They would absolutely not use PC BIOS,.they would still use OpenFirmware. Why, oh why would Apple place around their neck the 20 year old albatros that is the PC BIOS / architecture??

They would share a similar CPU with PC's -- and that's the end of it.

blakespot

PowerPC IS the consumer version of IBM Power chip

[johnpaul191]

on your first point.... Apple and IBM do currently play nice.... the PowerPC chip is a team effort (to simplify it) of Apple, Moto and IBM. there is something that Moto added to the equation (mind failing right now) that they own patents on. maybe the velocity engine? if Moto is left out of the next lineup, they would have to work out a deal. *if* Apple and Moto part ways i do not think it would be because "intel chips are 2.5 times faster", it would be because Moto is going through a lot of restructuring, layoffs and plant closings. it's possible Moto is not seeing the revenue it wants out of Apple's chipsets, or some top execs just want to refocus their efforts into other areas. they have some integral technology in G3 and G4 chips that they could probably contract out to Apple/IBM and just get checks every quarter instead of actually dealing with manufacturing. IBM has great state of the art manufacturing facilities, and Apple has gotten a bit more involved in the design of the processors.
there has been some talk for a while of Apple working out a deal and teaming up with IBM to make the "G5" or whatever chips. IBM supposedly has better manufacturing facilities, the have been producing G3 and G4 chips all along.
as for the IBM Power chip, every spec i have seen indicates it is too power hungry and hot to run in a desktop machine, let alone ever fitting into a laptop. from my understanding, the PowerPC chip IS the consumer version of the Power processor (hence the "PC" aka "personal computer" suffix).

would this invoke M$ nightmares? why add hot chips

[johnpaul191]

*if* Apple switched to Intel chips, would this somehow invoke some sort of pressure from MS on Intel? youu figure if OS X ever ran on straight up PCs (doubt it) then they would be going head to head with Bill Gates and i see him fighting back. if they used a modified intel chip (doubt it), then i wonder if it would matter if M$ has their foot int he door of the plant that makes Apple's chips. also, why bother? Intel chips are hot as hell and use tons of power. these are the days of power usage concerns, and Apple's dislike for fans and noise. if anything they should be pitching the power usage of the LCD iMac vs some P4 with 19" CRT device. granted on one user's house it isn't a big deal but when you have clusters and clusters of them in schools and offices it adds up.

If Apple goes to Intel chips...

[greygent]

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.

Re:Crusoe?

[Valdrax]

A) It wouldn't net Apple any more hardware sales.
B) The components of a Crusoe that contain the x86 instruction translation are probably not flashable. They're probably in ROMs.

Both reasons offered fail

[AHumbleOpinion]

A switch to x86-based hardware does not mean Apple will be killing their hardware business. They do not have to switch to off-the-shelf PC parts. They can continue to use custom and proprietary designs, just substituting an x86 for a PowerPC. They can have the same high standard and reliability. Nothing really changes, x86 Macs are still a different target architecture and MacOS X does not pose any more threat than before to Microsoft.

One possible exception to the above. Virtual PC's emulation becomes a much more practical option. However Microsoft could buy them out, much simpler than dropping Apple support. Apple support helps with that DOJ monopoly thing.

Re:Both reasons offered fail

[Leimy]

Of course you are right. I think it would be ideal for Apple to do something like use the Crusoe processor core [128 bit VLIW? need to double check] or work on a new unique CPU with AMD or Transmeta or something. Perhaps IBM would want to get in bed too.

If anything is known about new CPU details Apple is keeping the information in an air-tight container.

nVidia

[arloguthrie]

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.

WinNT cross-platform an MS success, Apple failure

[AHumbleOpinion]

WinNT 3.1 was initially developed on MIPS and x86. The WinNT 4.0 retail CD sitting on store shelves had x86, MIPS, Alpha, and PowerPC binaries. I recall seeing ads for dual PowerPC 604-120 machines running WinNT 4.0 long before I purchased a PowerMac 8500. Byte magazine reviewed these dual PowerPC machines and showed how they scaled much better than dual Pentium machines.

Microsoft was entirely successful in delivering cross-platform WinNT up through version 4.0. The problem was that no one purchased the non-x86 machines in signifcant numbers. Nearly everyone preferred low cost and stayed with x86. The few who cared about peformance picked Alpha.

PowerPC did not have performance and it did not have price. The only thing going for it was the hope of being able to have one machine that could dual boot into WinNT of MacOS. WinNT was basically running on machines built to the PREP spec. A superset of PREP added Apple extensions, this was referred to as CHRP. Solaris, OS/2, and WinNT could run under PREP or CHRP but MacOS required CHRP. Apple kept having delays and MacOS for CHRP missed deadline after deadline. This may have also been about the time Apple began rethinking the Mac clone decision. The reversal on Mac clones may or may not have affected the delivery of MacOS on CRHP. The end result is that without the ability to dual boot to WinNT or MacOS there was little point to WinNT PowerPC. Poor sales led to its demise.

Missing the point...

[batobin]

I think that most people here are missing the point. I've scanned the discussions, and forgive me if I'm wrong, but everybody is sticking to the argument about speed. This machine is faster, that machine is faster. Apple will do this because of speed, and Apple will do that because of speed. Whoah, whoah! Apple doesn't really care that much about speed!

Think about it. Sure, they try to ship the newest and the greatest processors when they can, but do you honestly think they'd still be in the AIM partnership if all they cared about was speed? Of course not. The key to understanding Apple is knowing what they value. What do they value? Being the God of their customer's computers.

Think about it. Apple is constantly building walls between itself and the community. They control all hardware. They are the sole producers of the OS. They approve all drivers. They produce many of the basic Applications one might use (Office Suite, photo program, movie making, burning software, music player, calendar program, scanning software, chatting program, email program). They produce a server that has heavy integration with Macintosh clients. They have a web hosting business that integrates heavily with OS X. The list of internal Apple ties is endless. Sure, you could make the argument that Apple has lots of ties to outside companies and products, but Apple branches out to them (for example, see the digital hub) instead of the companies coming to Apple.

Apple is building a contained Mac world. They have been forever. Switching to x86 chips would mean losing a lot of control. If they can sacrifice a little bit of speed for a lot of containment, they'll do it in a heartbeat. If you go by Michael Kanellos's stupid argument, Apple will dump their current sound cards and switch to Creative cards within the next couple years as well, because of their better performance. Do you honestly think Apple will want to start relying on another company to produce drivers, tech support, etc.? Apple will produce everything that they can, and when they can't produce it they will invest heavily in a company that can, and set up a strict partnership.

Earlier I mentioned the AIM partnership. Apple doesn't just buy their chips from the cheapest dealer on the street. They were integrating when that partnership was created, and they continue to integrate today. They won't throw away years and years of work to form a new integration with Intel as a part. It would go completely against Apple's plan.

Re:Intel? Nah.

[feldsteins]

Why would a clone maker have to license the OS necessarily? They could be a white-box Mac maker and ship linux or nothing on the machine. heck they could even sell you a retail boxed copy of OS X along side it if they wanted. I can't imagine that it's OS licensing that's preventing clones.

Your point about reverse engineering is a good one though. But the proprietary widgets can be reverse engineered now can't they? I mean, you could reverse engineer those parts and then buy G4s from Motorola and some off the shelf parts...and preseto, clone Mac. Perhaps your point is that the only real thing stopping them is that as soon as that happend all the reversen engineering would be for naught because Apple would just break it in the next OS patch. The "unauthorized" clone maker would always be spending tons on R&D to reverse engineer...every six months potentially. Isn't that the real reason there are no clones today? Not that the reverse engineering can't be done...but that nobody wants to do it every few months because Apple isn't cooperating?

Re:Serious question

[rjung2k]

Best answer is probably "the chip is good, the OS is immature." After all, we're talking v.1.1.5 of a new OS; it's going to take Apple some time before they get to the level of optimization and maturity that 10+ years of Windows (or even MacOS Classic) has reached.

Support for this comes from the early reports of the upcoming 10.2 "Jaguar" release; even without "Quartz Extreme" hardware acceleration, the OS is supposed to be noticably faster and more responsive, thanks in large part to optimizations, improved code, and the new gcc compiler they're using.

Give 'em time.

Re:64bit

[dadragon]

Apple also uses IBM Travelstar 40GN hardrives in the iBook.

Re:What's the point?

[BitGeek]

I've only ever seen apple use the %5 figure when they were JOKING.

"Now to get the other %95" is a clear joke to me, though most people seem not to get it.

They are playing on the perception that they have %5 of the market.

Anyway, the fact is that the %5 figure comes from a fundamentally flawed study of the marketplace, and I have not seen any better research.

I have a great alternative to intell for apple.

[SuperCal]

I was reading this http://news.com.com/2100-1001-948493.html?tag=fd_t op article at news.com and it hit me, this could be a great new processor line for Apple. Now befor you mod me as an idiot (this post was made several days after the story aired so I don't think anyone will read this anyway) I don't think that this is apples future chip. I am just pointing out that there are new processors coming out all the time and IBM or Motorola could easily poduce a solution for apple.

Re:look at your webserver logs for an answer

[BitGeek]

If you grab unique IPs that might be good...

but part of the problem is many if not most, mac browsers out there pretend to be IE because for awhile there many websites wouldn't load if the browser didn't indicate it was IE on a PC. (Even though the pages would render fine on a Mac.)

Re:20% of user base on OS X?

[Junta]

It's easier to have 20% of a small number switch over, especially if that small number of users is ver saavy and knowledgable about their platform. Mac users tend to be enthusiasts of a sort, and of course want the latest and greatest. Just like nealy every linux user keeps their system up to date with the distribution of their choice.

Windows users on average just want it to do something, and as long as it does, why switch?