Apple Moves to All Dual-Processor Power Mac Lineup

Jason Siegel writes "Apple will no longer be selling single-processor Power Mac computers, according to GeekInformed. The company has officially dropped 1.8 GHz G5s from their lineup to pave the way for exclusively dual-processor Power Macs. The systems will range from dual 2 to 2.7 GHz G5s. This is the first significant announcement since the Worldwide Developers Conference declaration that Apple will transition away from PowerPC to Intel chips."

Comments

Still dual processor when they go Intel?

[gbulmash]

Here's a question, and my apologies if it's been asked and answered before. Will Apple stay the dual-processor course when they move to Intel? I don't mean dual core Pentiums. I mean two slabs of silicon, like a dual Xeon setup. And with Intel moving more and more to dual-core across the lines... Dual core, dual processor, OS/X... Dang.

Then again, who knows where desktop Linux will be in 16 months with the Mandrake/Connectiva/Lycoris mergers, the rise of Ubuntu... And think of that on dual core, dual processor... ohhh... Someone get me a tissue!

Regardless, next year's going to be interesting if you're in the market for a new box. :-)

- Greg

Encouragement for good SMP support?

[Sv-Manowar]

With the impending move to x86 architecture, this could be Apple posturing to encourage developers to work on the SMP capabilities of their programs. Intel's chips obviously feature things like HyperThreading and dual cores, making extracting the best possible performance require good SMP code. Obviously by phasing out the idea of a non-SMP 'Power' mac, Apple can encourage developers of scientific, processing and even mainstream applications (to an extent) to take better notice and make better use of SMP capable systems.

Orphan Machines?

[Greyfox]

Surely once Apple moves away from the PPC architecture, the developers will not continue developing software for the platform, will they? Will Apple provide an emulator so you can run X86 binaries on that spiffy PPC Mac you bought today? Wouldn't it be a performance hit to run programs that way?

Re:Why upgrade now?

[Golias]

perhaps the odd app here and there will be incompatible, but at the same time, there does exist a very wide range of unique PPC apps currently that likely will never make their way to Intel.

I'll even put on my Carnac hat and break it down for you:

1. There will probably be a native WINE port for OS X within months of the first Mac-on-Intel release which will not run on the G5. This will allow the running of various Windows apps without rebooting or even leaving the OS X desktop. Geeks will love the fact that damn near all Windows and Linux software will in CPU-native mode within OS X, but old-school Mac heads probably won't care much.

2. It has already been announced that the Intel Macs will never be capable of running "Classic" applications. Fans of old Mac programs like Quark will be all a-tizzy about squeezing maximum life out of the remaining G5 systems, but nobody else will care.

Pretty much everything else is likely to work just fine on either platform.