Apple Switched Chips Too Soon?

Ctrl+Alt+De1337 writes "C|Net is reporting that IBM has announced a method of altering silicon that will allow its next generation of Power chips to run at speeds between 4 and 5 gigahertz, and consume less power as well. From the article: 'Instead of just making transistors smaller, IBM came up with a process to alter how silicon behaves by placing a layer of insulator underneath a layer of silicon less than 500 atoms thick ... The higher speed of the Power6 will be achieved with existing chip manufacturing technology that etches transistors only 65 nanometers wide, several hundred times smaller than a human blood cell.' These won't be out until 2007, but it still raises the question: did Apple jump the gun by switching to Intel?"

Comments

Apple Switched Chips Too Soon?

[BuR4N]

No, it was the best thing to do, instead of having one company as a supplier they now got at least 2 , AMD and Intel. I think we get better and cheaper Apple boxes out of the x86 move.

Its not all about performance either, its the ability to ship large quantities of chips also, if you want to grab a larger market share.

No.

[qwertphobia]

No, Apple did not switch too soon.

Remember, we (the loyal Apple customers) have been waiting for a significant increase in computing power within the portable market.

IBM made promises to Apple but were unable to deliver on those promises. Remember the statements about 3 GHz within a year? Apple couldn't sit by while IBM broke promise after promise on upcoming product lines.

If Apple had waited any longer, they would have lost momentum in the portables market, and in turn the desktop computer market, eventually pulling down the servers and everything else with it.

On the other hand, Apple could always keep their servers on the IBM product line. I doubt they would, but it's always a possibility. Apple might just not be done with the PPC for good.