Apple switches to Intel

[SaviorNeeded]

Sorry to interrupt the potential fisticuffs about to begin, but I'm wondering if the idea of an Apple that dual-boots Windows is just wild speculation or a real possibility. If I have the bucks at the right time, I'd for sure get that machine.

Tom

[Sage]

Sorry to interrupt the potential fisticuffs about to begin, but I'm wondering if the idea of an Apple that dual-boots Windows is just wild speculation or a real possibility. If I have the bucks at the right time, I'd for sure get that machine.

Tom

Wild speculation. Not only is the hardware incompatible, but such a move would destroy third-party development for OS X. If you could boot into Windows, or get Windows apps to run on OS X easily, no one would bother to create native OS X apps.

[whyterabbyt]

Sage quoth

You miss my point. What part of "as an architecture" did you not understand?

I didnt not understand it. But if you were including the A64 then you were wrong to call it an architecture. It is a different processor family, with a different architecture. Hence my distinction.

Unless you mean something different from the common usage of 'processor architecture'.

[Sage]

Even for 32bit x86s that statement is not valid. One could create benchmarks that show x86 to be superior in the majority of cases, or one could create benchmarks to show that PowerPC is superior in the majority of cases.

Again, I was talking architecture and not actual processors. But in terms of raw performance between specific chips, of course you're right.

Personally I wonder what this augers for AMD. Clearly the market is moving away from desktop chips and increasingly towards laptop friendly processors (how ironic to see the PIII back as Intel's flagship of the future ).

Not that ironic. I've got a dual P3 box still in commission that served me for a very long time. P4 was a cheap ploy to ramp up clock speeds with minimal performance gains, and everyone saw through it.

AMD really just gives Intel a reason to stay on their toes. It's a shame they're in that position, because their engineering is really top notch, but their foresight is piss-poor. While they were working on making the best 64-bit desktop processor they could, Intel was focusing on power management and heat dissipation. And as a result, Intel is far more ready for the future market than AMD.

That's because, for most people, faster processors mean diminishing returns. It's the creative types like us who use the power-hungry apps, but most folks don't notice the difference between a 1 Ghz P3 and 3.6 Ghz Xeon. As a result, they're willing to sacrifice that unnecessary extra power for portability and/or unobtrusiveness. Note the recent popularity of small form factor PCs, and the fact that laptops are still the only expanding market in computer sales.

Who knows? AMD is smart and flexible, they could bounce back and outdo Intel. They did it once before, with the original Athlon.

[Sage]

I didnt not understand it. But if you were including the A64 then you were wrong to call it an architecture. It is a different processor family, with a different architecture. Hence my distinction.

Unless you mean something different from the common usage of 'processor architecture'.

Okay, now I'm not sure what you mean. But to clarify -- when I said x86, I meant IA-32 as well as x86_64. So I was comparing the PowerPC architecture to both IA-32 and x86_64 at the same time. Sorry for the confusion there.

[ShawnG]

Apparently you aren't going to need to dual boot Windows, if this article is true:

http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0, ... 14,00.html

Personally this would just be unbelievably cool: no more lusting after Logic 7 for us PC types, and no more tradeoffs when buying a computer.

[valley]

Not that ironic.

Well, if you think back to the marketing fluff that Intel churned out to fanfare the arrival of the P4, it really kind of is.

I'm not even sure it was a cheap ploy. I genuinely believe that Intel truly saw the P4 architecture as being far nore future proof that it has actually turned out to be.

I suspect the rather abrupt change in the performance/heat wastage ratio that heralded the 3Ghz P4s came as much of a surprise to them as it did to everyone else.

Perhaps you are right though, and I'm being a little naive...

but their foresight is piss-poor.

It's hard to say. The problem with AMD is not that they don't always guess the market, but more that Intel is in the position to largely define the market.

Only in a very few, albeit highly publicized, cases have Intel failed to push their vision of the future over AMD's. As such AMD always seems to be behind the curve, and occassionally appears to miss it entirely.

With the '64, for the first time, AMD got to set the rules of the game. In the desktop market, and one day in the not too distant future, in the notebook space too, all x86 CPUs are going to follow designs and instruction sets defined by AMD.

For the underdog, that's no mean feat.

(the desktop v notebook issue is being decided by consumers, so I ignored that one).

[aldi]

best think i like to see the most when it came to that : are applications running faster on osx or windows

[braj]

Sorry to interrupt the potential fisticuffs about to begin, but I'm wondering if the idea of an Apple that dual-boots Windows is just wild speculation or a real possibility. If I have the bucks at the right time, I'd for sure get that machine.

Tom

Wild speculation. Not only is the hardware incompatible, but such a move would destroy third-party development for OS X. If you could boot into Windows, or get Windows apps to run on OS X easily, no one would bother to create native OS X apps.

That's bull shit. If the hardware were the same ie. Intel, unless Apple purposefully made the computer NOT able to boot into Windows, I'm betting it could. It would be beneficial for both Apple and Microsoft, there really isn't a down side with that scenario for either. Apple will still more than likely cost more than your average PC, so other PC makers probably won't care either.

Regarding people coding for OS X, there would be the same motivation as there is currently to build OS X apps. And people who buy Macs buy them so they don't have to use Windows generally. Why would it hurt third party devs?

[james]

So exactly what is the state of Intel mobile chips? Is the Centrino as good as the hype?

If so, would that be a good candidate for next year's ibooks? Centrino Widescreen ibooks for $700 by Spring 06? I think that sounds reasonable. I would buy one.

[braj]

So exactly what is the state of Intel mobile chips? Is the Centrino as good as the hype?

If so, would that be a good candidate for next year's ibooks? Centrino Widescreen ibooks for $700 by Spring 06? I think that sounds reasonable. I would buy one.

That would be nifty.

[ShawnG]

I think apple said that they would not be working on getting Windows to run on their machines, but that they wouldn't stop anybody from doing it themselves. However they said that they would aggressively protect OSX from being ported to non-apple hardware. So they are trying to get the best of both worlds. Funny thing about pandora's box, however...

[AD80]

So exactly what is the state of Intel mobile chips? Is the Centrino as good as the hype?

Unlike Apple's mobile hardware, Pentium-M's deliver much more than hype. Theres no comparasin between a so called powerbook and a PentiumM. Theres gonna be some nice Apple products coming next year.

[titanium]

Sorry to interrupt the potential fisticuffs about to begin, but I'm wondering if the idea of an Apple that dual-boots Windows is just wild speculation or a real possibility. If I have the bucks at the right time, I'd for sure get that machine.

Tom

Wild speculation. Not only is the hardware incompatible, but such a move would destroy third-party development for OS X. If you could boot into Windows, or get Windows apps to run on OS X easily, no one would bother to create native OS X apps.

That's bull shit. If the hardware were the same ie. Intel, unless Apple purposefully made the computer NOT able to boot into Windows, I'm betting it could. It would be beneficial for both Apple and Microsoft, there really isn't a down side with that scenario for either. Apple will still more than likely cost more than your average PC, so other PC makers probably won't care either.

Regarding people coding for OS X, there would be the same motivation as there is currently to build OS X apps. And people who buy Macs buy them so they don't have to use Windows generally. Why would it hurt third party devs?

To sell hardware. There is a lot more technology on a motherboard than the CPU itself. An x86 mac won't have the PC BIOS (OpenBIOS), ridiculous segmented PC memory map, or legacy IO ports, therefore it won't boot Windows natively. Emulation speed will be maximized because the majority of the code in DLLs and EXEs, being native CPU instructions, will run untranslated for long stretches, albeit inside a fully sandboxed virtual memory and I/O space.

[Sage]

To sell hardware. There is a lot more technology on a motherboard than the CPU itself. An x86 mac won't have the PC BIOS (OpenBIOS), ridiculous segmented PC memory map, or legacy IO ports, therefore it won't boot Windows natively. Emulation speed will be maximized because the majority of the code in DLLs and EXEs, being native CPU instructions, will run untranslated for long stretches, albeit inside a fully sandboxed virtual memory and I/O space.

You took the words right out of my mouth. Most folks don't realize that you can actually buy non-Apple PowerPC chips and motherboards. But you can't run OS X on them because Apple uses their own motherboard designs and their own proprietary firmware. That's why nobody can make Mac clones today, and it's why you won't be able to run Windows natively on an Intel mac -- Windows can't run on that firmware.

And yes, it would be a disaster for development. If you could just boot into Windows, a lot more third-party developers would be willing to drop Mac development entirely. Windows is where the market share is at, and if they could just tell their customers to boot into Windows to use their products, OS X would be dead in the water.