New x86-based Macs are out!

[sonicfire]

can we now run windoze on macs? or whats the benefit of the x86 architecture on mac?

[egbert]

for crying out loud. some people need to do their homework.

Are any of these people called neverwhere2012?

Intel chips currently contain a technology called EM64T which allows them to emulate 64-bit. no they are not true 64-bit, but will emulate much in the way that AMD 64 chips will emulate 32 to be backwards compatable with Windows XP.

1. these mobile chips are nothing to do with current P4 based desktop and server chips and DO NOT have EMT 64. Mmmkay?
2.The 64 bit extensions to 32 bit x86 used by AMD in their "64 bit" Athlon chips are almost exactly identical to what Intel have been forced to add to their chips - after the next revision they will be effectively identical - anything that runs on AMD64 will run on Intel EMT 64.

Vista is also designed to be backwards compatable for 32-bit so that Microsoft doesn't completely alienate their customer base and force every PC user on the planet to buy a new computer just to run their new OS.

WinXP64 does not support any hardware that does not have a 64 bit driver. Are you saying that Vista will run on this "legacy" hardware (eg what I am typing this on)? Fat chance I would guess.

[neverwhere2012]

for crying out loud. some people need to do their homework.

Are any of these people called neverwhere2012?

Intel chips currently contain a technology called EM64T which allows them to emulate 64-bit. no they are not true 64-bit, but will emulate much in the way that AMD 64 chips will emulate 32 to be backwards compatable with Windows XP.

1. these mobile chips are nothing to do with current P4 based desktop and server chips and DO NOT have EMT 64. Mmmkay?
2.The 64 bit extensions to 32 bit x86 used by AMD in their "64 bit" Athlon chips are almost exactly identical to what Intel have been forced to add to their chips - after the next revision they will be effectively identical - anything that runs on one runs on AMD64 will run on Intel EMT 64.

Vista is also designed to be backwards compatable for 32-bit so that Microsoft doesn't completely alienate their customer base and force every PC user on the planet to buy a new computer just to run their new OS.

WinXP64 does not support any hardware that does not have a 64 bit driver. Are you saying that Vista will run on this "legacy" hardware (eg what I am typing this on)? Fat chance I would guess.

it's already been reported that Vista will run on 32-bit hardware and the most basic version of it will be 32-bit only. all that aside, OSX already runs quite well on 32-bit and 64-bit hardware and actually is a native 64-bit OS.

[machinesworking]

it's already been reported that Vista will run on 32-bit hardware and the most basic version of it will be 32-bit only. all that aside, OSX already runs quite well on 32-bit and 64-bit hardware and actually is a native 64-bit OS.

OK I think you are confusing true 64 bit compatibility with a fully 64 bit OS. I have never read anything stating that OSX Tiger is a true 64 bit OS compared to Panther etc. I have read that Tiger is capable of handling 64 bit architecture to it's fullest etc. It's a major difference and if you can pull out the proof, I would be interested. I do think that Apple would be marketing the hell out of that with Tiger though, and better 64 bit handling is a side note on their site.

[egbert]

it's already been reported that Vista will run on 32-bit hardware and the most basic version of it will be 32-bit only. all that aside, OSX already runs quite well on 32-bit and 64-bit hardware and actually is a native 64-bit OS.

OK I think you are confusing true 64 bit compatibility with a fully 64 bit OS. I have never read anything stating that OSX Tiger is a true 64 bit OS compared to Panther etc. I have read that Tiger is capable of handling 64 bit architecture to it's fullest etc. It's a major difference and if you can pull out the proof, I would be interested. I do think that Apple would be marketing the hell out of that with Tiger though, and better 64 bit handling is a side note on their site.

A fully 64 bit OS is not necessarily a ideal for users at this stage. What users need is a larger address space and OSX for example doesn't have a full 64 bit flat address space with 2^64 bits I think it is more like 36 or 40 bits of addressable memory at this stage.

If every single register or argument in a logical process becomes a 64 bit register/datum then you need 64 bits of silicon (or disk space) to flag yes and 64 bits to flag no. Not necessarily the best use of resources. Memory requirements of a fully 64 bit OS should easily exceed those of a 32 bit only OS.

As I understand it, x86-64 is basically the old 32 bit setup that has been with us since the 386 with some extra 64 bit registers and 64 bit pointers. When you run vanilla XP on a x86-64 processor, some of the extra silicon (eg those registers) are unused as is the capacity to address more RAM. When the same program is compiled to use these extra capacities of Win64 and the x86-64 hardware, it might be accelerated by as much as 20-30% according to reports published online. A process which benefitted from access to large amounts of RAM without needing to use a swap file might be accelerated even more - not sure if this would affect DAWs but 3D modelling and large database tasks for example might be a major beneficiaries of bigger RAM spaces.

My guess is that neither Apple nor M$ would be in a hurry to deliver an OS to desktop users which needed much more RAM to do the same things your current box does but only really delivered significantly more performance to high end applications. Given how disk limited many machines (esp laptops) are things could even get slower if you have to spool up files where every (currently) 32 bit long piece of information has had 32 zeroes put in front of it.

When 4GB DDR3 sticks are commonplace and people can load up their machines with 8 and 16 GB for cheap then the extra overheads will probably be neither here nor there.

There was a time with WinNT was considered a real resource hog because you really couldn't run it worth a damn in anything less than 12 MB of RAM. People later speculated that NT stood for "Needs a Terabyte".

Funny thing is - terabyte drives will be out with 12 months. Must be NT's time in the sun

[machinesworking]

Yeah basically 64 bit is marketing and BS at this point.
Apple just dropped IBM for 32 bit chips, what does that say?
Not saying the G5 isn't a good chip, just that Intel is coming out with better chips...

[egbert]

Yeah basically 64 bit is marketing and BS at this point.
Apple just dropped IBM for 32 bit chips, what does that say?
Not saying the G5 isn't a good chip, just that Intel is coming out with better chips...

Check this out:

http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=1470

I wonder what the Macophiles think of Apple turning to both Intel and now M$ for help.

[machinesworking]

Yeah basically 64 bit is marketing and BS at this point.
Apple just dropped IBM for 32 bit chips, what does that say?
Not saying the G5 isn't a good chip, just that Intel is coming out with better chips...

Check this out:

http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=1470

I wonder what the Macophiles think of Apple turning to both Intel and now M$ for help.

Uh? Virtual PC is a Microsoft product, they bought it a while ago. It doesn't imply that Microsoft are helping Apple in any special way that they are going to continue development of mac software?
From reading different forums it seems there are a few people that were pretty upset that Apple decided to go with x86 chips. In theory, and if the CPU speed is identical, the PPC is supposedly a superior chip design, less of a failure rate etc. Considering the differences in practice, x86 wins out through sheer speed.

[egbert]

Uh? Virtual PC is a Microsoft product, they bought it a while ago. It doesn't imply that Microsoft are helping Apple in any special way that they are going to continue development of mac software?
From reading different forums it seems there are a few people that were pretty upset that Apple decided to go with x86 chips. In theory, and if the CPU speed is identical, the PPC is supposedly a superior chip design, less of a failure rate etc. Considering the differences in practice, x86 wins out through sheer speed.

Yes - I guess I misread the implications of this:

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=29002

It seemed to be implying that this was helping Apple (which it does indirectly obviously) but I guess the reverse is true - Apple is helping MS.

[machinesworking]

Anyway, yeah, thanks for the rational conversation. Most of the time people take sides with this sort of thing, rather than weighing the issues out on a case by case basis.
I use Apple computers, but I don't consider myself a zealot about it, I just prefer them. When Apple allows people to instal OSX on a roll your own PC, I'll be the first to buy, but I like their laptop designs, and odd new features, like backlite keyboards and magnetic power supplies.

As it stands, I'm going to get a PC for the studio, and keep the powerbook for the stage.

[valley]

Apple just dropped IBM for 32 bit chips, what does that say?

In short, it says that IBM couldn't give a f**k about Apple.

I'm surprised how many people seem not to have given thought to the cell processor. Apparently IBM couldn't provide Apple with a G5 that ran cool enough to be put in a laptop, and yet it seems that Sony have access to a large batch of cool running custom G5[1]s.

IBM clearly has the ability to shrink the G5, and to make it run cool enough for laptop purposes. They evidently didn't feel that Apple's sales justified the expense though, and Apple clearly didn't want to hear that message. Perhaps if Apple had have hung in there, XBox360 sales and a possible XBox360 portable may have hastened IBMs development teams a little on the core powerPC platform.

[1] or at least if some Sony execs veiled digs at the Xbox360's overheating issues are anything to go by they do.

[valley]

can we now run windoze on macs?

That seems like the worst of both of worlds.

[egbert]

Apple just dropped IBM for 32 bit chips, what does that say?

In short, it says that IBM couldn't give a f**k about Apple.

Apple diddled the PowerPC troika by restricting sales to their own machines. No chip manufacturer can make real money on Apple's volumes. That is one reason why it makes a lot of sense for Apple to get on x86.

I'm surprised how many people seem not to have given thought to the cell processor. Apparently IBM couldn't provide Apple with a G5 that ran cool enough to be put in a laptop, and yet it seems that Sony have access to a large batch of cool running custom G5[1]s.

IBM clearly has the ability to shrink the G5, and to make it run cool enough for laptop purposes.

I am unsure what you are saying here.

Cell = custom G5?

As you probably know, Cell is a different animal even though its central core is PowerPC it has a large number of other processing sub units for accelerating media functions. It is also the result of a collaboration with Sony and Toshiba - not just IBM.

[egbert]

The reason many current processors are running so hot is leakage current. As the gate size has been shrinking, the leakage current has been getting exponentially larger. A CPU is typically about 1cm square of silicon. The voltage applied is in the 1 -1.5 Volt range these days and yet some are spewing out more than 100 watts under load. The current drawn is approaching 100 amps!

If you are new to this you may not know that in 1992 a 486 33 MHz chip sitting on a working board had nice white writing on its black plastic top " intel i486" - ie not even a heatsink - never mind a fan.

Both Intel and IBM have problems containing the power consumption and hence heat from their high end processors. Intel's Pentium M team have designed their processors from the ground up to contain power consumption and heat and they use tricks like turning a lot of the silicon off when it is not actually working on a task.

The other approaches to contain the leakage include better insulation of the circuitry from the silicon substrate (involves a change in the chemistry of the process) and redesigning the physical shape of the transistors so that they don't have such a large base to leak from - basically re-engineering the transistors themselves.

Introducing these innovations in the high volume/low cost processor market requires a lot more work than just another die shrink of the same old tried and true CMOS process.

If it was cheap and easy Intel would have done it already and so would IBM. It is not just "laziness" it is running into the limits of the CMOS process technology which has been running for the last 30 years.

[machinesworking]

IBM clearly has the ability to shrink the G5, and to make it run cool enough for laptop purposes.

Uh... no they do not. Not for a laptop, maybe for a 'desktop replacement system', but not a one inch powerbook form factor. Apple used the G5 in the iMac, which was thin enough, but definitely not thin enough for their laptop line.
Another point, these guys have egos, and I think IBM sealed their fate when they promised a dual 3Ghz machine years ago, and had Jobs flatly stating that Apple would deliver one the following year, ouch!

Anyway, I'm all for Apple switching to x86, chips like the Centrino perform really well with Live 5, and it's what I've been using the most lately.