Sad news for mac people

[goaliemike]

Its official, Apple has now decided not to "think diffrent" anymore. They have now changed to use intels X86 line of processors...

Whay do you think, i would love if they kept their processors...

[kc0arf]

Hello,

I am curious to see where you read this.

I actually see it as a good thing. I wonder if there will be more Windows people moving to the Apple OS on top of Intel hardware.

I know that Apple has had some problems getting chips out of IBM / Motorola. Sadly, Motorola is more into cell phones instead of chip manufacturing.

I really think this is a good thing.

Christian

[goaliemike]

ya i misread, there changing from ibm's chips to intels. i read this from avantgo on my pda. Try cnet.com for this

[yellow]

Ultimately, it won't make a difference. You'll still have to buy a Mac to run OS X. It'll just happen to have an Intel processor chugging away inside. ANd you're right Christian, Apple was sick and tired of IBM/Mot. not being able to 1) produce chips in a timely fashion, and 2) produce the speed necessary to keep the chips current/cutting edge. And with the heat/power consumption issues, it was inevitable that Apple would try someone else.. But Intel.. As long as I don't have a damned "Intel Inside" sticker on my Mac.. :eek:

[movielad]

I thought the keynote presentation was very interesting. The fact that as Steve Jobs was demonstrating various components of the Dashboard and the new iTunes it turns out that he was using a Pentium 4 3.6Ghz box all along.

I think I will consider buying an Intel Mac when they're more widely available (and when more Universal binaries are out there). If it's capable of running Windows or Linux then I can get a machine that gives me the widest choice available. Mac, Windows or Linux software. All on one machine.

As for the 64-bitness of the G5 and moving to Intel, it'll just mean that Apple will start to use Intel's EMT64 technology found on the Xeon and Pentium D/4 Extreme Edition chips.

M.

[yellow]

Supposedly Intel has dropped a hint of it's new line of chips. All 64-bit.

http://theinquirer.net/?article=23055

Take it for what it's worth(less?).

[Catweazle]

Power is one reason, but the primary motivation has been the continued failure of IBM to produce adequate processors for laptop configurations. If you can't produce a competitive laptop, you can't compete in today's computer marketplace ;)

[kc0arf]

Hi,

On a second round here, I also wonder about chips in quantity. Seems like when you want to order a Mac or an iPod, you have to wait for it. That is bad business. When I am ready for a new computer, and have the funds set, I want it in a week.

Christian

[gortonsfi]

Yeah, I've heard the supply is a lot better than it was there for a while, which is good for Apple. I think switching is a great idea from Apple's position. I really like my 12" powerbook and it's great now, but I won't want another G4 when it's time to trade it in :) The way it sounds the desktops would practically be on G6's before the powerbooks moved to the G5 lol!

Even if the future macs can't dual-boot windows; emulation could be a lot faster right?

[yellow]

I think supply is part of the reason Apple went with INtel over AMD.

Angeldoc: You should probably start a new thread with your problem, but anyway, can yo drag & drop when logged in as another user? Create one if you don't have one.

[Zachery]

Hi,

On a second round here, I also wonder about chips in quantity. Seems like when you want to order a Mac or an iPod, you have to wait for it. That is bad business. When I am ready for a new computer, and have the funds set, I want it in a week.

Christian

Week? I want the parts in my hands next day!

Mostly its shipping from china that hurts them.

[Kolin]

I thought the whole reason MAC had an edge in media and rendering was because they use a RIS cpu type & Intel doesn't. ???

[kc0arf]

Hello,

Apple does use RISC processors, and that helps in the instruction of code, whereas Intel uses more of a CISC design. RISC = Reduced Instruction, CISC = Complex instruction.

They are referring to the micro-code that the CPU uses to do things. A RISC chip has more instructions that are easier to execute than a CISC chip.

I have been out of the hardware examination thing for a while now, and am not sure if Intel has made more pipelines and caching, but am sure they have been moving right along now to keep performance moving.

Christian

[yellow]

I believe the new chips that Intel will release soon (which Apple will likely end up using) are modeled more after RISC chips and have reduced pipelines. No more Netburst.. I think.. :)

[Catweazle]

At one stage, long ago, Macs definitely used to be 'better' at graphics etc than the PC. But now the relative advantages have disappeared. Doesn't matter if one chip is RISC and another CISC if they both produce the same performance, does it.

Macs are more favoured by many professional users still, but more for the implementation of software than for any peformance advantage. As one discussion I read states

this used to be true. The professional graphics world mostly uses Macs, because the top graphics apps (Photoshop, QuarkXPress, Freehand) are a little better implemented in their Mac versions than their PC versions, and because most graphics shops have a significant investment in Mac software and peripherals which they're not going to give up.

Truly high end work is more likely to be performed on fair dinkum workstations rather than on either Macs or PCs!

Mac OS is now based upon the Unix derivative FreeBSD, which already runs on x86 systems, so the transition won't really be any 'biggie'.