General => Lounge => Topic started by: EricCoolCats on June 06, 2005, 01:52:20 PM
Title: Macs Have Officially Joined the Dark Side
Post by: EricCoolCats on June 06, 2005, 01:52:20 PM
Putting an end to rumors, Apple CEO Steve Jobs has announced and confirmed this afternoon that future Apple computers will use Intel processors. No more PowerPC chip from Motorola/Freescale or IBM. Every version of OS X has been secretly ported to Intel chips for 5 years. Recompiling of existing software is claimed to be not bad at all. It's not clear yet whether we'll be able to run PC programs, nor if OS X will be available as a standalone version for PC boxes. For those that have been waiting for a chance to use Mac software, though, there may be hope that they can be back-ported to other Intel processors.
And for those of you who have been Mac naysayers and Mac haters, taking every chance you get to stab Mac users in the back, in the spirit of forgiveness I offer a sincere gift to you:
Title: Re: Macs Have Officially Joined the Dark Side
Post by: Bird351 on June 06, 2005, 01:56:17 PM
Now I'll never buy a Mac, as long as it has an Intel CPU in it.
And no, you're not "one of us now". Yours will be Linux boxes with Pentium Ds or Pentium Ms in 'em. Mine will remain Windows XP (unless I find something else more suitable for gaming, that isn't a freakin' console) boxes with Athlons (or Athlon 64s, next time I upgrade) in 'em.
You got the "dark side" comment right, though. :p
Title: Re: Macs Have Officially Joined the Dark Side
Post by: EricCoolCats on June 06, 2005, 02:03:42 PM
Quote from: Bird351
And no, you're not "one of us now". Yours will be Linux boxes with Pentium Ds or Pentium Ms in 'em.
Speculation at best. Smart money is on a custom chip for us.
Title: Re: Macs Have Officially Joined the Dark Side
Post by: Bird351 on June 06, 2005, 02:10:00 PM
I've been hearing a lot of rumors that a deal like this might be what finally gets Dell to jump into bed with AMD, and stop just flirting with them whenever they want to piss Intel off. These could be interesting times ahead.
Reading some of the PC sites, their "smart money" seems to be on plain ol x86. :D Intel already does a couple custom chips, Alpha and Itanic, and both of those are slowly running into the ground. You could always hope for an Alpha Mac, I suppose.. but I was under the impression that all the good Alpha people left for AMD by the time HP/Compaq sold off the brand to Intel.
Title: Re: Macs Have Officially Joined the Dark Side
Post by: EricCoolCats on June 06, 2005, 02:29:17 PM
Oh it's definitely going to get interesting, that's for sure. I would like to agree with the 'plain ol x86' thing, but you have to remember that Steve Jobs is the biggest control freak in the world. He will not let his products use what everyone else already has. The original Mac processor was unique; the Motorola processors were unique; the PowerPC architecture is unique...I don't see why the Mactel chip would be anything but unique as well. That way, Apple stays different just like Steve wants. I would be shocked if an off-the-shelf processor was used. Steve has a way of getting what he wants with no compromises. Expect the Mactel chip to be worlds beyond what you know Intel chips to be now. Better than AMD? I don't know...it's a waiting game until the specs are released.
What's ironic is how Apple has always taken opportunities to flame Intel about processors in the past. And now...they're suddenly the best of partners. The fact that OS X has ALWAYS worked on an Intel processor for 5 years (at least, inside Apple's HQ) means that Steve-o never closed the door on the possibility of a deal with Intel, just in case the IBM/Motorola thing didn't work out. That Plan B is what will save Apple's backside, and also increase its market share significantly toward the end of the decade. Steve always has a Plan B...all good CEO's do. And this is the payoff.
Title: Re: Macs Have Officially Joined the Dark Side
Post by: 20th anny 5.o on June 06, 2005, 02:31:28 PM
Fist off i would never buy a pre built computer (or a mac for that matter). I started out on an 8088 that my brother built for me. Bought a mac laptop about a month ago and it has sat and collected dust, Sure its a (96 Power book) but i paid 25 bucks for it so i puppiesed it off onto one of my friends that thing was a pain.
Title: Re: Macs Have Officially Joined the Dark Side
Post by: Bird351 on June 06, 2005, 02:32:08 PM
BTW, don't assume that my computer knowledge is only as comprehensive as my car knowledge. I used to build and service these things for a living. I still keep up on the hardware to some extent. I haven't taken any 12-year breaks from computers like I did from working on cars. I may not know what every Intel and AMD codename corresponds to what new chip design on the horizon, but my knowledge of the biz is still close to functional.
EDIT: I wouldn't be so sure on the unique angle, at least in the short term. (next couple years) You said it yourself elsewhere, the hardware has become more and more common between the two in the past few years. That Register article spells it out better than I could right now. Also, I don't know if Intel is all that capable of producing something as fantastic as you seem to hope they can. They're playing catch-up to AMD right now, tech-wise. x86-64 caught Intel with its pants down. Sure, eventually they can and probably will catch up.. but it's not definite, especially if AMD keeps rolling.
It's probably crazy to say so at this point, but I could foresee a time at which Apple and Intel are one "side", and AMD and Microsoft are the other "side". Microsoft hasn't been as kind to Intel these days as you might think.. basically forcing them to adopt AMD's x86-64 code. Intel has been throwing more support behind Linux, too. I could see things getting uglier between "Small&limp" and "SIntel" after this.
Title: Re: Macs Have Officially Joined the Dark Side
Post by: EricCoolCats on June 06, 2005, 02:54:11 PM
Wow...surprisingly nothing negative in there. I liked this quote a lot:
Quote
The transition won't be smooth - they never are, entirely - but ultimately it will be no different from any of the others Apple has inflicted or been forced to inflict on its users. Indeed, Apple has a good record of making such migrations as smooth as it can, unlike some other vendors we could name. Five years from now, everyone's going to wonder what all the fuss was about.
That's it, in a nutshell. If anyone can make a smooth transition it will be Apple. Right now I can open the old OS (9) in X under an emulation layer called Classic, and with the exception of some very minor things, it works, looks and acts as if I'd booted into 9 directly. It is just as quick and snappy too. Apple announced a real-time emulation layer for OS X, called Rosetta, that will let current PowerPC applications run on the Intel machines. If it's anything like the Classic emulator I have now, it won't be a problem at all. I'm not worried, scared or fearful of anything with this move to Intel chips, except for the opportunities that hackers may have. Otherwise it's an excellent business move from a company who's in the position to call the shots. Next move is Dell's. ;)
EDIT: My contention is that Intel will have to either provide or develop a 64-bit chip for Apple. Right now, all Mac G5's are 64-bit. The latest OS is 64-bit optimized for the G5's (but will also work on earlier G3's and G4's). You mean to tell me that Apple would let Intel dictate a downgrade to common 32-bit chips? That won't happen...Apple would never concede to that. Therefore, some type of Intel 64-bit chip will be used in order to maintain the level of computing that Apple has established. Also, most G5's are dual processor now. I would expect either an option for dual processors, or maybe the new Core chip as an option. It depends on what happens with the motherboard, frankly.
Title: Re: Macs Have Officially Joined the Dark Side
Post by: Bird351 on June 06, 2005, 03:04:25 PM
Backwards compatibility/emulation is always somewhat hit-or-miss, regardless of who it's coming from. I vaguely recall the one guy I knew who had a brand new G3 not being able to run some significant (to him) older stuff at the time.. at which point he decided to replace all the leaking capacitors on his old Mac and keep both running. (he could do it, he designed and built PC hardware for a living) I'm running XP on everything, and in no way should I be able to run some of the things I run, but I do. Example: I can run an OLD DOS game, AutoDuel, (from, if I recall, the late 80s) on this PC without a hitch and without changing any settings. Other, newer stuff I cannot.. at least not without messing around with compatibility settings.
Yes, the next move is Dell's.. and I would guess that there was at least one long call placed today from Dell to AMD. However, in the long run, it may not be Dell that anyone needs to worry about. I have also read rumblings that this Lenovo company (the company that bought IBM's PC division) could be the one that ultimately shapes the PC market. Something about super-cheap PCs from the Chinese.. (where have we heard stuff like this before?)
Title: Re: Macs Have Officially Joined the Dark Side
Post by: Bird351 on June 06, 2005, 03:10:40 PM
Quote from: EricCoolCats
EDIT: My contention is that Intel will have to either provide or develop a 64-bit chip for Apple. Right now, all Mac G5's are 64-bit. The latest OS is 64-bit optimized for the G5's (but will also work on earlier G3's and G4's). You mean to tell me that Apple would let Intel dictate a downgrade to common 32-bit chips? That won't happen...Apple would never concede to that. Therefore, some type of Intel 64-bit chip will be used in order to maintain the level of computing that Apple has established. Also, most G5's are dual processor now. I would expect either an option for dual processors, or maybe the new Core chip as an option. It depends on what happens with the motherboard, frankly.
You do realize that both AMD and Intel (mostly AMD forcing Intel) have both released not only 64-bit CPUs, but are now releasing dual-core 64-bit CPUs, with quad-core 64-bit CPUs estimated for Q1 '06.. right? I believe even AMD's value line (Sempr0n, as some like to call it) has migrated to x86-64.. or is in the process of doing so. Anyway, Intel had other 64-bit chips prior to x86-64: Itanium, its own in-house design.. (and "fondly" referred to as "Itanic") which is slowly sinking and may be killed off soon, and is not x86.. and the Alpha, which made the long journey from DEC to Compaq to HP/Compaq (along with some group I think was fronted by Samsung) to finally Intel.. and Intel has been slowly killing that off ever since. If you are not familiar with the Alpha's story, think about how Intel would probably treat the PowerPC line if it were to suddenly acquire it. It might produce it for awhile, in steadily decreasing numbers and with no advertising of any kind, to wean that customer base off the chip.. and finally just let it fall into oblivion.
Title: Re: Macs Have Officially Joined the Dark Side
Post by: nirvanagod on June 06, 2005, 03:19:42 PM
*shrugs* I say whatever to the whole thing. I've become rather indifferent to the whole platform/hardware/os/software thing anymore. Don't get me wrong I still "prefer" certain thing over others, but when the time comes where you just need to use something, I don't bother worrying about what i'm using. Having been in the field for this long has given me a rather nice perspective on the whole scene. It's not about the biggest badest whatnot, it's about whether just it works everytime for the end user (granted I push that aside when it comes to my personal equipment). But in summary, I could care less, just my :2c:.
Title: Re: Macs Have Officially Joined the Dark Side
Post by: Bird351 on June 06, 2005, 03:35:58 PM
I went from using a Packard-Hell 486SX in '92 (and Commodore stuff before that) to building my own PCs to customizing/overclocking the piss out of my own home-built PCs to buying off-the-shelf PCs with some measure of upgradeability and doing just that and not much else to 'em. Now my main PC is an eMachines AthlonXP 2200+ with a gig of PC2100, a R9700 Pro, 280 gigs worth of hard drive, and a ~500w PSU.. and maybe a couple extra cooling fans. That's pretty much it. I even use the on-board sound, networking, and the optical drives that came with it. I know that no one who is at the home-built phase or the insanely-hacked-up-home-built phase would be caught dead using a machine like mine.. but this has been the fastest, most trouble-free PC I've had in some time. Been using it for over two years now, I think.
If Linux gave me what I needed, I'd use it.
If Macs gave me what I needed, I'd use 'em. (I don't like Jobs, though.. I think he's an eccentric egomaniac who desperately needs someone to just walk up to him and punch him square in the face to bring his ass back to Earth with the rest of us)
Hell.. if a Transmeta CPU running BeOS, or this rumored resurrection of the Amiga, gave me what I needed.. I'd use one.
Other than that, and my aversion to two or three brand names, (Intel, nVidia, and Dell) I largely don't care. I might even get into the little VIA EPIA boards for something new, if they run much of the slower stuff I run.
Title: Re: Macs Have Officially Joined the Dark Side
Post by: EricCoolCats on June 06, 2005, 03:38:25 PM
Quote from: Bird351
You do realize that both AMD and Intel (mostly AMD forcing Intel) have both released not only 64-bit CPUs, but are now releasing dual-core 64-bit CPUs, with quad-core 64-bit CPUs estimated for Q1 '06.. right?
Oh yes, that's why I said Intel will either have to provide or create a 64-bit chip for Apple. They can certainly provide the Itanium right now, and Apple could very well be the company save it from its current downward spiral. However, if the sinking ship (Itanic--LOL!) is already going down, then why would Apple want to rescue it? It wouldn't make sense. Honestly I don't think Intel and Apple have made a final decision on the chip yet, and probably won't for at least a few months.
Title: Re: Macs Have Officially Joined the Dark Side
Post by: Thunder Chicken on June 06, 2005, 04:22:05 PM
I've always said that Apple should get out of the hardware business and focus on software. It made Billy Boy rich, and would do the same for Apple. Think about it - really, the only superior part of an Apple machine is its OS. The rest of the stuff is all run-of-the-mill computer components. Apple uses standard memory, cards and peripherals, its processors are not particularly impressive, and the design component is only skin deep - there are some mighty pretty PC's out there, so Mac fans can no longer say that Wintel machines are "boring beige boxes". The reason that many people resist Apple computers is that they are perceived as expensive, incompatible, and inferior. Some may argue that (in certain applications) a dual-proc G5 would runs around any AMD or Intel-based machine (although in many, many applications the Intel/AMD platform would spank the G5 silly), but it's megahertz that sells computers. You can talk benchmarks, floating point units, pipelines, cache and all that rot all you want, but the guy walking into Best Buy wants one thing: Big Numbers. No amount of explanation would ever convince Bubba that a $3000 2.2Ghz G5 (numbers are made up - I haven't been to apple.com in ages, so I don't even know what Apple is selling right now) is better than a $1500 3.4Ghz P-4 (which is why AMD stole a page from Cyrix with it's "performance rating" nomenclature). Just like horsepower sells cars, megahertz sells computers. Big shiny numbers bring in big shiny dollars.
If Apple computer focused on the OS aspect of computing and ported their OS to Intel/AMD machines Microsoft would finally have somebody to answer to. Think of the hundreds of millions of potential customers who are sick of MS (and even those who have never had a problem with MS, like myself, but who resent monopolies, like myself). Linux is not a contender and never will be until they become idiot friendly. Until you can put the installation CD in the drive and walk away, and return a half hour later to find the OS installed and running, MS has nothing to fear from Linux. Mac OS, which is based on Unix (just like Linux is) is the user friendly Windows alternative that the world is waiting for, and if Jobs would get his head out of his ass and see that he'd take Apple to new heights.
Right now Apple is just an Ipod factory that happens to make a few computers (just like Ford is a truck company that also makes a few cars). If Jobs could overcomoe his own ego and port the OS to PC's Apple cold probably buy MS in a few years...
Title: Re: Macs Have Officially Joined the Dark Side
Post by: Bird351 on June 06, 2005, 05:50:41 PM
Raw MHz doesn't sell computers anymore.. (or, more accurately, it is no longer possible to chase raw MHz numbers) that's why Intel is switching to model numbers just like AMD. The P4 killed that myth. They built it JUST so they could scale up the MHz quickly for sales, but it hit a wall in the last year or so, and now Intel will be moving towards the Pentium M type processors. (which is more like a tweaked Pentium 3, which is the sort of architecture they should have stuck to in the first place.. remember how any P3 could whip any identically-clocked P4? I do)
Intel got the double-whammy of being wrong on chasing pure MHz and being wrong on rejecting x86-64.. AMD got both of them right, which is why AMD is rolling right now and Intel is scrambling to keep up (technology-wise.. they still hold the edge in market share for now) to a company they used to have no trouble besting at every turn.
Title: Re: Macs Have Officially Joined the Dark Side
Post by: Bird351 on June 06, 2005, 05:55:30 PM
Quote from: EricCoolCats
Oh yes, that's why I said Intel will either have to provide or create a 64-bit chip for Apple. They can certainly provide the Itanium right now, and Apple could very well be the company save it from its current downward spiral. However, if the sinking ship (Itanic--LOL!) is already going down, then why would Apple want to rescue it? It wouldn't make sense. Honestly I don't think Intel and Apple have made a final decision on the chip yet, and probably won't for at least a few months.
I tend to agree with the one article that predicts that Apple will probably get the Yonah core from Intel. Yonah is a Pentium M (the CPU behind the Centrino brand) dual-core.. mobile design.. and I think it's also x86-64. A lot can be done with a reasonably powerful dual-core laptop chip. You're probably going to see more applications where people buy chips like the Pentium M to put them in small desktop setups, like the SFF PCs or Aopen's knockoff of the Mac Mini.
What CPU is in the Mac Mini? Is it an adapted desktop chip? If not, aren't all the Mac laptop chips still G4s or something?
Title: Re: Macs Have Officially Joined the Dark Side
Post by: EricCoolCats on June 06, 2005, 06:16:02 PM
The basics in the Mac mini are from a laptop: CPU, slot-loading optical drive, hard drive and memory module. All iBooks, Powerbooks, eMacs and the Mac mini have the Freescale G4 chip. Only the iMac and G5 towers have the G5 processor. And that's part of Apple's current problem.
The Intel move was driven by a lot of things, but make no mistake: this was a not-so-thinly-disguised shot across the bow of chip makers on Apple's part. IBM promised Apple that by June 2004 they'd have a 3Ghz PowerPC chip. In April 2005, Apple unveiled their dual 2.7Ghz G5 tower. Being over a year late with production and promises of a faster chip, Apple simply went shopping elsewhere.
Plus, there is no way to currently produce a G5 processor that will fit in a laptop. The top of the line 17" Powerbook is barely an inch thick. To fit a G5 in would double the thickness, require alternate cooling, and produce enough heat to fry an egg on the top cover. Apple customers would not buy a notebook that's 2" thick after being marketed 1" thick laptops for 4 years. As well they shouldn't. This is a company renowned for their industrial design and intelligent engineering. To shoehorn a G5 in a laptop would be counter to their own philosophy.
The mobile Intel chip idea makes more sense, so long as the heat generation and cooling issues are not beyond what Apple already has with the G4. How hot do Yonahs run, any idea?
Title: Re: Macs Have Officially Joined the Dark Side
Post by: Bird351 on June 06, 2005, 06:30:37 PM
The Yonah codename is for an upcoming chip due anywhere between now and early '06. Being dual-core it'll probably be pretty hot for a laptop chip, but all Intel and AMD CPUs now come with dynamic speed alteration (I think it's SpeedStep for Intel and PowerNow for AMD) for heat and power conservation issues. Even my XP 2000+ laptop throttles down to under 1 GHz at times, when it's really hot and it's not using much CPU power.
At least you'll be getting the newest stuff, and not using recycled older chips like the G4.
BTW.. ALL chip manufacturers are having difficulties the higher into GHz they go. Just about every current AMD CPU is actually 2.2-2.4 GHz, they just do other things to it like give it more on-die L2 cache or improve the on-die memory controller. I think Intel hit a brick wall around 3.8 GHz, (keep in mind, the P4 is designed solely to be scaled up in raw clock speed) and have had to scramble to make the Pentium M a more viable desktop CPU. (painted themselves into a corner with power use and heat, to where even die shrinks were starting to hurt.. less physical area to dissipate heat) I am entirely NOT surprised that IBM also cannot deliver in the MHz department.
Expect to see all chip development go into multi-core for the time being. The dual-core (on one physical CPU) chips just came out recently.. quad-core is likely due out Q1 '06.. there's also talk of 3-core (as a fallback if quad-cores can't be put out quick enough) and up to 6-core CPUs in the not-too-distant future. Of course, if you get a 2-socket motherboard, you're talking 4-core to 12-core here in the next two years. Most software still can't take full advantage of the extra core, but it does help in cases where a large app is running on one core and everything else on the system is running on the 2nd. Software will eventually be coded to take better advantage of multi-core machines, as well as the switch to 64-bit.. so it'll be a little while yet before you'll see the true power of the stuff coming out right now.
BTW, if the reasons why chip X can clock past a given MHz and chip Y cannot pass it interest you, then you might wanna check out sites like this:
There are tons of hardware sites out there for PC stuff, but these two seem to be the most interested in the actual guts of the CPUs.
Title: Re: Macs Have Officially Joined the Dark Side
Post by: Thunder Chicken on June 06, 2005, 06:39:39 PM
Quote
double the thickness, require alternate cooling, and produce enough heat to fry an egg on the top cover
Dude, you just described my Dell :D
I like having a laptop and all, but this P4 2.4 GHZ (the desktop P4, not a Centrino) Dell runs HOT HOT HOT, is over 1.75" thick, and weighs about 10 pounds. It's a brute, to be sure. And it seems like it doesn't operate nearly as fast as a P4 2.4 should - my father's 2.6 walks all over it, with the same 400mhz FSB and less RAM. My 3 GHZ/800MHz/FSB/serial ATA/1GB RAM desktop simply embarrasses it, as it should, but my father's 200mhz advantage should not give him the performance edge that he has over this laptop. He has a real video card rather than my shiznitty Intel 845 video, but neither of us are gamers so that wouldn't explain it - I don't know why this machine seems to be so slow. Of course, when I first got it it seemed to be fast as hell, so maybe it's just me, but...
I ripped three unencrypted 6GB data DVD's to the HDD and it took over an hour on the laptop. I did the same thing on my desktop and it took 20 minutes. Can't blame that on the serial ATA, since an optical drive would never even approach the bandwidth limit of even standard ATA. It just took that long for the thing to crunch the data. I like this laptop, but I don't think my next one will be a Dell - who knows, maybe by the time it's up for replacement (likely two years) I'll replace it with an Intel machine running Mac OS :D
On the desktop/laptop chip thing - I noticed that Dell has recently stopped selling desktop chips in their laptops. All of them are now either Centrino or Celery based - no P4 at all. Even the mighty Inspiron XPS, their flagship laptop that had the editors of Maximum PC drooling with its 800mhz FSB, 3.4GHz P4 proc, has been replaced with a "Gen 2" version with the Centrino.
*EDIT* Agreed on the "hit the wall" thing, Bird351 - there's actually a pretty good article on it in Maximum PC, even explaining why AMD's approach is better than Intel's. Apparently the Intel answer is to literally put two CPU's on one chip and have them communicate between each other through the chipset (so data has to leave the chip, go out to the mobo through the chipset, and then back to the CPU) while AMD's two cores communicate directly with each other. The buttstuffogy they gave was this:
Imagine a dual-core proc as a duplex. Intel's duplex has the doors on the far ends. For data to go from one side to the other it must leave one door, go down the driveway, travel along the street (chipset), go back in the other driveway and in that door. Obviously this is not the best scenario, as it is inefficient, especially if there is a lot of traffic on the street. AMD's approach is to have the two doors next to each other so data can simply step across the doorstep and into the other core (or through the on-die memory controller as the case may be). More efficient than Intel's approach because data never leaves the "yard", but still not ideal because the communication is still happening outside the duplex. The ideal situation would be to have a door in the wall dividing the two halves of the duplex so the cores may communicate directly with each other without ever leaving the duplex.
I had previously thought that we were nearing the end of the excitement in the PC world because there hasn't been any real innovation since the AMD64 and increases in clock speeds were providing diminishing returns, but it looks as though things are only just starting to get interesting...
Title: Re: Macs Have Officially Joined the Dark Side
Post by: Bird351 on June 06, 2005, 06:44:29 PM
Watch your system info in Windows to see what speed your laptop is actually running. You could have dust buildup in the cooling system that could be throttling the CPU down. It's possible there are also settings you can alter to change how it throttles down. There also may be issues with some of the earlier SpeedStep implementations.. if you haven't already, maybe you should check up on it. I forget who had the problem, but I vaguely recall some early dynamically-throttled chips having problems sticking at the lower speeds once they heated up. Might need a BIOS fix or something like that. And yes, desktop chips can have SpeedStep/PowerNow!, because I think my laptop CPU is an adapted desktop XP2000+.
Title: Re: Macs Have Officially Joined the Dark Side
Post by: EricCoolCats on June 06, 2005, 10:44:46 PM
Carm, it's not just you. The DVD burner in my Powerbook isn't a slouch, but it can't even begin to touch the speed of the one I have in my spare Mac (a 1x Pioneer DVR-103). I think in my situation, at least, it has something to do with the hard drive speed and the bus speed of the Powerbook, not the processor speed (1.25 Ghz). So last year I bought an external Firewire bus-powered DVD burner that works faster than the built-in burner--go figure! It's like, laptops can basically do what you ask them to do...just don't be in a hurry and don't expect them to be cool to the touch. ;)
Title: Re: Macs Have Officially Joined the Dark Side
Post by: Thunder Chicken on June 06, 2005, 11:02:37 PM
Bird351: This one doesn't have speedstep.
Title: Re: Macs Have Officially Joined the Dark Side
Post by: Bird351 on June 06, 2005, 11:24:39 PM
Hmmm.. you sure it doesn't? I mean like undocumented feature, etc. My laptop does not advertise or even list (to my knowledge) the PowerNow function, but it has it and I've watched it in operation. From the ~1.6 GHz or whatever a 2000+ is, down to around 900 MHz when it really heated up.
Title: Re: Macs Have Officially Joined the Dark Side
Post by: Thunder Chicken on June 07, 2005, 12:08:14 AM
Yep, I'm sure. No matter what programs I've run, whether battery power or plugged in, hot or cold, it always reports 2399 MHz. I even ran Intel's CPUID and as you can see:
Title: Re: Macs Have Officially Joined the Dark Side
Post by: Bird351 on June 07, 2005, 12:13:16 AM
OK, that's one thing out of the way. Now how often do you defrag? :p
Title: Re: Macs Have Officially Joined the Dark Side
Post by: Thunder Chicken on June 07, 2005, 08:41:26 AM
Weekly. I'm very fussy about keeping my computers updated, spyware free and running as efficiently as possible (including clearing cache, emptying recycle bin and defragging). I won't allow anything to run in the system tray except what's required (wireless network icon, volume, Norton Antivirus and MS AntiSpyware).
Title: Re: Macs Have Officially Joined the Dark Side
Post by: Haystack on June 07, 2005, 08:58:44 AM
there hasent really been much change in processor speed since the p4. The amd might run circles around it, at least the 64 bit will. The amd 64 bits are only around 2000 mhz. They win with their variable fsb speeds of up to 2000mhz. Basically the amd is just better designed with a faster bus speed. The processor speed dosent seem to matter as much as the work load anymore. I know that my AMD 233 will clock at 435 mhz where my p2 celeron at 300 will clock at around 296 mhz.
Title: Re: Macs Have Officially Joined the Dark Side
Post by: Haystack on June 07, 2005, 09:07:42 AM
do you ever run msconfig? If not I can give you instructions. Basically go to start and then run. Type in msconfig. Click okay. This will bring up the system configuration utility. Go to the startup tab. It will be the last one on the right. On the emachine computers you can clear all of them out without any ill effects. I think that this goes with windows xp in general. Basically everything in that list is either spyware or something that you installed on your computer. Chances are you have in the neighborhood of 25 to 30 things in this list. Any thing over 30 is slightly high. 40 and up is alot. Each one of these things uses anywhere from 8000k of ram to 32 megs of ram. So that is somethign that you might want to look into if your puter is slow. This will work on any windows XP machine as far as I know. Donot try this on a windows 2000 or older comptuer. IT will stop your computer from functioning
Title: Re: Macs Have Officially Joined the Dark Side
Post by: EricCoolCats on June 09, 2005, 11:44:07 AM
Ok, it's been a few days now, and some info is leaking out:
Quote
The first Apple systems in 2006 will use Intel's Pentium M processor, according to sources familiar with the companies' plans. The Pentium M uses the same x86 architecture as the Pentium 4 but consumes far less power. Its design philosophy is expected to be the model for Intel's future processors. Apple officials did not return repeated calls for comment, and an Intel spokesman declined to comment on Apple's product decisions.
An interesting move but expected. They may use the Pentium M in the desktop models as well, but most people are thinking the Apple laptops will be the first to get upgraded, since they're so far behind speed-wise compared to a PC.
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Interesting notes on Apple's Intel development system (available to developers only):
They are using a Pentium 4 660. This is a 3.6 GHz chip. It supports 64 bit extensions, but Apple does not support that *yet*. The 660 is a single core processor. However, the engineers said that this chip would not be used in a shipping product and that we need to look at Intel's roadmap for that time to see what Apple will ship. It uses DDR-2 RAM at 533 MHz. SATA-2. It is using Intel GMA 900 integrated graphics and it supports Quartz Extreme. The Intel 900 doesn't compare favorably to any shipping card from ATi or nVidia. The Apple engineers says they dev kit will work with regular PC graphics cards, but that you need a driver. Apple does not write ANY graphics drivers. They just submit bug reports to ATi/nVidia. So, when we asked where to get drivers for better cards the engineers said "The ATI guys are here." He's right, they've been in the compatibility lab several times. It has FireWire 400, but not 800. USB 2 as well. USB 2 booting is supported, FireWire booting is not. NetBoot works. The machines do not have Open Firmware. They use a Phoenix BIOS. That;s right, a Mac with a BIOS. They won't tell us how to get in the BIOS. I'm sure we can figure it out when out dev kits arrive. They run Windows fine. All the chipset is standard Intel stuff, so you can download drivers and run XP on the box.
Keep in mind that this is just the development box...specs are definitely going to change for production. But it shows how relatively simple the changeover was to get OS X running on stock Intel hardware and a general PC motherboard and components. As I said in the past, Macs were getting very close to being a PC anyway, using some standard equipment. Even parts of OS X are nearly identical to its XP counterpart. So all this does is switch things over even more, to the point where just about the only things different between them will be the processor and the OS.
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Think Secret has some unofficial Xbench results from a 3.6GHz Pentium running Apple's Rosetta system at WWDC 2005 (NOTE: Rosetta is the underlying component of the next OS X that allows translation between PPC and the Intel chip):
Overall, the Intel Mac are scoring between 65 and 70 with Xbench, a far cry from the 200+ scores higher-end G5 systems reach. The CPU test is landing in the high teens compared with scores of 100 to 200 for G5 systems, but that appears to be primarily due to lackluster FPU scores. ... The Intel Mac performed substantially less well than the dual-2.5GHz G5 at Thread test, scoring an 82 compared to 225. In the Computation Thread test the Intel Mac scored a respectable 110 compared to 155 in the G5, but the G5 blew the doors of the Intel Mac in the Lock Contention test, scoring a 420 to the Intel Mac's 66. The Memory Test tells a similar story: overall the Intel Mac scored a 214 to the G5's 378, but the Intel Mac actually exceeded the G5's Stream Memory Test: 351 to 319. The G5 trounces the Intel Mac at the system memory test, however, scoring a 464 while the Intel Mac musters a 154. The Intel Mac scored a 125 on the Interface Test, compared to a 380 for the G5. The Intel Mac scored well in both the Quartz graphics and OpenGL graphics tests--almost matching or exceeding dual-2.5GHz G5 score--although it's unknown which video card is powering the system. There has been some speculation that Apple's embracement of Intel processors will also allow the company to take advantage of off-the-shelf PC video cards.
Obviously the translation from PowerPC to Intel chips is going to make some things slower. The Pentium chips used on this demo box do not take full advantage of OS X's special graphics features (Quartz, OpenGL) so naturally the scores are lower than the native G5 box. But for a first-time shot at it, and for demo purposes anyway, it's not nearly as bad as some would think.
I think the main sticking point for developers right now is the apparent loss of Apple's Open Firmware. It's sort of the PC equivalent to BIOS but much more powerful and flexible. Really, it's what makes a Mac a Mac since it's so unique. But there are speculations that an equivalent will be adapted or created for the new Mactel box. We are also going to lose the ability to boot into the old Mac OS (8/9) because the emulator we currently use won't work with a non-PPC chip. It's going to affect roughly 10% of current Mac users due to them using older software that was never ported to OS X, or is a dead product. But you'll have that.
Another very interesting comment came directly from Apple's VP of Development. He said that OS X will ONLY work on a Mac/Intel machine. However, he was very coy about anything concerning running XP on the Mac. It just may be possible that we will be able to directly launch Windows programs without the need of a translator/emulator. We may even be able to dual-boot the machines in either XP (eventually Longhorn) or OS X. The way I see it, if that happens then M$ won't care one bit...that's another copy of XP they get to sell. However, Apple would have everything to lose if OS X was ported to PC's. They want to sell new machines, period, and if the Mac faithful want to stay up to date then they'll surely have to within the next few years.
It's getting more interesting by the day. :)
Title: Re: Macs Have Officially Joined the Dark Side
Post by: CougarSE on June 09, 2005, 12:25:54 PM
If I can remember right, Apple Cpu's process everything in 32 bit chunks even though they are "64bit". But they do two at a time? Doesn't there big speed boost come from processing on every second clock cycle unlike a PC at every fourth clock cycle? I'm not a Apple muncher so I don't know.
So has anyone read this yeat?
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"After Jobs' presentation, Apple Senior Vice President Phil Schiller addressed the issue of running Windows on Macs, saying there are no plans to sell or support Windows on an Intel-based Mac. "That doesn't preclude someone from running it on a Mac. They probably will," he said. "We won't do anything to preclude that."
"However, Schiller said the company does not plan to let people run Mac OS X on other computer makers' hardware. "We will not allow running Mac OS X on anything other than an Apple Mac," he said."
Title: Re: Macs Have Officially Joined the Dark Side
Post by: EricCoolCats on June 09, 2005, 01:10:47 PM
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f I can remember right, Apple Cpu's process everything in 32 bit chunks even though they are "64bit". But they do two at a time? Doesn't there big speed boost come from processing on every second clock cycle unlike a PC at every fourth clock cycle? I'm not a Apple muncher so I don't know.
Full specs on the current G5 architecture is here: http://www.apple.com/powermac/architecture.html
I think the answer is in there somewhere. ;) , the more I look at it, the more I'm going to miss that elegant G5 setup. That will suck. However, if anyone can engineer a box that's both beautiful and functional, it will be from the engineers at Apple. They'll work some magic.
Yeah, that was the quote from the Apple VP I referred to above. Now that the announcement is official, I guess there have been signs pointing toward this all the way:
- Several quotes from Apple's VP about it being a 'monumental' task fitting a G5 processor in a laptop. There was never any kind of resolution offered. - Microsoft's lackluster support for VirtualPC. They were SIX MONTHS behind the last OS X upgrade. Just biding their time because they knew this was on the horizon, maybe...? - Apple's very non-chalant product releases in the last year. Again, they may have known the end was coming, but they still have to sell product.
A lot of people have also speculated that this move was driven in large part by pros in the movie industry. Right now there is a sharp divide amongst video editors as to the better software: Adobe Premiere (which now runs only on Pentium-based PC's) or Apple's Final Cut Pro (running only on Macs). Most of the major films you've seen in the last 2-3 years have been edited completely using FCP. IIRC, one of the last scenes filmed for "SW: Attack of the Clones" was finished by the associate producer using a Powerbook on the beach on vacation! Anyway, now that everyone will be using the same processors, it's likely that editing software debate will heat up even more, since updates and new features can be cross-platform. In short, it won't matter which computer you run, just your preference in software. In that industry I'm sure it will be a boon. I'm still not sure about desktop publishing and high-end Photoshop users.
Title: Re: Macs Have Officially Joined the Dark Side
Post by: Bird351 on June 09, 2005, 01:17:24 PM
Another Mac transition article.. I think this guy is also a Mac user:
Looks like the Yonah core is 32 bit to start.. but for your laptops/etc., sounds like they're only 32 bit now anyway. I'm sure Yonah's successor will migrate to 64 bit.
Oh well.. that's what happens when ya switch to an architecture undergoing a significant transition. x86-64 is a potentially huge leap for the architecture. Once the transitional mess is cleaned up, things should be good.
'boink'.
Title: Re: Macs Have Officially Joined the Dark Side
Post by: Thunder Chicken on June 09, 2005, 05:36:41 PM
I would imagine Apple's "No Mac OS on a non-Mac computer" policy will be hackked and universally ignored, just like Microsoft's anti-piracy attempts. If a hacker wants to run it, it will be run, and typical hacker ego will have the hack public within moments of being hacked. It'll probable be along the same lines as Dell's anti-piracy bit - if you don't have a Dell BIOS you can't run the Windows install disc that comes with a Dell. AKAIK that attempt is only effective for causal users...
As I said earlier, I think Apple is being very, very stupid for not offering their OS to anyone with a PC. Microsoft got very rich doing just that...