Ibm Fails Apple

[macmarauder]

For a long long long time now IBM has been making the processors for Apple. since they started on the G5 Apple gave IBM a goal of 3Ghz. Apple even promised it's consumers about 2 years ago or so and still has never delivered on it's promise.

i found this article on apples site.

Apple's finally going Intel

i am saddened by this news. i wonder just how much of the memory based architecture will have to been changed to allow the Intel Processors. after all still being a memory based system is what makes a mac a mac.

[jcl]

Well, that took forever. I said yesterday at the Forums That Shall Not Be Named that I surprised how long it had taken for someone there to mention the rumors that were spreading like wildfire over the weekend. When the threads finally appeared there, BT became the last place in the universe where people weren't discussing the move.

Anyhoo, it means zip for the system architecture or user-experience. The x86 and PPC versions are nearly identical.

Edited June 8, 2005 by jcl

[blim]

The first "non DOS" computer I ever used was an Apple that belonged to Son's Dance Coach, I was asst coach and did a lot of her busywork. I LOVED it because it was so EASY--even I could figure it out without any help!! (imagine that!)

In 1999, I reluctantly bought Winders because so many "items" worked only on Windows, and that's what the kids were using in school--made sense. When I bought the second idiot box, Apples were just too expensive (needed that money for groceries because the kids were gluttonous teenagers!) and the kids were still using Windows in school.

I SURE hope that this change doesn't make Apples harder to use!!! When the kids eventually move out and take the idiot boxes with them, that's what I want to get for ME!!

Liz

[Vile_DR]

I just read all of this.....INTEL is taking over just windows did years ago...soon everything is going to be made alike...it, IMO, is getting alittle crazy about all the chips and processors as well as the OS and search engines...

When will it all stop. I like how different Apple is from Microsoft...but blending of the sets is only going to lead them in having handshakes at the dinner table and a single OS to crash the world......

[macmarauder]

Anyhoo, it means zip for the system architecture or user-experience.  The x86 and PPC versions are nearly identical.

NO annnnd YES. it's the way they go about it. now i admite that i haven't kept in fully apprised of since the days of the good old G4s but they are still very different.

Reference

this pipeline system and previous cache sizes and emphasize on the memory access are what made Macs geared towards things like graphic processing and such. it's kinda like a big block engine vrs a small block engine. one concentrates on acceleration and the other top speed.

anyways my point is that with this move it may become the end on a Mac being a Mac. the biggest reason of why Macs have been so reliable is Apples control over the hardware. for example on PCs someone makes the computer so there's several hardware there to support. then there's the huge assortment of after-market parts. plus of course someone else writes the OS. that's a ton of driver files for a ton of hardware. in all fairness that's a lot of work for M$ to do.

all this may lead to apple hardware being totally like everyone else and the decline of quality, which we has seen plenty of with the G5s. so if the hardware becomes just another high end PC then all Apple has left for computers is the OS which lets face it. is just a cool looking version of Unix.

[jcl]

NO annnnd YES. it's the way they go about it. now i admite that i haven't kept in fully apprised of since the days of the good old G4s but they are still very different.

Reference

Heh. You wouldn't believe how many times people have pointed me to that article. It's become a quarterly tradition. I never did think much of it, and it's now completely out of date.

this pipeline system and previous cache sizes and emphasize on the memory access are what made Macs geared towards things like graphic processing and such.

That shouldn't a problem. Main memory latency is uniformly lower on the x86 side and the Intel's NetBurst systems can match, and sometimes greatly exceed, the throughput of the G5 desktops. Cache sizes tend to be large (notable exceptions being the NetBurst L1 caches and all of Via's designs) and performance is generally quite good by necessity.

It's often forgotten today, but the NetBurst wasn't just a lame attempt to produce a processor with big numbers to wow comsumers. It was designed to be a throughput monster, with a memory system to match. It didn't turn out as well as it could have, but it wasn't the disaster some people believe. There aren't all that many workloads that fit that design, but for those that do, NetBurst can produce remarkable results. As it happens, Apple is strongest in precisely the areas where those workloads are to be found. It's a natural fit.

OTOH NetBurst is lousy on typical loads and is dying because of it. But if, as is expected, Intel provides a desktop Pentium M with the memory architecture similar to that of the current P4, it should be no contest.

anyways my point is that with this move it may become the end on a Mac being a Mac.

Could be. The official position from Apple is that OS X will only be supported, and indeed may only boot, on their hardware. Things change, but unlike a lot of people I don't think Apple is completely insane. (In a way I think the concerns that switching suppliers from IBM to Intel will turn Apple into a generic PC company are kinda amusing. IBM was the generic PC company after all.)

Edited June 9, 2005 by jcl

[macmarauder]

i really have to admit that i haven't kept track of apples hardware sine the good old G4s. is the article just totally wrong by the G5s and other new systems?

as afar as cache sizes i was referring to the old G4s and G3s. i'm looking up specs for the first gen G5s and P4s to the current right now. i know i've been lazy the last 3 years.

here's article that answered some of my question of what apple was doing.

http://ptech.wsj.com/archive/ptech-20050609.html

right now i'm looking at several bench marks of the current G5 and P4. it seems to be a total flip flop. it's getting harder to get honest and very thurow bench marks. well i've got a ton of research to do to get caught back up again.

yeah i know that IBM is basically the PC company. and even funnier steve jobs and steve wozniak used to do everything to fight against them and called them the man. but i really like the potential of those little copper based G3s. you could jumper the piss out of them if you knew what you were doing.

before i go here's a real mind boggler that i don't think will happen any time soon but if it did. imagine if apple just dumped most of it's computer line and offered a version of os x for PC hardware. just how big of a market share would they have within 5 years?

funny considering that os x is just a fancy easy to use version of unix.

[thesidekickcat]

before i go here's a real mind boggler that i don't think will happen any time soon but if it did. imagine if apple just dumped most of it's computer line and offered a version of os x for PC hardware. just how big of a market share would they have within 5 years?

funny considering that os x is just a fancy easy to use version of unix.

Well I think if Apple really wanted to be in the hot bird seat of the OS wars, that is how to win the war.

Forget their special computers, give us a real choice of operating systems that aren't for the diehard computer expert such as Linux etc, but ones that anyone can use right out of the box so to speak without a huge learning curve. From what I have heard about Apple's OS, it is very intuitive so that should make it the hands down favorite with newbies, and even many small businesses. Plus so many computer experts already love it.

So why is Apple not doing what makes so much good business sense???

And the prices for both Windows and Apple operating systems would be in a competitive situation too. All of which benefits the consumer!!!

Another benefit, those who like Apple as an OS, but want to build their own computers, or swap parts out, wouldn't be held hostage to Apple only parts if it were built on PC hardware.

It is time for Apple to grow up and go to war here against Microsoft on their terms, operating system to operating system!!!

Here are a couple of articles from the Oregonian business section this week, that I found interesting. Seems that alot of the problem for Apple has been that IBM didn't follow through on their agreements to do what Apple wanted. Small peanuts to IBM's current vision it seems. So maybe this wasn't just Apple's out of the blue decision, maybe IBM was saying we aren't willing anymore to do a separate line just for Apple???

Apple going to Intel

Apple and IBM

The article does say this change wont be done right away, so that gives Intel the time to design what Apple wants. So it could turn out to be a win for Apple in the long run, to finally get what they tried to have IBM do for them or better.

Since my hubby works for Intel, I am glad the company picked up the Apple contract. But it wont be a huge share of business for them anymore than it was for IBM, though Intel will give them good service as they do for all their customers.

God bless everyone

[jcl]

i really have to admit that i haven't kept track of apples hardware sine the good old G4s. is the article just totally wrong by the G5s and other new systems?

It's misleading in places (one glaring example being the size of the IA-32 register set) but it's mostly just outdated. The Pentium M and PPC970 really changed the playing field. Intel is now pushing toward shallow pipelines, low-power, and concurrency, while the desktop PowerPCs were growing deeper and more power hungry every iteration.

as afar as cache sizes i was referring to the old G4s and G3s. i'm looking up specs for the first gen G5s and P4s to the current right now. i know i've been lazy the last 3 years.

In case you haven't found them, or if anyone is interested:

G4:

L1: 32/32 KiB

L2: 512 KiB

G5:

L1: 64 KiB I-cache/32 KiB D-cache

L2: 512 KiB

Pentium 4 6xx (as used in the Apple dev boxes):

L1: 12k uops I-cache/16 KiB D-cache

L2: 2 MiB

Xeon (Pentium 4):

L1: Same, I think

L2: 1 MiB

L3: 4 MiB or 8 MiB

Pentium M (Dothan):

L1: 32/32 KiB

L2: 2 MiB

Opteron:

L1: 64/64 KiB

L2: 1 MiB

It's speculated that the G4 will be succeeded by the Yonah, the dual-core version of Dothan. The G5 may be succeeded by the Meron or Conroe, the successors to Yonah. The Xserve would logically be a Xeon platform, but it isn't clear that NetBurst will survive until 2007 as anything more than a legacy product and I haven't heard anything about a Pentium M replacement for the Xeon. The Opteron is a possibility. Regardless, it'll be large L2 caches across the board.

right now i'm looking at several bench marks of the current G5 and P4. it seems to be a total flip flop. it's getting harder to get honest and very thurow bench marks. well i've got a ton of research to do to get caught back up again.

Yeah. As it stands the platforms are pretty evenly matched. The attraction to Intel I think is that they seem to be offering cores that can match the G5 in performance terms, beat it in power consumption, and that are still scaling.

before i go here's a real mind boggler that i don't think will happen any time soon but if it did. imagine if apple just dumped most of it's computer line and offered a version of os x for PC hardware. just how big of a market share would they have within 5 years?

Probably around 3%

Edited June 10, 2005 by jcl

[macmarauder]

OMG what happened to apple. the more i looked the more i didn't like. apple hardware used to be so different. what in the world happened. i spent a few hours looking stuff up and just didn't like what i saw. i knew that they were playing around with architecture and then there was that whole velocity engine fiasco but you might as well just call it a PAC instead of a Mac. one thing that has always disturbed me when they went to the G5 line is the huge increase of trouble shooting on apples board. these new computers aren't MACs they're just high end PCs. practically the only things left that still make it a MAC is the OS (which is just a fancy Unix) and their multi processor system ( they are the kings of mult processors). which brings me to my next question which i can't find anywheres.

will apple continue with their multi processor craze or since they only did that to try and compete with the larger processors? i would also bring up 64 bit processing too but that answer is kinda obvious.

ohhhh and i think that they would have just under 25% market share of the OS world. i think it would just depend of how much M$ will bully them like last time. M$ literally bought businesses just so that apple couldn't do business with them anymore.

[jcl]

OMG what happened to apple. the more i looked the more i didn't like. apple hardware used to be so different. what in the world happened. i spent a few hours looking stuff up and just didn't like what i saw.

Indeed. The software side hasn't been doing that well either. They've had have some major SNAFUs with OS X over the years and it seems like the defect rate is increasing.

practically the only things left that still make it a MAC is the OS (which is just a fancy Unix) and their multi processor system ( they are the kings of mult processors).

You haven't seen the lastest from Anandtech have you? The Xserve performance is catastrophic. Linux on roughly equivalent x86 hardware is over 10x faster on their multitasking benchmarks. And not because of the hardware.

will apple continue with their multi processor craze or since they only did that to try and compete with the larger processors? i would also bring up 64 bit processing too but that answer is kinda obvious.

They don't really have any choice. Both AMD and Intel are putting multicore 64-bit processors at the head of their product lines.

i think it would just depend of how much M$ will bully them like last time. M$ literally bought businesses just so that apple couldn't do business with them anymore.

Microsoft is a bit of wild card. They would benefit from Apple's growth because of application and game sales, and OS X wouldn't necessarily hurt them because many people would dual-boot. It would also help keep the DoJ and states off their back. And competition has always been good for Microsoft; Linux has done wonders for their enterprise products.

The big question is the nature of Microsoft. Microsoft is seen as an operating system company but I think at heart they're still an application and tools company. In a decade or less .NET will give them the ability to create a platform-independent application platform. Microsoft could potentially embrace and extend OS X.

Edited June 11, 2005 by jcl

[macmarauder]

you already know this but just in case others didn't catch it. what i meant by quality is the rate of defects, bugs, ect. not just the quality of materials. i've have people grip about that before.

i'm personally still not happy about the cheap attempt at the liquid cooling system they designed for the G5s. IBM couldn't get the specs on the processors so they just slapped that cooling system on it and i've seen quite a few problems with just those. it was just so that they could hold off consumers a little longer.

i see what you mean about the NetBurst. you right they are a very complimentative fit.

alright i've calmed down now, i finally got ahold of one of my buddies at apple and he explained a few things to me. so much for apple being as unique, it's good and bad. i'm sad to see that, i rather enjoyed the battles. but considering the direction that apple was going with the G5 line this had to happen.

[jcl]

i see what you mean about the NetBurst. you right they are a very complimentative fit.

Which, of course, is why Apple decided to use it just when Intel decided to abandon it. Apple and Intel were really made for each other: both try increadibly hard to produce great products only to fall short.

Actually I guess that describes the entire PC industry. Well, at least Apple is in good company now.

(Intel is sort of a tragic. They're a slave to x86. They've been trying to kill it since 1980, but it only grows stronger.)

[Pierce]

Well, intel isnt quite taken over the world yet,

look at ps3

look at xbox 360

look at nintendo revolution

they are all using some form of ibms power chip, and the rollout for intel chips on the big power systems is 2007, if ibm gets their stuff together by then, apple may reconsider asking every software developer to re-code their software for the hardware,

on the other hand, apple being a unix'd based system, could lead to developers coding software pimarly for Apple OS X, and *nix distros but thats a way too optimistic view.

Pierce

[jcl]

they are all using some form of ibms power chip, and the rollout for intel chips on the big power systems is 2007, if ibm gets their stuff together by then, apple may reconsider asking every software developer to re-code their software for the hardware,

That seems extraordinarily unlikely. PowerPC 970 is moribund and there's nothing to replace it. The only processors IBM is going to be shipping in volume at the right price are the console processors. Cell is so unbalanced it may not even be completely adequate for it's designed purpose and Xenon isn't much better.

on the other hand, apple being a unix'd based system, could lead to developers coding software pimarly for Apple OS X, and *nix distros but thats a way too optimistic view.

It's not impossible, but it might not work in Apple's favor. Portablity means seeking out the common denominator and OS X certainly ain't it. Cocoa would be in direct competition with Qt and GTK+ and it would not win. Without Cocoa, OS X is just an oddball, semi-closed source, single-vendor 'nix, with a pretty UI.