> The transisition was long overdue. Apple was already going nowhere with > PPC Macs (actually they were falling behind again). They *had* to do > something.
IBM has been keeping up with Intel quite handily. The G5 has actually beaten the P4 in clock speed increases between the time Steve showed off the first G5 Mac and now, and the 970 core itself has done even better... a 3+ GHz G5 is finally in sight. And the heat and power problems of the G5 are no worse than the P4's. What IBM hasn't been keeping up with is AMD. AMD is kicking IBM's and Intel's butts... but AMD's chips are also hot, so AMD hasn't any answer to Apple's real performance problems... the ones in the Powerbook. It's Freescale that's been falling behind, because the G4 is stuck with the old 166 MHz bus it had when that looked pretty good against the PIII's 133 MHz one. But... Intel put a faster bus on the old PIII core and now Intel laptops are keeping up with the desktops. Oh, they call it a blend of PIII and P4 technology, but the P4 is at best the godfather: there's nothing unique to the P4 in a faster memory bus. The G4 has the same problem the PIII did. The 75xx core in the G4 is competitive with the 970 clock-for-clock, and may even beat it, but the memory bus is a deadly bottleneck. But... Freescale's producing a new PPC chip with a faster memory bus. One of the versions of this new chip is the "dual-core G4", but that's not really the most important feature of this new chip. But G5 is an Apple designation, not an IBM one. Apple could easily use the Freescale e600 and call it a "G5 Mobile". With a faster bus the coul have a massively better laptop long before they could field a Centrino-powered Powerbook running Leopard. And a dual-core version (with the second core spun up on demand) would be a nice bonus. Even if Steve knows something about *Freescale*'s ability to ship the e600 that he's not sharing with the rest of us, or there's a problem in OS X taking advantage of it, the only problem with the *IBM* roadmap is that Apple's not on it any more. > At least the speed claims will be believeable now, and Apple now has a real > future, with real processor roadmaps - not the smoke and mirrors and > non-existant roadmaps from IBM. If you think Intel's roadmaps are more real than IBM's, you haven't been watching Intel for very long. Apple's strength is software and system integration. They won't lose that just because they're changing part of the system, and I don't see any reason they won't continue to provide the best desktop environment available... but that doesn't mean that this switch isn't a mistake. -- Unsupported OS X is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> Unsupported OS X list info <http://lowendmac.com/lists/unsupported.html> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:[email protected]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive <http://www.mail-archive.com/unsupportedosx%40mail.maclaunch.com/> iPod Accessories for Less at 1-800-iPOD.COM Fast Delivery, Low Price, Good Deal www.1800ipod.com
