Hmm Intel Announced their new processors today, stating they will provide “better performance per watt” isn’t that what Steve Jobs said was the reasone for the Intel Switch.
64 bit??? Dual Core???? Weren’t people giving these as the reason they should have stayed with IBM? And 5W power output too? I told you that there was something Apple saw that we didn’t
Ah yes, Viiv. Pronounced “vive”, to rhyme with five, according to some story or other. Here’s another possible reason for combining 6 and 4: the new microarchitecture is, according to Intel’s slides, a synthesis of elements from the P6 and Netburst microarches. Hence, P6 + Pentium 4.
Regardless, we must be precise and remember that Viiv is not the name of the microarchitecture itself, but of the brand of Media Centre PCs that will employ the new chips.
64 bit??? Dual Core???? Weren’t people giving these as the reason they should have stayed with IBM? And 5W power output too? I told you that there was something Apple saw that we didn’t
All that stuff isn’t in one processor. The 5 watt proc is just the ultra low-voltage processor. They currently offer 5 watt pentium M’s and just like the one’s they just announced they run at very low speeds to achieve this.
It’s not really any different that taking a G4 and clocking it around 800-1000mhz.
Overall the best thing Intel announced is their new manufacturing process for dual cores and their support for the Media Center platform in Vista (which ships on every Vista PC just like Tablet). Everything else was expected and somewhat disappointing. There are benchmarks on the net that show the Yonah and Merom to be clock for clock about the same as current A64’s but those tests are only in 32-bit because all the new Intel procs won’t be 64-bit and AMD is going to kick there ass their anyway. The other thing the tests showed is that the new Intel procs are far behind AMD in dual core and dual processing because the top-end Intel proc (running 2 dual core procs) was scoring far behind what the current dual core Opterons do in dual processor configs.
Other than that it’s pretty disapointing to knwoi that Intel plans on launching the Yonah and other procs at around the same clock speeds they’re at today because that emans AMD is oging to mop them up in terms of overall performance, just like AMD’s dual cores do today. The prices for those new procs seems high as well considering they don’t beat out current AMD designs which will be much cheaper by the time these new Intel’s come out.
I guess from Apple’s POV it’s a big step up compared to current Powerbooks, Mac Mini’s and eMacs but I don’t see any of those procs being much faster than a 2.5ghz iMac or dual core G5 in the PowerMac. But they will be a lot more expensive so expect either Apple’s pricing to change (along with their designs) or Apple’s profits to drop. I doubt the latter will happen.
The other thing the tests showed is that the new Intel procs are far behind AMD in dual core and dual processing because the top-end Intel proc (running 2 dual core procs) was scoring far behind what the current dual core Opterons do in dual processor configs.
Um yeh… way to compare a 5W chip with a 130W chip.
Other than that it’s pretty disapointing to knwoi that Intel plans on launching the Yonah and other procs at around the same clock speeds they’re at today because that emans AMD is oging to mop them up in terms of overall performance, just like AMD’s dual cores do today. The prices for those new procs seems high as well considering they don’t beat out current AMD designs which will be much cheaper by the time these new Intel’s come out.
Except by the fact that they consume *far* less power. Yes these chips are fairly mediocre in terms of speed… But that was not the reason for the switch, and it was not the idea behind these chips.
Um yeh… way to compare a 5W chip with a 130W chip.
Did you actually go read any of the info Intel put out or did you just skim the headlines? None of the benchmarks Intel put out had the 5w chip. That’s chip is the ultra low voltage processor and it’s running at about 1.2ghz or lower with one core and no 64-bit. Not to mention the 5w is average not absolute maximum.
The processors in the benchmarks were between 30-50 watts and they were only running at 1.5 ghz and lower with dual core but still no 64-bit. For comparison sake, the A64 X2 3800+ runs at the same wattage but at 2ghz.
Except by the fact that they consume *far* less power. Yes these chips are fairly mediocre in terms of speed… But that was not the reason for the switch, and it was not the idea behind these chips.
Bob
No they don’t. They consume less power than P4’s but that’s about it. AMD is already selling dual core opterons with 55W max TDP(as opposed to the TDP Intel advertises which is average) and at speeds up to 1.8ghz. That’s current Pentium M power levels if you weren’t sure.
AMD’s mobile procs already use less power than Pentium M’s and Yonah’s are actually going to raise the TDP of Intel’s mobile platform (even in single core).
So basically the Intel announcement is that they will have higher TDP’s for laptops and lower for desktops but still higher than AMD on both form factors. Intel procs will match AMD procs clock for clock in 32-bit but not in 64. Intel procs will be much more expensive and require you to switch motherboards (again).
AMD’s current lineup looks better and cheaper than what Intel announced except for the fact that Intel will have a 5w 1.2ghz single core 32-bit only processor.
AMD’s lineup around the time all those procs should come out will be much better and the clock speeds for dual cores could be at 2.8ghz while Intel is stuck at 2.13ghz with those new procs.
http://www.laptoplogic.com/news/08/08/2005/410/0/
At this point Apple would have been better off by staying with Freescale and IBM, both of which has similar low power and dual core designs already or coming down the pipe.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see Apple switch back to Freescale and IBM procs.
Did you actually go read any of the info Intel put out or did you just skim the headlines? None of the benchmarks Intel put out had the 5w chip. That’s chip is the ultra low voltage processor and it’s running at about 1.2ghz or lower with one core and no 64-bit. Not to mention the 5w is average not absolute maximum.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see Apple switch back to Freescale and IBM procs.
I would… you don’t announce that you’re completely switching architectures, get your developers to rewrite all their software for the new architecture, alienate many current customers, etc. just to flip flop on the issue and go back to the old architecture.
Hmm Intel Announced their new processors today, stating they will provide “better performance per watt” isn’t that what Steve Jobs said was the reasone for the Intel Switch.
Ladies and Gentelmen meet the new Mac Processor
Jobs had a few demands of course, which he told the Intel execs about.
But I think Intel were interested in making cooler processors anyway, for Windows laptops and..... errr..... Apple.
I don’t think “better performance per watt” was the only reason, Macs will work even better with the rest of the world this way. I still hate the switch though.
It’s going to give people a way to directly value a Mac versus a PC. Before we had to rely on benchmarks which were usually biased depending on which magazine they came from.
It’s going to give people a way to directly value a Mac versus a PC. Before we had to rely on benchmarks which were usually biased depending on which magazine they came from.
Actually, truthfully, I think this is going to turn the PC market topsy-turvy. It will be something like “Well, the Macs have such-and-such hardware and run OS X natively, but you can unofficially install Windows on them. And this PC over here has the same hardware and runs Windows natively, but you can unofficially install OS X on it.” How many PC geeks do you think are going to recommend a Windows-based computer and suggest installing a cracked version of OS X, assuming that Apple doesn’t manage to keep it completely isolated? Probably more than a few.
I would… you don’t announce that you’re completely switching architectures, get your developers to rewrite all their software for the new architecture, alienate many current customers, etc. just to flip flop on the issue and go back to the old architecture.
I agree. The worst thing for Apple to do is vacillate.
Did you actually go read any of the info Intel put out or did you just skim the headlines? None of the benchmarks Intel put out had the 5w chip. That’s chip is the ultra low voltage processor and it’s running at about 1.2ghz or lower with one core and no 64-bit. Not to mention the 5w is average not absolute maximum.
Um no… that would be the 0.5W chips.
Bob
Wrong. The .5 watt chips are similar to Xscales in that they are not going to be used in PC’s. You’ll see them in cell phones, video players, and PDA’s (maybe iPods) but not much else. And the clock speeds of those chips are going to be 1ghz or lower (probably around 400-500mhz) so they won’t show up in anything that’ll run the Mac OS natively.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see Apple switch back to Freescale and IBM procs.
I would… you don’t announce that you’re completely switching architectures, get your developers to rewrite all their software for the new architecture, alienate many current customers, etc. just to flip flop on the issue and go back to the old architecture.
They aren’t really “completely switching” to Intel because they’re still going to support the PPC architecture through 2008. Universal binaries will make the switch back to PPC a non-event because all the software will already be compiled for that architecture.
Secondly, it’s not like Apple hasn’t done all this before. Think about it, they could have initially released OS X for X86 instead of dragging Mac users through two separate painful transitions back to back but they choose not to. Apple will get fed up with pirated X86 eating into their sales and all the complaints coming from people who see Apple offering sub-par specs (and now they can’t blame the chip manufacturer), their price protection will take a major hit, profits will slide, and they’ll quietly start pushing PPC based Macs more than Intel based ones.
Secondly, it’s not like Apple hasn’t done all this before. Think about it, they could have initially released OS X for X86 instead of dragging Mac users through two separate painful transitions back to back but they choose not to.
Believe it or not, there was a time when Mac OS X’s Classic environment was important.
