Comments on: Cringely is off his rocker on the Apple Intel merger

By: B.Greenway

B.Greenway — Tue, 02 Aug 2005 14:09:18 +0000

We dont “think” they’ll dual boot we know they will. Apple is re-writing their entire codebase for the intel chips, not the other way around.

By: Eyepoper

Eyepoper — Tue, 02 Aug 2005 13:56:53 +0000

Do you really think that you could do a Dual boot? I don`t think so. The CPU will have only the instructions to run Mac Os X. You would run Win32 by only emulating it with Virtual Pc.

I just hate that Intel now is going with apple. There will be no really competittion now. Intel and AMD are the same CPU . But they are just fooling us. If you look close both AMD and Intel have same instructions etc.. SSE3 ,3DNow etc… both have all that, but they not telling us. Marketing of course. So now the all the fault is on IBM. Now that apple signed the contract, IBM now anounces new Tech etc… They just suck. Why couldn`t IBM just build a new CPU for Apple ….
Damn..that makes me very Mad

By: Mike Barrow

Mike Barrow — Sat, 25 Jun 2005 03:36:14 +0000

I know only one thing about the Intel/Apple agreement and that is the fact that I am upset that I have to wait almost 18 months for my new Yonah class Pentium M Based Mac Mini dual booted with Longhorn Media Center Edition and Mac OS X Leopard. I cannot wait for these Intel based Macs to roll out and I have never owned a Mac in my life, but have always admired them from afar…

By: B.Greenway

B.Greenway — Tue, 14 Jun 2005 17:22:21 +0000

Danica feel free to rant here anytime I suppose my assumption AMD would have been a better fit for Apple, was the work AMD and IBM had done together, but I’m starting to see that as irrelevant.

By: Danica X

Danica X — Tue, 14 Jun 2005 17:01:35 +0000

AMD was not an option for Apple. AMD has nothing to offer Apple, likewise Apple has nothing to offer AMD. Apple’s own custom Dual 1.35Ghz 64bit bidirectional DDR FSBC (FrontSide Bus Controller) will benefit Intel. AMD has no interest in this technology, further AMD has no reason to work with Apple to improve their Processor’s ability to maximize the FSB speeds, PC Boards FSB speeds are only currently 400 – 800 Mhz typical (for processors with FSB speed in the Ghz range you would need to buy an Intel Extreme Classed Processor). Intel on the other hand designs and makes PC boards.

They’re struggling to keep pace with Boards being designed by other manufactures. It’s my feeling that Intel is looking to work with Apple to learn how to increase their processor and PC Board FSB speeds over all. Intel’s Extreme Classed processors are only created in small numbers by Intel (FSB speeds of 1.0 to 1.25Ghz typical). One of the big points of the G5 is it’s FSB bandwidth. In the non-PPC world this class of processor is rare and expensive.

While both AMD and Intel are pushing the CPU speeds the PC board architecture is still years behind Apple’s architecture. PC Boards have PS2, Serial, Parallel port, ISA and Floppy Disk Controllers on the board even if the board does not have the corresponding port/device. All of this out dated and extra hardware slow PC Board throughput. Further IRQ dependent PC Board architectures further reduce PC Boards throughput.

AMD does not have the resources and they have no interest in delivering Processor FSB speeds or the throughput that Apple will want or, will certainly need, in the future. While, Intel has the resources and I believe, with Apple’s help, can deliver processors with FSB speeds equal to the speeds of the processors. So, (2) 64bit Xeon or P4 @ 3.5Ghz will have a 64bit bidirectional processor FSB of 3.5Ghz. A Mac Intel 3.5Ghz system with the Apple Dual 3.5Ghz 64bit bidirectional DDR FSBC would smoke any PC using the standard PC architecture with the typical FSBC of 800Mhz on the PC Board no matter how fast the processor.

But, If Intel produced a board with an Apple style Architecture (stripped of all the slow unneeded, unused bits, with just (USB2, Firewire, SATA, PCI-X, AGP 8X-Pro with DVI only) for MS Windows then Intel would then once again also lead the PC Board market for best performance and design. And, only Intel has the clout that would be a must to get Microsoft to release a Windows update to support such a fundamental hardware architecture change.
Just my rant.

By: 813 :) (|]

813 :) (|] — Mon, 13 Jun 2005 01:22:54 +0000

for the Intel vs. AMD debate…

2 WORDS: MASS MARKET

Intel has it… AMD doesn’t. After the ipod what did you think was next?

By: Ronnie Dan

Ronnie Dan — Sat, 11 Jun 2005 05:36:25 +0000

You folks might recall some dismisive remarks from Steve Jobs, when asked about Apple’s response to Microsoft’s Media Center, where he said things along the lines of “decoding and recording video is a heavy duty task, and you don’t want your PVR doing other ‘PC’ things at the same time…”. Well guess what, Pentuim-D’s multi core should take care of that problem quite nicely, no ?! I’ll bet my pants that Apple is working on an HTPC, a Mac Mini with a nice firewire breakout box to accomodate all sorts of video I/O (A.K.A Asteriod).

By: SteveG

SteveG — Fri, 10 Jun 2005 22:56:52 +0000

Have to agree there. AMD may have the current lead in performance (and of course who knows if they can keep that lead in the future), they certainly could never keep up with Intel in terms of manufacturing. From what I’ve read, AMD is currently running backlogs for their current crop of customers.

By: grovberg

grovberg — Fri, 10 Jun 2005 17:54:54 +0000

AMD wouldn’t be a step forward for them. Apple is doing this because they are tired of prcoessor supplies holding back products. It’s happened over and over. Apple thought they had overcome this when they jumped over to IBM, but the problem still exists to this day. As much as all of us love to root for the underdog, going with AMD would be once again taking a chance on an underdog, and Apple and Jobs are frankly sick of it. Intel isn’t going anywhere and Apple no longer has to be worried about products shipping late because of CPU supplies.

By: Jonathan Greene

Jonathan Greene — Fri, 10 Jun 2005 04:18:14 +0000

I think the MS / Intel relationship is love hate. Clearly it’s profitable as hell to be the dominant player as a team, but the fact that Windows actually hurts the Intel technology is another issue. Would you want to be associated with Blue screens of death, worms, malware and general insecurity… let alone general system complexity.

Apple brings a smart, simple and powerful mind to the already powerful technology. Could AMD have done the same? Maybe, but probably not as broadly as the current and future product lines. Intel has much more to offer…

The change is definitely forever… good or bad.