Updated on Monday, June 15 at 2:20 p.m. PDT: adding multi-core discussion to earlier Windows update.
It's been four years this month since Apple announced it would drop the PowerPC architecture and switch to Intel's x86 design. One person involved in the back-and-forth between Apple and IBM at the time provides some insight into why it happened.
Apple laptop using the PowerPC G3 processor
(Credit: CNET Networks)When Apple made the watershed announcement in June 2005 ending its longstanding relationship with IBM and Motorola, Apple CEO Steve Jobs attributed the switch to a superior Intel roadmap.
"Looking ahead Intel has the strongest processor roadmap by far," Jobs said in a statement at the time. "It's been ten years since our transition to the PowerPC, and we think Intel's technology will help us create the best personal computers for the next ten years."
One oft-cited reason was that Apple didn't believe it could get the requisite performance per watt from processors being supplied by IBM and Freescale--formerly Motorola's chipmaking arm. Translation: Apple was worried about IBM's and Motorola's ability to deliver competitive processors for laptops. (Update: Another reason often put forward is that Apple simply wanted to be able to run Windows.)
A former IBM executive, who worked at IBM at the time and was involved in discussions with Apple, offered his perspective in a conversation we had during dinner at a recent technology conference. Let me emphasize that this is one person's opinion, not necessarily the gospel truth. I will not publish his name or title.
While he acknowledged the public reasons put forward by Apple, there was more to it--not surprisingly--than that. The upshot: Apple wanted better pricing, according to this person.
Apple was paying a premium for IBM silicon, he said, creating a Catch-22. IBM had to charge more because it didn't have the economies of scale of Intel, but Apple didn't want to pay more, even though it supposedly derived more from an inherently superior RISC design as manifested in the PowerPC architecture.
Here's what Jobs said in 2003: "The PowerPC G5 changes all the rules. This 64-bit race car is the heart of our new Power Mac G5, now the world's fastest desktop computer," Jobs said in a statement. "IBM offers the most advanced processor design and manufacturing expertise on earth, and this is just the beginning of a long and productive relationship." (Sounds suspiciously similar to what Jobs said about Intel after Apple made the switch.)
Despite the praise heaped on IBM's technology in 2003, Apple believed, by 2005, that it couldn't compete on cost, according to this person.
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When Apple converted to Intel in 2005 that was big. But 2008 Intel Atom converts make this look like a small-town baptism.
Overall, it was a good year for the Intel faithful despite the Wall Street financial crisis. Intel handily beat Advanced Micro Devices in the PC processor performance war. (Not coincidentally, AMD was forced to spin off its manufacturing operations to save itself.) But that really was last year's news since AMD had not been delivering competitive processors for almost two years.
iBook G3: Apple's conversion from IBM-Motorola to Intel pales against the conversion of PC makers to Intel's Atom
(Credit: CNET Networks)The tectonic shift in 2008 came as one PC maker after another adopted Intel's new Atom processor. Count 'em: Acer, Asus, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo, Toshiba--to mention only the largest vendors. (Atom shipments in the third quarter were strong and expected to hit between 10 and 20 million units this year.)
This wasn't one sole convert (like Apple), this was a Pentecostal conversion of biblical proportions. Almost overnight, the entire top tier of the PC industry got the Atom religion. In fact, it happened so quickly and so massively that companies like AMD and Qualcomm didn't know what hit them.
Wait a minute, Qualcomm seemed to say, we specialize in making chips for small devices, why is Intel running away with this market? (Even Intel was a bit surprised at the swiftness of Atom adoption in Netbooks.) And though AMD had helped pioneer the market by supplying its Geode processor for the progenitor of the Netbook, the One-Laptop-Per-Chip XO laptop, the Geode never came close to the commercial success (or performance) of the Atom.
AMD took notice, however, and said it plans to deliver a processor for the ultraportable market (an upscale Netbook or cheap notebook--however you want to look at it) at the Consumer Electronics Show.
And Nvidia followed suit. And seemed to be posing the same questions. Hey, if everyone's doing this, is this the Second Coming of the PC? Or, at least, a restructuring of the traditional price structure of the PC market? (The other question Nvidia is asking itself is whether it can bust the Intel bundling Juggernaut).
Oh, and we almost forgot Microsoft. Not initially enthusiastic about the Netbook market because of its XP-centric nature, Microsoft seems to have also gotten the Netbook religion with Windows 7 which will be ready for Netbooks from day one.
940 versus 940. That may be the confusing Intel-AMD processor model-number juxtaposing that consumers can look forward to next year.
A Chinese Web site has posted details of Advanced Micro Devices' upcoming Phenom II desktop processors, of which at least two are due to be launched at the Consumer Electronics Show in January.
The post on HKEPC lists more than a dozen new models due to be launched during the next eight months. AMD is now moving its chips to 45-nanometer process technology from an older 65-nanometer process. Generally, smaller geometries result in faster and more power-efficient processors.
Processors listed include the quad-core Phenom II X4 920 and Phenom II X4 940 due in January, rated at 2.8GHz and 3.0GHz, respectively.
Interestingly (and maybe not coincidentally), AMD's high-end Phenom II X4 920 and 940 model numbers match those of Intel's Core i7-920 (2.66GHz) and i7-940 (2.93GHz).
Both the AMD and Intel models are 45nm quad-core desktop processors with large caches. High-end Phenom II processors come with 8MB of cache memory. Typically, the more cache memory, the better the performance.
Other processors listed include the Phenom II X4 810 and 805, both due in February, rated at 2.6GHz and 2.5GHz, respectively, according to HKEPC. These have 6MB of cache memory.
HKEPC also lists triple-core Phenom II X3 processors and Athlon X4 processors.
The site also posted a table showing new naming scheme for the processors.
AMD will bring out its first generation of 45nm processors just as Intel is beginning commercial shipments of its second-generation 45nm product, the Core i7, which Intel officially introduced on November 17.
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