Four years later: Why did Apple drop PowerPC?
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.
For IBM, the business with Apple was a financial sinkhole because the company had to invest a lot of money in chipsets, compilers, and other supporting technologies but could only take a small percentage of the overall PC processor market, he said. So, in the end, it was impossible to make money.
Why only a small piece of the processor market? Apple insisted on double sourcing (IBM and Motorola). So, from the start, this left IBM with about half the market it could have had. This, he said, was an enormous financial burden. Paraphrasing the ex-IBMer: Intel was a single company with the lion's share of the market. While two companies--IBM and Motorola--had to divvy up a much smaller share of the market, while still investing, individually, tremendous amounts of money. And Apple played one against the other, according to this person.
Specifications for the Apple Power Mac G5 tower design (discontinued in August 2006)
(Credit: Apple)IBM had been concentrating on delivering high-performance, single-core PowerPC processors, this person said. (Presumably by ratcheting up the gigahertz rating on single processors. The goal was to exceed 3GHz.) But when Intel, as part of the discussions with Apple, showed a dual-core (multi-core) processor roadmap, Apple reconsidered this strategy, according to this person. (Though IBM did deliver multi-core PowerPC designs for the Mac as shown in the graphic, these were not the same kind of multi-core designs that Intel was proposing. )
Interestingly, IBM had hoped to amortize the cost of PowerPC on Cell, the PowerPC-based chip design now used in the Sony PlayStation, some IBM severs, and IBM Roadrunner supercomputers. Big Blue was hoping to move Apple to Cell and then get the economies of scale there, according to this person.
Can parallels be drawn with Advanced Micro Devices and its struggles to compete with Intel over the last few years? Possibly. Very few chipmakers have the multibillion dollar coffers to fund the R&D and manufacturing necessary to be a leader in a major chip market, let alone stay competitive. Witness AMD last year going to the brink and then saving itself by spinning off its manufacturing operations.
And Apple chose Intel in 2005, not AMD, and has stayed with this single source for its Mac line since.
Brooke Crothers has been an editor at large at CNET News, an analyst at IDC Japan, and an editor at The Asian Wall Street Journal Weekly, among other endeavors, including co-manager of an after-school math-and-reading center. He writes for the CNET Blog Network and is not a current employee of CNET. Disclosure. 
There is a big difference between specs and real-world performance. RISC never did pan out to be as high-performance as it promised, ever since the mid-80's early promises!
I had similar results with MPEG-2 encoding for DVD authoring.
I stopped buying Macs. They are truly over priced junk. Now that they have intel CPUs they are so much better off. But I can still easily build a PC for a lot less money. And honestly, I have better software choices on the PC anyway.
Alex
"Overpriced junk"? Really? I'm sure there is more to this story here than you are letting on. You didn't tell us with AMD processor it is, clock speed says nothing. You didn't tell us how much RAM these machines had. You didn't say if After Effects was taking advantage of multiple cores or of the 64-bit G5 instruction set. There are lots and lots of variables out there. But to say they are overpriced junk is just plain belligerent and ignorant. You based your entire comparison on one piece of software. Where these machines even contemporaries? A $700 Wintel laptop of 2009 will "destroy" my old G4 PowerBook of 2005, of course. Just like a G5 of 2005 will destroy a Pentium 4 of 2002. Don't even bother trying to explain.
I've had Macintoshes for the past 11 years and I've never considered any of them to be "overpriced junk". And in my experience, they've all been, to a one, as fast or faster than any contemporary Wintel machine. And I've never owned a G5. I've only owned G4 and G3 systems, until my Core 2 Duo MacBook. The G3 and G4 computers were as fast or faster than anything else out there, especially when comparing them to Pentium based processors of the same clock speed.
As I said, I ran compression and After Effects. After Effects version 6.5, which can utilize two cores. It is not 64 bit, and if you knew a darn thing you'd know that. Adobe to this day doesn't support 64 bit on the G5 and never will. Hello, do you know anything at all?
Don't get lost in all the bull****. Run a MainConcept MPEG-2 encode against Apple's own Compressor. Any intel Pentium processor will blow away any G5. ANY. Does ANY mean anything to you? Use ANY thing you like. You will lose the speed race. Why? Cause the G5 is crap. Always was and always will be.
Look what happened as soon as Apple switched to intel. They immediately threw up all kinds of benchmarks for Final Cut Pro showing it to be at least twice as fast on intel. Even compared too Quad Core G5s, twin dual core against twin 2 core intel XEONs.
My AMD chip was of circa 2005. I can't even remember what they called it. It was nothing special as it was about a $154 processor. I built the whole machine for about $1,000. That alone ought to tell you something. How is it a $1k machine blows away a $4k machine by such a wide margin. Even if I used one core, the AMD was just about the same speed as the G5.
You guys love to say how your machines are just as fast, yet you never give any examples.
Alex
Listen, I'm not the one claiming to know everything and leaving out details, misrepresenting things. I never claimed to know the first thing about After Effects, you did. Adobe products' specifications are not in my area of interest. It's not crap, to say that shows your complete lack of understanding of the architecture. You're angry, you're jaded, and you're biased. You accuse me of bias, but you haven't said how it compared with other pieces of software. Admittedly, there weren't a lot of application packages that took full advantage of the G5 and it's instruction set and 64 bit architecture. It'd be interesting to see a comparison of an application that does. This is all moot anyway, the processor and the computers that used them have been relegated to "outdated" status anyway. Why are you so vehemently belligerent about a 4 year old computer? (rhetorical question, I really don't care)
You still have not named a single app you have compared on both platforms. [CNET editors' note: Personal attack deleted.]
You are entitled to your opinion, even a wrong one. Do you actually know anything about the difference between a RISC and a CISC chip? From your posts I doubt that you really even know that much about computers. I have been running a dual 2 GH PowerMac for almost six years now and it allowed me to install an unheard of amount of RAM, at least unheard of if you were running intel or AMD chips, which made the video/audio work I was doing at the time much quicker than the intel system I was running.
Anytime you're ready.
Alex
Dunno if he can, but I certainly can:
* Vue d'Esprit versions 3, 4, and 5
* Poser versions 5, 6, and 7 (and Poser 4 on OS9, but that's a bit out of parameter, eh?)
* DAZ|Studio (disclaimer: I was on the development team for this one)
* POVRay
* Modo 302
* Carrara
* Bryce 5
* and many, many more...
On Windows/P4EE at that time, most of these apps by themselves happily dominated the computer, not allowing anything else of any real consequence to occur (in Vue d'Esprit, audio playback stopped working entirely during a render for some odd reason). In Windows, you started a render, then did something else or used another computer.
By contrast? On my five-year-old dual G5, I can run any of these apps today, and still have more than enough CPU room to run another similar app alongside it, and at the same time play something online, listen to music, watch a movie, etc.
Only after the Core Duo series came out (years later) was anyone able to do the same on a Windows-based PC (that is, if they were running XP, and not Vista).
The absolute funniest thing I did with it was when I took the old beastie (the Mac) to a LAN party. I was happily playing UT 2k4 at full speed while the second monitor was displaying a complex raytrace render in progress. Everyone who walked by and saw that kept asking where I was hiding the second computer. :)
Nope! Okay, resume flamethrowing!
I can run Leopard (10.5) just fine on mine.
Tell us - how many 2005-era computers can run Vista Ultimate with everything turned on?
I hope Windows 7 works well; people deserve something better than Vista. But sometimes people like you remind me of a dog who is in ecstasy rolling around in another mutts poop, not knowing or caring how he looks or smells to others. Enjoy.
Alex
Your comparison is meaningless. Via uses a compatible instruction set to Core and Core 2 Duo processors, just like every other x86. The G5 is a completely different chip, with a different architecture and different instruction set. You take that code out of the OS, then of course Mac OS X 10.6 can't run on it. Just like you can't run a modern release of Solaris on a PowerPC (POWER) based chip.
The Via C7M is about the lowest of the low end. Point is, it can run Windows 7 without blinking. A PC user can run Windows 7 on a $300 netbook. And it will run very well.
I'm using an Acer NetBook right now with a 1.6 GHz Atom. Runs great, cost less than most of the pro apps I have for the whole machine.
Alex
I also noticed how they claimed iPhone and iPod Touch users are OSX users. Yeah, let's see those developers sell a copy of Adobe Photoshop CS4 for the iPhone. Puh leeze. Just like the bull about all those iPhone apps being downloaded. They are counting updates since you have to re-download the whole app again. Trying hard to make it sound like 1 billion apps have been bought or something. "downloaded". LOL.
Does anyone still fall for this garbage hype?
Please...
The Via C7M is about the lowest of the low end. Point is, it can run Windows 7 without blinking. A PC user can run Windows 7 on a $300 netbook. And it will run very well.
I'm using an Acer NetBook right now with a 1.6 GHz Atom. Runs great, cost less than most of the pro apps I have for the whole machine.
Alex"
Alex--I have run leopard on 800mhz G4 iMac, all effects, everything. I think the real point is, YOU have no clue what you are talking about or just don't care what anyone else says (I suspect a little of both). I'm not trying to dog on Microsoft, but the fact that they had to come out with Win 7 ought to speak volumes about their short sighted thinking when they put out Vista, because you most definitely cannot put Vista Ultimate on that netbook, yet I can put Apple's current OS on a seven year old IMac. See, it's easy to distort the truth in one's favor.
The G5 was a fast processor for some things, but not for everything thing, and it did not scale well up in speed or down in size/power. Apple had to continue to offer G4 laptops and minis, which were just too slow to compete anymore.
@ Mr Dee
Grow up WinFanBoi, Windows 7 has taken a LONG time to come to fruition - how did Vista run on those same 2001 machines? Slow enough to let Microsoft lose a court case. If you are going to mock then at least do some homework. 3 year old machines are pretty common in the Mac world but heaven forbid - after all the transitions we still have great hardware on which to do work.
I bought my dual G5 PowerMac in 2004, and it is five (not three) years old. I can run Leopard on it just fine, and I daresay the performance is superior to its predecessor, 10.3.
Proof, please.
I'm thinkin', you can run Win7 just fine, as long as that includes nothing more than Notepad, IE8 and the picture viewer. What happens when you want to get something done with a database product or a complex spreadsheet that requires some CPU work (or, God forbid, an actual video game)? Down in flames because 80% of the OS is being used to float Aero, maybe?
Tell us what apps you are running concurrently in your little netbook with the fab new 7 betas, please...
Ok, people, lets not get nitpicky here.
"G5 PowerBook's Next Tuesday" became a standing joke on the MacRumors forum, and I expect elsewhere.
That's the reason they dropped PPC, and when the market moves on Intel will be dropped for an ARM like chip which they just happen to be developing.
Unfortunately when the G5 finally came along, there was no way it would ever fit into a PowerBook. Power consumption and heat were too high.
As mentioned before, neither IBM nor Motorola were willing to put the R&D dollars into developing a PowerBook oriented G5 for such a small market share. It's a pity because the PPC architecture was more efficient that anything out of Intel on lots of levels.
The only PLUS side of having the G4s stuck at lower speeds... 500mhz for 18 months, I think... is that it forced Apple to try to find new ways of squeezing more speed out of the ALL hardware (not just the CPU) and the OS. They started off-loading some processes to the GPU. With OpenCL coming with Snow Leopard, we're seeing the fruits of that work.
There are many professional Mac users who opt for laptops over desktop machines and it's important to at least be able to approach desktop speed and power for those core users. Apple (mostly) appreciates this... except when they do boneheaded things like remove the ExpressCard/34 slot from their best selling MacBook Pro.
Hm, oh well.
In hindsight (whether Apple realized it or not) there was another good reason to switch to Intel. I was a Mac user at the time, but had plenty of friends still on Windows who were thoroughly frustrated and wanted to switch. Yet none of them would switch because they feared that they might not be able to find Mac versions for all their required software, Windows emulation on the Mac was poor & slow, and they need to run a few old Windows apps. Once Apple switched to Intel, these fears were allayed with the availability of Apple's "Boot Camp" as well as OS virtualization solutions (first Parallels, then VMware Fusion & VirtualBox) -- no more relying on slow emulators. All of them made the switch (then quickly discovered they didn't really need to be able to run Windows after all.) This perception (back in the PowerPC days) was killing Apple's ability to convert Windows users.
Why Apple didn't avoid the ten-year PowerPC detour and jump straight to ARM in the first place -- which was multiple-sourced, well-supported by development tools, and boasted inexpensive and high-performance multicore operation in the 1990s -- we may never know. All I can conclude is that somebody who was very persuasive in ways unrelated to technology or economics walked away with a pile of money from this mystifying deal. But I was even more mystified later, when Apple announced their embrace of Intel x86 architecture. By that point, they had a LOT more positive experience with the ARM, and could have created some amazing desktop products with it. Of course, now that Apple is "arm in arm" with Intel, some ARM-based products might yet come forth, given that Intel has its own version: the StrongARM. I guess we will see about that. One thing is sure: there is a LOT more to Apple's chip selections than even well-placed insiders will or can ever tell the press. Even those of us who were paying close attention to such decisions from the inside never got more than part of the story.
Intel using the 8088 and then the 8086, 286, 386 pretty much were merely head to head. By the time the 486 and Pentium started intel had command of much more than 47% of the market. The loss of the Amiga and ST and the rapid growth of the PC really gave intel the market. If you were at Apple maybe you had heard of a shadow project where they had System 7 running on a 286 in consideration of switching to intel. If the rumor is to be believed, it was said to be extremely fast and much better than on the 68k series.
It had always seemed to me to be better to end the processor war. The first argument when ever the PC vs. Mac debates came up was always the difference between x86 and PowerPC. Personally, I think intel had the better CPU, and Microsoft had started on NT which gave them protected multi-threading. And in that moment, Windows eroded away at Apple's marketshare. In the early 90s Apple had a pretty good sized marketshare. 12% I believe. But by 1996/97 that had dropped to 1.9%. Apple was of course bleeding money, and that again gave intel even more marketshare.
As soon as you see that race to 1 GHz going on with the Pentium III, it became clear to me Motorola was being left in the dust, out funded and out paced. That's when I started to speak out begging Apple to switch processors. It just solved so many problems. No more comparing PPC to intel. All that just ends. You would only have to compare OSX to Windows, and that would be a good thing for Apple. It would allow Apple's customers to install windows if they choose to, another good deal with Apple's customers. I just couldn't figure out the logic in staying with PowerPC. If Apple had not switched, I think they would be in a different and distant place right now. I don't think they would have grown anywhere near as much as they have, even with the iPod's halo affect.
For a good while, Apple's fan base was balking at the idea of making iPods for the PC market. Apple made another smart choice by going after the PC market with the iPod. I also wrote that Apple should release all of their software for Windows, not just iTunes, QuickTime, and Safari. I still say Apple is not doing as well as they could be because the like to stay in the lower end of the pool. I speculate they are too worried that if they released something like Final Cut Suite to Windows it might kill off their pro tower sales. If they do believe that, it speaks volumes to their being aware that they charge too much for hardware.
Alex
Alex
Avid is a good product, and if you have the mullah, why not use it? doesn't change the fact that FCP is still a viable product for some. oscar winning films were edited on FCP.
They also use Linux exclusively in that same render farm, and not Windows. (they announced last year that they'd eventually port their render-cluster software to Windows...) Disney and DreamWorks are also Linux-only houses in the render farms.
...so, your point was what, exactly?
Its so fast that I have to use dark sunglasses to avoid being blinded!
I Have a Macbook Pro that I use to heat up tortillas because is so slow and gets so hot...
Dang, windows trolls...are you happy now?
If people hate the platform, marketers have to turn sentiment around. If they love the products, then they have to play into that role.
I remember one of those PBS specials had Steve Jobs while still at NeXT and he was bitterly complaining about how Apple was doing it wrong in his absence. He spoke of how Apple enjoyed the highest margins of any computer company and yet they stood still in terms of innovation, allowing Microsoft to not only catch up, but to surpass.
He then surprised me with a comment, and I cannot even remember what it was exactly. Perhaps someone has a video of it on YouTube or something. What I do remember is that he said something rather negative about Apple's customers and what he would do to them if given the chance to run the company again. Something to the affect of he would milk the Apple customers for every dime selling them system 7 or 8 in order to usher in NeXT or something like that. I know he wanted to modernize Apple, but I didn't appreciate too much the comments of "milking Apple's customers". Maybe someone else is familiar with the video and can find it on YouTube.
Alex
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/2007/pulpit_20070906_002891.html
It goes to describe Steve basicaly on a mission to get back at those who fired him. How's he doing that? Making minor tweeks to already out products (I mean come on, the iPhone gS is hardly the next Gen) and then charging a HUGE markup on them. He enjoys screwing the loyal Apple base and earning millions of dollars in the process.
It all goes to the stories you hear every now and then that while Steve is good in design, he's people skills are non existent. I guess if he can't treat his employees right, what luck do you customers have. But if you don't mind the price and you like the product, then go have fun.
Again, for the same price as the old top end unit.
Is it a "next generation" model? no, but nobody but you said it was. is it much faster and much better equipped for the same price? yes.
how is that cheating anyone?
and before you say you don't need to, trying installing the ATTO SCSI controller driver, which you do indeed need to do. Then try to uninstall it. You'll soon realize the sad truth.
In general, I agree with what I think your main concept is. That it is easier and safer to destroy plist files than registry entries. But you'd be missing a huge point on the PC side. The registry gives a lot of things context. You can thumb through it and see what can be changed. There is a structure there and that helps a lot. The registry is also backed up. I myself used to love OS9 and prior because it was so simple to manage. But the registry isn't all bad. Given the Windows architecture, it's actually quite useful. I'd guess you wouldn't appreciate it, but it is a good system. Don't let a lot of harsh words written over the internet cloud the usefulness of the registry. Think if it as a database, because that's what it is. And more and more we are using databases integrated into the operating systems. Like Journaled File Systems.
Alex
My G5 does indeed, for no reason what so ever, decide to kernel panic. Which causes the huge fans in the tower to kick in at full speed. And I am using RAMJET memory, and everything else is factory. I have an ATTO card on mine, two DLT800s, two external hard drives, a scanner, and a MiniDV deck. So it's loaded up and it's not perfect. Now the G4 which also has an ATTO card and two DLTs runs pretty smoothly. The intel Mac I have is garbage. The keyboard doesn't always sense an O or a P key while typing. Did the firmware upgrade and no joy. And I am not the only one with this. Every friend I have with that model has simply got used to it. And please don't tell me you don't know of glitches. The nVidia chips have been a challenge. The screens on newer model notebooks have produced banding. and on and on.
Honestly, I think we you like a platform, to tend to ignore or make light of the issues. And when you don't like a platform, you tend to embellish the issues those customers face. While both platforms have their strengths and weaknesses, take to heart when I tell you that my personal experience, maybe not yours, is very good on XP, Vista, and Windows 7. Since SP2 on XP I have yet to see a true blue screen. Or some problem that a kill process couldn't easily fix.
PCs for the last 5 years easily have been very solid and simple to manage. They are cheap, they have a lot of software to offer. They are good bang for the buck.
Personally, I think the G4 was Apple's most stable platform. My G4 867 in particular was easily the most solid machine I had ever owned on the Mac side. It still runs to this day, although it's not a speed demon anymore. Was...
Alex
as for .plists, they regenerate. they can easily be removed. most people never have to.
I've observed this before, and I think it bears repeating: there are legitimate things to complain about with Mac hardware and OS X, and not all Mac users are particularly well-informed about the "other" platform (just like not all Windows users are particularly well-informed about OS X, and not all Mac or Windows users are particularly well-informed about Linux, and so on). And, yes, some Mac users really can get kind of smug and obnoxious.
But it only seems to be Windows users who take not using their platform as a FLAMING PERSONAL ATTACK that calls for ABSOLUTE REVENGE RAR RAR RAR. I don't have to say anything more controversial and partisan than, "Oh, I use a Mac" to see people lecture me about what a brainwashed moronic computer illiterate I obviously am.
The comments here are all too typical: a lot of flaming, vitriolic and personal bile directed at people who dare to prefer the Macintosh platform... and those Mac people are the unreasoning zealots. Yes. Of course. It's all the fault of the Mac users. If they would just, y'know, stop using Macs, you wouldn't have to pound them into submission with your flying fists of fury!
I mean this in the nicest, gentlest possible way: what the heck is wrong with you people?
You used to make some nice tutorials on Apple products, what happened? Did Avid wave a big check to you and now you're an Apple hater?
If you look around you will see that I have argued against the PC in the Macs favor many many times. It depends on the subject and the article. Like you mention viruses and spyware. And to me that's a none issue. I can manage a clean environment very easily. And I think a lot of Mac users just enjoy that little stick way too much. Everyone in IT should be able to manage the threat of viruses and spyware. If they can't, they should be working else where.
Not everything is going to be easy. Try to make a 40,000 user Mac network with only Macs and OSX. You'll quickly realize the benefits of the Novell Directory Services or Microsoft's Active Directory. It's easy to poke fun at Windows and Microsoft and call out flaws. But you have to be willing to accept that Apple isn't the best choice in every situation. Believe me, big business doesn't like spending a lot of money on things that have little to no value. There is reason Apple isn't successful in large enterprise. Now that's not to say they don't make great consumer products. They do, I just don't believe they are worth the price you pay. It's just my opinion, but I like what my platform of choice has to offer. Beyond like there is also a set of professional applications that are simply windows only applications. So for me, the advantage is Windows. For you, maybe not so much.
Alex
This is the argument I really don't get that so many make.
"Apple can't do XYZ therefor Apple sucks and a much larger company who does XYZ is obviously better."
That's false logic. Apple doesn't do point of sale units, either. Or ATM machines. Does that prove Apple sucks for the average person, the SOHO client, the school, the independent video production house, the advertising agency, etc.? Of course not...
Ideally, there should be a (better) alternative to intel disregarding its name, PPC or else. If there is none, perhaps there is none indeed.
Technology move on,
They also ditched the ADB, SCSI, Nubus, floppy drives, localtalk and other connectors in favor of more PC mainstream hardware to simplify things for everyone - And of course, forget running any software from the PowerPC or pre-PowerPC operating systems in the Intel side. But with the exception of a few specialized programs, how many computer users use hardware or software more than five or ten years old?
I suspect those using hardware that ancient are still grooving out with their 8-track tapes and betamax players.
As for running PowerPC code on an Intel Macintosh, it's done all the time. Rosetta works beautifully. I personally use a couple of applications on a regular basis that are PowerPC. Since the newer Core 2 Duo chips are far faster than old G3 and G4 processors, they still work fast and smoothly under Rosetta. I honestly can't tell the difference most of the time. I have to look in the Activity Monitor to tell. Some times, it's faster than running them in a native environment. These expensive programs worked fine and I saw no immediate need to upgrade to an Intel version. I'm sure there are lots of people out there doing the same thing. Especially in this day and age where every penny counts.
Oh what's that? Jon's video about how much better our crappy pipeline for order execution, well come on, you knew that had to be fiction didn't ya? I mean, just compress some MPEG-2 files and you'll see we're the slowest platform out there. What? Huh? 2 CPUs are better than one? Oh yeah, that. Well we had to do that because, well, Intel and AMD blew past 1 GHz and we couldn't get Motorola to make chips faster than 500 MHz. even the 550 yield was so low I thought about quiting a starting a new company called NeXT BeOS. But then my buddies at intel told me I could jack of the margins and milk my customers and that they'd cut me a sweet deal on those Core2 Duos of I "switched" and heck, NeXT ran fine on the x86, so what the heck? I mean, so all these customers have to buy new stuff, Ka CHING.
Alex
Well we had to do that because, well, Intel and AMD blew past 1 GHz and we couldn't get Motorola to make chips faster than 500 MHz. even the 550 yield was so low I thought about quiting a starting a new company called NeXT BeOS. But then my buddies at intel told me I could jack of the margins and milk my customers and that they'd cut me a sweet deal on those Core2 Duos of I "switched" and heck, NeXT ran fine on the x86, so what the heck? I mean, so all these customers have to buy new stuff, Ka CHING.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Did we just drive past a pasture, because all I can smell is bull plop. Sometimes it sounds like you know what you're talking about Alex, but you quickly fix that perception with posts like this. Rewrite history much?
- by assman June 14, 2009 5:01 PM PDT
- PowerPC processors are trash compared to Intel or AMD's chips. As soon as Apple switched, performance quadrupled.
- Reply to this comment
-
-
- by OS11 June 15, 2009 6:12 AM PDT
- incorrect, speed actually decreased with the switch to the slower intel processors. get your facts straight.
-
-
- by mattyc09 June 16, 2009 2:23 PM PDT
- While the Core 2 Duos (not as much the Core solos) were leaps and bounds ahead of the G5 offerings, PowerPC processors are hardly trash and are still used a lot. IBM still plops very powerful PowerPC chips in its iSerries server lines, and the Xbox 360 uses (iirc) a 3.2GHz tri-core PowerPC that really moves among other things.
-
-
- by hwmaster1 July 17, 2009 2:42 PM PDT
- ...really?? Well I have 3 AMD systems, two Quad-Core running overclock with the fastest ram for their board and still can not even come close to a used 2.0GHz G5 PowerPC Mac I got on ebay, with half the RAM by-the-way.
-
-
Showing 1 of 3 pages (152 Comments)