Apple switching to Intel processors

[Talsek]

I don't closely follow Mac news, but I'd been hearing whisperings of a potential Apple/Intel get-together for years. I always thought it was just another hoax, but apparently it's on the way. Apple aims to start a transition to Intel chips in 2006, and finish it in 2007.

One article (or you could just search on Google News, there are plenty of articles to choose from!): http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...060700367.html

Apparently Apple developers have been compiling OSX for PowerPC and Intel processors for the past five years, 'just in case.' This may be all old news to some of you Mac devotees, but I found it pretty interesting.

So what do you guys think? Are you Mac sluts pissed at the switch to Intel after years of 'PowerPC is better!' ?

[Aristotle]

Will this be a complete switch?

If so, how does this affect the whole RISC vs. CISC issue?

Or is Intel going to start making RISC chips?

[Talsek]

From what I've seen, it looks like they're aiming to have a complete switch by 2007. There have been some rumors that Intel will simply start making RISC chips, but that looks like crap info.

I'm guessing Apple will try to market Macintosh branded PC's, and use some sort of Intel-based cryptography to prevent the OS from being run on other machines. This article supports that view. Apple has always been pretty anal about keeping their hardware and software joined at the hip. Still, it's hard not to think about dual-booting OSX and XP on my laptop, and connecting from each to my Linux server. Eh, we'll see what happens I guess.

[Gesslar]

They're going to the x86-64 architecture. The web won't shut up about it, all the news sites are gabbing about it.

[Aristotle]

Originally posted by karahd
They're going to the x86-64 architecture. The web won't shut up about it, all the news sites are gabbing about it.

This seems like good news to me.

What do you all think?

[Gesslar]

hmm, well, it doesn't particularly affect me. even being for the same hardware architecture (sortof) it wouldn't mean any difference in availibilty of software or drivers. MAC OS/X is still fundamentally different from Windows, being based on UNIX and all. So, it's good for Intel, but I don't think it really impacts traditional PC users.

[Khirmint]

Its possible that it might end up helping out the unix world a bit though. MacOS X is based on FreeBSD, so having an intel chipset should mean that anything done for Mac will be more easily ported to the other *nixes. I would think anyways.

[Grantref]

It's very good news for laptop users. It means you'll be able to have a Powerbook with its dead sexy design and a dead sexy OS with crunchy Unix goodness inside (You got your Unix on my Macintosh! You got your Macintosh on my Unix!) running at the speeds that Intel is getting out of their Pentium M line but probably with dual cores. See Ars Technica Article on the Apple-to-Intel transition. The major reason for the transition is probably not related to desktop/workstation CPUs because IBM is doing awesome things with the CELL processors for PS3 and the modified PowerPC in the Xbox. Apple could probably revamp its desktop line to use CELLs or something like it.

The problem with that is that CELL processors are not appropriate for use in laptops or small-form-factor desktops, which leaves the powerbook. ibook, and mini-mac (puts pinky-finger to lips) line out in the cold, especially since IBM is not planning to develop low-power versions of these processors, and Motorola who developed the low-power G3 and G4 processors are focussing on the embedded market.

Intel Pentium M are available at speeds higher than 2 GHz using a 2MB Cache and a 533MHz Frontside Bus. (By contrast, the frontside bus in the current mac laptops and Mini is a comparatively-pathetic 166MHz. (The Frontside bus is the data connection between the computer's CPU and its RAM -- if this gets too slow, it won't matter how fast a CPU is because the data won't be fed in from RAM fast enough for the CPU to process it. Picture a slaughterhouse with an advanced meat processing system that can kill and butcher 300 cows per hour, but where the door into the building is so small that they can only get 200 cows through it in an hour.)

[Aristotle]

So is this actually happening yet?

[Lanear]

What I'd like to know is the straight facts.. Is this going to make Macs faster? How is the chip switch going to affect preformance? From what I'd heard, the company that Apple once delt with were some of the best.