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[c1utch]

haha i returned my razor.  it was too fast for me.  I needed the heft of the logitech

and I was soo looking foward to a g5 powerbook

[Addius]

yeah but isn't it the SIMD units doing more or less all the work with the PowerPC core distributing the workload on them?

[mosfet]

The SIMD units are like Intel's SSE.  those are SIMD instruction sets.  So the SPUs only do work when theres need for SIMD instructions.    Most OS functions and "normal" applications won't use them.  They have to be programmed for, and thats mostly in games and multimedia.  So, it'll just depend on the app.

[ThinkDifferent]

Wrong, profit margins on hardware far excede the margins for software. Apple is a hardware company and OS X exists to sell hardware.

Exactly! How come nobody listened to me! "Apple is a hardware company" came from the mouth of Ihnatko himself!

OK, the PowerBook thing really sucks, though. I want to buy a PBG4, say, tomorrow (actually true). Yet speculation is that that line will be the first to go to Intel? I need a laptop now and I don't have the kind of money to buy two within six months. I'm torn.

Do you reckon the x86 PB's will be cheaper than PPC ones?

Also, good thing there won't be a G5 PB. Whatever you set it down on would immediately catch fire.

[mosfet]

I personally doubt they'll be cheaper.  I saw somewhere that Apple pays IBM and Freescale less for the G4 and G5, than Intel charges for their CPUs.

How about the idea of buying a used iBook or something really low cost just to hold you over while you save the remaining cash, and any coming cash for an x86 powerbook?

Or just buy a used powerbook.  I just sold my 1ghz 12" AL powerbook for $1100.  you should be able to find the same.  I've seen 1.5ghz ones on Craigslist going for 1300-1500.  I just bought a used Powermac G5, and its just as dandy as a new one.  Actually I scored big since it came with more Ram, Hard Drive, and a better burner than the Apple site said it would.

As always, Ars Technica has good reads!
http://arstechnica.com/columns/mac/mac-20050608.ars

[-sam]

As always, Ars Technica has good reads!
http://arstechnica.com/columns/mac/mac-20050608.ars

Wow, it's like they read my mind.  It's always nice to see when somebody "in the know" agrees with what you think...or at least as "in the know" as somebody on the interweb can get.

-sam

[Druid]

Two button mice are overrated, that's what the control key is for.

From a long time two-button mouser, they're not. They're just too handy especially when your other hand is not near the keyboard.  One-button mice drive me bat-shit insane. I understand the concept, but just feels limited.

[Addius]

I feel claustrophobic whenever I use a mouse with less than 3 buttons nowadays =/

About that article I've heard that Intel has already decided to skip NetBurst on all their new models.. The reason why NetBurst doesn't quite live up to the expectations is described bellow.
Linkage to Xbitlabs

[ThinkDifferent]

This is one thing that really pisses me off about Apple - their unwillingness to just fricking accept that mice need two buttons. The one-button mouse is a holdover from the days when GUIs were new. It was one of the great Jef Raskin's ideas - one button was best because users wouldn't be confused about which one to press, since GUIs were unfamiliar enough as it was.

Well, today, everyone and his mom knows how to use a GUI, and two-button mice are no problem as all the Windows users out there demonstrate. Apple's so committed to moving forward, why don't they just fix their damn mice?! The greatest hardware designer in the world (Jonathan Ive) works for Apple, it's hard to believe he doesn't get it.

Whoo. I feel better now.

[Matteh99]

There is hope for AMD chips.  I just read here that apple's deal with intel doesn't lock them into using intel chips.  So they can use AMD if they want to in the future.  Switching from intel to AMD would be really easy compaired to powerPC to x86

Eric

[nihilist]

Haha, AMD is 18 months ahead of Intel for dual core servers?  Wow.  That just made me laugh.

[mosfet]

not to mention AMD dual cores are truely dual core, and don't behave like two seperate cores on one die talking by going outside the CPU to the FSB like Intel chips.

Maybe we'll see some AMD PowerMacs, and those spiffy dothan based powerbooks, ibooks, eMacs, Mac Minis?  That'd be nice.

Theres been quite a few articles on the possible effects on Mac Gaming, but it appears to be just as important to Mac Apps as well.
http://www.insidemacgames.com/features/view.php?ID=357

[ThinkDifferent]

Gaming is a special case because so many games come out for the PC that never come out on the Mac, the biggest example being the Half-Life series. There's arguments that this could revive Mac gaming because it would make it easy for PC game developers to release Mac versions. There's opposing arguments that nobody would develop games for Mac anymore because they can just develop for Windows and have Intel Mac owners.

Personally, I have more faith in Mac game developers than to think they'd just abandon all the PPC Macs out there. The major Mac game developers (Aspyr, MacSoft) have already gotten in line behind the Intel move. I'd assume Blizzard would follow suit. In the end, I think the move will be good for Mac gaming. Half-Life probably still won't come out on the Mac, but future games that wouldn't have been ported to PPC might come out for Intel Macs.

Outside of gaming, I think there's no problem at all. Apple has made it ridiculously easy to port PPC apps to Intel, as long as you use Xcode. The gap between the range of apps available for Windows and the Mac OS is nowhere near as large as it is for games. Sure, there are more apps out for Windows than Mac, but a lot of them are duplicates and the Mac OS has a large shareware/freeware community. Those small developers will make the switch with little trouble, I'm sure.

[-sam]

The only thing the switch to Intel will do for Mac gaming is make running VirtualPC quicker.  The stumbling block in porting is dealing with DirectX, that will not change regardless of the processor inside the Mac.

Personally I'm vaguely looking forward to a dual-booting, Yonah core powered Powerbook

-sam

[mosfet]

Apparently, asside from the direct-X/OpenGL performance issue,  theres a big byte re-ordering issue that seems to be one of the biggest pain in the asses to porters.

So Direct-X/OpenGL is the performance issue.
and Byte-Reordering is a big time to port issue. (and pain in the ass)

The switch to intel may significantly decrease time to port games and apps, but graphics performance may still suffer.  Although the article also says the time to port will actually increase 30% at first before it decreases, because of the need to port for both PPC and intel macs.

[MilkmanDan]

Edit: I was way, way behind the times. Ignore my lies.
My new vibe: Apple want MAJOR processor-level DRM. Intel are going for it, IBM don't really care. Jobs wants itunes Movie store (or whatever it'll be called) so badly it hurts, and the studios want more DRM than you can shake a stick at.

[nihilist]

Uh.  Jobs has the CEO of Intel up on stage to make the announcement, and you think it's just to piss with IBM?  Uh, okay.  That's some seriously childish behaviour.  And if that is true, that's just sad.

[-sam]

it is in no small part a shot across IBM's bow.  I doubt Apple would've made this move if their relationship with Big Blue was copacetic.  However I doubt this was completely a fit of pique on Steve's part...i hope.

-sam

[mosfet]

It does make sense for the portable line.  The Powerbooks and iBooks have been long overdue for some serious upgrades, which IBM hasn't produced.

I'm a bit iffy about the desktop side as to if they really had to switch to intel or not, but then again, Steve might have some devious master plan he hasn't let out the bag yet.

[est]

i don't understand how anyone can think that this is anything other than exactly what Apple say it is: Apple partnering with Intel and using their cpus.  

AMD are not going to get a look-in.  yes, the current run of Athlon 64s are a little faster than the p4s in some things.  yes, the architecture for the a64s is currently better and gives better performance per watt, however, the new line of Pentium M-based cpus are really very exciting.  i agree totally with the Ars Technica article that someone posted earlier: Apple are partnering with Intel in order to get those new Pentium M-based chips into their machines.

re: this whole "Intel sucks! AMD is awesoem" attitude, i really get sick of fanboyism.  i loved AMD when they came out with the Athlon as a decent alternative to the Pentium, but pretty much only because Intel would finally get some competition.  Intel and AMD's products constantly tousle for leadership in performance, which is excellent for each and every one of us as consumers.

[mosfet]

i personally am looking forward to the P-M cpus myself.  I just really hope Intel doesn't hack the dual-core for those like they did the P-4.  same with the 64bit part.

Intel could be doing things a lot better if they focussed more on the technology, and less on the marketing.  Spend the little extra time to do something properly, instead of rushing out a hack to get it to market now.
(I wish my company would do this too.)

[nihilist]

The only reason the Pentium D exists is because they sank a lot of cash into the NetBurst architecture, and are trying to keep it running for as long as they can.  I know the dual-core Pentium M is not a hack; if you check the Reg or Inq you'll find information about it.  I wouldn't be surprised if the Pentium M replaces the Pentium D at some point in time.

And yes, there will be no AMD.  There's a reason that Apple is partnering with Intel.  Oh, and they want to replace Microsoft.  Bwahaha.

[badassmonkeykid]

heh, the pentium m is an amazing piece of hardware:

http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/20050525/index.html

it smoked everybody's top of the line back in may, and its a friggin mobile unit, granted it was overclocked, but still, its a beauty of a processor.

[thermodynamics]

so we'll finally see a beautiful piece of machinery that actually has an intel under the hood? i never thought i'd see the day... well, shit, i knew i'd see the day, but i thought apple would hold of longer. of course, if i had a pentium m dangled in front of my nose and it was a great solution to an every growing product line problem (aka no powerbook updates in what seems ages), i would bite. who wouldn't in a situation like that? its sad to see AMD get boxed out of the industry... i love them personally. i've had a g4 powerbook (briefly), a p4 laptop and a AMD laptop (im building an AMD desktop as we speak)... you get more bang for your buck...

i guess capitalism sorta killed apple's seperatism (to a certain degree), and, in turn, fucked AMD over. the next few years should be interesting!

[mosfet]

there has been a lot of comments that the move to Intel has not entirely ruled out AMD.  They could go intel for a few years then switch to AMD.  It'd be a lot easier to go intel to AMD.

Personally I'd like to see P-M in mobile and AMD in desktop.  But definately a good move for the Powerbook line.

[jhocking]

EDIT: Really though. The Red Sox won the world series, Deap Throat was revealed, Bush got re-elected, and Apple just switched to Intel.  Who fucking broke the universe?

Sorry I'm late to the game, but this line is awesome.  It reminds me of the Boondocks where the kids says, "The best rapper is white, the best golfer is black, and the best basketball player is chinese."