Apple: Intel Inside

[GHDpro]

This isn't really emulation news, but for those who haven't heard yet: Apple will switch to Intel CPUs (http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2005/jun/06intel.html) in 2006-2007. If you told that to any Mac fan until just very recently, you would be considered a fool. But shock! It's reality now! As for the emulation news: since it'll be a while before all software is converted to the Intel platform, Apple has developed "Rosetta" which is described as a "dynamic binary translator" to allow the new Intel-based Macs to run old PowerPC-compiled software. A question still remains: who's going to buy a Mac now with such a large transition in the pipeline?


http://www.emulator-zone.com/gallery/news_images/june2005/Apple_Intel_Inside.gif

[onewecallgod]

what i want to know is if intel is going to: produce IBM chips, design a new chip from the ground up, use current x86 P4s and such or i've heard sources that they might modify the Itanium!

[hagbard]

Very interesting Apple claims now Intel "has the strongest processor roadmap by far", when the G5 it's known as the most powerfull home CPU so far.


Btw, ins't that "dynamic binary translator" a kind of Power PC emulator on x86 CPUs?

[onewecallgod]

roadmaps arent actual CPUs. by using intel chips, apple probably doesnt have to worry about designing their own

[hagbard]

It's also a curios coincidence too that PCs & Macs goes both to Intel x86 architecture, with everything that it means (possible convergence?), but the next gen consoles would run IBM Power PC based CPUs. The battle didn't finish yet with Sony's plans of "not only a console" for PS3.

[GHDpro]

The G5 may be powerful, but it also produces a lot of heat. It's this problem that's being
a bottleneck for the G5 right now -- afaik the fastests PowerMac G5s are even water-cooled
to keep them cool. The biggest problem this heat issue causes is that the G5 is simply NOT suitable for Notebooks.

That's why Steve Jobs showed a chart displaying "performance units" by Watt (heat/power),
a chart where Intel clearly wins over PowerPC. The Pentium M can simply deliver more power
for less heat in notebooks today.

That said, there are Mac geeks out there that claim that for specific tasks (encoding a video
in Final Cut Pro for example) there should be no way anything but a G5 can do it fastest,
this due to the "AltiVec" processor extension the G5 has.

Another interesting point I gleaned of another forum right now... what about Virtual PC?
That can now run with a LOT less overhead, because far less "translating"/"emulating" is needed.

[Zach]

Very interesting Apple claims now Intel "has the strongest processor roadmap by far", when the G5 it's known as the most powerfull home CPU so far.


Btw, ins't that "dynamic binary translator" a kind of Power PC emulator on x86 CPUs?

L-O-fucking-L
I read this a long long time ago, you should too..

http://spl.haxial.net/apple-powermac-G5/

[DrAkeNgaRd_KneLL]

how many years does it take a person to upgrade his CPU like changing P4 HT to P4 EXT ED?
could anyone tell me? :)

[GHDpro]

Don't know the generic statistics, but I'm typing this on a P4 that'll be 3 years old in September.
(Pentium IV 2.4 Ghz, S478, 533 FSB)

My next CPU upgrade is indeed going to be a Dual Core one. They're obviously a bit
expensive right now but hopefully they'll be affordable in 6-12 months.

[hagbard]

L-O-fucking-L
I read this a long long time ago, you should too..

http://spl.haxial.net/apple-powermac-G5/

From some link of the site you post before:

http://spl.haxial.net/apple-powermac-G5/banned-in-uk.html



...
Furthermore, it shared one viewer's doubt that the claim could be substantiated at all because, as evidence for and against the claim had shown, computers were constantly being updated and had many different applications and benchmarks.
...

Was common known indeed, that's obviusly questionable because also the G5 have been updated since then. ¿What about the Cell Processor, Power Mac G5 based? M$ tolds the benchmarks comparing Xbox 360 with PS3 are false, because PS3 almost doubled the FPC, then who is right?

With such a variety of performances available on both PC & Mac and so many benchmarks, it's very easy to take any conclusion.

[onewecallgod]

Was common known indeed, that's obviusly questionable because also the G5 have been updated since then. ¿What about the Cell Processor, Power Mac G5 based? M$ tolds the benchmarks comparing Xbox 360 with PS3 are false, because PS3 almost doubled the FPC, then who is right?
the G5 being updated still doesnt make sense. NO CPU can increase their performance by that much without complete revamp of the archetechture (sp). at this point, you cant really benchmark a cell processor to a more "traditional" processor because theyre far too different. maybe later, but not now.

That's why Steve Jobs showed a chart displaying "performance units" by Watt (heat/power),
a chart where Intel clearly wins over PowerPC. The Pentium M can simply deliver more power
for less heat in notebooks today.
it depends on what youre doing. the Dothan (P-M) isnt perfect by any means. it really shines in gaming, but the chip cant encode for shit; the Prescotts run circles around it in that area. AMD's Turion is just about as good as the Dothan in performance/watt and its also much cheaper

That said, there are Mac geeks out there that claim that for specific tasks (encoding a video
in Final Cut Pro for example) there should be no way anything but a G5 can do it fastest,
this due to the "AltiVec" processor extension the G5 has.
probably because of some 64 bit optimization... so it wins with optimizations and not raw power, quite fair, isnt it?

[hagbard]

the G5 being updated still doesnt make sense. NO CPU can increase their performance by that much without complete revamp of the archetechture (sp). at this point, you cant really benchmark a cell processor to a more "traditional" processor because theyre far too different. maybe later, but not now.

It does make sense if you read my whole post not ONLY what you quoted, I mean it's not so easy to say how powerfull a CPU it is as you know. I didn't pretend to compare Cell Processors with any PC/Mac CPU neither, as I didn't mention anything about it. Just to say benchmarks are very questionable often because:



....
computers were constantly being updated and had many different applications and benchmarks.
...

[Reinhart]

It ultimately doesn't really matter if a Mac ends with "Intel Inside" of it. How the operating system itself works is still the more important aspect, and MacOS-X is more dependable in many respects than WindowsXP.

If you managed to run WindowsXP on a PowerPC rig, you'll still have to deal with possible BSoD and security vulnerabilities.

As for processing power for a Pentium 4, yeah. Fastest clock speed .... to compensate for the fact that it has a horrendously long pipeline. The Pentium 4 is an inefficient processor compared to something like an AMD Athlon and the IBM PowerPC, which is why the latest generation of processors from these lines may be comparable to the latest Pentium 4 in important numbers, like FLOPS, but be rated at a lower clock speed. Of course, the P4 is still a very respectable and powerful item, but I won't call them superior purely on clock speed. - Reinhart

[DrAkeNgaRd_KneLL]

Don't know the generic statistics, but I'm typing this on a P4 that'll be 3 years old in September.
(Pentium IV 2.4 Ghz, S478, 533 FSB)

My next CPU upgrade is indeed going to be a Dual Core one. They're obviously a bit
expensive right now but hopefully they'll be affordable in 6-12 months.


wow, what's that dual core thing... it sounds really good! i bet it'll be really fast :D i need info about that :happy:

[GHDpro]

wow, what's that dual core thing... it sounds really good! i bet it'll be really fast :D i need info about that :happy:
It's the new Pentium D, Pentium Extreme Edition or AMD Athlon X2.
They all incorperate two CPU "cores" on one chip, which effectively
means you have the power of a dual processor system with just one
processor. The Pentium Extreme Edition also adds Hyper-Threading
to each of the cores, resulting in 4 "virtual" CPUs!

Dual core CPUs (like dual processors) only work fast with multi-threaded
applications btw, which most games (supposedly) are not. For things
like video encoding it's great of course (assuming the encoder is multi-threaded)
and also if you like running many applications at once.

That last bit is what I would find a dual core CPU useful for -- I frequently
re-encode anime fansubs to DVD while burning a DVD (I also download tons
and tons of DVD Video ISO's I must admit) while also downloading new stuff
using eMule, Azureus (BitTorrent) and NZB-O-Matic (newsgroups), ALL at the same time.

Some links:
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2388
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=2397

Btw, the main reason why Intel and AMD are switching to adding more cores
to one chip is because adding more Ghz isn't the way to go -- apparently the
ceiling has been reached in terms of Ghz's (they've reached the physical limits
of what you can do in terms of power etc running through small silicon chips).

[hagbard]

That limit it's the quantic limit, where binary electronical architecture became useless because of unpredictable sate of the particle/energy. Btw, I read time ago that this limit would be reached on the next 20 years, but who knows

[onewecallgod]

murphy's law has been broken :(

dual cores are a sign of defeat. all it is is that AMD and intel saying, "we're either too fucking stupid or lazy or both to improve things more, so we're just going to stick 2 dies on the same chip and hope heat doesnt rape us all". hopefully the transition to 65nm will be happy for single and dual cores.

even though the P-D EE has 4 logical cores in one chip, that raises a problem for multithreaded applications that only take advantage of 2 threads. instead of the main cores sharing the work, 1 main core and its HT "core" share and obviously the HT core isnt as quick as a real core.

dual cores really arent the solution. the TDP for intel's dual cores reaches almost 200 watts, whereas AMD's duallies reach about 150 watts. thats a shat load of heat on both sides, in the future air cooling may no longer be the solution.

[wsounitepirate895]

I just want the Price for chips to go down... If APPLE AND INTEL united then they should make alll the current chips go down in price, and start with the dual core chips at a reasonabily cheap price. (they want to profit $$$ and monoloplize the industry) :fuckyou:

* I still am stuck with a AMD K6 processor running at 400 mhz and my laptop is not actualy mine until i graduate so ^ needs to be updated.

[onewecallgod]

the prices wouldnt go down since apple is going intel, if anything it would go up, but it wont. apple is marginally a competitor to x86, AMD is a far great enemy than apple could ever be.

dual cores wont be a reasonable (sub 150$) price until the switch to 65nm. current 90nm production takes takes way too much wafer space for dual cores. because of this double of size, yields go way the hell down and price go way the hell up.

[firestag]

Very interesting Apple claims now Intel "has the strongest processor roadmap by far", when the G5 it's known as the most powerfull home CPU so far.


Btw, ins't that "dynamic binary translator" a kind of Power PC emulator on x86 CPUs?

Apple probably got scared when Intel stated that in 3 years they will be able to increase their CPU speed ten fold. If thats true and they actually do it, that will be awesome, but they probably spooked Apple when they said that so...

[Zach]

I'm all for increases in CPU power. But Intel needs to fix the damage they did to normal people's brains by implanting the idea that clock speed = power.