AMD new licensee, Apple
- Thread starter kendall
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Story first seen I Followed the link there to http://www.amdzone.com and sure enough in their news on the main page there is a blurb about a large amount of Apple people attending Comdex...with rumored attendance at Hector Ruiz's keynote for AMD where they are going to announce a new lisencee (I can't spell)...scroll down more they say AMD possibly delayed release of the 64-bit Hammer processor to give Apple time to finish porting OS X....scrolling down further is a blurb (yes I like the word 'blurb' damnit!) that on Apple's open-source site there are some links for developers about the x86-64 platform for compiling applications...basically a lot of interesting little blurbs. But what could this all add up to? Were we foolish to expect Apple to wait an entire year for IBM's PPC 970 stuck with sh*tty Moto G4's? A year is a long time...the G4 is dying quickly ( mostly due to incompetence on Moto's part, but nevertheless still dying... ). AMD's new 64-bit Hammer processor is right on the horizon...Apple could really be in place to take it and blow the consumer market apart with 64-bit desktop machines....I don't think they'll abandon the G4 completely right away...keep it in the i/eMac and shove it into the next iBooks, possibly keep it in the TiBooks even for one more revision. I've never taken the Apple on x86 rumors too seriously until now...and with all the past ones it adds up, I think something is definately brewing here. Perhaps Apple will still use the PPC 970 when it finally is released...give consumers the option of a PPC or x86 chip in their PowerMac...or maybe instead of all that I just said I'm just totally off my rocker and going insane. Either is quite possible at this point. What do all of you think?
Also just noted that the weekly poll on the main amdzone.com page is "Next AMD Customer?
Is Apple or Dell more likely to be the next AMD customer?"
0 Apple is really thinking different!
0 Dude, Dell!
Interestingly enough Apple is favored 58.48% to Dell's 41.52%...
Just a stupid poll but makes me wonder even more...
Also just noted that the weekly poll on the main amdzone.com page is "Next AMD Customer?
Is Apple or Dell more likely to be the next AMD customer?"
0 Apple is really thinking different!
0 Dude, Dell!
Interestingly enough Apple is favored 58.48% to Dell's 41.52%...
Just a stupid poll but makes me wonder even more...
There's one giant hole I can poke in this whole theory though: AltiVec. Too much has already been moved toward AltiVec to just drop it off suddenly, major developers and the scientific community would be outraged at such an action... It is possible that AMD could aquire a liscence to it or already have...though I'm sure we would have heard about this already if they had. Any thought on this?
Interestingly enough, the AMD Opteron (and even the Athlon) has many features of RISC processors: it supports out-of-order execution, has multiple floating-point units, and can issue up to 9 instructions simultaneously. Detailed info here: http://www.phys.uu.nl/~steen/web02/opteron.html
It is, it just never "caught on" so to speak... x86 "caught on", PPC didn't despite technilogical superiority. VHS vs. Beta, MacOS vs. Windows, there's more I'm sure...all same situation. PPC sells slow, so the technology advances at a comparable rate. x86 advances so rapidly due to the higher volume of chips sold...more $ made = more $ for research = more reason to advance the technology faster = better x86's at a faster rate.
Not quite...if that was the case then Apple would still be selling PPC 601's, just increasing the speed. The G4 is an evolution of the G3 is a evolution of the 604e of the 604 of the 603e of the 603 of the 601 (forgive me if I left one out? 601e? I don't think those exist though)... Just as the PIV goes back to the original PI. The G3/4 just didn't scale speeds as well due to a lack of research/support from Motorola...refer to my above post.
chemistry_geek
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kendall
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Like I said, the G3 circa 1997 and the G4 circa 1999. Almost four and six year old technology still powering or Macs. Wouldn't be any different if Intel had decided to keep the original Pentium and just increase the speed.
As for x86 "wouldn't solve anything." If it could make my Mac as quick and responsive as a PC running Windows, then it could sure solve a whole hell of a lot.
As for x86 "wouldn't solve anything." If it could make my Mac as quick and responsive as a PC running Windows, then it could sure solve a whole hell of a lot.
chemistry_geek
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kendall
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**edit**. Windows 2000 and XP have been just as stable for me as OS X. Windows XP uses ClearType font smoothing which utilizes anti-aliasing. XP has the same shadowed drop down menues and transparent effects as OS X. If anything OS X should be faster considering its hardware accelerated.
Windows desktop is hardwired/written right into the kernel of the operating system.
I assume you mean Explorer and no, it is not "hardwired" into the kernel. It can be started and stopped without impacting the kernel whatsoever.
I think you should get your facts straight before **edit**.
Never even thought of that...duh me. I think IBM just added a few extra instructions in their version, at least that's what I gathered from various articles I've read.
I agree with you, to an extent.
-Some hardware would indeed have to be Apple proprietary, but what really is the downside of this? This is a strength of theirs, the strong hardware-software integration. Allowing you to drop any peice of genero-PC hardware into your new x86-64 Mac would defeat this strongpoint that Apple's had over the years.
-I doubt such a machine would run Windows as well, but that's not what Apple wants, they want you to run OS X.
-The price may still drop though, AMD is likely to produce these chips in greater masses than Moto ever did the G3/4, resulting in a lower cost per chip: basic economics. Apple wouldn't be the only licensee of the Hammer/Opteron/whatever you want to call it, resulting in a lower cost. No, these machines still wouldn't be at or below the lowest cost PC-box you can find, but you are paying extra for that nice Apple software-hardware integration with resulting better support and an overall easier to manage system. That along wit the ability to run OS X on a rapidly advancing platform would be well-worth the cost to most.
-It would solve the one main problem I already touched on: Motorola doesn't support the G4 nearly enough. Apple is their only major customer, so a relatively small number of chips are needed...blah blah refer above. AMD would be producing these chips for many customers...more chips made, more research, more $...blah blah. This puts Apple standing on a rapidly advancing high-speed platform, the exact opposite of what they are on as of now. This is what they need, this is what many consumers need to make that switch. The 'Megahertz Myth' is dead. Not false, but x86 processors just advanced so much faster that you can't really apply it anymore. If G4's had scaled at the same rate, it would still apply.
Increasing the clock rate of chips on the same platform will indeed make them faster than previous chips of the same platform at lower speeds. The increase in elecrical consumption is a definate and undeniable downside. But if thats what it takes to get a decent processor inside my Mac, it's worth it. The G4 is dead, Apple just keeps pushing it beyond the grave. The new 1.25ghz G4s run extremely hot and require a massive amount of extra cooling equipment. You get a really hot processor with either platform, the G4 consumes less power but is in turn less powerful. Where's the gain?
-Minor correction: the IBM PPC 970 takes a wide and deep approach...Motorola's G4e takes the wide and shallow approach.
-Wide and deep is definitely a superior approach to that of current processors, combining obvious strengths of both, but the PPC 970 also isn't due out for at least another year. Can Apple really wait that long? I don't think Motorola's going to suddenly gear up research on the G4, it's more likely to go in the opposite direction.
-I agree fully that clock rate is overrated, especially in a cross-platform duel between chips with completely opposite design philosophies (G4e vs. PIV). The jump to 64-bit in AMD's Hammer nudges them farther from the narrow and shallow philosophy of current 32-bit Intel and AMD chips. Throw on an AltiVec-compatable vector processing unit and you've already got what the G4 currently has that x86 chips don't. AltiVec is the main reason that a 500mhz G4 will indeed run faster than a 600mhz PIV running special AltiVec enhanced Photoshop filters! Think what would happen should AMD throw such a unit on their Opteron.
-The Opteron also has far superior potential in MP systems through use of HyperTransport (which Apple just so happens to be a current licensee of). In short, HyperTransport gives far superior processor communication in MP systems by giving processors dedicated lines to "speak" with each other over. Each processor also, in turn, has it's very own memory controller and bus rather than all sharing the same bus: a major weakness of MP G4 systems which I also see reoccuring in the upcoming PPC 970.
I doubt IBM would license the PPC 970 to AMD, nor would AMD care to be a licensee when they have their own competing 64-bit processor on the market. Where was it suggested that Apple take on the manufacturing load? And I completely agree with you on that last sentence.
I do not believe that MacLuv said Windows was superior to OS X...just that he wished OS X was just as responsive as Windows. I will myself admit that Windows has a more responsive GUI, it is far less complicated that Aqua. I do not think for one minute that this makes Windows superior to OS X though. Windows crashes more, it's a rip off of the Mac OS, etc, etc, etc, blah, blah, blah ....all the same age old arguments we all agree with to some extent and do not need to go over, again. This isn't another OS X vs. Windows XP thread, so please don't turn it into one.