[X-Unix] Re: Apple dumping IBM, moving to Intel

[William H. Magill]

On 06 Jun, 2005, at 15:16, Dave Higgins wrote:
> On Jun 6, 2005, at 2:07 PM, Stephen Jonke wrote:
>
>> Apparently Apple has compiled OS X for Intel since day 1. They've  
>> always had the ability to move to Intel, and now they are doing so.
>
> I'm kinda curious what kind of performance comparisons they've been  
> getting with those Intel ports.

As I have understood it from the beginning -- the best performing  
architecture for OSX was the Alpha, followed by the SPARC and then  
Power. Sparc and Alpha were dumped for a variety of reasons early in  
the game ... leaving only Intel and Power.

Intel and Power are the only two architectures still in existence  
with any kind of development future.

The original IA64 was a disaster for Intel. It never achieved any of  
its performance or power consumption goals. Intel bought the Alpha  
process engineering staff and technology from Compaq just before  
Compaq announced they were being bought out by HP.

The "next" version (2006-7) of the IA64 (I don't know its name) will  
be "Alpha-inside."

Now of course, what I'm talking about here is the same problem that  
IBM has with the Power chips -- they are destined for high- 
performance, high-end, enterprise class servers ... i.e. expensive.

This WAS Intel's roadmap for the IA64 "before AMD" (proved that they  
could make a 64 bit chip cheaply).

My guess is that the "x86" chips that Apple will be getting will be  
these new generation "Alpha-inside" IA64 chips.

I suspect that they will outperform anything currently on the market.

Remember -- 2006/7 is a FULL GENERATION (if not 2) away from today's  
technology.


T.T.F.N.
William H. Magill
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