[Ti] Question for the great and powerfull, er, uh Woz...

[Chris Olson]

On Jun 7, 2005, at 1:51 AM, Steve Wozniak wrote:
> A lot of wording today was in terms of Intel and not X-86.

I noticed that, then I also noticed that the dev boxes are regular old 
32-bit P-IV's.  So what ever Intel comes up with is still going to be 
just another extension to the x86 arch.

> Apple is surely expecting something special and unknown (today) by the 
> time this ships. That's my opinion. The future probably holds 
> processor advantages for Intel.

It may, but what Intel has today is less than impressive, and their 
track record is one of being a marketing machine instead of delivering 
the best product.

AMD has been the innovative leader in x86 processor technology - not 
Intel.

**Intel came up with IA64, which was a dismal failure.  AMD invents 
x86-64 and now Intel concedes defeat and adopts AMD's strategy on 
64-bit.

**The AMD64/Opteron processors have consistently kicked the G5's butt 
in benchmarks, and they consume less power than the G5 to boot.  You 
can buy a laptop with an AMD64 in it.  Intel has been left lagging 
somewhere in the back of the pack.  The only thing Intel has had going 
for them is an alliance with Dell and other OEM's, and a 
well-established monopoly on the x86 processor market.

**For years Intel has run a marketing machine selling new processors 
based on clock speed.  Meanwhile AMD builds processors based on 
efficiency - more work done per clock cycle, runs cooler and slower, 
and soundly trumps the P-III/P-IV lines in performance.  Isn't it 
amazing that Intel now adopts AMD's long-standing strategy?

An innovative computer company (Apple) needs to align themselves with 
innovative technologies.  Not ones that follow the lead of others.  
I'll not run a Mac with an Intel processor knowing the real performance 
leader and innovation in x86/Wintel is AMD.  I've heard it said the 
platform wars are finally over?  Nope.  Now you're going to see the 
guys on linux and Windows running dual and quad cpu AMD64 machines 
rendering movies faster, and cleaning up with the benchmarks, and Macs 
are still going to be perceived as being slow and overpriced.

This marriage with Intel is the most inconceivable thing I've ever 
seen.  Anybody who knows anything at all knows that if you want 
performance on x86 you go to AMD.  Is Steve Jobs a personal friend with 
Paul Otellini or something?  I can't see any other reason for it.
--
Chris