PPC to Intel - F.A.Q.

[inziga]

Thanks. I just bought iMac G5 last month. I hope it would run for the next two years or so.

:cry:

586045038[/snapback]

It will :) I wish I could buy a iMac right now, I think the current design is beautiful.

Too bad for you, because...you know...the G5's will *explode* as soon as the Intel processor models are released.  :rolleyes:

586045077[/snapback]

Meanie :p

[aristotle-dude]

Isn't Intel doing the same?? They are delaying the 4.0 ghz processor by introducing dual-core processors because of power issues. I don't think Intel is going to bump up the ghz at the rate that they were doing it last year, unless they make significant changes to the design of their processor or start making them in a smaller process.

586037760[/snapback]

Yes, Intel did delay going to 4.0 ghz but instead decided to retool and start building their desktop chips around the Pentium M core which provides more performance per cycle and lower wattage than the old style P4's. Now they are ramping up the clock speed again and adding dual core.

The process is only part of the story.

I can't believe I just wrote that. Ugh! :wacko: I never thought I'd see that day but I have to admit that the Pentium M core a good base to build on.

[aristotle-dude]

Thanks. I just bought iMac G5 last month. I hope it would run for the next two years or so.

:cry:

586045038[/snapback]

:blink: This announcement does not cause your mac to stop working. Universal binaries will contain native code for both CPU chips and not everything will be ported to Intel right away. Expect the next version of OS X shipping in 2007 to be for both PPC and Intel. Steve Jobs said they had more PPC products in the pipeline but they were making this change based on a long term projection on the IBM and Intel roadmaps and how much performance per watt each line offered.

[Catharsis]

I think the key thing to remember, that is obvious, but everyone forgets - if your Apple is giving beasty performance now, it will always work as well as it does now.? My Mac Mini can last me for years and years as it is now and perform perfectly as a media centre for my music, video, DVD, it does H264 fine as well.? It always will.? It works on Photoshop just fine.? The software it has now is awesome, and wont be any worse in 5 years time.?

The time has gone where obselete technology is really applicable - any machine made in the last 3 years is useful for a very long :)me :)

586045070[/snapback]

Finally, a voice of reason, and not with an attitude of "I have to have one-up the Joneses." My Athlon XP 2000+ that I've had for almost 3 years works like a charm, and plays any game I want to play, including Half-Life 2. I am happy with 512 MB of RAM, 160GB HDD, and a Radeon 9600XT (well, as happy as one can be with an ATI card). Works great. Why? Because I donhavee to have 8x anti-aliasing and still have 60 frames a second. No anti-aliasing and 50 frames a second is good enough.

[KeR]

I hope Intel does more work on the M processor, I have a Notebook that uses this CPU and the power consumption and speed is excellent.

[Southern Patriot]

I never thought I'd see that day but I have to admit that the Pentium M core a good base to build on.

586046170[/snapback]

The PIII's were always a better design than the P4's (I've seen 1.1Ghz PIII's that would outperform 1.7Ghz P4's). If you read some of the reviews of the P-M, you'll find out that it has far more in common with the architecture of the PIII than the P4. I think the only reason that Intel fell so far behind AMD for the last few years was the fact that they were dumping everything they had into trying to make the P4's perform better, and getting nowhere. Once they went back to the drawing board and made the P-M, they got back on track.

[bryonhowley]

The PIII's were always a better design than the P4's (I've seen 1.1Ghz PIII's that would outperform 1.7Ghz P4's).  If you read some of the reviews of the P-M, you'll find out that it has far more in common with the architecture of the PIII than the P4.  I think the only reason that Intel fell so far behind AMD for the last few years was the fact that they were dumping everything they had into trying to make the P4's perform better, and getting nowhere.  Once they went back to the drawing board and made the P-M, they got back on track.

586046272[/snapback]

A good part of it I think was that Intel had forgot the MHz is not every thing. There is more to a fast processor than just the MHz speed. Witch is why my AMD 3000+x64(2100MHz) smokes my brothers 3.6 P4. Well that and my is not pre-built and his is a Dell.

[Yvo]

We can all speculate how Apple will lock down the Mac. However like someone said above, the drivers included with a Mac are going to be for Macs only so running your normal run of the mill PC with the release version (not dev version) might not be that great of an experience.

Personally in order to make this transition smooth I think they are going to make the new Mac based off of the EFI (Extendible Firmware Interface) developed by... Intel. It would make perfect sense. If they use EFI, it will become harder to have Mac OS X run on a normal PC as most normal computers still use a regular BIOS.

http://www.intel.com/technology/efi/

[DjmUK]

We can all speculate how Apple will lock down the Mac. However like someone said above, the drivers included with a Mac are going to be for Macs only so running your normal run of the mill PC with the release version (not dev version) might not be that great of an experience.

Personally in order to make this transition smooth I think they are going to make the new Mac based off of the EFI (Extendible Firmware Interface) developed by... Intel. It would make perfect sense. If they use EFI, it will become harder to have Mac OS X run on a normal PC as most normal computers still use a regular BIOS.

http://www.intel.com/technology/efi/

586055787[/snapback]

Quite true, however - wouldn't this mean that Nvidia / ATi would release new complied drivers based upon x86? Theoretically, wouldn't these drivers be easier for them to write by porting them from XP to OS X?

P.S.

I know that Xcode 2.1 will compile to IA-32 (Intel Architecture - 32 bit) Standards, but do you think that one day they will upgrade to IA-64...meaning, a 3rd drop-down box for compiling...although if compiled on 32-bit then 64-bit will just work (albeit not native 64). Also, 10.0 - 10.5 are 64-bit OS' anyways.

[Southern Patriot]

Quite true, however - wouldn't this mean that Nvidia / ATi would release new complied drivers based upon x86? Theoretically, wouldn't these drivers be easier for them to write by porting them from XP to OS X?

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Why do people keep making this assumption? Video card drivers (and pretty much any other hardware driver) are pretty much processor-independent as far as code goes (other than some endian issues). The real issue would be the driver model and API of the operating system. This means that porting a driver from OS X/PPC to OS X/Intel would be far easier than porting it from Windows to OS X/Intel.

The same thing goes for games and most other software as well.

[DjmUK]

I see what you mean man. I keep forgetting about the API layer and HAL etc.

OSX PPC > OSX Intel (Recompile...unless using AltiVec engine [unlikely])

XP <---> OSX (Written differently)

Graphics drivers are the hardest I would say because XP using DirectX primarily and OSX uses OpenGL via the Quartz Engine...complex stuff, but worth while for us the consumers.

[Yvo]

However in theory, OpenGL games should port fine between Windows/Intel -> MacOSX/Intel.

[DjmUK]

Yvo, that's quite true. If only game developers would focus more on OpenGL as opposed to DirectX or the next WGA/XNA.

[neogoten]

On the FAQ the first question asked about why they are switching to Intel and Steve Jobs will give many reasons for this but he has a long history with Intel. The founder of Intel gave money to Steve to start up Apple by being early investors. Apple's first HR director was the wife of the Intel founder. Steve developed Next on an Intel based machine. Apple chose the PPC processor while Steve was gone and it never sat well with him. Even when he came back and integrated Next into Mac OS to get OSX he has secretly had OSX running on intel based machines. He was waiting for IBM to slip up. It's calculated. :ninja:

[Southern Patriot]

Steve developed Next on an Intel based machine.

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NeXTStep was developed on Motorola 68K machines. It was only later that it was ported to Intel (among other platforms).

[xUnix]

Does anyone here tested Tiget for intel?

[the godfather]

do u think we will be able to Build ur own Mac, or apple would still be tight on that policy?

[bontakun]

do u think we will be able to Build ur own Mac, or apple would still be tight on that policy?

586317996[/snapback]

build you own mac - legally no, grey area possible probably with some hacking

[fukachu]

it would be good if they would allow us to build our own in the Apple store. I don't mind paying the extra $$ if i can get what i really want in the machine rather then having their pre-configs. i hope they are a little more open to customizing after they move over. eg dell is pretty decent with this.

[Mike Douglas]

Does anyone here tested Tiget for intel?

586309525[/snapback]

Everything works fine; there are only a few driver issue, video cards run under VESA (unless you have an intel integrated card) and wireless won't work (except a few cards). I've noticed some slow SFTP/SCP transfers, but that might be a software problem.

[xxdesmus]

some stuff like shapeshifter doesn't work on OSx86 yet, and the wireless works but only after a bit of finicking with it. Everything else for the most part does in fact work quite well.

[PGHammer]

Does anyone here tested Tiget for intel?

586309525[/snapback]

You mean Tiger (OS X 10.4.1) for x86? There has been some informal testing on the dev boxes, and there have been *independently developed but unsanctioned* patches to let you run the OS natively on relatively-generic x86 PCs (while the Apple-sourced machines are based on the i915G chipset and use LGA775-based processors, the various patches enable running the OS on machines using i8xx (i865 and i875 series) chipsets and S478 Northwood-C and Prescott-core processors, and limited success using AMD processors and nForce chipsets. Hie thyself to http://www.osx86project.org for the details.

[jago_lfn]

build you own mac - legally no, grey area possible probably with some hacking

makes me wish i kept my p4 system instead of switching over to ppc. I coulda saved some money by just waiting and buying the intel version of tiger and enjoying what every mac user does on my pc :(

[Elliott]

makes me wish i kept my p4 system instead of switching over to ppc. I coulda saved some money by just waiting and buying the intel version of tiger and enjoying what every mac user does on my pc :(

Problem is I doubt without some sort of special drivers or hardware emulation, you'll get it running perfectly. Developer Transition Kits are supposedly far more basic PC's than what we'll see in the real Intel Macs.