More Details on Apple's Intel Mac [Updated]
Minor highlights:
- "the thing is fast". All iLife apps are already universal binaries
- Pentium 4 660 at 3.6GHz, but will not be used in the shipping product (of course, since the high end Intel-Mac is 2 years away)
- DDR-2 RAM at 533. SATA-2.
- Presently uses the Intel GMA 900 integrated graphics chip set which supports Quartz Extreme.
- Regular video cards will be supported, but need drivers
- No Open Firmware. Uses Phoenix BIOS.
Major highlights:
- "They run Windows fine. All the chipset is standard Intel stuff, so you can download drivers and run XP - on the box."
- Game devs optimistic. "They look forward to the day they don't have to support PPC."
- Cell and AMD were evaluated. Cell not intended for PCs; AMD with supply constraints.
Photos of the Intel PowerMac at WWDC.
Note: It is impossible to tell if final shipping Intel Macs will share features common with this development Mac.... there has been suggestions that the final Intel-Macs will not simply be PC Bios/Motherboards. We'll have to wait and see...
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I don't think apple will bring out a computer in two years that is slower than the current lineup, have faith everyone apple has its pride :D
- Presently uses the Intel GMA 900 integrated graphics chip set which supports Quartz Extreme.
- Cell and AMD were evaluated. Cell not intended for PCs; AMD with supply constraints.
Now, that's interesting!Also, all the cell people and the AMD people need to be quiet. Apple evaluated both. AMD has the same, if not worse, supply problems as IBM. Their roadmap is fine, but the production capacity is not.
The tested Cell as well. That processor is NOT intended for PC applications. (it was designed for game systems, not as a general use CPU) The lack of out of order execution and ILP control logic creates very poor performance with existing software. Having developers rewrite for cell would have been MUCH more work than reworking for Intel. And that's what this is, you rework your codebase in ALL cases, not rewrite it.
Now bring me the Mactel CPU roadmap! ;)
I'd like confirmation on the PC Bios etc... thing. If all true, then Apple's just shipping a PC.
Advantages:
R&D costs go down dramatically
Disadvantages
It's a PC. Not very "Mac"-ish perhaps except the box.
More importantly, OS X will easily run on other PCs. (same chipset)
arn
How does iTunes run since it is still carbon?
Carbon apps can still run natively, they may just require some extra effort to port across to Mac OS X/Intel (remember the bar graphs Steve showed in the keynote speech about how long it would take to port various types of apps?)
How does iTunes run since it is still carbon?
Why would Carbon make a difference?!?From what I could tell it sounded perfectly fine.
um...
I'd like confirmation on the PC Bios etc... thing. If all true, then Apple's just shipping a PC.
Advantages:
R&D costs go down dramatically
Disadvantages
It's a PC. Not very "Mac"-ish perhaps except the box.
More importantly, OS X will easily run on other PCs. (same chipset)
arn
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