Eric Jeschke wrote:
I don't agree with this. They are tracking the top of the PPC
manufacturing pretty closely. Witness: the dual 1GHz G4 is their
current top of the line (they have been beating Motorola's door down
trying to get them to build a faster chip, but Motorola does not have
the market/fab/capitalization/design/?? to ramp the architecture up as fast
as Intel and AMD). Even AMD is conceding the 32-bit performance crown
to Intel, because nothing AMD has now in the 32 bit line is touching the
P4's performance.
Didn't IBM have something that is the "next generation" of PowerPC, but
it is currently too expensive for Apple to use mainstream?
I don't know if AMD conceded to Intel in 32-bit, but I think it doesn't
matter to AMD anymore because their current roadmaps show a strong push
directly into their upcoming 64-bit Hammer architecture. Hammer I think
would minimally match P4 in performance if not exceed, and due to
economies of scale should be far cheaper than Itanium, leading to
greater mass market acceptance. If their plans hold we should be able
to buy relatively cheap 64-bit x86 compatible servers, workstations and
eventually laptops. Linux support will be great too. I can't wait. =)
Warren
