Apple Joins Hands with Intel - What Sold Intel to Apple
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That lack of a mobile system beyond the aged G4 is the main reason this whole shift occurred to start with. Apple has typically had a large amount of success in the laptop market. Considering miniaturization and portability is the direction the entire industry is turning toward, Apple would be stupid to continue to wait for a truly mobile G5 when there are other more capable options (such as the Pentium M and its future replacements) sitting right there waiting. Apple also has products based on small form factor environments such as the MacMini and iMac which would benefit from a new processor with lower power consumption. These smaller (and cheaper) devices are meant to take advantage of the iPod phenomenon, but their service record thus far has been less than admirable. Trying to shove a G5 in that small of a space is nearly a lost cause; the fact that they made it to production ready at all is a minor miracle. A Pentium M, single or dual core, CPU would be much more serviceable in that environment. There also is the possibility for tangible cost savings by switching the CPU and the associated chipsets on motherboards. Right now Apple has to do all of the R&D itself; Intel on the other hand would provide that work as well as the processor.
That was Intel's main selling point. When Steve Jobs was making his presentation comparing Intel andIBMheat/performance characteristics, I'm sure more than a few of the developers (as well as people watching from home) were scratching their heads. That's because while Intel’s Netburst basedPrescottis a flame thrower of epic proportions, the mobile oriented Pentium M is not, as well as providing equivalent or near equivalent performance, depending on the application. That is also the future of Intel; after the next generation of 65nm dual core Netbursts, the children of "Banias" will make their appearance on the desktop side of the ledger. This is something that Apple would be very, very interested in. The G5 on the other hand essentially requires water cooling to reach 2.5-2.7GHz (and Steve had stood on the WWDC stage two years ago and promised 3GHz by 2004). I think that is what pushed Jobs over the edge and into the waiting arms of Intel.
Apple has always cried that they possess superior performance, and that they want to make the best computers in the world. While the G5 is an elegant processor design, and Altivec a very powerful SIMD engine attached to it, sometimes clock speed and ingenuity matter. IBMat the moment has many other projects to concentrate on. They are going to be producing the CPUs used in all three mainline game consoles. That's a lot of volume, certainly much higher than whatever Apple could demand, regardless of their profile. IBMas a result has more inspiration to direct towards those game systems as opposed to creating better desktop chips for Apple. Very soon the G5 would be falling further and further behind as both Intel andAMDmake consistent improvements to their process technology in order to ramp clock speeds.
Intel on the other hand has lots of motivation to provide better and better desktop and mobile chips. It is their bread and butter, and they also have some reasonable competition to keep them going. Speaking of that competition, why did Apple not go with AMD?
Next: Why Not AMD? >>
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