Topic 'What exactly are the pros and cons of Intel macs?' in forum 'Apple' - dslreports.com http://www.dslreports.com/forum/What-exactly-are-the-pros-and-cons-of-Intel-macs-14829825 en Thu, 24 Mar 2022 20:17:56 EDT Thu, 24 Mar 2022 20:17:56 EDT Re: What exactly are the pros and cons of Intel ma http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-What-exactly-are-the-pros-and-cons-of-Intel-ma-14838214 said by Kekus :

Why would you bother even runing Virtual PC? Why not just have it dual boot and install Windows? Apple said they will put stops in OS X to prevent it from being installed on other intel boxes but won't stop users from installing Windows on a Mactel box.
I think it would be more beneficial to run Windows from a virtual machine (guest OS) inside OS X (host OS) than it would be to constantly have to reboot. I've never been a big fan of dual boot systems.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-What-exactly-are-the-pros-and-cons-of-Intel-ma-14838214 Sat, 19 Nov 2005 01:33:29 EDT Re: What exactly are the pros and cons of Intel macs? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-What-exactly-are-the-pros-and-cons-of-Intel-macs-14837811 http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-What-exactly-are-the-pros-and-cons-of-Intel-macs-14837811 Fri, 18 Nov 2005 23:56:06 EDT Re: What exactly are the pros and cons of Intel macs? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-What-exactly-are-the-pros-and-cons-of-Intel-macs-14837635
People always accused me of being a "Mac kook" but now that Intel has been thrown into the mix, I realize that I'm not so much a Mac zealot as I am a PowerPC or IBM POWER-architecture zealot... I think it's far superior to anything Intel has ever put out. Come to think of it, I'm also an anti-monopolist, anti-crappy-DOS-shell-OS zealot too. I mean, even if Apple had gone with AMD... but Intel!?!?

I think what did it for me was when Virginia Tech's "System X" cluster went online (fondly referred to as "The Big Mac" on campus). It rolled into the www.top500.org list of the fastest supercomputers (HPCs) in the world in Nov 2003. But what made it remarkable was that, while it was at 3rd place for 1/100th the cost of competing machines, it smoked a P4 Xeon HPC in 4th place:

Rank  #CPU   Type    Speed      RMax score
3     2200   PPC970  2.0 Gz     10280
4     2500   P4 Xeon 3.06 Gz    9819

And all the HPCs use SUSE and other Linux variants... the Big Mac uses the same OS I use on my desktop. And since I'm not such a huge fan of compiling binaries, I'll stick with OS X on PowerPC for hopefully another 6 years. Maybe by then there will be a really good PPC Linux variant out and Micro$hit might finally be a non-issue (hey, I can have my dreams :)
Of course I'll probably cave and end up not caring so much that it's Intel's cheap-ass "The Windoze of the Hardware World" in Macs by then. My 2c...
]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-What-exactly-are-the-pros-and-cons-of-Intel-macs-14837635 Fri, 18 Nov 2005 23:24:28 EDT Re: What exactly are the pros and cons of Intel ma http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-What-exactly-are-the-pros-and-cons-of-Intel-ma-14837040 said by Kekus :

Why would you bother even runing Virtual PC? Why not just have it dual boot and install Windows?
Because sometimes it's nice to be able to cut and paste data from your Windows app to your Mac app, or vice versa...

Jim]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-What-exactly-are-the-pros-and-cons-of-Intel-ma-14837040 Fri, 18 Nov 2005 21:37:49 EDT Re: What exactly are the pros and cons of Intel ma http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-What-exactly-are-the-pros-and-cons-of-Intel-ma-14836501 http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-What-exactly-are-the-pros-and-cons-of-Intel-ma-14836501 Fri, 18 Nov 2005 20:10:37 EDT Re: What exactly are the pros and cons of Intel ma http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-What-exactly-are-the-pros-and-cons-of-Intel-ma-14836047 said by HiVolt:

said by jtanner9:

One pro is that the poor suckers stuck using VirtualPC should see a nice speedup.

Jim
How do you figure? Until VirtualPC is rewritten for x86, it remains a PPC App, and it will have to run in emulation in Rosetta.
Exactly. Running any existing versions will essentially be running an emulator within an emulator, which translates into slower speeds.

When I worked for Microsoft a year ago, quite a few planned features were omitted from version 7 and put on hold for a future release (i.e. native support of Macintosh graphic card, completely rewritten USB emulation support, etc). I wonder if Apple moving from PPC to Intel won't further delay them, or cause them to be scrapped altogether.

It'll be interesting to see what direction is taken. If Virtual PC is rewritten as a native x86 application (presumably based on the current Windows PC version) support would be dropped for the G3, G4 and G5 machines. I could see that eventually happening, say 4 years from now, but it would be a bad move to say the least if it were done now. So, the next option is concurrently support two Mac versions, VPC-Mac-PPC and VPC-Mac-x86, but that segments and confuses things, not to mention a headace for Microsoft to support.

Of course if someone finds a way to natively run Windows on a x86 Macintosh, Virtual PC is going to lose much of its appeal. I'd guess Microsoft will adopt a wait-and-see attitude and just stick with the existing version for now, which incidentally will run seamlessly on both PPC and x86 Mac's (just not optimized for the latter). Just my own personal guess here...]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-What-exactly-are-the-pros-and-cons-of-Intel-ma-14836047 Fri, 18 Nov 2005 18:40:30 EDT Re: What exactly are the pros and cons of Intel ma http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-What-exactly-are-the-pros-and-cons-of-Intel-ma-14834720
»www.drunkenblog.com/drun ··· 575.html

AMD has only cracked the homebrew, clone shop market. Not a good proven choice for Apple, among other things. Check the link it's a good read.
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Happy Verizon FiOS Customer! | "Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels." - Apple Computer | Novell SUSE Linux & FreeBSD Fan | Addicted to PvP | EDIT: I seldom post without an edit. ]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-What-exactly-are-the-pros-and-cons-of-Intel-ma-14834720 Fri, 18 Nov 2005 15:16:36 EDT Re: What exactly are the pros and cons of Intel macs? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-What-exactly-are-the-pros-and-cons-of-Intel-macs-14834615 said by Obliteration:

Well I am just wondering. A lot of comments I hear from people regarding Intel Macs are good. However there are always some pros and cons for almost all things. Surely there has to be a down in them.

Any info you guys can provide on my question?
Not being AMD? That could be a con, as some people wished they would use AMD. ]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-What-exactly-are-the-pros-and-cons-of-Intel-macs-14834615 Fri, 18 Nov 2005 14:58:49 EDT Re: What exactly are the pros and cons of Intel macs? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-What-exactly-are-the-pros-and-cons-of-Intel-macs-14834537 Darwine has much more potential for running Windows apps on x86-Macs.
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bgp hints - Internet routing news, hints, and tips.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-What-exactly-are-the-pros-and-cons-of-Intel-macs-14834537 Fri, 18 Nov 2005 14:45:20 EDT Re: What exactly are the pros and cons of Intel ma http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-What-exactly-are-the-pros-and-cons-of-Intel-ma-14833931 said by jtanner9:

True enough...but I'd wager Microsoft will be one of the first to recompile their apps (including Virtual PC) for OS X/Intel. If they don't, expect VMWare and Wine to begin eating their lunch.

Jim
Considering it took microsoft over a year to get Virutal PC working on the G5, I think they could care less about the VM market. The only really good product they have for OSX is Office... that product truly shines.

Ben
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"You don't subject minority rights to a referendum." Justice Minister Irwin Cotler of Canada]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-What-exactly-are-the-pros-and-cons-of-Intel-ma-14833931 Fri, 18 Nov 2005 13:09:50 EDT Re: What exactly are the pros and cons of Intel ma http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-What-exactly-are-the-pros-and-cons-of-Intel-ma-14833614
Jim]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-What-exactly-are-the-pros-and-cons-of-Intel-ma-14833614 Fri, 18 Nov 2005 12:14:37 EDT Re: What exactly are the pros and cons of Intel ma http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-What-exactly-are-the-pros-and-cons-of-Intel-ma-14833353 said by jtanner9:

One pro is that the poor suckers stuck using VirtualPC should see a nice speedup.

Jim
not if virtual pc runs under rosetta... virtual pc for mac is a native power pc application right now. Unless its rebuilt for intel by microsoft it will be even slllloooowwweeer than it is right now.

Ben
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"You don't subject minority rights to a referendum." Justice Minister Irwin Cotler of Canada]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-What-exactly-are-the-pros-and-cons-of-Intel-ma-14833353 Fri, 18 Nov 2005 11:35:51 EDT Re: What exactly are the pros and cons of Intel ma http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-What-exactly-are-the-pros-and-cons-of-Intel-ma-14833349 said by jtanner9:

One pro is that the poor suckers stuck using VirtualPC should see a nice speedup.

Jim
How do you figure? Until VirtualPC is rewritten for x86, it remains a PPC App, and it will have to run in emulation in Rosetta.
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·.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸¸.·´ ]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-What-exactly-are-the-pros-and-cons-of-Intel-ma-14833349 Fri, 18 Nov 2005 11:35:08 EDT Re: What exactly are the pros and cons of Intel ma http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-What-exactly-are-the-pros-and-cons-of-Intel-ma-14833181
Jim]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-What-exactly-are-the-pros-and-cons-of-Intel-ma-14833181 Fri, 18 Nov 2005 11:09:42 EDT Re: What exactly are the pros and cons of Intel ma http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-What-exactly-are-the-pros-and-cons-of-Intel-ma-14833103 said by macaholic:

But I wouldn't buy anything phase 1 from apple.. They tend to drop products and re-introduce "fixed" lines very quickly. In this particular case, I wouldn't buy a Intel-based Mac for at least 12-18 months after Apple's initial production models are released. By then, the bugs, quirks and deficiencies (in both hardware and software) should be addressed and fixed.

It's the same reason I wait six months before loading any major Mac OS X release: I don't need the headaches of being an early adopter, especially when I'm footing the bill.

- Dan
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"That which does not kill us makes us stranger."]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-What-exactly-are-the-pros-and-cons-of-Intel-ma-14833103 Fri, 18 Nov 2005 10:58:35 EDT Re: What exactly are the pros and cons of Intel ma http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-What-exactly-are-the-pros-and-cons-of-Intel-ma-14832397
as for PC well the options from novice to power user really open up now...as will the price range. Even G5s could not keep up with the current pentium lines...

But I wouldn't buy anything phase 1 from apple.. They tend to drop products and re-introduce "fixed" lines very quickly.
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"You don't subject minority rights to a referendum." Justice Minister Irwin Cotler of Canada]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-What-exactly-are-the-pros-and-cons-of-Intel-ma-14832397 Fri, 18 Nov 2005 08:50:20 EDT Re: What exactly are the pros and cons of Intel macs? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-What-exactly-are-the-pros-and-cons-of-Intel-macs-14831394
Emulation is never 100% completely flawless, so there's bound to be the odd glitches or software that will refuse to run altogether. I'm sure patches will be released or better yet, native Mac x86 versions released to replace existing PPC versions. At any rate I'm sure we're talking minor incompatibilities...

Here's a good question: Will legacy 68K software still run? I know on my G3, at least under OS 9, I can still run some software that is 20 years old. This might be moot since most recent PPC machine can't even run OS 9 anymore...

Bottomline is you can't hold out on the PowerPC forever. In a couple of years it'll be unsupported and obsolete and you'll have no choice but to move on (I'm one to talk, having stuck it out with the 65xxx until about 1997). ;)]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-What-exactly-are-the-pros-and-cons-of-Intel-macs-14831394 Fri, 18 Nov 2005 01:07:44 EDT Re: What exactly are the pros and cons of Intel ma http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-What-exactly-are-the-pros-and-cons-of-Intel-ma-14831265
I think Cedega/WineX will be ported Quickly to OS X and would allow more choice for X86 games on the Mac's and give users options instead of running your ppc version through rosetta you can run it native x86 through cedega which should speed things up.

One good thing about Cedega is that some games actually run better on Linux (or OS X) than on Windows.

One deal is the fact that it takes 1 million processes on average for OS X to start a thread, in Windows XP it's about 6 million.
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»www.silentbrouhaha.com]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-What-exactly-are-the-pros-and-cons-of-Intel-ma-14831265 Fri, 18 Nov 2005 00:31:43 EDT Re: What exactly are the pros and cons of Intel macs? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-What-exactly-are-the-pros-and-cons-of-Intel-macs-14831195 said by joeybee:

Nobody really knows how they will perform compared to the current models since they aren't out yet, so everyones opinion is just guesses.
There are people who know, they're just under NDA's.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-What-exactly-are-the-pros-and-cons-of-Intel-macs-14831195 Fri, 18 Nov 2005 00:17:37 EDT Re: What exactly are the pros and cons of Intel macs? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-What-exactly-are-the-pros-and-cons-of-Intel-macs-14831129 --
By today's standards, the prophet Muhammad would be considered a perverse tyrant. - Aayan Hirsi Ali]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-What-exactly-are-the-pros-and-cons-of-Intel-macs-14831129 Fri, 18 Nov 2005 00:06:56 EDT Re: What exactly are the pros and cons of Intel macs? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-What-exactly-are-the-pros-and-cons-of-Intel-macs-14830247 http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-What-exactly-are-the-pros-and-cons-of-Intel-macs-14830247 Thu, 17 Nov 2005 22:02:59 EDT Re: What exactly are the pros and cons of Intel ma http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-What-exactly-are-the-pros-and-cons-of-Intel-ma-14830239 said by GilbertMark:

Regardless of the pros and cons they are coming and the PPC will become extinct. If you want to keep up with the times, intel will be the way to go.

You don't have to buy new software you can use Rosetta to run your PPC software on the intel Macs.
What about performance? Will it perform as good as on PPC using Rosetta?]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-What-exactly-are-the-pros-and-cons-of-Intel-ma-14830239 Thu, 17 Nov 2005 22:01:38 EDT Re: What exactly are the pros and cons of Intel macs? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-What-exactly-are-the-pros-and-cons-of-Intel-macs-14830163
You don't have to buy new software you can use Rosetta to run your PPC software on the intel Macs.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-What-exactly-are-the-pros-and-cons-of-Intel-macs-14830163 Thu, 17 Nov 2005 21:52:21 EDT Re: What exactly are the pros and cons of Intel ma http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-What-exactly-are-the-pros-and-cons-of-Intel-ma-14830065 said by leXicon5:

Some things are not guesses however.
Software will cost money...if you move to the Mac/Intel from the current crop....you will more than likely need to either upgrade or buy new software.

I'm sure some vendors will provide little or no cost platform switch options.
Some will not.
We'll all know a lot more come January. That's when the roadmaps will be laid out.
I'm sure this has to be a little detrimental to some companies as I'm not about to invest in software that I will need to re-invest in in a few months should my company switch platforms. It will be of great import to tell customers what to expect....

That all being said....first gen machines may have some hiccups...but for all intents and purposes and it's been stated before...it's a box with FireWire, USB, Ethernet, Display, and audio I/O....the core OS is more important than the processor it's running on.
Regarding software is it suppose to be more expensive, cheaper or about equal later on?(not upgrade wise talking)

I am thinking of just buying a Mac Mini to hold me for some months till the Intel processor Macs start to clear some of those hiccups.]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-What-exactly-are-the-pros-and-cons-of-Intel-ma-14830065 Thu, 17 Nov 2005 21:37:14 EDT Re: What exactly are the pros and cons of Intel macs? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-What-exactly-are-the-pros-and-cons-of-Intel-macs-14829979 Software will cost money...if you move to the Mac/Intel from the current crop....you will more than likely need to either upgrade or buy new software.

I'm sure some vendors will provide little or no cost platform switch options.
Some will not.
We'll all know a lot more come January. That's when the roadmaps will be laid out.
I'm sure this has to be a little detrimental to some companies as I'm not about to invest in software that I will need to re-invest in in a few months should my company switch platforms. It will be of great import to tell customers what to expect....

That all being said....first gen machines may have some hiccups...but for all intents and purposes and it's been stated before...it's a box with FireWire, USB, Ethernet, Display, and audio I/O....the core OS is more important than the processor it's running on.
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Wanna pay $4.00 for a head of lettuce? $5.00 for a quart of strawberries? Double the price of your beef, chicken and pork? Close the borders and that is EXACTLY what will happen! Think about it....Vicente Fox was RIGHT. Could have worded it different tho]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-What-exactly-are-the-pros-and-cons-of-Intel-macs-14829979 Thu, 17 Nov 2005 21:24:47 EDT Re: What exactly are the pros and cons of Intel macs? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-What-exactly-are-the-pros-and-cons-of-Intel-macs-14829973 --
Lord Please MURDER my ENEMIES, BURN'EM AT A 1000 DEGREES....]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-What-exactly-are-the-pros-and-cons-of-Intel-macs-14829973 Thu, 17 Nov 2005 21:24:05 EDT Re: What exactly are the pros and cons of Intel macs? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-What-exactly-are-the-pros-and-cons-of-Intel-macs-14829851 --
Once You Go Mac You Can't Go Back]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/Re-What-exactly-are-the-pros-and-cons-of-Intel-macs-14829851 Thu, 17 Nov 2005 21:08:37 EDT What exactly are the pros and cons of Intel macs? http://www.dslreports.com/forum/What-exactly-are-the-pros-and-cons-of-Intel-macs-14829825
Any info you guys can provide on my question?]]> http://www.dslreports.com/forum/What-exactly-are-the-pros-and-cons-of-Intel-macs-14829825 Thu, 17 Nov 2005 21:04:37 EDT