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Macintel: The End Is Nigh

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Re: Macintel: The End Is Nigh

#131

Post by gress »

MBCook wrote: post #114
quanticle wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>You also lose compatibility with every game and most major applications like Adobe Just like they lost compatibility when they switched from PPC to Intel? I think that's one thing that a lot of commenters in this thread are ignoring: Apple has done this before . They've switched from PPC to Intel when IBM wasn't committing to making the power efficiency gains that they were looking for, and they'll switch from Intel…

That switch took years and years and YEARS, and it was done for clear benefit. Desktops were one thing but in laptops Apple was way behind in performance. The new machines were so much faster that the emulated software didn't feel slower in normal use and you gained access to Windows software (which was horrendously slow when emulated on a PPC). I'm not sure they could do such a transition again on the desktop. Other…

Intel is failing to deliver their existing roadmap on time. Is this because they just haven't 'decided' to play hardball?

Re: Macintel: The End Is Nigh

#132

Post by glitch003 »

What seems more likely to me is a hybrid ARM / x86 machine that switches dynamically between processors, kind of like how some macs can switch dynamically between their integrated and discrete GPUs.

Re: Macintel: The End Is Nigh

#133

Post by PhantomGremlin »

demallien wrote: post #108
PhantomGremlin wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wonder if this will mean the end of Flash Player for Mac? You say that like it's a bad thing. I wish Flash on Mac would die die die. Youtube has the ability of showing me non-flash video on a Mac. And yet they often won't. The exact same video that won't play on a Mac will play just fine on an iPad. Evil bastards! With Flash dead, Google wouldn't be able to demand I use it.

Activate Developer Tools in the preferences of Safari. This gives you a Developer menu in the toolbar. When a site refuses to play video on your Mac because it needs Flash, you tell Safari to pretend it's an iPad. The site invariably serves you the video you wanted, without Flash.

I read this advice previously on HN, and it worked for a while. Then Google changed something, and it stopped working. I don't know, maybe I was screwing up. Or maybe it's just easier for Google to roll ads ahead of the video when it's in Flash. Or maybe Google wants me to download Chrome, which has a built in Flash player. Not gonna do that until it supports NoScript. YMMV, obviously.

Re: Macintel: The End Is Nigh

#134

Post by vacri »

joshstrange wrote: post #123
vacri wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find the "holds value" argument to hold little water. While Apple hardware does hold its value very well, most people don't resell their hardware every year or two. Yes, some people do, and they're quite organised and know what they're doing when it comes to moving all their stuff between machines and their setup, but most people don't. As for massive slowdowns, I'm having a problem at the moment in that everyone I…

My parents just upgraded and sold their old (4 and 5yro) MBP's for a yearly "cost" similar to what I saw ($240/yr, it was a little closer to $300 for them). I will agree that selling and re-buying every 1-2 years can increase your savings but the fact that a 4 & 5yro laptop is worth anything is testimate enough IMHO. You don't see that with windows laptops. Please show me a windows laptop that is still worth even hal…

Please show me a windows laptop that is still worth even half it's value after 2 years.

About two months ago I was looking for a Thinkpad w700ds, and while admittedly an unusual laptop, I found two items on ebay going for more than they originally cost. As for a 5yo laptop costing $1500 after resale, the laptop I currently use is a Thinkpad x200, a 6yo laptop that I bought new for $1300 and I see now on ebay for an opening bid of $200. $1300/6 = $217/year (less if you count the $200 ebay sale), which is cheaper than any of the options you're proferring. Where is this magical Apple-only value you're talking about with laptops, then? I find that Apple fans are very skilled at convincing themselves that everything else sucks, which is fine (each to their own) until they start proselytising. Yes, Apple machines do hold their value well, but from your own numbers breakdown, my Thinkpad more than holds its own if you want to talk turkey.

In any case, the point I was making wasn't about the resale value itself, it was that most folks don't actually resell their computers. Most people run their computers into the ground, then buy another one.

Re: Macintel: The End Is Nigh

#135

Post by MBCook »

gress wrote: post #131
MBCook wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That switch took years and years and YEARS, and it was done for clear benefit. Desktops were one thing but in laptops Apple was way behind in performance. The new machines were so much faster that the emulated software didn't feel slower in normal use and you gained access to Windows software (which was horrendously slow when emulated on a PPC). I'm not sure they could do such a transition again on the desktop. Other…

Intel is failing to deliver their existing roadmap on time. Is this because they just haven't 'decided' to play hardball?

They're having issues right now, but they'll pull back. We've been through this before. Look at how far Intel's chips have come from just the Core2 processors of a few years ago.

Either way, this is nothing compared to the mess of delays the G4 and G5 went though, especially on mobile. Compared to what Apple has seen before this is a tiny detour.

And of course since Intel is the market leader, Apple is (at worst) in the same boat as everyone else. With the G4/5 they were falling further and further behind each year.

Re: Macintel: The End Is Nigh

#136

Post by sliverstorm »

jp555 wrote: post #99
sliverstorm wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me it seems mostly a problem of unwalled garden. When Apple owns the platform from the silicon to the development environment, it's easier for them to manage power. Wintel on the other hand has so much variety all the way down the software stack and even into hardware, it is more difficult to control... x86+Linux (Lintel?) suffers the same problem. The unwalled garden can still be made low power. Android has set a…

If you think Android isn't a walled garden (unless you mean non-Google Android?) then the devil has convinced you he doesn't exist.

It is at least much less of one than iOS

Re: Macintel: The End Is Nigh

#137

Post by tracker1 »

ggreer wrote: post #78
Symmetry wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You say that ARM chips are 10x slower than Haswells, but the difference isn't actually that large anymore and for Apple's A7 it's around 3x versus a normal desktop chip like the 4770 and only 1.7X versus the 4250U you'd find in a Macbook Air[1]. Diminishing returns is a constant factor in engineering and I'd expect it to be very hard for Apple to make up the remaining distance between themselves and Intel, but we sho…

I think GeekBench is a poor benchmark, since it's measuring peak CPU performance in a narrow domain, but the table you cited shows that the 4770 is 6.5x faster than the A7 (16774 vs 2564). Even at the same frequency and core count, Haswell is 1.8x faster in the benchmark. Whatever the exact number, it doesn't invalidate the point I was making: Switching to ARM will ruin performance for x86 programs, which need to be…

Which is why I think some of where AMD is looking to go is very interesting.

Re: Macintel: The End Is Nigh

#138

Post by ayrx »

joshstrange wrote: post #123
vacri wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find the "holds value" argument to hold little water. While Apple hardware does hold its value very well, most people don't resell their hardware every year or two. Yes, some people do, and they're quite organised and know what they're doing when it comes to moving all their stuff between machines and their setup, but most people don't. As for massive slowdowns, I'm having a problem at the moment in that everyone I…

My parents just upgraded and sold their old (4 and 5yro) MBP's for a yearly "cost" similar to what I saw ($240/yr, it was a little closer to $300 for them). I will agree that selling and re-buying every 1-2 years can increase your savings but the fact that a 4 & 5yro laptop is worth anything is testimate enough IMHO. You don't see that with windows laptops. Please show me a windows laptop that is still worth even hal…

Thinkpads retain value quite well. It's probably more accurate to say that you pay for what you get. Quality, non-Apple hardware are pricey as well.

Re: Macintel: The End Is Nigh

#139

Post by aidenn0 »

kabdib wrote: post #124

The Windows kernel guys were evaluating ARM systems for us, and the gist was "Run away, don't walk; the memory systems on those things are terrible." I like the ARM architecture a lot. It's simple and easy to write software for, all the way from embedded controller stuff to "real" operating systems. But they're not all that great at doing massive computation. We were going to use one in the video path of a popular ga…

When was this? ARM historically has abysmal memory systems, but there have been significant improvements over the past few years (I don't know that they've caught up, but they are in a different league from about 5 years ago or so).

Re: Macintel: The End Is Nigh

#140

Post by alwillis »

mschuster91 wrote: post #98
ricw wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're making the incorrect assumption that apple would in fact emulate. As they control the whole stack, they can (relatively) quickly switch architectures. They'd lose the market that does in fact install windows on mac hardware, though that is likely a negligible niche. So for the vast majority of their customers there would not be a performance penalty. Quite the opposite. Apple chips are in terms of tech already…

No. You also lose compatibility with every game and most major applications like Adobe, since all of these use lots of highly optimized, handwritten assembler code for critical sections, as well of all code paths using x86 vector instructions or other hw acceleration. Thanks but no thanks.

You're making a big assumption. Sure, some apps have handwritten assembly, but that's pretty rare these days. Apple's Accelerate framework (which has been around since the PowerPC days) allows apps that need high performance in certain areas to do that without resorting to assembly:

>This document describes the Accelerate Framework, which contains C APIs for vector and matrix math, digital signal processing, large number handling, and image processing.

https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Accele...

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