General Brock wrote:Well, I know AMD has a rep for dropping the ball, but it has that indy cachet Apple likes to cultivate, whereas Intel does not, from a business point-of-view. According to the news that pops up on CNN Money and elsewhere, AMD is building a new factory in Singapore, and has a decent product line that is constantly improving. Its long-term prospects are as rosy as Intel's. AMD was first out with dual-core and 64-bit processing, I think.
Even with AMD's new fabs they can't match Intel's might in manufacturing, nor do they offer a "complete" solution. Multiple-core CPUs and 64-bit processing existed before AMD's K8, and Intel has had IA64 for years.
From where I am sitting, AMD and Intel leapfrog over one another in performance regularly. Overall Apple's decision seems based more upon business politics, or connections, not careful marketing and sound design. The Ipod and other products are making money for Apple now, less so the computers, and the only reason a lot of people seem to buy Macs, if they don't actually need a Mac, is because Macs have a trendy-looking shell.
That, and people are fed up with Windows. It might not be the most rational of decisions but for the moment, OS X is relatively secure. Also, Intel can almost certainly give Apple better pricing than AMD can.
I don't think AMD would have any trouble meeting the demand for hypothetical Mac AMD chipsets.
Are you sure about that? Furthermore, AMD barely dabbles in chipets while Intel consistently puts out quality chipsets. I can only remember the 760-series and 8000 chipsets from AMD while Intel continuously produces them.
Also, many chip-savvy members on this board use AMD chipsets, and are well pleased by them, which is as sound an endorsement as any I can think of.
Feh. That's no endorsement for a multi-billion dollar company.
Personally, I haven't felt good about Intel since I read about the PIII serial codes controversies, and I was already sort of iffy over something called a 'floating point bug' that screwed PII calcuating accuracy. I'm new to looking at chips, of course, however so far all I've been able to gather is that some AMDs run hot and might break down a little easier than an equivalent Intel, and that seems solveable by better designed cooling systems. AMD users seem to enjoy better features and functionality at a good price.
The serial code uproar was massively overblown (note that other systems had done this (IIRC, SPARC was a prime example) and virtually every computer already has a publically available unique id - your NIC's MAC) and the FPU bug was was on P5 core from nearly ten years ago.
As for Securemac, well these guys seem legit and sincere. If there is Mac malware out there, it would not be generated by generic Windows hacks who can't help but fall into a gaping Windows exploit. It would more likely be from programmers actually knowledgeable about computers deliberately looking to filch data from industries dominated by the Mac. Most home users probably wouldn't be affected, since the targets would be more specific and operating at a more professional level.
Much spyware/malware on Windows is installed with the consent of the user. Should OS X gain a sizable marketshare we'll see people going through every security wall OS X throws up before installation.
It doesn't help that most Windows users run as Administrator, either, or that most programmers seem to be intent on requiring Administrator access (%USERPROFILE% and HKCU exist for a reason!)
OK, so SDNet isn't going to swing the chip industry, I'll concede. The thing is, you are right, Intel can can continue to dominate from sheer momentum, and experience. We'll see with the PV how their corporate culture has matured, I suppose.