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June 08, 2005
Holy Tire Gage Batman!
In case you missed the announcement and rumors, here is the news tidbit. Before anyone asks:
No I didn't have any idea.
Yes I'm upset that I wasn't able to attend.
The switch to Intel hardware doesn't bother me, nor does staying with PPC.
What I'd really really like to know is; How does Apple intend to design cases for the Pentium D?
Most of the early rumors established that Apple was very interested in the Pentium D, which is Intel's P4 with a dual core option. Having had the chance to play with one briefly, they're pretty fun CPUs, and there is some minor amount of geek pride when you can fake the OS into thinking you've got 4 CPUs to use. Anyhow, the point of the question is this, of all the heat sinks I've seen for the Pentium D, none would be considered small. In fact, most weigh about the same or more as the entire case and take up almost a 4"x6"x5" cube's worth of space. How can Apple plan anything that looks like an iMac around a CPU that needs a heat sink like that? And don't suggest the Pentium M, because it won't cut it. Honest.
Outside of that, I think this could be a good and beneficial move for Apple. The PowerPC architecture is still an outstanding piece of work, but there seem to be some issues when "keeping up with the joneses". The humor in this entire situation to me is that Microsoft's upcoming Xbox 360 is based upon the PowerPC chip. That leads to the questions of, was it the chip or the software that made things seem not so great?
Posted by Dan at June 8, 2005 11:52 PM