Why did Apple drop the PPC platform?

[Pogeymanz]

All of my tech-junkie friends used to tell me that the PowerPC architecture was superior to the intel PC.

I actually don't know much about it, but couldn't PPC handle much more RAM and number of processors and such?

What are the pros/cons of PPC and why did Apple go with intel?

[samwyse]

Intel was cheaper.

[Ocxic]

because Apple was having too much trouble developing there own hardware and software, moving to Intel arch made things much easier for them, not to mention it paved the way for Snow Leopard, there OS for everyone, so they could start moving and expanding into more of the home user market. with Snow Leopard you don't need a mac to or a hackintosh to install leopard, just an Intel PC

[mordak13]

Intel was cheaper.

+1. Money is almost always the deciding factor in big business..

[RedPandaFox]

I have 2 G3 PPCs and a Mac Classic at home :) On my "shrine to Apple" table (a table covered in all my mac stuff, my girlfriend wants it all to burn)

[MaxIBoy]

because Apple was having too much trouble developing there own hardware and software, moving to Intel arch made things much easier for them, not to mention it paved the way for Snow Leopard, there OS for everyone, so they could start moving and expanding into more of the home user market. with Snow Leopard you don't need a mac to or a hackintosh to install leopard, just an Intel PC

Are you telling me that they no longer require you to buy their hardware? My respect for them just increased.

[RedPandaFox]

because Apple was having too much trouble developing there own hardware and software, moving to Intel arch made things much easier for them, not to mention it paved the way for Snow Leopard, there OS for everyone, so they could start moving and expanding into more of the home user market. with Snow Leopard you don't need a mac to or a hackintosh to install leopard, just an Intel PC

I just realised on only know one person who uses a mac at home. And they only do because they hate Windows and Linux equally :lolflag:

I also noticed that the Road and Traffic Authority (where you get you licence in NSW Australia) Only uses Macs, well in the RTAs Iv been to.

[sonofusion82]

it used to be a figth between RISC and CISC architectures but the more later generations of PowerPC and Intel x86 are already a hybrid of both.
i feel PowerPC architecture seems cleaner as x86 instruction set carries a large amount of legacy kludge (ok, back then, people program in assembly language and CISC are more be friendly to program than RISC). As time passes, most people program and higher level languages and CISC is probably unnecessary. but the amount of money and effort behind x86 and improvement to compiler optimization had enabled it to be pushed much further and faster than PowerPC.

[pansz]

All of my tech-junkie friends used to tell me that the PowerPC architecture was superior to the intel PC.

What are the pros/cons of PPC and why did Apple go with intel?

IMO, the "superior architecture" means you can have better performance with the same GHz frequency and the same price. Yes the PowerPC was "superior" to Pentium 4 at the past, however, Core Duo architecture is the best cpu NOW and with the best performance/price ratio.

If in someday another architecture has a better performance with a lower price, apple will go that architecture. And I think it is unwise to always keep with only one architecture.

[FFighter]

because Apple was having too much trouble developing there own hardware and software, moving to Intel arch made things much easier for them, not to mention it paved the way for Snow Leopard, there OS for everyone, so they could start moving and expanding into more of the home user market. with Snow Leopard you don't need a mac to or a hackintosh to install leopard, just an Intel PC

Are you serious? Apple is opening their next OS for any intel-compatible PC? That would be really awesome!

[UniverseA7X]

Snow Leopard is not going to be for PC's guys.... Apple has always made their own hardware coupled with their software.

I honestly don't know why they dropped the PPC platform. That was the era that I wanted a Mac so bad... Now I have an Intel Macbook, and that special feeling isn't there anymore. I guess that's why I've got my $10 Power Mac G3 running OS 9 right next to me. It runs pretty good, I'm very proud of it. :D

[mips]

IBM or whoever made the chips also had problems generating faster chips & reducing the heat these chips generated. They started falling behind the x86 department in this regard.

There is quite a bit of literature about this out there on the net.

[Pogeymanz]

I see. Does PPC still exist, or was it an Apple thing? I.E. Will PPC ever make a comeback?

P.S. I disagree with whoever's decision it was to move this thread to the OSX forum. I'm not asking anything about the OS or software at all. The thread is about hardware and business.

[LossLess]

Many of the answers here are pretty close to right, and the reasons for the move are multitudinous.

To answer your question of whether or not PowerPC still exists, in fact it does. The core of PowerPC is still just the Power processor core from IBM. That core is leveraged in Power 6, z6 (the mainframe version of the Power processor) Cell (the console / evolved PowerPC version of the processor) and other places.

Many thought PowerPC was done when IBM "lost" Apple. The fact is, IBM/Power didn't want to have to support Apple any longer any more than Apple wanted to be stuck on their hard-to-program-for architecture. Realize that x86 programming and off-the-shelf (read: Open-Source) code is much easier and ubiquitous than Power architecture. Apple's happy, and so is IBM.

The Cell architecture, which is essentially the chip that would have become Apple's new PowerPC has sold over 80 Million cores in PS3's alone (10.49 Million PS3 consoles sold through Feb 08 with 8 cores in each (marketed as 7 with 1 usually non-functioning core)). That doesn't include Wii or Xbox360 which both use Cell, as well.

[jnw222]

ppc devolpment was geting slow and sad

[ooobuntooo]

I see. Does PPC still exist, or was it an Apple thing? I.E. Will PPC ever make a comeback?

P.S. I disagree with whoever's decision it was to move this thread to the OSX forum. I'm not asking anything about the OS or software at all. The thread is about hardware and business.

Yes, it does.

It is still used in Supercomputers and Games Consoles!

[L815]

+1. Money is almost always the deciding factor in big business..

Oh the irony; their products are still expensive -_-

[tgalati4]

My rough benchmarks showed that a 1 GHz G4 was about equal to a 2 GHz Pentium 4 for doing the same work. The G5 used too much power for a notebook profile.

IBM was less flexible on chip pricing so Apple's margins were shrinking. A G5 laptop that didn't melt would be an engineering marvel and quite desirable. But this machine would also make less money for Apple. Intel's duo core chips used less power and basically matched the G4/low-end G5 performance. I have no idea about pricing but I'm sure Intel was eager to get the business.

Don't forget all those postscript printers out there that use PPC rendering engines.

[mips]

I see. Does PPC still exist, or was it an Apple thing? I.E. Will PPC ever make a comeback?


Yes it still exists and is in extensive use.
In car computers, in sattelites (each iridium sattelite has 7 of them), telecomms hardware, in consoles, servers and there are even still desktop machines being made. The very common Freescale processors you get these days are basically PPC processors.

http://www.power.org/
http://www.power.org/kshowcase/view
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerPC#External_links
http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/intellistation/power/index.html
http://www.terrasoftsolutions.com/products/powerstation/
http://www.pegasosppc.com/products.php


I do not see the powerpc arch dying out anytime soon. I would actually like to get my hands on a pc using this arch. Something like a G4 mac mini or a laptop.

[3rdalbum]

PowerPC is still used for embedded applications, but I'm sure it will continue to lose marketshare to ARM. Games consoles have switched from ARM to PowerPC, though, and lots of supercomputers are running those things.

Believe it or not, Motorola 68000 processors (as used in the Apple Lisa and Macintosh, 1982 and 1984 respectively) are still being manufactured. Apparantly they are often used as sound controller chips.

[mips]

Believe it or not, Motorola 68000 processors (as used in the Apple Lisa and Macintosh, 1982 and 1984 respectively) are still being manufactured.

They were a pleasure to code assembly language on compared to x86.

[SunnyRabbiera]

Well ihn many ways its a good thing apple dropped power PC for intel as that technically worked for linux too as recently intel has an interest in more non Microsoft operating systems.

[stmiller]

Yes PowerPC is much better than x86 in architecture terms. Unfortunately the IBM-compatible x86 world + windows took off. x86 is cheap to produce, power and cool, and of course that wins.

PowerPC CPUs do not have the ram limitations of x86 chips. Right now Windows 32bit users are restricted to 3.x GB of ram. But 32bit OS X 10.4 on PowerPC could address 16GB of ram.... That is why photoshop and other programs were popular on Mac. Because they could have a mega-ton of ram for their apps compared to the Windows world.

This is also why PowerPC is popular in the server world. You could load on tons of ram and it works great.

Anyways, the above POWER links posted in this thread have much more info on PowerPC. FWIW all three current games consoles are PowerPC. (Xbox 360, PS3, Wii). It is far from dead...

I predict we will see home computers with the Cell processor in the next few years. The Cell has tons of potential.

As for Apple, well they needed a fast CPU in a laptop, and that was not possible at the time with PowerPC. I think it was a good choice to go to Intel, considering what types of computers they are wanting to sell (fast laptops, fast smaller stylish computers, etc.). The PowerMac G5 machines were nice, but weighed 85lbs and took very elaborate cooling. Now a C2D in a 1" laptop can crush one of those in CPU power.

[piju]

i think it is all about money,power comsumption,performance and stability

[handy]

because Apple was having too much trouble developing there own hardware and software, moving to Intel arch made things much easier for them, not to mention it paved the way for Snow Leopard, there OS for everyone, so they could start moving and expanding into more of the home user market. with Snow Leopard you don't need a mac to or a hackintosh to install leopard, just an Intel PC

Are you serious? Apple is opening their next OS for any intel-compatible PC? That would be really awesome!

I have done a little searching on the web on the topic of an un-hacked Snow Leopard being installable on non-Apple PC's.

I can't find any mention of the topic yet!

@ Ocxic: Can you give us a/some references please?

[damis648]

I used to watch Apple keynotes constantly. I remember when Steve Jobs announced the switch. As I can recall, it was because of battery life. PPC drawed alot more power.

[handy]

PowerPC is still used for embedded applications, but I'm sure it will continue to lose marketshare to ARM. Games consoles have switched from ARM to PowerPC, though, and lots of supercomputers are running those things.

Believe it or not, Motorola 68000 processors (as used in the Apple Lisa and Macintosh, 1982 and 1984 respectively) are still being manufactured. Apparantly they are often used as sound controller chips.

The Amiga's also used the Motorola 68000 series, as did some laser printers (just as likely some photocopiers?) too.

[sonofusion82]

PS3's Cell processor also contains PowerPC-based processor as its main PPE unit.

[3rdalbum]

PowerPC CPUs do not have the ram limitations of x86 chips. Right now Windows 32bit users are restricted to 3.x GB of ram. But 32bit OS X 10.4 on PowerPC could address 16GB of ram.... That is why photoshop and other programs were popular on Mac.

The 32-bit PowerPC chips use, surprise surprise, 32-bit addressing of RAM, which limits them to 4 gigabytes of address space. I believe Macintoshes with 64-bit PPC processors were shipped with a 64-bit kernel and 32-bit userspace, which would allow greater addressing. Photoshop was still a 32-bit program, and it was popular on the Macintosh back when they had 64 megabytes of RAM or less.

I predict we will see home computers with the Cell processor in the next few years. The Cell has tons of potential.

It has lots of potential, but:

1. The actual cells of the Cell do not have a wide instruction set, so they can only perform a limited number of tasks. The operating system itself needs to run on the main PowerPC core. The Cell has been likened to GPGPU, because although the cells are incredibly fast, they accomplish this in part because they are designed for specialised processing rather than for general processing.

2. We won't see it on home computers, because they won't run Windows; and if they run Linux they won't be able to use Skype, Gizmo, Flash Player, w32codecs, Virtualbox, 3D drivers, Wine, or anything that is compiled for x86. I bet the Cell is more expensive than a top of the range Core 2 Duo.

[damis648]

PS3's Cell processor also contains PowerPC-based processor as its main PPE unit.

Of course, and the cell is used in IBM's RoadRunner.

[y@w]

PowerPC was especially tough to cool. If you look at past Apple models, you'll notice Apple never made a G5 laptop. That's because it was too hard to cool and used too much power.

A great (I'm assuming) side effect is that now it's easy for us to emulate other operating systems on the Intel architecture.

[MikeTheC]

Where did anyone here get the impression from that Snow Leopard was going to be an unrestricted release of Mac OS X?

Snow Leopard may indeed be a major step forward for Apple, and may also go a long way towards Apple killing Microsoft in system performance specs. Of course, that's all very speculative, but it will make for, potentially, interesting and exciting times for the Mac platform community, and quite possibly for the F/OSS community, since it's the best positioned to take advantage of some of these programming techniques.

Microsoft, probably, will be left further and further behind. Not that any of us should become complacent here, but let's also remember it's Steve "Monkey Boy" Ballmer running Microsoft now, so staying several steps ahead of Microsoft isn't exactly that hard a task.

PowerPC went from being a true asset to being a millstone for Apple, particularly since advancements were nowhere near as rapidly being developed by Motorola/IBM as they were by AMD and Intel for the x86 platform. Frankly, the roadmap just wasn't as good, and there were no other factors in play to help bring down the costs associated with PPC as there are and have traditionally been for x86. Moreover, the size of the customer base is so substantially larger for x86 that Apple had no choice but to bow to the current of market economics.

Perhaps there are those who choose to be sentimental about such things; heck, I miss my Mac Plus, Mac II and Mac IIci. But we as customers absolutely benefit from the switch in every conceivable practical way.