While true, you are missing the point about performance issues related to the cell.
Although the cell is rare, those who have used it are not giving it sparkling reviews.
http://www.cdrinfo.com/Sections/News/Details.aspx?NewsId=13532 " Some have called Cell an Intel killer, which is completely ridiculous," said Kevin Krewell, In-Stat analyst. " The only place where the Cell processor can be considered competition for Intel will be where the Sony Next Generation Game Console competes with the Media Center PC." What kevin is saying, and what i' ve been saying all along, is cell is nowhere near as fully featured as an intel chip, any intel chip.
And while it might not be fair for me to make this comparison, clock per clock intel (or AMD) chips smoke the cell.
Because it' s all those little goodies included in a desktop processor that make them robust and fast.
And while the cell will fill the needs sony has for it' s game system, it' s just no match for intel' s offerings.
The negative press goes on and on.
http://www.geek.com/news/geeknews/2005Jun/bch20050613030896.htm Now before i say something you will just parrot back to me in a quizzical tone, we have to come to an understanding.
What i am telling you is, intel MPs are battle hardened, they have had years of R&D to come up with something to meet the needs of the consumer, if those needs were not met, consumers would stop using x86 architecture.
Now, on the other hand there are some people who want just that- To see the new age of reduced instruction being the mainstay.
Because it' s cheaper and easier to produce something with 1/4 die, and none of the cache, or built in struction sets, because that would open up the market to other manufacturers, including sony and toshiba.
I am also telling you that x86 chips are beefier, and able to do more calulations per cycle, because those chips are built for
complex instructions, and are more hardware intensive.
But on the other hand,
Reduced instruction cores are weaker in the hardware aspect, this is because those cpus don' t have to make sense out of all the code it deals with, it' s all streamlined, prepackaged for the core.
You might ask, " Well, that sounds great, doing the same on a comparativly less complex core, why isnt everyone doing this?"
The answer is, intel manages to crank out fantasic chips at good prices.
And while these chips get more and more complex each cycle, intel still manages to make them, and the prices still fall.
And unless you can buy a cell cluster for a fraction of the price (the opposite might be true) intel will continue to dominate the market.
And these chips not only are able to run complex code, but are able to run less complex code much faster, a jack of all trades.
Apple finally broke down, they say it' s because of heat issues, but like all of what i' ve been saying, it' s getting harder and harder to resist intel.
The constraints of having to watch your code carefully was getting expensive for apple.
I mean, why not use what everyone else is using?
It' s obvious your production cycles will be split in half, you will get greater performance.
So they broke down.
Nomatter how well the ipod is going for apple, the onset of inexpensive vendors was cutting into apple.
The company was, and still is recovering from a huge financial debt.
And going intel saves them loads of money.
Then, there is the microsoft factor.
The reason apple users stay with apple is because they,
1)look pretty
2)are not windows based.
Now windows has been a running joke to the apple elite, but the word on apple campus is that windows might be maturing, getting better.
And if vista turns out really great, people will want to use it.
And will forsake apple because it sticks to non standard hardware, there is no way microsoft would rewrite vista for power pc.
That too influanced apple.
Also, i am glad you found this amusing.
It' s not every day i get to talk about the complexity of microprocessors to a complete stranger, and i hope you' ve learned something about what i' ve said.
Because you' ve taught me allot about how people think.