704 is fast alright but it is HOT. No, I don't mean it
is popular, it is running HOT. It burns so much power that
there will be no chance it can put in a laptop. Well,
that may not be a concern (high end desktop, you say?) but
704 is built with BiCMOS, now Intel also use BiCMOS in
Pentium but Intel use BiCMOS very sparsely (or smartly).
BiCMOS technology uses at least 2 more mask (more $$$ to
produce). Besides, rumor has that BiCMOS is not that
the long term future plan. Just looking at frequency
is like judging how fast a car is by looking at its color,
it is silly. 533 MHz doesn's mean anything if
IPC (Instruction Per Cycle) is low. 704 uses a relative simple
core with no cache, it may run some application fast but
for general application, it is not going to be that
much faster. Well, I do agree that MHz does make a very
good marketing pitch.
What do people hope Exp. to achieve? To replace Moto and
IBM (aka Somerset)? Or becomes part of Apple (if there is
still an apple in couple of years)? Exp. does not have
the deep pocket it takes to build a high end processor, it
can try to shoot for the low end market if it can fix the
power problem and lower manufacturing cost (ditch BiCMOS
and use CMOS). I hope everything know Apple will not get
into the hardware market (if they are smart, IMHO but who
knows, it is Apple)!
Microprocessor is a HIGHLY competitive market just look
at AMD, Motorola, DEC and Cyrix. IMHO, a small start up
can still make it to the top but not with the help from
Apple. It will need a much larger market and a stronger
partner. But to play against Intel is not easy....
Just my 2 cents....
gus |
