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Technology Stocks : Apple Inc. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sowbug who wrote (6815)	12/13/1997 3:33:00 PM
From: Eric Yang	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 213173

Sowbug, I only pose the question "why Apple is using only slower speed G3s?" to point out what I believe is Apple's new and smarter product strategy. Sorry I didn't make it more clear. It's too bad that most people in the PC world are ignorant of the importance of memory architecture in system performance and fall for Intel's clock speed marketing. As you've point out, clock speed does not equal performance. Performance = cycles/sec (MHz) X average instructions/ cycle. That's what I spend most of my time trying to show to the readers of my MacEvolution page. From a technical point of view, I believe that the G3s do have a lot of head room in terms of clock speed. The fact that Apple choose to use G3 at these conservative speeds and still able to meet the performance goals means that there will be less likelihood of processor shortage. While G3 hasn't utilized all the process improvements of the Mach 5 it is already at a mere 67mm^2. The small die size of G3 and Mach5 means that theoretically 2 to 3 times as many chips can be produced from the same wafer. Of course in the initial production phase the higher defect rate associated with moving to .25 process will wipe out the gains in chip/wafer count. But in a few months yield will improve and cost will drop significantly. I think we're seeing a smarter Apple. Eric

To: Sowbug who wrote (6815)	12/14/1997 9:21:00 PM
From: Sam Scrutchins	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 213173

[Eric, it sounds like you know most of this already, and I apologize if it sounds condescending -- I wrote it mostly for other people reading this thread who don't know about the backside cache.] Sowbug, whether you are being condescending or not is totally irrelevant to the issue at hand. As you know, there have been a number of rating methodologies that have surfaced over the years, although few have compared the MOT and INTC chips/computers head-to-head. You sound like you understand in detail the entire architecture of a computer. Consequently, I suggest that you posit here on this thread what sort of a rating system would fairly present the attributes of Wintel vs Mac-based systems. I would assume such a rating system would account for all parts of the computer architecture, including the operating system or layers of operating systems as the case may be [I believe that I am dealing with the concept of throughput here, recognizing that different software applications will do better in different environments, but that there is some sort of defined starting point and finishing point]. Then perhaps you could take this rating system and sell it to the Wintel and Mac critics for their use. I really am serious about this. Sam