Intel to revamp entire desktop CPU line in 2006

Wait a second... Didn't I hear a rumor recently that Apple might be moving to Intel chips?

No, this is just a rumor, as old as the hills. Apple will be using SPARC chips in their upcoming models.

Intel performance will be going nowhere? Hmm, cursed by Apple. :-)

...as if it wasn't wild enough to go to Intel chips is that the processor that'll probably be in my first Intel Mac has a processor with the same name as the town I graduated High School from - Conroe. Weird..

Z

CPU's really seem to be kind of stalling quite a bit.

I like dual processors and I rekon I'll like dual cores, but, the speeds seem kind of stalled.

I want to buy a new laptop, but the Pentium M has been at 2-2.13GHz for a while. I want to build a new desktop but I can't really build a dual dual core unless I spend some $$$ on dual Opteron.

Oh, well, it was a good run, I guess hitting the wall was inevitable.

by keeping the core clock down where they are, the dual core processors save almost 80% on wattage draw. that's why

Clive... All that says is that the new chips will run at the same speeds, not the same performance, as every mac user knows MHZ != Perfomance

Sorry Intel, you're just trying to play catch-up now. With IBM's new dual-core and low-power chips ready to roll off the assembly line, I expect no one will be buying your stuff. And no increase in MHz? No one's going to buy new computers next year where the MHz is the same as this years!

I wouldn't be surprised at all to see Apple announce they're leaving Intel for greener pastures at IBM.

testudo, have you looked at Intel PCs recently? I remember when they used to list them and group them by their clock speed. Mac users and AMD supporters for years made the argument, correctly, that clock speed means jack squat. Intel played the clock speed card as long as they possibly could, but they've since come out with several processor lines, starting a few years ago with Itanium, that throw clock speed to the wind in favor of higher performance due to better architechture. And now, computers are given names and labels, not just grouped by clock speed. It actually requires a bit of research if you want to know what you're buying without just taking the CompUSA salesman's word for it.

The point is, clock speed isn't increasing, because it's not worth it. It's too hot, it's too much of a power drain. That doesn't mean performance ceilings out.

And my suspicion is that most people aren't buying based on clock speed anymore anyways. It's not really a stat that anyone's pushing anymore. So the knowledgeable few realize that it means nothing, and the clueless rest have no idea what we're up to anyways, and whether a "high" clock speed is 2 GHz or 3.6GHz. Either way, it's not what they're deciding on. They want a faster computer, they go in, ask for a faster computer, and the guy says, "Oh, here's a computer with a sweet, new, next-generation processor in it! Buy this!" And they buy it.

No one buy computers? Not quite. And as for IBM... they'll be lucky to hold an edge on the performance market for a month or two, then Intel and pretty much everyone else will pass them by yet again, and it'll be another year or two before another significant speed bump. That's why Apple's dumping them. Intel isn't worried about playing catchup with IBM.