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PowerPC was more performant but limited to Apple (echoes of the current M1). The best place I know of to read about that era is Tom Hafhill's Byte Archive. Whic

PowerPC was more performant but limited to Apple (echoes of the current M1). The best place I know of to read about that era is Tom Hafhill's Byte Archive. Which has many articles from the 90s about x86, PowerPC and DEC Alpha[0]. Intel (x86) has always been very difficult to compete with because historically they've been able to integrate new technologies into the ISA quickly. DEC Alpha was more performant than Pentiums, but they caught up eventually. Pentiums were far, far cheaper, however. Power efficiency wasn't really a thing back then. The original Pentium was an 8 watt part, the common DEC Alpha (21164 in '95) was a 30-50w part. [0] https://www.halfhill.com/bytelink.html https://www.halfhill.com/bytelink.html

Turing_Machine 5y ago
> PowerPC was more performant but limited to Apple (echoes of the current M1). IBM shipped a lot of PowerPC machines also. I think they still have some current machines on that architecture. > Power efficiency wasn't really a thing back then. If I remember right, that was what caused Apple to switch to Intel. IBM just couldn't get the heat and power consumption on the G5 down to a level that would make it feasible for laptops.
- OldTimeCoffee 5y ago
  IBM still does, it's called the PowerISA now instead of PowerPC (I guess we're finally in a post-PC world after all). And yes, I think that's right about not being able to get the heat down for laptop parts. That's still over a decade after the PowerPC 601 that competed with the Pentium (P54C). By 2006 it was pretty obvious that x86 had 'won'. DEC Alphas were discontinued, Sun was well into financial difficulties, and SGI (MIPS) was in serious financial trouble, and Apple was moving to Intel. Side note: A lot of these arguments really happened over 20 years ago. This has actually been a really nice walk down memory lane.

Turing_Machine 5y ago

> PowerPC was more performant but limited to Apple (echoes of the current M1). IBM shipped a lot of PowerPC machines also. I think they still have some current machines on that architecture. > Power efficiency wasn't really a thing back then. If I remember right, that was what caused Apple to switch to Intel. IBM just couldn't get the heat and power consumption on the G5 down to a level that would make it feasible for laptops.

OldTimeCoffee 5y ago
IBM still does, it's called the PowerISA now instead of PowerPC (I guess we're finally in a post-PC world after all). And yes, I think that's right about not being able to get the heat down for laptop parts. That's still over a decade after the PowerPC 601 that competed with the Pentium (P54C). By 2006 it was pretty obvious that x86 had 'won'. DEC Alphas were discontinued, Sun was well into financial difficulties, and SGI (MIPS) was in serious financial trouble, and Apple was moving to Intel. Side note: A lot of these arguments really happened over 20 years ago. This has actually been a really nice walk down memory lane.