Intel Corp (INTC)

[Andy Grave]

A good desktop idea would be to chop most of the cache and leave 1MB. This should allow a die size of about 160mm^2 (close to standard PowerPC die size). Then, keep a happy medium with voltage, and allow the chip to clock faster. Maybe, 1.2GHz and 80W TDP. The performance would still be greater than PowerPC, and this is just the beginning of the road. If Intel fixes the price below $400, then I could see Apple being interested.

I find it impossible to believe you have not heard of PPC970
which makes you as disingenuous as ever. The 64 bit PPC 970 is suppose to be in production in the second half of this year. It (120mm) scales to 1.8GHz on .13U at 42W with 512K L2. Less than 20W at 1.2GHz. Spec scores are claimed to equal a 2.8GHz P4. It has an Altivec compatible SIMD intstruction set. It is claimed that with minimal modification and support by the operating system, user mode 32 bit PowerPC applications can run on the 64 bit PowerPC 970 processor without modifications. Thus... far easier to adopt than Itanium. And you can bet it will sell for far less than $400.

http://www.realworldtech.com/page.cfm?AID=RWT101502203725

Andy Grave