Apple's New Intel Macs

 

Wouldn't you know it just a few weeks after I bought my father a Mac for Christmas, Steve Jobs beats his previous target dates by announcing and shipping Intel-based Macs at MacExpo last week. I don't think my father is enough of a power user to notice the difference, but for most Mac heads, the new Intel-based Macs are nothing but good news. 

Not only do a lot of the MySQL developers and the open source community in general use and love the Mac, it seems to be an increasingly popular platform among our customers.  In our most recent user survey over the holidays, Mac OS/X users accounted for about 12% of respondents. This is an increase over the last year, and puts the Mac on par with Solaris.  It's still a far cry from Linux or Windows, but the trend for the Mac is going up whereas the trend for Solaris, AIX, HP-UX, Netware is not. 

Thanks to some fast work from our build team and the web team, we now have Mac intel binaries of the MySQL community edition available for download. Since MySQL runs on more than 2 dozen platforms, it was a pretty straightforward recompile with GCC; but its still great to have it so quickly. 

Apple's reasons for switching to Intel are clear.  They can deliver higher performance CPUs with lower power consumption and ride the Intel commoditization curve making their machines more competitive. The side benefit is that the Mac may become a more attractive and easier platform for ISVs to support.  That should increase the number of software titles available for the Mac, further increasing the size of the market.

The new Intel iMac's run at a theoretical speed that is 2-3x faster than the old G5 processor, but that's based on somewhat arbitrary (and unrealistic) benchmarks.  For most casual users, you might notice a modest 25-30% performance on some tasks.  That's not bad, but it's an incremental improvement at best.  For certain CPU-bound tasks, like crunching video files, there can be more significant improvements.  However, it does appear that the I/O is more efficient on the Intel-based Macs, so copying files and presumably compiling source code or running a database should see more significant improvements.  One of our partners, Zimbra, has seen significant performance improvements on the Intel-based Macintoshes.

For now, all of the Apple supplied software has been ported to the Intel chip set with nice performance improvements for QuickTime, iTunes, iLife etc.  We're also starting to see a steady supply of announcements form third party Mac ISVs who have or are planning on native ports to Intel.  Most older Mac software will run automatically using the built-in Rosetta fancy-pants dynamic binary translator software developed by the high-IQ code wonks from a company called Transitive.  The added oomph of the Intel Core Duo will be pretty much offset by the Rosetta translator, so its a bit of a wash.  Graphics programs, like PhotoShop are the programs that will most benefit from native Intel performance, so you may wish to wait until they're available before switching to Intel.

For more info, take a look at the articles and links below.  And if anyone wants to report on their experience with the Intel Macs, post comments and let me know.

• PCMag: Apple iMac (Intel Core Duo)
• Apple: Intel-based iMacs
• CNET: The Brains Behind Apple's Rosetta
• MySQL: Mac Intel downloads

Comments

[Barry Klawans]

Hi Zack, I have to disagree with one point you make. "...u might notice a modest 25-30% performance on some tasks. That's not bad, but it's an incremental improvement at best." 25-30% is nowhere near the 2-3x mark, but how many vendors have had a 25% speed bump overnight with no price increases?

I also think there is one other benefit to Apple on the processor switch - the ability to run Windows at near native speed. I've heard rumors that the new Mac hardware will boot into Windows. If true, its just a matter of time to somebody starts offering a dual-boot manager. If not true, the next version of VirtualPC shouldn't have the HUGE performance hit that makes it all but useless on the PowerPC. This ability should help sway folks who are on the fence about trying a Mac.

-Barry