How big are the blips in Intel’s dual-core roadmap?
Posted by Dennis Sellers 
Nov 1, 2005 at 12:36am
It may be a minor blip in the Intel—and therefore Mac—roadmap, but it is worrisome. Last week Intel announced that delivery of its dual-core Itanium would be delayed by three months from the first quarter of 2006 to the middle of the second quarter. It’s another setback for Intel that has some folks wondering whether the company can deliver upcoming technologies as quickly as promised.
“The setback is the latest in a string of events that raise questions about Intel’s ability to execute on its innovative R&D, a commodity of which Intel undoubtedly has plenty but which Intel hasn’t been able to get to market,” Tom Yager writes in an InfoWord report. “There has always been a tug-of-war at Intel
between x86 and Itanium over budget, staff resources, and scheduling priorities. Time and time again, Itanium loses out to the can’t-miss x86. Intel’s latest focus on low-end and power-efficient systems, including digital entertainment technology, reflects a campaign to carve out new volume niches that competitor AMD can’t quickly attack. Even if the dual-core Itanium delay has nothing to do with these other factors, Itanium is certainly a poor fit with those elements of Intel’s new strategy that we’ve seen to date. Although analysts will debate the relevance of the one-quarter delay in the release of dual-core Itanium as an isolated event, this latest setback prolongs Intel’s long-awaited return to form.”
Dual-core chips contain two processing units per chip. Apple’s latest Power Macs have dual-core chips, although they’re IBM PowerPC processors, of course, rather than Intel.
Apparently, it’s only the Itaninum dual-cores that are being delayed and not more consumer oriented dual-core chips such as Yonah. Yonah is an Intel dual-core processor that’s due for volume production in 2006. Expect to see it in Apple laptops, Mac minis and perhaps iMacs by mid-2006 as these systems will probably the first of the Mac product line to go “Mactel.” See our July 5 article for details. Still, there are reports are even the Yonah processor may run hotter than previously projected.
I’m not saying that Apple shouldn’t move to Intel chips. After all, IBM never delivered the promised (expected?) PowerPC G5/3GHz chips. And a PowerBook G5 never seemed feasible due to heat issues.
What I am saying is that the move to Intel, like any major transition, is going to have glitches along the way. And some of them may be involve more than software transitioning.
Thoughts? Write me at dsellers@macsimumnews.com
Also, don’t forget this week’s Macsimum News poll. We’re asking if you’re planning on purchasing Apple products over the holiday season.
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Contributor
Dennis Sellers
Dennis has been a newspaper editor/reporter (seven years) and teacher (seven years). He has over 4,000 magazine, newspaper and online articles to his credit. He has also covered the Mac and tech industries for over a decade for such online publications as MacCentral, MacMinute and now MacsimumNews.
