IBM smacks rivals with 5.0GHz Power6 beast

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Henry wrote:

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Gigahertz = One thousand, million machine cycles (hertz!)Times that by 5 to get 5.0 gigahertz per second!
US electricity occilates at 60 hertz (cycles)

Mr Henry, its far better to just say that GHz = 1 Billion Hz or Hertz. This is the functional speed of a processor based on the product of it's internal clock speed and its clock multiplier.

Contrary to popular belief, processor clock speed doesn't always equal higher performance from a chip. There are many, many other factors that determined just how much "Work per clock cycle" your getting, which makes all the difference in the kind of experience, you the user, are going to get from said processor for a given speed.

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Sturgis7 wrote:

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I agree completely. That's why Apple used them before (trying to make a monopoly). But they couldn't keep up with Intel and AMD, so Apple defected, typical response from Apple give us what we want when we want it or we move on. But will they switch, back so people can't morph their Apple's back to PC's with Linux or Microsoft. As so many people are doing.

Well, Apple has always been just one shot away from being a Monopoly of sorts. The only hole in the plan has always been the Processor. Motorola was the supplier all the way up to the G4 and then Apple went to IBM for more volume and to introduce a chip they would be happy to dub the G5. Steve Jobs, having never been one to sit on the latest thing for too long, then went to Intel and trans-coded his whole ball of wax to PC architecture.

This was bound to be cut short for the very reasons you stated above. Here you have proprietary Apple trying to work with proprietary IBM - ain't happening capt'n.

So now you have Apple trying to hire an IBM guy while IBM is trying to intercept with their "No Compete" clause that prevents employees from taking jobs with other companies that represent competition. Apple will soon be back at it with some attempt to develop their own chip with a new architecture, running another proprietary Unix flavored OS.

Watch and see..........