Apple has made no secret of its enthusiasm regarding the Intel core-duo processors they expect to be powering their new laptops soon… but is there something Apple isn’t being told?
Tom’s Hardware stumbled upon an interesting power-consumption problem detailed in this article. In summary, some unidentified bug causes the chip to drastically reduce battery power and slow internal processes. There appear to be, according to Tom’s, a significant number of testers who can confirm the problem, too.
Here are some alarming facts brought up in Tom’s recent follow-up article:
We can only imagine that Intel puts enormous amounts of pressure on Microsoft to take the rap for this bug which essentially takes the centerpiece of the Intel’s marketing efforts for Core Duo – imporoved battery life – and beats it around the head with a 2×4. However it is strange that this bug only shows up on the Core Duo chipset, and when combined with the likely back-room haggling and arm twisting that went on last week between the two companies in order to see who would take the blame; we have a gut feeling that there is still more to the story than what we know today.
What we know for a fact is that they both knew about the problem since at least 12 July 2005 and with the first Core Duo systems coming to retail this month it didn’t look like either party was rushing to tell the buying public about the problem.
Indeed, those who did speak to us about it only did so anonymously and when they were told that we had the goods on Core Duo and were about to start raining on the parade. Others claimed to have no knowledge of what was going down when I approached them about the problem last week.
Both Intel and Microsoft are keeping details of the history of this bug under tight corporate wraps, making it not just difficult to identify, but increasingly difficult to foretell how long it will be until a fix will exist, or even where it is going to come from. It’s appears obvious, given the late notice of this problem and how long it has been known about, that neither manufacturer expected the bug to be discovered before selling the first Core Duo laptop to consumers this month.
All of this combined – the silence of Wintel and the notebook manufacturers, as well as the palpable lack of a fix for the seemingly simple problem – doesn’t paint anyone in a particularly flattering light.
Certainly the lack of the fix to what is supposedly a simple registry error will give license to conspiracy theorists to claim it is a problem with the chip itself and not Windows XP SP2. This would certainly turn quite a few heads towards Apple, whose partnership with Intel is starting to look a little less rosy than it was a week ago.
What really and truly ticks me off is the fact that between them, Intel, Microsoft and the system manufacturers have kept their mouths shut for six months and were going to start selling these machines without acknowledging the bug or providing an immediate fix for it. The sad fact is that I think they would have got away with it, too.
Thing is– This is nothing new. MS has been selling buggy software for years and thanks to AMD’s level of innovation, the processor market is CUTTHROAT, so it should come as no surprise if a cutting-edge chip is released prematurely.
Furthermore, I would not be surprised to find out that Apple is fully aware of this and looking forward to using the Windows bug issue to their marketing advantage (a smart move)… What I find interesting is the distinct possibility that it may NOT be a Windows issue, but specifically related to the processor, which could possibly bite Apple and bring to question the logic in moving from the IBM chips to Intel (based on expectations of Intel’s ability to drastically reduce heat and power-consumption in the faster, more powerful laptop processors).
If that worst-case scenario becomes reality, I wonder how loud the PowerPC enthusiasts will shout “TOLD YA SO!”
Then again, if it IS a Windows issue… What a great marketing tool for Apple! I see a sweetly sarcastic slogan like “Windows tested, Apple approved.”
In the meantime, I say “buyer beware,” unless you have a strangely fierce loyalty to AMD (like me).
