At a rate of 1.5 bugs a day, is this a problem for Apple? Hard to say. Hardware bugs are nothing new to any computer, and I have no idea what the errata list may look like for a G5, but a rate of 1.5 new processor bugs a day is a large nunmber for any system, and may indicate a rushed to market solution that ws not quite ready.
You can view the list of problems here:
http://geek.com/images/geeknews/2006Jan/core_duo_errata__2006_01_21__full.gif
Some of these are listed as show stoppers, such as FPU errors, and Virtual Mode problems. So far, Intel says they will only fix one of these for certain, yet 14 of the 24 current bugs are listed as “show stoppers” by the people who know. I would expect future releases of the processor to address these issues, but then again, they may introduce new ones as well.
I, for one, am not all that surprised given the rush to market on this product. And I am also impressed that Intel is willing to fess up to the errors and be honest about potential problems. This is a VERY complex part, so it is bound ot have issues and bugs, and the sooner they find them, the better the next version of the part will be.
I also feel that many of these issues can probably be handled through some clever programming tricks, so I would expect Apple to put out a 10.4.5 update at some time to “work around” some of the issues as well should they impact OS-X. (Apple has not commented on this.)
So, back to an earlier question asked on these pages? Do you buy and Intel based Mac now or wait? I for one said wait, and these are exactly the reasons I believe one should wait. I seldom buy a version 1.0 of any product, and here are 34 good reasons why it may be a reasonable idea to wait for v1.1.
But that is just my opinion, I could be wrong…..
Your thoughts?
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