PowerPC performed much better and made design changes that made much more sense long-term.
There were also volume production issues and architecture advancement issues.
Essentially, they couldn’t get volume guarantees and they were at the mercy of a much slower improvement cycle than they would have liked.
PowerPC was absolutely an excellent top-tier processor, and the current Power11 line absolutely smokes anything else out there from either Intel or AMD, at the cost of being 100-200× more expensive. Like, think $30,000 USD for a single entry-level workstation, or $70,000 USD for the high-end one.
There were also volume production issues and architecture advancement issues.
Essentially, they couldn’t get volume guarantees and they were at the mercy of a much slower improvement cycle than they would have liked.
PowerPC was absolutely an excellent top-tier processor, and the current Power11 line absolutely smokes anything else out there from either Intel or AMD, at the cost of being 100-200× more expensive. Like, think $30,000 USD for a single entry-level workstation, or $70,000 USD for the high-end one.
Exactly. There’s a reason power isn’t going away.