[hmurchison]

Here's what I think happens.

Apple hits the Dual 3ghz mark with the next Powermac refresh. This will be a 97x G5 based off the POWER5 architecture. It will not be dual core but it will have say 5 more pipeline stages(roughly 20) and support low-k dielectric tech. It will have SMT so we will have our "functional" Quad. Apple will ride this SMT enabled system for a year or year and a half at most before IBM movies to 65nm in which they will move to dual core processors then. The question is whether or not they would keep the SMT on each core. If they did that would totally rock. How's an Octomac sound to you?

What I see is a balancing of todays technology. SMT gives Apple/IBM a reprieve from being forced to go dual core early. SMT allows IBM to increase the pipelines thus hitting 3Ghz easier without taking a huge hit on Instructions Per Cycle(IPC) because SMT will keep the pipelines full with data. SMT is the cheaper option right now that being that it requires much less transistor space than a whole "nother core. That space savings can be put to good use by adding an ondie memory controller. Then when a majority of Mac apps are multi processor aware we move to the next process shrink 65nm which then gives us die space to add those new cores. We're only at 2007 at this time frame. Nice logical progression.