I'll admit, I'm too bored to reply each and everyone of your statements, I'll just say a few things, take it as you like; I had private discussions with Freescale guys, where they *explicitly* told me that e600 + altivec was considered dead inside the company, LONG before it became publicly known elsewhere. Have you seen such an announcement from Freescale? No and you won't because it's bad publicity for such a company because they still sell this stuff.

I also had private discussions with financial folks (they see things in a different light than us geeks, it doesn't matter if a technology is cool, if it doesn't make money it will die), where they said that with the current situation with Sony/Toshiba, Cell's future is unclear. I'm definitely not going to provide "references of appropriate statements" from any such private discussion. Oh and, sure, go ahead and nitpick my choice of words (most of your replies are around this anyway), forest vs tree anyone?

Cell's absence in Sequoia also adds more to the rumours. As for the PowerXCell 32, dunno if you've ever seen the Cell roadmap (used to be found here, but not anymore, surprise?), it should be around available at 2010 (the roadmap was from 2006), but the PS4 is due out in 2012? 2 years delay, when PS3/original Cell release was almost simultaneous? Strange? Anyway, actually I'll be happy if I see the PowerXCell 32, I like my PS3 and the Cell and it would be fun to play with something more powerful, but I somehow think it will take quite longer than expected, if at all.

Also, in regard to the other CPUs you mentioned, I actually don't see anything other than embedded CPUs. They're great really for their purpose - I love my efika and the beagleboard is really fun to play with-, but they're not much use for a desktop or even a netbook. If you read my first mail again, I stated (amongst other) that e600 (the de-facto desktop-oriented CPU line, at least so far) is dead, and we're left with just server and embedded lines (QorIQ is just the most powerful, I don't really care for the rest, which are many, because they're embedded-only and too low-power).

So, what *new* CPU (-based system, ok) could an average powerpc fan choose? None. Which was *exactly* my original point, which you still seem to miss. It doesn't matter the model, fact is that PowerPC has not much to offer for this market (well there are plenty of existing CPUs for the job, but no commitment from the companies). Unless some bold investor decides to pick up, say the e600 core and revive the 86xx line, I don't see any product that would satisfy the average powerpc fan (and I mean desktop user/developer basically, not server/embedded they have no problem).

[ Edited by feanor on 2009/4/10 21:41 ]