PowerPC 970 Presentation PDF

[MacRumors]

IBM has posted a PDF (http://www-3.ibm.com/chips/techlib/techlib.nsf/techdocs/A1387A29AC1C2AE087256C5200611780/$file/PPC970_MPF2002.pdf) of the presentation of the IBM PowerPC 970 from the Microprocessor Forum by Peter Sandon.

The IBM PowerPC 970 has been covered (http://www.macrumors.com/pages/2002/10/20021028141815.shtml) previously, but these are the actual slides from the presentation, and most of the information currently publically available about IBM's upcoming processor. Volume shipments of the processor are expected in late 2003.

[Rocketman]

The link has already been disabled. You may want to post the content to a mirror.

Rocketman

[Phase IV]

The link still worked for me at 9AM EST!

[Telomar]

You can go here (http://homepage.mac.com/WebObjects/FileSharing.woa/wa/default?user=telomar&templatefn=FileSharing1.html&xmlfn=TKDocument.1.xml&sitefn=RootSite.xml&aff=consumer&cty=US&lang=en) and grab it if you need to. At least until they block it for excessive bandwidth use.

[edesignuk]

Originally posted by Telomar
You can go here (http://homepage.mac.com/WebObjects/FileSharing.woa/wa/default?user=telomar&templatefn=FileSharing1.html&xmlfn=TKDocument.1.xml&sitefn=RootSite.xml&aff=consumer&cty=US&lang=en) and grab it if you need to. At least until they block it for excessive bandwidth use.
I've put it up on my iDisk to, it can also be got from here (http://homepage.mac.com/edesignuk/shared/PPC970_MPF2002.pdf-binhex.hqx) if Telomars stops working. ;)

[Goekeli]

Good Reading but it sure seems it could be a while before the 970 power mac will be in my house!~( I'll wait till at least rev. 2 before I buy.

Thanks for posting that,

Joe

[pgwalsh]

Originally posted by Macrumors
Volume shipments of the processor are expected in late 2003.
So what exactly constitutes volume shipment?

Could we see a smaller volume initially going to Apple for PowerMacs and or Xserve, and then, a volume shipment going into the other lineups and Linux based systems towards the end of 2003? In effect the current top-of-the-line G4 would be for the consumer lineup and PowerBooks come January?

[scem0]

The sooner the better. Could 'late 2003' be Q3, or is it gunna be in Q4?

[MacCoaster]

I don't see anything about double floating point within their VMX (the 162 instruction SIMD) in the document. That's not particularly good.

However, it does say it does have hardware double floating point support, just hope it doesn't come from the G4 which is from 60xe (:o).

[cjerens]

I am confused...according to this, when would it be likely to see this processor integrated into a new line or revision of Powerbooks? Also, how much faster will this processor really be than the current G4's (if you were comparing both processors at the same Mhz, theoretically)? And is another Powerbook G4 speedup likely before this processor is integrated? If so, can anyone make an educated guess as to about when?

-Cameron

[edesignuk]

Originally posted by cjerens
I am confused...according to this, when would it be likely to see this processor integrated into a new line or revision of Powerbooks? Also, how much faster will this processor really be than the current G4's (if you were comparing both processors at the same Mhz, theoretically)? And is another Powerbook G4 speedup likely before this processor is integrated? If so, can anyone make an educated guess as to about when?

-Cameron
I wouldn't even be thinking about the PowerBook, these will have to make it ito the PowerMac first.

[Mad Baggins]

Originally posted by MacCoaster
However, it does say it does have hardware double floating point support, just hope it doesn't come from the G4 which is from 60xe (:o). No, it should be much better... according to c't (http://www.heise.de/ct/english/02/05/182/) a 1GHz G4 system had 187 SPECfps, while the PPC970 slides indicate 1000+ SPECfps.

[Mad Baggins]

Originally posted by edesignuk
I wouldn't even be thinking about the PowerBook, these will have to make it ito the PowerMac first. And maybe the XServe before that!

As to the actual performance compared to current G4s (cjerens), I don't think anybody knows for sure. IBM gave some estimates for SPEC benchmark scores, but it's hard to extrapolate too much from that.

[Falleron]

Can anyone give an educated estimate of how much faster this 1.8Ghz 970 will be when compared to Motorolas yet to come out 1.8Ghz G4?? What sort of percentages are we talking about? I dont want wishfull thinking figures. I want a realistic estimate.

Any ideas???

[reyesmac]

If Apple can get these chips at a good price, I think they would put it in a Powermac first. Apples servers arent exactly what people want when they think of Apple, it would be a waste to have them only in the Xserve next year.
Also, if they officially say end of 2003 that means that Apple will probably have these out by the start of summer or even in the $3,000+ model in the start of the year. I think thats what they will do, put it in the $3,000+ model with todays motherboard and wait till the end of the year or the start of next to give us the ApplePI motherboard and show off its true power then.
Has Apple ever given us a new technology/CPU/Motherboard that was all perfect when it first came out? It usually gets as good as it should have been in its second or third revision. And going by their track record, I expect nothing different this time. Either way, we will see quite a speed boost all through next year, if all goes well.

[Catfish_Man]

Originally posted by Falleron
Can anyone give an educated estimate of how much faster this 1.8Ghz 970 will be when compared to Motorolas yet to come out 1.8Ghz G4?? What sort of percentages are we talking about? I dont want wishfull thinking figures. I want a realistic estimate.

Any ideas??? ...
Assume that SPEC scores scale linearly with clock frequency (which they don't, but it's easier to compare that way). A 1.8GHz G4+ would get 1.8x180 (roughly), or 344 on SPECFP. The 970 gets about 1050. The G4 would get about 540 on SPECINT, the 970 gets about 900 (note: SPEC is double precision heavy, and doesn't use Altivec). Why?
1) Memory bus bandwidth: 1.3GBps vs. 6.4GBps (about a 5x improvement)
2) Instruction dispatches per cycle: 3 (iirc) vs. 5 (close to a 2x improvement)
3) Floating point units: 1 vs 2 (2x improvement)
4) Out of order execution: none vs lots
5) Compiler: GCC vs IBM-übercompiler (whatever it's called)
6) 16 instructions "in flight" at one time vs. 40 groups of 5 (200)
7) the 970 has much more sophisticated branch prediction

I would expect the 970 to get close to double the floating point performance of a G4+ at the same clock frequency. Singly precision integer performance should be closer to equal. The 970 will be significantly ahead on double precision integer. For Altivec (VMX) code, I think the G4+ would have an edge over the 970, except that it doesn't have enough memory bandwidth (i.e. if you gave a 1.8GHz G4+ 6.4GBps of memory bandwidth, I think it would win at Altivec code).

I think it will average about 1.5-2x faster than a G4+ at the same clock frequency. I would also guess that it should be roughly equivalent in performance to Pentium 4s of the same time period (I'm guessing 3.6GHz, .09 micron, hyperthreading, 667MHz bus, >512k cache).

[Falleron]

Originally posted by Catfish_Man
...
Assume that SPEC scores scale linearly with clock frequency (which they don't, but it's easier to compare that way). A 1.8GHz G4+ would get 1.8x180 (roughly), or 344 on SPECFP. The 970 gets about 1050. The G4 would get about 540 on SPECINT, the 970 gets about 900 (note: SPEC is double precision heavy, and doesn't use Altivec). Why?
1) Memory bus bandwidth: 1.3GBps vs. 6.4GBps (about a 5x improvement)
2) Instruction dispatches per cycle: 3 (iirc) vs. 5 (close to a 2x improvement)
3) Floating point units: 1 vs 2 (2x improvement)
4) Out of order execution: none vs lots
5) Compiler: GCC vs IBM-übercompiler (whatever it's called)
6) 16 instructions "in flight" at one time vs. 40 groups of 5 (200)
7) the 970 has much more sophisticated branch prediction

I would expect the 970 to get close to double the floating point performance of a G4+ at the same clock frequency. Singly precision integer performance should be closer to equal. The 970 will be significantly ahead on double precision integer. For Altivec (VMX) code, I think the G4+ would have an edge over the 970, except that it doesn't have enough memory bandwidth (i.e. if you gave a 1.8GHz G4+ 6.4GBps of memory bandwidth, I think it would win at Altivec code).

I think it will average about 1.5-2x faster than a G4+ at the same clock frequency. I would also guess that it should be roughly equivalent in performance to Pentium 4s of the same time period (I'm guessing 3.6GHz, .09 micron, hyperthreading, 667MHz bus, >512k cache).
Thanks, I'd say that was educated. I know I am getting ahead of myself but it would be great if IBM could come out with a 2Ghz 970 just so that they were ahead of the PC world for once (in performance anyway).

[barkmonster]

(note: SPEC is double precision heavy, and doesn't use Altivec). Why? Altivec is single precision, at least on the G4. it executes once every clock cycle. SSE2 on the Pentium 4 takes 2 clock cycles to execute but it's double precision. That could be the reason, even with altivec, it's not a fantastic cpu for SPEC benchmarks but it screams at a few realworld tasks.

Can't wait for the PPC970 based powermacs to come out. No matter what intel or AMD come out with, they're not going to running 6Ghz Pentium 4's or 4Ghz Athlons so it could put apple back on top again and they run those snail adverts again.

[gbojim]

Originally posted by pgwalsh

So what exactly constitutes volume shipment?


Volume shipment is a term used to indicate when the vendor can ship enough parts that the customer is actually able to build and ship their product in the required volume.

In the case of Apple (or any other computer builder for that matter) there is usually a period of inventory buildup where a new component (eg PPC 970) is stockpiled enough to allow the company to meet predicted orders. They will not normally try to ship products when components are trickling in because it is impossible to tell the customer when the product will be shipped.

You often find that companies will announce products when they start to receive volume shipments of components, and then start to deliver 2 - 4 weeks later once they are comfortable that they can ship consistently.

[Catfish_Man]

Originally posted by barkmonster
Altivec is single precision, at least on the G4. it executes once every clock cycle. SSE2 on the Pentium 4 takes 2 clock cycles to execute but it's double precision. That could be the reason, even with altivec, it's not a fantastic cpu for SPEC benchmarks but it screams at a few realworld tasks.

Can't wait for the PPC970 based powermacs to come out. No matter what intel or AMD come out with, they're not going to running 6Ghz Pentium 4's or 4Ghz Athlons so it could put apple back on top again and they run those snail adverts again. ...that the why isn't in the (). The why is "why does the 970 score so much higher than the G4+?". I answered my own question below it. Sorry about the misunderstanding.

[Mad Baggins]

Originally posted by Catfish_Man
7) the 970 has much more sophisticated branch prediction
For Altivec (VMX) code, I think the G4+ would have an edge over the 970, except that it doesn't have enough memory bandwidth The branch prediction is better, but that might be offset by the longer pipelines compared to the G4. (Then again I don't know when branches are decided in the 970.)

Why do you think the G4 Altivec unit has the advantage? The 970 looks to be pretty similar on paper, with 2 integer, 1 fp and 1 permute unit.

[Mad Baggins]

Originally posted by barkmonster
Can't wait for the PPC970 based powermacs to come out. No matter what intel or AMD come out with, they're not going to running 6Ghz Pentium 4's or 4Ghz Athlons Interestingly, the current 2.8GHz P4 gets roughly the same SPEC scores as the estimates of the 1.8GHz 970. (See http://www.spec.org/osg/cpu2000/results/ ) I know SPECs are just one (set of) benchmarks, the machine was probably stacked, and you're right that there ain't gonna be no 6GHz P4 coming out, but those current P4 numbers are still a bit surprising!

[barkmonster]

Interestingly, the current 2.8GHz P4 gets roughly the same SPEC scores as the estimates of the 1.8GHz 970. (See http://www.spec.org/osg/cpu2000/results/ ) I know SPECs are just one (set of) benchmarks, the machine was probably stacked, and you're right that there ain't gonna be no 6GHz P4 coming out, but those current P4 numbers are still a bit surprising!

Thanks for the link!

Here's a few of the results, I've put the motherboard manufacturer and RAM type in brackets

SPECfp_base2000

AMD Athlon 2800XP+ (2.25 Ghz, ASUS, 333Mhz DDR) : 782
Intel 2.8Ghz P4 (Intel, 1066Mhz RDRAM) : 1032
Intel 1.8Ghz P4 (Intel, 800Mhz RDRAM) : 699
IBM 1.8Ghz PPC 970 : 1051

SPECint_base2000

AMD Athlon 2800XP+ (2.25 Ghz, ASUS, 333Mhz DDR) : 898
Intel 2.8Ghz P4 (Intel, 1066Mhz RDRAM) : 1034
Intel 1.8Ghz P4 (Intel, 800Mhz RDRAM) : 633
IBM 1.8Ghz PPC 970 : 937

One thing that's got me thinking, on the same page as the SPEC scores in the PDF, there's these GFLOP ratings :

Peak scalar GFLOPS = 7.2

Peak SIMD GFLOPS = 14.4

I know in altivec fractal benchmarks, turning off altivec dropped the G4s performance from several GFLOPS to only a few hundred thousand FLOPS, it looks like even without Altivec these chips are going to be significantly faster than the G4. I'm assuming scaler means using only the RAW CPU power because SIMD is refering to the VMX/Altivec unit.

Oops! got the FP and INT figures for the PPC 970 backwards, thanks for the tip avkills :p

[avkills]

Barkmonster, you have the PowerPC970 numbers switched.

The spec2000int is 937

The spec200fp is 1051

This processor looks like it is going to kick some serious ass. The fact that it beats a 2.8Ghz P4 in floats is awesome, one serious 3d rendering monster. And besides, the clock frequencies are subject to change, and since it only dissipates 42W, I could see IBM cranking it up to 2+ Ghz, which would still work in a tower with good cooling.

-mark

[reyesmac]

Wow, this new IBM chips sounds really great. Does that mean that when it comes out the finder on iMacs and iBooks will be as fast as it is on a Powermac 1.25ghz? Because if I have to spend over $3,000 on a computer that will give me the finder speed of OS 9, it would be kind of a let down.

[Knox]

Originally posted by reyesmac
Wow, this new IBM chips sounds really great. Does that mean that when it comes out the finder on iMacs and iBooks will be as fast as it is on a Powermac 1.25ghz? Because if I have to spend over $3,000 on a computer that will give me the finder speed of OS 9, it would be kind of a let down.

I would suspect you're going to have some wait to see them in the iBook or iMacs. If you look at the time it's taken for the G4 to appear in the iMac - 2 and a half years or so - it could be 2006 before the iMacs get them, and the iBooks still haven't got G4s, so it's anyone's guess as to when the next top-level chip will appear in them - 2010 maybe? :)

Can't really answer your question directly unfortunately - not used a dual 1.25 so no idea how fast it is. Certainly improvements in the OS will help with the speed as well as improvements in the CPU, so by the time the 970 appears in PowerMacs (assuming it does that is) the OS speed should have improved even more.

[3G4N]

was just looking at some of the SPEC benchmarks.

Could someone explain to me why, clock-for-clock,
a P4's benchmarks are higher than a P4 XEON's?

===SPECint2000 peak===
1040 = 2.8ghz P4
957 = 2.8ghz P4 XEON
927 = 2.40ghz P4
911 = 2.60ghz P4 XEON
888 = 2.26ghz P4
859 = 2.40ghz P4 XEON

[Frobozz]

"I think thats what they will do, put it in the $3,000+ model with todays motherboard and wait till the end of the year or the start of next to give us the ApplePI motherboard and show off its true power then."

I don't see this. Apple will not subdivide the pro line. The 970 really makes a lot of sense when you lok at the larger picture. They will replace the G4 on the pro line with the G5, which will be the 970. The G4, at that time, will run at around the same clock speed. This is fine, since it will run cooler and require less power. The TiBook will run the higher clock G4 by Moto, the iBook will receive the lower clocked G4's toward the end of the year. Apple will no longer have to strangle the performance of it's consumer lines because it can't tap out it's pro line.

I wouldn't expect to see the 970 before MWNY next year. Apple will, once again, have a clear performance difference between it's pro, consumer, and protable lines.

With all of this said, I don't feel my 2x1GHz G4 Quicksilver is slow-- I think improvements to the OS will be far more important to overall system performance. Maybe in 2004 I'll get one of these 970's....

[ryan]

Originally posted by pgwalsh

So what exactly constitutes volume shipment?

Could we see a smaller volume initially going to Apple for PowerMacs and or Xserve, and then, a volume shipment going into the other lineups and Linux based systems towards the end of 2003? In effect the current top-of-the-line G4 would be for the consumer lineup and PowerBooks come January?
Assuming that Apple does actually use the 970 it would seem that it might be a good idea for Apple to first put the chip in the Xserve due to it's limited initial supplies. However, if Apple were to start putting the 970 in the Xserve that would almost certainly kill the sales of the G4 based PowerMac since people would know the 970 is on the way.

[ryan]

Originally posted by cjerens
I am confused...according to this, when would it be likely to see this processor integrated into a new line or revision of Powerbooks? Also, how much faster will this processor really be than the current G4's (if you were comparing both processors at the same Mhz, theoretically)? And is another Powerbook G4 speedup likely before this processor is integrated? If so, can anyone make an educated guess as to about when?

-Cameron
As a somewhat educated, wild-ass guess I would say we'll see the 970 in the Powerbook line in mid-2004 (assuming of course Apple even uses the 970) so given that I would suspect that the Powerbook will see at least one, if not two more speedups before then.

A less technical answer to your speed question is that the 970 is roughly 2x faster than a G4 at the same MHz.

[pgwalsh]

Originally posted by gbojim


Volume shipment is a term used to indicate when the vendor can ship enough parts that the customer is actually able to build and ship their product in the required volume.


Thanks for the definition. I was being facetious and wanted to spur the possibility of smaller volume orders possibly shipping. As you already know many companies can product small amounts of products until they get the resources to ship large volume. I was coming from the point-of-view that Apple and IBM could take this approach, knowing they could complete fulfillments for a single product line. Then they could introduce it earlier and surprise everyone.

[pgwalsh]

Originally posted by ryan

Assuming that Apple does actually use the 970 it would seem that it might be a good idea for Apple to first put the chip in the Xserve due to it's limited initial supplies. However, if Apple were to start putting the 970 in the Xserve that would almost certainly kill the sales of the G4 based PowerMac since people would know the 970 is on the way. We're already aware that the G4 sales are a bit stagnant. Some of us are going to have to upgrade old systems like my G3 400 running OS 9.2.2. I'm holding off for as long as possible. I think apple can offer more in their top of the line then what have currently put together, but that's for another forum. My point being that Apple has more incentive now than ever to push a faster machine.

I think the professional film and audio industry are expecting hungrier machines. Just take a look at the recent article published in MacFormat. In addition we know how Apple likes to surprise us and I'm hoping they do. However there's other surprises they could offer like GigaWire, USB 2, ATA 133 or Serial ATA, 400 Mhz DDR and many other goodies which you expect to be packed in a top of the line machine. As I don't want to get off topic, I think there could be the possibility of the 970 showing its face earlier than the later half of 2003, but just in the top professional lineup and the xServe. They don't sell nearly as many of these as they do iMacs and other models which find there way into homes and school.

[Mad Baggins]

Originally posted by ryan
However, if Apple were to start putting the 970 in the Xserve that would almost certainly kill the sales of the G4 based PowerMac since people would know the 970 is on the way. Apple always has this problem. Everybody knows that roughly every six months, Apple upgrades its machines. So after 4-5 months, sales slow down, and the cycle starts all over again. The PC side, on the other hand, doesn't seem to care. Everybody's known for a year that 3GHz P4s and AMD "Hammer" chips are coming...

[Mad Baggins]

Originally posted by 3G4N
Could someone explain to me why, clock-for-clock,
a P4's benchmarks are higher than a P4 XEON's?

Part of the answer is that you have to look at the rest of the system configuration--things like amount and type of RAM, chipset (motherboard), and even the compilers that were used. Another thing to keep in mind is that you can't really generalize too much from a single benchmark. Different programs use the hardware in different ways. Even if a P4 wins the SPEC benchmark, the Xeon might win a different test.