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garzy

macrumors regular
Original poster
Dec 21, 2002
179
0
If the ppc970 was to appear in apple products, would that make
the G4 totally obsolete? apple would need to produce a 64bit OS for the 970, but it would not perform on a G4. developers would be also working on products for a 64bit OS. it would be a shame to see that processor out of production as I would love to see a G4 in an ibook someday. imo its a great chip...
 

strider42

macrumors 65816
Feb 1, 2002
1,461
7
Re: G4 to become obsolete?

Originally posted by totalr0xx0r
If the ppc970 was to appear in apple products, would that make
the G4 totally obsolete? apple would need to produce a 64bit OS for the 970, but it would not perform on a G4. developers would be also working on products for a 64bit OS. it would be a shame to see that processor out of production as I would love to see a G4 in an ibook someday. imo its a great chip...

a couple of things:

First, the 970 runs 32 bit apps as well. Its much more likely that IF the 970 makes it into macs, there will be a pretty long transitional period where most apps are still 32 bit.

second, apple cannot make the entire product line one chip very easily. its hard to differentiate the product lines then. They've done it before, but I don't see it happening here. This is doubly hard with a a brand new chip architecture, since it will most likely be relateively more expensive, and updating the entire line is a difficult proposition. I can pretty much promise you'll see it in the powermacs, then the powerbook or iMac later on, an trickling through the product line like that in the future.

third, this is a long way away anyway, the 970 doesn't actually exist yet.

even if apple does go to the 970 for everything, they still have a responsibility to not abandon people who bought a machine 3 days before they were announced. In other words, there is absolutely no way they can afford not to deal with prior equipment.

and finally, even if they did, there would be so much older equipment out there that you wouldn't see a lot of development for the 64 chipset. Its like when the G4 came out. Almost nothing used the velocity engine (most stuff still doesn't)

you'll see a G4 in an iBook probably years before you see a 970 in one.
 

jefhatfield

Retired
Jul 9, 2000
8,803
0
Re: Re: G4 to become obsolete?

Originally posted by strider42



you'll see a G4 in an iBook probably years before you see a 970 in one.

while the G3 sahara chip with its 256k level 2 cache is a great chip in the current ibook, i would like to see a G4 chip in the ibook by mid-2003, or earlier if possible

that would rock, and add a superdrive and keep the prices the same, then you will see me buying that to replace my current clamshell ibook which i still use almost everyday
 

mac15

macrumors 68040
Dec 29, 2001
3,099
0
I higly doubt it dude, if apple dumped a G4 and kept a G3 , I'd die lauhging
 

jefhatfield

Retired
Jul 9, 2000
8,803
0
Originally posted by mac15
I higly doubt it dude, if apple dumped a G4 and kept a G3 , I'd die lauhging

what if ibm came out with a type of g3 that had altivec qualities?

moto has been slow in their dev of new g4 chips
 

strider42

macrumors 65816
Feb 1, 2002
1,461
7
Originally posted by jefhatfield


what if ibm came out with a type of g3 that had altivec qualities?

moto has been slow in their dev of new g3 chips

I admit not to know a whole lot about chip design, but I'm not sure this is really possible. I don't think you can just graft on technologies like that without a fair amount of investment. I meanisn't that sort of what the G4 is. From what I've read, the original G4 was very similar to the G3 except for altivec and a few other things, yet it involved enough research and changes to have to be called a new generation of chips. I also don't really see IBM investing the money in something like that, as I'm not sure it would have a lot of benefit for anyone except apple (and maybe not even for them)
 
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