From 2 to 3GHz in 12 months?

[Panther 970]

Steve jobs said that we will be at 3GHz in 12 months. Theoretically speaking, if you divide 12 months into 1000MHz that comes out to an average increase of 83.25MHz/month in clock speed! And that's just for this year only; if we put Moore's law into perspective, that rate will have to only increase after these first 12 months. I'm not sure what the average increase per month has been from Motorola since they cut their R&D, but I'd have to say that 83.25MHz/month is a very BIG improvement. Thank you IBM and Apple! :D :D :D

[Mr. Anderson]

That's a huge improvement, but don't look at from a MHz point of view, but percentage - basically its getting 50% faster in one year. Still very nice.

I'm wondering if this is also taking into account a smaller fab process....;)

Good things ahead for Apple, that's for sure.

D

[michaelrjohnson]

Exactly. I think the PowerMac is great... however, I am MUCH MUCH more excited about the future. Another Ghz in a year, they already have prototypes of the next processors... It's like were' part of a special club now... a club that can get the newest technology right away. Thanks Apple for ending your relationship with Motorola, thanks IBM for picking up where Motorola left off. This is going to be a BEAUTIFUL partnership... :) :) :)

[jefhatfield]

some on the pc side may be skeptical about apple making the world's fastest personal computer

but for sure, apple has the only 64 bit processor for a home based machine on the market! so for once, apple is the leader and innovator after having trailed the pc world for years

but i fear apple's laurels will not last long when the pc world gets the athlon 64 at the end of the year...remember that some of the world's fastest benchmarks are with AMD's current athlon 3000+

so in that regard, apple better have a 3 ghz g5 in 12 months because by then athlon 64 will be above 4 ghz and it will be hard to convice the shopper to buy a 64 bit apple machine at 3 ghz when the pc world will have a 4 ghz+ athlon 64 machine

the only way to convice the average joe that apple has the fastest machine is to have the highest clock speed

for once the 64 bit world of the future for home based computers will be battled out between macs and pcs with athlon 64s...intel will not be in the picture this year

but come 2004, i am sure intel will have a backwards compatible 64 but processor, and in a price range that will compete heavily with IBMs and AMDs desktop home computer offerings

the war is not over yet and we should always expect macs to be faster and faster until we have matched clockspeed, not benchmarks (they are too skewed)

[P-Worm]

Of topic, but...

Hey jethatfield, are you going to change your avatar now that the G5 is out?

P-Worm

[Foxer]

I'll beleive the 3.0 GHZ in 12 months when I see one next June. Until then, I will assume that time tables will slip.

Hope springs eternal, however...

[dynamicd]

Originally posted by Foxer
I'll beleive the 3.0 GHZ in 12 months when I see one next June. Until then, I will assume that time tables will slip.

Hope springs eternal, however...

I think Apple finally has their act together and IBM definitely knows what they're doing. If they make new chips that means more people buy computers which equals more money for apple and IBM.

[trebblekicked]

Originally posted by Mr. Anderson
That's a huge improvement, but don't look at from a MHz point of view, but percentage - basically its getting 50% faster in one year. Still very nice.

I'm wondering if this is also taking into account a smaller fab process....;)

Good things ahead for Apple, that's for sure.

D

i agree; good things!
i rememeber a while back you said you were thinking about buying a rev. a 970. did this roadmap make you think twice?

i'm still holding out for rev b, but i may as well wait for the first speed bumps.

[jefhatfield]

Originally posted by P-Worm
Of topic, but...

Hey jethatfield, are you going to change your avatar now that the G5 is out?

P-Worm

since apple has called the ppc 970/power 4 class of processors from ibm a "G5", i will keep the avatar even though it's actually a modified motorola G4 that Mr. Anderson made up for me and called it the G5

i will change the avatar when apple turns out the "G6" or whatever they decide to call the next generation processor for the high end macs

[Panther 970]

I'm betting that after 12 months the rate of increase in clock speed will double to 166.5MHz/month. This is consistent with Moore's law that clock speeds should double every 18-24 months. If this happens that will put us at 4GHz within 18 months. That would be December 2004 and just in time for Xmas! :D

[iJon]

doesnt apple's xcode allow programmers to convert 32nit to 64bit in a matter of minutes. if so, will the pc have anythign that can compare to this when athlon 64 is out or will all coders have to go through messy code which may not be worth it.

iJon

[MrMacMan]

Well I think if apple claims 1 GHZ increase in A year apple will follow through, mostly because apple doesn't want to dis-appoint.

Apple is serious about the next chip tho.
Since The 980 has already been talked about.

[ouketii]

3 ghz in a year, while amd/intel will be at 4 ghz by end of year...

[adamfilip]

okay in 12 months

we will have a g5 @ 3ghz

a new P4 at lets say 4.1 ghz


so right now we have dual 2ghz g5s which equal 4ghz of crunching power
thats close to the current top of the line p4 at 3.2 ghz

next year we will have dual 3ghz g5's againt a p4 thats at 4.1

so 6ghz vs 4 hmmm sounding better isnt it.

and keep going in

24 montht

new G5 (based on 980 core) running at 4.5ghz x 2 = 9ghz
versus the current p4 (or p5 by then) running at lets say 6ghz


that doesnt sound bad to me

[Sedulous]

Where was it officially stated what clock speed the Athlon 64 will run at?

And since when did Intel make inexpensive high end CPUs?

[edesignuk]

Originally posted by ouketii
3 ghz in a year, while amd/intel will be at 4 ghz by end of year...
You seem to be missing a rather large point...64bit! Yes, Intel will atleast (maybe) be @ 4GHz, but it will still be 32bit. As for AMD being @ 4Ghz, I can't quite see it. They're still only in the upper 2's with the latest 3200+, going up by well over 1GHz in 6 months will be somewhat pushing it.

[reflex]

Originally posted by iJon
doesnt apple's xcode allow programmers to convert 32nit to 64bit in a matter of minutes. if so, will the pc have anythign that can compare to this when athlon 64 is out or will all coders have to go through messy code which may not be worth it.

Converting from 32bit to 64bit can be really easy if you've written your code with that in mind. If you haven't, it can be hell, regardless of help from a conversion tool. I don't think the transition to 64bit will be more difficult or easier on either platform.

[rampel]

IMHO a much more important factor for the overall speed of the machine is: How many apps will be re-coded for 64bit access (including of course the OS itself)

As far as I understand it if you code a certain app for 64 bit access - it will run on a 2Ghz 970 processor at the same speed as a 32 bit app on a (G4) 4Ghz processor

Right or wrong?

[hvfsl]

Originally posted by edesignuk
You seem to be missing a rather large point...64bit! Yes, Intel will atleast (maybe) be @ 4GHz, but it will still be 32bit. As for AMD being @ 4Ghz, I can't quite see it. They're still only in the upper 2's with the latest 3200+, going up by well over 1GHz in 6 months will be somewhat pushing it.

Intel is meant to move to 64bit with the P5 that should be released around Christmas. However the P5 will not be very fast in terms of megahertz, but will be more like other chips; doing more per clock than the P4. The P5 is meant to start at around the 2Ghz mark, but be faster than the P4 3.2Ghz.

[hvfsl]

Originally posted by Sedulous
Where was it officially stated what clock speed the Athlon 64 will run at?


www.tomshardware.com said that the Athlon 64 will start at 1.8Ghz, but be as fast as a 3Ghz P4.

[Bear]

Originally posted by rampel
IMHO a much more important factor for the overall speed of the machine is: How many apps will be re-coded for 64bit access (including of course the OS itself)

As far as I understand it if you code a certain app for 64 bit access - it will run on a 2Ghz 970 processor at the same speed as a 32 bit app on a (G4) 4Ghz processor

Right or wrong? How fast the application runs depends on the actual application. Take something like iChat (text only) it won't get any real speed improvement by being re-coded for 64-bit therefore leaving it as a 32-bit application could save some system resources.

On the other hand, something lik Photoshop which manipulates a large amount of data can get an incredible speed boost by being recoded/recompiled as a 64-bit app.

It all depends on the applcatin and what type of data manipulation it is doing.

In truth, how well 64-bit applications work will depend on how well the code generation and optimization in GCC works for the IBM 970. Generally compilers improve over time, so things that come out of GCC 3.4 will probably be better than the code produced by GCC 3.3. However, the actual benefits of the newer compiler will still be determined by the application being compiled.

[NavyIntel007]

Originally posted by ouketii
3 ghz in a year, while amd/intel will be at 4 ghz by end of year...

I'm not so sure about this. Intel has slown down their pumping out of faster chips. I think they've hit some kind of road block. Earlier this year they came out with the 3.06 GHz P4 and six months later are coming out with the 3.2 GHz P4. The next processor family (especially if it's 64 bit) will probably start out at a lower clock speed so I highly doubt Intel will be at 4 Ghz in a year.

Although there is some debate on the G5's performance against the new Xeons and P4's, it smokes the intel processors at the same clock speed. So all the Doubting Thomas's that say "well intel may be at 4 GHz" need to know that it might not matter anymore.

As for Prescot and Opteron, they both sound like G5 rumors to me... I'll believe the performance when I see it. Because Itanium still isn't what they wanted it to be.

[adamfilip]

i think intel can prob bring out a 4ghz p4 soon if it needed too
but since AMD is so far behind in regards to mhz.. there is no need for intel to push itself when its so far ahead (in mhz) already

its cheaper to sell what they know they can make in higher yields then push up faster chip and lower there yields

[jelloshotsrule]

if the 980 is ready in less than 2 years time.... would apple use it and call it a g6? or would they just call it a g5+ or whatever...? i would imagine it's a big enough deal to change it to g6, but wonder if it's worth it after what appears like it will be a relatively short time....

[rampel]

Excuse me but, what the ∂ does it matter what it will be called?

The important will be what it will be able to do

[jayscheuerle]

Originally posted by Panther 970
This is consistent with Moore's law that clock speeds should double every 18-24 months.

Moore's Law says nothing about clock speeds. It says that transistor density doubles every 18-24 months. There's some correlation there, but they don't necessarily go hand in hand.

Personally, I've grown to take anything Steve says with a grain of salt. He's a salesman and a great storyteller, besides, any G4 tower would be an improvement for me!

[Mr. Anderson]

Originally posted by trebblekicked
i agree; good things!
i rememeber a while back you said you were thinking about buying a rev. a 970. did this roadmap make you think twice?

i'm still holding out for rev b, but i may as well wait for the first speed bumps.

Rev A. might still happen - I've come to find out that I need a faster machine soon - but I won't buy one until they become available and I see how they're actually doing. Probably get one in September.

Besides, I don't want to order one now and then have to worry about when its delevered, what delays Apple will have, etc. I got the rev a. G4 almost 4 years ago and that was a disaster in terms of delivery.

D

[crassusad44]

I belive it's quite possible we'll see a 3GHz G5 in 12 months, or less. Remember, the PPC970 was not meant to go into production until Q3 2003. It was not supposed either to go beyond 1.8 GHz.

I do not think it's impossible that IBM manages to deliver faster chips (maybe even beyond 3 GHz) earlier than the roadmap states...

Time will tell, but this is interessting times indeed.

[jayscheuerle]

Originally posted by crassusad44
Remember, the PPC970 was not meant to go into production until Q3 2003.

Isn't August Q3 2003?

[crassusad44]

Originally posted by jayscheuerle
Isn't August Q3 2003?

Like in production of the processor...
If the PPC970 had gone into production in Q3 2003, we might have seen a G5 Mac released sometime by the end of the year, not announced in June, and shipping in August.

[LimeLite]

I don't know if anyone has brought this up yet...but I bet you that XP is not optimized for 64bit, nor can it be updated easily to be. This means that the soonest that PC's OS could really take advantage of the 64bit processor would be in 2005...right?

[jelloshotsrule]

Originally posted by rampel
Excuse me but, what the ∂ does it matter what it will be called?

The important will be what it will be able to do

Excuse me but, what the &#8706 does it matter if i ask what it will be called?

The important will be that i am just asking a question out of curiousity, and it could affect whether they release a new case, etc

[couch potato]

cool:)

[jefhatfield]

Originally posted by LimeLite
I don't know if anyone has brought this up yet...but I bet you that XP is not optimized for 64bit, nor can it be updated easily to be. This means that the soonest that PC's OS could really take advantage of the 64bit processor would be in 2005...right?

my guess is that there will be a 64 bit optimized windows in golden master by sometime in 2004

AMD has the athlon 64 which is backward compatible with 32 bit apps but the next processor down the line will be only 64 bit and windows will have to be also

we have a jaguar now that is optimized for the 64 bit G5 processor and that's good and i am sure apple had this all planned from way back

right now, mac leads the pack...until AMD gets their new consumer 64 bit processor out and then it's a war again

[Fender2112]

Originally posted by crassusad44
Like in production of the processor...
If the PPC970 had gone into production in Q3 2003, we might have seen a G5 Mac released sometime by the end of the year, not announced in June, and shipping in August.

I think the point is that the G5's will "ship" to customers ahead of the ealier predicted schedule.