Motorola MPC7457 PDF

[MacRumors]

Motorola has posted a PDF (http://e-www.motorola.com/files/32bit/doc/data_sheet/MPC7457EC.pdf) with details of the MPC7457 processor.

The MPC7457 is described as the fourth implementation of the G4 Processor. It's a 32-bit chip with a 512KB L2 cache, and support for 1MB or 2MB of L3 cache.

According to the July, 2003 Motorola document, processors will be coming in at 867MHz, 1.0GHz, and 1.3GHz, with bus frequencies up to 167MHz. This is contrary to previous rumors from The Register (http://www.macrumors.com/pages/2003/06/20030604091755.shtml) that the chip would support a 200MHz bus.

Current Powerbooks sport 133-167MHz buses. Speculation has placed the PPC7457 in the long-awaited Powerbook revisions... but no significant confirmation of this is available.

[DrGonzo]

Sorry folks, this chip sounds lame for how long it's been. Apple might as well reduce the prices on the current powerbooks by a few hundred dollars and just tell us to wait for the smaller die G5s to appear in the powerbooks and stick those 7457's in the ibooks and what not. This is hardly what i would call a worthy update to the current line of g4s. If this chip does indeed make it into the powerbooks, the price better be damn good because imo there's no way they can charge what they charge now for something only SLIGHTLY better.

[IJ Reilly]

If true, what a positively underwhelming development this will be.

[tazznb]

So what advantages (if any) are there to having this new chip?

Seems more like a snowjob.:o

[sharky2313]

wow moto lets us down again, I'm shocked. I agree with the previous posts. Apple should forego the chip entirely and just reduce the price on the books. That would help move units more than these chips:)

[chazmox]

I usually think most readers have their expectations set too high, but here comes Motorola to underwelm again. I am Jack sense of disappointment.

I wouldn't be surprised if the speed they were aiming for was not a bit higher, but the yields failed to materialize.

And 167 MHz bus speed? What are the advantages to this chip? The slightly higher speed? Has Motorola just chosen not to compete at all.

BTW, industry ratings of the top ten semiconductor firms came out today ( not sure what the criteria was ). Mot's been in the top ten since 1959. This is the first time since then they didn't make it...

[snofseth]

It's good news for owners of 12 or 17 pbooks. they will not seem obsolete. It makes me happy with all the hype about this update. Im glad I wont have a reason to get a new 12"

[jaedreth]

Now if they moved these chips to iBooks, then made the following configurations:

PB G4 12" 1GHz

PB G4 15.2" 1.3 GHz
PB G4 15.2" Dual 1GHz

PB G4 17" Dual 1GHz
PB G4 17" Dual 1.3GHz

Now that wouldn't suck. (or at least as much)

Jaedreth

[TWinbrook46636]

So I guess this means MacBidouille was full of it...

[arn]

Originally posted by chazmox


And 167 MHz bus speed? What are the advantages to this chip? The slightly higher speed? Has Motorola just chosen not to compete at all.

Increased L2 Cache (to 512k)

[arn]

Originally posted by TWinbrook46636
So I guess this means MacBidouille was full of it...

regarding which?

arn

[daveL]

This info isn't new, by any means. Moto has stated that the 7457 at 1.3 GHz is 40% faster than the 7455 at 1 GHz. Besides the 30% clock increase, you get another 10% from the doubled L2 cache. I suspect they increased L3 cache size to a max of 2 MB to help overcome the 167 MHz bus speed.

So, you know, 40% is 40% :-) It's not like everyone was expecting performance to double, at least not without a G5. For a speed bump, I don't think it's that lame.

[nicorojas]

I really want to switch, but these specs make it very difficult.

What's the point in waiting, if there's no performance gain. The Cnet test already showed the 17" was no improvement over the Tibook. All thanks to Moto.

I only expect a price drop at least.

... and a G5 pb before 6 months

...

..

.

[edgar_is_good]

Speaking as a complete ignoramus on all issues that end with "Mhz", I thought I recalled some comments previously stating that Apple had overclocked the current G4 bus (maybe 133 to 167 in the current model?) and that to do so again might go from 167 to 200. Did I read this? Was it a dream induced from late-night mexican food?

[nagromme]

Apple HAS already dropped the PowerBook prices. if they keep those low prices, and move from 867/1GHz to 1GHz/1.3, and bring the mainstream 15" model up to spec with Bluetooth, lit keyboard, etc., then I think the PowerBook line will remain a VERY good deal.

But I will still hold out for the G5!

[nazariteguitar]

Apples "Pro-sumer" laptops just are not compedetive any more.
I was searching for a high-end intel machine and I found
an amazingly fast Alianware Area-51 laptop for $3099 with:


Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional
High-Performance Chassis
Pentium® 4 @ 3.06GHz
1024MB DDR SDRAM
ATI Mobility RADEON 9000 128MB DDR
15.0" inch UXGA LCD Screen
60GB 7200 RPM with 8MB Cache

and upgradable to:

CORSAIR 1024MB DDR PC-2100
80GB 4200 RPM ATA100

http://www.alienware.com/system_pages/area-51m.aspx


P.S. Ok I'll be a little fair to Apple, the Aria-51 laptop is huge, heavy, and consumes power like a horse, but for me a pro-sumer laptop should be just that, a very competetive powerful machine.

[daveL]

Originally posted by edgar_is_good
Speaking as a complete ignoramus on all issues that end with "Mhz", I thought I recalled some comments previously stating that Apple had overclocked the current G4 bus (maybe 133 to 167 in the current model?) and that to do so again might go from 167 to 200. Did I read this? Was it a dream induced from late-night mexican food?
I thought I read that somewhere, too, but I never saw anyone verify it with facts/models/numbers.

[DrGonzo]

Originally posted by daveL
This info isn't new, by any means. Moto has stated that the 7457 at 1.3 GHz is 40% faster than the 7455 at 1 GHz. Besides the 30% clock increase, you get another 10% from the doubled L2 cache. I suspect they increased L3 cache size to a max of 2 MB to help overcome the 167 MHz bus speed.

So, you know, 40% is 40% :-) It's not like everyone was expecting performance to double, at least not without a G5. For a speed bump, I don't think it's that lame.

While i don't doubt that a 40% increase isn't possible, I don't think it should have taken this long (and we STILL don't know how long it will take) and that's only a theoretical 40%, we won't know until it actually ships. But here's to optimism. cheers.

[jamilecrire]

Originally posted by nazariteguitar
Apples "Pro-sumer" laptops just are not compedetive any more.
I was searching for a high-end intel machine and I found
an amazingly fast Alianware Area-51 laptop for $3099 with:


Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional
High-Performance Chassis
Pentium® 4 @ 3.06GHz
1024MB DDR SDRAM
ATI Mobility RADEON 9000 128MB DDR
15.0" inch UXGA LCD Screen
60GB 7200 RPM with 8MB Cache

and upgradable to:

CORSAIR 1024MB DDR PC-2100
80GB 4200 RPM ATA100

http://www.alienware.com/system_pages/area-51m.aspx


P.S. Ok I'll be a little fair to Apple, the Aria-51 laptop is huge, heavy, and consumes power like a horse, but for me a pro-sumer laptop should be just that, a very competetive powerful machine.

I've got that beat hands down:
http://www.powernotebooks.com/configurator.php3?regular_model_id=269&model_id=272

Its only $2855 w/ 3 year warranty 17" screen, DVD-R/RW, XP Home (if you want it), etc.

Tell me apple isn't making a killing.

[freundt]

Originally posted by nazariteguitar
Apples "Pro-sumer" laptops just are not compedetive any more.
I was searching for a high-end intel machine and I found
an amazingly fast Alianware Area-51 laptop for $3099 with:


Microsoft® Windows® XP Professional
High-Performance Chassis
Pentium® 4 @ 3.06GHz
1024MB DDR SDRAM
ATI Mobility RADEON 9000 128MB DDR
15.0" inch UXGA LCD Screen
60GB 7200 RPM with 8MB Cache

and upgradable to:

CORSAIR 1024MB DDR PC-2100
80GB 4200 RPM ATA100

http://www.alienware.com/system_pages/area-51m.aspx

P.S. Ok I'll be a little fair to Apple, the Aria-51 laptop is huge, heavy, and consumes power like a horse, but for me a pro-sumer laptop should be just that, a very competetive powerful machine.

Actually Alienware is comming out with a Centrino based laptop very soon. This means it will be smaller, lighter, and have a much better battery life. I read a first take on cnet.com here
http://reviews.cnet.com/Alienware_Area_51m_Sentia/4505-3122_7-30460807.html?tag=pdtl-list

It's one I'm looking to get instead of a powerbook.

_r

and for those of you who do not know alienware, they make some of the best put together PCs out there. They use the best parts, test everything thoroughly, and generally get great reviews on both products and support.

[MattG]

Sometimes I read these forums and think I'm alone in thinking this, but...is anybody out there besides me not really concerned about what processor they put in there? A speed boost certainly wouldn't be a bad thing, however I'd even be happy with just a 1ghz processor like they're using now--I just want it in an aluminum body with a few other features current Powerbooks are lacking, like USB 2.0 for example. Up until a couple months ago I had a 667mhz Powerbook that I was very happy with (in terms of speed). I just want something built better!

:confused:

[cc bcc]

Originally posted by Macrumors
According to the July, 2003 Motorola document, processors will be coming in at 867MHz, 1.0GHz, and 1.3GHz, with bus frequencies up to 167MHz. This is contrary to previous rumors from The Register (http://www.macrumors.com/pages/2003/06/20030604091755.shtml) that the chip would support a 200MHz bus.

1.3 GHz and a 167 MHz FSB is not possible, multipliers of 7.8 don't exist. So it will either be a 1.33 @ 167 or 1.3 @ 200.
The other speeds do match up so I guess it will run at 1.33, and Motorola just rounded it to 1.3. But who knows, a 200 MHz FSB on the top model sounds good.

[Billy_ca]

Maybe Motorola will upgrade the 167 MHz bus to 200 MHz by 2007.

[freundt]

Originally posted by MattG
Sometimes I read these forums and think I'm alone in thinking this, but...is anybody out there besides me not really concerned about what processor they put in there? A speed boost certainly wouldn't be a bad thing, however I'd even be happy with just a 1ghz processor like they're using now--I just want it in an aluminum body with a few other features current Powerbooks are lacking, like USB 2.0 for example. Up until a couple months ago I had a 667mhz Powerbook that I was very happy with (in terms of speed). I just want something built better!

:confused:

For me, it not what I want to do with the computer this year, but two years down the road.

I'm using a two year old hand built athlon 700 mhz box with a tnt 2 graphics card in it as my primary machine at home -- any Apple offering would be a step above that machine at this point.

However, what's the longevity of the hardware? My athlon is woefully outdated. It does some of what I want it to, but there is alot I want to do on it that is difficult, painful, and slow.

If I'm gonna lay out 3k+ for a computer and the software, I want to make sure it is a good investment that will last me 3-4 years. I want to be sure that it will be able to gracefully handle all the tasks I throw at it 1-2 years from now.

that's it.

to me, it's not the present needs but the future needs that are holding me back.

I dunno if that is gonna make sense to everyone, but it makes sense to me.

_f

[Abstract]

I don't see the problem. A 1GHz 7457 will be faster than a current G4 at 1GHz, and will provide a speed boost. If they put a 1.3GHz into the PB's, and the performance does increase by 40% like some have speculated., that will be a great enough increase in performance for most. 40% is a lot..............it is. People look at the G5's difference over the G4 and make their comparisons, but that was extremely exceptional case involving breakthrough technology. This G4 is just an upgraded G4. Its still a G4, but it may provide 40% performance boosts. That would be great for an update.

Originally posted by jamilecrire
I've got that beat hands down:
http://www.powernotebooks.com/configurator.php3?regular_model_id=269&model_id=272

Its only $2855 w/ 3 year warranty 17" screen, DVD-R/RW, XP Home (if you want it), etc.

Tell me apple isn't making a killing.

Sweet-ass!!! Even the standard config is kickin.

[jocknerd]

Motorola has screwed Apple for too long. Lets hope IBM can produce a low power consuming G5 for the notebooks.

[cb911]

i hope this theoretical speed increase of 40% turns out to be true. it's been a long time coming, but perhaps the double L2 and bigger L3 cache will really help. they'd better make a big difference... they're the only things that are different from the 7455.

and since Moto has posted that PDF, does that mean that now the 7457 is in large enought quantities to ship? could we be seeing updated PowerBooks soon?



and MattG, up until a couple of months ago i also had a 667 TiBook. i found it OK in speed, so now i guess i'd be happy with a 1GHz PowerBook, just as long as it had an aluminium case and the features of the 17" (backlit keyboard, blah, blah....)

Apple had better keep the prices where they are. if they go back up and there's no 40% performance increase then it's a second hand 1GHz TiBook for me.

[MattG]

Originally posted by Abstract
I don't see the problem. A 1GHz 7457 will be faster than a current G4 at 1GHz, and will provide a speed boost. If they put a 1.3GHz into the PB's, and the performance does increase by 40% like some have speculated., that will be a great enough increase in performance for most. 40% is a lot..............it is. People look at the G5's difference over the G4 and make their comparisons, but that was extremely exceptional case involving breakthrough technology. This G4 is just an upgraded G4. Its still a G4, but it may provide 40% performance boosts. That would be great for an update. Yes, that would be great for an update. Now just ********** announce it already so I can buy one, Apple!!!!?!?!?!

[freundt]

Originally posted by jocknerd
Motorola has screwed Apple for too long. Lets hope IBM can produce a low power consuming G5 for the notebooks.

Maybe apple hasn't updated the PB for so long is because they are waiting for the g5 themselves.

No pb update till the G5!

Ok, flame on!

_f

[mnb]

There is already a 1.4Ghz G4 chip. I didn't read the PDF, but I'm guessing this new chip is a low power unit suitable for Powerbooks.

We already have an 867 and 1ghz G4 laptop chip, so what's the point of this? The only thing it adds is 1.3Ghz.

A rather minimal speed bump on a platform needing a big speed boost.

Come on Motorola, stop slacking and deliver some SPEED for once.

[insidedanshead]

Originally posted by DrGonzo
Sorry folks, this chip sounds lame for how long it's been. Apple might as well reduce the prices on the current powerbooks by a few hundred dollars and just tell us to wait for the smaller die G5s to appear in the powerbooks and stick those 7457's in the ibooks and what not. This is hardly what i would call a worthy update to the current line of g4s. If this chip does indeed make it into the powerbooks, the price better be damn good because imo there's no way they can charge what they charge now for something only SLIGHTLY better.

perfectly put. no offense but this is just getting ridiculous.. we should boycott pbooks to get apple and IBMs arse on the move to get it over to a G5.. a while back I remember someone saying from apple that their relationship with Moto is still strong.. BOOOOOO.. this is a democracy .. competition... no need to be buddy buddy...give moto the cold shoulder they have done NOTHING good for us in TWO years. Bleh. Makes me sick.

[mymemory]

Originally posted by MattG
Sometimes I read these forums and think I'm alone in thinking this, but...is anybody out there besides me not really concerned about what processor they put in there? A speed boost certainly wouldn't be a bad thing, however I'd even be happy with just a 1ghz processor like they're using now--I just want it in an aluminum body with a few other features current Powerbooks are lacking, like USB 2.0 for example. Up until a couple months ago I had a 667mhz Powerbook that I was very happy with (in terms of speed). I just want something built better!

:confused:

Well, I have a Pweobook G3 500 and I'm fine with the speed, I'm doing heavy video with it but... I would like to get a Powerbook with more power. I'm glad my biggest concern is video ram more than processor. The real spped of a computer is when you add all the ram that you can. Now I would like to have a 12" Powerbook with everything in it but I feel upset of the lack of speed Powerbooks are suffering.

My best bet is to wait for the next line and get the obsolet line for less, may be $500 less.

[isgoed]

I have just this remark:

The new G4 will be 0.13-micron compared to the 0.18 micron of the old G4. (PDF Page 10)

That is why I think this is a positive development. At the time of speaking not a single other manufacturer has a 0.09-micron chip.

[esome]

I agree with the optimists here that any update will be a good one and chips at 1.33GHz with double the cache would be great even if the bus still lags at 167MHz and the update is LONG over-due.

I'm in the camp that says "I need to buy a laptop right now". So, unless Apple can throw us a bone - that would ship before Sept. 1 - I'm going to have to settle for one of the curent models. Very frustrating. :-(

[Freg3000]

Two things.

First off, isn't it true that Apple has 1.42 Ghz G4 chips from Motorola, although they claim on their website that it only goes up to 1.2 GHz (or possible 1 Ghz)? So just because they are only admitting to 1.3 GHz doesn't mean Apple can get some at 1.5 let's say.

Secondly, I though both caches were to double. while it has not been available on the PowerBooks, 2 MB of L3 cache has been on the PowerMacs for quite some time now. Shouldn't this chip have up to 4 MB of L3 cache? Maybe I just misread that, and only the L2 cache was to be doubled.

In either event, pretty weak Moto. :(

[Booga]

I think it's somewhat appropriate that this information came out on the same day that Motorola dropped off the top-10 chip manufacturer list for the first time in its corporate history dating back decades. Still, it'll be a nice little boost for the low end and if they've reduced costs, could lead to slightly better margins for Apple.

[Capt Underpants]

I'm so ready for ANY upgrade that it is ok if they don't have a higher bus speed. All I want is an upgrade. Apple, will you please give me one?

[solvs]

I dunno, looks okay to me.

1 GHz 12" and 15". 1.33 GHz 15" and 17". 166 MHz FSB. DDR 333. Up to 2 MB cache. Up to 80 GB HDDs. Faster Combo and Super drives. Better video card. Hopefully USB 2, FW800, BT, Airport Extreme, audio in/out. Keep 'em at the same prices or lower and it doesn't seem that bad. Not that great, but not horrible. Better than a Centrino with XP.

So far I've been unimpressed with anything on the Windows Laptop side, except IBMs. Still not that great. Sony's weren't that great either IMO, and my StepMom's Dell is terrible.

I'd get a 12" if it were just a little better. Like 2 user accessable DIMM slots, among other things. As long as the new ones aren't 867 MHz.

Too bad they won't be out until late Sept.

[Powerbook G5]

The anticipation for a new 15" PowerBook is driving me crazy. Granted, I have been using my Lombard G3 series Powerbook since the day it came out in '99, and it still works considerably well and it is mighty fast (in OS 9... in OS X it is slower than a 3 legged dog on crack, causing me to basically run in OS 9 exclusively to get any real work done) My dad said he'll help me buy a new laptop before I go back to school this September, but if it doesn't happen in the next two weeks or so, it'll be all but hopeless. I know the Ti would work fine, but I never really liked the design as much as my G3 and definitely not nearly as much as the new case design, plus a faster Airport, faster HD, built in bluetooth, and rumored light up keyboard of the 17" are just too many small things that add up to make it worth settling on an outdated 15". Here's hoping for the updated PowerBooks soon, because I sure would love to jump into OS X in full force on a new 15" AlBook before I go back to college. I'm about two inches away from getting on my knees in front of Apple headquarters and begging/offering my firstborn.

[ThomasJefferson]

G4? Sing all together now, "Lets do the time warp again ..."
Looks like my money will stay in my pocket.

[Phil Of Mac]

This should suffice until the G5 makes it into PowerBooks next year. (And it will be next year, or at least quite a while, Apple said so themselves).

[neutrino23]

I'm happy with this. I just want it to ship. Yes, a G5 would be fantastic but it is not ready yet. Think September 2004.

Once this comes out it will be the fastest Powerbook Apple ever shipped. More important to me, the overall feature set and integration of the PowerBook will be killer. A brighter, clearer screen, Airport Extreme, improved airport reception, backlit keyboard, bluetooth, better GPU, better battery life (presumably), maybe even a tad lighter. Having all these features in a small package and having them work harmoniously and reliably is more important to me than raw speed.

I would like a faster CPU than this for bragging rights but honestly, for all the applications I run this will be fast enough.

Possible exception will be Virtual PC 6 which I need to run our in-house proprietary app. However, that already runs so-so on an 867 QS. Should be great on this new PowerBook.

Not only that, various rumor sites are saying that Panther will be appreciably faster than Jaguar. A speed-bump in a CD. This is a great time to be using a Mac. I don't understand all the doom and gloom.

Now, if Apple would only ship the darn thing. I'm budgeted and ready to buy.

Off Topic:
Anyone else going to the opening of the Burlingame store Saturday morning?

[AstroPlain]

Here's a quick comparison of the low-power lines:

PPC7447 - new:
1.3 GHz
True DDR RAM support
2 MB L3 cache
130 nanometer, 9-layer CMOS
58 Million transistors
98.28 mm2
1.3 V Core power

PPC7450/7451 - current:
1.0 GHz
No true DDR RAM support
2 MB L3 cache
180 nanometer, 6-layer CMOS
33 Million transistors
106 mm2
1.6 V Core power

I think it's a pretty nice upgrade. It's no G5, but I could see this nearly doubling the speed of the current lineup.

[Mr. MacPhisto]

I disagree that Apple should not use the chip. It is a die reduction to .13 micron and will be more energy efficient, causing less heat on the PBs and longerlife. It is also supposed to be 40% cheaper, so that could allow for good price cuts across the board.

[vollspacken]

Moto-who???

:rolleyes: I wonder how many years it will take them to completly ruin their semiconductor dep. beyond any chance of recovery..!

...well, they are doing their best to achive that goal. the downside of the story is the fact that this behavior affects Apple too...

grrrrrrrr :mad:

let's hope that IBM pulls the "mystery/phantom G3+altivec"-processor (which probably doesn't exist anyway) out of the hat so that Apple has a chip alternative for the sub-powermac lines

vSpacken

[wizard]

While I can't completely disagree with you with respect to a 40% increase that value has to be taken into context with a rather slow ramp in Power Book performance. I don't believe that the 970 yet has a place in a laptop, to this end a 7457 running at a speed of 1.6 GHz would have been much more desirable. Sure it is a long ways away from the G5 performance wise but I really was hoping that it was doable. We can only hope that Apple has some chips being speced for them at higher frequencies. It is not like that hasn't happened before.

What really has my interest though is the 36 bit addressing, I'm wondering if this is compatable with the way Saemgol and Panther as suspected to be managing memory? Any MMU experts out there? What I would love more than anything is for the low cost lines to have expansion capabilities beyond the 2 & 4 gigByte limits. I have it in my mind that this would be doable easily by apple. Yes I realize that a PROCESS would be limited to 4GB of memory. Thats not a bad thing and is better than trying to force programs and data into the small memory footprints of the machines.

Just a thought.

Dave


Originally posted by Abstract
I don't see the problem. A 1GHz 7457 will be faster than a current G4 at 1GHz, and will provide a speed boost. If they put a 1.3GHz into the PB's, and the performance does increase by 40% like some have speculated., that will be a great enough increase in performance for most. 40% is a lot..............it is. People look at the G5's difference over the G4 and make their comparisons, but that was extremely exceptional case involving breakthrough technology. This G4 is just an upgraded G4. Its still a G4, but it may provide 40% performance boosts. That would be great for an update.



Sweet-ass!!! Even the standard config is kickin.

[e-coli]

WOW!!!!!!!

A brand new slow-as-hell chip with outdated technology and miserable bus speeds!!!!!!!!!

:rolleyes:

PPC7447 - new:
1.3 GHz
True DDR RAM support
2 MB L3 cache
130 nanometer, 9-layer CMOS
58 Million transistors
98.28 mm2
1.3 V Core power



Correct me if I'm wrong, but these "new" G4's do NOT support true DDR.

[Phil Of Mac]

Why don't we have IBM manufacturing these? At the very least manufacturing them, although it would be nice if IBM could get design revision rights as well. It would give IBM more production work to use its new facility for (helping them there), while at the same time helping Apple and getting an unwanted product off of Motorola's hands!

What does Motorola do well nowadays anyway? Are they dying or what?

[wizard]

I'm reading through the specs and it is clearly stating 15.8 watts @ 1GHz and 18.7 @ 1.3 GHz typical. Max wattage is higher still.

Do these numbers strike anyone as still not being a significant improvement? Lets face it who wants a twenty watt light bulb sitting on their lap.

What I've seen so far is indicating a die shrink with very minor tweaks. This is terrible, should have happened a year ago. Maybe I'm to demanding but power usages has to be considered important to some.

Thanks
Dave

[Gyroscope]

C'mon people i really don't see what's so bad about this update.

This new G4 could actually be ok for PowerBook and i,eMac updates.

Although Motorola lists 1.3 Ghz as a max speed there is also another line of G4's that is sold to Apple (XC model numbers) and these are usually clocked higher. Thats why Apple was selling 1.45 Ghz PM while Motorola web site would lists max clock speeds around 1GHz. I'm positive that G4 XC could go as high as 1.6 Ghz. Of course i dont know what amont of heat this cpu would generate and if it would be suitable for PB,but it would go nicely into new consumer boxes ala iMac. Doubling amount of L2 cache is also an improvement and it really speeds up things particulary on G4/G3 architecture. It could be said that bus speed is the weakest link in G4 family of cpu's and this cpu doesn't do much to change it. Yeah measly 33 mhz increase won't do miracles but it can be offset by larger amount of L3 cache as someone previously has mentioned here. There's also that infamous Apple system controler :) with its few tricks to speed up things little further.

All in all seems like a decent update until IBM comes up with lower power (cooler) G5's.

[wizard]

Hi Gyro;

For the IMac / EMAC or even the Ibook this would have been an excellent upgrade a few months ago, now it is a matter of ho hum. On the PowerBooks it is to little to lat.

While I don't expect the PowerBook to match the G5 Power Mac I do espect it to come close. !.3 GHz is a little far from the 970 based machines for the price charged on these units.

Thanks
Dave


Originally posted by Gyroscope
C'mon people i really don't see what's so bad about this update.

This new G4 could actually be ok for PowerBook and i,eMac updates.

Although Motorola lists 1.3 Ghz as a max speed there is also another line of G4's that is sold to Apple (XC model numbers) and these are usually clocked higher. Thats why Apple was selling 1.45 Ghz PM while Motorola web site would lists max clock speeds around 1GHz. I'm positive that G4 XC could go as high as 1.6 Ghz. Of course i dont know what amont of heat this cpu would generate and if it would be suitable for PB,but it would go nicely into new consumer boxes ala iMac. Doubling amount of L2 cache is also an improvement and it really speeds up things particulary on G4/G3 architecture. It could be said that bus speed is the weakest link in G4 family of cpu's and this cpu doesn't do much to change it. Yeah measly 33 mhz increase won't do miracles but it can be offset by larger amount of L3 cache as someone previously has mentioned here. There's also that infamous Apple system controler :) with its few tricks to speed up things little further.

All in all seems like a decent update until IBM comes up with lower power (cooler) G5's.

[avus]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but these "new" G4's do NOT support true DDR.

I already knew that the 7447/7457 would not support DDR but only the "proposal" 7457-RM would, from this roadmap that was posted at MacObserver 10 months ago.

http://www.macobserver.com/images/news/2002/20021022moto/roadmap.jpg

I haven't heard about this "RM" varient of the 7457 since this report, and there are two chances that Motorola would deliever this chip - slim and none.

[Puppies]

What's the big deal? Isn't this what we were expecting? We already knew the 7457 is just a minor bump. And how cares? It's still a pretty decent upgrade.

Combine a 40% faster chip with a 200-400% faster GPU, and you've got quite a nice upgrade by any standards.

Yeah, Motorolla has become totally pathetic as a chip designer...but that's probably just because they can't afford it anymore. We're MASSIVLY behind where the G4 was supposed to be. I mean we were s upposed to get something massivly better than the 7457 TWO YEARS ago. But even still, it's a solid chip, and I'm still drooling over the new PowerBooks.

Now where the heck are they?

EDIT: As for these "20 watt toaster" comments. Excuse me? A G4 drawing 18 watts is still a far cry from a Pentium 4 M which can draw as much as 75 watts.

The G3 is the second best mobile chip on the market from a power/performance ratio standpoint-yes, it's better than the Pentium-M. But come one, do any of you actually want a 750FX over a 7457?

[AstroPlain]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but these "new" G4's do NOT support true DDR.

Hmm...maybe Motorola does suck THAT MUCH! You would think that throwing some $$ and a few years at them would lead to something good, but I fail to see it. Last good thing? AltiVec, 1998. And that put off IBM (probably the only reason for any innovation at Somerset) for 4 years.

Still, having this in a PowerBook should be a good thing, and the 7457 will surely be in the iMacs right away. Maybe as fast as 1.5 GHz, if Apple can squeeze some performance out of them.

[Aciddan]

Originally posted by Puppies
EDIT: As for these "20 watt toaster" comments. Excuse me? A G4 drawing 18 watts is still a far cry from a Pentium 4 M which can draw as much as 75 watts.


This is what I don't get:- we all talk about how hot the G5 is, but it's still a darn site less than what is thrown into PC laptops (they even throw in 3GHz desktop chips in some of the power models for petes sake!)

I'd just go 'bugger it' and hold off on releasing new powerbooks until a G5 could be put in one - so what if it produces more heat than a G3 or G4 - these are POWERbooks - it would still not be as toasty as a wintel lappy...

edit: I should qualify the last statement with saying - using current G5s and waiting until September.

G4: move on, nothing to see here. I thought we were waiting for a prosumer update...

-- Dan :(

[DrGonzo]

What I want to know is how some of you can say these 7457's will actually be CHEAPER when the reported yield of these chips is only at a 20% success rate. 80% seems like a LOT of wasted silicon. Maybe that other 80% can be used in lower clocked chips, but still...

[cuneglasus]

I'm not sure what the fuss is about,this is a minor change to a pdf document that I downloaded a couple of months ago.As usual some are jumping at some wrong conclusions.First the notion that the 7457 would support a 200 fsb is not a rumor it is clearly stated on this document several times.

http://e-www.motorola.com/files/32bit/doc/fact_sheet/PPCSALESFACT.pdf

Remember this info is mainly for their embedded customers.Apple was useing a 167 fsb 7455 for quite a while before any online document said anything about it.So they could certainly use a 200 fsb if they chose.Not that there would be a huge difference in performance.I see a lot of silly ideas about bus speeds on these forums,sepecially in regards to DDr and its performance benefits.

Similarly the 1.3 ghz maximum speed is misleading.The documents only cover the L and N versions while apple uses the P versions with higher core voltages.The 7455 low voltage cores topped out at around 1 ghz while apple and several upgrade card venders were useing parts clocked at over 40% higher (one upgrade card can do 1467 mhz).And no these are not overclocked for heavens sake (now there was a rumor/whopper)!So parts at the 1.7 to 1.8 range are not unlikely,the problem is since apple wont be useing them in the towers anymore they are not likely to go with P versions,but will use the lower voltage cores for the powerbook.This is good news for the upgrade card makers though.Hopefully some 7457 upgrades will apear very soon.

[raschild]

I keep getting happier and happier that Apple has started to part with Moto. Their development of the G4 has all but stopped.

[tdewey]

Whether I buy a new 15 or 15.4" pb assuming it has this new chip in it depends more on the GPU than the CPU speed. I would buy a 1.0Ghz or 1.3Ghz Al PB if it has the new Radeon Mobility 9600 or 9600Pro in it. There are more things than the CPU these days.

On the other hand, if Apple ships a G5 pb in say Feb 2004 with an old GPU I wouldnt buy that.

[vniow]

Originally posted by cuneglasus
As usual some are jumping at some wrong conclusions.First the notion that the 7457 would support a 200 fsb is not a rumor it is clearly stated on this document several times.

That PDF also says: (7457 shipping date) 7457-1.3 GHz (Feb. 2003).

and

(Typical power consumption) 7.5W @ 1.0GHz (est)

When the shipping date is actually in Q3 2003 and the new updated PDF lists the typical power consumption at 1.0ghz is:


15.8W

[cuneglasus]

Originally posted by vniow
That PDF also says:

and



When the shipping date is actually in Q3 2003 and the new updated PDF lists the typical power consumption at 1.0ghz is:

And the point being that a 200 mhz bus was considered and could still make its way into a shipping 7457.We just dont know.Remember its not much of a deal.A 200 mhz bus would have the same architecture as the 167,it would just support a higher frequency.

I have to wonder about those power useages.On the 7455 pdf it lists the typical useage of a 1 ghz part as 15 watts,lower than the 7457 at the same frequency.Even with a larger level two cache this seems wrong as the 7457 is made on a smaller process.The figures must be based on different conditions or something.
The 1.3 part is listed at 18.7 watts which is only about 18% or so higher for a 30% frequency increase.This one would be a good bet for the powerbook.

[ddtlm]

wizard:

Yeah I saw those power numbers too. Those are way higher than what I've seen before, I'm dissapointed. If those numbers are right than Moto is behind the Pentium M on watts per clock cycle, not to mention the number of clock cycles. Eek! That said, I think I'll still get some 7457's for my Quicksilver when they appear on the market.

Puppies:

As for these "20 watt toaster" comments. Excuse me? A G4 drawing 18 watts is still a far cry from a Pentium 4 M which can draw as much as 75 watts.
Thats a power figure from a desktop P4, not a P4-M, let alone a P-M.

The G3 is the second best mobile chip on the market from a power/performance ratio standpoint-yes, it's better than the Pentium-M.
How do you figure? The P-M's use/dissipate no more than 7W at 1ghz. (See page 72 of this PDF: http://www.intel.com/design/mobile/datashts/252612.htm?iid=ipp_dlc_procpmp+info_datasheet& .) The G3 is low power for sure, and not a bad processor at all, but I would bet on the P-M being faster per clock, aided by the 400mhz FSB and 1MB L2.

[ddtlm]

cuneglasus:

The 1.3 part is listed at 18.7 watts which is only about 18% or so higher for a 30% frequency increase.This one would be a good bet for the powerbook.
Dunno how Moto got those figures, but "true" peak power usage must scale at least as fast as clock speed (assuming nothing really strange was done with the voltage). Of course there are "untrue" types of peak power usage trickery, such as what Intel does with the P-M, where they will throttle the processor to keep it within boundaries they define, but I strongly suspect Moto is not doing that since its (apparently) pretty tricky.

[beloit08]

This is just sad. How can Apple continue to tout their PowerBooks as the wonderful pro machines they're supposed to be when Moto keeps pumping out junk like this? Sure, the speed bump will be nice. Sure, a slightly larger FSB will be welcome. But this is seriously getting into a situation where Moto's become the speed regulator on Apple's rental car of innovation. I think it might be time to move on and let Moto die a quiet, sad little death.

[excalibur313]

I don't understand why people are getting so mad about this. I'm very happy that apple is releasing a powerbook with up to a 40% boost in actual speed over the 1 ghz. For too long people have lived by the myth that going from a 1 ghz to a 2 ghz will double the speed of programs on your computer. In most cases the difference isn't as much as one would think and I think that a chip which boosts performace 40% is pretty big news. I know that no amount of money would cause me to go to a pc and I know that most of you in this forum feel the same way. Who cares if it is twice as fast if it crashes and has all of the other problems associated with windows to go along with it? Macs are classy, run fast and even a 1.3 would run almost everything as fast as you'd want. I realize that probably the people complaining are those using maya and such programs but if you really need lots of speed even a 200mhz bus won't speed it up enough to really matter in the long run and if thats the case go buy a dual 2ghz g5. That will smoke the pants off of any laptop

[cuneglasus]

Originally posted by ddtlm
cuneglasus:


Dunno how Moto got those figures, but "true" peak power usage must scale at least as fast as clock speed (assuming nothing really strange was done with the voltage). Of course there are "untrue" types of peak power usage trickery, such as what Intel does with the P-M, where they will throttle the processor to keep it within boundaries they define, but I strongly suspect Moto is not doing that since its (apparently) pretty tricky.

The real problem is probably that the figure they give for the 1 ghz part is wrong for some reason-too high. Dont place a lot a faith on things you see on the web,even if it is an "official" document.Mistakes are easy to make.

[Apple //e]

Originally posted by excalibur313
I don't understand why people are getting so mad about this. I'm very happy that apple is releasing a powerbook with up to a 40% boost in actual speed over the 1 ghz. For too long people have lived by the myth that going from a 1 ghz to a 2 ghz will double the speed of programs on your computer. In most cases the difference isn't as much as one would think and I think that a chip which boosts performace 40% is pretty big news. I know that no amount of money would cause me to go to a pc and I know that most of you in this forum feel the same way. Who cares if it is twice as fast if it crashes and has all of the other problems associated with windows to go along with it? Macs are classy, run fast and even a 1.3 would run almost everything as fast as you'd want. I realize that probably the people complaining are those using maya and such programs but if you really need lots of speed even a 200mhz bus won't speed it up enough to really matter in the long run and if thats the case go buy a dual 2ghz g5. That will smoke the pants off of any laptop


you are apple marketing´s dream come true.

the current g4s are still waaaay faster than the pentium 4 arent they? just imagine a 40% increase. wow

[spice weasel]

Wow, it only took Moto the better part of a year to come out with a chip that should have been put into the powerbook line back in January. Not too bad for a company that has recently fallen off the top-ten list.

The 1.3 GHz version aside, all Moto did was increase the L2 and L3 cache. How can they take so long to release a new chip, and come out with clock speeds of 867 MHz and 1 GHz -- we already have those now. Adding/doubling cache is not a real breakthrough.

The question I have is, will Apple again stick the low end 867 MHz in the 12" powerbook again? Yes double the L2 and the addition of L3 will be nice, but come on now. But despite my major dissapointment at reading the 7457 specs, I'd gladly order me up a new 12"-er if Apple would just release the new powerbooks already!!! Hell, the TiBook should have been remodeled back in January, and the 12" should have never shipped with a measly 128 megs of on-board RAM and no L3 (not to mention a crappy L2).

Moto, stick the two low-end 7457's in a cell phone or something, and give us some real breakthroughs. But I guess we can't really expect more from them, can we? After all, their slogan is "If it's over budget, behind schedule, and below expectations, it's gotta be Motorola." Apple should have dumped them back when they screwed up on the first generation of G4s.

[inkswamp]

Originally posted by e-coli
WOW!!!!!!!

A brand new slow-as-hell chip with outdated technology and miserable bus speeds!!!!!!!!!

Cool... just the thing to run 9.2.2!

:D

[DrGonzo]

Originally posted by excalibur313
I realize that probably the people complaining are those using maya and such programs but if you really need lots of speed even a 200mhz bus won't speed it up enough to really matter in the long run and if thats the case go buy a dual 2ghz g5. That will smoke the pants off of any laptop

Of course any modern desktop will "smoke the pants off of any laptop" because it's a desktop. Most people are "complaining" about the fact that the new updates to the powerbook line aren't really updates at this point, they're more like a really stale interim stage until the g5 or whatever new fast chip comes out. Until we see such afformentioned 40% speed improvements over the current 15" tibook i think most of this community remains quite skeptical (if they do infact release a 7457 g4 in the powerbooks). YOu seem so certain that they'll definately release a 7457 in the powerbooks as well. Apple //e said it best that you indeed are a marketing dream come true to them.

[Phinius]

Originally posted by avus
I already knew that the 7447/7457 would not support DDR but only the "proposal" 7457-RM would, from this roadmap that was posted at MacObserver 10 months ago.

Judging by the speed improvements over the 7457, the 7457-RM seems to have been proposed for a smaller process size. Motorola has announced that a dual-cpu G4 on a chip will be made. So, that would probably be a dual-cpu G4 chip that can run as high as 2.4 GHz in the second half of 2004. Double data rate buss speeds and onboard controller are also in the works for the 7457-RM.

I haven't heard about this "RM" varient of the 7457 since this report, and there are two chances that Motorola would deliever this chip - slim and none.

The odds are very good that Motorola will produce this chip in the second half of 2004. Motorola is now a partner with two other chip manufacturers, so the rate of improvements through process shrinks should pickup considerably.

[Phil Of Mac]

Originally posted by Phinius


Judging by the speed improvements over the 7457, the 7457-RM seems to have been proposed for a smaller process size. Motorola has announced that a dual-cpu G4 on a chip will be made. So, that would probably be a dual-cpu G4 chip that can run as high as 2.4 GHz in the second half of 2004. Double data rate buss speeds and onboard controller are also in the works for the 7457-RM.

The odds are very good that Motorola will produce this chip in the second half of 2004. Motorola is now a partner with two other chip manufacturers, so the rate of improvements through process shrinks should pickup considerably. [/B]

Who will be buying a G4 in the second half of 2004?

That's right.

[Analog Kid]

Far as I can tell, the news here is this:

Mot hit .13µm
L2 cache doubled

Not sure what else people expected-- it's a G4. Still a G4 even after a shrink... Maybe DDR could have been expected, but ya'll must've thought the core would stay pretty much the same.

I'm relatively new to these boards-- did people do this much whining about the G3 once the G4 came out?

I think 1.3GHz is the fastest to expect in this spin of PB. The overclocking is done in the desktops because the power change is disproportionate to the performance change.

The L3 chache hasn't really changed. The 4MB mode where half is cache and half is "private memory" is targeted at the embedded folk.

Where's the power going, that's my question? A 20% power drop seems like less than I'd have expected-- especially since we're comparing the "pushed" version of the 7455 with the low end of the 7457 line... Is it all going into the extra L2 cache?

Guess that would make sense if the transistor counts someone posted are accurate: 60% increase in transistor count and most of it must be the cache (nothing else really changed)...

Aside from having slipped their release, it seems like about the right part to be next in line.

Not sure where the 40% performance boost is going to come from-- it's not 30% clock and 10% cache as was suggested... Performance doesn't scale with clock like that. Might be 10% clock and 30% cache...

If that's accurate it matches the expected curve-- doubling every 18 months. We're 9 months since the last update and are looking at a 40% boost. 'Nother 9 months and another 40% would hit the typical marketing curve. 9 months after that might be time for a discontinuity.


No point in comparing this against a 3GHz P4 laptop-- I don't see the point in a laptop I can't put in my lap, can't fit in my backpack, and have to plug in.

To those that keep repeating that Mot has dropped off the "top 10"-- that's a ranking of semiconductor sales. They're still ahead of IBM on that table so it clearly doesn't serve the point you're trying to make.

(I also call BS on the 20% yield numbers...)

[macphoria]

Looks like next PowerBook revision will be:

12" PowerBook 1GHz G4
15" & 17" PowerBook 1.3 GHz G4

[Analog Kid]

Originally posted by insidedanshead
perfectly put. no offense but this is just getting ridiculous.. we should boycott pbooks to get apple and IBMs arse on the move to get it over to a G5.. a while back I remember someone saying from apple that their relationship with Moto is still strong.. BOOOOOO.. this is a democracy .. competition... no need to be buddy buddy...give moto the cold shoulder they have done NOTHING good for us in TWO years. Bleh. Makes me sick.

Uh, really dumb question here but: how are you going to encourage competition if you're single sourced ?

Much better to have two companies leap-frogging each other...

[hasapi]

Actually, alot of people are missing the point, this is a great chip at least for the iBooks and maybe the iMacs, and Ill explain later. The 7457 dissipates around 10W @ 1GHz, so for 32bit consumer range its perfect. The only problem with the G4 and most likley Moto, is whether they feel compelled to push the chip to 2GHz within 6 months, and beyond. The iMacs would be great at this speed with this chip.

I suspect that Moto business in imbedded processors would adversely affect our/Apple's desire for faster cpus. In fact, I predict that Apple already knows this along with their roadmap "cough" and will introduce IBM chips across the entire range in the near term.

Importantly, back to the present, I would object to a minor pathetic speed bump in 12 months on the powerbook 15", a 1.2G 19W 970 is preferred. But realistically untimely. :o

[Invizzible]

Maybe I just don't know enough about it, but since my 3 1/2 year old Powermac G4 400Mhz has a 1MB L2 cache, I'm wondering why a 512 k L2 cache on the upcoming G4 processor is all they can manage?? I realize that my 400Mhz machine has no L3 cache, but regardless of that shouldn't the L2 cache be bigger by now?? Or at LEAST as big as what they were making almost 4 years ago?

[avus]

Originally posted by Analog Kid
Uh, really dumb question here but: how are you going to encourage competition if you're single sourced ?

Much better to have two companies leap-frogging each other...

No, it isn't dumb, your thinking is correct in normal business sense. However, we are talking about Motorola here, and we can't associate the term "leap-frogging" with them :rolleyes:

[Analog Kid]

Originally posted by avus
No, it isn't dumb, your thinking is correct in normal business sense. However, we are talking about Motorola here, and we can't associate the term "leap-frogging" with them :rolleyes:

:D :D

Allright, I think that's the first time I've actually started laughing reading these forums...

Such a shame though, isn't it?

Mot used to be a pretty good company, and then they got poisoned by the cellular market and selling chips into routers. They spun off their commodity chip buisness (On?) and everyone started running around with new buisness models and I think they lost a lot of talent.

I was given a product roadmap presentation by Mot a couple years ago (embedded stuff mainly) and my heart just sank through that whole meeting. It was clear they'd lost all focus.

Popped my head into my boss' office afterwards and just said "If you own Motorola stock: SELL!"

Then there was talk of selling their semiconductor sector to STMicro...

One of two things is going to happen: either they're going to ride the cell phone thing into the ground or someone is going to wake up and remember what kind of company they used to be: diverse.

They still have a little bit of promise left in the embedded market, and frankly I think those are the kinds of skills you need to build a good mobile processor. I don't think they can compete with IBM in the top end stuff, at least not for a few years, but there's potential for them to put together some kickin' little mobile processors.

If the rumors are true of dual core G4s, they might just turn out to be perfect for a Powerbook. It might turn out that G5 Powerbooks aren't the way to go at all...

Or they may go the way of Westinghouse.

Talk about tragedies...

[Analog Kid]

Originally posted by hasapi
Actually, alot of people are missing the point, this is a great chip at least for the iBooks and maybe the iMacs, and Ill explain later. The 7457 dissipates around 10W @ 1GHz, so for 32bit consumer range its perfect.
...
Importantly, back to the present, I would object to a minor pathetic speed bump in 12 months on the powerbook 15", a 1.2G 19W 970 is preferred. But realistically untimely. :o

Not sure where you're getting the G4 power numbers... The PDF says 15.8W typ for 1GHz.

I think your point is valid though-- it's not a bad processor for those markets at all.

I'm going to continue my campaign of reminding people that you can't take the G5 power in isolation-- you have to look at the system.

External bus is running 6 times as fast (3x clock, DDR) and twice as wide. Fast system memory, at least twice as wide (is the G4 memory 32 or 64bit to the bridge?). System controller supporting all that.

I don't get the sense that the G5 is going to scale down as well. There's no L3 cache support, so as soon as you narrow the pipe to system memory you're going to starve the CPU (the G5 has more bandwidth to system RAM than the G4 has to it's L3 cache!).

It'll be interesting to see what happens-- does Apple cave to the irrational desire of the market to see the label G5 on a Powerbook, or do they continue building machines that make the most sense?

My thought: go with a dual core G4 in a portable. You can idle one of those CPUs most of the time, but kick it in when the machine has real work to do. Everything is on one die, so it'll be much lower power than a two chip solution.

[panphage]

Originally posted by spice weasel
Apple should have dumped them back when they screwed up on the first generation of G4s.

Motorolla has been holding apple back with slipping delivery dates since the 68xxx days. Allow me to quote my new favorite book, _Insanely_Great_ (which everyone should run out, purchase, and read. It really shows you that apple made all their mistakes a long time ago and are just trying to dig their way out of a hole they should never have been in. If just one of the many huge mistakes had been avoided, apple would rule the computer universe.) "the first chips were scheduled to arrive in Cupertino in less than a year. Jack McHenry and his Cognac team were skeptical. After all, there had been all sorts of deadline problems with Motorola, Apple's chip provider in the past" (297). This quote is from 1994. :eek:

[Sun Baked]

Originally posted by Analog Kid
Not sure where you're getting the G4 power numbers... The PDF says 15.8W typ for 1GHz.

I think your point is valid though-- it's not a bad processor for those markets at all. The documents have different numbers in several places, most of them were estimates and/or the first run of 7457s.

The current updated numbers are these from the Part Number pdf thingie, which also say they'll be updated 8/2003 ;)

[Brother Mugga]

I don't think this has been covered yet (apologies if I missed it - just joined the thread), but does anyone have any idea how much power a G5 would use at 1.2 and 1.4 Gigs? It's just that 8 or 9 months back, there was much talk of the range being 1.2/1.4/1.6/1.8......and I'm wondering whether that was just tosh or - in la la land, perhaps - they've pumped out some of the low end chips....er, for use in iMacs and Laptops.

Clearly the 1.6+ power consumption makes PowerBook implementation unfeasible (pretty much), but what are the interpolated power values for the lower end G5s?

If they turn out to be in the low 20W region (and I don't have a clue - no information to work on) then, well, it's not altogether unfeasible...?

Just wondering.

Brother Mugga

[O.K.]

Originally posted by nazariteguitar
Apples "Pro-sumer" laptops just are not compedetive any more.
I was searching for a high-end intel machine and I found
an amazingly fast Alianware Area-51 laptop for $3099 with:

P.S. Ok I'll be a little fair to Apple, the Aria-51 laptop is huge, heavy, and consumes power like a horse, but for me a pro-sumer laptop should be just that, a very competetive powerful machine.

I would like to be fair with you.
You are comparing crap with Apple.

[jacques]

Originally posted by jamilecrire
I've got that beat hands down:
http://www.powernotebooks.com/configurator.php3?regular_model_id=269&model_id=272

Its only $2855 w/ 3 year warranty 17" screen, DVD-R/RW, XP Home (if you want it), etc.

Tell me apple isn't making a killing.

This appears to be essentially the same notebook offered by Pro-star, Hypersonic, and Voodoo. All are made by the same Taiwanese manufacturer that makes at least some of the 17" PBs and all use the exact same screen as the PB. For an Apple price you can get a Voodoo M700 that looks like a million bucks. Of course, it's not an Apple.

jacques

[maxtrax]

I don't quite understand all this about buying a $3100 PC laptop, Jesus... you do realize you have to run Winblows on that thing right?

I don't care if they come out with 1/4 inch thick, 1 pound, 20" 10ghz PC laptop. The fact that you have to run any variant of Windows on it makes it completely useless to me. The fact that you would be supporting MS wholeheartedly by doing so, makes me rather drive my car into a wall.

Using a Mac is an entirely different experience altogether. Just have patience, Apple now is back with IBM, and in due time the speed issues will all be gone across the entire line. The user experience on a PC is so incredibly painful, the speed of the fastest PC's just gets you into that pain that much faster... Plus the Pre-School, Crayola, toy and hobby graphics of XP are intolerable.

My 2 cents.... (sorry if a little OT)

:)

Originally posted by freundt
Actually Alienware is comming out with a Centrino based laptop very soon. This means it will be smaller, lighter, and have a much better battery life. I read a first take on cnet.com here
http://reviews.cnet.com/Alienware_Area_51m_Sentia/4505-3122_7-30460807.html?tag=pdtl-list

It's one I'm looking to get instead of a powerbook.

_r

and for those of you who do not know alienware, they make some of the best put together PCs out there. They use the best parts, test everything thoroughly, and generally get great reviews on both products and support.

[jacques]

Originally posted by maxtrax
I don't quite understand all this about buying a $3100 PC laptop, Jesus... you do realize you have to run Winblows on that thing right?

I don't care if they come out with 1/4 inch thick, 1 pound, 20" 10ghz PC laptop. The fact that you have to run any variant of Windows on it makes it completely useless to me. The fact that you would be supporting MS wholeheartedly by doing so, makes me rather drive my car into a wall.

Using a Mac is an entirely different experience altogether. Just have patience, Apple now is back with IBM, and in due time the speed issues will all be gone across the entire line. The user experience on a PC is so incredibly painful, the speed of the fastest PC's just gets you into that pain that much faster... Plus the Pre-School, Crayola, toy and hobby graphics of XP are intolerable.

My 2 cents.... (sorry if a little OT)

:)

I agree. I think one cannot compare Wintel to Apple, rather one has to contrast them. And I prefer Apple over Wintel even though I have not worked on an Apple in quite some time. I still plan to "switch" but I've decided to take a "wait and see" stance until the new PBs are out. As far as I'm concerned, no one in the Wintel world has a clue about style, whereas Apple IS style.

PS If you do decide to drive your car into a wall, please give me some advance notice...I might be able to sell tickets and the money would help me pay for my new Apple system. Nothing personal...just business. :D

[TWinbrook46636]

Originally posted by arn
regarding which?

arn

The rumor where they stated speeds of something like 1.16Ghz, 1.25 Ghz and 1.33 Ghz despite the fact that the 1.0 Ghz and 1.3 Ghz speeds were (pretty much) known already.

[Puppies]

Maybe I just don't know enough about it, but since my 3 1/2 year old Powermac G4 400Mhz has a 1MB L2 cache, I'm wondering why a 512 k L2 cache on the upcoming G4 processor is all they can manage?? I realize that my 400Mhz machine has no L3 cache, but regardless of that shouldn't the L2 cache be bigger by now?? Or at LEAST as big as what they were making almost 4 years ago?

The PowerPC 7400/7410 chips didn’t have ANY L2 cache. That 1MB cache is external and ran at a fraction of the CPU’s speed, the way the L3 cache used with current G4s does. Around that time on both PowerPC and Intel chips, they started including a full-speed L2 cache on die. The chips would have been too big had they put an entire 512KB or 1MB cache on die (at the time). Since then L2 cache sizes are slowly creeping back up there. Intel’s Northwood Pentium 4 core is back up to 512KB, the Pentium M (which is another 686) is up to 1MB, the PowerPC 750FX is up to 512KB, and now the 7457 is at 512KB as well.

[Phinius]

Originally posted by Phil Of Mac
Who will be buying a G4 in the second half of 2004?

That's right.

Well with a G4 topping out at about 2.4 GHz on a 90-nm process and since Motorola will be putting two cpus on one chip, that would make a single G4 chip computer about twice as fast as a dual 1.42 GHz G4 Power Mac. Since Apple would be able to put two of these dual-cpu G4 chips in a computer, then that would be about 4X faster than a 1.42 GHz G4 Power Mac.

Yal, who would want to buy that? 4X faster? Nay it doesn't say G5 though and we all know 5 is a bigger number than 4 now don't we. Geez...

[Invizzible]

The PowerPC 7400/7410 chips didn’t have ANY L2 cache. That 1MB cache is external and ran at a fraction of the CPU’s speed, the way the L3 cache used with current G4s does....

Ohhhh.....I see. Well, certainly that makes more sense. Too bad they don't have a way to indicate that in the Apple Profiler. I was just going by what it says there. Thanks for the explanation, Puppies.

[Phinius]

Originally posted by wizard
Hi Gyro;

For the IMac / EMAC or even the Ibook this would have been an excellent upgrade a few months ago, now it is a matter of ho hum. On the PowerBooks it is to little to lat.

A internal Motorola document lists the 7457 at a peak frequency of 1.8 GHz. Notice that Apple was able to obtain 7455 G4s that ran at a 42% higher frequency than the 1 GHz topend speed that Motorola lists. So, if you multiply the 7457 G4 1.33 GHz by 142% you get 1.88 or 1.8 GHz.



While I don't expect the PowerBook to match the G5 Power Mac I do espect it to come close. !.3 GHz is a little far from the 970 based machines for the price charged on these units.

Apple could come close to the desktop frequencies for the PowerBooks if they would make a thicker case and a much heavier notebook. The 2 Ghz or 1.8 GHz G5 cannot fit into the current PowerBooks due to the added thickness from the heatsink.

However, Apple may be able to fit a higher frequency G4 than the 1.33 GHz into a notebook. Motorola has a low-k dilectric coating that adds up to a 20% boost in speed without a large bump up in watts used. That would put the G4 frequency up to 1.5 GHz on the same voltage.

[allpar]

Let's do a quick reality check. The current G4 is competitive with current Pentiums in laptops. The new one should icnrease battery life and power. This is GREAT news. For laptops.

[betoranaldi]

Originally posted by allpar
Let's do a quick reality check. The current G4 is competitive with current Pentiums in laptops. The new one should icnrease battery life and power. This is GREAT news. For laptops.

Couldnt have said it better myself... i think people expect way too much from apple, Apple is still very competetive with the current laptop market and this new chip with lower voltages will increase battery live... making an excellent protable!!!

A laptop is not supposed to be a desktop replacement, we will never see a top of the line laptop be equal with a top of the line desktop, it just wont happen

[Phinius]

Originally posted by Sun Baked
The documents have different numbers in several places, most of them were estimates and/or the first run of 7457s.

The confusion is that the 7447 uses 8 watts at 1 GHz and the higher voltage 7457 uses about 50% more watts at that same frequency.

[Analog Kid]

Originally posted by Phinius

The confusion is that the 7447 uses 8 watts at 1 GHz and the higher voltage 7457 uses about 50% more watts at that same frequency. [/B]

No, I think there's a second, older, PDF that's being referenced...

The MPC7457EC.pdf that's referenced by this thread is dated 7/03 and gives 15.8W typ for the 7457.

The older PPCSALESFACT.pdf gives 7.5W but it must have been made early enough that they still thought the parts would be available 2/03.

Can't find the PDF Sun Baked showed, but I'm guessing it's older too, with all the TBDs.

The older PDF gives roughly the same power for the 7447 and 7457 (6.5W at 900MHz vs 7.5W at 1GHz), which makes sense considering the only difference is the external L3 cache which isn't included in the power numbers. Same voltage for both parts (same process...).

It's unfortunate-- the 7457 is coming 6 months later than expected and at twice the power... The delay was probably economy related-- not sure what happened to the power.

Interesting though-- early estimates are half the power and early rumors of 2 CPU laptops...

[Sun Baked]

I was looking at the latest updated numbers 7/2003 for the 1.1V 7457 rev 1.1

The pdf you guys are looking at is for the higher voltage variant of the same revision in the 7457EC.pdf

This was also the problem with the 7455 numbers, revision levels and voltages varied quite a bit in the documentation.

As you go up in core voltage the Watts do go up.

But if you read the chart it does say it will be updated 8/2003 again.

---

Motorola did update more than one document, and these are updates (not new documents).

[Sun Baked]

Originally posted by Analog Kid
Can't find the PDF Sun Baked showed, but I'm guessing it's older too, with all the TBDs.On the MPC 7457 Product Page (http://e-www.motorola.com/webapp/sps/site/prod_summary.jsp?code=MPC7457&nodeId=03C1TR046708718653) there is a document updated on 7/24/2003 called MPC7457 Part Number Specification for the MPC74x7RXnnnnNx Series (http://e-www.motorola.com/files/32bit/doc/data_sheet/MPC7457RXNXPNS.pdf)

Which must be really hard to find since it's right after the 7457EC pdf. :rolleyes:

---

Now you know why I called it the Part Number thingie, I couldn't remember that title off the top of my head. ;)

[Phil Of Mac]

Originally posted by betoranaldi
A laptop is not supposed to be a desktop replacement, we will never see a top of the line laptop be equal with a top of the line desktop, it just wont happen

Oh, it'll happen. When the G5 hits 90 nm :)

[hose this!]

Whoah. A little dose of reality here: Apple has an 8% share of the PC market and even this is SLIPPING.

Let's recall the kind of thinking that got Apple into a lot of trouble not too long ago. Everyone on this board (and Apple!) should remember the time when Apple was so smug about the "computing experience" of their OS that they would charge ungodly premiums on their hardware and fell into complacency around their software AND hardware development. What happened next was people began moving to less attractive OSes because (in no particular order) 1) the hardware platforms offered a LOT more bang per buck and 2) the software being developed for it was more numerous and more up-to-date.

If Apple wants to be a viable computer company that people would be willing to "switch" to, they MUST continually enhance their products so they remain competitive in performance, and then SELL these machines - not lose marketshare like they have been in the last year or so.

Disappointing upgrades (and let's face it: it IS disappointing) won't help matters much. If this is Apple's way of telling consumers to wait another year for them to get their act together, forget about it. The enterprise known as "The Mac" should be about Apple providing consumers with great products, not about customers subsidizing bad business plans (having a single chip supplier, esp. Motorola for so long) and mediocre enhancements.

Oh, and this is coming from somebody who really really wants to switch, but hates the idea of spending $2500 for a PB this year only to have to spend another $2500 when PBs of specs competitive to Wintel machines arrive next year.



Originally posted by maxtrax
I don't quite understand all this about buying a $3100 PC laptop, Jesus... you do realize you have to run Winblows on that thing right?

I don't care if they come out with 1/4 inch thick, 1 pound, 20" 10ghz PC laptop. The fact that you have to run any variant of Windows on it makes it completely useless to me. The fact that you would be supporting MS wholeheartedly by doing so, makes me rather drive my car into a wall.

Using a Mac is an entirely different experience altogether. Just have patience, Apple now is back with IBM, and in due time the speed issues will all be gone across the entire line. The user experience on a PC is so incredibly painful, the speed of the fastest PC's just gets you into that pain that much faster... Plus the Pre-School, Crayola, toy and hobby graphics of XP are intolerable.

My 2 cents.... (sorry if a little OT)

:) :rolleyes:

[Phil Of Mac]

Originally posted by Phinius
Well with a G4 topping out at about 2.4 GHz on a 90-nm process and since Motorola will be putting two cpus on one chip, that would make a single G4 chip computer about twice as fast as a dual 1.42 GHz G4 Power Mac. Since Apple would be able to put two of these dual-cpu G4 chips in a computer, then that would be about 4X faster than a 1.42 GHz G4 Power Mac.

Yal, who would want to buy that? 4X faster? Nay it doesn't say G5 though and we all know 5 is a bigger number than 4 now don't we. Geez...

In the second half of 2004, we're going to have PPC 980's at 90 nm, at frequencies well past 3 GHz, quite possibly 4 if not 5 GHz. Apple will sell these in a dual if not quad processor form. In the meantime, Motorola will slip behind schedule again, so your mythical dual-core 2.4 GHz G4 will arrive in 2005, along with the IBM G6 :)

Stick a fork in Motorola. It's done.

[Analog Kid]

Originally posted by Sun Baked
On the MPC 7457 Product Page (http://e-www.motorola.com/webapp/sps/site/prod_summary.jsp?code=MPC7457&nodeId=03C1TR046708718653) there is a document updated on 7/24/2003 called MPC7457 Part Number Specification for the MPC74x7RXnnnnNx Series (http://e-www.motorola.com/files/32bit/doc/data_sheet/MPC7457RXNXPNS.pdf)

Which must be really hard to find since it's right after the 7457EC pdf. :rolleyes:


Ok that's not fair-- going to primary sources... Jeesh! ;)

Thanks for posting this though-- my world just got a lot rounder. This is much more in line with the power numbers I'd have expected from the process shrink.

Also gives a lot more headroom.

Sorry to make you dig that up again, I should have spent more time at the Mot site.

[Analog Kid]

Originally posted by Phil Of Mac
In the second half of 2004, we're going to have PPC 980's at 90 nm, at frequencies well past 3 GHz, quite possibly 4 if not 5 GHz. Apple will sell these in a dual if not quad processor form.

Great, now when Apple releases a dual 3.2GHz G5 next year everybody is going to complain that they remember hearing Apple was supposed to be up over 5GHz by that time in a quad format...;)

[Phinius]

Originally posted by Phil Of Mac
In the second half of 2004, we're going to have PPC 980's at 90 nm, at frequencies well past 3 GHz, quite possibly 4 if not 5 GHz.

Your dreaming. Both Apple and IBM have announced that the G5 will hit 3 GHz a year from now. The next version of the Pentium will peak at 5 GHz sometime in 2005. So the likelihood of a 970 or 980 processor hitting 4 or 5 GHz by the end of 2004 is extremely unlikely.

In the meantime, Motorola will slip behind schedule again, so your mythical dual-core 2.4 GHz G4 will arrive in 2005, along with the IBM G6 :)

Stick a fork in Motorola. It's done.

Motorola would not have announced the upcoming production of a dual-cpu G4 unless Apple was commited to using it extensively. There would simply not be much demand for it outside of Apple since a dual-cpu G4 chip would have too much power use for the embedded market.

Motorola has joined forces with Phillips and STMicroelectronics to improve chip manufacturing. The head of Motorola's microelectronics division has already announced that the company is using test chips on a 90-nm process in STMicroelectonics Crolles facility in France and PowerPC processors are scheduled to begin production in 2004.

[Phil Of Mac]

Phinius, do you work for Motorola, or do you just not get it?

Motorola is done as a supplier of processors to Apple. Next summer, IBM will release the 980. Motorola will still be on the 7457. IBM will be at 90nm. 970's and 980's will quickly migrate to Apple's entire product line. Once IBM reaches 90 nm (probably January or so), the G5 is going to go into PowerBooks and iMacs. iBooks and eMacs won't be far behind. By the second half of 2004, when Motorola is scheduled to have their dual-core G4 (which is a few YEARS late already), Apple might not even have any G4 products! By 2005, when Motorola will finally have that G4 (has Motorola ever been on schedule?), 2.4 GHz will be old news.

OK, Motorola's fixing their production problems. Next they need to fix their design problems. 2.4 GHz and 90 nm by the end of 2004? Psshh. IBM'll have that beat months ahead.

[Phinius]

Originally posted by Phil Of Mac
Phinius, do you work for Motorola, or do you just not get it?

Motorola is done as a supplier of processors to Apple.

Maybe you should tell Motorola and Apple since you seem to be much more informed about it than those two companies.

You don't seem to grasp the reality that if Apple eliminates Motorola as a supplier for PowerPC processors, then Apple will be completely dependent and at the mercy of IBM. That makes it very unlikely that Apple would go with one suppler for processors.

Next summer, IBM will release the 980.

There are strong indications that IBM might still be calling it the 970 in mid 2004.

Motorola will still be on the 7457. IBM will be at 90nm. 970's and 980's will quickly migrate to Apple's entire product line.

Motorola will still be on the 7457 in 2004 and it will be made on a 90-nm process. Whether Apple moves the G5 over to the consumer products remains to be seen. Apple's recent history indicates that they like to have different processors on the consumer and pro lines to differentiate them.

Once IBM reaches 90 nm (probably January or so), the G5 is going to go into PowerBooks and iMacs.

IBM is just getting started on a 130-nm process for the 970 in August and you already have the 90-nm process pegged for January? Geez, you expect IBM to move faster than Intel? The 970 should still have some speed improvements to made it on the 130-nm process.

It could be that Apple will move the G5 to the PowerBooks in January. Which would give them a lot more room to improve the speed of the consumer line with the G4.

By the second half of 2004, when Motorola is scheduled to have their dual-core G4 (which is a few YEARS late already), Apple might not even have any G4 products!

What do you mean years late? It's doubtful that Motorola or any other mass production chip manufacturer for consumer products would find it financially feasible have a dual-core chip in production years ago.

By 2005, when Motorola will finally have that G4 (has Motorola ever been on schedule?), 2.4 GHz will be old news.

You seem to be using Intel's chip frequencies as the yardstick by which to measure PowerPC performances. Having two 2.4 GHz processors on one chip has much more performance than a single 2.4 GHz processor of the same design. Motorola is simply boosting performance by adding another G4 processor onto the chip. It will have the equivilant performance of a single G4 processor running at a much higher frequency.

OK, Motorola's fixing their production problems. Next they need to fix their design problems. 2.4 GHz and 90 nm by the end of 2004? Psshh. IBM'll have that beat months ahead.

IBM is unlikely to have a dual-core G5 chip by mid year 2004, whereas Motorola is very likely to have a dual-core G4 chip. That's two processors on one chip. That alone will boost the performance of a G4 chip by 50% or more.

[Phil Of Mac]

Originally posted by Phinius
Maybe you should tell Motorola and Apple since you seem to be much more informed about it than those two companies.


Apple already knows this.

Originally posted by Phinius
IBM is just getting started on a 130-nm process for the 970 in August and you already have the 90-nm process pegged for January? Geez, you expect IBM to move faster than Intel? The 970 should still have some speed improvements to made it on the 130-nm process.


Yes, but the 90nm will come quite quickly. Yes, possibly before Intel. January is a date I've seen reported.

Originally posted by Phinius
What do you mean years late? It's doubtful that Motorola or any other mass production chip manufacturer would find it financially feasible have a dual-core chip in production years ago.


The G4 was originally going to be a dual core processor from the outset. Which was 1999. They settled for single core. If they're finally going to reach dual core in 2004, well, that's great. I hear Copland's almost finished too.

Originally posted by Phinius
You seem to be using Intel's chip frequencies as the yardstick by which to measure PowerPC performances. Having two 2.4 GHz processors on one chip has much more performance than a single 2.4 GHz processor of the same design. Motorola is simply boosting performance by adding another G4 processor onto the chip. It will have the equivilant performance of a single G4 processor running at a much higher frequency.


That's nice. By the end of 2004, two G4's should be good enough for half a computer.

Originally posted by Phinius
IBM is unlikely to have a dual-core G5 chip by mid year 2004, whereas Motorola is very likely to have a dual-core G4 chip. That's two processors on one chip. That alone will boost the performance of a G4 chip by 50% or more.

Wow, that'll make it almost half as powerful as the G5.

How likely do you think it is that Motorola will have a dual-core G4 in 2004? Really! Do you have any clue how behind schedule Motorola usually is? Do you remember when they couldn't get the G4 above 500 MHz for about a year? If Motorola promises something for the end of 2004, I'm going to expect it in the summer of 2005. And Apple will too. They've dealt with Motorola enough that they know this far better than I do.

[Sun Baked]

Motorola SG1001 Product Selector Guide pdf (http://e-www.motorola.com/files/shared/doc/selector_guide/SG1001.pdf)

also updated 7/2003...

Just a listing of some of the semi sections products, including 7457 and current revisions. Seems 7455A has been bumped.

[ryan]

Originally posted by Analog Kid

[snip/]
I don't get the sense that the G5 is going to scale down as well. There's no L3 cache support, so as soon as you narrow the pipe to system memory you're going to starve the CPU (the G5 has more bandwidth to system RAM than the G4 has to it's L3 cache!).
[snip/]
Except that even if a G5 PB is running at *only* 1GHz it presumably would have a 500MHz bus, which is 3x faster than the bus in the current 1GHz PowerBooks, so CPU starvation probably wouldn't be an issue.

On a somewhat related note, I'm not convinced that the G4 is that bad of a chip, but instead it has a starvation problem. I think that is what makes this new info on the 7457 so disappointing, in that it appears it will still have a 167MHz bus so having it run at 1.3GHz won't do anyone much good.

[Phinius]

Originally posted by Phil Of Mac
Apple already knows this.

Apple is not going to put all their eggs in one basket and only using IBM processors would limit them to only one basket to choose from. That would not be a wise strategy.



Yes, but the 90nm will come quite quickly. Yes, possibly before Intel. January is a date I've seen reported.

You seem to be getting your information from rumor sites. Intel is the leader in getting a new process technology to market. Intel will have the Prescott version of the Pentium on a 90-nm process in the fourth quarter of 2003. IBM will likely have the 970 moved to a 90-nm process months into 2004 and not in January. Apple could have a 130-nm 970 processor in a PowerBook by the end of January however.



The G4 was originally going to be a dual core processor from the outset. Which was 1999. They settled for single core. If they're finally going to reach dual core in 2004, well, that's great. I hear Copland's almost finished too.

If what you say is true and judging from your previous responses you probably got that information from rumors, then Motorola might have decided to not have a dual-core earlier due to the die size being too cost prohibitive.



That's nice. By the end of 2004, two G4's should be good enough for half a computer.

If there are two 2+ GHz G4 processors on one chip, then Apple could use the same PowerMac G4 motherboard and use 2 of these chips, which would be 4 G4 processors. I'd hardly call 4 G4 processors running at 2+ GHz 'half a computer'.



Wow, that'll make it almost half as powerful as the G5.

Your wildly overestimating the speed advantage of the G5 over a G4 processor. It's very unlikely that a year from now a 3 GHz 970 processor would have double the performance of a dual-core 2 GHz G4 chip. In fact IBM estimated that a 970 running at 1.8 GHz would have a SPECint score of 937 and Motorola states that a single PowerMac G4 running at 1.25 GHz has a SPECint score of 500. Now your probably thinking that aha!, the G5 has almost double the speed of a G4 processor. But the G4 that Motorola mentions is made on the bigger 180-nm process. A 130-nm G4 can have up to a 50% higher frequency than that 1.25 GHz G4. So that would place it at about 750 on SPECint. Which means the G5 would have to score about 1500 on SPECint at 2.8 GHz on the 130-nm level to have double the G4s performance. Since Motorola intends to put two G4s on a chip, then that reduces the odds that a topend 970 processor will have double the performance of a topend G4 chip.

There are advantages and disadvantages to both designs. Because of the simpler design of the G4 processor compared to the 970, Motorola can shrink the size of the processor enough to put two of them on one chip at the 90-nm process level and still keep the die size competitive to the Intel chips. Whereas IBM would have a very large die size with a dual-core G5 chip made on a 90-nm process.

How likely do you think it is that Motorola will have a dual-core G4 in 2004? Really! Do you have any clue how behind schedule Motorola usually is? Do you remember when they couldn't get the G4 above 500 MHz for about a year?

What year is this, 1997 or 2003? Times change. Do you realize that IBM announced in October of 2000 that the 750FX would debut in January 2002 and it would reach speeds as high as 1 GHz? Well it's July of 2003 and IBM now states that the 750FX will only go up to 900 MHz. So you have more faith in IBM?

If Motorola promises something for the end of 2004, I'm going to expect it in the summer of 2005. And Apple will too. They've dealt with Motorola enough that they know this far better than I do.

Well Motorola had previously stated that the 7457 will be in production in the fourth quarter of 2004. I'd expect Apple to be announcing products that use this chip sometime in the next two months.

Motorola has not stated when the dual-core PowerPC processors will be in production. But it's obvious that it would occur no sooner than mid year 2004. Since a Motorola executive also stated that at 1.5 GHz the dual-core G4 would use 25 watts. That would have to be on a 90-nm process size since a 130-nm G4 will use about 17 watts at 1.3 GHz.

You seem to pick out only those points that support your beliefs rather than looking at all the pluses and minuses. The G5 is meant to be the topend chip for Apple that competes against the desktop Pentium processors. But Apple still has to compete against the Celerons and Pentium M processors and a smaller, cheaper to produce processor like the G3 or G4 would be much better suited in that market than the bigger and costlier G5 processors.

Why do you insist on believing that the G5 will replace all the G4 processors when the G4 did not eliminate the G3 in Macs? The G5 is the new topend chip for Apple and the topend G4 processors will now move downstream to the consumer models. With IBM announcing a doubling of L2 cache for the 750 G3 processor scheduled for December, it's very likely that Apple will even continue to use that lowly chip. Or do you honestly believe that a 750GX processor running at 1.1 GHz will replace the upcoming 7457 processors that will run up to 1.8 GHz?

[Analog Kid]

Originally posted by ryan
Except that even if a G5 PB is running at *only* 1GHz it presumably would have a 500MHz bus, which is 3x faster than the bus in the current 1GHz PowerBooks, so CPU starvation probably wouldn't be an issue.


Well, yes and no... Remember that you've got two busses to think about with the G4-- the cache bus and the main memory bus.

At first blush (off-the-top-of-my-head), the G4 gets 64bits*200MHz*DDR out of the L3, while the G5 gets 32bits*500MHz*DDR out of system memory-- so the G5 bus might still be a bit faster...

But then there's the fact that system memory is DRAM and cache is SRAM. DRAM usually has a pretty nasty (~50ns) precharge penalty for the first access (and then bursts after that). As your bus speed slows, that first access will start to dominate.

When I get more time, it would be interesting to look at the bus bandwidths at these speeds...

Even if the G5 does win on bandwidth, it's still clocking 30% slower than the G4 here. At these frequencies it might become a wash for most applications.

Originally posted by ryan
On a somewhat related note, I'm not convinced that the G4 is that bad of a chip, but instead it has a starvation problem. I think that is what makes this new info on the 7457 so disappointing, in that it appears it will still have a 167MHz bus so having it run at 1.3GHz won't do anyone much good.

Yeah, that bugged me too until I actually looked at the numbers.

Turns out that the processor speed is jumping 30% and the 133-167MHz bus is a 26% jump. Not that bad given the extra L2 cache size.

If Apple gets a 200MHz bus, then thats about a 50% improvement, which exceeds the core clock boost.


I'm not really interested in doing a full blown analysis of these things knowing that I'll find out eventually anyway, but my gut tells me the G4 will be the better laptop processor for a while...

[ryan]

Turns out that the processor speed is jumping 30% and the 133-167MHz bus is a 26% jump. The current 1GHz PowerBooks already have a 167MHz bus.

[herocero]

http://www.hardmac.com/niouzcontenu.php?date=2003-07-27#263

now if french-mac has a source who even knows stevie's slang for crappy motorola production, well done!

off to buy a 1GHz ti . . .

-cero

[panphage]

Originally posted by Analog Kid Even if the G5 does win on bandwidth, it's still clocking 30% slower than the G4 here. At these frequencies it might become a wash for most applications.

I think his point with the 1ghz G5 is that even a G5 that "slow" would waste a similarly clocked G4 because the G5 has fatter pipes. No one has put forward 1Ghz as a serious number for the low end of mobile G5s. I keep reading 1.4. Of course these numbers are coming from uninformed mac zealots who are reading rumor sites in a frenzy of upgrade fever (oops! That's me!) but still, the G5 for the desktop starts at 1.6. If the die shrink is what's needed for mobile G5s, why would we think clock speed would drop by about 1/2?

[avus]

Originally posted by herocero
http://www.hardmac.com/niouzcontenu.php?date=2003-07-27#263

now if french-mac has a source who even knows stevie's slang for crappy motorola production, well done!


This rumor by MacBidouille is quite funny but depressing at the same time. The bit about Steve giving Motorola a nickname "Scum-a-rola" is very plausible, and I don't understand why some people still have a faith in whatever Motorola executives said about their wonderful "plan" for the G4.

[Sun Baked]

Originally posted by avus
This rumor by MacBidouille is quite funny but depressing at the same time. The bit about Steve giving Motorola a nickname "Scum-a-rola" is very plausible, and I don't understand why some people still have a faith in whatever Motorola executives said about their wonderful "plan" for the G4. Could you imagine the wonderful new aluminum machine we would have if Motorola rolled the 7457-RM out on time?

From an Apple pdf (I did not change it)...

[Cubeboy]

Originally posted by Analog Kid
Well, yes and no... Remember that you've got two busses to think about with the G4-- the cache bus and the main memory bus.

At first blush (off-the-top-of-my-head), the G4 gets 64bits*200MHz*DDR out of the L3, while the G5 gets 32bits*500MHz*DDR out of system memory-- so the G5 bus might still be a bit faster...

But then there's the fact that system memory is DRAM and cache is SRAM. DRAM usually has a pretty nasty (~50ns) precharge penalty for the first access (and then bursts after that). As your bus speed slows, that first access will start to dominate.

When I get more time, it would be interesting to look at the bus bandwidths at these speeds...

Even if the G5 does win on bandwidth, it's still clocking 30% slower than the G4 here. At these frequencies it might become a wash for most applications.


I haven't read all the technical documentation for the G5 yet but doesn't it utilize dual 32 bit buses? That would be the only way to explain how a 2 GHz G5 can have a 8 GB/s peak bandwidth. If so, than the 1 GHz G5's dual 32 bit buses would be the equivalent of a single 64 bit 500 MHz bus which would make it over twice as fast as the G4's "cache bus". As you've mentioned, the G4's cache bus has much lower latency but I doubt that it can match or even come close to the throughput of a G5, even a 1 GHz model.

Remember that the G5 also has a much stronger FPU than the G4, and will probably win in programs heavy in fp code even if it is clocked 30% slower. This is quite evident in Scalar Jet3d (which is nearly all floating point math) in which the G5, running unoptimized code, performed significantly better clock to clock than the G4.

[Ludio]

Originally posted by herocero
http://www.hardmac.com/niouzcontenu.php?date=2003-07-27#263

now if french-mac has a source who even knows stevie's slang for crappy motorola production, well done!

off to buy a 1GHz ti . . .

-cero

I must say this truly sucks as this is my frist response/post to the forums on reading this news. Im now im a dilemma if I should at the end of the month put in a pre-order for a desktop G5 to arrive in the fist half of sept or should I just get the 17in PB since it will arrive on time if I order it later in august. The school im going to uses nothing but macs on campus so im to worried about capalibity problems but don't know if i'll need the portability or just like as an added convience and the discount with the payment plan is another plus from apple. I just wish the PB was more up to date becuase I know I will be getting rid of it next about this time becuase the tech offered will be severely outdated to desktop and other laptop competitors either way.

[Phil Of Mac]

Originally posted by Phinius
Apple is not going to put all their eggs in one basket and only using IBM processors would limit them to only one basket to choose from. That would not be a wise strategy.


As we've just seen, it isn't a wise strategy, because you mind end up with that one supplier utterly stagnating. Like Motorola.

Apple may choose, say, AMD as another supplier. But Motorola only wants the embedded sector. They haven't been doing well with computers and they don't want to bother with it. So a second supplier is a feasible strategy. Motorola is not.

Originally posted by Phinius
You seem to be getting your information from rumor sites. Intel is the leader in getting a new process technology to market. Intel will have the Prescott version of the Pentium on a 90-nm process in the fourth quarter of 2003. IBM will likely have the 970 moved to a 90-nm process months into 2004 and not in January. Apple could have a 130-nm 970 processor in a PowerBook by the end of January however.


Doubtful, unless Apple chooses not to release a new PowerBook G4. The 130nm 970 is already, at low frequencies, comparable with the heat and power of the G4. However, at 90 nm, heat and power necessities will be reduced even more, making it more feasible to build a truly high-speed PowerBook that befits the name.

The 970 at this point requires a very large heat sink that would ruin the sleek design of the PowerBook. 90nm is, essentially, a necessity.

Originally posted by Phinius
If what you say is true and judging from your previous responses you probably got that information from rumors, then Motorola might have decided to not have a dual-core earlier due to the die size being too cost prohibitive.


I suppose that's the same reason it stayed at 500 MHz for a year, it would be too cost prohibitive to design a faster chip.

Originally posted by Phinius
If there are two 2+ GHz G4 processors on one chip, then Apple could use the same PowerMac G4 motherboard and use 2 of these chips, which would be 4 G4 processors. I'd hardly call 4 G4 processors running at 2+ GHz 'half a computer'.


By today's standards, it would be impressive. By the standards of the end of 2004, it might contend with anything, except a dual G5.

Originally posted by Phinius
Your wildly overestimating the speed advantage of the G5 over a G4 processor. It's very unlikely that a year from now a 3 GHz 970 processor would have double the performance of a dual-core 2 GHz G4 chip. In fact IBM estimated that a 970 running at 1.8 GHz would have a SPECint score of 937 and Motorola states that a single PowerMac G4 running at 1.25 GHz has a SPECint score of 500.


IBM *estimated* that? Well! How convienient! Now my suspicion that you don't keep up with the news is confirmed.

Convieniently, there have been two recent benchmark tests of the G5. One of them, an independent test done for Apple, gives the G5 a SPECint of 800, and a SPECfp of 840.

NASA benchmarks rate the 2 GHz G5 at 254 MFLOPS and the 1.25 GHz G4 at 129 MFLOPS, scalar. Vector benchmarks are 2755 and 1612, respectively.

Originally posted by Phinius
Since Motorola intends to put two G4s on a chip, then that reduces the odds that a topend 970 processor will have double the performance of a topend G4 chip.


I suggest you look up "hyperbole". The G5 will still outperform your pathetic 2.4 GHz dual-G4 significantly. Especially if Motorola's past history is any indication. A dual G4 can't keep up with a single Pentium. A single G5 is near parity with a single Pentium and will quickly overtake it. So why do you think a dual G4 after another year of IBM innovation and Motorola's lack thereof will be even close to the G5?

Originally posted by Phinius
What year is this, 1997 or 2003? Times change.


Motorola hasn't changed. If you read the news, you'd know that Motorola is the one responsible for Apple falling behind since the glory days of the G3.

Originally posted by Phinius
The G5 is meant to be the topend chip for Apple that competes against the desktop Pentium processors. But Apple still has to compete against the Celerons and Pentium M processors and a smaller, cheaper to produce processor like the G3 or G4 would be much better suited in that market than the bigger and costlier G5 processors.

Why do you insist on believing that the G5 will replace all the G4 processors when the G4 did not eliminate the G3 in Macs?


The G4's only real advantage over the G3 was AltiVec. There was no cost effectiveness in putting it in all products at once. The G3, however, did immediately replace the 604e and 603e. Why? It was so much faster that it was cost-effective to!

Come 90nm, the G5 will, or should, replace the G4 and G3 entirely. Motorola's unreliability and the advantage of the G5 design necessitate it.

[daveL]

Right on (that's a technical term from the 60's)!

[sacrilicious]

Originally posted by daveL
Right on (that's a technical term from the 60's)!

Word. I'm inspired to love Apple again and forget that they're never going to release a new 15".

[Analog Kid]

Originally posted by panphage
I think his point with the 1ghz G5 is that even a G5 that "slow" would waste a similarly clocked G4 because the G5 has fatter pipes. No one has put forward 1Ghz as a serious number for the low end of mobile G5s. I keep reading 1.4. Of course these numbers are coming from uninformed mac zealots who are reading rumor sites in a frenzy of upgrade fever (oops! That's me!) but still, the G5 for the desktop starts at 1.6. If the die shrink is what's needed for mobile G5s, why would we think clock speed would drop by about 1/2?

Actually, I think he was continuing on a point I made about starving the G5 if you slow down the buses (his point, I think, is that if you slow the CPU down too everything stays happy and the G5 still has a faster bus).

I don't think a 1GHz G5 would "waste" a 1.3GHz G4. They may be quite comprable at those speeds.

Why would the speed drop? More than just a die shrink on the G5 is required to cram it into a laptop. In fact, the more I think about it, that's probably the least important change.

I think the biggest challenge will be keeping that beast fed out of memory without the aluminum case glowing orange.

I've gone over all the system components a dozen times... In order to discuss it any more intelligently, we'd need better benchmarks of the G5 and G4 with and without cache...

It would also be interesting to see how the G5 runs with the front side bus clocking at 1/6 of the system clock, for example.

[Analog Kid]

Originally posted by Cubeboy
I haven't read all the technical documentation for the G5 yet but doesn't it utilize dual 32 bit buses? That would be the only way to explain how a 2 GHz G5 can have a 8 GB/s peak bandwidth. If so, than the 1 GHz G5's dual 32 bit buses would be the equivalent of a single 64 bit 500 MHz bus which would make it over twice as fast as the G4's "cache bus". As you've mentioned, the G4's cache bus has much lower latency but I doubt that it can match or even come close to the throughput of a G5, even a 1 GHz model.

Yeah, but they're dual unidirectional 32bit buses, so they don't actually act as a 64bit bus. It was a trick (in the good sense of trick) to get the bus speed up-- they don't have to wait to turn the bus around between cycles.

I don't know how the system will interleave writebacks with reads. There's two busses coming out of the part, but only one to the memory-- so the system controller has to handle all that.

All this makes direct comparison kinda tough, which is why I just took a rough cut at it.

I don't know how quickly I'd write off the DRAM latency... A 50ns precharge latency is 25 beats of a 500MHz system clock, or 50 missed data transfers at DDR. No small potatoes.

At this point I'm only raising questions, I don't pretend to have the answers to most of them. It's just proving to myself that it's not all as cut and dry as some seem to think.

Originally posted by Cubeboy
Remember that the G5 also has a much stronger FPU than the G4, and will probably win in programs heavy in fp code even if it is clocked 30% slower. This is quite evident in Scalar Jet3d (which is nearly all floating point math) in which the G5, running unoptimized code, performed significantly better clock to clock than the G4.

Looks like it's 23% faster clock to clock... It's unoptimized, but I don't know enough about the benchmark to know if the whole thing ran in G4 cache or if the memory bandwidth played any role.

Again, I don't know either way, but it's not as cut and dry as some may think...


I'm really excited about the G5 as a desktop processor where you don't need to compromise. I'm not sure when it'll make sense to stick it in a portable. Heat, battery life, and form factor are important to me-- so I'm more likely to look at power/performance rather than just performance.

[Cubeboy]

Analog Kid:

The benchmark is basically all floating point math, it has a pretty small memory footprint (around 1 MB I hear) so bandwidth limitations isn't a problem for either processor.

The entire program should be able to fit inside the G4's L3 cache and might fit in the G5's on-die cache through hardware prefetching provided by the extra bandwidth from the motherboard channel.

I wouldn't doubt a 20%+ performance boost with optimized code, considering the Absoft compiler used was geared towards producing optimized code for the G4.

[iPC]

clock speed jump, and more L2 cache. Guess we'll see 1GHz with 1MB L3 cache and 1.3GHz with 2MB L3 cache 15.4" PB sometime September...???

Bus speed of 167MHz instead of 200MHz doesn't mean much.

[Phinius]

Originally posted by Phil Of Mac
As we've just seen, it isn't a wise strategy, because you mind end up with that one supplier utterly stagnating. Like Motorola.

You have been blind to the fact that Motorola moved the G4 up to 1.4 GHz on a 180-nm process while IBM only has gotten the G3 up to 900 MHz on the smaller 130-nm process size.

Motorola will get the G4 up to 1.8 GHz on the 130-nm process and IBM will only get the 750GX up to 1.1 GHz on the same process size.

Apple may choose, say, AMD as another supplier.

No they can't. Apple is dependent on two suppliers for PowerPC processors. It would not be economically feasible for AMD to attempt to keep up with Intel with PowerPC manufacturing. In fact IBM is helping AMD out with manufacturing Opteron chips.

All the chip manufacturers are in the same boat of having great difficulties trying to keep up the pace of development from Intel.

But Motorola only wants the embedded sector. They haven't been doing well with computers and they don't want to bother with it. So a second supplier is a feasible strategy. Motorola is not.[quote]

If Motorola only wanted the embedded sector, then they would have stopped manufacturing chips for Apple awhile back. That's obviously not the case.

[quote]The 970 at this point requires a very large heat sink that would ruin the sleek design of the PowerBook. 90nm is, essentially, a necessity.

At this point the problem with getting a G5 in a PowerBook maybe that Apple does not have the motherboard ready yet.

I suppose that's the same reason it stayed at 500 MHz for a year, it would be too cost prohibitive to design a faster chip.

You have failed to mention that IBM has not yet reached 1 GHz with the 750FX after 1 1/2 years. Could it be that both IBM and Motorola have the same problem of not enough money to develop the G3 or G4 at a faster pace?

By today's standards, it would be impressive. By the standards of the end of 2004, it might contend with anything, except a dual G5.

The G4 is not meant to equal or outperform the topend G5 or Pentium chips. It will be positioned in the low to mid range Macs. The G5 is likely to stay in the high priced Macs for quite some time.

I suggest you look up "hyperbole". The G5 will still outperform your pathetic 2.4 GHz dual-G4 significantly. Especially if Motorola's past history is any indication.

A dual G4 can't keep up with a single Pentium.[/quote

A rough estimate would be that a topend dual core G4 would have at least the equivilant performance of a current 3.2 GHz Pentium 4, which is beyond what the G5 is at right now.

[quote] A single G5 is near parity with a single Pentium and will quickly overtake it. So why do you think a dual G4 after another year of IBM innovation and Motorola's lack thereof will be even close to the G5?

The G4 will be positioned below the G5 in much the same way that the G3 is below the G4. By the way, Apple uses both the G3 and the G4, even though the G4 with Altivec is much faster than the G3.

Motorola is working with two other major chip manufacturers to quickly move to faster chip processes. Motorola is already has test chips at the 90-nm process level and plans to manufacture a PowerPC chip next year with it. Motorola is not going it alone, they have partners to enable them to speed up development.

Motorola hasn't changed. If you read the news, you'd know that Motorola is the one responsible for Apple falling behind since the glory days of the G3.

No, Apple shot themselves in the foot according to Steve Jobs. The company decided to only make the Mac themselves and sell it at a premium price. Apple's marketshare has been falling for years, well before Motorola could be blamed for it.

It's simple economics why both Motorola and IBM were not able to keep up with Intel in processors used in desktop computers. For every dollar that Motorola or IBM was taking in from Apple in the last few years Intel would get thirty or forty. Over time Intel simply was able to build chip plants faster and pump more money into research and development. To expect Motorola to pull off a miracle and keep up with Intel's pace of chip development is unrealistic.

IBM has a better chance of keeping up with Intel in the short term due to IBM being able to charge $10,000 or more per Power chip. If Motorola could charge that much to Apple and still sell them 2 million processors a year, then Motorola could keep up with Intel also. Apple simply doesn't have the marketshare for Motorola to keep up with Intel in personal computer processor development.

The G4's only real advantage over the G3 was AltiVec. There was no cost effectiveness in putting it in all products at once.

The same is true for the G4 compared to the G5. The G4 is a smaller chip than the G5 and so therefore should be less expensive to manufacture.

Come 90nm, the G5 will, or should, replace the G4 and G3 entirely. Motorola's unreliability and the advantage of the G5 design necessitate it.

The upcoming 750GX, with 1 MB of cache, is less than 1/2 the size of the 970. It's lower cost to manufacturer and Intel using chips of the same performance level tells me that Apple could have a place for it in some product in the future. If IBM adds Altivec to it, then it could extend the 750s life even further in a Apple product. By the mere fact that IBM is doubling the cache of the 750 G3 in December strongly indicates that Apple may have a plan for its use in a Apple computer.

[MrSugar]

I am sick of people saying apple is behind in the laptop market. Although I am currently a PC user, I plan to switch by getting a powerbook for college. I have done a TON of research on laptops and I have to say that I am sick of the people saying "apple is behind on the laptop scene". This is BS, if you want to look at the 17 inch Sager, enjoy your 1 hour of battery life (or less) while carrying around a 10 pound 1.8 thick hoss of a machine. This is true all over the market of laptops, believe me I have tried to find something compared to apple with its thin, long battery, low weight, high performance, and excellent options. This laptop does not exist, the only laptop which comes close is the IBM ThinkPad T40, which I am sorry to say costs more than at 17incher when you actually get specs that equal up to the current 17 Alum PB.

I am sick of people putting down the PB to talk about Dell and the BLAZING fast PC's, take a closer look. Between your plastic trashy looking cases, heavy hot P4 machines (did I mention 1hr max Battery Life), expensive low speed p4-m's, lame wireless reception -- accept at a high cost, non-bluetooth, and non backlit keyboards ;). No one comes close, apple is thin and sleek, as well as light, well equiped and well powered. So stop comparing PC laptops to Mac’s, the price difference isn't much, and what you sacrifice to get it is just pathetic, and that's if you only talk about the hardware of the machine.

I just had to get this off my chest, I sit and read people complaining about the Mac laptops, YES I want a 15 Alum too, and YES I want some price decreases, but don't we all. Common, at least before dissing apple to talk about a PC brand, do your research and get the facts right.

Whew, haha, sorry for the long rant but I had to get that out.

-Bruce

[BJNY]

Any chance Apple will upgrade the current 1.25GHz G4s with the 7457s? I would buy a dual 1.5GHz at the current $1599 price point.

[Eyewake]

You just sound like a seel out the wants to justify his new move, sorry but I'm not willing to pay an extra 2500 for a 17'' good for you, by the time you get it apple will release.

I get the smae performance for 800 dollars brandnew laptop at Bestbuy

no interest for the whole year!!!!!!!

[MrSugar]

Originally posted by Eyewake
You just sound like a seel out the wants to justify his new move, sorry but I'm not willing to pay an extra 2500 for a 17'' good for you, by the time you get it apple will release.

I get the smae performance for 800 dollars brandnew laptop at Bestbuy

no interest for the whole year!!!!!!!

I haven't bought a laptop yet, I was just pointing out the facts. I seriously doubt that for $800 any PC laptop can compare to the 17inch, infact I know that isn't true. Maybe for $2000 performance wise, but with, as I said, some setbacks. There is no $800 laptop that exists that is fast enough to take on the PB line.

The only thing that could sway the tide for me is the Mobility 9600.

But really I would like to see some specs, or a link to the laptop you are refering to. If there is a laptop that fast for that cheap that I have overlooked I would be interested in seeing it.

-Bruce

[chomsky]

Originally posted by Eyewake
You just sound like a seel out the wants to justify his new move, sorry but I'm not willing to pay an extra 2500 for a 17'' good for you, by the time you get it apple will release.

I think I speak for everyone when I say:

What?!

[wizard]

While you have valid points, agianst the majority of the laptops out there, Intels Centrinos are nothing to mess with. The centrino processor and chip set do offer exceptional performance for the power expended.

But even the Centrino is not the concern I have or most people have, its the fear that the product line will become stagnet just like the PowerMac line did. We do not need a laptop line that goes thru pitiful performance increases ever 6 months to a year. In a nut shell I think Apple knows this and are actively working on vastly improved G4 based powerbooks.

Those vastly improved machines are dependant on the parts suppliers. While everyone is blaming Motorola it could just as well be an issue with the new video chip set. Obviously only a few people really know whats up, but I would imagine that Apple is doing everything possible to debut the machines quickly to take advantage of the back to school market. It is a good thing on the other hand that Apple does wait until the product is done right, which I wish more people would focus on.

Still I do wish that they oculd get these machines on line as soon as possible. If nothing else it would clue us in on the status and direction that the G4 machines will be taking. I say G4 because I do not believe that the 970 will show up in a laptop in the near future.

Thanks
dave


Originally posted by MrSugar
I am sick of people saying apple is behind in the laptop market. Although I am currently a PC user, I plan to switch by getting a powerbook for college. I have done a TON of research on laptops and I have to say that I am sick of the people saying "apple is behind on the laptop scene". This is BS, if you want to look at the 17 inch Sager, enjoy your 1 hour of battery life (or less) while carrying around a 10 pound 1.8 thick hoss of a machine. This is true all over the market of laptops, believe me I have tried to find something compared to apple with its thin, long battery, low weight, high performance, and excellent options. This laptop does not exist, the only laptop which comes close is the IBM ThinkPad T40, which I am sorry to say costs more than at 17incher when you actually get specs that equal up to the current 17 Alum PB.

I am sick of people putting down the PB to talk about Dell and the BLAZING fast PC's, take a closer look. Between your plastic trashy looking cases, heavy hot P4 machines (did I mention 1hr max Battery Life), expensive low speed p4-m's, lame wireless reception -- accept at a high cost, non-bluetooth, and non backlit keyboards ;). No one comes close, apple is thin and sleek, as well as light, well equiped and well powered. So stop comparing PC laptops to Mac’s, the price difference isn't much, and what you sacrifice to get it is just pathetic, and that's if you only talk about the hardware of the machine.

I just had to get this off my chest, I sit and read people complaining about the Mac laptops, YES I want a 15 Alum too, and YES I want some price decreases, but don't we all. Common, at least before dissing apple to talk about a PC brand, do your research and get the facts right.

Whew, haha, sorry for the long rant but I had to get that out.

-Bruce

[Phil Of Mac]

Phineas--I am replying to you, but not quoting you, because you really screwed up the quoting. So I'll just start over again and note all your points as I respond.

IBM not developing the 750 fast enough: Of course they haven't. You know why? THEY WERE DEVELOPING THE 970 AT THE SAME TIME! The 750 isn't meant to compete with the G4. Motorola, on the other hand, was working exclusively on the G4, and *trying* to keep it competitive.

AMD: It wouldn't be economically feasible for AMD to try and keep up on the Power PC? Why is Motorola any different?

"If Motorola only wanted the embedded sector, then they would have stopped manufacturing chips for Apple awhile back.": They have this thing called a "contract", Phinias. They can't just stop. Besides, the G4 is essentially an embedded processor anyway.

Apple falling behind: No, I mean Apple falling behind in terms of PROCESSOR SPEED, which is what we're discussing here. Not market share.

I said: The G4's only advantage over the G3 was AltiVec. It was not cost effective to put it in all products at once.
You said: The same is true for the G4 compared to the G5. The G4 is a smaller chip than the G5 and so therefore should be less expensive to manufacture.

Phineas, once again, you utterly fail to grasp the point. Let me make it more clear: The G5 is so much faster than the G4 that it makes sense from a cost/performance basis to replace the cheap but horribly slow G4 with the much faster G5.

Let me make this clear to you: This is the exact thing Apple did with the G3, because it so utterly outperformed the cheaper but slower 603e and the 604e. There is a precedent for Apple acting as I predict they will.

And let me ask you a question. Do you work for Motorola? That's the only explanation I can think of for you being such a deluded Motorola apologist.

[jaedreth]

Apple isn't a big priority with Motorola. Motorola doesn't care. In fact Motorola does *less* than care, they still bear a grudge against Apple cancelling cloning. (Of course that had more to do with Power Computing and what they almost pulled than anything the Starmax group were doing, but it was all or nothing.)

Motorola has been the reason Apple hasn't been competitive. We can't get chips in a reasonable amount of time.

Motorola does have a contract with Apple, so Motorola can't back out willy nilly. However, Apple does retain the right in the contract to remove another member of the alliance, say Motorola. However, to do so right now means that Apple couldn't ship any more G4 products period, production would end totally. And Apple isn't ready to move all G4 products to G5 yet. So Apple is porked over a barrel by Motorola's lack of giving a damn, and Motorola is driving Apple under, again!

Why else would they lay off most of MOS 13?

BTW, that was done some time ago, and they haven't hired back near enough people. At this point, I seriously doubt Motorola *can* meet production yields, even by November.

Which means, no new PowerBooks until PowerBook G5's.

Because Apple isn't going to put up with much more of Moto's crap.

Jaedreth

[beloit08]

Is there anything that can be done about the G4? I'm definitely not a tech person, but the G3 seemed like such a great chip, couldn't someone come up with a way to bolster it enough to take the place of the G4? We'd have to leave it up to some marketing firm to come with a new descriptor for it, but can't they add Altivec and some other doo-dads, drop the prices on "GX" equipped machines and just be done with it for the time being?

[jaedreth]

I'm sorry, but this is impossible.

It would take *longer* to try to revamp the G4 line to use G3 than to use G5. This is because the processors that will be used in the next rev aren't even available yet, and the logic boards are way different. So we have to sit here and take it until Apple can move us out of Motorola's influence, safely to G5. Then we can go straight IBM all the way.

Jaedreth

[ethernet76]

That pdf has been up for quite some time, 2+ weeks at least. I made reference to it in a post a while ago. This is old news.

[jbomber]

Originally posted by MattG
Sometimes I read these forums and think I'm alone in thinking this, but...is anybody out there besides me not really concerned about what processor they put in there? A speed boost certainly wouldn't be a bad thing, however I'd even be happy with just a 1ghz processor like they're using now--I just want it in an aluminum body with a few other features current Powerbooks are lacking, like USB 2.0 for example. Up until a couple months ago I had a 667mhz Powerbook that I was very happy with (in terms of speed). I just want something built better!

:confused:


wow. it's like you read my mind. i had a 667 that i sold too because the damn paint was chipping and it seemed like i could expect a decent update from apple at any moment. little did i know...

[Phinius]

Originally posted by Phil Of Mac
IBM not developing the 750 fast enough: Of course they haven't. You know why? THEY WERE DEVELOPING THE 970 AT THE SAME TIME! The 750 isn't meant to compete with the G4. Motorola, on the other hand, was working exclusively on the G4, and *trying* to keep it competitive.

Apple has been working with IBM for three years to get a PowerPC version of the Power4 processor. In order to make it small enough to have a economically feasible size to compete with the Intel chips Apple had to wait until IBM could move it to the 130-nm chip making process.

IBM did not design a whole new chip architecture exclusively for Apple. They made a smaller and less expensive to produce version of the already existing Power4 architecture. To expect IBM or Motorola to make a completely new PowerPC architecture for Apple that would keep up with Intel's pace of development is completely out of the realm of possibility. Apple's marketshare is simply too small for that to happen. It's to a point where for every dollar that Motorola or IBM will take in from sales to Apple, Intel will take in at least one hundred dollars from PC manufacturers. IBM can spread out their costs of developing the Power4 and PowerPC 970 processors by essentially charging IBM computer customers thousands per Power chip and also using the 970 chip in their own brand of computers.

"If Motorola only wanted the embedded sector, then they would have stopped manufacturing chips for Apple awhile back.": They have this thing called a "contract", Phinias. They can't just stop. Besides, the G4 is essentially an embedded processor anyway.

Contract?!? There is likely an agreement between Apple and Motorola for PowerPC G4 processors and also between Apple and IBM for G3 processors. To imply that either IBM or Motorola are forced to continue producing PowerPC processors for Apple even if they lose money at it is pretty far fetched.

Motorola has been making host PowerPC processors that initially are sold to Apple and then make their way down to the embedded market. If Motorola were to make a PowerPC design geared almost exclusively for the desktop computer market then it would have to have a watt usage that would simply not sell in the embedded market. Which means that Motorola would be trying to keep up with Intel's desktop designs while working with a 1 to 100 disadvantage in research and development funds compared to Intel. It simply would not work for the long haul. You blame Motorola for not being able to pull a rabbit out of the hat for Apple and yet Apple's shrinking marketshare necessitates a change in strategy for the PowerPc manufacturers.

I said: The G4's only advantage over the G3 was AltiVec. It was not cost effective to put it in all products at once.

Motorola has been able to get the G4 up to 1.42 GHz on a 180-nm process and IBM has only gotten the G3 to 900 MHz on a smaller 130-nm process size. Yet neither of those companies has significantly changed their respective chip architecture. Quite simply the G4 is superior in frequency and also due to the addition of Altivec. Motorola has simply been able to keep the G4 well ahead of the performance that IBM could muster with the G3.

When the G4 is moved over to the 130-nm process in the next couple of months it will eventually top out unofficially at 1.8 GHz for a version for Apple and a listing of 1.3 GHz by Motorola. That and Motorola developing Altivec and putting into the G4 is another indication of the how Motorola has advanced the G4 processor far beyond the performance of IBM's G3 chip. This was done well before IBM agreed to make a PowerPC version of the Power4 processor for Apple. IBM had ample opportunity to make a faster PowerPC processor to compete against the G4 but they did not. Could it be that IBM just didn't see enough sales potential in Apple's shrinking marketshare to make them willing to invest millions to advance its speed? Also could it be that the Motorola G4 design is quite a bit faster than the G3? Both of those are likely the case.

Phineas, once again, you utterly fail to grasp the point. Let me make it more clear: The G5 is so much faster than the G4 that it makes sense from a cost/performance basis to replace the cheap but horribly slow G4 with the much faster G5.

Your in for a shocker when Apple is still selling Motorola processors well into 2004. Motorola and Apple are working closely together in much the same way that Apple has been working with IBM in getting the 970 out. Motorola would simply not have commited to making a dual-core G4 unless Apple had already agreed to purchase it. There no market for a G4 processor that uses 25+ watts outside of Apple and Motorola has already stated that a dual-core G4 running at 1.5 watts will probably burn 25 watts. Neither IBM nor Motorola designs and makes new host processor PowerPC hoping that Apple might be interested when it is completed. There is an agreement between the companies before the project proceeds

Let me make this clear to you: This is the exact thing Apple did with the G3, because it so utterly outperformed the cheaper but slower 603e and the 604e. There is a precedent for Apple acting as I predict they will.

Again, you fail to realize that if Apple completely drops Motorola, then Apple will be stuck with only one supplier of PowerPC processors. There simply isn't another chip manufacturer that would jump in to fill Motorola's vacancy. It's totally unrealistic to believe that Apple would go with only one PowerPC chip supplier in the foreseeable future.

And let me ask you a question. Do you work for Motorola? That's the only explanation I can think of for you being such a deluded Motorola apologist.

Let me try to make this very clear to you.

Motorola is advancing the performance of their PowerPC chips by concentrating on manufacturing process improvements which will benefit all of their processors. This was chosen instead of using a large chunk of rather limited funds to design a new processor that would be manufactured almost exclusively for Apple. It doesn't look like it was economically feasible for Motorola to come out with new processor designs when the company was losing money.

There are several ways to advance the performance of a processor and it doesn't necessarily involve a new logic design and high frequencies. The G4 for example was moved to 1 GHz using SOI, then 1.25 Ghz with the addition of a low-k dielectric coating and Motorola also gave Apple a higher volt version that moved it to 1.42 GHz. That's a 42% jump in frequency without changing the process size or logic design. If Motorola had come out with a new G5 processor then many of those chip making advances would have had to be curtailed due to lack of funds.

Motorola is working with two other chip manufacturers to advance chip manufacturing. That is why Motorola will be able to move the G4 to a 130-nm process this year and down to the 90-nm process next year.

By making a dual-core G4, Motorola will be able to increase the G4 chip performance by another 50% without greatly redesigning the core logic. Sticking with the simpler and smaller design of the G4 enables Motorola to make a dual-core version thats price/performance competitive.

Don't believe a G4 processor could be competitive with what Intel will be offering? Moving to a 130-nm process this year gives the G4 a boost in speed of 33%. Going to the 90-nm process next year adds another 33% or more boost in performance. Then add another 50% increase in chip performance by having two G4s on one chip. That's a potential increase in performance of at least 2.6X.

[Phil Of Mac]

Originally posted by Phinius
Apple has been working with IBM for three years to get a PowerPC version of the Power4 processor. In order to make it small enough to have a economically feasible size to compete with the Intel chips Apple had to wait until IBM could move it to the 130-nm chip making process.

IBM did not design a whole new chip architecture exclusively for Apple. They made a smaller and less expensive to produce version of the already existing Power4 architecture.

Yes. However, that still diverted IBM from working on the G3. Comparing the G4 to the G3 to see how Motorola stack up as a chip maker is still flawed. The G4 ought to be compared to the G5.

Originally posted by Phinius
Contract?!? There is likely an agreement between Apple and Motorola for PowerPC G4 processors and also between Apple and IBM for G3 processors. To imply that either IBM or Motorola are forced to continue producing PowerPC processors for Apple even if they lose money at it is pretty far fetched.


Phinius, it might surprise you, but most large-scale things like this are done by contract. To imply that Apple would simply rely on the goodwill of other companies is pretty far fetched.

It's called risk, Phinius. Something that they learn in b-school :)

Originally posted by Phinius
Quite simply the G4 is superior in frequency and also due to the addition of Altivec. Motorola has simply been able to keep the G4 well ahead of the performance that IBM could muster with the G3.

Of course the G4 is faster. But in 1999, it wasn't faster *enough* (or plentiful enough) to put in all Apple products at once. The G5 will be plentiful enough, and has enough of an advantage over the G4 to be worth implementing across the entire product line.

Originally posted by Phinius
Again, you fail to realize that if Apple completely drops Motorola, then Apple will be stuck with only one supplier of PowerPC processors. There simply isn't another chip manufacturer that would jump in to fill Motorola's vacancy. It's totally unrealistic to believe that Apple would go with only one PowerPC chip supplier in the foreseeable future.

In most cases, yes. However, Motorola reminds one of a quote that a German general said in World War II, namely, "Being allied with Italy is like being shackled to a corpse." The business alliance between Apple and Motorola is starting to be much the same.

[Phinius]

Originally posted by jaedreth
Apple isn't a big priority with Motorola. Motorola doesn't care. In fact Motorola does *less* than care, they still bear a grudge against Apple cancelling cloning.

Is lack of caring the reason why Motorola has advanced the G4 to 1.42 GHz while IBM has yet to get the G3 beyond 900 MHz, even when it's made on a smaller process size than the G4?

Motorola has been the reason Apple hasn't been competitive. We can't get chips in a reasonable amount of time.

Apple is mainly to blame for their lack of marketshare and sales, not Motorola.

You expect Motorola to keep up with Intel's torrid pace of chip development when Apple has less than a 3% market share that is falling year after year? The whole situation doesn't seem to be given a great deal of thought by a lot of Mac users. It's easy to blame Motorola for Apple's predicament when Apple has essentially shot themselves in the foot by marketing decisions made years ago. Microsoft and Intel have simply out manuevered Apple and have made Wintel the standard for personal computers. That's a predicament that is extremely difficult for Apple to combat.

So Apple is porked over a barrel by Motorola's lack of giving a damn, and Motorola is driving Apple under, again!

Even with the G5 in Power Macs, Apple's CFO John Anderson has stated that he does not expect Power Mac sales to ever get back to the the previous highs of 300,000+ per quarter. So does that mean that IBM has Apple 'porked over a barrel' and Apple's Power Mac sales will be lower than previous years due to IBM's lack of caring?

Which means, no new PowerBooks until PowerBook G5's.

Apple simply cannot afford to put off updating PowerBooks until the G5 can be put into them.

Because Apple isn't going to put up with much more of Moto's crap.

Apple will continue to use Motorola as a PowerPC chip supplier, they simply are not going to limit their choice to only one processor manufacture. Having only one chip manufacture to choose from could potentially put them in a extremely difficult bind down the road.

[panphage]

Originally posted by Phinius
Apple is mainly to blame for their lack of marketshare and sales, not Motorola.

You expect Motorola to keep up with Intel's torrid pace of chip development when Apple has less than a 3% market share that is falling year after year? The whole situation doesn't seem to be given a great deal of thought by a lot of Mac users. It's easy to blame Motorola for Apple's predicament when Apple has essentially shot themselves in the foot by marketing decisions made years ago. Microsoft and Intel have simply out manuevered Apple and have made Wintel the standard for personal computers. That's a predicament that is extremely difficult for Apple to combat.

I've posted this elsewhere, but the team doing the first Powermac were worried because of past problems with motorola missing deadlines. This was in 1991.

Apple's sales where gaining quite nicely when the G3 came out, then stalled when moto couldn't produce enough chips OR increase the clockspeed with regularity. IBM stepped in and rescued the endeavor. The original imac only gave apple further momentum in gaining marketshare, then the G4 looked set for apple to take the computing world by storm...until it stalled out at 500mhz while intel and AMD went on to speeds greater than 1ghz. This is not even including apple announcing AND SELLING systems that motorola could not produce chips for, so apple had to ship lower speed systems. This is a gaffe on apple's part, yes, but the mistake was trusting motorola to meet their promises. Motorola is directly to blame for apples faling marketshare. If motorola would continue to advance their chip design and fabrication, apple could release better systems more often. Apple can't put out fast powerbooks with no chips from moto. Just like apple hasn't been able to put out faster Powermacs because there were no chips from moto. Powermac sales were not languishing because apple's marketing was bad, they were languishing because apple couldn't put together a system to compete with wintel systems. Why couldn't they make these better systems? No chips from motorola.

My main complaint against both the G3 and the G4 is one that the G5 solves: transfer. I'm not a whore for clockspeed, I'm more interested in the entire system moving forward together. I don't need giant leaps in clockspeed, the P4 does that but doesn't really gain any performance from it. I like that the G3/4 perform so well at slower clock speeds, but I wish that the G4 could perhaps move into the present as far as bus speeds and memory bandwidth. Is this too much to ask? I think the G4 is a better chip than anyone has been able to realize, it's just choked off by thin data transfer to the chip.

[cwkoller5]

Apple should cut its ties with Moto once and for all. The i/Mac/Book is fine for a G4 upgrade to tide things over, and yes, most people don't need top-end CPU speed for their computer tasks, but Moto has been an albatross since the late 80's. Remember the 040 delay? The 060 delay/cancellation? The 601/IBM rescue?

The PPC RISC architecture was supposed to be so much easier to scale than CISC, yet Intel/AMD have been eating Moto's lunch, except for the rare 601, 604 and G3 blips, after which Moto handily snatched defeat from the jaws of victory by dragging development to a near standstill. Jobs must be tearing his hair out...

Apple, run and don't look back. "1984" be damned. I'm learning to love IBM...

[Methodical]

Arguing over semantics.

Motorola doesnt have the staffing for the needed work for a proper die-shrink.

this is partially evidenced by the NINE LAYERS that compose the CPU. Adding more layers is basically sort of "hacking" things together to work when you dont have the time to do it the right way.

The P4 has 6...and AFAIK it's always been six, through all their chip revisions and die shrinks.

Im sure what engineers they have are working as hard as they can, but they dont have the capability to add the extra pipeline stages (which requires taping out a whole new processor). Theres only so much that can be done when youve got 7 pipeline stages and your trying to do a complicated instruction in a nanosecond.

cutting ties with motorola would be foolish. IBM is great and all, but its still one company, that is out there to make money. and without competition, apple would get jacked.

"we can buy these G4's that whip the **** out of those G3s you want to charge HOW MUCH for?"

"why arent your G5s ramping faster? moto has G4's that are about to catch up..." (hey, it could happen).

[Phil Of Mac]

LET IT DIE! For God's sakes, let it die, this thread is a month old!

[Puppies]

But no less relavent...