970 at WWDC? [Archive] - MacRumors Forums

maxterpiece

Mar 10, 2003, 04:28 AM

You are right, we need speed. Speed, however, is not Apple's concern. Apple will find a chip that is competitive enough. They will make the hardware end of their system be at least viable. You are right when you say that businesses that are looking to be productive are going to be interested in speed. Let's get one thing clear then, Apple is in no position to compete on price/performance with PCs. They had a little streak with the second generation iMacs like 3 years ago where, because the G3 made some quick leaps in speed, Apple could compete, but in the open market, Apple has not positioned itself to be that computer.
Apple has sacrificed price/performance (they killed the clones) on the principle that hardware is not what's really important to a computer. Notice that each keynote concentrates less and less on processors, and more on the true innovating that apple is doing. So what I'm saying is that, apple is never going to get those businesses that want straight up performance to run apps that are going to be the same on a PC or Mac. The closest to a business scene Apple will get is a small business user whose business does not operate in such a strictly mechanical way. S/He doesn't have a network administrator. S/he might use his/her computer for more than just one task. Its worth it to him/her to spend the extra $ to save money and hassle in the long run. Otherwise apple is looking to sell the businessperson's laptop (thus their emphasis on the laptop) so he can do some work and have a computer that easily handles whatever else s/he pleases. Or else they're looking for a home user. They aren't gonna put computers in cubicles.
So the "PPC 970s" will come every few years, and maybe they will shake up Apples market share for a year, but they are always going to come, and are not going to change apple's fortunes in the long run.

mproud

Mar 10, 2003, 04:38 AM

- APPLE is finalizing the development tools to optimize the code for the 970 chip. It is already "PPC 98" Ready [not sure what that means]
"PPC 98 ready" I would think, would be the next family of processors following the 970. The 970 is based off the Power4; I believe that the 98x will be based of the Power5. In any event, there will be differences between the two chips.
However, why Apple would have code optimized for a processor further down the road than the 970 is odd, so perhaps I'm so totally wrong and ignorant I should be banished into a cave, not to come out until we see what "PPC 98" really is.

proud

cr2sh

Mar 10, 2003, 05:07 AM

Originally posted by Macrumors
May 2003

:eek: Holy crap! I'm very speculative, but again... Holy crap! :eek:

"hurt powermac sales"? "hurt"? It'd ravage them... unless the production is in high enough bulk that this is actually on the Fall release timeline. Wouldn't that be something if 'year of the laptop' turned out to be a bluff? :)

BWhaler

Mar 10, 2003, 05:41 AM

I would love to get excited about this, but unless Apple plans on releasing new Powermacs at MWNY in the summer, this is just a bad rumor.

As previously posted, a May announcement will kill sales of current Powermacs. It's a tough chicken and egg problem for Apple though: they need 64 bit software for the launch to go well, but they can't get the word out too far in advance without hurting sales.

agent302

Mar 10, 2003, 05:58 AM

Rather than a full-fledged announcement, this sounds more like a behind-closed-doors developer thing where a few select developers (Adobe, et al) get to see the boxes, but are probably under NDA. And while a leak will probably make its way out, the vast majority of Mac users who don't frequent message boards would know about it and thus it would hurt sales that bad anyway.

sebimeyer

Mar 10, 2003, 06:08 AM

Would those people that see the new hardware or whatever they show at the WWDC be bound by a non disclosure agreement?

AmbitiousLemon

Mar 10, 2003, 06:10 AM

Originally posted by agent302
Rather than a full-fledged announcement, this sounds more like a behind-closed-doors developer thing where a few select developers (Adobe, et al) get to see the boxes, but are probably under NDA. And while a leak will probably make its way out, the vast majority of Mac users who don't frequent message boards wouldn't know about it and thus it wouldn't hurt sales that bad anyway.

I agree. This is not some sort of public announcement. It is WWDC, and the boxes will only be seen behind closed doors. They only announcement is by IBM to developers (not the public).

Powermac sales are already flat and have been for quite sometime (though even educated consumers such as those on these boards have bought MDD powermacs). The kind of people who would know about this announcement are likely people who are already waiting for the PPC970.

AmbitiousLemon

Mar 10, 2003, 06:12 AM

Originally posted by sebimeyer
Would those people that see the new hardware or whatever they show at the WWDC be bound by a non disclosure agreement?

Yes. The rumor states these people are ADC Select members, meaning they are already under NDA and one would be sure Apple would make damn certain that the fact that they are under NDA isn't confused.

DakotaGuy

Mar 10, 2003, 06:59 AM

The way I look at it is eventually the PPC 970 is going to surface one way or another. It is not something that Apple can keep secret forever if they want to have software development for it ready to go when it is released.

Sure for a few months it will kill the PowerMac sales, but Apple can survive the short down-time. Why else do you think they have everyone psyched up with the "Year of the Laptop?" I honestly think Apple created the excitement in their laptops and in the consumer lines to help them through the dry period.

The pending release of the PPC 970 will kill PowerMac sales, but as long as they can keep selling Powerbooks, iBooks, iMacs and eMacs, they can hold on. Most consumers are happy with the current consumer offerings and no one is expecting the current consumer line to change from the current G3 and G4 at least in the short term.

jeffff

Mar 10, 2003, 07:20 AM

The announcement of the 970 won't kill Powermac sales, and may in fact increase them. Why? Because the 970 will not, under any circumstances, be able to boot into OS 9. Steve will make sure of that!

AmbitiousLemon

Mar 10, 2003, 07:23 AM

Originally posted by jeffff
The announcement of the 970 won't kill Powermac sales, and may in fact increase them. Why? Because the 970 will not, under any circumstances, be able to boot into OS 9. Steve will make sure of that!

the current powermacs don't boot into os9.

Mr. Anderson

Mar 10, 2003, 07:32 AM

Speed is important - even to Apple. Anyone doing any work big work with FCP knows what I mean. Having to wait for the final render of the video is always a pain. And they're planning on more highend video software, so they're going to need faster machines, period.

And to make the mac a more viable platform for 3D they certainly need speed as well. I personally won't be happy until I can render a complex scene with Radiosity in realtime. It will take another 5 years or more before that will even come close to being possible on the desktop.

D

Dont Hurt Me

Mar 10, 2003, 07:43 AM

I think powermac sales have been and are on the decline. This exactly why apple needs a new chip as the 970. The g4 was left to stagnate and is no longer competing with the intels. we all know this and apple knows this. iam still looking for a summer release of this new machine. As far as ppc98 goes i think this is a reference that the 970 is able to run all the 32 bit stuff from when the ppc made its appearence sort of speak. wasnt that about 1998? Also the fact that they cranked it up to 2.5 is a great sign that this chip is allready scaling up, something motorola never figured out. I said it before that with the performance this thing will have apple wont need a duallie. The duallies were simply trying to make up for motorolas lack of progress. This may even help powermac sales because people may opt to wait for this chip rather then go wintel.The future is looking brighter!

jrv3034

Mar 10, 2003, 07:51 AM

Is it possible that "PPC 98" means that OSX for the PPC is 98% ready?

Just a thought.:eek:

Hattig

Mar 10, 2003, 07:53 AM

64W - a lot compared to the G4, but not so bad when compared against top of the line Athlons and P4s, both of which are available in dual processor variants, which can reach 70W+ per processor.

You just need a suitable heatsink and fan, and a good mounting mechanism.

I can see 2.5GHz single processor PPC 970 machines for sure - not at release though, because Jobs will want to have room for a speed bump in January or February next year. :)

And workstations with dual processors as well. The extra noise of the fans will be acceptable in this situation.

hvfsl

Mar 10, 2003, 07:53 AM

Originally posted by jrv3034
Is it possible that "PPC 98" means that OSX for the PPC is 98% ready?

Just a thought.:eek:

Or is that apple is going to use chips from 1998. LOL

iJon

Mar 10, 2003, 07:54 AM

i could believe this. weret we all saying the same thing when arn posted tomorrow there would be 17 and 12 inch powerbooks, and we all talked about how it would kill ibook and possibly 15 inch powerbooks sales. anyways, im guessing this could be true and it wont be long till we find out whats goin on. maybe a new powermac will be shown, with 10.3 being a 64 bit operating system to debut. i have a question for someone real smart. with 10.3 probably 64-bit with all the rumors, does having a 64-bit system tied in with a 64-bit processor make things faster, or does other things benefit from the processor.

iJon

evilelvis

Mar 10, 2003, 07:56 AM

Originally posted by BWhaler
I would love to get excited about this, but unless Apple plans on releasing new Powermacs at MWNY in the summer, this is just a bad rumor.

As previously posted, a May announcement will kill sales of current Powermacs. It's a tough chicken and egg problem for Apple though: they need 64 bit software for the launch to go well, but they can't get the word out too far in advance without hurting sales.

Apparently Steve Jobs isn't going to be a giving a keynote address at MWNY. So I wouldn't hold your breath on anything mind blowing being announced there.

There is an article on it here:
http://www.thinksecret.com/

jethroted

Mar 10, 2003, 07:58 AM

Well I'll hold my breath for now. This sounds promising.

Mr. Anderson

Mar 10, 2003, 08:10 AM

Well then, if they are going to announce the machines - when will they become available? I can't imagine them being announced without some plan to be released in few months afterwards. The sales of the G4s would plumit.

D

barkmonster

Mar 10, 2003, 08:16 AM

"PPC 98 ready" I would think, would be the next family of processors following the 970. The 970 is based off the Power4; I believe that the 98x will be based of the Power5. In any event, there will be differences between the two chips.
However, why Apple would have code optimized for a processor further down the road than the 970 is odd, so perhaps I'm so totally wrong and ignorant I should be banished into a cave, not to come out until we see what "PPC 98" really is.

It's actually misquoted, 5 year old info on IBM and Moto's original plans for the PowerPC chip.

Desktop98 was the code name for the Video and Multimedia eXtensions that was going to be incorporated in the G4. It's been refered to as VMX aswell as Altivec, PPC98 is no doubt just desktop 98.

incidentally, Desktop '99 was a future dual core design that was supposed to be ready late 2002.

I quoted quite a lot from the old article in Macworld I got this info from in this (http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?postid=149887#post149887) message last year.

It's good that 2.5Ghz is possible even if the heat makes it a bit of a bad idea in a dual config.

iSmell

Mar 10, 2003, 08:33 AM

Originally posted by dukestreet
Well then, if they are going to announce the machines - when will they become available? I can't imagine them being announced without some plan to be released in few months afterwards. The sales of the G4s would plumit.

D

Or they could just tell us that they would be released in a few weeks, start taking orders, and then not actually ship them for several more months.
I wonder if this has anything to do with the new motherboards macwhispers posted about.

Mr. Anderson

Mar 10, 2003, 08:36 AM

Originally posted by iSmell
Or they could just tell us that they would be released in a few weeks, start taking orders, and then not actually ship them for several more months.
I wonder if this has anything to do with the new motherboards macwhispers posted about.

Oh, I'm sure it does. If this is all true. But we're looking at 2 months till WWDC, and then maybe July for the first 970s to be on the shelf. Even though Apple's not going to be at MWNY, it would be nice to see them out before then.

D

jettredmont

Mar 10, 2003, 08:37 AM

Originally posted by scem0
Am I the only one who thinks that March is a bit too soon. Well,
the sooner the better, but I was expecting an update to occur
closer to the end of the year (maybe something before xmas).

I hope MacBoidille is right. ;)

Actually, WWDC is in May, not March (May 19-23: http://developer.apple.com/wwdc/ )

BTW, I'm going to be there (with a few thousand of my closest friends), so I'd love to have a 970 machine on display in the exhibit hall ...

Past WWDC announcements: XServe (2002), which shipped at the end of the Summer IIRC. And Jaguar, same year, same lead time roughly.

WWDC debut makes sense in terms of getting developers on board so that there is a good selection of optimized software available by 970's debut, but may be a bit early for Apple to "show their hand" on something which will so change the current landscape of machines. As a result, I'm split about 50-50 on a WWDC preview (which is how I've been since the 970 news first came out last October).

Mr. Anderson

Mar 10, 2003, 08:42 AM

I checked the Apple WWDC website and didn't see any mention of who was doing the keynote address. Is it always Jobs or have they just not announced it yet.

D

jettredmont

Mar 10, 2003, 08:45 AM

Originally posted by BWhaler
It's a tough chicken and egg problem for Apple though: they need 64 bit software for the launch to go well, but they can't get the word out too far in advance without hurting sales.

The more likely approach would be to brief select developers (a team at Adobe, one at MS, one at Metrowerks, etc) who make software more likely to benefit from 64-bit, and higher-profile than the average joe. There just isn't a massive need for all software to be rewritten using 64 bits, and as a result Apple really doesn't need to address WWDC with this.

Of course, I'd love it if they did for my own selfish reasons ...

pbrennen

Mar 10, 2003, 08:47 AM

Originally posted by BWhaler
I would love to get excited about this, but unless Apple plans on releasing new Powermacs at MWNY in the summer, this is just a bad rumor.

see the front page at thinksecret.com it seems jobs won't be giving a keynote, so it doesn't look like there will be any hardware announcements.

andrewlandry

Mar 10, 2003, 08:58 AM

[i]Sure, the macho guy will still want higher speeds and bigger everything, but he was never an apple customer and will not be until apple has a much larger market share. [/B]

people really need to get over the idea that there are no practical needs for faster computers. creative proffessionals need faster computers. i make music on my dual-gig and i still have songs that it can't handle without bouncing tracks. working in Final Cut Pro and not having to render effects (without buying a Matrox card or something) would be nice.

There are tons of people who are not grandmas and who are also not insecure weenies. That's great that you think your computer is fast enough for you. But to say that anyone who wants their computer to be faster isn't a "real Mac user" or whatever is not accurate.

MacManiac1224

Mar 10, 2003, 09:03 AM

I think this is great, and proves credibility to the company, they might even come out and say when the 970's will come out, I am hoping MWNY, but I am not sure, only Steve knows I guess, but this is a must needed shot in the arm for Apple.

robotrenegade

Mar 10, 2003, 09:03 AM

I hope these rumors are true.

GPTurismo

Mar 10, 2003, 09:10 AM

If speed matters why does the 5% of the market that make up 80% of the markets money mainly consit of processors ranging from 500 to 1300 megahertz O:-)

Speed only matters to little overclocker boys and packet monkeys :S

I too heard this rumors from some people which I consider reliable, but they said between WWDC and MWNY I could expect a confirmation of the PPC970, but nothing was concrete right now *WINK WINK*

They wouldn't even look at me when I asked if apple did go ppc970 if they would call it the G5 :S

Frobozz

Mar 10, 2003, 09:10 AM

Seeing as a single proc 2.5 GHz 970 would be hot , I don't see them putting 2 in one machine. However, they're so damn fast that it won't matter. I suppose the real question will be if they would use a single proc. 2.5 or just want until the 2.5 is on a .09 process?

It might be that a 2.0 970 could do a dual processor config. without pulling too much power. Then again, nothing we're talking about is apparently worse than the P4 systems. Sheesh... that's astonishing. How much does it cost, in electricity, to keep a room full of P4's running?!

MacAndy

Mar 10, 2003, 09:17 AM

One person replied earlier, "What if the 'Year of the laptop' was really a bluff, insinuating that the 970 may be released before the end of the year. Reading that made me think that maybe the reason this year is the year of the laptop is because Jobs and Apple have already resigned themselves to the fact that when they confirm the 970, powermac sales are going to be next to nothing until they release the new chip. That would make sense then why this year is for laptops. They are focusing on laptops this year because releasing the 970 is going to kill powermac sales until it comes out. In my mind, this allows the possibility for the 970 being prototype at WWDC because they have already decided that this year is for laptops and next year is going to be the year for powermacs.:) :) :)

MacAndy

Frobozz

Mar 10, 2003, 09:17 AM

Originally posted by arn
Here's an encore wrapup of rumors on the PPC970.

- Peter Sandon, father of the PPC 970 at IBM, will present his chip at the WWDC.

- Certain members of ADC Select will be able to see a demonstration of a PPC 970 prototype Mac.

- APPLE is finalizing the development tools to optimize the code for the 970 chip. It is already "PPC 98" Ready

- There is also an advance (pre) beta version of a 64 bit Panther.

And to finish, the news about IBM.

- Even though they said that the PPC 970 would not reach the 2.5 Ghz at 0.13 Microns, it in fact will. They have so many already, that the 970 is available in significant volume.

- the 2.5 Ghz processor at 0.13 Microns has a problem though. It consumes 64 Watts and dissipates too much heat. But it isn't worse than a Pentium IV or an Athlon. It would be a true challenge, however, to propose a machine with 2 processors for a total of 128 W!

This does fall in line with the motherboard rumors, since they would have prototypes to show. If they show the computers in May, and we think the motherboards will be produced, in mass, by June/July... I think we will see these machines announced at MWNY or close after. At latest, Sept. Quite honestly, I think they will show them at MWNY. This is big. Far bigger than laptop updates or software. I'm not saying these things aren't greatly important, but they're not in the same league as a 2.5 GHZ 970, which should be like having a 3.5 GHz G4.

Folks, we could be on par with wintel performance by this July. If nothing else, we will be very close. I have everything else that makes my Mac superior to wintel, now let's get the last piece of the puzzle!

DakotaGuy

Mar 10, 2003, 09:17 AM

Originally posted by jrv3034
Is it possible that "PPC 98" means that OSX for the PPC is 98% ready?

Just a thought.:eek:

Huh, I thought that OSX was actually 100% ready for PPC. At least it seems to run 100% right most of the time on G3 and G4's which are PPC's.

Okay I am being a little sarcastic...but you get the point.

Frobozz

Mar 10, 2003, 09:20 AM

Originally posted by maxterpiece
So the "PPC 970s" will come every few years, and maybe they will shake up Apples market share for a year, but they are always going to come, and are not going to change apple's fortunes in the long run.

Ye have little faith. I feel sorry for you if your outlook for Apple is that bleak.

macmunch

Mar 10, 2003, 09:21 AM

So a Realease for MWNY03 seems very good or ??

Steve could show the nearly final version of 10.3 (same last year with 10.2)

An will say they ship the OS and G5(PPC970) in August/September !!

What do you think ?

Frobozz

Mar 10, 2003, 09:29 AM

Originally posted by andrewlandry
people really need to get over the idea that there are no practical needs for faster computers. creative proffessionals need faster computers. i make music on my dual-gig and i still have songs that it can't handle without bouncing tracks. working in Final Cut Pro and not having to render effects (without buying a Matrox card or something) would be nice.

There are tons of people who are not grandmas and who are also not insecure weenies. That's great that you think your computer is fast enough for you. But to say that anyone who wants their computer to be faster isn't a "real Mac user" or whatever is not accurate.

I totally agree. Those that do not need more speed than we have now should be buying iMacs. I need more power. I do 3d modeling, amongst other things, and if you've ever tried to do photon maps or caustics on high poly scenes, you're in for a LONG-ASS wait. I have a dual gig quicksilver, so I think you and I are in the same boat!

Frobozz

Mar 10, 2003, 09:34 AM

Originally posted by Abercrombieboy
Huh, I thought that OSX was actually 100% ready for PPC. At least it seems to run 100% right most of the time on G3 and G4's which are PPC's.

Okay I am being a little sarcastic...but you get the point.

Yeah, it must be that they were saying they'd roll in changes necessary for the 98xx series processors, which are based off of Power5. I guess this makes sense since they are doing a for-pay 10.3 release anyway...

dudemeister

Mar 10, 2003, 09:38 AM

Originally posted by maxterpiece
You are right, we need speed. Speed, however, is not Apple's concern.

Aside from being plain wishful thinking to have some sort of excuse to give to Wintel users, it's just simply WRONG, sorry. If it were so, everyone might as well switch NOW since it would be a simple question of time b4 Apple disappeared into meaninglessness. You don't go around buying companies like Nothing Real and kill Windows support for apps like Shake, if you don't inteand to provide the users (such as myself) with comparable speed they had on their PCs ASAP, otherwise don't bother buying it cause the users are gonna be gone SOON. I'm a video professional (and the PROS are still the most important user base for Apple, not the Grannies!) that is going to move his entire production to PC (along with many others I work with) if something doesn't happen soon. Time is big money in my biz and I'm on average 2,5 times faster on my PCs in production. Which I HATE having to admit, believe me...

Apple will find a chip that is competitive enough. They will make the hardware end of their system be at least viable. You are right when you say that businesses that are looking to be productive are going to be interested in speed.

Hell yeah. And they better be quick about it, cause if something doesn't happen soon, then even the alleged 2,5 GHz are going to look like a bad joke. AMD and Intel aren't exactly asleep at the wheel! Besides, "businesses that are looking to be productive are going to be interested in speed"???! Great, so to be the most productive I have to buy a PC...?! :confused: :confused:

Let's get one thing clear then, Apple is in no position to compete on price/performance with PCs.

Let's get another thing clear: wrong again. Macs are priced below PCs in many cases, and that's not even counting the amount of money and time we save just in tech-support- (meaning DOWN-) time with Macs. Just cause you can't get a Mac for as little as a PC overall doesn't mean diddley. Feel free and put together a computer at DELL's home-page that is comparable to a current Mac. The price difference isn't even in the 3-digits.

Apple has sacrificed price/performance (they killed the clones) on the principle that hardware is not what's really important to a computer.

Sorry, wrong again. The death of clones had entirely different reasons, and if you ask me, GOOD reasons. I had a couple way back when... BIG mistake and Apple knew that.

Notice that each keynote concentrates less and less on processors, and more on the true innovating that apple is doing.

Oh please. They're only not doing their usual (questionable) Photoshop "bench-testing" anymore because it doesn't matter anymore?! :rolleyes: .... hardly. They're not doing it because it would simply be painfully embarrassing, plain and simple. What you're saying is equal to Stevie going on stage and saying "Hey, we're only one THIRD as fast as the rest... but dude, we've got iMovie and it's FREE!!" The auditorium would clear in record time!

So what I'm saying is that, apple is never going to get those businesses that want straight up performance to run apps that are going to be the same on a PC or Mac. The closest to a business scene Apple will get is a small business user whose business does not operate in such a strictly mechanical way.

Dude, think about what you're saying. If that were in any way true, then what reasoning do you see behind the various companies and sw-packages they've been buying??!! Are those just tax-shelters or something? You're contradicting yourself entirely. Small businesses are exactly the ones that are the least interested in Macs, purely due to the aforementioned price/performance aspect that YOU brought up. The non-production (secretary and the likes) part of my office doesn't need performance! A P3 at 800MHz, Word, email and solitaire does the job perfectly and costs me HALF (worst-case) of anything with an Apple on it. Which makes a huge difference if I need 3 or even more such machines... buy two get one free! My secretary doesn't need FW or CD-R etc., so why the hell should I pay for it? (note: I'm being the devil's advocate here since my secretary has a Mac :D) I don't think you understand you're arguing against the Mac here... or is that your intention and I simply ain't gettin' it?! Because I really DON'T get your point, sorry. It doesn't make any sense.

S/He doesn't have a network administrator. S/he might use his/her computer for more than just one task.

Yepp. That's why they get a PC.

So the "PPC 970s" will come every few years, and maybe they will shake up Apples market share for a year, but they are always going to come, and are not going to change apple's fortunes in the long run.

And this is okay in your book??! Bottom line, plain and simple: if Apple doesn't catch up in terms of speed soon, they be reminiscing about the good old days where they had a whopping 3% market share, whether you think speed is important or not (and if you don't, you're buying into Steve's "reality-distortion-field" big time). Joe Average DOES (why he does is irrelevant) and what else could make him think about choosing a Mac?! Maybe the fact that 98% (if not 100%) of his buddies and/or business partners don't have one either? Hmmmmm...:confused:

type_r503

Mar 10, 2003, 09:45 AM

You guys are a bunch of cry babies!

First you're like, "I can't wait for the 970", "We need faster processors"

And when they are finally on the horizon all you can talk about is killing sales. We have to have faster processors to survive. Intel has sold the world on the importance of proc speed. Let alone the fact the the G4 is about 1.5 years behind or a cycle of Moore's Law. Imagine if you could do all your photoshop work in 1/3 the time or burn a DVD in 1/4 of the time.

As far as killing sales go, these computers aren't suppossed to be for consumers anyways. Corporate buying is much more important (larger quantities) and will continue simply because how hard it is for large companies to change their minds. If the chip is 1+ years out then a MW intro would be stupid, but I don't think anyone at apple or IBM is that stupid.

I say bring on the speed and 64bit processing power that comes with the 970.

type R

Marianco

Mar 10, 2003, 09:49 AM

A single PPC 970 is not fast enough.
If you haven't had a dual-G4 machine, you won't understand how much speed or flexibility a dual processor machine gives you.

Despite the 64 watt per processor power requirement, this is still less than a dual Athlon or P4 configuration.

Dual processors are necessary for use in the video and film industry, scientific research, and anywhere else where the fastest speeds are needed. Heck, even quad processors are needed.

Thus it is possible and also necessary for Apple to not abandon dual processor designs. Apple just needs to work on the cooling system. Or, Apple can copy the cooling systems on exisiting Athlon systems.:mad:

GPTurismo

Mar 10, 2003, 09:49 AM

Originally posted by macmunch
So a Realease for MWNY03 seems very good or ??

Steve could show the nearly final version of 10.3 (same last year with 10.2)

An will say they ship the OS and G5(PPC970) in August/September !!

What do you think ?

I jsut hope they don't do the same thing as OSX ;)

10.0 PRB, 10.0, 10.1, and finally the true "fully workable" OSX 10.2 :S

dudemeister

Mar 10, 2003, 10:13 AM

Originally posted by type_r503
You guys are a bunch of cry babies!

Good one. Out makin' friends, are we? :rolleyes:

First you're like, "I can't wait for the 970", "We need faster processors"
And when they are finally on the horizon all you can talk about is killing sales.

So? What's your point? It's a completely legitimate concern that is relevant! As opposed to Wintellers, we're not total egomaniacs worried about what benifits US most, whatever the price, but also what benifits "our" company APPLE as well and a sales slump isn't a GOOD thing! Hardly much point in quad-8GHz CPUs if there ain't a box to put them in, is there??!

Imagine if you could do all your photoshop work in 1/3 the time or burn a DVD in 1/4 of the time.

:confused: what exactly is your CPU doing to accelerate the burning of your DVDs??!

I say bring on the speed and 64bit processing power that comes with the 970.

You need to read up on the principal/meaning of a 64bit bus/CPU and that's not even the best part of the Power4/5 CPUs either. It's a tad more complicated then just "pop it in and letter rip!". If you i.e. don't have other components up to speed it can just as well back-fire on you...

Gus

Mar 10, 2003, 10:17 AM

Originally posted by Dont Hurt Me
As far as ppc98 goes i think this is a reference that the 970 is able to run all the 32 bit stuff from when the ppc made its appearence sort of speak. wasnt that about 1998?

I am assuming that you are either young, or are new to the Apple community? The PowerPC made its first appearance in a Mac in March of 1994-

http://www.apple-history.com/frames/?

The beautifully expandable PowerMac 6100.

Just an FYI. ;)

Regards,
Gus

nuckinfutz

Mar 10, 2003, 10:19 AM

A single PPC 970 is not fast enough.
If you haven't had a dual-G4 machine, you won't understand how much speed or flexibility a dual processor machine gives you.

Hey man let me save you from a little embarrasment in the future.

1. a PPC 970@ 2.5Ghz would probably spec at SpecFP-1350 Specint- 1300 that's faster than Intel right now and AMD

P4 cannot be run in SMP systems. You have to purchase Xeons for that.

foniks2020

Mar 10, 2003, 10:27 AM

I'm agreeing with an earlier poster who said PPC98 probably refers to being backward compatible with 1998 PPC 32bit instructions... the same ones we have now, in 2003, FIVE years later!

That really puts the sad state of the current PPC chips into perspective, of course x86 has been around even longer but Intel decided early on to add on speed patches instead of worrying about the chip architecture too much.

I can easily see prototypes being demo'd at WDDC. ADC Select members includes companies like: Adobe, Quark, Alladdin, Macromedia, Microsoft MBU, etc. as well as newer member companies like Oracle and Novell who have been working hard to support OS X lately, not to mention the hardware vendors who need to know about driver support issues (HP, Epson, Phillips, Toshiba, etc.).

I'm wondering if the first PPC 970s will even be in 'desktop' machines. It's entirely possible that Apple will release a new XServe model with these chips in them initially... as they did with DDR(lite) support and a few other mods that then trickled down to the towers.

Anyways, there is plenty of good reasons to believe this rumor and absolutely no reason to think it will have any bearing on final released products until 3rd Q this year (though we can always hope for a surprise).

foniks2020

Mar 10, 2003, 10:39 AM

Originally posted by Gus
[B]I am assuming that you are either young, or are new to the Apple community? The PowerPC made its first appearance in a Mac in March of 1994-

Well I still stand by the previous posters view until something better comes along ;-p I'll rationalize this by stating that I don't think the PPC instruction set from the 6100 was mature at the time as Mac OS still relied on a lot of legacy code at the time 860xx? I always forget the exact number string.

Anyways I seem to remember there was a freak out back then when it got to the 7200 line and up due to firmware where some stuff wasn't backwards compatible with the 1st Gen PPC machines.

eirik

Mar 10, 2003, 10:41 AM

Originally posted by Marianco
A single PPC 970 is not fast enough.
If you haven't had a dual-G4 machine, you won't understand how much speed or flexibility a dual processor machine gives you...
...Dual processors are necessary for use in the video and film industry, scientific research, and anywhere else where the fastest speeds are needed. Heck, even quad processors are needed.

Given the horrendous FSB limitation of the current G4's, even a single 970 with its relatively massive FSB potential (6.4 GB/s vs 1.3 GB/s max. theo. thru-put) ought to be able to blatantly smoke a pair of dual 1.4's on high volume, high computations such as video rendering. The 1.4's are choked, waiting for data to make its way through the FSB's. Theoretically, a single 1.4 GHz 970 could get almost 5 times the data throughput than that of the dual 1.4's. I wonder if the single 970 would be able to keep up with all that data?

Nonetheless, provided IBM and Apple don't disappoint us on the 970 FSB w.r.t. multiple CPU configurations, two or four 970's should truly rock.

I'm not disagreeing w/ Marianco, just pointing out the silver lining (FSB relief) should we not initially get dualies or very highly clocked CPU's. All this Iraq and UN stuff is depressing, a little good news elsewhere would be most welcome.

Eirik

-hh

Mar 10, 2003, 10:53 AM

Originally posted by type_r503
You guys are a bunch of cry babies!

First you're like, "I can't wait for the 970", "We need faster processors"

And when they are finally on the horizon all you can talk about is killing sales. ... If the chip is 1+ years out then a MW intro would be stupid, but I don't think anyone at apple or IBM is that stupid.

Agreed, and similarly, the customers -- especially business -- aren't stupid either.

I'm of the opinion that PowerMac sales are pretty much already virtually dead - - we're really beating an old, dead horse over and over: anyone who's a knowledgable consumer knows what the deal is, and will avoid buying right now if he can. Most of the current sales are to those who know that they can't wait.

Afterall, Apple's Quarterly Reports have been reporting for quite awhile the increasingly poor sales of the PowerMacs. I'm having some challenges finding reliable numbers, but it looks like PowerMac sales were down 20-25% last quarter, and another 38% in the quarter before that. Any way you want to slice it, the numbers are already seriously down, with no end in sight.

Currently, the PowerMac is only ~8% of total sales (58K of 724K units sold in the quarter = 8%), which means that 8% reduction in total sales is the absolute worst impact that can occur if we assume that the PowerMac suddenly stops selling completely because of a formal 970 announcement.

The handwriting that I see is that any possible additional sales erosion due to a formal 970 announcement functionally cannot do any further harm to PowerMac sales, because "dead is dead": a 99% reduction in effectively zero sales is still effectively zero.

-hh

bentmywookie

Mar 10, 2003, 10:53 AM

Originally posted by iJon
i could believe this. weret we all saying the same thing when arn posted tomorrow there would be 17 and 12 inch powerbooks, and we all talked about how it would kill ibook and possibly 15 inch powerbooks sales. anyways, im guessing this could be true and it wont be long till we find out whats goin on. maybe a new powermac will be shown, with 10.3 being a 64 bit operating system to debut. i have a question for someone real smart. with 10.3 probably 64-bit with all the rumors, does having a 64-bit system tied in with a 64-bit processor make things faster, or does other things benefit from the processor.

iJon

iJon, as far as I know (and if I am wrong please, someone, correct me) - a 64 bit processor would not make anything faster unless it involved 64 bit numbers, since this processor now can handle 64 bit arithmetic and logic instructions.

The only other benefit of a 64-bit processor that I know of besides that is that you greatly increase the size of addressable memory from 4 GB (I think) on a 32 bit processor to something huge (2^64 bytes).

zulgand04

Mar 10, 2003, 10:54 AM

I know im going to hear it from everyone but i'll still say my opinion.
We'll i just thought of something maybe considering the chip is 64bit, that this will be a new era for Apple. That said it could be a possibility that Apple could come out with a totally new line not a macintosh but something else, this could be like when Apple cahnged from the name Apple to Macintosh, and i can just imagine a tv comercial simular to the freaky mac intro one. If Apple did this it would totally be a new era and a great beginning for Apple as a major player in the PC market.

just my insaine dream
-neal

technocoy

Mar 10, 2003, 10:57 AM

I am starting to believe this really is going to be the best year for apple... at least as far as new recognition goes... i guess next year would be the best monetarily... I love it!! i love every minute of it!

technocoy:D

MorganX

Mar 10, 2003, 11:15 AM

Originally posted by GPTurismo

Speed only matters to little overclocker boys and packet monkeys :S

Anyone working with Video needs speed. Converting video formats on an iMac is so slow, I'm not even trying anymore.

Sony announced the PS3 would be available this year. Perhaps rumors of them also using a 970ish CPU are true after all.

Rustus Maximus

Mar 10, 2003, 11:23 AM

Originally posted by hh
The handwriting that I see is that any possible additional sales erosion due to a formal 970 announcement functionally cannot do any further harm to PowerMac sales, because "dead is dead": a 99% reduction in effectively zero sales is still effectively zero

hh is exactly right. The 970 is coming, and soon. There is no reason to delay because of the fear of hurting presently available PowerMac sales. You either hurt them now or you hurt them later, either way, there is going to be a dead zone during the transition period. The way to lessen that is to make a FAST transition. Which is why I'm falling on the side of a WWDC intro for the 970 and a desktop system release at MWNY, whether or not Steve gives the keynote. I think we are all about to be pleasantly surprised.

Rustus

yzedf

Mar 10, 2003, 11:31 AM

The whole point of ditching the G4 is to get back to single processor machines. This will help with costs in a big way! Simpler mobo, 1/2 cost for proc and fan, etc. And, it's performance will actually compare with the newer wintel stuff again. And then sell the dual proc 970 machine as a true workstation, ala Dell and other full line companies.

Of course, when this all can happen is still up in the air ;)

<edit>
As to these rumors hurting PowerMac sales presently; yes it is a problem. But I think that is more of a indication of the current level of machinery available, then the fact that "an update is coming."
</edit>

Mr. Anderson

Mar 10, 2003, 11:36 AM

Does anyone have any idea how fast a single 2.0 GHz or so 970 would be? Are there any specs on these machines? And would they be fast enough to forego having dual processors on first release.

D

jettredmont

Mar 10, 2003, 11:41 AM

Originally posted by MacAndy
One person replied earlier, "What if the 'Year of the laptop' was really a bluff, insinuating that the 970 may be released before the end of the year. Reading that made me think that maybe the reason this year is the year of the laptop is because Jobs and Apple have already resigned themselves to the fact that when they confirm the 970, powermac sales are going to be next to nothing until they release the new chip. That would make sense then why this year is for laptops. They are focusing on laptops this year because releasing the 970 is going to kill powermac sales until it comes out. In my mind, this allows the possibility for the 970 being prototype at WWDC because they have already decided that this year is for laptops and next year is going to be the year for powermacs.:) :) :)

MacAndy

Unless the 970 is announced for XServe only (which is quite logical ... XServe applications need a relatively cheap 64-bit implementation ...), and PowerMacs don't get it until next year.

Mr. Anderson

Mar 10, 2003, 11:50 AM

Originally posted by jettredmont
Unless the 970 is announced for XServe only (which is quite logical ... XServe applications need a relatively cheap 64-bit implementation ...), and PowerMacs don't get it until next year.

and that would be the death of apple - or more likely, jobs would get death threats by all the irate people who would see that move as clearly incompetent shortsidedness. They couldn't do that - its not like you'd be dangling a carrot in front of the donkey to get it to move faster. It would be more like baiting a bear with a side of bacon on a rope from a tree. The bear would either climb the tree or knock it over to get to the bacon - and you ;)

D

hacurio1

Mar 10, 2003, 11:51 AM

Originally posted by GPTurismo
I jsut hope they don't do the same thing as OSX ;)

10.0 PRB, 10.0, 10.1, and finally the true "fully workable" OSX 10.2 :S

It's not like they will relase a new OS. They will only relase 10.3!!! An upgrade if you ask me!!!

Pedro Estarque

Mar 10, 2003, 11:55 AM

Originally posted by GPTurismo
Speed only matters to little overclocker boys and packet monkeys :S

Let's just quit this "we don't need more speed" nonsense shall we?
As a Pro User a NEED more speed then both Apple and Intel can provide me combined X^2.
A home user doesn't NEED a machine that can render HDTV in realtime to browse the web or print word docs, true. But no one likes to wait, we want to click and have it, not click and wait.
Until ( if ever ) we get a mac that can simple abolish the progress bar or the bouncing apps from the doc and have a realtime computer experience, then we can say it's fast enough.
I don't think we will ever get there, because as computers get faster we expect then to do more. Realtime HDTV rendering won't be enough when a new standard arrives that has, for example, twice the resolution plus 3D.

porovaara

Mar 10, 2003, 12:01 PM

applejilted

Mar 10, 2003, 12:08 PM

It's all so simple IMHO..... Everyone and his sister KNOWS with metaphysical certainty that Apple will be incorporating IBM's PPC 970 into Powermacs. The only variable is WHEN ? To stem the tide of defections to the dark side Apple should IMMEDIATELY announce the date when said systems will be available....the reason is simple : if you're in the market for a Powermac and you're reading all this you may think it'll be introduced anytime between late summer and Feb 2004.... that may be too much uncertainty.

jettredmont

Mar 10, 2003, 12:17 PM

Originally posted by dukestreet
Does anyone have any idea how fast a single 2.0 GHz or so 970 would be? Are there any specs on these machines? And would they be fast enough to forego having dual processors on first release.

D

We have estimates for the 1.8GHz PPC970. It is faster than Intel's flagship Itanium 2 processor (although not faster than the 32-bit Pentium 4; SPEC numbers across bitness are hard to compare, however). AMD's Hammer processor gets higher SPEC numbers in theory, but that's been delayed so much that if/when it finally does come out the 970 will be well beyond just 1.8GHz.

Given that SPEC numbers tend to scale directly with processor speed (assuming a constant processor design and scale), the 970 at 2.5GHz would literally blow any current or anticipated processor out of the water on SPEC scores.

The G4 scores, if I remember correctly, in the <300 range on both SPECint and SPECfp; the 970 (again, 64-bit vs 32-bit, but this comparison favors the 32-bit proc) is 1000-1200 in both (i forget the precise numbers).

In other words: one 970 should be able to do the CPU grunt work of 3-4 G4s.

Add to that the fact that the FSB is so much faster (and really that is where the 970 gets most of its comparitive speed, as the G4 is highly-FSB-bound), and one 970 could easily do the job of dual G4s with aplomb. On the other hand, the advantages of having dual procs in terms of responsiveness and such are hard to accomplish with a single proc no matter how fast it is.

ffakr

Mar 10, 2003, 12:20 PM

This would hurt sales, but some organizations buy when they can. Education, for example, makes purchases when they have budget available. They generally can't carry budget over from one period to another (at least that was how it worked at my last job (university)).

If most Universities (like mine) had a budget that ended in the summer, they will buy machines irregardless of what will be available two months later.

It is beginning to look like apple needs to prove to Mac clients that there is, in fact, a road map for the desktop. If they don't show something big in the pipe, they may loose desktop space. The only thing worse than having sales postponed is having mac sales replaced by PCs. These PC slots generally don't come back to the Mac later on.

... just my 2 cents.

dudemeister

Mar 10, 2003, 12:23 PM

Originally posted by bentmywookie
iJon, as far as I know (and if I am wrong please, someone, correct me) - a 64 bit processor would not make anything faster unless it involved 64 bit numbers, since this processor now can handle 64 bit arithmetic and logic instructions.

Stand corrected... I think, since I'm not quite sure what that meant. (64 bit arithmetic and logic instructions? Hmmmm...)

Believe it or not a LOT of apps should and will most likely stay 32-bit!! There are not that many apps that actually benefit from 64-bit, people!! Come on, you're doing the same damn thing the Wintellers are doing when it comes to M/GHz! Just cause there's a bigger number in there, everyone's "cool dude! you GOT to get one no matter what!" without even knowing what it means!

64-bit computing is great for applications that must (and CAN of course, which none can so far on the Mac) make use of the increased scalability and performance of a 64-bit OS (which we ALSO don't have). Most high-end computing needs are already met with 32-bit applications on a 32-bit OS, so let's keep it a tad more in perspective.

Most applications should even STAY 32-Bit! Any application that does not require 64-bit features should remain a 32-bit binary. 32-bit applications will run on both the 32-bit and 64-bit PPCs btw. Most 32-bit applications will perform better compiled as a 32-bit binary, because more of the application binary fits in the computer's cache. When a 32-bit application is recompiled for 64 bits, the 64-bit binary will typically be larger than its 32-bit binary. With a given cache size available on a system, performance may actually decline because of a greater number of cache misses when running the 64-bit binary........ I'm just going to assume this made sense to SOME of you, the other ones just don't talk about it as if 64-bit is a MUST before you do.

The only other benefit of a 64-bit processor that I know of besides that is that you greatly increase the size of addressable memory from 4 GB (I think) on a 32 bit processor to something huge (2^64 bytes).

Close enough I guess... but just to make it a tad more specific: A 64-bit processor, with 64-bit registers and a 64-bit integer data path, (as opposed to a 32-bit proc, as you said, that has flat addressing of up to 2^32 32-bit bytes, or about 4GB of memory) has flat addressing for 2^64 64-bit bytes, or 18 billion GB (or 18 Exabytes) of memory... which should do for M$ Word I think. (wonder how much THAT memory upgrade is gonna cost in the Apple-Store :D)

Yipee, huh?.... nope. At least not until there is the OS to go along with it and foremost the APPS, and really only the very high-end apps in the area of 3D, video/film (and I'm not talking about FCP! :rolleyes: ) and databases (servers!) are gonna even notice anything, since in a 64-bit CPU, integer arithmetic is 64 bits providing greater performance and precision. Since most compilers support 64-bit data types, even on 32-bit CPUs, the main benefit for integer arithmetic is more performance on larger data types. And larger isn't referring to your PowerPoint presentation...

A true 64-bit operating system uses the 64-bit addressing and arithmetic abilities of the CPU to provide more system resources to the apps. A 64-bit operating system would allow larger files and more files, user IDs, shared library segments, and other resources than a 32-bit operating system, which like I said hardly plays a part in >70% of users! But at least OS X would finally be FAST... too bad that it apparently will need a 64-bit version to get there. :mad:

In OTHER WORDS, there's NO WAY we're going to see some sort of COMPLETE switch to the 970, that would be complete idiocy, especially in terms of cost. Therefore you're only going to see the VERY TOP of the line go that route, if even, and the servers! So you can stop the "it will hurt sales" talk now. It will only make sense to the FEWEST to actually get one at first! Which BTW is the same for the ITANIUMS and HAMMERS of this world!! Get real!

These puppies are gonna need a completely new I/O architecture (high speed everything!) to even make sense (and not be another half-assed attempt of Apple's to save some face by relying on the ol' reality-distortion-field!), and that ain't exactly FREE...

Dey is gonna be 'spensive!!! (relatively speaking) so don't plan on jumping on the first boxes, unless daddy's got the platinum layin' around unattended... ;) :p

... should nonetheless shut a bunch WinTrolls up, but won't change the fact that the "lower" boxes are still left painfully slow. The road to being able to say "the Mac is (one of) the fastest machines!" without having to add a few "if"s or "but"s is gonna be loooooooong... nuff said.

jettredmont

Mar 10, 2003, 12:26 PM

Originally posted by dukestreet

Originally posted by jettredmont
Unless the 970 is announced for XServe only (which is quite logical ... XServe applications need a relatively cheap 64-bit implementation ...), and PowerMacs don't get it until next year.

and that would be the death of apple - or more likely, jobs would get death threats by all the irate people who would see that move as clearly incompetent shortsidedness. They couldn't do that - its not like you'd be dangling a carrot in front of the donkey to get it to move faster. It would be more like baiting a bear with a side of bacon on a rope from a tree. The bear would either climb the tree or knock it over to get to the bacon - and you ;)

D

I don't think so. Any new processor has limitted production capacity at first relative to when it is going "full bore". While there are relatively fewer potential users of the XServe, they are much more likely to spend the extra bucks on a new processor/MB design. This is why new processors are generally released to the "higher end" machines before the "lower end" machines. Also, note that each motherboard takes design resources to get out the door: putting 970's on all machines from day one would both be silly and would take Apple precious months to coordinate, when they could be selling XServes based on the new design while the PMs are under design, and sell PMs with the new design while working on bumping up the iMacs, etc.

Just a possibility; store it away and don't be too upset if that's what happens.

Frobozz

Mar 10, 2003, 12:26 PM

Originally posted by nuckinfutz
Hey man let me save you from a little embarrasment in the future.

1. a PPC 970@ 2.5Ghz would probably spec at SpecFP-1350 Specint- 1300 that's faster than Intel right now and AMD

P4 cannot be run in SMP systems. You have to purchase Xeons for that.

Yes, and to back you up, the current G4's at 1 GHz get a score around 400. There's some math to be done, but the nay-sayers should see our point!

We're in for some good times.

Frobozz

Mar 10, 2003, 12:43 PM

Originally posted by yzedf
The whole point of ditching the G4 is to get back to single processor machines. This will help with costs in a big way! Simpler mobo, 1/2 cost for proc and fan, etc.

Yeah, I think it's reasonable to expect only high end Pro machines to go dual, because the single proc's would be 2x faster than todays existing duals. Good call.

VIIGemina

Mar 10, 2003, 12:54 PM

Having been to over a dozen WWDCs...

WWDC has only been used for announcing hardware once, the Lombard. It has been used many times for teasing the developers with bake-offs using future, possible hardware. (Anyone remember the tri-media chip?) Not always have these products shipped and the lead time has been as much as a year.

WWDC is usually a platform for announcing software. An official announcement and release of a Puma beta to developers is most likely.

The demoing of prerelease hardware at WWDC can range from private, invitation-only affairs to a bake-off for 5,000 of my closest friends.

Neither one would surprise me this year. A clue will be if the Hardware Keynote reappears this year. Usually held on Wednesday morning. Another clue will be if there's a session on 64bit Programming Directions. We'll now when Apple posts the sessions in a few weeks.

I'd suspect that the 64bit session is more likely with a lot of wink, wink, nudge, nudge. But I'd love to be surprised.

Sebastian

dudemeister

Mar 10, 2003, 12:54 PM

just found a cute comparison here (http://www.computerworld.com/hardwaretopics/hardware/story/0,10801,43552,00.html), where they're talking about "A CPU's ability to address data depends on how many bits it can handle at one time":

8-bit
256
About 10 times larger than our alphabet

16-bit
65,536
Population of a midsize city

32-bit
4.3 billion
Total adult population in the world

64-bit
18 quintrillion
Grains of sand at a large beach

:eek: :D

but please keep my last post in mind when reading this, it's a VERY MISLEADING generalisation! It just ain't that simple.

Besides, they also write: "Analysts say 64-bit computing will likely be in the mainstream by the year 2002 [note the date it was written, 1995 ], when operating systems and applications will be widely available."

oops.... ;) :p

jettredmont

Mar 10, 2003, 01:04 PM

Originally posted by dudemeister
Stand corrected... I think, since I'm not quite sure what that meant. (64 bit arithmetic and logic instructions? Hmmmm...)

Believe it or not a LOT of apps should and will most likely stay 32-bit!! There are not that many apps that actually benefit from 64-bit, people!! Come on, you're doing the same damn thing the Wintellers are doing when it comes to M/GHz! Just cause there's a bigger number in there, everyone's "cool dude! you GOT to get one no matter what!" without even knowing what it means!

Quite true. However, there are enough apps that would see a speedup with 64 bits (primarily apps that use floating points now because 32-bit ints don't have the range and 64-bit ints on a 32-bit processor are too inefficient) that moving to 64-bit would be advantageous.

64-bit computing is great for applications that must (and CAN of course, which none can so far on the Mac) make use of the increased scalability and performance of a 64-bit OS (which we ALSO don't have). Most high-end computing needs are already met with 32-bit applications on a 32-bit OS, so let's keep it a tad more in perspective.

Most applications should even STAY 32-Bit! Any application that does not require 64-bit features should remain a 32-bit binary. 32-bit applications will run on both the 32-bit and 64-bit PPCs btw. Most 32-bit applications will perform better compiled as a 32-bit binary, because more of the application binary fits in the computer's cache.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the PPC 970 still uses 32-bit wide instructions, it just adds instructions for loading/manipulating/storing 64-bit ints alongside the 32-bit int load/manip/store instructions. As such, I don't believe you will "compile as a 32-bit binary"; you will compile with 64-bit integer support either "real" (970+ compatible only) or "simulated" (backwards-compatible to 32-bit PPC processors, using the same strategy for "long long" as gcc does currently). The "real" 64-bit binary will work better on the 970 than "simulated" 64-bits, but will not run on 32-bit processors. For the most part, your app will be compiled in both modes and will decide at runtime or install time which library (64-bit true or simulated) should be used based on the machine's processor (which is, not surprisingly, just what we do for AltiVec currently).

When a 32-bit application is recompiled for 64 bits, the 64-bit binary will typically be larger than its 32-bit binary.

The code should not change size at all. I mean, the only place where I can see code size being larger with 64-bit int support is in your data segments, assuming that data you had previously defined as 32-bit wide is now defined as 64-bits wide. In general, though, the bulk of your code will not change at all if you are at least slightly careful in how you write your code.

And, yes, developers (at least the good ones :) ) are completely capable of using 32-bit ints in a 64-bit world. Looking at my code, I've got quite a few 8-bit and 16-bit ints used, and 32-bit processors have been around since before I even started coding! There is a tendency in those who are new at it, to just use "int" when you only need to count to 10, but with experience and a few grueling performance optimizations using the right bit-width becomes second nature.

With a given cache size available on a system, performance may actually decline because of a greater number of cache misses when running the 64-bit binary........ I'm just going to assume this made sense to SOME of you, the other ones just don't talk about it as if 64-bit is a MUST before you do.

Yes, quite true. However, I think with the 970 optimizing for the Mac will suddenly get a lot harder. Up to this point, we've known the bottleneck 90% of the time is in the FSB. You just can't pull data out of memory fast enough to keep the processor busy. So cache management is the absolute highest priority, even if it leads to less efficient code at the CPU itself. With the 970, that gets turned on its head: the FSB is rip-roaring fast, and the bottleneck believe it or not is more akin to what you see on Intel processors: the CPU speed itself and the peripherals themselves, not the communication between them. While cache management is still important in this case, it takes a fairly quick back seat to keeping the CPU doing the "right" thing instead of wasting cycles.

The transition isn't going to be really pretty. If you don't optimize your code for the 970 architecture, it won't run a whole lot faster than it would on a similarly-clocked G4. However, if you optimize your code for the 970 it will be blazing fast on that new processor, and much slower on older G4s. You have to both know your customer and their machines, and have the ability to manage the transition along with them. In a performance-driven situation, 32-bit or 64-bit is really going to be the least of your worries!

Close enough I guess... but just to make it a tad more specific: A 64-bit processor, with 64-bit registers and a 64-bit integer data path, (as opposed to a 32-bit proc, as you said, that has flat addressing of up to 2^32 32-bit bytes, or about 4GB of memory) has flat addressing for 2^64 64-bit bytes, or 18 billion GB (or 18 Exabytes) of memory... which should do for M$ Word I think. (wonder how much THAT memory upgrade is gonna cost in the Apple-Store :D)

Ahhh ... Yes, I remember saying that 16MB (on an Intel machine) should be more than enough for Word with just such a snicker on my face ... Now I wouldn't dream of loading up Word on a machine with less than 256MB ...

But, yes, hitting that 64-bit addressable memory boundary should take us a good long time. It's nice to have a wall move back away from us before we really hit it too hard!

A true 64-bit operating system uses the 64-bit addressing and arithmetic abilities of the CPU to provide more system resources to the apps. A 64-bit operating system would allow larger files and more files, user IDs, shared library segments, and other resources than a 32-bit operating system, which like I said hardly plays a part in >70% of users! But at least OS X would finally be FAST... too bad that it apparently will need a 64-bit version to get there. :mad:

Which sorta touches on the fact that Apple has a lot of work ahead of them in making OSX 64-bit friendly. Carbon's API, in general, will either remain 32-bit only or will require a massive amount of re-writing and dual-API support (all those structs with pointers now need 64-bit pointers!)

In OTHER WORDS, there's NO WAY we're going to see some sort of COMPLETE switch to the 970, that would be complete idiocy, especially in terms of cost. Therefore you're only going to see the VERY TOP of the line go that route, if even, and the servers! So you can stop the "it will hurt sales" talk now. It will only make sense to the FEWEST to actually get one at first! Which BTW is the same for the ITANIUMS and HAMMERS of this world!! Get real!

Thanks, I'm glad someone else sees it the same way!

foniks2020

Mar 10, 2003, 01:08 PM

Well about half of what was said is relevant. Remember that IBM is making these chips initially as a DESKTOP CPU for themselves.

If they wanted to make another Server CPU well.. they already have several. Obviously this chip is meant to fall into a reasonable price range for desktop systems. That includes all the I/O and Interconnect stuff as well...

So it is completely unimaginable that the 970 would not make it into Apple desktop systems within a reasonable amount of time, even if they decide to put them in XServes immediately for manufacturing testing purposes or other cost/benefit reasons. AND it will be at a decent pricepoint.

There are plenty of numbers posted so I won't rehash on performance.

I don't think anyone is really going to have an idea of the impact 64bit will have for the OS until it is seen in action, so speculation and pseudo-technical discussions on what it is or isn't good for are really unfounded at the moment.

Think back to 8bit and 16bit systems and the limitations they had that weren't even considered limitations at the time because no one had even contemplated using all the extra room 32bit has given us....

can you imagine doing what Quartz does now in any less than 32 bit? For G4s it also has altivec support, hardware acceleration, etc. What new innovative uses for 64bit might arise? Apple is known for pushing the envelope... I'm sure they've put some thought into how to take advantage of the extra resources, computational space, etc. that 64bit will allow for.

ryan

Mar 10, 2003, 01:19 PM

[QUOTE]Originally posted by jettredmont
and that would be the death of apple - or more likely, jobs would get death threats by all the irate people who would see that move as clearly incompetent shortsidedness. They couldn't do that - its not like you'd be dangling a carrot in front of the donkey to get it to move faster. It would be more like baiting a bear with a side of bacon on a rope from a tree. The bear would either climb the tree or knock it over to get to the bacon - and you ;)

D

I don't think so. Any new processor has limitted production capacity at first relative to when it is going "full bore". While there are relatively fewer potential users of the XServe, they are much more likely to spend the extra bucks on a new processor/MB design. This is why new processors are generally released to the "higher end" machines before the "lower end" machines. Also, note that each motherboard takes design resources to get out the door: putting 970's on all machines from day one would both be silly and would take Apple precious months to coordinate, when they could be selling XServes based on the new design while the PMs are under design, and sell PMs with the new design while working on bumping up the iMacs, etc.

Just a possibility; store it away and don't be too upset if that's what happens. [/B]
Actually, the people who buy servers don't usually want the latest and faster processor/machines out there. Why? Because the faster machines are always the newest machines and therefore have short/no track records. If you're running a business that depends on a server you want to know that it is going to work. This is why you can still buy servers that use the PIII. The PIII and the machines that use them have proven track records, so buying one isn’t as risky proposition as buying a server based on the latest 3GHz XEON processor, even though it may offer substantially more horsepower.

ryan

Mar 10, 2003, 01:23 PM

Originally posted by foniks2020
Well about half of what was said is relevant. Remember that IBM is making these chips initially as a DESKTOP CPU for themselves.

If they wanted to make another Server CPU well.. they already have several. Obviously this chip is meant to fall into a reasonable price range for desktop systems. That includes all the I/O and Interconnect stuff as well...

So it is completely unimaginable that the 970 would not make it into Apple desktop systems within a reasonable amount of time, even if they decide to put them in XServes immediately for manufacturing testing purposes or other cost/benefit reasons. AND it will be at a decent pricepoint.

There are plenty of numbers posted so I won't rehash on performance.

I don't think anyone is really going to have an idea of the impact 64bit will have for the OS until it is seen in action, so speculation and pseudo-technical discussions on what it is or isn't good for are really unfounded at the moment.

Think back to 8bit and 16bit systems and the limitations they had that weren't even considered limitations at the time because no one had even contemplated using all the extra room 32bit has given us....

can you imagine doing what Quartz does now in any less than 32 bit? For G4s it also has altivec support, hardware acceleration, etc. What new innovative uses for 64bit might arise? Apple is known for pushing the envelope... I'm sure they've put some thought into how to take advantage of the extra resources, computational space, etc. that 64bit will allow for.
Agreed. And remember, Apple is not going to want to support both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of their OS(es) any longer than they have to, so moving their entire product line to the 970 would make a lot of sense in that regard. Also, by moving the entire product line to the 970 Apple would be buying large numbers of one kind of chip (and therefore paying less for them) as opposed to buying smaller quantities of two, or even three different kinds of chips.

Kid Red

Mar 10, 2003, 01:40 PM

Originally posted by dudemeister

Dey is gonna be 'spensive!!! (relatively speaking) so don't plan on jumping on the first boxes, unless daddy's got the platinum layin' around unattended... ;) :p

I disagree. We've seen other info that points to the same cost as the G4 if not cheaper. The 970 is a 'desktop' version of the power4, not a workstation version. I'd look for the current pricing to stay about the same. Apple has alos been very aggressive with their pricing, I expect that not to change.

No keynote at MWNY means no 970 release at MWNY. It will either be before then or after then probably at a special event.

macrumors12345

Mar 10, 2003, 01:44 PM

Originally posted by ryan
This is why you can still buy servers that use the PIII. The PIII and the machines that use them have proven track records, so buying one isn’t as risky proposition as buying a server based on the latest 3GHz XEON processor, even though it may offer substantially more horsepower.

The main reason that the PIII is still used in servers is that the P4 Xeon generates far too much heat to be used in compact enclosures.

The 970 gives P4 comparable performance dissipating PIII comparable amounts of heat - it is "the best of both worlds." This is why IBM is planning to produce PPC 970 blades running Linux.

jeffff

Mar 10, 2003, 02:02 PM

Originally posted by AmbitiousLemon
the current powermacs don't boot into os9.

OS 9 booting powermacs are still available, though I understand your point. My point was that 970's would be forever foreclosed from booting into OS 9.

yzedf

Mar 10, 2003, 02:05 PM

dudemeister

Mar 10, 2003, 02:18 PM

Originally posted by foniks2020
Well about half of what was said is relevant.
Well, sorry, but judging by what you've written, you only understood about half! So let's not fall into a quasi-flame deal here, okay?
Remember that IBM is making these chips initially as a DESKTOP CPU for themselves.
Hmmm, as far as their website is concerned... (http://www-132.ibm.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/CategoryDisplay?storeId=1&catalogId=-840&langId=-1&categoryId=2048974) I don't see much PPC desktop action going on (nor their notebbooks or workstations for that matter), so I'm not exactly sure what you could mean... I don't know of any plans on the part of IBM of fitting desktops with PPCs, do you?

Let me answer that: NO. Guess what, IBM intends them for Blades (meaning SERVERS)... sorry!
If they wanted to make another Server CPU well.. they already have several.
That's probably why I was talking about servers for APPLE... aside from the above of course. :rolleyes:
Obviously this chip is meant to fall into a reasonable price range for desktop systems. That includes all the I/O and Interconnect stuff as well...
Only IBM doesn't make nor SELL I/O components such as those that are needed. There IS a reason why server boxes are a might more expensive than desktops, huh? And it ain't just 'cause of the CPU... have you checked what e.g. RAM clocked at 400+ MHz costs lately? ... and just to cut the wallowing suspense, again, IBM has ZERO plans of putting the 970 in any DESKTOPS, okay? It's intended merely for "low-end" Blades!
So it is completely unimaginable that the 970 would not make it into Apple desktop systems within a reasonable amount of time, even if they decide to put them in XServes immediately for manufacturing testing purposes or other cost/benefit reasons. AND it will be at a decent pricepoint.
Hmmm, completely UNimaginable that it would NOT? Two negatives DO make a positive...!

Well, I don't think I have the time to go into your definition of "reasonable" or "decent", since it quite obviously is way beyond my definition. And since both are mere speculation, there's really no POINT, is there?
I don't think anyone is really going to have an idea of the impact 64bit will have for the OS until it is seen in action, so speculation and pseudo-technical discussions on what it is or isn't good for are really unfounded at the moment.
I think I'll stick with a "no comment" on that one...
can you imagine doing what Quartz does now in any less than 32 bit?
Sorry, but I dont think you know what you're talking about.
Apple is known for pushing the envelope...
Such as? Apple has never pushed any envelopes that hadn't been pushed already that I can recall. I'd say they've kept up pretty well so far, except for the last couple of years, nothing more.
I'm sure they've put some thought into how to take advantage of the extra resources, computational space, etc. that 64bit will allow for.
Good. Unfortunately, i.e. just like with OS X, as long as they're doing it by themselves and don't have any decent "playmates" tagging along, that effort has ZERO value. Which fortunately isn't the case the further we get along, but I remind you of others such as Be or even NeXT for that matter.

But that is going out on too much of a tangent at this point, so let's not elaborate.

I'll refrain from offering a "relevance" grade myself, if that's okay with you.

cheerz

dudemeister

Mar 10, 2003, 02:37 PM

Originally posted by yzedf
All of the above... and one point missed: addressable memory space. [...] More RAM is possible.

Okay.

Tho (I know it may have been a lot to cover) try not to only QUOTE the posts next time, but also READ them, it'll save you both time and typing... ;)

scem0

Mar 10, 2003, 03:24 PM

type_r503

Mar 10, 2003, 03:38 PM

Originally posted by dudemeister
Good one. Out makin' friends, are we? :rolleyes:

no.

So? What's your point? It's a completely legitimate concern that is relevant! As opposed to Wintellers, we're not total egomaniacs worried about what benifits US most, whatever the price, but also what benifits "our" company APPLE as well and a sales slump isn't a GOOD thing! Hardly much point in quad-8GHz CPUs if there ain't a box to put them in, is there??!

It's not a sales slump. PowerMacs are getting blown away by P4 based machines. Would you rather have to wait 2 seconds or 20 seconds for Maya to render a scene?

:confused: what exactly is your CPU doing to accelerate the burning of your DVDs??!

Compression??!

You need to read up on the principal/meaning of a 64bit bus/CPU and that's not even the best part of the Power4/5 CPUs either. It's a tad more complicated then just "pop it in and letter rip!". If you i.e. don't have other components up to speed it can just as well back-fire on you...

With an FSB running at 900MHz and ApplePI I think that there should be enough data to feed the PPC970. I think I have a solid grasp on the "meaning" of 64bit bus/CPU.

MrMacMan

Mar 10, 2003, 03:52 PM

Well even a crash prone 970 is better than no 970 at all. :D

Looking foward to hearing more about this.

-hh

Mar 10, 2003, 03:54 PM

Originally posted by ffakr
This would hurt sales, but some organizations buy when they can. Education, for example, makes purchases when they have budget available. They generally can't carry budget over from one period to another (at least that was how it worked at my last job (university)).

If most Universities (like mine) had a budget that ended in the summer, they will buy machines irregardless of what will be available two months later.

It is beginning to look like apple needs to prove to Mac clients that there is, in fact, a road map for the desktop. If they don't show something big in the pipe, they may loose desktop space. The only thing worse than having sales postponed is having mac sales replaced by PCs. These PC slots generally don't come back to the Mac later on.

... just my 2 cents.

You're absolutely right.

The only real "flexibility" that large organizations have is what to spend their money on, within their spending window: it was for this reason alone that I was able to get $98K for a new camera system for my project last fiscal year.

For the PowerMac desktop, the only thing at this time that would likely "save" .EDU-type orders for Apple within their purchasing window would be a policy that Apple has been very reluctant to offer: a product preannouncment that's more than ~2 months out. The bean counters can usually be convinced to look the other way if the product has >30 day delivery, just so long as the money is obligated on time.

But to do this, Apple has to announce the product, price and Order#'s. Even if the actual physical delivery is still 3-4 months out.

-hh

Jon the Heretic

Mar 10, 2003, 03:56 PM

Prior to the introduction of MacOS X, I have to admit I believed that a Mac faster than 500Mhz or so was pretty much useless for most users, other than games or video production.

However, Aqua has changed all of the rules. As the most sluggish GUI ever devised by man or fruit, I think a 2.5Ghz PPC 970 with a full 900Mhz FSB would provide an enormous value to ordinary users attempting to complete grueling everyday tasks on MacOS X, such as resizing a window or using the Finder to do things you could do on System 6.x with a MacPlus with alacrity.

Bring on the power!!! Yeah!!! Eventually, MacOS X will get that *snap* back that we used to expect from the 8Hz 68000 days. 2.5 Ghz is a damn good start. Now if only Nvidia will triple the clockspeed of their GPU to match, Aqua will have a chance to shine----in a translucent, glittery kind of way...

--------------------

Ooh, Shine-y. Gotta get me some of that. (Who needs a user friendly GUI when you got pretty colors that are shiny? It is a matter of priorities).

Dont Hurt Me

Mar 10, 2003, 04:06 PM

Apple will not need dual machines, i repeat this was only to make up for motorola and where it was not going and that didnt even do it for most apps. A single 1.8 970 will be about equal in power to a p4 running at about 3 ghz. This puts apple right on par with wintel period. Now this thing is scaling up so this means apple is right back in it for a long time. Give up your duallies, a 1.6 970 will run all over dual 1.42 so quit the duallie crap. Duallies wont be needed. Apple had to market something and motorola wasnt giving it. Do you Duallies people understand? This is great news if true. I for one will be thrilled if apple announce a 1.6 1.8 and 2.0 970. these will blow the doors off anything they have done. And please remember that the 970 will be able to use Ram after Ram. No longer limited to a puny 1.5 or 2 gigs. Do you all comprehend this? the G4 is a has been. Get over it. Apple wont need duallies for a very long time and neither will you. Duallies where smoke and mirrors for 90% of applications. enough said bring on the SINGLE 970.

ffakr

Mar 10, 2003, 04:21 PM

Originally posted by dudemeister
Hmmm, as far as their website is concerned... (http://www-132.ibm.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/CategoryDisplay?storeId=1&catalogId=-840&langId=-1&categoryId=2048974) I don't see much PPC desktop action going on (nor their notebbooks or workstations for that matter), so I'm not exactly sure what you could mean... I don't know of any plans on the part of IBM of fitting desktops with PPCs, do you?
....

Well, I think This (http://www-1.ibm.com/servers/eserver/pseries/hardware/workstations/) is the link you should look at. IBM does make Power desktops, just very expensive ones. Most people call them 'workstations' :D

From what I've heard in the public releases that IBM has made, we WILL see desktop machines based on the 970, but you won't find them in CompUSA. They will be high end linux boxes, not $500 disposable Celeron boxes.

...jmho, Ffakr

ffakr

Mar 10, 2003, 04:33 PM

Originally posted by Dont Hurt Me
Apple will not need dual machines, i repeat this was only to make up for motorola and where it was not going and that didnt even do it for most apps. A single 1.8 970 will be about equal in power to a p4 running at about 3 ghz. ....Give up your duallies, a 1.6 970 will run all over dual 1.42 so quit the duallie crap. Duallies wont be needed. ... Get over it. Apple wont need duallies for a very long time and neither will you. Duallies where smoke and mirrors for 90% of applications. enough said bring on the SINGLE 970.

Right. Apparently you've never run OS X on a dual proc machine. Dual processors do have advantages over single processors in multi-threaded, symmetric multitasking systems. One CPU busy? Got another one.
Your argument is overly simplistic. As long as the OS can make proper use of multiple CPUs, 2 are always better than one. And just because and application is not multi-threaded, that doesn't it won't run better on a multi-processor system. At the very least, it can run on one cpu while other threads run on the other cpu.

The 970 appears to be much faster than the G4. Perhaps 3x faster than a G4 if SPEC is the only metric you use.
This doesn't mean that Apple shouldn't ship dual 970s if possible.
According to you, Apple should go all single processor and tell everyone 'we've cut out the duals because we are finally AS FAST AS the x86 world... not that we weren't before when we gave you all that short pipeline crap... but we really are as good as them now.. well, no, not significantly faster... but we're finally right up there'.
Yea, that would make interesting PR.

mustang_dvs

Mar 10, 2003, 05:11 PM

Originally posted by VIIGemina
Having been to over a dozen WWDCs...

WWDC has only been used for announcing hardware once, the Lombard...

Sebastian

Well, Sebastian, apparently you missed the 1998 WWDC where Apple introduced the iMac.

Apple will use the WWDC to intro breakthrough hardware, if it chooses to.

ffakr

Mar 10, 2003, 05:15 PM

Originally posted by mustang_dvs
Well, Sebastian, apparently you missed the 1998 WWDC where Apple introduced the iMac.

Apple will use the WWDC to intro breakthrough hardware, if it chooses to.

This has been a paradox. Apple has used WWDC to introduce hardware, but in the two years I went (2000, 2001), Apple made it very clear before and during that they do not use WWDC to announce hardware. [I think they used WWDC to announce the GF 3 also ;-)]

I guess we'll just have to wait and see. I'm glad I'm going again this year.

gopher

Mar 10, 2003, 06:57 PM

Well if this happens, it will be the best news in Apple's history. Reading the specs from last October's PowerPC 970 announcement we learn:

8 way superscaler design - i.e. 8 CPUs on a single motherboard!

900 Mhz bus

and based on most recent information a 2.5 Ghz 64 bit processor with 160 Altivec instructions.

The sooner Apple can get developers off their chairs to develop Mac OS X native applications in every field including education, the sooner Apple can release these machines. Because as long as users won't upgrade their software, Apple can't upgrade its hardware. It is a catch-22:

1. Wait for users to upgrade all their software to Mac OS X and give them reason enough to get Mac OS X before releasing Mac OS X only machines. But by waiting Apple lets the industry get too far ahead of them. By doing that Apple loses sales since they are seen as laggards in the industry.

2. Don't wait for users to upgrade to Mac OS X, but release machines only capable of running Mac OS X and hope users are ready to upgrade to Mac OS X when they make their next purchase. By doing that, Apple alienates users who don't have money for new software purchases when they are ready to buy new hardware.

Apple has done a bit of both, but not enough of 1 to get people over to Mac OS X. Already by releasing machines that can only boot into Mac OS X before all the software Mac users use is ready for Mac OS X, educators and others are getting alienated. There is 3:

Apple could offer free software updates to anyone buying new hardware. Apple did that a bit with the InDesign promotion last year for QuarkXpress users buying new Macs. They should do more of that.

hasapi

Mar 10, 2003, 07:11 PM

Im wondering if as a result of 10.3 (64bit), it will allow apple's xservers to be used as a blade/clustered server. This would really help apple's server range huge! Can anyone enlighten me on this availablity in OS X Server?.

Id say when IBM moves to the 90nm process we will get 970 Powerbooks - 2004. But for now these will fix Apple's PMac problem. It looks like the 970 will scale to 2.5GHz at 130nm process, just running a little hotter, which will be fine in a workstation enclosure.

Things are looking great however, allowing the G4 to scale higher for the iMacs/iBooks and for a little while longer the PowerBooks.

IMHO, im inclined to agree that we would also see DP970's at the top end of the PMac - probably SP at the bottom. Apple have just spec'd the PMacs this way now, knowing how they will spec the 970 PMac later this year.

Bring the 970's on!

janey

Mar 10, 2003, 08:05 PM

Originally posted by ffakr
This has been a paradox. Apple has used WWDC to introduce hardware, but in the two years I went (2000, 2001), Apple made it very clear before and during that they do not use WWDC to announce hardware. [I think they used WWDC to announce the GF 3 also ;-)]

I guess we'll just have to wait and see. I'm glad I'm going again this year.
ahem you forgot my favorite apple product...the Xserve.

Oh this totally seals the envelope...my mom can't stop me from going! *drool* to see a mac with a ppc 970 processor *more drool*
i guess i'll see half of you there, i just won't know it :p

DavPeanut

Mar 10, 2003, 08:28 PM

Do people think that the 970 machines will have PCI-X and SATA? SATA would be cool, exept that the only SATA drives are 18 and 36 GB. I want my 10,000 RPM 200GB hard drive!

Anyway, at 90nm, the chips could scale to 6.5 Ghz! Uber L33tness!!!!!!!!!!!

ffakr

Mar 10, 2003, 08:31 PM

Originally posted by gopher
8 way superscaler design - i.e. 8 CPUs on a single motherboard!

No. You don't know what you are talking about. It's very dangerous [to the truth] when you don't know what you're talking about and you present mis-information authoritatively.

8 way superscaler means it can issue up to 8 instructions per cycle. I believe 3 of them are load/store.
"8 way superscaler" has nothing to do with 8 cpus on one motherboard.

and based on most recent information a 2.5 Ghz 64 bit processor with 160 Altivec instructions.

64 bit integer registers won't speed up 95% of stuff you'll ever run. G4s already have 160 [162 I believe] SIMD instructions. This isn't new.
UP TO 2.5 GHz (so far) is the bonus, and the fact that this is an entirely new architecture. It will be a smoking processor, but 2 of the 3 reasons you stress won't be the reasons why it is so much faster than the current (and future) G4s.

The sooner Apple can get developers off their chairs to develop Mac OS X native applications in every field including education, the sooner Apple can release these machines. Because as long as users won't upgrade their software, Apple can't upgrade its hardware. It is a catch-22:
Once again, I question whether you know what you are talking about. I don't run any classic apps and I use my machine all day. I don't even have Classic installed.
This argument may have made sense a year and a half ago, but to infer that there are a large number of developers holding OS X deployment, that's a bit silly.
True, Quark is holding up adoption in Graphic Design, but that is just one market.
In my experience, there are other factors that have MUCH more to do with a delay...

1. Users are affraid of moving to a new OS. They don't care what the new OS has to offer, they just don't want to learn about it.
2. Macs stay in production MUCH longer than PCs. I just replaced a Centris 650 a couple months ago (I forced the user to upgrade to a 7600!) There are tons of old macs in daily use that can't run OS X (at least not well enough).

The fact is, most big apps have been ported to carbon. There are many more new apps being released in Cocoa than in Classic. Sure, you have to upgrade software, but thats the nature of the beast.
Even in the worst case, almost all of those old classic apps will run just peachy in the TrueBlu environment. Even Evil old Quark runs in classic compatibility.

.....ffakr

ffakr

Mar 10, 2003, 08:44 PM

Originally posted by DavPeanut
Do people think that the 970 machines will have PCI-X and SATA? SATA would be cool, exept that the only SATA drives are 18 and 36 GB. I want my 10,000 RPM 200GB hard drive!

Anyway, at 90nm, the chips could scale to 6.5 Ghz! Uber L33tness!!!!!!!!!!!

SerialATA is a good possibility. They don't need to ship macs with SATA drives, just SATA ports. I'd be very surprised if a big move, like an entirely new 970 board didn't ship with SATA.

PCI-X is different. There aren't PCI-X mainstream products. Luckily, I've been told that PCI-X can co-exist with PCI so it is a possibilty. Apple did, after all, include 64bit and 66MHz PCI slots WAY back in the Blue and White G3s. Consumer PCs STILL don't have that. You need a workstation class PC at least if you want anything other than 32bit 33MHz PCI.

... and no, the 970 at .09 micron will NOT scale to 6.5 GHz.

nighthawk

Mar 10, 2003, 11:01 PM

OK, good news first... I just found out that I got a WWDC Student ADC scholarship, so I WILL BE THERE. Of course, if the announcement is behind closed doors, I won't hear anything... but something might come out (like a new version to ProjectBuilder that supports 64bit compiles... maybe).

Second, all applications can take advantage of the 64bit processor once the OS is 64bit because then all native double floating point calculations will be native. I am guessing that it would be somewhere around 4x faster for a single double calcuation than a 32bit chip.

Third, I am thinking that it would still be the "Year of the Laptop" if Apple comes out with the PPC970 Powerbook. The 1.0ghz PPC970 uses only 10 watts -- perfect for the Powerbook!

Fourth, I would guess that Apple would release
Fast: Single 1.8ghz PPC970
Faster: Single 2.2ghz PPC970
Fastest: Dual 1.8ghz PPC970

scem0

Mar 11, 2003, 01:03 AM

Originally posted by nighthawk
Fourth, I would guess that Apple would release
Fast: Single 1.8ghz PPC970
Faster: Single 2.2ghz PPC970
Fastest: Dual 1.8ghz PPC970

I don't think the speeds will go over 2 GHz. Just because IBM is
capable of 2.5 GHz doesn't mean they are capable of mass
producing them. I wouldn't be suprised if speeds only went up
to 1.8 GHz. If you are expecting a dual 2.5 GHz powermac, you
are in for some dissapointment, me thinks.

AmbitiousLemon

Mar 11, 2003, 01:13 AM

Originally posted by scem0
I don't think the speeds will go over 2 GHz. Just because IBM is
capable of 2.5 GHz doesn't mean they are capable of mass
producing them. I wouldn't be suprised if speeds only went up
to 1.8 GHz. If you are expecting a dual 2.5 GHz powermac, you
are in for some dissapointment, me thinks.

I am not saying I expect 2.5 ghz machines but some of what you say is wrong. First if we believe the article discussed then not only can IBM produce 2.5Ghz machines in quantity but they already have.

Also if you read the post you quoted and attacked you will see the poster did not say there will be 2.5Ghz machines (dual or single). So attacking the poster saying they shouldn't expect 2.5Ghz machines when the highest they predicted was 2.2Ghz single machines and 1.8Ghz dual machines is unjustified.

The problem discussed in the article isn't whether IBM can produce 2.5Ghz chips but whether Apple can deal with the heat generated by these chips. The heat is stated to be less than that of P4 or Athlons but is still of concern.

Before you get snotty with another poster perhaps you shouldl do everyone the courtesy of reading the original article in question AND reading the person's post whom yo are attacking.

maxterpiece

Mar 11, 2003, 02:04 AM

. " Hell yeah. And they better be quick about it, cause if something doesn't happen soon, then even the alleged 2,5 GHz are going to look like a bad joke. AMD and Intel aren't exactly asleep at the wheel! Besides, "businesses that are looking to be productive are going to be interested in speed"???! Great, so to be the most productive I have to buy a PC...?! :confused: :confused"

You make my point for me - IBM, Motorola, or whoever else Apple finds to make their chips are just not going to invest the same $ that Intel will. It's simple math - there are about 33 times more PCs sold, so there is about 33 times more money being made, and more money being reinvested.
And I agree with you when you say that we need speed, and my argument wasn't necessarily against that, but I think it's unrealistic to think that Apple will win users with blazing speeds. I do believe that the discrepancy between apple and PC processor speeds is pretty ugly right now, and probably will get smaller, but I don't think its logical to think that any processor is gonna be Apple's messiah.
Because there are no clones pushing forward processor speeds (I still have a place in my heart for Power Computing). And IBM and Motorola don't rely much on the $ they make from selling Apple chips (nor do they have any competition), they aren't gonna be doing anything that'll blow intel out of the water. Apple can count on being at least a little behind in the processor speeds. The way they are going to win users is through innovation. The position they have put themselves in really leaves them no other option.

Gyroscope

Mar 11, 2003, 02:09 AM

Im sick

Im sick of waiting for next gen. PM
Im sick of 970 rumors
Im sick of war-heads
Im sick of american foreign policy

I give up
I give up
Its too much

foniks2020

Mar 11, 2003, 02:10 AM

Originally posted by ffakr
Well, I think This (http://www-1.ibm.com/servers/eserver/pseries/hardware/workstations/) is the link you should look at. IBM does make Power desktops, just very expensive ones. Most people call them 'workstations' :D

From what I've heard in the public releases that IBM has made, we WILL see desktop machines based on the 970, but you won't find them in CompUSA. They will be high end linux boxes, not $500 disposable Celeron boxes.

...jmho, Ffakr

just to continue the dudemeister counterpoints...

I'll add a quote from the very respected analysts over at Arstechnica...

"Also, I'm sure that there are those who would insist I compare the 970 to other 64-bit offerings, like a MIPS processor, the recently deceased Alpha, the Itanium2, etc.. To this I would answer that this chip's intended place in desktop Apple and Linux systems will pit it directly against the successor to the P4, and as such a comparison to the P4 is more useful from a consumer standpoint. "

http://www.arstechnica.com/cpu/02q2/ppc970/ppc970-1.html

Key word there being 'desktop'. Just google up some more desktop references yourself and you'll see that there is a widely confirmed expectation that the PPC 970 will be a desktop CPU, even moreso it will be primarily a desktop CPU and most reviews and press releases indicate that it was indeed designed specifically as a desktop CPU. That is why it has one core, no off chip L3 cache, etc., etc.

IBM intends to run Linux in their desktop boxes. Apple will run OS X. Seems like a pretty straightforward plan.

And to answer dudem's question about whether I've seen evidence of IBM putting this chip in Desktops, YES. They've been putting out press releases pretty consistently to this very effect. Come on.... they said it was intended for desktop systems when they announced it last october. Where have you been all this time dudemeister?

MacBandit

Mar 11, 2003, 02:10 AM

Originally posted by maxterpiece
You make my point for me - IBM, Motorola, or whoever else Apple finds to make their chips are just not going to invest the same $ that Intel will. It's simple math - there are about 33 times more PCs sold, so there is about 33 times more money being made, and more money being reinvested.

You're numbers are more then a little skewed. They don't take in to account that the chips that Apple traditionally uses are not just for computers and other uses also. So the numbers wouldn't work. Also just because new Apples sold is between 3-4% of the market doesn't mean that PCs make up the other 96% you have to understand there are servers and dumb stations and other such things that are in that number. All in all I would say it's more like %75. The only proper way to compare the demand of the processors is to find out the actual total sales figure (not just PCs and Macs) for each processor that you want to compare.

maxterpiece

Mar 11, 2003, 02:18 AM

Originally posted by MacBandit
You're numbers are more then a little skewed. They don't take in to account that the chips that Apple traditionally uses are not just for computers and other uses also. So the numbers wouldn't work. Also just because new Apples sold is between 3-4% of the market doesn't mean that PCs make up the other 96% you have to understand there are servers and dumb stations and other such things that are in that number. All in all I would say it's more like %75. The only proper way to compare the demand of the processors is to find out the actual total sales figure (not just PCs and Macs) for each processor that you want to compare.

yes, but my point still stands - Intel has a both greater resources and more of an incentive to keep ahead of others in processor speeds.

cr2sh

Mar 11, 2003, 02:38 AM

Originally posted by Gyroscope
Im sick of waiting for next gen. PM
Im sick of 970 rumors
Im sick of war-heads
Im sick of american foreign policy
I give up

I don't know. I think there's two ways to go about it. You either sit back and wait... and wait.. and wait... and then, when that new 970/g5 does get released you go out and buy it and its all that you ever wanted and so worth the wait and oh god.. i think i'm going to die.

Or you go out, spend $3k now, get a hella nice machine.. and go on doing what you do. Its not that big of a deal, the majority of us spend SO much time on these baords, cuz its entertaining. We enjoy it.. and if there comes a point at which it really is causing you distress (over the fact that you cant own something) then maybe you should just stop obsessing, stop coming here. The fact is, the 970 isnt going to solve anyone's problems. Its not going to change our lives. Its not going to make us happier (other than in some sort of confussed sexual way :confused: ) If I had $3k to spend on a desktop right now, would I hold off... well maybe, but jeez, if you're that worked up over it - bite the bullet or step away from the machine. :)

okay.. back on topic!

Frobozz

Mar 11, 2003, 09:10 AM

Frobozz

Mar 11, 2003, 09:14 AM

Originally posted by AmbitiousLemon
Before you get snotty with another poster perhaps you shouldl do everyone the courtesy of reading the original article in question AND reading the person's post whom yo are attacking.

Sheesh. Chill out, man. The guy was just trying to make a point. Are you having a bad day or something?

AmbitiousLemon

Mar 11, 2003, 09:21 AM

Originally posted by Frobozz
Sheesh. Chill out, man. The guy was just trying to make a point. Are you having a bad day or something?

I do not think it is too much to ask that each poster read the article on which he/she is commenting on and read the post of the person they are quoting before taking a rude, agreesive, or argumentative tone with said person.

Some posters seem to want to use these forums as their platform to take out their agression by mindlessly attacking other users. Where this motivation comes from I will never understand, but when i see someone so blatantly being rude to another individual for absolutely no reason I do not think their is anything wrong with pointing out the rude individual's errors.

ffakr

Mar 11, 2003, 09:23 AM

nighthawk

Mar 11, 2003, 10:45 AM

Just to remind everyone, even the 1.8Ghz draws 45w of power... which is much closer to the 64w of the 2.5Ghz than to the 10w of the 1.0Ghz.

Sure Apple/IBM may develop a "Speed-Step" like feature and that would make a lot of sense... even stepping it down to 1.0Ghz for idle would make the machine still quite responsive and produce less heat. However, doesn't the processor need to support this "Speed-Stepping". I think the way that the AMD/Intel chips do it is reducing the front-side bus because the clock multiplier is locked. Is this even technically possible with the IBM bus?

I do bet that a PPC970 Powerbook will be coming out within the year, and it would make the most sense to do it during the summer (NOW) because buyers are not expecting to have the Powerbook go much above 1.0Ghz for a while. If Apple releases a 1.2Ghz PPC970 Powerbook, it would be one solid machine and most-likely would draw less power/heat than the current G4 chip. Then the iBook could be stepped up in speed, and at the end of the year when the Motorola chips are at the .13 microns, the iBook gets the G4.

cr2sh

Mar 11, 2003, 10:50 AM

Originally posted by nighthawk
Then the iBook could be stepped up in speed, and at the end of the year when the Motorola chips are at the .13 microns, the iBook gets the G4.

You hit the nail on the head. The only question is when. g4's in the ibooks by christmas? maybe, but I bet we'll get a 1ghz g3 before then. the g3 isn't dead yet.

MacBandit

Mar 11, 2003, 10:50 AM

Originally posted by nighthawk
Just to remind everyone, even the 1.8Ghz draws 45w of power... which is much closer to the 64w of the 2.5Ghz than to the 10w of the 1.0Ghz.

Sure Apple/IBM may develop a "Speed-Step" like feature and that would make a lot of sense... even stepping it down to 1.0Ghz for idle would make the machine still quite responsive and produce less heat. However, doesn't the processor need to support this "Speed-Stepping". I think the way that the AMD/Intel chips do it is reducing the front-side bus because the clock multiplier is locked. Is this even technically possible with the IBM bus?

I do bet that a PPC970 Powerbook will be coming out within the year, and it would make the most sense to do it during the summer (NOW) because buyers are not expecting to have the Powerbook go much above 1.0Ghz for a while. If Apple releases a 1.2Ghz PPC970 Powerbook, it would be one solid machine and most-likely would draw less power/heat than the current G4 chip. Then the iBook could be stepped up in speed, and at the end of the year when the Motorola chips are at the .13 microns, the iBook gets the G4.

This all sounds plasible except I really don't expect to see the 970s in a Mac this year. It is much more plasible that Apple will be using the G4 7457 in a mid year revission.

Back to the 970 in the Powerbook. Yes, if the 970s go in the Powerbook it will open up the iBook to use the G4. Oh, wait a minute there is already a G4 iBook. It's called the PowerBook 12". My personal feeling is they developed the 12" Powerbook originally to be a G4 iBook but due to the lack of faster and newer processors from Motorola they could not release an iBook that would compete with the Pro market so the 12" Powerbook was born. As soon as faster or newer processors become availabe expect the 12" Powerbook to get renamed and to drop in price.

nuckinfutz

Mar 11, 2003, 12:20 PM

This all sounds plasible except I really don't expect to see the 970s in a Mac this year. It is much more plasible that Apple will be using the G4 7457 in a mid year revission.

7457 Press Release (http://www.motorola.com/mediacenter/news/detail/0,1958,2322_1901_23,00.html)

Pricing and Availability
Alpha samples of the MPC7457 and MPC7447 PowerPC processors are available today to selected customers. General market sampling is planned for March, with production expected to commence in Q4 2003. Suggested retail pricing for the MPC7457 at 1 GHz is expected to be $189 (USD) in quantities of 10,000.

Obviously Motorola doesn't share your optimism. Q4 release all but kills any chance of Apple using a 7457 in a Mid Year revision.

dongmin

Mar 11, 2003, 12:38 PM

Originally posted by cr2sh
You hit the nail on the head. The only question is when. g4's in the ibooks by christmas? maybe, but I bet we'll get a 1ghz g3 before then. the g3 isn't dead yet.

I think it´s safe to say that Apple won´t move the iBooks to G4s until the entire PowerBook line is moved to the next generation chip. Maybe at the next MWSF. They just released the 12" PowerBooks, which are selling well, from what I can gather. So I´d expect Apple to milk that design for at least a year.

-hh

Mar 11, 2003, 12:41 PM

Originally posted by scem0

Originally posted by nighthawk
Fourth, I would guess that Apple would release
Fast: Single 1.8ghz PPC970
Faster: Single 2.2ghz PPC970
Fastest: Dual 1.8ghz PPC970

I don't think the speeds will go over 2 GHz. Just because IBM is capable of 2.5 GHz doesn't mean they are capable of mass producing them. I wouldn't be suprised if speeds only went up to 1.8 GHz. If you are expecting a dual 2.5 GHz powermac, you
are in for some dissapointment, me thinks.

These are along my thoughts as well.

If I were inclined to make predictions, I'd be inclined to say that Apple's going to repeat the Yikes/Sawtooth segmentation and thus, the lowest-end PowerMac tower will remain on a G4, so as to consume up the hardware "leftovers" in the pipeline (FWIW, note that Apple's website is still quietly selling OS 9-bootable PowerMac towers).

As such, my unedicated guess as to how Apple will stragetically position themselves is as follows (all speeds are subject to whetever tweaking is required for bus speed multipliers):

Bottom is going to be a G4 SP @ 1.25GHz, with a possible DP option.
Middle is going to be a 970 SP @ 1.5GHz
Top is going to be a 970 DP @ 1.8GHz

This is JMO, taken in part from the extremely generalized observation that Apple's old Top machine becomes the new middle, and the old middle becomes the new bottom, etc. As such, we have to assume that on this upgrade cycle, the "Middle" machine will look/perform a lot like a DP 1.43GHz G4.

And yes, it was not a typographical error that I said 1.5GHz for the lowest level 970 chip instead of 1.8GHz. Underclocking here improves yield & profit, so it would make sense to do so on the very first product release.

Similarly, the next update cycle after this one will be along the lines of the following, for 2004:

Bottom: 970 SP @ 1.5GHz; possible SP 1.8GHz option.
Middle: 970 DP @ 1.8GHz
Top: 970 DP @ 2.3GHz

FWIW, I agree that these numbers are very gloomily underwhelming, but I really have to suspect that Apple's been burned severely enough with the G4/Motorola scaling woes over the past 2 year that they're going to choose to strategically hold back some CPU speed in their back pocket.

Doing so lets them keep costs down while yields improve, as well as gives them a little bit of headroom to avoid getting "stuck" again with a longish period of misery where they don't have any speed scaling to offer to refreshen their products.

-hh

powermatt

Mar 11, 2003, 01:15 PM

I don't know if anyone has looked at apple's financial history, but there is all this talk about if they don't do something in May, their sales are going to plummet, and others who say that there sales are already bottomed out but there Net sales statistics show that there numbers are only down a few points from there sales in 1998 and 1999. I twasn't til 2000 when they spiked, followed by a huge dip in 2001 and then in 2002 they were back on par from three to four years prior. Point being that despite all the good things that have come and all the speculation and false promises that have been leaked in the past 5 years, not too much has happened to their sales to effect them dramatically one way or the other. It more matters to people like us who survive on rumors and speculation, exactly what is going to happen if Apple does or doesn't launch whatever whenever. When the G5, or PPC 970 comes out it is going to be awesome, and sure we may see a spike in sales but the overall trend isn't going to waiver that dramatically.

nuckinfutz

Mar 11, 2003, 02:19 PM

Apple is NOT going to ship the low end Powermac with a G4. Period end of story. It wouldn't even be worth the effort. They're not selling now so why would Apple even consider it when PPC 970's are available.

Apple wants to hit 8-10 billion in revenue. They aren't going to do that being "timid" about processor speed.

They have much more at stake

Xserve- An opportunity for Apple to make inroads in the lucrative Midsize to Enterprise environ.

Shake, Final Cut Pro, Webobject- Big Apps that Apple needs to bear fruit from.

It's time to stop messing around. The 970 has legs and there's not need to fear it running out of steam. IBM wants it to succeed more than Apple does.

hasapi

Mar 11, 2003, 03:02 PM

I checked the power figures from IBM the 970 @ 1.2GHz draws 19W, the 1GHz G4 (current PowerBook) draws 30W.

The 1.8GHz 970 however draws 42W, which might be a problem - or a battery drain?. But seriously, a PB @ 1.2GHz G5 - is my bet as to what it will be called (64bit), will be much faster than the current 1GHz G4.

The 90nm process will fix that issue, but not till later in 2004?.

Im also hoping Apple brings out the PMac at least at the 1.8GHz 970 SP for the low end and scale up from there, to allow the low end Macs to scale up a little with the G4.

The problem might well be having some headroom beyond the 2.5GHz limit!.

Coca-Cola

Mar 11, 2003, 03:18 PM

First off, I think the 970 will appear at the WWDC. Although, I think the information about 970 only being available for the few are incorrect. That seems awkward for apple to do right now. They are pushing the openess of the system to developers. It would be snobbish of them to only invite the few.
--------------------------------------------------
I predict that the big developers have 970 boxes and will be previewing their 64 bit software. What ever happened to those welded shut boxes apple was rumored to have sent out? The big developers have them now.
---------------------------------------------------
I hope the 970 comes out quickly. Before I have to start shopping for a wintel system. I must admit I am having a hard time turning over 2000$ for a machine that may only be twice as fast as the one I have now. I want to whoop some butt.

nuckinfutz

Mar 11, 2003, 03:38 PM

The 90nm process will fix that issue, but not till later in 2004?.

No it won't be late 2004. You're confusing IBM with Motorola. IBM can actually fab their processors on time LOL. The Fishkill Fab is primarily setup for 90nm so think of 130nm as it's "honeymoon" phase before the fun starts.

ffakr

Mar 11, 2003, 03:54 PM

Originally posted by nuckinfutz
No it won't be late 2004. You're confusing IBM with Motorola. IBM can actually fab their processors on time LOL. The Fishkill Fab is primarily setup for 90nm so think of 130nm as it's "honeymoon" phase before the fun starts.
IBM was supposed to be ramping up .09 at Fishkill in Feburary. If they are on track, they are mass producing chips at .09 already.
That doesn't mean they are making CPUs at .09... but they may be fabbing something already.

nighthawk

Mar 11, 2003, 04:13 PM

Originally posted by Coca-Cola
First off, I think the 970 will appear at the WWDC. Although, I think the information about 970 only being available for the few are incorrect. That seems awkward for apple to do right now. They are pushing the openess of the system to developers. It would be snobbish of them to only invite the few.

I tend to agree... although everyone who attends WWDC may not actually see the PPC970 preview Mac, Apple is not going to hold back the information that they are developing for 64bit... and IBM's chip is the only one that they can use right now. I would not be suprised if they...

1) Release an update for ProjectBuilder/gcc that supports 64bit.
2) Have seminars for utilizing the 64bit chip.
3) Release information on OS 10.3
4) Announce the XServe with PPC970.

The last one, my logic is as follows.... they only sold about 8000 XServes last quarter, and it is possible that IBM will have production to supply a few thousand (with Apple shipping in mid-July). Even without a shipping 64bit OS, the PPC970 runs in 32bit with only a slight performance hit. The XServe would benefit with the faster speeds and low heat (compared to the G4), and professional markets would be assured that the architecture would be cutting-edge.

Apple will not (in my opinion) ship the PPC970-based Macs before 10.3 is released, and that is rumored to be in September. They might annouce the PPC970 Powermac mid-July though because it really will not hurt sales that much compared to what they are now.

job

Mar 11, 2003, 05:22 PM

i'm in a bit of a dilemma right now and it stems from the current swirl of 970 rumors.

i should, by all accounts, have slightly over 3 grand by the beginning of october. i am planning on upgrading my computer (a 400Mhz iMac) to a new tower and lcd. i'm looking at a viewsonic 17" for around 450. that leaves me roughly 2600 to blow on a new mac.

with all these rumors going around, i'm slightly hesitant as to when and what to purchase.

should I purchase the best and brightest apple has to offer then, or should i wait until the beginning of next year?

ffakr

Mar 11, 2003, 05:37 PM

Originally posted by hitman
i'm in a bit of a dilemma right now and it stems from the current swirl of 970 rumors.

i should, by all accounts, have slightly over 3 grand by the beginning of october. i am planning on upgrading my computer (a 400Mhz iMac) to a new tower and lcd. i'm looking at a viewsonic 17" for around 450. that leaves me roughly 2600 to blow on a new mac.

with all these rumors going around, i'm slightly hesitant as to when and what to purchase.

should I purchase the best and brightest apple has to offer then, or should i wait until the beginning of next year?
That's a question you should ask in the begining of October. :-)
I think you'll have 970s in the store, or at least on pre-order by then.

scem0

Mar 11, 2003, 06:05 PM

Originally posted by -hh
Bottom is going to be a G4 SP @ 1.25GHz, with a possible DP option.
Middle is going to be a 970 SP @ 1.5GHz
Top is going to be a 970 DP @ 1.8GHz

Similarly, the next update cycle after this one will be along the lines of the following, for 2004:

Bottom: 970 SP @ 1.5GHz; possible SP 1.8GHz option.
Middle: 970 DP @ 1.8GHz
Top: 970 DP @ 2.3GHz

-hh

These are logical assumptions, but I think it would benifit apple
to have all 3 being 970's. But those are logically speculated
and I wouldn't be suprised it they were very close to what Apple
ends up releasing.

hasapi

Mar 11, 2003, 06:24 PM

Ahh, I did not say late 2004 - please read the post properly. I said "...and later in 2004", means sometime in 2004 we will see the 90nm 970 CPU - jmho.

I suspect IBM will try to get a ROI on its R&D from the 130nm 970, and this is IBM's business economics that Apple cannot dictate terms to.

Also, I dont know why people keep posting that the bottom PMac will be G4? Does not make sense to me. They will all be 970's, SP's and DP's - just not quite sure the clock speed that Apple will settle on for G5 Rev A.

The other thing curious to me will be how quickly will the transition be for the PB's to the 970 when @ 1.2GHz 970 is much cooler and much faster (than the 1GHz G4)?

I think Ill hang on to my TiG4 400 fo a liitle longer!

Rocketman

Mar 11, 2003, 07:42 PM

So lets assume a 970 exists. Let's further assume that by May 03 there is enough beta hardware to get high end developers each a system and tools to compile code with.

So, to do that you need a beta 10.5.64 and Metrowerks and some other tools, preferably a dual boot utility since it will likely be crash-o-matic.

Lets further assume WWDC 03 (May) Apple releases the development call to software gurus to begin writing code for 64 bit, 4+ processes or threads, anf 2 or more processors plus farms and stacks.

Let us further assume a 0.13 micron processor runs at 1.8 and 2.0 ghz at release and can be installed up to 2 per box.

Let us further assume they will be the most expensive chip and supplementary chipsets Apple has used for a decade.

We're talking X-=serve not a desktop target market for about a year or two of the chip's life. It doesn't matter how long you "hold out" for a PowerPC 970, you will not save alot of money, and wait, to get real work done unnecessarily. Get G4's now. Plan to BEGIN shopping for a 970 a year or more after it is announced.

The initial market will be server farms where the processor and bus speed is hyper-critical. And commands value.

This is Apple's first step into true enterprise space. It will be priced accordingly.

Rocketman

job

Mar 11, 2003, 08:36 PM

Originally posted by Rocketman
It will be priced accordingly.

I thought that the 970s were actually cheaper to make than the G4 series of chips.

Also, on a completely unrelated note, does anyone know how fast a theoretical new system bus of a G4 could be? Are we going to be stuck at 167Mhz as long as the CPU is a G4?

DavPeanut

Mar 11, 2003, 08:36 PM

Originally posted by ffakr
... and no, the 970 at .09 micron will NOT scale to 6.5 GHz.
I wouldn't be to sure. I had said can scale. I meant like in 1-3 years. Intel can't do it very well because they are on 130 nm

DavPeanut

Mar 11, 2003, 08:58 PM

Originally posted by hasapi
I checked the power figures from IBM the 970 @ 1.2GHz draws 19W, the 1GHz G4 (current PowerBook) draws 30W.
DP PBook!!!!!!!!

scem0

Mar 11, 2003, 09:10 PM

Originally posted by hitman
Also, on a completely unrelated note, does anyone know how fast a theoretical new system bus of a G4 could be? Are we going to be stuck at 167Mhz as long as the CPU is a G4?

Most probably, but 167 isn't slow. It just isn't 'quad-pumped' like
other intel's pentium 4, etc. Maybe apple will 'quad-pump' the
next rendision of the G4.

btw, 4 * 167 = 668 ;):D

iJon

Mar 11, 2003, 10:14 PM

Originally posted by scem0
Most probably, but 167 isn't slow. It just isn't 'quad-pumped' like
other intel's pentium 4, etc. Maybe apple will 'quad-pump' the
next rendision of the G4.

btw, 4 * 167 = 668 ;):D
what do you mean by quad pump? sounds interesting.

iJon

job

Mar 11, 2003, 10:35 PM

then what about the rumored 900Mhz bus (or was it 800Mhz?) of the 970?

that isn't quad-pumped is it?

in that case, what is holding moto back from producing a chip archetecture which could support say, a 200Mhz bus, or a "true" DDR bus?

is the 533Mhz bus on most intel motherboards the "4-pumped" speed you are talking about?

szark

Mar 11, 2003, 11:23 PM

The bus on the 970 is a DDR bus according to the Ars Technica (http://arstechnica.com/cpu/02q2/ppc970/ppc970-1.html) article.

450 MHz actual clock rate * 2 = 900 MHz bus.

The 533 MHz bus on a P4 is a QDR (quad-pumped) bus.

133 MHz actual clock rate * 4 = 533 MHz bus.

Originally posted by hitman
in that case, what is holding moto back from producing a chip archetecture which could support say, a 200Mhz bus, or a "true" DDR bus?

That is one of the greatest unsolved mysteries of the universe... :D

dudemeister

Mar 12, 2003, 06:18 AM

Originally posted by Rocketman
The initial market will be server farms where the processor and bus speed is hyper-critical. And commands value.

This is Apple's first step into true enterprise space. It will be priced accordingly.

Rocketman
Thank you!! My point exactly from the very beginning!!

-hh

Mar 12, 2003, 08:50 AM

Originally posted by scem0
These are logical assumptions, but I think it would benifit apple
to have all 3 being 970's. But those are logically speculated
and I wouldn't be suprised it they were very close to what Apple
ends up releasing.

I agree that it would benefit Apple to get the G4 out of the PowerMac lineup entirely. But from a business risk-management standpoint, I simply suspect that its not going to happen.

FWIW, one of the cues I'm using is the one rumor report that two motherboard designs went out for bid. Odds are that they represent the "lean forward" (aggressive) and "high confidence" (low risk/conservative) designs for what they see coming down the pipeline.

If they keep a G4 in the stable, this can fulfill the role of the low- risk architecture to keep the supply pipeline from going completely empty ("shipping today", etc), and let the other two designs both be a bit more aggressive (risk taking).

FWIW, it has also crossed my mind that such a strategy would also help consume whatever chip delivery contracts Apple has with Motorola, although I'd say that the iMac (and PB) should be normally expected to able to do this on its own, but there's probably other chip/components suppliers other than Moto that Apple has to worry about.

-hh

nighthawk

Mar 12, 2003, 10:43 AM

Originally posted by szark

Originally posted by hitman
in that case, what is holding moto back from producing a chip archetecture which could support say, a 200Mhz bus, or a "true" DDR bus?

That is one of the greatest unsolved mysteries of the universe... :D

I think that is because Motorola has given up on personal computer chips and focused only on the embedded market. Why should they develop to different chips to meet two different markets when they KNOW they can't compete. I that that their largest market for G4 chips are not for Apple, but for router/firewall hardware, which doesn't care about bus speeds

In fact, I bet that they are RELIEVED that they don't have to develop for Apple anymore.

ffakr

Mar 12, 2003, 11:36 AM

Originally posted by Rocketman
So, to do that you need a beta 10.5.64 and Metrowerks and some other tools, preferably a dual boot utility since it will likely be crash-o-matic.
Why dual boot if you are running beta hardware? What are you going to dual boot into?
Furthermore, the existing OS X will run on these systems with the addition of driver support for new motherboard components. Porting OS X to these new machines won't be intensive like porting OS X from PPC to X86 (and that isn't even that bad)

Lets further assume WWDC 03 (May) Apple releases the development call to software gurus to begin writing code for 64 bit, 4+ processes or threads, anf 2 or more processors plus farms and stacks.

You can write code RIGHT NOW that spawns dozens of threads. This is all you need to do in order to make good use of a quad processor system. The Kernel handles spreading these threads across the cpus. Mach already supports up to 32 processors and it could support more if they wanted it to. As a programmer, you don't code for CPUs (not specifically), you write multi-threaded code. If you average 4 threads on a dual processor system, Mach will 'time share' multiple threads on each cpu auto-magically.

Let us further assume they will be the most expensive chip and supplementary chipsets Apple has used for a decade.

This isn't a safe assumption. The .13 micron 970 is only slightly larger than the .18 micron G4.
.18 micron 7455 - ~106mm^2
.13 micron 970 - ~121mm^2
This means that gross yield for a given wafer will only be slightly less for a 970 (compared to a 7455). That is, one wafer can be cut into almost as many 970s as it could be cut into 7455s.
Now, the real yield per wafer is the number of chips you can make times the percentage of good chips. Motorola has had HORRIBLE yield rates, so even if they make more 7455s per wafer, fewer of them are useable. IBM generally has very good manufacturing processes so their yield should actually be higher per wafer. It is very likely that the 970 will cost LESS than the G4... especially if they have higher volume due to increased Powermac sales, Linux sales, and even embedded sales. Remember, this could also be going up against the G4 in embedded markets eventually (slightly more heat, but much better performance).
The cost of the support chips will likewise be determined by: die size (number of gates and process size), the yield at required speeds, and R&D. It is very difficult to guess whether or not the new support chips will cost more or less. They may not require significantly more logic than the previous chips, and if they are produced on a smaller process, their yield may actually go up (decreasing cost).

We're talking X-=serve not a desktop target market for about a year or two of the chip's life. It doesn't matter how long you "hold out" for a PowerPC 970, you will not save alot of money, and wait, to get real work done unnecessarily. Get G4's now. Plan to BEGIN shopping for a 970 a year or more after it is announced.

This isn't a good argument for buying a G4 now. There is NO reason why Apple won't introduce desktop 970s immediately if yield is good. Your arguments are not valid. The 970 is only slightly larger than the G4 and % yields are likely to be higher at IBM. Not only that, but just because the new bus will run at 900MHz doesn't mean that it will be significantly more expensive to make the chipset. Intel will be targeting 800MHz bus machines to the upper end of the mainstream market in a few months. If the IBM/Apple bus is in fact a quad pumped bus (4 ticks per clock cycle), it only needs to clock at 225MHz. Making an ASIC run at 225MHz in not a great technological feat!

The initial market will be server farms where the processor and bus speed is hyper-critical. And commands value.

This is Apple's first step into true enterprise space. It will be priced accordingly.

I completely dissagree at this point in time. It looks like IBM's yields are coming along very nicely. I expect that the only way that the xServe get's bumped well be for the desktop will be if IBM simply can't make enough chips for Apple. Considering they will be producing these at the massive Fishkill plant, this isn't likely to be an issue.

MacBram

Mar 12, 2003, 05:39 PM

Originally posted by zulgand04
I know im going to hear it from everyone but i'll still say my opinion.
We'll i just thought of something maybe considering the chip is 64bit, that this will be a new era for Apple. That said it could be a possibility that Apple could come out with a totally new line not a macintosh but something else, this could be like when Apple cahnged from the name Apple to Macintosh, and i can just imagine a tv comercial simular to the freaky mac intro one. If Apple did this it would totally be a new era and a great beginning for Apple as a major player in the PC market.

just my insaine dream
-neal

Anyone for PowerGranny[smith] or PowerPippin?

Graphite Delicious?

hasapi

Mar 14, 2003, 07:56 PM

IBM Microelectronics investment in PPC and in particular variants of the Power 4, 5, etc in the 970,980,... appear to be the direct result of the compound growth and uptake of Linux in the server and to a lessor extent desktop markets.

And for the Apple market, just add Altivec, sure we can do that.

Imagine that, Linux pretty much saving Apple's butt!.

AmbitiousLemon

Mar 14, 2003, 08:04 PM

Originally posted by MacBram
Anyone for PowerGranny[smith] or PowerPippin?

Graphite Delicious?

Apple's already used Pippin.

Snow

Mar 14, 2003, 10:42 PM

Sorry if this is not an intellignet question but would a 970 processor run OSX?

hacurio1

Mar 15, 2003, 02:14 AM

Originally posted by ffakr
SerialATA is a good possibility. They don't need to ship macs with SATA drives, just SATA ports. I'd be very surprised if a big move, like an entirely new 970 board didn't ship with SATA.

PCI-X is different. There aren't PCI-X mainstream products. Luckily, I've been told that PCI-X can co-exist with PCI so it is a possibilty. Apple did, after all, include 64bit and 66MHz PCI slots WAY back in the Blue and White G3s. Consumer PCs STILL don't have that. You need a workstation class PC at least if you want anything other than 32bit 33MHz PCI.

... and no, the 970 at .09 micron will NOT scale to 6.5 GHz.

Yes.....At this point non of us know nor has any idea of how will the 970 scale at .09 micron

hacurio1

Mar 15, 2003, 02:35 AM

Originally posted by maxterpiece
yes, but my point still stands - Intel has a both greater resources and more of an incentive to keep ahead of others in processor speeds.

The problem is that it doesn’t only depend on recourses. Perhaps Intel has the biggest market share at the moment. But if you recall, Apple didn’t have only 3-4% of market share 12 years ago…so, who knows what share will Intel have 2 years, or more, form now? Market share is variable and not constant. And thanks to “monopolistic competition” there are companies like IBM and AMD that will fight for share if it represents revenue and profit. So your point is too simplistic. You have to actually go and see how much is Intel Investing on R&D for the Next generation of Pentiums. You must see in real numbers how much is IBM investing on the 970, and even then you will not have enough data to assert a simplistic argument like “Intel has a both greater resources and more of an incentive to keep ahead of others in processor speeds.” Intel has the incentive, but so does AMD, and so does IBM. What you might say then is that Intel is in a better position today, but then, who knows where customer’s tastes and preferences will lead us tomorrow.

ffakr

Mar 15, 2003, 06:08 PM

Originally posted by hacurio1
Yes.....At this point non of us know nor has any idea of how will the 970 scale at .09 micron

Well, no one knows how fast a 970 will scale at .09 micron, but It WILL NOT SCALE TO 6.5GHZ. No processor will scale to 3x its speed by moving from .13 micron to .09.
You're the second one who has quoted me on this and it's getting silly.
I have VERY serious doubts that a P4 decendent will make it to 6.5 GHz on a .09 micron process and that chips is designed, top to bottom, for max clock speed.

Let me be clear...
At .13 micron, IBM is targeting the 970 at around 1.4 to 1.8GHz. It MAY debut up to 2.5GHz, but that is unknown. It MAY scale up to around 3GHz way down the road on .13 micron but I'm only saying that on the speed range that other processors have shown at a given process.
6.5GHz, however, is not on the roadmap for this processor. Not at .9 micron, and probably not even after that as IBM will be on to the next best thing by then.
Even if all planets are in allignment and the 970 debuts faster than expected and if it eventually scales up to 3GHz on .13 micron... I wouldn't expect that it would scale past 4.5 GHz on .09.

Look at the G4... it runs up to 1.42MHz on .18 right now and Moto announced the .13 micron part at 1.33GHz. Most people don't expect it to scale past 1.8GHz at .13 micron.
A die shrink does not guarantee stratospheric increases in clock speed... it doens't guarantee ANY clock speed increase (though that is usually a side affect). Although smaller processes generally lower power requirements, decrease size and increase clock, they also thin the walls between gates (increasing electron 'hoping'). Smaller processes also concentrate more heat generating gates into a smaller area making it more difficult to remove that heat quickly enough.

.... just my 2 cents

Blackcat

Mar 16, 2003, 11:07 AM

[i]The initial market will be server farms where the processor and bus speed is hyper-critical. And commands value.

This is Apple's first step into true enterprise space. It will be priced accordingly.
[/B]

No, that's bad logic.

The 970 is a workstation/desktop CPU (ie cheap) if Apple put it in in the relatively unproven xServe they risk losing sales in both xServe and PowerMac lines.

Next year, once it has been proven, then Apple might use it in servers, but not until then.

hacurio1

Mar 16, 2003, 12:27 PM

Originally posted by ffakr
Well, no one knows how fast a 970 will scale at .09 micron, but It WILL NOT SCALE TO 6.5GHZ. No processor will scale to 3x its speed by moving from .13 micron to .09.
You're the second one who has quoted me on this and it's getting silly.
I have VERY serious doubts that a P4 decendent will make it to 6.5 GHz on a .09 micron process and that chips is designed, top to bottom, for max clock speed.

Let me be clear...
At .13 micron, IBM is targeting the 970 at around 1.4 to 1.8GHz. It MAY debut up to 2.5GHz, but that is unknown. It MAY scale up to around 3GHz way down the road on .13 micron but I'm only saying that on the speed range that other processors have shown at a given process.
6.5GHz, however, is not on the roadmap for this processor. Not at .9 micron, and probably not even after that as IBM will be on to the next best thing by then.
Even if all planets are in allignment and the 970 debuts faster than expected and if it eventually scales up to 3GHz on .13 micron... I wouldn't expect that it would scale past 4.5 GHz on .09.

Look at the G4... it runs up to 1.42MHz on .18 right now and Moto announced the .13 micron part at 1.33GHz. Most people don't expect it to scale past 1.8GHz at .13 micron.
A die shrink does not guarantee stratospheric increases in clock speed... it doens't guarantee ANY clock speed increase (though that is usually a side affect). Although smaller processes generally lower power requirements, decrease size and increase clock, they also thin the walls between gates (increasing electron 'hoping'). Smaller processes also concentrate more heat generating gates into a smaller area making it more difficult to remove that heat quickly enough.

.... just my 2 cents

I don't want to be rude but, what part of "YES" you did not understand? I actually agreed with your statement. I only wrote something that is a fact and under no Circumstances I suggested that the 970 would clock so high. I just stated a “fact” in order to agree with you because “No body knows how high will it clock at .09 micron.” Or, do you work with IBM and never told us!

hasapi

Mar 16, 2003, 09:35 PM

There's been some discussion as to what the 970 will scale to in clock speed.

Id say this is largely academic, because its very unlikely we will see this processor beyond the 3GHz mark!, Why?.

Because IBM have anounced the 980. and it will likely debut at around 3GHz, with dual core and SMT - if you think the 970 is fast, which it is compared to the current G4, this guy is at least TWICE as fast as the 970 at the same clock speed. Whoo Hoo!.

Timing is late 2004, so dont expect them real soon, which is fine as long as we have these 970's this year.

IBM has stated that the 970 will go to 2.5GHz on the 0.13um process, so Id say they will get to 3GHz on 0.09um process, before Apple moves on to the 980 for the PMacs.

The other great thing about the 0.09um process is getting the 1.8GHz 970 into the powerbook, whilst the PMacs will most likely be 2.5GHz at the top end.

Cheers,
Hasapi.

ffakr

Mar 17, 2003, 09:18 AM

Originally posted by hasapi
Because IBM have anounced the 980.
Has IBM announced a 980? I thought that was entirely a rumor at this point. I don't recall seeing an IBM document with 980 in it yet.

wondering...

ffakr

ffakr

Mar 17, 2003, 09:44 AM

Originally posted by hacurio1
I don't want to be rude but, what part of "YES" you did not understand? I actually agreed with your statement. I only wrote something that is a fact and under no Circumstances I suggested that the 970 would clock so high. I just stated a ?fact? in order to agree with you because ?No body knows how high will it clock at .09 micron.? Or, do you work with IBM and never told us!

I'm sorry.. some one before you replied to me saying 'you don't know how far it will scale' when i said it wouldn't scale to 6.5 GHz. In that context, your post sounded like a reaffirmation of the assertion that I don't know whether it will hit 6.5 or not.
And no, I don't have inside info from IBM... just common sense.

dongmin

Mar 17, 2003, 12:46 PM

Originally posted by Rocketman
So lets assume. . .

We're talking X-=serve not a desktop target market for about a year or two of the chip's life. It doesn't matter how long you "hold out" for a PowerPC 970, you will not save alot of money, and wait, to get real work done unnecessarily. Get G4's now. Plan to BEGIN shopping for a 970 a year or more after it is announced.

You make an awful lot of assumptions that many here on this forum would take issue with.

Apple may indeed reserve the fastest, most expensive CPUs for the Xserve, but there is NO WAY Apple would introduce the 970 ONLY in the Xserve. Why? Because NO ONE will buy the PowerMacs since it´ll be obvious to anybody with a clue that the 970 will also come to the PowerMacs.

If and when the 970 is introduced, it will for both the Xserve and the PowerMac.

hasapi

Mar 17, 2003, 08:38 PM

Has IBM announced a 980?

' Not so stupid ffakr" - apologies for the delay in getting back to you, I have one IBM PDF that has the Power 5 @ 1.8-3.0 in 2004. Which is better than I had thought, because this is a 'special server grade' CPU, basically thicker gate oxides designed for absolute reliability in mission critical apps much like the Power 4. Anyway, Ill get you the 980 info - is much the same concept as the 970, which is effectively a CPU for 1U servers and desktop/workstation reliability.

This allows the processor to clock @ higher speeds as a trade off, so in actual fact its most likely that the 980 will scale higher than 3GHz. Its also one of the reasons the 970 clocks higher than its big brother, the Power 4.

I think this info is fairly useless in so much that we wont see this processor till 2005?. But what IS important is that its unlikely that we will see a repeat of our current predicament that we find ourselves with the current PMacs performance or lack thereof.

The 970 will provide the performance we need to match or best the Wintel/Linux x86 box's and scale incrementally until the 980 would be introduced.

Also, Ive stated that the 970 is likely to called the G5 by Apple - a little odd, since the 970 is in fact a Power 4 chip derivative - IBM's 4th generation PPC, the Power 5 is IBM's 5th gen PPC and the 980 will be its derivative?.

I still think the marketing guys (S Jobs) will call it a G5 nonetheless?

hasapi

Mar 18, 2003, 05:36 AM

Ahh guys, Ive been scouring my notes for these processors. And to say the least information on them is rather scant!, predictably so.

What Ive found is that its microelectronic division keeps a tight lip on product development, which is prudent until they are confident they can ship a reliable product in volume!, cool. But its server division needs to tell its customers that there is a road map of continued development of server line using "sales speak, cutting edge RISC processors" for their processing needs, so they tend to be the people in IBM spilling the beans on CPU development, not the CPU guys.

This is why details abound about the Power5 available 2004, the 980 is its desktop derivative - less information is available about this chip, see above. [ did you hear "The power5 will be used in a nuclear weapons simulation supercomputer at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. That machine, called ASCI Purple, is slated to use 12,544 Power5 chips"].

So here goes, we know the 970 has been announced by IBM and resides on its microelectronics site, despite the 'official' debut of 1.2-1.8, the 970 according to IBM at CeBit will scale beyond 1.8, and likely to around 2.8.

Anyway, Ive read that the 980 will scale from 2.8-4.5GHz?. Which makes some sense to me now - we will see the 970 in PMacs in 2003, until the 980 in 2005 when they reach 980's debut rates.

The 990 is the known desktop derivative for the Power6 - odd, there is mentions from IBM staff on this chip as well (according to IBM its scheduled for 2006), but again not on the 990.

What was interesting of note, that IBM really believes the Power PC will kick Itanium butt!, again generally for the 64bit server market. Which is what Im inclined to believe Apple will do the same - push 64bit desktop computing as a quantum leap over Wintel's 32bit - the apple marketing machine will drive this message hard.

For what its worth? hasapi

MacBandit

Mar 18, 2003, 12:04 PM

Originally posted by hasapi
What was interesting of note, that IBM really believes the Power PC will kick Itanium butt!, again generally for the 64bit server market. Which is what Im inclined to believe Apple will do the same - push 64bit desktop computing as a quantum leap over Wintel's 32bit - the apple marketing machine will drive this message hard.

Would you expect any less? Do you really think that IBM or any other company would market a product and say that they think it might keep up or beat the competitors product? I think not they will say that it will destroy the competitors and eat them for lunch wether or not they actually think the product stands a chance. It's all marketing and sales speak.

cubist

Mar 18, 2003, 01:53 PM

Hey... the Power4 derivative is a G5? So when we get the Power5 derivative (980?) will it be a G6? :confused:

Flynnstone

Mar 18, 2003, 06:43 PM

I think the IBM 970 in the Mac should be Gr8 !:cool:

izzythesteve

Apr 7, 2003, 07:10 PM

Originally posted by MacBram
Anyone for PowerGranny[smith] or PowerPippin?

Graphite Delicious?

Cute ideas, but Apple will probably call their product "Macintosh" for a long time because consumers are very "brand-name-conservative". Lets face it, Mac OS X is nothing like the original Macintosh, but it has a brand heritage that users trust.

The change to 64 bit will be every bit as significant a change as 16 bit to 32 bit, 68k to PPC or Classic to X, but the product will still be branded Macintosh, anything else would be a foolhardy risk with a respected brand name.

IzzyTheSteve,
http://www.izzythedog.com/

macrumors12345

Apr 7, 2003, 08:56 PM

Originally posted by nuckinfutz
7457 Press Release (http://www.motorola.com/mediacenter/news/detail/0,1958,2322_1901_23,00.html)

Obviously Motorola doesn't share your optimism. Q4 release all but kills any chance of Apple using a 7457 in a Mid Year revision.

Although, oddly, this Motorola PDF (http://e-www.motorola.com/brdata/PDFDB/docs/PPCSALESFACT.pdf), dated 2/17/2003, says that the 7457 will be in production by Q2 (this year). Of course, knowing Moto, I still tend to believe their Q4 statement over their Q2 statement....

Another interesting thing if you look at the chart at the end of that PDF. Motorola lists three "Operational Spec" codes: P, L, and N. P = "fastest", L = "faster", and N = "fast". So, for example, the "faster" L grade 7455 has a core voltage of 1.6v while the "fast" N grade 7455 has a core voltage of 1.3v. So of course the 7455 "L" can scale higher than the 7455 "N" (933 mhz vs 733 mhz), but it consumes more power (though not necessarily at a given clock speed, oddly). Anyway, the interesting point is the following: all of the processor varieties in the chart are only "L" or "N", i.e. there is an "L" version of the 7455 and an "N" version of the 7455, but there is no listed "P" version of the 7455. This, to me, suggests that the processors that Motorola ships Apple (but never talks about) are of the "P" version. For example, the 7455 "N" scales to 733 mhz, and the 7455 "L" scales to 1067 mhz, so conceivably the 7455 "P" scales to 1420 mhz. Or maybe not, who knows. But this is the first even implicit acknowledgement that I have ever seen from Motorola about the existence of 7455 processors that scale well past 1 Ghz (and obviously, they do exist, since Apple is shipping them). This of course would imply that the 7457 "P" will scale well past 1.3 Ghz, although that is a no-brainer anyway since if the 7455 is running at 1.42 Ghz you can be sure that the 7457 will run past 1.3 Ghz!

Flynnstone

Apr 7, 2003, 09:53 PM

Its interesting that Motorola announces this, but its kinda of moot.
My understanding is that the 7457 is a die shrink of the 7455. This make it cheaper to produce, use less power and run faster.
The 7457 makes sense for the iBook line. Since the 7457 is a drop in replacement for the 7455 (or very close to), Apple could drop them into the PowerBooks and PowerMacs.
If the 970 is cheaper than the 7457, then we should see everything on the 970 (Hopeful).
Since Apple uses G3s for the consumer line and G4s for the Professional (Power) line. Perhaps when the 970s are released, the Power line will be all 970s and the consumer line G4s (7457) due to marketting reasons.
But then again dual 970s in the professional line and single 970s in the consumer line.

rickag

Apr 8, 2003, 11:59 AM

Originally posted by macrumors12345
Although, oddly, this Motorola PDF (http://e-www.motorola.com/brdata/PDFDB/docs/PPCSALESFACT.pdf), dated 2/17/2003, says that the 7457 will be in production by Q2 (this year). Of course, knowing Moto, I still tend to believe their Q4 statement over their Q2 statement....

Let's see the date on the PDF file you provided a link to is dated 2/17/2003. Here's a direct quote from page one of that same PDF,"—the MPC7457, for example, which delivers 1 GHz at less than 10 watts will be offered next year(re: 2004)."

note: I added the (re: 2004)to the quote

Combined that with this quote in the previous paragraph on the SAME PAGE,"and the 7457-1.3 GHz (Feb. 2003)." and my conclusion is:

Not only am I confused, it really looks like Motorola is confused.

Snowy_River

Apr 8, 2003, 12:49 PM

Originally posted by macrumors12345
Although, oddly, this Motorola PDF (http://e-www.motorola.com/brdata/PDFDB/docs/PPCSALESFACT.pdf), dated 2/17/2003, says that the 7457 will be in production by Q2 (this year).

The one thing that I note about this PDF is that it seems to be geared toward the embedded market, not the processors that Apple uses. So, when Moto has a 7457 chip for the embedded market is rather irrelevent, as it's no guarantee that there will ever be such a chip that Apple could put into its machines.

That said, I'd love to see it come to fruition. A new generation of G4s to power the consumer line while the Power line moves to the 970 would be great.

Flynnstone

Apr 8, 2003, 10:55 PM

There is no difference between a "embedded" microprocessor and a "desktop" microprocessor.
The only difference is the marketting.

Snowy_River

Apr 8, 2003, 11:32 PM

Originally posted by Flynnstone
There is no difference between a "embedded" microprocessor and a "desktop" microprocessor.
The only difference is the marketting.

That's simply not true. One very basic difference is that the embedded chips don't have Altivec. There are also some slight differences in the way some parts of the interface is implemented.

Simply put, you can't just take a G4 that was manufactured for the embedded market and put it into your Mac. They are, in fact, two different chips, manufactured on two different production lines, etc.

Flynnstone

Apr 9, 2003, 12:25 AM

Originally posted by Snowy_River
That's simply not true. One very basic difference is that the embedded chips don't have Altivec. There are also some slight differences in the way some parts of the interface is implemented.

Simply put, you can't just take a G4 that was manufactured for the embedded market and put it into your Mac. They are, in fact, two different chips, manufactured on two different production lines, etc.

Embedded microprocessors do have Altivec.
Is there slight differences? yes and no.

Case in point. The Motorola 68332 microcontroller is used in a lot of automobiles (and other industrial systems). They come in three speed grades 16, 20 and 25 MHz. Is there any difference between the chips ... no really, they are labeled differently. All chips meet at least the 20 MHz spec. But why a 16 MHz part. Because GM buys by part number.
Now what about Apple. Motorola doesn't seem to offer 7455 in a 1.42 GHz speed grade (as seen by there web site). What Motorola does (for Apple) is test the chips to 1.42 GHz. Apple gets the best of the lot!
There could be variation in the 7455, because there appears to be two mask revisions.

This link to a doc about Motorola PVR register values for different PPC.
http://e-www.motorola.com/collateral/PPCPVR.pdf

So you are correct in one respect, that it may not be likely that you can buy a 7455 from a distributor and drop it into your Mac and run it at 1.42 GHz. ( but if you cool it enough, maybe you can!)