Freescale Confirms Dual Core G4

[MacBytes]

Category: PowerPC
Link: Freescale reveals 90nm G4 processor (http://www.macbytes.com/link.php?sid=20040928094105)
Posted on MacBytes.com (http://www.macbytes.com)

Approved by Mudbug

[the_mole1314]

This proc will run the next generations of the PowerBook and eMac, while the old G4s will run on the iBook. Great news guys. Can't wait for the dual core 2.0ghz+ ones!

[MacRumors]

In a press release (http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/overview.jsp?code=DRPPCDUALCORE) from Freescale, details have been given regarding variants on the 600e PowerPC core. Utilizing a 90nm silicon-on-insulator (SOI) copper interconnect technology, three new chips will find their way to market. Variants include a single core MPC8641, a dual core MPC8641D, and the MPC7448 discreet processor, which gives higher performance at a lower power level, able to consume less than 10 Watts running at 1.4 GHz.

The new chips offer pin-to-pin compatibility with the MPC7447A, and offer 1MB of L2 cache, and are expected to surpass 1.5GHz. As is typical, Apple has made no comment on whether they will include this chip in future models, but with the eMac, the iBook and the PowerBook still running on G4 architecture, there are plenty of willing candidates for the upgrade. The dual core G4 chip has been previously rumored (http://www.macrumors.com/pages/2004/08/20040818113806.shtml) to be the next step for the PowerBook line.

[iMeowbot]

There are few details about the chip published yet, and the fact sheet redirects to Freescale's home page at the moment, but a little bit more detail is on this page (http://freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/overview.jsp?code=DRPPCDUALCORE).

[insidedanshead]

200Mhz FSB? *Yawn* Gonna need to do better than that Freescale.

[JoePike]

I sure hope they figure out a way to put a G5 in the powerbook. These dual core G4's would be phenomenal additions to the emac and ibook, but the powerbook is a product geared towards professionals and should have the top processor running at 64-bits and a bigger front side bus and L2 cache. These dual core chips are admittedly much better than the G4's the powerbooks are currently running on, but the next step has to be the G5, especially now that they put one in the iMac. I'm a little miffed that a consumer product landed a G5 before all the pro macs had them, but given the design complications I can understand. But now that it has been proven that a G5 can be shoved into a small space, Apple needs to get it into the powerbook.

-Joe

[Little Endian]

The e600 series could rival the IBM 970 chips. Assuming these e600 chips will outperform the current 74XX series Motorola Chips clock for clock and will ship with dual Cores leads to strong indication that it might just give the 970 tough competition.

[Kirtus]

I sure hope they figure out a way to put a G5 in the powerbook. These dual core G4's would be phenomenal additions to the emac and ibook, but the powerbook is a product geared towards professionals and should have the top processor running at 64-bits and a bigger front side bus and L2 cache. These dual core chips are admittedly much better than the G4's the powerbooks are currently running on, but the next step has to be the G5, especially now that they put one in the iMac. I'm a little miffed that a consumer product landed a G5 before all the pro macs had them, but given the design complications I can understand. But now that it has been proven that a G5 can be shoved into a small space, Apple needs to get it into the powerbook.

-Joe

Why are you miffed? They are doing the best possible with the technilogical limitations they have. If the Duel processor G4 is better, why would you complain when currently it is the only option. Do you think that apple is purposely not putting the G5 in the power book? Of course not. It will happen when it is possible and not one minute before. :confused:

[Laslo Panaflex]

Why are you miffed? They are doing the best possible with the technilogical limitations they have. If the Duel processor G4 is better, why would you complain when currently it is the only option. Do you think that apple is purposely not putting the G5 in the power book? Of course not. It will happen when it is possible and not one minute before. :confused:

Here Here, look at the problems they had with the iMac g5, a powerbook is a different story . . .

[howard]

hopefully this processor will rock...
good news cause now the ibook won't get the shaft when the powerbook gets the G5 (whenever that will be)

[Frobozz]

Well, this counts as the first interesting post on MacRumors in about a month and a half now... it's been a snooze fest until today.

This annoucement really has some far reaching implications for Apple's portable market. With dual core 1.5GHz+ G4's, I think they could out perform a comparable single core G5 while producing much less heat. It would provide a nice stop-gap measure to a dual-core G5 lineup later in 2005.

[DWKlink]

200Mhz FSB? *Yawn* Gonna need to do better than that Freescale.

Isn't that just for the low power consumption model? I think the new single/dual cores say they run at 667mhz, with an on die memory controller. That's pretty impressive.

[DWKlink]

Well, this counts as the first interesting post on MacRumors in about a month and a half now... it's been a snooze fest until today.

Love your signature. The Amiga 500 rocked. Isn't your avitar from the cover art of an amiga game... shadowbeast - or something like that - that was my favorite game. incredible graphics!

[gskiser]

Great news about the dual cores. However, I don't see this as being the savior to Apple's PB problem. There is another article, cited below which states the dual cores wont even go into production until the second half of 2005! While that is encouraging long term, it doesn't help Apple out immediately.

Their PB's are bottlenecked with the 167 FSB. Any increase in processor speed is pointless unless they can increase the FSB. They cannot wait until the second half of 2005, their powerbooks are already dated. By the second half of 2005, they'll probably already have worked out the G5 problems. Apple needs something better now, or at least by Jan at the latest. While this is good news, it really doesn't help Apple's present state.

http://www.eetuk.com/tech/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=47903043

"All processors except the 7448 will ship in a 960-pin HiTCE ceramic package, with the 7448 in a 360-pin BGA. The 7448 will sample in the first half, with PowerQuicc members slated for the second quarter, and the single- and dual-core 8641s will sample in the second half of 2005."

[Abstract]

What's better: the dual core MPC8641D or the MPC7448 "discreet" processor?

Power consumption is nice and low with these chips, AND they'll provide a nice speed boost. I don't see a downside. Call it a G2 for all I care. Does it matter?

And enough with the G5 in a PB. If a 1.8GHz G5 iMac isn't that much faster than a 1.5GHz G4 Powerbook, what makes anyone think that a 1.6 or 1.8 GHz G5 Powerbook is going to be better? I'd rather see a fast chip that's also good for laptops rather than have Apple struggle to fit a circular peg in a square hole. The product will be so flawed with an overly complicated cooling system that it'll only provide trouble. I'd rather not bother.

An iMac isn't an indication that Apple can fit a G5 into a PB or iBook unless you want a 2 inch thick laptop with a 17" or 20" PB plus a bit of white space hanging off the bottom to increase internal volume.

What other vendor offers a laptop with desktop speeds at 1" thick and all decent components? Nobody, so its not like Apple is screwing us. Nobody does it as good as Apple on the laptop side.

[devman]

I sure hope they figure out a way to put a G5 in the powerbook. These dual core G4's would be phenomenal additions to the emac and ibook, but the powerbook is a product geared towards professionals and should have the top processor running at 64-bits and a bigger front side bus and L2 cache. These dual core chips are admittedly much better than the G4's the powerbooks are currently running on, but the next step has to be the G5, especially now that they put one in the iMac. I'm a little miffed that a consumer product landed a G5 before all the pro macs had them, but given the design complications I can understand. But now that it has been proven that a G5 can be shoved into a small space, Apple needs to get it into the powerbook.

-Joe

Why do you think you need 64bits in a PB? What do you mean when you say "running 64bits".

Now, a G5 for faster frontside bus - yes, that makes sense. But 64bits gives you a larger address space. In almost all other respects, and all things being equal, 64bit vs 32bit means slower performance.

The kernal (or whatever the core os is called on Mac) will be 32bit for a very long time.

[AoWolf]

Realistically how long will it take for these chips to get into computers? Would these be faster then single G5s?

[Corrupted]

I'll get another powerbook as soon as it move to the G5 processor.

[NusuniAdmin]

Realistically how long will it take for these chips to get into computers? Would these be faster then single G5s?

A dual core 1.8 ghz G4 BETTER BE FASTER than a single 1.6 or 1.8 g5!!!!! Lol.

anyways its always good to hear about new processors coming out :)

[JoePike]

Why are you miffed? They are doing the best possible with the technilogical limitations they have. If the Duel processor G4 is better, why would you complain when currently it is the only option. Do you think that apple is purposely not putting the G5 in the power book? Of course not. It will happen when it is possible and not one minute before. :confused:

Yes, I said I'm miffed, but understanding that there are design complications associated with cramming a big G5 into a little case. And I agree that the dual core G4's would be a step up from the current model processors in PowerBooks, but I'd rather not see the company halt all efforts to put a G5 into a laptop just because this option is available. See, once a large enough percentage of Macs have 64-bit processors in them, then the software that runs on these machines can start to capitalize on that additional processing power and we'll really start to see some amazing things. As of now, as I understand it anyway, most software apps on the Mac are still only 32-bit anyway. Putting this dual core chip in the PowerBook as a quick fix because "putting a G5 in there is hard" is just going to delay that advancement in the software we use every day. And more importantly, as you can see from my signature below I'm stilll running on an older PowerBook, looking to upgrade soon. I just think it would be wiser to hold out on upgrading my machine until I can step up to the next generation of processor - which is the G5. That's my choice as a customer, and I'm sure there are lots and lots of others out there who feel the same. Althought admittedly most of the others on my side of the fence are just waiting to upgrade to the G5 from a G4 because "five is bigger than four, and must be better." So, flame away, kids.

-Joe

[AmigoMac]

Next tuesday?

what to buy? iBook 1.5 GHz G4 or Powerbook 12" 1.6 GHz dual core?

Powerbook 15" 2 GHz dual core, buy now or wait?

Really sad they didn't include a 16X DVD-R, I'm not gonna buy it...

What? no 256 VRAM standard? :mad:

Still no Gigabit for the 12" PB?

Should I sell my dual 2.5 GHz G5 for a 15" PB? HELP!!

-----

I can't wait to read those threads again!!! :D

[DharvaBinky]

With Apple's eye focused on the ever-aluring G5 powerbook, I wouldn't expect that we'll see the neat-o Dualcore processor in a powerbook. It's too "different" than the current crop of G4s and would require that Apple seriously redesign both the chipset and logic board. Why would they do that when they can drop in the "pin-for-pin" compatible Discreet version and make it just another speed bump. Sure, they're long past due for something more than a speed bump, but, you know how that goes, they probably want to keep their developmental eye on the G5 prize.

So, I'm predicting speed bumped powerbooks at up to 2GHz on a 200MHz FSB and most everything else stays the same.

/dodgeflame

Dharvabinky

[budugu]

"The new chips offer pin-to-pin compatibility with the MPC7447A, and offer 1MB of L2 cache...."

So does this mean that i can get one of these chips and upgrade my current ibook/power book processor ? so is the bus limitation on the motherboards or on the processor?

Given that i have a lot invested ;) in the G4s i would like to be able to upgrade them!! :rolleyes:

[DharvaBinky]

"The new chips offer pin-to-pin compatibility with the MPC7447A, and offer 1MB of L2 cache...."

So does this mean that i can get one of these chips and upgrade my current ibook/power book processor ? so is the bus limitation on the motherboards or on the processor?

Given that i have a lot invested ;) in the G4s i would like to be able to upgrade them!! :rolleyes:

Prolly not, man. the CPU is soldered to the logic board. Unless they make whole board replacements, which isn't impossible, just err... hard to install.

;)

Dharvabinky

[dksp]

I hope that Gigadesign, Powerlogix & Co have also seen this and that they will put those chips on accelerator cards.

Turning my old 533 MHz G4 into a DualCore 1.8 would really be nice :rolleyes:

[iMeowbot]

What exactly do these new processors do that has everyone talking about how "discreet" they are? Do they vibrate or something?

[DharvaBinky]

What exactly do these new processors do that has everyone talking about how "discreet" they are? Do they vibrate or something?

Discreet meaning non-integrated.

The fancy ones have dual on-board memory controllers, dual on-board PCIe controllers, and other stuff built into the CPU die.

The "Discreet" one means that it's just the processor alone, and all those other components must be provided for it on the logic board.

I don't think there will be much vibration going on... Unless you're so excited when you get one in your lap, that you can't stop jiggling. ;)

Dharvabinky

[iMeowbot]

Discreet meaning non-integrated.
That would "discrete". "Discreet" is more something looks for in an escort service :D

[macridah]

dang, my homie just bought a powerbook and ipod (cram and jam) this saturday. But it's not like people could time things perfectly, and besides, it's not for sure that the powerbook will use the dual core processors ... or is it pretty obvious.

[swissmann]

I just want to see real world what these new chips can do. Here's to hoping that they perform well. Who cares if they are labeled G4 or whatever. If the performance is great the label doesn't matter to me.

[crazzyeddie]

If these things really do surface in time for the next PB revision *very doubful* then we could see the Powerbooks outperforming the 1.8ghz G5 very easily. This chip is what Moto/Freescale should have released to compete with the G5 when IBM showed it to Apple, not over a year after its release...

[kenaustus]

The G5 is a problem with the PB and this might well provide for performance increases until a G5 PB is ready. Apple might have to wait until the 65nm Gx chip is out before they can put it into a PB. They will be trying, but it's a hard task.

There is also the interesting situation where a dual core G4 might end up in the eMac and iBook in a year, which would make them fly.

Apple has a lot more choices than they had in the days of Moto. Clearly Freescale has been lot loose to achieve results - a far cry from the Moto days.

[SiliconAddict]

No shipping product = moto vaporware

Moto can release as many press releases as they want. In the end the only thing that matters is a shipping product. Let me ask. Is Moto even shipping 90nm products yet? Do they even have a reliable fab plant to crank out 90nm chips?

Again right now its all hype.

[stingerman]

This proc will run the next generations of the PowerBook and eMac, while the old G4s will run on the iBook. Great news guys. Can't wait for the dual core 2.0ghz+ ones!

Actually only the MPC7448 is a candidate for the current generation of iBooks and PowerBooks since it is pin compatible. The others would require a major redesign (which also seems worthwhile, if Freescale could actually deliver.) If volume is there, the MPC7448 could be used for both the iBook and Powerbook with clocking being the big differentiator. At a 90NM process, the cost of the MPC7448 should be a lot cheaper than the MPC7447. Too the added benefit of lower power/heat should allow for smaller form factor and longer battery notebooks, all for a lower cost.

[stingerman]

No shipping product = moto vaporware

Moto can release as many press releases as they want. In the end the only thing that matters is a shipping product. Let me ask. Is Moto even shipping 90nm products yet? Do they even have a reliable fab plant to crank out 90nm chips?

Again right now its all hype.
Supposedly samples are already going out. But, volume is what counts and the 90NM process transition has been a bear for everyone els (Intel, IBM and AMD.) Freescale being late to the 90NM party may actually give them the advantage since they can learn from the mistakes of their peers. And, Apple would be foolish not to try to help Freescale succeed. Afterall, it is a new company with a management focused on processors and not cell phones. So we'll have to wait (ugh) and see.

[AmigoMac]

dang, my homie just bought a powerbook and ipod (cram and jam) this saturday. But it's not like people could time things perfectly, and besides, it's not for sure that the powerbook will use the dual core processors ... or is it pretty obvious.

Let's start...!!! :D

If those chips are not for the PB's, there is no device for those...

Didn't you notice that "Cram and jam"-Like promotions is to free room for new PB's...?

The MPC7448 is pretty obvious answer...

...

:D Should I return my PB? I just got it with "Cram and Jam" .... Help!! (Gotta love those posts) :mad:

[stingerman]

The G5 is a problem with the PB and this might well provide for performance increases until a G5 PB is ready. Apple might have to wait until the 65nm Gx chip is out before they can put it into a PB. They will be trying, but it's a hard task.

There is also the interesting situation where a dual core G4 might end up in the eMac and iBook in a year, which would make them fly.

Apple has a lot more choices than they had in the days of Moto. Clearly Freescale has been lot loose to achieve results - a far cry from the Moto days.
The current G5, but IBM still needs to use more advanced materials, Low-K, etc that was in the original roadmap. And, it will be with the integration of newer materials that the 970 family will come down into Notebook range.

[SiliconAddict]

200Mhz FSB? *Yawn* Gonna need to do better than that Freescale.

OK. I don't know the specific specs and haven't seen how the architecture is laid out but dual core on a 200Mhz FSB?!?! :eek: Are they insane? Can you say bandwidth starved? If this does somehow make it into a PowerBook here's hoping the memory controller is onboard as well or things are going to get really ugly.

[Joshvar]

stingerman is saying exactly what I've been thinking. The non-7448 ones probably will not have a home in anything for the forseeable future. I'd guess at least 1 (probably 2) speed bumps with 74xx processors for the PowerBook, and the eMac will probably have the same. I hope the iBook gets some L2 cache enlargment...it could use it.

[JGowan]

I'm a little miffed that a consumer product landed a G5 before all the pro macs had them, but given the design complications I can understand. But now that it has been proven that a G5 can be shoved into a small space, Apple needs to get it into the powerbook.Joe, you obviously have not personally seen the iMac G5. Because if you had, you would understand the size difference between the 17" version and the 17" PowerBook. While the iMac G5 is impressively compact (when compared to other desktop computers), it weighs 18.5 pounds versus a mere 6.9 lbs for the it's 17" PowerBook counterpart, roughly three times the computer. In short, it's wwwaaaaayyyy bigger. Not even close to the PowerBook.

Also, in considering size, the iMac doesn't have to also squeeze in a keyboard and a lid to close -- the PowerBook does. Add more weight if it did, plus that's just that much more to squeeze into a PowerBook. Plus, I would not even consider thinking it a possibility that a G5 would ever go into the entire PowerBook lineup at the same time... that will never happen. The 12" and the 15" versions will have a G4 in them long after the 17" version gets it. If for no other reason than to sell the top tier product. But, I feel the logical reason would still be heat for the bottom two computers.

I was surprised when I first saw the lineup of new iMacs. They're bigger than they look on the web. It's going to take some fancy engineering to figure this one out.

[itsa]

I'll get another powerbook as soon as it move to the G5 processor.

That's what I'm thinking too. Anything less makes me feel left behind.

[johnnyjibbs]

Bring them on! It now matters to me when the PowerBooks are updated. Last year I got my 12" PB (1GHz) and my brother got an iPod under a promotion. Now he wants to get an iBook but is waiting for the update. Now I want the iPod. But the "Cram and Jam" deal only goes on until about November so I'll only be able to get the bonus iPod (for £70 instead of £200) if the PowerBooks are updated before then (as the iBooks can't upgrade until the PowerBooks do). Dual Core G4 PBs now please!

[itsa]

I just want to see real world what these new chips can do. Here's to hoping that they perform well. Who cares if they are labeled G4 or whatever. If the performance is great the label doesn't matter to me.

Unless the box reads.. "G5 or better"! :0)

[IBSNOWEDIN]

The kernal (or whatever the core os is called on Mac) will be 32bit for a very long time.

umm... have u ever heard of Mac OS 10.4 "tiger" the kernal is going to be 64 bit.

This Dual core would be great to see in laptops. Can't wait to see Apple's reaction to freescale, if they are going to use these chips.

ibsnowedin

[Joshvar]

Also, if you guys take a look, the 7448 is essentially a e600 core on a chip, whereas 8641/8641D have the e600 core(s) AND system controller functionality on-die (including memory controller), so they're not constrained to a front-side bus or even a northbridge for that matter as they can interface directly with peripherals (hence the higher pin count for PCIe devices and memory, etc).

The 8641(D) look similar to the Athlon 64, but they include PCIe interfaces in addition to the memory controller (although this one is DDR2 and the A64 is DDR1) and I/O link (which is Hypertransport on the Athlon 64). Those are the makings of a very modern processor...let's hope performance is in line :)

[pgwalsh]

OK. I don't know the specific specs and haven't seen how the architecture is laid out but dual core on a 200Mhz FSB?!?! :eek: Are they insane? Can you say bandwidth starved? If this does somehow make it into a PowerBook here's hoping the memory controller is onboard as well or things are going to get really ugly.I gathered from reading the press release that they have a bus (MPX) the scales to 667Mhz. I thought the other processors had essentilly the same specs without the second core.

[itsa]

The advantage for this processor - and for firms employing it in devices - is that it is pin-for-pin compatible with the MPC7447A. It also offers 1MB of L2 cache and is expected to exceed 1.5 GHz in speeds.



What does that really mean? Can you update your older G4 powerbooks with it?

[The Red Wolf]

...The kernal (or whatever the core os is called on Mac) will be 32bit for a very long time.

Tiger utilizes a 64bit kernel. As I've said before, it downshifts to accommodate 32bit processes.

[johnnyjibbs]

What does that really mean? Can you update your older G4 powerbooks with it?
No, this means that Apple can just swap this chip in without a redesign of anything for the next rev. In other words, it will be a viable chip for the next update. (In contrast, a G5 won't fit - it will require a complete redesign of the entire 'Book). It's nigh-on impossible to change the chips or upgrade PowerBooks yourself.

[iMeowbot]

OK. I don't know the specific specs and haven't seen how the architecture is laid out but dual core on a 200Mhz FSB?!?! :eek:
That number is for the 7448, still single-core.

[Eric_Z]

OK. I don't know the specific specs and haven't seen how the architecture is laid out but dual core on a 200Mhz FSB?!?! :eek: Are they insane? Can you say bandwidth starved? If this does somehow make it into a PowerBook here's hoping the memory controller is onboard as well or things are going to get really ugly.

Link 1 (http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/overview.jsp?nodeId=018rH3bTdG7249)

Link 2 (http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/display.jsp?nodeId=093623&filePath=/media_center/news_releases/2004/ncsg/09-28-04_DUALPROC.htm&title=News%20Release&tid=FSH)

The MPC8641 and the MPC8641D use a RapidIO and a PCI-E interface to connect to the other peripherials on the motherboard. Now iirc RIO (or RapidIO) comes in two speeds 250Mhz or 500Mhz bi directional. It allso (again iirc), just like Hypertransport , comes in diffrent bandwidths a x1 RIO interface means a 2x16bit connection the MPC8641 and the MPC8641D supports RIO x1 or x4. The PCI-E is a dual x1/x2/x4/x8 interface.

The MPC8641D (D as in Dual core) uses two separate DDR/DDR-2 64bit (128bit tot.) on board memory controllers capable of supporting 667Mhz (166Mhz core clock) DDR-2 EEC memory. The MPC864, unlike it's big brother, uses a single 64bit memory controller

Now the 7448 uses a 200Mhz MPX bus (1.6GB/s), but it's a very diffrent beast indeed from the SoC MPC8641 and the MPC8641D.

[mklos]

I'll get another powerbook as soon as it move to the G5 processor.

You'll be waiting a very long time then! Just be happy with whats available. Laptops always lag behind desktops performance wise. The Dual Core G4 is a very powerful processor, not quite as powerful as the G5, but its not that bad.

I'd it will be at least a year before you see a G5 PowerBook. Definitely not anytime soon. The heat sink in the iMac G5 is just as thick as the 17" PowerBook itself so until Apple can figure out a way to get the heat sink to about .5 inch without melting the chip(s) then you'll never see a G5 based PowerBook. Plus the G5 STILL uses wwwwaaayyyyy too much power for a laptop.

[makisushi]

Maybe the Powerbook G4 will now be able to compete with the M chip...

[PDubNYC]

Yes, I said I'm miffed, but understanding that there are design complications associated with cramming a big G5 into a little case. And I agree that the dual core G4's would be a step up from the current model processors in PowerBooks, but I'd rather not see the company halt all efforts to put a G5 into a laptop just because this option is available. See, once a large enough percentage of Macs have 64-bit processors in them, then the software that runs on these machines can start to capitalize on that additional processing power and we'll really start to see some amazing things. As of now, as I understand it anyway, most software apps on the Mac are still only 32-bit anyway. Putting this dual core chip in the PowerBook as a quick fix because "putting a G5 in there is hard" is just going to delay that advancement in the software we use every day. And more importantly, as you can see from my signature below I'm stilll running on an older PowerBook, looking to upgrade soon. I just think it would be wiser to hold out on upgrading my machine until I can step up to the next generation of processor - which is the G5. That's my choice as a customer, and I'm sure there are lots and lots of others out there who feel the same. Althought admittedly most of the others on my side of the fence are just waiting to upgrade to the G5 from a G4 because "five is bigger than four, and must be better." So, flame away, kids.

-Joe

That's all I can say, is "wow"

[dksp]

200Mhz FSB? *Yawn* Gonna need to do better than that Freescale.

And at what point is this info reliable? I'm thinking of the current Motorola G4 chips that offcially max out at 1.3 GHz. I remember some machines Apple sold that were running at 1.42 GHz

[G4-power]

The specs sure sound good, thumbs up for Freescale. Hope they can get the 90nm fabs working faster than IBM. I'd love to see the 7448 on the 'Books as a speedbump soon, and oh yeah, eMac too. The 8641(and D) will need a completely new motherboard architecture so we won't be seeing them anytime too soon.

But if they get the 7448's in production, they could probably go for PB 1.6-2.0 GHz, iBook and eMac 1.2-1.6 GHz. Just an educated guess, and I assume that with a 200 MHz bus the processor speeds should be in 200(100 possible I guess) MHz steps, right?

[Surreal]

where on apple's site does it actually say that the kernel is 64 bit??


it will add 64 bit memeory addressing...and be more useful for 64 bit operations...

but where does it say that the kernel will be 64 and downshift to 32, that would be a whole lot of downshifting, and would be ineffecient.

[itsa]

upgrade to the G5 from a G4 because "five is bigger than four, and must be better."

-Joe
That's my reason! :0)

[VicMacs]

whatever they do.. i hope its soon... the last speed bumb was ridiculous... a 167mhz increase for the top model?

im in the market for a powerbook but they have to tempt me ... at least with another processor.. so bring on the dual core... 2 heads are better than one... so 2 1.5 g4s are better than a single 1.6 g5 anyday

so for the moment... call the dual g4 a g5 and voila your g5 powerbook!

[devman]

umm... have u ever heard of Mac OS 10.4 "tiger" the kernal is going to be 64 bit.

This Dual core would be great to see in laptops. Can't wait to see Apple's reaction to freescale, if they are going to use these chips.

ibsnowedin

I'm well aware of Tiger. I'm running it on my PB15 (that's a 32bit G4 in case you're wondering).

Here's some text straight from the Apple website.

"Tiger’s state-of-the-art kernel features improved SMP scalability and 64-bit virtual memory. Add a metadata engine and modernized network services and you’ve got the most powerful and productive way ever to do UNIX.

More Power to Power-Users

The upgraded kernel, based on FreeBSD 5.x, provides optimized resource locking for better scalability across multiple processors, support for 64-bit memory pointers through the System library and standards-based access control lists..."

"64-bit Compatibility

New 64-bit pointers in Tiger enable individual processes to access massive amounts of virtual memory. Tiger’s enhanced kernel, plus a 64-bit version of libSystem, enable command-line programs, background daemons and network services to directly manipulate up to 16 exabytes of virtual memory, more than four billion times the memory addressable by 32-bit applications today."

http://www.apple.com/macosx/tiger/unix.html

[Dont Hurt Me]

Another moto roadmap of grand dreams and promises, how long ago was apple selling a dual 1.42 G4? year?year and a half ago and moto is talking of 1.5? well this might be news for lap users but by the time moto gets out the faster cpu Intel and Amd will have walked away the from stagnation king of all cpu makers. thanks for the laugh freescale. :D

[devman]

Tiger utilizes a 64bit kernel. As I've said before, it downshifts to accommodate 32bit processes.

huh? A 64bit kernel doesn't have to downshift to accommodate a 32bit process. Did you mean to say downshift to accommodate a 32bit CPU? (since Tiger and its alleged 64bit kernel runs perfectly on a G4 today :-))

(I'm not even sure what a downshift is. I assume you mean thunking?)

[wdlove]

I just want to see real world what these new chips can do. Here's to hoping that they perform well. Who cares if they are labeled G4 or whatever. If the performance is great the label doesn't matter to me.

Yes, this will be an innovative PowerBook upgrade. It would certainly stimulate Christmas sales.

[MacSA]

Are major updates to the powerbook line holding up develepmont of a lot of Apples lineup? iBooks cat get upgraded until the Powerbooks do - they'll get even closer in specs, and I cant see them improving the eMac either - it will end up more powerful than the Powerbooks lol. :o

[joeboy_45101]

Well, here goes. Here are my predictions.

eMac - 1.33Ghz G4, 167Mhz FSB.
12in. iBook G4 - 1.2Ghz G4, 133Mhz FSB.
14in. iBook G4 - 1.2Ghz G4, 133Mhz FSB.
14in. iBook G4(Top Model) - 1.33Ghz G4, 167Mhz FSB.
12in. PowerBook G4 - 1.5Ghz G4, 167Mhz FSB.
15in. PowerBook G4 - 1.5Ghz G4, 167Mhz FSB.
15in. PowerBook G4(Top Model) - 1.5Ghz DualCore G4, 667MHz FSB.
17in. PowerBook G4 - 1.5Ghz DualCore G4, 667MHz FSB.

This doesn't seem to be too shabby to me. I think we'll see a 3Ghz G5 before we ever see a PowerBook G5. And the closest thing we've got to a PowerBook G5 right now is the iMac G5. Apple can do a lot of things but they can't change physics, so that's what we're going to have to live with.

[SiliconAddict]

Link 1 (http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/overview.jsp?nodeId=018rH3bTdG7249)

Link 2 (http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/display.jsp?nodeId=093623&filePath=/media_center/news_releases/2004/ncsg/09-28-04_DUALPROC.htm&title=News%20Release&tid=FSH)



Thanks for the documentation Eric. Much appreciated. Mmmmm nerd porn.

[Eric_Z]

@devman

To use those mempointers you'd have to use >4GB of RAM, I doubt that there's a big market market for that, noor one that needs to use software that makes use of 64bit integers.

The avarage consumer/prosumer would IMO benefit much more from a dualcore SoC "G4" solution with an onboard memory controller then any of IBM's current offerings. I say this even though some single threaded aplications may suffer preformance losses as great as 10%-20% from a multi CPU solution (be it dual cpu or dual cores).

[Frobozz]

Love your signature. The Amiga 500 rocked. Isn't your avitar from the cover art of an amiga game... shadowbeast - or something like that - that was my favorite game. incredible graphics!

Yup. My Avatar is from the cover of Shadow of the Beast. Wish the Amiga would have gone somewhere besides into oblivion... I still have my A1200 with an '030 40Mhz upgrade and 10 megs of RAM. :-)

[jdechko]

just waiting to upgrade to the G5 from a G4 because "five is bigger than four, and must be better."

So if I get a dual core G4, that's like a G8 and it totally blows away a G5, right? :D

For real, though, I'm really hoping that Apple does something cool with the 'Books around the end of this year or the (early) beginning of next year. I want to switch, I want a PowerBook, G5 or otherwise.

Oh, what's that, PBG5 next tuesday? Sweet! :p

Jonathan

[Eric_Z]

@Frobozz

Check out http://www.amigaworld.net/modules/news/ and PM me if you have any questions.

[devman]

@devman

To use those mempointers you'd have to use >4GB of RAM, I doubt that there's a big market market for that, noor one that needs to use software that makes use of 64bit integers.

The avarage consumer/prosumer would IMO benefit much more from a dualcore SoC "G4" solution with an onboard memory controller then any of IBM's current offerings. I say this even though some single threaded aplications may suffer preformance losses as great as 10%-20% from a multi CPU solution (be it dual cpu or dual cores).

I totally agree with you. Go back and read my first post in this thread. I was making a similar case to someone else who said he had to have 64bits in a PB. It was my reply to him that got others started on their misunderstandings of 64bit.

http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost.php?p=1057569&postcount=16

[Frobozz]

That's what I'm thinking too. Anything less makes me feel left behind.

Why?

Because you're not gonna see a PB G5 for a long time still. If they release an interim G4 update before the G5 it will be the fastest thing available, just as the current crop is the current fastest. How is getting the fastest current processor "being left behind?"

I hear your arguement that a G5 is the future of the Mac platform, but that doesn't mean it's integration into a laptop is any more likely than it was at the introduction of the G5 over 15 months ago.

[Converted2Truth]

I really don't understand this discussion. Freescale/Motorolla DO NOT have a 90nm fabrication facility. Current G4's are not manufactured @90nm. So we're looking at A LONG TIME until these chips come to consumers. Not to ruin anyone's pipe-dream, but there's just no way we're gonna see these chips any time soon! ...and it sucks for all of us in the market for a decent laptop.

The dual core has PCIe compatibility... it's too bad we're not gonna see this chip until 2005 :( :mad:

[Eric_Z]

I totally agree with you. Go back and read my first post in this thread. I was making a similar case to someone else who said he had to have 64bits in a PB. It was my reply to him that got others started on their misunderstandings of 64bit.

http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost.php?p=1057569&postcount=16

Ah, sorry about that.

[areyouwishing]

I know I'm probably in the minority here but I really think apple should not spend money on developing a G5 laptop for at least a year. They should spend their resources on freescale technology.

Look at the best Intel mobile processor right now, the Pentium M. Is it the Big bad power hungry pentium 4 scaled and clocked down and crippled and still sucks up a bunch of power? Or is it an ultra effecient Pentium 3 with added features that performs in mobile environments flawlessly?

Apple should take this approach, FreeScale G4s for mobility, G5s for the true power... its much like the mobile pentium 4 situation.


I wish people would stop buying into the marketing hype of the G5... its not a freaking mobile processor!!!! IT WAS NEVER DESIGNED FOR IT!!!!

[The Red Wolf]

where on apple's site does it actually say that the kernel is 64 bit??


it will add 64 bit memeory addressing...and be more useful for 64 bit operations...

but where does it say that the kernel will be 64 and downshift to 32, that would be a whole lot of downshifting, and would be ineffecient.

I was at the WWDC researching new technologies for the corporation I work for. One of my task was to find out if Xsan with Tiger Server would be a viable alternative to our current SAN and its controllers. A G5 Xserve/XRAID based array running Xsan with Tiger sever essentially.

That's not so important, but the reason I was there. I have a the SDKs for Tiger. I've been testing systems with them since the WWDC on a test array. I work with this every day. I don't think the average casual Apple user needs to see the high detail, several page reports on the "Tiger Preview" webpage. However if you are interested, the information can be found by creating a free account with the Apple Developer Connection. Though, Apple would enjoy you being an actual developer. For $200 you can get Xcode and other tools sent in the mail monthly which contains this info.

You can also find a paragraph about it here... http://www.apple.com/macosx/tiger/64bit.html At the bottom of the page, the second paragraph under "Enhanced 64-bit Support". You probably read "memory" and dismissed it as that. What controls Virtual Memory in a 64-bit environ? Hmmm. Some sort of big advanced controlling like thing in the sky?

Lastly, if you drive an automatic, you never really have to think about all the down and upshifting the transmission does on every trip. If you drive a manual, you live for the downshift for power to accelerate. Perhaps "Downshifting" was a poor analogy... How about Binary. Its simple. If 1 is yes and an upshift and 0 is no and a downshift... How many billions of instructions does a single G5 do in one second? Think Tiger can handle it?

[iMeowbot]

Freescale/Motorolla DO NOT have a 90nm fabrication facility.
They have two. The Philips/ST/Freescale 90nm fab in Crolles is already up and running at 90nm, and they have a pilot fab in Austin (where the current 74xx are made).

[howard]

from the looks of it i'd honestly rather have this chip in a notebook than the G5...

this one is cooler, has more level 2 cache, is dual core... fast bus and processor speed. the only thing it doesn't have that the G5 has is 64bit...but we arn't taking advantage of that now anyway and it will be awhile after tiger comes out when applications start getting updated.

[virividox]

im not getting a computer with a g4 in it. g5 has been on the market for more than a year its the way to go

[Stella]

Yes, it sounds alll very nice but not until next year... according to a TheRegister.com article,
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/09/28/freescale_g4_7448/

The single core and dual core processors won't sample until next year... months away.

[Gasu E.]

That would "discrete". "Discreet" is more something looks for in an escort service :D


"Discreet" for "discrete"
Was dis cretin's
Indiscretion.

[Eric_Z]

7448 Factsheet (http://www.freescale.com/files/32bit/doc/fact_sheet/MPC7448FACT.pdf)

8641D Factsheet (http://www.freescale.com/files/32bit/doc/fact_sheet/MPC8641DFACT.pdf)

[wPod]

NOOOOO!!!! then ill have to upgrade my 12" rev A PB!!! i can stand someones being slightly faster than mine, but dual processor PB!!! maybe it wont fit into the 12" and ill be safe!

[Bendit]

im not getting a computer with a g4 in it. g5 has been on the market for more than a year its the way to go

How cutely ignorant.

[deputy_doofy]

I know I'm probably in the minority here but I really think apple should not spend money on developing a G5 laptop for at least a year. They should spend their resources on freescale technology.

Look at the best Intel mobile processor right now, the Pentium M. Is it the Big bad power hungry pentium 4 scaled and clocked down and crippled and still sucks up a bunch of power? Or is it an ultra effecient Pentium 3 with added features that performs in mobile environments flawlessly?

Apple should take this approach, FreeScale G4s for mobility, G5s for the true power... its much like the mobile pentium 4 situation.


I wish people would stop buying into the marketing hype of the G5... its not a freaking mobile processor!!!! IT WAS NEVER DESIGNED FOR IT!!!!

I agree with you. If FreeScale can succeed where Motorla failed, what's the difference. I would not really be surprised to see a G4 chip hold its own against a G5 if it had access to the same system specs (ie, memory, FSB, etc.).
So they can call it a GM (and hope that GM doesn't sue like Apple suing Apple) for all I care. How about a GC (good chip)?
They can even call it the DG4 (Doofy's G4) and I'll even endorse it.
Regardless, a 1.x (where x>5) G4 chip @ 200Mhz is still better than my 1Ghz @ 133.

[mkwilson68]

Well, here goes. Here are my predictions.

eMac - 1.33Ghz G4, 167Mhz FSB.
12in. iBook G4 - 1.2Ghz G4, 133Mhz FSB.
14in. iBook G4 - 1.2Ghz G4, 133Mhz FSB.
14in. iBook G4(Top Model) - 1.33Ghz G4, 167Mhz FSB.
12in. PowerBook G4 - 1.5Ghz G4, 167Mhz FSB.
15in. PowerBook G4 - 1.5Ghz G4, 167Mhz FSB.
15in. PowerBook G4(Top Model) - 1.5Ghz DualCore G4, 667MHz FSB.
17in. PowerBook G4 - 1.5Ghz DualCore G4, 667MHz FSB.

This doesn't seem to be too shabby to me. I think we'll see a 3Ghz G5 before we ever see a PowerBook G5. And the closest thing we've got to a PowerBook G5 right now is the iMac G5. Apple can do a lot of things but they can't change physics, so that's what we're going to have to live with.

This would be fantastic, but I just don't see these dual core processors being used in this revision of the PB. If they are, then a G5 PB is a long, long way off, and to be honest would probably offer minimal advantage (and plenty of disadvantages) until the dual core IBM chips appear. If they launch a dual core G4 with this type of power consumption, I'd buy one tomorrow and forget about a G5 PB until its 2nd or 3rd generation.

[neutrino23]

I don't understand all the negativity about a dual core G4. If they can deliver it it could be great for PowerBooks. When you're plugged in you get much more computing power than an equivalent clock speed G5 and when you're running on battery and scale back to one core you get longer battery life than a single core G5. What's not to like?

[devman]

I was at the WWDC researching new technologies for the corporation I work for. One of my task was to find out if Xsan with Tiger Server would be a viable alternative to our current SAN and its controllers. A G5 Xserve/XRAID based array running Xsan with Tiger sever essentially.

That's not so important, but the reason I was there. I have a the SDKs for Tiger. I've been testing systems with them since the WWDC on a test array. I work with this every day. I don't think the average casual Apple user needs to see the high detail, several page reports on the "Tiger Preview" webpage. However if you are interested, the information can be found by creating a free account with the Apple Developer Connection. Though, Apple would enjoy you being an actual developer. For $200 you can get Xcode and other tools sent in the mail monthly which contains this info.

You can also find a paragraph about it here... http://www.apple.com/macosx/tiger/64bit.html At the bottom of the page, the second paragraph under "Enhanced 64-bit Support". You probably read "memory" and dismissed it as that. What controls Virtual Memory in a 64-bit environ? Hmmm. Some sort of big advanced controlling like thing in the sky?

Lastly, if you drive an automatic, you never really have to think about all the down and upshifting the transmission does on every trip. If you drive a manual, you live for the downshift for power to accelerate. Perhaps "Downshifting" was a poor analogy... How about Binary. Its simple. If 1 is yes and an upshift and 0 is no and a downshift... How many billions of instructions does a single G5 do in one second? Think Tiger can handle it?

You're making an assumption. The page you referenced doesn't say what you want it to say.

The vm subsystem can address more than 4GB today... (pop quiz: what's the max memory on a powermac today?)

Remember this old post?

http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost.php?p=1035784&postcount=92

[AmigoMac]

if those chips come with that amount of L2 cache... I would expect something similar/equal from IBM... 512K is oldschool

[joeboy_45101]

This would be fantastic, but I just don't see these dual core processors being used in this revision of the PB. If they are, then a G5 PB is a long, long way off, and to be honest would probably offer minimal advantage (and plenty of disadvantages) until the dual core IBM chips appear. If they launch a dual core G4 with this type of power consumption, I'd buy one tomorrow and forget about a G5 PB until its 2nd or 3rd generation.

What specifically would hold FreeScale back? Let's say they have everything in place with these chips, couldn't they start manufacturing them tommorrow? I read one post about how Motorola/FreeScale don't have the facilities to manufacture on 90nm, but I do believe they've been getting the G4's manufactured overseas by a third party for quite some time now. Or they could opt to have it manufactured in IBM's FishKill facility like Nvidia and some other companies do, yes the FishKill facility makes other processors besides the G5.

[Eric_Z]

@joeboy_45101

Well for one thing the Altivec implementation on the e600 core models is an "out of order exectution" one, wich is an improvement over the 7447A and earlier. The 1MB cache on these things could be 16 way associative (the 7447A's is 8 way).

These things take time to make shure that they "play nice" so to speak.

[yoda13]

OK, I realize that no one here knows the particulars of when we will see speed bumps in PBs. But I need some educated guesses. I have been reading this thread as well as other recent ones on this subject here. Is the Register article really accurate and this new chip won't sample until sometime the first half of next year (whatever that means exactly)? If so then I cannot wait for that. I must have a new powerbook by the start of the spring semester in January. I have an offer for my current PB than I believe I am going to accept, as it is more than fair. Between now and January, I can make do with my PowerMac as I will not need mobile computing power between now and then. After that I will be on the road a lot doing research and will need a new PB. I also will need to take care of my web clients, etc. while on the road. I was going to go buy a 15" or 17" this week, just because I would have the funds. But there is no reason I cannot wait until Christmas time to get it. But I cannot wait longer than that. If the update isn't until January, unless it ships immediately, I cannot wait. What do you guys think....updates before then?

[Eric_Z]

yoda13

More detailed info about the e600 series should emerge during the Embedded Connectivity Summit, Austin, October 4–6 (http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/homepage.jsp?nodeId=0525771710&tid=TSPGAD200407&tid=FSH).

[XForge]

Why are you miffed? They are doing the best possible with the technilogical limitations they have. If the Duel processor G4 is better, why would you complain when currently it is the only option. Do you think that apple is purposely not putting the G5 in the power book? Of course not. It will happen when it is possible and not one minute before. :confused:
Hear hear - why's everyone got such a, pardon the term, hard-on for a G5 PB anyway? We have a couple G5s and a couple late-model G4s here where I work, and yeah, the G5s are quicker - but do you need that in a laptop? Along with all the power and heat issues? Pfeh. I think these dual-core models are gonna kick booty. The second generation of 'em will probably be out exactly in time for me to replace my beloved G3 iBook.

[AidenShaw]

The vm subsystem can address more than 4GB today... (pop quiz: what's the max memory on a powermac today?)

Actually, the Virtual Memory system is 32-bit - a process cannot see more than 4 GiB of Virtual Memory.

The Physical Memory system is more than 32-bit (but less than 64-bit) - which is why you can install and use more than 4 GiB of Physical Memory.

The 32-bit Pentiums have a 36-bit physical address space, and can support up to 64 GiB of RAM on a purely 32-bit processor. Panther isn't doing anything more than this - supporting more than 4 GiB on a standard 32-bit vm system.

[tvfilm]

just bought G$ 15 inch laptop after doing the 1 1/2 year waiting game with apple

Im very happy with the G4 15 laptop got the faster hd 5400 and 128 graphic card

so far, i love it

i think ill buy a new laptop when a G6 comes out, lets start the G6 rumors!
lol

im very happy and i was just tired of waiting, my life span with this being the current powerbook is about 4 months probably, but the 15 inch powerbook is a great machine as is.

gonna buy a g5 2.5 mac , should i buy that now? no upcoming increases on that one?

thanks guys

[Charko]

All power to you areyouwishing for writing this:

"I wish people would stop buying into the marketing hype of the G5... its not a freaking mobile processor!!!! IT WAS NEVER DESIGNED FOR IT!!!!"

[thatwendigo]

I really don't understand this discussion. Freescale/Motorolla DO NOT have a 90nm fabrication facility.

WRONG! (http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/overview.jsp?nodeId=0106062606521671912460728740691)

Freescale has a 90nm plant that's sampling 65nm parts as of today. Before you go spouting facts, try to check them first.

Current G4's are not manufactured @90nm. So we're looking at A LONG TIME until these chips come to consumers.

The first 90nm engineering samples from Freescale were released in spring of 2003, and this gives them plenty of time to have taped out and tooled up for full production. Out of their four new designs, two are already in production and shipping to customers as we speak - the e300 and e500 embedded processers. Now the e600 cores bridge the gap to their next-generation, completely original work (like the e300) e700 core.

--

Other people are handling the G5 furor, but I'd like to point out something from the articles... The 7448 runs at TEN WATTS at full bore, people. TEN! Even a low-clocked 970 can't touch that with a bargepole, unless it's in idle and PowerTune clocks it down. The full-featured dual-core chip clocks somewhere between 15 and 25 watts, which is what a 90nm 970 1.6ghz eats for breakfast.

Apple would be stupid to pursue to 970 over this monster. It's got everything to make a dream system, plus ridiculously low power consumption.

My... precious... ;)

[Furrybeagle]

OK...first post:
Apple doesn't regulary have deals and drop prices on its computers like, for instance, Dell does? Have there ever even been price drops on an Apple system, or do they just upgrade the hardware offered and sell at the same price?

I'm just asking because I dont have an Apple (yet) and am looking at getting a Powerbook around the end of the year (hate PCs), and perhaps they'll do a price drop on their current systems, since these news chips dont look like they're coming out soon.

Just a thought.

[iGary]

Can someone explain dual core to a dummy?

[ompus]

Here are my slightly different predictions. Upon the release of the 7448 (say May 2005, the line-up will move to:

eMac: 1.5 Ghz G4, 167 Mhz FSB (7447A)
iBook: 1.2-1.5 Ghz G4, 167 Mhz FSB. (7447A)
PowerBook: 1.4-1.8 Ghz G4, 200 Mhz FSB. (7448)

Now...this wouldn't blow anyone away, but 20% increases in clock speed, coupled with 20% increases in FSB speeds-without any increase in power consumption-would certainly be appreciated...in the short term.

That sets the stage for the release of the 8641D or a low-power version of the G5 (say November 2005).

eMac: 1.8 Ghz G4, 200 Mhz FSB. (7448)
iBook: 1.4-1.8 Ghz G4, 200 Mhz FSB. (7448)
PowerBook: G4 (8641D ) or G5.

[Elan0204]

It seems like dual core G4s could keep te PowerBooks running along nicely for a long while without a G5. I also think dual core versus single core G4s will add some much needed differentiation between the iBook and PowerBook. At this time, I think they are way too similar.

However, might a similarly clocked dual core G4 be faster than a single G5? Would Apple be happy with PowerBooks being faster than the iMac? Maybe, since the PowerBook is supposed to be a pro machine whereas the iMac is consumer level. Going dual core in the PowerBooks also would mean that Apple could never go back to single processor PowerMacs, and I don't know if they would want to put themselves in that position.

[iMeowbot]

Can someone explain dual core to a dummy?
It's two complete CPUs on one chip, plus some multiprocessing glue.

[devman]

Actually, the Virtual Memory system is 32-bit - a process cannot see more than 4 GiB of Virtual Memory.

The Physical Memory system is more than 32-bit (but less than 64-bit) - which is why you can install and use more than 4 GiB of Physical Memory.

The 32-bit Pentiums have a 36-bit physical address space, and can support up to 64 GiB of RAM on a purely 32-bit processor. Panther isn't doing anything more than this - supporting more than 4 GiB on a standard 32-bit vm system.

Yeah, I wasn't clear there. The G5 has a 64-bit virtual and 42-bit physical address range.

A process today can't make use of 4GB anyway. The address space is fragmented. Quoting Apple Developer Technical Support:

"Of the 32-bit memory space only about 2 GB are available:

0x00000000 to 0x3FFFFFFF and 0xB0000000 to 0xEBFFFFFF

You application and any third-party dylibs's are allocated out of this
space."

See http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Performance/Conceptual/LaunchTime/Tasks/Prebinding.html

[The Red Wolf]

You're making an assumption. The page you referenced doesn't say what you want it to say.

The vm subsystem can address more than 4GB today... (pop quiz: what's the max memory on a powermac today?)

Remember this old post?

http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost.php?p=1035784&postcount=92

I do remember the post. Also, G5 tower, 8GB of RAM.

What you did not read in my post on page 4 of this topic, (not to mention the one that spawned the reference you placed in your post) is the fact that that the "Tiger Preview" page doesn't disclose all the information to be reader friendly.

Apple would not state it will have a 64-bit OS in 2005 before M$ if it was not working toward yesterdays post of an upcoming 2005 Tiger release. Rather than posting acronym and fly words, I post with a bit of humor and in a way everyone can understand. The above mentioned post you referred to used the exact analogy I did to further explain how the kernel in Tiger works.

Just as the kernel can give or deny memory to an application that is running. It can adjust to what application is being used or processor it has to deal with on the machine its installed on. Versatility. But the main point I have made and will forever stand by, Tiger is a versatile system. Meaning capable of doing processes in both 64-bit and 32-bit, sometimes at the same time depending on what you're doing.

The comment which I responded to this morning read was much like "G5s or whatever they call them will never be 64-bit processors, not for a long time".

More to the point of this thread. Is a Dual core G4 better than a singer G5? Depends on how it can "Shift". I even stated that was a poor analogy. But it remains, Tiger is much like a processor that could "shift" between being a G4 and a G5 depending on what machine you install it in. So then, if I am wrong. What on earth is Tiger doing when it "upshifts" to 64-bit application processes? How is it even doing it without having the abilities of a 64-bit enabled kernel?

Why again as I have mentioned before, would the Tiger be on the other side of the 64-Bit computing gap? With Panther leaping that gap, but not there yet and Longhorn sort of scared of the edge? Lay terms. But poignant compared to the pages and pages of documentation about this topic. Its at the Apple Developer Connection, I encourage people truly interested to check it out. http://developer.apple.com/macosx/

[itsa]

Why?

Because you're not gonna see a PB G5 for a long time still. If they release an interim G4 update before the G5 it will be the fastest thing available, just as the current crop is the current fastest. How is getting the fastest current processor "being left behind?"

I hear your arguement that a G5 is the future of the Mac platform, but that doesn't mean it's integration into a laptop is any more likely than it was at the introduction of the G5 over 15 months ago.

With my work, EVERYTHING is on the go. Is it too much to ask for a portable Desktop? :) Yes, I want everything in a desktop, jam packed into a notebook. That's the most wonderful thing about a notebook.
I would feel left behind when you put it up next to a G5.
Don't get me wrong... I will have what ever is the best offered. My job demands that. I do however wonder about furture updates of pro apps not supporting G4's. I'm sure that's a long way off.... not!

[nutmac]

While I am the last person to support Freescale/Motorola (after Motorola's G4 fiasco, I am "I will believe when I see it" when it comes to G4 hype), I am glad Freescale is around. If anything, Freescale keeps IBM at its toe, much like how AMD is driving Intel to work harder to produce better and cheaper CPUs.

That said, I don't care who makes the "next generation" CPU for PowerBook as long as both the performance and battery life are on par with what Wintel consumers get with Pentium-M notebooks. As it stands, PowerBooks lag behind big-time.

[shamino]

Can someone explain dual core to a dummy?
Although the specific details are a bit complicated, the concept is simple. A dual-core processor is two CPUs in a single processor module.

They can be configured in several different ways, but the approach we expect Apple to take will be for the module behave as two distinct processors sharing memory with an SMP-like architecture, in much the same fashion that the two processors on existing dual-processor systems share memory.

In other words, a computer based on one dual-core module will be equivalent to a traditional dual-processor computer. And a computer with two dual-core modules will be equivalent to a traditional computer with 4-way multiprocessing.

You may now be asking "why do this when I can just use two or four off-the-shelf single-core processors?" The answer is simple - they take up less space (they may be bigger than single-core modules, but they won't be as large as two separate modules) and (probably) use less power. So you can pack more processors onto the same size motherboard.

Assuming the physical size doesn't increase too much, a dual-core G4 will allow existing G4 systems (eMacs, iBooks and PowerBooks) to go dual-processor. (This would be impossible with current tech, because these systems are crowded and have no room to add a second processor module.)

Similarly, a dual-core G5 will allow the iMac/G5 to go dual-processor. And a PowerMac could support two dual-core G5's - resulting in 4-way multiprocessing.

[nutmac]

Joe, you obviously have not personally seen the iMac G5. Because if you had, you would understand the size difference between the 17" version and the 17" PowerBook. While the iMac G5 is impressively compact (when compared to other desktop computers), it weighs 18.5 pounds versus a mere 6.9 lbs for the it's 17" PowerBook counterpart, roughly three times the computer. In short, it's wwwaaaaayyyy bigger. Not even close to the PowerBook.

While you are at it, don't forget the battery.

I don't think weight was a major factor for iMac's design team, however. And even size for that matter. iMac G5 is reasonably invisible and I don't think the team's goal was "make it smaller and smaller." Make it look like iPod, squeeze in G5, and get rid of the round base.

The PowerBook G5 team will be a lot more aggressive in getting both the size and weight down, and use the most advanced heat transfer technologies available -- all the while waiting for IBM to deliver mobile G5 that they can use.

Although dual-core G4 will be a nice interim solution, the fact is, we need 64-bit sooner or later. If not for more elegant and modern architecture that G5 brings, for larger phyiscal memory space. Power mobile users will want larger pool of physical memory very soon.

[NusuniAdmin]

Can someone explain dual core to a dummy?

dual core = essentially 2 processors on 1 chip. This is just the dumbed down version of the explaination i guess.

[ajb13]

im not getting a computer with a g4 in it. g5 has been on the market for more than a year its the way to go
I'm rather suprised by this statement. Just because Apple has chosen to call each incremental update to processor and machine Gx, does not mean that a G5 is better than a G4. For heavens sakes, the technology is different, and the on-chip features of the e600 based G4's is awesome! G5 doesn't have any of this. Multi-cores are the future, not the G5. The G5 is just another branch of processor development. SGI is creating Dual cores, Intel is going Dual core, IBM's power 5 is Dual core. Do you see where I'm going with this? Just because the chip is called something with a higher number, doesn't make it better.

If Seymour Cray was on this list he'd be laughing. He understands how computers should work...multiple processors in parallel. Massively more powerful than megahertz. So, the next logical step is multiple cores in parallel. Naming means nothing, it's the tech behind the name that makes the difference.

[kenaustus]

I'm more than willing to give Freescale a chance to prove themselves. I think Moto has spun them off in order to sell the division down the line and is pumping them to perform - finally.

I would not be surprised to see a Freescale running about 1.5 for the iBook and eMac - and in the fairly near future. The Cram & Jam promotion was a great way to bring down inventories so look for something good happening before too long.

A Freescale at 2.0 would kick the PB into gear now and the dual processor would provide another kick when it comes out - especially if it is faster than 2 gigs. It would probably be the hottest notebook on the market.

The key points with Freescale will be performance and price. If they are aggressive in both areas then they may do very well indeed.

[shamino]

However, might a similarly clocked dual core G4 be faster than a single G5?
It absolutely would be faster.

A 64-bit chip and a 32-bit chip (of compatible architectures, of course) running at the clock speed running the same (32-bit) software will perform similarly.

So you can bet that if you change one of these two to dual-core without changing the other, the dual-core chip will outperform the single-core chip.
Would Apple be happy with PowerBooks being faster than the iMac? Maybe, since the PowerBook is supposed to be a pro machine whereas the iMac is consumer level.
I would tend to agree here.

Keep in mind that Apple could also make iMacs with dual-core G4 processors. They probably wouldn't, since they're using 64-bitness as a selling point, but if the resulting computer runs apps faster, I'm sure they could market their way out of that corner. :)
Going dual core in the PowerBooks also would mean that Apple could never go back to single processor PowerMacs, and I don't know if they would want to put themselves in that position.
I don't think this is a real limit.

Customers usually concern themselves with application performance. Moving from dual-core to single-core in a future model would not mean much as long as the replacement chip is fast enough so that overall application performance improves.

Look at the PowerMac/G4 series. At one point, all three models sold at once were dual-processor. Then later on, they changed this plan and only the high-end one was dual-processor. Today, all three PM/G5s are dual-processor. And in the next generation, we might find the low-end one going back to single-processor.

If Apple releases a dual-core PowerBook, you will probably see something similar. With dual-core being used in the high-end model, and single-core in the others. And over time, maybe the lower-end ones will go dual-core, and maybe not.

Finally, it is worth remembering, that IBM has dual-core G5's (the PPC 970MP) on the roadmap for the near future. If Apple upgrades the iMac and PowerMac to dual-core at the same time they upgrade the Powerbook, all of your concerns will be moot. When the PB's finally go G5, they'll move from one dual-core chip to another dual-core chip and everyone will be happy.

[Dave K]

I really don't understand this discussion. Freescale/Motorolla DO NOT have a 90nm fabrication facility. Not required. They can simply do what any other fabless company does and outsource the work.

[shamino]

While you are at it, don't forget the battery.
But if you were to turn an iMac into a portable, you'd remove the AC power supply, which probably weighs more than a battery pack.
I don't think weight was a major factor for iMac's design team, however.
Of course not. When was the last time weight was a concern of yours when buying a desktop system?
Although dual-core G4 will be a nice interim solution, the fact is, we need 64-bit sooner or later. If not for more elegant and modern architecture that G5 brings, for larger phyiscal memory space. Power mobile users will want larger pool of physical memory very soon.
"Sooner or later" is a rather vague term. Right now, there is no consumer need for this kind of memory. Maybe this will change in 2-3 years. But a lot of eveyrthing else will change by then as well.

The only people who need huge amounts of memory "very soon" (meaning "now") are those doing video production. I really doubt these companies are going to migrate their render farms to laptops.

[Lancetx]

I think this is great news and I certainly don't think that the G4 is dead yet. It's still a very serviceable processor as long as it continues to evolve and see measurable speed increases. Since everyone (including Intel) is hitting the wall due to cooling issues when it comes to putting desktop processors into notebooks, I'm not going to be upset at Apple for not having a G5 PowerBook. I'd much rather have a fast, thin and cool running PowerBook G4 than a 2 inch thick G5 nuclear reactor book any day of the week. I have faith that in time Apple and IBM will come up with something comparable to the desktop G5 for the PowerBook line (i.e. something like this news story), but in the meantime, I'm content with what they're doing. Besides, it's not like the new iMac G5s are exactly blowing the doors off of the PowerBook G4s of today anyway. And if pure speed is what is truly needed, the Dual Processor Power Mac G5 is the only way to go anyhow as no notebook will ever come close to keeping pace there anyway.

[dieselg4]

OK. I don't know the specific specs and haven't seen how the architecture is laid out but dual core on a 200Mhz FSB?!?! :eek: Are they insane? Can you say bandwidth starved? If this does somehow make it into a PowerBook here's hoping the memory controller is onboard as well or things are going to get really ugly.


I believe the dual cores have a 667 mhz bus

[JFreak]

dual-core G4 should be faster than single-core G5 with the same clock speed, even if the fsb of the G5 would be multiple times faster than the G4. and dual-core G4 should be as fast as dual-G5 if the fsb were equal.

remember, the G4 is faster clock-for-clock and is only crippled with slow fsb...

[dieselg4]

It's two complete CPUs on one chip, plus some multiprocessing glue.
I think (and I might be wrong) that a dual core CPU doesn't need dual precessor capable software to utilize both cores.

[dieselg4]

I'd much rather have a fast, thin and cool running PowerBook G4 than a 2 inch thick G5 nuclear reactor book any day of the week.

Good point. You only need to take a look at Dell's Inspiron 9100 (http://www1.us.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/inspn_9100?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs&~tab=specstab#tabtop) to get an idea of what a 970 laptop might begin to look like . . (in size, weight, etc.) Check out the dim's - 2" inches! & 9 Pounds!

[appleface]

I would not be surprised to see a Freescale running about 1.5 for the iBook and eMac - and in the fairly near future.

would this freescale processor really be better than a G5? i thought the advantage of this freescale chip is that it is easy on power consumption. an emac doesn't need to worry about power consumption, does it? is this new chip a true canidate for anything other than notebooks?

[dieselg4]

would this freescale processor really be better than a G5? i thought the advantage of this freescale chip is that it is easy on power consumption. an emac doesn't need to worry about power consumption, does it? is this new chip a true canidate for anything other than notebooks?
If its faster, cheaper, and cooler, why not have a fanless, faster eMac?

[budugu]

if those chips come with that amount of L2 cache... I would expect something similar/equal from IBM... 512K is oldschool

The larger L2 / L3 cache are added to alleviate the performance changes when they try to change the design! ofcourse a larger cache is always good. but it is generally offered by companies when they are playing with new stuff and trying to finish of the old stuff (3->4->5 etc). Cache increases are generally seen when are about to be phased out. And the new ones come with a lower cache in th next release!! I remember Power4 of IBM had 1-2MB cache!

[AmigoMac]

Now let's hope Virtual PC 8 will work with the new chip... :rolleyes:

[Neuro]

Looking at the recent iMac G5 benchmarks, a dual G4 tower has similar performance to the best new iMac, so a new, faster dual-core G4 chip would be great (and perhaps more practical) for PowerBooks etc. The current high-end PowerBook with Radeon 9700 Mobility seems better than an iMac G5 for gaming so far...

The G4 is actually a very nice chip - it just didn't get fast enough quick enough. Maybe its about to make a comeback?

[AidenShaw]

Cache increases are generally seen when are about to be phased out. And the new ones come with a lower cache in th next release!! I remember Power4 of IBM had 1-2MB cache!

Hmmm, Pentium 4 and Centrino caches keep getting bigger. In fact, just about every product in http://www.intel.com/pressroom/kits/quickreffam.htm shows larger caches in the newest chips.

The POWER4+ has a 9.5 MiB cache, and the POWER5 has a 38 MiB cache.

Somehow the facts don't line up with your claim.

[Garissimo]

The G4 is actually a very nice chip - it just didn't get fast enough quick enough. Maybe its about to make a comeback?

The 7448 is an absolutely perfect interim CPU upgrade for the Powerbook. Faster, cooler, and pin per pin compatible with the 7447a. Throw in a Radeon 9800 mobility in the more spendy 15" and 17" models and you're good to go.

My only question is when? The article says samples won't be ready until Q1 next year. Does Apple get "preferential treatment" with these type of new chips because of volumes or will they have to wait untill 2005 like everyone else?

[joeboy_45101]

Here are my slightly different predictions. Upon the release of the 7448 (say May 2005, the line-up will move to:

eMac: 1.5 Ghz G4, 167 Mhz FSB (7447A)
iBook: 1.2-1.5 Ghz G4, 167 Mhz FSB. (7447A)
PowerBook: 1.4-1.8 Ghz G4, 200 Mhz FSB. (7448)

Now...this wouldn't blow anyone away, but 20% increases in clock speed, coupled with 20% increases in FSB speeds-without any increase in power consumption-would certainly be appreciated...in the short term.

That sets the stage for the release of the 8641D or a low-power version of the G5 (say November 2005).

eMac: 1.8 Ghz G4, 200 Mhz FSB. (7448)
iBook: 1.4-1.8 Ghz G4, 200 Mhz FSB. (7448)
PowerBook: G4 (8641D ) or G5.

Hah!, there is no way apple is going to give the eMac a 1.5Ghz G4 right now, and if you look at the past the iBook G4's have been inheriting the last revision PowerBook G4's processor. I'd also have to say that a year from now we will still see a G4 in the PowerBooks unless you like toting around a 2.5-in. thick notebook.

[GregA]

Prolly not, man. the CPU is soldered to the logic board. Unless they make whole board replacements, which isn't impossible, just err... hard to install. ;) Damn, I'm not sure if that comment goes for upgrading iMacs as well... but I'd say so.

I'd like to think that in a years time I could do a simple performane upgrade - replace my G4 chip in my iMac with something faster including cache to take advantage of it... Then again I did get the original iMac flat screen so my FSB is probably less than 200MHz (167?) so I'm stuck anyway!

[GregA]

With my work, EVERYTHING is on the go. Is it too much to ask for a portable Desktop? :) Yes, I want everything in a desktop, jam packed into a notebook. That's the most wonderful thing about a notebook.
I would feel left behind when you put it up next to a G5.
Don't get me wrong... I will have what ever is the best offered. My job demands that. I do however wonder about furture updates of pro apps not supporting G4's. I'm sure that's a long way off.... not!Hi itsa,

IF Freescale have got it right and it performs well (a big IF since we know so little, really!), and Apple uses it in new machines, then future updates of pro apps will support it - simple as that.

If in a year you could choose between a lighter Freescale based dual core 1.6 G4x laptop, vs a heavier 64bit 2.4 G5 laptop, that perform IDENTICALLY for 32 bit applications (for arguments sake), would you really choose the heavier laptop just to be "G5"?

[nutmac]

"Sooner or later" is a rather vague term. Right now, there is no consumer need for this kind of memory. Maybe this will change in 2-3 years. But a lot of eveyrthing else will change by then as well.

The only people who need huge amounts of memory "very soon" (meaning "now") are those doing video production. I really doubt these companies are going to migrate their render farms to laptops.

Although G4 can address 32-bit physical addressable memory space (for total of 4 GB), operating systems such as Mac OS X can address up to 31-bit (for total of 2 GB). While 2 GB is still plenty for today's consumers (the iBook crowd), it isn't much for some pro users of today and many pro users of near-tomorrow (the PowerBook crowd). Yes, I know that many consumers choose PowerBook over iBook, but PowerBook is still a pro-level notebook.

Before you try to sell me PowerMac G5, realize that in today's corporate world where mobility has become a competitive advantage and even a necessary component to success (e.g., telecommute, professional services, 99%+ service level agreement). Many pro users demand the power of desktop. For serious software development, engineering tasks, scientific analysis, audio/video processing, etc., 1 GB has become an absolute minimum. 2 GB will be the absolute minimum soon enough.

Now, I know that very few Wintel notebooks offer greater than 2 GB of memory (limited to few AMD Athlon 64-based notebooks). But 64-bit computing is where Apple can take the leadership position. At any rate, given the choice of either 32-bit and 64-bit computer, all things being equal, I doubt any would prefer 32-bit.

I'd much rather have a fast, thin and cool running PowerBook G4 than a 2 inch thick G5 nuclear reactor book any day of the week.

IBM is not sitting idle. There are various technical discussions and even interviews with the 970 design team that points to bigger and better things for G5. Dual-core, improved VMX unit (a.k.a., Altivec), optimized layout, embedded memory controller, 65-nanometer fab, and improved PowerTune are all hinted as the future of G5.

And we should not forget, both G5 compiler and many applications are not even close to being fully optimized for G5. Just as G4's Altivec required many iterative software optimizations, application performance under G5 will continue to improve (in fact, Mac OS X Tiger will improve many math operation performance for "free").

That is not to say IBM will deliver PowerBook-friendly G5 before Freescale. That is anybody's guess. But the future of PowerBook is G5 and we shouldn't knock G5 off the radar just because Freescale is making some noises.

[pigwin32]

Yes, it sounds alll very nice but not until next year... according to a TheRegister.com article,
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/09/28/freescale_g4_7448/

The single core and dual core processors won't sample until next year... months away.
Yeah the register article really highlights the issue for Apple and PB fans, the 7448 will not sample until first half 2005. How quickly Freescale can get these chips to production volumes and how soon Apple can get them into a PB remains to be seen. The chip itself is pin-compatible with the existing 7447A with a very minor speed bump to the FSB. It does look like being the next PB G4 chip, requiring little if any change to the existing PB.

The other two chips, the dual core MPC8641D and single core MPC8641 will sample second half 2005. Both look like contenders, the FSB issue disappears with on chip mem controllers, PCI Express, etc. But they are not pin compatible with the existing chip and will require a new mobo architecture. Again, the delay until these chips reach production volumes will determine when Apple can get them into a PB. I agree it would be great to see the dually in a PB but waiting over a year for it is going to hurt.

Meanwhile Apple must either be well down the road to shoe horning the G5 into a PB or wringing their hands in frustration.

[manu chao]

Hah!, there is no way apple is going to give the eMac a 1.5Ghz G4 right now, and if you look at the past the iBook G4's have been inheriting the last revision PowerBook G4's processor. I'd also have to say that a year from now we will still see a G4 in the PowerBooks unless you like toting around a 2.5-in. thick notebook.

I wouldn't call May 2005: 'right now' (or did I miss any irony).

[manu chao]

The first time I read about the 7448 was eight days ago here:
http://www.macosrumors.com/92104B.php
(Yes, I admit it, I was really very bored)

Could these guys be getting something right for a change?

[jeffbax]

As soon as this is available in a 12" or 15" PB I am buying it.

Dual Core G4 >>>> Single Core G5.

Hell... I don't think the G5 is very good for a laptop anyway... the 2.5 GHZ version runs at like 90c under full load... I'd rather not burn my unit off while trying to use the laptop.

[NusuniAdmin]

As soon as this is available in a 12" or 15" PB I am buying it.

Dual Core G4 >>>> Single Core G5.

Hell... I don't think the G5 is very good for a laptop anyway... the 2.5 GHZ version runs at like 90c under full load... I'd rather not burn my unit off while trying to use the laptop.

Yes I have to agree with that, in some cases the g5 can run even hotter than that though.

anyways ya a dual core g4 wouldbe a smart move for the powerbooks. Definitly a dual core 1.8 (or even higher) ghz powerbook g4 would make one heck of a machine, definitly with at LEAST a 400-600 mhz FSB.

[jouster]

There is another article, cited below which states the dual cores wont even go into production until the second half of 2005!

Worse than even that; it says they won't sample until 2H '05. Who knows how long after that they might take to iron out the problems and ramp up to Apple's required level?

[Dont Hurt Me]

History shows .........................................

[IBSNOWEDIN]

I'm well aware of Tiger. I'm running it on my PB15 (that's a 32bit G4 in case you're wondering).


yeah i know tiger is backward compatible with 32bit cpu it would be stupid of apple not to do that.(i have tiger on my PB too)

The kernal (or whatever the core os is called on Mac) will be 32bit for a very long time.

i was just saying that their is going to be a 64bit os.

[joeboy_45101]

What you said:

I wouldn't call May 2005: 'right now' (or did I miss any irony).

What I said:

I'd also have to say that a year from now we will still see a G4 in the PowerBooks unless you like toting around a 2.5-in. thick notebook.

What I meant:

I'd also have to say that a year(2004 + 1) from now(September 2005) we will still see a G4 in the PowerBooks unless you like toting around a 2.5-in. thick notebook (The current G5's are too hot to fit in the form factor that Apple likes to use for it's notebooks, which is as thin as possible. And I believe that a PowerBook G5 right now would be around 2-2.5in. thick) :p

[SPG]

If in a year you could choose between a lighter Freescale based dual core 1.6 G4x laptop, vs a heavier 64bit 2.4 G5 laptop, that perform IDENTICALLY for 32 bit applications (for arguments sake), would you really choose the heavier laptop just to be "G5"?

I might not and you might not, but the average consumer would consider it a major factor. Add to this Apple's habit of handicapping their lower priced machines to keep their high end viable, and you'll see just about everyone who can afford it going for the G5.
It's not just science, but marketing as well.

[corbin_a2]

Dose anyone here know where you can find a rundown of the Power PC G4?

What was the original model called up through to the current 7457.

[NusuniAdmin]

dual core g4 powerbooks at wwdc, who agrees?

[aliasfox]

7400: 4-stage pipeline, half speed L2 cache up to 1 MB
7410: low power 7400, original TiBooks
7445: 7-stage pipeline, 256k on die L2, no L3 rev A PB 12"
7447: 7-stage pipeline, 0.13 micron, 512k on die L2
7448: 0.09 micron, 1 MB on die L2, support for 200 MHz frontside bus
7450: 7-stage pipeline, 256k on die L2, L3 cache up to 2 MB
7455: 7-stage pipeline, 256k on die L2, DDR L3 cache up to 2 MB
7457: 7-stage pipeline, 0.13 micron, 512k on die L2, DDR L3 cache up to 2 MB (never used by Apple)

The 7445 and higher (excluding the 7448) have support for a 167 MHz frontside bus, but no support for DDR.

I believe the 7400 was introduced at 0.25 microns, though I forget if the die shrink came with the 7410 or the 7450.

Believed accurate- correct me if I'm wrong

[reorx]

The larger L2 / L3 cache are added to alleviate the performance changes when they try to change the design! ofcourse a larger cache is always good. but it is generally offered by companies when they are playing with new stuff and trying to finish of the old stuff (3->4->5 etc). Cache increases are generally seen when are about to be phased out. And the new ones come with a lower cache in th next release!! I remember Power4 of IBM had 1-2MB cache!

While there are a lot of reasons to have a larger cache size on a given processor, the fact that they are going to be "phased-out" is probably not one of them. The reason for large CPU caches on "modern" hardware is because of the relatively slow speed of accessing main memory. In yesteryear, the cache was off-chip, expensive, and no where near as fast as today's on-die caches. The performance gain of a 1:1 clock-ratio cache is incredible. Just look at what it did for the Pentium M!

This was an intentional design feature: When mobile processors scale back their clocks, the external bus clock does not scale along with them. If you have a high clock rate on your memory controller, you pay that price even if your CPU is idling. The large on-die 1M cache runs at same speed as the CPU clock and will increase/decrease with the variations of the power management software. This provides the best of both worlds: fast when you need it, and battery life when you don't...

I think the "slow" 167MHz on my 1.5 GHz PB is just fine, seeing as I DO use it without an AC adapter most of the time...

[Nicky G]

Yup. My Avatar is from the cover of Shadow of the Beast. Wish the Amiga would have gone somewhere besides into oblivion... I still have my A1200 with an '030 40Mhz upgrade and 10 megs of RAM. :-)

Didn't that game also come out for Genesis, or was it Sega CD? The music was great if I remember correctly. Man, now I need the ROM. :D

[reorx]

Before you try to sell me PowerMac G5, realize that in today's corporate world where mobility has become a competitive advantage and even a necessary component to success (e.g., telecommute, professional services, 99%+ service level agreement). Many pro users demand the power of desktop. For serious software development, engineering tasks, scientific analysis, audio/video processing, etc., 1 GB has become an absolute minimum. 2 GB will be the absolute minimum soon enough.

I just don't get the need for the portable render farm. With widely available, high-speed internet connectivity, VPN and remote terminal capability, its a hell of a lot easier to just have a massive set of machines you access remotely. Hell, for *real* video production, you'd have to carry around a G5 sized disk array just to provide the storage and bandwidth. For most mobile warriors, their laptop is for communication and documentation, not in-the-weeds work. Most companies won't let you get a non-issue piece of hardware anywhere near their networks, much less let you put their intellectual property on it...

Just an observation. At some point, enough's enough... :)

[nek]

Now that Freescale has revealed their new chips, it seems obvious what Apple will do with these. The 7448 will go into the Powerbook, iBook, and eMac as soon as possible next year, then the 8641D will go into the Powerbook when it is available.

Unless IBM has a low power G5 planned to be released soon, Apple would be smart to use the 8641D in the Powerbook instead. Since it is a two core 1.5+GHz G4 with two 1MB L2 caches, two slightly improved Altivec units, integrated memory controller and ethernet, up to 667MHz bus, support for DDR and DDR2 memory, PCI Express, and operates at 15-25W. With the elimination of the current slow G4 bus and being dual core it will be faster than a single G5 anyway.

But since these are 90nm processors, will there be issues with actually producing them in sufficient quantity? Freescale/Motorola does not have a good track record and with everyone else having problems with 90nm, its hard to be optimistic.

And for those who feel there is some urgent need for a 64bit laptop because you somehow need and expect to fit more than 4GB RAM in it (yes, I know that 2GB and 4GB dimms exist), Freescale will have its 64bit e700 in the future, maybe by sometime in 2006(?). They are likely to continue their goal of low power chips, which is good news for Apple laptops.

[cube]

I think (and I might be wrong) that a dual core CPU doesn't need dual precessor capable software to utilize both cores.

You're wrong.

[Analog Kid]

I know I'm probably in the minority here but I really think apple should not spend money on developing a G5 laptop for at least a year. They should spend their resources on freescale technology.

Look at the best Intel mobile processor right now, the Pentium M. Is it the Big bad power hungry pentium 4 scaled and clocked down and crippled and still sucks up a bunch of power? Or is it an ultra effecient Pentium 3 with added features that performs in mobile environments flawlessly?

Apple should take this approach, FreeScale G4s for mobility, G5s for the true power... its much like the mobile pentium 4 situation.

I wish people would stop buying into the marketing hype of the G5... its not a freaking mobile processor!!!! IT WAS NEVER DESIGNED FOR IT!!!!
Thank you-- finally someone who sees the world like I do... Keep two lines of chips-- best of both worlds.

Desktops are made to be expandable in memory and peripherals and laptops are made to be light and cool. Very different requirements. Everybody understood this before Mot hit the wall and Apple was forced to put laptop chips in their desktop G4 towers-- and then everyone got confused.

The 64bit confusion was further exacerbated by AMD's Opteron. The Opteron wasn't so much faster because it has more bits, it's faster because it has a better core.

While I might understand a little G4/G5 confusion from the masses, I really can't understand why so many people who have put in the effort to find these forums and have access to the knowledge of some pretty knowledgeable folks here still seem to think they'd rather have a slower G5 instead of a faster G4... It's like the perception of performance is more important than the real thing.

If you look at the benchmarks coming out of Barefeats and others, the G4 isn't doing too badly against the G5 even today. Double those up and clock them faster and eliminate the bottleneck to memory and you've got a great machine that has one very specialized limitation: memory depth.

64bit workstations and full 64bit OS's are only used in very, very specialized applications: ones that need a lot of memory. Where the penalty of swapping to disk far outweighs the penalty of manipulating 64bit pointers.

My work uses a mix of 32bit and 64bit machines. We've got applications that run for weeks at a time processing data. Whenever possible we run those on 32bit machines because they're faster. We only run on 64bit machines when the data model exceeds the memory limit of the 32bit machines.

Software is not going to obsolete your 32bit machine. I have to say that for a company that makes most of it's money from hardware, Apple has been very commendable in supporting legacy hardware. Yes that could change, but it would have to be an intentional move to force hardware upgrades and it would signal a severe change in Apple culture.

Look at the OS9 to OSX transition-- OSX hasn't steadily outdated old hardware (excepting some very old machines). Instead they stopped selling hardware that would run the old OS first and kept the new software backwards compatible.

Look at what they did with the "fat binaries" to transition from the 68000 to the PowerPC-- talk about jumping through hoops to support outdated hardware!

If Freescale delivers, the e600 series is the way to go for portables. Hands down. The worst of it will be a dry patch while we wait for the new chips to arrive over the next year. First we'll see a small speedbump to the discrete device, then a move to the dual core when they're available.

When dual cores are ready, that will be the distinguishing feature between Powerbooks and iBooks.

When this happens, Apple will finally have the lineup I think they want-- well defined differences between consumer and pro, and portables that do what portables should and desktops that do what desktops should.

Powerbooks will continue with the dual G4 until memory limitations become a problem for the majority of users-- not the folks who want bragging rights, but the folks who make smart buying decisions based on all the factors in their portable. When that happens we'll see a move to a dual 64bit core. Maybe from IBM, or maybe the e700 series if it materializes.

If Freescale falls apart or changes direction again, then Apple will be back to their recent past of trying to enhance and hobble machines to keep a broad product line.

And did I mention DDR2?! Oh yeah! Keep that power low, baby, keep it low! Yeah... Just like that...

[Analog Kid]

You're wrong.
Depends on how it was meant-- you need a dual CPU aware OS to use both cores, but the app can still be single threaded. Each app will use only one core at a time but will still see the benefit of shifting other apps and system tasks to the other core.

[dekator]

im not getting a computer with a g4 in it. g5 has been on the market for more than a year its the way to go

I think one shouldn't get too attached to names. The chips Freescale is proposing are pretty much new chips. Call them G5m (mobile) if you like. They will have most of the benefits of a 'real' G5 anyway, minus the enormous power consumption and heat dissipation. They pretty much are the future 'mobile G5s' if you will.

[isgoed]

Now that Freescale has revealed their new chips, it seems obvious what Apple will do with these. The 7448 will go into the Powerbook, iBook, and eMac as soon as possible next year, then the 8641D will go into the Powerbook when it is available.

Unless IBM has a low power G5 planned to be released soon, Apple would be smart to use the 8641D in the Powerbook instead. Since it is a two core 1.5+GHz G4 with two 1MB L2 caches, two slightly improved Altivec units, integrated memory controller and ethernet, up to 667MHz bus, support for DDR and DDR2 memory, PCI Express, and operates at 15-25W. With the elimination of the current slow G4 bus and being dual core it will be faster than a single G5 anyway.

But since these are 90nm processors, will there be issues with actually producing them in sufficient quantity? Freescale/Motorola does not have a good track record and with everyone else having problems with 90nm, its hard to be optimistic.

And for those who feel there is some urgent need for a 64bit laptop because you somehow need and expect to fit more than 4GB RAM in it (yes, I know that 2GB and 4GB dimms exist), Freescale will have its 64bit e700 in the future, maybe by sometime in 2006(?). They are likely to continue their goal of low power chips, which is good news for Apple laptops.

I agree with you completely. It seems that the longer the thread gets, the smarter the people are that are on it. At first there are only the G5 yellers/complainers.

When I read the article at first I was under the impression that they were talking about a near finished product. It amazed me because that would mean that freescale is the first company to make consumer dual cores. Seems waiting is just a thing mac users have to do.

The dual core is really interesting for laptops. It can be really power efficient if they can dynamically shutdown a core.

[kotovasii]

I sure hope they figure out a way to put a G5 in the powerbook......

-Joe

Totally agree with this – I personally know a lot of people who are waiting for the G5 PB as they would need this processor for bioinformatics calculations. PB is designed for professionals and they need the best, otherwise people will have to “switch back” to a PC platform and fight with dual boot (M$ and Linux) boxes. I certainly would not buy PB G4 even if it is a triple processor. Until then it is Linux laptop and Power Mac desktop… very sad actually.

[Analog Kid]

Totally agree with this – I personally know a lot of people who are waiting for the G5 PB as they would need this processor for bioinformatics calculations. PB is designed for professionals and they need the best, otherwise people will have to “switch back” to a PC platform and fight with dual boot (M$ and Linux) boxes. I certainly would not buy PB G4 even if it is a triple processor. Until then it is Linux laptop and Power Mac desktop… very sad actually.
Linux on an Opteron laptop with 4GB of RAM?

[thatwendigo]

Totally agree with this – I personally know a lot of people who are waiting for the G5 PB as they would need this processor for bioinformatics calculations. PB is designed for professionals and they need the best, otherwise people will have to “switch back” to a PC platform and fight with dual boot (M$ and Linux) boxes. I certainly would not buy PB G4 even if it is a triple processor. Until then it is Linux laptop and Power Mac desktop… very sad actually.

:rolleyes:

Just what is it that 'a lot of people' need a portable G5 for that a dual-core with a vector unit couldn't do? For one thing, it's entirely possible to do 64-bit math in a 32-bit processor, but having the inherent ability to use integers of that size tends to speed things up if your code is written to do so. There's absolutely no reason that a G5 is automatically "the best" for a portable application, especially not if the application is threaded and can be fed to more than one processor. The extremely low latency and cache coherency in the 8461D would slaughter a single G5, as is pretty clear when a single 7447A 1.5ghz keeps up with lower clocked single 970s in benchmarks.

Something that I see very little in the way of commentary on... The 8461D is rigged to share the caches between processors, allowing any data in multiple threads to remain on chip instead of hitting main memory. That's incredible! The speedup for tasks that use a lot of repetitive calls and instructions ought to be amazing, and that's something that should help any program written to spread out across available cores. It has four times the cache of the current 970 implementation, and can use that for either processor, one processor, or both.

Then there's the fact that they have an on-die DDR and DDR2 memory controller, with support for 667mhz DDR2 RAM out of the box, internally enhanced networking performance with hardware routing for TCP, UDP, VLAN, IPv4 and IPv6, RapidIO, PCI-Express built-in... This thing will likely stomp on the G5, especially in portable formats, since running both cores full-bore draws only 15-25 watts, while the 1.6ghz 90nm 970 pulls as much as the whole 8461D.

[Pax]

Nice to see people starting to believe a dual core G4 is the way to go for laptops. I'd genuinely prefer one of these over a G5 laptop. Remember, Freescale is streets ahead of IBM in the embedded space. Embedded is where performance per watt matters. IBM's "big iron" approach is just about performance. The G5's a great desktop chip, but not a mobile chip.

I wonder whether migrating to a dual core G4 would cost Apple less in engineering effort than building up a G5 laptop? Could they quickly hack the current PowerBook architecture to take the new dual core / on die memory controller chip? It's not a "drop in" replacement but could they quickly design the boards to take the new parts? If so we could see the dual core chip say in mid 2005.

[ts1973]

I think dual core is a good path to follow, the only thing that worries me is the time frame : that doesn't look too good...

Meanwhile, an old dual 1,42Ghz PM is about as fast as a iMac G5 today, runnning with slow bus speeds, so a 667Mhz bus and 1Mb cache would allow for much more headroom for a G4. However, by the time the chips come out the iMac will probably be cooled by Water Cooling while running above 2Ghz...

Did anyone notice by the way the dual core chip requires ECC memory to run @ 667Mhz bus. Can anyone explain the reason why ?

[G4-power]

The 7445 and higher (excluding the 7448) have support for a 167 MHz frontside bus, but no support for DDR.

I believe the 7400 was introduced at 0.25 microns, though I forget if the die shrink came with the 7410 or the 7450.

Believed accurate- correct me if I'm wrong

The earlier 74xx processors are 180 nanometer (0.18 micron), even the 7400, as is on my Sawtooth machine (350 MHz, see signature.) It is true, that the latter ones that you said are indeed 0.13 micron. The 7410 IIRC is (still in limited production) still 0.18 micron. I don't know about what bus speeds they support, but 167 MHz is the top. Don't know about DDR support either, but remember that new G4 Macs have DDR memory. Apple-History.com (http://www.apple-history.com/) (website) and Mactracker (http://www.mactracker.ca/) (application) have good info about which Mac has which processor and when DDR came to Macs.

Just my opinions, I might be wrong.

[G4-power]

Thank you-- finally someone who sees the world like I do... Keep two lines of chips-- best of both worlds.
Yep, I agree with you there. Mobile and desktop proccessors need a different kind of architecture, raw power and power management is not the same thing.
Look at what they did with the "fat binaries" to transition from the 68000 to the PowerPC-- talk about jumping through hoops to support outdated hardware!
Yep, and Tiger will introduce "fat binaries" again, to support both 32- and 64-bit application in one package.

Yeah, from Apple's website Tiger Preview:64-bit (http://www.apple.com/macosx/tiger/64bit.html)
Write Chameleon Code

Tiger simplifies software distribution with support for Fat Binaries, an application that contains both 32-bit and 64-bit binaries within a single file. Using Fat Binaries, network administrators distribute a single version of an application to all users regardless of their system capabilities. Once installed on a user’s system, the Fat Binary automatically selects the appropriate code for the system without user intervention. This greatly simplifies administration, installation and distribution of applications.

[MikeBike]

Totally agree with this – I personally know a lot of people who are waiting for the G5 PB as they would need this processor for bioinformatics calculations. PB is designed for professionals and they need the best, otherwise people will have to “switch back” to a PC platform and fight with dual boot (M$ and Linux) boxes. I certainly would not buy PB G4 even if it is a triple processor. Until then it is Linux laptop and Power Mac desktop… very sad actually.

Isn't the software for bioinformatics calcs using Altivec?
Wouldn't 2 altivec processors, in a Powerbook, be better then 1?
Isn't Motorola's G4 Altivec processor stronger than IBM at the current time?

I know a Lot of Java programmers waiting for this machine:
dual core: the "G4 Extreme".
I'll buy a new powerbook as soon as this comes out.
A Dual Core Java on an Apple OS X machine would be very very nice.

- Next Powerbook looks like a single 1.8 with 200mhz fsb in 1 to 3 months.

- The Real Battle will be in 8-10 months:
G4Extreme vs. G5-65nm.
If I were Apple I'd build the G4 Extreme.

And I'd be giving IBM guidance that they want to research a dual core G5M
at whatever is after 65nm.

[h4ckintosh]

Anybody think there'll be a CPU replacement program, allowing current G4 users to recieve an upgrade?...kinda of a stupid question, I guess :rolleyes:

[stockscalper]

I for one would love to see this dual core processor in the next Powerbook. The G5 frontside bus had to be severely crippled to contain heat in the imac and I can only imagine how much it would have to be crippled to get it to work in a Powerbook. This chip will give the most power for Powerbook portability and Mac users should welcome it. My only hope is that they offer speeds over the 1.4 GHZ quoted.

[shamino]

But since these are 90nm processors, will there be issues with actually producing them in sufficient quantity? Freescale/Motorola does not have a good track record and with everyone else having problems with 90nm, its hard to be optimistic.
IBM and Intel both hit serious problems with 90nm chips (and IBM doesn't seem to have completely solved those problems yet.) On the other hand, Freescale is starting late enough that they can study what IBM and Intel did to fix their problems and possibly avoid hitting them themselves.

[shamino]

While I might understand a little G4/G5 confusion from the masses, I really can't understand why so many people who have put in the effort to find these forums and have access to the knowledge of some pretty knowledgeable folks here still seem to think they'd rather have a slower G5 instead of a faster G4... It's like the perception of performance is more important than the real thing.
But this one goes up to five!

[shamino]

64bit workstations and full 64bit OS's are only used in very, very specialized applications: ones that need a lot of memory.
Well, Solaris ships a 64 bit OS that runs on all UltraSparc machines (which are the only kind they've sold for many years - all of which are 64-bit). But it does not require you to run 64-bit apps - and Sun recommends that most apps remain 32-bit unless they have a good reason to go 64-bit (like large memory, large-integer arithmetic, ANSI-C access to large files, or large system constants.)

But I don't know if you consider Solaris to be a full 64-bit OS or not.
My work uses a mix of 32bit and 64bit machines. We've got applications that run for weeks at a time processing data. Whenever possible we run those on 32bit machines because they're faster. We only run on 64bit machines when the data model exceeds the memory limit of the 32bit machines.
Just out of curiosity, are these 64-bit machines Sun workstations? And if they are, have you tried simply compiling the code as 32-bit to run on those workstations? Is 32-bit code on a 64-bit Solaris actually slower than 32-bit code on 32-bit Solaris?
Look at what they did with the "fat binaries" to transition from the 68000 to the PowerPC-- talk about jumping through hoops to support outdated hardware!
Actually, fat binaries were trivial. 68K apps store the code in CODE resources in the resource fork. PPC apps (are supposed to) store the code in the data fork (the way apps on most other operating systems do). To make a fat binary, you just compile the code twice - once for 68K and once for PPC. You store the PPC code in the data fork and the 68K code in the resource fork. At launch time, 68K systems will only look in the resource fork - and they'll find the 68K code; PPC systems will look in both places, trying the data fork first - and they'll find the PPC code.

OS X's package-based application system makes this even simpler, though. In this model, each application is actually a directory tree of files. Among the files is the executable image. It is possible (even simple) to put multiple executable image files in the package. The OS looks for one (in the directory named "Contents/MacOS") and launches it, ignoring the others.

So, if Apple would want to allow 32-/64-bit fat binaries (as they probably should), they can simply define a new folder name (maybe "MacOS64"). A 32-bit system will ignore this folder. A 64-bit system will look there in addition to "MacOS" to find executables. (The choice of which to check first can be made configurable on a system-wide or per-application basis, although it's probably not necessary. Presumably, developers wouldn't release a 64-bit executable image in an application unless the app has a legitimate need to be 64-bit.)
When dual cores are ready, that will be the distinguishing feature between Powerbooks and iBooks.
Until dual-core chips become cheap and abundant. Then the iBooks will get them and some other feature will distinguish them.

Note how the dividing line used to be G3/G4. Then the iBook/G4 came out, and the differences became pretty minor. (Today, there isn't much difference between an iBook and a 12" PowerBook, for instance.)
Powerbooks will continue with the dual G4 until memory limitations become a problem for the majority of users-- not the folks who want bragging rights, but the folks who make smart buying decisions based on all the factors in their portable. When that happens we'll see a move to a dual 64bit core. Maybe from IBM, or maybe the e700 series if it materializes.
Or until IBM gets their yields up (and temperatures down). Sometimes you upgrade a machine simply because it doesn't cost that much to do so.

Of course, by then, the PowerMacs will have dual-core G5's, so there will still be a distinction between the lines.

[shamino]

IWhen I read the article at first I was under the impression that they were talking about a near finished product. It amazed me because that would mean that freescale is the first company to make consumer dual cores. Seems waiting is just a thing mac users have to do.
They may well be first.

IBM has had dual- (and 4- and 8-) cores for quite some time in their POWER processor modules, but those are anything but consumer.

Intel is working on dual-core, but I don't think they're close to being able to ship anything either.

The way I see it, it's anybody's game. We could see the first consumer dual core processors from Intel, AMD, Freescale or IBM. Everybody's working on it, and everybody says "real soon now".

[MikeBike]

Anybody think there'll be a CPU replacement program, allowing current G4 users to recieve an upgrade?...kinda of a stupid question, I guess :rolleyes:

- There's never been a cpu replacement program, from anyone that I know of. How do you think they got so rich.

You might be able to get a motherboard / cpu upgrade, if you can find a dealer willing to do it. Would it be legal?
A late model Powerbook 1.5 upgrade to the future 1.8(?) with the 1 mb l2 cache might be feasible, if Apple doesn't change any of the interface locations.

[shamino]

Totally agree with this – I personally know a lot of people who are waiting for the G5 PB as they would need this processor for bioinformatics calculations. PB is designed for professionals and they need the best, otherwise people will have to “switch back” to a PC platform and fight with dual boot (M$ and Linux) boxes. I certainly would not buy PB G4 even if it is a triple processor. Until then it is Linux laptop and Power Mac desktop… very sad actually.
How many biotech labs do you know of where the scientists want to (or are even allowed to) do their research on laptops? I would think that corporate security policy would demand that all research be done on machines that don't leave the premesis.

Could you imagine explaining to your boss that the simulation you spent months working on no longer exists because the laptop it was running on got stolen at the bus station?
I certainly would not buy PB G4 even if it is a triple processor.
ROTFLMAO.

So you'd refuse the computer, no matter how fast and powerful it might be, based entirely on whether Apple marketing puts the name "G4" on the box or not?

I hope you're not making any importat decisions where you work.

[AidenShaw]

Although G4 can address 32-bit physical addressable memory space (for total of 4 GB), operating systems such as Mac OS X can address up to 31-bit (for total of 2 GB).

Actually, the current G4 chips have 36-bit physical addressing and can support up to 64 GiB of RAM. (Same memory limit as 32-bit Xeon chips.)

The second half of your sentence is true - Apple hasn't supported more than 31-bit addressing, even though Windows and Linux support the 36-bit addressing on the x86 chips.

[jbro]

It seems that the longer the thread gets, the smarter the people are that are on it.

I agree.

And, I would love a dual-G4 laptop, especially if it's thin, light and efficient. My G5 tower is a heat machine. What kind of battery life do you want your laptop to have anyway?

It's all about the marketing. Apple would probably have a hard time selling people on a G4 powerbook without disparaging their current G5 lineup. Once they open the G5 can of worms, people start to expect it.

[nutmac]

I just don't get the need for the portable render farm. With widely available, high-speed internet connectivity, VPN and remote terminal capability, its a hell of a lot easier to just have a massive set of machines you access remotely. Hell, for *real* video production, you'd have to carry around a G5 sized disk array just to provide the storage and bandwidth. For most mobile warriors, their laptop is for communication and documentation, not in-the-weeds work. Most companies won't let you get a non-issue piece of hardware anywhere near their networks, much less let you put their intellectual property on it...

Just an observation. At some point, enough's enough... :)

In computing, there is no such thing as a computer being too fast, having too much disk space, or too much memory.

Render farm isn't the only reason to have faster performance and large memory. And the simple fact is, current PowerBook G4s lag seriously behind Pentium-M notebooks.

Consider some of my computing needs, for instance. I do application development by day. Running IDEs such as Eclipse and few other development tools, I easily consume a gigabyte within few minutes. Doing extensive debugging session, the memory footprint quickly skyrocket. Oh, and that's not counting iChat, Yahoo! Messenger, Safari, Mail, and Word that I would like to run on the side.

In the evening, my computing needs is much more consumer-level, but even so, I would be helped by more memory and additional performance. Browsing a message board such as MacRumors, I like to tab-open all the topics I like to read, then proceed to read one-by-one. And running Mail, instant messengers ,and iTunes, I easily consume a gigabyte (my PowerBook is maxed out at 2 GB). If I run iPhoto, iMovie, or GargareBand on top of that, I quickly wish for more memory and faster performance. Yeah, I can close all the application but one, but it can be annoying to re-open the applications later to find where I left off (I wish Safari, etc. remembers the last session).

The point is, PowerBooks need to be at least as fast as Pentium-M based notebooks. I don't care if they use Freescale or IBM CPUs, just as long as PowerBooks run much faster than they are now, with more competitive battery life, high resolution LCD, and can be expanded with more than 2 GB of memory.

[Eric_Z]

In computing, there is no such thing as a computer being too fast, having too much disk space, or too much memory.

Exept in mobile computing where you think about power drain vs preformance, do remember that "more RAM==less battery time".

[Pedro Estarque]

Exept in mobile computing where you think about power drain vs preformance, do remember that "more RAM==less battery time".
actually it doesn't. Having more RAM, especially in a system as cache hungry as OSX, means much less access to disk which consumes a LOT more then RAM.

[Analog Kid]

Just out of curiosity, are these 64-bit machines Sun workstations? And if they are, have you tried simply compiling the code as 32-bit to run on those workstations? Is 32-bit code on a 64-bit Solaris actually slower than 32-bit code on 32-bit Solaris?
Hodgepodge of Sun, Intel and AMD... Yes, we do run 32bit apps on 64bit Solaris which is faster than running on 64bit Solaris, but running on 32bit Solaris is still faster even on a 64bit UltraSparc.

Actually, fat binaries were trivial. 68K apps store the code in CODE resources in the resource fork. PPC apps (are supposed to) store the code in the data fork (the way apps on most other operating systems do). To make a fat binary, you just compile the code twice - once for 68K and once for PPC. You store the PPC code in the data fork and the 68K code in the resource fork. At launch time, 68K systems will only look in the resource fork - and they'll find the 68K code; PPC systems will look in both places, trying the data fork first - and they'll find the PPC code.
You've left out the bit about emulating 68000 code on a PowerPC which is very far from trivial... My point is that Apple has gone to extraordinary lengths to support legacy hardware in the past-- as you point out this will be a much easier task in OSX.

Until dual-core chips become cheap and abundant. Then the iBooks will get them and some other feature will distinguish them.

Note how the dividing line used to be G3/G4. Then the iBook/G4 came out, and the differences became pretty minor. (Today, there isn't much difference between an iBook and a 12" PowerBook, for instance.)
I think it will take more than a supply change to put the duals in the iBook. This may happen if there turns out to be no other route to keep the iBook a functional machine, but I think that will be some time out. I think the iBook went to G4 because the Altivec has really become necessary for media apps, and I think it would take another architectural change like this to bring the two into alignment again-- or simply an inability to increase speed by clock rate alone.

If I were a marketing type, which I'm not, I'd want to differentiate my product lines as much as possible and avoid the current iBook/PB12 confusion.

Of course all of this is assuming we'll see a dual core laptop-- which I think is likely given the announcement, but hasn't happened yet.

Or until IBM gets their yields up (and temperatures down). Sometimes you upgrade a machine simply because it doesn't cost that much to do so.

Of course, by then, the PowerMacs will have dual-core G5's, so there will still be a distinction between the lines.
Again, my thesis here is that different chips are better for different applications. I think 64bits just won't be right for a laptop until the memory is needed, and when it is I think there will be a better portable solution than the G5. The philosophy of the G5 seems to have been performance at the expense of power, which doesn't seem right for a laptop. You can bring the power down by tweaking it, but you could still get a better laptop design with a different architecture while keeping performance degradation limited.

[shamino]

You've left out the bit about emulating 68000 code on a PowerPC which is very far from trivial...
Absolutely true. I wasn't thinking along those lines.

Fortunately, Apple had a huge speed advantage to leverage when they wrote that emulator. The slowest PowerMac ever built (a PM 6100) was a 60MHz PPC 601. This is substantially faster than the fastest 68K box ever built (a Quadra 840av) with its 40MHz 68040. A 50% increase in clock speed, plus a more efficient architecture gave Apple enough headroom to write a 68K emulator that would always perform at least as fast as actual 68K boxes.

But even with those advantages, you're right - it must've been a bear to get the system working and stable. Although lots of people have written emulators, one that works well enough to run legacy device drivers (as Apple's can do) is very difficult to get right.
Again, my thesis here is that different chips are better for different applications. I think 64bits just won't be right for a laptop until the memory is needed, and when it is I think there will be a better portable solution than the G5. The philosophy of the G5 seems to have been performance at the expense of power, which doesn't seem right for a laptop. You can bring the power down by tweaking it, but you could still get a better laptop design with a different architecture while keeping performance degradation limited.
We will have to agree to disagree here.

While I agree that power consumption is critical for a laptop, I am confident that IBM will have lower-power G5-class chips in the future.

I think your criticism of the "G5" is really a criticism of the PPC 970. It is likely that all of IBM's forthcoming 64-bit PPC chips, including any low-power versions, will be called "G5" by Apple (until some future change is substantial enough to deserve a "G6" moniker.) I think a hypothetical PPC 970LC (or whatever they end up calling it), designed for low power consumption will work well in a laptop.

Although I agree 64 bit apps are rarely necessary for a laptop user, I disagree that having a 64 bit processor is in any way detrimental. Especially if the chip is capable of running 32-bit apps without an emulation layer. (The OS doesn't necessarily have to be built around 64-bit code to support 64-bit apps - it only has to provide 64-bit APIs and have a memory manager that can manipulate 64-bit page tables.)

[Maxx Power]

So you'd refuse the computer, no matter how fast and powerful it might be, based entirely on whether Apple marketing puts the name "G4" on the box or not?

I hope you're not making any importat decisions where you work.

That's some top notch entertainment. On the other hand, i'm sure apple has more than a dozen of those folks working for them so they can better address the buyer population that thinks along the lines of 5>4 hence spend spend spend. As well, I absolutely loathe apple marketing for those reasons, they keep on manipulating the truth, sometimes, well most times, a bit too far for honest tastes like mine. Photoshop tests ? Come on, it doesn't take a scientician (funny name) to realize the number of people who would buy a multithousand dollar machine to strictly use photoshop, especially not a luxury computing machine dressed up in a fancy coat on the outside with pseudo-gamer hardware on the inside...

[GregA]

Forgetting about G5 vs Freescales 'next-generation' G4s.... the real good news seems to be

1) Freescale chips look to be built with extra functionality (ethernet, PCI, memory controllers, etc) which could be great for some really small, light, well integrated computers.
2) There will be 2 chip choices for Apple for their laptops in about a years time. Choice is good, Apple can work with whoever is best when the time comes.

[Analog Kid]

That's some top notch entertainment. On the other hand, i'm sure apple has more than a dozen of those folks working for them so they can better address the buyer population that thinks along the lines of 5>4 hence spend spend spend. As well, I absolutely loathe apple marketing for those reasons, they keep on manipulating the truth, sometimes, well most times, a bit too far for honest tastes like mine. Photoshop tests ? Come on, it doesn't take a scientician (funny name) to realize the number of people who would buy a multithousand dollar machine to strictly use photoshop, especially not a luxury computing machine dressed up in a fancy coat on the outside with pseudo-gamer hardware on the inside...
Funny how selective benchmarking to a core market stands out like a dead raccoon in a world of honest marketing, isn't it? There's so many other cross-platform media apps to choose from... :rolleyes:

[morgoth29]

What interests me the most is whether any of these new processors have much scope for application by the likes of sonnet,powerlogix or giga designs. I would be interested to see if an e600 would fit on an upgrade daughter board. Regardless of support for higher bus speeds, it would be interesting to see if the onboard memory controllers and things would cause problems. Pin compatible is a pretty mysterious phrase at this stage I feel!

Even if an e600 variant would not be used it would be interesting if the 7448 made its way into the upgrade market. Does anyone know if it would work in this application, as I always thought the upgrade companies still overclocked older 745x chips?

[G4-power]

The slowest PowerMac ever built (a PM 6100) was a 60MHz PPC 601.

:eek: That's the computer we had before this G4! (see signature)
Hehe, funny of you saying that, I'm always so frustrated when I use the old machine...half a day to boot System 7.5.3, the other half to open Netscape. :D But it was a speedy machine nevertheless, having a PPC chip and all, and ours is a 66 MHz speed-bump model anyway. :rolleyes:

[Maxx Power]

Funny how selective benchmarking to a core market stands out like a dead raccoon in a world of honest marketing, isn't it? There's so many other cross-platform media apps to choose from... :rolleyes:

I'm just criticizing on a filthy corporation by filthy corporation basis, this is a Mac site, so I did my duty. There is no such thing as honest marketing, as the more perceptive of us would already realize, but how would you appreciate the efforts of capitalism when your kids grow up corporate not knowing the difference between eating junk food and eating healthy because the marketing funds of the media ensures that by the time your kid has money in their wallets, they have received orders of magnitudes more advertising they see on TV, billboards, newspapers, internet, word of mouth, posters... than you have spent time parenting to them about proper eating habits. Marketing is inherently evil, it sprouts from a evil entity. To nitpick while you can is the least I can do, before they find a way to legally silence that as well, regardless which corporation in discussion, they are all evil, it is a matter of relative evilness.

As for benchmarks, at least it could adopt something that appeals to a greater audience, and stop showing people numbers with optimizations for the mac version and disabled optimizations for the PC version. Even adobe, the maker of photoshop tells people via its website that the PC platform is the preferred choice because it is so and so faster. Knowing those things and telling others that while we benchmark the machines, they are faster translates into marketing, or as more of us would associate to real life before post-neo-capitalism - cheating. Besides, apple's incesistant rants about the RISC architecture is really starting to become bothersome. It means nothing these days, both camps have merged at a singular evolution point. Some of the more generally accepted benchmarks include SPEC, with something like SPECopc Viewperf 7.1.1 which I'm sure one can obtain a mac version of, since we are all so very confident that there is a ton of software for the mac platform. For other purposes, you can also use Quake 3, UT2004 (but that makes the mac platform look real real bad), most new games exist for both platforms, as well as graphics hardware, a fair comparison is only a marketing-brick-wall away.

[groovebuster]

Soon I'll be in the market for a new PowerBook! So bring it on! :cool:

groovebuster

[G4-power]

Soon I'll be in the market for a new PowerBook! So bring it on! :cool:

groovebuster

Lucky you, I'm waiting to get rid of this...well, I don't want to get rid of this G4 but I need something faster...iMac G5 or PowerMac G5 please. :o This thing doesn't even burn CDs, nor will it run Quartz Extreme.

On to the topic, only thing Apple laptops nowadays lack is speed, all the gigahertz goodness. Pentium M's and AMD mobile chips are far away in speed. In other features, Apple laptops are in a good shape.
Minor speed-bumps what we've seen in the past aren't enough, the PowerBook should regain it's name, and get some power. The 7448 would be a good step onto developing a newer PowerBook, possibly around the e600 chips.

[kotovasii]

:rolleyes:

Just what is it that 'a lot of people' need a portable G5 for .....

Well for a start it is because we cannot afford in the academia to buy two computers - a desktop and a laptop. And the code for many Biosciences applications is written especially for a G5 - that is why all the noise about it from Apple - just check their .../pro/ section - G5, G5, G5 ... and yes of course we do not need G5 to do word processing, but then we do not need anything to do word processing higher than IBM PC 386 - I can still do it on it. The point here is that Apple wants more customers and they are pushing their G5 as the ultimate "weapon" for research, so give it to us then?!

[kotovasii]

How many biotech labs do you know of where the scientists want to (or are even allowed to) do their research on laptops?

ehhhh, should I say most of them?! I am not talking about Biotech companies – these guys do not use Apple products they sit on IBM and Dell, and actually to answer your question it is for example: Prizer, GlaxoSmithKline, these companies first give you your laptop, and then your security pass badge. (I worked there unlike the author above here….) And again I was talking about Academic departments – and I run my lab and my research I do not have anybody to ask – I am the boss and make my own decision as to what is beneficial to me providing I have £2.5K to spend on a computer.


I hope you're not making any importat decisions where you work.

I do make important decision and this is exactly why I want to spend my research money on something that would give the best output and will be most practical – i.e. PowerBook G5. Wake up dear “shamino” we live in a real world and not funded by Bill Gates, but by British Government…

[veebs]

Well for a start it is because we cannot afford in the academia to buy two computers - a desktop and a laptop. And the code for many Biosciences applications is written especially for a G5 - that is why all the noise about it from Apple - just check their .../pro/ section - G5, G5, G5 ... and yes of course we do not need G5 to do word processing, but then we do not need anything to do word processing higher than IBM PC 386 - I can still do it on it. The point here is that Apple wants more customers and they are pushing their G5 as the ultimate "weapon" for research, so give it to us then?!

I think i have stood by watching this thread for long enough now, and i'll add my opinion on the matter...

Whilst the G5 Powerbook (assuming it will one day exist, and Apple doesn't take the dual-core route) will certainly be more powerful than the current line, i don't think we should lose track of a very important point: Powerbooks are never as powerful as the pro desktops.
kotovasii, if the code is written specifically for a G5, it is obviously pretty intense - why the hell would you want to use a portable to compute that? Apple markets the Powerbook as a no compromise machine, which is true in relation to other notebooks, but they don't hold a candle to a desktop. Slower HD, System Bus, GPU, Memory, Smaller screen, and far less expandable. On top of all that, the G5 runs so hot and power hungry that it is a massive feat of engineering to get one in a laptop - how do you intend they fit 2 in, to make it comparable to the PowerMac, for which your code was written? Laptops have their place - i prefer my old iBook 500 G3 over the iMac 800 G4, but then again, i'm not computing bioscience stuff on a regular basis.

[thatwendigo]

Well for a start it is because we cannot afford in the academia to buy two computers - a desktop and a laptop.

Any sensible academic institution would go with a machine that fits their needs better, regardless of what they are. If you need portability, then it's laptop time. If you need power, there isn't a laptop in the world that can touch what you could do with a well-chosen box. On either side of the fence - mac or PC - you just can't do it for reasons of power, heat, space, and other concerns that make a portable solution a joke.

Pick any PC laptop you want. This is an open challenge. Pick anything you want and give me the price for it, and I will slam the hell out of it in performance with a cheaper solution.

And the code for many Biosciences applications is written especially for a G5 - that is why all the noise about it from Apple - just check their .../pro/ section - G5, G5, G5 ...

HOLY HELL! You mean Apple marketing has been tooting the horn for their most recent change in system design? What a surprise!

:rolleyes:

The G5 is good at some things, but those strengths are much, much lower at the single processor, cut-rate bus, limited power sort of environment you'd see in a PowerBook. How are you planning on having more than 4GB of RAM in a portable? Going to have space and cooling for that second processor that makes the calculations speed up? Oh, I know... It must be the fact that Apple had to cut the bust to a 3:1 rate in order to even fit the chip in a small formfactor quietly! That's the advantage!

Also, those programs were hardly written "espeically for a G5." They might have extensions and libraries that let them use certain features of the overall system, but most of those are gone in a portable.

The point here is that Apple wants more customers and they are pushing their G5 as the ultimate "weapon" for research, so give it to us then?!

Look, I'm going to be nice for a minute and pretend that you didn't just say that. This is my honestly trying to get through to you.

There is no one "research" that can be pointed at as some kind of magical indicator of what will work well in all cases. What my dad, as a signal processing engineer, does is quite possibly not going to help someone who mostly does 3D modeling of DNA molecules, someone who's purely doing theoretical math relating to primes and pseudorandom numbers, or someone who's crunching statistical data for a psychological sample. Chips have different strengths, and the G5's is in moving data around the internal system.

For at least some things, the e600 could slaughter the 970 series of processors without breaking a sweat. The G4 still has a better vector math unit, which you're leaving out, and will have a far better memory management system that couples to four times the cache. Do you just not understand chips at all?

[Analog Kid]

Easy people. Wendigo, I edited out what I could of your most inflammatory comments and tried to leave the stuff that I think is helpful and makes sense.

You're talking to someone who is skilled in their field and that field isn't CPU architectures. Information without the heat is much more useful to everyone.

Kotovasii-- giving more detail about your situation helped. Check out this link about BLAST performance (http://images.apple.com/acg/pdf/AGBLAST229-PerfData22Jun04.pdf), as I assume that's closest to what you're using.

Look at the two red lines that are supposed to get your attention-- one for the G4 and one for the G5. They both have pretty much the same slope (that is to say positive versus the other packages), so they both scale about the same with complexity. Most important to notice is that the G4 line is about half the performance of the G5 but the G4 clock is less than half the rate of the G5.

The two classes of CPU are about equal to the task at hand. The slightly steeper slope of the G5 curve is likely due to the faster memory architecture of the 970 but that's a benefit you're going to lose in a laptop anyway for the reasons Wendigo was shouting about quite loudly... :)

It's the CPU performance tied to the system with a deep memory that makes the G5 the "ultimate research weapon" in a rack of Xserves. It's just not a pocket rocket. As soon as you limit the system around it, like you have to for a laptop, the G5 falters.

From what I read quickly, the main advantage Apple has in these apps is their vector processor which is well adapted for DNA work. If that's the case then having two Velocity Engines tied to CPUs at half the clock is probably better than having one tied to a single CPU at twice the clock.

DNA work is very parallel by nature and will be more efficient than most tasks when spread across two CPU cores.

You mean Apple marketing has been tooting the horn for their most recent change in system design?
Actually, if you look at the Apple sciences page they're more G5 happy than they are almost anywhere else in the site. They consistently say the apps are optimized for the G5 without indicating that Altivec (the Velocity Engine) is the real source of the magic.

If you're looking for a rack of servers like the picture implies, the G5 with it's better memory handling is probably the better choice. If you're limited to a laptop format the dual core is better.

If you've never seen an XServe, they're huge. Surprisingly huge. With lots of big, loud fans. They look sleek in pictures, but in person they're monsters.

The G5 is good at some things, but those strengths are much, much lower at the single processor, cut-rate bus, limited power sort of environment you'd see in a PowerBook. How are you planning on having more than 4GB of RAM in a portable? Going to have space and cooling for that second processor that makes the calculations speed up?

Also, those programs were hardly written "espeically for a G5." They might have extensions and libraries that let them use certain features of the overall system, but most of those are gone in a portable.

Chips have different strengths, and the G5's is in moving data around the internal system.

For at least some things, the e600 could slaughter the 970 series of processors without breaking a sweat. The G4 still has a better vector math unit, which you're leaving out, and will have a far better memory management system that couples to four times the cache.
All of this is correct-- going to the laptop format throws away much of the advantage of the G5 memory performance.

Regarding your earlier post, kotovasii, I think you really would want a triple processor G4 for a laptop especially if that meant three Altivecs. You've got a nice parallel application. Unfortunately if you're matching to a large database, you probably also want deep memory which just won't be an option in laptops for another year or two.

What you really want is a juicy grant to buy a rack of Xserve G5s that you can interface to from your Powerbook using Xgrid while you're in the lab while keeping an efficient laptop for the road... ;)

[kotovasii]

Easy people. Wendigo, I edited out what I could of your most inflammatory comments and tried to leave the stuff that I think is helpful and makes sense.

You're talking to someone who is skilled in their field and that field isn't CPU architectures. Information without the heat is much more useful to everyone.



Yes it is me - I am not a CPU engineer. I read Apple adverts and try to be sensible with my research money. It is up to Apple and perhaps forums like that to clarify things. And to all those "specialists" who enjoyed banging me for what I said - well I do my job - Biology NOT computing. I have come across a lot of nonsense on these forums before without having an IT degree, especially regarding OS X...

[AidenShaw]

I read Apple adverts and try to be sensible with my research money.


:) Pardon me, but this sentence is almost an oxymoron! :)


I hope that you simply left out that you also check reviews, benchmark tests, your vendor's information, and other sources before plunking your money down....

Unless you're completely dependent on AltiVec, there's a lot of non-Apple hardware and software that can get the job done - often faster and cheaper.

And before you say "it's bio - it's gotta have AltiVec" take a look at how Novartis AG built a 5 TFLOP cluster using spare cycles from their desktop PCs (http://www.gridtoday.com/03/1013/102093.html).

Peter Sany, Novartis corporate CIO, commented, "Computing resources are a key driver of shortened timelines, facilitating Novartis' goal of bringing more novel drugs to patients faster.

We have projects we calculate would take 6 years on a single supercomputer. Today, the run time is 12 hours. Before, you wouldn't bother starting such a process.

Now, because of our Pentium 4 processor-powered Grid, it's completely practical and affordable."

Yes, bio is big on Intel as well - too many people look at one single bio benchmark (BLAST) and think that Macs are king. If all you run is BLAST, then get a Mac. If you run a mix of applications, it might be more sensible to look around.

[Maxx Power]

:) Pardon me, but this sentence is almost an oxymoron! :)


I hope that you simply left out that you also check reviews, benchmark tests, your vendor's information, and other sources before plunking your money down....

Unless you're completely dependent on AltiVec, there's a lot of non-Apple hardware and software that can get the job done - often faster and cheaper.

Yep, in other words, unless you want to satisfy your greedy desires for luxury computing, a ever shrinking niche, regular computing will suffice.

[dongmin]

Nice to see people starting to believe a dual core G4 is the way to go for laptops. I'd genuinely prefer one of these over a G5 laptop. Remember, Freescale is streets ahead of IBM in the embedded space. Embedded is where performance per watt matters. IBM's "big iron" approach is just about performance. The G5's a great desktop chip, but not a mobile chip.What?! Is the G3 not an embedded processor? If I remember correctly a lot of people were on the the G3+ (http://www.macrumors.com/pages/2003/12/20031211140409.shtml) bandwagon not too long ago, even arguing that it would kick the G4's butt if it had a vector unit. Freescale has more invested in the embedded space, but that doesn't mean that IBM can't play that tune too. They have plenty of experience in the embedded space.

As for the G4 v. G5 debate, it's all moot until someone actually ships in quantity a mobile processor. Then, and only then, can we compare the merits of A vs B. Even though IBM is now about 6 months behind schedule on the G5, I still trust them more.

Remember that Steve Jobs at one point said that they're trying to release a G5 PowerBook by the end of this year (http://www.macrumors.com/pages/2003/09/20030921161035.shtml). Now, that was a while ago, and it wasn't officially a promise so it's anyone's guess where the development is now. BUT he would not have said that then unless they had a definite plan for the G5 in the mobile space. They MUST have had working prototypes by then or else he would not have made such a remark.

To me it's clear that the 970fx is NOT the chip that will go into the PowerBooks. But guess what, IBM has a lot more going on than the 970fx. There are a plenty of other possibilities, from the GR-UL to a brand new 64-bit mobile chip (http://www.macrumors.com/pages/2003/11/20031113115838.shtml) designed from the ground up (and not a hacked server chip). The dual-core G4 won't ship until the second half of 2005 at the earliest. That's a year from now! A lot could happen to the G5 in a year. Apple and IBM is rumored to have a contract for five generations of chips (or is that five years?). We're now at 1.5. We have long ways to go people.

Tout the features of the dual-core G4 all you want, but it's all vaporware until they actually ship something. If Freescale is able to deliver the 7448s THIS FALL (next spring is too late in my opinion), then, their roadmap gains more credibility.

[kotovasii]

.......Yes, bio is big on Intel as well - too many people look at one single bio benchmark (BLAST) and think that Macs are king. If all you run is BLAST, then get a Mac. If you run a mix of applications, it might be more sensible to look around.

True again, but there is also one little thing - I actually would love to have a Mac not just a grey box, as I hope most of people on this forum. So I just hoped to get Mac and get the best out of it!
And as far as G4 is concerned - now I have read enough to say that in January when the time comes for my IBM ThinkPad to retire I shall pay for PB regardless of the processor, because I love Macs and I want one.
:p :p :p :p :p :p :p

[AidenShaw]

...I shall pay for PB regardless of the processor, because I love Macs and I want one.
:p :p :p :p :p :p :p

So much for the claim of being "sensible" with your budget! ;)

[thatwendigo]

Easy people. Wendigo, I edited out what I could of your most inflammatory comments and tried to leave the stuff that I think is helpful and makes sense.

Someone who tries to sound like an expert on something they plainly don't understand needs to be taken down a peg. I'll admit when I'm wrong, but Kotovasii was doing his best to avoid the inevitable and I wasn't letting him weasel out of what he said to begin with.

If he wants to know what would be best, he needs to ask that. There's a difference between actively shoving around ignorance and asking for information. Guess which one I think he was doing.

Yep, in other words, unless you want to satisfy your greedy desires for luxury computing, a ever shrinking niche, regular computing will suffice.

Good to see we still have active trolls.

What?! Is the G3 not an embedded processor? If I remember correctly a lot of people were on the the G3+ bandwagon not too long ago, even arguing that it would kick the G4's butt if it had a vector unit.

The same arguments applied to the still-missing 750vx can be used here, actually. What we have is a core that is lower power, has a shorter pipeline, and significant technological advantage in a number of areas that promote one processor over another in a given application. The 8461D dual-core chip is supposed to draw between 15 and 25 watts running at full speed (1.5ghz per core), has twice the L2 cache of the 970 (1MB per chip, 2MB total) per processor, on-die DDR and DD2 memory control to 667mhz (more than the current U3 controller on the motherboard handles), on-die hardware acceleration for IPv4/IPv6/TCIP/UDP/other networking tasks, a HyperTransport like system bus, PCI Express control on-die, and a shorter pipeline than the 970 core.

This chip is like my wishlist for the processor Apple should have used!

Now, that was a while ago, and it wasn't officially a promise so it's anyone's guess where the development is now. BUT he would not have said that then unless they had a definite plan for the G5 in the mobile space. They MUST have had working prototypes by then or else he would not have made such a remark.

...like he wouldn't promise 3 gigzhertz by summer?

To me it's clear that the 970fx is NOT the chip that will go into the PowerBooks. But guess what, IBM has a lot more going on than the 970fx. There are a plenty of other possibilities, from the GR-UL to a brand new 64-bit mobile chip designed from the ground up (and not a hacked server chip).

From the rumor:
According to this report, the upcoming mobile PowerPC will be part of a 300 series of processors from IBM. This new mobile processor is not due to debut until 2005.

IBM's PowerPC part list. (http://www-306.ibm.com/chips/products/powerpc/processors/processors.html)

Hmmm... I see 440 variants, 405 variants, 750 variants, 604e, 603e, 970...

No, there doesn't seem to be a 300 family of processors, and the naming scheme they use right now would suggest that such a chip would be a low-performance, low-power, entirely embedded-focused design. As such, I think that the odds of this rumor being true are even lower than the usual ones being lobbed around.

By contrast, Freescale has shipped two new designs since Crolles2 went online. They've gone from sample to production relatively swiftly, and are rolling parts out the door as we speak.

Tout the features of the dual-core G4 all you want, but it's all vaporware until they actually ship something. If Freescale is able to deliver the 7448s THIS FALL (next spring is too late in my opinion), then, their roadmap gains more credibility.

Freescale's roadmap is already more on-target than IBM's was with the 970. I suppose that just doesn't count with some people, though.

[Maxx Power]

Good to see we still have active trolls.

You must have spent years with 0's and 1's from the internet to have mastered such a forum lingo.

With time any better spent, you might have understood and fought against corporations instead of becoming a better puppet called the ideal consumer. Apple's business practices, refer to numerous posts here and there in this forum, are sub-par. They hate the truth (refer to barefeats.com and their fiasco with apple on benchmarking in apple stores), they stiff their own dealers (refer to www.tellonapple.org), they stiff their own customers (check out those outrageous iPod battery replacement prices, repair prices on any of their hardware disregarding the broken parts), they pollute the environment just as well as any other corporation (I have a few PDF's saved about apple's case with the federal investigators), they take advantage of kids (superbowl commercial), highly materialistic (all profit based corporations share this trait), they pollute the mind through marketing and advertising shaping and molding ideal consumers to secure their market base (more or less big corporations only), they use cheap offshore slave-like labour (like Nike's sweat shops), they are only responsible toward their shareholders and not you (again, most corporations), the list goes on and on. I'd apologize if i hurt your feelings you had with Apple or their computers, but then, having an emotional attachment toward an inanimate object is a sign of mental illness (refer to the website where the guy gutted a G5 and put in PC parts, it was a hoax).

Finally, as for regards in luxury computing, do you have a mind that can utilize your computer's wit ? If you don't, buying a luxury computer is like a hermit crab with a oversized shell, it just doesn't fit other than to satisfy your hunger for materialistic status.

[dongmin]

By contrast, Freescale has shipped two new designs since Crolles2 went online. They've gone from sample to production relatively swiftly, and are rolling parts out the door as we speak.And these designs are? Can you provide links that say Freescale is shipping the e500 in volume? The e500 is significant b/c it's on the 90 nm process. If I'm not mistaken, the e300 is on the 130 nm process and is basically a modified 603e, so it's really not a good indicator of what Freescale is capable of. (Kind of like saying because IBM did well producing the 750gx it must do well with the 970fx.)

Freescale's roadmap is already more on-target than IBM's was with the 970.That's debatable. Freescale does not have enough of a history to say that it's been more 'on-target.' Basically, according to you, they've just started shipping a couple of low-end designs. They haven't even gotten to the second iteration. So based on this bit of info, you're saying they're doing better than IBM??? That's absurd. IBM was basically ahead of schedule when they released the 2.0 ghz 970s (they were originally promissing 1.8 ghz). They're now six months off target due to problems with their 90 nm process. Now they've gotten most of the problems worked out and are now shipping enough 90nm chips to supply both the PowerMacs and iMacs.

Look, I love Apple laptops; I've owned two of them. And these dual-core Freescale chips sound great--better than anything IBM has announced--for the PowerBooks. But it's one year away, at best. I just refuse to get excited about anything so far away, and so loaded with history of failure.

[thatwendigo]

With time any better spent, you might have understood and fought against corporations instead of becoming a better puppet called the ideal consumer.

I'm far from the ideal consumer, but I suppose it's far easier to hurl accusation than it is to even ask what my position is. No, I don't think Apple is lily-white on their business practices, but I'd rather they play a little dirty and stay alive than die off entirely and leave us with basically no alternative to the crap-fest that is Windows.

I was forced to use Windows an awful lot of my younger life, and I still can't escape it because I'm too nice to refuse the cries for help from friends, coworkers, and even random strangers I meet that overhear me talking about computers. I buy macs because they're just a better value for me, with even a "slow" mac being more usable than the fastest PC because of the interface, software, integration, and other aspects of the platform. My daily use machines - one bought new, the other at auction - are a 700mhz eMac and a 600mhz G3 iBook.

I know all about building computers, because I've done it for others and wished them well. For the largest part, Windows just isn't for me and I'll pay the "Apple tax" in order to use a system that feels right.


<snip long-winded rant>

Ah, right. I'm sure whatever computer you're using isn't made from PCBs and other volatiles that, by their very existence, give off free monomers and otherwise polute the environment. It was obviously crafted by skilled labor in a free country, rather than in factories in China and Taiwan, has no marketing budget to speak of, and in fact takes in and feeds stray puppies on a daily basis.

Please.

If you're going to assault my liking of one computer platform over another, at least don't be a hypocrite about it. It's not like you're using the GreenPC and it's magical eaerth-powers.

Finally, as for regards in luxury computing, do you have a mind that can utilize your computer's wit ? If you don't, buying a luxury computer is like a hermit crab with a oversized shell, it just doesn't fit other than to satisfy your hunger for materialistic status.

Computers have no wit, nor are they sentient. They are tools and devices, to be put to the uses we decide for them. For someone making claims about anthropomorphizing and improperly revering machinery, you've got an odd turn of phrase.

My computer is a macintosh because I'm comfortable with them, I don't have to fix things constantly, and I know how to work the small details pretty efffectively. To borrow from the company I supposedly worship, if you're to be believed, it just works.

[kraeloc]

I've been saving and earning money for a few months in order to buy a new eMac. I've got just enough and I was gonna order it this weekend.

Now I want your honest opinions: d you think there will be an eMac revision anytime soon?

Cos I don't want to be like one of those people who bought an iMac G4 in late July, and ended up kicking themselves a week later.

[Maxx Power]

I'm far from the ideal consumer, but I suppose it's far easier to hurl accusation than it is to even ask what my position is. No, I don't think Apple is lily-white on their business practices, but I'd rather they play a little dirty and stay alive than die off entirely and leave us with basically no alternative to the crap-fest that is Windows.

Ah, right. I'm sure whatever computer you're using isn't made from PCBs and other volatiles that, by their very existence, give off free monomers and otherwise polute the environment. It was obviously crafted by skilled labor in a free country, rather than in factories in China and Taiwan, has no marketing budget to speak of, and in fact takes in and feeds stray puppies on a daily basis.

Please.

If you're going to assault my liking of one computer platform over another, at least don't be a hypocrite about it. It's not like you're using the GreenPC and it's magical eaerth-powers.

Computers have no wit, nor are they sentient. They are tools and devices, to be put to the uses we decide for them. For someone making claims about anthropomorphizing and improperly revering machinery, you've got an odd turn of phrase.

My computer is a macintosh because I'm comfortable with them, I don't have to fix things constantly, and I know how to work the small details pretty efffectively. To borrow from the company I supposedly worship, if you're to be believed, it just works.

1) One sentence to respond to your first paragraph quoted above:
If you choose to fight evil with evil, the only thing left will be evil.

2) There is a difference between acknowledging a concept verses ignorance. The importance here is that what mistake made in the past has been finalized and finished with. The western society here chose a form of capitalism that is now getting out of hand which is a mistake, their real mistake is not acknowledging it. I on the otherhand, purchased computers parts of the type you describe, the difference is that I strive to do the opposite after finding out the details of such components. Acknowledgement is the first key to change. Just as no one can become a Ph.D in physics after realizing fundamental laws of gravity apply, you can not compare me to a hypocrite.

3) "Wit" is a form of figure of speech. It doesn't mean the computer is intelligent or that it thinks independently of the owner. It simply means the actual demand of the computer to process useful information. If you had no better use of a computer other than daily e-tasks (which can often be accomplished without the "e-"), then buying a Mac, or evel a PC is a pretty pathetic excuse to spend money. Speed should come in need, not desire, something this society isn't so aware of these days, or at least, do not practice.

4) There is no such thing as "just work". My g5 1.6 crashes more often than my PC when i browse with Safari, when I multitask sometimes on my mac, it shows the multi language grey screen of death, and not to mention my USB M-audio sound card can not be turned on while playing audio already, or else it is restart time, just like my PC, the drivers aren't more stable, heck, Apple doesn't even use the newest ATI or Nvidia drivers, what gave you the solid concrete evidence that Mac's are more "insert property here" ? Perhaps it is because you hear about windows problems more often ? How about 90% market share's worth of more often. My PC is more flexible in its settings, configurations, so on that I can tune it to my liking. He who sacrifices freedom for security deserves neither. That is what typical american today don't understand in the post-9/11th world.

[kraeloc]

4) There is no such thing as "just work". My g5 1.6 crashes more often than my PC when i browse with Safari, when I multitask sometimes on my mac, it shows the multi language grey screen of death, and not to mention my USB M-audio sound card can not be turned on while playing audio already, or else it is restart time, just like my PC, the drivers aren't more stable, heck, Apple doesn't even use the newest ATI or Nvidia drivers, what gave you the solid concrete evidence that Mac's are more "insert property here" ? Perhaps it is because you hear about windows problems more often ? How about 90% market share's worth of more often. My PC is more flexible in its settings, configurations, so on that I can tune it to my liking. He who sacrifices freedom for security deserves neither. That is what typical american today don't understand in the post-9/11th world.

Please tell me you did not just compare mac users with Patriot-act suckers.

[Maxx Power]

Please tell me you did not just compare mac users with Patriot-act suckers.

Well, that's a pretty glib interpretation. I don't mean to get political on this.

[reorx]

1) One sentence to respond to your first paragraph quoted above:
If you choose to fight evil with evil, the only thing left will be evil.


Well spoken my Marxist friend. You'll be high in the party when we overthrow this regime. Then we can sell our out people to the free market and become weathy beyond imagination.

You have no idea what you've just stepped into. :mad:

[Analog Kid]

You must have spent years with 0's and 1's from the internet to have mastered such a forum lingo.

With time any better spent, you might have understood and fought against corporations instead of becoming a better puppet called the ideal consumer. Apple's business practices, refer to numerous posts here and there in this forum, are sub-par. They hate the truth (refer to barefeats.com and their fiasco with apple on benchmarking in apple stores), they stiff their own dealers (refer to www.tellonapple.org), they stiff their own customers (check out those outrageous iPod battery replacement prices, repair prices on any of their hardware disregarding the broken parts), they pollute the environment just as well as any other corporation (I have a few PDF's saved about apple's case with the federal investigators), they take advantage of kids (superbowl commercial), highly materialistic (all profit based corporations share this trait), they pollute the mind through marketing and advertising shaping and molding ideal consumers to secure their market base (more or less big corporations only), they use cheap offshore slave-like labour (like Nike's sweat shops), they are only responsible toward their shareholders and not you (again, most corporations), the list goes on and on. I'd apologize if i hurt your feelings you had with Apple or their computers, but then, having an emotional attachment toward an inanimate object is a sign of mental illness (refer to the website where the guy gutted a G5 and put in PC parts, it was a hoax).

Finally, as for regards in luxury computing, do you have a mind that can utilize your computer's wit ? If you don't, buying a luxury computer is like a hermit crab with a oversized shell, it just doesn't fit other than to satisfy your hunger for materialistic status.
Hey-- isn't this how Ted Kaczynski got his start?

[thatwendigo]

1) One sentence to respond to your first paragraph quoted above:
If you choose to fight evil with evil, the only thing left will be evil.

Oh, well if we're having a quote fight:

"Any man who is under thirty and not liberal has no heart. Any man that is over thirty and not conservative has no brain."
-ascribed to Winston Churchill

What does this have to do with the topic at hand? Does it even mean anything? Do I actually believe it?

Who knows? It sounds good and it makes me look intelligent, just like your quote does!

:rolleyes:

2) There is a difference between acknowledging a concept verses ignorance. The importance here is that what mistake made in the past has been finalized and finished with.

Uh... Why don't you come down off the high horse and start talking to people instead of at them, sparky?

You might find out that we have some shared beliefs about mistakes in the past and how many people don't seem interested in them. See, I'm not at all in favor of rampant consumerism and the culture that's encouraging us to move into what amounts to a new form of feudalism. You'd have found that out if you'd asked me instead of trying to browbeat me into accepting some point that you're really not getting to all that effectively or quickly.

What I'm not for is Marxism or other forms of "father knows best" destruction of personal rights, because either of the extremes is entirely repugnant and stifling of people in a different way. Complete freedom is anarchy, complete suckling at the teat of government is slavery - neither is ideal.


The western society here chose a form of capitalism that is now getting out of hand which is a mistake, their real mistake is not acknowledging it. I on the otherhand, purchased computers parts of the type you describe, the difference is that I strive to do the opposite after finding out the details of such components. Acknowledgement is the first key to change. Just as no one can become a Ph.D in physics after realizing fundamental laws of gravity apply, you can not compare me to a hypocrite.

Uh, no.

You, sir, are a complete and utter hypocrite because "acknowledging" that your computer parts are part of some evil scheme to control us all and destroy the planet out of negligence, but buying them anyway, isn't at all useful. You can't harrangue someone for being ignorant and doing the very thing that you're doing, too, if you want to escape being labeled that way.

Stop buying computer parts that are made in sweatshops in countries with bad labor laws and personal freedoms. Stop buying your food from the congolomerates. Stop using oil-based products. Never buy diamonds.

Come on. Let's see you do something real, if you're going to try to nail me on this path. It may be small, but I already do something on this front... I buy produce from small, local farmers and co-cops whenever I can. I support companies with good labor practices when I have the option, and I pretty much avoid Wal-Mart. I drive a car with better than average mileage, don't just roam around unnecessarily, and otherwise try to help conserve the failing petroleum reserves. I give money and time to causes I believe in, whenever the opportunity and my circumstances allow. I support organic and free-range food with my purchases.

I don't just "accept" the truth, I try to do my little part to help out.

3) "Wit" is a form of figure of speech. It doesn't mean the computer is intelligent or that it thinks independently of the owner. It simply means the actual demand of the computer to process useful information.

wit - n -
1. The natural ability to perceive and understand; intelligence.
2.
1. Keenness and quickness of perception or discernment; ingenuity. Often used in the plural: living by one's wits.
2. wits Sound mental faculties; sanity: scared out of my wits.
3.
1. The ability to perceive and express in an ingeniously humorous manner the relationship between seemingly incongruous or disparate things.
2. One noted for this ability, especially one skilled in repartee.
3. A person of exceptional intelligence.

Hmmm. Wit seems to be entirely about intelligence and humor, with no mention of anything about information processing. How strange that my usage is correct...

If you had no better use of a computer other than daily e-tasks (which can often be accomplished without the "e-"), then buying a Mac, or evel a PC is a pretty pathetic excuse to spend money. Speed should come in need, not desire, something this society isn't so aware of these days, or at least, do not practice.

There's something supremely ironic about using a computer to post on a messageboard that's running on another computer, just so someone using a third computer (and others) can read what you have to say about how computers are unnecessary. I just thought I'd point that out.

<snip more long-winded rants with little substance>

My computers just work. It's as simple as that.

Over the last twenty years, I've been owner or "administrator" of some twenty five Apple and Apple Macintosh computers. In that timeframe, I've had to put a machine in the shop three times for hardware failures and never for a software issue. There were some problems in the earlier version of the system - especially the clones' third party drivers - but they've largely been ironed out with OS X.

Since the new system was put out, I've had four kernel panics on seven machines I look after. That's it.

Yes, for me, macs just work.

He who sacrifices freedom for security deserves neither. That is what typical american today don't understand in the post-9/11th world.

The quote is "He who sacrifices essential liberty for a little security will have neither and deserve neither." It was Benjamin Franklin and he was talking about the willingness of people to compromise their basic rights in exchange for feeling safe, which I think can be applied to many Americans in the aftermath of September eleventh.

The horrible, stinking irony of this is that you're throwing it at me, when I'm one of the loudest, most voiciferous critics of the Patriot Act, Iraq war, DCMA, and other controversial and - in my opinion - stifling attempts to squelch the freedoms we're supposedly fighting for. You really, really dropped the ball on this one.

"These are ugly days, ugly times, ugly words.
From lies and disinformation, ignorance is born.
Can you smell the hatred being bred from fear?
And don't you understand that when you give your rights away,
There is no freedom left to die for?
Where has my country gone?"
-Justin Sane, "Where Has My Country Gone?"

[thatwendigo]

Also, if this is necessary to continue, let's take it to the politics board. This is for the discussion of Freescale, not personal beliefs.

[stephenli]

wait.....does it means that MPC7448 discreet is a single core one?
could MPC8641D be inserted in Powerbook?
so what will we get finally? A single core Powerbook G4 with longer battery life or a dual core Powerbook G4? :confused:

[Maxx Power]

Oh, well if we're having a quote fight:

"Any man who is under thirty and not liberal has no heart. Any man that is over thirty and not conservative has no brain."
-ascribed to Winston Churchill

What does this have to do with the topic at hand? Does it even mean anything? Do I actually believe it?

Who knows? It sounds good and it makes me look intelligent, just like your quote does!

:rolleyes:



Uh... Why don't you come down off the high horse and start talking to people instead of at them, sparky?

You might find out that we have some shared beliefs about mistakes in the past and how many people don't seem interested in them. See, I'm not at all in favor of rampant consumerism and the culture that's encouraging us to move into what amounts to a new form of feudalism. You'd have found that out if you'd asked me instead of trying to browbeat me into accepting some point that you're really not getting to all that effectively or quickly.

What I'm not for is Marxism or other forms of "father knows best" destruction of personal rights, because either of the extremes is entirely repugnant and stifling of people in a different way. Complete freedom is anarchy, complete suckling at the teat of government is slavery - neither is ideal.




Uh, no.

You, sir, are a complete and utter hypocrite because "acknowledging" that your computer parts are part of some evil scheme to control us all and destroy the planet out of negligence, but buying them anyway, isn't at all useful. You can't harrangue someone for being ignorant and doing the very thing that you're doing, too, if you want to escape being labeled that way.

Stop buying computer parts that are made in sweatshops in countries with bad labor laws and personal freedoms. Stop buying your food from the congolomerates. Stop using oil-based products. Never buy diamonds.

Come on. Let's see you do something real, if you're going to try to nail me on this path. It may be small, but I already do something on this front... I buy produce from small, local farmers and co-cops whenever I can. I support companies with good labor practices when I have the option, and I pretty much avoid Wal-Mart. I drive a car with better than average mileage, don't just roam around unnecessarily, and otherwise try to help conserve the failing petroleum reserves. I give money and time to causes I believe in, whenever the opportunity and my circumstances allow. I support organic and free-range food with my purchases.

I don't just "accept" the truth, I try to do my little part to help out.



wit - n -
1. The natural ability to perceive and understand; intelligence.
2.
1. Keenness and quickness of perception or discernment; ingenuity. Often used in the plural: living by one's wits.
2. wits Sound mental faculties; sanity: scared out of my wits.
3.
1. The ability to perceive and express in an ingeniously humorous manner the relationship between seemingly incongruous or disparate things.
2. One noted for this ability, especially one skilled in repartee.
3. A person of exceptional intelligence.

Hmmm. Wit seems to be entirely about intelligence and humor, with no mention of anything about information processing. How strange that my usage is correct...



There's something supremely ironic about using a computer to post on a messageboard that's running on another computer, just so someone using a third computer (and others) can read what you have to say about how computers are unnecessary. I just thought I'd point that out.



My computers just work. It's as simple as that.

Over the last twenty years, I've been owner or "administrator" of some twenty five Apple and Apple Macintosh computers. In that timeframe, I've had to put a machine in the shop three times for hardware failures and never for a software issue. There were some problems in the earlier version of the system - especially the clones' third party drivers - but they've largely been ironed out with OS X.

Since the new system was put out, I've had four kernel panics on seven machines I look after. That's it.

Yes, for me, macs just work.


The quote is "He who sacrifices essential liberty for a little security will have neither and deserve neither." It was Benjamin Franklin and he was talking about the willingness of people to compromise their basic rights in exchange for feeling safe, which I think can be applied to many Americans in the aftermath of September eleventh.

The horrible, stinking irony of this is that you're throwing it at me, when I'm one of the loudest, most voiciferous critics of the Patriot Act, Iraq war, DCMA, and other controversial and - in my opinion - stifling attempts to squelch the freedoms we're supposedly fighting for. You really, really dropped the ball on this one.

"These are ugly days, ugly times, ugly words.
From lies and disinformation, ignorance is born.
Can you smell the hatred being bred from fear?
And don't you understand that when you give your rights away,
There is no freedom left to die for?
Where has my country gone?"
-Justin Sane, "Where Has My Country Gone?"

This is actually getting kind of long and involving, I'd really be surprised if the admin did NOT remove our posts an hour from now.

As for the quote fight you mentioned, I thought up that one quote you mentioned independently from whoever else might have also in the past. It was just logic.
We definitely share some core values from what I have read of your posts. And no, I did not read up all your posts in this thread so far. I just wanted to comment on something I thought was worthwhile, I didn't particularly pick to go against your stance wherever this argument sprouted from.
Another important issue, on doing things real, you don't stack up. I am an activist of the AVS group here at university of ottawa, as well as the multimedia volunteer. We arranged to have Ralph Nader, Theodore Postal (going on right now), etc, to have a few days visit and give numerous lectures and speeches, I missed the Postal speech today but will watch the DVD we made afterwards. We interviewed Jeremy Wright last week at our weekly meeting, the maker of Celsius 9/11, you can guess the purpose of the film quite well. I have not shopped at wal-mart or any other american corporation considered large for as long as i remember knowing what they do behind the scenes. Sure I have brand name computer components this or that, but you forgot that was BEFORE I made certain discoveries of their origin and the process of their realization. I'm not trying to "nail" you, intellects or high enough caliber don't attack others that way, refer to Ralph Nader and Noam Chomsky here respectively.
"Wit" by dictionary terms you would be correct. But let me remind you there are figures of speech where the word used does not imply its direct meaning, this case would be hyperbole, I am exaggerating the abilities of the computer.
Regarding to the unnecessary computer useage discussion here, I stand by my point that a computer is misappriopriated and often overlooked in today's general public.
As for computer working or not, it is true that your situation does not match mine, and neither of us can normalize here, what is encoutered by experience is further compounded by personal interpretations and biases, for you as it is for me.
Once again, that quote you stated as the "original" is another logical deduction derivable from simpler axioms, I need not state the exact original, just as we construct and use logic in our everyday lives.
Ideologically I am with you here on against the DMCA, patriot act, etc, but unless you make such statements clear, it would seem absurd if I just blurt out and ask someone more or less at random what your stance is on a particular political issue. But now that we have gone past that barrier, I think the whole "dropped the ball" issue is invalid.

[thatwendigo]

wait.....does it means that MPC7448 discreet is a single core one?
could MPC8641D be inserted in Powerbook?
so what will we get finally? A single core Powerbook G4 with longer battery life or a dual core Powerbook G4? :confused:

The MPC7448 is a discrete, sincle-core processor that is basically an ehanced G4 with a higher clock and bus speed. It would probably take a bit of modification to put into a PowerBook, but far less than truly taking advantage of the MPC8641D would.

In the first case, you have to change the system controller and possible a bit of the board layout. For the latter, you're making extreme alterations that require a totally new tape-out for the design and the adoption of new components to take up the capabilities of the core. Some of these include interfaces and controllers that are no longer needed on the board, new ones that need to be substituted, pathways laid down for the peripheral systems, memory sockets that are compatible with DDR2, and so on.

[MikeBike]

So much for the claim of being "sensible" with your budget! ;)

Hey, nice to think of the possibility of a P4 laptop in bio,
but you forget this guy would probably run Windows.
I think the combination of the Altivec processor + OS X is the driving force here. Far better security out of the box, especially in a research environment.

[AidenShaw]

Hey, nice to think of the possibility of a P4 laptop in bio...


I'm sure that there *are* far more P4 (and PM and P4M) laptops in bio than Power Books.... Not a "possibility", but a strong "probability"....


Besides, after several posts about "sensible" purchasing - the guy sticks out his tongue 9 times and says "I'm in love with the PB - I'll buy it whatever CPU it has...".

[true777]

An Apple rep who came to Stanford University for a special event confirmed to me personally that the dual core processor is the one that will go into the next rev. of the Powerbooks (as a stopgap until the G5), citing continuing difficulties getting the G5 in the Powerbooks as the reason.

He seemed fairly excited about this move, but sounded like even the dual core revision might be some ways off (saying "eventually we will use..." when talking about the dual core chip).

This was about a week ago.

[AidenShaw]

An Apple rep who came to Stanford University for a special event confirmed to me personally ... about a week ago.

You probably cost the guy his job by mentioning this - The Lord God Jobs doesn't like leaks, and it'll be pretty easy to figure out who went to PA last week...

[sinacol]

A dual core G4 would beat up a single core G5. I can't see a reason why people are so fond of the idea that they can only work an hour like the latest dell desktop replacement.... :p

[Maxx Power]

A dual core G4 would beat up a single core G5. I can't see a reason why people are so fond of the idea that they can only work an hour like the latest dell desktop replacement.... :p

I'm pretty sure those Dell desktop replacements can be also used as space heaters when needed.

[AidenShaw]

A dual core G4 would beat up a single core G5. I can't see a reason why people are so fond of the idea that they can only work an hour like the latest dell desktop replacement.... :p


...but Dell also has 2.9 lb Pentium M systems with much longer life batteries. Some people want power, and don't care about mobility - others are much more interested in lightweight, long-life systems.

There's no reason that Apple couldn't make a big, powerful G5 laptop in addition to the thin G4 PBs.

Make fun of the "desktop replacement" systems, but it's a big market! For many people, they are exactly the right choice.

[sinacol]

...but Dell also has 2.9 lb Pentium M systems with much longer life batteries. Some people want power, and don't care about mobility - others are much more interested in lightweight, long-life systems.

There's no reason that Apple couldn't make a big, powerful G5 laptop in addition to the thin G4 PBs.

Make fun of the "desktop replacement" systems, but it's a big market! For many people, they are exactly the right choice.

Freescale claims their dual core G4 only sucks 15 Watts. The reason I made fun about desktob replacements is why sould you build a desktop replacement the harms your health while carried around, if you could buid a system that has all the power you need whithout the fat enclosure....

People look at numbers like 3,2 Ghz Prescott....uhhh for checking email?
The same is true for the G5. Everybody wants to say they have the ultimate killer maschine - the processor isn't actualy faster, it waits faster like 99% idle 90 % of the time. :)

[guylafleur]

Any of you folks want to tackle this small, but pleasant conundrum of mine?

I`m starting my grad thesis at the end of October, which is just about the time the new ibooks should be coming out. I`m no big power user, or creativity maven, but I`ve used my friend`s Mac, just fooling around, and grew to like it so much I decided the laptop I need is going to be a Mac.
I`ll be traveling around, only enough to justify my purchase while doing the thesis, and thought for the 12" ibook, it would be just purrrfect excuse. :cool:

Now the conundrum: The low power, high speed G4 outlined on this rumor would be sweeeet, but I`d have to wait at least 6 months, maybe a year for it. Do I dare wait???? :confused:

I have a Dell P4 1.7 desktop, and it works ok, only had to re-format the hard-drive 3 times in the past 2 years because of viruses and bad drivers...Just installed XP SP2 to find it causing some nice freeze-ups, but I can get by. Saving my thesis to disket and the now multi-megabyte freemail Myway and Yahoo is my plan of attack in case things go wrong...and you just know they will. :D

Wait or buy? Bueller? Bueller? Anyone?

[G4-power]

...memory sockets that are compatible with DDR2, and so on.

One thing considering DDR2. Apple is probably not supporting DDR2 in the PB's before PowerMac's. Any idea how big changes must they do to the PowerMac architecture to get DDR2 in it?

PowerBooks were updated last April, so it's soon 6 months after that. The ideal update time in my opinion is 3-6 months, not a year what we've seen on the G5.
As for the PowerMac, I'm looking forward to the possiblity of 3 GHz in December-January. They should decrease the update intervals to 4-6 months, if they do that, I'm happy. Maybe a line-up of Dual 2, Dual 2.5 and Dual 3 GHz? Just my 2 cents, and this isn't a PowerMac thread anyway.

BTW, thatwendigo, your sig, isn't that from the "Think different" Apple commercial or whatever...let's see...found it. I like the part "Those who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do."

[Rocketman]

Any of you folks want to tackle this small, but pleasant conundrum of mine?

I`m starting my grad thesis at the end of October, which is just about the time the new ibooks should be coming out. I`m no big power user, or creativity maven, but I`ve used my friend`s Mac, just fooling around, and grew to like it so much I decided the laptop I need is going to be a Mac.
I`ll be traveling around, only enough to justify my purchase while doing the thesis, and thought for the 12" ibook, it would be just purrrfect excuse. :cool:

Now the conundrum: The low power, high speed G4 outlined on this rumor would be sweeeet, but I`d have to wait at least 6 months, maybe a year for it. Do I dare wait???? :confused:

I have a Dell P4 1.7 desktop, and it works ok, only had to re-format the hard-drive 3 times in the past 2 years because of viruses and bad drivers...Just installed XP SP2 to find it causing some nice freeze-ups, but I can get by. Saving my thesis to disket and the now multi-megabyte freemail Myway and Yahoo is my plan of attack in case things go wrong...and you just know they will. :D

Wait or buy? Bueller? Bueller? Anyone?

I use a G4-15" and my kid uses a G4-12". My advise is opt for the larger screen if you do document work, especially with multiple open windows (research).

You will also find that while you think you will be using it "only for your thesis", that usage of a Mac is somewhat addictive. You will widen your goals as you use it and see it is "better" than your PC in almost every task.

Every new release is "insanely great" and installs buyers remorse in existing users. That is a major problem for the Apple marketing department, but for a user, Apple has "common sense" pricing and product positioning so the best rule of thumb is literally, buy now, and get the best one you can afford.

In that way Apple marketing is in the top of the computer industry far and away.

Rocketman

[thatwendigo]

One thing considering DDR2. Apple is probably not supporting DDR2 in the PB's before PowerMac's. Any idea how big changes must they do to the PowerMac architecture to get DDR2 in it?

The current 970 system design uses the U3 system controller as a northbridge, which mediates connection between the RAM and the processor. They'd need the newer, higher-pin sockets for DDR2 (which would block traditional 182-pin DDR memory), the wider data paths between the sockets and the chip, and a system controller that could access and use the new banks. It's not a huge engineering feat, but it's more than just changing the place you plug your ram sticks in.

As for the PowerMac, I'm looking forward to the possiblity of 3 GHz in December-January. They should decrease the update intervals to 4-6 months, if they do that, I'm happy. Maybe a line-up of Dual 2, Dual 2.5 and Dual 3 GHz? Just my 2 cents, and this isn't a PowerMac thread anyway.

I'm not sure we'll see the 3.0ghz chips before we see the 970MP, actually. There's a huge push amongst all the chipmakers to be the first to market with a a dual-core design, and IBM's already on the bandwagon. A dual-core 2.0-2.5ghz machine could very well perform better than a dual-processor 3.0ghz machine would.

It all comes down to the implementation.

BTW, thatwendigo, your sig, isn't that from the "Think different" Apple commercial or whatever...let's see...found it. I like the part "Those who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do."

Yes, it is. :D

[MikeBike]

You probably cost the guy his job by mentioning this - The Lord God Jobs doesn't like leaks, and it'll be pretty easy to figure out who went to PA last week...

I'm not sure Steve will fire the guy for this tidbit of info.
After all, we all know who supplies the chips Apple uses.
We've all seen the internals of the new IMac.
We all know Intel / Amd are now moving in the dual core direction.

Will Apple be left behind?
Under Steve it's hard to believe Apple would be left behind.
Of course, IBM could still surprise us and the source of this info.
A 65nm Dual Core G5 isn't impossible either?
A year is a long time from now.

[diehldun]

Oh, well if we're having a quote fight:

"Any man who is under thirty and not liberal has no heart. Any man that is over thirty and not conservative has no brain."
-ascribed to Winston Churchill

What does this have to do with the topic at hand? Does it even mean anything? Do I actually believe it?

Who knows? It sounds good and it makes me look intelligent, just like your quote does!

:rolleyes:



Uh... Why don't you come down off the high horse and start talking to people instead of at them, sparky?

You might find out that we have some shared beliefs about mistakes in the past and how many people don't seem interested in them. See, I'm not at all in favor of rampant consumerism and the culture that's encouraging us to move into what amounts to a new form of feudalism. You'd have found that out if you'd asked me instead of trying to browbeat me into accepting some point that you're really not getting to all that effectively or quickly.

What I'm not for is Marxism or other forms of "father knows best" destruction of personal rights, because either of the extremes is entirely repugnant and stifling of people in a different way. Complete freedom is anarchy, complete suckling at the teat of government is slavery - neither is ideal.




Uh, no.

You, sir, are a complete and utter hypocrite because "acknowledging" that your computer parts are part of some evil scheme to control us all and destroy the planet out of negligence, but buying them anyway, isn't at all useful. You can't harrangue someone for being ignorant and doing the very thing that you're doing, too, if you want to escape being labeled that way.

Stop buying computer parts that are made in sweatshops in countries with bad labor laws and personal freedoms. Stop buying your food from the congolomerates. Stop using oil-based products. Never buy diamonds.

Come on. Let's see you do something real, if you're going to try to nail me on this path. It may be small, but I already do something on this front... I buy produce from small, local farmers and co-cops whenever I can. I support companies with good labor practices when I have the option, and I pretty much avoid Wal-Mart. I drive a car with better than average mileage, don't just roam around unnecessarily, and otherwise try to help conserve the failing petroleum reserves. I give money and time to causes I believe in, whenever the opportunity and my circumstances allow. I support organic and free-range food with my purchases.

I don't just "accept" the truth, I try to do my little part to help out.



wit - n -
1. The natural ability to perceive and understand; intelligence.
2.
1. Keenness and quickness of perception or discernment; ingenuity. Often used in the plural: living by one's wits.
2. wits Sound mental faculties; sanity: scared out of my wits.
3.
1. The ability to perceive and express in an ingeniously humorous manner the relationship between seemingly incongruous or disparate things.
2. One noted for this ability, especially one skilled in repartee.
3. A person of exceptional intelligence.

Hmmm. Wit seems to be entirely about intelligence and humor, with no mention of anything about information processing. How strange that my usage is correct...



There's something supremely ironic about using a computer to post on a messageboard that's running on another computer, just so someone using a third computer (and others) can read what you have to say about how computers are unnecessary. I just thought I'd point that out.



My computers just work. It's as simple as that.

Over the last twenty years, I've been owner or "administrator" of some twenty five Apple and Apple Macintosh computers. In that timeframe, I've had to put a machine in the shop three times for hardware failures and never for a software issue. There were some problems in the earlier version of the system - especially the clones' third party drivers - but they've largely been ironed out with OS X.

Since the new system was put out, I've had four kernel panics on seven machines I look after. That's it.

Yes, for me, macs just work.



The quote is "He who sacrifices essential liberty for a little security will have neither and deserve neither." It was Benjamin Franklin and he was talking about the willingness of people to compromise their basic rights in exchange for feeling safe, which I think can be applied to many Americans in the aftermath of September eleventh.

The horrible, stinking irony of this is that you're throwing it at me, when I'm one of the loudest, most voiciferous critics of the Patriot Act, Iraq war, DCMA, and other controversial and - in my opinion - stifling attempts to squelch the freedoms we're supposedly fighting for. You really, really dropped the ball on this one.

"These are ugly days, ugly times, ugly words.
From lies and disinformation, ignorance is born.
Can you smell the hatred being bred from fear?
And don't you understand that when you give your rights away,
There is no freedom left to die for?
Where has my country gone?"
-Justin Sane, "Where Has My Country Gone?"

WHAT THE HELL DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH APPLE??? :confused:

[thatwendigo]

I'm not sure Steve will fire the guy for this tidbit of info.
After all, we all know who supplies the chips Apple uses.

Then you don't pay much attention to the iron control Steve likes to maintain over Apple's release schedule and marketing. Having someone far below him spill the beans is completely against what he wants to have happen, if the past is any indication, and there's at least anecdotal evidence that Jobs has fired people for doing just that.


Of course, IBM could still surprise us and the source of this info.
A 65nm Dual Core G5 isn't impossible either?

Given that IBM had such horrible issues at 90nm and lost their target point to them, I find it unlikely - at best - that we'll see another process shrink in the near future. In case you didn't bother to do much reading around the time that the G5 was hovering at 2.0ghz, IBM and other companies were saying how there were unexpected leakage and crosstalk issues with the smaller parts. These were so bad that they're all worried about the next move because it's likely to be exponentially worse than this most recent one, due to the ever-shrinking logic gates and their more tightly packed locations.

Freescale is going ahead with their research on it at the Crolles2 plant, and you can bet that AMD, Intel, and IBM are on the same trail. That doesn't mean that it'll happen, though, just like the Intel P-8 core turned into a head monster.

WHAT THE HELL DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH APPLE??? :confused:

WHY ARE YOU ASKING ME, WHEN MAXX POWER STARTED IT?

:rolleyes:

[guylafleur]

Good advice. As soon as the next one comes out, I`m "in" like that guy whose name rhymes with "in".

The reason I like the 12" is for it`s portability, and I find the 14" not as crisp to look at. I tried using the 12" at the store a few times and I found it very easy to read. I liked the keyboard especially, being the same size as the 14".

You don`t find the resolution on the 14" a bit wanting? Just curious.

[Maxx Power]

WHY ARE YOU ASKING ME, WHEN MAXX POWER STARTED IT?


That must be it, I'm not the one going around calling people names.

[thatwendigo]

That must be it, I'm not the one going around calling people names.

Yep, in other words, unless you want to satisfy your greedy desires for luxury computing, a ever shrinking niche, regular computing will suffice.

PLZ TO BE USING CONSISTENCY, KTHXBAI! ^^

[Rower_CPU]

Enough bickering folks. Stay on topic, please.

Thanks :)

[MacSA]

I dont think there will ever be a G5 Powerbook.

Maybe Apple should just forget the G5 and Powerbook - by the time they've figured out how to fit one into such a small caseing the G5 technology will be old and even slower than the competiton. :(

[guylafleur]

You`ve hit the nail on the head sir. Perhaps they`ll build a G6 before they can fit the G5 in the powerbook. Or maybe they`ll build a special G5a, or something, that resembles the G5 but isn`t one. They`re stuck on Mhz, and size at the same time. It just seems that the powerbook and the G5 were not meant to be. :(

It`s like a guy who really likes a girl, who doesn`t like him and never will. Sooner or later he`d better get on with his life and find a new girl, before life passes him by and he`s dead. :eek:

[G4-power]

The current 970 system design uses the U3 system controller as a northbridge, which mediates connection between the RAM and the processor. They'd need the newer, higher-pin sockets for DDR2 (which would block traditional 182-pin DDR memory), the wider data paths between the sockets and the chip, and a system controller that could access and use the new banks. It's not a huge engineering feat, but it's more than just changing the place you plug your ram sticks in.

Okay. Guess this wouldn't be far away but not seen in just a little speed-bump. Maybe in the next bigger revision then?

I'm not sure we'll see the 3.0ghz chips before we see the 970MP, actually. There's a huge push amongst all the chipmakers to be the first to market with a a dual-core design, and IBM's already on the bandwagon. A dual-core 2.0-2.5ghz machine could very well perform better than a dual-processor 3.0ghz machine would.

It all comes down to the implementation.

Oh yes, forgot the dual-cores...the 970MP thread was quite interesting, I remember. Waiting for dual-core "consumer-processors" (desktop, not server)...

Yes, it is. :D

Cool. :)

[thatwendigo]

Okay. Guess this wouldn't be far away but not seen in just a little speed-bump. Maybe in the next bigger revision then?

It all depends, really. This requires a major motherboard redesign because the system controller will have to change, the data paths for the memory have to be widened (DDR2 uses lower frequency, parallel paths and routines to accomplish the same thing), and that might mean moving things around somewhat on the internal positioning.

One advantage DDR2 has is that it's more scalable in frequency, cooler, and generally workable with modern architectures and their fast memory architectures. The downside is that it uses a different process to manufacture and costs more for the same chips.

Oh yes, forgot the dual-cores...the 970MP thread was quite interesting, I remember. Waiting for dual-core "consumer-processors" (desktop, not server)...

I think there could very well be a good argument made for making the e600 the G5-M or something similar, using the MPC8461D as the mobile processor and a future derivative of the 970 (or the POWER5) as the desktop chip. In one space, you try to balance heat and performance, and in the other you merely crank for the highest output possible.

There's nothing wrong with modifying a high-powered server processor to put in a professional and consumer machine, but expecting it to also fit in a laptop is a bit much.

[G4-power]

It all depends, really. This requires a major motherboard redesign because the system controller will have to change, the data paths for the memory have to be widened (DDR2 uses lower frequency, parallel paths and routines to accomplish the same thing), and that might mean moving things around somewhat on the internal positioning.

Yes, of course. And it would be okay to wait until PowerMac G6. Right?

One advantage DDR2 has is that it's more scalable in frequency, cooler, and generally workable with modern architectures and their fast memory architectures. The downside is that it uses a different process to manufacture and costs more for the same chips.

Yeah, I guessed these wouldn't be as cheap, of course when they get more common the price will drop.

I think there could very well be a good argument made for making the e600 the G5-M or something similar, using the MPC8461D as the mobile processor and a future derivative of the 970 (or the POWER5) as the desktop chip. In one space, you try to balance heat and performance, and in the other you merely crank for the highest output possible.

The e600 as G5-M is a good idea. The only downside of the naming is, that at least I think of the G5 as "the 64-bit chip". But otherwise a good idea.

There's nothing wrong with modifying a high-powered server processor to put in a professional and consumer machine, but expecting it to also fit in a laptop is a bit much.

Well, that's exactly not what I meant. I mean that we have yet to see a desktop (aka. PowerPC or normal-x86) dual-core chip. Not POWER or Itanium2 (if the Itanium2 even is dual-core, no idea).
True, putting a straight POWER derivative into a laptop, no-way.

[wdlove]

You`ve hit the nail on the head sir. Perhaps they`ll build a G6 before they can fit the G5 in the powerbook. Or maybe they`ll build a special G5a, or something, that resembles the G5 but isn`t one. They`re stuck on Mhz, and size at the same time. It just seems that the powerbook and the G5 were not meant to be. :(

It`s like a guy who really likes a girl, who doesn`t like him and never will. Sooner or later he`d better get on with his life and find a new girl, before life passes him by and he`s dead. :eek:

I still have faith that Apple will accomplish the technical obstacles. It isn't over until Apple admits that it can't. They definitely have made an advance with the G5 iMac. Hopefully we will have an answer by MWSF.

[MikeBike]

Given that IBM had such horrible issues at 90nm and lost their target point to them, I find it unlikely - at best - that we'll see another process shrink in the near future. In case you didn't bother to do much reading around the time that the G5 was hovering at 2.0ghz, IBM and other companies were saying how there were unexpected leakage and crosstalk issues with the smaller parts. These were so bad that they're all worried about the next move because it's likely to be exponentially worse than this most recent one, due to the ever-shrinking logic gates and their more tightly packed locations.

Freescale is going ahead with their research on it at the Crolles2 plant, and you can bet that AMD, Intel, and IBM are on the same trail. That doesn't mean that it'll happen, though, just like the Intel P-8 core turned into a head monster.


I thought I heard here that IBM was working on both the 65nm and the 90nm at the same time with 2 teams.
What's 25 nanometers among friends!

I believe IBM, of all people, can do it.
But, I like Freescale to come back from the dead also,
just as long as I get my dual core Powerbook.
Note: AMD and INTEL aren't talking about a dual-core chip for a laptop!

[thatwendigo]

I thought I heard here that IBM was working on both the 65nm and the 90nm at the same time with 2 teams.
What's 25 nanometers among friends!

Obviously, you've not read up much on how badly the transition to 90nm has hurt the scalability of chips. Let me try to put this simply... The way that a processor works is by putting electrons through things called gates, which are tiny channels that allow conductivity through the chip. Each gate has a "state" that's basically binary, in that it can be on or off. The problem with process shrinks is that it puts gates closer and closer together, while also making them smaller, and that leads to leakage of electrons and interference from the neighbors. This is called crosstalk, and it can really, really screw with the stability and functionality of a processor. There's also a massive addition of heat as the electrons move through a smaller space, leaving less surface area to transfer away through a heatsink.

Shifting from 130nm to 90nm was abysmally hard for everyone in the industry, and another jump is likely to be exponentially harder without some major technological innovation.

Note: AMD and INTEL aren't talking about a dual-core chip for a laptop!

Wrong.

Intel announces official plans for Yonah, a 65nm dual-core mobile processor. (http://www.geek.com/news/geeknews/2004Sep/bch20040910026865.htm)

Before Yonah, 90nm Merom is supposed to show, possibly with more than one core (http://endian.net/details.asp?tag=Merom)

AMD is only talking about the server and workstation market, with 90nm Opteron dual-cores coming in the near future, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if they were working on a low-power Athlon 64 and Athlon 64-M dual core.

[G4-power]

Shifting from 130nm to 90nm was abysmally hard for everyone in the industry, and another jump is likely to be exponentially harder without some major technological innovation.

This major technological innovation might be just behind the door. I read about it at our local library, it wan in a Finnish computer magazine (Finns are quite big on technology, don't mean to brag, but Linux is made by a Finn, and Nokia phones have started from Finland). Anyway, it had an article about some new laser-technology, that would allow for 38 nanometer process. There was some comparing to the current 90 nm process, and the new technology was much simpler, and more accurate.

They couldn't give any accurate dates when this new technology will be usable, some 2006 probably or later.

That's a pretty interesting thing, but I think we'll be seeing the 65 nm process way before that.

[Maxx Power]

This major technological innovation might be just behind the door. I read about it at our local library, it wan in a Finnish computer magazine (Finns are quite big on technology, don't mean to brag, but Linux is made by a Finn, and Nokia phones have started from Finland). Anyway, it had an article about some new laser-technology, that would allow for 38 nanometer process. There was some comparing to the current 90 nm process, and the new technology was much simpler, and more accurate.

They couldn't give any accurate dates when this new technology will be usable, some 2006 probably or later.

That's a pretty interesting thing, but I think we'll be seeing the 65 nm process way before that.

For a good read of the briefs of die shrinks and physics behind it refer to : http://www.sudhian.com/showdocs.cfm?aid=610&pid=2294

As well, i'll quote for you to save you some time one important part:

Anatomy of a Die Shrink:

When we refer to a CPU as “90nm (.09 micron)”, we’re referring to the space between CPU traces. To put this in perspective, human hair varies between 40 microns and 120 microns in thickness. To calculate how much of a difference this is from existing 130 nm, we take the square of each, arriving at a shrinkage of 47%. In other words, moving from 130nm to 90nm more than halves the size of the gap between CPU traces.

The reason this does not translate linearly to a direct CPU die shrink is because not all components in a CPU shrink by this amount. In this case, Winchester’s approximately 84 mm sq die is roughly 61% the size of Newcastle’s 144 mm sq die. This is obviously still a significant reduction.

Shrinking the gap between the CPU trace lengths, however, has several effects.

Increased Thermal Leakage: As the gaps between the CPU traces shrink, the amount of current that ‘leaks’ out of the transistors increases. This translates into heat, which translates into a hotter-running CPU.

Increased Thermal Density: This is a key factor that can’t be overlooked. As the surface area of a CPU shrinks, the amount of heat that has to radiate out of that area does not. This means that, all else being equal, a 130nm CPU has a lower thermal density than a 90nm CPU. It also means that a smaller chip runs hotter—all else being equal. Up until now, all else hasn’t been equal, which is why we’ve seen the improvements that we have.

Decreased Operating Voltage: Die shrinks typically allow for lower operating voltages because less power is required to bridge the smaller gap. Note, however, that thermal leakage can work against this—if power is leaking out of the transistor, obviously voltage can’t be lowered by as much as if the transistor leaked less.

The answer (in very broad terms) to why we haven’t seen the 90nm problem before now is because the positive effect of being able to lower operating voltages has outweighed the negative effects of increased thermal leakage and thermal density. Other technology upgrades (such as improved substrate technologies) have also helped. The question is, have they helped enough?

SOI and Efficiency vs. Netburst vs. Physics:

For all that reviewers have compared them to each other, AMD and Intel both are finding their approaches to computing tested by a third foe more implacable than either corporation could ever be—the laws of physics. Unfortunately for both companies, Physics is not impressed by marketing terms, does not care about full color ads, and is uninterested in either corporation’s bottom line. The question, in this case, is whether or not AMD’s decision to bet both on a more-efficient approach to computing as well as IBM’s SOI technology has paid off.

[thatwendigo]

(Finns are quite big on technology, don't mean to brag, but Linux is made by a Finn, and Nokia phones have started from Finland).

I wouldn't really count Nokia as an achievement, if I were you. As far as Linux goes, I have to give more than a little credit to Torvalds, but he was standing on the shoulders of giants. Much of the ideation and technique in the kernel comes from decades of Unix development, even if the code was written from scratch later on. Thousands of people contribute to the codebase, worldwide, so it can hardly be called a Finnish project anymore, if it ever could have been.

I'm not downing your country, but some perspective ought to be held. ;)


Anyway, it had an article about some new laser-technology, that would allow for 38 nanometer process. There was some comparing to the current 90 nm process, and the new technology was much simpler, and more accurate.

Sounds like a new lithography technique to me. Is it something like this? (http://physicsweb.org/articles/news/6/6/10/1)


That's a pretty interesting thing, but I think we'll be seeing the 65 nm process way before that.

We'll see.

[G4-power]

I wouldn't really count Nokia as an achievement, if I were you. As far as Linux goes, I have to give more than a little credit to Torvalds, but he was standing on the shoulders of giants. Much of the ideation and technique in the kernel comes from decades of Unix development, even if the code was written from scratch later on. Thousands of people contribute to the codebase, worldwide, so it can hardly be called a Finnish project anymore, if it ever could have been.

I'm not downing your country, but some perspective ought to be held. ;)

Yeah, Nokia nowadays is like, Japanese or Chinese, just the headquarters are in Finland, but in the early nineties' Nokia phones that were designed (and even manufactured) in Finland were an achievement. And the user-friendly "operating system" was great too, before they started to put too much stuff in the phones.
I know, Linus Torvalds wrote Linux with UNIX and Minix in mind, but it's quite nice to see it be accepted worldwide. Today, most Linux development is done outside of Finland, true.

Sounds like a new lithography technique to me. Is it something like this? (http://physicsweb.org/articles/news/6/6/10/1)

If I'm not completely under Alzheimer's Disease, I'd say that's it.

[brgionta]

What do you guys think about getting a 12" Powerbook G4 for 1400 or should I wait or even the 12" I Book? Get you guys please help me out (some piece of mind, that I'm not going to buy something already outdated).

Much thanks

[Analog Kid]

Any of you folks want to tackle this small, but pleasant conundrum of mine?

I`m starting my grad thesis at the end of October, which is just about the time the new ibooks should be coming out. I`m no big power user, or creativity maven, but I`ve used my friend`s Mac, just fooling around, and grew to like it so much I decided the laptop I need is going to be a Mac.
I`ll be traveling around, only enough to justify my purchase while doing the thesis, and thought for the 12" ibook, it would be just purrrfect excuse. :cool:

Now the conundrum: The low power, high speed G4 outlined on this rumor would be sweeeet, but I`d have to wait at least 6 months, maybe a year for it. Do I dare wait???? :confused:

I have a Dell P4 1.7 desktop, and it works ok, only had to re-format the hard-drive 3 times in the past 2 years because of viruses and bad drivers...Just installed XP SP2 to find it causing some nice freeze-ups, but I can get by. Saving my thesis to disket and the now multi-megabyte freemail Myway and Yahoo is my plan of attack in case things go wrong...and you just know they will. :D

Wait or buy? Bueller? Bueller? Anyone?
My advice-- wait as long as you possibly can, but no longer... Sounds trite, I know, but the thing is that if you can get by with what you currently have, the technology will continue to improve for the price, and you've got the money in the mean time. If you wait too long, you'll have been suffering for little real gain.

I would absolutely advise against scheduling a purchase around rumors like this-- Apple hasn't even indicated they'll be using the chip, let alone when. If they did say they'd use it there's still no guarantee they'll hit their target. Look at all the folks who were thinking there'd be dual 3GHz machines in Sept.

[Analog Kid]

One thing considering DDR2. Apple is probably not supporting DDR2 in the PB's before PowerMac's. Any idea how big changes must they do to the PowerMac architecture to get DDR2 in it?

I wouldn't be so sure of that statement-- while DDR2 does help boost memory bandwidth a bit, the biggest advantage I see is the reduction in power consumption, which is significant. Add to that the DDR2 is going to be more expensive, at least to start, and laptops can usually support higher priced parts and I think it would be likely that the PB's get it first.

My theory when the G5 first came out was that people shouldn't watch the IBM process steps to guess when it'll move to the PowerBook, but should watch the DDR2 market. I don't think it can fit in a PB without the power reduction afforded by lower power memory.

Now that this dual-core G4 is in the mix, and looking more real, I tend to think that's the chip to watch for high performance portables for the next couple years. The 970 missed it's window of opportunity, I think.

[G4-power]

I wouldn't be so sure of that statement-- while DDR2 does help boost memory bandwidth a bit, the biggest advantage I see is the reduction in power consumption, which is significant. Add to that the DDR2 is going to be more expensive, at least to start, and laptops can usually support higher priced parts and I think it would be likely that the PB's get it first.

My theory when the G5 first came out was that people shouldn't watch the IBM process steps to guess when it'll move to the PowerBook, but should watch the DDR2 market. I don't think it can fit in a PB without the power reduction afforded by lower power memory.

Now that this dual-core G4 is in the mix, and looking more real, I tend to think that's the chip to watch for high performance portables for the next couple years. The 970 missed it's window of opportunity, I think.

Hmm, to think of it, I quite agree with everything you said. So, what speeds of DDR2 are currently available?
Micron tech (http://www.micron.com/products/dram/ddr2sdram/) site has something about DDR2. I see that they produce 1 GB units at 400 (200 MHz) and 533 (267 MHz) DDR2.
Yep, and Crucial has, in addition to 533, DDR2 667 (http://www.crucial.com/store/listmodule.asp?module=DDR2+PC2-5300&Attrib=Package&cat=RAM) (333 MHz).

[headhighguy]

What do you guys think about getting a 12" Powerbook G4 for 1400 or should I wait or even the 12" I Book? Get you guys please help me out (some piece of mind, that I'm not going to buy something already outdated).

Much thanks

I just bought a 12" powerbook for the lady. It was the 1.33 GHz processor version w/ combodrive for 1399 (educational discount). According to Apple's news releases there is not going to be a G5 powerbook this year. The G5 powerbook would be the next logical extension to the existing G4 processor currently in the powerbook line. Yes, there is rumors about the dual-core G4 processor that might be able to fit into the powerbook line, however I haven't seen Apple to make any statements about this being implemented into future products. Well, there is always the uncertainty, it is also fact that the product refresh cycle is nearly at its end, meaning a product update is about to happen soon. This may be something minor as updating the 12" g4 powerbook to 1.5Ghz, adding a larger hdd, and reducing the price for a 100 bucks. I'm confident it is not going to be a G5 that's being added to the powerbook line in the next product refresh recycle.

Hypothetically speaking, if the next product refresh recycle happens in the next 30 days (which would be an extrapolation from the past), the G5 is very likely not to be added, so the next scheduled product refresh recycle would be sometime in March 2005, which then could bring the G5 to the powerbooks.

Given that you're buying today, you'll likely have a fairly up-to-date product for the next 6 months. I bought mine hoping there wouldn't be a G5 before March 2005, so I'm up-to-date for 6 months. I didn't care about if the G4 powerbook gets updated in the meantime. I mean, imagine buying a windows PC that's not outdated in the next 6 months, that's pretty unsusal.

However, I think I gave you a good overview what may happen or may not happen and hope you'll feel more comfortable making a decision when/what to purchase.
:)

[CTerry]

You know not to be rude (always the sign of someone about to let lose) but I wish people would quit whining about G5 PowerBooks. Do you know how long it took Apple to jam a G4 into a PowerBook after the G4 PowerMac release?

Two years! Yes, folks that's two years. Based on that folks we'd be looking to a WWDC release, or maybe a Paris Expo release.

Laptops are about compromisation. For what you gain in portability you lose in features and performance. This is the facts of life.

The G5 processor simply runs too hot and is too big for a PowerBook right now. Yes there are Athlon 64-Ms out, but they're all hunking huge. Apple isnt in the business of creating such laptops, they rarely appeal to any group but gamers, or people who want a computer that can be moved around the house easily.People rarely take laptops like that further away than their garden.
Ive got news for you, Apple has a computer like that, its called the iMac.

Which brings me on to another point, yes the iMac is a consumer machine, but its a consumer desktop. The fact is that the iMac will more than likely be someones primary machine. Its going to be the machine they use to do everything with. PowerBooks will likely be a secondary machine- to a PowerMac. So in all likelihood if there's something that you're PowerBook can't do you'll have a PowerMac set up at camp ready to do it instead. No big deal.

Yes, ok people video edit, photoshop etc. on the road sometimes. A PowerBook is particularly useful for bands on tour because they can edit mixes and so on, but the PowerBook pretty much gives the power needed to do all this with anyway, if it doesnt I suspect most professionals would choose smaller size and longer battery life over a 1.6 GHz G5, which is probably the fastest you'd be able to get out of the theoretically super speedy PowerBook G5, for which we seem to so want to part with our cash for.

Yes I want a G5 in a PowerBook, who doesnt? But lets be realistic here. The G4 is not the worlds fastest chip. Its not gonna set any records, but it will get you by happily enough. The 1.5 GHz G4 chugs at a decent pace at everything Ive seen thrown at it, and I bet it still will do in a few years too, unlike other Wintel Machines Ive noted that Macs tend to still feel decently fast for longer on in their life. Id say that most people probably need a new Wintel every 2-3 years, and a new Mac every 3-4, maybe 5 if they push the boat out. Look on ebay and the early PowerMacs are only just starting to be thrown out on mass. Those are a good four years old.

Wait, be patient, yes its taken a while. These things do. But the fact that Apple has managed to get G5s in a XServe and then an iMac shows progress is being made. And note: There's a new G5 on the horizon. 3.5 GHz, dual core, 65 nm, the 970MP is giving me wet dreams. Its speedy as hell, but yet at lower clocks it should be perfect for PowerBook operation. If IBM can deliver on its promises on this one we may be in for a fun ride.

Until this time arrives these new Freescale chips should be enough for most PowerBook users needs.

[G4-power]

Which brings me on to another point, yes the iMac is a consumer machine, but its a consumer desktop. The fact is that the iMac will more than likely be someones primary machine. Its going to be the machine they use to do everything with. PowerBooks will likely be a secondary machine- to a PowerMac. So in all likelihood if there's something that you're PowerBook can't do you'll have a PowerMac set up at camp ready to do it instead. No big deal.

Ok, but then there are those people who don't have money but for only one computer, and need both speed and portability. 'Books give portability, and iMacs and PowerMacs speed. The PB's aren't only bought to be a secondary machine, but a portable workhorse. Those who don't need power get an iBook. So nobody should say that nobody needs powerful laptops.
Still, I don't mean that the current PB's wouldn't be fast, but they just aren't wicked fast.

[awesomebase]

Well, I for one am hoping to see the next update (anywhere from now till end of November probably) with a dual-core G4 lineup, that would be great! As far as getting the G5 into the PBs, I think realistically, that won't happen until at least this time next year. There are numerous heat and power-consumption problems that exist with squeezing a G5 into a small form factor and it is doubtful that Apple will want to come out with something that is sub-par. Besides, if the dual-core G4s get into the PBs, then we're talking much faster system bus speed (a REAL requirement for PBs) that can also run at higher frequency and with less power. That sounds like it is meant for portability to me. The G5 can wait as long as needed until it is done right in the laptop.

[thatwendigo]

Yes I want a G5 in a PowerBook, who doesnt? But lets be realistic here. The G4 is not the worlds fastest chip. Its not gonna set any records, but it will get you by happily enough.

Actually, the MPC74xx core is quite a bit more efficient than the IBM PowerPC 970 and its derivatives, has much better power and thermal characteristics, and hangs in competitively despite architectural advances applied to the newer motherboards. Even without Serial ATA, full acccess to DDR channels, AGP 8x, the huge frontside bus, and other advantages that the PowerMac G5 has, you'll find that the top of the line powermacs of the previous generation hold their own against G5s that outclock them - to a roughly linear level. In several benchmarks, the 1.5ghz MPC7447A beats the single 1.6 and 1.8ghz 970 in the iMac.

The MPC7448 doesn't change much of that, though it does raise the bus to 200mhz, increases the clock (theoretically to 1.8ghz), and keeps power consumption down to a relatively tiny 10-12 watts. For comparison, the Pentium M's typical consumption is twice that at the same clock, requiring a reduction to the 1.4ghz 90nm part to achieve the same wattage. The 970 doesn't even come close, except possibly in low-power sleep.

Wait, be patient, yes its taken a while. These things do. But the fact that Apple has managed to get G5s in a XServe and then an iMac shows progress is being made. And note: There's a new G5 on the horizon. 3.5 GHz, dual core, 65 nm, the 970MP is giving me wet dreams.

If they can't hit 3.0ghz on the 90nm die, there's not much chance they're going to crack the 3.5ghz point at 65nm, and that's assuming that the crosstalk and interference issues don't get even worse. Look how badly the die shrink hit everyone in the industry, and you'll see how naive it is to be claiming that there's some magical leap coming just around the corner. The reason for dual-core designs is that manufacturers are realizing it's a way to make faster chips without traditional techniques, sidestepping the problems of shrinking the overall process.

There are other issues that belong to the dual-core philosophy, as well, like cache coherency, threading, and other things that will have to be sorted out rather than left alone. These all stand in the way, but they might just be more solvable than the laws of physics.

Its speedy as hell, but yet at lower clocks it should be perfect for PowerBook operation. If IBM can deliver on its promises on this one we may be in for a fun ride.

Could you provide a source, preferably other than ThinkSecret? Everything I'm showing on a search goes back to their rumor, rather than any kind of announcement or confirmation of a dual-core 970, let alone anything about yet another process shrink or other features.

Until this time arrives these new Freescale chips should be enough for most PowerBook users needs.

Unless the 970 magically starts performing better at lower clocks, the Freescale chip will slaughter it in the portable market. Let me reiterate that on-die memory control is part of what makes the Opteron so fast, and they'll have DDR2, along with numerous SoC enhancements that lower system latency. There will be no FSB to limit the G4 anymore, thanks to their being no northbridge, and the RapidIO framework is pretty nice.

Then there's the superios Freescale implementation of AltiVec, the use of more cache per processor than the 970 (less need to fetch from memory), the fact that AltiVec will be installed in dual units...