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macrumors bot
Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
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30,651
An anonymous/unverified report claims that Apple has already been seeded sample 90nm PowerPC 970s this month. Reportedly, they run from 1.8GHz to 3.2GHz and heat production is significant improved, with a 2GHz at only 34W, down from 57W. The 3.2GHz chip reportedly at 71W.

Target volume production for 90nm is reported to be in Q2 of 2004. Heat considerations are still a major issue for the upcoming PowerBook and dual G4's are still considered a possibility.
 

manu chao

macrumors 604
Jul 30, 2003
7,219
3,031
During the reign of the 1Ghz Ti-Book, people citing publically available Motorola documents reported numbers of slightly below 20W @1Ghz. For the 7447/7457 @ 1.25/1.33Ghz, again using Motorola documents, slightly lower numbers where cited. But it remains disputed whether Apple wasn't or isn't using lower voltage versions, which would draw less power.
With a battery capacity of roughly 60 Wh (1Ghz Ti-Book), and screen, harddrive and GPU power consumption of 5 to 10W, and a real-life 'uptime' under heavy usage of 2h+, 20W typical processor consumption would make sense.
For the current Powerbooks with slightly reduced battery uptime (officially 4.5h compared to 5 hours for the 1Ghz Ti-Book) and a battery capacity which is roughly 70% of that of the old model, this would indicate a processor consumption of 15W or slightly less.
 

Frobozz

macrumors demi-god
Jul 24, 2002
1,145
94
South Orange, NJ
Sounds like they're on target, perhaps even a little ahead of schedule.

I don't know about you guys/gals, but I think this is phenominal. The G5 is already speed king for many tasks. I, for one, like hearing about IBM's constant success rather than Motorola's constant failure.

A dual 3GHz G5 would be ridicuously powerful. I played around with the 1.8 Ghz G5 at the Apple SoHo store and it was damn zippy. I've been spoiled by using Panther, however, so the speed increase was not as visible in the GUI. Panther makes the GUI on even a slow machine seem very snappy... as snapy as OS 9. No, I'm not kidding.

Imagine Panther on a dual G5 and you've got yourself an amazing machine. These are exciting times and there has never been a better time to buy IMHO.
 

stingerman

macrumors 6502
Jul 6, 2003
286
0
I'm hoping Apple surprises us with a January 3GHz G5 and G5 Powerbooks. They need to keep the momentum growing and a good surprise of that magnitude along with Panther would decimate the competition for some time to come.
 

CheekyGit

macrumors member
Oct 9, 2002
40
0
Alabama
"with a 2GHz at only 34W, down from 57W. The 3.2GHz chip reportedly at 71W."

That's a nice drop on 2Ghz chip. However for the 3.2 Ghz chip, that's sounds a bit much.
 

Makosuke

macrumors 604
Aug 15, 2001
6,661
1,242
The Cool Part of CA, USA
I'm skeptical of these numbers--they sound a little "too good to be true" for my taste.

But hey, it'd be nice if it is true, and you never know. I'd love to see a DP3.0 come next year as much as the next Mac fan (though the part of me that just ordered the DP2.0 secretly wishes that it'll take longer, so I won't feel like I should've waited another four months).
 

ffakr

macrumors 6502a
Jul 2, 2002
617
0
Chicago
I'm skeptable, just because.

It's not an unreasonable story. Chips comming off a test run will vary a lot in quality. Some will be junk, some will be slow and a very few will go very very fast. There are, afterall, a very few P4s that will OC extremely high (like close to 4GHz) without a compressor chilling system.

I wouldn't be surprised if the .09micron 970s would operate in this frequency range. I'd be surprised if Apple let the information leak so easily (unless they wanted it to leak).

As for 71W... that's less than athlons and Athlon64s. The current high end P4s put out 85watts... Prescott is rumored to be 106 watts at launch (at .09 micron).
71 watts is hot, but the cooling system that Apple has in the G5 should easily handle that. It might have to spin the fans up a bit more, but they won't have to run at 5000rpm or anything.
 

Dont Hurt Me

macrumors 603
Dec 21, 2002
6,055
6
Yahooville S.C.
i really think the g5 @ 90nm can be the chip to make apple's future so so bright. look at where they are going and they just started. moto wasnt that interested, ill refrain from name calling but they got rid of another ceo and there stock looks like crap. The more we hear the brighter the 970's future looks.
 

Frobozz

macrumors demi-god
Jul 24, 2002
1,145
94
South Orange, NJ
Originally posted by Makosuke
I'm skeptical of these numbers--they sound a little "too good to be true" for my taste.

But hey, it'd be nice if it is true, and you never know. I'd love to see a DP3.0 come next year as much as the next Mac fan (though the part of me that just ordered the DP2.0 secretly wishes that it'll take longer, so I won't feel like I should've waited another four months).

If you think about it, Apple said 3.0 GHz within a year. That's next June. It says that volume production begins in Q2, 2004, which _ends_ on June 1st of 2004.

Sounds to me as if it's right on time. If the 3.0 chip is somewhere around 60 Watts, then a dual is not out of the question.

Then again, as you point out in your post, the facts above match up so nicely it could be a fabrication. That doesn't make a 3.0 .90nm chip in June of next year incorrect, though. It just means that this rumor could be a fabrication of known facts.
 

The Shadow

macrumors regular
Mar 25, 2003
216
0
Sydney, Australia
What a sweet set of numbers!

Fingers crossed as I am one of the many that decided to wait for rev B, and I think my ship is gunna come in, baby!:D

Ironic, isn't it, that Big Blue, the original arch enemy, has come to the rescue. Spose we shouldn't be so surprised because they did it in circa 1994 too though, didn't they.
 

chrysrobyn

macrumors member
May 9, 2003
72
1
Austin, TX
Ironic, isn't it, that Big Blue, the original arch enemy, has come to the rescue. Spose we shouldn't be so surprised because they did it in circa 1994 too though, didn't they.

I agree with your sense of irony, but anything implying "did it again" is an understatement. If it were't for IBM's POWER I in the late 80s, the PowerPC 601 Somerset design would have had to start over from scratch. PowerPC would have been nothing. Since then, Apple has owed many thanks to IBM, be it hard drives (back when the IBM name was worth something in hard drives), processors (any G3 faster than 500MHz or in a low voltage application like an iBook) and according to rumor, stuff like keyboards got help from Big Blue in early hardware.

I think IBM gave up the PC arena after the PC Jr. died. The PS/1 just wasn't any real contender either and felt like a concession-- since then, IBM has known that they lost all claims to fame in the "IBM Compatible" arena and have gone after money wherever it's green-- and Apple seems to be one of the few companies who make money on computers. IBM failled with OS/2, but seems to succeed with chips (Cyrix did well when it was fabbed by IBM, PowerPC is doing well) and services (arguably what PowerPC is these days).
 

vitaboy

macrumors member
Aug 8, 2003
87
0
Assuming this rumor is true, 34 watts is still WAY too much to put in a notebook (at least one with the slim form factor of the PowerBooks)

Assuming these number are true, can anyone estimate how much power a G5 built on a 90 nm process running at 1.2, 1.4, and 1.6 GHz will use?
 

yamabushi

macrumors 65816
Oct 6, 2003
1,009
1
A .09 micron 1.2Ghz G5 iMac would be awesome. When are we going to see .065 micron PPC980 PowerMacs?
 
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