Freescale Confirms Dual Core G4

[MacBytes]

Category: PowerPC
Link: Freescale reveals 90nm G4 processor
Posted on 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 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 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.

[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]

Originally Posted by 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

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.

[Laslo Panaflex]

Originally Posted by Kirtus

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.

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]

Originally Posted by insidedanshead

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]

Originally Posted by 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.

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/showA...cleID=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]

Originally Posted by 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

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]

Originally Posted by AoWolf

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]

Originally Posted by Kirtus

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.

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?

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!!!

[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!!

[DharvaBinky]

Originally Posted by 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!!

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