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RandomDeadHead

macrumors 6502
Feb 8, 2003
454
0
fennario
Sounds very good, but then Apple would only have 2 procs, the G3 and G5(or what ever they call it). What would happen to the ibook? Would they keep the G3 for another couple years, or would it go directly to the 970?

I think they will keep the G4 around for awile, just to serve as a bridge between the other procs.
 

MacBandit

macrumors 604
Originally posted by RandomDeadHead
Sounds very good, but then Apple would only have 2 procs, the G3 and G5(or what ever they call it). What would happen to the ibook? Would they keep the G3 for another couple years, or would it go directly to the 970?

I think they will keep the G4 around for awile, just to serve as a bridge between the other procs.

There's a new G3 coming down the pipeline with an integer processing unit on it ala Altivec that should wipe the floors with the G4.
 

NavyIntel007

macrumors 65816
Nov 24, 2002
1,081
0
Tampa, FL
Originally posted by MacBandit
There's a new G3 coming down the pipeline with an integer processing unit on it ala Altivec that should wipe the floors with the G4.

Is there any documentation on that?
 

MacBandit

macrumors 604

groovebuster

macrumors 65816
Jan 22, 2002
1,249
101
3rd rock from the sun...
Interesting!

But I doubt that Apple has the power to overhaul their complete product line within a few months... It also would be kind of risky economically. So the question (like almost always) is not if, but when...

The first thing that's gonna happen is the 970 in the pro machines, since new performant hardware is long overdue for that market. I expect the rest of the product lines to "upgrade" to a new processor until summer next year, step by step...

groovebuster

[Edit: My point was that it takes at least a year for Apple to overhaul the complete line up... 9 months is way too optimistic!]
 

Mr. Anderson

Moderator emeritus
Nov 1, 2001
22,568
6
VA
Keeping the pro systems multi processor and having a single CPU on the iMachines and PowerBooks really has some apeal.

Does anyone have any info on the 980?

D
 

Tim Flynn

macrumors regular
Jan 9, 2003
141
0
Alberta
Perhaps this time next year,
the high end will be dual 980s
and the low end will be single 970s

( and G4s ... what are G4s :confused: ):)
 

nuckinfutz

macrumors 603
Jul 3, 2002
5,537
398
Middle Earth
This is totally believable

IBM is snatching Fab business from alot of people. I wouldn't be suprised to see them price themselves low enough to cause Moto to lose all Powermac business. Look at what IBMs done to Foundries like TMSC(taking a portion of their business).

Apple need to drop the price of their hardware ..as the increase in sales will make up for it. Start shipping boxes baby!!
 

praetorian_x

macrumors member
Jan 6, 2003
83
0
Re: PPC970 much cheaper than G4...Apple to go all IBM in 9mos time

Originally posted by jholzner
I know a lot of people don't like macwispers but...

I'd like to put in my props for macwhispers-powerjack-jack_campbell. He has done some moderately shady stuff in the past, but he's been pretty honest about those mistakes (from what I've seen and know) and seems to be more humble and, importantly, he has developed a sense of humor about himself (see his spymac posts).

I like how he is relatively transparent about his sources and, after an initial bout of arrogance on macwhispers, has calmed down into a fairly analytic and informative mode. He's gotten a few things dead on (usb/fw cables), a few things wrong (ipods). The 970 release is going to be a big test for his sources, with his commitment to the powerbook rumors, so we'll see.

Cheers,
prat
 

Laslo Panaflex

macrumors 65816
May 1, 2003
1,291
0
Tokyo
1. I think that the 970's will be less expensive for apple as a chip, but knowing I don't think that this will effect the overall prices too much. Apple makes money on hardware, and they need all the money they can get right now. Sorry to say it guys, as much as you and I want to believe that good ol' Jobs is looking out for us, Apple is a business, and they make money and that's the first and formost thing for them, not making supercomputers at rock bottom prices.

2. The whole line all IBM by this time next year? Impossible, apple would never take the loss of all the stock of computers that they have that still have motorola, like the emacs, imacs, powerbook and powermac line. As I understand it, the ibooks have a IBM G3 chip in them so those don't need to be changed. But, if the new IBM chips are compatable with the boards that apple produces right now, then it would be no big deal at all to switch. Does anyone know if this is true? have anyone seen a gobi g4 chip? Even if it is compatable, you still have the slow bus speed and slow sdram, so wow big deal,more megahertz? that doesn't matter according to apple.:) Oh well, we will see.
 

ncbill

macrumors 6502
Aug 18, 2002
251
11
Sure they can transition to IBM totally

Why not drop Moto entirely (G3 from IBM)?

1. EOL iBooks, except for the lowest end. $999, 800MHz G3, 30GB drive, CD-only.

2. Powerbooks:

a. 12" 1GHz 970, 40GB drive, combo optical.
$1399 (Superdrive $200 more)

b. 15"/17" 1.2GHz 970, 40/60GB drive, superdrive.

Sure, notebook memory is not as fast as desktop memory, so they'll need to design for PC2700 (DDR 333MHz) notebook memory - slightly slower than desktop systems, but the speed bump from going to 1Ghz/1.2GHz 970s should compensate

(I picked those speeds arbitrarily, assuming for power consumption's sake notebooks would need a slower 970 than the desktops)

3. eMacs/iMacs - 970, but slower, like the notebooks (1/1.2GHz, slower memory bus (DDR 333) as well)
 

wms121

macrumors regular
Mar 1, 2003
104
0
hmm...maybe the "POWER12" rumors are true..

I have a friend who works for a "Area 51" related contractor...they do "deeply isolated power requirements"..or whatever..and he says that IBM has specialists all over the "desert area electronics community" doing "Ultra Black optical chips and 1024 bit processing systems..all custom". They already have multi-teraflop chips and may soon have 1024 teraflop chips and associated systems.

'Is a POWER12 on their roadmap?'

He said he would love to tell me..but he would have to kill me later.

<--died and went to moto heck
 

ddtlm

macrumors 65816
Aug 20, 2001
1,184
0
People really need to stop believing this stuff. While it may be true that IBM is willing to sell 970's at prices lower than Moto will sell 7455's and 7457's, that is not likely. The 970 is so far beyond any 745x that IBM can charge just whatever they want and Apple would have to pay it. While it may be appealing to cast IBM as some loving gentle giant, the fact of the matter is that they are a large corporation. A profitable large corporation. They don't make money by giving away products that they can charge for. Yeah, they could pass up millions in revenue because they are nice... :rolleyes:

And while it may also be appealing to visualize Apple casting aside Moto in a fit of rage and then throwing itself into IBM's loving arms, this does not seem like a business reality. Revenge is not a business policy, and before anyone even mentions it, no, Apple's use of nVidia's prodicts along side ATI's was just a smart business move. The reality of Apple's situation is that they have a lot of experience, money and time invested in chipsets and motherboards that work with G4's. G4's will be plenty fast enough for low-end products for some time to come, hopefully until Apple's first generation of 970 systems has been able to pass down some technology. And using these G4's costs Apple very little in R&D... a very important thing to remember.

Consider this fantasy about Apple going IBM top to bottom. Depending on the connected rumor/fantasy of an IBM "G4" which will apparently replace the Moto G4 while accomplishing nothing except revenge, Apple would need to design system controllers and motherboards suitable for Xserves, PMacs, 3 sizes of AluBooks, and maybe even the iMac and perhaps eMac. Remember also that multi-CPU 970 systems would conventionally require specific motherboards for each configuration. This gives us 3-5 families of new PPC970 motherboards, plus at least two 970-compatible chipsets, since the high-end and low-end models would pretty much have to be different, plus possibly another model for laptops, but who knows. Details aren't important, but clearly there is a lot of work here. You can rest assured that Apple will have to spend some time to do it all (more than one year).
 

mcs37

macrumors regular
Mar 2, 2003
187
7
Washington, DC
Re: Sure they can transition to IBM totally

Originally posted by ncbill
Why not drop Moto entirely (G3 from IBM)?

1. EOL iBooks, except for the lowest end. $999, 800MHz G3, 30GB drive, CD-only.

2. Powerbooks:

a. 12" 1GHz 970, 40GB drive, combo optical.
$1399 (Superdrive $200 more)

b. 15"/17" 1.2GHz 970, 40/60GB drive, superdrive.

I would _love_ to be able to get a 12" 1 Ghz PPC 970 PowerBook for $1400. That'd be a sweet deal!
 

MacBandit

macrumors 604
Originally posted by applemacdude
well youre only 200$ off right now

Not for a 1 GHz machine as he stated. I personally think the price drop was done so that in a couple weeks they can introduce the new laptops at the newly lowered price and not have a bunch of people returning there machines for the new ones because the new ones are cheaper. This way there isn't an apparent price drop.
 

XnavxeMiyyep

macrumors 65816
Mar 27, 2003
1,131
4
Washington
Originally posted by Mr. Anderson
Keeping the pro systems multi processor and having a single CPU on the iMachines and PowerBooks really has some apeal.

Does anyone have any info on the 980?

D
The 980 will probably be marketed the same as the 970, just like the 7455s and 7457s were both marketed as G4. The 970 itself can only get to 2.5 GHz(which would only last a year or so, or Apple would have to go incredibly slow in terms of updates), so Apple would have to make a major change too soon. Thus, I believe the 970 and 980 will be marketed as the same thing.
 

MacBandit

macrumors 604
Originally posted by XnavxeMiyyep
The 980 will probably be marketed the same as the 970, just like the 7455s and 7457s were both marketed as G4. The 970 itself can only get to 2.5 GHz(which would only last a year or so, or Apple would have to go incredibly slow in terms of updates), so Apple would have to make a major change too soon. Thus, I believe the 970 and 980 will be marketed as the same thing.

I thought the 980 with the .09nm processing could scale up to 3-5GHz.
 

ddtlm

macrumors 65816
Aug 20, 2001
1,184
0
MacBandit:

I thought the 980 with the .09nm processing could scale up to 3-5GHz.
Unless the 980 is a radically new chip 5ghz is out of the question for 90nm. For one thing, it would mean that going from 130nm to 90nm yielded 100% speedup (40% is more reasonable), and for another, 2.5ghz isn't even a confirmed figure. It may be the case that the 970 can't go even that fast. It would not surprise me at all if the 980 couldn't go much faster than 3ghz, and it would surprise me if it beat 4ghz.
 

GeneR

macrumors 6502a
Jan 2, 2003
708
0
The land of delusions, CA.
Boy that would make my day...

That would be really, really wonderful if it was true. I'm going to reserve judgment on it though since it seems a little too good to be true at this point. (However, I'd really, really like to believe this! :D)
 

hvfsl

macrumors 68000
Jul 9, 2001
1,867
185
London, UK
The G4 is the most costly part of current Macs, just look at the price of upgrade CPUs and compair them to PC chips that can be got for less than $100. The upgrade chip makers say that they can not use the high end G4 chips since they cost too much and would cost about the same as a new Mac if bourght by the consumer. Also the rest of the computer will not cost anymore than the current Macs. The prices of PC motherboards only varry from $50 to $100.

So I am hoping the PPC970 will cost about the same as a P4, which means a $1800 1.3Ghz PPC970 / Radeon 9600M Powerbook G5 should be possible at WWDC. It is possible to get a P4 2.5Ghz version of the above laptop at that price.

Also about IBM keeping prices high, nintendo chose IBM PPC chips for the Gamecube because they were cheap and fast.
 

ddtlm

macrumors 65816
Aug 20, 2001
1,184
0
hvfsl:

The upgrade makers are not charging only the cost of the processors, they are paying for R&D spent designing their product and reverse engineering Apple's mobos, they are paying operating costs, and they are trying to make some money. You'll need some other way to determine processor cost.
 

nuckinfutz

macrumors 603
Jul 3, 2002
5,537
398
Middle Earth
I said that the 970 could only get uip to 2.5 GHz. I said nothing of the 980s limit

That depends on if you believe the leaked IBM Blade docs which showed PPC 970s 130nm running at 2.5Ghz. I think it's fair to see a 90nm 970 is definitely going to hit 2.5Ghz. How much higher it goes is unknown as of today.

There are no specs on the 980 that I know of. I've heard rumors of a built in Memory Controller and support for SMT but not much else is known. It should start at 90nm and perhaps move to 65nm at the end of it's life.
 
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