1.5ghz G4 Road Map

1.5GHz, 266mhz bus
speeds of 266MHz, with a new RapidIO technology

1.5GHz, 266mhz bus, and RapidIO? (whatever that means)
Sounds good enough to
use software synths, samplers, effect plug ins,
eqs, and around 50 audio tracks. WHEN?!#@$#$#%

I really want this machine, so i would probably
be wise to hold off on the new purchase till it
arrives. SOmeone please tell me when!
 
When...

I would wait until MWNY, ManOfTunes, to see if the new mobo design is introduced (which I suspect it will be). I believe that technologically, they could introduce a new PM design in Japan, but Apple is a small company - I do not believe that they can switch on another assembly to handle a new design so soon after dishing out a redesigned iMac.
 
Re: A couple of things...

Originally posted by Catfish_Man
...

...
2) The G4 is 32 bit, with a 64 bit wide bus, and 128 bit Altivec. Altivec uses the 128 bitness by doing the same instruction on four 32 bit chunks (32X4 = 128). You can't do this for normal operations. The G5 is theoretically 64 bit. This would have a performance improvement only when you needed variables larger than 32 bit (almost never), or when you needed more than four gigs of memory.

3) The reason the Itanium, Sun's MAJC, etc... are so fast is not that they are 64 bit. They have a lot of interesting new technologies in them (VLIW architecture, thread level parallelism, multi-core, predication, etc...) that are responsible for the insane performance (Also, the Itanium has 4MB [I think] of on chip level 3 cache. This is big, expensive, and fast).

4) I think that the MPC 7500 is actually the G5, I've posted my reasons in several other topics, so I won't repeat myself here.

...
Click to expand...

OK, interesting reasoning. Now I think I get why you call the 7500 the G5. Even though Motorola's PPC Roadmap explicitly calls the G5 an 85xx, Motorola's numbering system has always been a little quirky and ad hoc (it calls the G6 an 86xx...), are you arguing that most of the things projected for the G5 will be present in the rumoured 7500, (possibly minus 64-bit addressing, which Moto might have decided isn't worth the effort at the moment anyway), and therefore the 7500 will in fact "be" the G5 for all our intents and purposes?

This does make sense to me. Motorola then invents a 'new' series number: 75xx. It's not EXACTLY the 85xx, but it is way beyond the 74xx G4s, and has everything we the users wanted from the G5, anyway. Certailny the timing is right if it does come out at MWSF...
 
There is no 7500, according to MOT

As of right now, Motorola's PPC Road Map shows no existence of a 7500. The only place that I see the 7500 was on The Register website (and then that got picked up by all the other rumor sites).

MOT's map shows a 85xx for the G5 that's meant for communications and consumer applications. I take that to mean routers and Digital DNA stuff. Until I see a 7500 mentioned in an official Motorola Press Release, I refuse to believe that there is a G5 being developed by Motorola for Apple. This does not exclude the possibility of IBM developing the Next-Gen chip for Apple (G5 or whatever you want to call it).
 
I saw my name mentioned...

...And just thought I should comment on this subject. As far as I'm concerned they might as well call the processors Al Bundy all over the line. What I think is the big question here is WHEN will Apple consider that enough changes have been made to the G4 to call it a G5. I can't really see that they wouldn't call it a G5 just because some part of it doesn't have "enough" bits or something like that. Ftaok though, has a very interesting point here that may well be the true answer to this riddle. Maybe the G4 is Motorola's last desktop processor and maybe Apple will jump to using an IBM processor in a year or so from now. By the way, is this information that somebody (don't remember the name) provided us with a week or so ago CORRECT??? "All Motorolas processors for embedded applications are called 8XXX and all processors for desktops are called 7XXX. Together with the information in ftaok's post this would mean the Motorola "G5" was never intented to be. If it is correct, then we've been drooling over the wrong candy (the 8500), folks!
 
That was me ..

Originally posted by DNA
By the way, is this information that somebody (don't remember the name) provided us with a week or so ago CORRECT??? "All Motorolas processors for embedded applications are called 8XXX and all processors for desktops are called 7XXX. Together with the information in ftaok's post this would mean the Motorola "G5" was never intented to be. If it is correct, then we've been drooling over the wrong candy (the 8500), folks!
Click to expand...
DNA,

I'm pretty sure that was me. Follow this LINK to see Motorola's current road map. It's a gif file and it's kinda tough to read, but you can get the gist of it.
 
Re: When...

Originally posted by b8rtm8nn
I would wait until MWNY, ManOfTunes, to see if the new mobo design is introduced (which I suspect it will be). I believe that technologically, they could introduce a new PM design in Japan, but Apple is a small company - I do not believe that they can switch on another assembly to handle a new design so soon after dishing out a redesigned iMac.
Click to expand...

MW Tokyo is traditionally the place where new powerbooks are announced. When you think about it this makes sense too. New iMac, New Powermacs, New ibooks.... The only thing left is a powerbook update.

predictions...

1)New powerbooks in tokyo (apollo chip? new graphics chip? improved screen? improved battery technology [lithium polymer] ? there are a lot of variables.)

2)G5 no later than MWNY (if it is any later apple is in trouble. I wouldn't mind an improved an apollo with 100% symetric multiprocessing capabilities in configuration of 4 [quad processor systems] in the meantime.)
 
Just wanted to say a few things.

64-bit processor does not mean it is any faster than a 32-bit. Within a processor it has to do with how much memory it can access and how big of chunks it can move around within its registers. This does not mean faster.

The way you make a processor faster is by changing how things are done within the chip. You have something called IPC, instructions per clock cycle. Now you take that and multiply it by the speed of the processor, 800 MHz, and than you have how many instructions a processor does per second. The next thing you look at is how many clock cycles does it take to really get anything done. Once you have all that information than you can begin to see if a process is really faster or not. But do not forget no processor runs at 100% efficiency all the time. The PIV has a very high speed, but it takes a lot of clock cycles to really get anything done.

As far as calling a beefed-up G4 a G5, that is not a good idea. In the life-span of a process it often goes through many new steppings. This is most obvious with the Athlon line. You have the
Athlon
Athlon – Thunderbird
Athlon – XP
They are all basically the same chip but with just a few changes and upgrades. You save a change from a G4 to G5 when you have a whole new die come out. The exception to this was the PII upgrade to PIII, the only real difference was SIMD code was added.

What is a big deal right now it to get on DDR-RAM and Rapid-IO. I believe Rapid-IO is an increase in the speed of communication with the north and south bridge chipsets, and might be a replacement for PCI, not 100% sure though. The biggest problem right now is getting data/instructions to a processor, and designing the processor to never be idle when data/instructions are available to it. You would be amazed at how much idle time your processor actually has, there is where on chip multithreading comes in, now that is something that would kick ass on a G5.
 
Re: Re: When...

Originally posted by Onyxx
)G5 no later than MWNY (if it is any later apple is in trouble. I wouldn't mind an improved an apollo with 100% symetric multiprocessing capabilities in configuration of 4 [quad processor systems] in the meantime.)
Click to expand...

BEH? What planet you on 'cause I know on this planet there is still no Apple market for a 64-bit processor? Atm, those processors are restricted to specific and tiny fields that have trouble trying to work out which cupboard to use to hold their next truckload of cash. A souped up G4 (not just processor but whole kit and kaboodle) will be fine for now
 
when is MWNY?

forgive my ignorance, but i don't know when that
is. Also, if it's revealed at that convention,
when would it be available to purchase?

thanks b8rtm8nn

-ManOfTUnes
 
rastalin94...

...I see what you mean, even though I don't understand the language ;-) I hardly know what a "new die" is, but maybe there no such thing as a whole new die for desktops coming from Motorola. ANYONE out there who interpret their road map DIFFERENT from Ftaok? Because if he's right the next generation of processors in our best friends will definitely not be from Motorola, and maybe they will choose to call the (IBM?) processors something completely different.
 
Re: when is MWNY?

Originally posted by ManOfTUnes
forgive my ignorance, but i don't know when that
is. Also, if it's revealed at that convention,
when would it be available to purchase?

thanks b8rtm8nn

-ManOfTUnes
Click to expand...

I believe it is July but I would not be suprised if someone showed me wrong. It is definately around mid-year, though.
 
Re: rastalin94...

Originally posted by DNA
...I see what you mean, even though I don't understand the language ;-) I hardly know what a "new die" is, but maybe there no such thing as a whole new die for desktops coming from Motorola. ANYONE out there who interpret their road map DIFFERENT from Ftaok? Because if he's right the next generation of processors in our best friends will definitely not be from Motorola, and maybe they will choose to call the (IBM?) processors something completely different.
Click to expand...

I have seen that logic, esp. with the sudden change of number structure of the processors but not something I like to bet on.
 
These 75xx whatever cpus are unlikely to be the G5. The G5 is likely to be based upon the G4, like the G4 was based upon the 604. But it is also very likely that there are several parts of the G5 which will be completely redesigned from ground up, like the Processors' FPU.

There is a performance gain of 64 bit chips if the data is above 32 bits. The only computing fields i can imagine this to be useful in would be 3d modelling/ Hi Res Graphics design. And possibly for small servers. I also believe that software has to be coded to take any real advantage of this, im wondering how many software developers would want to do that.


Possibly apple wants to use G5 technology in G4 processors just to make sure that consumer lines wont be too far behind the pro machines. Or Apple wants to pioneer the technology on the G4 chip so that the G5 wont have to put up with teething troubles.
 
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