1ghz G3 from IBM

[MacRumors]

Per this MacCentral article, IBM announced their new 750FX PPC Processor yesteday:

The overall goal of the 750FX is to optimize system performance. In addition to doubling the L2 cache size to 512KB from the 750CX's and 750CXe's L2 cache size of 256KB, IBM also doubled the peak system bus speed to 200MHz. IBM and two of its partner developers, Tundra Semiconductor and Marvell Technologies, are developing controller chips to take advantage of the faster bus. In addition to making the bus faster, IBM has also improved the bus efficiency to provide 25 percent greater bandwidth.


...and...

This is the first PowerPC to use SOI and a low-K dielectric compound in tandem to increase performance and reduce power consumption.

 

[jefhatfield]

go big blue

oh my god

double the L2 cache on the chip

200 MHz bus

this will fry the 1.3 GHz Pentium III mobile if IBM could get at least 800 MHz and it will toast the 1.2 Athlon 4 if this chip could hit a 900 MHz...Apple is almost at 700 MHz on their new Titanium...the perceived "gap" in the mobile speed wars is closing now that big blue is on our side

 

[jefhatfield]

re: big blue

half a meg of on chip L2 cache?

look out mobile wintel

 

[spikey]

Would apple allow a G3 with higher clock speed than a G4?
Motorola is so slow to catch on its practically going backwards.

 

[snowman]

Agree... Apples got a dilemma here. I hope this will get Motorola to crap out chips faster... skip those long coffee breaks NOW! If not, I think Apple should go G3-only. Or should they wait for the G5 and have G3 and G5 chips instead of G4 and G5 chips, this sounds like the most logical solution.

Originally posted by spikey
Would apple allow a G3 with higher clock speed than a G4?
Motorola is so slow to catch on its practically going backwards.

 

[~/indigo]

We can't abandon the G4! Especially if the G5 is going to be based on the same AltiVec technology! MHz are great but actual performance is better. Apple would not look too good if they pulled the plug on that now. Also, the G3 doesn't appear to be capable of functioning in MP environments so the Dual towers would be out.

I must say that the chip sounds impressive, though. I just want to know what the speed of that cache is. I have a 350 G3 w/ 512 KB bytes at 1.5:1 speed, I think. They dropped it down to 256 KB to get a full speed cache before. I hope that this retained that feature. This chip would fly on a 200 MHz bus, full-speed 512 K L2, 1 GHz clock, and only watts of power usage!

Hope we see this in iBooks in the spring (or so).

~/indigo

 

[MrMacMan]

Awch, Intel u better catch up or else your going to be Fried! In L2 Cache tho. :O
I'm supprised big Blue did this!
Good job!!!!

 

[jefhatfield]

re:coffee breaks

motorola can't get into it as long as only 12 percent (or less) of their business comes from apple

but a slower MHz G4 is still faster than a higher MHz G3 due to the faster G4 architecture

motorola could to the AMD route and skip using the speed rating...i mean do i care that my radio or microwave has a 1 GHz embedded chip as opposed to a 900 MHz enbedded chip...it simply does not matter really

as long as the G4 cranks out more output faster than the G3, speed ratings are not the main issue as much now as a couple of years ago when wintel was positioning for the race for 1 GHz

the speed thing is important for peace of mind but it will never be the same as when AMD got huge news for breaking the 1 GHz mark... and machines used for office apps were selling for three grand...boy, those were the good ol' days of 2000, way back when

 

[sevvvvvv]

ughh...

g3's burning g4s.. thats what we wanna see!!.. not..

 

[spikey]

Ofcourse a G3 shouldnt take precedence over a G4, But it is clear to see that apple have a dilema due to bloatorola being cr*p at what they do.
The G4 is holding apple back right now if you look at IBMs G3.
People like us know a slow G4 is better than a Fast G3 but dumbass consumers dont. They seem to just look at Mhz.
Either IBM needs to make a G4 or apple need to buy out motorolas wotsit section.

[Edited by spikey on 10-17-2001 at 12:53 PM]

 

[snowman]

Though a 1 Ghz G3 with a 200 Mhz bus is surely faster than most of the G4's out there. Mhz is not all but it does matter. But it would be interesting to see some pomparisons here. I think this chip at least tozts the 733Mhz G4.

Originally posted by spikey
Ofcourse a G3 shouldnt take precedence over a G4, But it is clear to see that apple have a dilema due to bloatorola being cr*p at what they do.
The G4 is holding apple back right now if you look at IBMs G3.
People like us know a slow G4 is better than a Fast G3 but dumbass consumers dont. They seem to just look at Mhz.
Either IBM needs to make a G4 or apple need to buy out motorolas wotsit section.

[Edited by spikey on 10-17-2001 at 12:53 PM]

 

[George W]

I like apples. They taste nice!!!!
Do not misunderestimate the tastification of apples.

 

[spikey]

Well , yeah i agree about the G4 733. With a bus speed that good i think it would toast the 733 and i think it would toast an 867 in non-altivec appz.

 

[mobz]

1000Mhz L2 Cache bus

Don't forget the L2 cache runs at full processor speed ie. 1000Mhz L2 Cache bus

http://www.chips.ibm.com/news/2001/1017_750fx.html

 

[Mastification]

Originally posted by George W
I like apples. They taste nice!!!!
Do not misunderestimate the tastification of apples.

OMG tastification rules like a iron donkey

 

[abates25]

G3 for entry, G4 for Pros

I don't see why it is really such a bad thing to have a faster G3 than a G4. I understand that Apple has long said how much better the G4 is, but to the person out there buying their kid an iMac, who doesn't even know what the difference between the chips is, seeing a G3 with a chip speed faster than the PC next door will help fill the sale. Most of us who use Macs professionally know the difference between a G3 and a G4 and should be able to survive knowing that there are faster G3s out there than G4s. Just my two cents...

 

[jefhatfield]

faster G3s?!?

are you nuts?

just kidding, i don't care if the G4s are faster than the G3s, or the other way around... fast is good and we can use that right now on the mac side of the computer world

the pc side has reached its speed peak (in practical everyday user terms) and now pcs are entering an all time lowin growth of almost 20 years in pc sales and the first known downturn in the pc industry as a whole (abc news) because normal users don't feel a need for more speed...but we still do in the mac realm outside of photoshop or graphic design software titles

so ignore the G4 hounds who are jealous of the G3fx chip or think it is a bad idea...five years from now, will we remember or even care who reached 1 GHz (the G3 or G4)?

do you remember what processor hit the unreachable 100MHz mark, how about the 200 NHz mark, 250?, how about 500 MHz?

in any case... "Go Apple Inc."

 

[snowman]

Re: faster G3s?!?

I remember Apple reaching 300 Mhz before the PC industry with it's 9600, probably 200 and 250 as well, not sure about 100.
A PC reached the 500 Mhz barrier long before the Mac, but I can't remember with what computer, probably some silly Pentium 2. After the 350 Mhz barrier had been broken by Apple, that Jobs dude was back and also the lower Mhz G3.

do you remember what processor hit the unreachable 100MHz mark, how about the 200 NHz mark, 250?, how about 500 MHz?

in any case... "Go Apple Inc." [/B][/QUOTE]

 

[jefhatfield]

re: snowman

i used to know back to the intel 8088 those dates but i forgot since it was for a blasted test

but i will remember forever when apple finally reaches 1 GHz because it will be taken as a milestone for apple

i know a retired apple tech with a G3 who is happy with his machine and he is holding out for a 1 GHz G4 when it comes out later this year or next year

he has owned or worked on almost every mac since the apple IIe through the G3 before he retired

 

[oldMac]

processor speeds

Hmm...
I don't remember which processors hit the different speed marks first, but I do remember a few things.

The 603e scaled really well.

This isn't the first situation we've had where the "low-end" processor has out-shined the "high-end" for pure Mhz.

As I recall, the (s)lowly 603e was at 300Mhz faster than the 604 was. Then the G3 came along to save the day.

 

[jefhatfield]

re: save the day

good point, oldmac!

...i try to explain to my G4 friends how great the G3 was at the time and still is (i have an original blueberry ibook 300 which runs great and it has the old backside cache on the G3 mobile processor instead of on the chip cache)

but there were some shaky moments in G3's history

...i love the G3 beige machines and still see them in professional use

...i do remember when there were some preliminary problems with the early blue and white towers and i was scrambling to help my sales customers (when i was in electronics sales) and i remember then some of my mac customers became pc customers because of the constant crashing and freezing that was going on with heavy duty apps...some people had to buy super high amounts of RAM to make things run at all and at that time, RAM was expensive

...but now the G3e in the iMac and ibook with only 128 MB of RAM does great with Photoshop and Illustrator (probably due to the 256k on the chip cache) and the G3 looks like it still has a future now that the G3fx will be out and may reach 1 GHz first before the G4

the days of the G3 saving the day could still be with us yet!




[Edited by jefhatfield on 10-30-2001 at 12:11 PM]

 

[jefhatfield]

re: save the day

yes, G4 fans, the G4 is faster MHz for MHz and the altivec engine is the best thing going for Adobe and Macromedia apps

my wife still does fine professionally with both her G4 tower and her iBook and for what she renders for her clients, mostly simple stuff, there is truly very little difference in time saved

now if i was a video editor, i would only use the G4 but wouldn't it be cool if the G3fx could do video editing fast...only time will tell

...hey, if the G3 gets too fast, why not call it something else like the "G5" but i have already heard that the G5 is supposed to be based on the G4 and altivec

hey anyone on macrumors...is that true?

 

[oldMac]

The G5 is indeed coming, and it's my understanding that they've dumbed-down the Altivec so that it's more friendly to faster processing speeds.

I think they're trying to find a happy medium between the G3's scalability and the G4's vector prowess.

Expect to see the fast G3s in iMacs, iBooks and the like, but delayed until the top-end gets the G5 or faster G4s.

Apple actually did ship lower-end machines with higher clock rates for several months before introducing new machines.

The Mac 5500/275 (603e) was introduced March 1, 1997.
The Mac 6500/300 (603e) was introduced April 4, 1997.
The Mac 9600/300 (604e) was introduced Aug 5, 1997

(Numbers from http://www.everymac.com - Kyle's got a great site over there.)

So, hey, it could happen and I've changed my mind from earlier. I think it would benefit Apple to sell iMacs at the highest clock rates possible as soon as possible.

Potential confusion/marketing conflicts be damned!

 

[spikey]

No, no no no no no f*cking hell no.
From the rumors that have been going round, the G5 will be the first chip to be made from scratch since the G3. It wont have much to do in common with the G4.

You cant have a G3 in an imac that is faster than a G4 because pros will be very annoyed indeed when it comes to ordinary non-altivec appz.
If you swapped the G4 and G3 from Pro machine to consumer then the cpu for graphics work will be in the wrong machine.
If you made them all G3....... hmm not a bad idea, would mean either the Pro machine would come down in proce or the consumer would go up. And i cant see the imac going up much further than it already is.
The trouble with keeping G4 in a pro machine is that the G3 processor is being developed at a faster rate than the G4 and if it carries on, the G3 will be faster than the G4 altivec or no altivec.
whether the G4 is faster in graphics appz or not it doesnt matter, the point you have all missed is the rate at which each chip is developing and how the G4 is hindering pro machines (and thanks to marketing consumer machines too). In the future, the G4 wont have moved fast enough to keep up with any1.

The thing about the Pre-G3 machines is in the PC market at the time desktop hierarchy didnt matter as much. Now that there are more PCs around than ever, more people are looking at the specs so it matters more than it did before. the computer is more of an integral part of life so it matters more to people than it did before. And also the fact that with the 1997 geek generation apple just wasnt heard of, back then it was all packard bell this packard bell that.

Selling an imac faster now wouldnt be too much of a problem, but the development of chips will mean the weaknesses of the G4 will hinder apple.
Do not underestimate the power of advertisment, it is what mac fans arent into and dont like. But it is also what is most important if you want to sell a computer.

(Ofcourse all of this might soon be solved with the unveiling of the apollo, and the G5.)

 

[oldMac]

*smack* *smack* *smack* *smack*

<i>oldMac smacks spikey around a bit</i>

Chill out dude.

As you point out at the end of your post, the G5 is what's going to rectifiy this situation.

I didn't say that the G5 was based on the G4, I only stated the obvious... that the PPC folks are going to aim for something that's a better performance mix (G3's scalability + Altivec-like capability).

People are definitely *NOT* looking at specs more now than they did in 1997.

In 1997, high-end users were just as upset about faster-clocked machines coming out on the low end. That (along with clone-makers) is what drove Apple to put out dual processor boxes.

And, yes, there was just as much of a hierarchy. Instead of iMac/G4, it was Performa/PowerMac.

The point is, that Apple's Christmas iMac sales are going to suffer because they're clocked at 700Mhz instead of something closer to 1Ghz. When Mom & Dad look at 700Mhz vs. 1.4Ghz, that's pretty much a no-brainer. (Not that the Christmas season is going to be a booming one for anyone this year...)

At this time of year, it's more important to have your low-end in good shape than your high-end. Spring is another matter...

All moot, though. It looks like faster G3s weren't ready for Christmas, anyway.