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people have actually been blaming Apple for the late arrival of the G5 chips? :confused: i must have missed that one.

well as far as i can remember i've only ever blamed the chip manufacturers. like when Moto was coming out with the new 1.2GHz G4 (i think) chip for the PowerBooks they were having terrible problems with low yields. i actually remember that at that time i seriously thought that Apple would be in serious trouble because of it. people were specualting that Apple would use a low-power version of a G5 instead. also at that time Steve Jobs himself was very angry at the suituation Moto had left them in. i'll always remember him calling Motorola 'Scum-o-rola'. :D

well Moto has now sorted out their issues, as we can see with the release of the new 1.5GHz G4 PowerBooks. no doubt IBM will work through this. lets just hope the situation doesn't get really bad, and people don't start making jokes and funny names for IBM. :D
 
Phinius said:
IBM's own estimates are that the 1.8 GHz 970 uses an average of 42 watts. The small, compact iMac processor box is not designed for dissipating such high amounts of heat.

who says imac cpu should run at the same clock speed as the powermacs do? smaller clock speed equals less heat, so imagine a 1.2GHz imac G5 having 600MHz bus. i'd be amazed if G5@1.2GHz would use more than 20W.
 
It's not as simple as black and white hat guys

thatwendigo said:
You also, rather conveniently, leave out that IBM is having trouble with doing something that Motorola never really did for us - technical innovation. The jump to 90nm and adding SSOI are big deals.

Motorola came up with Altivec, that alone is substantial innovation. There is also adding an L3 cache to the G4, bumping up it's pipeline stages (which IBM has never done to the G3), SOI, low-k dielectric and of course the most overlooked of all-more than tripling the frequency of the 7400 G4-moving it from 400MHz to 1.5GHz since 1999.

The G4 is not at a deadend, Motorola and Apple both have publicly stated that the G4 will continue to be improved. Next up, the G4 will move to a smaller process size, with a much faster bus speed, on-board controller, RapidIO chip interconnect, dual core, and a topend frequency of 2GHz. Those improvements should be coming about July. After that, Motorola has architectural improvements on their roadmap which will bring the G4 up to 3GHz (likely at the 65-micron process shrink in 2005). That would probably mean bringing the pipeline stages from the current 7 to at least 10.
 
Your asking for things before it's ready

pgwalsh said:
So perhaps they should have implemented SSOI on 130nm and bumped the processor speed while getting the 90nm SSOI process right. Of course hindsight is 20/20, but we're talking big dollars here. I'd imagine SSOI on 130nm process would bring the heat down some and possibly allow higher clock rates for the super-sized heatsink PowerMacs and the ability to utilize the lower clocked 1.6/1.8 in the iMac. :cool:

IBM had planned on implementing SSOI on the 65nm process size. They pushed it up to the 90nm process size.

Spliting the Power4 to make a 970 would have been impractical at the 180-nm process size. It would have been too large and expensive, not be mention the Power4 uses at least 125 watts.

At each process shrink the PowerPC chips are beginning to look much more competitive. The Intel X86 designs from Intel are having more and more problems with excessive heat loss. Even on battery power the default frequency for all Pentium-M's is 600MHz and the Pentium4-M is 1.2GHz. Not to mention the desktop Pentium 4 which is barreling towards a topend 125 watt use next year.
 
singletrack said:
This PDF http://www.motorola.com/mot/doc/0/786_MotDoc.pdf is from a presentation Moto did back in June 2003. They reckon the G4 is going all the way to 2Ghz and Dual Core. I'm not sure exactly what they mean with DDRI and DDRII built in - I presume they are adding a memory controller which would cure the current problem with the G4 MPX bus maxing out at 167Mhz. That would be nice. RapidIO isn't going to be too popular with Apple I'd guess after they've plumped for HyperTransport in the G5.

Anyway, that would still make for a pretty damn fine laptop even if it came out in Jan 05. I'd suspect a 2Ghz G4 with built in memory controller would wipe the floor with even a G5 2Ghz bearing in mind the G4's shorter pipelines.

Could you imagine the uproar if Apple did come out with another G4 Powerbook after this one though from the "G5 or I'm buying a Dell" crowd?

Wow, dual-core G4 would rock, so long as it was energy-efficient enough to put in a Powerbook. If not, it might make a nice upgrade to iMacs and eMacs (or whatever the descendant of these boxes would be).

Could you elaborate on the DDRI vs. DDRII speculation? I'm not up on the jargon, and I wondered if you think a faster FSB frequency is inevitable, given the content of the Moto roadmap.
 
Phinius said:
Motorola came up with Altivec, that alone is substantial innovation.

You need to check your research again, IBM, Apple and Motorola all developed the G4s Vector Processing Functions as a team. Motorola calls it Altivec. IBM calls it VMX. Apple calls it Velocity Engine. IBM and Apple developed the optimized Vector Processing for the G5.

-mark
 
jade said:
We will have to go back to disagreeing...It takes a lot more work to adjust your global settings to match on a mac.

I stand corrected, then. I haven't done much with altering sizing of elements in XP, but I've also found that OS X at high resolution doesn't bother me at all. My desktop is at 1280x960, and I like it there, but most of my family prefers their machines down lower than that.

Powerbook screens have fallen behind in brightness and veiwing angle. PC makers like Sony and Fujitsu, as well as LCD monitor makers like Sharp and NEC-Mitsubishi are using LCDs that offer superior crispness and viewing angles more on par with high definition TV. Next time you go to best buy check out the sony xbrite screen on the high end notebooks or on Sony's wacky all-in-one. It is a mazing how much brighter and sharper these screens look. The resution on powerbooks tends to be a little low, but that isn't always a concern, bur crispness and brightness are important to most users across the board.

Fair enough, then.

Well the ones with the larger screens typically have a longer real-world battery life than the powerbooks. So they win on the battery count (about 20-30% more. The only apple notebook that truly tops the Centrinos in battery life is the ibook. Clock for clock the centrino varient of the p4 is faster than the g4 powerbooks, but these new upgrades should put the speeds at the top end very close to the rated speeds of those centrino notebooks.

I'd buy that the Centrino is a better battery manager, largely because it's a vastly newer design. Unlike the G4, it's intended as a computer processor for mobile applications, and so Intel built some things into it that make it act that way. Apple's done a damn fine job of making the G4 work in the real world, but there's only so much you can do without full support.

thatwendigo: I know you like to use Dell for comparison, but I'd like to counter, that the powerbooks are very price competitive with the high-end PC notebooks, where Apple really misses is at the $1000-$1500 midrange notebook lineup. In this price range you can find a wide variety of fairly small widescreen notebooks, as well as larger screens for the consumers than the ibook offers. But with every ibook revision Apple is getting closer to providing a compelling option for PC users shopping in this price range.

I agree. Apple's weak point is the midrange, because they don't compete at the lowend (except with the eMac), and that's traditionally been a serious issue. However, given that the 970 is only likely to get cheaper in volume as IBM refines the process, and perhaps even cheaper when the technology is applied to the 975/980 successor chips, I think that we might see some even better options in the consumer line soon.

However, it's going to take time. As I keep telling peopel, the PowerPC is a more expensive platform just at the basic levels of boards and chips. If enough others adopt the standard, this will almost certainly come down, and the AMD and Sony deals are likely just the tip of the iceberg.

Phinius said:
Motorola came up with Altivec, that alone is substantial innovation. There is also adding an L3 cache to the G4, bumping up it's pipeline stages (which IBM has never done to the G3), SOI, low-k dielectric and of course the most overlooked of all-more than tripling the frequency of the 7400 G4-moving it from 400MHz to 1.5GHz since 1999.

No, Apple, IBM, and Motorola worked together on the SIMD units in the PowerPC architecture, and each used a different name. The only 'AltiVec' invented by Motorola is their brand name for a joint technology design. Higher pipeline stages only make for faster staging of the clock in revisions. In terms of the design of the PowerPC, the Deep and Wide approach is more efficient and less error-prone. SOI is not a Motorola invention, and they really ought to have done more with the frequency.

Incidentally, Tom's Hardware shows a timeline of Intel and AMD jumps in the same timeframe.

Motorola: 400mhz-1.5ghz
Intel: 1.5ghz-3.4ghz
AMD: 1.0ghz-2.4ghz

Unlike Motorola and Intel, AMD actively improved their designs while also scaling the clock. We had to go to IBM to get the same effect.

The G4 is not at a deadend, Motorola and Apple both have publicly stated that the G4 will continue to be improved. Next up, the G4 will move to a smaller process size, with a much faster bus speed, on-board controller, RapidIO chip interconnect, dual core, and a topend frequency of 2GHz. Those improvements should be coming about July.

You believe Motorola's roadmap? After all this time, you trust a press release from them?
 
Myths and realities

thatwendigo said:
However, given that the 970 is only likely to get cheaper in volume as IBM refines the process, and perhaps even cheaper when the technology is applied to the 975/980 successor chips, I think that we might see some even better options in the consumer line soon.

If the successor to the 970 is based on the Power5, then it's likely to be a larger and more power hungry chip (since the Power5 is about 25% larger than the Power4 and uses about 25% more watts) and therefore more costly to make than the 970.

As I keep telling peopel, the PowerPC is a more expensive platform just at the basic levels of boards and chips.

The PowerPC is more expensive for Apple due to the higher costs involved with having to develop so much of their own hardware and selling it at a much lower volume than Intel does.

If enough others adopt the standard, this will almost certainly come down, and the AMD and Sony deals are likely just the tip of the iceberg.

I'm not aware of any statement from IBM, AMD or Sony that says the 970 will be used by AMD or Sony. Only rumor sites have stated such.

No, Apple, IBM, and Motorola worked together on the SIMD units in the PowerPC architecture, and each used a different name. The only 'AltiVec' invented by Motorola is their brand name for a joint technology design.

Well, where was IBM's Altivec or VMX implementation for Apple when Motorola came out with Altivec in 1999? Why didn't the great and powerful IBM wait until 2003 to make a Altivec processor for Apple's use if the company was so much better than Motorola? Is that somehow making better PowerPC advancements than Motorola in that time period?

How about IBM's failure to match or beat Motorola with SMP or L3 cache capabilities on a PowerPC processor for Apple's use.

Or why is it that IBM never showed their superior capabilities by matching or beating the frequency advances that Motorola was making with the G4? The G4 is at 1.5 GHz and the G3 is at 1.1 GHz.

The IBM's G3 has never advanced beyond 4 pipeline stages and yet Motorola invested the money to move the G4 to 7 pipeline stages.

Higher pipeline stages only make for faster staging of the clock in revisions.

More pipeline stages makes for greater frequencies and as a result higher performance. There is however a point of diminishing returns where it's not worth it. An Intel research paper stated that the point of diminishing returns was at about 50 pipeline stages, an IBM research paper stated it was at about 20 pipeline stages.

In terms of the design of the PowerPC, the Deep and Wide approach is more efficient and less error-prone.

Your just pulling this stuff out of a hat aren't you. The Power4 and 970 are very error prone.

SOI is not a Motorola invention, and they really ought to have done more with the frequency.

Motorola more than tripled the G4 frequency in 4 1/2 years. Compare that to Intel increasing the Pentium 4 frequency by about 2.25 times in 3 1/2 years. Raising the frequency is only one of many ways to get performance. Adding more cache is another way and putting two processors on a chip yet another method.

Also, the fastest processor that Intel makes runs at 1.5 GHz and it's called Itanium, not Pentium. So clock frequency is not necessarily a good way of judging a processors ability when comparing two different designs.

a timeline of Intel and AMD jumps in the same timeframe.

Motorola: 400mhz-1.5ghz
Intel: 1.5ghz-3.4ghz
AMD: 1.0ghz-2.4ghz

Unlike Motorola and Intel, AMD actively improved their designs while also scaling the clock. We had to go to IBM to get the same effect.

Hogwash. Motorola, Intel and AMD all actively improved their designs while scaling the clock. Motorola moved the bus speed up, added SMP, L3 cache, onboard L2 cache, temperature diode, power management features and of course Altivec. Motorola also added SOI and a low-k dielectric to their chip making process.

Meanwhile IBM basically split the existing dual-core Power4 in two to come up with the 970. IBM also added a less capable VMX or Altivec to the 970 than what Motorola uses on the G4. Seems IBM was in a hurry to get the project done.

IBM did not create a whole new chip architecture for Apple's exclusive use. Nor would any chip manufacture make a design solely for Apple's use in a shrinking marketshare. Yet people expected Motorola to have come up with a high watt usage processor design that they couldn't hope to sell anywhere but to Apple.

Realisticly Motorola's plans have always been to create processors for Apple's use that could also be sold in the embedded market (in fact Motorola's website explains that host processors are introduced in computers first and work on down through the embedded market). Which means keeping the power use down. There were obvious setbacks for Motorola's 2001 roadmap timeframe (still on Motorola's website). Details of the upcoming dual-core G4 design were mentioned for introduction at the .13-micron level and not at the .090-micron process size (perhaps even more pipeline stages). This is basically what the so-called Motorola G5 was going to be. Yet, it would never intended to be a Pentium 4 trump card. Apple realized that and started working with IBM close to 4 years ago to bring out a PowerPC version of the Power4 architecture. The 970 simply brings Apple up to a whole new level of performance. It is not meant to be a complete replacement for a low power use chip like the G4. Lower power use is not it's foretay, much like the Pentium 4 does not make an ideal processor for portable use.

You believe Motorola's roadmap? After all this time, you trust a press release from them?

That pdf file is from a Motorola presentation at a developers conference last year. It is not in any of the companies press releases.

To jump to the conclusion that Motorola is planning on or has stopped ongoing development of the G4 flies in the face of statements to the contrary from both Motorola and Apple. Yes, I stated Apple. An Apple spokesperson recently stated that Apple has no intentions of dropping the G4 in the near future and they were glad that Motorola is continuing to develop it. The 7457A that is found in the PowerBook and it's use in the iBook are recent examples of that. Using your sense of jumping to unfounded conclusions...has IBM stopped development on the 970 since there has been no more speed advancements since August of last year.
 
thatwendigo said:
I stand corrected, then. ....
Fair enough, then. ....

I'd buy that the Centrino is a better battery manager, largely because it's a vastly newer design. .....

I agree. ......

We agree again.


Since IBM agreed to open up the powerpc, Sony and AMD have decided to work on it in conjunction with IBM. This announced at their recent conference, and can be found in quite a few news sites. Where this will lead is of course unclear, but I agree with thatwendigo, that this may bode well for Apple.

Unless Moto makes serious revisions to the g4, it will continue to fall behind the PC counterparts.. At this point in tim it is still substandard in DDR support and FSB....I'l believe it when I see it in the case of Moto and IBM. In the past IBM has been more reliable about keeping their prmises.
 
You know, I had a whole long reply to this, but I just deleted every word of it, because I'm not going to pander to your insulting and demeaning tone. Most of what you said I already know, and most of what you disagree with in my posts just shows that you either didn't read all that carefully, implied things I didn't say, or otherwise couldn't be bothered to at all fairly represent what I said.

The G4 is not being developed for Apple. It's being developed for Motorola, just as the 970 is being developed for IBM. In both cases, they are CPUs that are created for specific purposes, sometimes with Apple's input on the design, and which have largely been bought in volume by our favorite computer company. That being said, the G5 is not a low-power chip, and if you at all paid any attention to my general attitude about it, you'd know that I don't want there to be a portable based on it for the simple reasons of battery and heat issues. However, it's far easier for you to assume, belittle, and misstate, so I'll leave you to that.

Whether or not the G4 is still being developed (I fully believe that it is), I find it extremely unlikely that Motorola has magically gotten their act together. They're promising a lot of things when they couldn't even deliver simple bumps or proper quantities in the past.
 
In 1999 I don't think IBM cared about SIMD because the benefit to servers is about zero. IBM was making the low-end for Apple, so I don't get the ribbing at IBM for not automatically implementing SIMD (VMX). :confused:

Apple wanted IBM for the next Pro chip and as far as I am concerned they delivered. They will solve the 90nm problem soon enough. I seriously doubt IBM threw billions of dollars into a plant to fail.

-mark
 
Phinius said:
Motorola also stated last year that the plan is to double the frequency of the G4 about every 18 months. That essentially means the G4 would move to 2GHz about July 2004. So, expect either a dual-core 2GHz G4 chip or a single 2 GHz G4 processor about that time.

With what?? A 200Mhz system bus?!?! I don't know about everyone else but the damn FSB needs to be addressed by Moto else what the hell is the point of a 2Ghz (fire hose) and a 333Mhz+ memory bus (garden hose) going through a 167Mhz+ FSB (straw). OS be damned at this point. This is a hardware issue.
If Moto addresses this and breaths some new life into the PowerBook line, then the G5 PowerBook can come out in 2038 for all I care. For now there are massive bottlenecks in the PowerBooks overall architecture that has yet to be addressed by Moto.
And I wish to GOD people would stop making the excuse that the OS makes up for any hardware deficiencies. Stop the BS please. I don’t care about Windows, OSX, Linux, Amiga, DOS, BSD, or any other OS. They are all tools for all I give a crap. But tools are dependant on the hardware they run on and the PowerBook and the current crop of G4’s are aging slag. Admittedly very pretty slag. But slag nonetheless. If I’m offending someone with this description of your computer sorry. But looking at this from the outside, someone who WANTS to be looking at this from the inside one day, and having only a minimal vested interested in Apple I’m not seeing a pretty picture being painted by Apple. In fact the mural looks suspiciously like the PowerMac’s pre-G5. The overall system is being strangled and unless some architectural changes are applied to the PowerBook line adding a 2Ghz, 3Ghz, or even a dang 5Ghz CPU isn’t going to make a drastic difference. Flame away all you want guys but I haven’t stated anything that isn’t true. Now you will excuse it Its 4AM and I need some less controversial sleep. With my luck I’ll dream of G5 PowerBooks. :p
 
thatwendigo said:
Whether or not the G4 is still being developed (I fully believe that it is), I find it extremely unlikely that Motorola has magically gotten their act together. They're promising a lot of things when they couldn't even deliver simple bumps or proper quantities in the past.

Oh one last question I've been meaning to ask. Please point out what other products use the G4? Seriously. I really want to know.
 
SiliconAddict said:
With what?? A 200Mhz system bus?!?! I don't know about everyone else but the damn FSB needs to be addressed by Moto else what the hell is the point of a 2Ghz (fire hose) and a 333Mhz+ memory bus (garden hose) going through a 167Mhz+ FSB (straw). OS be damned at this point. This is a hardware issue.

Actually, I agree with you for once. The G4 has needed a better bus for quite a while. Frequency pushing only goes so far when you're not keeping the processors fed. The G4 would have done a lot better, and shown its age more gracefully, had Motorola just given us a better FSB.

If Moto addresses this and breaths some new life into the PowerBook line, then the G5 PowerBook can come out in 2038 for all I care. For now there are massive bottlenecks in the PowerBooks overall architecture that has yet to be addressed by Moto.

Screw the G4, unless they're going to make it somewhat equivalent to the still-unannounced 750vx. We need the FSB and memory clock to go along with the processor bumps. Something low power and quick would fit ever so nicely, and hopefully not be as excessively restrictive as the G5 is likely to be.

In fact the mural looks suspiciously like the PowerMac’s pre-G5. The overall system is being strangled and unless some architectural changes are applied to the PowerBook line adding a 2Ghz, 3Ghz, or even a dang 5Ghz CPU isn’t going to make a drastic difference.

You're right on this and I'm just not touching the section right before it, but there really isn't a whole lot Apple can do without either a new chip or some amazing redesign. I trust Apple to come up with something, but I hope that it's a wow product and not another compromise.

Its 4AM and I need some less controversial sleep. With my luck I’ll dream of G5 PowerBooks. :p

Don't worry. That'll stop this Tuesday. ;)
 
Motorola has DDRII on roadmap and that means a much faster bus

SiliconAddict said:
With what?? A 200Mhz system bus?!?! I don't know about everyone else but the damn FSB needs to be addressed by Moto else what the hell is the point of a 2Ghz (fire hose) and a 333Mhz+ memory bus (garden hose) going through a 167Mhz+ FSB (straw). OS be damned at this point. This is a hardware issue.

If you would look at the above pdf of Motorola's developer presentation in June of 2003, you will see that Motorola has plans for DDRII. That would essentially mean a bus speed of at least 400MHz.

For now there are massive bottlenecks in the PowerBooks overall architecture that has yet to be addressed by Moto.

Motorola added a L3 cache to the G4 in January of 2001. That reduces the number of times the process will go to the much slower main memory and therefore increases the speed that the processor is fed. Unfortunately, most people don't seem to realize that a much bigger cache is yet another another way to speed up the amount of work that the processor accomplishes in any given amount of time. That is why Intel has 1 MB of L2 cache on the Pentium-M and also why Itanium has 6MB of onboard L3 cache and why the Power4 uses up to 64 MB of L3 cache.

The publics focus of frequency and bus speeds as the major determining factors in processor speed is probably a significant reason why IBM and Apple kept the L2 cache the same size when the 970 moved to the smaller .090 micron process size. Keeping the L2 cache small also makes for a smaller die size and therefore less expensive chip manufacturing costs. It also reduces the power use somewhat. That also points towards Apple's interest in incorporating the G5 chip into the PowerBook.

Apple is at least partly to blame for the implementation of the G4 in PowerMacs. The effective bus speed could have been doubled if Apple would have used a dual channel memory setup.

Also, Apple dropped the use of L3 cache in the PowerBooks. That would have sped up the performance, but again, most buyers don't seem to realize the benefit and therefore Apple discontinued its use due also to its added cost.

The overall system is being strangled and unless some architectural changes are applied to the PowerBook line adding a 2Ghz, 3Ghz, or even a dang 5Ghz CPU isn’t going to make a drastic difference.

Apple seems headed towards a G5 in PowerBooks. With Motorola headed towards a higher power use dual-core G4 in the next process shrink, I don't see the next G4 as something Apple would use in the interim until a G5 PowerBook arrives. It seems more likely that Apple will introduce a G5 PowerBook in the next few months, after all, Mac users overwhelmingly want one and therefore Apple is compelled to make it.

Motorola is moving the G4 to DDRII in the next process shrink scheduled for 2004. That means a bus speed of at least 400MHz. Maybe more if Apple sees fit to use a faster bus than that.

There will be a 90-nm PowerPC G4 processor in 2004, made on 300-mm wafers, according to the chief technology officer of Motorola:

http://www.siliconstrategies.com/article/printableArticle.jhtml?articleID=10802061

The G4 will double in frequency about every 18 months and hit 2 GHz according to Motorola's Dirk Wristers:

http://www.siliconstrategies.com/article/printableArticle.jhtml?articleID=10802309

It's obvious that the next process shrink of the G4 will obtain 2GHz. That's due to about a 33% speed improvement that Motorola got moving from 18-nm to 13-nm. The G4 tops out at 1.5GHz on a 13-nm process shrink and if you add a 33% increase moving to .90 microns, then that is about 2GHz.
 
Phinius said:
It's obvious that the next process shrink of the G4 will obtain 2GHz. That's due to about a 33% speed improvement that Motorola got moving from 18-nm to 13-nm. The G4 tops out at 1.5GHz on a 13-nm process shrink and if you add a 33% increase moving to .90 microns, then that is about 2GHz.


Phinius,
I appreciate the insight but lets be pragmatic about Moto and release schedules they are about as reliable as the weather. Even if Moto dropped a working prototype of a newly designed G4 (G4.5? ;) ) at some developer conference I've still be highly skeptical. I don't trust anything said by Moto until actual units are being shipped out to Apple. They've lost too much creditability IMHO.
 
Motorola's last four series of 7400 PowerPC processors have arrived like clockwork

SiliconAddict said:
Phinius,
I appreciate the insight but lets be pragmatic about Moto and release schedules they are about as reliable as the weather. Even if Moto dropped a working prototype of a newly designed G4 (G4.5? ;) ) at some developer conference I've still be highly skeptical. I don't trust anything said by Moto until actual units are being shipped out to Apple. They've lost too much creditability IMHO.

Motorola's last four 7400 series of PowerPC processors have arrived annually like clockwork:

7410-January, 2000-533 MHz
7451-January, 2001-733 MHz
7455-January, 2002-1 GHz
7457/47-February, 2003-1.33 GHz

The next 7400 series has not arrived yet, but in the interum Motorola announced the 7447A which tops out at 1.5 GHz. Judging from the June 2003 statements that I have links to in the previous post, it seems that the next major update was scheduled to appear sometime around midyear-to-late 2004. I would not be surprised to see it appear in July of this year.

There seems to be a lot of distorted beliefs about Motorola's recent ability to deliver upgrades in a timely manner. Motorola has not kept up with Intel on the desktop, but then again, the PowerPC processors that Motorola makes for Apple are designed for use in the embedded market also, and not aimed exclusively at any of Apple's market segments. Likewise, IBM's 970 is a derivitive of a processor that is made for the server market and not exclusively aimed at the desktop or notebook market. Although IBM is likely keeping Apple's needs in consideration when designing future versions of the Power series of processors.

Motorola has to keep improving the host PowerPC processors in order to stay abreast of competitors in the embedded market. Luckily the embedded markets that use the 7400 series of PowerPC processors are also clammering for speed improvements that are catching up to what is demanded in the notebook market. That is low power use, yet much higher performance.

As for the 7400 chip being outdated, well, Intel's Israel design team used the Pentium III architecture as the basis for the Pentium-M simply due to it's efficient watt use-to-performance ratio. The next two versions of the 7400 G4 will be getting major updates in much the same way as the Pentium III did when it morphed into the Pentium-M (the current G4 is also comparable in performance to the Pentium III) After the boost to 2 GHz, with a on-board DDR/DDR-II memory controller and RapidIO, comes a .065-micron version in 2005/6 that will put it at 3 GHz. This should bode well for Apple using the G4 in small computer boxes where power use is very important.

Motorola (chip business being spun off as FreeScale very soon) will come out with a dual-core 7400 series chip simply due to what is demanded of them from the embedded market. Whether Apple chooses to use it is another matter, although I can't imagine that Apple's needs were not considered when the decision was made to go ahead with a dual-core chip. Motorola may be planning to have dual-core and single processor versions of the next series of 7400 host PowerPC processors.
 
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