Apple and 3GIO?

[mongo1]

Re: Hypertransport is a kind of 3GIO

Originally posted by lewdvig
I read the Reg and actually understand it.

HT is an AMD technology is it not? It being a flavour of 3GIO - 3rd Generation Input Output. When I have seen 3GIO used in the past it has been in reference to Intel's PCI-X and Serial ATA.

HT was started by AMD, but now is owned by a consortium of companies, of which Apple is a member (see www.hypertransport.org for more info). 3GIO, previously codenamed Arapahoe, is being driven by Intel through the PCI SIG. Interestingly, Apple announced membership in the HTC days before Intel announced 3GIO and it's plans to drive it through the PCI SIG.

It should be noted that PCI-X is NOT Intel's even though Intel supports PCI-X in certain chipsets. PCI-X was developed by Compaq, HP and IBM then presented to the PCI SIG in mid '98.

 

[Xapplimatic]

Re: You people...

Originally posted by lewdvig
...really haven't got a clue what your talking about do you?

...If Apple gave us a long overdue DDR update you guys would be climaxing hard enough to short all the electronic devices in your homes. Talk about an easy audience. Apple has little pressure to innovate in any area other than design.

I beg to differ. Apple was first to put out FireWire as a standard feature in a PC (duh, they codeveloped it), first to universalize USB across their entire line, first to go SuperDrive, first to dump floppies, first to offer built-in Gigabit Ethernet, first to move to all LCD panel line-up.. Apple has been innovating in a number of areas that have very little to do with case design.. The whole style over substance argument is itself a substanceless accusation about Apple products usually only forwarded by PC enthusiasts who have never used a Mac in their life and have no idea what Mac hardware entails.

Memory/bus speed is about the only area where Apple hasn't been setting the standard.. and again, this is Motorola's fault, not Apple's.. Apple has no ability to boost those until Motorola puts out the G5 or a revamped G4. Even 7455 G4 specs are at their limits in terms of bus speed on the current models..

From the Motorola product spec page:

Product Features

* 32-bit Superscalar core contains:
* Three issue (plus branch)
* 128-bit wide Vector Unit - AltiVec(TM)
* Integrated 256 KByte on-chip L2 cache
* Fully Symmetric Multi-Processing capability (SMP)
* 36-bit physical address space for direct addressability of 64 Gigabytes of memory
* Hardware and Software Tablewalk
* High Bandwidth 133 MHz 64-bit MPX Bus/60x Bus
* 2 times the number of BAT registers than previous generation
* Three power-saving user-programmable modes to reduce power drawn by processor
* Parity checking support on L1, L2 and L3 cache arrays

The bus is limited to 133 MHz by Motorola's PPC chip, not Apple's failure to make a faster motherboard! Quit blaming Apple for Motorola's failure.

http://e-www.motorola.com/webapp/sps/site/prod_summary.jsp?code=MPC7455&nodeId=03M943030450467M98653#features