Apple, IBM and 64-Bit CPU

[MacRumors]

eWeek has further reports of an Apple-IBM partnership for upcoming PowerPC processors (called GPUL -- GigaProcessor Ultralite)

Some observers say GPUL -- which shares technology with IBM's server-focused Power4 chip -- will double Mac performace. However, they caution that the chip probably won't reach Apple's consumer systems for more than a year at the earliest

The article indicates that the processor will incorporate other advances as well, including a 0.13 process, SOI, and a multicore design.

This article echos some rumors reported by MacEdition which indicated that prototype machines were currently under testing. Their target date for these machines was also Late 2003.

eWeek keeps hope alive for upcoming Motorola processors with this quote about the G5: Meanwhile, sources said, the long-awaited PowerPC G5 CPU from Motorola is likely to break cover perhaps as soon as early 2003.

 

[Tiauguinho]

Excelent! Next year a new Mac! Bring it on!

I wonder if it will be a 8 Way Superscalar? but i sure do like the name... GigaProcessor Ultralite!! yeah!

 

[PROZAKY]

Music to my ears.

That's good news.

...Yet, another year!!!

 

[Hemingray]

Re: Music to my ears.

Originally posted by PROZAKY
That's good news.

...Yet, another year!!!

Yeah... ain't that always the way? We forever have a carrot (or in this case, an apple) dangling in front of us. Oh well, I can definitely wait. Already waited three years, what's another year.

P.S. Welcome to MacRumors.

 

[rugby]

I am glad I'm not waiting, and just getting a computer now. By the time I am ready to purchase again (2 years or so) they should have all the bugs ironed out and speed ramped up a bit.

 

[barkmonster]

maybe if I start saving now I could get the mid range next generation powermac from apple late next year, all the software I'm stuck with OS 9 for will be OS X compatable and my next mac will be 64bit, 2 generations ahead of my current one and blazingly fast.

right now my hopes are that there's still some dual Ghz Quicksilvers to be had for quite a while at mail order companies and then I can get one of those next year sometime and then wait a full 18 months before I get a new mac so I'm not missing out on any software by being OS X only and I've got a way faster mac than my 300Mhz G3.

 

[Mr. Anderson]

That is fantastic - can't wait to see them in action, even if we have to wait a year or more. A 1GHz GPUL is twice as fast as a 1GHz G4 - so if they had a 4 core 2GHx GPUL it would be >8x the speed of the current dual 1GHz G4. Not bad, and it would probably be even faster since the bus memmory will be upgraded as well. Nice Now if they could put a dual 2GHz 4 core GPUL that would scream!

And on the second page, there was an interesting bit

'Meanwhile, sources said, the long-awaited PowerPC G5 CPU from Motorola is likely to break cover perhaps as soon as early 2003. The G5, according to published product road maps from Motorola, should be available as 32- and 64-bit products with backward compatibility, though Motorola has provided few additional details. '

So we're going to see the G5 in January????? This ought to be interesting....

D

 

[Snowy_River]

Re: Music to my ears.

Originally posted by PROZAKY
That's good news.

...Yet, another year!!!

Read carefully:

However, they caution that the chip probably won't reach Apple's consumer systems for more than a year at the earliest.

Consumer systems, meaning the iMac and eMac. But I'd guess that means we'd see the Pro systems with this processor much sooner.

And this comment you've just gotta love:

Sources said that benchmarks and applications tests demonstrate that a 1GHz GPUL processor doubles the performance of the 1GHz Motorola PowerPC G4 processor in current Macs. Even so, they said, the first run on GPUL processors should range from 1.4 to 2GHz, depending on yield.

2GHz=4xperformance of a 1GHz G4



[edit: I just found page two where they say:

Perhaps the most disappointing news for Mac fans, sources said, is that IBM does not expect to be finished with GPUL project until late summer 2003.

Oh well.... ]

 

[chubakka]

a little G5 nugget...

At the end of the article is this little tease...

"Meanwhile, sources said, Motorola's long-awaited PowerPC G5 CPU from Motorola is likely to break cover perhaps as soon as early 2003. The G5, according to published product road maps from Motorola, should be available as 32- and 64-bit products with backward compatibility, though Motorola has provided few additional details. "

what the hell does "break cover" mean?

But perhaps this is the reason it's OS X from now on.

Long live the PowerPC.

 

[technocoy]

saweeet!

This is great.... my sources were right!!

now i can buy my powerbook next month, and that will hold me over till i buy a new desktop next year!!

perfection.

later

 

[ajkandy]

G5 + G6 in 2003?

Hey, why not both?

Right now the only Apple product that still uses the G3 is the iBook (and the super-cheap Original iMac). It's great for low power use...*if* you're using OS 9....

There may very well be a three-tiered CPU plan in Apple's future.

At the "budget pro tower", portable and consumer end, the G4 as we know it now with iterative evolutions.

In the standard pro towers and XServe, the G5 (Moto)

At the high end (scientific workstations, supercomputers and enterprise servers), the G6 (IBM GigaProcessor UltraLite)

 

[PROZAKY]

So... it is likely that we'll see a new Power Mac in Jan.

However, is there a possibility that apple will change the dual line up of Power Macs that they have now in Oct.
I mean, what's the shortest time period that apple has waited to change their Power Mac systems in the past?

 

[ddtlm]

Oh great, just the rumor I wanted to see. Not only, according to them, does Apple get one 64-bit processor, but they get two. Sheesh. Unless Moto's hypothetical G5 is designed for iBooks, iMacs and the like, I just don't see how Apple's tiny marketshare can make it worth while for Moto AND IBM to crowd in.

 

[arn]

Originally posted by PROZAKY
So... it is likely that we'll see a new Power Mac in Jan.

How do you come to that conclusion?

I don't expect new PowerMacs in Jan at all.

arn

 

[PROZAKY]

Originally posted by dukestreet


And on the second page, there was an interesting bit

'Meanwhile, sources said, the long-awaited PowerPC G5 CPU from Motorola is likely to break cover perhaps as soon as early 2003. The G5, according to published product road maps from Motorola, should be available as 32- and 64-bit products with backward compatibility, though Motorola has provided few additional details. '

So we're going to see the G5 in January????? This ought to be interesting....

D

I will believe...
All we need is hope.

 

[chubakka]

uh hello...

Both Moto and IBM ARE making chips for Apple...
There is already room for both...
that's what the whole PPC alliance is about.

And apple's hardware market share is only a few percentage points behind
HP/Compaq (16%) and Dell (15%)... People are always confusing Apple's OS market share (5%) versus the actual number of computers it sells (11%).

 

[mischief]

It's all hot air until....

we hear Steve utter those fateful words at MW: " Oh... And there's just 1 more thing..."

We have absolutely NO way of knowing what the time frame is here or IF the Moto G5 will be in Macs at all. Most of these pundits are simply assuming that a Moto G5 will replace the Moto G4... Most evidence points AWAY from this conclusion: There are FAR more stories floating around about Moto stepping out of active participation in consumer PPC R&D.

The Chip to be announced by IBM may be a lot closer to full production than anyone knows. If ever there were 2 companies that could keep a secret it's Apple and IBM.

 

[jettredmont]

Nothing new ...

eWeek may seem a more "credible" source, but I see no evidence that this article is anything more than a sanitized copy of the Gay Blade article in MacEdition last week, with the sole exception of the final "Moto G5 early 2003" rumor. While eWeek obviously has a wider audience than MacEdition, I don't think any new "facts" (ie, facets to the rumor) have been given here.

 

[PrettyMan]

Where can I....

Where can I buy 1 unit of that CPUs to change my old 400G3 iMac SE ?

Better, when can I buy half unit of that CPU to change my new 2,4 PIV ?

 

[Kethoticus]

rumors and facts

I would love to believe that by Jan 2004 or perhaps even sooner, we'll have these magnificent CPUs in our Macs. They do not sound like they'd leapfrog the x86 world, but they would certainly close the gap (taking into consideration that we'll likely see 4GHz chips late next year). However...

Whenever I criticize peoples' approaches to handling information like this, I am told "I don't take it seriously. I know it's just a rumor." Or, "Yeah, but I *want* to believe it!" Almost everyone here is already making purchasing plans for something that, until officially announced and released, is just vaporware.

Folks, this cynical doubter (in Mac-related rumors) is encouraged by this. But c'mon. We're not going to see anything for quite sometime. In fact, nothing is written in stone, except that both companies are *planning" on such-n-such next year.

If this is to happen, let's assume that it will probably be later than next summer/fall (these things usually do happen) and that we'll still be behind the x86 world, although perhaps much closer than we are now.

It's (possibly) good news. But let's not lose our minds just yet.

 

[chubakka]

Tired of hearing about PC speeds.

I don't care how supposedly fast the PC chips are... they have to to run windows.

Seriously... we all just read the article where a 2.4 GHz Profile did NOT smoke an 800 MHz iMac... not even close. The iMac wasn't 50% slower... wasn't 30% or even 20%... it had like 4 more frames per second in Quake!

Even if the PC is at 4GHz... and the IBM PPC is at 2 GHz I'm still gonna be happy. People need to get over the megahertz envy. It's pointless... a PPC chip in not a slower x86 chip. AND stop begging for the Mac OS on x86... that too is pointless.

 

[big]

Only something amazing will prompt me to buy, thhis may be it...4 gz? WOW that would flame my current G3 (450 mhz)

 

[AmigaMac]

I think some people keep forgetting that Apple is not the only computer maker to build PPC desktop computers! Amiga is going to unleash a new Amiga with 'PPC Inside' and 2 other companies are releasing new desktops with PPC technology as well, so IBM and Motorola will have orders to fill!

 

[123]

Re: Tired of hearing about PC speeds.

Originally posted by chubakka
I don't care how supposedly fast the PC chips are... they have to to run windows.

Seriously... we all just read the article where a 2.4 GHz Profile did NOT smoke an 800 MHz iMac... not even close. The iMac wasn't 50% slower... wasn't 30% or even 20%... it had like 4 more frames per second in Quake!

I haven't read that article, where do you have that from?

 

[chubakka]

here ya go...

An AZcentral article attempts to determine which desktop PC -- the Apple iMac or the Gateway Profile 4 -- bests the other in performance, ease of use and reliability. According to the independently conducted testing, neither machine is able to declare outright victory. Both machines are built around 15-inch flat-panel displays. While the $1000 Gateway has larger RAM and storage allotments than the $1300 iMac, it narrowly edges the iMac in performance, despite including a CPU with a megahertz rating nearly three times that of the iMac. The machines' Quake III benchmarks differed by only four frames per second; Photoshop results revealed the 2.8GHz Gateway was only marginally faster.

http://www.azcentral.com/business/e...://www.gannettonline.com/e/gear/18000324.html