Originally posted by ddtlm
Phil Of Mac:
What does that do to refute what I have been saying? The next generation of chip isn't necessarily a "980", heck maybe they were talking about the Power5 itself, or as I've already said, nothing more than a 90nm PPC970 (which maybe they'll call a 980).
To refresh your memory, the original comment to which I objected was:
"The 980 was in development in parallel with the 970."
I think you're desperately trying to argue that IBM isn't working on a 980 right now. Here's the facts that we understand...
1) ALL chip makers work on multiple generations of chips at once. Sun is working on US4, US5,.. IBM is working on Power5, Power6... Intel is working on Prescott, Tejas, Yamhill?? and they are working on several generations of Itanium. This doesn't mean that Intel has Tanglewood silicon but they are working on it already. It would be impossible to generate a forward looking roadmap without parallel but staggared development.
2) IBM has said they are working on the next generation of PowerPC. Do you REALLY think that the next generation is the same chip with a die shrink? Come on. Has Apple ever called a shrunk chip a new generation? Motorola and IBM have made significant changes to past PPC chips and they haven't called them different generations of Power PC processors... just revisions.
3) IBM has said, many times, that they will be supporting the PowerPC for Apple for years to come. Even without saying there is a 980 working, promising several years of development ensures new processors and new processors means they will be developing them in parallel.
4) Even if IBM chooses to simply split off a 'lite' version of the Powers instead of evolving the 9x0 line, then as they are working on several generations of Power processors (which they are), they are also making considerations for the 'lite' processors.
The A64/Opteron use a different process tech, one likely much more compeditive with IBM's.
...
Ah hah, there you've fallen into the trap. That 50W is definately not a worst-case figure, its in fact close to the "typical" number for a 1.8ghz G5. Approx 80W is a worst-case AMD provides for the Opteron family, although they don't say which clockspeeds are capable of generating it. It may well be that no Opteron can generate 80W at this time. (Actually it would be worth checking on that again, maybe they've provided more details since.) The point is, noone (who is talking) knows if a G5 or an Opteron produces less heat. I'm betting they are pretty compeditive, but I don't know either.
first off, why is the A64 process so different than previous Athlons? Architecture wise, Athlon64 is an extension of the Athlon. Process wise, the Athlon is made on a .13 micron copper process just like Athlon 64. Athlon64 uses SOI which Athlon doesn't. SOI does lower heat, but I don't know what affect it has on the difference between typical and max output.
Now, what trap did I fall into?
I NEVER said the ~50 watts for a 970 was max. I simply stated that the link I posted indicated that the typical wattage for an Athlon was very close to the Max wattage. If typical an max were generally close on processors like the Opteron too (which is similar), then you'd expect the typical wattage of the Opteron would be nearly 80 watts.
But wait, I've done better... A list of Opteron max and typical wattage.
Link to wattage
Go figure, apparently the typical wattage for the Opteron is in fact around 80 watts if this person has their facts correct.
Looks like I know an Opteron produces more heat than a G5... and I'm talking.