Dual Core PowerPC 970s

[Sun Baked]

I did order it through my job its the Board Of Education In my city so whats there excuse.

The same as always, constrained supply of 90nm product out of the FishKill plant.

Processors for the 2.5GHz PowerMac, XServe G5, and the coming iMac G5 in short supply -- no telling if the forthcoming U3-Lite (iMac G5 Memory Controller) is 90nm or 130nm.

 

[phillymjs]

Dear Apple,

For about a month or two, could you maybe shift focus from developing future products and see if you can actually ship some of your current products?

Just asking.

~Philly

 

[dizastor]

two words:
Saaaa Weeeeet!

 

[maxvamp]

Let's look at some facts...

IBM Roadmap


We know that IBM is working on an SMT enabled dual core Power Proc.

We know that the 970 is a derived Power Core.

We know that Apple has an interest in expanding it's business unit with machines like the XServe.

We know that the trend is towards dual core.

We know that the OSX.4 kernel is smp/smt aware making any threaded app ( multiple apps ) perform better on this ( rumored ) machine.

We know that AMD is positioning a consumer Athlon64 that is single core ( 754 ), and a professional / industrial line that can be dual core ( 939 / 940 )


I suspect that there will be a 97x machine with these spec PLUS smt. I suspect that while the single core 970 will be relegated to the iMac / PowerBook (?), and the iBook may stay with the G4 for another year or two, we very well may see the PowerMac and XServe as a single or dual processor dual core.

This is just speculation based on IBM's ability and roadmap, and the AMD / Intel's plans for 2005 / 2006.

As someone said before, it should get interesting to see how these factors affect the importance of GHz ( speed ).

Anyone ready for a 4/8 processor machine?

Max.

BTW: For a wish list, I would love to see IBM integrate the memory controller, but I see no evidence that is going to happen.

Max.

 

[alexrd]

It's actually twice as cool....

I can't believe no one has pointed out that each of the two cores (presumably*) has SMT, so a single chip is 4 logical processors. The proposed 4-way SMP system would appear to the OS as 16 processors (4 chips X 2 cores/chip X 2 Logical procs/core).

Also, there seems to be a sentiment here that Tiger will only be able to handle four processors (logical or otherwise). Where does this perception come from? Is it mentioned somewhere in Apple's Tiger pages that I missed? If not, seeing as Apple has gone to great pains to make OS X multithreaded and multi processor aware from the ground up, I can't think of a reason why Tiger shouldn't be able to scale up to supporting 16 logical processors.

Damn. That's one hell of an Powermac.

Does anyone know if OS X has any ugly SMP kludges left that would prevent that kind of scaling? I seem to recall that at some point I/O was locked to one processor, which would decrease the efficiency of scaling above two processors, but I may be wrong or it may be fixed.

*Since each of the two cores is based on the POWER5, which supports SMT. One might argue that it's not worth having the transistors for all that sophisticated branch prediction when you're cramming two cores on one die, but the purpose of SMT is to keep the pipeline full at all times, an idea which should work as well for multi- as single-cores. In any case, that's how multicore POWER5s work (see here) so it's reasonable to assume that the "G6" will work this way as well.

[edit: AARG!! The dreaded simultaneous post! ]

 

[Sun Baked]

I can't believe no one has pointed out that each of the two cores (presumably*) has SMT, so a single chip is 4 logical processors. The proposed 4-way SMP system would appear to the OS as 16 processors (4 chips X 2 cores/chip X 2 Logical procs/core).

It's a dual GP-UL (aka, Power4-UL) -- not the GR-UL (aka, Power5-UL).

If you look at the link I provided... http://forums.applenova.com/showthread.php?t=999

hmurchison, GR is a different story...

Antares is Power4 based. There was a time when a dual-core GPUL was the only plan (as mentioned on the NMR linked above), although that changed for various reasons...

As for planned dates, Protos to Apple Aug/2004 and Oct/2004, Prod Jan/2005... as for Apple's plan, that I do not know...

Is it possible to post attachments here?

 

[maxvamp]

Correct me if I a wrong but..

Isn't OSX based on the MACH kernel?

If I remember history, the MACH kernel could scale to 256 processors ( based on OS/2 PPC ).

If this is true, the OSX kernel should scale very well.

One other thing to note from the slide in my previous post is that the POWER5/6 processor could partition into, not the two processors of the P4, but 64 virtual processors.

For the consumer, not a big deal, but for servers, such as web and Database, this is a very big deal. I doubt that most users / prosumers would benefit from more than 4 -> 6 processors real or virtual.

Just my opinion.

Max.

 

[DMann]

G5 or G6

Would this processor be considered a G5 or a G6??

Although the chip is still of the 970 generation,
one might imagine that it would retain it's G5
status, but if the performance is this dramatically
improved, they'll likely call it a G6.

 

[DMann]

970 MP

The same as always, constrained supply of 90nm product out of the FishKill plant.

Processors for the 2.5GHz PowerMac, XServe G5, and the coming iMac G5 in short supply -- no telling if the forthcoming U3-Lite (iMac G5 Memory Controller) is 90nm or 130nm.

Also consider supply and DEMAND for those little demons

 

[ddtlm]

alexrd:

I can't believe no one has pointed out that each of the two cores (presumably*) has SMT, so a single chip is 4 logical processors. The proposed 4-way SMP system would appear to the OS as 16 processors (4 chips X 2 cores/chip X 2 Logical procs/core).

Hold on there, Apple is not going to suddenly jump to that many threads. Such a system would be very expensive and noone would have anything to use it (other than as a server), so it wouldn't sell. I could see 4 logical processors, and no more.

 

[ddtlm]

maxvamp:

If this is true, the OSX kernel should scale very well.

There is a difference between being able to run 256 CPUs, and being able to run 256 CPUs well. That many processors represents a non-trivial challenge, to say the least.

 

[alexrd]

It's a dual GP-UL (aka, Power4-UL) -- not the GR-UL (aka, Power5-UL).

If you look at the link I provided... http://forums.applenova.com/showthread.php?t=999

Ah. So much for that, then.

And upon further consideration, it certainly makes sense that the 970MP would be based on the Power4-UL.

At any rate, I would put my money on 2-chip, 4-way systems from apple (rather than saying "well, each chip is two procs, so we'll just use one"). The whole point of mutlicore design is to take advantage of the extra transistors that you can cram in due to process improvements (SOI, 90nm, etc...) The chip should be price competitive with contemporary, state of the art single-core chips; it's not like a two-core chip is twice as big, you're just utilizing your transistor count in a different way.

-alex

 

[ibjoshua]

antares

A binary star?
Nice choice of name.

i_b_joshua

 

[alexrd]

Hold on there, Apple is not going to suddenly jump to that many threads. Such a system would be very expensive and noone would have anything to use it (other than as a server), so it wouldn't sell. I could see 4 logical processors, and no more.

Why? What's inherently expensive about jumping to so many threads? If the cost per chip is comparable, and the multithreading is already in the OS, there's no reason at all for Apple not to be able scale to 4, 8, 16 or more logical processors.

It's not like there's a Thread Tax.

Besides, the system on your desk already runs a lot more threads than it has processors, each application you run is spawning one or more threads. Chances are, there are more than 16 threads running on your system right now. Once the computation tasks are already broken down into small units (threads) by the OS, parcelling them out to many processors is easy.

-alex

 

[~Shard~]

Pretty soon, around 2005, it will have been around about as long as the G4.. and remember, that G5 has had production problems. So if we hadn;t had any problems, it would have gone through many different revisions. The G6 would be a great thing to roll out next year... paving the way for all of the Mac lineup to become 64-bit, and not having any more G4. They should be scrapping the G3 completely by now, and they can't do that until they drop the G4 totally as well, due to bit limitations.

That's fair enough - I guess in my mind it will come down to more of a Marketing decision on branding than anything...

 

[Fukui]

Why? What's inherently expensive about jumping to so many threads? If the cost per chip is comparable, and the multithreading is already in the OS, there's no reason at all for Apple not to be able scale to 4, 8, 16 or more logical processors.

It's not like there's a Thread Tax.
-alex

Well, to a certain extent, there can.

 

[ddtlm]

alexrd:

Why? What's inherently expensive about jumping to so many threads?

The 4 dual-cored SMT chips.

If the cost per chip is comparable, and the multithreading is already in the OS, there's no reason at all for Apple not to be able scale to 4, 8, 16 or more logical processors.

Yeah and while we're ignoring costs, lets have Apple put Power5's in there too. It won't actually help anyone get work done faster, but the number of threads alone is bound to cause the surrender of Intel. Heh.

 

[afields]

For about a month or two, could you maybe shift focus from developing future products and see if you can actually ship some of your current products?

Just asking.

~Philly

*sustained applause*

 

[NSiebenmor]

wait or not?

I'm about to order a 2.5 ghz G5. Should I change my mind and wait? I'm tired of waiting and my student discount ends this summer!

 

[Trowaman]

I'm about to order a 2.5 ghz G5. Should I change my mind and wait? I'm tired of waiting and my student discount ends this summer!

Personnally, i'd go with yes, buy now. I wouldn;t expect these dual cores until next WWDC (with 3.0 G5 at MWSF or before)

Any Powerbook theories? I'm placing my money on first 1/2 of next year but beyond that . . .

 

[alexrd]

The 4 dual-cored SMT chips.


Yeah and while we're ignoring costs, lets have Apple put Power5's in there too. It won't actually help anyone get work done faster, but the number of threads alone is bound to cause the surrender of Intel. Heh.

Hey, it's all rumors anyway, I can dream, can't I?

Besides, even the Power5 quakes in sight of the multi threaded insanity that is Sun's Niagara.

On a somewhat related topic, in the environment I support (graphics and operations for a cable news channel) we would certainly have use for four-way, multi-core, SMT, Power5 based XServes. A few of those would make heck of a render farm, and with the distributed computing API goodness that is XGrid, many other processor intensive tasks should be amenable to running on some sort of back-end cluster, relieving the pressure for insane power at each workstation. So saying that nobody has any use for that sort of power isn't really correct (not that you said that, ddtlm).

-alex.

 

[Mord]

Hector:


Totally incorrect. You can't look at mhz and conclude that its fast enough, any more than you can look at processor clock speeds. It's latency is not low enough. Sure it can stream a lot of data (bandwidth) but that main RAM has a huge round-trip time (latency). The G4's L3 had lower bandwidth but much lower latency as well.

tests have shown that it shows very little benefit, i was pointing out the general lack of need for such a cache because the ram is fast enough and so is the system bus.

 

[iNetwork]

Wow...imagine having a G5 with dual-duals

It's called a Pentium 4 Xeon...

 

[iNetwork]

Would this processor be considered a G5 or a G6??

I think apple will still call it a G5, I don't think we're ready for G6 yet. I would be willing to bet they'll add an extension to it... probabally call it dual core G5. I wouldn't be surprised if the dual core chip will make it into consumer products and the true dual processor machines will be the professional machines. Intel has done this with their HT technology. A HT Pentium 4 is a dual core chip.

It is much cheaper to make a system with one dual-core processor than it is to have a mainboard with two sockets and seperate processors. I think our race for clock speed ramping is coming to a slow down a little bit. I think what processor manufacturers are going to move to is a more efficient processor and multi-core and multi-processor machines in order to gain computing power until the next advance in micro-electronics comes in order to ramp clock speeds.

Even if the bandwidth is shared on this processor, it makes it perfect for consumer level products. This will also give Apple an edge to further distinguish between consumer market and professional market. Right now there isn't a whole lot of difference. For example, this generations ibooks are just as powerful as the previous generation power book. I call a generation when apple releases a new version of the product; this is usually only a few months.

 

[Windowlicker]

yes, please.

so would there be any point putting two of these processors in one computer ... making a Dual G5 a Dualdual G5? that would crush competition.