Faster G3's

[primalman]

That would put us right where we are now...

Originally posted by Falleron
I bet that IBM will come out with a "Celeron" type processor for the Mac. It will be a combination of G3 + Altivec running at say 1.5Ghz. Then, the 970 will be for the Pro machines running at 1.8Ghz. I think this could all happen around MWNY.

The G4 processor is basically a G3 with the SMB [AltiVec] on it, with a few differences in cache and the like. When you slap a SMB on a G3. you get the G4...

 

[Falleron]

Re: That would put us right where we are now...

Originally posted by primalman


The G4 processor is basically a G3 with the SMB [AltiVec] on it, with a few differences in cache and the like. When you slap a SMB on a G3. you get the G4...

Yeah, you are right, but this would allow IBM to carry on producing chips for apple for the ibook. I think apple may break away from the "G" series of names. Not sure what they will replace it with though.

 

[rickag]

My 2¢
Faster G3s are great and all, but, the sooner all Apple computers utilize SIMID the better.

Have a very Merry Christmas

 

[lmalave]

Originally posted by medea
well im kinda torn on this one, the current G3's do run OS X very well, but why continue using them instead of G4's? I would think it would be a cost issue, but then why poor more money into improving the G3's? Anyways if the G3 is still the future for the iBook then at least it will be faster.

The G4s consume a lot more power. Personally, I would rather have the faster G3 in my iBook, if they can keep the same low power consumption and low cost of the current G3.

 

[Spievy]

Re: I wonder about this, though...

Originally posted by cubist
... Why are we so quick to assume that Apple wouldn't sell a G3 that's faster than the G4? Mac fans might know why a G4 would be better, but switchers wouldn't. If there were a 2GHz iBook and a 1GHz Powerbook G4, would the iBook really cut into the PBG4's sales? Some, sure; but they'd sure sell a lot more iBooks to the switchers.

And any sale is a good sale; the more the better. Does anyone mind if Apple sells 3 million iBooks and maybe 200,000 fewer PBG4s? Apple needs to survive until the G5 is ready, and a little cannibalization can be tolerated. If IBM can supply 2GHz G3's, go ahead and sell 'em, Apple. We know the G5 is coming.

I think you hit it right on the dot. To really get the switchers we need a proccessor that is roughly the same MHz as a x86. And if the G3 can do that, let it. We mac users understand a G4 is faster than a G3 even if the G4 has a slower clock speed. But the average switcher doesn't understand.

 

[Frobozz]

Originally posted by john123


No chance. You won't see an iBook sporting a faster processor than the $3000 PowerBook...it would utterly canibalize the sales

Unless, of course, this means they will also be purchasing faster G4 or 970 processors too. Just because they bought a couple batches of G3's, doesn't mean they're going to be put in a Mac right away-- probably at least 2 or 3 months off. Think of the production time.

 

[idkew]

Originally posted by strider42


I don't know why people assume that apple would be any better at getting mhz higher than moto or IBM. Apple doesn't know the first thing abuot chip fabrication. Whats more, the chip business would be a gigantic money pit unless apple continues selling to other companies, which means development would have to focus on things other than mhz, and so then you're stuck with exactly what faces IBM and Moto. if they didn't, the whole thing would collapse in a matter of months.

Though as you point out, apple doesn't have the resources anyway. and thank goodness for that.

i realize apple doesn't have what it takes NOW to make silicone, but, they could.

the reason i would like to see this is that apple would push harder. moto does a lot of things besides chip fabrication. to them, it is not a live or die thing. for apple right now, it IS a live or die thing. if pcs continute to be so much faster, especially to "uneducated" people, apple will continue to lose mmarketshare, development dollars...

 

[strider42]

Originally posted by idkew


i realize apple doesn't have what it takes NOW to make silicone, but, they could.

the reason i would like to see this is that apple would push harder. moto does a lot of things besides chip fabrication. to them, it is not a live or die thing. for apple right now, it IS a live or die thing. if pcs continute to be so much faster, especially to "uneducated" people, apple will continue to lose mmarketshare, development dollars...

Apple will never have what it takes to be a semi conductor company. the plants can cost billions of dollars. Moto is lucky they do other things than chip fabrication, cause their semiconductor unit is hemmoraging money. Why would apple want any part of a commodity industry, where it still faces the exact same problems as the people they would be taking it over from. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, that makes apple qualified to be able to get a higher mhz rating out of the chips. Perhaps they could do it, but only of they sacrificed working on other kinds of chips, which then means they spend billions to make a few million. Its ludicrous.

Does apple need faster processors: Yes!. Do they need to be a semi-conductor company: no, and trying to be one would easily put them out of business within a couple of years.

 

[lmalave]

Originally posted by strider42


Apple will never have what it takes to be a semi conductor company. the plants can cost billions of dollars. Moto is lucky they do other things than chip fabrication, cause their semiconductor unit is hemmoraging money. Why would apple want any part of a commodity industry, where it still faces the exact same problems as the people they would be taking it over from. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, that makes apple qualified to be able to get a higher mhz rating out of the chips. Perhaps they could do it, but only of they sacrificed working on other kinds of chips, which then means they spend billions to make a few million. Its ludicrous.

Does apple need faster processors: Yes!. Do they need to be a semi-conductor company: no, and trying to be one would easily put them out of business within a couple of years.

I totally agree. Apple will just have to stick it through with IBM. Luckily, IBM's 970 chip IS key to its strategy to push Linux to its corporate clients, so I don't think IBM will pull a Motorola and screw over Apple. More likely, IBM will ship more Linux boxes with the 970 (considering its large and diverse corporate customer base) than Apple will sell.

 

[wumpus]

G3 is better, almost

What does the 750FX lack? AltiVec and an L3 cache connector. Even so, MIPS wise it is considerably faster clock-for-clock for the 70%+ of situations that do not or cannot use vectorised instructions, it is faster due to its low cache latency and 4-stage pipleline. Pit a 2ghz 750FX (if one existed) against a 1.25ghz overclocked '7455A' and it will SMOKE it for all non-vector operations. This could be the code name for IBM moving a modified 750FX to a 90nm process, which could enable it to simply clock faster and have more cache. Either way, we should remember that AltiVec is what threw a spanner into the AIM alliance - remember that the 'Desktop 98' and 'Desktop 99' pre-AltiVec roadmaps showed multicore processors and other speedy exotica. Motorola made the G4 to sell PPC to the DSP market, the Mac has benefited by accident, but the rift in PPC thinking has cost us all dear.....

 

[Marianco]

I just read in Applelinks that the Pismo will get an 800 MHz G3 processor upgrade from PowerLogix!!!!! For day-to-day work using a non-Altivec program such as Filemaker Pro, this will be a fantastic upgrade! The cost is about $399 without having to send in your Pismo. Just send the CPU card in the box PowerLogix sends you.

 

[nero007]

I've said it before and I'll say it again. The best chip in any Apple computer right now is in the iBook. The IBM Sahara G3 kicks and if Apple didn't cripple the chip the iBooks could easily be faster than the tiBooks (I believe I read somewhere that the fsb for the Sahara chip is 200mhz, although Apple has it at 100mhz right now. And remember this chip hit 1ghz quite a while back).

 

[Macmaniac]

A lot of school districts are poor and an even cheaper and faster iMac would get alot of attetion! I think Apple should fet OS X to work in Afghani and ship iMacs to Afghanistan. They would have no competition what so ever, Apple should concentrate on third world countries that are just starting to use computers. Since there is no Bias!!

Long live the G3!!!

 

[zac4mac]

my 2 cents

The difference between the G3 and G4 go back a ways - the G3 was based on the old PPC603 core, the G4, on the 604. Biggest difference being a bigger/better FPU. 604s also parallelled well (remember the dual 9600s?) while the 603s didn't. eg. no multi-proc G3s but lots of dual G4s.

Apple will NEVER be a silicon producer, even Moto is getting out of that end, most of their production is now outsourced to Taiwan etc. Apple MIGHT take a more active role in their chip design tho, that would make sense.

That said, I believe the G3 is still a capable CPU. I have a new 12" 800Combo and as said by someone else previously, mine's almost as fast at most things as my DP550, it just has less memory, HDD space etc. Makes a fine road Mac and IBM's placing them heavily in the "embedded" market lately. Lots of life left in the G3.

Zack

 

[MacCoaster]

Re: my 2 cents

Originally posted by zac4mac
The difference between the G3 and G4 go back a ways - the G3 was based on the old PPC603 core, the G4, on the 604. Biggest difference being a bigger/better FPU. 604s also parallelled well (remember the dual 9600s?) while the 603s didn't. eg. no multi-proc G3s but lots of dual G4s.

From my understanding G3s and G4s were both based on 603s, which is the reason why the G3s and G4s just plain suck in FPU-intensive tasks. (do a search for "FPMathTest" for double precision benchmarks)

And there are indeed multi-processing G3s. IBM has made them MP-aware recently. [at least according to their roadmap, last time I checked]

That said, I believe the G3 is still a capable CPU. I have a new 12" 800Combo and as said by someone else previously, mine's almost as fast at most things as my DP550, it just has less memory, HDD space etc. Makes a fine road Mac and IBM's placing them heavily in the "embedded" market lately. Lots of life left in the G3.

That's interesting. A lot of life left in G3, but the G4 is basically dead.

 

[bigpics]

Re: G3 speeds

Originally posted by ExoticFish
I've read somewhere that IBM already has G3's running at 1.3 GHz but Apple didn't want to have their "low end" models running around the same Hz as their "high end" stuff. Don't remember where I read that so it's probably all wrong!

You might be quite right. Apple is occasionally guilty (in my opinion) of "PC JR-ism." For those non-greybeards who don't remember, the PC Jr was IBM's attempt to bring out a low-cost PC that wouldn't steal sales from its own more expensive PC's.

So they gave it an infamous "chiclet" style keyboard and limited its connectability to some peripherals and its compatibility in ways that slip my mind. It was a dog and died a quick, but painful death in the marketplace. Later, under Lou Gerstner, IBM moved more in the direction of letting all of its divisions bring out the best products they could and (and even to sell non-IBM products) and thus allowed the best to survive in a true application of Darwinism that's benefitted both IBM and its products since then.

Similarly, I've heard the new iMacs will only go up to 1.0 GHZ and not include 1.25 chips. That's even though all the PowerMacs are daul processors, but methinks Apple is afraid to have the same GHZ number attached to its lower tier (single processor) machine.... ....PC Jr-ism only hurts the company practicing it in the long run.

 

[macmusix]

G3 or G4 on iBooks

If I remember well, the reason for the tintanium shell around the G4 powerbook was the unusual heat the processor is generating. Check some comments on the web about it, some people have carbonized wooden furniture. If you'd put a G4 processor into a plastic iBook shell the thing would simply melt like butter in the sun.

 

[Abstract]

I highly doubt a G4 1.25 GHz is faster or better than a G3 2.0GHz. Like some people here have said, a G3 and G4 are both very similar, so I'm sure using a faster G3 is not going to result in slower performance when compared to a 1 GHz G4. Altivec or no Altivec, I think that using G3's in all Mac computers would be a good decision if it weren't for the PR nightmare of going backwards to an older chip for a performance boost.

Is it possible to give us a dual G3 2.0GHz computer?, or is there a limitation of the G3 that wouldn't allow for this? I don't know squat about Mac, so forgive me if this seems silly. I understand that it would be a PR disaster, but I just want to know if its possible.

 

[maclovers.org]

Processor for the power user?

So here we go....the G3 is just a fantastic chip, and I just bought another new ibook (800) because I AM a power user (Apple....are you listening?). Yeh, it's loaded with all the X11/Xdarwin stuff, and yellowdog linux. It's used as a tool, and it is a powerhouse. I could have bought a g4 titanium...buy why? The ibook is easier to carry, faster for everything I do (nuthin I got uses altivec), and makes more sense.

To keep on subject, long live the G3....until I hold a G5 in my hand and use it, I'll continue to tout the G3 as the best processor for the 'Power User', and sure, the G4 is great for the DTP folks.

Eric ---->> www.maclovers.org

 

[lmalave]

Re: Processor for the power user?

Originally posted by maclovers.org
So here we go....the G3 is just a fantastic chip, and I just bought another new ibook (800) because I AM a power user (Apple....are you listening?). Yeh, it's loaded with all the X11/Xdarwin stuff, and yellowdog linux. It's used as a tool, and it is a powerhouse. I could have bought a g4 titanium...buy why? The ibook is easier to carry, faster for everything I do (nuthin I got uses altivec), and makes more sense.

To keep on subject, long live the G3....until I hold a G5 in my hand and use it, I'll continue to tout the G3 as the best processor for the 'Power User', and sure, the G4 is great for the DTP folks.

Eric ---->> www.maclovers.org

Right on, bro! I also love my G3 iBook and it's plenty fast. Apple should ditch the G4 after they get the 970, but not the G3. Sony and Dell are still using the Pentium III in their ultraportable laptops, after all, because of the much lower power consumption. More speed is always good, but not at the expense of greater heat and power consumption. There's no reason why my next iBook purchase a couple years from now can't be a 1.x GHz G3 manufactured with a 0.09 micron process, a 200+ MHz bus, and DDR RAM. That would be more than twice as fast and have even lower power consumption. The lower power consumption of the G3 would allow Apple to add faster RPM drives and still keep the same battery life.

The G3 has a lot of life in it yet! IBM would be wise to continue to improve and enhance the G3 architecture and market it as a high-performing low power consumption CPU. There's always a market for low power consumption chips, not only in ultramobile laptops like the iBook, but also in any mobile device.

 

[trose]

Gut Feeling

Call me crazy but I always thought the G4 was gonna be trouble...I dunno just had a "feeling". Even before the whole 500mhz fiasco and such. The G3 just never seemed like it had reached its potential to me and apparently it hasnt.

Clock for Clock in non-altivec programs it is faster than a G4 correct? Than clock for clock itd be faster than a P4 and Athlon... Imagine if Apple had stuck with the G3 and been pumping it up in the Mhz and features department. I bet wed have Dual 2.5ghz G3s at the top of the line right now,that would be SOOO sweet. Not that I think the G4 is bad..hell I just bought a brand new Dual 867. But the G4 just seems to have a crapload of problems ( not on a per computer basis,I mean development) and is sorta "bloated" feeling. The G3 is one clean,fast and reliable chip ,not to mention G3 sounds cooler than G4

 

[bousozoku]

The G3 is no more efficient than the G4, except in heat dissipation. At the same bus speed, it will run equivalently until AltiVec instructions are employed.

Both the G3 and G4 were built from the 603e architecture where economy and heat dissipation were the biggest need. The G4 has Multi-processing capabilities, borrowed from the 604e, where Moto's G3 doesn't. It would be nice if one of them had the floating point unit from the 604e but that was replaced by the vector processing unit in the G4.

As wonderful as the pick-and-choose method may sound, it certainly didn't work on the G4.

The only reason to use the G4 is AltiVec. The only reason to use AltiVec is because all of Apple's computers have it. So, Apple, will that happen?

 

[skunk]

Originally posted by bousozoku
The G3 is no more efficient than the G4, except in heat dissipation. At the same bus speed, it will run equivalently until AltiVec instructions are employed.

In other words, the G3 IS more efficient than the G4....

 

[trose]

Hmm

I coulda swore I read the G3 was like 15% faster in non-G4 optimized apps? Maybe im wrong. I bet it wouldnt be super hard to get G3s MP aware either.
Long Live the G3!

 

[benixau]

Originally posted by bousozoku
he G4 has Multi-processing capabilities, borrowed from the 604e, where Moto's G3 doesn't.

mate, i hate to break it to you but moto as far as i am concerned has never made g3 chips. they are all ibm chips.

if you want to comment get your facts straight.
IBM has added MP capability to the G3 chips. they are more capable than the G4.

a G3 @ 2.0Ghz is going to beat a G4 @ 1.25Ghz alti-vec or not. slap a L3 chach on a G3 (IBM mod aswell) and you got a ripper of a chip. so what if it aint got alti-vec, lower power usage, less heat.


If apple had used those now in the MDD machines e.g. 2x2Ghz G3, then i bet they would be quieter