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Future of the PPC? (970, 980, 990, 9900)

Re: Re: Re: Future of the PPC? (970, 980, 990, 9900)

Originally posted by Freg3000
And PCs will STILL have Serial and Parallel ports. What is worse? :)
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Hmmm. I dunno. I am embarrassed to admit that I don't know what serial or parallel ports are!!!!
 
Re: Future of the PPC? (970, 980, 990, 9900)

Originally posted by Macrumors

Besides the 980 chips (targetted at end of 2004), there are plans for 990 chips on a 65nm process in 2005/2006 @ 6GHz and scaling up to near 10GHz. Beyond this, the PPC 9900 starting on a 45nm process is targetted in 2007/2008 running up to 20-25GHz.
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25Ghz is all well and good, but the important question is... what will the *case* look like? :p
 
So the FSB is supposed to scale with processor right? So does that mean we will be seeing a 12.5 Ghz FSB in the near future?

All I can say about that is :cool:

P-Worm
 
mmm... those predicted speeds sure do sound tasty. i'm a little dissapointed about no 3ghz g5, but it sounds like the 980 will more than make up for it.

now, where to find the money...

:D
 
regarding 25 GHz I remember back in the OS 8 days I think it was Connectix had products called RAM Doubler and Speed Doubler. Someone posted a fake product called Brain Doubler which said something like; "99% of the time your CPU is waiting for you to do something - now you can make use of that wasted time with Brain Doubler..."
 
IBM/Apple may be waiting on DDR-II before increasing 970 frequencies

It could be that IBM will advance the core frequency of the 9XX according to when faster main memory is available. If you look at the new Power Macs listed on Apple's store you'll notice that the G5s bus runs at half the speed of the processor core. Well if Apple/IBM want to take full advantage of faster bus speeds they need to wait until faster memory is available before advancing the frequency of the processor. Currently, 400 MHz DDR memory is the fastest memory manufactured in quantity for personal computers. Later this year 533 MHz DDR-II memory should appear and the 970 would likely use this to advance to 2100-2500 GHz. In order to make full use of the bus when the 970 gets to 2.6 GHz in the middle of 2004, Apple would need to use 666 MHz DDR-II memory and perhaps not coincidently 666 DDR-II memory is not expected to be mass produced until the second half of 2004.

It seems to be much more difficult to advance the memory bus speeds on the Pentium 4 or Opteron processors than it is for the 970 chip. The Pentium 4 processor has only had three different DDR bus speeds since it was introduced. Whereas Apple already lists different bus speeds for all three Power Mac G5 computers. It's likely that Intel will not move beyond 533 MHz DDR-II memory in 2004, so Apple should retain the fastest memory bus speed for a desktop computer at least through 2004.
 
Re: Re: Re: Re: Future of the PPC? (970, 980, 990, 9900)

Originally posted by jouster
Hmmm. I dunno. I am embarrassed to admit that I don't know what serial or parallel ports are!!!!
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I dunno either. They're probably something already outdated. I think they still make PC's that use pre-USB ports to hook up the keyboard.
 
Re: Re: 25 GHz?

Originally posted by CmdrLaForge
Hi,

But on the other side - I want to order a G5 (middle system) - maybe just to have one.

Cheers
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Wow, Geordi, you are the first person I have seen who is planning to buy the 1.8 Ghz model. I have seen a number of posts saying "I plan to get the Dual 2 Ghz G5," but this is the first one I've seen saying "I want to get the Single 1.8 Ghz model." Good to know that someone is buying them. Still haven't seen anyone going for the 1.6 Ghz.
 
There is a down side

The down side is we have to wait another 6 months till the PB get an update! I wanted to get a PB but I refuse to pay close to $3000(including tax) for a laptop that is over 8 months old and even if it is updated will still have a obsolete G4. If Apple wants me to buy a G4 laptop I will but they gotta update it and knock off at least $200. This may sound selfish, but I don't think OSX is worth THAT much for me to pay such a premium for old hardware.
 
There's an inconsistency in this article.

1) Steve says we will reach 3 GHz in the next 12 mos (say by Aug-Sept 2004)
2) Article says 3GHz will NOT be accomplished with the G5 which will top out at 2.6-2.8GHz.
3) Article says the PPC980 will start at 2.6-3 GHz and top out at 4.5-5 GHz.
4) Article says the 980 chips are targeted at the end of 2004 (which I assume to mean Nov-Dec 2004).

Thus, the article contradicts what Steve had said at the WWDC Keynote (3GHz by Aug-Sept 2004). Either we will have a 3 GHz G5 (970 chip) or the 3 GHz 980 will be available earlier than the "end of 2004". In either case, throw in the nonsense about 20-25 GHz by 2007-2008 and the article doesn't seem to be all that realistic.
 
I was buying into the article until the "g5 in powerbook jan/feb" line, I simply don't believe it... itll be a year before we see those.
 
Re: 25 GHz?

Originally posted by Ja Di ksw
Not to be rude, but what does someone need 25 Ghz for? Honestly, that is just insane, especially if they are dual processors. I know people making music or animation or whatever would like them, but for your average Joe, do we really need that much? I guess that's what the iMac's and the like are for, though by then they will have 10 or 20 Ghz or whatever.

Remember this? :)

"640K ought to be enough for anybody"
- Satan, um, I mean, Bill Gates.
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You just contradicted yourself. Just how 640k used to be pushing the edge of sanity, eventually it became far, far too little. The same goes for 20-25 Ghz. You can bet, dollars to doughnuts, that by the time we are there with that much processing power, the applications we run will have kept up with speed requirements every step of the way.

And Virtual PC will still be slow as hell. :D
 
Originally posted by C14ru5
What's the point of having eLiza error correction in a consumer processor? I thought error correction only was necessary in server processors like Power4 and Power5. I mean, how often do calculation errors occur in a processor chip?
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Yeah, I'm very suspicious too. If you do a Google search for "eLiza AND IBM", you will find that eLiza is an IBM project that attempts to reduce the amount of labor needed to maintain servers by implementing "intelligent systems that self manage and regulate themselves." It's mostly implemented at the software, not the hardware level, let alone the microprocessor level. Basically, it's very hard to see ANY relationship between IBM's current eLiza products and some great technology to "reduce the bottlenecks when the branch prediction unit fails." This smells VERY strongly of being made up by someone who just concocted a story using different IBM technology buzzwords he found on the web, without having much idea of what they mean. I would give 10:1 odds at least that this story is false.
 
POWER VS Itanium

IBM has announced that a POWER5 based computer is 4X faster than a Power4 computer. Intel has mentioned they are working on a Itanium processor that will be 10X faster than the currentedly produced Itanium processors and it will be manufactured in the middle of the decade. In order for IBM to keep up with that pace of improvement the POWER6 (expected in 2006) would need a 2.5X speed increase over the POWER5.

It would seem from the above that Apple has very good prospects for increasingly fast processors in the next few years. The company also stands a good chance of using much faster processors than what Intel produces for the desktop. Afterall, Intel intends to keep the performance of the Itanium processors at a higher level than the Pentium chips and IBM will have to match it with the POWER processors (9XX chips derived from POWER core).
 
Re: no expert but...

Originally posted by macdop
I am no expert on chips etc., but a 45nm sounds a little imposable, as I believe that would mean like 3-4 atom gates, which I believe is imposable even with UV fabrication technologies, and would also cause random electron jumps from gate to gate hence making transistors imposable, as I said, I am no expert, and I could very well be wrong, and I have just come back from a bar, and am very drunk, but I think simple physics makes this impossible
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okay, it's usually not my policy to reply without reading the thread, but I'm chiming in on this one. Intel has long had a 30 nanometer process in the works with a 2-3 atom gate. UV lasers aren't the only laser to use a invisible wavelength. think x-ray lasers.
 
Re: Another G5 competition

Originally posted by mk_in_mke
http://www.digitalproducer.com/cgi-.../2003/07_jul/features/07_01/cw_hp_ita2int.htm


check this article... nothing surprising but very interesting


Michel
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I have no doubt that HP's new Dual 1.3 Ghz Itanic systems could give the Dual 2 Ghz G5 good competition computationally speaking (at least in FP intensive stuff), but there are not even close to being in the same market. An equivalently configured Itanic system will easily set you back $8,000, as compared to $3,000 for the Dual G5. Of course, it would be hard to actually benchmark the two systems against each other, since there is very little graphics or workstation type software available for Itanic.

Sounds like Charlie White doesn't think that Dual Xeons will be able to beat the Dual G5, so he is desperately seeking out other non-Apple machines that can match it. Too bad the ones he is finding can't run most of the software he's interested in benchmarking, and come at an incredibly high price.
 
Re: IBM/Apple may be waiting on DDR-II before increasing 970 frequencies

Originally posted by Phinius
....Well if Apple/IBM want to take full advantage of faster bus speeds they need to wait until faster memory is available before advancing the frequency of the processor. Currently, 400 MHz DDR memory is the fastest memory manufactured in quantity for personal computers. Later this year 533 MHz DDR-II memory should appear and the 970 would likely use this to advance to 2100-2500 GHz. In order to make full use of the bus when the 970 gets to 2.6 GHz in the middle of 2004....
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Sure, or they could just release the units with 400MHz DDR RAM. Who cares if it works as long as it looks good on paper. :cool:

PS: Your computer will only be as fast as your slowest components. Thank goodness Dell stopped including floppy disk drives in their computers recently. ;)
 
5 ghz

i said "need" and "possibly" to buy, not want. i still think MOST people wont need a 5 ghz machine or feel a pressing need for anything faster . at very least hardware today is going further and longer between upgrades than hardware of 10 years ago. i dont see why that trend wont continue. im a graphic design and do professional print, video and 3d. i certainly want a 10ghz monster. but in all honesty, if i was limited to doing just print and typical home use, i can do everything quite happily at 1ghz speeds or lower. Same can be said for all my graphics pro friends, we all have been using machines up to 4 years old now for most things and none of us feel a pressing need for speed. im only one i know is who is thinking of even getting g5 amongst the 10 or so people i know in this biz. and thats because i do 3d.


as for the "same could be said 10 years ago" stuff i was offered in reply, well that was true then, but in honesty, what has been the killer app of last 10 years? email and web browsing. communication apps. this is still true even though the cpu speeds have gone from 60mhz to 3 ghz in that time. instant messaging doesn't need a 5ghz machine.

video games which had driven the cpu upgrade cycle in pcs' now drive the gpu cycle and console market more than cpu needs and having been accelerating at a faster rate. Microsoft even acknowledged this trend when it jumped into the Console market with the Xbox. no need for 5ghz pc or Windows if consoles are the future of home entertainment and perhaps more.
a new console at $300 every 4 or 5 years makes more sense than $1500 pc every 3.

the one thing i think WILL drive a need new for faster machines beyond 5 ghz will be real time voice translation. That will be the next killer app and will be water shed mark in human history.
 
Originally posted by Veldek
I'm quite sure that I read some days ago, that IBM has a 970 working at 3.2GHz dissipating 82W, which is as much as the Intel chips at the same frequency. So it doesn't seem impossible for them to reach the 3Ghz barrier with a 970.

Anyway, as IBM is working on the Power5 (the 980 will be a derivative of it, the G4 has nothing to do with either of them) and on the Power5+, I think we may expect a lot in the near future.
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correct it was theinquirer.net or theregister.co.uk
actually the inquirer.net has a really nice article on the G5 and the 64-bit processors. a good one for Apple
 
Re: Re: Re: 25 GHz?

Originally posted by macrumors12345
Wow, Geordi, you are the first person I have seen who is planning to buy the 1.8 Ghz model. I have seen a number of posts saying "I plan to get the Dual 2 Ghz G5," but this is the first one I've seen saying "I want to get the Single 1.8 Ghz model." Good to know that someone is buying them. Still haven't seen anyone going for the 1.6 Ghz.
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this is so correct. In France, apparently the G5 dual is a hit, several hundreds of units have been ordered within the week following the announcement. but no news concerning the 1.6 and 1.8 GHz model. Actually macbidouille.com made a small article "buyer's guide" for the G5, and of course the low-end G5 is not a good deal (no PCI-X, RAM, FSB,.....)
now the question is why Apple did not propose a dual 1.6 or1.8 model, that would have been so good actually.... since OSX is taking finally full usage of dual processor why not making G5 by default dual processor??
 
smaller gates

IBM has used tunnelling electron microscope to place individual atoms to spell IBM in the 1980's. Intel announced 1 atom gates last year. Quantam computing advances are accellerating. 20-25 GHz machines are most likely in the next 10 years.
M$.02
 
we are all of us decieved.......for there was another processor....one processor to rule them all, and in the darkness bind them......

but it needed too many fans!!:D :D

the treadmill of processor performance / application requirements will keep on running, and us paying -- it's good for business -- but not us

viva la revelution
viva carracho
viva libetad:D :D
 
This artcle is rubbish.It cant even get simple facts about the 970 straight.The 970 has 4 altivec pipelines not 2.(IT has a simple integer,complex integer,floating point and permute unit just like the G4).Why do people want to publish such lies.
 
Re: 25 GHz?

Originally posted by Ja Di ksw
Not to be rude, but what does someone need 25 Ghz for?
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If we get there first, to finally SHUT UP those Wintel "GHz-is-everything" fanboys and other Apple haters! :)

~Philly
 
I agree with whoever said that realtime voice translation will be the next killer app to hit the world by storm.
 
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