IBM and Motorola Diverging

[arn]

This MacCentral article reports on IBM and Motorola's continued divergance in goals and projects in regards to the PPC alliance.

IBM, Apple Computer and Motorola worked together to create the PowerPC almost a decade ago. However, the three companies paths have diverged since then. Loughran says that there are no co-development activities currently between IBM and Motorola.


IBM is currently sampling 1Ghz G3 750FX processors... though it's uncertain if these will be featured in any future Apple computers. The iBook is the only shipping Macintosh with a G3 processor at this time.

 

[whfsdude]

What about the old iMacs? Those are still important for schools. They do need a fricken fan because mine overheated.

 

[Hemingray]

Personally I think Apple should just give Moto the Royal Boot and start from scratch with IBM. And by start from scratch I mean scratch. Drop the G3, take the scalable aspects of the G4, and develop a completely new chip. Is that likely? Who knows, but probably not...

All I see is that Moto's become practically nothing but a weight around Apple's neck... and it's hurting them as well as us.

 

[burningwheel]

the original iMac also has the G3. Apple still sells those

 

[iGav]

Now I think that Motorola really needs abit of sprucing up and a couple of Kompressors fitted to speed things up!!

But I've been reading here that IBM have had a G3 chip at 1Ghz for the last 2 years at least...... and they're still at 1Ghz??? if thats true they're just as slow at developing as Motorola!!

What would be more benificial though is if they all started working as a f**king alliance again........

The only losers here are Apple.....

 

[TechLarry]

Originally posted by Hemingray
Personally I think Apple should just give Moto the Royal Boot and start from scratch with IBM. And by start from scratch I mean scratch. Drop the G3, take the scalable aspects of the G4, and develop a completely new chip. Is that likely? Who knows, but probably not...

All I see is that Moto's become practically nothing but a weight around Apple's neck... and it's hurting them as well as us.

I absolutely, totally, unequivacably AGREE!

Motorola hasn't been upholding their end of the bargain for years, and I hold them 99% responsible for the performance gap between Mac's and PC's.

I hold Apple 1% responsible for not booting Motorola off the Apple Campus years ago.

I _know_ this isn't a popular thought, but frankly I would like to see Apple make a hard-core deal with AMD to use Athlon XP's and AMD chipsets in future Mac's.

The Athlon XP is for real, folks. The performance is outstanding, and it is a LOW-COST chip.

TL (Ducking)

 

[ejm625]

The Athlon consumes more power and runs hotter. Putting Apple on an x86 processor would be the death of Apple computers in no time. They would be assimilated and destroyed.

I don't know if you guys are paying attention but there is a major economic slowdown right now especially in the Tech sector. The fact that Motorola is still even making the PPC chip is amazing. And just because Intel can cram enough transistors into a chip to make it run at 2 GHz does not ever EVER make it a better processor. The actually processing power of the Intel chips is reaching it's ceiling. They can raise the chip to 3 or 4 GHz but the actual speed hasn't gotten any faster and meanwhile it just set your house on fire.

Motorola's chip design is by far superior to Intels when you look at the basics of it. Right now the problem with speed has to do with the system bus. When all of ya'll get your powermacs with DDR you can stop whining about speed.

 

[rice_web]

Motorola's chip design is by far superior to Intels when you look at the basics of it. Right now the problem with speed has to do with the system bus. When all of ya'll get your powermacs with DDR you can stop whining about speed.

I completely agree. A PowerMac with RapidIO will kill just about anything, and a 64-bit G5 will easily kill the Hammer and Itanium. Why? Because of the advances that Apple is making, behind closed curtains, to increase the speed of other factors.

In other words, it's not only the CPU that Apple is worrying about. The new G4 that is supposedly coming in July will sport RapidIO and hella fast DDR memory. This, along with AGP ports running, I believe, at 2x the x86 counterparts. Imagine, a deal with ATI or NVidia to make the ultimate video card running on the fastest video card bus in the industry.

I'm just rambling right now, but with RapidIO, the speed gap will instantly be filled.

 

[Backtothemac]

Yes, it may fill the speed gap, but will it ever fill the perception gap? Will it make the majority of PC users say, "Man, those Mac sure are fast, I want one of those?"

No it won't because the average consumber sees numbers only. 2.2 GHZ and 1 GHZ. They think the 2.2 is better even though we all know that is not the case.

 

[SubFredZero]

Originally posted by Backtothemac
No it won't because the average consumber sees numbers only. 2.2 GHZ and 1 GHZ. They think the 2.2 is better even though we all know that is not the case.

The only tests were the G4 1Ghz is faster then the P4 2.2 Ghz are the tests by Apple. When you search for independent tests you'll see that the G4 is a little bit slower then the P4... I'm sorry i have to say this but i think the independent tests are more relyeble then the tests by apple.

 

[SubFredZero]

Re: IBM and Motorola Diverging

Originally posted by arn
IBM is currently sampling 1Ghz G3 750FX processors... though it's uncertain if these will be featured in any future Apple computers. The iBook is the only shipping Macintosh with a G3 processor at this time.

I realy hope that apple will use this G3 soon, cause the ibook isn't gonna be a g4 for a long time and the 600mhz make me laugh... I want a 1Ghz ibook !

 

[rice_web]

I am fully aware that the megahertz myth is poppycock. However, the G4 will utilize the Altivec processing at an amazing rate once the bus speed is improved. DDR memory alone would make a huge difference, but an improved data pipeline will be a boost that might mean a, and I'm completely guessing here, 30-40% speed boost at the same clock speeds.

 

[Codemonkey]

Reworking model names might help...

Hey all. First post!

Here's my take on the PowerPC/Wintel analogy (which, I agree has always been a longstanding contention amongst fellow Mac zealots):

Industry Example
AMD recently changed their chip model numbers. The 1600+ model is actually only a 1.4GHz chip, but benchmarks showed that it beat out a 1.6 GHz P4. Therefore, rather than doing what Apple continuously does, they changed their model #'s to reflect these fantastic benchmarks. The same thing can be said for the 1900+, etc.

Is it misleading? I don't think so. As we all know, it's not about the numbers silk screened onto the chip, it's about performance. Can anyone be justified in pointing a crooked finger at Apple for 'false advertising'? Again, I don't think so. The AMD chip model #'s aren't '1600 MHz', they're just '1600'. And they let the public interpret it any way they want.

This method will prove especially useful if the higher bus speeds, faster ram and faster card slots come to fruition. Measure it as a whole, not as individual components.

 

[Pants]

Originally posted by rice_web


I completely agree. A PowerMac with RapidIO will kill just about anything, and a 64-bit G5 will easily kill the Hammer and Itanium. Why? Because of the advances that Apple is making, behind closed curtains, to increase the speed of other factors.

umm forgive me for asking, but if its 'behind closed curtains' how do you actually *know*?

 

[gjohns01]

LOL

I've owned an Apple computer since the IIc. I've always loved them and I still have one sitting under my desk at home next to my pc. Yes I use a pc and all of you Mac zealots out there keep one thing in your head. When the following things happen, you can claim ultimate superiority to the wintel world.

1) The "superior" G4/G5 or whatever you're waiting on hits the same Mhz level as Intel/AMD.
2) They offer DDR, ATA100/133 on the motherboard.
3) They offer enterprise class servers and enterprise apps and not just Microsoft Office and a tower machine with a server badge slapped on it.
4) You don’t have to work in an OS that has have the graphics subsystem accelerated and the other so slow you might as well draw on the screen with a pencil.

I won't keep going, because you get the idea. You can yap about how Macs are superior all you want. The fact is I built a dual gigahertz machine (with RAID) for less than 500 bucks. It works and it's never crashed on me. Ever. When Apple can show me a machine that blows away wintel performance on something other than Photoshop and it doesn't cost me $4000 to buy it then you can be as smug as you want. Until then, I’ll get paid for writing apps for Windows or Solaris. How many people want to be graphics designers anyway?

 

[iH8Quark]

Re: LOL

Originally posted by gjohns01
How many people want to be graphics designers anyway?

Sorry, but this is a pet peeve of mine. I'm a Graphic Designer. Not a Graphics Designer. Those people make water bongs.

 

[eirik]

performance: digital hub >> digital metrics

Apple is aspiring to be the creative digital hub for ordinary and professional users. Apple suffers from both a real and perceived performance gap with the Winx86 platforms. AltiVec enhanced applications show that Apple can compete and even win.

To compare performance, Apple should assemble a small set of benchmark comparisons. For example, how long does it take to render a five minute 1200 x 800 video clip (or whatever standard specs for a clip). Tabulate the results for the Macs and their competition, possibly using averages to account for different software on same platforms.

Repeat the same for other digital hub actions/applications.

Notify Apple's suppliers to prepare for an increase in volume!!!

Eirik

 

[ThorPrime]

Re: performance: digital hub >> digital metrics

Originally posted by eirik
To compare performance, Apple should assemble a small set of benchmark comparisons. For example, how long does it take to render a five minute 1200 x 800 video clip (or whatever standard specs for a clip). Tabulate the results for the Macs and their competition, possibly using averages to account for different software on same platforms.

Do you even watch the mac worlds? Every time apple comes out with a Apple and a PC running Photoshop,Quake,.... And shows how the mac blows the PC away. How true these test are is still a raging debate.

 

[eirik]

Re: Re: performance: digital hub >> digital metrics

Originally posted by ThorPrime


Do you even watch the mac worlds? Every time apple comes out with a Apple and a PC running Photoshop,Quake,.... And shows how the mac blows the PC away. How true these test are is still a raging debate.

There are thousands of Photoshop users. But, there are millions of camcorder users that want to be able to edit their content. Photoshop is not an omnipresent and thoroughly understood piece of software. The Photoshop comparisons only appeal to a segment slightly larger than that of the Photoshop community.

The metrics must be more relevant to the MILLIONS of targeted consumers. Video rendering, audio/video latency, MP3/AAC rendering, CD/DVD ripping, ... These and other metrics, if the story is not told in a stupid, narrow manner, would provide greater yet more understandable appeal to the MILLIONS of users.

What does Photoshop performance tell me about those things? If I am an ordinary consumer, lacking Photoshop savy skills, not much.

BTW, I've watched nearly every 'World for the last several years.

Eirik

 

[Rower_CPU]

Re: Re: Re: performance: digital hub >> digital metrics

Originally posted by eirik
There are thousands of Photoshop users. But, there are millions of camcorder users that want to be able to edit their content. Photoshop is not an omnipresent and thoroughly understood piece of software. The Photoshop comparisons only appeal to a segment slightly larger than that of the Photoshop community.

The metrics must be more relevant to the MILLIONS of targeted consumers. Video rendering, audio/video latency, MP3/AAC rendering, CD/DVD ripping, ... These and other metrics, if the story is not told in a stupid, narrow manner, would provide greater yet more understandable appeal to the MILLIONS of users.

How about this then:
From Apple's PowerMac homepage- "The first Power Mac to blast through the 1GHz barrier, the new twin-engined G4 runs professional applications like Adobe Photoshop up to 72 percent faster — and crunches digital video over 300 percent faster — than a 2GHz Pentium 4-based PC

Does that address your video question?

I've noticed HORRIFIC audio playback in XP (pops, crackles, etc.) that didn't exist when I was running 98/Me/2K.

CD/DVD ripping is more dependant on your optical drive than the CPU.

Back to topic, if ANYONE, IBM or Motorola can give Apple a great performing chip, I'm for it!

 

[Mr. Anderson]

I'm truly worried about this whole thing. Moto has dropped the ball and needs to get going on getting faster processors. Leaving Apple only one option to get faster machines by adding multiple processors is not a long term solution. MHz myth be damned, its hurting Apple not to have a single processor/motherboard/system bus that can stand up against the top end PCs.

 

[eirik]

Apple needs more leverage!!!

If Apple's market share were 20%, do you think that AIM would have failed to live up to our hopes? I don't think so.

Apple wasn't buying enough CPU's from either IBM or Motorola to dictate their strategic directions, respectively.

BTW, Apple moving more of its products to Motorola's G4 increases volume and hence Apple's influence over Motorola's strategic direction. This is something of a speculative strategy in that it lessens Apple's influence and relationship with IBM. Fortunately, Apple may have the option of purchasing the intellectual fruits of its alliance with Motorola and outsourcing to IBM or another manufacturer.

In fact, compared to their embedded markets, I believe Apple is a small fish. Does anybody know what kind of overall CPU volume that IBM and Motorola each crank out per year in PowerPC chips?

As I've said before, the embedded market, and to a lesser extent IBM's server market, prefer low power consumption over raw computational speed. While this point is arguable as to the degree that this is so, it clearly is a fact.

We can bitch about Motorola and IBM failing to produce PowerPC chips that enable Apple to indisputably kick butt in the PC world. But, what Apple needs is both a top-notch semiconductor supplier and enough market power to motivate that supplier to devote the necessary resources to delivering the devices that Apple needs to kick butt.

Now, if Apple waived a magic wand and instantly had 20% market share, the semiconductor supplier issue would practically tend to itself. Well, that is not going to happen!

In lieu of instant market share, Apple has two options to increase its volume high enough to COMMAND the devotion of a top-notch semiconductor supplier.

First, Apple could guarantee the purchase of a minimum number of CPU's, regardless of whether Apple resells them in PC's or not. This speculative strategy probably isn't in the realm of practicality.

I say 'probably' because Apple might be able to (may be contractually forbidden) resell their excess CPU's to embedded customers, such as Cisco, below cost. Even so, this speculative strategy is extremely risky. I probably wouldn't do it unless the numbers increased my confidence as well as if there could be a short-term radical performance improvement as a consequence of this volume committment.

The second approach is less speculative. Apple would seek partners of like-needs. This strategic alliance would create the demand for the dream G5 or whatever that Apple has been unable to do so alone.

But who would Apple partner with such that they as a collective could command sufficient volume-demand to motivate a semiconductor supplier to achieve the desired results? SGI? Sun? IBM?

I don't know what these and other companies are doing and thinking about with regard to CPU's. If you know something about them, you might contribute to this discussion by shedding some light such that we might conceptualize a strategic alliance formed for the creation of the dream G5.

Well, enough with this post.

Eirik

 

[G4scott]

Re: LOL

Originally posted by gjohns01
The fact is I built a dual gigahertz machine (with RAID) for less than 500 bucks. It works and it's never crashed on me. Ever.

Uh, did you actually buy the case/power supply/processors/ram/hd/cd or dvd drives/graphics card/sound card/keyboard/mouse/motherboard, and all that stuff, or did you just find it all laying around. If you bought it all at the same quality that Apple makes their computers, you would spend well over 500 bucks.

Also, for your computer to crash on you, you have to actually use it. If it just sits there, and does nothing but browse the internet and check e-mail, then almost any computer can do it without crashing. Have you tried to run a server, or processor intensive applications?

Not everyone may want to be a graphic designer, but even home users with a camcorder need fast processing to do fun effects and things like that on their iMacs, and the such.

 

[gbojim]

In fact, compared to their embedded markets, I believe Apple is a small fish. Does anybody know what kind of overall CPU volume that IBM and Motorola each crank out per year in PowerPC chips?

Not sure about IBM, but Motorola presented a paper last year that stated about 12% of their PPC volume went to end user computers and I think Apple is their only customer using them for this purpose.

BTW- I don't think Apple has to grow to 20% market share to increase their influence that much, increasing their volume by 50% - 100% would likely do it. I only mention it because I think that is quite feasible.

 

[TechLarry]

Originally posted by ejm625
The Athlon consumes more power and runs hotter. Putting Apple on an x86 processor would be the death of Apple computers in no time. They would be assimilated and destroyed.

I don't know if you guys are paying attention but there is a major economic slowdown right now especially in the Tech sector. The fact that Motorola is still even making the PPC chip is amazing. And just because Intel can cram enough transistors into a chip to make it run at 2 GHz does not ever EVER make it a better processor. The actually processing power of the Intel chips is reaching it's ceiling. They can raise the chip to 3 or 4 GHz but the actual speed hasn't gotten any faster and meanwhile it just set your house on fire.

Motorola's chip design is by far superior to Intels when you look at the basics of it. Right now the problem with speed has to do with the system bus. When all of ya'll get your powermacs with DDR you can stop whining about speed.

Ah, Horsepuckies...

Any processor installation can be designed to be cooled properly. I've got several PC's in the house along with the iMac, including Athlon XP 1800's, and cooling is not an issue.

The economic slow down has NOTHING to do with the fact that Motorola is NOT getting the job done, and deserves to be booted. I think legal agreements between Motorola and IBM prevent IBM from taking up the slack. I know there are issues where IBM can't use Altivec, I believe.

And I'll whine about speed until this is fixed. I use PC's all day, and while the user experience on my LCD iMac is far superior, the performance IS NOT.

TL