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IBM PDF about PPC 970

essentially an MPR review of sanderson's power . . . keynote report. dated october last year, but just posted by ibm on the 9th of may. wonder why the article post is so late . . .


http://www-3.ibm.com/chips/techlib/techlib.nsf/techdocs/A2CE393ABF2CE99787256D21006AE8A2/$file/PPC970_MPF_Review.pdf
 
Originally posted by herocero
essentially an MPR review of sanderson's power . . . keynote report. dated october last year, but just posted by ibm on the 9th of may. wonder why the article post is so late . . .
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Consider the following: MPR charges ~$800->$1000 a year to read their articles depending on format...
 
Re: 970 not as fast as everyone thinks?

Originally posted by noverflow
970 not as fast as everyone thinks?

In the IBM PDF, it states that a single 1.8 970 can do 18M keys at 1.8Ghz in RC5

the dual QS 1.0ghz g4 mac does 21M keys in RC5

no, if you dream ad just double the Keys for a dual system you get 36M Keys at 1.8ghz

do the math and if you scale a G4 to do 36M Keys in rc5 you would need a dual 1.7143 GHZ ...

this means that even if you loose info to the dual system, the 970 will not be faster in Altivec programs.

however if you note that apple dual 1.42 can acheave 21Gf. the dual 1.8 will do near 30gf/s

and we know by the altivec fractle program that the second processor will double the Gf... we do our math again

a Dual 1.947Ghz G4 would be needed to do the same work as a dual 1.8ghz 970


according to apple one of my 1.0ghz g4s should do 1.5gf with NO altivec

so at 1.8 should do 2.7Gf with NO altivec

BUT a 1.8 970 does 7.2Gf

That is 2.6X faster with no altives used

So while the 970 will not do a ton more work using altivec, it will do a bunch more for normal non altivec enhanced code.


but i could be wrong about all of it
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Your math is kinda funky but your conclusions are correct.
 
Wow, talking about an incestuous circle. I discovered this link yesterday, posted it here, and now you're linking it back from MacB. 😀
 
What makes you all think the 970 was designed by IBM and pitched to Apple?

Maybe Steve called up IBM and said, "Hey, build us a scaled-down Power4 and we'll dump Motorola forever." And IBM said, "Okay, Steve."
 
Originally posted by cb911
that is an old PDF... i din't even know, or hear about any rumors of the 970 back then😱

although it is dated from way back last year, could IBM have updated some info in it?

anyway, i've never seen this before and it looks like good reading.🙂
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Macbidouille says that the pdf file has been rewritten, at least partly, that s why i posted the link.
 
not as old as you think

i have acrobat 5 and i asked it to show me the info of this document. two things are really interesting:

Created: 5.3.2003 (d.m.y) 15:25:22
Modified: 5.3.2003 (d.m.y) 15:25:47

so this one was updated and not so old as you think.
 
Re: not as old as you think

Originally posted by negrito
i have acrobat 5 and i asked it to show me the info of this document. two things are really interesting:

Created: 5.3.2003 (d.m.y) 15:25:22
Modified: 5.3.2003 (d.m.y) 15:25:47

so this one was updated and not so old as you think.
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Not only that, it was created on a Mac!

Creator: QuarkXPress: LaserWriter 8 8.7
Producer: Acrobat Distiller 4.0 for Macintosh
 
What will dual add to this??

Well, the article does not mention a dual configuration as far as I noticed..

So, They allready say that a single 1,8 ghz 970 is highly competitive with a current pentium 4 processor, And if we do the math, and quoting those 'famous' benchmarks saying that with the new motherboards and chiparchitecture, a second processor will give a 90% speed advantage, (in stead of 50 à 60% with the G4+) then a dual 1,8 would outperform the pentium 4 with something like 60 or 70%.. Am I right?

Please I hope I'm right 😀

Ge4-ce
 
depressing

"Again, however, remember the 970 probably won't appear in systems for almost a year, and a lot can happen in a year. Intel's Pentium 4 will be pushing 4.0GHz by then, allowing the x86 to maintain the same 2-to-1 clock frequency advantage over the PowerPC that it enjoys today. Other competing processors will be faster by then, too. Of course, clock frequency isn't an absolute indicator of performance,"

This statement near the end of the pdf depressed the hell out of me! When will an Apple be on top of the speed issue?! I don't really care so much about minute speed differences, but the larger the difference, the fewer Apple customers there will be. That will mean limited 3rd party support, as we've seen year after year. For the multi-media professional with an Apple-based setup it means headaches and disappointments.
 
"Again, however, remember the 970 probably won't appear in systems for almost a year, and a lot can happen in a year. Intel's Pentium 4 will be pushing 4.0GHz by then, allowing the x86 to maintain the same 2-to-1 clock frequency advantage over the PowerPC that it enjoys today. Other competing processors will be faster by then, too. Of course, clock frequency isn't an absolute indicator of performance,"

This statement near the end of the pdf depressed the hell out of me! When will an Apple be on top of the speed issue?! I don't really care so much about minute speed differences, but the larger the difference, the fewer Apple customers there will be. That will mean limited 3rd party support, as we've seen year after year. For the multi-media professional with an Apple-based setup it means headaches and disappointments.

These are all forward looking statements from last year and speculation based on how they believed the Pentium 4 would stack up against the PPC970 this year!

Nothing to worry about.

They mention volume production for the PPC970 in H203, that's june onwards of this year, they speculated that intel could have 4Ghz P4s by then, they won't.

Intel's roadmap clearly shows 3.2Ghz by Q403. Apart from the increase of ondie L2 cache from 512K to 1Mb, an increase in bus speed from (133Mhz x 4) to (200Mhz x 4), the pentium 4 design that will be competing with the PPC970 isn't significantly different to the current design, it's certainly not going to be 4Ghz vs 1.8Ghz that's for sure, maybe 3.2 vs 1.8 by the end of this year at the worst.

Benchmarks on one of the PC sites for an overclocked P4 running at 3.2Ghz on an 800Mhz bus only showing it to scale in performance according to the clockspeed increase, even though the large L2 cache would make the actual P4s perform better, it's been mentioned in quite a few articles on sites like arstechnica how an 800Mhz bus that consists of 4 x 200Mhz isn't as efficient as an 800Mhz bus that's simply 2 x 400Mhz.
 
For me, every 1% performance increase counts! If you're in 3D rendering and video, trust me! I does count!

I also hope that Apple will make a big difference in speed coming WWDC or at least this year!

If you buy a 4000 or 5000 $ machine, you have the right to say it's faster then others! I just can't stand the fact that current dual 1,42 G4 cannot standup against a 3 Ghz pentium 4 on certain area's (3D rendering) while they are a lot cheaper!

Then again, I would never change to pc!! ease of use and stable functional system is way more important!
 
God, how I hope...

...that Apple won't wait until sometime in 2004 with the introduction of the new Power Macs. IBM is ahead of schedule, I know, but Apple's never been too quick with jumping on any bandwagon. I'm not getting my hopes up too high with this PPC970 thing. Although it definitely would be great if Jobs actually would present a (prototype of a) new Power Mac with this new processor. And I also hope Apple's going with the high end of it, and not just going 'safe' with the 1.8GHz model. IBM has let the world know it's capable of producing 2GHz+ PPC970s, and I think Apple should just risk it and use those in the top end Power Macs.

Don't you all think?
 
Ge-4 CE...

Yes, I agree to an extent. But I think a lot of the problems have to do with 3rd party software being written to work better in the PC environment. That's DEFINITELY the case with AfterEffects. Yes, AE on a PC is snappier. But tests have proved that Adobe hasn't built AE to make use of the dual proc at all. Or at least very marginally. Using dual procs speeds up FCP twice the speed, nearly twice the speed with Combustion. With AE it's just a hair difference. So I think a lot of the bs flying around about how much faster, how much better the pc speed increase it is bunk. False advertizing. Certainly the speeds have to rise, and you're right... for the money we pay we deserve THE BEST!
 
i'm new to this forum, but i found something interesting in the PDF.

AltiVec is at least as powerful as Intel's MMX, SSE, and SSE2 extensions. All are based on 128-bit SIMD operations. Although older Macs with G3 and earlier CPUs lack AltiVec (which Apple calls the Velocity Engine), we consider AltiVec compatibility an absolute requirement for any new PowerPC chip intended for Macs. Some strategic Mac software, such as Adobe PhotoShop, relies on AltiVec to accelerate critical functions. Of course, a vector-processing engine would be equally welcome in a Unix workstation, a 3D-graphics render-farm server, and some embedded systems. But IBM's decision to equip the 970 with AltiVec is a strong indication that Apple is a defining customer for the chip.
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Certainly, IBM could find a nice home for the 970 in its own Unix and Linux workstations and entry-level servers. But it's a good bet the 970 will also end up in a Mac - unless Apple's thinking is even more differend than advertised.
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from Loop Rumors

We received word that two large shipments of Power PC 970 processors went to Foxconn in Taiwan, under a purchase order from Apple computer. Twenty thousand 1.4Ghz PPC 970's and forty thousand 1.6Ghz PPC 970's have already arrived in their hands. IBM's inventory contains fifty thousand 1.8 Ghz PPC 970's, of which forty thousand are destined for Foxconn tomorrow (Wednesday).

IBM has listed as pending 2Ghz parts as well, which means that it will be in inventory within a month if their fab in East Fishkill produces sufficient volumes of them, and from what we hear they should be in stock by mid-June. Apple has stated that they need a minimum of 40 thousand in order to make a production run, and from what we understand this is for dual processors because normally their production runs are twenty thousand units. It is not IBM's policy to comment on other vendor's unreleased products. We have also been briefed that the PPC 970 will come in 2.3 and 2.5Ghz configurations by the end of the year, and as well some preliminary specs on the upcoming 980 processor, which is a Power 5 derivative..
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Originally posted by mislabeledstar
Don't forget that this is an old report. At the time this was printed 1.8 gig was supposedly the highest, but since then IBM has released statements indicating higher sppeds of 2 gig+.
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IIRC the higher speeds were from the 970+ as well as stated by the naked mole rat.
 
Originally posted by Christner
Check out Steven Den Beste's opinion on Apple's new music store strategy and the likelihood that the 970 will be its salvation:

http://www.denbeste.nu/cd_log_entries/2003/05/Applesexitstrategy.shtml

Yet another doom-and-gloomer or does he have the facts right?
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Defenitly another doom-and-gloomer!!! there is some crap out there, and this is the best out of it.. as long as a company is making profit, it will exist in some way, and even if (and realy, IF) PPC is doomed, then Apple could allways switch to x86! But I certainly do not think that the musicstore is some way to save Apple... Apple is a healthy company with loyal clients making innovating products, creating new ideas and setting standards!

I see a bright future for Apple.. they allready have a good consumer line, a great (the best) mobile-line, and I admit, they have had some problems with their pro-line, but with the new powermacs coming, they will close the gap and maybe even have an advantage! We will see what the future brings us.. Apple has been declaired bancrupt for many times, but has never actually been! So the ones who write this stuff aren't thinking... that's my opinion 😀
 
Originally posted by Ge4-ce
Defenitly another doom-and-gloomer!!! there is some crap out there, and this is the best out of it.. as long as a company is making profit, it will exist in some way, and even if (and realy, IF) PPC is doomed, then Apple could allways switch to x86! But I certainly do not think that the musicstore is some way to save Apple... Apple is a healthy company with loyal clients making innovating products, creating new ideas and setting standards!

I see a bright future for Apple.. they allready have a good consumer line, a great (the best) mobile-line, and I admit, they have had some problems with their pro-line, but with the new powermacs coming, they will close the gap and maybe even have an advantage! We will see what the future brings us.. Apple has been declaired bancrupt for many times, but has never actually been! So the ones who write this stuff aren't thinking... that's my opinion 😀
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right 😀
there s nothing more to say.. ..
 
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