IBM POWER Event - March 31, 2004

[DrGruv1]

Ok 975 or 976 Now??

I thought the 980 was next, but ok then, been trying to read up on the 976.

976 is the dual core version of the 975 and supposedly for the xbox.

Any other info ion the 975 or 976? speed/benchmark projections...

Do you think it will come out now?

Apple releases them on the 30th and the IBM semiar on the 31st?

 

[jwdawso]

March 30 is a Tuesday! I speculate that Apple will announce updates on March 30, and then on March 31 IBM will give details about the processors - Apple's event will be about Mac's, IBM's about processors. I hope!

 

[wdlove]

FWIW, Apple's having a technical invitation-only (well, they told a lot of people about it, and are now deciding who they'll let in...) talk in Cambridge, MA on April 20 regarding the PowerPC and PowerMac systems, what they are, how to optimize for them, etc. Since it's after IBM's talk, I can only assume they'll incorporate elements of that talk. Also, I'm assuming that any announcement of near-term G5 products will occur before then so as to be included in the discussion.

Both the IBM announcement yours are hinting at great things to come. A new Power PC 980 in the near future would be awesome. To think only a year ago we were speculating on the PPC 970. It looks as though my timing to purchase a new G5 is going to hit at just the correct timing.

 

[DaleDrechsler]

RE:3ghz Macs

If people are anything like myself, They're waiting for a G5 Powerbook. I'm dying to switch from XP to Panther, but I need a portable and the current batch of G4 Powerbooks just can't entice me away from price equivalent PC desktop replacement style laptops (in terms of speed of processor). My wait for the G5 Powerbook continues...

You know,

With G5 sales not meeting expectations, it now seems like a pretty dumb move on the part of Steve Jobs to say "They'll be at 3ghz in a year."

 

[jwdsail]

G5 sales expectations...

G5 sales expectations may have been high. It's a first release ... First product w/ PPC 970s, 1st w/ new multi-fan cooling system, first w/ new case design, first w/ new MB design (Hypertransport), and the frst system w/ SATA drives...

As much as I've been drooling over the G5 since it's launch, I never buy the 1st release of any product.. TVs, computers, printers, software, etc.. I waited for the PB G3 300 even though everyone was excited about the first gen 233, 250, and 292 G3s.. even managed to save some cash.. And I waited for the PB G4/550, managed to save over the 400/500 PBs on that one too..

I suspect that inspite of the pent up demand, that there are many waiting for a revision (any revision - not just waiting for 3GHz or posing that can't afford it anyway...) before jumping into being a beta tester. Apple may have been well advised to have had a revision where the included drive sizes were changed, just so there would have been a precieved revision.... For some that may have been enough to get them to jump, to feel that any bugs there may have been had been addressed.

When Apple does release the next update, there will be buyers that have been waiting for the 3GHz update as well as the people that never buy 1st release products.. There will be a nice jump in sales. And yes, there will be some that just bought 2GHz G5s that will say that they're waiting for 4GHz before upgrading.. Starting to feel old all of a sudden...

Just my $0.02

Me

You know,

With G5 sales not meeting expectations, it now seems like a pretty dumb move on the part of Steve Jobs to say "They'll be at 3ghz in a year."

It seems like so many individuals are putting off buying a G5 until the next mythical speed bump. I would be very interested to know how many of these people actually will eventually buy a G5 and how many of them are posers who can't afford or justify buying a G5 and are making excuses.

Sorry, that's kind of a rant. I really do enjoy MY NEW G5! It's tons faster than my B&W and it is so cool just to look at. At 1.8ghz it does everything I need, including video editing.

"Thanks for noticing me" (Eyore)

 

[jsw]

You know,

With G5 sales not meeting expectations, it now seems like a pretty dumb move on the part of Steve Jobs to say "They'll be at 3ghz in a year."

It seems like so many individuals are putting off buying a G5 until the next mythical speed bump.

Excellent point. I was almost afraid to get my G5 last year because it'd soon be obsolete (I mean, come on, Steve said it'd be much better in a year).

Of course, now that I have it, I find it to be just fine at doing everything I want it to do, and the parts that will soon be "obsolete" (well, not really) like the SuperDrive and graphics card can be easily replaced - and I get to use a G5 for a whole year (or so) before the 3's come out.

But, yeah, a lot of people are waiting for the promised 3's. Look how excited people are for a bump coming out in the next week or two. This reminds me of the old days, when a 40MHz model would replace a 25MHz model, and that really meant something. However, for most of the people on this list, I think they're a bit too excited about a 2.0GHz to, say, 2.6GHz jump. Yeah, it's a 600MHz jump, but the dual-2 GHz (or even 1.6GHz) models already are so overpowered for what they do that it won't make any real-world difference to them. Gamers will likely be most affected by the graphics card, not the CPU, anyway.

So, yeah, it was an unusually bone-headed move for Steve to pre-announce - over a year ahead of time - the faster models.

Frankly, I'm amazed that mine's remain top-of-the-heap as long as it has. Perhaps if Steve hadn't said that, and more people bought the 2's, they'd've pushed out a faster model sooner...

Of course, I recognize the point that people are waiting for a second rev before buying (good advice, yes, and I probably should've waited as well, although I've been having a blast during the six months I've had mine). But I think that a lot of the eagerness I'm seeing isn't due to people wanting a debugged version, it's due to people wanting one that's "really fast". Honestly, the current ones already are. Now, there's no such thing as too fast. But I just think people are a little over-eager.

 

[Naimfan]

If people are anything like myself, They're waiting for a G5 Powerbook. I'm dying to switch from XP to Panther, but I need a portable and the current batch of G4 Powerbooks just can't entice me away from price equivalent PC desktop replacement style laptops (in terms of speed of processor). My wait for the G5 Powerbook continues...

Dale--

Don't hold your breath, and don't expect the G5 PBs to offer all that large a performance advantage over a tricked out G4.

Best,

Bob

 

[yamabushi]

I have yet to see an ad for either POWER or PowerPC processors from IBM. Even the recent blade server TV ads only mention Intel Xeon processors. If IBM is serious about challenging Intel then they need to start promoting alternatives to the general public.

 

[jsw]

...Don't hold your breath, and don't expect the G5 PBs to offer all that large a performance advantage over a tricked out G4.

Excellent point. I'd much rather have a "tricked-out" G4 - meaning a slight speed boost, a better graphics card, a better (say, 1900x1200) screen, and a faster hard disk. I'm sure Apple could produce that sooner, with fewer heat and reliability issues (PC laptops already have these things). I've always found that CPU's were the least limiting part of a laptop.

 

[wdlove]

Excellent point. I was almost afraid to get my G5 last year because it'd soon be obsolete (I mean, come on, Steve said it'd be much better in a year).

So, yeah, it was an unusually bone-headed move for Steve to pre-announce - over a year ahead of time - the faster models.

Now, there's no such thing as too fast. But I just think people are a little over-eager.

So, yes now we are almost at that point of it being a year. IBM's announcement may be a prelude to that faster G5 Rev. B.

That is correct, there is never a machine that's too fast. I don't think that we are too eager.

 

[Henriok]

It looks like it will be a presentation over actual POWER processors (Power4, Power5, etc.), not the PowerPC which the Mac runs on.

In this day and age, ALL POWER-processors are also PowerPC-processors. The PowerPC 970 is indeed a POWER-processor too since it does include the complete POWER ISA. In fact, IBM does refer to it as a POWER-processor when they speak of the blade module JS20.

 

[eSnow]

Excellent point. I'd much rather have a "tricked-out" G4 - meaning a slight speed boost, a better graphics card, a better (say, 1900x1200) screen,

Haha you are expecting Apple of all companies to invest the $50 more to buy a high-res panel for their laptops? Forget it. The next PowerBook revision will have 1440, 1280, and 1024 px horizontal.

 

[jsw]

So, yes now we are almost at that point of it being a year. IBM's announcement may be a prelude to that faster G5 Rev. B.

That is correct, there is never a machine that's too fast. I don't think that we are too eager.

Hey, I'm not saying that I won't eBay the dual-2 to get a dual-3. I'm just saying that I think a lot of the eagerness is due to perceived speed improvements that will tend not to translate to the real world.

I think the "waiting for a rev" argument is a much better one - I know for a fact that they've already changed the power supply on the G5's, and I'm sure that lots of other things have gotten tweaked.

So, yes, of course if you're in the market for a G5 you should wait for the announcements. I just don't want people who just got a G5 to think that they've lost out on something great. The new ones will, of course, be better - just not as much better as the "old" G5's were compared to the G4's, since the first G5s added so much in addition to the chip (8X AGP, etc.), whereas I expect the "new" G5's to be an incremental improvement.

 

[jsw]

...In this day and age, ALL POWER-processors are also PowerPC-processors....

Isn't it more correct to say that all PowerPC processors are POWER processors, but that PowerPC processors are just a subset of the POWER processors?

Likely I'm just exposing even more ignorance than usual....

 

[jsw]

Haha you are expecting Apple of all companies to invest the $50 more to buy a high-res panel for their laptops? Forget it. The next PowerBook revision will have 1440, 1280, and 1024 px horizontal.

No, I don't expect Apple to do that anymore than I expect them to make a two-button mouse.

It'd just be nice, and it might actually sell computers if they didn't lag, oh, two years or so behind PC laptops in so many areas (disk, video, screen).

 

[blackbird71]

Grrrrrrrr

I have a soon to be convert to Mac. In May or so I will be buying something

I was very happy to buy a 17" iMac until I saw the 20" iMac. Ok I put it to the top of the list. Then I started looking at the benefits of a single processor PowerMac with 20" display. Now if I go that way ..... do I wait for the faster processor.... Grrrrrrrrr

Just my current rant...

 

[JamesDPS]

March 30 is a Tuesday! I speculate that Apple will announce updates on March 30, and then on March 31 IBM will give details about the processors - Apple's event will be about Mac's, IBM's about processors. I hope!

My money is with you -- my prediction is that new PowerMacs are introduced either the 23rd or 30th (30th makes sense, after the RAM discount ends -- they're obviously trying to push out all the current PowerMacs between that offer and the fact that PMs adorn Apples front page), and the IBM event is a follow-up in which they will probably mention the new G5's, as well as other projects, of course. Clearly, IBM is not going to throw a huge "Apple party", but Apple is definitely one of their more prominent customers, I would think. Maybe they'll announce something about their own supercomputer projects, too...

In any case, the point is that it makes a lot of sense that the new powermacs would come, or at least be announced!, (shortly) before this IBM event -- remember that XServes with 970FX procs were announced before IBM officially announced the chip and its technology; of course, it's taken some time for Apple to actually SHIP those xserves, but that's another story...

Then again, I could be talking out of my a$$.

 

[JamesDPS]

Oh yeah, and my other prediction is: don't hold your breath on Powerbook G5s. I hope I'm wrong.

 

[ffakr]

Isn't it more correct to say that all PowerPC processors are POWER processors, but that PowerPC processors are just a subset of the POWER processors?

Likely I'm just exposing even more ignorance than usual....

Close, but you've got it backward. The Power ISA includes the PowerPC ISA as a subset. (you've got that part correct)

Current Power processors are also PowerPC processors (they can run native PPC code)
PPC processors can not run all Power processor code, therefore PPCs are not Power.

As for Henriok's contention the 970s include the full Power ISA, I've heard rumors of this but I've seen no direct evidence that this is actually true. That is, I haven't bothered to download the full ISA specs on the 970 and Power4 to see if the 970 has the full Power ISA. That doesn't mean that Henriok isn't correct, just that I'm to lazy (as yet) to verify it.

 

[ffakr]

So, yeah, it was an unusually bone-headed move for Steve to pre-announce - over a year ahead of time - the faster models.

Jobs made this [I'm sure] calculated announcement realizing that it would detract from early adopters.
He said it because existing users were fleeing the platform after 3 years of glacial processor development out of Motorola. At the time, Intel was shipping cpus that were clocked over 100% faster than Motorola. Jobs made the trade off... eschew some early G5 sales in exchange for a WHOLE lot of optimism on the part of the press and the Mac using public. Jobs had to demonstrate that a continuing investment in Apple wasn't a waste of resources. Apple can't survive as a Computer vendor by releasing a big CPU advance every 3-4 years followed by stagnant performance growth in the intervals. Apple, that is Jobs, had to show that 1) They had a kick ass cpu.. and 2) They were in it for the long run. How many companies would have plunked down cash for large Mac upgrades if they thought that Apple would be hopelessly outclassed by cheaper Dells again in 12 months.. or if they thought that Apple may be forced to move to x86 processors in 2 years because PPC development had dried up completely [thus destroying the end user's investment in PPC software].

 

[legion]

I have yet to see an ad for either POWER or PowerPC processors from IBM. Even the recent blade server TV ads only mention Intel Xeon processors. If IBM is serious about challenging Intel then they need to start promoting alternatives to the general public.

IBM does not sell POWER servers to the general public. That's your mistake. Xeon's can run x86 code and general software. POWER servers run specific OSs and software-- their buyers are aware of the POWER processors and have sales reps with IBM so they don't need "general" advertising.

When's the last time you saw an Itanium2 advert from Intel? There's a better chance of seeing that than an IBM POWER ad which wouldn't cater to the viewing audience though it would be costing serious dollars in televison time.

 

[Henriok]

The Power ISA includes the PowerPC ISA as a subset.

Not all POWER-processors are PowerPCs. The POWER3 was the first processor to include both the complete PowerPC and the complete POWER ISAs.

As for Henriok's contention the 970s include the full Power ISA, I've heard rumors of this but I've seen no direct evidence that this is actually true.

When IBM sales people talks about 970 for its pSeries line they always push its POWER carachteristics. PowerPC is hardly mentioned. I guess that "PowerPC" is considered either for embedded use or in Macintoshes. Nothing you want to hear when you buy a $80.000 server.

I haven't bothered to download the full ISA specs on the 970 and Power4 to see if the 970 has the full Power ISA.

I havn't verified it either but my IBM contacts were pretty specific about these points. I have no reason to doubt them.

POWER4 also include The PowerPC-AS ISA, and according to IBMs iSeries folk, that's something that 970 lack. Hence, no cheap iSeries-boxen built with 970. I think there might have been a market for an iSeries Blade Center? But, I think they'll wait fot the POWER5 for that. IBM says it will be made for low to middle end servers, including blades. POWER6 will be high end, ie including zSeries.

 

[areyouwishing]

For the people waiting...

I sure hope that all the people that buy 2nd Generation G5s don't have any problems. I think that with the way apple and IBM are doing the rev 2's you are taking just as big of a gamble. The change from 130mm to 90mm is a huge step, and we still haven't seen a production Xserve yet.

The only problem I have had with my 2ghz at work is the power supply whinning.

 

[otter-boy]

In this day and age, ALL POWER-processors are also PowerPC-processors. The PowerPC 970 is indeed a POWER-processor too since it does include the complete POWER ISA. In fact, IBM does refer to it as a POWER-processor when they speak of the blade module JS20.

Actually, they refer to the 970 as a power-based processor.

 

[kylos]

They'll likely outline the course of their various processors for a year or two. This should include the 980, which I have been informed by an FSB designer for the 970 will be ready by the end of the year.