IBM POWER Event - March 31, 2004

[anubis]

It should be noted that not only is the POWER architecture used in the G5, but also the G4, G3, 604, 603, and 601. In fact every powermac ever made has been based on the POWER architecture.

Inteesting tidbit: POWER stands for "Power Optimization With Enhanced Risc"

 

[uberman42]

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

Thanks for killing a potential switchers dream . Dale - keep hope alive. But I would advise- if a G5 does get released, wait for rev B. Trust me (being an owner of a 400Mhz TiBook and a current user of a 867 12" all revision A's - all with nagging issues that were fixed in rev B's and beyond) If you are aching for a Powerbook now, get a G4 867 or 1gig titanium used with the ram maxed and the HD upgraded to the latest 7200RPM Hitachi's. This was the pinnacle of the TiBook and all the kinks were worked out with that design. Sure no FW 800 built in and no bluetooth, but that system can tie you over till rev B of the G5 powerbooks are released. C'mon- you wanna switch- you wanna do it now!

 

[brianimator]

Author is a Moron

Well - you need 500

Ok, I can't see how this news has any importance !? I read through the article and Apple isn't even mentioned or am I blind ?

We will see what is actually announced.

Below is the correspondence I had with the author of the story:

To: cboulton@jupitermedia.com
Subject: Your article on IBM's POWER Architecture


The XBox comes dragging its heels to the PowerPC platform, while Apple
(who along with Motorola helped design it) has been on it since the
early 90's - yet no mention of Apple at all in your article. I swear
you "tech analysts" live in a vacuum.


On Mar 17, 2004, at 9:35 AM, Clint Boulton wrote:

Good point. I'm aware of how PowerPC 970 (I believe is the chip) makes the
G4 and G5 scream. But that's kind of old news and am looking forward with
the new possibilities. I had a mention of it, but it got edited out amid all
of the other speculation of what might happen at the event.

Thanks,

Clint Boulton
Newslinx Managing Editor
Desk: 203-662-2860
Cell: 203-807-1344
cboulton@jupitermedia.com
Darien, CT

To which I said:

Surely, Apple will be one of the first in line to benefit from any new developments in the POWER / PowerPC lineup.

 

[brianimator]

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."

Silly goose, many of us are waiting for the alleged 3ghz machine... of course sales are gonna slow down

 

[crenz]

It should be noted that not only is the POWER architecture used in the G5, but also the G4, G3, 604, 603, and 601. In fact every powermac ever made has been based on the POWER architecture.

Inteesting tidbit: POWER stands for "Power Optimization With Enhanced Risc"

Uh, are you confusing the PowerPC architecture with the POWER-processors by IBM (which are using the PowerPC architecture)? Also, it's probably not "Risc", but "RISC", which gives the quote a whole different meaning...

 

[Rocketman]

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.

The buyers of computers buy them when they need them. Some people on the margins accelerate or decelerate purchases, but the vast majority of purchases happen on a schedule because there will always be a better next computer.

The simple fact that this will be a Rev B Powermac release will cause massive buying independent of specifications. "You can look for this."

When Powerbook G5's come out I am a Rev A buyer.

Some people will be Rev B buyers. But they will be suffering while I am rocking and rolling (computing)!

Rocketman

 

[welborn]

What if?

What if IBM announced high-end servers (blades, et cetera) featuring MacOS X Server?

A server platform uses fewer off-the-shelf binaries, so a quick recompile for POWER of the whole OS shouldn't be a problem. As long as all the standard Unix-based stuff still compiles, it just becomes a better, more compatible, more usable Unix variant. Right now their servers run Linux and AIX, why not MacOS X?

 

[DeepIn2U]

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

Wasn't the Dual 1.8Ghz a rev. B??? or was it just the PowerMac G5 that a few hundred people on this very site wanted and got because Apple listened!! On something they didn't promise, let alone didn't hint at nor plan. 3Ghz will be here maybe announced 2 months later, say October 04 (with the top end justifying that wait by another 200Mhz,more RAM), but will be satisfying none the less. How many more will they sell if its announced 2 months later?? The 3Ghz they've PROMISED so with SOooOOoo many of us EXPECTING to see/have it, it'll be very bad for Apple/IBM not to deliver - with clients dollars going elsewhere.

My only concern is IBM is pushing Linux heavily, and no matter what articles say that IBM isn't planning on dumping AIX, I see the G5/G6 being a problem for Apple because the future chips might be better optimized for Linux and not Unix (BSD; as AIX is based on that). Yeah I know, but there is a functional difference. If Linux is Apples major OS competitor across its lineup in 2 years how will it affect our future products & OS X implementation???

 

[vpalvarez]

Apple is probably promoting the G5 on their homepage to spur sales in order to clear the inventory for the new revisions. This IBM event seems like an acceptable venue for apple to make the announcement.

 

[sonyrules]

power5 will make an intresting PPC chip... heres to 4 ghz

 

[CalfCanuck]

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.

Absolutely! I think that getting the 90's into the motherboard equation presents Apple with a lot of head scratching - any further moves to 3ghz later in the year will probably be much easier, and will leverage off the beta testing of this new RevB motherboard (and all the people who maintain that it will be more solid than the RevA).

 

[Mac-Xpert]

Uh, are you confusing the PowerPC architecture with the POWER-processors by IBM (which are using the PowerPC architecture)? Also, it's probably not "Risc", but "RISC", which gives the quote a whole different meaning...

I think it's exactly the other way around. IBM first developed the POWER architecture and then in a collaboration with Apple and Motorola developed the PowerPC (601) which was sort of a cut-down version (like the 970 is too, from the POWER 4) from the first POWER processor.

As far as I know the first PowerPC was code compatible with the POWER processor, so that IBM could put it in a server and run the same POWER code on the PowerPC. If this is also true for the 970 versus POWER 4 I don't know. (maybe someone else here know something about that?)

 

[Henriok]

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

No, they refer to the JS20 as POWER-based, witch it is. It's not Xeon bsed, nor based on Itanium, Athlon, Opteron or whatnot. It's based on POWER technology. You shoud have continued reading bcause it's also "Designed to support POWER technology". So that's that.

If you're still not convinced, please visit these pages:
- Linux on POWER where they, among other things, talk about Linux in the Blade Center, ie the 970 equipped JS20.
- More info: BladeCenter JS20 from witch I quote: "Featuring innovation POWER technology and advaced SIMD capabilities" (btw, thats not my poor spelling

Until IBM plainly states that 970 in fact does not include the complete POWER ISA, all evidence ponit to that it does, even if its name isn't POWER, but just PowerPC.

 

[Trekkie]

Knowing something about IBM, I would suggest they will give a fairly clear roadmap, specifying what they plan to achieve with the 970 and the 980. Given the "slew of announcements" expected, the roadmap will most likely cover a wide variety of uses for the Power chips, not just Apple.

My thought is this will be a Power5 focused event. IBM does a lot with the PowerPC 970 in their BladeCenter JS20 and then the OEM relationships, but the bread and butter comes from the Power5 and the recent cave of Intel on the x86-64 technology is perfect window for them to get out and raise the ruckus on their pure 64-bit processor follown - Power5.

That being said however I'm all for 970/980 type info. though I'm really hoping for a speedbump by Apple next week because my CC has room and my wife wants a laptop. So she gets my 12" PowerBook and I get my dream machine.

23" screen on the fastest Dualy they have baby. It'll take my first born's college futures, but hey she's only 2 and she's smart

 

[tink1984]

Pump up the party,....., pump that beat for IBM!

I think this is going to be a debutant ball for the IBM PowerPC processor line to drive excitement and buzz in the industry. Looks like big blue may be loosening the tie a bit. We will see.

I definitely think that Apple mention will be a part of it, but more so the cu-de-ta over Chimpzillal for the gaming boxen. Maybe we'll see a Linux desktop announcement ala HP as well. We will see x2.

I have wild expectations about the Apple CPU side of things, but being grounded in these matters always is the wise move fo me. We will see x3.

 

[aswitcher]

Apple is probably promoting the G5 on their homepage to spur sales in order to clear the inventory for the new revisions. This IBM event seems like an acceptable venue for apple to make the announcement.

I agree.
That and catching new iPod users and potential switchers visiting the Apple site...

 

[stripes]

POWER is not always not PowerPC

It looks like it will be a presentation over actual POWER processors (Power4, Power5, etc.), not the PowerPC which the Mac runs on. This is more interesting considering the long-term prospects of IBM chips than the immediate prospects for Apple.

When PowerPC was invented they left out some POWER stuff that was "too hard" for a low cost CPU (which I figured was good). They added some stuff that wasn't needed in a high performance workstation (which I thought was dumb -- or at least dumb that they didn't add those to "all future POWER CPUs") The added instructions were mostly (only?) single persision floating point.

Several of IBMs "aimed at workstation" CPUs have also included the PowerPC instructions. The POWER4 was one of these, and it is likely that the POWER5 and POWER6 will also have them. Unfortunately the POWER4 did *not* have the AltiVec (Velocity Engine) instructions, and the POWER5 may or may not have them (I think IBM has to pay Moto for them, so it might be to their benifit to not include them in CPUs unless Apple is the intended consumer, if they were free they might include them on the off chance that Apple would buy them and do a seriously high end box).

I think IBM's "North Star" CPU was the first CPU to have POWER and PowerPC instruction sets, it also had PowerAS instructions, which I don't think the POWER4 has (they mostly deal with 256 bit addressing, or maybe it was 1024 bit addressing for the AS/400 single system image which in part relies on hiding things in a vast address space). I don't think the POWER4 had the PowerAS stuff. Maybe the POWER5 will.

 

[Henriok]

I think IBM's "North Star" CPU was the first CPU to have POWER and PowerPC instruction sets, it also had PowerAS instructions, which I don't think the POWER4 has. I don't think the POWER4 had the PowerAS stuff. Maybe the POWER5 will.

POWER4 does indeed have PowerPC-AS instructions as it is the core of current line of iSeries (AS/400) computers. POWER4 supports five architectures: 64-bit PowerPC-AS, 64-bit PowerPC, 32-bit PowerPC, 64-bit POWER and 32-bit POWER.

 

[wdlove]

Apple is probably promoting the G5 on their homepage to spur sales in order to clear the inventory for the new revisions. This IBM event seems like an acceptable venue for apple to make the announcement.

I'm anxious for the announcement of the Rev. B Power Mac also. My thoughts about the IBM event are different. Wouldn't it be highly unusual for Apple to make such a big announcement at another companies event. Unless there is a leak that Steve will be speaking at this event.

 

[legion]

Unfortunately the POWER4 did *not* have the AltiVec (Velocity Engine) instructions, and the POWER5 may or may not have them (I think IBM has to pay Moto for them, so it might be to their benifit to not include them in CPUs unless Apple is the intended consumer, if they were free they might include them on the off chance that Apple would buy them and do a seriously high end box).

IBM doesn't have to pay any licensing to Motorola for "AltiVec." AltiVec is just a marketing name, but the SIMD unit is freely available to IBM (IBM uses the name VMX). The reason why IBM doesn't use it is because, well, it's a lousy vector unit. Having to strap the connection to a server chip (POWER series) for VMX is useless as they have the money to attach a better vector unit on chip. They put the VMX unit on the current PPC970 with much protest and at Apple's instance (mostly because of Apple marketing for the last few years about AltiVec accelerated programs) If it was left to IBM, they wouldn't have used it at all as technology-wise it's a backwards step.

 

[mac-in-fool]

new G5's March 30

With the Apple Promo's ending on the 27th, and IBM's big conference on the 31st. That leaves Tuesday the 30th the date for a PowerMac release. Otherwise IBM would steal some if not all of Apples Thunder.

 

[AidenShaw]

They need software too....

If IBM is serious about challenging Intel then they need to start promoting alternatives to the general public.

Given that most Linux software won't even run on a PPC, they need to do more than simply do more promotions.

To paraphrase the Clinton compaign - "It's the applications, stupid!"

 

[invaLPsion]

With the Apple Promo's ending on the 27th, and IBM's big conference on the 31st. That leaves Tuesday the 30th the date for a PowerMac release. Otherwise IBM would steal some if not all of Apples Thunder.

I think it would make sense for Steve to present at or hold a press conference after the event, since Apple is the only company that uses the 970 as a consumer processor.

Updates on the 31st would make sense, because it is the start of the 2nd fiscal quarter and investors would like to see new computers. It would be a sign of good things to come for the 2nd quarter.

Updates on the 31st make sense business-wise and time-wise.

 

[Gyroscope]

IBM doesn't have to pay any licensing to Motorola for "AltiVec." AltiVec is just a marketing name, but the SIMD unit is freely available to IBM (IBM uses the name VMX). The reason why IBM doesn't use it is because, well, it's a lousy vector unit. Having to strap the connection to a server chip (POWER series) for VMX is useless as they have the money to attach a better vector unit on chip. They put the VMX unit on the current PPC970 with much protest and at Apple's instance (mostly because of Apple marketing for the last few years about AltiVec accelerated programs) If it was left to IBM, they wouldn't have used it at all as technology-wise it's a backwards step.

What on earth are you talking about? Have you got any proof for it. As far as I am concerned Altivec/VMX (call it whatever you want) is far more superior than any SIMD unit in Intel/AMD cpu's.

 

[.a]

today is the ibm day ... i highly doubt new pm g5 announcements ... though it will be interesting what ibm has cooked since the last power-presentation
.a