IBM Power4 and Apple

[eddively]

Re: IBM p690 servers (Power4)--GM's supercom

Originally posted by semi

...Incedentallly the the Power4 is from the same family of processors that power the Apple Macintosh and some of the new technologies derveloped for the Regatta will be appearing in tyhe next generation of Apple processors.

thats either naitivity, inside knowledge, or rampant rumor mongering.

pick one of the above.

 

[semi]

oops! I can type (or spell) either.

It' rumor mongering. But I want it to be true--anything but Intel!

 

[scem0]

Re: oops! I can type (or spell) either.

Originally posted by semi
It' rumor mongering. But I want it to be true--anything but Intel!

I would rather have intel inside my mac then moto. Intel will get jobs dont that moto couldnt. I would prefer AMD or IıM, but Intel would be better then moto.

 

[semi]

umm..hello, yes it's eye be am.

No not motorola-- Power4 is what I saw.

 

[Tiauguinho]

Yesterday I was reading geek.com and camed across this:


http://www.geek.com/procspec/ibm/power4desktop.htm

"
IBM - Power4 Desktop
IBM's Power4 Desktop chip will be detailed on October 15th at the Microprocessor Forum. Current speculation is that the Power4 Desktop chip, "...designed for desktops and entry-level servers," will be used in Apple Macintosh computers starting in 2003, instead of a Motorola G5 processor.

Other details of the Power4 Desktop chip that are known are a vector processing unit handling over 160 vector instructions, and a system interface that can transmit data at 6.4 GB/second. Rumors suggest that the chip could arrive at speeds of up to 2GHz. It will be capable of handling 8 Instructions Per Clock (IPC)."


heheheh wouldn't that be just nice! A PowerMac with a 8 Superscalar Processor Chip! hehehheh Pentium 4,5,6,7 whatever! Just say Bye Bye!

 

[Tiauguinho]

Im sorry to double post, but I would like to add just one more thing...

If this rumors comes true, i'm saying IF, and if this new Processor Chip would come with more Cache, like 512k of L2 and 4Mb L3 ( I would like to double this values but that would be just way too expensive!)... Then this sucker would perform as I can only dream of...

 

[jefhatfield]

if we get the ibm power4 with 64 bit processing, it looks like it won't likely be until second half of next year if at all in 2003

the wintel world may move to 64 bit processing with amd and intel in 2004...so the whole move to 64 bit will be slow and painful

64 bit does support up to 8 gigs of RAM which is good

 

[Wry Cooter]

I've always thought the delay of 64 bit being released to the consumer market on the intel side has been one of the intel side holding back, to see if they need to, that is, keep it as a counter measure to steal any thunder from something not based on X86 or windows compatible architecture that might be aimed at the same market.

Naïveté, naivety perhaps. Naitivity is a scene you put in front of your trailer.

 

[nixd2001]

Originally posted by jefhatfield
if we get the ibm power4 with 64 bit processing, it looks like it won't likely be until second half of next year if at all in 2003

I can't really comment on this as there's no hard facts available - it may be true and it may not be true. To say one way or the other would be speculation (which is not the same as rumor!).

the wintel world may move to 64 bit processing with amd and intel in 2004...so the whole move to 64 bit will be slow and painful

Mixing Intel and AMD here isn't something that helps when talking about the 32 -> 64 bit transition. AMD is (planning on) offering a fairly easy migration route, with the downside that their long term performance may be impacted. Intel is offering a difficult migration route with the upside of (hopefully) maximising long term performance. The AMD approach means fast or slow is not relevant if both can be supported. 32 bit apps. won't be able to access beyond 4GB, but very few actually need that amount of memory! Who wants a 4GB word processing document! Likewise, dual support 32/64 isn't necessarily painful.

64 bit does support up to 8 gigs of RAM which is good

2^64 is a LOT more than 8GB! In reality, 2^64 decoded address lines (ie not all bits in a 64 bit register actually affect the address presented to the memory system) is not that relevant. The (detailed!) Power4 description on IBM's web site talks about 42 bits of decoded address for instruction space. The real use for large address spaces is sparse mapping onto very large files, such as might (is?) used for database applications.

hope this is helpful