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IBM PowerPC Announcement
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scem0:
Yeah, 1.8ghz is a nice increase over 1.3ghz (38%)... for the P4 to keep up that pace it has to make it to 3.8ghz or so by the PPC-970 launch day. Intel can probably do that, but will it do more than that?
(Of course I just made the assemption that the PPC-970 will perform the same per clock as the Power4.)
Yeah, 1.8ghz is a nice increase over 1.3ghz (38%)... for the P4 to keep up that pace it has to make it to 3.8ghz or so by the PPC-970 launch day. Intel can probably do that, but will it do more than that?
(Of course I just made the assemption that the PPC-970 will perform the same per clock as the Power4.)
my guess is no. Intel is in trouble right now. I think they have dug themselves into a hole kinda... And now with all the legal stuff. I think this chip will be more then enough.
(shameless me too post)
Have a look at the clock speeds on other 64 bit chips:
http://techupdate.zdnet.com/techupdate/stories/main/0,14179,2870870,00.html
Itanium 2 at 1 Ghz and AMD at 2 (and as I said earlier, I saw a review with an 800MHz hammer) - when comparing Apples with Apples (Pun intended
) you can see that the IBM chip is extremely competitive. Even intel has backed themselves into a corner with the Itanium because of MHz marketing...the end of 2003 is going to be *very* cool. In the short term, I'm more itnerested in rumors of new Moto chips (remember the rumor about IBM and Moto being used in high end machines in the future?) - I'm speculating that this will mean a new moto chip in January (either a funkified G4 or an 85xx) then at the end of the year the high end professional chips will more to IBM - and the motos will filter down into the consumer products...
-- Dan =)
Taking into account the rumored specifications of this chip, then at 1.8GHz, this chip should be able to pretty much stomp on any Intel or AMD product on the horizon before 2004.
6.4GB/s memory bandwidth, enhanced double-precision AltiVec-compatible vector unit, 8 operations/cycle... it will be very very nice. IBM wouldn't be building it if they knew it wouldn't be competitive.
damn, apple needs to start using SPARCs
. the 1ghz itanium is nipping at the heels of the power4 and i certainly doubt that if apple rolls out 64 bit computers, intel will just leave pc manufacturers with the p4.
Who cares about the bus clock? If it can push 6.4GB/s at low latency with a 25MHz bus, I won't be complaining.
Which new stats are you referring to? I know the P4 wins in SPEC_int2000, but it's close in fp. I'm going to assume that this chip is not strictly a stripped down POWER4, that it is a stripped down POWER4 with various enhancements. I would imagine this is what will account for its delayed arrival.
The P4 is just overclocked. Thats why the mac is hot and pc are very hot. it(p4) produces a lot of heat specially in the laptops
Good question - I thought I read about this new chip having double-precision VMX, but I can't remember where from. Oh well, I can't imagine that it wouldn't...
Originally posted by alex_ant
Good question - I thought I read about this new chip having double-precision VMX, but I can't remember where from. Oh well, I can't imagine that it wouldn't...
It would certainly make sense, given performance seems to be a major driver
Pentium 4s are not overclocked at all. They've passed factory tests to run at their respective rating. I think you misunderstand what overclocking is. Also, Intel is planning a 3.06GHz this month, well, at least some time soon later this year, as far as I know.
Last time I used a PowerBook G4 800MHz, the keyboard got very hot, if not hotter than an AMD Athlon Mobile XP laptop I used. (Athlons are much hotter than P4s, by the way)
You might want to research more indepth before posting outlandish fallacies.
Great, 3 years too late
Whoopee, the mac world will finally have 1.8Ghz by 2004 (c'mon we all know that late 2003 means 2004 at the earliest-otherwise we'd all be using the real Apollo chips running at 1.6Ghz for the past 6 months). Meanwhile the Wintel world will be at 4Ghz plus. In 2004 we'll get to party like it's 2000!
Take all this with a huge grain of salt folks and pray for compatability.
Whoopee, the mac world will finally have 1.8Ghz by 2004 (c'mon we all know that late 2003 means 2004 at the earliest-otherwise we'd all be using the real Apollo chips running at 1.6Ghz for the past 6 months). Meanwhile the Wintel world will be at 4Ghz plus. In 2004 we'll get to party like it's 2000!
Take all this with a huge grain of salt folks and pray for compatability.
okay, let's talk about perceived performance.
i'm sitting at my work pc. it's a beige p4 1.6ghz with XP pro. it's full of cheap nasty components including a built in video card.
a lot of the time it is a dog! the start menu sometimes takes 10 to 30 seconds to render. applications regularly crash and killing errant processes is much harder than it was back in NT4 days.
do i know why? no. could be the virus software, could be IO could be the cpu, could be the motherboard, could be the ram. it could just be XP. what i do know is a lot of the time i'd rather be using my 500mhz iBook with 10.2.
it's as simple as that. i would guess most consumers and plenty of business workers have dull clones.
macs will (hopefully) always kick cloned arses and that's why we love them.
BTW, why do people keep talkin about the itanium? how many desktops have you seen with an itanium cpu in them?
and for the mhz believers here is an experiment for you:
1. open a text editor
2. hold down any key for roughly 60 seconds.
3. open another file
4. type "hi world"
5. copy it
6. press command-v (ctrl-v on PC) repeatedly for roughly 60 seconds.
7. count the number of characters in each file.
which file had the greater number of characters in it?
i'll wager even though each command-v took longer you still did more work by printing 8 characters at a time for the same period.
i love my ibook but i have a feeling my next computer will have an even beefier IBM cpu. i can wait.
i_b_joshua
i'm sitting at my work pc. it's a beige p4 1.6ghz with XP pro. it's full of cheap nasty components including a built in video card.
a lot of the time it is a dog! the start menu sometimes takes 10 to 30 seconds to render. applications regularly crash and killing errant processes is much harder than it was back in NT4 days.
do i know why? no. could be the virus software, could be IO could be the cpu, could be the motherboard, could be the ram. it could just be XP. what i do know is a lot of the time i'd rather be using my 500mhz iBook with 10.2.
it's as simple as that. i would guess most consumers and plenty of business workers have dull clones.
macs will (hopefully) always kick cloned arses and that's why we love them.
BTW, why do people keep talkin about the itanium? how many desktops have you seen with an itanium cpu in them?
and for the mhz believers here is an experiment for you:
1. open a text editor
2. hold down any key for roughly 60 seconds.
3. open another file
4. type "hi world"
5. copy it
6. press command-v (ctrl-v on PC) repeatedly for roughly 60 seconds.
7. count the number of characters in each file.
which file had the greater number of characters in it?
i'll wager even though each command-v took longer you still did more work by printing 8 characters at a time for the same period.
i love my ibook but i have a feeling my next computer will have an even beefier IBM cpu. i can wait.
i_b_joshua
Re: Great, 3 years too late
Please read the rest of this thread.
Quick question: Would you rather have a higher MHz number or Faster Performace?
Remember, the IBM PowerPC is a different architecture... you can't compare the new chip to current Motorola G4's. You certainly can't extrapolate Mhz.
The 1.3 GHz IBM Power4 benchs close to the 2.8GHz Pentium according to numbers cited in this thread.
arn
Please read the rest of this thread.
Quick question: Would you rather have a higher MHz number or Faster Performace?
Remember, the IBM PowerPC is a different architecture... you can't compare the new chip to current Motorola G4's. You certainly can't extrapolate Mhz.
The 1.3 GHz IBM Power4 benchs close to the 2.8GHz Pentium according to numbers cited in this thread.
arn
robguz:
Read the thread, your post is ignorant. Based on SPEC results found here:
http://www.aceshardware.com/read_news.jsp?id=60000436
It is apparent that Intel needs to make it to 3.86ghz or so for the Pentium4 to keep the same performance that they have relative to a 1.3ghz Power4 when compared to a 1.8ghz PPC-970 (assuming that the PPC-970 has the same IPC as a Power4).
Read the thread, your post is ignorant. Based on SPEC results found here:
http://www.aceshardware.com/read_news.jsp?id=60000436
It is apparent that Intel needs to make it to 3.86ghz or so for the Pentium4 to keep the same performance that they have relative to a 1.3ghz Power4 when compared to a 1.8ghz PPC-970 (assuming that the PPC-970 has the same IPC as a Power4).
There is about zero question that a 1.3 Ghz power4mini-me will kick any Intel's ass, that's not in dispute, what people are ponting out is numbers, plain and simple.
3Ghz looks a helluva lot faster than 1.8 ghz, even if it's really not.
The PC world is hooked on speed and it's going to stay that way intil we get a low clock speed kick ass CPU, and hopefully it will be this chip.
Uh, no, you're the ignorant one for assuming that this new chip will be exactly the same performance wise as the Power4, that Spec benchmarks will be exactly the same running OSX, that Apple will use this chip for certain, that IBM will really ship this within a year, that Apple will start using the chip the day IBM releases it. Don't give me benchmarks on a totally different chip running a totally different OS. Can OSX even run on this unannounced chip? Who knows. Maybe it will take Apple another year to accomplish that. It took them 6 years to get a usable version of OSX out the door even though there were already PowerPC builds of the NextStep before Apple purchased Next.
I read the thread. Basically the same as every other thread in the past 5 years, e.g. new chip is coming and it will be great/we'll blow away Wintel/naysayers like me who say I'll believe it when I see it and if Apple's past history is any iindication, don't hold your breath.
I don't think so... I think people are seeing 1.8GHz and comparing it to 1.25 GHz and complaining without thinking of the potential advantages beyond the #s. Of course, this is all speculation at this point... but it's not far-out speculation as it is a Power4 based chip.
The thing about Mhz not being the end all is going to be a point that I think more consumers will learn... not just because of Apple... but also AMD and Intel's going to have to sell it as well... their Itanium processors start at 800mhz-1ghz... so they're a bit behind the 8ball as well trying to market those as "powerful" processors.
arn
There are a lot of assumptions floating around... but we have to assume some things in order to even discuss this...
Point being, there is a 1.8GHz IBM Power4-based PowerPC due in Late 2003.
Based on your original post, you seemed to not understand that there were architectual differences that potentially make a 1.8GHz chip compare favorably to what intel's got on the market.
I'm not saying you have to accept it - but your post would be the same kinda of post someone would write if Motorola announced a 1.8GHz G4 in late 2003. There is a big [potential] difference here... and I was pointing that out.
arn
I think you're right to a point, they are starting to see that speed istn't everything, Intel's a more recent ads celebrate multimedia, not Ghz, but I'm a PC user and while I can see through the Mhz myth, I know of a lot of people that don't, they tend to look at numbers rather than actual performance.
It is changing and I think Apple has had at least some part in it but it's a slow change.
I think a chip like this may prove that Mhz doesn't really matter as much as other things, but I'm not so sure it will be a quick change.