IBM's Power5 Processor at Microprocessor Forum

[Phil Of Mac]

Re: Re: Good info....

Originally posted by Rocketman
Almost. For Apple the GENERATIONAL numbers have been BUS designs. These faster processors alone amount to mere "speed bumps", albiet far bigger and better ones than ever before.

For Apple, the generational numbers have been new chip designs.

The G3 was one chip design. The G4 was another chip design that had to be spawned out into all sorts of ugly variants. The G5 is yet another chip design.

Originally posted by TyleRomeo
what makes any of you think that the power5 or power6 will simply be transformed into G6 and G7 macs. Do you think each year apple will just consider it a major generation change in the chip? C'mon now. How many changes did the G4 have. It gained faster system buses, changes pipelines and L2 and L3 besides getting faster. But for years it was still just called the G4.

Because it was the same chip.

Originally posted by TyleRomeo
The same will be true for these IBM chips. It will be the G5 for quite some time. At least 3 years. We won't see a G6 until some major changes occur again. So for now lets all be happy with the G5 and be envious of those who have these kick ass machines.

3 years? Really? Despite the fact that Generation 1 lasted from 94 to 95, Generation 2 lasted from 95 to 97, and G3 lasted from 97 to 99.

G4 was a major outlier. 99 to 03. And considering the big problems with Motorola, and considering that the Mot G5 was supposed to come out around 01, at which point it didn't, and Apple had to make a deal with IBM for 03. In the meantime, Apple lost their lead over Intel.

 

[ChoMomma]

Re: Re: ..first post.. hehe

Originally posted by pgwalsh
Only a Dual with 8 GB of Ram that's pathetic.... It needs to be atleast a quad 5 Ghz G6 w/256 bit altivec, 32Gb of ram, Raid with 2 Terabytes SATA HD's and 32x DVD R/RW to even be a considersation.

Hey, I don't have a ton of $$ I was talking about the entry level system hehe

 

[Frohickey]

1st Gen: PPC601
2nd Gen: PPC603, PPC604, and the e-variants
3rd Gen: PPC750, aka G3
4th Gen: PPC7400, PPC7410, PPC7450, PPC7455
5th Gen: PPC970, and counting...

So, if past history is correct, odd number generations have only one chip design, but the even number generations have 4.

 

[stingerman]

don't forget the 7447 ad 7457 that just came out. Motorola isn't through yet and it seems to be going through a major re-orginazation. Though I am hoping on a new G4 90NM processor from IBM for January Powerbooks.

 

[spankalee]

Re: Power 5

Originally posted by eirik
I'm a bit disappointed that IBM said that their initial production run of Power 5's would be via their 130 nanometer process next year. On the plus side, this probably indicates the proximity of the first Power 5 production run. On the other hand, it may indicate that IBM may (MAY!) not be as far along with 90 nanometer as we all would like. I hope, 970 part 2 has higher priority in 90 nm development than that of Power 5.

The Power series chips are designed for more reliability than desktop chips. They've always used a larger process than the other PPC chips. I don't think it says anything about IBM progress with the 90nm 970.

 

[eric67]

so..

Originally posted by Frohickey
1st Gen: PPC601
2nd Gen: PPC603, PPC604, and the e-variants
3rd Gen: PPC750, aka G3
4th Gen: PPC7400, PPC7410, PPC7450, PPC7455
5th Gen: PPC970, and counting...

So, if past history is correct, odd number generations have only one chip design, but the even number generations have 4.

if I remembercorrectly, it use to be a time when Apple had different processor type in its desktop (PPC603, 604,) for the model 7x00, 8x00 and 9x00 which few years ago were available at the same time, in that case we had the 7x00 low-end and the 9x00 high-end.
So why not a PPC970+ or PPC980 (Power5 derived) at the same time than PPC970 (aka G5)?? mybe bot in the desktop models, but server?? or even so, why not different level of desktop based on processor?? where is the problem?? Intel and AMD are also going that way...

 

[Analog Kid]

Originally posted by Makosuke
Purely speculation, but unless I'm mistaken there's nothing inherently stopping Apple from using Power5 chips directly. There's not the slightest chance that one would make it into a desktop machine, but if Apple starts going for bigger-iron servers or maybe wicked high-end workstations, one of these might be an option. They do use the same basic PPC instruction set, don't they?

I think it would be much lower risk if Apple licensed IBM to resell OS X on their high end gear...

IBM doesn't want Apple cannibalizing their bread and butter, and Apple doesn't want IBM worried about it. Whatever anyone here says about not serving the same market, it's only a matter of time before the wind up doing so.

If OS X runs on the top end IBM servers, Apple can introduce new markets to IBM and IBM can give Apple street-cred on critical systems-- all the while both stick to their core competences...

Apple doesn't want to be bothered building 128-way servers. There's no benefit in it-- despite Apples small market share, they're still set up to do high volume minimal support.

I just hope IBM would let Apple do the industrial design for the shell...

 

[Analog Kid]

Originally posted by Frohickey
Servers are not desktop machines. The number of users a server accomodates is more than that of a desktop machine. So, its really about cost per user, and that is not about to go up to the $5000 range again.

A desktop is still pretty much a one user one computer aspect. This is what I was talking about.

Plus, its kind of strange but at Apple, the leading edge stuff happens at the desktop side before the server side gets it.

Not to be obnoxious, but I just bought two $8000 single user Xeon workstations because the time of those single users is a lot more valuable than the hardware...

There's still a market for mid-range gear, at least until XGrid or some equivalent makes small clusters simple (and the software we use figures out how to license for them...).

[addendum: should mention that the department was pretty unanimous on buying G5's, if only the EDA tools ran on it-- we're running into all kinds of memory restrictions...

Must... hold... out... for... 64... bit... addressing...]

 

[Analog Kid]

Re: Power 5

Originally posted by eirik
I'm a bit disappointed that IBM said that their initial production run of Power 5's would be via their 130 nanometer process next year. On the plus side, this probably indicates the proximity of the first Power 5 production run. On the other hand, it may indicate that IBM may (MAY!) not be as far along with 90 nanometer as we all would like. I hope, 970 part 2 has higher priority in 90 nm development than that of Power 5.

It actually makes sense to me, and follows the same pattern Power4 did... Power4 was fabbed at .18µm and then Power4+ and the 970 were fabbed at .13µm.

Power5 will be fabbed at .13µm and IBM is saying that Power5+ will be fabbed at 90nm. If the pattern holds, the expected 980 will be on 90nm as well.

It's an interesting question whether they'll move the 970 design to 90nm and run it in parallel to the 980.

I seem to remember rumors that the 980 was being developed in parallel to the Power5 this time around, as opposed to after the fact, which might suggest no 90nm 970 at all.

 

[Lanbrown]

Re: Power 5

Originally posted by eirik
I'm a bit disappointed that IBM said that their initial production run of Power 5's would be via their 130 nanometer process next year. On the plus side, this probably indicates the proximity of the first Power 5 production run. On the other hand, it may indicate that IBM may (MAY!) not be as far along with 90 nanometer as we all would like. I hope, 970 part 2 has higher priority in 90 nm development than that of Power 5.

Cheers,

Eirik

Most companies use the tried and true process for a new chip. IBM will use the 130nm to start off with and move to 90nm once they get conformable with manufacturing the Power5. Very few companies even try to release a new processor and use a new process. Just like it is a lot of work to move from 130nm to 90 nm, just like it was from 180nm to 130nm or even using copper for the interconnects. Most companies know the 130nm process like the back of the hand, so they will always go that route and move down the road. Otherwise when you run into problems, is it the chip or the process? Once 90nm is the standard and 65nm makes its debut, you will see the same thing. Companies will release a new processor at 90nm and use 65nm down the road.

This week Sun also showed off their US IV. It too will use the 130nm process and move to 90nm down the road, all for the same reasons as listed above. The Itanium was introduced using the 180nm process and moved to 130nm thereafter. The Pentium 4 was introduced in 180nm but high-end Pentium III chips were 130nm.

 

[Chryx]

Re: Re: Re: Good info....

Originally posted by Phil Of Mac
Because it was the same chip.
[/B]

You can't be seriously suggesting that the 7400 and 7450 are the same chip ?

the pipeline length is different for a start.

 

[Rincewind42]

Originally posted by Makosuke
Side note: I just noticed that IBM will still sell you a $10,000+ workstation that uses a 604e processor. Probably a holdover from some old product line, but I wonder if they've sold one of those in the last couple years...

Oh they have... mostly to those few government installations that remain married to AIX. Oddly enough, those installations are moving to Red Hat on Dell hardware (bringing a host of porting problems) rather than to Macs (say XServe Clusters running Yellow Dog Linux).

It's a weird world we live in folks.

 

[Rincewind42]

Originally posted by AidenShaw
The Xserve is really low end - Apple would be smart to leave the Xserver as it is (or minor bump) and come out with a 3U or 4U quad system (four PPC970s, or dual Power4).

I think that Apple will try to stay with the 1U and dual CPU as long as they can. I think they will only go larger if it increases the processor density (and even then probably not due to motherboard resource issues). If Apple were really interested in intensifying CPU density, they would be doing a blade server I think.

 

[kenohki]

Originally posted by Analog Kid
I just hope IBM would let Apple do the industrial design for the shell...

I donno. IBM's NetVista X and M series as well as the ThinkCentre's are nice looking machines. There was a time when I thought the NetVista X40 was much better looking than the (IMO, quite outdated looking) G3/G4 enclosure. (Granted, the G5 enclosure looks much better.)

IBM's big iron isn't too shabby either. We have a zSeries 900 here and it's a nice looking machine as are all their mainframes and high end UNIX machines. Better looking IMO than Sun or SGI. Sun has just gotten *horrible* with their industrial design; ever since the first Ultras. And SGI these days tends to looks a little dated. Kind of like a pair of Oakley sunglasses. IBM though...not bad at all.

 

[ipiloot]

Money talks

Considering that XServe is largely based on the same chipset that the G4 was based on, I think that they'll either not introduce the 4,6,8,... -way system ever or they'll do it in pair with a high-end workstation. Otherwise the cost on chipset and motherboard would be far too high.

 

[Phil Of Mac]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Good info....

Originally posted by Chryx
You can't be seriously suggesting that the 7400 and 7450 are the same chip ?

the pipeline length is different for a start.

Do you think the 750 and 750gx are the same chip? Specifically speaking, no, not the same chip. In a general sense, however, they are basically the same chip, with the same design, only modified rather drastically with the 7450.

The 7450 is not a generational change over the 7400. The 970 is. The Power5 over the Power4 is a generational change, and so would the Power5 PPC be over the 970.

"G" means generation.

So, the Power5 PPC will be a G6.

 

[AidenShaw]

Originally posted by Rincewind42
I think that Apple will try to stay with the 1U and dual CPU as long as they can.

Definitely keep the 1U - but add a larger, more scalable system.

Not sure that blades would make sense for Apple - unless of course they just painted an IBM BladeCenter aluminum and glued an Apple to it!

(The PPC970 is coming to the BladeCenter - this suggestion is serious....)

 

[pc_convert?]

8Way Power5 with 144MB cache.

If the next gen PPC980 or whatever is this things little brother.....ouch

Check it out here

 

[Phil Of Mac]

It'll be in the next PowerBook. No, not the 980, the Power5 with 144 MB of cache!

 

[yamabushi]

Originally posted by Phil Of Mac
It'll be in the next PowerBook. No, not the 980, the Power5 with 144 MB of cache!

Yeah! With a ceramic case and water cooling. Plus eight high speed fans and ten minutes of battery life! Awesome!