Good point mongo, that is a huge evolution in the way we will think about speed and processing. What will also be interesting is if this continues to be a trend among future processors, or if they will all take on forms of this in the future.
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IBM's PowerTune Technology
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strider42
macrumors 65816
Re: Xmac
couple of points here, if indeed the next xBox will use a powerPC chip, it may nto be a G5 exactly. it may be slightly changed or merely related, such as the chip in the nintendo game cube.
As for hacking it to run OS X, you'd have to hack OS X itself to work without a boot rom, which seems very unlikely to ever happen. There's more to a mac than just the basic chip design of the CPU.
Whats more, if you did this, you'd be breaking the law probably in hacking OS X, and taking money directly away from apple as you wouldn't be buying their hardware, and you'd probably be pirating Os X (I bet you wouldn't buy a 130 dollar copy just to put on your 200 dollar mac)
couple of points here, if indeed the next xBox will use a powerPC chip, it may nto be a G5 exactly. it may be slightly changed or merely related, such as the chip in the nintendo game cube.
As for hacking it to run OS X, you'd have to hack OS X itself to work without a boot rom, which seems very unlikely to ever happen. There's more to a mac than just the basic chip design of the CPU.
Whats more, if you did this, you'd be breaking the law probably in hacking OS X, and taking money directly away from apple as you wouldn't be buying their hardware, and you'd probably be pirating Os X (I bet you wouldn't buy a 130 dollar copy just to put on your 200 dollar mac)
Fukui
macrumors 68000
Yea, this is something that apple should have had long ago. I mean, if you just typing in word you'll only need, what 25% ~ 35% of your CPU? I would imagine a G5 could be clocked down to 300Mhz and depending on if there's flash content or movies or whatever, that would be fine...
What I'm wondering about if there are any GPUs that throttle back clock if its not being used so much... those things suck power just as much as the CPU.
I was under the impression that the Pentium M (Centrino) does exactly that, which is one of the main reasons why laptops using it have such a long battery life.
ftp://download.intel.com/design/mob...ts/25261202.pdf
First, the chips are available in volume, who knows what that volume is. Second, know one knows when a PB will come out with a G5. Read the following line seven times. The CPU is just one of many components. With that said, there are other components that need their power consumption reduced as well as the heat generated reduced.
To everyone who didn't notice
The "unannounced" laptop containing the ATI Radeon 9700 is the new Dell laptop. It's the funniest thing I've ever seen. 2" thick, 55 lbs, runs at 180 degrees F, and is over priced as well.
I wish apple would hurry up and announce the G5 Powerbooks so I can get the 3 month wait until they are in stores over with.
The "unannounced" laptop containing the ATI Radeon 9700 is the new Dell laptop. It's the funniest thing I've ever seen. 2" thick, 55 lbs, runs at 180 degrees F, and is over priced as well.
I wish apple would hurry up and announce the G5 Powerbooks so I can get the 3 month wait until they are in stores over with.
anticipation
Imagine the power, bandwidth and server space saved from the 35-45% reduction in posts when the PB G5's come out.
That is, until the PB G6 in 2006 rumors start coming in 😉
Imagine the power, bandwidth and server space saved from the 35-45% reduction in posts when the PB G5's come out.
That is, until the PB G6 in 2006 rumors start coming in 😉
That's not nice. Can't you engage in friendly conversation without resorting to condescension?
In the words of the Strokes, "Looking down sometimes felt nice".
You can demand all you want (smart or not). That isn't likely to change the pace of engineering, design, etc. Sorry.
Rincewind42
macrumors 6502a
How about reading the linked article?
"Apple will be the first customer for the new chip. IBM and Apple confirmed that the XServe G5, announced in January at MacWorld, will use the 970FX."
I would think that if Apple says that they are using the 970FX in Xserves, then they are using them in Xserves.
daveL
macrumors 68020
So, while IBM plays to their 97x roadmap, which Apple has prior knowledge of, you suspect that Apple has been sitting on their hands with respect to the two ASICS they designed for the G5 MB? Yeah, right. There's been every indication that Apple has been moving the ASICS to the 90nm process in parallel with IBM's efforts on the 970FX. So, I completely disagree that the FSB will stall at 1 GHz while the 970FX clocks at 2.5 GHz and above.
I also think you overstate yourself, sometimes.
daveL
macrumors 68020
In his defense (I had to read his post a couple times), I believe he is saying that, although the feature is present in the 970FX, Apple is not turning it on in the OS. His belief being that power consumption doesn't matter in the Xserve, while performance is paramount. Obviously, PowerTune is present on every 970FX, but you still have to turn it on in software and manage the feature to meet your power/performance profile for your specific application.
You apparently think the CPU is what was holding a G5 PB up. It was one of the factors. There are other components that are power hungry and put out quite a bit of heat. So one of many hurdles is taken care of. Until the other hurdles are resolved as well, no PB G5. When will they be solved, ask Apple as no one here knows the answer.
Rincewind42
macrumors 6502a
It's probably true that you have to turn it on, but Apple usually ships machines in a more or less neutral state wrt power management. So I would expect it to be on by default (just like with the PMG5). But my first impression was that PowerTune was more automatic than that - i.e. it turns off specific parts of the chip that are not currently in use and in a way that doesn't necessarily affect performance when needed. In that case, you would never want to turn PowerTune off because there would be no downside.
The thread deals with the FX and PowerTunes that is incorporated into it. The FX is already known that it is sued in the Xserve. Mr. Anderson wondered if PowerTunes was incorporated into the Xserve, which is what my post addressed.
Just because the processor supports it, doesn't mean the Xserve will use it. Nowhere in the tech specs of the Xserve does it mention that PowerTune will be used, the Xserve does use that processor. So, show me where the Xserve will use take advantage of PowerTune.
The bus is already faster then what they need. Why not make it 1:1 and really have a lot of headroom. Once the bus is faster then the chip, all it does it take more power and create more heat. There are servers that are designed to run at 100% CPU usage crunching large amount of data with a slower bus than that. Even at 90-nm, they chips would run cooler at a third or a quarter of the processor for systems like the iMac and PB. They could bump the bus speed up on the PB when it's plugged into the wall though. I don't see the need (at least for now) to have a 1.5GHz bus.
daveL, that was exactly what I meant about PowerTune and Xserve.
Yes, Xserve is using the 970FX as Apple's own documentation says it is the 90NM 970, which is only the 970FX. And, yes, there is only one version of OS X Panther Server and Power is set to automatic and even at "High" it will slew down the processors if they start overheating. Why do you think there are so many temperature sensors in the Xserve? Just so it can tell you that your processor is overheating and can watch it burn? PowerTune is also about Voltage Islands and eFuses which are an intrinsic part of the 970FX. So, yes, Powertune is being used in the Xserve as well.
There is always a downside. The requirements on a server constantly change. It might be asked to do very little now and then asked to do a large amount of work the next second and then back to little again. Having the processor ready to go to 100% at all times is what is needed. The PM G5 is a totally different beast; it is a desktop machine. If someone is going to encode a movie, they brief delay in getting the processor up to 100% won't be noticeable. If you take that delay in the VA cluster, that could add up. Enterprise servers and communication equipment do not use power saving features because they must always be available. The processor and all of the other components are ready for 100% at all times. That is why they have a lot of fans, which are strategically placed for optimum cooling efficiency.
Rincewind42
macrumors 6502a
Well, as I said, Apple is usually aggressive with power saving technologies, so I would think it would be much more likely yes than no. I also got the impression that it was not an optional technology (i.e. 24.5W at 2Ghz required PowerTune) which would mean by extension that it was being used. If that is not the case, maybe the next OS X seed is what is needed to enable it.
And the Hardware Developer technote for the Xserve G5 hasn't come out yet - until it does I wouldn't expect to get any confirmation one way or another. You'll note that PowerMac G5 tech overview doesn't mention that it cycles the cpus down to ~1.3Ghz during idle either, but it does.
This thread is NOT about what processor the Xserve has, it is about PowerTune. Slowing down the processor because of it overheating is different then PowerTune.
Show the Apple doc where it mentions PowerTune and the Xserve.
Rincewind42
macrumors 6502a
Most server work requires fast IO systems more so than fast CPUs. In those cases the CPU just becomes a dynamic routing device for all that IO. That doesn't require a huge amount of CPU power. And there is nothing to say that PowerTune wouldn't work well in a situation where requirements were constantly changing - a thousandth of a second isn't all that much time, typically on the order of the amount of time a thread is allocated before it is swapped out for another one. If the OS can hint the CPU with say "This thread wasn't using floating point last time, so turn off the FP units" it can be a huge power win. If you guess wrong, big deal - but I bet the technology would also be smarter than that, as you do get a long look ahead on what instructions are coming up so you can easily turn off and on a unit that isn't doing anything for a while.
So really, I can't see too many downsides, and if they do in fact exist and are significant, then they can always be turned off.
PowerTune functionality is not required for the chip to work. The functionality is there if a company wanted to use it. PowerTune is there to reduce power consumption when the CPU load is low. That is fine for a notebook and a desktop. People leave them on all the time, so most of the time it sits there and does nothing. A server on the hand is different. During the day, users put a load on it. At night an administrator might have it perform a backup and other daily/weekly routines. So it might actually see more of a load at night then during the day. Batch processing could be done as well. One some billing systems, at 8 AM is when they start getting nailed and it doesn't ease up until last at night and it still see spikes and such in the wee hours of the morning. PowerTune would do absolutely nothing in that scenario. In a scenario where the CPU would spike briefly and then settle back down. PowerTune would cause a slight degradation in performance as the CPU would be allowed to be fully utilized and then have it throttle back. The majority of your servers today do not have a nice even CPU load.
