Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

I'm not sure what to think about this G5 thing...

M

marsmacguru

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jan 8, 2002
3
0
Deep within the realm of the IBM PowerPC web-page, I found a few interesting things.... 1: The G5 is currently in production (building up volume)
2: We're talking some serious speed, here.
3: We might be waiting a little longer than expected, but the new products will exceed our expectations.

My professional opinion.... If you have a G3, you may as well wait. If you have a G4, wait. If you have anything that doesn't start with a "G", Buy a quicksilver. They make your 603's and 604's look like ancient relics, and the speed differences will blow you away. After this new breed emerges, we'll all wait for 100GHz G12's before buying again. And that might also be sooner than we think.... Intel buyers beware. Your products will be more outdated than ever.
 
Hmm

Flame me if I'm being a little dumb here but arent we waiting for G5 stock from Motorola not IBM? I know they both make mac processors but IBM aren't utilising altivec, right? So these G5's are gonna be different....
Please paste the url :)
 
Originally posted by Ensign Paris
I don't think the G5 will have Altivec
Click to expand...

You are joking right? Surely were not gonna be taking a step back and losing vector parallel processing? I thought it was motorolas baby - with some more mileage left to go for quite a while?

Questions, questions.... :)
 
speculations...

as much as I don't typically like talking about this stuff...

I've read in a couple places where the G5 processor supposedly won't use Alti-Vec like the G4....but who knows...

I'm just waiting patient for some solid evidence.... :p
 
Anthropomorphising:

I think Apple will switch to rats from hamsters and finally discontinue it's line of gerbils in the iBook. The switch to chinchillas will take more time and the fabled weasels are still in R&D.

Meanwhile AMD has announced better lifespan on their cocaine-addicted mice and Intel has announced all new methamphetamine drips for it's gerbils.
 
Motorola

Every rumor I've ever heard has had Motorola producing the G5. Also, a lot of the rumors were saying that they were working on improving Altivec performance. These rumors appeared to be fairly accurate (although I could be wrong about that).
 
Whoosh!

From what I have seen on most boards and rumor sites Altivec is up to version 2 and operating at 256 bit in the G5 I suppose this sounds quite feasible. Yay! Bring it on

I like eyelikearts attitude "I'm just waiting patient for some solid evidence...." I wish I could be patient but its difficult for me when the Apple product lines in limbo. I feel like a kid at Christmas wanting to open his presents early :p
 
that site is the original plans and ideas for what we now know of as the G3...originally (if i remember right) it was to be called G5 because of the 604 numbering and instead of calling it a 605 it was to be called a G5...instead it was the 3rd generation of apple processors...pre-powerPC, powerPC, G3....
if you'll look, the article goes back to 1994 info....
 
Am I the only one...

Not missing the fact that that page is information about IBM's S/390 processors? Read it. It is a CISC-based architecture used in certain IBM product lines. It is in no way related to the POWER or PowerPC families of RISC processors.

Read the *@&#^%! article, please.
 
Also..

I also might add that I'd find it very hard to believe Apple would buy into a new high-end processor that does not support Altivec, considering all the effort they have put into optimizing various parts of Mac OS X for it.

The performance would have to be so overwhelming increased so as to be able to emulate Altivec at a decent pace (which, ironically, would still make Altivec a decellerator to vectorized code since it would then be emulated.)
 
I agree....which is why I'm saying I'm not positive but I thought I remember seeing something about them some months ago....

I could be wrong...

personally I don't think we'll see them without Alti-Vec either....it would be a complete waste....
 
here are the specs for the mpc8450 not 8500!

Motorola MPC8540
Features:

e500 "Book E" Processor 600MHz - 1GHz
256KByte On-chip L2
128Gb/s On-chip Fabric
333MHz DDR Memory Controller
Advanced I/O Ports

RapidIO
64b PCI-X
dual 10/100/Gbit Ethernet
General Purpose parallel I/O port

4-Channel DMA
Interrupt Controller (8 discreet or 16 serial)
DUART Serial Interface
Modular Design

I've heard the G5 is supposed to be a book e processor.....speculate for yourselves

http://e-www.motorola.com/webapp/sps/site/prod_summary.jsp?code=MPC8540&nodeId=01M98655
 
I understand everyone's conern about the lack of an AltiVec 128-bit subprocessor, but you have to realise, if the G5 is a true 64-bit processor, then we are talking twice the data in one cycle for everything BUT vector processing (which would be halved). Other than graphics design, vectors are not used a WHOLE lot. Even in graphics, probably at least a quarter of cycles are not vectors. Now, if we see a say...1.2Ghz 64-bit processor with ddr ram, 512k on chip L2 cache @ 1.2Ghz, and a 200Mhz system bus, you are probably about just as fast when rendering your graphics as with a G4 and about 3x as fast in most other activities. You do realize that with G3s and G4s running at the same frequency, the G3 is actually faster (the G4's only edge is vector-processing). Let us think further, now. Mac OS 10.1 can support up to 32 procecssors simultaniously. What about when Apple puts two of these 64-bit processors in the machine, or even more? The current G4 design can only work with up to 2 processors. If IBM makes these chips with support for up to say 4-8, what then for a powerhouse system.
Rumors also say that IBM has been working on its own vector processing engine. Who knows: IBM may blow our minds away with a massive processor, soon.

Well, enough rambling for me.
http://www-3.ibm.com/chips/products/powerpc/newsletter/oct2001/new-prod1.html
 
Gahhhhhhh..............

Ooooooooh........major Geekgasm. That's TASTEY!!!High speed bus capability and variable chip speed, hooboy.:p :cool:
 
The question is:

When.

If Apple implements this in March, there'd be a possible:
200Mhz bussed
4GHZ
true 64 bit, splittable-within-chip cached

4 processor
DDR
2Gb system RAM'd
dual native fibre SCSI
G5!!!!!!!!

(okay so I'm guessing about SCSI)

Damn, that'd make Wintel heads take notice. I'll call mine Glamdring thank you.Now if I could just get Narsil outa Woz, I'll be happy.
 
i don't think apple will implement scsi again, and with great reason, one, they already dropped scsi becuase of price, as well as the fact that now ata 133 comes close and can take 10,000 rpm drives for only a third the cost. there are rumors about ultra scsi 320 but the cost of those will be huge. scsi has laid dorment for a few years, it is due for a comeback. why would apple drop altivec, well, one, ibm has full rights to that engine and they choose not to use it, there is a reason why. speed difficults in higher amounts bog it down, and the only way it is good is if you optimize to use it. photoshop has optimized for it and it's awesome, dvd ripping, aw yea, and others. but many don't, which makes it useless, and like it was said above, if you can double the chip speed and make it true 64 bit, it's gonna dominate, thus, cost is dropped, speed is increased as well as the main thing here people, sales and profit, that's what it's about. you might not like it, but apple knows it. so...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back