ezekielrage_99 said:One of those new Xeons in a Mac Pro would be sweet
Why not one of these in an iPod or a Nano? Come on Apple, start thinking out of the box.
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Intel's Tulsa Server Processor, and IBM Power 6
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Why not one of these in an iPod or a Nano? Come on Apple, start thinking out of the box.
nagromme said:
Looking forward to the Conroe PowerMacs (probably at WWDC).
For those that don't know, Conroe is basically the desktop version of Yonah. It is meant to reach speeds of 3Ghz plus on release. Although it has many improvements over Yonah because it doesn't need to be a lowpower chip like Yonah.
manu chao said:
Good catch. I was going to say the same thing. I would think it highly unlikely that Apple would put any Netburst machine out for sale.
Woodcrest is a better option.
no problem....
The fans aren't quiet, of course, but in a server room that usually isn't that important. (The 4 water-cooled air chillers in my small lab aren't quiet either.)
Xeon chips of that power are common in 1U servers already. The wattage is not an issue.TangoCharlie said:
The fans aren't quiet, of course, but in a server room that usually isn't that important. (The 4 water-cooled air chillers in my small lab aren't quiet either.)
combatcolin said:
That's not all that unusual, Sun's UltraSPARC IV/IV+ has been around for a while with 16M of cache.
<Puts on grumpy old UNIX guy suspenders>
"Sheesh, all this talk of multiple cores, some of us have had that around for years."
<Takes off suspenders>
NuMan said:Why not one of these in an iPod or a Nano? Come on Apple, start thinking out of the box.
Do you *really* want something that hot in your pocket? Wait, is that burning pork I smell?
AidenShaw said:
It really depends. One or two CPUs in a room aren't an issue, but you'd be amazed at how much of a power/cooling draw a rack or two of 'em are. Imagine, if you will, a conservative 100W per CPU (we won't even think about disks for now), two CPUs per 1U, and 42 systems per rack. That's a (really conservative) figure of 8400W per rack.
I remember some wise-ass telling me years ago that eventually we wouldn't even need to air-condition computer rooms, as everything would be small and cool-running.
Hah! It's actually been on the upswing for some time now. I used to work for $VERY_LARGE_UNIX_VENDOR, and we were spending a lot of time and money on trying to solve power/cooling problems. I remember walking into one of our labs where there was a row of 10 racks, each with 42 dual-CPU 1U systems. Even though the A/C in that room was designed for some big iron, it was very warm indeed. Especially behind the racks.... (To be fair, most datacenters are really designed for bottom->top cooling, not front->back cooling. Still, it was nasty hot behind those racks.)
stockscalper said:The G6 uses far far less power than Intel's current line up. Apple what were you thinking?
Perhaps Apple wants it all? Perhaps getting software providers to Universal their programs, Apple can then care less what processor is in the computer? I think it would be genius to be in the position where your software can work on a variety of chips. Windows is locked into the Intel/AMD chip set. OS X can run on that or PowerPC. Why not keep it that way? Run on both. If the new Power processors from Intel are better for servers, then Apple can make a server product around that chip set, and put OS X on it. Simple.
I think being locked into a certain chip set/processor is not the way things need to be....
One should not forget that companies like IBM that use their own technology in their own products have a vested interest in those technologies.iMeowbot said:
When Apple signed on to the PowerPC 970, IBM was looking for a processor to bridge the gap between the PowerPC 604e and POWER3 series (32 bit) processors and the POWER4 series (64 bit) processors with their own workstation and server clients.
From Apple's point of view, because IBM was planning on using these processors, Apple thought that development resources in this area would be secure.
As it turned out, IBM really didn't need this processor as much as they originally thought. And their interest in it and future development disappeared, leaving Apple to foot most of the bill on continued development.
Add to this the introduction of a new major customer in another area of PowerPC development (Microsoft) and all of a sudden Apple was a back burner customer for IBM.
Now, even with all that, IBM has lead the high end processor industry for years and there is really no sign that they are losing their edge any time soon. So acting like the POWER6 is something that is vaporware is short sighted
Just because IBM and Apple have parted ways has not changed IBM's resolve in their own products... specially products that they have a vested interest in.
I, personally, felt that Apple shot itself in the foot going with Altivec. This was a technology that IBM was never fond of and something they put into the PowerPC 970 strictly to please Apple. I thought that Apple should have been taking steps years ago to move to the POWER line of processors. It was guaranteed to always have IBM's full interest and funding, something that Motorola couldn't provide with their G4.
ericdano said:
I have to agree with this statement. Right now, Apple is busy talking Intel up as the best thing since sliced bread, because it's the way to market this whole thing and shove it down everyone's throats.
But in reality, what they will have in about a year or two is a whole platform that is processor agnostic. I would not at all be surprised at that time to see Apple either reconsider IBM's chips (if the POWER6 indeed turned out to be like blazingly fast), or even AMD's chips, since they are making great strides in 64 bit computing.
I mean think about it, you've got Microsoft and Adobe both converting their codebases to XCode as we speak, which is a development environment that Apple controls. They have painstakingly set up a programming environment that is pretty well abstracted from the underlying hardware, and created a way you can get cross-architecture compilation with the click of a button. They could even opt to bring Yellow Box back at some point in the future, which would mean even more flexibility.
That is a step toward platform agnosticism if you ask me.
I am not saying I expect Apple to use IBM chips again, but I think the strategy clearly is to create a system with ultimate flexibility. If IBM manages to yank a 7 Ghz desktop chip out of its ass, Apple can say "umm...we'd like to buy some of those...hey Intel, get your act together".
Very cool news! Yeah, I could see this chip going into the Xserves for sure. Which then begs the question - will the new PowerMacs be outfitted with Conroe, or would Apple dare be so bold as to stick Woodcrest in them?
NuMan said:Why not one of these in an iPod or a Nano? Come on Apple, start thinking out of the box.
The only thing that would be coming "out of the box" if one of those was in an iPod would be flames.
RacerX said:
I agree for desktops but what about laptops? The Power processors would need a whole lot of work to fit into a laptop and be competitve with performance and battery life. They couldn't do it with a G5 and I doubt they could do it with a Power either.
Xserves, xserves, where are you?!?
We are a small web company designing MMORPGs and strategy games, and all we've been doing in '05 is wait for Apple to release something new for Xserves... The last update we've seen was bigger hard drives... Wooptidoo!! Bigger HDs, now that's gonna make us rush to the closest phone to order one or two!
We are currently running with a single processor 1.33GHz G4 Xserve with OS X Server 10.3, and we can't wait to get a dual processor unit with enough power to last at least a year or two! Come on Apple, what's wrong with you! Where are the new Intel Xserves?! Ok, ok, I agree there are none available at the moment for Xserves, so: where are the Quad G5 Xserves?!?
Any news that could mean new Xserves soon is good news to me, but I sure hope whatever they decide to put in there, it will be worth the wait, I don't want an overpriced third-party Dell 1U unit that has ordinary Xeon crap and an Apple logo!
We are a small web company designing MMORPGs and strategy games, and all we've been doing in '05 is wait for Apple to release something new for Xserves... The last update we've seen was bigger hard drives... Wooptidoo!! Bigger HDs, now that's gonna make us rush to the closest phone to order one or two!
We are currently running with a single processor 1.33GHz G4 Xserve with OS X Server 10.3, and we can't wait to get a dual processor unit with enough power to last at least a year or two! Come on Apple, what's wrong with you! Where are the new Intel Xserves?! Ok, ok, I agree there are none available at the moment for Xserves, so: where are the Quad G5 Xserves?!?
Any news that could mean new Xserves soon is good news to me, but I sure hope whatever they decide to put in there, it will be worth the wait, I don't want an overpriced third-party Dell 1U unit that has ordinary Xeon crap and an Apple logo!
Quote:
Originally Posted by ericdano
Perhaps Apple wants it all? Perhaps getting software providers to Universal their programs, Apple can then care less what processor is in the computer? I think it would be genius to be in the position where your software can work on a variety of chips. Windows is locked into the Intel/AMD chip set. OS X can run on that or PowerPC. Why not keep it that way? Run on both. If the new Power processors from Intel are better for servers, then Apple can make a server product around that chip set, and put OS X on it. Simple.
I think being locked into a certain chip set/processor is not the way things need to be....
I agree. I don't think Apple is ever going to lock themselves in again. Not saying they will, but if Apple ended up using IBM in five years, I wouldn't be surprised. It's just business.
Also, I know it's what's in front of us, but I still keep seeing comments about people not being able to wait for the Power Macs to cross over. I do editing with both top of the line PM's and PC's, and the PM is definitely stronger. I believe my opinion is not biased, but based on experience. The high end PM is a great machine.
Originally Posted by ericdano
Perhaps Apple wants it all? Perhaps getting software providers to Universal their programs, Apple can then care less what processor is in the computer? I think it would be genius to be in the position where your software can work on a variety of chips. Windows is locked into the Intel/AMD chip set. OS X can run on that or PowerPC. Why not keep it that way? Run on both. If the new Power processors from Intel are better for servers, then Apple can make a server product around that chip set, and put OS X on it. Simple.
I think being locked into a certain chip set/processor is not the way things need to be....
I agree. I don't think Apple is ever going to lock themselves in again. Not saying they will, but if Apple ended up using IBM in five years, I wouldn't be surprised. It's just business.
Also, I know it's what's in front of us, but I still keep seeing comments about people not being able to wait for the Power Macs to cross over. I do editing with both top of the line PM's and PC's, and the PM is definitely stronger. I believe my opinion is not biased, but based on experience. The high end PM is a great machine.
It would be an easier sell to IBM if the underlying architecture was one that they were vested in. One of the reasons IBM was putting any amount of effort into a low power, low heat version of the 970 was for blades. But as the foundations of the 970 are getting away from their main processors, their resolve to solve the power/heat issues to the point of getting them into a laptop began to wane.greenspeed said:
Even in the past, IBM wasn't that helpful to Apple on the laptop side of things. There was never a PowerBook based on the PowerPC 604e, and the PowerPC 603e was up to 50% slower per clock cycle. Apple ended up going with the G3 because it was very fast at integer performance thanks to the cache set up, and was also effective on the power/heat side because it was based on the PowerPC 603e architecture. But when it came to floating point operations, the G3 still didn't quite measure up to the PowerPC 604e.
Even though both Motorola and IBM produced G3 processors (and later just IBM), IBM never used them in their own workstations or servers. But they continued to sell workstations based on the PowerPC 604e up until around 2002 as I recall (running at 375 MHz, in 1, 2 and 4 processor configurations).
I'm not say that Apple going with POWER would have been the perfect situation, but considering that IBM put Altivec into the 970 (something I was very surprised about when it happened) I would think that Apple could have used that same pull to push for a low power, low heat version instead of pushing for Altivec, and IBM would have done it.
It is hard to say though... paths left untaken are hard to judge once they've been past.
Thanatoast said:
What difference will it make? If you want a Mac, you're unlikely to have much processor choice beyond that which is already built into the consumer/pro distinction.
hvfsl said:Looking forward to the Conroe PowerMacs (probably at WWDC).
For those that don't know, Conroe is basically the desktop version of Yonah. It is meant to reach speeds of 3Ghz plus on release. Although it has many improvements over Yonah because it doesn't need to be a lowpower chip like Yonah.
Wrong. Conroe is the desktop version of Merom, not Yonah.
POWER6 speeds
What the Yahoo article doesn't say is that the POWER6 is running at 6Ghz currently within IBM. The POWER range always has conservative ratings on release because for it's uses it needs to be super reliable, not necessarily fastest. The PowerPC 970 ran much faster than the POWER4 series that it was based on.
The Xeon chips are toys by comparison and the latest ones are too hot to be used by Apple. The low power Sossaman Xeons are slower than the G5s in the Xserve and kind of pointless. Apple will be waiting for something faster than the G5 and at the moment, there isn't anything from Intel. PowerMacs are in a similar situation, especially as so far Intel do not allow more than 2 cores in a desktop system and the Quad G5 has 4 cores, each faster than a single Intel Core.
It'll be interesting if IBM come out with a new POWER6 based PowerPC chip which if it comes in at even 4Ghz, the low end of POWER6, would completely blow Intel and AMD away. I can't see Apple resisting that unless they really do want to only sell to the low to mid end of the market.
What the Yahoo article doesn't say is that the POWER6 is running at 6Ghz currently within IBM. The POWER range always has conservative ratings on release because for it's uses it needs to be super reliable, not necessarily fastest. The PowerPC 970 ran much faster than the POWER4 series that it was based on.
The Xeon chips are toys by comparison and the latest ones are too hot to be used by Apple. The low power Sossaman Xeons are slower than the G5s in the Xserve and kind of pointless. Apple will be waiting for something faster than the G5 and at the moment, there isn't anything from Intel. PowerMacs are in a similar situation, especially as so far Intel do not allow more than 2 cores in a desktop system and the Quad G5 has 4 cores, each faster than a single Intel Core.
It'll be interesting if IBM come out with a new POWER6 based PowerPC chip which if it comes in at even 4Ghz, the low end of POWER6, would completely blow Intel and AMD away. I can't see Apple resisting that unless they really do want to only sell to the low to mid end of the market.
thogs_cave said:
Yes it is unusual - Sun's 16MB cache was off-chip. This means it has much higher latency and much lower bandwidth and is generally not so good.
The on-chip cache Intel has it going to way better, but of course, it also much more difficult to make. Hence why it is much smaller than Sun's.