I will assure you this, there will be no 3ghz PBs before the PM hits 3.0ghz. We are so desperate to believe anything that may hint at G5 PBs. Something tells me the next revision will be a faster G4.
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Low Power G5 Coming Soon?
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Rincewind42 said:
That and people keep forgetting the massive disparity in FSB speed between a G4 and a G5. In all likelihood a Mobile G5 will bring a FSB of at least 200-400Mh. Imagine a toll road that has a single booth on it and that booth can only take lets say 1 car per minute. Now imagine that same booth taking 80 cars per minute. That would speed up your ability to get from point A to B would it not. Esp since a FSB can effect not only your CPU but the communication to and from your RAM as well. The top of the line G4 PowerBooks have a 167Mhz system bus. The RAM that is installed in it has PC2700 that runs at 333Mhz. Think about that a second. 333 vs 167 notice a problem here? At this point Intel's Pentium M is running at 90nm 2Ghz chip , 400Mhz FSB, and a 2MB L2 cache. which translates into just about any Dothan Pentium M kicking the the living crap out of any PowerBook out there.
As tired as some of you are of me bitching about this, the fact remains that the PowerBook is EXACTLY where the PowerMac was before its transition to the G5 and no amount of hemming and hawing about how pretty it is, how good the OS is, how stable the system is, or how current the other components are will change the fact that the PowerBook is dieing when it comes to competition with the PC world.
Until something drastic is done to narrow the ever widening gap between the PC laptops and PowerBooks I, and I have to imagine more then a few others, aren't going near a PowerBook. Come on Apple! Show me something I can wet myself over!!
confused
im confused..dont pc's have 64bit laptops out? the powerbook is loosing fanfare do to the ibook
im confused..dont pc's have 64bit laptops out? the powerbook is loosing fanfare do to the ibook
Joshvar said:
Most users don't do scientific or highly precise mathematic calculation. And outside of super-computing operations, most educational research doesn't require it either. Heck, much of the research I've seen in education runs on (or could run on) old Dell PIIs. But then it isn't high powered stuff either
.As for video/graphic manipulation, the size of the files means that you only get a performance boost if they stay in memory, which is much more likely if you have a 64-bit platform. But the processing itself isn't as highly affected as the possibility of keeping that data in memory for processing. Low to Mid-level editing will use 8 or 16-bit integer channels, and high-end editing will use 32-bit floating point channels -- both data types that can be highly optimized with Altivec. Leaving you again, with only 64-bit pointers as your aid. So beyond large memory spaces, you don't get anything else from 64-bit processing.
Basically, at this point in time there aren't a large number of tasks that work much more efficiently with 64-bit integers vs smaller integers. And large memory spaces aren't a particularly great optimization tool because even with the faster busses of the 970, access to memory is still much slower than the CPU.
Joshvar said:
I'm not entirely certain what changes x86-64 bring, but what I have heard is that it generally reduces much of the legacy annoyance with coding for x86. Whereas, with PowerPC 64-bit was a part of the original specification. Therefore, a 64-bit version of PowerPC merely offers a few instructions specific to 64-bit integers and the larger memory spaces. The performance that the 970 brings to the table is a result of it's architecture, not of the fact that it is a 64-bit PowerPC. Just look at the performance gains that so many 32-bit applications gain when run on a G5 as opposed to a G4.
Bingo, to us it'll look like a bigger L2 cache FX -- with no low power variant.MacinDoc said:
There is a design/production problem keeping both the low power/high MHz versions at bay.
Which means a rework of the chip or process change to get those things working well.
The question remains, will IBM do it for the PPC970s, or bring on the Power5-UL which is supposed to include advanced power saving features along with the addition of low-k (which may be needed for low power at 90nm) features.
myapplseedshurt said:
The system controller has a HyperTransport bus to the I/O and PCI-X controllers. The dual independant FSB's go into the system controller. HyperTransport 2.0 is widely rumored to be used as the technology for most of the remaining interconnects. Specifically, with a dual core CPU setup it can be used unaltered as the FSB.
Dr. Dastardly said:Finally something decent to rumor about instead of iPod, iPod, sock, iPod, flash, iPod.
I hate to say it, but I agree. I'm beyond bored with iPod rumors. Admittedly, I need to buy a new iPod since I did sell my 1g 10gig about a month ago. However, I want to hear more G5/dual-core G4 news. I have to update my laptop next year, after all. The 2 year mark is coming.
Wow, great news, and very promising for the PowerMac, PowerBook and iMac lines! (Probably just the former two for starters...) I was wondering what the next G5 news would be, and how Apple would improve on the chip, and this looks like it might be it! As for a G5 PowerBook, I stand by my claim that is it still a ways off... Great news though, I'm eager to hear more!
SiliconAddict said:
... iPee ...Back on topic: That will make Tiger awesome, the powermac was at this point, before the G5 (more or less, I'm not sure), and the Powerbook was where my iBook is now, it doesn't look that outdated at all
...I will save the $129 of tiger, and will get it with my 13" PB G5
SiliconAddict said:
You're right. We are tired of it.
However, I think it's a hard sell to say the PB G4 1.5 GHz is slower than the vast majority of PC laptops. I'm not talking desktop replacement P4 based "luggables" that are $3,500-$4,500+, either. I know a lot of people with PC laptops and most agree the Mac is more compelling and cost effective. It's also faster for the things they do, and if the interface isn't slow then it doesn't matter to most people. Ergonomics, efficiency, and portability are higher factors.Sure, more power is always good but the performance disparity in a laptop (versus a desktop) is not a major selling point for all people. After all-- I'm not buying a laptop to do high end rendering weather it be 3D or 2D. A 1.5 GHz G4 is a pretty decent chip for most everything else. I could see your arguement being more relevant to desktop replacement consumers. Perhaps this is you?
Personally, my friend's 1.5GHz Powerbook is ideal as a second machine. I would get one if I had more need... but for me, at least, my primary machine must be a desktop anyway.
deputy_doofy said:I hate to say it, but I agree. I'm beyond bored with iPod rumors. Admittedly, I need to buy a new iPod since I did sell my 1g 10gig about a month ago. However, I want to hear more G5/dual-core G4 news. I have to update my laptop next year, after all. The 2 year mark is coming.
I risk being flamed here... but how about the fact that no new rumors come out of Macrumors.com anymore. They're always from other sources and quoted here. Gone are the days when Macrumors was the one breaking the stories ...
It's too bad, too. It took me a long time to hit the 500+ post mark so I could have my sweet Avatar.
The FSB is a variant of IBMs elastic I/O -- which turns out to be quite a power hog.Frobozz said:
Everything in the Southbridge (KeyLargo2/K2 and Shasta) is strung together with a PCI bus.
As you said the HT bus is just an interconnect between the U3, HT Tunnel and the Southbridge chips.
Most likely you'll find some sort of IBM bus technology inside the Memory Controller (if Apple used the IBM Blue Logic portfolio.)
now that its nearing the 3 ghz and intel has stopped increasing clock speeds and also low power, hmmm looks like machines are gonna start becoming equal