Low Power G5 Coming Soon?

[quagmire]

To end the stinking dual core G4 Pbook by January or whenever the next pbook revision is. Freescale sampled it in October. It will most likely ship around WWDC-Paris time. So unless you want to have the PC world gain more ground in the notebook world by having 1.5 Ghz G4 for over a year that is fine for you. The PPC 7448 won't be sampled intill January. It will most likely start being in production between Paris '05 to MWSF '06.

 

[Eric_Z]

But to get back on topic, it seems like a PB G5 becomes more and more likely, unfortunately IMO. Since the 8641D and 8641 isn't due untill H1-06 :-/

And please, please, pretty please with shugar on top IBM 1) "Fix" the poxy integer preformance in this iteration of the 970 and 2) Add an integrated memory controller, the preformance of the current one is far far from stellar.

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Oh and if the multicore version comes out in something that resembles a reasonable time frame Apple would IMO have room in there lineup for another model.

Think:

Powermac: SLI PCIe, Dual dualcores, 4(hopefully more)HD bays + RAID (0,1,0+1,10,5), 2 optical drives

Cube/shuttlemac: Single PCIe slot single dualcore, 2HD bays(Raid 0,1), 1 optical drive

iMac: 970GX (you trade preformance/expandabillety for the nifty formfactor/screen), 1HD, 1 optical

eMac: 7448, 1 HD, 1 optical

 

[macuser05]

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.

I think you need to check some things. I just did a marathon music re-encoding session with the following machines:

1) iMac G4/800 superdrive
2) iBook G3/800
3) IBM A31p (Pee4, 2Ghz)
4) IBM T42 (Centrinwho 1.7)
5) AMD Duron 700

Ripping and encoding to AAC @ 224k the speed results were:
1) T42 ~ 8-11x
2) A32 ~ 7-8x
3) iMac - 5-6x
4) iBook 5-6x
5) Duron - ~ 2-3x

All laptops were running off AC power.

However, I wonder what the iMac could have done if it had a better CD reader (I don't think the Superdrive is all that fast ripping). And the shocker was the iBook, which really held its own, despite being a G3....

Now, I would imagine a Powerbook at almost 2x the clockspeed of these Macs with a better memory architecture and bus (both are @ 100 mhz) would be able to come darn close to the Centrinwho laptop (sorry, I hate Intel CPUs). The shocker was the Duron, which I would have thought would have had a better showing as AMD's FPU's and Integer performance on the Athlon series was AWESOME.

So, I would think the Powerbooks should come darn close to a new Peee-M CPU, especially in their current form. Needless to say, I was not at all impressed with the Pee4 laptop. Only confirms what a POS the P4 really is, especially when an 800Mhz CPU is right on its heels...

 

[dawntreader]

carbon fiber

GENERAL_SMILEY on macnn.com forum:

"During my brief wander round 1 Infinite Loop last week I was shown the revised Powerbooks, due to come out in the new year. They will continue to be G4 based, 2GHZ being the top end processor (use up stock?).

However the new thing, and this will no doubt turn some of you old schoolers on, is that they have ditched the silver shell, for some sort of ultra light, super hard, unscratchable carbon fiber black case, with red LED styling.

This will happen, and for the many doubters (and who can blame you), I will bring up this post when they are released"

---

does the 2Ghz claim sounds realistic ?... what are peoples views on this post ?

lots say its bull****t

Rob

I've heard from a friend of a friend that works at Apple (sounds crazy I know) that the new PB will be carbon fiber. He had no other details. This sounds quite possible to me.

 

[Rincewind42]

And please, please, pretty please with shugar on top IBM 1) "Fix" the poxy integer preformance in this iteration of the 970

What is wrong with the integer performance of the 970? Seems to me that it fairs pretty well, in general on par with a P4 that has a 50% clock speed and the P4 is generally considered as one of the fastest integer work horses (I'm recalling from when the 2 Ghz G5 was introduced, I would assume that the 2.5 Ghz G5 beats the fastest P4 most of the time on integer).

 

[jj2003]

Low Power 3Ghz 970 variant sometime during the first Quarter of 05.... More Like 2nd Quarter of 05 for sure considering Apple and IBM still can't even catch up with 2.5Ghz 970FX.

I would not make too long going assumptions on two different processors.

It should be noted that Apple Predicted during it's last Conference Calls that they would still be playing catchup with 2.5Ghz supplies well into quarter 1 of 2005.

Yes, the Q1/05 is now, Apple tends to talk about financial quoarters in their Conference Calls, and Apple's financial quarters are not the same as calendar quarters.

 

[jj2003]

However, I wonder what the iMac could have done if it had a better CD reader (I don't think the Superdrive is all that fast ripping).

He he, let's do a CPU benchmark and not remove the biggest bottleneck, CD reader..

 

[AirUncleP]

Finally something decent to rumor about instead of iPod, iPod, sock, iPod, flash, iPod.

Here.Here........by the way, What's up with the iPod Micro?

 

[bentmywookie]

I've heard from a friend of a friend that works at Apple (sounds crazy I know) that the new PB will be carbon fiber. He had no other details. This sounds quite possible to me.

This simply adds fuel to that fire, but that was going to be my guess for the next case - simply because it follows the line of materials being used for bikes (as you move up the chain).

 

[JOD8FY]

I also think that the new PB's could have a carbon fiber case.

Aside from that, this news sounds great. Can't wait to see how it turns out.

JOD8FY

 

[mfacey]

I also think that the new PB's could have a carbon fiber case.

Aside from that, this news sounds great. Can't wait to see how it turns out.

JOD8FY

Carbon Fiber sounds awesome. It'll definitely keep up the jaw dropping wow factor that even my busted up old titanium still has.

I just hope and pray they won't paint it or cover it with something. I think seeing the carbon fibre weave would look seriously cool! Plus if they did they might fall into the crappy paint problem they had with the titanium.

 

[AmigoMac]

I've heard from a friend of a friend that works at Apple (sounds crazy I know) that the new PB will be carbon fiber. He had no other details. This sounds quite possible to me.

I do hope you're right, I will wait for the PB and then I'll order the mountain bike... they have to match , it's a pretty logical step as the theory of the 13" PB instead of the 12" ...

 

[Eric_Z]

What is wrong with the integer performance of the 970? Seems to me that it fairs pretty well, in general on par with a P4 that has a 50% clock speed and the P4 is generally considered as one of the fastest integer work horses (I'm recalling from when the 2 Ghz G5 was introduced, I would assume that the 2.5 Ghz G5 beats the fastest P4 most of the time on integer).

It's got a two cykle latency wich hits small simple integer code hard (ie most integer code).

 

[maxvamp]

Agreed, the next rev will be carbon fiber

The next powerbook will actually be made from the same material as the American Stealth Fighter and Stealth Bomber...

How do I know you ask?

Well, I got a pre-released prototype, and was playing with it for a couple of days. Very fast and blew my socks off! Unfortunatly, I set it down, and now I can't find it...

Anyone seen my Stealth PowerBook?

Max.

 

[GonzoRob]

The next powerbook will actually be made from the same material as the American Stealth Fighter and Stealth Bomber...

How do I know you ask?

Well, I got a pre-released prototype, and was playing with it for a couple of days. Very fast and blew my socks off! Unfortunatly, I set it down, and now I can't find it...

Anyone seen my Stealth PowerBook?

Max.

im sorry , i may be *very slow* tonight .. but you're kidding about actually playing with one right ?
errrr
i feel dumb now

heh
R

 

[Sun Baked]

IBM's Latest 2.5GHz PPC970FX Info

_Today, a functional limitation exists in the 90-nm design, preventing operation below 1.0 V_. This raises the lower edge of the power envelope from 0.8 to 1.0 V and the lower power line in our example to 27 and 19 W for f/2 and f/4, respectively. _At the same time, the 1.3-V application condition can only be applied to products with <50 000 power-on-hours (POHs)_. To accommodate the reliability requirements of a 100 000-POH system, the upper voltage must be limited to 1.2 V .

Wasn't a simple errata to be fixed in the next mask like quite a few of the G4 problems we had with voltage which would affect specific sections of the G4 like a L3 cache controller with certain DDR RAM...

 

[SiliconAddict]

Now, I would imagine a Powerbook at almost 2x the clockspeed of these Macs with a better memory architecture and bus (both are @ 100 mhz) would be able to come darn close to the Centrinwho laptop (sorry, I hate Intel CPUs). The shocker was the Duron, which I would have thought would have had a better showing as AMD's FPU's and Integer performance on the Athlon series was AWESOME.

So, I would think the Powerbooks should come darn close to a new Peee-M CPU, especially in their current form. Needless to say, I was not at all impressed with the Pee4 laptop. Only confirms what a POS the P4 really is, especially when an 800Mhz CPU is right on its heels...

Hehe.

You are really lame with excuses. You do realize that right? I wrote up close to a page in response explaining exactly why you are off on your extrapolations before I realized that you don’t know anything about system architecture, drive performance, etc. You post itself shows this. So why bother right.

I will say this because I think this much you can understand:

You can throw out any specs you want. The reality, something Mac users love to distort to make it look like everything is perfectly fine, is the G4 sucks flying monkey dung. This is another aspect of the G4 PowerMac that occurred prior to the migration to the G5. This rooting for the losing team mentality. I don’t play those games. If an intel CPU sucks (Like the entire desktop line.) I don’t beat around the bush. If a mobile line rocks. (Like the Pentium M.) I will sing its praise. The G5 desktop is a solid, spectacular piece of hardware. I have no issues with it because other then needing LC for the high end it’s a solid system. But I’m not in any way shape or form going to play the apology game with the PowerBook. It’s not keeping up. Period. End of story. Close the book and wait for the next novel from Apple to appear.


I’ll leave you with some pretty pictures taken last fall from www.barefeats.com a fairly credible pro Apple site.

Now that was from last year. Amazing that barefeats hasn't run another comparison test since then. Maybe that's because barefeats shows that the speedbumps to 1.5Ghz shows negligible performance increases in actual CPU intensive benchamarks (They did a much better job in the GPU marks due to a new ATI card update.) Why? One word: bottleneck. Again you can only force so much data through a 167Mhz FSB.

PS How about you get past the kindergarten speak and actually join the adults on the forum.

 

[plinkoman]

is all this talk of a 13" pb just wishfull thinking, or is there an actual chance of there being one? to me it sounds like it'd just be more expensive for apple, they'd have to design a new display, and would then have to produce it whereas now they already have the 12" and its shared with the ibook thus less production costs. i would certainly love a 13" display though...

 

[maxvamp]

you're kidding about actually playing with one right ?

Yes....tongue in cheek...

Max.

 

[Windowlicker]

This sounds quite promising.. I'm still very critical about the PBG5 though.

 

[tortoise]

Faster memory would be a waste

If we do see 3Ghz in the new year, I hope we see some faster RAM too - PC3200 is starting to get a bit long in the tooth.

The current G5s don't really use the memory they currently have. Opterons get half the latency (~65ns vs ~130ns) and almost twice the real-world bandwidth (~5.5 vs ~3.0 GB/s) to RAM with the exact same memory sticks. In other words, the problem is architectural and short of an overhaul of the memory controller subsystem you will not see much improvement in G5 memory performance even if they supported faster RAM sticks. This remains the Achilles Heel of the PPC970 series processors.

 

[rdowns]

Finally something decent to rumor about instead of iPod, iPod, sock, iPod, flash, iPod.

Just wait until they introduce the new PBs with the PB sweaters.

 

[Roller]

I also think that the new PB's could have a carbon fiber case.

JOD8FY

Anything would be an improvement over the Ti and Al PowerBooks, which look great until you actually use them. My 5-year-old Lombard held up better than my year-old Albook.

 

[Rincewind42]

The current G5s don't really use the memory they currently have. Opterons get half the latency (~65ns vs ~130ns) and almost twice the real-world bandwidth (~5.5 vs ~3.0 GB/s) to RAM with the exact same memory sticks. In other words, the problem is architectural and short of an overhaul of the memory controller subsystem you will not see much improvement in G5 memory performance even if they supported faster RAM sticks. This remains the Achilles Heel of the PPC970 series processors.

Hmm... this is probably due to the dual uni-directional busses on the G5. The 2.5 Ghz machines with 1.25 Ghz busses would probably top out around 4.4 GB/s and around 4 GB/s real world (in each direction, if the RAM/controller supported it). I would suspect the controller before the CPU for this though. But if we hit 3 Ghz, then the CPU's bus would top out over 5 GB/s in each direction. This is definitely going to make the RAM chips feel slow. Opteron can probably pull off better performance because it uses a bi-directional bus, but outside of benchmarking that has it's own inefficiencies.

 

[Rincewind42]

It's got a two cycle latency wich hits small simple integer code hard (ie most integer code).

How do you come to this conclusion? For the most part, the 970 like most other CPUs executes simply integer instructions in one cycle. Where you get a two cycle latency is if the instructions are dependent, but the compiler or software writer can usually produce code that avoids the latency (or at least masks it). Obviously, code that was optimized for non-970 PowerPCs may have code sequences that expose this issue, but code optimized specifically for the 970 should be fine.