Motorola MPC7457 PDF

[hasapi]

Actually, alot of people are missing the point, this is a great chip at least for the iBooks and maybe the iMacs, and Ill explain later. The 7457 dissipates around 10W @ 1GHz, so for 32bit consumer range its perfect. The only problem with the G4 and most likley Moto, is whether they feel compelled to push the chip to 2GHz within 6 months, and beyond. The iMacs would be great at this speed with this chip.

I suspect that Moto business in imbedded processors would adversely affect our/Apple's desire for faster cpus. In fact, I predict that Apple already knows this along with their roadmap "cough" and will introduce IBM chips across the entire range in the near term.

Importantly, back to the present, I would object to a minor pathetic speed bump in 12 months on the powerbook 15", a 1.2G 19W 970 is preferred. But realistically untimely.

 

[Invizzible]

Maybe I just don't know enough about it, but since my 3 1/2 year old Powermac G4 400Mhz has a 1MB L2 cache, I'm wondering why a 512 k L2 cache on the upcoming G4 processor is all they can manage?? I realize that my 400Mhz machine has no L3 cache, but regardless of that shouldn't the L2 cache be bigger by now?? Or at LEAST as big as what they were making almost 4 years ago?

 

[avus]

Re: Re: Re: laughable

Originally posted by Analog Kid
Uh, really dumb question here but: how are you going to encourage competition if you're single sourced ?

Much better to have two companies leap-frogging each other...

No, it isn't dumb, your thinking is correct in normal business sense. However, we are talking about Motorola here, and we can't associate the term "leap-frogging" with them

 

[Analog Kid]

Re: Re: Re: Re: laughable

Originally posted by avus
No, it isn't dumb, your thinking is correct in normal business sense. However, we are talking about Motorola here, and we can't associate the term "leap-frogging" with them

Allright, I think that's the first time I've actually started laughing reading these forums...

Such a shame though, isn't it?

Mot used to be a pretty good company, and then they got poisoned by the cellular market and selling chips into routers. They spun off their commodity chip buisness (On?) and everyone started running around with new buisness models and I think they lost a lot of talent.

I was given a product roadmap presentation by Mot a couple years ago (embedded stuff mainly) and my heart just sank through that whole meeting. It was clear they'd lost all focus.

Popped my head into my boss' office afterwards and just said "If you own Motorola stock: SELL!"

Then there was talk of selling their semiconductor sector to STMicro...

One of two things is going to happen: either they're going to ride the cell phone thing into the ground or someone is going to wake up and remember what kind of company they used to be: diverse.

They still have a little bit of promise left in the embedded market, and frankly I think those are the kinds of skills you need to build a good mobile processor. I don't think they can compete with IBM in the top end stuff, at least not for a few years, but there's potential for them to put together some kickin' little mobile processors.

If the rumors are true of dual core G4s, they might just turn out to be perfect for a Powerbook. It might turn out that G5 Powerbooks aren't the way to go at all...

Or they may go the way of Westinghouse.

Talk about tragedies...

 

[Analog Kid]

Originally posted by hasapi
Actually, alot of people are missing the point, this is a great chip at least for the iBooks and maybe the iMacs, and Ill explain later. The 7457 dissipates around 10W @ 1GHz, so for 32bit consumer range its perfect.
...
Importantly, back to the present, I would object to a minor pathetic speed bump in 12 months on the powerbook 15", a 1.2G 19W 970 is preferred. But realistically untimely.

Not sure where you're getting the G4 power numbers... The PDF says 15.8W typ for 1GHz.

I think your point is valid though-- it's not a bad processor for those markets at all.

I'm going to continue my campaign of reminding people that you can't take the G5 power in isolation-- you have to look at the system.

External bus is running 6 times as fast (3x clock, DDR) and twice as wide. Fast system memory, at least twice as wide (is the G4 memory 32 or 64bit to the bridge?). System controller supporting all that.

I don't get the sense that the G5 is going to scale down as well. There's no L3 cache support, so as soon as you narrow the pipe to system memory you're going to starve the CPU (the G5 has more bandwidth to system RAM than the G4 has to it's L3 cache!).

It'll be interesting to see what happens-- does Apple cave to the irrational desire of the market to see the label G5 on a Powerbook, or do they continue building machines that make the most sense?

My thought: go with a dual core G4 in a portable. You can idle one of those CPUs most of the time, but kick it in when the machine has real work to do. Everything is on one die, so it'll be much lower power than a two chip solution.

 

[panphage]

Originally posted by spice weasel
Apple should have dumped them back when they screwed up on the first generation of G4s.

Motorolla has been holding apple back with slipping delivery dates since the 68xxx days. Allow me to quote my new favorite book, _Insanely_Great_ (which everyone should run out, purchase, and read. It really shows you that apple made all their mistakes a long time ago and are just trying to dig their way out of a hole they should never have been in. If just one of the many huge mistakes had been avoided, apple would rule the computer universe.) "the first chips were scheduled to arrive in Cupertino in less than a year. Jack McHenry and his Cognac team were skeptical. After all, there had been all sorts of deadline problems with Motorola, Apple's chip provider in the past" (297). This quote is from 1994.

 

[Sun Baked]

Originally posted by Analog Kid
Not sure where you're getting the G4 power numbers... The PDF says 15.8W typ for 1GHz.

I think your point is valid though-- it's not a bad processor for those markets at all.

The documents have different numbers in several places, most of them were estimates and/or the first run of 7457s.

The current updated numbers are these from the Part Number pdf thingie, which also say they'll be updated 8/2003

 

[Brother Mugga]

G5 power

I don't think this has been covered yet (apologies if I missed it - just joined the thread), but does anyone have any idea how much power a G5 would use at 1.2 and 1.4 Gigs? It's just that 8 or 9 months back, there was much talk of the range being 1.2/1.4/1.6/1.8......and I'm wondering whether that was just tosh or - in la la land, perhaps - they've pumped out some of the low end chips....er, for use in iMacs and Laptops.

Clearly the 1.6+ power consumption makes PowerBook implementation unfeasible (pretty much), but what are the interpolated power values for the lower end G5s?

If they turn out to be in the low 20W region (and I don't have a clue - no information to work on) then, well, it's not altogether unfeasible...?

Just wondering.

Brother Mugga

 

[O.K.]

Re: Not Impressed

Originally posted by nazariteguitar
Apples "Pro-sumer" laptops just are not compedetive any more.
I was searching for a high-end intel machine and I found
an amazingly fast Alianware Area-51 laptop for $3099 with:

P.S. Ok I'll be a little fair to Apple, the Aria-51 laptop is huge, heavy, and consumes power like a horse, but for me a pro-sumer laptop should be just that, a very competetive powerful machine.

I would like to be fair with you.
You are comparing crap with Apple.

 

[jacques]

Re: Re: Not Impressed

Originally posted by jamilecrire
I've got that beat hands down:
http://www.powernotebooks.com/configurator.php3?regular_model_id=269&model_id=272

Its only $2855 w/ 3 year warranty 17" screen, DVD-R/RW, XP Home (if you want it), etc.

Tell me apple isn't making a killing.

This appears to be essentially the same notebook offered by Pro-star, Hypersonic, and Voodoo. All are made by the same Taiwanese manufacturer that makes at least some of the 17" PBs and all use the exact same screen as the PB. For an Apple price you can get a Voodoo M700 that looks like a million bucks. Of course, it's not an Apple.

jacques

 

[maxtrax]

Please... spare me

I don't quite understand all this about buying a $3100 PC laptop, Jesus... you do realize you have to run Winblows on that thing right?

I don't care if they come out with 1/4 inch thick, 1 pound, 20" 10ghz PC laptop. The fact that you have to run any variant of Windows on it makes it completely useless to me. The fact that you would be supporting MS wholeheartedly by doing so, makes me rather drive my car into a wall.

Using a Mac is an entirely different experience altogether. Just have patience, Apple now is back with IBM, and in due time the speed issues will all be gone across the entire line. The user experience on a PC is so incredibly painful, the speed of the fastest PC's just gets you into that pain that much faster... Plus the Pre-School, Crayola, toy and hobby graphics of XP are intolerable.

My 2 cents.... (sorry if a little OT)

Originally posted by freundt
Actually Alienware is comming out with a Centrino based laptop very soon. This means it will be smaller, lighter, and have a much better battery life. I read a first take on cnet.com here
http://reviews.cnet.com/Alienware_Area_51m_Sentia/4505-3122_7-30460807.html?tag=pdtl-list

It's one I'm looking to get instead of a powerbook.

_r

[edit] and for those of you who do not know alienware, they make some of the best put together PCs out there. They use the best parts, test everything thoroughly, and generally get great reviews on both products and support.[/edit]

 

[jacques]

Re: Please... spare me

Originally posted by maxtrax
I don't quite understand all this about buying a $3100 PC laptop, Jesus... you do realize you have to run Winblows on that thing right?

I don't care if they come out with 1/4 inch thick, 1 pound, 20" 10ghz PC laptop. The fact that you have to run any variant of Windows on it makes it completely useless to me. The fact that you would be supporting MS wholeheartedly by doing so, makes me rather drive my car into a wall.

Using a Mac is an entirely different experience altogether. Just have patience, Apple now is back with IBM, and in due time the speed issues will all be gone across the entire line. The user experience on a PC is so incredibly painful, the speed of the fastest PC's just gets you into that pain that much faster... Plus the Pre-School, Crayola, toy and hobby graphics of XP are intolerable.

My 2 cents.... (sorry if a little OT)

I agree. I think one cannot compare Wintel to Apple, rather one has to contrast them. And I prefer Apple over Wintel even though I have not worked on an Apple in quite some time. I still plan to "switch" but I've decided to take a "wait and see" stance until the new PBs are out. As far as I'm concerned, no one in the Wintel world has a clue about style, whereas Apple IS style.

PS If you do decide to drive your car into a wall, please give me some advance notice...I might be able to sell tickets and the money would help me pay for my new Apple system. Nothing personal...just business.

 

[TWinbrook46636]

Originally posted by arn
regarding which?

arn

The rumor where they stated speeds of something like 1.16Ghz, 1.25 Ghz and 1.33 Ghz despite the fact that the 1.0 Ghz and 1.3 Ghz speeds were (pretty much) known already.

 

[Puppies]

Maybe I just don't know enough about it, but since my 3 1/2 year old Powermac G4 400Mhz has a 1MB L2 cache, I'm wondering why a 512 k L2 cache on the upcoming G4 processor is all they can manage?? I realize that my 400Mhz machine has no L3 cache, but regardless of that shouldn't the L2 cache be bigger by now?? Or at LEAST as big as what they were making almost 4 years ago?

The PowerPC 7400/7410 chips didn’t have ANY L2 cache. That 1MB cache is external and ran at a fraction of the CPU’s speed, the way the L3 cache used with current G4s does. Around that time on both PowerPC and Intel chips, they started including a full-speed L2 cache on die. The chips would have been too big had they put an entire 512KB or 1MB cache on die (at the time). Since then L2 cache sizes are slowly creeping back up there. Intel’s Northwood Pentium 4 core is back up to 512KB, the Pentium M (which is another 686) is up to 1MB, the PowerPC 750FX is up to 512KB, and now the 7457 is at 512KB as well.

 

[Phinius]

Re: Re: 7457-RM probably on smaller process size in 2nd half of 2004

Originally posted by Phil Of Mac
Who will be buying a G4 in the second half of 2004?

That's right.

Well with a G4 topping out at about 2.4 GHz on a 90-nm process and since Motorola will be putting two cpus on one chip, that would make a single G4 chip computer about twice as fast as a dual 1.42 GHz G4 Power Mac. Since Apple would be able to put two of these dual-cpu G4 chips in a computer, then that would be about 4X faster than a 1.42 GHz G4 Power Mac.

Yal, who would want to buy that? 4X faster? Nay it doesn't say G5 though and we all know 5 is a bigger number than 4 now don't we. Geez...

 

[Invizzible]

The PowerPC 7400/7410 chips didn’t have ANY L2 cache. That 1MB cache is external and ran at a fraction of the CPU’s speed, the way the L3 cache used with current G4s does....

Ohhhh.....I see. Well, certainly that makes more sense. Too bad they don't have a way to indicate that in the Apple Profiler. I was just going by what it says there. Thanks for the explanation, Puppies.

 

[Phinius]

A little too late?

Originally posted by wizard
Hi Gyro;

For the IMac / EMAC or even the Ibook this would have been an excellent upgrade a few months ago, now it is a matter of ho hum. On the PowerBooks it is to little to lat.

A internal Motorola document lists the 7457 at a peak frequency of 1.8 GHz. Notice that Apple was able to obtain 7455 G4s that ran at a 42% higher frequency than the 1 GHz topend speed that Motorola lists. So, if you multiply the 7457 G4 1.33 GHz by 142% you get 1.88 or 1.8 GHz.

While I don't expect the PowerBook to match the G5 Power Mac I do espect it to come close. !.3 GHz is a little far from the 970 based machines for the price charged on these units.

Apple could come close to the desktop frequencies for the PowerBooks if they would make a thicker case and a much heavier notebook. The 2 Ghz or 1.8 GHz G5 cannot fit into the current PowerBooks due to the added thickness from the heatsink.

However, Apple may be able to fit a higher frequency G4 than the 1.33 GHz into a notebook. Motorola has a low-k dilectric coating that adds up to a 20% boost in speed without a large bump up in watts used. That would put the G4 frequency up to 1.5 GHz on the same voltage.

 

[allpar]

Let's do a quick reality check. The current G4 is competitive with current Pentiums in laptops. The new one should icnrease battery life and power. This is GREAT news. For laptops.

 

[betoranaldi]

Originally posted by allpar
Let's do a quick reality check. The current G4 is competitive with current Pentiums in laptops. The new one should icnrease battery life and power. This is GREAT news. For laptops.

Couldnt have said it better myself... i think people expect way too much from apple, Apple is still very competetive with the current laptop market and this new chip with lower voltages will increase battery live... making an excellent protable!!!

A laptop is not supposed to be a desktop replacement, we will never see a top of the line laptop be equal with a top of the line desktop, it just wont happen

 

[Phinius]

The watt usage you list is for the lower volt 7447

Originally posted by Sun Baked
The documents have different numbers in several places, most of them were estimates and/or the first run of 7457s.

The confusion is that the 7447 uses 8 watts at 1 GHz and the higher voltage 7457 uses about 50% more watts at that same frequency.

 

[Analog Kid]

Re: The watt usage you list is for the lower volt 7447

Originally posted by Phinius

The confusion is that the 7447 uses 8 watts at 1 GHz and the higher voltage 7457 uses about 50% more watts at that same frequency. [/B]

No, I think there's a second, older, PDF that's being referenced...

The MPC7457EC.pdf that's referenced by this thread is dated 7/03 and gives 15.8W typ for the 7457.

The older PPCSALESFACT.pdf gives 7.5W but it must have been made early enough that they still thought the parts would be available 2/03.

Can't find the PDF Sun Baked showed, but I'm guessing it's older too, with all the TBDs.

The older PDF gives roughly the same power for the 7447 and 7457 (6.5W at 900MHz vs 7.5W at 1GHz), which makes sense considering the only difference is the external L3 cache which isn't included in the power numbers. Same voltage for both parts (same process...).

It's unfortunate-- the 7457 is coming 6 months later than expected and at twice the power... The delay was probably economy related-- not sure what happened to the power.

Interesting though-- early estimates are half the power and early rumors of 2 CPU laptops...

 

[Sun Baked]

I was looking at the latest updated numbers 7/2003 for the 1.1V 7457 rev 1.1

The pdf you guys are looking at is for the higher voltage variant of the same revision in the 7457EC.pdf

This was also the problem with the 7455 numbers, revision levels and voltages varied quite a bit in the documentation.

As you go up in core voltage the Watts do go up.

But if you read the chart it does say it will be updated 8/2003 again.

---

Motorola did update more than one document, and these are updates (not new documents).

 

[Sun Baked]

Re: Re: The watt usage you list is for the lower volt 7447

Originally posted by Analog Kid
Can't find the PDF Sun Baked showed, but I'm guessing it's older too, with all the TBDs.

On the MPC 7457 Product Page there is a document updated on 7/24/2003 called MPC7457 Part Number Specification for the MPC74x7RXnnnnNx Series

Which must be really hard to find since it's right after the 7457EC pdf.

---

Now you know why I called it the Part Number thingie, I couldn't remember that title off the top of my head.

 

[Phil Of Mac]

Originally posted by betoranaldi
A laptop is not supposed to be a desktop replacement, we will never see a top of the line laptop be equal with a top of the line desktop, it just wont happen

Oh, it'll happen. When the G5 hits 90 nm

 

[hose this!]

Re: Please... spare me

Whoah. A little dose of reality here: Apple has an 8% share of the PC market and even this is SLIPPING.

Let's recall the kind of thinking that got Apple into a lot of trouble not too long ago. Everyone on this board (and Apple!) should remember the time when Apple was so smug about the "computing experience" of their OS that they would charge ungodly premiums on their hardware and fell into complacency around their software AND hardware development. What happened next was people began moving to less attractive OSes because (in no particular order) 1) the hardware platforms offered a LOT more bang per buck and 2) the software being developed for it was more numerous and more up-to-date.

If Apple wants to be a viable computer company that people would be willing to "switch" to, they MUST continually enhance their products so they remain competitive in performance, and then SELL these machines - not lose marketshare like they have been in the last year or so.

Disappointing upgrades (and let's face it: it IS disappointing) won't help matters much. If this is Apple's way of telling consumers to wait another year for them to get their act together, forget about it. The enterprise known as "The Mac" should be about Apple providing consumers with great products, not about customers subsidizing bad business plans (having a single chip supplier, esp. Motorola for so long) and mediocre enhancements.

Oh, and this is coming from somebody who really really wants to switch, but hates the idea of spending $2500 for a PB this year only to have to spend another $2500 when PBs of specs competitive to Wintel machines arrive next year.

Originally posted by maxtrax
I don't quite understand all this about buying a $3100 PC laptop, Jesus... you do realize you have to run Winblows on that thing right?

I don't care if they come out with 1/4 inch thick, 1 pound, 20" 10ghz PC laptop. The fact that you have to run any variant of Windows on it makes it completely useless to me. The fact that you would be supporting MS wholeheartedly by doing so, makes me rather drive my car into a wall.

Using a Mac is an entirely different experience altogether. Just have patience, Apple now is back with IBM, and in due time the speed issues will all be gone across the entire line. The user experience on a PC is so incredibly painful, the speed of the fastest PC's just gets you into that pain that much faster... Plus the Pre-School, Crayola, toy and hobby graphics of XP are intolerable.

My 2 cents.... (sorry if a little OT)