New PowerMac Model?

[iswimbikeandrun]

I think that the 7,x numbers may correspond to the 97x family of processors, and the 8,x may correspond to a 98x processor. This fits well with the rumors of a 980 (rumored on this site) based powermac revision forthcoming. I know there have been alot of talk of a 975 based PM, but even this site had a thread last summer stating that if the PM was going to reach 3 GHz it would have to be through a PPC 980 which would run at 2.8 GHz up.
https://www.macrumors.com/pages/2003/07/20030706031041.shtml

 

[nuckinfutz]

me two cents is that apple needs to come out with a quad proc workstation to make stand in the vfx arena they entered when they bough out shake. i'm a compositor and we are still having to use pc for all vfx work (2d-3d). we all love macs and have them at home but they don't cut it for feature film/highend broadcast work. the g5's are fast but not enough, shake barely runs on a dual g5 and motion is a hog because of all the real-time. i believe we are going to see within the next year quad procs on both sides (mac/pc). programs and clients are getting more demanding and proc speeds are not climbing as high as they did in recent years. this seems to be the only logical route to take. i'm excited for it will be like a mini discreet inferno system for a 10th of the price. we will see and i hope it happens soon or apple might loose ground in this market no matter how cool there programs are.
late

Motion isn't even shipping. You have no real experience with the app at all. Quad physical processor are not coming. The POWER5 architecture gets its speed advantages over the POWER4 by high clock rate and Simultaneous Multi Threading. If we're lucky we'll see SMT in the POWER5 derivative this year. That would bifiurcate a CPU into two "Logical" cput and give you your Quad CPU without adding two Motherboard sockets and changing the memory controller. This is the most logical proposition costwise. Performance wojldn't be too shabby either.

Here's my $.02

Apple is going to create a 4th Powermac model based on a 975 PowerPC. This model(The 8.1) will contain a new chipset(hence the new model number) and utilize the 975. It will support DDR Memory and be dual 3Ghz in the machine. It will have a high end card. Either a FireGL or Quadro. It will be priced at at least $3599 which will keep the demand in check. The other systems will top out at dual 2.6Ghz and $2995. So in effect this new Mac will be a "Workstation" It'll probably have 4 drive bays as well as some other power goodies.

The average consumer doesn't need a dual 3Ghz but Pros do and Pros will pay the extra bit to get this speed. Nuk out.

 

[klaus]

well weta did use shake for the lotr's but don't forgets that they are running on linux

ah didn't know that, pixar runs on powermacs, that's for sure, now how could that be

well, at least I know a guy who has worked at weta during the last two movies, and he showed off his work for LOTR on his powerbook 17", that counts does it

 

[Mord]

Wow, Mac news has hit such a crawl of anything interesting people are clinging to this? Yawn! Some day Apple may release something cool again... some day.

er maby in the giant f**k off mac show aka wwdc?


all even numers are consumer macs all odd numbers are powermacs the 8,1 will be a new emac or imac

 

[JFreak]

Would there be a huge performance gain when jumping from dual to quad? I mean there are lots of arguments (valid or not) that duals aren't that big of a gain over singles (this is clearly untrue although I have never owned a dual), but could anything take full advantage of quad yet?

that is the law of diminishing returns - duals will NEVER add a 100% boost compared to a single cpu (of same speed). that is as impossible as travelling faster than the speed of light. there is always a performance hit when more than one cpu is used simultaneously.

if dual gives a 50% boost, one could assume that the third cpu would add about 33% to it and the fourth some 25%, so in the end, the quad shoud show a +150% speed boost compared to single cpu (of the same speed) in real life.

 

[Mord]

that is the law of diminishing returns - duals will NEVER add a 100% boost compared to a single cpu (of same speed). that is as impossible as travelling faster than the speed of light. there is always a performance hit when more than one cpu is used simultaneously.

if dual gives a 50% boost, one could assume that the third cpu would add about 33% to it and the fourth some 25%, so in the end, the quad shoud show a +150% speed boost compared to single cpu (of the same speed) in real life.

it's not quite that inefficiant as that http://www.barefeats.com/xserve2.html

 

[dongmin]

You can find some more info at
http://www.opensource.apple.com/darwinsource/index.html.

For example, AppleMacRISC4PE code for 10.3.3 contains a following line:

MacRISC4CPU.cpp: 
/* RackMac3,1 and PowerMac7,3 -
 pulsar clock chip @ IIC_B 0xD4 */

and a pair of PowerMac7,3 specific source code
PowerMac7_3_CPUCoolingCtrlLoop.{cpp,h}.

It may mean RackMac3,1 and PowerMac7,3 have some similarity and
PowerMac7,3 have additional CPU Cooling facilities!

Most likely, the 7,3 was the anticipated Power Mac update in Feb/March that was supposed to use the 970fx, same as in the Xserves. The 970fx utilizes the PowerTune technology (and also SpeedStep?) which was supposed to cut down on power consumption.

Given that the 8,1 designates a new G5 iMac, I'm more and more inclined to think that Power Mac update (7,3) will be with the 970fx and not a Power 5 derivative. I would argue that a Power 5 derivative would require a designation 9,1 (or at minimum 7,4) and not 7,3. To sum up:


1. RackMac3,1 and PowerMac7,3 utilize same cooling technologies.

2. RackMac3,1 = G5 Xserves which use the 970fx

3. Therefore 7,3 = Power Macs that use the 970fx

4. 8,1 refers to a new G5 iMac

5. Since there are no new desktop designations other than the 8,1 and 7,3 the Power Mac update at WWDC will be the 7,3 delayed since the summer.

6. Therefore the next Power Mac update will use the 970fx

7. The 970fx-equiped Power Mac will top out at 2.6 ghz or 2.8 ghz at best, according to rumors.

8. Steve Jobs will apologize for making his 3.0 ghz prediction.


Or I could be totally wrong and these model designations mean nothing. Apple could simply relese a 10.3.4.1 update with 3.0 ghz G5s powered by 975/980. Apple could keep the low-end as the 970fx model (7,3) and reserve the 975/980 for the middle and high-end.

 

[JGowan]

Omega = End

I find it interesting that the current G5 Powermac series is codenamed "Omega"... the last letter in the greek alphabet, commonly a sign for "end".
Does it mean we will see a whole new beast next???

It might be signifying "the end" to Motorola.

"See ya, Moto. Don't let the door hit your slow-moving processor on the way out!"

 

[Frobozz]

So the PowerMac7,3 is using the same platform plugin as the current PM G5s so it is likely not that much drastically different then the current PM G5s. The 8,1 is using a completly different plugin so it is likely different to some extent (less/more or different things connected with the U3 or a variant of the U3).

-Shawn

Hmmm. Sounds like a G5 iMac (running 970fx's?) and a new PowerMac G5 (with 975's?).

 

[ewinemiller]

that is the law of diminishing returns - duals will NEVER add a 100% boost compared to a single cpu (of same speed). that is as impossible as travelling faster than the speed of light. there is always a performance hit when more than one cpu is used simultaneously.

if dual gives a 50% boost, one could assume that the third cpu would add about 33% to it and the fourth some 25%, so in the end, the quad shoud show a +150% speed boost compared to single cpu (of the same speed) in real life.

Not impossible, just not common. It actually depends on the application. Some things scale well to multiple processors, some do not. I've seen a few things actually get > 100% speed up with a dual. For example, say just to keep humming your OS needs about 2% of your CPU. Add a second CPU and the OS still only needs 2% of that original CPU, but 100% of the second CPU is available so it's actually just a bit faster than 2X a single. However it is very rare for a process to scale that well to a second CPU, the numbers you mention are more typical.

For the stuff I do, Carrara, adding a second CPU gives anywhere from about 50% to nearly 100% boost over a single at render time. It varies depending on the scene and the platform. Between my two duals (800 PIII and 800 G4), the PIII scales a little better to the second CPU.

There would be a market for a 4 CPU box, maybe not a big one, but I'd certainly be looking closely at it if Apple released one. I can get a Quad Opteron for a pretty reasonable price (not reasonable for joe user, but reasonable for joe renderfarm) on the PC side, but they tend to do on board video, that sort of thing. They make great servers, but bad workstations. Not to mention the licensing cost of having to move up to some Windows server variant instead of XP Pro or 2000 Pro. If I could get a quad processor workstation oriented machine from Apple, I probably would, though a dual core/dual processor would be a better solution so the lights in my neighborhood don't dim when I turn the machine on.

 

[slooksterPSV]

New PowerMac model? Hmm... thats quite the update I must say. We've known about the new PM that're supposed to be coming out @ or after WWDC (right?). Thats neat.

 

[shawnce]

Reading through the rumor noise, something WAS supposed to come out in March and fell through, probably due to cooling issues. The strongest evidence for this was that even the more staid of the rumor sites were calling it a certainty. Hopefully, these issues have been worked out.

The issue was far far more likely to be a supply of the needed CPUs from IBM as has been public noted by both Apple and IBM.

 

[shawnce]

The 970fx-equiped Power Mac will top out at 2.6 ghz or 2.8 ghz at best, according to rumors.

The 970fx (or a close kin of it) should be able to scale up to 3GHz. I still believe we will see 3GHz system rather soon and they will be 970fx-ish based.

I doubt we will see any Power 5 derived desktop CPU for at least 6 months to a year despite the wild statements heard in the rumors (they are all over the map).

WWDC should clear up a lot...

 

[NNO-Stephen]

The 970fx (or a close kin of it) should be able to scale up to 3GHz. I still believe we will see 3GHz system rather soon and they will be 970fx-ish based.

I doubt we will see any Power 5 derived desktop CPU for at least 6 months to a year despite the wild statements heard in the rumors (they are all over the map).

WWDC should clear up a lot...

why should we see it so much later than the POWER 5?

they were developed simultaneously, not an afterthought like the 970 was to the POWER 4. so in theory, we could see the 975 (or whatever) at around the same time as the POWER 5.

natch.

 

[Chaszmyr]

I believe that 8,1 is a G5 iMac

 

[k2k koos]

my $0.02

fastforward to the keynote speech....


Just after Steve has introduced and talked about all the cool new g5 machines running up to 3ghz, and 64bit Powerbooks (its about time for those, the wintel world has them with AMD processors, whe eis the leadership here Apple?)....


Oh and one more thing.....(audience go tilt!!) We are proud to introduce the worlds fastest, and first quad processor personal computer, the Powermac G5 Quadra....Running at 3Ghz per processor. These are the machines that will make Pixar fly, and the competition stunned.

 

[cgc]

that is the law of diminishing returns - duals will NEVER add a 100% boost compared to a single cpu (of same speed). that is as impossible as travelling faster than the speed of light. there is always a performance hit when more than one cpu is used simultaneously.

if dual gives a 50% boost, one could assume that the third cpu would add about 33% to it and the fourth some 25%, so in the end, the quad shoud show a +150% speed boost compared to single cpu (of the same speed) in real life.

Huh? Using your own logic and numbers, a quad CPU system would realize ~208% speed increase over a single CPU system (i.e. 100% + 50% + 33% + 25%).

 

[blackcrayon]

that is the law of diminishing returns - duals will NEVER add a 100% boost compared to a single cpu (of same speed). that is as impossible as travelling faster than the speed of light. there is always a performance hit when more than one cpu is used simultaneously.

if dual gives a 50% boost, one could assume that the third cpu would add about 33% to it and the fourth some 25%, so in the end, the quad shoud show a +150% speed boost compared to single cpu (of the same speed) in real life.

As some previous posters said, not necessarily true. One example (obviously not practical for most types of apps) would be running multiple instances of single threaded extremely processor intensive shell applications like SETI@home (forgive me if newer versions of it or whatever have switched to automatically using multiple processors from the command line Run one instance of SETI on a dual G4... 7 hours... Run 2 instances of SETI.. Still 7 hours but you have completed 2 units (one per processor)... you're getting *twice* the work done in the same amount of time... ~100% speed increase.

 

[wdlove]

The 970fx (or a close kin of it) should be able to scale up to 3GHz. I still believe we will see 3GHz system rather soon and they will be 970fx-ish based.

I doubt we will see any Power 5 derived desktop CPU for at least 6 months to a year despite the wild statements heard in the rumors (they are all over the map).

WWDC should clear up a lot...

That is a very correct statement. It's a good feeling to have, in four week we will know for sure.

 

[Veldek]

Huh? Using your own logic and numbers, a quad CPU system would realize ~208% speed increase over a single CPU system (i.e. 100% + 50% + 33% + 25%).

Sorry, but the increase is only 108%. Your number is the total speed of the system compared to a single CPU.

 

[klaus]

That is a very correct statement. It's a good feeling to have, in four week we will know for sure.

they'll be the longest 4 weeks of my life no, just kidding.. patience is a good virtue, as long as the new g5's ship immediately

 

[cgc]

Sorry, but the increase is only 108%. Your number is the total speed of the system compared to a single CPU.

Right, I knew what I meant

 

[JGowan]

Mind-blowing

... then Steve J will have a lot to blow our minds at the WWDC...

I think this type of expectation is just what fuels lots of nasty opinions after announcements, littering message boards afterwards like so much trash blowing down Main Streat USA.

We can't expect Apple to "blow our minds". Especially when we've got so much new hardware as it is. I think we can expect new speeds on the computers, but I wouldn't hope for any new hardware or enclosures. The biggest thing MIGHT be G5 iMacs, but PowerBooks just won't happen.

Tiger is going to be THE big announcement and preview.

Would I love to see an all-new IPOD? D@mn straight, but it won't happen. I think the most we can hope for is a 10GB capacity increase on the top end putting us at $499 50GB; $399 30GB; $299 20GB.

I hope I'm wrong... I'd love to see new (& bigger) displays & the much-talked-about "HEADLESS iMac", but I just don't want to think too much about it and then be dissapointed when this stuff does emmerge.

 

[Kethoticus]

Upgrades are overdue at this point...

I think this type of expectation is just what fuels lots of nasty opinions after announcements, littering message boards afterwards like so much trash blowing down Main Streat USA.

We can't expect Apple to "blow our minds". Especially when we've got so much new hardware as it is. I think we can expect new speeds on the computers, but I wouldn't hope for any new hardware or enclosures. The biggest thing MIGHT be G5 iMacs, but PowerBooks just won't happen.

Tiger is going to be THE big announcement and preview.

Would I love to see an all-new IPOD? D@mn straight, but it won't happen. I think the most we can hope for is a 10GB capacity increase on the top end putting us at $499 50GB; $399 30GB; $299 20GB.

I hope I'm wrong... I'd love to see new (& bigger) displays & the much-talked-about "HEADLESS iMac", but I just don't want to think too much about it and then be dissapointed when this stuff does emmerge.

Yeah, I agree that there likely won't be any crazy announcements. But I think the possibility of processor upgrades IS important simply because it's been what... 10 months since the 2-gig guys were announced?? We are long overdue now for speed bumps at least.

The x86 world has slowed down in its progress. Apple can not afford to sit on any laurels it thinks it might have. Now's the time to POUNCE!

C'mon IBM! Stop playing Moto and get us some upgraded hardware!!

 

[NNO-Stephen]

the PC world (AMD at least, Intell is) is NOT sitting on resting. AMD today in fact, released their Athlon 64 3500+ 3700+ and 3800+ as well as the Athlon FX-53 which has dual-channel DDR memory, 1MB of L2 cache and is running at 2.4Ghz (the same speed as the 3700+ and 3800+)

so don't think for a second that AMD is waiting on Apple to catch up. Intel really is. Prescott is ****. they are having so many issues with it it's just way past funny. the Pentium M on the other hand... that's got some potential. Dothan is cool, powerful, and will make it's way into desktops... just watch.

but AMD is sticking it to Apple right now, Apple needs to come out with some seriously powerful hardware. NOW.

http://arstechnica.com/news/posts/1086113338.html <---- AMD release info