no PowerPC 970 for the Mac ?

[giovanni]

Take a look at two opposite perspectives on the above:

http://www.lowendmac.com/myturn/03/0206.html

Personally, I don't care. Given the many weaknesses of the recent Macs, whatever chip they use, whatever name they use, better work and better be fast. And Apple please make sure it is noisy enough and that the sleep function drive sufficient people crazy.

 

[strider42]

I'm fairly sure IBm DID specifically state its got 32 bit compatibility. and I think they overestimate the portability to the chip since it uses the same instruction set and obviously already uses altivec.

IN fact, the second article below it confirms all that. I think the first writer just really dosen't understand how chips work at all. I don't understand why he woudl think that a new chip from moto would be easier run OS X on then the 970. They would both face the same hurdles of a slightly different architecture, tempered by the fact that they are all powerpc.

The first author also states that the 970 is looking to a different market. He ignores that IBM specifically said its for desktop aplications. Its not for servers, its for desktops, whcih is what apple makes.

He also thinks motot would stop G4 development if apple does this. Its not like apple would go to the 970 across the entire product line. the G4 market is trong, and apple sin't the only G4 customer anyway.

Basically, this guy doesn't make a single argument that makes a scrap of sense.

 

[nuckinfutz]

No basically the guy on top basically doesn't know a damn thing about what he's talking about. Certainly an embarrassment to the fine Students at Rochester University.

Dan Knight gives the skinny. This was like point counterpoint between a child and adult.

 

[Dont Hurt Me]

strider 42 is correct, the first author is making wild speculation and is weak on his facts the 2nd author seems to be telling it like it is.If you look at everything it seems that this chip was made for the mac,IBM didnt put altivec in there for anyone but apple. In fact they had allways been opposed to altivec until now. The facts add up to apple. I think what we will see (and hope to see) is a future pro line with the 970 and a future consumer line with the 7457( similar to the old g4 and g3) lets hope this is the case because if it isnt then apple only has the 7457 and i dont see that as taking them into the future with an old cpu design.Only time will tell, but looking at the 970 ( I wonder by the way how that name came into being) the 970 seems to be made for the mac. all of the weakness of the current g4's is removed in this design.Nice wide bus and 64 bit.I feel i should still say the g4 has been a solid performer since i had never had a problem with mine but looking to the future i dont see it as a flagship for apple and its marketing.

 

[Mr. Anderson]

I have to agree, the first is not much more than speculation why that last one has a better grasp of the situation - even with the references though, it brings home the fact that most of what we hear and know about the 970 is speculation. Hopefully Apple will make some sort of announcement soon.

Favorite quote:

"It's( the 970) more promising than any vaporware G5 from Motorola, which seems destined to ship three week's after Christ's return."

 

[hvfsl]

Originally posted by Dont Hurt Me
(970 I wonder by the way how that name came into being)

The PPC970 continues the common naming of PPC chips, it is basically a version number. Remember the PPC603, PPC604 etc, the G3 was PPC750 and the G4 is PPC7400. But for some reason the G4 jumps to 4 digits. I expect moto and IBM now have different PPC naming schemes. CISC chips also have a version number 486, 586, 686 etc. I think the current P4 is a 786.

 

[Dont Hurt Me]

Originally posted by dukestreet
I have to agree, the first is not much more than speculation why that last one has a better grasp of the situation - even with the references though, it brings home the fact that most of what we hear and know about the 970 is speculation. Hopefully Apple will make some sort of announcement soon.

Favorite quote:

"It's( the 970) more promising than any vaporware G5 from Motorola, which seems destined to ship three week's after Christ's return."

Actually its not speculation because you can see most of this on their web site talking about altivec,64 bit forward 32 backward and entry server and desktop market.Can you say apple! can apple say IBM I hope so. 1 more point i would wager that through the coarse of recent years more g3s have been bought from IBM then g4s from motorola. over 6 million crt imacs all with the g3.

 

[Sun Baked]

We should hopefully find out soon whether the G4 is going to go 64-bit addressing soon or not.

If Motorola has no immediate plans to bump the G4 to 64-bit addressing, them the G4s life will be quite short.

With the 64-bit desktop PCs shipping (maybe) this Christmas, there will be a lot of people wondering why they can only put 1-4GB of memory in a Mac.

We've live way too long with the MHz gap and a constipated bus on the G4, but even it Bozo the Clown waved his magic rubber chicken and fixed those problems -- if it's still has 32-bit addressing, the G4 will still feel way too limiting.

 

[Dont Hurt Me]

Originally posted by Sun Baked
We should hopefully find out soon whether the G4 is going to go 64-bit addressing soon or not.

If Motorola has no immediate plans to bump the G4 to 64-bit addressing, them the G4s life will be quite short.

With the 64-bit desktop PCs shipping (maybe) this Christmas, there will be a lot of people wondering why they can only put 1-4GB of memory in a Mac.

We've live way too long with the MHz gap and a constipated bus on the G4, but even it Bozo the Clown waved his magic rubber chicken and fixed those problems -- if it's still has 32-bit addressing, the G4 will still feel way too limiting.

Agreed it really needs help if its to stay competive. hats of to apple for making the most of a weak hand(dual cpus and great os) but to look to the future they need a futuristic cpu. Not to bust on you sun baked but whats with the avatar?

 

[Sun Baked]

Originally posted by Dont Hurt Me
Not to bust on you sun baked but whats with the avatar?

If you look back at the rest of the ideas for avatars I put forth, this was the least offensive.

Plus the pre-sitcom video clips on the Greg the Bunny website are fun.

 

[benixau]

hey, if apple gets faster chips at any time period. right now we are so far behind that the only thing that could go bad is apple to stop making software.

 

[ftaok]

I just want to point out a mistake in Dan Knights rebuttal.

... and that Motorola's failure to keep up with the rest of the industry in CPU speed is already reducing the size of the Mac market, which is the only major user of the G4 processor.

This is entirely untrue. Apple isn't the only major user of the G4. In fact, Moto sells more G4s to other companies than to Apple.

This mistake doesn't weaken his argument, I just wanted to point this out.