Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

PowerPC 970 at 90nm and the Power5

Originally posted by gwuMACaddict
nice to see that IBM and apple are working together and taking this serioiusly. had moto not sucked so bad for so long, i feel like apples market share would have been a lot higher today. it will be interesting to see if there is any shift now that IBM is on board with chips
Click to expand...

I bet the Apple marketing department are happier to make a huge IBM related bang rather than the more difficult job they have had of making something exciting out of a few loud Moto knocks on the door.
 
Originally posted by ksz
I would tend to agree, however Apple might introduce a suitable marketing buzzword to differentiate the "new G5" from the old G5.
Click to expand...

And we all know what that would be...

G5 Extreme !!!

😱


Seriously, though, this is extremely good news if it's true. I just can't decide whether I'll be buying a 980 tower or a G5 PB next year...
 
Member?

ddbean
macrumors member
Hey I'm a member now. How'd that happen? (And no I didn't read anything when I signed up for these forums)
 
Originally posted by dho
I dont believe the relationship between clockspeed and disipation is linear.

The 1.6 should have a much lower disipation. 🙂
Click to expand...

The relationship is roughly linear (disregarding leakage).
BUT, at lower speeds you can reduce the voltage, and that's a square law thing, and get your best power reduction.
But the laws of physics tend to get in the way 🙁
 
All I can say it all looks good over at the Apple camp. I'm going 3GHz when it comes out and G5 PB whenever they come out next yr. I'm sure Apple will be releasing the G4 17 incher with the 1.42GHz processor.
 
Yes to whomever posted further upthread, they are correct, the 980 isn't just a step up, it's almost a whole new ballgame of chip that will reap gains quite potentially as large as G4 (7xxx) to G5 (970). There's different on-process chip abilties with different piping. In other words a G5 (970) 2.0 GHz chip would be quite a bit slower computation for computation than a G6 (980) 2.0 GHz. Again, MHz IS in fact partly a myth, it's how the chips and their corresponding architecture handle the info and with IBM's chip advances detailed in white papers, Apple's future is very bright, potentially much MUCH brighter than those stuck with their crummy WIntel boxes.
 
Originally posted by macMaestro
Steve said that the G5 would reach 3 Ghz by next June. If the PPC 970 cannot reach 3 Ghz, I take it to mean that whatever chip does reach 3 Ghz would still be called a G5. If that rumor that ksz submitted is true, then I would assume that we would keep the name G5 through the 990. We might get the G6 name for the 9900. Then again, Apple's marketing might want to do the opposite and go through a new G name for each new chip.

Man though, 45nm in four years. That's pretty darn small (and leads to a pretty darn fast chip!)
Click to expand...

Steve never said, to the to the best of my knowledge, that the G5 would reach 3GHz withing one year. He promised that Macintoshes would be operating at 3GHz in one year, never stating which processor it would be.
 
Originally posted by fahlman
Steve never said, to the to the best of my knowledge, that the G5 would reach 3GHz withing one year. He promised that Macintoshes would be operating at 3GHz in one year, never stating which processor it would be.
Click to expand...
what else? the G4? hahahahahahaha



(i know i know you're thinking of a 'G6')
 
Originally posted by hayesk
The G5 by itself is irrelevant. You also have to consider the support chips that go along with it. There may be an issue with the power consumption and heat dissipation of those too.
Click to expand...

Good point, The North Bridge on the Dual G5's has one hell of a job, feedng data to both the procs, 8GBmax memory, the south Bridge, and the AGP. just to name a few, maybe an active cooling solution on that might prove useful.
 
Originally posted by ksz
Not a bad choice of names. Then again, Intel's latest P4 series with 2MB Level 3 cache (vs standard 512K of Level 2 cache) is called:

Pentium 4 Extreme Edition
Click to expand...

It's alos called a Xenon, and a cheap ploy to just and I mean only just keep the edge on the Athlon 64 FX Which is clocked 1GHz lower.
 
Originally posted by fahlman
Steve never said, to the to the best of my knowledge, that the G5 would reach 3GHz withing one year. He promised that Macintoshes would be operating at 3GHz in one year, never stating which processor it would be.
Click to expand...
You may be right. I think Steve made the 3GHz remark for several reasons (caution: this is speculation on my part):

1. The PPC 970 on a 130nm process was not what he really wanted, but he needed something to pit against the Intel juggernaut and establish credibility for Apple's high-end hardware.

2. He would have preferred to introduce the first G5s based on a 90nm process. I don't know how much power the 130nm 2GHz G5 consumes, but the 130nm 2.5 GHz model is thought to consume 96 watts (www.appleinsider.com/news). IBM's 300mm fab at the time was not ready and was in fact having yield problems with 130nm. It takes time to introduce and stabilize a new process technology.

3. The current crop of G5s seem (to me) to be a stop-gap release. Hence, Apple will probably (none of us really know) keep the G5 name as it introduces the 3 GHz models in order to show confidence and longevity in the "G5" strategy. Similarly, Intel has remained at "Pentium 4" for a handful of years and has continued to make incremental improvements to its architecture. Remember when Intel first introduced the P4? Most people thought they were obsoleting the Pentium III too quickly, and large corporations running mission critical software balked at the idea of having to re-qualify their systems with the new processor.

While Apple is not nearly as affected by concerns over software compatibility with next-gen CPUs, my guess is that they will likely keep the G5 name, for a couple of years, to represent their high end.

Again, this is all speculation.
 
You make a good point ksz, since the PPC970 is a member of the Power4 proc's from IBM and hence their 4th gen of proc's, but is known to the mac community, and the public as the G5 to show a progression.

How long has the K7 Athlon been around still using the Socket A. This has to be one of the longest standing computing standards.
 
Xenon - that's a rare gas !

Originally posted by manitoubalck
It's alos called a Xenon
Click to expand...

Not really, on two points.

First, I assume that you meant "Xeon" - the name for the workstation and server SMP Pentium 4 chips.

The other error is that the Xeon chips come in a 603 or 604 pin package with a max bus speed of 533 MHz. Pentium 4 desktop chips come in a 478 pin package at up to 800 MHz.

The Pentium 4 Extreme is a variant of the Xeon MP chip internally, but it is definitely a 478 pin desktop Pentium 4 with an 800 MHz bus. It will not plug into a Xeon motherboard, and it is not called a Xeon.
 
Skimming:

http://www.isscc.org/isscc/2004/ap/ISSCC2004_AdvanceProgram.pdf

PowerTune sounds like it was MADE for the Powerbook...

3.7 PowerPC 970 in 130nm and 90nm Technologies 4:45 PM

A 64b PowerPC microprocessor is introduced in 130nm and redesigned in
90nm SOI technology. PowerPC 970 implements a SIMD instruction set
with 512kB L2 cache. It runs at 2.0GHz with a 1.0GHz bus in 130nm. The
90nm design features PowerTune for rapid frequency and power scaling
and electronic fuses.
 
Semantic distinction....

Originally posted by manitoubalck
some other internet review sites before you say what you said about the P4EE not being a rebadged Xeon
Click to expand...

It is not a "rebadged" Xeon, it is a "repackaged" Xeon.

A rebadged Xeon would be in a 603/604 pin package, with a sticker that says "Pentium 4" pasted over the "Xeon" label. 😉

The Extreme is in a 478 pin package, with a different bus speed from any Xeon chip or motherboard or Xeon chipset.

So, it may be based on a Xeon, but is not "named" Xeon.

By the way, your Tom's link calls the Extreme a Prestonia, when it is obviously a Gallatin. (see http://www6.tomshardware.com/cpu/20030923/images/cpu_history_big.gif)
 
Originally posted by manitoubalck
...since the PPC970 is a member of the Power4 proc's from IBM and hence their 4th gen of proc's, but is known to the mac community, and the public as the G5...
Click to expand...
That's my feeling as well...the G5 will be synonymous with the Power 5 and the G6 with the Power 6. In this sense, the existing PPC 970 is a stop-gap measure.
 
If they want to make a real splash with these awesome new chips they need to somehow encourage teh development of applications for the Mac that right now live on unix boxes. If these chips are what they say then professional tools like Studiotools, Pro-E, Ideas, Flow3D, Sinda/Fluint, Fluent which are incredibly compute intensive would be a great way to get Macs back in the engineering workplace. Believe me there is NO love lost on these Unix or windows boxes given the headaches with interoperability, support, viruses etc. But right now there is not much choice.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back