PowerPC 970 Presentation PDF

[Knox]

Originally posted by reyesmac
Wow, this new IBM chips sounds really great. Does that mean that when it comes out the finder on iMacs and iBooks will be as fast as it is on a Powermac 1.25ghz? Because if I have to spend over $3,000 on a computer that will give me the finder speed of OS 9, it would be kind of a let down.

I would suspect you're going to have some wait to see them in the iBook or iMacs. If you look at the time it's taken for the G4 to appear in the iMac - 2 and a half years or so - it could be 2006 before the iMacs get them, and the iBooks still haven't got G4s, so it's anyone's guess as to when the next top-level chip will appear in them - 2010 maybe?

Can't really answer your question directly unfortunately - not used a dual 1.25 so no idea how fast it is. Certainly improvements in the OS will help with the speed as well as improvements in the CPU, so by the time the 970 appears in PowerMacs (assuming it does that is) the OS speed should have improved even more.

 

[3G4N]

was just looking at some of the SPEC benchmarks.

Could someone explain to me why, clock-for-clock,
a P4's benchmarks are higher than a P4 XEON's?

===SPECint2000 peak===
1040 = 2.8ghz P4
957 = 2.8ghz P4 XEON
927 = 2.40ghz P4
911 = 2.60ghz P4 XEON
888 = 2.26ghz P4
859 = 2.40ghz P4 XEON

 

[Frobozz]

G4/G5 Product line

"I think thats what they will do, put it in the $3,000+ model with todays motherboard and wait till the end of the year or the start of next to give us the ApplePI motherboard and show off its true power then."

I don't see this. Apple will not subdivide the pro line. The 970 really makes a lot of sense when you lok at the larger picture. They will replace the G4 on the pro line with the G5, which will be the 970. The G4, at that time, will run at around the same clock speed. This is fine, since it will run cooler and require less power. The TiBook will run the higher clock G4 by Moto, the iBook will receive the lower clocked G4's toward the end of the year. Apple will no longer have to strangle the performance of it's consumer lines because it can't tap out it's pro line.

I wouldn't expect to see the 970 before MWNY next year. Apple will, once again, have a clear performance difference between it's pro, consumer, and protable lines.

With all of this said, I don't feel my 2x1GHz G4 Quicksilver is slow-- I think improvements to the OS will be far more important to overall system performance. Maybe in 2004 I'll get one of these 970's....

 

[ryan]

Re: Re: PowerPC 970 Presentation PDF

Originally posted by pgwalsh

So what exactly constitutes volume shipment?

Could we see a smaller volume initially going to Apple for PowerMacs and or Xserve, and then, a volume shipment going into the other lineups and Linux based systems towards the end of 2003? In effect the current top-of-the-line G4 would be for the consumer lineup and PowerBooks come January?

Assuming that Apple does actually use the 970 it would seem that it might be a good idea for Apple to first put the chip in the Xserve due to it's limited initial supplies. However, if Apple were to start putting the 970 in the Xserve that would almost certainly kill the sales of the G4 based PowerMac since people would know the 970 is on the way.

 

[ryan]

Originally posted by cjerens
I am confused...according to this, when would it be likely to see this processor integrated into a new line or revision of Powerbooks? Also, how much faster will this processor really be than the current G4's (if you were comparing both processors at the same Mhz, theoretically)? And is another Powerbook G4 speedup likely before this processor is integrated? If so, can anyone make an educated guess as to about when?

-Cameron

As a somewhat educated, wild-ass guess I would say we'll see the 970 in the Powerbook line in mid-2004 (assuming of course Apple even uses the 970) so given that I would suspect that the Powerbook will see at least one, if not two more speedups before then.

A less technical answer to your speed question is that the 970 is roughly 2x faster than a G4 at the same MHz.

 

[pgwalsh]

Re: Re: Re: PowerPC 970 Presentation PDF

Originally posted by gbojim


Volume shipment is a term used to indicate when the vendor can ship enough parts that the customer is actually able to build and ship their product in the required volume.

Thanks for the definition. I was being facetious and wanted to spur the possibility of smaller volume orders possibly shipping. As you already know many companies can product small amounts of products until they get the resources to ship large volume. I was coming from the point-of-view that Apple and IBM could take this approach, knowing they could complete fulfillments for a single product line. Then they could introduce it earlier and surprise everyone.

 

[pgwalsh]

Re: Re: Re: PowerPC 970 Presentation PDF

Originally posted by ryan

Assuming that Apple does actually use the 970 it would seem that it might be a good idea for Apple to first put the chip in the Xserve due to it's limited initial supplies. However, if Apple were to start putting the 970 in the Xserve that would almost certainly kill the sales of the G4 based PowerMac since people would know the 970 is on the way.

We're already aware that the G4 sales are a bit stagnant. Some of us are going to have to upgrade old systems like my G3 400 running OS 9.2.2. I'm holding off for as long as possible. I think apple can offer more in their top of the line then what have currently put together, but that's for another forum. My point being that Apple has more incentive now than ever to push a faster machine.

I think the professional film and audio industry are expecting hungrier machines. Just take a look at the recent article published in MacFormat. In addition we know how Apple likes to surprise us and I'm hoping they do. However there's other surprises they could offer like GigaWire, USB 2, ATA 133 or Serial ATA, 400 Mhz DDR and many other goodies which you expect to be packed in a top of the line machine. As I don't want to get off topic, I think there could be the possibility of the 970 showing its face earlier than the later half of 2003, but just in the top professional lineup and the xServe. They don't sell nearly as many of these as they do iMacs and other models which find there way into homes and school.

 

[Mad Baggins]

Re: Re: Re: PowerPC 970 Presentation PDF

Originally posted by ryan
However, if Apple were to start putting the 970 in the Xserve that would almost certainly kill the sales of the G4 based PowerMac since people would know the 970 is on the way.

Apple always has this problem. Everybody knows that roughly every six months, Apple upgrades its machines. So after 4-5 months, sales slow down, and the cycle starts all over again. The PC side, on the other hand, doesn't seem to care. Everybody's known for a year that 3GHz P4s and AMD "Hammer" chips are coming...

 

[Mad Baggins]

Originally posted by 3G4N
Could someone explain to me why, clock-for-clock,
a P4's benchmarks are higher than a P4 XEON's?

Part of the answer is that you have to look at the rest of the system configuration--things like amount and type of RAM, chipset (motherboard), and even the compilers that were used. Another thing to keep in mind is that you can't really generalize too much from a single benchmark. Different programs use the hardware in different ways. Even if a P4 wins the SPEC benchmark, the Xeon might win a different test.