Yeah probably.
Dual Cores aimed at the Markets Apple touches would most likely need to be 90nm. Even then we may be waiting a while...but it is the future. Even intel will be bringing Dual Cores to the masses within the next few years.
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PowerPC 970 requires process shrink to reach 2.5Ghz
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Yeah probably.
Dual Cores aimed at the Markets Apple touches would most likely need to be 90nm. Even then we may be waiting a while...but it is the future. Even intel will be bringing Dual Cores to the masses within the next few years.
I believe IBM specifically said that 970 would be single core and that dual core was not on the map.
Making a dual core 970 defeats the purpose of making it a Power4 lite. You'd have to add extra logic to make each core play nicely with the other and you'd more than double the size of the die. Cost and power consumption would go up, and you have a Power4 with Altivec... not the best processor for a small server or desktop box.
When IBM shrinks to .09 then anything is possible. The die will shrink quite a bit, and dual core may be a possiblity. I doubt that IBM would redesign a processor for this when the Power5 (and any possible derivatives) are slightly over a year out at this point. If there are changes to a 970 after the die shrinks, I'd wager it would simply be more on die cache.
Making a dual core 970 defeats the purpose of making it a Power4 lite. You'd have to add extra logic to make each core play nicely with the other and you'd more than double the size of the die. Cost and power consumption would go up, and you have a Power4 with Altivec... not the best processor for a small server or desktop box.
When IBM shrinks to .09 then anything is possible. The die will shrink quite a bit, and dual core may be a possiblity. I doubt that IBM would redesign a processor for this when the Power5 (and any possible derivatives) are slightly over a year out at this point. If there are changes to a 970 after the die shrinks, I'd wager it would simply be more on die cache.
This is my understanding of the IBM Power 4, Power 5 and 970.
The Power 4 is a dual core. It has two PowerPC cores on it with cache. The Power 5 is dual core as well but supports something equivalent to Hyper threading (as on higher end P4s). So it would appear to have 4 processors on board.
The 970 is a scaled down version of the Power 4. Basically yard out a processor core and add in an Altivec unit. Other changes as well.
just by $0.02
The Power 4 is a dual core. It has two PowerPC cores on it with cache. The Power 5 is dual core as well but supports something equivalent to Hyper threading (as on higher end P4s). So it would appear to have 4 processors on board.
The 970 is a scaled down version of the Power 4. Basically yard out a processor core and add in an Altivec unit. Other changes as well.
just by $0.02
too much speculation around here
Too many people seem to be confusing the POWER4 and the PowerPC 970.
The PowerPC 970 is derived from POWER4 technology, but not the same thing. So, IBM learned some things while making the POWER4 and applied them to create this all-new chip for lower end computers.
There's too much publicly available, nonspeculative information available for so many people to be so confused. Here's what's known about the processor, because IBM announced it at the microprocessor forum last year. I'll quote an article that was written the day after IBM's announcement:
OK, so first: they lengthened the pipeline of the PowerPC to scale megahertz higher. Now, we know from the leaked blade server press release that they may be on the verge of scaling speeds even higher...great, this is good news. The numbers are less important than the fact that it's capable of going where no PowerPC has gone before.
Well, this is huge. Obviously, our bus limitations on the Mac are an even bigger problem than our CPUs. This chip will allow Apple to make bus speeds...well...a hell of a lot faster, probably using HyperTransport, since it runs at the same speed.
OK, so YES, these chips support SMP. In other words, Apple can make dual processor 970-based Macs if they want to.
Second, the fact that the chip is 64 bit is irrelevant to current software. Apparently, our current 32 bit software will run just fine. When it's reworked to be 64 bit, so much the better.
My speculation: I read somewhere, and can't provide a link, that the 970, in fact, supports 8-way multiprocessing. Note that Apple spent time last year buying out high end Hollywood-quality software, yet lacks w workstation to go along with it. I think there's a very, very, very good chance we'll see high-end 5-10 thousand dollar Appple pro workstations, and rackmounted servers, to sell to film production companies and the like.
OK, so no L3 cache in these future machines. Obviously, since bus speed will be like 7 times faster than we're used to, this won't be much of an issue; the chip will stay fed.
OK, so...it's...umm...fast. We can all understand that. Yes, the 1.8 Mhz scores pretty much match the 3.2 Ghz Pentium 4, so if it goes up to 2.5 Ghz, that'll be...well...awesome.
The current G4 draws about 30 watts, so it's safe to assume that the 1.8 Ghz, at 0.13 micron, will be stretching the limits of the PowerBook. But, the 1.2 Ghz chip, if it's as low as 19 watts? Wow. Keep in mind that this chip should theoretically effectively perform 2-3 times as fast as a current G4, clock for clock...and at 19 watts, it makes it possible to create either dual processor PowerBooks, or increase battery length, either of which would be just fine with me.
Of course, they could sacrifice megahertz for wattage, and, as they move to .09 micron, power consumption will undoubtedly improve.
A note about the press release: again, this is my speculation. We don't know how far in advance their marketing department creates press releases for future products. In other words, it *could* mean they will release blade servers soon, but it's more likely that it'll be several months away.
Remember, Apple began selling 1.42 Ghz machines two months ago, and they're just starting to ship now. So, assuming this press release wasn't meant to come out until next week, and it's only a product announcement, it could be as much as 6 months or more before those blade servers even see the light of day outside of IBM testing. Then again, they could release them next week, too, but I think that's optimistic, given that they are going out of their way to say the current blades are prototypes.
Here are some resources:
ExtremeTech, eWeek, IBM
Too many people seem to be confusing the POWER4 and the PowerPC 970.
The PowerPC 970 is derived from POWER4 technology, but not the same thing. So, IBM learned some things while making the POWER4 and applied them to create this all-new chip for lower end computers.
There's too much publicly available, nonspeculative information available for so many people to be so confused. Here's what's known about the processor, because IBM announced it at the microprocessor forum last year. I'll quote an article that was written the day after IBM's announcement:
OK, so first: they lengthened the pipeline of the PowerPC to scale megahertz higher. Now, we know from the leaked blade server press release that they may be on the verge of scaling speeds even higher...great, this is good news. The numbers are less important than the fact that it's capable of going where no PowerPC has gone before.
Well, this is huge. Obviously, our bus limitations on the Mac are an even bigger problem than our CPUs. This chip will allow Apple to make bus speeds...well...a hell of a lot faster, probably using HyperTransport, since it runs at the same speed.
OK, so YES, these chips support SMP. In other words, Apple can make dual processor 970-based Macs if they want to.
Second, the fact that the chip is 64 bit is irrelevant to current software. Apparently, our current 32 bit software will run just fine. When it's reworked to be 64 bit, so much the better.
My speculation: I read somewhere, and can't provide a link, that the 970, in fact, supports 8-way multiprocessing. Note that Apple spent time last year buying out high end Hollywood-quality software, yet lacks w workstation to go along with it. I think there's a very, very, very good chance we'll see high-end 5-10 thousand dollar Appple pro workstations, and rackmounted servers, to sell to film production companies and the like.
OK, so no L3 cache in these future machines. Obviously, since bus speed will be like 7 times faster than we're used to, this won't be much of an issue; the chip will stay fed.
OK, so...it's...umm...fast. We can all understand that. Yes, the 1.8 Mhz scores pretty much match the 3.2 Ghz Pentium 4, so if it goes up to 2.5 Ghz, that'll be...well...awesome.
The current G4 draws about 30 watts, so it's safe to assume that the 1.8 Ghz, at 0.13 micron, will be stretching the limits of the PowerBook. But, the 1.2 Ghz chip, if it's as low as 19 watts? Wow. Keep in mind that this chip should theoretically effectively perform 2-3 times as fast as a current G4, clock for clock...and at 19 watts, it makes it possible to create either dual processor PowerBooks, or increase battery length, either of which would be just fine with me.
Of course, they could sacrifice megahertz for wattage, and, as they move to .09 micron, power consumption will undoubtedly improve.
A note about the press release: again, this is my speculation. We don't know how far in advance their marketing department creates press releases for future products. In other words, it *could* mean they will release blade servers soon, but it's more likely that it'll be several months away.
Remember, Apple began selling 1.42 Ghz machines two months ago, and they're just starting to ship now. So, assuming this press release wasn't meant to come out until next week, and it's only a product announcement, it could be as much as 6 months or more before those blade servers even see the light of day outside of IBM testing. Then again, they could release them next week, too, but I think that's optimistic, given that they are going out of their way to say the current blades are prototypes.
Here are some resources:
ExtremeTech, eWeek, IBM
If the derivative of the Power5 had duel cores and SMT, the MacOS X could still take 8 of those things (remember, OSX can support 32 processors, so 8 processors appearing like 4 each is 32)! Just amazing to think of that much power behind an OS. And an OS that is that good at scheduling things to multiple processors.
Oh, and I still say that we are going to see one or two speed boosts of the G4 before a 970 (I am betting one). I wouldn't be suprised to see a G4 iBook comming soon, though. Probably the 14" one will have it to start. Apple is going to have to start reving up the lower laptop line if they plan on raising the stakes on the high-end line. I also don't think it would be a wise strategy for them to be using three different processors at a time in brand new machines. I bet we are going to see the retirement of the old iMac once and for all, a boost of the iBook to G4, and after that is all said and done, then we will see the 970. Apple has to tie-up loose ends before making new ones
Oh, and I still say that we are going to see one or two speed boosts of the G4 before a 970 (I am betting one). I wouldn't be suprised to see a G4 iBook comming soon, though. Probably the 14" one will have it to start. Apple is going to have to start reving up the lower laptop line if they plan on raising the stakes on the high-end line. I also don't think it would be a wise strategy for them to be using three different processors at a time in brand new machines. I bet we are going to see the retirement of the old iMac once and for all, a boost of the iBook to G4, and after that is all said and done, then we will see the 970. Apple has to tie-up loose ends before making new ones
Speaking of Laptops.....Remember, although the 970 could consume less power than the G4, we also must factor in that this is JUST the processor. What about the bus? The ram? Apple will have to work out a way to make those variable like switching between 450Mhz regular mode and double-pumped mode. I know that DDR supports slow down mode where it lacks the Double-Data-Rate feature (essentially making it our old friend, PC133). Battery life is dependant on a lot more than just the processor. Hell, the LCD screen is the biggest powerconsumer. I say we need to just sit-back, relax, and wait for a month or so. Then we may be able to better speculate. Hehe, I remember when there use to be just as much hype about a G5 last summer, and look at what great G5s we have! *looks around at a bunch of G4s*. Anyway, my soap-box is done for the evening. Have a good one.
comparing apples to apples
I happened to be perusing the IBM PPC 970 PDF, and noticed that they contain, on their very rough bar graph, a 1 Ghz 970. So, it provides an opportunity to compare clock for clock. I found some G4 numbers by trawling the Net.
The numbers look like this, for both processors at 1 Ghz:
SPECint2000
G4: 306
970: ~550
SPECfp2000
G4: 187
970: ~700
Well, I'll let you guys break out your calculators...but in my mind, that's one hell of a difference at the same clock speed.
Sounds to me like a 1.8 Ghz 970 ought to be the equivalent of about a 3 Ghz G4.
OK...sorry for the flurry of postings; I just get annoyed when so many people talk out of their ass when there's plenty of officially announced information around to start drawing a picture.
I happened to be perusing the IBM PPC 970 PDF, and noticed that they contain, on their very rough bar graph, a 1 Ghz 970. So, it provides an opportunity to compare clock for clock. I found some G4 numbers by trawling the Net.
The numbers look like this, for both processors at 1 Ghz:
SPECint2000
G4: 306
970: ~550
SPECfp2000
G4: 187
970: ~700
Well, I'll let you guys break out your calculators...but in my mind, that's one hell of a difference at the same clock speed.
Sounds to me like a 1.8 Ghz 970 ought to be the equivalent of about a 3 Ghz G4.
OK...sorry for the flurry of postings; I just get annoyed when so many people talk out of their ass when there's plenty of officially announced information around to start drawing a picture.
I'm not underestimating.
It all makes too much sense.
1. Motorola announced 85xx processors but no Altivec. Rumors surface that G5 is cancelled.
2. Suddendly IBM announces new Fab in E Fishkill
3. IBM announces PPC 970 at MDR Online
4. SIMD unit is Altivec.
5. Rumors of new Processor interconnect surface from TGB it's rumored to be called ApplePI.
6. Apple CFO announces that they are expecting to increase revenue to 8 billion and marketshare to 5%(a %66 increase)
Well it doesn't take Einstein to realize that Apple expects to have enticing HW coming.
The Powermacs are not going to see another G4 rev. The 130nm G4's aren't due and even then they would pale in comparison to even the lowliest of PPC 970
Hell IBM is booting Code with the Power5 what makes someone rationalize that the PPC 970 won't be available until next year. This chip is "simple" compared to fabbing a Power4 pr Power5.
The question is does Apple go with Dual Processors? I guess yields will determine that. I'm an optimist when it comest to this. I mean you can generally get the sense with Apple(if you've followed them for sometime) on if they are moving forward or standing still. They are definitely moving forward.
Speculation is fine but it must be based on a shred of commonsense.
It all makes too much sense.
1. Motorola announced 85xx processors but no Altivec. Rumors surface that G5 is cancelled.
2. Suddendly IBM announces new Fab in E Fishkill
3. IBM announces PPC 970 at MDR Online
4. SIMD unit is Altivec.
5. Rumors of new Processor interconnect surface from TGB it's rumored to be called ApplePI.
6. Apple CFO announces that they are expecting to increase revenue to 8 billion and marketshare to 5%(a %66 increase)
Well it doesn't take Einstein to realize that Apple expects to have enticing HW coming.
The Powermacs are not going to see another G4 rev. The 130nm G4's aren't due and even then they would pale in comparison to even the lowliest of PPC 970
Hell IBM is booting Code with the Power5 what makes someone rationalize that the PPC 970 won't be available until next year. This chip is "simple" compared to fabbing a Power4 pr Power5.
The question is does Apple go with Dual Processors? I guess yields will determine that. I'm an optimist when it comest to this. I mean you can generally get the sense with Apple(if you've followed them for sometime) on if they are moving forward or standing still. They are definitely moving forward.
Speculation is fine but it must be based on a shred of commonsense.
Re: Re: comparing apples to apples
I think, for me, at least, I'm just erring on the side of pessimism, since I've been repeatedly let down on the speed front ever since Steve Jobs took over Apple. The year before, Power Computing had the fastest personal computer on the planet (even including PCs), as 604e clock speeds were higher than Pentiums. Motorola was ready to release the G3 a FULL YEAR before Apple eventually did (that's why Apple killed clone makers). If Motorola had been allowed to do that, the speed advantage over PCs would have been fantastic (for a while, at least).
I have been quite happy in the second Jobs era with product innovation, however; Apple has made great products in the past few years, and the software is incredible, but I wonder what kind of impact the cloning riff had on Motorola's priorities vis-a-vis processor development, since they were, themselves, a Mac clone maker. For its part, IBM was really reluctant to work with AltiVec, so they weren't much help, either...until now.
So, I'm a pessimist.
But, if I were to be an optimist for a second...
I said before that the 1.8 Ghz 970 would equal a 3.0 Ghz G4. That was based, obviously, on looking at the SPECint numbers.
The floating point numbers, though, look more like a 1.8 Ghz 970 is the equivalent of a 6.7 Ghz G4, plus it still has AltiVec. (!)
And ON TOP OF ALL THAT, as bones pointed out, these should have a bus speed that's 4-5 TIMES the speed of a current top of the line G4, plus faster RAM to go with it...
...Then you factor in Apple going further with Quartz Extreme, in terms of offloading graphics code to the GPU, thus freeing up more CPU power...
...and yes, as an optimist, it's easy to imagine a computer that can do real-world things like encode video into MPEG4 and burn onto DVD in real-time, or rip a CD into AAC in like 30 seconds, or achieve astronomical frame rates in Doom 3.
Plus, to everyone around here who keeps saying "the average user doesn't need 64 bit": all you need to do is wait a year, and programmers will invent reasons. In short, the 64 bit revolution will allow computers to just plain do things they can't today.
In 2-3 years, it will be become common, for example, to have like 100 GB of RAM in your computer, thus enabling games to get truly photorealistic, or perhaps containing the entire OS in RAM, increasing speed of file access like 100 times.
Anyway...back to pessimistic mode. If Apple releases these machines, and they're 2x faster, I'm happy. Plus Motorola's got faster 7457s coming for laptops and iMacs.
More speed is only good.
I think, for me, at least, I'm just erring on the side of pessimism, since I've been repeatedly let down on the speed front ever since Steve Jobs took over Apple. The year before, Power Computing had the fastest personal computer on the planet (even including PCs), as 604e clock speeds were higher than Pentiums. Motorola was ready to release the G3 a FULL YEAR before Apple eventually did (that's why Apple killed clone makers). If Motorola had been allowed to do that, the speed advantage over PCs would have been fantastic (for a while, at least).
I have been quite happy in the second Jobs era with product innovation, however; Apple has made great products in the past few years, and the software is incredible, but I wonder what kind of impact the cloning riff had on Motorola's priorities vis-a-vis processor development, since they were, themselves, a Mac clone maker. For its part, IBM was really reluctant to work with AltiVec, so they weren't much help, either...until now.
So, I'm a pessimist.
But, if I were to be an optimist for a second...
I said before that the 1.8 Ghz 970 would equal a 3.0 Ghz G4. That was based, obviously, on looking at the SPECint numbers.
The floating point numbers, though, look more like a 1.8 Ghz 970 is the equivalent of a 6.7 Ghz G4, plus it still has AltiVec. (!)
And ON TOP OF ALL THAT, as bones pointed out, these should have a bus speed that's 4-5 TIMES the speed of a current top of the line G4, plus faster RAM to go with it...
...Then you factor in Apple going further with Quartz Extreme, in terms of offloading graphics code to the GPU, thus freeing up more CPU power...
...and yes, as an optimist, it's easy to imagine a computer that can do real-world things like encode video into MPEG4 and burn onto DVD in real-time, or rip a CD into AAC in like 30 seconds, or achieve astronomical frame rates in Doom 3.
Plus, to everyone around here who keeps saying "the average user doesn't need 64 bit": all you need to do is wait a year, and programmers will invent reasons. In short, the 64 bit revolution will allow computers to just plain do things they can't today.
In 2-3 years, it will be become common, for example, to have like 100 GB of RAM in your computer, thus enabling games to get truly photorealistic, or perhaps containing the entire OS in RAM, increasing speed of file access like 100 times.
Anyway...back to pessimistic mode. If Apple releases these machines, and they're 2x faster, I'm happy. Plus Motorola's got faster 7457s coming for laptops and iMacs.
More speed is only good.
lol. I use to keep an operating system in RAM. OS 8.6! I had 64MB of RAM, and made a bare-bones OS along with Norton SpeedDisk and saved it all in a folder. Then, whenever I wanted either a blazing fast response time or to optimize my harddrive, I would just make a RAM disk, put the contents of my folder into that RAM disk, go to start-up disk, and select the RAM disk and set the preferences to save the RAM disk to the HD when computer is shut down. I tell ya, I have never started up a computer so fast. It would be nice to be able to do that again. Set it so that, upon power-up, everything in the system folder (all 1GB) would be read directly into the RAM. Sure, this would take a while to load all of that, but HDs are not that slow when just being read from. Think of it, then. If you did software update, it would just change the stuff on the HD without any hinderance to the system. Just restart when you felt like it, or maybe, the OS would just keep everything in the RAM except the things that changed, then would restart, only having to read from the HD whatever was changed. Restart time would be a matter of 10-20 seconds. The only thing that would require time would be the reading of 1-10MB of data into the RAM and then the processing of the files. Think if all of the temporary internet files could be kept in the RAM and written to the HardDrive so that if you have to restart, they can all be read back into the RAM quickly. Ok, so what if I am talking about the use of over a GB of RAM just for the OS. Hell, if there were a tower that could hold that much RAM and an OS that could do that, I would jump on the bandwagon as soon as I had the money.
Anyway, back to the present. Yes, I think that people are being over-optimistic, and no, I don't think that we are going to see 970s yet. Remember, Apple has to be as economical as possible, and having a line-up of three different processors is just unrealistic right now. With their fingers in too many pies, either you go the way of IBM who would be harder to uproot than Microsoft, or you go the way of the failed companies, and I don't think that there would be many people at all who would mind seeing Apple go the latter way.
The reason Motorola canceled or at least delayed the G5 is b/c quite frankly, they are having some bad economical times. The G4 is where the money is for them right now, and they don't really need a 64-bit processor with a bunch of bells and whistles when a 32-bit one with a little more speed will work just fine.
If you also read rumors and more legit places, Apple is investing a lot more in the software division right now than the hardware. They are trying to make it appealing for people to switch. You can have all the hardware you want, but without a good selection of good software, no one in their right mind is going to buy your product. Right now, I would expect to see a lot more iApps comming out of Apple, and maybe some more educational software. Also, I would expect to see a lot more focus on speech recognition and graphics rendering b/c they can't afford to lose anymore of the graphics crowd.
I am highly pessimistic as of late b/c my best friend and I are having problems, so I guess I may not be thinking as optimistic as I should.
This is the best thing I have heard all day, though, so I figure, what the h e l l, might as well post it somewhere:
" and maybe that's why Billy is strangling his mother, because of sentences just like this one, which have no discernible goals or perspicuous purpose and just end up anywhere, even in mid "
Anyway, back to the present. Yes, I think that people are being over-optimistic, and no, I don't think that we are going to see 970s yet. Remember, Apple has to be as economical as possible, and having a line-up of three different processors is just unrealistic right now. With their fingers in too many pies, either you go the way of IBM who would be harder to uproot than Microsoft, or you go the way of the failed companies, and I don't think that there would be many people at all who would mind seeing Apple go the latter way.
The reason Motorola canceled or at least delayed the G5 is b/c quite frankly, they are having some bad economical times. The G4 is where the money is for them right now, and they don't really need a 64-bit processor with a bunch of bells and whistles when a 32-bit one with a little more speed will work just fine.
If you also read rumors and more legit places, Apple is investing a lot more in the software division right now than the hardware. They are trying to make it appealing for people to switch. You can have all the hardware you want, but without a good selection of good software, no one in their right mind is going to buy your product. Right now, I would expect to see a lot more iApps comming out of Apple, and maybe some more educational software. Also, I would expect to see a lot more focus on speech recognition and graphics rendering b/c they can't afford to lose anymore of the graphics crowd.
I am highly pessimistic as of late b/c my best friend and I are having problems, so I guess I may not be thinking as optimistic as I should.
This is the best thing I have heard all day, though, so I figure, what the h e l l, might as well post it somewhere:
" and maybe that's why Billy is strangling his mother, because of sentences just like this one, which have no discernible goals or perspicuous purpose and just end up anywhere, even in mid "
interesting note...
...as i was searching around the Net tonight for speed comparisons. I decided to compare IBM's RC5 cracking claims against current G4s.
OK, two things jumped out at me from the speed comparison on distributed.net's site:
(1) On the topic of the PPC 970 vs. the G4, RC5 code cracking is something that's handled by AltiVec, the way the software's written. It appears the performance vis-a-vis the SIMD unit will scale linearly, according to IBM's claims:
970 1.8 Ghz: 18 million keys/sec
G4 1.6 Ghz: 17 million keys/sec
G4 1.25 Ghz: 13 million keys/sec.
This tells me that the SIMD unit is essentially exactly the same, and not significantly improved in any particular way over the one in the G4.
Note that the POWER4 chip at 1.3 Ghz only manages 8 million keys/sec. AltiVec really makes a difference for matrix math. The Pentium at 3.14 Ghz manages a respectable 12 million...at least there's one place the PowerPC still reigns supreme.
(2) Gee, you think it's worthwhile to note that distributed.net...ahem...has a speed rating for a 1.6Ghz G4?!
I don't know who reported it, or what, but the machine was running OS X 10.1.
Hmmm...
...as i was searching around the Net tonight for speed comparisons. I decided to compare IBM's RC5 cracking claims against current G4s.
OK, two things jumped out at me from the speed comparison on distributed.net's site:
(1) On the topic of the PPC 970 vs. the G4, RC5 code cracking is something that's handled by AltiVec, the way the software's written. It appears the performance vis-a-vis the SIMD unit will scale linearly, according to IBM's claims:
970 1.8 Ghz: 18 million keys/sec
G4 1.6 Ghz: 17 million keys/sec
G4 1.25 Ghz: 13 million keys/sec.
This tells me that the SIMD unit is essentially exactly the same, and not significantly improved in any particular way over the one in the G4.
Note that the POWER4 chip at 1.3 Ghz only manages 8 million keys/sec. AltiVec really makes a difference for matrix math. The Pentium at 3.14 Ghz manages a respectable 12 million...at least there's one place the PowerPC still reigns supreme.
(2) Gee, you think it's worthwhile to note that distributed.net...ahem...has a speed rating for a 1.6Ghz G4?!
I don't know who reported it, or what, but the machine was running OS X 10.1.
Hmmm...
Define "yet" that is very vague. No one expect Apple to announce PPC 970 based systems next week but it's very plausible that a late summer release can happen. The number of processor lines doesn't matter as long as they all can run in the same motherboard. That's why apple has standardized on the UMA Motherboards. G3/G4's are well supported. So in essence you're only adding new Mobo tech with the 970.
You think so. I tend to think Apple chose the PPC 970 over a year ago causing Motorola to scuttle any G5 Desktop development. This isn't the first time it has happened. Apple drop kicked motorola and went to the IBM Powerpc 601 chip after Moto sluffed off on the 860xx series chips.
I agree that the SIMD unit is the same. However I think that Altivec will have a noticeable speed increase in the PPC 970 as currently Altivec is "starved" by the current Memory Bus.
Re: crap-idy-crap crap
I happen to agree with the writer. 1GB is becoming very commonplace, and 1.5-2.0GB "Power User" levels. If you work with Photoshop, 4GB isn't completely unreasonable, and server machines that max out at 4GB are becoming "low end". In addition, the "38 bit memory addressing" may be there as a hack, but if you can't fit an address in a register or single OP, you're going to slow some things down or limit processes in various ways. And if you're talking about lots of A/V and home movie making, the more the merrier. With RAM fab techniques continuing to make more RAM cheaper, I think the bet is a good one. Currently AMD and IBM are betting home users will want more, while Intel is the holdout, agreeing with you that it won't affect sales until 2008-9.
Actually, that's not really true either. If you can fill an 8 byte general purpose register with image data fast, you can do a lot of operations on it fast. Altivec can do this, obviously, but is somewhat limited in its available operations. I suspect once Photoshop is 64-bit-ized, you'll see acceleration in many of the operations that are not Altivec-able. In essence, it doubles the ultra-high-speed "working space" that an image filter programmer has to work with.
Of course, the memory architecture of the 970 is where Macintosh Photoshop users will really drool, and probably one of the primary reasons it's currently so much faster on a Wintel machine.
Which brings me to the more interesting point. A lot of people are comparing it against the G3 and G4, which are pretty ancient technology. The real bonus will be that the 970 will be in the same performance ballpark as the x86 world. According to current estimates, it will just about match the offerings from AMD and Intel-- the first time a PowerPC has done this in years, marketing demos notwithstanding. (Although AMD's original roadmap would have left the 970 behind, IBM seems to have gotten lucky with the current delays at AMD, and if they don't suffer delays themselves should be able to keep up.)
I happen to agree with the writer. 1GB is becoming very commonplace, and 1.5-2.0GB "Power User" levels. If you work with Photoshop, 4GB isn't completely unreasonable, and server machines that max out at 4GB are becoming "low end". In addition, the "38 bit memory addressing" may be there as a hack, but if you can't fit an address in a register or single OP, you're going to slow some things down or limit processes in various ways. And if you're talking about lots of A/V and home movie making, the more the merrier. With RAM fab techniques continuing to make more RAM cheaper, I think the bet is a good one. Currently AMD and IBM are betting home users will want more, while Intel is the holdout, agreeing with you that it won't affect sales until 2008-9.
Actually, that's not really true either. If you can fill an 8 byte general purpose register with image data fast, you can do a lot of operations on it fast. Altivec can do this, obviously, but is somewhat limited in its available operations. I suspect once Photoshop is 64-bit-ized, you'll see acceleration in many of the operations that are not Altivec-able. In essence, it doubles the ultra-high-speed "working space" that an image filter programmer has to work with.
Of course, the memory architecture of the 970 is where Macintosh Photoshop users will really drool, and probably one of the primary reasons it's currently so much faster on a Wintel machine.
Which brings me to the more interesting point. A lot of people are comparing it against the G3 and G4, which are pretty ancient technology. The real bonus will be that the 970 will be in the same performance ballpark as the x86 world. According to current estimates, it will just about match the offerings from AMD and Intel-- the first time a PowerPC has done this in years, marketing demos notwithstanding. (Although AMD's original roadmap would have left the 970 behind, IBM seems to have gotten lucky with the current delays at AMD, and if they don't suffer delays themselves should be able to keep up.)
Re: Re: crap-idy-crap crap
ffakr is correct in this and you are confusing what AltiVec and general purpose registers are used for. AltiVec is a SIMD unit and by definition is designed to perform the same operation on multiple pieces of data without interference. A general purpose register is not designed this way. That is why things like AltiVec and SSE were invented in the first place.
But if you insist, do not take either of our words for it. Please pick up one of the PDFs floating around that define the operations available on the general purpose 64-bit registers. Then take two 32-bit numbers or two pairs of 32-bit numbers and try to perform the operations in parallel as a single 64-bit register or two 64-bit registers as the PDF describes the instruction set.
You will find that operations such as compares, rotates, multiplies and divides do not work anywhere close to correctly. You will find operations like adds, subtracts and shifts require several operations to extract the correct values (basically a bunch of post processing). The only instructions I have seen work correctly in parallel are bit-wise ands, ors and exclusive ors.
Except for the bit-wise operations, it is faster to serialize the 32-bit operations than to try to fake a SIMD unit with general purpose registers.
ffakr is correct in this and you are confusing what AltiVec and general purpose registers are used for. AltiVec is a SIMD unit and by definition is designed to perform the same operation on multiple pieces of data without interference. A general purpose register is not designed this way. That is why things like AltiVec and SSE were invented in the first place.
But if you insist, do not take either of our words for it. Please pick up one of the PDFs floating around that define the operations available on the general purpose 64-bit registers. Then take two 32-bit numbers or two pairs of 32-bit numbers and try to perform the operations in parallel as a single 64-bit register or two 64-bit registers as the PDF describes the instruction set.
You will find that operations such as compares, rotates, multiplies and divides do not work anywhere close to correctly. You will find operations like adds, subtracts and shifts require several operations to extract the correct values (basically a bunch of post processing). The only instructions I have seen work correctly in parallel are bit-wise ands, ors and exclusive ors.
Except for the bit-wise operations, it is faster to serialize the 32-bit operations than to try to fake a SIMD unit with general purpose registers.
Ok, there seems to be a little confusion in what I said earlier. When I made the example of the 64-bit processor, I knew that it doesn't operate scalable like the AltiVec vector processing unit. The altivec can do 4-32bits, 8-16bits, ect. I was merely trying to say that along with the new 64-bit code comes possibilities that most programmers are probably not even aware of. Who knows how they can use the 64-bit processor for most programs. Maybe they can find ways of speeding up certain functions that usually require more than one pass through the processor to complete. I am just saying that a 64-bit processor leaves a lot to be optimized and we don't know yet how programs are going to utilize it.
Also, I still don't believe that Apple is going to switch to the 970 until they get rid of the G3. It isn't economical! Hell, we all know how Apple tries to keep invitory really tight to minimize loss. That isn't to say that they won't be selling the already-built iBooks, it is to say that I think they will put a G4 into the iBook before they go to the 970. Everything after that involving the G3 will probably just be Apple depleteing its stock of G3s. True, the iBook looks to be one of the next things to be updated since it, the eMac, and the iPod are the only things that are not "new" according to the Apple store. We may see the new G4 iBook soon, but then again, if we don't, I wouldn't expect to see the 970 for quite a while longer. It is like the groundhog seeing his shadow. If we don't see the G4, then we know it is another 6-weeks of winter (figuratively speaking, for those who try to take that literally).
Also, do you keep up on the stock quotes for Moto? Well, I do (well, I did until I stopped getting the paper about a month ago), and Moto's stock has been plumeting well before the G5 fiasco, and right now, they are more concerned with keeping costs down and riding out the recession than spending the money to research a chip for a small company (Apple). They probably decided that there was little use for them to use the chip, and since they are their own biggest buyer, Moto probably decided to scrap the idea until the need arises for a new chip. Remember, everything said here is purely speculative on my part, and same on anybody elses part unless you actuallty are working for Apple's R&D or sales dpts.
Anyway, I have only one question left: Is the SIMD processor in the 970 128-bit or 256-bit? A 256-bit AltiVec engine would definately be nice, but I don't know if code would have to be rewritten to fully utilize it.
Also, I still don't believe that Apple is going to switch to the 970 until they get rid of the G3. It isn't economical! Hell, we all know how Apple tries to keep invitory really tight to minimize loss. That isn't to say that they won't be selling the already-built iBooks, it is to say that I think they will put a G4 into the iBook before they go to the 970. Everything after that involving the G3 will probably just be Apple depleteing its stock of G3s. True, the iBook looks to be one of the next things to be updated since it, the eMac, and the iPod are the only things that are not "new" according to the Apple store. We may see the new G4 iBook soon, but then again, if we don't, I wouldn't expect to see the 970 for quite a while longer. It is like the groundhog seeing his shadow. If we don't see the G4, then we know it is another 6-weeks of winter
(figuratively speaking, for those who try to take that literally).Also, do you keep up on the stock quotes for Moto? Well, I do (well, I did until I stopped getting the paper about a month ago), and Moto's stock has been plumeting well before the G5 fiasco, and right now, they are more concerned with keeping costs down and riding out the recession than spending the money to research a chip for a small company (Apple). They probably decided that there was little use for them to use the chip, and since they are their own biggest buyer, Moto probably decided to scrap the idea until the need arises for a new chip. Remember, everything said here is purely speculative on my part, and same on anybody elses part unless you actuallty are working for Apple's R&D or sales dpts.
Anyway, I have only one question left: Is the SIMD processor in the 970 128-bit or 256-bit? A 256-bit AltiVec engine would definately be nice, but I don't know if code would have to be rewritten to fully utilize it.
Your missing the point. All indications show that the PPC970 will be a cheaper part than the PPC74xx. Why? 1) .13 process makes chips cheaper to produce (and IBM is working on other process improvements to drive this down further) 2) No L3 cache, those things are expensive as hell, easily costing as much as the CPU itself. Yes, Apple will have to design the motherboard around the new chip, and we will see other components go up in price (DDR400 RAM is around 50% more expensive than DDR333, but that only comes out to about $20 per 256MB) but overall the systems will be of similar cost if cheaper than a G4 system. Should Apple move to the PPC970, it would be expected that G3 systems would have already been retired, either before or with the update. What is really up for debate is if G4 systems would be retired as well =).
The Altivec engine on the PPC970 is 128-bits. It would be possible to enlarge it to 256, but this would require a compatability mode similar to that of 32-bit vs 64-bit mode and would require code to be written specifically for it.
Yes normally I'd agree with you but
1. Apple is not going to shoehorn a .18um G4 into an iBook
2. As you can see below the .13um G4's don't ship until Q4 and they're really not cheap.
Apple knows there is pent up demand for a fast Powermac. Those purchases are where Apple makes it's money. They have the highest margin in the lineup. I can assure you it will be in Apples "Econonomic" interests to ship fast 970 systems as soon as possible. They cannot wait for faster G4's.
Motorola's PPC 7457 .13um G4 Press Release
At $189 per 10,000, the 7457's are a whole lot cheaper than the 7455's. I think the 7455's were priced around $300 per 10,000.
Also, the 7447's will be price very cheaply as well. They could easily put these in the iBooks and iMacs.
Where would I like to see Apple's product range this time next year?
Portable
Ultra-lite (12" PB, new products): G4 7457 @ 1.2 GHz (maybe 1.4 GHz)
iBook: G4 7457 @ 1.0 GHz (maybe 1.2 GHz)
Powerbook: 1.2 GHz IBM 970 (maybe 1.4 GHz)
Consumer Desktop
iMac: 1.2 GHz IBM 970 to 1.6 GHz IBM 970
Power Desktop
PowerMac: 1.8 GHz IBM 970 to 2.5 GHz IBM 970
I don't believe that the PowerMacs with the IBM processors will be dual, after looking at the SPEC scores - especially if the processor is released up to 2.5 GHz. Maybe if it is only available at 1.8 GHz a dual would be necessary... but ...?
Power Workstation
"PowerMacPro": Dual IBM 970's (1.8 GHz to 2.5 GHz)
As you can see, I expect Apple to fully drop the G3 and G4 throughout their entire product range, except for the very low power 7457 in cheap and low-power systems. On the other hand, maybe IBM can make a low-voltage 1.0GHz PPC 970 that uses 10W ... who knows?
Portable
Ultra-lite (12" PB, new products): G4 7457 @ 1.2 GHz (maybe 1.4 GHz)
iBook: G4 7457 @ 1.0 GHz (maybe 1.2 GHz)
Powerbook: 1.2 GHz IBM 970 (maybe 1.4 GHz)
Consumer Desktop
iMac: 1.2 GHz IBM 970 to 1.6 GHz IBM 970
Power Desktop
PowerMac: 1.8 GHz IBM 970 to 2.5 GHz IBM 970
I don't believe that the PowerMacs with the IBM processors will be dual, after looking at the SPEC scores - especially if the processor is released up to 2.5 GHz. Maybe if it is only available at 1.8 GHz a dual would be necessary... but ...?
Power Workstation
"PowerMacPro": Dual IBM 970's (1.8 GHz to 2.5 GHz)
As you can see, I expect Apple to fully drop the G3 and G4 throughout their entire product range, except for the very low power 7457 in cheap and low-power systems. On the other hand, maybe IBM can make a low-voltage 1.0GHz PPC 970 that uses 10W ... who knows?
Re: Re: Re: crap-idy-crap crap
thanks ktlx. Maybe I can explain this a bit more clearly. Lets look at a couple examples.
I'm going to shorten the size of the numbers to make this easier.. but the example still holds.
imagine an 4 bit processor. 4 bit integers include all possible numbers in the set [0...15]. In binary they include [0000...1111].
if you add two 4 bit unsigned ints.. you get...
2 + 2 = 4
or
0010 + 0010 = 0100 = 4
If you add to bigger numbers you get...
10+10 = 4 (it rolls over... it goes up to 15, then goes to 0... back up to 4)
or, in binary...
1010+1010 = 0100
This behavior is predictable.
Now imagine an 8bit processor [00000000 ... 11111111].
pack it with two operations like the above...
1010 & 1010 + 1010 & 1010
(think of this as two 10+10 operations)
is the same as...
170 +170
which equals 340
which equals 01010100 in binary (again, it rolls over...)
if you break that up into two 4 bit numbers you get
0101 and 0100
or 5 and 4.
So... if you pack registers in a regular interger unit... you get 10+10 = 5 and 10+10 =4.
it just doesn't work right. Altivec, OTOH, is designed so that when you put 16 8bit integers into it... each section behaves properly. That's what makes it a vector engine and not a big wide FP or Integer unit.
Hope this helps.
The article in question didn't say that certain professionals need more than 2GB of ram... it said average people will need more within a few years and I simply don't see this. Consider these arguments...
Ram prices to continually fall, but this is (to some extent) offset by the introduction of new, higher priced ram standards. 2 GB of DDR 333 [micron] is only $228 for 4 dimms now. This is best price at pricewatch for Micron DDR and MUCH less than what a manufacturer would charge an average users for an boxed machine. RAM prices have fallen a tremendous amount over the years, but this has leveled off to some extent. A year ago, you could probably have found a Gig of SDR for this much. A good decrease, but it seems that this has been slowing. There is a minimum amount that must be charged for one stick of memory in order for people to make money in its production and there are technological limits as to how much memory can fit on a stick. Right now, 4GB in 4 DIMMS would cost $943 at pricewatch. Even if this fell in half every year... it'd take a long time before the Average user felt compelled to put 2, 4, or more GB of ram in a machine. At the prices that retailers mark up memory... getting a Dell with 2GB a year from now would probably still mean that the memory cost as much as the rest of the computer.
38bit addressing isn't a hack.. it is the size of the memory registers in current chips. 32bit registers can directly access 4GB of ram. 38bit registers can natively address over 270GB of ram. If Apple wanted to, they could design G4 systems that could natively address hundreds of GB of ram. As an example of this capability, I pointed out that some x86 systems already allow users to install and address over 4GB of ram (currently some Xeon Servers). Does anyone expect the average user to really need more than 4GB of ram, let alone 270GB of ram in the next 3 years? Let's not get silly here.
The article I refered to clearly indicated that the author felt that the average user would require 64bit memory addressing (over current limits) within 3 years. I stated that i thought this was silly and I have to stand by this. My mother, my nieces and nephews, the secretaries I support... these are average users. They won't need 4 GB of ram in 3 years... any more than they need 1GB now.
This isn't to say that there are sectors that need huge memory addressing... but the article didn't address these users, just the average joes. The article was poorly thought out.
thanks ktlx. Maybe I can explain this a bit more clearly. Lets look at a couple examples.
I'm going to shorten the size of the numbers to make this easier.. but the example still holds.
imagine an 4 bit processor. 4 bit integers include all possible numbers in the set [0...15]. In binary they include [0000...1111].
if you add two 4 bit unsigned ints.. you get...
2 + 2 = 4
or
0010 + 0010 = 0100 = 4
If you add to bigger numbers you get...
10+10 = 4 (it rolls over... it goes up to 15, then goes to 0... back up to 4)
or, in binary...
1010+1010 = 0100
This behavior is predictable.
Now imagine an 8bit processor [00000000 ... 11111111].
pack it with two operations like the above...
1010 & 1010 + 1010 & 1010
(think of this as two 10+10 operations)
is the same as...
170 +170
which equals 340
which equals 01010100 in binary (again, it rolls over...)
if you break that up into two 4 bit numbers you get
0101 and 0100
or 5 and 4.
So... if you pack registers in a regular interger unit... you get 10+10 = 5 and 10+10 =4.
it just doesn't work right. Altivec, OTOH, is designed so that when you put 16 8bit integers into it... each section behaves properly. That's what makes it a vector engine and not a big wide FP or Integer unit.
Hope this helps.
I really have to disagree here. 1GB isn't commonplace right now. Dell still sells base machines with 128MB (as do many others). Most average users don't get machines with more than 256MB of ram. I'm an exception with 768, as are video and graphic professionals.
The article in question didn't say that certain professionals need more than 2GB of ram... it said average people will need more within a few years and I simply don't see this. Consider these arguments...
Ram prices to continually fall, but this is (to some extent) offset by the introduction of new, higher priced ram standards. 2 GB of DDR 333 [micron] is only $228 for 4 dimms now. This is best price at pricewatch for Micron DDR and MUCH less than what a manufacturer would charge an average users for an boxed machine. RAM prices have fallen a tremendous amount over the years, but this has leveled off to some extent. A year ago, you could probably have found a Gig of SDR for this much. A good decrease, but it seems that this has been slowing. There is a minimum amount that must be charged for one stick of memory in order for people to make money in its production and there are technological limits as to how much memory can fit on a stick. Right now, 4GB in 4 DIMMS would cost $943 at pricewatch. Even if this fell in half every year... it'd take a long time before the Average user felt compelled to put 2, 4, or more GB of ram in a machine. At the prices that retailers mark up memory... getting a Dell with 2GB a year from now would probably still mean that the memory cost as much as the rest of the computer.
38bit addressing isn't a hack.. it is the size of the memory registers in current chips. 32bit registers can directly access 4GB of ram. 38bit registers can natively address over 270GB of ram. If Apple wanted to, they could design G4 systems that could natively address hundreds of GB of ram. As an example of this capability, I pointed out that some x86 systems already allow users to install and address over 4GB of ram (currently some Xeon Servers). Does anyone expect the average user to really need more than 4GB of ram, let alone 270GB of ram in the next 3 years? Let's not get silly here.
The article I refered to clearly indicated that the author felt that the average user would require 64bit memory addressing (over current limits) within 3 years. I stated that i thought this was silly and I have to stand by this. My mother, my nieces and nephews, the secretaries I support... these are average users. They won't need 4 GB of ram in 3 years... any more than they need 1GB now.
This isn't to say that there are sectors that need huge memory addressing... but the article didn't address these users, just the average joes. The article was poorly thought out.
Re: Re: Re: Re: crap-idy-crap crap
36-bit address (Intel) is a hack. It is little better than bank-switching on 8-bit machines.
Pointers are still 32-bit (and this is the same for the G4 even with 38-bit addressing), so you don't have a flat 36 (or 38) bit address space, but one that you can only see 4GB of at the most. Most applications that use PAE (36-bit addressing) use the extra memory as a cache - e.g., SQL Server.
Consider that the OS likes to have some of the memory set aside, and you find that your maximum process size is 2, or 3 GB.
Today, this isn't an issue.
In two years time this may be an issue, when 1GB DIMMs are affordable, and 2GB not out of the price-range of the enthusiast.
Intel want to go 64-bit in 2008 for the consumer. That is too late in my opinion. The consumer will already have been enticed by the marketing talk of AMD and Apple for 4 years by then, regarding 64-bits - and will have purchased because they desired it, not out of any particular need.
64-bit integers are great for certain applications, particularly encryption and decryption like SSL.
64-bit addressing is in demand on workstations already for content creation applications. I couldn't imagine myself using more than 2 GB today, although I can see a need for 1 GB. Was it only 5 years ago that me and my mates were ahhhing over 128MB that someone had in their machine?
Maybe in 5 years time he will have 16 GB, and be working on images or raw video with 64 or 128-bit per pixel colour depth... or running several apps at the same time that all require a lot of memory, as you edit multiple images on your 2 OLED 2560x2048 128-bit displays ...
36-bit address (Intel) is a hack. It is little better than bank-switching on 8-bit machines.
Pointers are still 32-bit (and this is the same for the G4 even with 38-bit addressing), so you don't have a flat 36 (or 38) bit address space, but one that you can only see 4GB of at the most. Most applications that use PAE (36-bit addressing) use the extra memory as a cache - e.g., SQL Server.
Consider that the OS likes to have some of the memory set aside, and you find that your maximum process size is 2, or 3 GB.
Today, this isn't an issue.
In two years time this may be an issue, when 1GB DIMMs are affordable, and 2GB not out of the price-range of the enthusiast.
Intel want to go 64-bit in 2008 for the consumer. That is too late in my opinion. The consumer will already have been enticed by the marketing talk of AMD and Apple for 4 years by then, regarding 64-bits - and will have purchased because they desired it, not out of any particular need.
64-bit integers are great for certain applications, particularly encryption and decryption like SSL.
64-bit addressing is in demand on workstations already for content creation applications. I couldn't imagine myself using more than 2 GB today, although I can see a need for 1 GB. Was it only 5 years ago that me and my mates were ahhhing over 128MB that someone had in their machine?
Maybe in 5 years time he will have 16 GB, and be working on images or raw video with 64 or 128-bit per pixel colour depth... or running several apps at the same time that all require a lot of memory, as you edit multiple images on your 2 OLED 2560x2048 128-bit displays ...
Re: interesting note...
they are talking about a dual 800... the 1.25 is a sing processor... the dual 1ghz QS were doing 21M/s.... check out this page
http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/archives/jan02/013002.html
they are talking about a dual 800... the 1.25 is a sing processor... the dual 1ghz QS were doing 21M/s.... check out this page
http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/archives/jan02/013002.html
Re: crap-idy-crap crap
Personally, I'm pretty hard pressed to see the difference between 24bit and 32bit color. Do you need 3.4 x 10^38 colors?
But this is a limitation of the development language, not the hardware... isn't it?
I doubt any average user (and again, the article in question mentions average users) will be editing images or video with 64bit or 128bit color depths in a few years (again, the article said 3 [a few] years). Where is the real advantage in working on 128 bit color video? Can your eyes see the difference? Can your monitor or TV display at that depth? Maybe if you absolutely need to have a perfectly smooth fade of one color on a HDTV while still having a full pallet... then maybe you'd need a bazillion color pallet.
Personally, I'm pretty hard pressed to see the difference between 24bit and 32bit color. Do you need 3.4 x 10^38 colors?