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PowerPC 970GX Reference?
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hulugu
macrumors 68000
sinisterdesign said:
After teaching numerous people how to use a computer, I can only say thank god for the single-mouse button on Macs. Lots of people never use the second button: either they don't understand the difference between left-click or right-click (some even have trouble with the double-click) or they have no use for the contextual menus.
However, I like the idea ofespecially on G5 BTOof a multi-button bluetooth mouse w/ scroll wheel, or being able to excise it like the 56k modem. On a Powerbook/iBook, I like only one button.
But, this is one of those flaws that gets far too much mention.
GFLPraxis said:
It seems to work on AMD-Motherboards just fine...
Intel doesn't own PCI-Express any more than they on AGP or regural PCI.
Frobozz
macrumors demi-god
sinisterdesign said:
The reason Apple ships with a single button mouse is to not make developers reply on a myriad of contextual menus. It basically makes for better interface design.
With that said-- I don't know anyone who kept the original mouse. My mouse has 5 buttons and a scroll wheel ...
Frobozz
macrumors demi-god
Einherjar said:
Yeah my PC has DDR2 533 and, for a PC, is fast-- though I look at it as a future looking technology and not so much a real world gain right now. I certainly couldn't give empirical evidence but I'm sure it's about the same.
I think Apple has to have the latest technologies. Perhaps they skip 533 and go to 667 or so?
sw1tcher
macrumors 604
Steven1621 said:
I don't know about that. As soon as IBM releases a faster chip, Intel/AMD will also have a faster chip available.
Right now, Intel already has a chip running at 3.8GHz and AMD has their Athlon 64 4000+. By the time IBM has this chip ready, I'm afraid Intel and/or AMD will have their dual-core chips ready.
Actually, Intel has already annouced that their dual-core processor, Smithfield, will launch next quarter. Imagine a dual dual-core setup...
Whatever we may think of Intel/AMD chips, they're still ahead.... unfortunately.
EDIT... Looks like SiliconAddict beat me to the post.
Santaduck
macrumors 6502a
Google Cache still has it:
http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cach...llav1/+970GX+site:ibm.com&hl=en&client=safari
http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cach...llav1/+970GX+site:ibm.com&hl=en&client=safari
Mord
macrumors G4
sw1tcher said:
i dotn see your logic, intel has gone from 3.2GHz to 3.8GHz while the G5 has gone from 2GHz to 2.5GHz in the same time frame and the g5 is just about to be updated, the dual 2.5GHz g5 is the fastest personal computer in the world on a fair few benchmarks just as many as the AMD FX-55 and the 3.73GHz EE P4 is.
SiliconAddict said:
Not technically correct. IBM has had dual core cpu's for over 3 years now. just not for consumers. There really isnt any reason IBM cant release dual cores any time they see fit. Although I dont expect we will see a low cost version of their cpu(aka dual core ppc970MP ) until the end of the year.
As far as freescale is concerned I have personal knowledge that the dual core G4 is available right now... The question is in what quantity.
I am in 100% agreement that Intel can deliver silicon faster than ANY other chip manufacturer. They have the fabs and the money to do it.
sw1tcher
macrumors 604
Hector said:
All I was saying is that everytime we think that the G5 is catching up to the Intel/AMD chips, they seem to pull ahead too. So although we may be catching up slightly, they somehow pull ahead again... just a little.
Yes, I know the G5 "is just about to be updated," but so is the P4 which will become a dual-core processor. And the same can also be said about AMD's chips, but I don't think they'll go dual-core until the end of the year.
Chaszmyr said:
Interesting, couldn't it be it wasn't an "erroneous reference", but Apple asked IBM to remove the reference? Since the article has already got some attention, they couldn't just remove the reference without creating more suspicion.
sw1tcher said:
Intel and AMD's Dual-Cores are to be shipped in Q2 2005. AMD already has a Athlon 64 desktop Dual-Core running at 2.4ghz pre die at 90nm, which will be their flagship dual-core.
EDIT: sorry for duoble-post
Holy FUD batman
wow, there's a lot of FUD and mis-information here. I doubt I can even remember all the stuff I've seen here.
PCI-E is owned by Intel:
Duh.. PCI is Intel Intellectual Property too but Powermacs use it. It's in Intel's interest to make these technologies standards by allowing people like Apple (and VIA, and NVidia, and ATI.. ) to use them. Apple will come out with PCI-E when it feels like it. As mentioned.. AGP will eventually (effectively) die so Apple will eventually go to PCI-E.
Apple sucks till they have PCI-E:
Current video cards don't saturate AGP 8X. Look at PCI-E vs. AGP8x benchmarks.. they are nearly identical and the MINOR differences can be accounted for by the fact that some of the higher end video chipsets are now PCI-E native but they are shoe-horned to AGP with a bridge.
The big advantage, now, for PCI-E is that the PCI-E video chip sets are cheaper to make when they are on PCI-E native cards.
Apple sucks till they have DDR2:
Yes, DDR2 has quite a bit more latency than DDR as others mentioned. DDR2's latency increases with speed too.. so DDR2 667 has higher latency than 533 or 400. DDR2 has advantages though, like less power, cooler, higher bandwidth. Eventually the increasing speed of DDR2 will make up for the latency but that won't happen till at least DDR2 667, and maybe not even till DDR2 800.
Apple sucks till they have SATA2:
SATA currently has WAY more bandwidth than any SATA drive. A 10K RPM SATA drive won't burst over 80 or so MB/sec and SATA is 150 MB/Sec. The big deal with SATA2 was NCQ.. the ability to queue disk reads and writes like SCSI to make read/writes more efficient but NCQ is most useful to applications like Fileservers where you tend to read/write larger chunks of data. Anyway.. NCQ is available in the newer SATA drives/chipsets anyway. SATA2 would be nice, but I couldn't really care less if Apple didn't have SATA2 in the next PowerMac.
Doom3 is 4x faster on a PC:
********. The only benchmark I've seen shows it to be about 25% slower on high end machines and closer on midrange machines. They attributed it in part to the ability of PC apps to hijack the whole system (ever notice how an installer can bring XP to its knees?) Anyway.. if you are paying $3000 bucks on a system to pay Doom3 you've got too much money or interesting priorities.
This guy has inside IBM info so he has to know about the GX:
Maybe, maybe not. These developerworks are often written by people NOT employeed by IBM. This person specifically doesn't use an email address in the IBM domain and he's listed as a "freelance writer". He may or may not know what he is talking about. Remember IBM Germany published a page about the blades listing 2.4 GHz PPC 970s before the G5 launch and the first round of blades did NOT run at 2.4 GHz. Just because IBM posted this article doesn't mean it was properly vetted.
The 970GX won't need liquid cooling because it will be cooler:
It will supposedly clock higher so it may not be all that cooler at the high end. Also, the reason the 2.5s needed liquid cooling wasn't because they ran so hot. They actually dissipate less heat than the Athlon64s or Prescotts. The problem is they are exceedingly small.. about 65mm^2 on the die face. That means more heat per mm^2 which makes it harder to migrate the energy to the heatsink. That's why they needed more efficient cooling. If the 970gx has a larger cache, it might actually be easer to cool.. but the extra L2 will dissipate heat too. This is definately a wait and see.
wow, there's a lot of FUD and mis-information here. I doubt I can even remember all the stuff I've seen here.
PCI-E is owned by Intel:
Duh.. PCI is Intel Intellectual Property too but Powermacs use it. It's in Intel's interest to make these technologies standards by allowing people like Apple (and VIA, and NVidia, and ATI.. ) to use them. Apple will come out with PCI-E when it feels like it. As mentioned.. AGP will eventually (effectively) die so Apple will eventually go to PCI-E.
Apple sucks till they have PCI-E:
Current video cards don't saturate AGP 8X. Look at PCI-E vs. AGP8x benchmarks.. they are nearly identical and the MINOR differences can be accounted for by the fact that some of the higher end video chipsets are now PCI-E native but they are shoe-horned to AGP with a bridge.
The big advantage, now, for PCI-E is that the PCI-E video chip sets are cheaper to make when they are on PCI-E native cards.
Apple sucks till they have DDR2:
Yes, DDR2 has quite a bit more latency than DDR as others mentioned. DDR2's latency increases with speed too.. so DDR2 667 has higher latency than 533 or 400. DDR2 has advantages though, like less power, cooler, higher bandwidth. Eventually the increasing speed of DDR2 will make up for the latency but that won't happen till at least DDR2 667, and maybe not even till DDR2 800.
Apple sucks till they have SATA2:
SATA currently has WAY more bandwidth than any SATA drive. A 10K RPM SATA drive won't burst over 80 or so MB/sec and SATA is 150 MB/Sec. The big deal with SATA2 was NCQ.. the ability to queue disk reads and writes like SCSI to make read/writes more efficient but NCQ is most useful to applications like Fileservers where you tend to read/write larger chunks of data. Anyway.. NCQ is available in the newer SATA drives/chipsets anyway. SATA2 would be nice, but I couldn't really care less if Apple didn't have SATA2 in the next PowerMac.
Doom3 is 4x faster on a PC:
********. The only benchmark I've seen shows it to be about 25% slower on high end machines and closer on midrange machines. They attributed it in part to the ability of PC apps to hijack the whole system (ever notice how an installer can bring XP to its knees?) Anyway.. if you are paying $3000 bucks on a system to pay Doom3 you've got too much money or interesting priorities.
This guy has inside IBM info so he has to know about the GX:
Maybe, maybe not. These developerworks are often written by people NOT employeed by IBM. This person specifically doesn't use an email address in the IBM domain and he's listed as a "freelance writer". He may or may not know what he is talking about. Remember IBM Germany published a page about the blades listing 2.4 GHz PPC 970s before the G5 launch and the first round of blades did NOT run at 2.4 GHz. Just because IBM posted this article doesn't mean it was properly vetted.
The 970GX won't need liquid cooling because it will be cooler:
It will supposedly clock higher so it may not be all that cooler at the high end. Also, the reason the 2.5s needed liquid cooling wasn't because they ran so hot. They actually dissipate less heat than the Athlon64s or Prescotts. The problem is they are exceedingly small.. about 65mm^2 on the die face. That means more heat per mm^2 which makes it harder to migrate the energy to the heatsink. That's why they needed more efficient cooling. If the 970gx has a larger cache, it might actually be easer to cool.. but the extra L2 will dissipate heat too. This is definately a wait and see.
SiliconAddict said:
Do I recall it correctly that Pentium Ms are especially good at conserving power when at idle but are not better (or even worse) than G4s when running at 100%. Therefore, a dual Pentium M laptop would still have a great battery life (while being light and thin) but would have a rather short battery life when used for heavy computing.
But I guess you could have your cake and eat it. When you are on your desktop: high power, when on the road: light laptop and high power only for intermittent use (or face a short battery life).
manu chao said:
PentiumM's max wattage is significantly higher than their idle wattage. If I recall correctly, it's in the upper 20s to 30 watts. P-M doesn't look that impressive powerwise when it's not clocked down to 600MHz.
It's still a nice processor, but there is a perception that it uses nearly zero power and that's simply not true.
probably maybe
I too have a feeling Jobs is going to want to really have somthing big to show for when he does the next PowerMac Updates. You could tell he was embarassed a bit doing his little 'making excuses for not having 3ghz' session (he made good points though).
With the amount of time it's taken for revisions and considering what happend last time, i'm guessing they are having major problems in development/production or they are really saving up for a fat something to lay on the world.
asside from that, where the &*$& is the ipod shuffle G5 with PCIe????????
I too have a feeling Jobs is going to want to really have somthing big to show for when he does the next PowerMac Updates. You could tell he was embarassed a bit doing his little 'making excuses for not having 3ghz' session (he made good points though).
With the amount of time it's taken for revisions and considering what happend last time, i'm guessing they are having major problems in development/production or they are really saving up for a fat something to lay on the world.
asside from that, where the &*$& is the ipod shuffle G5 with PCIe????????