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PPC970 and WWDC Rumors: Part 2
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As a mac AND pc user, I hope that "Performance Acceleration Technology" is more impressive than "Quantaspeed Architecture", AMDs fancy sounding name for the return of the performance rating. ;-)
For that matter, I hope it is more impressive than HT, which has shown a -10% to 20% speed boost so far (while doubling some software licensing costs) ;-)
Re: Ok how about Nvidia FX core on 970?
IBM makes chips for a LOT of people...
They have zero intellectual property over what they produce. This will in no way affect whether or not Apple has special access to Nvidia chips or technologies.
I don't know why you'd want to put a the FX core on the die with the 970 anyway.
Would it be because you want a 150 Million gate processor that ran at 400MHz and gave off 100 watts of heat?
Or, maybe because you want the traces from the 970 to wrap around the FX core, so the signals are delayed...
Or, maybe you want to move the graphics chip as far away from the video ram as possible.
IBM makes chips for a LOT of people...
They have zero intellectual property over what they produce. This will in no way affect whether or not Apple has special access to Nvidia chips or technologies.
I don't know why you'd want to put a the FX core on the die with the 970 anyway.
Would it be because you want a 150 Million gate processor that ran at 400MHz and gave off 100 watts of heat?
Or, maybe because you want the traces from the 970 to wrap around the FX core, so the signals are delayed...
Or, maybe you want to move the graphics chip as far away from the video ram as possible.
Re: Re: Ok how about Nvidia FX core on 970?
I should have been more explicit about Apple licensing the FX from NVidia. Either way, building a system on a chip may be attractive to Apple (which is why I brought it up) and may be feasible at .09nm or .065nm, which the Fishkill facility will be able to handle. The point is, that Apple is in the position to customize the PPC with cores such as a TCP/IP network processor, (which IBM may add to the 980), DSP, and, yes, even a graphics processor core, though, I have to admit, throwing "tablet" in is in bad taste on my part.
I should have been more explicit about Apple licensing the FX from NVidia. Either way, building a system on a chip may be attractive to Apple (which is why I brought it up) and may be feasible at .09nm or .065nm, which the Fishkill facility will be able to handle. The point is, that Apple is in the position to customize the PPC with cores such as a TCP/IP network processor, (which IBM may add to the 980), DSP, and, yes, even a graphics processor core, though, I have to admit, throwing "tablet" in is in bad taste on my part.
rice_web
macrumors 6502a
Oops, typo. Anyhow, benchmarks like the SiSoft and SPEC benchmarks do little to effectively guage a processor's speed.
The Quake III benchmark showed a 10% jump from a 3.4GHz P4 with an 800MHz to a 3.0GHz P4 with a 533MHz bus; a jump nearly in line with the percentage jump in megahertz. Increases like these are exceptional. In the benchmarks where the 3.4GHz overclocked P4 is beaten by a 3.0GHz P4, remember that this chip is exactly that: overclocked.
Re: Re: Re: Re: I'm waiting
Do you have a learning disability or something?
I bought a monitor when it met my price point.
Now I'm waiting to buy a computer that meets my desired specifications (not SPEC !).
Fairly simple concept.... or so I thought.
Do you have a learning disability or something?
I bought a monitor when it met my price point.
Now I'm waiting to buy a computer that meets my desired specifications (not SPEC !).
Fairly simple concept.... or so I thought.
Re: What I'd like to know...
What I'd like to know is how you pronounce MacBidouille in the first place.
I'm a dumb American that only speaks one language. Is it "Mac-Bi-dooey"? "Mac-Bi-dooley"? "Mac-Bi-day"?
The closest you can get in US English is:
Muc -bee -doo -wee, run together quickly
What I'd like to know is how you pronounce MacBidouille in the first place.
I'm a dumb American that only speaks one language. Is it "Mac-Bi-dooey"? "Mac-Bi-dooley"? "Mac-Bi-day"?
The closest you can get in US English is:
Muc -bee -doo -wee, run together quickly
PPC970 Performance
IBM has stated that the 1.8 ghz PPC970 will offer comparable to a 2.8 ghz Pentium 4, which goes in line with the SPECmarks. Prescott is going to offer a pretty decent increase in performance to the Pentium 4 line. Here's a article about 800 mhz bus performance.
http://www.anandtech.com/chipsets/showdoc.html?i=1806
As we can see, the system bus increases performance fairly significantly, remember that the P4 using 800 mhz bus was using a unoptimized chipset and memory, and is bottlenecked by DDR that only runs at 666 mhz tops. With the new chipset and DDR400 memory, I'm expecting the complete fsb to increase performance to around 15%.
I've also made some estimations of Prescott performance on another forum listed below.
http://forums.macnn.com/showthread.php?threadid=152602
Regardless, dual processor PPC970 2.3 will be the processor for digital video/audio editing, 3d rendering, and other bandwidth intensive apps.
IBM has stated that the 1.8 ghz PPC970 will offer comparable to a 2.8 ghz Pentium 4, which goes in line with the SPECmarks. Prescott is going to offer a pretty decent increase in performance to the Pentium 4 line. Here's a article about 800 mhz bus performance.
http://www.anandtech.com/chipsets/showdoc.html?i=1806
As we can see, the system bus increases performance fairly significantly, remember that the P4 using 800 mhz bus was using a unoptimized chipset and memory, and is bottlenecked by DDR that only runs at 666 mhz tops. With the new chipset and DDR400 memory, I'm expecting the complete fsb to increase performance to around 15%.
I've also made some estimations of Prescott performance on another forum listed below.
http://forums.macnn.com/showthread.php?threadid=152602
Regardless, dual processor PPC970 2.3 will be the processor for digital video/audio editing, 3d rendering, and other bandwidth intensive apps.
sparkleytone
macrumors 68020
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: I'm waiting
here at macrumors we tend to dislike newbies who come in and spout trolls, flames, and overall idiocy. if you are going to be offensive while making dumb comments like 'i wont buy unless its 2.5GHz' then don't bother registering.
on a different note, i just assumed it was mac-boo-dwah but i'll ask my g/f later.
here at macrumors we tend to dislike newbies who come in and spout trolls, flames, and overall idiocy. if you are going to be offensive while making dumb comments like 'i wont buy unless its 2.5GHz' then don't bother registering.
on a different note, i just assumed it was mac-boo-dwah but i'll ask my g/f later.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: I'm waiting
Why is "I won't buy unless its 2.5Ghz" such a dumb comment?
And he never got offensive until Frobozz basically called him stupid for waiting to buy a machine with a certain speed processor in it. I don't recall ever seeing steve53e calling anyone stupid for buying the first PowerPC 970 machines that came out. He simply said he would wait until a certain future point.
Why is that automatically stupid?
Isn't it at least possible that he could have looked at the "published" SPEC information for the various speed PowerPC 970s and decided that something around 2.5Ghz gave him a large enough increase in speed to justify spending probably $3500 on a new machine?
The only thing I found offensive was you and Frobozz calling this guy various names just because he wants to wait until probably the second version of the PowerMac PPC 970. I don't find that all unreasonable after Apple dorked up the PowerMac MDD v1 with a loud power supply. The changes to support a PowerPC 970 will be considerably more difficult and while I don't expect Apple to make a boo-boo, I also did not expect such a loud power supply.
Why is "I won't buy unless its 2.5Ghz" such a dumb comment?
And he never got offensive until Frobozz basically called him stupid for waiting to buy a machine with a certain speed processor in it. I don't recall ever seeing steve53e calling anyone stupid for buying the first PowerPC 970 machines that came out. He simply said he would wait until a certain future point.
Why is that automatically stupid?
Isn't it at least possible that he could have looked at the "published" SPEC information for the various speed PowerPC 970s and decided that something around 2.5Ghz gave him a large enough increase in speed to justify spending probably $3500 on a new machine?
The only thing I found offensive was you and Frobozz calling this guy various names just because he wants to wait until probably the second version of the PowerMac PPC 970. I don't find that all unreasonable after Apple dorked up the PowerMac MDD v1 with a loud power supply. The changes to support a PowerPC 970 will be considerably more difficult and while I don't expect Apple to make a boo-boo, I also did not expect such a loud power supply.
Frobozz
macrumors 65816
ugh. this is futile...
You might want to go back and read my post. I never called anyone a name. I replied to his first post with "whoa, you missed the point, didn't you?" Yeah, you could say that was agressive in tone... but was more a response to get a newbie to chill out on his previously agressive replies to innocent posts. I apologize if my tone incited a flame war... but it was sincerely meant as irony-- one outlandish comment for another. Anyone who's read more than a couple of my posts knows this is my tone and it is not slanderous or mean in any way. I should have been more thoughtful and put a smiley or something after it.
I simply think waiting for 2.5 GHz as an arbitrary number is fairly short sighted. Especially since a 2.5 GHz 970 is comparable to a 4.x GHz G4. See my point? Does he want a 2.5 GHz G4 or a 2.5 GHz 970? There's roughly a 200% difference in performance. That's a whole lot of difference, and it has zipity-do-dah to do with the GHz rating. That's my whole point. No need to get looney about it. You do have some good points in your post, though.
The only post in that thread that had some mud-slinging in it was when I was accused of having a "learning disability." LOL. Seriously, I got a good chuckle. I would have assumed he was joking about the "learning disability", except nearly all his posts in this thread have had negative or aggressive undertones... so I'll take it at face value... immature.
Oh, and sparkleytone... thanks for sticking up for me, bro. Sheesh. I need to get some flame-retardent. 🙂 🙂
You might want to go back and read my post. I never called anyone a name. I replied to his first post with "whoa, you missed the point, didn't you?" Yeah, you could say that was agressive in tone... but was more a response to get a newbie to chill out on his previously agressive replies to innocent posts. I apologize if my tone incited a flame war... but it was sincerely meant as irony-- one outlandish comment for another. Anyone who's read more than a couple of my posts knows this is my tone and it is not slanderous or mean in any way. I should have been more thoughtful and put a smiley or something after it.
I simply think waiting for 2.5 GHz as an arbitrary number is fairly short sighted. Especially since a 2.5 GHz 970 is comparable to a 4.x GHz G4. See my point? Does he want a 2.5 GHz G4 or a 2.5 GHz 970? There's roughly a 200% difference in performance. That's a whole lot of difference, and it has zipity-do-dah to do with the GHz rating. That's my whole point. No need to get looney about it. You do have some good points in your post, though.
The only post in that thread that had some mud-slinging in it was when I was accused of having a "learning disability." LOL. Seriously, I got a good chuckle. I would have assumed he was joking about the "learning disability", except nearly all his posts in this thread have had negative or aggressive undertones... so I'll take it at face value... immature.
Oh, and sparkleytone... thanks for sticking up for me, bro. Sheesh. I need to get some flame-retardent. 🙂 🙂
Re: ugh. this is futile...
Previously agressive replies to innocent posts? In my post "I'm waiting" I made a simple statement that I was waiting for Apple to offer a computer with a particular processor before I spent anymore money on a new computer. That's aggressive?
It was you who implied I didn't have a clue what I was talking about and that it was silly/short-sighted for me to do such a thing. I responded that I didn't miss the point and explained my reasoning. That's aggressive? Yet in every instance I explained myself, it's you who felt it necessary to continue with your badgering, hence, my final response.
As for being a newbie. The number of post I make to a particular forum is hardly the defining point in one's life with regard to their knowledge or use of computers. Yet to you, the fact that you've been a member of this forum a whole 2 months longer than I have is.
.... except nearly all his posts in this thread have had negative or aggressive undertones... so I'll take it at face value... immature.
Odd that it appears you're the only one who seems to have seen it that way. Well, you and sparkleytone.
Maybe some day we can sit down over a beer and talk about Dual Digital AFCS Servos, Inner Loop and Outer Loop functions and the general process of converting electrical signals from computers into mechanical motion to move the main and tail rotors on large helicopters. Or maybe we can just chat about the events we've witnessed over the past 45 years and how they've affected our daily lives. I'll leave that up to you. That is if you're old enough to drink. 🙂
ktlx. Thanks! Nice to know someone here understood what I was saying. With that said, I'll be departing this hostile forum.
Previously agressive replies to innocent posts? In my post "I'm waiting" I made a simple statement that I was waiting for Apple to offer a computer with a particular processor before I spent anymore money on a new computer. That's aggressive?
It was you who implied I didn't have a clue what I was talking about and that it was silly/short-sighted for me to do such a thing. I responded that I didn't miss the point and explained my reasoning. That's aggressive? Yet in every instance I explained myself, it's you who felt it necessary to continue with your badgering, hence, my final response.
As for being a newbie. The number of post I make to a particular forum is hardly the defining point in one's life with regard to their knowledge or use of computers. Yet to you, the fact that you've been a member of this forum a whole 2 months longer than I have is.
.... except nearly all his posts in this thread have had negative or aggressive undertones... so I'll take it at face value... immature.
Odd that it appears you're the only one who seems to have seen it that way. Well, you and sparkleytone.
Maybe some day we can sit down over a beer and talk about Dual Digital AFCS Servos, Inner Loop and Outer Loop functions and the general process of converting electrical signals from computers into mechanical motion to move the main and tail rotors on large helicopters. Or maybe we can just chat about the events we've witnessed over the past 45 years and how they've affected our daily lives. I'll leave that up to you. That is if you're old enough to drink. 🙂
ktlx. Thanks! Nice to know someone here understood what I was saying. With that said, I'll be departing this hostile forum.
here's a question...
This is a great story and hopefully we will see some faster processors. But, I have 1 teenie weenie issue that I would like to address. How about the bus speeds. I don't care if you are running a 3 GHz processor, if you are only communicating over a 133MHz bus speed, it is killing you. Will this be upgraded????
This is a great story and hopefully we will see some faster processors. But, I have 1 teenie weenie issue that I would like to address. How about the bus speeds. I don't care if you are running a 3 GHz processor, if you are only communicating over a 133MHz bus speed, it is killing you. Will this be upgraded????
Rincewind42
macrumors 6502a
Re: Re: here's a question...
Oddly enough, this is one of those strange issues =).
The current P4 uses a Quad-Pumped 133 Mhz bus (the previous generation used Quad-Pumped 100Mhz) that gives an effective rate of 533 (and previously 400) Mhz. Of course, this isn't as efficient as a 533Mhz Single-Pumped bus, but it does have the same peak theoretical bandwidth.
The PowerPC 970 uses a 450Mhz Double Pumped bus (for the 1.8 Ghz part at least - no solid information is available for what speed the bus would be for other speed ratings - yet). This is effectively a 900 Mhz bus.
Oddly enough, this is one of those strange issues =).
The current P4 uses a Quad-Pumped 133 Mhz bus (the previous generation used Quad-Pumped 100Mhz) that gives an effective rate of 533 (and previously 400) Mhz. Of course, this isn't as efficient as a 533Mhz Single-Pumped bus, but it does have the same peak theoretical bandwidth.
The PowerPC 970 uses a 450Mhz Double Pumped bus (for the 1.8 Ghz part at least - no solid information is available for what speed the bus would be for other speed ratings - yet). This is effectively a 900 Mhz bus.
Re: Re: Re: here's a question...
More precisely it has two point-to-point unidirectional 32 bits busses. Other architectures tend to use a single bidirectional 64 bits bus.
More precisely it has two point-to-point unidirectional 32 bits busses. Other architectures tend to use a single bidirectional 64 bits bus.
Ditch the PowerPC 1.4 GHz chip !
After reading many of the previous posts in this thread, I personally believe that if Apple is going to restore cred. to the PowerMac lineup, they should not go with the 1.4 GHz PowerPC 970 CPU. So, if that means that only the 1.8 GHz CPU is initially available, then there should only be 2 PowerMacs in the lineup - a single and dual processor running the 1.8.
I just believe that it is desireable the at the current price point, the low end PowerMac should equal the top end PC's in performance. Afterall, even at this price, the Apple buyer is still paying a premium over high end PC's.
Logic would suggest that if IBM did not produce any 1.4 MHz chips, it could produce more 1.8 MHz chips.
I believe that for Apple to release the new 1.4 MHz chip, given current price points, would result in embarrassment. What are the PC magazines going to say when they test Apple's latest "salvation" and find it is still not up to muster?
And as an Apple consumer, what about our value for money?
After reading many of the previous posts in this thread, I personally believe that if Apple is going to restore cred. to the PowerMac lineup, they should not go with the 1.4 GHz PowerPC 970 CPU. So, if that means that only the 1.8 GHz CPU is initially available, then there should only be 2 PowerMacs in the lineup - a single and dual processor running the 1.8.
I just believe that it is desireable the at the current price point, the low end PowerMac should equal the top end PC's in performance. Afterall, even at this price, the Apple buyer is still paying a premium over high end PC's.
Logic would suggest that if IBM did not produce any 1.4 MHz chips, it could produce more 1.8 MHz chips.
I believe that for Apple to release the new 1.4 MHz chip, given current price points, would result in embarrassment. What are the PC magazines going to say when they test Apple's latest "salvation" and find it is still not up to muster?
And as an Apple consumer, what about our value for money?
nuckinfutz
macrumors 603
Why? That would be Apple supporting the "Megahertz Myth" Apple is somewhat isolated because they're not competing with any ther Mac compatible computers. Intel has come out with Centrino Chipsets which are clocked slower but deliver greater performance than P4M. It's not that hard to market.
Logic has nothing to do with processor yields. Some cores will not handle running reliably at 1.8Ghz so they can be run fine at a lower speed. In a perfect world all your chips would run at full speed but I doubt that will be the case here. Apple will need the full breadth of the line.
Once again you're assuming that all people are fooled by a simple metric. Worries about megahertz will be erased upon the first benchmark. Even at 1.4Ghz the PPC 970 is a formidable chip. Most likely twice as fast as the G4 @ 1.4Ghz
I agree with what you are saying, per se, and your opinions are helpful.
Forgive me, but I thought the "meghead" myth (blame Red Dwarf) related to comparisons between chips of different architecture, not between different, for example, PPC 970 chips. But I expect a G4 1.25 GHz chip to perform better then my G4 533 MHz chip, because I generally expect the naming conventions to be internally consistent, although I also know that's not always the case.
Clearly, I'm led to believe the 1.8 GHz PPC 970 chip will be welcome, compared to high end Intel chips in 6 to 8 months, so clearly (so I thought) I don't subscribe to the alleged meghead myth.
My comments were based on previous posts, such as one quoting IBM as comparing the performance of the 1.8 GHz PPC 970 to the current Intel P4 2.8 MHz chips. If it's better than that, that will be great.
The point you made about chip production is a great point, as it relates to the number of chips of a certain spec being available. I'd forgotten that as its not my field. I'm a user only.
So all jargon aside, my concern, is that by the end of this year, the low end PowerMac chip will need to be at least as good as the current P4 2.8 chip, which by then will be going cheap and slow.
So, unless IBM has been misquoted, which is of course quite possible, Apple should ditch the PPC 1.4 MHz chip (or knock another 40% off the price of the low end PowerMac - which will never happen). Perhaps they should put the 1.4's in the iMacs - there's a sensible thought. It won't happen either.
nuckinfutz
macrumors 603
You'll get no complaints from me here. If this was to happen it would mean IBM is fabbing PPC 970s and getting great yields. This sounds definitely plausible as IBM just snatched Millions of Fab work from TMSC for producing Geforce chips 🙂
If the rumors of 2000+ PPC 970s are true then we'd be looking pretty damn good. I'm trying to temper my enthusiasm somewhat because we've been hoping for "the next thing" for so long. At any rate I think the direction we have is going well. If Apple is agressive we just might see what you've posted here.
I remembered the claim was made by IBM on their pdf presentation a while ago. If anyone has a copy of that pdf, they could elaborate on this.
Remember that PPC 970 chips could be used to great effect in dual configurations, and because of their fast system buses, they won't be plagued bandwidth problems like the G4. In dual configurations using well threaded programs like final cut pro and OSX, a dual 1.4 ghz PPC970 system well be more than a match for a 2.8 ghz P4.