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AltiVec implementation in the PPC G5

post #1 of 52
2/23/02 at 1:02pm
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Does anyone have any info. on the AltiVec/Velocity Engine implementation in the PPC G5? I have heard about new bus topologies, RapidIO, deeper pipelines, IU and FPU enhancements, higher clock speeds and new manufacturing processes, but nothing about AltiVec. It had better implement AltiVec as good as if not better than the current G4s.
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post #2 of 52
2/23/02 at 2:29pm
last I heard apple was having trouble getting it to perform up to par with the G4s but that it's altivec abilities were projected to outperm the G4's.
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post #3 of 52
2/23/02 at 2:45pm
Information sent to me by a source I will not say at the moment was motorola has a type of Antivec2 which is supposed make their processors (one G5) 2 to 3 time more powerful than the Dual 1Ghz right now. One G5 will out preform a Dual 1Ghz G4. Also apple is trying to upgrade their bus speed higher than 200MHz for the G5 and speeding their ram to DDR or Rambus. The G5's memory will stay at a max of 1.5Gb and 4 hard drives. The G5 computers are estimated to open to the market at the end of 2002 or start of 2003. As for now where stuck with the G4's which are not to bad compared to the Pentium 4 which I must say for protection of sanity THEY REALLY SUCK!!!!!!!.
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post #4 of 52
2/23/02 at 5:58pm
[quote]Originally posted by Master:
<strong> The G5's memory will stay at a max of 1.5Gb and 4 hard drives.</strong><hr></blockquote>

How can a 64 bit chip be stuck at 1.5Gig 'o RAM?


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post #5 of 52
2/23/02 at 6:13pm
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It wont. Hopefully support up to 4.0 GB...at least thats the majority of what I have heard and the mark sounds about right. As for DDR/RAM BUS, no idea, but I'm guessing DDR (this is what Dorsal referred to, and what else have we got to go on?)
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post #6 of 52
2/23/02 at 6:29pm
The p4 does not suck. Shut up. Its expensive, but then again, so are PowerPC CPUs. Like the G4 with AltiVec-heavy code, the P4 benefits most when it can be quickly fed data. Hence, the development of RDRAM technology (which also, does not suck, its just expensive). The P4 Northwood is a great processor, is king of the hill currently, and given early overclocking efforts, will scale well. Motorola has their job laid out.

As for AltiVec in the G5....don't believe anything you hear about the G5 and AltiVec. Concentrate on the G4...because thats the only CPU Motorola will be selling to Apple in the near future. The G4 will be a monster CPU as soon as Apple implements a better memory subsystem (hopefully RDRAM with L3 DDR SRAM; high bandwidth + low latency = good) and a faster front side bus.

From a business perspective, its unlikely that Apple will accept a CPU from Motorola that doesn't implement an AltiVec-compatabile SIMD unit...given the strong emphasis toward AltiVec optimized code in Apple's homebrewed software (FCP3, OSX, iMovie, iTunes, etc) and ISVs' software (which Apple pushed Adobe to use).

[ 02-23-2002: Message edited by: mslee ]</p>
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post #7 of 52
2/23/02 at 8:56pm
I vaguely recall hearing that the G5's Altivec implementation will support double-precision floating point ops.
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post #8 of 52
2/23/02 at 11:01pm
[quote]How can a 64 bit chip be stuck at 1.5Gig 'o RAM?<hr></blockquote>

Trivially simple to do. Simply don't design the chipset to allow for more.
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post #9 of 52
2/23/02 at 11:16pm
Mslee is MsLed.
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post #10 of 52
2/24/02 at 12:26am
I don't want this thread to turn into a CPU battle....but the P4 is not a bad CPU. Go to toms hardware and search for "northwood" and then search for "overclock" and behold the 3GHz p4.
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post #11 of 52
2/24/02 at 3:55am
[quote]Originally posted by TheAlmightyBabaramm:
<strong>

Trivially simple to do. Simply don't design the chipset to allow for more.</strong><hr></blockquote>

Is this a marketing decision, as in "let's hamper this chip so they'll have to come back and buy another CPU in 6 months", or is this a technical consideration?
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post #12 of 52
2/24/02 at 6:59am
Be forwarned, I know nothing, but I've heard it mentioned that the number of RAM slots on the board has to do with lengths of the paths on the printed circuit board -- that's the reason apple dropped from 4 RAM slots to 3. With a largest available Dimm of 512MB (untill recently) that set the max RAM at 1.5GB. OSX recognizes up to 4GB right now. I bet if you could get compatible 1GB dimms, you'd up the max ram capacity to 3GB (even on current machines)

[ 02-24-2002: Message edited by: Matsu ]</p>
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post #13 of 52
2/24/02 at 7:20am
[quote]Originally posted by Matsu:
<strong>Be forwarned, I know nothing, but I've heard it mentioned that the number of RAM slots on the board has to do with lengths of the paths on the printed circuit board -- that's the reason apple dropped from 4 RAM slots to 3. With a largest available Dimm of 512MB (untill recently) that set the max RAM at 1.5GB. OSX recognizes up to 4GB right now. I bet if you could get compatible 1GB dimms, you'd up the max ram capacity to 3GB (even on current machines)

[ 02-24-2002: Message edited by: Matsu ]</strong><hr></blockquote>

Yes, timing issues and electrical noise limit the length of RAM traces. With each succeeding generation of memory that runs faster these limitations are usually increased forcing the memory to be placed closer and closer to the memory controller. This stability issue forces most motherboard manufacturers to settle for 3 DIMM slots if they want their time to market to be aggressive.
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post #14 of 52
2/24/02 at 8:57am
Actually, mslee, I disagree, but I suppose it depends on your definition of 'suck'. But when a dual 1.2 Ghz Palomino board with DDR266 whelps the ass of a dual 1.7Ghz Xeon w/ 1/2 MB on-chip L2 cache, on a RDRAM 400 mhz bus, I'd call that sucking of the highest order.

Edit: benchmarks detailing the asswhupping of a dualP4 Xeon vs 1.2 Ghz Athlons.
There's many more benchmarks on both sites, take a gander at them if you have the time.

And I'd like to take this opportunity to remind you that that is a 1.2Ghz Athlon. The new athlon core scales to higher much frequencies, and I believe 1.2 GHZ is the absolute low-end you can buy.

I'd also like to point out that the dual athlon setup used here would cost you about a grand, and the Dual Xeon/RDRAM combo will set you back at LEAST 3 times that.

The word 'suck' is somewhat relative, but I'd like to know where you draw the line between sucking and not. Price/Performance? Performace/Power dissipation? Or just performance? Not sure what your criteria is.

I have to admit, I kind of have my eye on a Tyan Dual 1.4 Ghz box...

[ 02-27-2002: Message edited by: stimuli ]</p>
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post #15 of 52
2/24/02 at 11:12am
What I would like to know would be how many frames a second a G5 with a GF4 Ti would get at the resolution of 1600x1200in Quake 3. If it gets 150fps, then I'll be very happy, as then Apple could proudly name the pro mac, a real PowerMac. <img src="graemlins/smokin.gif" border="0" alt="[Chilling]" />
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post #16 of 52
2/24/02 at 11:20am
I never said anything about AMD vs. Intel. but...
take a deep breath...and realize that those Xeons were running a crippled memory subsystem...realize that those Xeons weren't northwoods....realize that dual CPU comparisons are x^2 more complicated than single CPU comparos.

Go find some benchmarks with a 2.2 northwood vs. an AMD XP2000+

A realbench mark too.

[ 02-24-2002: Message edited by: mslee ]</p>
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post #17 of 52
2/24/02 at 12:37pm
I have to agree with mslee on this. The P4 Northwood while expensive as shit compared to AMD, is one bad ass mother. Its overclocking potential is enormous.
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post #18 of 52
2/24/02 at 9:28pm
<a href="http://www.vr-zone.com/reviews/Intel/P4-Northwood/page6.htm" target="_blank">http://www.vr-zone.com/reviews/Intel/P4-Northwood/page6.htm</a>
<a href="http://www.vr-zone.com/reviews/Intel/P4-Northwood/page7.htm" target="_blank">http://www.vr-zone.com/reviews/Intel/P4-Northwood/page7.htm</a>


While a 2.6 Ghz Northwood does slightly best a 1.67 Ghz Palomino, for a chip running almost a Gigahertz faster, and that costs $228 more*, you'd kind of hope it would.

*Edit: Actually, the 2.2 Ghz P4 costs $228 more, they don't have 2.6Ghz P4s there.

Pricegrabber:
$467 2.2 Ghz Northwood
$239 Palomino XP2000 (1.67Ghz)

The Northwood is a substantial improvement over the original P4 (die shrink + double L2 cache?), and intel doesn't suck nearly as much as I originally thought, though i'd still argue the Athlon is a superior chip. The only reason the P4 N has any performance lead is the new .13 micron process, and when AMD hits .13, it will start all over again.

When you consider heat (not so bad on the Northwood, actually), power, size, cost, L2 cache size, and performance, It's kind of remarkable how little intel can do with so much.

But yeah, point taken nonetheless.

[ 02-25-2002: Message edited by: stimuli ]</p>
No, the bazaar cannot satisfy users. Neither can the cathedral. Nothing can satisfy users, because software is written to enable rather than satisfy, and because most users are mewling malcontents...

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post #19 of 52
2/24/02 at 10:01pm
how can you base how good a cpu is on how well it overclocks. A small rock tastes better than an 18lb turkey because i can throw the rock farther.

But anyway, i fully expect the G5 to have altivec. probably using ddr ram, instead of Rambus(which imo rambus is a better technology than ddr). Limited to 3 slots of ram(ddr), 4(or god forbid 2) if they go with rambus.

But hey, lets all remember that this is apple and motorola, so expect nothing more than a speed bump up to 1.2GHz G4 in the next 12 months.
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post #20 of 52
2/24/02 at 10:02pm
[quote]Originally posted by mattyj:
<strong>What I would like to know would be how many frames a second a G5 with a GF4 Ti would get at the resolution of 1600x1200in Quake 3. If it gets 150fps, then I'll be very happy, as then Apple could proudly name the pro mac, a real PowerMac. <img src="graemlins/smokin.gif" border="0" alt="[Chilling]" /> </strong><hr></blockquote>

No, then they could say they have a Gamer's Mac. As long as the PowerMac is fast for Photoshop, other graphics programs, video, and runs all your office software it can be called a PowerMac.
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post #21 of 52
2/25/02 at 12:10am
Dartblazer, on what basis do you think rambus is better than DDR? I've yet to see a rambus based machine perform at all amazing, and considering it costs the earth, what are the benefits?

You do realize, that although it runs at say 400mhz, it is 16 bit? And that my laptop has (ie) 64bit ram?

Besides low latency (getting the data to the processor at first), it has no real performance advantage?

Take another gander at the benchmark graphs comparing the RDRAM-P4 and DDR-Athlon.
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post #22 of 52
2/25/02 at 12:24am
Well, after countless off-topic posts, I figure I'll chime in on the G5. Apparently (according to rumour) the first generation will have regular Altivec, and the follow-up revision will have 256-bit Altivec 2.

But seriously, unless some magical flying monkeys deliver motherboards with modern bus speeds, there's not much point to Alt 2.

The instructions and data won't get to the processor fast enough to make a tangible difference.

Come, you flying monkeys... Hurry!!!!

*scree!! SCREEEE!!!!*

[ 02-25-2002: Message edited by: stimuli ]</p>
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post #23 of 52
2/25/02 at 1:04am
[quote]Originally posted by stimuli:
<strong>Dartblazer, on what basis do you think rambus is better than DDR? I've yet to see a rambus based machine perform at all amazing, and considering it costs the earth, what are the benefits?

You do realize, that although it runs at say 400mhz, it is 16 bit? And that my laptop has (ie) 64bit ram?

Besides low latency (getting the data to the processor at first), it has no real performance advantage?</strong><hr></blockquote>

RDRAM has a high latency and high throughput (compared to DDR). This is a good match to the Pentium 4 as it needs a high throughput. The G4 has proven to be far less bound to a slow bus (see the incredible high performance that the dual 1Ghz Mac can achieve on a 133Mhz bus). This indicates that low latencies are far more important and DDR-DRAM will achieve better results.

So DDR is indeed a better choice, but your reasoning is flawed.
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post #24 of 52
2/25/02 at 3:21am
If we are going to get to discussing RDRAM, DDR-SDRAM, the P IV and higher bus speeds I would read this:

<a href="http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/02q1/020225/index.html" target="_blank">read me</a>

All the current memory options have constraints and benefits. RDRAM would not be the best option for current powermacs or those that will appear for a while yet though.

I should mention this can't be taken as perfect since it compares tomorrow's PIVs to today's tech. Clearly that is going to favour the PIVs a little. However just look at some of the trends with performance, etc.

[ 02-25-2002: Message edited by: Telomar ]</p>
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post #25 of 52
2/25/02 at 11:04am
I would like to know where in world you all heard this about the G5, and Altivec, because as of two weeks ago (the last time I looked at motorolas PPC roadmap) There was no Altivec planned for the G5. Which is what I have been complaining about forever. Without Altivec we are just dealing with another processor that rely's mostly on MHz to perform if you ask me.

If there is real evidence from motorola that the G5 will have Altivec please show it to me.

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[ 02-25-2002: Message edited by: onlooker ]</p>
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post #26 of 52
2/25/02 at 12:17pm
Oh, I'm sorry, would you care to link to the Motorola G5 roadmap where it magically details Motorola's plans for the processr?
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post #27 of 52
2/25/02 at 12:34pm
The roadmap does not say that there's no Atlivec unit on the G5.

Maybe it just doesn't list Altivec under the G5, since that is an innovation that took place with the G4, and they only list the new features of each successive processor on the roadmap.

&lt;rant&gt;Why is this possibility so incredibly difficult for many people to consider?&lt;/rant&gt;

[ 02-25-2002: Message edited by: Bozo the Clown ]</p>
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post #28 of 52
2/25/02 at 12:37pm
Dangit, i just looked at MOT's ppc roadmap, and guess what the G5 isn't going to have L1 or L2 cache at all, according to the roadmap at least. Dumbasses, just because the crappy roadmap doesnt have altivec listed doesn't mean it wont be there.
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post #29 of 52
2/25/02 at 12:54pm
Repeat after me...

"Roadmaps" from CPU manufacturers are NOT reliable indicators of future CPU parts. They are MARKETING FLUFF.

OK. Once more now, with feeling....
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post #30 of 52
2/25/02 at 1:02pm
after me. "Roadmaps" from CPU manufacturers are NOT reliable indicators of future CPU parts. They are MARKETING FLUFF. OK. Once more now, with feeling....

hehe

but seriously we shouldnt be concerned about whether or not the G5 is going to support this or that, we should worry about when in the hell it will be here.
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post #31 of 52
2/25/02 at 1:07pm
My personal feeling is this with the roadmap is why list everything.

Every CPU for a desktop computer has a SIMD, why wouldn't this one? Do we need to list everything they plan on doing with this chip?
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post #32 of 52
2/26/02 at 11:21am
You can bet that the G5 will work with DDR or QDR ram and not Rambus. Why because despite the technical aspects of this. there is two importants points :
- the minor one, Rambus is more expansive than DDR.
- the major point, Rambus is an Intel technology. I doubt that motorola will use it.
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post #33 of 52
2/26/02 at 11:52am
According to Rambus, DDR is also a Rambus technology So either way we're screwed.
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post #34 of 52
2/26/02 at 2:34pm
Originally posted by Tomahawk:
[quote] No, then they could say they have a Gamer's Mac. As long as the PowerMac is fast for Photoshop, other graphics programs, video, and runs all your office software it can be called a PowerMac. <hr></blockquote>

This is not what I am getting at. A game is so processor intensive that it is a very good indicator of performance.

To prove it, I ask you this, what is more taxing on a G4, Quake 3, or running photoshop filters?? If you say the latter then you know nothing.

Quake 3 does not blaze away on a mac as it does with PCs, but with the case of photoshop, this is not true, macs (G4s) are on a par.
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post #35 of 52
2/26/02 at 5:38pm
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post #36 of 52
2/26/02 at 5:59pm
Oops!

[ 02-26-2002: Message edited by: onlooker ]</p>
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post #37 of 52
2/26/02 at 6:04pm
[quote]Originally posted by mslee:
<strong>Oh, I'm sorry, would you care to link to the Motorola G5 roadmap where it magically details Motorola's plans for the processr?</strong><hr></blockquote>


[quote]Originally posted by onlooker:
<strong>

Hey it was in motorola's roadmap at mot.com before IBM had said they didn't plan to use Altvec in their version of the G5, as I recall, and that is why I'm saying it looks just like any other processor that's based on MHz to perform.

So if your looking for a roadmap go to mot.com, and find it your self. Because after removing it (Altivec) from the G5 on their PPC roadmap I think it's their way of saying their not using it anymore. Ok. It's just how I'm interpeting the situation. Your free to draw your own conclusion from it. Unless of course your Canadian, and then your freedom is provided to you by us you freakin chanuk!
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[ 02-26-2002: Message edited by: onlooker ]</p>
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post #38 of 52
2/26/02 at 7:13pm
[quote]Originally posted by dartblazer:
<strong>after me. "Roadmaps" from CPU manufacturers are NOT reliable indicators of future CPU parts. They are MARKETING FLUFF. OK. Once more now, with feeling....

hehe

but seriously we shouldnt be concerned about whether or not the G5 is going to support this or that, we should worry about when in the hell it will be here.</strong><hr></blockquote>

july. not from motorola.
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post #39 of 52
2/26/02 at 7:29pm
Hey ada I like your short crisp answer but can you elaborate on how you know or if it is just a guess. if not well then mystery will prevail
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post #40 of 52
2/26/02 at 8:04pm
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