[Closed due to flaky BB] Next Powermac 970 with up to 2,5 GHZ ? - Page 8

thanks for the quick explanation

[quote]Originally posted by Transcendental Octothorpe:
<strong>

I'm not so sure.

[ 03-02-2003: Message edited by: Transcendental Octothorpe ]</strong><hr></blockquote>

Sigh...

Between you and Moki I feel like I'm sitting in the lobby of a theater while my friends poke their heads out of the auditorium every few minutes so they can tell me over and over that I'm missing a really fantastic show and how it's too bad I couldn't get a ticket.

I guess I'll just have to wait until Christmas morning to unwrap my present from Uncle Steve. I'm going to have to start ignoring all the rumors and speculation. My blood pressure can't handle it. <img src="graemlins/hmmm.gif" border="0" alt="[Hmmm]" />

First, QE is just openGL, there's no need to aquire Raycer to implement this clever idea.

Second, if we don't see fruits of the Raycer aquisition by the time the first 970-based powermacs emerge, then it is my feeling we will never see it.

The raycer goodness, from the sound of things, had to do with greatly speeding up 3d functions, not mapping 2d windows on a 3d z-ordered desktop.

[quote]Originally posted by rickag:
<strong>

. . . In previous posts here and elsewhere, the time to manufacture cpu's has been mentioned to be about 60 days, from start to finish.

Does any one know if this has been significantly reduced?

</strong><hr></blockquote>

I'll just comment that it is easy to get the wrong idea about the production process. IBM may have a large inventory of 970 chips that are close to completion, but waiting for demand before they finish them. It is not an assembly line, where raw materials goes in, and 60 days later a finished processor pops out. I have no idea whether 60 days is correct, but it could be.

Chips start out on wafers, which contain many chips each. These go through steps of depositing the several layers of an integrated circuit. A photographic process places an image for the first layer on the wafer to start. These wafers then go through a furnace, where gases implant the correct chemical impurities into the silicon for that layer. The photo-resist image keeps the gases from contacting parts of the chips that do not get this impurity. This process is repeated for every layer of the chip, and the final process lays down the surface electrical interconnections. So the chips on the wafers get built up in stages, which take time.

To evaluate a new chip, it is necessary to start several runs of wafers, to take into account the many variation that can occur in the process of building up the chips. Now, at the end of several such runs, IBM could have a whole bunch of chips. Many chips on a wafer, and several wafers per run, and enough runs to feel confident in the yield and performance. Next, they test chips on the wafers, using probes. Bad chips are marked. If the runs all turn out well, there are a lot of good chips on these wafers, and they can be stored until needed. Some chips are cut out of their wafers and packaged for complete testing.

Even though the process takes a long time, IBM could have a lot of chips on wafers, just waiting to be diced up and packaged. They do not take up much space in this form.

As far as shipping systems go, how soon before actual shipping systems would a software company get hold of hardware to test before the systems ship?

I know a person who is working for one software company that has new Apple systems ("G5"). It is very hush, hush and they built a special room dedicated to test on the hardware and to keep prying eyes out.

I unfortunately don't know how long they have been testing, but it sounds like they have for at least a few weeks to a couple of months.

-tink

[ 03-03-2003: Message edited by: tink ]</p>

[quote]Originally posted by snoopy:
<strong>

I'll just comment that it is easy to get the wrong idea about the production process. IBM may have a large inventory of 970 chips that are close to completion, but waiting for demand before they finish them. It is not an assembly line, where raw materials goes in, and 60 days later a finished processor pops out. I have no idea whether 60 days is correct, but it could be.

Chips start out on wafers, which contain many chips each. These go through steps of depositing the several layers of an integrated circuit. A photographic process places an image for the first layer on the wafer to start. These wafers then go through a furnace, where gases implant the correct chemical impurities into the silicon for that layer. The photo-resist image keeps the gases from contacting parts of the chips that do not get this impurity. This process is repeated for every layer of the chip, and the final process lays down the surface electrical interconnections. So the chips on the wafers get built up in stages, which take time.

To evaluate a new chip, it is necessary to start several runs of wafers, to take into account the many variation that can occur in the process of building up the chips. Now, at the end of several such runs, IBM could have a whole bunch of chips. Many chips on a wafer, and several wafers per run, and enough runs to feel confident in the yield and performance. Next, they test chips on the wafers, using probes. Bad chips are marked. If the runs all turn out well, there are a lot of good chips on these wafers, and they can be stored until needed. Some chips are cut out of their wafers and packaged for complete testing.

Even though the process takes a long time, IBM could have a lot of chips on wafers, just waiting to be diced up and packaged. They do not take up much space in this form.</strong><hr></blockquote>

Thank you, snoopy.

[quote]Originally posted by 1337_5L4Xx0R:
<strong>First, QE is just openGL, there's no need to aquire Raycer to implement this clever idea.

Second, if we don't see fruits of the Raycer aquisition by the time the first 970-based powermacs emerge, then it is my feeling we will never see it.

The raycer goodness, from the sound of things, had to do with greatly speeding up 3d functions, not mapping 2d windows on a 3d z-ordered desktop.</strong><hr></blockquote>

QE is not just OpenGL

Actually, QE s just opengl. 2D openGL, but OpengL nonetheless.

All modern graphics cards support hardware acceleration of Opengl, thus the 2d desktop is hardware accelerated.

If you know otherwise, please post.

Andreeeeeew... We want answers regarding that motherboard..

The HD on the photo was manufactured (or, more precisely, time-stamped) on July, 25. So the photo is relatively new. Can we say the same about the motherboard? Does anybody recognize the chip set?

The more I look at the MB and the more I read Ars Forums, the more I suspect that this home-brewed bottom-end mazaboard doesn't have a PPC970 on it. This, by the way, may be the reason for IBM to pull this photo from any website, in order to save geeks' lives in the peril of laughing death.

i admit, there´s something fishy about that muthaboard. i looked and flipped and looked for several times now... but i´m not sure if i can see what *certain notorious teasers* on these boards are coughing at. i mean, it´s pretty obvious that the harddrive somehow doesn´t belong there. it could even be simply doctored, but for what purpose? to demonstrate size proportions? <img src="confused.gif" border="0">

[quote]Originally posted by Transcendental Octothorpe:
<strong>

I'm not so sure.
</strong><hr></blockquote>

Given how Quartz is currently handled (and lack of Quartz snappiness in comparison with MS Windows), it would make a lot of sense to offload the drawing load to a custom external hardware coprocessor.

What if it came out as

[CPU]--&gt;[CUSTOM-QUARTZ-GPU](drawing)-&gt;AGP-&gt;[VIDEOCARD](compositing)?

[ 03-03-2003: Message edited by: ag ]</p>

[quote]Originally posted by dr. zoidberg:
<strong>i admit, there´s something fishy about that muthaboard. i looked and flipped and looked for several times now... but i´m not sure if i can see what *certain notorious teasers* on these boards are coughing at. i mean, it´s pretty obvious that the harddrive somehow doesn´t belong there. it could even be simply doctored, but for what purpose? to demonstrate size proportions? :confused: </strong><hr></blockquote>

...no, the Travelstar is supposed to be there. There is a connector that rises off the edge of the mobo. I'm not sure if thats how IBM does it with all there blades, but blades are pretty damn thin and being that I would think they do most of their work in memory, HD speed isn't that crucial, or if they do need data they get it on a rack mounted RAID or sumpin.

No, the only thing that stumps me is the PCI slots. An Xserve has two PCI slots. Is it possible they might share mobos or something.

[quote]Originally posted by dr. zoidberg:
<strong>i admit, there´s something fishy about that muthaboard. i looked and flipped and looked for several times now... but i´m not sure if i can see what *certain notorious teasers* on these boards are coughing at. i mean, it´s pretty obvious that the harddrive somehow doesn´t belong there. it could even be simply doctored, but for what purpose? to demonstrate size proportions? :confused: </strong><hr></blockquote>

I spent some time nosing around the IBM site and found an image of their dual Xeon blade board. The drive is actually legit - there's a connector to the board above it - like the one to its right. The right edge is identical, with twin Gb ethernet connectors, so I'm convinced this is a legitimate blade board. The PCI slots are different, as is the entire center-to-left end of the board. The Xeon board has four banks of DDR RAM, oriented at right angles to the one SDR bank shown on the prototype. The heat-sinks are smooth and gold-colored, and there are several chips present on the Xeon board this proto lacks. I wish I knew enough to be able to analyze all this.

The only things I could figure out that looked a bit odd (only because I haven't seen them on "ordinary" MBs - they may be standard on these blades) were a couple of what appeared to be connectors on the lower center on the board: one labeled HD(maybe an 8? a B?) Program Header and another labeled VPO Header. Don't know if they're significant or not.

That's all I can contribute, unfortunately.

[ 03-03-2003: Message edited by: TJM ]</p>

[quote]Originally posted by moki:
<strong>

Yeah, IBM pulled the press release... seems someone wasn't happy with that information getting out... nor the fairly hires screenshot of the blade server. Hint: if you still have it, try looking at it very closely.</strong><hr></blockquote>

moki

Thank you for the response. Fortunately, I did save the picture of the blade server. Regretably, I could stare at it until the next millenium and not know what I'm looking at. <img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" />

I'm truely a technological dunderhead and stay in a constant state of <img src="confused.gif" border="0">

[quote]Originally posted by snoopy:
<strong>

I'll just comment that it is easy to get the wrong idea about the production process. IBM may have a large inventory of 970 chips that are close to completion, but waiting for demand before they finish them....

Even though the process takes a long time, IBM could have a lot of chips on wafers, just waiting to be diced up and packaged. They do not take up much space in this form.</strong><hr></blockquote>

snoopy

Thank you for the information, I'm always interested in learning.

If you ask me, I'd say two things.
1. The blades are thin, right? The PCI slots are vertical. I haven't seen a PCI card that would fit vertically into the case. Look at the RAM slot. It's skewed because it would not fit in the upright position (if I'm missing the real reason, please, correct me). So they want us to believe there are PCI cards smaller than a PC133.
2. A rackmount server with the only DIMM slot is crap.

[quote]Originally posted by moki:
<strong>

Yeah, IBM pulled the press release... seems someone wasn't happy with that information getting out... nor the fairly hires screenshot of the blade server. Hint: if you still have it, try looking at it very closely.</strong><hr></blockquote>

I'VE GOT IT!!!!

It's not a blade server at all!!!

It's actually a controller for a Fusion Pulse Cannon off of an Auroran Cruiser! Those fiends at IBM are in league with the Aurorans!

[ 03-03-2003: Message edited by: TJM ]</p>

Come now people. Has nobody ever seen a IIsi or Quadra 610, PowerMac 6100 on the inside? It would not be hard to imagine an "L" shaped adapter so you can mount a PCI card parallel to the board.

[quote]Originally posted by Outsider:
<strong>Come now people. Has nobody ever seen a IIsi or Quadra 610, PowerMac 6100 on the inside? It would not be hard to imagine an "L" shaped adapter so you can mount a PCI card parallel to the board.</strong><hr></blockquote>

When you talk L-shaped PCI adapters, you certainly don't mean $30k rackmounts, right? As far as I can remember, PowerMac 6100 was not used in server configurations, either.
What I wanted to say is this thing was not supposed to appear in a 1U block in this form. I bet it existed only for testing purposes and, I'm afraid, it's 3 years old.

[quote]Originally posted by Outsider:
<strong>Come now people. Has nobody ever seen a IIsi or Quadra 610, PowerMac 6100 on the inside? It would not be hard to imagine an "L" shaped adapter so you can mount a PCI card parallel to the board.</strong><hr></blockquote>

but then one would expect a PCI riser card, or a slot for one and now 2 clearly labeled PCI card slots.

[quote]Originally posted by @homenow:
<strong>

but then one would expect a PCI riser card, or a slot for one and now 2 clearly labeled PCI card slots.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Thats what I'm talking about. PCI riser card; basically a small PCB card about one inch high with an edge connector on one end and a PCI slot 90 degrees.

[quote]Originally posted by TJM:
<strong>

I'VE GOT IT!!!!

It's not a blade server at all!!!

It's actually a controller for a Fusion Pulse Cannon off of an Auroran Cruiser! Those fiends at IBM are in league with the Aurorans!

[ 03-03-2003: Message edited by: TJM ]</strong><hr></blockquote>

No, actually, their Intel blade servers are Fusion Pulse Cannons. The heat from the Pentium directly powers the weapon.

This one is stolen Polaris technology.

(That whoosh sound was the sound of this going over everyone's heads...)

[quote]Originally posted by snoopy:
<strong>
It is not an assembly line, where raw materials goes in, and 60 days later a finished processor pops out. I have no idea whether 60 days is correct, but it could be.
</strong><hr></blockquote>

The 60 day figure is correct for a rough figure.
However, they say they can push a wafer through start-to-finish in only 30 days if they have enough incentive.

I've heard that this project does, indeed, have certain powerful incectives to get parts out by a particular date.

holy shit- I just re-read one of Moki's quotes concerning marklar and apple and all the recent news, dual boot, market share etc.

What if-

We were wrong in assuming that OS X was going to be ported over to x86, whereas instead, the 970s will have an emulation built it to run X and windows seemlessly? Who would buy a PC when you could have just as fast windows programs and OSX flying along on a 64bit screaming 970?

The 970 would be the hottest 64 bit chip on either platform.

[oops, seems 2 posters here already posted the same theory. Well, maybe we are on to something then?]

[ 03-03-2003: Message edited by: KidRed ]</p>

[quote]Originally posted by KidRed:
<strong>holy shit- I just re-read one of Moki's quotes concerning marklar and apple and all the recent news, dual boot, market share etc.

What if-

We were wrong in assuming that OS X was going to be ported over to x86, whereas instead, the 970s will have an emulation built it to run X and windows seemlessly? Who would buy a PC when you could have just as fast windows programs and OSX flying along on a 64bit screaming 970?

The 970 would be the hottest 64 bit chip on either platform.

[oops, seems 2 posters here already posted the same theory. Well, maybe we are on to something then?]

[ 03-03-2003: Message edited by: KidRed ]</strong><hr></blockquote>


Welcome to the thread! Great minds do think alike, they say.

Guh. No. Seamless Windows support could kill the Mac as a development platform. X11 isn't so much of a threat because there isn't much of an intersection between UNIX apps and consumer apps.

Now, on the other hand, the possibility of Microsoft porting NT (whatever they've decided to call it this year) to the 970 is more interesting. It's not an automatic loss for Apple because the bulk of Windows software will have to be ported (as with NT/Alpha), and it will further muddy the future of Windows as a 64-bit platform, because MS will now have three horses to bet on, and Intel will have that much more pressure on them. To the extent that the 970 succeeds as an NT platform (which is debatable, given NT/Alpha) IBM sells more 970s, and both IBM and Apple benefit.

The downside is that Microsoft plays hardball, and if IBM is in any way dependent on MS elsewhere, MS will use that as leverage to try to seize the upper hand in the relationshp. Unless the new CEO has more of a spine than Gerstner did, this will be a problem.

[ 03-03-2003: Message edited by: Amorph ]</p>

[quote]Originally posted by Transcendental Octothorpe:
<strong>

The 60 day figure is correct for a rough figure.
However, they say they can push a wafer through start-to-finish in only 30 days if they have enough incentive.

I've heard that this project does, indeed, have certain powerful incectives to get parts out by a particular date.</strong><hr></blockquote>

Thank you, my sanity is restored.

[quote]Originally posted by TJM:
<strong>


Welcome to the thread! Great minds do think alike, they say. </strong><hr></blockquote>


Actually, by the time I wrote down what I was thinking I forgot my orginal angle.

What is Apple used the emulation in a box by itself? They would essentially be selling PC hardware. What better way to make money then to sell PC hardware? Of course, the dual boot OS X emulation also works

[quote]Originally posted by Anonymous Karma:
<strong>

No, actually, their Intel blade servers are Fusion Pulse Cannons. The heat from the Pentium directly powers the weapon.

This one is stolen Polaris technology.

(That whoosh sound was the sound of this going over everyone's heads...)</strong><hr></blockquote>
Well duh! Everyone knows how advanced their technology is!

I did notice the Broadcom chips seem to be the BCM5703S. Are these currently being used?


BCM5703S 10/100/1000BASE-T Controller With Integrated Transceiver
The BCM5703S 10/100/1000BASE-T Gigabit Ethernet Media Access Control and Serializer/Deserializer (SERDES) is a fully integrated interface solution for high-performance network applications. The BCM5703S is a highly integrated solution combining a triple-speed, IEEE 802.3 compliant Media Access Controller (MAC), PCI and PCI-X bus interfaces, on-chip buffer memory, and an integrated SERDES transceiver in a single device. The BCM5703S is fabricated in a low-voltage .13µ CMOS process, providing a low-power system solution. By itself, the BCM5703S provides a complete single-chip Gigabit Ethernet NIC or LOM solution.

Support for the following 802.3 functions is featured in the MAC: VLAN tagging, layer 2 priority encoding, link aggregation, and full-duplex flow control.

The device provides both PCI v2.2 and PCI-X v1.0 bus interfaces. The BCM5703S provides large on-chip buffer memory for stand-alone operation. Dual on-chip highperformance processors enable custom frame processing features, including TCP segmentation. <a href="http://www.broadcom.com/" target="_blank">Broadcom's web page</a>

opps copied the wrong product info

[ 03-03-2003: Message edited by: rickag ]</p>

[quote]However, they say they can push a wafer through start-to-finish in only 30 days if they have enough incentive.

I've heard that this project does, indeed, have certain powerful incectives to get parts out by a particular date.

<hr></blockquote>

Apple's R&D budget is wayyy up. I wonder if IBM is getting those incentives. When you put it LIKE THAT then...hmmm.

Kid Red.

Would Apple be so audacious? They might be. A dual boot that could make Windows fly and offer even better 970 'X' performance..?

I think this could be a killer strategy.

Every x86 dual boot Apple sold would earn them money. It won't undermine the Mac platform because they sell a Mac.

People get to try 'X' and like it. They get to use x86 and have a cool looking machine.

Hell, if you're paying £2K for a Dell, why not get a Mac and run x86 as well.

Kinda like two for the price of one?

Classic supermarket buy one, get one free...

When you are losing sales in the education sector. This could be a solution. Let's face it. An x86 m/b and cpu functionality are quite dirty cheap. Apple could sell PC functionality in their machines quite cheaply for the premium they charge.



'Dual Boot'. Whither Moki?



Lemon Bon Bon

i like the idea of windoze and mac osx. say on a a new mac you get osx and xp with osx as the default boot system just like classic ans x. however make it a bit harder to "install" xp. kind of like how they do with jagaur and classic. either way make it an an option. and dont ship windows with it. eww. but it couldbe a selling point. we have all the software you oculd need in osx. safari, ie, ilife, etc. but if there is something you just have to have thats only on windows for now, then you can always install your copy of windows and it will work.

[quote]Originally posted by Transcendental Octothorpe:
<strong>

The 60 day figure is correct for a rough figure.
However, they say they can push a wafer through start-to-finish in only 30 days if they have enough incentive.

I've heard that this project does, indeed, have certain powerful incectives to get parts out by a particular date.</strong><hr></blockquote>
30 days would put them within striking distance of WWDC. Announce and ship a month later, perhaps. That is, assuming Apple could ramp up production that fast.

Apple certainly has incentive to start shipping something to boost sales, it won't happen this quarter, but I'm sure they'd love some progress next quarter.

I don't think Apple would have to limit anything about XP or an windows OS or anything to undermine any aspect of the hardware running windows apps. I jsut think that some of the rumors may be the opposite of what we originally thought, and that Apple who makes most of it's cash selling hardware, can make more cash selling PC hardware thru emulation. If windows could run in the X1 (?) environment seamlessly with OS X, and the 970 was as fast if not faster then any pllll out there, who wouldn't buy it. So either thru dual boot OR seamlessly 'classic-evirnoment' like emulation, Apple could become a hardware giant.

Top that with comments recently that Apple plans to sell and earn more cash with new and wider range of software I think Apple can make a big move.

Re: x86 emulation in OS X

Could it be that Connectix agreed to be bought by MicroSoft precisely because of this? They saw the handwriting on the wall and got out while the gettin' was good. MS said they bought Connectix for their server emulation software, not VPC - it apparently had little or no value to them. Perhaps because VPC is about to become irrelevant?

It would be a great selling point to switchers "no need to buy all new mac software just yet as your existing pc software will run flawlessly".

[quote]Originally posted by KidRed:
<strong>It would be a great selling point to switchers "no need to buy all new mac software just yet as your existing pc software will run flawlessly".</strong><hr></blockquote>

Or to the developers: "no need to develop Mac versions of your apps - the Windows versions run flawlessly on Macs"

[ 03-03-2003: Message edited by: JLL ]</p>

[quote]Originally posted by JLL:
<strong>

Or to the developers: "no need to develop Mac versions of your apps - the Windows versions run flawlessly on Macs"

[ 03-03-2003: Message edited by: JLL ]</strong><hr></blockquote>

The incentive would be from competators who develop for the Mac platform. Say for example, Adobe droped the development of Illustrator for the Mac OS, but Macromedia did not. There is an aproximate 10-20% loss in peak performance when using an emulator (just random numbers here, I dont know what it would be). Then Illustrator now runs at best 10% slower than it would if it were written for the Mac OS, yet FreeHand takes full advantage of the 970, so FreeHand runs faster and might get more converts. Also, since AltiVec is PowerPC specific none of the Windows programs could take advantage of it. This would be a great chance for the smaller software companies to make sales, which would pressure the larger companies to develop for both platforms.