Ok so I'm new here (long time lurker though) and none of you have any reason to believe me. I won't make claims as to who I am or who I know, because I don't like being traced (though I'm sure admins will race to do so now )
But from what I hear--fairly reliable sources--G4s are not about to top out at 1 GHz. There will be an upgrade at MWNY I hear, and a significant one. The G4 scales higher than even Moto predicted apparently, and I've heard numbers thrown around well in excess of the 1.2 Ghz you all are saying is possible. No, I don't think we'll be depressed come MWNY. As said above, Apple saw the repercussions of the sad keynote last summer, and they won't repeat. Throwing bundles at us would just be an adult-sized pacifier. Sure its not what we want, but it'll stop our yelling.
Won't happen.
Bundles may happen (as Spymac predicts) but they'll come after the new machines, which (and now I'm just speculating) will top out at Dual 1.5 Ghz G4 Apollo 7460/7470 with DDR2100 and a nice L3 cache.
Don't say I'm dreaming. I'm living it. And you will too.
[quote] Bundles may happen (as Spymac predicts) but they'll come after the new machines, which (and now I'm just speculating) will top out at Dual 1.5 Ghz G4 Apollo 7460/7470 with DDR2100 and a nice L3 cache. <hr></blockquote>
I would love to see this...! And if the rumors of a new class of graphics for these machines hold true, the (also) rumored Maya bundle will probably FLY off the warehouse shelves...!
<img src="graemlins/smokin.gif" border="0" alt="[Chilling]" /> Maya for Mac OS X <img src="graemlins/smokin.gif" border="0" alt="[Chilling]" />
Somehow I doubt seeing a 1.5 or 1.6 GHZ G4. That seems like such a leap and Apple is so conservative with it's speed bumps. Unfortunately, me thinks it'll be 1.2 dual at the top end.
But perhaps someone will correct me and tell me what the largest single jump in speed Apple has made in the past?
Bundles may happen (as Spymac predicts) but they'll come after the new machines, which (and now I'm just speculating) will top out at Dual 1.5 Ghz G4 Apollo 7460/7470 with DDR2100 and a nice L3 cache.
QB]<hr></blockquote>
I think you're probably more right than wrong there ... I think it's going to be especially important for Apple to have a strong product line-up come this summer, just stay on an even keel ... because it looks like we're headed for some hard financial times ahead ...
Consumer confidence is down.
WorldCom is in a pissing contest with Enron for the 2002 creative accounting award (they're laying off 17,000 after - probably - illegally concealing 4 billion in losses) ... who knows what other dominoes have yet to fall? Which leads to ...
The Dow and th Daq especially are down (whither the wealth effect now? Oh think of all those poor rejected Boxsters)
And Apple's starting to have iMacs back up in the channel.
It's probably a good time to be Red Hat, with corporate customers starting to look for supreme value and all, but it's going to be a tougher than average time to be an Apple if the last few months of economic warming turn out to have been merely the eye of the storm.
... and what was that about Bush and Arafat again?
<strong>Somehow I doubt seeing a 1.5 or 1.6 GHZ G4. That seems like such a leap and Apple is so conservative with it's speed bumps. Unfortunately, me thinks it'll be 1.2 dual at the top end.
But perhaps someone will correct me and tell me what the largest single jump in speed Apple has made in the past?</strong><hr></blockquote>
Well, from what I can tell the largest jump was from the Powermac G4 "Mystic" which had Dual 500 top end, to Digital Audio, which had 733 top end. True, the Dual 500 is now faster sometimes, but in terms of raw chip speed it was a 233 Mhz jump. Thats ALMOST a 50% jump in Mhz. I think its perfectly possible to see Dual 1.5 Ghz, especially given the things I hear whispered. 1.2 Ghz would be very blah, and Apple probably doesn't have a whole lot of other stuff to fill the keynote, since they just updated everything else (iMac will get 100-150 Mhz upgrade methinks). So yeah, I stand by my prediction, and hope we'll see something resembling it.
As far as I'm concerned ... No better MoBo, No acceptable SpeedBump ... No Sale, even with bundled S/W. I gotta admit, I was disheartened when I read the lead post. Then, I was sure glad that alot of you reminded me of the upgrade manufacturers' intent on selling 1 GHz upgrade cards with your following posts. The lead post sure brought me back to "ground level", guess I needed it though, Thanks! I still hope for a G5 though. Gotta set the sites high enough so Apple doesn't get complacent with technology.
I'd imagine with Powermacs at those speeds, Apple could boost the iMacs up to 1 GHz or even higher.
I'd like to see what sort of performance a 1.5 GHz G4 offers...with such a short pipeline, it probably would even stomp AMD's offerings into the ground. But Pentium 4s would still be faster....
I'd like to see what sort of performance a 1.5 GHz G4 offers...with such a short pipeline, it probably would even stomp AMD's offerings into the ground. But Pentium 4s would still be faster....</strong><hr></blockquote>
I'm just going to pretend you DIDN'T say that P4s would be faster. WHAT in the world are you thinking? The P4's architecture is such that all was sacrificed to hike clockspeed for marketing. Intel learned that it doesn't matter if you make the fastest chips, what matters is that the public THINKS you make the fastest chips. AMD Athlons have always stomped all over the Pentiums, and even recent tests which show them close, were sketchy. AMD is also near the EOL on the Athlon, with Hammer coming out soon, while the P4 is still young.
Also look at the fact that basically no servers use the P4 yet....opting instead for PIIIs. Why? a) heat. and b) P4 sucks.
If you've ever looked at Apple vs Intel's official MTOPs numbers....the Dual Ghz G4 has a 27,000 MTOP rating, compared to Intel's official 6900 rating for its 2.6 Ghz P4. True we have a FSB and memory system pinching that, but I see that getting fixed soon, and there's no way any P4 (even with a quadpumped bus) could top a Dual 1.5 G4 tower with improved Mobo. Just not gonna happen.
I'm disappointed JYD. Really I am. Go back to the Dawg Pound.
At one point Motorola had an orderable part number for a 1100 MHz 7455. It has since disappeared but it plainly supports the assumption that faster 7455s exist and will be seen soon.
They'll use the 7460, which supports up to 4GB of SDRAM linked directly to the processor. L3 cache and system memory will now be a single entity. 166MHz MPX not need here.
They'll use the 7460, which supports up to 4GB of SDRAM linked directly to the processor. L3 cache and system memory will now be a single entity. 166MHz MPX not need here. </strong><hr></blockquote>
Yeah I know its not going to be the 7455, but this info about the L3 and system memory becoming one is certainly news to me. Where does this info come from? Because it seems highly unlikely that without a serious chip redesign (more worthy than a 7455-7460 notation upgrade) that such a thing is feasible? Even RapidIO doesn't promise such things (at least not that I've heard).
I'm gonna say "More info please?" and "Don't believe this without some details"
EDIT:
After some more thought, this can't happen. Current Powermac/Powerbook L3 cache is DDR SRAM (Static Ram). System memory is SDRAM (Sync Dynamic RAM). The difference? HUGE. SRAM is miles away faster than SDRAM (I won't go into the technical differences, but there's far less latency) and something like 10 times more expensive per megabyte. Maybe its more. So what's this ide about combining memory and L3 cache? No way. SDRAM not quick enough (ESPECIALLY not if its not DDR), and DDR SRAM is WAY too expensive (We'd see Powermacs at 5 digits easy). You must be confusing this with something else. Perhaps it supports 4 GB of DDR SDRAM for memory and has something else running right into the proc?
[ 06-26-2002: Message edited by: The All Knowing 1 ]</p>
Not a major redesign. They will just replace the current L3 cache controller on the 7455 with a regular DDR SDRAM controller.
I shouldn't be too hard either to tell the chip not to look for main memory and go straight to virtual memory after the "fake" L3 cache has been filled.
This design could be implimented without totally redesigning the current 7455.
Motorola's embedeed customers want this though? No, so this will not be the 7460, but the 7461 funded by Apple $$.
<strong>Not a major redesign. They will just replace the current L3 cache controller on the 7455 with a regular DDR SDRAM controller.
I shouldn't be too hard either to tell the chip not to look for main memory and go straight to virtual memory after the "fake" L3 cache has been filled.
This design could be implimented without totally redesigning the current 7455.
Motorola's embedeed customers want this though? No, so this will not be the 7460, but the 7461 funded by Apple $$.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Once again I MUST ask if this is based on ANY information, or if its just pure speculation. I'll refer you to my edited post above regarding SDRAM/SRAM. The truth is that if you remove the 2MB per Proc L3 SRAM cache and replace it with SDRAM even one fewer jump away, you still could (though I don't know for sure) end up with a SLOWER memory system than you start with. A multi-tiered cache system is key to system performance, which is why you'd notice, if you ever have the displeasure, that a Powermac 5260/120 with no L2 cache is slower than a 5200/75 with L2 cache. MUCH slower.
It is true current L3 caches use SRAM, but it's also true the processor doesn't care what type of memory its L3 cache uses as long as the controller can refresh the SDRAM so it doesn't loose its data.
Once again I MUST ask if this is based on ANY information, or if its just pure speculation. I'll refer you to my edited post above regarding SDRAM/SRAM. The truth is that if you remove the 2MB per Proc L3 SRAM cache and replace it with SDRAM even one fewer jump away, you still could (though I don't know for sure) end up with a SLOWER memory system than you start with. A multi-tiered cache system is key to system performance, which is why you'd notice, if you ever have the displeasure, that a Powermac 5260/120 with no L2 cache is slower than a 5200/75 with L2 cache. MUCH slower.</strong><hr></blockquote>
What? My post total BS? Pretty much...
This is just a way to remove the MPX bus as a bottleneck. Would it be so hard to replace the current G4s L3 cache controller with one that can manage the L3 cache as system memory.
SRAM vs SDRAM. The current PowerMacs L3 cache has only 4GBs bandwidth. This isn't very much for a processor cache. Single channel DDR SDRAM can hit 2.1 or 2.7GBs. Make it dual channel and you have faster memory than the current G4.
But this would increase the die size and cost, not to mention 90% of Motorola's customers don't need it so...
F_ck the whole thing.
7460 == 166MHz MPX.
Sucks like hell being the bitch of an embedded market.
This will neve happen. And I now look like an idiot.
This is just a way to remove the MPX bus as a bottleneck. Would it be so hard to replace the current G4s L3 cache controller with one that can manage the L3 cache as system memory.
SRAM vs SDRAM. The current PowerMacs L3 cache has only 4GBs bandwidth. This isn't very much for a processor cache. Single channel DDR SDRAM can hit 2.1 or 2.7GBs. Make it dual channel and you have faster memory than the current G4.
But this would increase the die size and cost, not to mention 90% of Motorola's customers don't need it so...
F_ck the whole thing.
7460 == 166MHz MPX.
Sucks like hell being the bitch of an embedded market.
This will neve happen. And I now look like an idiot. </strong><hr></blockquote>
OK!
No you don't look like an idiot...I was just confused whether you were brainstorming or reiterating something you'd read.
I agree with you on principle, that if a Powermac could pipe main memory into the chip it could do wonders. However, it won't happen for a while. As you said, Moto is currently our master, and the embedded market for the most part wouldn't need it. Second, while you're right about the throughput of the SRAM/SDRAM that doesn't take into account the latency, where SRAM is king.
BUT if in a few years Apple brought chip design in-house, or ported it to IBM (or someone else) and designed a chip to take advantage of it, perhaps SRAM prices will have fallen enough so that Apple could again innovate by making main memory SRAM! That would indeed rule, but its chance of happening is up there with Steve Ballmer besting Steve Jobs in a charisma contest. Possible? yes. But it'd take a LOT of work
That would be cool, but I don't see 1GB+ (which will be standard some day) SRAM ever being affordable to mere mortals.
SRAM should have better latency than SDRAM, but I read somewhere that the SRAM used by the G4's L3 cache had a 40 cycle latency. That sounds high. I didn't think even SDRAM had such bad latency.
Am I wrong or is Apple, using the cheapest RAM they can find for their PowerMacs?
Yes, it really sucks being Moto's bitch. They're killing Apple by making it impossible to give the G4 more bandwidth. Even 166MHz MPX is only 1.3GBs throughput. That will still choke the hell out of any sort of DDR.
Comments
But from what I hear--fairly reliable sources--G4s are not about to top out at 1 GHz. There will be an upgrade at MWNY I hear, and a significant one. The G4 scales higher than even Moto predicted apparently, and I've heard numbers thrown around well in excess of the 1.2 Ghz you all are saying is possible. No, I don't think we'll be depressed come MWNY. As said above, Apple saw the repercussions of the sad keynote last summer, and they won't repeat. Throwing bundles at us would just be an adult-sized pacifier. Sure its not what we want, but it'll stop our yelling.
Won't happen.
Bundles may happen (as Spymac predicts) but they'll come after the new machines, which (and now I'm just speculating) will top out at Dual 1.5 Ghz G4 Apollo 7460/7470 with DDR2100 and a nice L3 cache.
Don't say I'm dreaming. I'm living it. And you will too.
I would love to see this...! And if the rumors of a new class of graphics for these machines hold true, the (also) rumored Maya bundle will probably FLY off the warehouse shelves...!
<img src="graemlins/smokin.gif" border="0" alt="[Chilling]" /> Maya for Mac OS X <img src="graemlins/smokin.gif" border="0" alt="[Chilling]" />
But perhaps someone will correct me and tell me what the largest single jump in speed Apple has made in the past?
[QB]
Won't happen.
Bundles may happen (as Spymac predicts) but they'll come after the new machines, which (and now I'm just speculating) will top out at Dual 1.5 Ghz G4 Apollo 7460/7470 with DDR2100 and a nice L3 cache.
QB]<hr></blockquote>
I think you're probably more right than wrong there ... I think it's going to be especially important for Apple to have a strong product line-up come this summer, just stay on an even keel ... because it looks like we're headed for some hard financial times ahead ...
Consumer confidence is down.
WorldCom is in a pissing contest with Enron for the 2002 creative accounting award (they're laying off 17,000 after - probably - illegally concealing 4 billion in losses) ... who knows what other dominoes have yet to fall? Which leads to ...
The Dow and th Daq especially are down (whither the wealth effect now? Oh think of all those poor rejected Boxsters)
And Apple's starting to have iMacs back up in the channel.
It's probably a good time to be Red Hat, with corporate customers starting to look for supreme value and all, but it's going to be a tougher than average time to be an Apple if the last few months of economic warming turn out to have been merely the eye of the storm.
... and what was that about Bush and Arafat again?
We live in interesting times (again)
<strong>Somehow I doubt seeing a 1.5 or 1.6 GHZ G4. That seems like such a leap and Apple is so conservative with it's speed bumps. Unfortunately, me thinks it'll be 1.2 dual at the top end.
But perhaps someone will correct me and tell me what the largest single jump in speed Apple has made in the past?</strong><hr></blockquote>
Well, from what I can tell the largest jump was from the Powermac G4 "Mystic" which had Dual 500 top end, to Digital Audio, which had 733 top end. True, the Dual 500 is now faster sometimes, but in terms of raw chip speed it was a 233 Mhz jump. Thats ALMOST a 50% jump in Mhz. I think its perfectly possible to see Dual 1.5 Ghz, especially given the things I hear whispered. 1.2 Ghz would be very blah, and Apple probably doesn't have a whole lot of other stuff to fill the keynote, since they just updated everything else (iMac will get 100-150 Mhz upgrade methinks). So yeah, I stand by my prediction, and hope we'll see something resembling it.
[ 06-26-2002: Message edited by: moki ]</p>
<strong>[snip]
[ 06-26-2002: Message edited by: moki ]</strong><hr></blockquote>
Very enlightening Moki!
<strong>[snip]
[ 06-26-2002: Message edited by: moki ]</strong><hr></blockquote>
So Moki, I'guess the [snippet] was too close huh. Yah think Apple's new PowerMac phrase should be "Do, or Do Not ... There is NO TRY!"?
THAT would do something for Powermac sales.
I'd imagine with Powermacs at those speeds, Apple could boost the iMacs up to 1 GHz or even higher.
I'd like to see what sort of performance a 1.5 GHz G4 offers...with such a short pipeline, it probably would even stomp AMD's offerings into the ground. But Pentium 4s would still be faster....
<strong>
I'd like to see what sort of performance a 1.5 GHz G4 offers...with such a short pipeline, it probably would even stomp AMD's offerings into the ground. But Pentium 4s would still be faster....</strong><hr></blockquote>
I'm just going to pretend you DIDN'T say that P4s would be faster. WHAT in the world are you thinking? The P4's architecture is such that all was sacrificed to hike clockspeed for marketing. Intel learned that it doesn't matter if you make the fastest chips, what matters is that the public THINKS you make the fastest chips. AMD Athlons have always stomped all over the Pentiums, and even recent tests which show them close, were sketchy. AMD is also near the EOL on the Athlon, with Hammer coming out soon, while the P4 is still young.
Also look at the fact that basically no servers use the P4 yet....opting instead for PIIIs. Why? a) heat. and b) P4 sucks.
If you've ever looked at Apple vs Intel's official MTOPs numbers....the Dual Ghz G4 has a 27,000 MTOP rating, compared to Intel's official 6900 rating for its 2.6 Ghz P4. True we have a FSB and memory system pinching that, but I see that getting fixed soon, and there's no way any P4 (even with a quadpumped bus) could top a Dual 1.5 G4 tower with improved Mobo. Just not gonna happen.
I'm disappointed JYD. Really I am. Go back to the Dawg Pound.
This was around the introduction of the 7455.
They'll use the 7460, which supports up to 4GB of SDRAM linked directly to the processor. L3 cache and system memory will now be a single entity. 166MHz MPX not need here.
<strong>The next PowerMacs will not use the 7455.
They'll use the 7460, which supports up to 4GB of SDRAM linked directly to the processor. L3 cache and system memory will now be a single entity. 166MHz MPX not need here.
Yeah I know its not going to be the 7455, but this info about the L3 and system memory becoming one is certainly news to me. Where does this info come from? Because it seems highly unlikely that without a serious chip redesign (more worthy than a 7455-7460 notation upgrade) that such a thing is feasible? Even RapidIO doesn't promise such things (at least not that I've heard).
I'm gonna say "More info please?" and "Don't believe this without some details"
EDIT:
After some more thought, this can't happen. Current Powermac/Powerbook L3 cache is DDR SRAM (Static Ram). System memory is SDRAM (Sync Dynamic RAM). The difference? HUGE. SRAM is miles away faster than SDRAM (I won't go into the technical differences, but there's far less latency) and something like 10 times more expensive per megabyte. Maybe its more. So what's this ide about combining memory and L3 cache? No way. SDRAM not quick enough (ESPECIALLY not if its not DDR), and DDR SRAM is WAY too expensive (We'd see Powermacs at 5 digits easy). You must be confusing this with something else. Perhaps it supports 4 GB of DDR SDRAM for memory and has something else running right into the proc?
[ 06-26-2002: Message edited by: The All Knowing 1 ]</p>
I shouldn't be too hard either to tell the chip not to look for main memory and go straight to virtual memory after the "fake" L3 cache has been filled.
This design could be implimented without totally redesigning the current 7455.
Motorola's embedeed customers want this though? No, so this will not be the 7460, but the 7461 funded by Apple $$.
<strong>Not a major redesign. They will just replace the current L3 cache controller on the 7455 with a regular DDR SDRAM controller.
I shouldn't be too hard either to tell the chip not to look for main memory and go straight to virtual memory after the "fake" L3 cache has been filled.
This design could be implimented without totally redesigning the current 7455.
Motorola's embedeed customers want this though? No, so this will not be the 7460, but the 7461 funded by Apple $$.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Once again I MUST ask if this is based on ANY information, or if its just pure speculation. I'll refer you to my edited post above regarding SDRAM/SRAM. The truth is that if you remove the 2MB per Proc L3 SRAM cache and replace it with SDRAM even one fewer jump away, you still could (though I don't know for sure) end up with a SLOWER memory system than you start with. A multi-tiered cache system is key to system performance, which is why you'd notice, if you ever have the displeasure, that a Powermac 5260/120 with no L2 cache is slower than a 5200/75 with L2 cache. MUCH slower.
It is true current L3 caches use SRAM, but it's also true the processor doesn't care what type of memory its L3 cache uses as long as the controller can refresh the SDRAM so it doesn't loose its data.
<strong>
Once again I MUST ask if this is based on ANY information, or if its just pure speculation. I'll refer you to my edited post above regarding SDRAM/SRAM. The truth is that if you remove the 2MB per Proc L3 SRAM cache and replace it with SDRAM even one fewer jump away, you still could (though I don't know for sure) end up with a SLOWER memory system than you start with. A multi-tiered cache system is key to system performance, which is why you'd notice, if you ever have the displeasure, that a Powermac 5260/120 with no L2 cache is slower than a 5200/75 with L2 cache. MUCH slower.</strong><hr></blockquote>
What? My post total BS? Pretty much...
This is just a way to remove the MPX bus as a bottleneck. Would it be so hard to replace the current G4s L3 cache controller with one that can manage the L3 cache as system memory.
SRAM vs SDRAM. The current PowerMacs L3 cache has only 4GBs bandwidth. This isn't very much for a processor cache. Single channel DDR SDRAM can hit 2.1 or 2.7GBs. Make it dual channel and you have faster memory than the current G4.
But this would increase the die size and cost, not to mention 90% of Motorola's customers don't need it so...
F_ck the whole thing.
7460 == 166MHz MPX.
Sucks like hell being the bitch of an embedded market.
This will neve happen.
<strong>
What? My post total BS? Pretty much...
This is just a way to remove the MPX bus as a bottleneck. Would it be so hard to replace the current G4s L3 cache controller with one that can manage the L3 cache as system memory.
SRAM vs SDRAM. The current PowerMacs L3 cache has only 4GBs bandwidth. This isn't very much for a processor cache. Single channel DDR SDRAM can hit 2.1 or 2.7GBs. Make it dual channel and you have faster memory than the current G4.
But this would increase the die size and cost, not to mention 90% of Motorola's customers don't need it so...
F_ck the whole thing.
7460 == 166MHz MPX.
Sucks like hell being the bitch of an embedded market.
This will neve happen.
OK!
No you don't look like an idiot...I was just confused whether you were brainstorming or reiterating something you'd read.
I agree with you on principle, that if a Powermac could pipe main memory into the chip it could do wonders. However, it won't happen for a while. As you said, Moto is currently our master, and the embedded market for the most part wouldn't need it. Second, while you're right about the throughput of the SRAM/SDRAM that doesn't take into account the latency, where SRAM is king.
BUT if in a few years Apple brought chip design in-house, or ported it to IBM (or someone else) and designed a chip to take advantage of it, perhaps SRAM prices will have fallen enough so that Apple could again innovate by making main memory SRAM! That would indeed rule, but its chance of happening is up there with Steve Ballmer besting Steve Jobs in a charisma contest. Possible? yes. But it'd take a LOT of work
SRAM should have better latency than SDRAM, but I read somewhere that the SRAM used by the G4's L3 cache had a 40 cycle latency. That sounds high. I didn't think even SDRAM had such bad latency.
Am I wrong or is Apple, using the cheapest RAM they can find for their PowerMacs?
Yes, it really sucks being Moto's bitch. They're killing Apple by making it impossible to give the G4 more bandwidth. Even 166MHz MPX is only 1.3GBs throughput. That will still choke the hell out of any sort of DDR.
[ 06-26-2002: Message edited by: Keeksy ]</p>