Congrats Macrat you managed to find the exact same info that started this thread to begin with... Maybe you should start reading from page one... <img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" />
Perhaps you read that in a rumor site , personally i already read that in AI, but i read also answers saying that was pure crap. </strong><hr></blockquote>
I don't know about the stipulation between Moto and IBM, but I do remember announcements of IBM getting the G3 to MUCH higher clockspeeds when the G4 was stuck at 500.
The IBM built G3, currently used in the 700 MHz iBook, allows for a 200 MHz bus speed. If IBM took that G3, and tacked on an AltiVec compatible SIMD extention set, it seems you'd have a pretty kick-arse processor for portable use...possibly even iMac/eMac desktop use.
Can someone in detail do a side-by-side comparison of the IBM 750FX series against a low-power G4? Explain the advantages (if any) of Apple to continue using the G4 vs. a SIMD enhanced IBM G3</strong><hr></blockquote>
The 700 Mhz 750FX that's in the iBooks currently, despite its bus being clocked at only 100 Mhz (half of the possible 200 Mhz) is actually faster at non-altivec floating point intensive code than the 700 Mhz G4 in the iMac and eMac. It is even faster in some applications than the 800 Mhz G4 in the TiBook with 1 MB DDR L3 cache . If it had Altivec, it'd be faster across the board.
I don't know about the stipulation between Moto and IBM, but I do remember announcements of IBM getting the G3 to MUCH higher clockspeeds when the G4 was stuck at 500.
And it wasn't on rumor sites.</strong><hr></blockquote>
So this stipulation that IBM cannot make faster chips (in mhz at least) than Mot was false.
Well..I think what he meant about the IBM chips not being able to go past whatever Moto had was not : They cannot engineer one. But the agreement was that Apple could not sell them higher than Moto, and IBM could not necessarily publicize them faster.
Apple has made me so cynical that I fully expect a lame 867 G4 lowend to a duel 1067 G4 top end next week but still it is interesting that the new Ibm chip is for "desktops".Now no one else realy uses the ppc in a desktop but Apple.This clearly points to apple! I need to keep reminding myself of that for it to sink in.But what about a time scale? There is no rule that they must announce a new processor line far in advance at such a forum.Reference to past events is no good to make a decision on.This is not really a "new" chip,just a desktop derrivative based on power4.It is quite possible that they have been under some nondisclosure agreement with apple.Apple may have even helped design and fund it.An nda makes sense because if apples move to a new powerful chip was publicly know it would have killed G4 tower sales.So it is possible Apple will release the new chip in the powermacs soon,maybe even before the conference.
I don't know about the stipulation between Moto and IBM, but I do remember announcements of IBM getting the G3 to MUCH higher clockspeeds when the G4 was stuck at 500.
And it wasn't on rumor sites.</strong>
It was from rumor sites and was blatantly false. The 750 (G3) and 7400 (G4) have virtually the same clock speed frequencies on the same fabrication process. The only way IBM could have shipped much higher G3 clock speeds was a better fabrication process, and it wouldn't have been much of an improvement since the fab improvement was very minor from 0.2 micron to 0.18 micron.
Once Moto shipped the 7450, the 7450 clockspeed was and will always be higher than any G3.
Can someone in detail do a side-by-side comparison of the IBM 750FX series against a low-power G4? Explain the advantages (if any) of Apple to continue using the G4 vs. a SIMD enhanced IBM G3.</strong>
A 0.13 micron 7450 G4 will clock 50% higher that an IBM 750fx. That pretty much should be the end of the story right there in the G4's favor.
<strong>Is there any chance the G4 could go bye-bye, and Apple would use the IBM G3+SIMD for consumer machines, and the Power4 derivative for Pro machines, and leave Motorola behind entirely?</strong>
A 0.13 micron 7450 based G4 is a sweetspot chip. I think Apple should us it if Moto fabs it.
<strong>Well..I think what he meant about the IBM chips not being able to go past whatever Moto had was not : They cannot engineer one. But the agreement was that Apple could not sell them higher than Moto, and IBM could not necessarily publicize them faster.
Or atleast thats what I got from his posts.</strong><hr></blockquote>
As I recall, the agreement that you are refering to was for when IBM was working as a back-up supplier of G4's for Apple when Moto could not meet the supply demands that they were contracted for, and did not apply to the G3.
Just becouse IBM is not making 1000mhz G3's does not neccessarely mean that they cant. If they do not have a customer for them they would be stupid to make them, and Apple wont/cant clock a consumer G3 faster than a Pro G4 becouse that would be really BAD marketing.
Most of the other customers for G3's are embeded or specializer processors such as Nintendo, and the Game Cube probably wont scale in speed, but will be replaced by a new console in 3 years. The ballance of IBM's G3 customers are probably buying in low encough quantities that it may not be economically feasable for IBM to put the faster chips into production.
Apparently, IBM announced this processor last year, but labeled it as an "embedded" processor. With this in mind, can those that have experience in this area speak to the possibility of intro'ing this CPU now? Is a year long enough? Given that this is something like Son of POWER4, it seems that it should be fairly straight forward to pull the various bits together.
I really can't figure out if I should be excited yet or not.
Not my field of expertise, but I am in the electronics mfg field. From what I know of chip design it is fully possible that it could ship in the timeframe you mention. It would need to be an aggresive schedule, based on existing technology would help, and then there is always lady luck on or against you.
Apparently, IBM announced this processor last year, but labeled it as an "embedded" processor. With this in mind, can those that have experience in this area speak to the possibility of intro'ing this CPU now? Is a year long enough? Given that this is something like Son of POWER4, it seems that it should be fairly straight forward to pull the various bits together.
I really can't figure out if I should be excited yet or not.
NOW will be the BEST OPTION for Apple but I don't think we will see a new IBM chip in Mac before at least MWSF 03... And it depends on the fact that Apple can say bye-bye to moto now or not... ??? Someone could tell us ?
If this chip is being made for Apple and seeing as how its not an embedded processor, wouldn't Apple get to announce models using it before IBM spews out technical details?
Just becouse IBM is not making 1000mhz G3's does not neccessarely mean that they cant. If they do not have a customer for them they would be stupid to make them, and Apple wont/cant clock a consumer G3 faster than a Pro G4 becouse that would be really BAD marketing.</strong>
Once more onto the breach... due to the microarchitecture of the G3, the way the G3 is designed, IBM cannot ship a faster 750 based G3 than a 7450 based G4 on the same fab process (or thereabout). We've been talking about execution pipeline stages for a long time now. The 750 G3 (and the 7400 G4) has 4 stage pipeline. The 7450 G4 has a 7 stage pipeline. Due to the simplicity in circuitry for each stage in a deeper pipelined processor, those stages can be clocked higher allowing the procesor clock higher. This is why the 10 stage Athlon processor clocks higher than the 7450 G4. This is why the 20 stage Pentium 4 clocks higher than all other desktop uprocessors. And this is why the those G3 rumors were false.
<strong>If this chip is being made for Apple and seeing as how its not an embedded processor, wouldn't Apple get to announce models using it before IBM spews out technical details?</strong><hr></blockquote>
<strong>If this chip is being made for Apple and seeing as how its not an embedded processor, wouldn't Apple get to announce models using it before IBM spews out technical details?</strong><hr></blockquote>
No..
1: I doubt this chips are made only for Apple
2: Just about every PPC used by Apple was first announced by IBM/Motorola. 7400, 7450,7455, 750cxe, 750fx. Probably the original 750 too, but I dont remember.
Well I've been following the AIM events from it's beginnig and I'd say it was SJ who pissed off Motorola and IBM when he killed the clones. Mot had to write off about $95 mil. and insider said that MOT was thinking about killing the entire Desktop PPC. IBM saw no use in Somerset any more, why spend anything when only Apple get's out most of it? As both PPC suppliers were turning their back on Apple, SJ made a 5Y contract with MOT to avoid being without a CPU suddenly. So I guess MOT couldn't care less about SJ and his ego.
Comments
[ 08-08-2002: Message edited by: DaveGee ]</p>
<strong>
Perhaps you read that in a rumor site
I don't know about the stipulation between Moto and IBM, but I do remember announcements of IBM getting the G3 to MUCH higher clockspeeds when the G4 was stuck at 500.
And it wasn't on rumor sites.
<strong>
The IBM built G3, currently used in the 700 MHz iBook, allows for a 200 MHz bus speed. If IBM took that G3, and tacked on an AltiVec compatible SIMD extention set, it seems you'd have a pretty kick-arse processor for portable use...possibly even iMac/eMac desktop use.
Can someone in detail do a side-by-side comparison of the IBM 750FX series against a low-power G4? Explain the advantages (if any) of Apple to continue using the G4 vs. a SIMD enhanced IBM G3</strong><hr></blockquote>
The 700 Mhz 750FX that's in the iBooks currently, despite its bus being clocked at only 100 Mhz (half of the possible 200 Mhz) is actually faster at non-altivec floating point intensive code than the 700 Mhz G4 in the iMac and eMac. It is even faster in some applications than the 800 Mhz G4 in the TiBook with 1 MB DDR L3 cache . If it had Altivec, it'd be faster across the board.
[ 08-08-2002: Message edited by: timortis ]</p>
<strong>
I don't know about the stipulation between Moto and IBM, but I do remember announcements of IBM getting the G3 to MUCH higher clockspeeds when the G4 was stuck at 500.
And it wasn't on rumor sites.</strong><hr></blockquote>
So this stipulation that IBM cannot make faster chips (in mhz at least) than Mot was false.
Or atleast thats what I got from his posts.
Well we can dream cant we?
<a href="http://www-1.ibm.com/servers/eserver/pseries/hardware/whitepapers/power3wp.html"; target="_blank">POWER 3 -> PPC 64</a> (from october 1998 !)
<a href="http://www.research.ibm.com/journal/rd46-1.html"; target="_blank">POWER4 all you want to know on POWER4</a> (january 2002 -> shipping on june 25 in pSeries 690)
Future of Mac is in IBM with 6-12 months transition with Moto
Aw
I don't know about the stipulation between Moto and IBM, but I do remember announcements of IBM getting the G3 to MUCH higher clockspeeds when the G4 was stuck at 500.
And it wasn't on rumor sites.</strong>
It was from rumor sites and was blatantly false. The 750 (G3) and 7400 (G4) have virtually the same clock speed frequencies on the same fabrication process. The only way IBM could have shipped much higher G3 clock speeds was a better fabrication process, and it wouldn't have been much of an improvement since the fab improvement was very minor from 0.2 micron to 0.18 micron.
Once Moto shipped the 7450, the 7450 clockspeed was and will always be higher than any G3.
[ 08-08-2002: Message edited by: THT ]</p>
Can someone in detail do a side-by-side comparison of the IBM 750FX series against a low-power G4? Explain the advantages (if any) of Apple to continue using the G4 vs. a SIMD enhanced IBM G3.</strong>
A 0.13 micron 7450 G4 will clock 50% higher that an IBM 750fx. That pretty much should be the end of the story right there in the G4's favor.
<strong>Is there any chance the G4 could go bye-bye, and Apple would use the IBM G3+SIMD for consumer machines, and the Power4 derivative for Pro machines, and leave Motorola behind entirely?</strong>
A 0.13 micron 7450 based G4 is a sweetspot chip. I think Apple should us it if Moto fabs it.
To be honest, I dont think Motorola is going to add new features to the G4 line. I suspect the Motorola "high-end" PPC is dead.
<strong>Well..I think what he meant about the IBM chips not being able to go past whatever Moto had was not : They cannot engineer one. But the agreement was that Apple could not sell them higher than Moto, and IBM could not necessarily publicize them faster.
Or atleast thats what I got from his posts.</strong><hr></blockquote>
As I recall, the agreement that you are refering to was for when IBM was working as a back-up supplier of G4's for Apple when Moto could not meet the supply demands that they were contracted for, and did not apply to the G3.
Just becouse IBM is not making 1000mhz G3's does not neccessarely mean that they cant. If they do not have a customer for them they would be stupid to make them, and Apple wont/cant clock a consumer G3 faster than a Pro G4 becouse that would be really BAD marketing.
Most of the other customers for G3's are embeded or specializer processors such as Nintendo, and the Game Cube probably wont scale in speed, but will be replaced by a new console in 3 years. The ballance of IBM's G3 customers are probably buying in low encough quantities that it may not be economically feasable for IBM to put the faster chips into production.
Apparently, IBM announced this processor last year, but labeled it as an "embedded" processor. With this in mind, can those that have experience in this area speak to the possibility of intro'ing this CPU now? Is a year long enough? Given that this is something like Son of POWER4, it seems that it should be fairly straight forward to pull the various bits together.
I really can't figure out if I should be excited yet or not.
Anyone? <img src="confused.gif" border="0">
[ 08-08-2002: Message edited by: tsukurite ]</p>
<strong>Back to the topic at hand...
Apparently, IBM announced this processor last year, but labeled it as an "embedded" processor. With this in mind, can those that have experience in this area speak to the possibility of intro'ing this CPU now? Is a year long enough? Given that this is something like Son of POWER4, it seems that it should be fairly straight forward to pull the various bits together.
I really can't figure out if I should be excited yet or not.
Anyone?
[ 08-08-2002: Message edited by: tsukurite ]</strong><hr></blockquote>
NOW will be the BEST OPTION for Apple but I don't think we will see a new IBM chip in Mac before at least MWSF 03... And it depends on the fact that Apple can say bye-bye to moto
Aw
Just becouse IBM is not making 1000mhz G3's does not neccessarely mean that they cant. If they do not have a customer for them they would be stupid to make them, and Apple wont/cant clock a consumer G3 faster than a Pro G4 becouse that would be really BAD marketing.</strong>
Once more onto the breach... due to the microarchitecture of the G3, the way the G3 is designed, IBM cannot ship a faster 750 based G3 than a 7450 based G4 on the same fab process (or thereabout). We've been talking about execution pipeline stages for a long time now. The 750 G3 (and the 7400 G4) has 4 stage pipeline. The 7450 G4 has a 7 stage pipeline. Due to the simplicity in circuitry for each stage in a deeper pipelined processor, those stages can be clocked higher allowing the procesor clock higher. This is why the 10 stage Athlon processor clocks higher than the 7450 G4. This is why the 20 stage Pentium 4 clocks higher than all other desktop uprocessors. And this is why the those G3 rumors were false.
In short, it means IBM can't.
<strong>If this chip is being made for Apple and seeing as how its not an embedded processor, wouldn't Apple get to announce models using it before IBM spews out technical details?</strong><hr></blockquote>
Maybe not but lot of hope in that...
Aw
<strong>If this chip is being made for Apple and seeing as how its not an embedded processor, wouldn't Apple get to announce models using it before IBM spews out technical details?</strong><hr></blockquote>
No..
1: I doubt this chips are made only for Apple
2: Just about every PPC used by Apple was first announced by IBM/Motorola. 7400, 7450,7455, 750cxe, 750fx. Probably the original 750 too, but I dont remember.
<strong>Well, when Moto' dropped the G4 fall...they must have really P*ssed Steve Jobs off.
You only have to look at Ati's position in 'power'Macs when they tried to trump his keynote!
Not a guy you want to jerk off!
'It'll be great in two years time when we aren't using you anymore' (Jobs to Moto' exec'...)
That may be folklore...but...it looks Moto' are well and truly on their way out.
Add to that, comments Canada Moto' guy said about 'G5' desktop not even on their radar...
...seems to confirm what some of us refused to believe.
I'll raise my glass to IBM...
Lemon Bon Bon
PS. Personally, I find it quite exciting that the 'Cell' is going to be PowerPC based!
Apple and Sony, two 'cool' hardware brands going to the same place for their cpus...
Add to that Nintendo on IBM tech'..and the PowerPC tech' has alot of marketing cred'...
Beat that X-box!
[ 08-08-2002: Message edited by: Lemon Bon Bon ]</strong><hr></blockquote>
Well I've been following the AIM events from it's beginnig and I'd say it was SJ who pissed off Motorola and IBM when he killed the clones. Mot had to write off about $95 mil. and insider said that MOT was thinking about killing the entire Desktop PPC. IBM saw no use in Somerset any more, why spend anything when only Apple get's out most of it? As both PPC suppliers were turning their back on Apple, SJ made a 5Y contract with MOT to avoid being without a CPU suddenly. So I guess MOT couldn't care less about SJ and his ego.
End of Line