Second Ars PPC 970 Article
Looks like Hannibal has finally finished the second of his two 970 articles. 11,000 VERY interesting words to throw on the performance debate fire. Looks like integer and altivec performance is not as good as expected but the FPU and bus show great promise 
Second Ars PPC 970 Article
Second Ars PPC 970 Article
Comments
The FPU performance and overall system bus speed does look exceptionally nice and is where the 970 appears to most likely shine. It really emphasizes that there are a number of unknowns still. We will have to wait for real hardware before we know. Overall though, a significant improvement over the present situation, especially if Apple improves the system design as expected.
In the end, it poses as many questions as it answers. Definitely a lot of food for debate.
Originally posted by Shaktai
Definitely a lot of food for debate.
You can say that again.
Originally posted by Barto
Can't reply with any thoughts.... Too busy reading most anticipated Mac white paper ever....
I think my head is about to explode and I'm only on page 9 of my second reading. As always, Hannibal offers up an excellent technical analysis... even if I don't agree with all of his extrapolations.
For instance, his analysis is great for evaluating chip speed in a vacumn. Yet, overall system performance is now more complicated. He seems to use bus,CPU,and memory performance as a benchmark for system performance. However, with QE, GPU performance is now a key factor in desktop speed. Hannibal's analysis is more suited to analyzing server performance for things like render farms, apache, and databases.
Hannibal has done an excellent job of describing every tree... yet readers should still strive to see the forest.
Originally posted by dfiler
I think my head is about to explode and I'm only on page 9 of my second reading. As always, Hannibal offers up an excellent technical analysis... even if I don't agree with all of his extrapolations.
For instance, his analysis is great for evaluating chip speed in a vacumn. Yet, overall system performance is now more complicated. He seems to use bus,CPU,and memory performance as a benchmark for system performance. However, with QE, GPU performance is now a key factor in desktop speed. Hannibal's analysis is more suited to analyzing server performance for things like render farms, apache, and databases.
Hannibal has done an excellent job of describing every tree, but readers should strive to see the forest.
Which he explains partially in the conclusion.
Hannible bases what little performance comparisons he does make on a system with DDR400, and no assumptions about cutting edge innovations. This is, after all, a PowerPC 970 article, not a Mac v PC article.
Barto
(In other words, "In before lock!"
Originally posted by Anonymous Karma
(In other words, "In before lock!"
Originally posted by jamm
Looks like Hannibal has finally finished the second of his two 970 articles. 11,000 VERY interesting words to throw on the performance debate fire. Looks like integer and altivec performance is not as good as expected but the FPU and bus show great promise
Second Ars PPC 970 Article
Its an interesting article, but remember it is heavily based on opinion and supposition. There are big unknowns in the article and he fully admits not having that information, and that that information could dramatically effect performance (in either direction).
Also we're not taking into account Panther as well. Apples timing couldn't be better. We have the potential of new Hardware running much faster and yet a 3rd Major update to the OS coming as well. I think the Real World speeds of PPC 970 Macs will be equal to and superior to Wintel. We must stay within 2/3 of the P4 but OSX will give us a 1/3 advantage meaning a Dead Heat on average. And that bodes well for Apple.
Originally posted by Programmer
Its an interesting article, but remember it is heavily based on opinion and supposition. There are big unknowns in the article and he fully admits not having that information, and that that information could dramatically effect performance (in either direction).
Absolutely. Then all articles of this nature are going to be heavily based on opinion (the authors) and varying degrees of suppostion. The article provides a lot of information and obviously a lot of work was put into it. In the end though, until we get actual production 970's to examine and test, and see what kind of a system Apple builds around it, there will be no real answers. The technical analysis seems good, to the extent that the information was available for analysis. Still a lot of missing pieces. From here on out until the final product is released, all we have is opinion, suppostion and rumors. I doubt that we will see any more verifiable information before introduction.
From my perspective, the article provided insights into what types of operations we "may see" the new systems excell at and what types of operations they "will likely" lag behind at.
It looks promising for my needs. The areas where it excells, may be significant, and the areas where it lags will be minor. Still a huge improvement across the board from where we are now. 8)
As with all things Apple, though, the big question is price. Will Apple drop its margins drastically and sell these machines at a competitive price point in order to increase market share, or will it continue to price itself into the increasingly non-existent luxury/lifestyle computing niche?
That IS the question.
Apple have a real chance at this point in history to slay their last sacred cow. It won't come their way again for a long time.
Lemon Bon Bon
A brand new Mac with a Monitor and G4 can be had for $799
a Top of the Line unit can be had for under $3000.
What I believe people are saying is that they wish the unit of "their" desire was cheaper. I contend that Mac users complaints on Price only extend as far as their own value proposition. Those that complain about the price almost always point to the Powermac line and point to the lineup as being underpowered. So...in essence they aren't complaining about the Price but what they are "getting" for that price.
So really I think you'll find that Apple doesn't have to lower prices. If the PPC 970 system comes and the performance is what we expect then these units will sell by the bushell. People want to know that when they purchase a computer ..it's fast and will last a while. Price of course is a consideraton but for some not as important as others.
Originally posted by Lemon Bon Bon
That IS the question.
..........It won't come their way again for a long time.
Lemon Bon Bon
Oh, I don't know. There's the rumoured IBM 980.
Logically, the next generation offspring of the 75X, the 85X ??, that may marry the 440 and 75x technologies(re: Multicore Superscalar, Rapid I/O, n-way Coreconect, VMX, etc.), and may see the light of day in a NUMA architecture.
Or maybe some version of IBM's cell technology.
But it sure would be nice if the price for any new IBM 970 based computers from Apple stay at the current price points or even drops somewhat. Will Apple finally try to capture more market share or not, hmmm? We'll see in the next couple of months. My money is now stashed after years of pack ratting and I'm just waiting.
These machines are going to be incredible.
This is not a rumor, or a possibility. or unlikely. Fred Anderson's been banging this drum for over a year now. Apple has to move carefully, because of the economy and because they're breaking even operationally, but they just launched what looks like a solid new revenue stream, and every bit helps.
Also, hmurchison is right in that you can improve price/performance by dropping price or by increasing performance (or both). Apple has a couple of ways to bump performance (the next version of OS X and the 970, and maybe some other goodies), so even if they hold the line on price their equipment will be that much more desirable. Of course, if they drop prices further, Macs will look even better.
I think the next few months will be remarkably interesting, and refreshing after three years of the G4.
Originally posted by Amorph
This is not a rumor, or a possibility. or unlikely. Fred Anderson's been banging this drum for over a year now. Apple has to move carefully, because of the economy and because they're breaking even operationally, but they just launched what looks like a solid new revenue stream, and every bit helps.
Apple is breaking even with virtually nonexistent Pro sales. If you aren't selling G4's, then you aren't making any money on them. Therefore, Apple can afford to lower margins on their pro machines because where they will make less money per box, they will actually be selling boxes. Apple should go for lower margins on everything but the highest end 970.
- The introduction of the 970 will usher in a new mac era, capable of performing on a par with or better than Intel/AMD offerings based on real-world application perfomance
- This will only be achieved if we see a rapid spread of the 970 (and perhaps later the 980) to consumer/portable machines. In this respect, Apple should move to a single processor platform - drop the G4 ASAP. I guess this means putting all your eggs in one basket but Apple has a knack of pulling this off (68K - PPC, OS 9 - OS X...). However, the cost savings of buying in bulk and only having to support one motherboard and processor architecture can only be beneficial.
- The differentiation between consumer and professional machines will be severely blurred by following this route - Apple will have to solve this problem as it has already arisen with the iMacs getting a G4. Perhaps MP, >cache, new interconnect technologies (FW800, PCI-X)...
- Those Mhz ratings must go UP UP UP if we want market share to grow! The Mhz wars are unknown to the general public. Show Joe Six-Pack a 2 GHz+ Intel and a 1 Ghz iMac. Sure, he may think the iMac looks all 'pretty' but what hes thinking is that 2 is better than 1 and hence he is getting more bang for his buck. Apple has failed time and again in trying to show that 'Mhz doesn't matter'.
I will now go smoke a J ....