Dual 970 17" Powerbook
As far-fetched as this sounds, our (oh, so reliable...) MacOSRumors says:
"More details will be published throughout the week on Panther as well as Apple's use of the PowerPC 970. Not only might not the 970 be called a "G5" (Apple may drop the label altogether, calling chips by their names -- new chips in the PPC 750 family from IBM will exceed 1GHz, include 512K-1MB of on-chip L2 cache, and eventually even include a Velocity Engine unit, dropping the Altivec name as Motorola is wiped completely out of Apple's system lineup).....it may show up in Powerbooks a lot sooner than once thought. There's still a chance it might take a little longer than the PowerMacs and Xserves, but the Powerbook will not only move to PowerPC 970 processors very quickly....it may even employ dual PPC 970 processors as well as an impressively updated system architecture in the 17-inch Powerbook as soon as next January."
It almost sound slike they are implying that PowerBooks will get the 970 very soon. A dual processor powerbook better come with oven mitts...
Is MacOSRumors really out there (as usual) or is this possible?
"More details will be published throughout the week on Panther as well as Apple's use of the PowerPC 970. Not only might not the 970 be called a "G5" (Apple may drop the label altogether, calling chips by their names -- new chips in the PPC 750 family from IBM will exceed 1GHz, include 512K-1MB of on-chip L2 cache, and eventually even include a Velocity Engine unit, dropping the Altivec name as Motorola is wiped completely out of Apple's system lineup).....it may show up in Powerbooks a lot sooner than once thought. There's still a chance it might take a little longer than the PowerMacs and Xserves, but the Powerbook will not only move to PowerPC 970 processors very quickly....it may even employ dual PPC 970 processors as well as an impressively updated system architecture in the 17-inch Powerbook as soon as next January."
It almost sound slike they are implying that PowerBooks will get the 970 very soon. A dual processor powerbook better come with oven mitts...
Is MacOSRumors really out there (as usual) or is this possible?
Comments
Originally posted by DHagan4755
Yeah, a 970 PowerBook is possible given what we know about the 970. A dual processor PowerBook is sort of a left-field idea at this point. I'd rather Apple get just one 970 in the PowerBook instead of worrying about how to get two in there.
And I think "just" a single 970 would give the powerbooks a nice performance jump that would place them firmly at the top of the "premier laptop computer" charts. At the current pricepoints the 970 would be great deals I think, with a 1.2 (or possibly 1.4) ghz in the new 15" and 17".
There are at least two major problems that I think would stop the 970 from being put in dual configs in a laptop, both being pointed out before, at least while the 970 is still 130 nm:
1. Heat - two 970 is going to make a lot of heat. It is going to need improved cooling, and maybe more powerful fans that will result in more noice.
2. Battery - I think it's more important to keep the battery life longer than have the "ultimate power book". If Apple releases a dual powerbook in the future, I hope we'll have options to just use one processor while on battery.
3. Complexity - Both cooling and layout of the internals is getting more and more difficult with new and faster (read hotter) components. This will become even more of a problem with a dual processor set-up, and will incrase price a lot.
netro
Once IBM shrinks the size wouldn't this be more possible? I don't know much about chips, but I thought they were going to be shrinking the fab size of the 970 even smaller in the fall... in time for a January release of something...
If Apple and IBM could make a dual Powerbook (with decent battery live and reasonable heat) I would get it...
Originally posted by macmike
I've heard this talk of dual processor Powerbooks before (I don't recall if it's only been MacOSRumors talking or not - but I don't think so). Sometimes I think that if I hear something once, it's just a rumor. But if you hear something several times from several sources, maybe it's true.
Once IBM shrinks the size wouldn't this be more possible? I don't know much about chips, but I thought they were going to be shrinking the fab size of the 970 even smaller in the fall... in time for a January release of something...
If Apple and IBM could make a dual Powerbook (with decent battery live and reasonable heat) I would get it...
Of NETRO's 3 points, 1 & 2 will be lessened with the coming die shrink, but they would still need to increase battery size (and weight) to keep battery life at or abouve current levels. A die shrink will mean the chips are smaller (point 3), but you still need the cooling channels/heat sinks/fans to do the cooling. A dual core chip (980?) would effectively give them a dual processor machine without the need for additional mounting/cooling space, and should take up less energy and disapate less heat than 2 processors would, though I dont have any data on the power 4 to back this up it only makes sense.
Personally, I could see Apple shipping a dual-processor config. in the 17" form factor. There should be enough space in a size that large to address at least the cooling issue, right?
What sounds very plausible to me is the idea of a dual-processor PB, not with the 970, but the rumoured GOBI "G3+VMX" chip. From what I remember, it was supposed to be fully compliant with the spec for multiprocessor computing--or perhaps I'm thinking of Mojave.
after years of reading his b.s. stories i kinda wish that site had more downtime, if that is possible!
he needs to come up with logos for fantasy and recycled info.
he should put them next to each post as not to confuse anyone!
Originally posted by kim kap sol
Geezus...what about quad-970's in the 17" 'book?
BEHOLD the 19" powerbook
the duals are doable in a 17" form factor
i had posted something along those lines quite
some time ago where i covered speed stepping
as well as switching cpus on an as needed basis
i dont think heat will be as big an issue
noise is dependent on how well balanced the fans are
& its rpm
you can make a machine dead quiet if you put your mind to it
we are getting to the point where its getting harder & harder
to keep pumping up the clock cycles without the cpu getting
really hot
as consumer level computing moves into the 64bit space
we will see a lot of interest & r&d poured into parallization at the os level (think beos)
more efficient compilers etc etc so a lot more can be
done with a lower speed cpu.
Originally posted by madmax559
BEHOLD the 19" powerbook
the duals are doable in a 17" form factor
i had posted something along those lines quite
some time ago where i covered speed stepping
as well as switching cpus on an as needed basis
I don't think the 970 supports speed stepping. Is there any other way you can force the processor to use less power, like lower the voltage, without the processor becoming unstable. Turning processors on and off may may be possible. Even if it is "doable" it still doesen't mean that it's easy or doable for a reasonable consumer price. Some people may pay a premium for a dual processor powerbook, but I still think that a more powerful single solution would be a smarter choice. It can be hotter than one low power processor but it may be easyer to get rid of the heat because you have more room to place heat-sinks and fans. Quote:
i dont think heat will be as big an issue
noise is dependent on how well balanced the fans are
& its rpm
you can make a machine dead quiet if you put your mind to it
But still, fans do make noise, and the best solution is to use as few as possible, and hopefully trie to keep them at low rpm most of the time. They use battery life too.Quote:
we are getting to the point where its getting harder & harder
to keep pumping up the clock cycles without the cpu getting
really hot
as consumer level computing moves into the 64bit space
we will see a lot of interest & r&d poured into parallization at the os level (think beos)
more efficient compilers etc etc so a lot more can be
done with a lower speed cpu.
I'm not clever enough to comment on the last bit
Since that time, I can't recall them being even remotely correct on anything.
But as you all know SJ, if he can get a leg up on the competition on a PB that kind of a PB - remember its really a desktop replacement not a strict battery powered portable (where battery life is critical ala 12"/15").
Im quite sure this would happen, but I like the WOW factor it employs
Originally posted by SoopaDrive
I've done some reading in the past about binding biological elements into computer chips. I'm sure there's been some research and even testing with this concept, and I wouldn't be too surprised if IBM introduced a chip that produced very little heat due to the organisms.
What organisms
Originally posted by NETROMac
What organisms
Small organisms.
The chances of a dual processor are low at this point. Let's focus. How about just a PowerBook with ONE 970...