Power5 & PPC 980
It may be worth checking such news in more detail:
http://news.com.com/2100-1001-984808.html?tag=nl
The Power5 may very well be the 'father' for a stripped-down G5+ or G6 (or in IBMs' terms PPC 980).
-Do you think the 3 GHz will be achieved with the PPC 970 / G5 or will this already be the G5+ since IBM is much faster ?
-Did anyone check IBMs sites for low-power versions of these chips, eg. for blades? This may be key to anticipate a G5 laptop arrival time from Apple...
Discuss.
http://news.com.com/2100-1001-984808.html?tag=nl
The Power5 may very well be the 'father' for a stripped-down G5+ or G6 (or in IBMs' terms PPC 980).
-Do you think the 3 GHz will be achieved with the PPC 970 / G5 or will this already be the G5+ since IBM is much faster ?
-Did anyone check IBMs sites for low-power versions of these chips, eg. for blades? This may be key to anticipate a G5 laptop arrival time from Apple...
Discuss.
Comments
Moving to Future Hardware.
I think that basically the PPC 980 will be a Hyperthreaded PPC 970 (like the P4 HT compared to the regular P4). Perhaps the size of the cache will increase and some others minors improvement. However the IBM HT is supposed to be much more efficient than the intel counterpart. 8)
1. Still one core. I don't think IBM moves to Dual Cores until the 65nm process is ready.
2. L2 cache of 1MB. Matching Prescott. Fabbing at 90nm gives them more real estate.
3. Supports SMT of course.
4. Has additional Altivec improvements.
That's it. I don't expect huge changes in he second gen 9xx processor.
Originally posted by hmurchison
That's it. I don't expect huge changes in he second gen 9xx processor.
The 980 will be based off the Power 5 core. I'd call that a good sized change.
Originally posted by Nitzer
The 980 will be based off the Power 5 core. I'd call that a good sized change.
Exactly. And the POWER5 core is substantially different than the POWER4 core. There will be great all around improvements, one of which will be a better VMX integration with the rest of the core. And possibly a built-in memory controller.
970
970+ (Spring/Summer '04)
980 (Summer/Fall '04)
or was the 980 further on?
Screed
Originally posted by sCreeD
Wasn't the rumored evolution the following:
970
970+ (Spring/Summer '04)
980 (Summer/Fall '04)
or was the 980 further on?
Screed
hahahahaha
oh man... i remember when the g4 was introduced, the g5 speculation ran rampant with claims that it would be introduced within 2 years. ha!
hahahahahaha
Originally posted by Placebo
What will the 980 be called by Apple? G6? And when is it supposed to be coming?
I can't imagine the 980 coming out before Spring '05. Or rather I can't imagine Apple switching from the G5 to the G6 in less than 18 months. Maybe it's me. We've been under the G4 cloud now for 3 and a half laborious years that I've come accustomed to expecting architecture changes to happen more slowly.
Screed
Originally posted by billybobsky
hahahahaha
oh man... i remember when the g4 was introduced, the g5 speculation ran rampant with claims that it would be introduced within 2 years. ha!
hahahahahaha
Those were the days.
Different game now with IBM.
Originally posted by Placebo
What will the 980 be called by Apple? G6? And when is it supposed to be coming?
Geez, I love this. The day after the official announcement of the G5, speculation about a G6 starts.
I consider yesterday a hallmark day for Apple. That day marked an end to years of "WHERE IS THE G5!!!!!" posts, and a beginning to all the "I WANT A G6!!!!" posts.
Originally posted by sCreeD
Wasn't the rumored evolution the following:
970
970+ (Spring/Summer '04)
980 (Summer/Fall '04)
or was the 980 further on?
Screed
If the 970+ you are refering to is the 9nm fabed 970, then I think that IBM said that they would rapidly move to that. I'm not sure of if they stated an exact date, but by year end sticks out in my mind. That would be about 6 months at 13 nm and in time for a January Macworld intoduction of new models based on this new chip.
Originally posted by Outsider
Exactly. And the POWER5 core is substantially different than the POWER4 core. There will be great all around improvements, one of which will be a better VMX integration with the rest of the core. And possibly a built-in memory controller.
I agree that there will be a lot more improvements like bigger L2 cache (one MB for example), but i have doubt about the VMX integration thing. The power5 is not developped for Apple but for big mainframe IBM server, the integration of VMX is not their priority especially if you consider that the power 5 is not supposed to have VMX in it (or if the power 5 have Vmx it will be a real insider info).
For the memory controller, the current mobo of Apple seems to be quite good, i don't see the need to change it so quickly, assuming that the 980 will appear in late 2004 or at the beginning of 2005.
The biggest improvement of the power5 core will be the Multithread feature. It should rock under os X.
Originally posted by Powerdoc
I agree that there will be a lot more improvements like bigger L2 cache (one MB for example), but i have doubt about the VMX integration thing. The power5 is not developped for Apple but for big mainframe IBM server, the integration of VMX is not their priority especially if you consider that the power 5 is not supposed to have VMX in it (or if the power 5 have Vmx it will be a real insider info).
For the memory controller, the current mobo of Apple seems to be quite good, i don't see the need to change it so quickly, assuming that the 980 will appear in late 2004 or at the beginning of 2005.
The biggest improvement of the power5 core will be the Multithread feature. It should rock under os X.
Sorry I wasn't specific enough. The 1st sentence of my post is comparing how different the cores of the Power4 and 5 will be. The rest of the post refers to the 980 specifically.
Apple is STILL using G3's and will be using G4's still (in its consumer products) 18+ months from now.
Moto will "fix" the G4.
Originally posted by Outsider
Sorry I wasn't specific enough. The 1st sentence of my post is comparing how different the cores of the Power4 and 5 will be. The rest of the post refers to the 980 specifically.
Oh i see. If you are rigth and that IBM specifically improve the VMX unit in the PPC 980 core it will be a very good sign. It will be the sign that the PPC 9** series will not be only the celeron like of the power x line, but a specialized architecture for Apple, simplified in some aeras, but more achieved in others.
The Celeron of Intel in other ways was always a crippled version of the pentium.
Originally posted by sCreeD
Wasn't the rumored evolution the following:
970
970+ (Spring/Summer '04)
980 (Summer/Fall '04)
or was the 980 further on?
The 980 will be further on.
Originally posted by Matsu
You can check the web for commentary by Apple, in another thread somewhere in AI right now, can't remember which tho, stating that Apple-Moto still has a LONG life ahead and that pretty much guarantees you won't see a 970 based PB any time soon, not even in six months.
Apple is STILL using G3's and will be using G4's still (in its consumer products) 18+ months from now.
Moto will "fix" the G4.
Moto has been working on "fixing" the G4 for how many years now? Along with that they are just getting around to "fixing" the 13 nm process after 2 years working on it, and we might see a G4 on it by year end. Last I heard the official word from Moto is that they wont "fix" the slow FSB or support "true" DDR ram till sometime next year, with Moto's recent record that may be more like 2006. If Apple waits for Moto to "Fix" the G4 then they will be so far behind that a Octo G4 wont be equil to the bottom line $299 P4.