9XX timeline? Wow? :O

Posted:
in Future Apple Hardware edited January 2014
From Macrumors:



Quote:

The following information is from an unconfirmed and anonymous source. As such, authenticity is always uncertain, but due to the content of the piece, was felt to be of sufficient interest for publishing. Of interest, MacBidouille has posted similar (but fewer) details in their unconfirmed rumors of the PPC's timeline. This information below may represent corroboration -- or simply a common source. Take, as with all rumors, with an appropriate amount of skepticism.



Apple and IBM have been working on parallel development of the Power5 and PPC 980. The PPC 980 is a single core version of the Power 5. While prototype forms of this chip exist, it is almost a year away from shipping in Macs.



Improvements in the PPC 980 include Hyperthreading, eLiza error correction, and more massive parallelism. IBM's implementation of hyperthreading provides a 30% gain over Intel's. eLiza technology will reduce the bottlenecks when the branch prediction unit fails. Altivec will split into 3 pipelines (vs 2 in the 970), 4 Integer and 4 Floating point units. 980 will have to be built on a 90nm processor due to heat dissipation requirements.



Steve's comment of 3GHz in 1 year will not be accomplished with the G5 (970) - which will top out at 2.6-2.8GHz. The PPC 980 will start at speeds of 2.6-3GHz and top out around 4.5-5GHz. The G5 will make its way into PowerBook lines in Jan/Feb, Xserve's later this year, and iMacs in approximately one year.



Marklar's project size has decreased, but remains ongoing. There are four generations of the PowerPC including and beyond the 970 that are in development and planning. Besides the 980 chips (targetted at end of 2004), there are plans for 990 chips on a 65nm process in 2005/2006 @ 6GHz and scaling up to near 10GHz. Beyond this, the PPC 9900 starting on a 45nm process is targetted in 2007/2008 running up to 20-25GHz.



Discuss.



Lemon Bon Bon
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 105
    der kopfder kopf Posts: 2,275member
    Quote:

    Steve's comment of 3GHz in 1 year will not be accomplished with the G5 (970) - which will top out at 2.6-2.8GHz. The PPC 980 will start at speeds of 2.6-3GHz and top out around 4.5-5GHz. The G5 will make its way into PowerBook lines in Jan/Feb, Xserve's later this year, and iMacs in approximately one year.



    Probably beaten to death already, but isn't the 970 expected to top 3 GHz once it goes 90 nm? Or does the quote imply that the 970 will never get to 90 nm?
  • Reply 2 of 105
    murkmurk Posts: 935member
    Who needs a stinkin' G5! I guess we'll all be holding out until 2007/2008.
  • Reply 3 of 105
    lemon bon bonlemon bon bon Posts: 2,383member
    I don't recall Steve saying anything about THE 970 reaching 3 gig. He did say '3 gig' within the year. Which, being Steve, could mean Fall 04 if the 980 is to be believed.



    IF the 980 is concurrent and they have prototypes working now?! (Like they said in the G5 vid'...)



    Could be a G6 by San Fran' 05! Not THAT far away!



    Could we possibly be in for a major shock and see the G6 by August 04? With 0.09 970s becoming the low end?



    So we may only see 2.2-2.6 gig 970s? Scratches head.



    Remember the press release? .13 2.5 gig 970s. IF that was a typo (as some have indicated...) then 2.5 gig 970s might be near the max we might expect from the 970 as IBM indicated they'd move to a .09 process quickly. If Intel reach it by Fall/early 04...IBM won't be far behind!



    I wonder...now the 9XX is game on...and that the 'rules' have been sorted out...surely a 980 would follow more quickly than the 970? The G4 was hot on the heels of the G3, remember? Is it impossible to expect a G6 980 a year later IF the 980 is concurrent as indicated with this rumour? That's next August! A 3 gig G6! WOW! Even a year and a half later puts it at San Fran 05 at the latest!



    Was the 970 after the Power 4? Anybody know a concurrent 980/Power 5 development chances of bringing a G6(!) faster to market?



    That would mean cranking the 0.09 970s would breach 3 gig very comfortably?



    The timeline looks exotic. It's anonymous. These are usually vague. But look at the 970. We got 1.4-1.8 estimates and we ended up with 1.6-2.0 gig 970s..! The G3 aint going to cut it as a consumer chip for Apple's needs bar the iBook. So...it would make sense to push the 970 into consumer land as FAST as possible. This would coincide with any growth strategy Apple has. They aint going to get there on ancient G4/G3s...



    If the macrumors timeline is anything to go by...the Mac product line will be turned on its head this time next year and revolutionised in 2!



    No wonder Steve seemed confident at the Shareholder's meeting a while back. 'A few tricks up our sleeve' when asked about Desktops. I'd say!!!



    True or false...Apple gets great chips, IBM gets Power chips and own product cpus co-funded by Apple. Four million new customers per year with the potential for way more. Apple needs to get its product line over to the 970 ASAP...if it means it keeps that kind of Roadmap on the Map!



    What it means is that you can buy a POWERMac at any time and in a years time Apple will have one to blow it out the water.



    Looks like the 970 was just the warm-up act!



    Lemon Bon Bon (in shock...)



  • Reply 4 of 105
    dhagan4755dhagan4755 Posts: 2,152member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Lemon Bon Bon

    Looks like the 970 was just the warm-up act!



    Indeed!
  • Reply 5 of 105
    zapchudzapchud Posts: 844member
    HOLY SHIT!



    If this is true, we're... really not having to worry about the stinkin' Prescott, Opteron and their friends, I'd say.



    4 Integer units and 4 FPU's, and a 3-pipelined altivec-unit? This beast will scream if they somehow manage to keep the execution core busy. I guess that's exactly how they're planning to manage a 30% increase with SMT over Intels HT, they're ending up with something like 14-16 execution units! Everything seems so good, and now, after the G5, it doesn't seem unlikely at all either.



    Of course, this is an unconfirmed rumor, and could be anything. Anyone could make up such a rumor, and a timeline for such a distant future is nothing to trust, even if the rumor is true. It's hard to accomplish to fulfill all the plans, in a business like this.



    But.. if we're getting anything like this 980 spoken of here, I see no real need to worry for the speed of high-end macs for a long time!
  • Reply 6 of 105
    lemon bon bonlemon bon bon Posts: 2,383member
    Quote:

    4 Integer units and 4 FPU's, and a 3-pipelined altivec-unit?



    Well, I can SEE how the Power 5 is able to trounce a Power 4 by 4 times!!!



    WOW!



    Even if the 980 is close to those specs, it should wallop a 970 2:1!







    Even if the Altivec is only half as good again...that is extending Apple's lead in bio-cpu-ing ala BLAST! Woh!



    4 FPU! Oh-my-word! Make Lightwave screeeeeeeeeeeeeam!



    Buy a G5 now. Buy a G6 in a year's time. Buy a G7 a year after that?



    Who knows.



    Ouuch! Looks like IBM is all over Intel with PAYBACK!



    Bend over, Intel...this won't hurt a bit...



    Lemon Bon Bon



    Quote:

    4 Integer units and 4 FPU's, and a 3-pipelined altivec-unit? This beast will scream if they somehow manage to keep the execution core busy. I guess that's exactly how they're planning to manage a 30% increase with SMT over Intels HT, they're ending up with something like 14-16 execution units! Everything seems so good, and now, after the G5, it doesn't seem unlikely at all either.



  • Reply 7 of 105
    Seems like Lemon got an orgasme..
  • Reply 8 of 105
    programmerprogrammer Posts: 3,457member
    Calm down guys.



    While I don't believe this rumour as gospel, its isn't necessarily pure bunk. IBM has clearly (based on their annoucments and presentations so far) decided that a line of embedded / desktop PowerPC chips is needed, and Apple is going to buy enough of them to help justify the development effort and allow them to leverage the POWER work they are doing. This started part way through the POWER4 development cycle, which explains why the 970 arrived a year and a half later than the POWER5. Having done a scaled down version once, however, means that they know how to use their automated tools to do this and so doing it on the POWER5 should be considerably easier and faster. The AltiVec unit can just be an enhanced version of what they did for the 970. So development of the 980 in parallel, and introduction in or near the same timeframe as the POWER5 is not inconcievable. We've done that kind of thing with software on different platforms many times.



    The timing is the only thing which gives me pause -- to make the 3 GHz within 12 months means that they have to introduce the 980 based machines by June-August of 2004, which is very aggressive considering the POWER5's earliest arrival is pegged at April 2004. If they are, in fact, truly doing simultaneous development though then this timing is actually right on.



    The 970 on 0.09 micro might never make a full 3 GHz. If 2.0 GHz has the 0.13 micron full tapped out (and at ~97 Watts output I'd be amazed if it wasn't!), then a straight process shrink from 0.13 to 0.09 might only net a 40-45% clock rate bump.



    This is the most optmistic timeline I've seen for the new processors, and it rides on the "ragged edge of believability" and requires us to have continued faith in IBM and Apple... looking at what they just delivered gives me hope that when it comes time for me to upgrade my machine next August as planned, it might be a 3 GHz dual SMT PowerPC 980. That would be very very cool, certainly achieving my "at 6x speed improvement" upgrade criteria.



    Don't expect to blow Intel out of the water though -- their plans are equally impressive. But at least we're keeping up again, and in practice the Mac will have the upper hand in many cases.
  • Reply 9 of 105
    bigcbigc Posts: 1,224member
    6x speed improvement, I only shoot for 2x.
  • Reply 10 of 105
    o and ao and a Posts: 579member
    Imagine the speech reocognition on a 20 ghz machine. Screw the keyboard.
  • Reply 11 of 105
    Beat me to it. 25 Ghz BABY!!! The future is lookin DAMN good!
  • Reply 12 of 105
    cliveclive Posts: 720member
    This story is complete bollocks. Apple just launched a completely new range of machines (and can't even ship them) and you're contemplating that they're going to have another completely new range of chips within a year!?
  • Reply 13 of 105
    dhagan4755dhagan4755 Posts: 2,152member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by O and A

    Imagine the speech reocognition on a 20 ghz machine. Screw the keyboard.



    Interesting point. At some point in the future, I would suspect we'll talk to our computers much like we talk on our cell phones. I believe the tablet is just a manifestation of how we will use computers at some point in the future when a keyboard is no longer useful. Right now the tablet isn't too useful. I'd imagine Apple is laying the framework where they would be the 1st ones to get rid of the keyboard and mouse -- as they did with the floppy disk -- and he way you'd use the computer is straight GUI, stylus, and Judy the TimeLife Operator style headsets. Bring it on!
  • Reply 14 of 105
    leonisleonis Posts: 3,427member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Bigc

    6x speed improvement, I only shoot for 2x.





    I shoot for 3x
  • Reply 15 of 105
    zapchudzapchud Posts: 844member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Programmer

    Calm down guys.



    While I don't believe this rumour as gospel




    Of course



    Rumor is rumor, and I don't really believe it until I see it. Only reason I got a bit of an adrenaline-kick reading this rumor was that I realized that this mystical POWER5 might actually have this kind of hardware, seems logical to me, and then - the 980 too.



    With 8 regular, scalar units, I'd expect this beast to have even deeper OOOE - the ability to have alot more instructions in-flight. Am I correct when I say that it simply must, to avoid too heavy reliance on the compiler, and to solve all the problems with scheduling to keep the units busy?



    And what about LOAD/STORE-units? double those too, maybe? Automagically @ 16 execution-units then...



    This chip seems to get very complex and big, if this is true.



    Edit: PS. Oh, and I shoot for 4x improvement when I purchase stuff
  • Reply 16 of 105
    cliveclive Posts: 720member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by DHagan4755

    Interesting point. At some point in the future, I would suspect we'll talk to our computers much like we talk on our cell phones.



    That's what we were thinking ten years ago...
  • Reply 17 of 105
    hmurchisonhmurchison Posts: 12,419member
    Damn they didn't mention whether the 980 would have an ondie Memory controller. The Elastic Bus has to have some sort of limit and that limit must be coming soon.



    I think these rumors sound plausible. But with this type of speed. My Goodness what am I going to do with it. Looks like we will be Editing HiDef Video in Final Cut Pro 6. We'll be tossing 500MB images around in Photoshop 9-10 like rag dolls. We'll have Realtime Ray Tracing.
  • Reply 18 of 105
    Interesting and not wholly beyond the realms of possibility given Intel's plans for Tejas, Nehalem etc.



    The idea of a Macintosh running at 10GHz within the next purchasing cycle or two is bizarre, and it makes you wonder what Avie and his little software pixies are dreaming up to take advantage of all those cycles.



    All I can say is I can't wait to see that bake-off - they're going to have start filming them and replaying them in slo-mo, otherwise half the audience is going to blink and miss them.
  • Reply 19 of 105
    zapchudzapchud Posts: 844member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by hmurchison

    We'll have Realtime Ray Tracing.



    Realtime Raytracing is something we do have already.



    Realtime radiosity is something I look forward to
  • Reply 20 of 105
    bigcbigc Posts: 1,224member
    Be nice to tell the machine to render a 3-D fly-over from 30 different camera angles of a series of 10 seamless 7.5 minute topo sheets/DEM files rendered in PovRay @1600 x 1200 and 300 dpi: and have it do it in real time at 20 frames a second, yeah right.
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