PPC 970 date?

t'hain esh kelch

I've been reading rumors of a february debut, a 3rd quarter debut and 2004 debut.



Everybody seems to have their very own personal sources!

And what I would like to know is, what does YOUR source('s) indicate?



Who has 'official' rumors and who has 'unofficial' rumors, and who's just guessing?



I (Guess) august-september.

kidred

The fall.

bigc

rumour has it as: "Real Soon Now".

ghost_user_name

My official sources tells me nobody knows

chucker

Didn't IBM articles clearly state Q3 / 03? Which would be around October.

gizzmonic

Gauging by the urges of most people in these forums (including myself), I don't think the PPC970 is gonna have any trouble finding a date .

jbl

[quote]Originally posted by Chucker:

<strong>Didn't IBM articles clearly state Q3 / 03? Which would be around October.</strong><hr></blockquote>



Q3 begins July 1 and ends Sept 30. October is just when they report Q3 results.

spooky

when?



probably after apple have waited for the competition to move too far ahead. . . .



seriously though I just hope they don't find a way to hinder the performance of the new systems

brussell

<a href="http://www-3.ibm.com/chips/products/powerpc/newsletter/dec2002/newproductfocus2.html"; target="_blank">Sampling is scheduled to begin in the second quarter of 2003 with production expected in the second half of 2003.</a>

t'hain esh kelch

[quote]Originally posted by BRussell:

<strong><a href="http://www-3.ibm.com/chips/products/powerpc/newsletter/dec2002/newproductfocus2.html"; target="_blank">Sampling is scheduled to begin in the second quarter of 2003 with production expected in the second half of 2003.</a></strong><hr></blockquote>

Expected.. But who says Steve didnt let out a few false rumors just to surprise us all by a february announcement? Even YOU might be Steve undercover!

serrano

RSN&trade;



What the... that ? should be a ?.



OK. That second question mark should be a superscripted TM. So, yes, I know what RSN is... it just doesn't seem complete without the TM.



[ 01-24-2003: Message edited by: serrano ]



[ 01-24-2003: Message edited by: serrano ]



[edit by Amorph: HTML entities are your friend. ]



[ 01-24-2003: Message edited by: Amorph ]</p>

fred_lj

Not that I would be one to complain, but wouldn't releasing the 970 in February undermine Jobs' whole marketing strategy for the year (or at least what seems his marketing strategy -- "year of the notebook")? But perhaps not, perhaps we'd see something tremendously surprising like we got with the PowerBooks......hmmmmm..... IBM is a darn well-run company - they could ramp up production and have given late dates on the advice of Apple who they're bound by contract with (assuming Apple's even chosen to use the 970, but c'ommon!). Perhaps a 970 release in the XServe will come in February - at least this way Apple can blow the socks off the benchmarks with *some* machine, albeit a server.



Awwwww, mom!! I wanna 970!!! Mom!!



This is how sad I've become. Pitiful. But wouldn't it be darn nice to see Apple release this thing? They could be responsible for sparking the computer industry to make a turnaround if they market it well enough. I say phooey with the Switcher commercials - they're demeaning and humiliating to both the Mac platform and their "actors." Bring back Ridley Scott for some incredible work again, Apple -- spend the money, do something dramatic instead of silly and cute as your commercials have been!

mmicist

IBM are under a legal obligation, as a result of an anti-trust settlement, to announce (reasonably) accurately their forthcoming plans. If they say sampling in Q2 and production in Q3, a mere six months before the first of those dates, then they cannot wildly diverge without serious questions being asked.



However, were they to make a variation on the 970 for a specific customer as a custom chip, they don't have to pre-announce it at all, and may be contractually required not to.



&lt; Wild speculation mode&gt; If Apple came along some years ago and spoke to IBM, saying "How about taking your plans for a POWER4 lite and making us a special version, dual core, shared L2, on-board memory controller, and our nice ApplePI interface?". IBM would probably have said "Show us the money and we'll do it." I like to think of it as the PPC 977, could appear any time, and, being a custom design, knowledge would not even be widespread within IBM. &lt;/Wild speculation mode&gt;



michael

amorph

Along those lines, IBM only promised ship dates for the .13&mu; 970. What if they have one coming fabbed at 18&mu;? That would explain why they're not being fabbed at Fishkill right now, and why the PowerMac has so many radical means to cool its innards.



<img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" />

fred_lj

I hadn't thought of that...---what an incredibly great wild speculative sentiment. Like I said, Apple'll probably throw us another curve ball, and something like you describe seems to fit that bill rather nicely -- considering Steve-o's little remarks to CNBC ("some things up our sleeve..." tends to imply a design nobody knows about, right? So why would they go on the well-known 970? Even a slight deviation is still just that -- and it's its own proc...)



wow, excited, hoping...thinking.



Anyone else?

@homenow

[quote]Originally posted by mmicist:

<strong>IBM are under a legal obligation, as a result of an anti-trust settlement, to announce (reasonably) accurately their forthcoming plans. If they say sampling in Q2 and production in Q3, a mere six months before the first of those dates, then they cannot wildly diverge without serious questions being asked.



However, were they to make a variation on the 970 for a specific customer as a custom chip, they don't have to pre-announce it at all, and may be contractually required not to.



&lt; Wild speculation mode&gt; If Apple came along some years ago and spoke to IBM, saying "How about taking your plans for a POWER4 lite and making us a special version, dual core, shared L2, on-board memory controller, and our nice ApplePI interface?". IBM would probably have said "Show us the money and we'll do it." I like to think of it as the PPC 977, could appear any time, and, being a custom design, knowledge would not even be widespread within IBM. &lt;/Wild speculation mode&gt;



michael</strong><hr></blockquote>





I like "wild speculation mode"...lol....honestly most of it sounds like it could be withine the realm of possabilities, especially given IBM's past deals with Nintendo and now with Sony to build custom PowerPC chips. The only difference is that all of these deals were pre-announced, and this only helps IBM. Not anouncing a deal like this may or may not be in IBM's best interest, they do afterall need to answer to stockholders. The only part of your described chip that I dont think is in the realm of possability is the dual core. If they had a dual core version of the 970 they would have anounced it.

gar

[quote]Originally posted by Amorph:

<strong>Along those lines, IBM only promised ship dates for the .13&mu; 970. What if they have one coming fabbed at 18&mu;? That would explain why they're not being fabbed at Fishkill right now, and why the PowerMac has so many radical means to cool its innards.



<img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" /> </strong><hr></blockquote>



.... wow... :eek:



well, that will be a lot of updates till mwsf2004

sc_markt

[quote]Originally posted by Amorph:

<strong>Along those lines, IBM only promised ship dates for the .13&mu; 970. What if they have one coming fabbed at 18&mu;? That would explain why they're not being fabbed at Fishkill right now, and why the PowerMac has so many radical means to cool its innards.



</strong><hr></blockquote>



Great observation.

mmicist

[quote]Originally posted by @homenow:

<strong>





I like "wild speculation mode"...lol....honestly most of it sounds like it could be withine the realm of possabilities, especially given IBM's past deals with Nintendo and now with Sony to build custom PowerPC chips. The only difference is that all of these deals were pre-announced, and this only helps IBM. Not anouncing a deal like this may or may not be in IBM's best interest, they do afterall need to answer to stockholders. The only part of your described chip that I dont think is in the realm of possability is the dual core. If they had a dual core version of the 970 they would have anounced it.</strong><hr></blockquote>



But Nintendo and Sony wanted to announce, so IBM were only too happy. The shareholders know that IBM are a foundry, they make chips for other people, so long as they charge a reasonable rate, that's all the stockholders need to know.

Dual core is possible, with 512K shared L2, you are probably talking about 200mm^2 chip area, for 1M L2, about 240mm^2. Whilst more expensive than the current G4, should be considerably cheaper than two, and the high bandwidth should eliminate the need for L3 cache, which is very expensive to imlement.



michael

stunned

My guess is the third quarter of this year. Any later would only drag Apple's proits down due to declining sales and Apple is not known for being early either.

algol

My guess is that none of us really know what apple will release. That what we most expect will be the last thing to happen and that whatever apple does will be good enough to hold them over but not good enough to bash Intel. That we will all be dissapointed when the time comes but will all race out to buy the new machines anyway. Then we'll all complain for 4 years about how apple's are to slow and that we need the G6. We will all go on about how great the G6 is and how much better it will be compared to Intel. In the mean time apple will stop going to trade shows and we will never have a clue as to when anything will be announced. This site will slowly dissolve into nothingness because of lack of rumors and then one day apple will be bought by Micro$soft and shut down. And of course because of the super Apple secrecy no one will know about it for 7 years. Oh and did I forget to say that the PPC970 will be out this year. Oh wait we already know that. Gosh you guys... you all know that apple will take their sweet time on it.