New powerbooks G4 revision

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Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
Hello,



Does anybody know whether or not the new powerbooks sport the 1.1V revision of the PPC 7455 ?



In other words: will the new 867 titanium be as hot as the old 800 ???



Thanx

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 10
    I wonder the same thing.



    <a href="http://www.geek.com/procspec/apple/g4.htm"; target="_blank">http://www.geek.com/procspec/apple/g4.htm</a>;



    That's a table, but it may need updating. I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that the chip in the new PB is a new 7470 variant or a new 7450 variant. Given the lack of DDR, it's almost surely a 7450.



    However, at 30W typ, the 1Ghz 7455 is hardly adequate. I bet it's 130nm and perhaps 1.1V. I'm hoping to find out soon.
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  • Reply 2 of 10
    lucaluca Posts: 3,833member
    Hmm... according to that chart, the two chips labeled ".13?" microns still only support 256 kb of on chip L2 cache. Wouldn't they support 512 kb if they were smaller like that? I'm not an expert in computer chips but I heard that the G3 in the new iBooks supports more L2 cache because of a smaller .13 micron thing instead of .18.
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  • Reply 3 of 10
    matsumatsu Posts: 6,558member
    I'm pretty sure it's just a regular old .18u SOI G4 in there. Possibly tweaked a bit to run at a lower voltage, and probably using more agressive cooling, the power savings of the new GPU (9000 is more effiecient than 7500) together with a stronger battery to deliver similar battery/heat performance as the older models. The update is just an evolution of the old MoBo.
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  • Reply 4 of 10
    FWIW I went to the Apple Store at Woodfield Mall in Schaumburg and tried out the 867 and the 800. The 867 seemed a lot cooler than the 800 (both had the usual plethora of hard drive intensive demos running on them). The Radeon 9000 adjusts power consumption according to use; but the battery on the new books is larger, so I would suspect that there hasn't been much of an overall reduction in power consumption; more likely, improvements in heat dissipation, such as further improvements to all the cooling ductwork introduced in the previous revision.



    Particularly of note was the fact that the Chernobyl syndrome that used to afflict the area of the TiBook aroud the on/off switch has all but vanished -- it is no longer piping hot around that corner, just lukewarm like the rest of the new machine. But it is still quite warm, if no longer hot, on the bottom.



    Be warned, though -- this is a very unscientific test. And I did not get the opportunity to run games on either machine -- that would be a real test of what changes the new graphic card has brought.
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  • Reply 5 of 10
    [quote]Originally posted by Matsu:

    <strong>I'm pretty sure it's just a regular old .18u SOI G4 in there. Possibly tweaked a bit to run at a lower voltage, and probably using more agressive cooling, the power savings of the new GPU (9000 is more effiecient than 7500) together with a stronger battery to deliver similar battery/heat performance as the older models. The update is just an evolution of the old MoBo.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    The number one way to get a chip to run on a lower voltage is to shrink the feature size. The smaller the n-channel, the less voltage required to reach the other side.



    My bets: .13u 7455.



    Also indicative: the battery is 61 watt-hours. The typical output of the traditional, .18u 7455 is something like 28w. (maybe that's max, but I can't remember for sure, and usually documentation lists typical power dissipation.) Given that the display takes up power, as do the disk, the mobo, and everything else, there's no way a desktop 7455 would last even 40min under typical operating conditions. My revA/500 has a 45W power output @ 24V, and beyond that a bunch of wattage is just dissipated across resistors in order to bring that 24V into 5V, 3.3V, 1.5V, etc. I assume that's why the power button area gets warm (resistors underneath). I have a 50W-hour battery (I think) and Apple advertised 5 hours of use. I usually get 3 to 3.5 under typical, continuous use. If the new versions behave at all similarly (as they are advertised to) then the chip is definitely not the desktop 7455.



    Something to consider. . .





    On cache: 50% of modern processor dies are cache. By shrinking the feature size, you can make the same chip on a smaller die. So now you can use more space for cache. That's all.



    [ 11-13-2002: Message edited by: Splinemodel ]</p>
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  • Reply 6 of 10
    Thanks for this info.

    However I thought Motorola would jump to .13 processors only next year. My hope was that Apple would use the latest 7455 rev, that works with a lower voltage. That would mean the new Powerbooks (at least the 867) would run cooler than previous revs. A big plus in my opinion.



    Anyway, my order is being reviewed, now I'm in waiting mode. I'll know for sure when it's delivered at my doorstep <img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" />



    Alexis
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  • Reply 7 of 10
    Photoeditor, Matsu-

    From what you have seen of them, will the old PB G4 (667/800) batteries work with these latest updates, or does this mean that I have to buy all new batteries and chargers for road work?

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  • Reply 8 of 10
    paulpaul Posts: 5,278member
    new batteries??! says who?
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  • Reply 9 of 10
    matsumatsu Posts: 6,558member
    New battery is 61 watt-hours, I read somewhere that the old one was 56 or so, probably just a minor tweak, looks like the same size and shape, I don't think it's bigger or anything. Anyone have an old spec for the 667/800's, I could be wrong -- I think I read on this board.



    I don't think the G4 is .13u, but we'll have to wait for someone to open one up to see for sure. The .13u product on Moto's map seemed a bit more ambitious than 1Ghz, it would at least have starteed life where the last .18u G4's left off (at 1.25Ghz) we haven't even seen a FSB improvement and the .13u G4's are supposed to use 200Mhz FSB and then RapidIO as per the Moto PDF's that were floating around the net the last coupleof weeks. Granted those PDF's migh not mean squat, but I really think a .13u G4 would have yielded a better clock and FSB speed, and more significant improvement in battery life. Apple doesn't claim any improvement in battery life over the last models. Funny, cause ATI claims the 9000 will yield 20-30 minutes more run time than a 7500 when watching a DVD for example.
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  • Reply 10 of 10
    nebrienebrie Posts: 483member
    [quote]Originally posted by Matsu:

    <strong>New battery is 61 watt-hours, I read somewhere that the old one was 56 or so, probably just a minor tweak, looks like the same size and shape, I don't think it's bigger or anything. Anyone have an old spec for the 667/800's, I could be wrong -- I think I read on this board.

    </strong><hr></blockquote>



    55.5 according to the Apple Store which has not begun selling the new ones individually.
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