And in other news, these chips won't actually be available in meaningful quantities for another four years....(or has IBM overcome the general production incompetencies that we all know from Apple's PPC days?)
The POWER6 isn't a general use processor like the G5 was. You'd never see it in an Apple desktop anyway. It is very good at one thing, but not at lots of different code. 4.7GHz would seem slow.
I love how everyone is bashing the Power6. A few years ago, it was Intel getting bashed, and it would have been nothing but oohs and aahs about the Power6.
Which is what it should be. No one so far has gotten close to 4.7GHz. That's pretty impressive. I'm sure it's a total beast, which is how most IBM processors are. Don't get me wrong: I think it was the right decision to take Apple to Intel, but there's no harm in appreciating a good piece of engineering. The Power6 will be a boon for telecom especially.
theapplegenius: Umm, the Power6 is indeed a general purpose chip. General purpose for extreme requirements. It's not an ASIC or a DSP or anything close. I'm not sure it even includes DSP instructions the way the G5 does.
theapplegenius: Umm, the Power6 is indeed a general purpose chip. General purpose for extreme requirements. It's not an ASIC or a DSP or anything close. I'm not sure it even includes DSP instructions the way the G5 does.
It's a general purpose chip in the same way that an Itanium is a general purpose chip. You know what I mean. It wouldn't end up in a Power Mac G6.
I like how IBM compares the features to the G5 and current Apple products as if Apple is going to come back.
The POWER6 is compared to another server chip, the Itanium processor that runs HP's server line: "the processor bandwidth of the POWER6 chip could download the entire iTunes catalog in about 60 seconds -- 30 times faster than HP's Itanium."
Quote:
Originally Posted by bdkennedy1
"The chip could also run at the same speed with half the consumption, IBM says." Then why not just save electricity and just run it at half consumption?
"At 4.7 GHz, the dual-core POWER6 processor doubles the speed of the previous generation POWER5 while using nearly the same amount of electricity to run and cool it. This means customers can use the new processor to either increase their performance by 100 percent or cut their power consumption virtually in half."
Quote:
Originally Posted by Neruda
And in other news, these chips won't actually be available in meaningful quantities for another four years....
It should be available at the end of this year in the p570.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Splinemodel
I love how everyone is bashing the Power6. A few years ago, it was Intel getting bashed, and it would have been nothing but oohs and aahs about the Power6.
I'm joking of course but it's not so far fetched. Unlike the PowerPC 970 which was cut down from IBM's POWER4 series chips with AltiVec hacked on, the POWER6 is more PowerPC like from the beginning.
The other thing to note is when the PPC 970 was running at 2+ Ghz, the POWER4 was only running at 1.8Ghz. Server class chips are much more conservatively clocked. Who knows, perhaps a POWER6 derived PowerPC could run 6+Ghz.
It still makes me wonder if Apple couldn't pursue a dual architecture approach instead of being Intel only. It was a great thing that they switched to Intel for laptops but a POWER6 derived XServe would kick ass.
This is looks like a terribly overvalued deal.....
Wow, private equity is beginning to scrape the bottom of the barrel.
Yep, I agree. Its because its not "the deal makers" money. Its a reflection in the growing superannuation money from around the world. Its yours and my money. I'd be wery wery afwaid.\
It still makes me wonder if Apple couldn't pursue a dual architecture approach instead of being Intel only. It was a great thing that they switched to Intel for laptops but a POWER6 derived XServe would kick ass.
Yeh, you could be spot on. If Apple developed OSX for intel in their skunkworks dept for 5 years, its quite feasible they are maintaining a POWER version now, only to be dragged out when conditions are appropriate
Now is the time to develop a games machine that is designed to run standard PC games using a Core 2 Quad CPU. Instant catalogue of cheap games and guaranteed future support. You wouldn't need Windows completely, just the bits that PC games need.
Your second sentence is half right. A stripped down games-only Windows PC would have an instant catalog of cheap games, however it would hardly be guaranteed future support. Whatever combination of CPU and graphics processor it has will be obsolete before the system leaves the factory. In the end, such a system will quickly be left behind in the computer games world because the latest ATI/NVidia graphics card has upped the required VRAM requirements to 512MB and your games-only system only includes 256MB. Or Microsoft will release the next version of DirectX which the system isn't capable of supporting. These issues are why I gave up on trying to be a PC gamer. At least if I buy a video game console, I know it will play everything made for it.
And I think someone tried to manufacture a system like this a few years ago. From it's nonexistence now, I assume you can see how well that went...
Apple should just provide an OEM version of OS X Server with Power6 hardware. That way they get into the high end server space, leverage OS X processor agnostic nature, and not strain their relationship with Intel or waste money on dual hardware support.
And I think someone tried to manufacture a system like this a few years ago. From it's nonexistence now, I assume you can see how well that went...
If you are referring to the Phantom console, then I don't think that's a clear-cut situation such that your conclusion is a valid one.
A lot of the gamer community pretty much written them off as fraud perpetrators. The address on their communications pointed to unused commercial space that they weren't even renting. Basically, it was an expensive, locked-down, epoxy sealed & non-upgradeable PC that really didn't have much of a selling point or much interest from gamers or vendors.
Of course this ain't for your common garden workstation system, this is going to run Oracle or simulations in high end compute supercomputers.
Exactly. You would never compare a POWER6 (or POWER-anything) system against a desktop computer.
You'd compare it again big-iron from Sun, SGI, and other similar manufacturers.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ascii
POWER6 sounds like a great chip. I wonder if Apple would release a server based on it (or the PowerPC derivative)?
I suppose it could be done in theory, but I doubt Apple ever would. They have never shipped a product even close to a big-iron system. Their most powerful computer (the Mac Pro) is still a desktop class machine. It doesn't have the storage or I/O bandwidth to go up against a mainframe.
Apple would have to do a lot of hardware R&D to enter that market space. And after all that work, they'd be trying to enter a saturated monopoly market. They've done this before, but always with consumer devices, where their superior UI can attract customers away from the incumbents. That's not going to help in the mainframe biz, where the computers are only accessed by software running on other computers (and by a small number of trained system administrators.)
I don't think OS X would be much of an advantage over Solaris, IRIX or Linux in this market.
Yep, I agree. Its because its not "the deal makers" money. Its a reflection in the growing superannuation money from around the world. Its yours and my money. I'd be wery wery afwaid.\
I guess you ignore the fact that many times the deal makers have a lot of their own money in with the fund.... It might be that the majority is outsiders money, but really, to properly function it's hard to all come from one person... At least when they are starting out.
Your second sentence is half right. A stripped down games-only Windows PC would have an instant catalog of cheap games, however it would hardly be guaranteed future support. Whatever combination of CPU and graphics processor it has will be obsolete before the system leaves the factory. In the end, such a system will quickly be left behind in the computer games world because the latest ATI/NVidia graphics card has upped the required VRAM requirements to 512MB and your games-only system only includes 256MB.
The beauty of it would be that future games are optimized for it. The consoles remain static and the only way that games work well is that they are written for it - you'd probably have to do this to make any return. For games that are not optimized specifically for it, the fact that it would be a generic PC gives you a good level of compatibility.
Concerning updates, it would last at least 3 years. The GeForce 6600GT is still a decent card and it's 3 years old. Also, newer games like Double Agent, although they require DirectX shader model 3 and things, a version has been written for the PS2, which performs about the same as a Mac Mini.
Comments
IBM debuts 4.7GHz Power6
[ View this article at AppleInsider.com ]
And in other news, these chips won't actually be available in meaningful quantities for another four years....(or has IBM overcome the general production incompetencies that we all know from Apple's PPC days?)
I say good riddance.
1) F@#k IBM's dawdling effort on the PPC.
2) I have a feeling that Apple's contract is tight enough to not affect the deal with EMI.
3) Excellent work with the YouTube plugin for AppleTV.
It isn't a PPC though.
The PPC is to this, as the Pentium 2 is to the Core2.
Which is what it should be. No one so far has gotten close to 4.7GHz. That's pretty impressive. I'm sure it's a total beast, which is how most IBM processors are. Don't get me wrong: I think it was the right decision to take Apple to Intel, but there's no harm in appreciating a good piece of engineering. The Power6 will be a boon for telecom especially.
theapplegenius: Umm, the Power6 is indeed a general purpose chip. General purpose for extreme requirements. It's not an ASIC or a DSP or anything close. I'm not sure it even includes DSP instructions the way the G5 does.
theapplegenius: Umm, the Power6 is indeed a general purpose chip. General purpose for extreme requirements. It's not an ASIC or a DSP or anything close. I'm not sure it even includes DSP instructions the way the G5 does.
It's a general purpose chip in the same way that an Itanium is a general purpose chip. You know what I mean. It wouldn't end up in a Power Mac G6.
It's a general purpose chip in the same way that an Itanium is a general purpose chip. You know what I mean. It wouldn't end up in a Power Mac G6.
Not any more.
I like how IBM compares the features to the G5 and current Apple products as if Apple is going to come back.
The POWER6 is compared to another server chip, the Itanium processor that runs HP's server line: "the processor bandwidth of the POWER6 chip could download the entire iTunes catalog in about 60 seconds -- 30 times faster than HP's Itanium."
"The chip could also run at the same speed with half the consumption, IBM says." Then why not just save electricity and just run it at half consumption?
"At 4.7 GHz, the dual-core POWER6 processor doubles the speed of the previous generation POWER5 while using nearly the same amount of electricity to run and cool it. This means customers can use the new processor to either increase their performance by 100 percent or cut their power consumption virtually in half."
And in other news, these chips won't actually be available in meaningful quantities for another four years....
It should be available at the end of this year in the p570.
I love how everyone is bashing the Power6. A few years ago, it was Intel getting bashed, and it would have been nothing but oohs and aahs about the Power6.
Times they are a-changing.
its is it's. We all make mistakes and spell checker isn't infallible. No need to post a reply to comment soley on grammar.
PWN?
OS X is still fully Universal...
I'm joking of course but it's not so far fetched. Unlike the PowerPC 970 which was cut down from IBM's POWER4 series chips with AltiVec hacked on, the POWER6 is more PowerPC like from the beginning.
The other thing to note is when the PPC 970 was running at 2+ Ghz, the POWER4 was only running at 1.8Ghz. Server class chips are much more conservatively clocked. Who knows, perhaps a POWER6 derived PowerPC could run 6+Ghz.
It still makes me wonder if Apple couldn't pursue a dual architecture approach instead of being Intel only. It was a great thing that they switched to Intel for laptops but a POWER6 derived XServe would kick ass.
This is looks like a terribly overvalued deal.....
Wow, private equity is beginning to scrape the bottom of the barrel.
Yep, I agree. Its because its not "the deal makers" money. Its a reflection in the growing superannuation money from around the world. Its yours and my money. I'd be wery wery afwaid.
Cue Mac Pro Power Extreme next Tuesday.
It still makes me wonder if Apple couldn't pursue a dual architecture approach instead of being Intel only. It was a great thing that they switched to Intel for laptops but a POWER6 derived XServe would kick ass.
Yeh, you could be spot on. If Apple developed OSX for intel in their skunkworks dept for 5 years, its quite feasible they are maintaining a POWER version now, only to be dragged out when conditions are appropriate
It isn't a PPC though.
The PPC is to this, as the Pentium 2 is to the Core2.
I know. I was just venting my feeling about IBMs lackluster PPC efforts.
Now is the time to develop a games machine that is designed to run standard PC games using a Core 2 Quad CPU. Instant catalogue of cheap games and guaranteed future support. You wouldn't need Windows completely, just the bits that PC games need.
Your second sentence is half right. A stripped down games-only Windows PC would have an instant catalog of cheap games, however it would hardly be guaranteed future support. Whatever combination of CPU and graphics processor it has will be obsolete before the system leaves the factory. In the end, such a system will quickly be left behind in the computer games world because the latest ATI/NVidia graphics card has upped the required VRAM requirements to 512MB and your games-only system only includes 256MB. Or Microsoft will release the next version of DirectX which the system isn't capable of supporting. These issues are why I gave up on trying to be a PC gamer. At least if I buy a video game console, I know it will play everything made for it.
And I think someone tried to manufacture a system like this a few years ago. From it's nonexistence now, I assume you can see how well that went...
And I think someone tried to manufacture a system like this a few years ago. From it's nonexistence now, I assume you can see how well that went...
If you are referring to the Phantom console, then I don't think that's a clear-cut situation such that your conclusion is a valid one.
A lot of the gamer community pretty much written them off as fraud perpetrators. The address on their communications pointed to unused commercial space that they weren't even renting. Basically, it was an expensive, locked-down, epoxy sealed & non-upgradeable PC that really didn't have much of a selling point or much interest from gamers or vendors.
Of course this ain't for your common garden workstation system, this is going to run Oracle or simulations in high end compute supercomputers.
Exactly. You would never compare a POWER6 (or POWER-anything) system against a desktop computer.
You'd compare it again big-iron from Sun, SGI, and other similar manufacturers.
POWER6 sounds like a great chip. I wonder if Apple would release a server based on it (or the PowerPC derivative)?
I suppose it could be done in theory, but I doubt Apple ever would. They have never shipped a product even close to a big-iron system. Their most powerful computer (the Mac Pro) is still a desktop class machine. It doesn't have the storage or I/O bandwidth to go up against a mainframe.
Apple would have to do a lot of hardware R&D to enter that market space. And after all that work, they'd be trying to enter a saturated monopoly market. They've done this before, but always with consumer devices, where their superior UI can attract customers away from the incumbents. That's not going to help in the mainframe biz, where the computers are only accessed by software running on other computers (and by a small number of trained system administrators.)
I don't think OS X would be much of an advantage over Solaris, IRIX or Linux in this market.
Yep, I agree. Its because its not "the deal makers" money. Its a reflection in the growing superannuation money from around the world. Its yours and my money. I'd be wery wery afwaid.
I guess you ignore the fact that many times the deal makers have a lot of their own money in with the fund.... It might be that the majority is outsiders money, but really, to properly function it's hard to all come from one person... At least when they are starting out.
Your second sentence is half right. A stripped down games-only Windows PC would have an instant catalog of cheap games, however it would hardly be guaranteed future support. Whatever combination of CPU and graphics processor it has will be obsolete before the system leaves the factory. In the end, such a system will quickly be left behind in the computer games world because the latest ATI/NVidia graphics card has upped the required VRAM requirements to 512MB and your games-only system only includes 256MB.
The beauty of it would be that future games are optimized for it. The consoles remain static and the only way that games work well is that they are written for it - you'd probably have to do this to make any return. For games that are not optimized specifically for it, the fact that it would be a generic PC gives you a good level of compatibility.
Concerning updates, it would last at least 3 years. The GeForce 6600GT is still a decent card and it's 3 years old. Also, newer games like Double Agent, although they require DirectX shader model 3 and things, a version has been written for the PS2, which performs about the same as a Mac Mini.