IBM don't have a server chip called the G5, they have a mainframe system called G5 with nothing to do with PowerPC.
How can you extrapolate from a publication from Motorola about a future (the 8540 is not even sampling yet) chip of theirs, in their G5 range of PowerPC ISA chips, that IBM might be going to build something for Apple called the G5.
Michael</strong><hr></blockquote>
Um, this is from IBM's site and sounds like a chip to me-
[quote] Compared with the G4 microprocessor, the S/390® G5 microprocessor contains many architectural and performance enhancements. The G6 microprocessor represents a technology performance improvement over G5, with system support for additional processors. <hr></blockquote>
As for your second question, I make no declarations of my knowledge dealing with technology, I am merely assuming based on what I have read. And I have read that Apple could buy the G5 tech or license it from Moto and have IBM fab it. That's how.
Apple is able to ship new products very fast because they know that people, a certain number, WILL order the new products when they are announced. So they have a stockpile of the machines that are sent out the day they are ordered.
Apple has a limited number of assembly lines. Before a new product is announced, they have to assemble them, taking an assembly portion...maybe 50%? or more of their force.
So, if they are producing faster G4s in order to ship as many as possible when they are ready to announce them, then they have cut production of todays G4s, making it a bit harder to get all the products together - increasing the time.
So expect faster G4s. But don't expect them before the end of 10 days.
I have no proof that the G5 will be made by IBM. I am just putting some pieces together and throwing in a little common sense.
Here is some text from another thread I started about this a while ago:
[quote]Here is where I am coming from on this. A little while back Motorola abruptly changed it's roadmap for the G5. The G5 changed to 8500. Now Mot releases a revised roadmap and the G5 contains no Alti-Vec core. What is going on here?
Here is what's going on here: My guess is that Apple frustrated with the past performance history of Mot's G4's did not want to take a hit with fab issues on the G5 and get stuck with G5's at one speed for a year. So as we have heard in many rumors Apple has taken on a more involved role in developing the G5. Mot's stock has been in the tank as well as their business so I am sure that Mot has either sold or licensed the "core" of the PowerPC G5 to Apple, my guess being licensed. Apple has taken that core and developed further on it along with the big boy's help...IBM. Together Apple & IBM have designed the G5 that will ge used in desktops. Motorola is clearly targeting their G5 for the embedded market only through their recent roadmap. There is no reason to keep AltiVec off of the G5 roadmap, unless there isn't any reason for it to be there. Now Apple moves to G4's along the consumer line which keeps Motorola happy but that means no more G3's....well with IBM's involvement in the G5 that keeps IBM happy.
So let's take a look at the situation at hand. On one hand we have Motorola execs saying that the Apollo is set to ship first Quarter 2002. Well that cannot be good for the G5 hopes. It's a smokescreen of sorts. What Motorola is saying is indeed the truth, the G5 is being developed by Apple & IBM not Mot so my guess is the Apollo G4 will make it's way into the consumer machines. And if any of you remember a story on MOSR a while back saying that the low power and low heat of the Apollo G4 is intended for the consumer machines and the Powerbook, not pro desktops.<hr></blockquote>
Um, this is from IBM's site and sounds like a chip to me-
quote:
Compared with the G4 microprocessor, the S/390® G5 microprocessor contains many architectural and performance enhancements. The G6 microprocessor represents a technology performance improvement over G5, with system support for additional processors.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
Yes, in this context G4, G5, and G6 all refer to generations of processors used in the S390 mainframes, not the PowerPc chips of the same names. This is a problem that crops up because you use G4 to indicate the fourth generation, many architectures have that many or more.
I didn't say chip, in order to try and emphasise that this is not a server chip in the common use of the term, it is at the heart of a mainframe.
remember not too long ago when moto fired about 9500 people (was it less?) well i remember reading something from macnn that said 4500 of them were from the powerpc department. How could the G5 upgrade to these rumors of 2ghz went moto is laying of thousands of employees from that department. if moto is getting these results then i doubt they would have fired that many people. I believe they sold most of the powerpc to apple and apple can't produce chips so they are giving the production to ibm.
<strong>Why are people saying things like 'Apollo wont work in a PM' and 'apollo chip appears to be geared towards pb's and the new imac?'
Is there any evidence about this or is it conjecture?
A high clocking G5 would be a great performance/marketing boost for Apple, but we have been hearing about the Apollo chips for a year now. Before yesterday, I never heard anyone mention that these cips would not go into the PM. Why has the tune changed?</strong><hr></blockquote>
When the G4 SOI process shrink (codenamed Apollo) was first mentioned about a year ago, it was earmarked on Moto & Apple documentation (i.e. roadmaps) as being used for consumer and portable machines. This does not mean it cannot be used in PowerMacs -- indeed, lowering power consumption means they can turn the clock rate up higher before the chip melts itself. People seem to be taking the initial statements of intended use to be statements of possible uses -- which is a fallacy.
If the G5 is not ready, Apple will introduce PowerMacs that use the fastest Apollos available in large quantities. Given that SOI is purported to deliver roughly a 20-30% performance improvement, we should see 1.1+ GHz G4 speeds. Obviously this will depend on yields. Furthermore, Motorola has stated that a process shrink will happen when their new fab is up to speed -- and this ought to boost clock rates further. Combined with a DDR motherboard and improved bus implementation, this should boost PowerMac performance significantly but it will still trail PC performance.
If the G5 is ready, it should put the PowerMac back on par (if not on top). While the clock rate might be in the same ballpark (1 - 1.6 GHz), the redesigned internals of a next-generation design ought to give a significant performance boost. The longer pipelines should also allow higher clockrates in the future.
There isn't any information out there that tells us when the G5 will arrive, its all just speculation. We know Apple can keep secrets (and does), and Moto came right out and said they would keep Apple's secrets if they were asked to. We also know the G5 has been under development for a couple of years now, and it was expected (rather optimistically) originally some time in 2000. That means they've had more than a year beyond what the optimists believed they needed, and Steve has been pushing hard for them to close the MHz gap. Rumours of fast prototype machines have been around for 6 months now, even ignoring the strangely detailed source that was sending to TheRegister & MOSR (and who has doubtless been fired!).
Engineering schedules slip. Yields can be bad. Fabs can have problems. Look at Intel & AMD -- they slip their schedules all the time, but it typically happens in a much more public way. Apple, Motorola, and IBM have always been much more private about their unreleased products (in part because of their 3-way relationship) and thus the release schedules have always been more vague.
Conclusion? The G5 is just around the corner, but that corner could be 1-12 months away. MWNY is probably the safest bet, but we can always hope. If we see Apollo PMs next month then we'll probably have to wait 6+ months for the G5, during which WIntel will continue to steadily pull ahead.
<strong>remember not too long ago when moto fired about 9500 people (was it less?) well i remember reading something from macnn that said 4500 of them were from the powerpc department. How could the G5 upgrade to these rumors of 2ghz went moto is laying of thousands of employees from that department. if moto is getting these results then i doubt they would have fired that many people. I believe they sold most of the powerpc to apple and apple can't produce chips so they are giving the production to ibm.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Comments
<strong>
IBM don't have a server chip called the G5, they have a mainframe system called G5 with nothing to do with PowerPC.
How can you extrapolate from a publication from Motorola about a future (the 8540 is not even sampling yet) chip of theirs, in their G5 range of PowerPC ISA chips, that IBM might be going to build something for Apple called the G5.
Michael</strong><hr></blockquote>
Um, this is from IBM's site and sounds like a chip to me-
[quote] Compared with the G4 microprocessor, the S/390® G5 microprocessor contains many architectural and performance enhancements. The G6 microprocessor represents a technology performance improvement over G5, with system support for additional processors. <hr></blockquote>
As for your second question, I make no declarations of my knowledge dealing with technology, I am merely assuming based on what I have read. And I have read that Apple could buy the G5 tech or license it from Moto and have IBM fab it. That's how.
Apple has a limited number of assembly lines. Before a new product is announced, they have to assemble them, taking an assembly portion...maybe 50%? or more of their force.
So, if they are producing faster G4s in order to ship as many as possible when they are ready to announce them, then they have cut production of todays G4s, making it a bit harder to get all the products together - increasing the time.
So expect faster G4s. But don't expect them before the end of 10 days.
Andrew
Here is some text from another thread I started about this a while ago:
[quote]Here is where I am coming from on this. A little while back Motorola abruptly changed it's roadmap for the G5. The G5 changed to 8500. Now Mot releases a revised roadmap and the G5 contains no Alti-Vec core. What is going on here?
Here is what's going on here: My guess is that Apple frustrated with the past performance history of Mot's G4's did not want to take a hit with fab issues on the G5 and get stuck with G5's at one speed for a year. So as we have heard in many rumors Apple has taken on a more involved role in developing the G5. Mot's stock has been in the tank as well as their business so I am sure that Mot has either sold or licensed the "core" of the PowerPC G5 to Apple, my guess being licensed. Apple has taken that core and developed further on it along with the big boy's help...IBM. Together Apple & IBM have designed the G5 that will ge used in desktops. Motorola is clearly targeting their G5 for the embedded market only through their recent roadmap. There is no reason to keep AltiVec off of the G5 roadmap, unless there isn't any reason for it to be there. Now Apple moves to G4's along the consumer line which keeps Motorola happy but that means no more G3's....well with IBM's involvement in the G5 that keeps IBM happy.
So let's take a look at the situation at hand. On one hand we have Motorola execs saying that the Apollo is set to ship first Quarter 2002. Well that cannot be good for the G5 hopes. It's a smokescreen of sorts. What Motorola is saying is indeed the truth, the G5 is being developed by Apple & IBM not Mot so my guess is the Apollo G4 will make it's way into the consumer machines. And if any of you remember a story on MOSR a while back saying that the low power and low heat of the Apollo G4 is intended for the consumer machines and the Powerbook, not pro desktops.<hr></blockquote>
The thread can be found <a href="http://forums.appleinsider.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=1&t=000149"; target="_blank">here.</a>
<strong>
Um, this is from IBM's site and sounds like a chip to me-
quote:
Compared with the G4 microprocessor, the S/390® G5 microprocessor contains many architectural and performance enhancements. The G6 microprocessor represents a technology performance improvement over G5, with system support for additional processors.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
Yes, in this context G4, G5, and G6 all refer to generations of processors used in the S390 mainframes, not the PowerPc chips of the same names. This is a problem that crops up because you use G4 to indicate the fourth generation, many architectures have that many or more.
I didn't say chip, in order to try and emphasise that this is not a server chip in the common use of the term, it is at the heart of a mainframe.
Michael
Today (?) Moto also has some layoff in the executive level.
Doesn't sound good. But they deserve it.
<strong>Why are people saying things like 'Apollo wont work in a PM' and 'apollo chip appears to be geared towards pb's and the new imac?'
Is there any evidence about this or is it conjecture?
A high clocking G5 would be a great performance/marketing boost for Apple, but we have been hearing about the Apollo chips for a year now. Before yesterday, I never heard anyone mention that these cips would not go into the PM. Why has the tune changed?</strong><hr></blockquote>
When the G4 SOI process shrink (codenamed Apollo) was first mentioned about a year ago, it was earmarked on Moto & Apple documentation (i.e. roadmaps) as being used for consumer and portable machines. This does not mean it cannot be used in PowerMacs -- indeed, lowering power consumption means they can turn the clock rate up higher before the chip melts itself. People seem to be taking the initial statements of intended use to be statements of possible uses -- which is a fallacy.
If the G5 is not ready, Apple will introduce PowerMacs that use the fastest Apollos available in large quantities. Given that SOI is purported to deliver roughly a 20-30% performance improvement, we should see 1.1+ GHz G4 speeds. Obviously this will depend on yields. Furthermore, Motorola has stated that a process shrink will happen when their new fab is up to speed -- and this ought to boost clock rates further. Combined with a DDR motherboard and improved bus implementation, this should boost PowerMac performance significantly but it will still trail PC performance.
If the G5 is ready, it should put the PowerMac back on par (if not on top). While the clock rate might be in the same ballpark (1 - 1.6 GHz), the redesigned internals of a next-generation design ought to give a significant performance boost. The longer pipelines should also allow higher clockrates in the future.
There isn't any information out there that tells us when the G5 will arrive, its all just speculation. We know Apple can keep secrets (and does), and Moto came right out and said they would keep Apple's secrets if they were asked to. We also know the G5 has been under development for a couple of years now, and it was expected (rather optimistically) originally some time in 2000. That means they've had more than a year beyond what the optimists believed they needed, and Steve has been pushing hard for them to close the MHz gap. Rumours of fast prototype machines have been around for 6 months now, even ignoring the strangely detailed source that was sending to TheRegister & MOSR (and who has doubtless been fired!).
Engineering schedules slip. Yields can be bad. Fabs can have problems. Look at Intel & AMD -- they slip their schedules all the time, but it typically happens in a much more public way. Apple, Motorola, and IBM have always been much more private about their unreleased products (in part because of their 3-way relationship) and thus the release schedules have always been more vague.
Conclusion? The G5 is just around the corner, but that corner could be 1-12 months away. MWNY is probably the safest bet, but we can always hope. If we see Apollo PMs next month then we'll probably have to wait 6+ months for the G5, during which WIntel will continue to steadily pull ahead.
<strong>remember not too long ago when moto fired about 9500 people (was it less?) well i remember reading something from macnn that said 4500 of them were from the powerpc department. How could the G5 upgrade to these rumors of 2ghz went moto is laying of thousands of employees from that department. if moto is getting these results then i doubt they would have fired that many people. I believe they sold most of the powerpc to apple and apple can't produce chips so they are giving the production to ibm.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Reply deleted
UPS didn't read the post good enough - SORRY
[ 01-09-2002: Message edited by: Eagle ]</p>