The Future of G3
With iMacs as fast as PowerMacs, we can all assume that a speed bump is in line (be it G4 or G5 I really don't care). With all of Apple's Products on G4, what is the future of G3?
I recall several posts in the past reiterating IBM's faith in the processor and it's architechture, as well as their faith to push speeds well above 1Ghz. So what is next? Does a fast G3 make sense for "digital appliances" since they probably won't need altivec/other enhancements in G4? Are temperature and other issues favorable on G3 for that sort of a use?
Or is G3 destined to go to the embedded line and never show it's face in another Apple machine? What does that do for the Apple/IBM relationship?
Bring us proof!
I recall several posts in the past reiterating IBM's faith in the processor and it's architechture, as well as their faith to push speeds well above 1Ghz. So what is next? Does a fast G3 make sense for "digital appliances" since they probably won't need altivec/other enhancements in G4? Are temperature and other issues favorable on G3 for that sort of a use?
Or is G3 destined to go to the embedded line and never show it's face in another Apple machine? What does that do for the Apple/IBM relationship?
Bring us proof!
Comments
<strong>The IBM G3/1 GHz is going to be shipping in mass quantities by the end of the month. It will be shipping before the Motorola G4/1 GHz.</strong><hr></blockquote>Where'd you hear that? IBM says it's going to be out "later in 2002." The 700Mhz version may be shipping this month, but no higher.
Anyway, all of Apple's products are not on G4s - there's the iBook, which is very important to Apple right now.
That Sahara is a fantastic chip. It has all of IBM's top chip technologies, and as muah said, IBM is committed to it. It will make the G3 smaller, faster, cooler, and cheaper this year.
<strong>Where'd you hear that? IBM says it's going to be out "later in 2002." The 700Mhz version may be shipping this month, but no higher.</strong><hr></blockquote>
"Select customers are currently evaluating the hardware with general sampling available in January of 2002. The PowerPC 750FX is planned to initially debut at 700 MHz, with versions at speeds up to 1 Ghz later that year."
<a href="http://www-3.ibm.com/chips/news/2001/1017_750fx.html"; target="_blank">http://www-3.ibm.com/chips/news/2001/1017_750fx.html</a>;
I am sure that the next version of I movie will be optimized for altivec, and perhaps i tunes and i photo. So may be all macs will turn to altivec in the near future.
Altivec is a very good technology Apple as to use it.
<strong>Anyway, all of Apple's products are not on G4s - there's the iBook, which is very important to Apple right now.
That Sahara is a fantastic chip. It has all of IBM's top chip technologies, and as muah said, IBM is committed to it. It will make the G3 smaller, faster, cooler, and cheaper this year.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I stand corrected about the iBook on G3, but mark my words that it won't be very long before sales slow on "the only G3 machine that apple still makes." and we all know people will see it that way.
Besides the iBook didn't have sales figures that would allow IBM to make it affordable enough to keep producing and researching, at least not to my knowlege.
I can't see the G3 lasting for more than 1 1/2 years max.
Like the silent retirement of the 030's and 040's for PowerPc's, and the 603's and 604's for the G3, when the G5 comes out, the G3 will be the first to go. Keeping the no-altivec G3 just doesn't make much sense when most of the iApps prefer Altivec and production is getting better and better on low-temp G4s.
The G3 is first of all a microchip of the PPC family. That means it's not Apple's chip, it's teh product of AIM, and with the newest G3s from IBM, mainly a product of IBM itself. IBM has other RISC and PPC platforms, where the chip might actually be used, Apple is by far not the only and most certainly also by far not the biggest buyer of PPC chips. The G3 will live on in appliances, set-top boxes, consoles, integrated devices etc etc for a LONG time to come, even if Apple decided to drop the G3 tomorrow. I think the G3 will be more of a competition to the Crusoe, than to the G4 or G5.
The more IBM tinkers around with it, the more it becomes a cheap, economic, low-power and low temp product that can be used in more and more devices.
Maybe in a year or two the kids of the 750FX will be the chip that powers your mobile phones, or that powers the new setup interface of your TV set (lets face it, TV setups are the most retarded UIs there are in the world). The difference between old "Apple chips" and old "PC chips" is that the Apple chips never were intended for the sole purpose of powering a personal computer, and that's what makes them so longliving. Don't fear for the future of the G3, it will prevail, whereever it is used.
G-News
<strong> I am sure that the next version of I movie will be optimized for altivec, and perhaps i tunes and i photo. So may be all macs will turn to altivec in the near future.
Altivec is a very good technology Apple as to use it.</strong><hr></blockquote>
All those Apps are already optimized for the G4. Check out the rendering times in iMovie or the import speeds in iTunes. I'm sure iPhoto is enhanced for G4, condsidering the types of calculations it does.
<strong>you must not forget a few things about the G3.
The G3 is first of all a microchip of the PPC family. That means it's not Apple's chip, it's teh product of AIM, and with the newest G3s from IBM, mainly a product of IBM itself. IBM has other RISC and PPC platforms, where the chip might actually be used, Apple is by far not the only and most certainly also by far not the biggest buyer of PPC chips. The G3 will live on in appliances, set-top boxes, consoles, integrated devices etc etc for a LONG time to come, even if Apple decided to drop the G3 tomorrow. I think the G3 will be more of a competition to the Crusoe, than to the G4 or G5.
The more IBM tinkers around with it, the more it becomes a cheap, economic, low-power and low temp product that can be used in more and more devices.
Maybe in a year or two the kids of the 750FX will be the chip that powers your mobile phones, or that powers the new setup interface of your TV set (lets face it, TV setups are the most retarded UIs there are in the world). The difference between old "Apple chips" and old "PC chips" is that the Apple chips never were intended for the sole purpose of powering a personal computer, and that's what makes them so longliving. Don't fear for the future of the G3, it will prevail, whereever it is used.
G-News</strong><hr></blockquote>
That is what I stated in the original question, so maybe I will make it clearer. Does anyone care about G3 if it is used for anything else but a product with an apple on it? Then show me that i* is coming out at MWNY with a G3 in it.
It just seems to me that this processor is still useful for something, and it doesn't make sense to me for IBM to be dumping r&d money into it without a pedestal to display these results in. Embedded chips are not the place to invest for Mhz increases.
The market for embedded and niche chips has players like TI that could care less about desktop machines and we never hear about their role in our daily computing lives or about what fancy new functionality they can provide or at what speed. Does this become G3's fate?
G3 enhancements mean squat if it is just going to run the next generation of moisture condensers (although I remember hearing either 3com or cisco are a big name customer for IBM/G3 now). What do G3 enhancements mean for future Apple products?
Besides, I don't think Steve cares about a chips ability to power anything but a Mac. He stated that in his Time interview and at the expo, I believe. <speculation> As far as he should care, it would reduce r&d costs to have all his people working on 1 processor-platform. </speculation>
Can anyone get numbers of what G3 and G4 chips cost on open market or to Apple? Curious.
Now the G4 has demonstrated that it can be used in portables and in consumer oriented machines, its only a matter of time before the G4 ends up in the portable, consumer machine itself: the iBook.
It will be interesting to see how long Apple sticks with the iBook G3. I guess that Apple won't want to have 3 different processor families running, so the latest it will go G4 is when something (presumably the Powermac) goes G5.
see the sig below as for when that may happen.
SdC
Really? Embedded applications are getting more and more powerful, constantly. Think about it: Sun is pushing Java into the embedded space. There's a demand for serious horsepower right there.
It doesn't have to be glamorous, either. It just has to be profitable.
[quote]<strong>The market for embedded and niche chips has players like TI that could care less about desktop machines and we never hear about their role in our daily computing lives or about what fancy new functionality they can provide or at what speed. Does this become G3's fate?</strong><hr></blockquote>
You make this sound so horrible. If the G3 is a successful chip, it's destined to live a surprisingly long, productive life. The Timex Sinclair 1000 I got in 1981(?) was powered by a little CPU called the Z80. Last I checked it was still being made to power MIDI controllers and musical keyboards. That's over two decades of use. Nothing at all to be ashamed of, especially for the manufacturer: It's also two decades of pure gravy, and a sincere compliment to the quality of the design.
Even older CPUs than the Z80 are given the prestigious job of running computers in NASA satellites: the heat and RF from the newer CPUs would ruin the hypersensitive scientific equipment onboard, or blind or skew their sensors.
As an aside, it was Mot who won a big contract with Cisco recently, and it was for the G4. That said, I wouldn't be surprised to hear that they buy G3s from IBM as well.
[ 01-08-2002: Message edited by: Amorph ]</p>