For those of you still ranting about AMD

2

Comments

  • Reply 21 of 50
    cliveclive Posts: 720member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Barto

    Who would have thought in 1991 that the PowerPC, the architecture Apple started, would become solely an embedded processor from late 1997 to mid 2003?



    Why would anyone think that, it hasn't happened!? Power4 is PPC too.
  • Reply 22 of 50
    eskimoeskimo Posts: 474member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by onlooker

    [B] What if AMD was thinking about ending this particular embedded processor to free up more cash for R, & D in their struggle to keep up, and surpass Intel?



    Geez I certainly hope not since it's only been in production for about 6 months now. The Au1500 is the newest processor line from the company formerly known as Alchemy Semi before AMD acquired them.

    Quote:

    That would bring me to germany in a heartbeat to see if there any alternatives, or a resolution. Airport has to keep evolving. AMD is supplying the main processor for it. I would be concerned.



    Au1500 and the other PCS division chips are designed in Austin, TX. They are manufactured by TSMC in Taiwan. No reason to go to Germany unless you are interested in Athlon/Hammer production or some chipset design for those particular products.



    Quote:

    AMD had been in talks with motorola as well for a time, and I don't know if IBM, and AMD have any sort of relationship, but if I were Apple I would be looking to replace the M, in AIM research group (Apple, IBM, Motorola).



    AMD and Motorola are no longer in a technology alliance with eachother having broke that off about 6 months ago. AMD has since signed a process technology development agreement with IBM where both parties will work together to develop 65nm and beyond process technology in IBM's facilities in East Fishkill, NY. Interesting rumor sprung up this week out of that agreement: IBM to build fab for AMD







    Quote:

    Despite the love affair geeks have with AMD, they are a struggling company that needs all the customers it can get. Intel could easily crush them, as could MS (it doesn't have to make Windows run on AMD)



    Intel hasn't been able to crush AMD in the past 30 years and there is little reason to believe they will in the near future. Microsoft can't really make Window incompatible with AMD without making it incompatible with Intel at the same time. They could stop optimizing for maximum performance on the AMD platform but why would they since AMD serves to extend their revenue base by providing further inroads into the lucrative server and workstation market.
  • Reply 23 of 50
    bartobarto Posts: 2,246member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Clive

    Why would anyone think that, it hasn't happened!? Power4 is PPC too.



    Even if you consider the Power4 a PowerPC, look at it this way.



    Who would have thought in 1991 that the PowerPC would from late 1997 to mid 2003 abandon the desktop market, the market Apple started the PowerPC project for?



    Barto
  • Reply 24 of 50
    onlookeronlooker Posts: 5,252member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Eugene

    Did you read the thread, onlooker? BR's original post is pretty silly.



    Apple doesn't need to engage AMD in talks just to use their embedded chips. The embedded chip market doesn't turn over that much. Motorola still manufactures 68000s for example. There's really no danger of that AMD chip suddenly not being manufactured anymore. Besides, that's at most a couple of 30 minute phonecalls.



    AMD wouldn't bother anyway. The price of these components is probably not negotiable in quantity.



    I don't care about mystery AMD/Apple talks and BR's revelation doesn't shed any light on that anyway.



    Next topic, PLEASE.




    I totally agree with some of what your saying, but what I was not saying was the same thing that BR was implying; which was at the heart of the title of the topic itself.



    There are a million and one reasons Apple could be talking to AMD. It's not to create a x86 processor for the Mac.



    If that was not what you were implying BR I stand corrected, but that was the impression I got, and I felt like responding because I think anyone that ever thought Apple would go x86 is an idiot. AND I STILL THINK IT'S A MORONIC, AND STUPID IDEA!



    -onlooker





    ----------------------------------------------

    - but first a joke... what do you get when you mix a rubber-band with an owl?







    -My @SS! heheheheh



    -Betty
  • Reply 25 of 50
    applenutapplenut Posts: 5,768member
    shit, my PowerMac has an Intel chip on the motherboard. Apple must be talking with Intel about the Itanium!
  • Reply 26 of 50
    leonardleonard Posts: 528member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Barto

    Even if you consider the Power4 a PowerPC, look at it this way.



    Who would have thought in 1991 that the PowerPC would from late 1997 to mid 2003 abandon the desktop market, the market Apple started the PowerPC project for?



    Barto




    You're grabbing at straws Barto... The PowerPC is still a desktop chip as well as an embedded chip. IBM and Motorola are both producing G3s, G4's, PowerPC 970s and other PowerPC variants for the desktop and server market. Motorola may be abandoning the desktop market and concetrating on the embedded market, but the PowerPC is still be used in the desktop and server market.
  • Reply 27 of 50
    heh.. not to say 'told ya so' but...



    http://forums.appleinsider.com/showt...&threadid=2575
  • Reply 28 of 50
    snoopysnoopy Posts: 1,901member
    It looks like IBM may be getting some technology from AMD in this deal, which will likely be put to use in production of the PPC as well as the AMD CPUs. Chips from both companies should benefit.



    http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/3/30652.html
  • Reply 29 of 50
    charlesscharless Posts: 301member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Barto

    Even if you consider the Power4 a PowerPC, look at it this way.



    Who would have thought in 1991 that the PowerPC would from late 1997 to mid 2003 abandon the desktop market, the market Apple started the PowerPC project for?



    Barto




    IBM started the PPC project, not Apple, IIRC.
  • Reply 30 of 50
    bartobarto Posts: 2,246member
    The PowerPC 970 is the RETURN of the desktop PowerPC. The G3 and G4 CPUs are anything BUT desktop CPUs. They are low-end performance, low-power, embedded-orientated CPUs. They do a great job for what they were designed for (esp. the G4), unfortunatly that's NOT desktop processing.



    Apple started the PowerPC project. It is a desktop varient of the original POWER architecture. Apple designed the PowerPC ISA, IBM designed the 601 core and Motorola designed the 60X bus. There's a joke in there somewhere...



    Barto
  • Reply 31 of 50
    eugeneeugene Posts: 8,254member
    Barto, if you don't consider the G3 and G4 desktop/computer CPUs, you're out of your mind. The end.
  • Reply 32 of 50
    airslufairsluf Posts: 1,861member
  • Reply 33 of 50
    bartobarto Posts: 2,246member
    Eugene, if you consider the G3 and G4 desktop/computer CPUs, you display an inferior understanding of Motorola's technical and marketing stratagy.



    From a technical standpoint, they are embedded CPUs. The G4 doesn't have MPX just because they want to piss off Apple, but because they need to keep embedding costs down. The MPX is a great embedded bus. String 5 devices along a single bus for cheap (it's SDR, after all). Unfortunatly for us, it's crap as a desktop/portable workstation (that is Power Mac and PowerBook) CPU.



    From a marketing standpoint, IBM and Motorola don't mention Apple in their G3 and G4 sales literature, because they don't even want the G3 or G4 ASSOCIATED with desktop use. That might lead developers to assume the CPUs are expensive for embedded use.



    Barto
  • Reply 34 of 50
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Eugene

    ...The Snow basestation uses an AMD 486 derivative as well. 'AMD' can be found in quite few boards of older products too...



    Not Quite: While the Graphite base station uses a AMD Elan processor (i.e. an embedded 486 clone), the Snow base station uses a PowerPC 860. The Airport Extreme base station switched to a MIPS-based RISC processor (i.e. the AMD Au1500).



    This is perhaps one of the reasons that Apple tries to tinker as little as possible with firmware... it looks like they have to maintain a different binary for each base station!



    Naturally, it also makes it virtually impossible for someone to hack one firmware to run on another base station (such as to enable WDS on Snow base stations, for example).
  • Reply 35 of 50
    eugeneeugene Posts: 8,254member
    Barto, AirSluf, I'm not the one drowning in Motorola's marketing here. Do either of you actually believe a 1.4 GHz MPC7455 that dissipates as much heat as an equally clocked Athlon XP is an embedded chip? It may share roots with other embedded chips in the PowerPC family, but the current G4 is not an embedded design by any stretch of the imagination, outmoded technologies notwithstanding.
  • Reply 36 of 50
    airslufairsluf Posts: 1,861member
  • Reply 37 of 50
    eugeneeugene Posts: 8,254member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by AirSluf

    While any particular incarnation of the G4 may not fit the mold perfectly for use as an embedded process for someone like Cisco, the Motorola G4 series is designed as an embedded processor and when run using embedded style power draws does quite nicely. When it is forcefed through the provebial firehose, the design seems to be pumping heat out at a decidedly non-proportional rate to that which would be expected. Evidence that makes me believe the chip isn't designed first and foremost to run under the conditions a 7455 runs under, hence designed as embedded and just happens to work passably on the desktop. That scenario doesnt add up to the G4 being a desktop processor design to me.



    You're still in denial then. Bottom line, both the original 7400 and 745x G4s were pretty much designed strictly for Apple...with help from Apple. If you don't think that's true, tell me why an embedded chip design has a dedicated 162 instruction vector unit. Design philosophies be damned...they don't support your claims. Pentium-M is more effifient than any G4 in any case, and it doesn't have useless bits like AltiVec that jack up the price. It's also manufactured by Intel in higher quantity on a cheaper process. Is the Pentium-M an embedded design?
  • Reply 38 of 50
    airslufairsluf Posts: 1,861member
  • Reply 39 of 50
    eugeneeugene Posts: 8,254member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by AirSluf

    And you think I'm in denial?



    Youv'e got most of the facts right, but have quite the *unique* answer. I agree there is a one and a one, but I don't agree 1 + 1 == 3.




    So you still think a 1.4 GHz CPU with 162 SIMD instructions drawing 50+ watts of power designed with counsel from Apple is an embedded CPU? Answer the question with a simple yes or no please. I guess 1 + 1 = 3 after all.
  • Reply 40 of 50
    airslufairsluf Posts: 1,861member
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