FSB Expense and Future Machines
The 970 itself isn't responsible for the price spike in the Power Mac line. A portion of it is likely profit taking, but I'm also guessing that another major contributor to cost is the speedy FSB. Now assuming that the bus speed remains fixed at (an effective) half the clock of the 970, I'm expecting continued upward pricing pressure as the G5 line matures. (It's wonderful to have to think about the implications of a fast FSB, after suffering through the G4 for so long.) The promised 3GHz box will need an effective 1.5GHz bus, and obviously that's going to be expensive.
Assuming my initial thoughts are reasonable, perhaps one of our resident geniuses can help me with these questions:
An effective 1.5GHz could be achieved through a double pumped 750MHz bus, but wouldn't such a fast bus be cost prohibitive? Alternatively, it could use a quad pumped 375MHz bus, which would be cheaper but slower than what we have now. However, would such a quad pumped solution be required in order to keep costs at a reasonable level?
Perhaps most importantly, what can we expect in terms of future price
erformance? Will Apple be forced to maintain high prices on the line due to bus speed demands?
Assuming my initial thoughts are reasonable, perhaps one of our resident geniuses can help me with these questions:
An effective 1.5GHz could be achieved through a double pumped 750MHz bus, but wouldn't such a fast bus be cost prohibitive? Alternatively, it could use a quad pumped 375MHz bus, which would be cheaper but slower than what we have now. However, would such a quad pumped solution be required in order to keep costs at a reasonable level?
Perhaps most importantly, what can we expect in terms of future price
erformance? Will Apple be forced to maintain high prices on the line due to bus speed demands?
Comments
Originally posted by Big Mac
An effective 1.5GHz could be achieved through a double pumped 750MHz bus, but wouldn't such a fast bus be cost prohibitive? Alternatively, it could use a quad pumped 375MHz bus, which would be cheaper but slower than what we have now.
Why would quad-pumped be cheaper than double?
Given those $1M mask costs, I don't know if Apple can afford to change their bus protocol every year.
Contrast this with the parallel Pentium 4 bus that has 64 data lines, 32 address lines, plus half again as much for ground et al for somewhere around 150+ lines to clock up to 200 MHz and clocked in sync. Apple's dual 970 system controller may even have less processor bus traces than Intel's uniprocessor system controller. Also, Intel will probably have a harder time clocking the P4 bus from 200 to 250 MHz than Apple will with the 970 bus from 500 to 750 MHz.
By the way, Rambus has chip-to-chip bus technology with effective data rates up to 6.4 GHz!
As for pricing, I'm of the opinion that the PowerMacs got squeezed into a historically narrow price bracket to make room for more and different stuff. Sure, they have a new CPU and a new board, and "perhaps the fastest ASIC in the industry" or whatever Steve said about their system controller, but strategy is always an element in pricing, and Apple likes to set price points that it intends to keep. The price slashes on the PowerMac G4 were a last-ditch response to lukewarm demand for a lukewarm product.
I wouldn't be surprised if the PM goes all-dual before too long.
Originally posted by Amorph
Ahhhh, there's no engineering like good engineering.
As for pricing, I'm of the opinion that the PowerMacs got squeezed into a historically narrow price bracket to make room for more and different stuff. Sure, they have a new CPU and a new board, and "perhaps the fastest ASIC in the industry" or whatever Steve said about their system controller, but strategy is always an element in pricing, and Apple likes to set price points that it intends to keep. The price slashes on the PowerMac G4 were a last-ditch response to lukewarm demand for a lukewarm product.
I wouldn't be surprised if the PM goes all-dual before too long.
I agree the price of the G4 have fallen to sell what they could. I expected the current prices (1700 to 1800 for a combo drive low end). Apple has a lot of R&D to recoup with these new chips & mobo designs.
I also agree on the duals for the powermacs. I expect production at the plant to generate higher yields with the amount of automation that IBM uses. Unlike the horror stories of moto fab sites.
Originally posted by THT
I don't think you'll find DIMM slots that far away from the CPU in x86 boards.
This is a problem present on my Asus P4PE. It has three PC2700 capable DIMM slots, two of the slots share one bank, so in reality it's more like two slots. Running faster memory compounds the problem...along with running multiple DIMMs.
Originally posted by Amorph
Ahhhh, there's no engineering like good engineering.
As for pricing, I'm of the opinion that the PowerMacs got squeezed into a historically narrow price bracket to make room for more and different stuff. Sure, they have a new CPU and a new board, and "perhaps the fastest ASIC in the industry" or whatever Steve said about their system controller, but strategy is always an element in pricing, and Apple likes to set price points that it intends to keep. The price slashes on the PowerMac G4 were a last-ditch response to lukewarm demand for a lukewarm product.
I wouldn't be surprised if the PM goes all-dual before too long.
I agree. I think the only reason Apple initially released the high end machine with dual processors and the others single is to sell the high end model. The next update will definately be all dual.
Originally posted by Akumulator
I agree. I think the only reason Apple initially released the high end machine with dual processors and the others single is to sell the high end model. The next update will definately be all dual.
My guess is the next rev will be single on the bottom, dual on the mid and high.
The bus isn't the issue. It's the ram. How can ram come close to saturating a 1.5Ghz bus? 256-bit data paths?
Geez, I love typing that: 1.5Ghz bus.
And wasn't it the 980 that is supposed to be dual core? I imagine they'll be made single core as well (for powerbooks and maybe imacs), but if they ARE dual core, expect ALL G5s to be dual (core), and on the high end, those yummy quad G5s we all fantasize about (dual core x 2) sometime in late 2004-early 2005.
This leads to a small question:
Apple is shipping the low end tower with 333MHz DDR memory. Shouldn't you be able to pop that out and pack it with 400MHz DDR? I can't see why not. I also noticed that all the G5 machines ship with 2 sticks of memory. Does the new setup require memory installed in pairs?
Originally posted by Bancho
Isn't it nice to know that there is room to grow built in to these new chips? I see people worried how Apple will be able to keep the bus saturated but at least that piece of the puzzle is evolving independent of Apple. Everyone wants faster memory. As it's developed Apple should be positioned to take advantage of the increases almost immediately.
This leads to a small question:
Apple is shipping the low end tower with 333MHz DDR memory. Shouldn't you be able to pop that out and pack it with 400MHz DDR? I can't see why not. I also noticed that all the G5 machines ship with 2 sticks of memory. Does the new setup require memory installed in pairs?
yes, memory must be installed in identical capacity pairs from the outside slots in.
Yes, you need to install in pairs as it is 'dual channel' DDR SDRAM
I think the current chipset seems more hightech than what I've read about the Nforce 3. Do you think that the Nforce 3 will actually go into a Mac motherboard? And if so, will it be a low-end or high-end solution?