G5 = POWER 5?
<a href="http://www.theinquirer.org/?article=4266"; target="_blank">http://www.theinquirer.org/?article=4266</a>;
Check out that article... it's rather boring for most of it... but I'll pull something out of it that might back up all of the other claims of Apple going to IBM over MOT...
"As it (POWER4) sheds the remaining baggage that blocks fast speed ramps and moves towards the mainstream (Apple?), this architecture could be well positioned for the final 64-bit showdown."
"Don't be surprised to see Apple Macs or thin blade servers based on POWER5."
just more fuel for the fire...
Check out that article... it's rather boring for most of it... but I'll pull something out of it that might back up all of the other claims of Apple going to IBM over MOT...
"As it (POWER4) sheds the remaining baggage that blocks fast speed ramps and moves towards the mainstream (Apple?), this architecture could be well positioned for the final 64-bit showdown."
"Don't be surprised to see Apple Macs or thin blade servers based on POWER5."
just more fuel for the fire...
Comments
<strong>"Don't be surprised to see Apple Macs or thin blade servers based on POWER5."
just more fuel for the fire...</strong><hr></blockquote>
Oh man, just what we need in these days of pre-MWNY hype, more fuel.
In the words of James Hetfield, "gimme fuel, gimme fire, gimme that which I desire..."
The G4 itself is not the problem. A computer it a complex system with many interactions between various discreet components including PCI bridges/memory controllers, CPUs, memory and more.
The biggest single issue in the G4 (computer) is that the memory bus is just not fat enough to allow the G4 to reach its full potential at ANY clockrate. Apple is handicapping it with a non-DDR >133 MHz bus. The addition of heaps of ultra fast L3 cache is a stop-gap solution.
Part of the blame rests with Motorola, but Apple is the company designing the entire system. Apple should have been on DDR last year but they insist on holding it back for technical reasons (so they say) and cost issues blah blah blah. Slumping G4 sales should prove that the old tech is NOT what we want!
JUST SHIP it and let us see how well it will run Apple, geeze. Xserve proves they CAN do it, at least half-way. Now lets go ALL the way and blow away some DELLs.
1) true to an extent. what you said is true, but Motorola has yet to produce 8500s that are consistantly stable above speeds that look like iBook and iMac processors.
2) you should concidder looking at the iBrick forum.
Bring it on.
Apple are going to need some ammo'.
I think dark clouds loom. Salvo's fired to and from the x86/PPC platforms. Microsoft's recent statements sound ominous.
Having a processor that outguns the Wintel opposition is becoming paramount in my view. The G4 like the G3 is old. The G4 should go into the consumer lines and give up the ghost at being a workstation processor. Half cocked DDR/Bus won't save it from the beatings it gets in Lightwave benches.
IBM seem to be getting ready to do some kick ass with the Power4...forward winding...the idea of multicore designs for a workstation Apple seem to hold out the prospect of PPC finally delivering the desktop performance dominance it promised so long ago.
Bring it on, Microsoft.
Apple must be pretty confident that it has something up its sleeve to counter attack a Microsoft assault.
Lemon Bon Bon
<strong>Because someone is a fan of a different CPU does not extend to Apple using it in its future hardware.
The G4 itself is not the problem. A computer it a complex system with many interactions between various discreet components including PCI bridges/memory controllers, CPUs, memory and more.
The biggest single issue in the G4 (computer) is that the memory bus is just not fat enough to allow the G4 to reach its full potential at ANY clockrate. Apple is handicapping it with a non-DDR >133 MHz bus. The addition of heaps of ultra fast L3 cache is a stop-gap solution.
Part of the blame rests with Motorola, but Apple is the company designing the entire system. Apple should have been on DDR last year but they insist on holding it back for technical reasons (so they say) and cost issues blah blah blah. Slumping G4 sales should prove that the old tech is NOT what we want!
JUST SHIP it and let us see how well it will run Apple, geeze. Xserve proves they CAN do it, at least half-way. Now lets go ALL the way and blow away some DELLs.</strong><hr></blockquote>Apple does not control the bus capabilities of the G4. According to Motorla, the G4 has a maximum bus of 133. The best they could do is pull an xserve.
Ah, yes. Let's say the next mac proc is a power5 (it wouldn't be a G5 b/c that's mot designation). How much would people bitch about it costing $5000+ for a low end tower? Fugetaboutit.
IBM can do it. Does Apple want it?
In my opinion such a processor would have:
Single POWER4 derived core;
Altivec-clone (Velocity Engine II);
500MHz GX bus to memory/PCI/peripheral controller;
512KB L2 cache;
Up to 8MB L3 cache (optional);
state of the art 130nm SOI process.
The PowerPC 850.
[ 07-15-2002: Message edited by: Outsider ]</p>
Its plain a simple, Motorola is Apple's albatross.
You really cant find as cool laptops as the ice on the other side and if they have trouble putting a G4 in it what would they do with something with 14 stages.
Long pipelines is cheating and will hurt the laptops on the long run (and it ain't a mac if it ain't a laptop :cool: )
The IBM Power Chip would give Apple something it doesn't appear to have at the present time.
Options.
Oh. And industry leading performance.
Performance which could scale to Hollywood SGI level workstations...to yer standard 'power'Mac range. The 'multi-core' design of the Power 4 gives flexibility...if they are indeed designing it to ramp the mhz faster and lose some of the more expensive design baggage holding the chip back from being a great workstation/desktop cpu.
Paying those Apple premiums? Gladly if they got da performance mulla to go with it.
A Power 4 derivation would give Apple a roadmap of sorts. IBM aint going nowhere. Leading edge CPU is their business. And the Power 4 seems to have legs. It's got awesome power. Great FPU...and it's only at 1.3 ghz? A move to .13 etc should eek out more performance. Moto' on the other hand increasingly look like a struggling company in crisis...
The trickledown effect of IBM's cutting edge stuff (which need fridges to 'em, eh?) into desktop workstation performance. Well...that would seem less ambiguous than the love/hate 'ati' style relationship Apple seems to have with Moto'. IBM at least inspires confidence in me.
Lemon Bon BON
[ 07-15-2002: Message edited by: Lemon Bon Bon ]</p>
This combination and smaller processes using SOI will keep heat issues under control, adequate for portable use.
<strong>Long pipelines is cheating </strong><hr></blockquote>
Unfortunately, you are "under the influence of Jobs Anti-Mhz-myth-myth-RDF-generator". A longer pipeline simply allows you to run your processor at faster speeds. Hazards do occur, but in time critical sections not nearly as often as Steve makes you believe. Very often, you have big loops with a very good branch hit/miss ratio.
Your heat concerns are valid, but in general, more pipeline stages mean advanced technology and more computing power, not cheating (of course, 20 stages are a lot...)
123
Only problem is that a close contact that I know who works for IBM told me that their chip manufacturing has slowed and they now have multi-thousand dollared moto desktops coming in.
What I got out of the whole thing was that they basically weren't going to power the low-end markets anymore, but rather surge with the higher-demanding super(duper)computers. This could include powermac's but then where would you go with alti-vec apps?
Ideally the servers and powermac lines would run off of IBM chips and have a separate moto-Alti-vec chip connected by a bus running at 1:1 clock speed.
The Power5 has been under development for a while. If Apple realized that Moto wasn't going anywhere during the G4 debacle, theres been plenty of time for them to go to IBM and work out an arrangement for development of a cheaper, cooler Power5 derivative with an Altivec-compatible SIMD or co-processor. Subsequent iterations of this design would eventually move it into the consumer and laptop areas, thus freeing Apple from the sinking ship that is Moto.
Who knows whether this will happen or not, but it seems like the smart thing to do.
IBM will never sell high end chips to Apple. A larger agreement would be possible like licence MacOS X Server to IBM for there high end server and Apple sells only low end servers. Apple could than use the same chip but in max. 2 cores chip.
what do you think about this?
What is the power consumption for the Power4 vs PentiumIV?
My only concern deals with Altivec. IBM has not taken a shining to it.
I'm happy and sad. Happy that this will probably be the G5 (what else is there on the horizon?). Sad that it's coming in 2004, not 2003.
JYD won't be happy, he reckons that Apple will only survive if a new chip is introduced at MWSF
Cobra: AltiVec is powerful, and SIMD is the future. If the Power5 is going to attack a larger market than than the Power4 (read: Apple Macs), then you will see a "Velocity Compatible" SIMD unit.
Spartacus: I've always thought that Apple licencing Mac OS X to IBM a real possibility. I mean, it would cost Apple huge $$ to "Steve" the mainframe market. Why not let IBM do it for them?
"It doesn?t matter whether you have Mac, Windows, UNIX or Linux clients ? or a combination thereof ? on your network. Mac OS X Server provides cross-platform support for native file sharing, as well as Apache web server and WebDAV server, POP and IMAP mail, ftp, QuickTime Streaming Server, DNS and DHCP ? right out-of-the-box. Windows, UNIX and Linux are not treated any differently, and will enjoy benefits that Mac users take for granted.*"
Shake in dem booties Microsoft.
Barto
[ 07-16-2002: Message edited by: Barto ]</p>
<strong>I think this Power 5 stuff is a little more credible than the G5 stuff we have been hearing about.
My only concern deals with Altivec. IBM has not taken a shining to it.
I thought IBM had already licensed it from MOTO. What does MOTO have to loose in licensing the instructions? They make money and they don't have to spend a penny on producing new chips. Sounds like a good deal to me.
<strong>What does MOTO have to loose in licensing the instructions? They make money and they don't have to spend a penny on producing new chips. Sounds like a good deal to me.
The IBM G3 with Altivec would attack the very heartland of Motorola's semiconductor business, the embedded market.
<strong>
The IBM G3 with Altivec would attack the very heartland of Motorola's semiconductor business, the embedded market.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Not if the license was worded correctly to prevent that.