Apparently, IBM announced this processor last year, but labeled it as an "embedded" processor. With this in mind, can those that have experience in this area speak to the possibility of intro'ing this CPU now? Is a year long enough? Given that this is something like Son of POWER4, it seems that it should be fairly straight forward to pull the various bits together.
[SNIP]
</strong><hr></blockquote>
You're saying the POWER4 G5 (the name I prefer) was announced last year and called an embedded processor? Do you have any links to the announcement? I have to hold out some optimism that this chip is far along in production. Who is to say when Apple commissioned IBM to design the new line? We knew from birth the G4 poorly scaled, and I've always felt the G4+ was a bandaid for that wound rather than something that would deliver Apple into the future.
It's common knowledge that generations of processors are developed concurrently - while the G3 was nearing completion, the G4 was being designed. The Power4 G5 project could have been initiated a couple of years ago and kept under wraps as a special favor to Apple. The language used in the Microprocessor Forum announcement leads one to believe the chips aren't a long way off. I don't believe they're coming this year, but certainly MWSF isn?t an impossibility.
As both PPC suppliers were turning their back on Apple, SJ made a 5Y contract with MOT to avoid being without a CPU suddenly.
End of Line</strong><hr></blockquote>
Uhu? And where do you have that from? we got that Microsoft deal, and I remember reading something somewhere (I guess I could have used the word "*confirmed*") about a 5 y Apple online-Store RAM contract, explaining the high Ram prices, and now this...
MAYBY SJ signed some lame 5y contracts. Who knows. AFAIK, the only publicly known is the famous Microsoft deal.
When I said that IBM had been no great contributor to the PPC I should have explicitly staed that I meant since the introduction of the G3 and the transition to G4.
Did they ever have a faster G3 part than Moto's G4's??? Nope.
They talked about things to come well ino the future but didn't do any better job of making them than Mot did. Even Sahara is NOT what IBM originally intimated it would be and they mentioned it a good long while before we ever got to see one in a Mac!
PPC (not POWER CPU's) has been as neglected by IBM for the last 2 years as it has by Moto. Neither company has a good track record for Desktop PPC's of late, and I would be cautious about getting too hopeful over what IBM may or may not be able to supply in the next year.
I don't believe all the poppycock about agreements and IBM feeling slighted by Apple. Apple went with Moto 'cause IBM had nothing. They may be reconsidering their commitment to the PPC now, but they were definitely a company that didn't need to sell PPC's beyond the embedded market (just like Mot) they had POWER for reall7y high-end workstation/server stuff, and people wanted their x86 machines for everything else. They just talked up a good game, they liked to mention the research their labs were doing and how they could get exotic techs to make 50Ghz chips or how they could run a PPC upto 2Ghz, but those are tech demos for the benefit of investors as much as anything else. Nothing in such public demos would indicate that such technologies were even remotely close to mass-production (consumer level) feasiblity and cost. As much an attempt to say, "Hey look we can make CPU's too," in the face of a sound thrashing at the hands of Intel (as far as public perception of state-o-the-art CPU development goes, whether or not that perception is accurate)
Maybe, things have changed (hopefully) but this would be a dramatic change and re-commitment by IBM a company who has most certainly contributed as much to the recent hardware doldrums plaguing macdom as Moto has.
AIM, they are all three of them guilty of arrogance, indifference, and incompetence (probably with each letter exacly in that order)
Maybe, things have changed (hopefully) but this would be a dramatic change and re-commitment by IBM a company who has most certainly contributed as much to the recent hardware doldrums plaguing macdom as Moto has.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
IBM lost a lot of potential buisness with the death of CHRP. Now they are looking to Linex implementation on their CPU's. This could bring about a new CHRP, though not in conjunction with Apple.
Word on the street is that IT pro's are not happy with MicroSofts licensing, neither are a lot of consumers. This could bring about a new market for non-mac desktop PPC computers, which was IBM's idea when they were working on CHRP the first time. If this happens then the desktop PPC chip market might become a lot more desirable/profitable for IBM, and possibly Moto as well.
Would it make sense to publish an upgrade plan? Buy a new PowerMac 1.4ghz, and in 10 months, you can slap a new IBM cpu in. That may assuage some of the reluctance to buy now. People are afraid of getting shafted right after buying. (and let's be honest, Apple has shafted users several times). It may help sales now and in the short term.
Just my thoughts. </strong><hr></blockquote>
The Power Mac in the leaked photos from a couple of weeks ago was supposed to be "G5 ready".
from macrumors: for the semi forum in Oct. keynote list
Breaking Through Compute Intensive Barriers - IBM's New 64-bit PowerPC Microprocessor
Peter Sandon, Senior Processor Architect, Power PC Organization,
IBM Microelectronics IBM is disclosing the technical details of a new 64-bit PowerPC microprocessor designed for desktops and entry-level servers. Based on the award winning Power4 design, this processor is an 8-way superscalar design that fully supports Symmetric MultiProcessing. The processor is further enhanced by a vector processing unit implementing over 160 specialized vector instructions and implements a system interface capable of up to 6.4GB/s.
Matsu, your arguments are strong, but I have to disagree with them.
[quote]Originally posted by Matsu:
<strong>When I said that IBM had been no great contributor to the PPC I should have explicitly staed that I meant since the introduction of the G3 and the transition to G4.
Did they ever have a faster G3 part than Moto's G4's??? Nope.
They talked about things to come well ino the future but didn't do any better job of making them than Mot did. Even Sahara is NOT what IBM originally intimated it would be and they mentioned it a good long while before we ever got to see one in a Mac!<hr></blockquote></strong>
The transition to the G4 precluded IBM from doing much for Apple. Apple had a long term contract with Motorola for the G4, and Apple tied itself to the G4. The G4 was supposed to be the high end supercomputing chip. Whether or not IBM could have made faster Saharas isn't really the issue since Apple wouldn't have used them anyway. A Sahara at equal clock speeds to a G4 should beat the G4 in all speed tests not including Altivec. Having (what is perceived as) your low end chip beat your high end chip isn't going to look good. IBM was discouraged from enhancing its PPC position in the last few years because 1) Apple didn't want the G4 upstaged 2) There was little incentive to introduce a high end desktop/laptop PPC if it wouldn't be used by Apple.
[quote]<strong>PPC (not POWER CPU's) has been as neglected by IBM for the last 2 years as it has by Moto. Neither company has a good track record for Desktop PPC's of late, and I would be cautious about getting too hopeful over what IBM may or may not be able to supply in the next year.
I don't believe all the poppycock about agreements and IBM feeling slighted by Apple. Apple went with Moto 'cause IBM had nothing. They may be reconsidering their commitment to the PPC now, but they were definitely a company that didn't need to sell PPC's beyond the embedded market (just like Mot) they had POWER for really high-end workstation/server stuff, and people wanted their x86 machines for everything else.<hr></blockquote></strong>
Again, I don't believe you can blame IBM for the current state of Apple's high end. Someone at Apple thought Motorola could handle high end PPC development; someone at Apple loved Altivec. IBM at the time didn't appreciate SIMD, so Apple went with Motorola alone. And IBM went its own way, making tremendous strides with the Power4. Now it's been announced that IBM has a new, high end, 64 bit Power4 PPC w/ VPU aimed at desktops. Things have seemingly come full circle. While some caution is certainly warranted, I can't think of a more positive announcement than what we got from Microprocessor Forum.
[quote]<strong>[SNIP]
Maybe, things have changed (hopefully) but this would be a dramatic change and re-commitment by IBM a company who has most certainly contributed as much to the recent hardware doldrums plaguing macdom as Moto has.
AIM, they are all three of them guilty of arrogance, indifference, and incompetence (probably with each letter exacly in that order)</strong><hr></blockquote>
I like the acronym, but wouldn't Arrogance, Indifference and Moronism be better? IBM wasn't indifferent to the plight of the PPC, but its hands were tied. Apple went with the other party and paid dearly for it; now IBM promises it has the goods. I think we should believe.
<strong>from macrumors: for the semi forum in Oct. keynote list
Breaking Through Compute Intensive Barriers - IBM's New 64-bit PowerPC Microprocessor
Peter Sandon, Senior Processor Architect, Power PC Organization,
IBM Microelectronics IBM is disclosing the technical details of a new 64-bit PowerPC microprocessor designed for desktops and entry-level servers. Based on the award winning Power4 design, this processor is an 8-way superscalar design that fully supports Symmetric MultiProcessing. The processor is further enhanced by a vector processing unit implementing over 160 specialized vector instructions and implements a system interface capable of up to 6.4GB/s.</strong><hr></blockquote>
From the very first post in this thread:
From the Microprocessor Forum homepage:
Breaking Through Compute Intensive Barriers - IBM's New 64-bit PowerPC Microprocessor
Peter Sandon, Senior Processor Architect, Power PC Organization, IBM Microelectronics
IBM is disclosing the technical details of a new 64-bit PowerPC microprocessor designed for desktops and entry-level servers. Based on the award winning Power4 design, this processor is an 8-way superscalar design that fully supports Symmetric MultiProcessing. The processor is further enhanced by a vector processing unit implementing over 160 specialized vector instructions and implements a system interface capable of up to 6.4GB/s.
*snip!* Do you have any links to the announcement?
*snip!*
</strong><hr></blockquote>
Okay, busted. I have nothing to base this on other than timortis' post on the first page of this thread. He/She/It said:
Last year, one of IBM's presentations at the MPF was the Gekko chip for GameCube which came out a month later.
They did announce a next-generation PPC architecture with SIMD last year when they published their latest roadmap. According to that roadmap, this "new-generation" was supposed to come after the current generation stopped at 1Ghz on 13 micron SOI, which is what the 750fx is.
The only thing new here, is that they're finally saying this will be a "high-performance desktop processor" and not a low-power, low-cost embedded one. This is huge. Last year, they always made it a point to emphasize that this new-generation PPC would be an embedded low-power design. So now they're saying there'll be a desktop version.
So I'm guilty of building speculation on a solid base of supposition, leavened with a healthy dose of rumor and equal parts guesswork and bald-faced fantasy. <img src="graemlins/embarrassed.gif" border="0" alt="[Embarrassed]" />
I actually hadn't remembered reading it in this thread as I was jumping around a lot and that bit stuck. Perhaps timortis could shed somemore light?
What is the relationship of Cell and this new POWER5? Are the same thing? Or two completely different initiatives taken on by IBM to satisfy two different constituencies?
I know that Cell is being fabbed at Fishkill, but is it being fabbed now?
It's all so confusing.
THe last bit of pot-stirring I'll add:
Would you open a multi-million dollar production facility that gives you the ability to significantly add to your production capability (not to mention publicizing it) if you didn't have something you wanted to do with the plant in fairly short order?
So I'm guilty of building speculation on a solid base of supposition, leavened with a healthy dose of rumor and equal parts guesswork and bald-faced fantasy. <img src="graemlins/embarrassed.gif" border="0" alt="[Embarrassed]" />
I actually hadn't remembered reading it in this thread as I was jumping around a lot and that bit stuck. Perhaps timortis could shed somemore light?
Sorry for that.</strong><hr></blockquote>
No need to apologize; I now realize what you were referring to.
Wouldn't it be great if the rumors from the Register last year on the fast G5 were really the IBM chip described above rather than a Motorola G5. This would mean if was pretty close to being released if they had working chips last year.
[quote]Network equipment and other communications gear is the most likely destination for the new PowerPC, as the bulk of existing PowerPCs are used there. However, IBM is also wooing Apple Computer, sources familiar with the chip said. The company is in a constant tug of war with Motorola, which makes most of the PowerPC chips slotted into Macs, for Apple's business. <hr></blockquote>
Good ol News.com, better than any rumor site out there.
Comments
<strong>
SJ made a 5Y contract with MOT to avoid being without a CPU suddenly.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
When was it ?
<strong>Back to the topic at hand...
Apparently, IBM announced this processor last year, but labeled it as an "embedded" processor. With this in mind, can those that have experience in this area speak to the possibility of intro'ing this CPU now? Is a year long enough? Given that this is something like Son of POWER4, it seems that it should be fairly straight forward to pull the various bits together.
[SNIP]
</strong><hr></blockquote>
You're saying the POWER4 G5 (the name I prefer) was announced last year and called an embedded processor? Do you have any links to the announcement? I have to hold out some optimism that this chip is far along in production. Who is to say when Apple commissioned IBM to design the new line? We knew from birth the G4 poorly scaled, and I've always felt the G4+ was a bandaid for that wound rather than something that would deliver Apple into the future.
It's common knowledge that generations of processors are developed concurrently - while the G3 was nearing completion, the G4 was being designed. The Power4 G5 project could have been initiated a couple of years ago and kept under wraps as a special favor to Apple. The language used in the Microprocessor Forum announcement leads one to believe the chips aren't a long way off. I don't believe they're coming this year, but certainly MWSF isn?t an impossibility.
<strong>
As both PPC suppliers were turning their back on Apple, SJ made a 5Y contract with MOT to avoid being without a CPU suddenly.
End of Line</strong><hr></blockquote>
Uhu? And where do you have that from? we got that Microsoft deal, and I remember reading something somewhere (I guess I could have used the word "*confirmed*") about a 5 y Apple online-Store RAM contract, explaining the high Ram prices, and now this...
MAYBY SJ signed some lame 5y contracts. Who knows. AFAIK, the only publicly known is the famous Microsoft deal.
Did they ever have a faster G3 part than Moto's G4's??? Nope.
They talked about things to come well ino the future but didn't do any better job of making them than Mot did. Even Sahara is NOT what IBM originally intimated it would be and they mentioned it a good long while before we ever got to see one in a Mac!
PPC (not POWER CPU's) has been as neglected by IBM for the last 2 years as it has by Moto. Neither company has a good track record for Desktop PPC's of late, and I would be cautious about getting too hopeful over what IBM may or may not be able to supply in the next year.
I don't believe all the poppycock about agreements and IBM feeling slighted by Apple. Apple went with Moto 'cause IBM had nothing. They may be reconsidering their commitment to the PPC now, but they were definitely a company that didn't need to sell PPC's beyond the embedded market (just like Mot) they had POWER for reall7y high-end workstation/server stuff, and people wanted their x86 machines for everything else. They just talked up a good game, they liked to mention the research their labs were doing and how they could get exotic techs to make 50Ghz chips or how they could run a PPC upto 2Ghz, but those are tech demos for the benefit of investors as much as anything else. Nothing in such public demos would indicate that such technologies were even remotely close to mass-production (consumer level) feasiblity and cost. As much an attempt to say, "Hey look we can make CPU's too," in the face of a sound thrashing at the hands of Intel (as far as public perception of state-o-the-art CPU development goes, whether or not that perception is accurate)
Maybe, things have changed (hopefully) but this would be a dramatic change and re-commitment by IBM a company who has most certainly contributed as much to the recent hardware doldrums plaguing macdom as Moto has.
AIM, they are all three of them guilty of arrogance, indifference, and incompetence (probably with each letter exacly in that order)
<a href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/archive/20038.html"; target="_blank">Old news from theregister June 2001</a>
we are still talking about all of that
Aw
[ 08-08-2002: Message edited by: Appleworm ]</p>
<a href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/3/26594.html"; target="_blank">theregister today</a>
Aw
[ 08-08-2002: Message edited by: Appleworm ]</p>
<strong>
Maybe, things have changed (hopefully) but this would be a dramatic change and re-commitment by IBM a company who has most certainly contributed as much to the recent hardware doldrums plaguing macdom as Moto has.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
IBM lost a lot of potential buisness with the death of CHRP. Now they are looking to Linex implementation on their CPU's. This could bring about a new CHRP, though not in conjunction with Apple.
Word on the street is that IT pro's are not happy with MicroSofts licensing, neither are a lot of consumers. This could bring about a new market for non-mac desktop PPC computers, which was IBM's idea when they were working on CHRP the first time. If this happens then the desktop PPC chip market might become a lot more desirable/profitable for IBM, and possibly Moto as well.
<strong>
Would it make sense to publish an upgrade plan? Buy a new PowerMac 1.4ghz, and in 10 months, you can slap a new IBM cpu in. That may assuage some of the reluctance to buy now. People are afraid of getting shafted right after buying. (and let's be honest, Apple has shafted users several times). It may help sales now and in the short term.
Just my thoughts.
The Power Mac in the leaked photos from a couple of weeks ago was supposed to be "G5 ready".
Breaking Through Compute Intensive Barriers - IBM's New 64-bit PowerPC Microprocessor
Peter Sandon, Senior Processor Architect, Power PC Organization,
IBM Microelectronics IBM is disclosing the technical details of a new 64-bit PowerPC microprocessor designed for desktops and entry-level servers. Based on the award winning Power4 design, this processor is an 8-way superscalar design that fully supports Symmetric MultiProcessing. The processor is further enhanced by a vector processing unit implementing over 160 specialized vector instructions and implements a system interface capable of up to 6.4GB/s.
[quote]Originally posted by Matsu:
<strong>When I said that IBM had been no great contributor to the PPC I should have explicitly staed that I meant since the introduction of the G3 and the transition to G4.
Did they ever have a faster G3 part than Moto's G4's??? Nope.
They talked about things to come well ino the future but didn't do any better job of making them than Mot did. Even Sahara is NOT what IBM originally intimated it would be and they mentioned it a good long while before we ever got to see one in a Mac!<hr></blockquote></strong>
The transition to the G4 precluded IBM from doing much for Apple. Apple had a long term contract with Motorola for the G4, and Apple tied itself to the G4. The G4 was supposed to be the high end supercomputing chip. Whether or not IBM could have made faster Saharas isn't really the issue since Apple wouldn't have used them anyway. A Sahara at equal clock speeds to a G4 should beat the G4 in all speed tests not including Altivec. Having (what is perceived as) your low end chip beat your high end chip isn't going to look good. IBM was discouraged from enhancing its PPC position in the last few years because 1) Apple didn't want the G4 upstaged 2) There was little incentive to introduce a high end desktop/laptop PPC if it wouldn't be used by Apple.
[quote]<strong>PPC (not POWER CPU's) has been as neglected by IBM for the last 2 years as it has by Moto. Neither company has a good track record for Desktop PPC's of late, and I would be cautious about getting too hopeful over what IBM may or may not be able to supply in the next year.
I don't believe all the poppycock about agreements and IBM feeling slighted by Apple. Apple went with Moto 'cause IBM had nothing. They may be reconsidering their commitment to the PPC now, but they were definitely a company that didn't need to sell PPC's beyond the embedded market (just like Mot) they had POWER for really high-end workstation/server stuff, and people wanted their x86 machines for everything else.<hr></blockquote></strong>
Again, I don't believe you can blame IBM for the current state of Apple's high end. Someone at Apple thought Motorola could handle high end PPC development; someone at Apple loved Altivec. IBM at the time didn't appreciate SIMD, so Apple went with Motorola alone. And IBM went its own way, making tremendous strides with the Power4. Now it's been announced that IBM has a new, high end, 64 bit Power4 PPC w/ VPU aimed at desktops. Things have seemingly come full circle. While some caution is certainly warranted, I can't think of a more positive announcement than what we got from Microprocessor Forum.
[quote]<strong>[SNIP]
Maybe, things have changed (hopefully) but this would be a dramatic change and re-commitment by IBM a company who has most certainly contributed as much to the recent hardware doldrums plaguing macdom as Moto has.
AIM, they are all three of them guilty of arrogance, indifference, and incompetence (probably with each letter exacly in that order)</strong><hr></blockquote>
I like the acronym, but wouldn't Arrogance, Indifference and Moronism be better?
[ 08-08-2002: Message edited by: Big Mac ]</p>
<strong>from macrumors: for the semi forum in Oct. keynote list
Breaking Through Compute Intensive Barriers - IBM's New 64-bit PowerPC Microprocessor
Peter Sandon, Senior Processor Architect, Power PC Organization,
IBM Microelectronics IBM is disclosing the technical details of a new 64-bit PowerPC microprocessor designed for desktops and entry-level servers. Based on the award winning Power4 design, this processor is an 8-way superscalar design that fully supports Symmetric MultiProcessing. The processor is further enhanced by a vector processing unit implementing over 160 specialized vector instructions and implements a system interface capable of up to 6.4GB/s.</strong><hr></blockquote>
From the very first post in this thread:
From the Microprocessor Forum homepage:
Breaking Through Compute Intensive Barriers - IBM's New 64-bit PowerPC Microprocessor
Peter Sandon, Senior Processor Architect, Power PC Organization, IBM Microelectronics
IBM is disclosing the technical details of a new 64-bit PowerPC microprocessor designed for desktops and entry-level servers. Based on the award winning Power4 design, this processor is an 8-way superscalar design that fully supports Symmetric MultiProcessing. The processor is further enhanced by a vector processing unit implementing over 160 specialized vector instructions and implements a system interface capable of up to 6.4GB/s.
I meant:
Apple, arrogance.
IBM, indifference.
Motorola, incompetence.
Those seem to be the major sins of each member of AIM, though each was also guilty of the others
<strong>
*snip!* Do you have any links to the announcement?
*snip!*
</strong><hr></blockquote>
Okay, busted. I have nothing to base this on other than timortis' post on the first page of this thread. He/She/It said:
Last year, one of IBM's presentations at the MPF was the Gekko chip for GameCube which came out a month later.
They did announce a next-generation PPC architecture with SIMD last year when they published their latest roadmap. According to that roadmap, this "new-generation" was supposed to come after the current generation stopped at 1Ghz on 13 micron SOI, which is what the 750fx is.
The only thing new here, is that they're finally saying this will be a "high-performance desktop processor" and not a low-power, low-cost embedded one. This is huge. Last year, they always made it a point to emphasize that this new-generation PPC would be an embedded low-power design. So now they're saying there'll be a desktop version.
So I'm guilty of building speculation on a solid base of supposition, leavened with a healthy dose of rumor and equal parts guesswork and bald-faced fantasy.
I actually hadn't remembered reading it in this thread as I was jumping around a lot and that bit stuck. Perhaps timortis could shed somemore light?
Sorry for that.
Can we sort something out?
What is the relationship of Cell and this new POWER5? Are the same thing? Or two completely different initiatives taken on by IBM to satisfy two different constituencies?
I know that Cell is being fabbed at Fishkill, but is it being fabbed now?
It's all so confusing.
THe last bit of pot-stirring I'll add:
Would you open a multi-million dollar production facility that gives you the ability to significantly add to your production capability (not to mention publicizing it) if you didn't have something you wanted to do with the plant in fairly short order?
Jet
<strong>
[SNIP]
So I'm guilty of building speculation on a solid base of supposition, leavened with a healthy dose of rumor and equal parts guesswork and bald-faced fantasy.
I actually hadn't remembered reading it in this thread as I was jumping around a lot and that bit stuck. Perhaps timortis could shed somemore light?
Sorry for that.</strong><hr></blockquote>
No need to apologize; I now realize what you were referring to.
From: <a href="http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1103-892836.html"; target="_blank">http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1103-892836.html</a>;
"This year, IBM will repackage Power4 into "single-chip modules" for lower-end systems with one to four Power4 processors."
The article was April '02.
The Power4 has already been shipping in their servers so the MFC presentation is a retrospective on how they brought this chip to Apple specs.
Watch for it next Tuesday.
"Glaskowsky said IBM will have to curtail the sizable power consumption and resulting waste heat of Power4 to achieve this target."
The big noticable features of the leaked pictures were huge heat sink, large vents and huge power supply?
<a href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/39/22328.html"; target="_blank">http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/39/22328.html</a>;
GHz\t1.2\t1.4\t1.6
SpecInt2000\t987\t1151\t1340
SpecFP2000\t1005\t1173\t1359
I know it was probably someones fantasy built we all like to dream a little.
<strong>Look at this
<a href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/archive/20038.html"; target="_blank">Old news from theregister June 2001</a>
we are still talking about all of that
Aw
[ 08-08-2002: Message edited by: Appleworm ]</strong><hr></blockquote>
Good article. So Apple has been designing the G5 and IBM builds a new foundry plant. Hmmm...
Look for the Power4 in the PMG4 next week. Apple is now qouting 5-7 days for shippment of any PMG4. That's 1-2 days from August 13.
[quote]Network equipment and other communications gear is the most likely destination for the new PowerPC, as the bulk of existing PowerPCs are used there. However, IBM is also wooing Apple Computer, sources familiar with the chip said. The company is in a constant tug of war with Motorola, which makes most of the PowerPC chips slotted into Macs, for Apple's business. <hr></blockquote>
Good ol News.com, better than any rumor site out there.