vector unit in IBM's CPU is Altivec

Posted:
in Future Apple Hardware edited January 2014
<a href="http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,3959,543317,00.asp"; target="_blank">http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,3959,543317,00.asp</a>;



bottom of the page.



"Sources note that internal documents and publicly released information make no explicit mention of Motorola's Altivec multimedia extensions currently used in the PowerPC G4 and marketed under the name Velocity Engine by Apple. However, they said that VMX and Altivec are highly compatible, if not identical."



i dont think they could have shouted "ITS FOR APPLE" any louder than that.



EDIT: here another little tid bit



<a href="http://www.geek.com/procspec/apple/g5.htm"; target="_blank">http://www.geek.com/procspec/apple/g5.htm</a>;



"A source who wishes not to be identified indicated to us that Motorola cancelled further development of the desktop G5 chip over a year ago, and will concentrate on speeding up the current G4 processor architecture"



G5 on the roadmap was supposed to come out at 1ghz. well obviously the G4 has supased that. so it seems like this rumor is true. just more G4 upgrades and no G5 from moto ever.



[ 10-01-2002: Message edited by: Aris ]</p>

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 14
    stoostoo Posts: 1,490member
    I remember back in the 1990s Altivec was referred to as VMX when it was in development. It was described as PowerPC's answer to MMX



    I strongly suspect that VMX, Altivec and Velocity Engine are just what IBM, Moto and Apple call the PowerPC SIMD sub ISA.
  • Reply 2 of 14
    <a href="http://www.geek.com/news/geeknews/2002Sep/bma20020920016424.htm"; target="_blank">this one</a>cort my eye
  • Reply 3 of 14
    airslufairsluf Posts: 1,861member
  • Reply 4 of 14
    arisaris Posts: 65member
    [quote]Originally posted by AirSluf:

    <strong>This has already hit multiple threads, most of which are already locked. Try the monster thread around page 20 or so for a little been-there-done-that.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    yeah i dont like the monster thread. i stopped reading it on page 8. personaly i think they should lock that one and let others start. its way to big for anyone that hasnt already been in the discussion from the begging to hop into it.



    as far as this specific link hitting other threads idunno. i keep up with this forum pretty well and i hadnt seen this site up on a thread yet. unless its burried on page 17 of the monster thread 3/4 of the way down. in which case i could care less about it.



    [ 10-03-2002: Message edited by: Aris ]</p>
  • Reply 5 of 14
    kidredkidred Posts: 2,402member
    So this is one has more then 5 replies, it's getting to long. Let's lock it and from now on only do 3-4 replies per thread and then lock them.
  • Reply 6 of 14
    arisaris Posts: 65member
    [quote]Originally posted by KidRed:

    <strong>So this is one has more then 5 replies, it's getting to long. Let's lock it and from now on only do 3-4 replies per thread and then lock them.</strong><hr></blockquote>





    oh so we should take it to the other extream then huh KID? all posts should be at least 1000 POSTS LONG!!!! and over 27 PAGES LONG!!!



    the "future hardware forum" ended up being "the one future hardware thread".



    if their is new information then it needs a new thread. it shouldnt just get burried in a super thread that 90% of everyone on the forum had stopped reading about 2 months ago.
  • Reply 7 of 14
    algolalgol Posts: 833member
    Yea I stopped reading it as soon as it got off topic and started mine. But no one likes my thread. No one's posted for days. <img src="graemlins/embarrassed.gif" border="0" alt="[Embarrassed]" />
  • Reply 8 of 14
    alcimedesalcimedes Posts: 5,486member
    here's a clue boys. rather than having half the thread talking about the length of the thread, keep it on topic and interesting.



    for example.



    i found it interesting that they're talking about a late summer release for the IBM chip, but that they expect Moto to be released as soon as January. that makes me think that what we see from Moto would have to be pretty close to what we're going to see from IBM, right?



    if the Moto chip is going to be a G5, then what will happen with the IBM chip? will it be a G6, or still be called a G5? if it's still called a G5, then i would assume it would be damn similar in performance to the Moto G5. if it were noticably different the the Moto chip, it would almost have to get it's own moniker.



    i suppose you could see the G5 bumped down to lower-end models, but that would be rough to go from top dog to lower tier in only 7 months.



    i suppose the iBook would finally get at least a G4 then as well, which would make it the ultimate notebook, IMO.
  • Reply 9 of 14
    Yeah, whats the deal, douche faces? Why should we have 1 thread that takes in every differentiating bit of news and information about a future product. We dont feel like reading over 1000 posts trying to find the specific details we're looking for. Give it up. Mods, PLEASE close the G5 from IBM thread or else these dumbass guys will keep it going forever.
  • Reply 10 of 14
    woozlewoozle Posts: 64member
    Having two chips that perform well doesnt mean that one or the other has to be the top dog, and that one will be relegated to the consumer range.



    We might be really lucky and see a situation like Intel and AMD, except with Mot and IBM battling it out, not only for performance, but also for price.



    Competition could be so good for the Mac market.

    In this scenario Apple would need to sell its machines based on their actual performance, not just clock speed.



    It would make the matrix of products much more appropriate.

    Maybe they would even adopt AMD's performance rating system. It would certainly lend it a lot of credibility, and, if the new cpu's are fast enough, give Apple a boost as well.
  • Reply 11 of 14
    rick1138rick1138 Posts: 938member
    It looks like the IBM chip is going to be the G5-it looks impressive as well-roughly equivalent to an 8 gHz Pentium for the 2 gHz chips-very fast indeed.
  • Reply 12 of 14
    I don't see where this idea about the Moto G5 in Jan came from. All evidence points to Moto killing the G5 project, and even IF they were working on a G5, it seems that they dragged their asses too long because Apple is clearly going for the GPUL.



    Furthermore, there is another revision of the G4 due very soon, probably in January. The 7470 I believe, it may have true DDR memory support, and it will definitely be fabbed on a 130 nm process.



    Apple can put the GPUL in their towers, and use the G4 in all other lines. If Moto can keep improving G4 performance, then Apple can use it in consumer lines for another couple years. This may be very bad for Apple, since even if the towers are competitive, it's still important that the consumer macs can hold up against the competition, particularly since it's the consumer macs that are closest to Wintels in cost.
  • Reply 13 of 14
    telomartelomar Posts: 1,804member
    [quote]Originally posted by Rick1138:

    <strong>It looks like the IBM chip is going to be the G5-it looks impressive as well-roughly equivalent to an 8 gHz Pentium for the 2 gHz chips-very fast indeed.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    It looks nothing like that. The POWER4 itself isn't that powerful.



    [quote]Originally posted by Junkyard Dawg:

    <strong>Furthermore, there is another revision of the G4 due very soon, probably in January. The 7470 I believe, it may have true DDR memory support, and it will definitely be fabbed on a 130 nm process. </strong><hr></blockquote>



    Maybe or maybe not. From a technical point of view I would be very surprised if Motorola took the G4 to a DDR bus and I can tell you last I heard a bump to a 167 MHz bus was all they had planned. To be perfectly honest I wouldn't be all that surprised to see a small speed bump and that's it come early 2003.



    If Motorola decided they wanted to extend the life of the G4 and its overall performance it would mean some fairly substantial changes. If they were to do that they would also be better off going the whole hog and just designing a new generation of chip. As everybody so wisely points out though the Moto G5 is dead.
  • Reply 14 of 14
    matsumatsu Posts: 6,558member
    But is it? Maybe the G5 of rumor is dead, but there are supposedly 'modular' 8xxx chips on sale right now. It could be that the G5 actually becomes more of a G3 replacement than a G4 replacement (relative to GPuL), with it's outright performance not being too much more than current G4's, though it would use a different core, the major benefits being that it offers a smaller/cooler process, a new RapidIO based bus, and a 64bit core. Depending on the technologies on offer in GPuL, such a G5 might make it easier for Apple to maintain one basic MoBo architecture across all of their products and actually banish 32bit computing from their landscape. Any 64bit PPC would run 32bit code natively (as per the PPC spec) -- while 64 only has real advantages for certain types of apps, such a move would allow developers to transition to 64bit code (or use 32 where convenient/appropriate) and know that it would run on any shipping mac rather just powermacs.



    In light of Hubbard's comments, I don't think that any of what I described is likely but it would be a potential use for a small cool 64bit (or 32bit) embedded G5. In any event, Apple will need something for the rest of the line-up. Especially the PB and iMac, which are looking very slow given their prices. Features are good on both, but the speed is looking very puny.



    Hotter G4's ? Altivec capable Saharas? I dunno. It ain't just the high-end that needs a future path.



    _________

    edit: Hubbard not Pogue, duh...



    [ 10-04-2002: Message edited by: Matsu ]</p>
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