More AMD rumors
AMD rumors are afoot again (MacBidouille).
Now I don't for a second think that Apple will abandon PPC and go x86 (neither 32 nor 64 bit version). There are too many mines in the water that way. On top of that Jobs has said that they are not abandoning PPC and that PPC has a great future. As a CEO of a large company ha cannot say this and then change just a couple of months later.
But:
There were rumors of G5 (64 bit) processors from Motorola last spring and rumors said that last summer Apple would have at least speed equality with Intel come MWNY 2002.
There were just a few weeks ago rumors of Apple boxes with AMD chips in them. The boxes were welded shut so nobody should see what was inside. FCP supposedley "flew" on these boxes.
And:
AMD needs cash. Apple is "pissed" with Motorola.
So what if the AMD-boxes contained AMD produced PPC G5's?
This would give AMD some sorely needed cash and a second revenue stream. It would let Apple get away from Moto, and it would keep Apple competitive with Wintel until the 970 comes along.
Any thoughts?
At all feasible?
Terje
Now I don't for a second think that Apple will abandon PPC and go x86 (neither 32 nor 64 bit version). There are too many mines in the water that way. On top of that Jobs has said that they are not abandoning PPC and that PPC has a great future. As a CEO of a large company ha cannot say this and then change just a couple of months later.
But:
There were rumors of G5 (64 bit) processors from Motorola last spring and rumors said that last summer Apple would have at least speed equality with Intel come MWNY 2002.
There were just a few weeks ago rumors of Apple boxes with AMD chips in them. The boxes were welded shut so nobody should see what was inside. FCP supposedley "flew" on these boxes.
And:
AMD needs cash. Apple is "pissed" with Motorola.
So what if the AMD-boxes contained AMD produced PPC G5's?
This would give AMD some sorely needed cash and a second revenue stream. It would let Apple get away from Moto, and it would keep Apple competitive with Wintel until the 970 comes along.
Any thoughts?
At all feasible?
Terje
Comments
I think mostly of the expertise AND experience needed to make, nay, design such a chip. If I'm correct, though I may not be, Apple doesn't own the hardware design of the PPC chips in their various machines, and though they may have blueprints, these are most likely patented to the very nanometer, meaning, AMD would have to start roughly from scratch to design a processor capable of handling the PPC instruction set.
Suppose they pull this off: they design such a processor, and it is scalable and it is faster than current offerings. They would have already spent some money on this, a little more than pocket change.
Where will they build it? I guess Motorola won't step up and say 'you can use our plant, sure'. For I think a specific processor needs a specific manufacturing installation, and it may just prove very hard to push out PPC's with ease out of their current Athlon/Hammer plants. So, more money to be spent. And time. Lots of time to get all of this done.
Meaning: if AMD were serious about the PPC (and serious to the extent that it'll be released next year), they should be building it somewhere, and I guess somebody would've already known, and rumors would've started, for this kind of thing is apparently so huge that you cannot hide it.
That's just my thoughts, though.
[ 11-22-2002: Message edited by: MacsRGood4U ]</p>
i recall reading an article on the differences between AMD procs and Intel procs, where basically the pentium is pure CISC and x86 and all those other geeky words. the AMD system, however, uses a RISC architecture chip (not necessarily PPC, i think), that is nice and relatively "smal", but it has a boat load of other stuff tacked on to the chip, making it "big" and "hot", and acting as a translator for RISC into CISC.
now, this article was before the Athlon's came out, and was talking about the Athlons in specific. apparently, the chip core was fast enough, that even with the translation, it could keep up with native CISC instructions Intel was using.
please bear in mind, i'm having to remember all this, and my memory is not perfect.
now, the big question would be, if this is true, and how AMD does things, could they take off the translator unit, leaving a RISC core, and could that core more easily run Apple stuff?
caiaphas
tech support extraordinaire
but "the" AMD chip would, and could be rolled out sooner
much fanfare in one area leaves the other unexposed.
see this link
<a href="http://www.appleturns.com"; target="_blank">http://www.appleturns.com</a>;
ciao
<strong>some more fuel to the fire...
see this link
<a href="http://www.appleturns.com"; target="_blank">http://www.appleturns.com</a>;
</strong><hr></blockquote>
Very very interesting, but...this "Amd" in the Jaguar features could not be something other than Advanced Micro Devices?
<strong>
Very very interesting, but...this "Amd" in the Jaguar features could not be something other than Advanced Micro Devices?</strong><hr></blockquote>
automount daemon (/usr/sbin/amd)
Capitalization is important, guys. C'mon, give me a break. There is ZERO evidence for anything between AMD and Apple, and more repetitions of the same rumours doesn't make it more likely to happen.
<strong>There is ZERO evidence for anything between AMD and Apple, and more repetitions of the same rumours doesn't make it more likely to happen.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Amen!
IBM is a far far better supplier since they have their very substantial business to support their own development efforts, and a leading edge MicroElectronics group (with no x86 history) that needs more customers. These guys want to blow the likes of SPARC, MIPS, and Itanium out of the water in their server market, but they need somebody else (i.e. Apple) to sell volume so that they can fund their own development better.
My guess is that IBM will supply Apple's processors for the next 5 or so years, minimum. Beyond that its too hard to predict. According to published IBM writings, in that kind of a timeframe we could be looking at chips with 8-16 cores (of 970 level complexity) on one chip. The 970's core is pretty well suited to exactly this kind of design -- low power consumption, only ~50 million transistors, high speed synchronous non-multiplexed bus, SMP support for up to 8-way, etc. Smaller processes and the deep pipelines should result in significantly higher speeds. Apple's future is very bright, and it is from IBM.
Is it possible that Motorola is unloading it's (desktop) PPC business to AMD? Perhaps with Apple playing matchmaker?
[ 11-22-2002: Message edited by: Locomotive ]</p>
AMD has many projects, including The Barton, the new athlon with 200 mhz FSB bus ,and 512 KB L2 cache, the AThlon 64 (aka the opteron) and the various chipset needed to make it work on new mobos. This is a lot of R&D.
At best AMD may produce Mot PPC on their plants, if this plants are not used at their full potential (but i have some doubt, AMD is not producing on SOI 0,13 for the moment)
but this rumor is a classic one, on these board.
[ 11-22-2002: Message edited by: Powerdoc ]</p>
<strong>Programmer, shouldn't we try to keep this thread on-topic? This is about AMD chips, not the IBM 970!
</strong><hr></blockquote>
Heh.
It is on topic though... I'm pointing out how AMD chips would be a bad choice for Apple.
There is ZERO evidence for anything between AMD and Apple, ...[/QB]<hr></blockquote>
Not sure that's completely true. Some of the earliest rumors _claimed_ contact between AMD and Apple... then went off down the speculation path of insisting it was a AMD-powered Mac under dev etc.
What I'm saying is that I could see AMD and Apple spending a LOT of time together discussing, say, HyperTransport... and having the rumormongers insist that was evidence of an AMD-Mac 'any day now, honest'.
Or perhaps they want AMD to make other pieces of the motherboard chipset, who knows. Custom RAID controller? Whatever.
Apple has been stuck with Motorola's slow breakthroughs in processor development.
Motorola is considering selling the chip fabrication part of their company.
AMD is also strapped for cash, but eager to stake their space in the processor world.
Apple is working with IBM to produce their future processors, but should always keep their options open. We don't want a Motorola-like situation in the future.
Steve Jobs likes to call the shots, harder to do with a company like IBM, but not as hard with a company like AMD, that needs the boost.
Apple should purchase the Motorola's processing facilities and hire some of the key personnel. Apple in turn hires AMD to run the manufacturing facilities. Steve can have a lot more input into processor development.
AMD get access to the intellectual property that Apple and Motorola have and a healthy cash infusion. Apple gets options in the processor market, including a partner that will be more receptive to input (than Motorola was). IBM signs a collaboration aggreement with Apple and AMD, technology exchange and consulting help the RISC processor design transition.
Looks like a win win situation, as long as IBM is not feeling snubbed in the deal.
Just my suggestion. I like this scenerio better than a quick with to an entirely new chip architecture. AMD can continue with the G3/G4/G4+ design and maybe deliver the "G5" chip that Motorola hasn't been able to deliver.
We will have to wait and see what happens, same as always.