In it, they discuss IBM's Power4 and, of course, IBM's PowerPC 970 which is coming later this year:
Even more intriguing for Apple is that the 970?s typical power consumption drops to 19 W at 1.2 GHz which makes it a natural competitor to Intel?s Banias processor for high end mobile applications and very small form factor and/or silent desktop PCs. Given the reduced design margin and greater market emphasis for clock frequency of desktop processors, it is also conceivable that IBM could turn out limited numbers of 970 MPUs that clocked at 2 GHz or higher for high end desktop Macs, an important psychological milestone for Apple?s struggle for survival in an increasingly x86 dominated PC world.
While the MHz boost is purely speculation, Apple is aware of their lagging processor speeds (as compared to Intel/AMD), and IBM's PowerPC 970 is widely expected to be incorporated into PowerMacs as early as later this year.
So just some more info on the 970. I think we already know most of what there is to really know as far as when etc. I think it's quite sure we will see one in an Apple this year. But the more info the better...
<strong>As I read it the intention of this system is to support NUMA systems and clusters, making them seem like they are traditional SMP designs. Multiple processors still can't speed up a single thread, but multiple threads can be spread across disparate processors.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Hmmm. Interesting. I wonder how that fits with Apple's supposed XGrid?
This would be a great sales booster. However, from a practical standpoint, I'm more enthused about HyperTransport and Infiniband integration. These technologies will open up the biggest bottleneck (other than hard drives) current machines have - the bus. If this all comes together for an announcement at NAB, I'll be on cloud nine. It would make Apple, once again, the center of attention at that show.
Sorry to be a downer. But Steve told us when the PowerMacs would be updated to the 970.
"2003 will be the year of the portable."
He wouldn't say that if he knew that this year would bring a processor to its desktop line that would threaten Intel.
At best, the 970-based PowerMac will debut in September-October. This would give Apple its usual 9-month update cycle, and fit perfectly in with both the Christmas shopping season and corporate fiscal Q1 tech purchase-order plans (and be only a tad late for the education buying season). At absolute-mind-bogglingly-wowzers-best, we'll get another G4 speedbump at MWNY, and the 970 in Sept-Oct.
More likely, we'll get a G4 speedbump in Sept-Oct (1.58GHz, or 1.6 if they hit a 200MHz DDR motherboard), and the 970 at MWSF 04.
I'm looking forward to the 970 too. Not for my own purposes; I'll hopefully be taking the plunge into the laptop world this summer/early fall (if I can find a job by then ). I want the 970 to arrive because I think it will be the thing that gets Apple its competitivity back in the professional world, which will give it more viability all over, giving us more applications and hardware. With bigger marketshare, prices can begin to drop in a meaningful way (although I never expect to see a truly affordable Apple ). When that happens, Apple will regain "its" education market. Since I am/will be a teacher, I want to see Macs in the classroom again.
Also, a 970-based desktop will allow them to put G4s in the iBook . (I know, that won't happen for a while, but I can dream of a $1000 G4, can't I?)
But reality is what it is. 970 production won't begin for another 2 months. And switching to a completely new chip family involves a shitload of headaches. Motherboards will have to be redesigned, software recompiled (I would assume), developers appeased, commercials and marketing and production positioning settled (which, knowing Apple, is probably the most time-comsuming part ), bugs quashed, and OS compatibilty among 3 processors maintained. And that's probably not the half of it (I'm pretty much the farthest thing from an expect as you can get).
Sure a lot of work has already been done, but the chip barely exists yet. Apple will be smart not to rush this. The last thing they need is a repeat of the original G4 introduction when they discovered the bugger wouldn't work above 500MHz after they announced it.
I know the speculation gets contagious. But--PLEASE--don't make any life-altering decisions based on the premise that the 970 will be here this summer. If you need a high-end box before January, buy a 1.42 dualie now (always best to buy one at the beginning of a product cycle). Otherwise you'll be tearing your hair out when Steve says "One more thing..." at MWNY and finally speedbumps the iMac. <img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" />
If it gets here early, you'll be delightfully surprised. If not, you'll know that it'll be here sometime between September and January 04.
Why do I say all this? Mostly, I'm sick of jackasses threatening to switch to Wintels and/or kill Steve Jobs (just do it already... ) when reality doesn't match their highly overblown expectations.
"The only useful computer is the one you have in front of you."
You better believe that apple has been working with IBM on this since the day they found out. I would imagine that if they start production in march we will see a powermac 970 in another 3 months. Just in time for June.
<strong>But reality is what it is. 970 production won't begin for another 2 months. And switching to a completely new chip family involves a shitload of headaches. Motherboards will have to be redesigned, software recompiled (I would assume), developers appeased, commercials and marketing and production positioning settled (which, knowing Apple, is probably the most time-comsuming part ), bugs quashed, and OS compatibilty among 3 processors maintained. And that's probably not the half of it</strong><hr></blockquote>
IBM claims 2H03 = wide availability. Yes - headaches. Yes - motherboard design. No - recompile. No - developers to appease. (And SJ pretty much said 'Bite me' to Quark) Pretty sure the pentium-on-snail commercials all done Bugs - HW bugs are IBM's problem mostly.
OS compatibility - getting it to _run_ shouldn't be a problem. Getting it to run well shouldn't be a problem. Getting the _full_ benefits might be an issue, but getting it running across the 604, G3, G4, and ppc970 shouldn't be an issue - the differences are primarily in scheduling/ordering instructions, which is in optimization. One guy (outside of Apple) is keeping the 604 & 604e mostly working,
<strong>Sorry to be a downer. But Steve told us when the PowerMacs would be updated to the 970.
"2003 will be the year of the portable."
-DCQ</strong><hr></blockquote>
And? That simply means apple's portable will rock this year. Nothing more, nothing less. He didn't say, screw the towers, we're only doing portables this year. That's not to mention the towers were just updated and we now have a 1.4ghz tower. As for your time frame, it's the fall, that's been the consensus since day one. Of course it won't be surprising if we get it around Sept, because that's the fall. Also, the towers aren't on a 9 month update line. From the info I've had, G4s are done. So i don't think we will see anymore G4s in the towers and I don't think we will have to wait till Jan 2004 for the 970.
But reality is what it is. 970 production won't begin for another 2 months. And switching to a completely new chip family involves a shitload of headaches.</strong><hr></blockquote>
The 970 is a PowerPC, and the PowerPC spec was designed for 64 bit processors from day one.
Hardware will definitely be affected. Software shouldn't even notice that it's not running on one (or two) G4s.
You're reading way too much into Steve's comment about "the year of the portable". Even if you take it literally it doesn't mean that the tower's aren't going to improve... perhaps the towers will go to the 970 but that is nothing compared to what will happen to them in 2004? The thing to remember is that Steve made that comment at a show when they were introducing a whole line of new portables and he needs those portables to carry as much of Apple's sales until later in the year when the desktop sales can be boosted again. The first 9 months of this year are going to be all about the portables because we know their desktop lineup is keep, and so clearly that makes them important for most of 2003.
My prediction is still that we see the first of the new towers shipping in Aug-Sept. We might see a preview earlier.
<strong>Does anyone know off the top of their head what wattages the current notebook processors pull? I'd look it up, but I'm lazy and on my way to class.</strong><hr></blockquote>
In the neighborhood of 11W to 13W (guesstimate).
So 19 would be a little high, but who knows...
Powerbooks and Powermacs with 970s and the consumer lines all with G4s by the end of the year or MWSF '04 would be lovely.
<strong>I don't know... the IBM presentation was pretty clear that the bus speed is half the processor speed. Period.</strong><hr></blockquote>
The presentation said 900 MHz <strong>bit rate</strong>. Are you shure the bus isn't double pumped? This would make a 450 MHz cycle and a bus ratio of 4. I can't remember to have seen that the ratio is fix. Question mark.
Well we won't get 3 updates in one year, so if we don't get the 970 this fall (which I doubt) we wouldn't get it until the end of next January.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
For all practical purposes, the introduction of the updated G4 and of PPC970 will split the present quad-tiered desktop program into something more confusing... much like the i-/PowerBook has been.
Since the LCD monitor lineup was just updated, we should assume the new 970 Pwrmacs will use the current industrial design or at least the same colors/materials so as to make the hardware match no?
For all practical purposes, the introduction of the updated G4 and of PPC970 will split the present quad-tiered desktop program into something more confusing... much like the i-/PowerBook has been.
And NOT that early...
engpjp</strong><hr></blockquote>
Not sure about the confusion, but I was told FALL, that's not early to me, it's my INFO.
Comments
<strong>
Yes, from the looks of everything on the new companion chip (can anyone guess the name?), I would think it would have to be extreamly close.
BTW, I think we'll all be pleasently suprised when we see this new chip.
You know something?
<a href="http://www.realworldtech.com/page.cfm?AID=RWT012603224711"; target="_blank">http://www.realworldtech.com/page.cfm?AID=RWT012603224711</a>;
In it, they discuss IBM's Power4 and, of course, IBM's PowerPC 970 which is coming later this year:
Even more intriguing for Apple is that the 970?s typical power consumption drops to 19 W at 1.2 GHz which makes it a natural competitor to Intel?s Banias processor for high end mobile applications and very small form factor and/or silent desktop PCs. Given the reduced design margin and greater market emphasis for clock frequency of desktop processors, it is also conceivable that IBM could turn out limited numbers of 970 MPUs that clocked at 2 GHz or higher for high end desktop Macs, an important psychological milestone for Apple?s struggle for survival in an increasingly x86 dominated PC world.
While the MHz boost is purely speculation, Apple is aware of their lagging processor speeds (as compared to Intel/AMD), and IBM's PowerPC 970 is widely expected to be incorporated into PowerMacs as early as later this year.
So just some more info on the 970. I think we already know most of what there is to really know as far as when etc. I think it's quite sure we will see one in an Apple this year. But the more info the better...
[ 02-02-2003: Message edited by: Algol ]</p>
<strong>As I read it the intention of this system is to support NUMA systems and clusters, making them seem like they are traditional SMP designs. Multiple processors still can't speed up a single thread, but multiple threads can be spread across disparate processors.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Hmmm. Interesting. I wonder how that fits with Apple's supposed XGrid?
<a href="http://arstechnica.infopop.net/OpenTopic/page?a=tpc&s=50009562&f=8300945231&m=6380998745"; target="_blank">Ars reader says XGrid in place at his school.</a>
Are we likely to see the PPC970 in 1U XServes configured as an XGrid cluster this March?
"2003 will be the year of the portable."
He wouldn't say that if he knew that this year would bring a processor to its desktop line that would threaten Intel.
At best, the 970-based PowerMac will debut in September-October. This would give Apple its usual 9-month update cycle, and fit perfectly in with both the Christmas shopping season and corporate fiscal Q1 tech purchase-order plans (and be only a tad late for the education buying season). At absolute-mind-bogglingly-wowzers-best, we'll get another G4 speedbump at MWNY, and the 970 in Sept-Oct.
More likely, we'll get a G4 speedbump in Sept-Oct (1.58GHz, or 1.6 if they hit a 200MHz DDR motherboard), and the 970 at MWSF 04.
I'm looking forward to the 970 too. Not for my own purposes; I'll hopefully be taking the plunge into the laptop world this summer/early fall (if I can find a job by then
Also, a 970-based desktop will allow them to put G4s in the iBook
But reality is what it is. 970 production won't begin for another 2 months. And switching to a completely new chip family involves a shitload of headaches. Motherboards will have to be redesigned, software recompiled (I would assume), developers appeased, commercials and marketing and production positioning settled (which, knowing Apple, is probably the most time-comsuming part
Sure a lot of work has already been done, but the chip barely exists yet. Apple will be smart not to rush this. The last thing they need is a repeat of the original G4 introduction when they discovered the bugger wouldn't work above 500MHz after they announced it.
I know the speculation gets contagious. But--PLEASE--don't make any life-altering decisions based on the premise that the 970 will be here this summer. If you need a high-end box before January, buy a 1.42 dualie now (always best to buy one at the beginning of a product cycle). Otherwise you'll be tearing your hair out when Steve says "One more thing..." at MWNY and finally speedbumps the iMac. <img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" />
If it gets here early, you'll be delightfully surprised. If not, you'll know that it'll be here sometime between September and January 04.
Why do I say all this? Mostly, I'm sick of jackasses threatening to switch to Wintels and/or kill Steve Jobs (just do it already...
"The only useful computer is the one you have in front of you."
-DCQ
<strong>But reality is what it is. 970 production won't begin for another 2 months. And switching to a completely new chip family involves a shitload of headaches. Motherboards will have to be redesigned, software recompiled (I would assume), developers appeased, commercials and marketing and production positioning settled (which, knowing Apple, is probably the most time-comsuming part
IBM claims 2H03 = wide availability. Yes - headaches. Yes - motherboard design. No - recompile. No - developers to appease. (And SJ pretty much said 'Bite me' to Quark) Pretty sure the pentium-on-snail commercials all done
OS compatibility - getting it to _run_ shouldn't be a problem. Getting it to run well shouldn't be a problem. Getting the _full_ benefits might be an issue, but getting it running across the 604, G3, G4, and ppc970 shouldn't be an issue - the differences are primarily in scheduling/ordering instructions, which is in optimization. One guy (outside of Apple) is keeping the 604 & 604e mostly working,
<strong>Sorry to be a downer. But Steve told us when the PowerMacs would be updated to the 970.
"2003 will be the year of the portable."
-DCQ</strong><hr></blockquote>
And? That simply means apple's portable will rock this year. Nothing more, nothing less. He didn't say, screw the towers, we're only doing portables this year. That's not to mention the towers were just updated and we now have a 1.4ghz tower. As for your time frame, it's the fall, that's been the consensus since day one. Of course it won't be surprising if we get it around Sept, because that's the fall. Also, the towers aren't on a 9 month update line. From the info I've had, G4s are done. So i don't think we will see anymore G4s in the towers and I don't think we will have to wait till Jan 2004 for the 970.
[ 02-03-2003: Message edited by: KidRed ]</p>
hey, ya never know
<strong>perhaps it will also be the year of the portable because the powerbook will get a PowerPC 970 this year.
hey, ya never know</strong><hr></blockquote>
The low voltage 1.2 Ghz PPC970 supposedly only uses 19W...
<strong>The low voltage 1.2 Ghz PPC970 supposedly only uses 19W...</strong><hr></blockquote>
Yeah, its really nice, isnt it?
<strong>
But reality is what it is. 970 production won't begin for another 2 months. And switching to a completely new chip family involves a shitload of headaches.</strong><hr></blockquote>
The 970 is a PowerPC, and the PowerPC spec was designed for 64 bit processors from day one.
Hardware will definitely be affected. Software shouldn't even notice that it's not running on one (or two) G4s.
My prediction is still that we see the first of the new towers shipping in Aug-Sept. We might see a preview earlier.
<strong>Does anyone know off the top of their head what wattages the current notebook processors pull? I'd look it up, but I'm lazy
In the neighborhood of 11W to 13W (guesstimate).
So 19 would be a little high, but who knows...
Powerbooks and Powermacs with 970s and the consumer lines all with G4s by the end of the year or MWSF '04 would be lovely.
Screed
[ 02-03-2003: Message edited by: sCreeD ]</p>
<strong>I don't know... the IBM presentation was pretty clear that the bus speed is half the processor speed. Period.</strong><hr></blockquote>
The presentation said 900 MHz <strong>bit rate</strong>. Are you shure the bus isn't double pumped? This would make a 450 MHz cycle and a bus ratio of 4. I can't remember to have seen that the ratio is fix. Question mark.
<strong>
Well we won't get 3 updates in one year, so if we don't get the 970 this fall (which I doubt) we wouldn't get it until the end of next January.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
For all practical purposes, the introduction of the updated G4 and of PPC970 will split the present quad-tiered desktop program into something more confusing... much like the i-/PowerBook has been.
And NOT that early...
engpjp
<strong>
For all practical purposes, the introduction of the updated G4 and of PPC970 will split the present quad-tiered desktop program into something more confusing... much like the i-/PowerBook has been.
And NOT that early...
engpjp</strong><hr></blockquote>
Not sure about the confusion, but I was told FALL, that's not early to me, it's my INFO.