Intel: We Will "Blow Away" the PowerPC 970

scottscott
Posted:
in Future Apple Hardware edited January 2014
This is kind of funny. Two unreleased chips battling it out. If Intel feels the need to respond to the 970 it sounds good to me.





<a href="http://www.insanely-great.com/news.php?id=1612"; target="_blank">Intel: We Will "Blow Away" the PowerPC 970</a>



which then later links too ...

<a href="http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/20628.html"; target="_blank">Could IBM Be the Next Computer Chip King?</a>



[posters note] I'm sooooo tiered of news stories that link to stock quotes. You think that would have died with the .com bubble burst?
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 86
    scottscott Posts: 7,431member
    You know I was reading the newsfactor link and it seem like the "reporter" has no ****ing clue what he's talking about. Maybe he's "playing dumb" for his readers?



    [quote]If IBM were to market the chip not only to Apple, but also to Windows PC OEMs, it would be a revolution: a 64-bit chip that could scale from desktops to the high end of mid-range Wintel-class servers.<hr></blockquote>



    HELLO?! It's a different ISA. 970 instruction set != Intel instruction set.
  • Reply 2 of 86
    jbljbl Posts: 555member
    Actually, the original News Factor article says that Intel claims Deerfield will blow away the 970's power consumsion advantage. Doesn't mention anything about performance.
  • Reply 3 of 86
    stunnedstunned Posts: 1,096member
    Competition is good. Lets hope both of them try to outdo each other. This will only benefit consumers!!
  • Reply 4 of 86
    scottscott Posts: 7,431member
    Well here's a quote...



    [quote]Performance is a moving target, however, and Intel contends it will blow away any power advantage the 970 currently holds with its next Itanium, dubbed "Deerfield," to be previewed in February at its developer forum.<hr></blockquote>



    Although they do mention power as in watts before I think here it's ambiguous what they mean by "power" here. CPU power? Electrical power?
  • Reply 5 of 86
    relicrelic Posts: 4,735member
    Marketing Power!
  • Reply 6 of 86
    relicrelic Posts: 4,735member
    He he, reminds me of something Bill Murray said, "We came we saw we kicked it's ass".
  • Reply 7 of 86
    cowerdcowerd Posts: 579member
    [quote]HELLO?! It's a different ISA. 970 instruction set != Intel instruction set.<hr></blockquote>Yeah the reporters wrong, but for IBM's purposes he is correct. Linux.
  • Reply 8 of 86
    kidredkidred Posts: 2,402member
    It's not even out yet and Intel is already feeling it as a rival? They feel the need to publicly announce they can beet the chip on some level and it's not even in a publicly released machine yet.



    This is good. This is very good. Moto who?
  • Reply 9 of 86
    lucaluca Posts: 3,833member
    OMG the Power4 has 128 mb of L3 cache!!?? That's awesome!



    I want one of those, running OS X.
  • Reply 10 of 86
    transcendental octothorpetranscendental octothorpe Posts: 188member
    Um, what about the fact that Intel is trying to compete with the 970 using their Itanium????



    The Itanium should be in the same league as the Power4+ (or soon, 5), NOT the 970.



    If I'm not missing something huge here, it sounds like Intel is saying:



    "Our top-of-the-line Itanium for high-end servers will just beat the next $3000 PowerMac."



    I can settle for that. :eek:
  • Reply 11 of 86
    transcendental octothorpetranscendental octothorpe Posts: 188member
    [quote]Originally posted by Luca Rescigno:

    <strong>OMG the Power4 has 128 mb of L3 cache!!?? That's awesome!



    I want one of those, running OS X.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    Don't you know how much one of the Power4 systems cost??
  • Reply 11 of 86
    lucaluca Posts: 3,833member
    No
  • Reply 13 of 86
    transcendental octothorpetranscendental octothorpe Posts: 188member
    [quote]Originally posted by Luca Rescigno:

    <strong>No </strong><hr></blockquote>



    "Currently, all Power4 servers contain a multi-chip module that houses four processors. As a result, the smallest Power4 server, the p670, contains four chips and starts at $178,000, while the next smallest is an eight-processor box that contains two modules."



    They are going to introduce something that is sub $100k, however.
  • Reply 14 of 86
    outsideroutsider Posts: 6,008member
    Keep in mind that each processor is dual core and each core supports 32MB of L3 cache. That's a total of 64 for the chip and the lowest config is a dual chip (4 cores in total) so that comes out to be 128MB. 128MB is the Max config for the system.
  • Reply 15 of 86
    transcendental octothorpetranscendental octothorpe Posts: 188member
    [quote]Originally posted by Outsider:

    <strong>Keep in mind that each processor is dual core and each core supports 32MB of L3 cache. That's a total of 64 for the chip and the lowest config is a dual chip (4 cores in total) so that comes out to be 128MB. 128MB is the Max config for the system.</strong><hr></blockquote>



    Are you sure that they have a two-dice MCM now? I had thought that they were still using the four-dice MCM, which is 8 cores. :confused:



    Back on topic:



    So, am I reading it right? Is Intel saying that it really takes an Itanium2 (a server chip) to beat the 970 (workstation chip)?
  • Reply 16 of 86
    cowerdcowerd Posts: 579member
    I don't think IBM is positioning the 970 as a workstation chip. Think Moto's G4, and then think IBM getting a clue. 970 family == blade server, highend embedded (why do you think IBM finally got Altivec religion), Linux workstations, and whatever Apple decides to shove them in (desktops, laptops, Xserve).



    Curious as to why Intel positions the Itanic against the 970 though, as the P4 will be scaling to some ridiculous GHZ by 2004. Unless Intel knows something about the 970 that we don't.
  • Reply 17 of 86
    serranoserrano Posts: 1,806member
    [quote]After all, when you invest that much in clock speed marketing, it's not a great idea to tell everyone, as if you're Dr. Evil, that your new chips run at "...1 GHz..."<hr></blockquote>



    <img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" />
  • Reply 18 of 86
    transcendental octothorpetranscendental octothorpe Posts: 188member
    [quote]Originally posted by cowerd:

    <strong>I don't think IBM is positioning the 970 as a workstation chip. </strong><hr></blockquote>



    Exactly. I was just giving Intel the benifit of the doubt there. They're comparing a high-end server chips with a (at most) low-end/entry/server or (more likely) workstation/desktop chip.





    [quote]

    <strong>yo frat boy. where's my tax cut?

    </strong><hr></blockquote>



    You didn't get one? Do you pay any taxes? <img src="graemlins/bugeye.gif" border="0" alt="[Skeptical]" />
  • Reply 19 of 86
    spookyspooky Posts: 504member
    If I was a betting man (which I'm not), I would be willing to bet that the 970 would quickly pale into insignificance next to Intel's coming offerings. I don't understand why people think that IBM would be so keen to work on a 970 suitable for apple's needs. sure they'll probably power the next range of powermacs but what evidence is there that they would bust a gut to keep the 970 on top? why would IBM succeed where MOTO so willingly fail?
  • Reply 20 of 86
    utmostutmost Posts: 15member
    I would agree with you spooky. By the time of the 970's release, it will only be a very modest competitior in comparison to Intel and AMD's offerings.
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