IBM plots road ahead with Power5

Posted:
in Future Apple Hardware edited January 2014

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 4
    Just read this frickin' freaky article on infoWorld ...



    <a href="http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/02/04/HNibmroad_1.html"; target="_blank">http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/02/04/HNibmroad_1.html</a>;



    Here's what makes it especially interesting:



    "The Power5 chip is more of a midrange or low end design that can drive up to the high end and then down to things like blades," Arimilli said. "You don't see that with Power4. Two years between chips is enough time to run away and do some dramatic things."



    The Power5 chip will replace the Power4 across the board, but improvements to the chip design and more attention to heat issues will help the new chip scale further down IBM's server line."



    Not that I'm by any means an expert on these things, but it seems that the difference between a potential desktop processor and the Power5, is probably a whole lot less that it was with the Power4.



    So, it seems like either scaling down a Power5 for an Apple box along the lines of the 970 vis the Power4 may be a much quicker process ... if in fact, such a scaling even needs to take place!



    If this is in fact the case, Apple's future prospects may, in fact, rock.



    Chip-Heads, please fill me in ..





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  • Reply 2 of 4
    henriokhenriok Posts: 537member
    If Power5 is low end.. what the h*ll is 970?!



    If they think they can put Power5 in server blades.. Apple certainly can put them in Macs.



    If they are aimed at the low end, blade market, then they must be cheap and cool. So.. We are NOT talking about machines witch will begin at $50.000.
  • Reply 3 of 4
    Intriguing!



    I presume that it is much easier to scale down a design than to scale it up if it's a matter of amending the original design. For instance, the 970 is a scaled-down POWER4, though not necessarily a lower-performance part, because of things like Altivec and faster transistors.



    Given that IBM is starting small and working up, this suggests that they are not scaling in this manner. Instead, I suspect that they will scale by simply adding more cores, either into the package or onto the chip itself.



    This is, I suppose, an early application of the CELL approach....



    <img src="graemlins/cancer.gif" border="0" alt="[cancer]" />
  • Reply 4 of 4
    [quote]Originally posted by Henriok:

    <strong>If Power5 is low end.. what the h*ll is 970?!



    If they think they can put Power5 in server blades.. Apple certainly can put them in Macs.

    </strong><hr></blockquote>



    As incredible as 970 is, wouldn't it be astounding if it isn't really the big surprise, but rather, was planned as more of a stop-gap chip while the Power5 gets up to speed!



    "Options" indeed!



    I guess for Apple, this makes the 970 "The Saviour" and the Power5 "God".



    Ponderable indeed.
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