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Is IBM's Power4 A Threat To Alpha, Sparc, IA-64?
HiyaPower writes: "There is an interesting discussion here about the IBM
Power4 chip. While it is most directly compared with the upcoming Alpha, it also has ramifications for the penetration of the IA-64 and/or Sledgehammer into the server market. Conclusion drawn is that the Alpha, etc., may be in for some very tough sledding. Now if only Apple could be persuaded to use these instead of what the article terms its "embedded controller chips...""
The article says POWER4 implements the 64-bit PPC ISA. Does that mean it could run current PPC binaries with no problems? If so, Apple could drop it in to future Macs with nothing more than some changes to the kernel...
Jobs has got to be pretty pissed at Motorola by now. Rumour has it he's shopping around for new chips. I bet AltiVec is the only thing holding him back. AltiVec is truly amazing for certain tasks...
Is there a technical reason why IBM is avoiding AltiVec? Could AltiVec somehow be responsible for the problems Motorola is having boosting PPC clock speed?
Oh, and can you imagine a Beowulf cluster of these? Sorry, just had to say it. It would be pretty mind-blowing, wouldn't it?
The only really beautiful/useful Mac I've seen so far was when I took a photograph of a BSOD, turned it into a nice picture, and installed it as the desktop for the Mac. Appropriate icons, and there yo go...
I can really identify with you, so much.
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
If Linux on PPC is a key part of their strategy, it would be nice if they threw some support to open source compiler optimizations for PPC. It'd be a shame to have Linux underperforming on these puppies because the optimizer was not everything it could be.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Hell yes - but macs are optimized for colour!
Since UNIX supported 32 bits in 1979 (VAX) and
it took MicroSoft until Windows 95,
I hope they are faster this time around!
i'm sure it's been said before but...
the likelyhood of these puppies ever landing in a colorful case with a fruit on it is like, nil.
a) does IBM even sell these for other companies use in their boxes? i think no.
b) apple would have to redesign like everything to put one of these in a workstation/server at which point their whole unified motherboard architecture plan goes out the window
c) they require a fan and you know how steve feels about fans
d) even if IBM would sell Apple the chips, can you imagine the price? you think a mac's expensive now?
and lastly, just for the obnoxious value, can you imagine an Appleseed cluster of these?! sweet!
An over clocked micro-sequencer could have the same effect without the problems of pipeline refilling at a branch. Overall, I suspect the over clocked sequencer approach might offer comparable performance with a much quicker design cycle - and or - lower design cost.
Bzzt. Wrong answer.
Granted, S/390 is not the most popular hardware for ISP's, plenty use S/390. Here's an article about one.
Here's an article where ebay discsses the possibility of moving to the S/390 platform.
This article discusses how some government agencies are web-enabling their mainframes.
I'll grant that traditionally IBM mainframes can be a bear from the usability perspective. However, things are changing quite quickly, especially with the advent of Linux on the S/390.
have a day,
-l
No, their contract says they can only buy the same chips from IBM if Motorola cannot supply them. That mattered when IBM and Motorola were both producing basically the same G3. Apple could simply do a deal with IBM for the Power4 (which Motorola has zilch to do with) and kiss Motorola's ass goodbye.
Of course, there are plenty of other reasons this will never ever happen which I don't feel like typing yet again but it's not the contract.
I would just like to note that the systems you will not see this chip in PC's the Power4 will not even be in server class systems. IBM is going for the top of the line big iron systems and super computers( they still have to make a 100 teraflop system for the US gov.) The lowest area you might see this chip is in the High end of the AS/400(now eServer i) line.
They have had a long tradition in RISC development
Well, considering that IBM researcher John Cocke invented RISC... (scroll down to 1980). Also do a keyword search on 'Ted Codd'. Guess where he worked?
IBM basically suffered from BigCorpBlah syndrome, which afflicted most big corps during the '50s thru the '90s.. So much cool shit got invented and totally ignored, and left to their inventors to splinter off and start dozens of revolutions..
One has to wonder if Micro$oft R&D is sitting on something interesting that is being smooshed because it doesn't fit into some marketdroid's PowerPoint slide... M$ has the size, hubris, and complacency of a BigCorpBlah victim..
Your Working Boy,
Im not too interested in defending MOSR. For the most part the site is wishful thinking by someone who likes macs however getting the detail right a few days before the launch might mean that someone from apple actually talks to them (which for the most part i doubt).
You'd be surprised what IBM could do with G4... currently they have PPC 405 embedded in things such as TiVo, G3 used around, and sourced to apple, Power4 for heavy lifting...
1) IBM could use additional revenue.
2) IBM could use the reputation boost from the Apple community of breaking the long standing mhz freeze.
3) Never underestimate what IBM will find a use for. If (and when, if my predictions are correct)
they do produce a PPC7400 (or variant) be sure they'll have other uses for it.
A host is a host from coast to coast, but no one uses a host that's close
And that is what a lot of people do : open their mail or plan their next move as photoshop chugs on. It isnt a fatal flaw for many people.
MacOS X Server has absolutely nothing to do with MacOS X. It is a totally different operating system. MacOS X Server is based on NeXT, not BSD like MacOS X.
Um , "absolutely nothing" seems a bit harsh. NeXT, mac os x , and mac os x server are all based on both mach and BSD. The point of my bringing up macosxs was because you declared that mac os x and every other promised os was vapor.
RELEASE means that it is a FINAL PRODUCT
oh i thought release meant it was something that had been released. mac OS X Server has been released as a final product
On the contrary, your post is the one that reads like something written by a 15 year old. If you want to get particular, the only word that you capitalized correctly is multitasking - something that your precious Macs can't even perform!
my macs can TOO capitalize! ;) (btw i don't proofread for punctuation either)
In retrospect questioning your maturity wasn't appropriate. But... to me both of your posts read as whiney and less than what i would expect from an adult. You reply by saying "oh yeah i'm rubber and you're glue ...!" and then you procede to take out your computer list and wave it around.
MacOS is shit.
how eloquent. and the worst is that apple will probably screw up macosx
Only on Slashdot can your post be moderated down for stating facts.
welcome to slashdot! everywhere else you'd get flamed... : )
In the long run, we all know that what will count is OS support. IBM has a strong, stated linux strategy, but we'll see where it goes.
Don't get me wrong, I am one of the few who actually like AIX. I think it's a mature, useful operating system with some really cool characteristics (fairly integrated hw support and debugging, excellent logical volume manager (better than veritas, imho)). nevertheless, it remains to be be seen whether IBM can actually bring Linux to their whole server platform (including these bad boys).
(There have been instruction set changes in the IBM processor line in the past, particularly between the POWER, POWER2 and POWER3 architectures, so I'm interested to see what the differences in this instruction set are...).
There have been some studies recently about what kind of system would best run Oracle and serve transactions. (See the Alpha-multiprocessor article in this year's ISCA proceedings.)
The answer is a multiprocessor (because Oracle is threaded) with a shared L2 cache (because the threads share most of the L2 footprint.) The advantage is quite large.
So, what IBM is building here is a server engine. Which is why there will be a 128-processor system, but there won't be Altivec.
What ever control Microsoft has over the 64bit processor market is shrinking. Even if Microsoft isn't "Punished" by the DOJ companies now have the courage to stand up and do things Microsoft doesn't like. Such as selling a PC with Linux Pre-installed (previously unheard or by any Major distributor.)
I have feeling we are going to be seeing a lot more from Apple, the Linux community and maybe even BE.
- tsi
- tsi
Kill Elvis!
Two vendors for CPU? I'll admit to not following Apple like I used to, but who did they buy CPUs from other than Motorola? IBM? AFAIK they've only ever run on Motorola CPUs, 68000 family and then PowerPC..
To IBM's credit, myself and some geek friends were at a smallish local tech convention and some IBM guys were there talking about their new nomenclature and such in their server lines. For the really big stuff, the S-390's ( I think pSeries and zSeries but I could be wrong) they run stuff that handles HUGE, HUGE payloads ... run AIX ...(isn't there OS-390 too) but for their middle range stuff, we couldn't get the guys to shut up about Linux. One of our guys mentioned it and the talk was all about that the whole time. "Our customers like it because we don't have to package costly licenses. And it's very, very, very scalable and flexible, we can run it on everything. And it's a UNIX so we can integrate it with AIX ... " on and on...
So just for that IBM's not a bit bad, and their NUMA-Q architecture looks REALLY neato. As for putting Alpha and Sparc out of business...Hey, you build a better mousetrap. Big Blue has always had great R&D and put out some of the best products out there. That doesn't mean Alpha and Sparc and such are going to plummet.
I say kudos to Big Blue.
Angry IT woman in big clompy boots. And talking lint!.
Apple cannot use these chips because their contract with Motorola forbids going to another company.
Motorolla drops the hot potato beats!
What is the robbing of a bank, compared to the founding of a bank? -- Bertolt Brecht
That line first appeared with the 386. And it was wrong then, too.
The line with the 386 (and 486, and P5, and PPro) was that it was destined to remain a workstation chip for some time. This was Intel marketing bluster, yes, but it was moderately true--the initial versions of each of those chips was produced on an old process; once the chip moved to a new process, it became feasible for upper-end mainstream machines. In a two years, they were mainstream.
Right. But the difference here is, these chips are not intended for workstations. They're not intended for moderately sized servers. They're intended to replace mainframes, and to run high-high-end scientific code. In case you didn't read my other post, these things are going to cost *at least* $10,000 *apiece* to MAKE. Just for the MPU. Moreover, they will not work up to their full potential without *massive* bandwidth, which still costs mucho $, last time I checked.
What servers really need is multiple CPUs and huge I/O bandwidth, not faster individual CPUs.
Oh wait, you didn't even read the article. The POWER4 *is* multiple MPU's--it's 8 cores on 1 die. This thing doesn't come in anything less than 8-way configurations. As for I/O bandwidth, would 84 GB/s be enough for you?
You still think this thing is a desktop chip???
On the other hand, Apple can't afford to change CPUs again.
Or maybe they can't afford not to. Contrary to all those MacOS Rumors, there are no definite plans for Apple to move even to the upcoming G4+ MPU's, which are essentially another incarnation of the tired G4, just with a stretched out pipeline which will get it to 800MHz at the cost of lower IPC. There aren't definite plans yet because the G4+, like the G4 and the G3 before it, is not a desktop MPU but rather an embedded/DSP chip which Motorola happens to sell to Apple to use in Macs. The design, ramping, pricing, roadmap, are all influenced primarily by Moto's embedded customers first, not by Apple. Unfortunately, despite the fact that they are utterly dependent on them, Apple has decided to treat first IBM and then Motorola rather poorly, and thus haven't gotten much in the way of support when they decided that they may, perhaps, want to increase the speed of their top MPU more than 50 MHz in a year. Whoops. BTW, did you catch Apple's earnings today? Ouch.
All of this is too bad--OS X looks like perhaps the best thing going as far as operating systems goes. There are always rumors that Apple's going to finally make their surprise move to x86. Their experience with PPC the last year or so, and the accompanying beating their bottom line has taken, might be the thing to finally push them over. I personally think they might still be able to carry over enough incompatabilities to stay the sole supplier of MacOS hardware--after all, the XBox uses x86, and it will be plenty incompatible with PCs. Migrating software will be a gigantic pain...but on the other hand, it's not like the Mac has too much in the way of software anyways. (OS X, and any Cocoa programs, will port very very quickly.) Who knows?
Slashdot next year:
"AMD is 64 bits! Which one is more advanced? Signal 11!?"
"Do the math!"
You heard it here first.
When I hear the word 'innovation', I reach for my pistol.
Well, the "NEW INFORMATION" you seek would obviously be my opinion on the subject.
However, since you mention another source of information, would you be so kind as to post a link, perhaps?
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Okay, I think the apple comment was all in humor. If any of you are actually thinking that this powerPC-isque chip has any potential to see daylight at Apple, it sure isn't as a product offering. Apple does NOT market high end servers, it does NOT sell number crunchers, and if you think you are going to EVER see a Power4 in a translucent case then I hope your holding your breath, because darwin is waiting for you.
The PowerX line of chips don't run word, they don't process photoshop filters real well, and they need MASSIVE cooling. In fact, I don't see anything at all that would appeal to an actual Macintosh customer. What DO the chips do?
Well they crunch numbers, run molecular simulations, etc... I do know enough about the Power4 to give a decent speach on the target market and application uses, however all I wish to do is say upfront, that if your comment has anything to do with Apple and the Power4, you are waisting time, and most of all, showing your lack of knowledge when it comes to computing. Forgive the typos, I have to get back to hour 37 of work.
chow
bort
- MM5 is a big sloppy vectorish code for meteorology modeling; POWER3 delivers about 25% of the performance I would have expected from its LINPACK numbers and given MM5 benchmark performance on known SGI's and Alphas.
- MAQSIP is a big air quality modeling code highly optimized for general microprocessor/parallel; POWER3 delivers about half the expected performance.
Does POWER4 have a similar gap between performance on a very simple and regular app (LINPACK) and real-world ones ??NOTE: for what it's worth, Sun SPARCs give excellent MAQSIP performance, but even more miserable MM5 performance (as compared to processor-peak) than POWER3.
"My opinions are my own, and I've got *lots* of them!"
"[...]no unix server can currently compete with even a middle of the road OS/390 machine for heavy server/transaction/database type workloads."
This would be true if you added "in a ultra-high-reliabilty environment". Fact is that not a single ISP uses S/390 systems for serving web content. If the IO of these machines would be so excellent, why don't they use them? What makes things even worse is the fact that serving web pages is similar to the IO load envisioned by Amdahl, namely relativly large chunks of data being tranfered. As a result even the terminals (3270) are based on transactions of this type. The user edits on the screen and commits changes every once in a while. This is very different to the character based aproach of Unix ttys.
"[...]a modern OS/390 the IO is handled by up to 1024 of these processers called 'channels'."
This is unclear to me. OS/390 is an operating system but you seem to make a statement about hardware. True is that 390-IO is based on a channel subsystem. All models from G3 through G7 (GA 2000) have 256 channels. Wrong is that a channel has something to do with a processor. A channel is an IO line with an interrupt on its own. Each of these channels may end in a channel controller. To the channel controller one can attach 256 subchannels. The subchannels end in a device. This makes a total of 64k devices.
A modern G6 has 16 processors (390 architecture). 14 for workload, 2 for the IO subsystem, 2 in case two of the others die.
"Nearly everything relating to transactions was done forst on an OS/390, databases in general, relational databases, messageing and queueing software, & etc. are all areas where the intial and continuing innovation took place on OS/390s"
True. One of the last "innovations" of DB2 on 390 was to optimize the data distribution on the harddisks depending on the speed of the movement of the HD heads. The last 390 harddisk physically built was a 4 Gig drive (I beleave it was called 3390 model 4) in the early 1980s. The disks had a diameter of almost 1 yard. Since then IBM simulated these 3390s through (SCSI-) disk arrays. The controlling software of these RAIDs introduce special waits to not disturb and crash DB2 that relies on specific timings.
The last disk logically defined was a 8 Gig drive. In case all 64k devices are 8 Gig drives this makes 512 TB storage. This will be a boarder very difficult to cross.
Is OS/390 innovative? All I know is that the OS/390 filesystem is non-hierarachical, i.e. does not know of directories! The filesystem is not block oriented. If you append data to the end of a file the file may overflow. This means that the user must create a new, bigger file and copy the old file into the new one and delete the old one.
Programs in OS/390 must be started using a special "scripting" language to supply parameters!
I could go on with this list. 390 were nice in the 70es. They still do a good job in some places that can afford them and need high reliability. All I'm saying is that the future belongs to a different kind of machine (definitly not 31bit like S/390) with a different kind of OS.
First off, I'd like to say that that was indeed a great response. While I'm not sold on IBM's approach just yet, at least I'm more informed now than I was when I read the article.
The main technique I've seen exploited in DSP programming (I know someone who does this for a living) is software pipelining, which often involves like loop unrolling, except that you have to pay attention to the instructions to make sure you use all your instruction units.
Compilers these days can do loop unrolling, and past that I guess you'd just hope to be able to reorder the instructions somewhat, to get a decent instruction mix out of the code in the loop, and maximize that magical "IPC" number. However, yes, it's hard to get rid of all the dependencies, and run-time profiling (a la Transmeta) will probably get more popular as research into VLIW systems gains in popularity.
SMT sounds interesting; does it refer to "threads" in the software sense, or just separate processes? For the moment I'll view it with skepticism, just as I did when Sun built streams into the kernel. Any multiprocessing Unix system should be able to run separate processes on separate processors, and some of them can surely do the same with different threads, depending on the implementation. I guess IBM would just have a more compact and possibly more scalable solution in this case.
And yes, I realize these are supposed to be server chips for now, and knowing IBM, they might just stay that way. But this sort of technology usually filters down into the PC market quicker than you'd think, especially if it improves the price/performance ratio, as this might do, eventually.
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pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Linux could survive quite easily with at least 3 forks. It is arguable that it has two at the moment with the 8086 versions.
I see mebbe Embedded Linux, 'Official' (Linus) Linux, and Big Iron Linux as 3 forks that could happily live with each other, sharing code wherever possible or neccessary.
I mean, its not like the code is going away ... this is Free Software we are talking about here.
IBM politics was that certain techniques (like the ceramic multi-chip modules, copper process, etc.) were reserved for the S/390s. This was the reason why the RS/6000s with AIX were never really competitive (S/70 AIX server).
When SUN brought their E10000 server into shops IBM thought they'd never loose to SUN they obviously started changing their minds. The (RS/6000 based) 24 processor S/80 outperformes the 64 processor E10000.
This new POWER4 design makes clear that IBM favours modern Unix-based RISC servers over the old S/390 mainframes.
This is a good thing especially for IBM S/390 customer who start having problems finding talented people who want to work with dinosaur machines and OSes. (IBM also has major problems implementing new or even innovative software for the S/390s. Exception: Linux/390 ;-).
Better IBM offers them a safe way into the RISC/Unix world (we are looking at huge amounts of enterprise critical data sitting on all these S/390s) than when they try to migrate on their own.
I have to wonder if an over clocked microprogram unit with a CISC instruction set couldn't be made competitive again. Ultimately that might be a simpler design - and thus potentially faster than a modern RISC chip.
One of the ultimate limits on processor performance is how fast you can get instructions into the processor. If you think of CISC as a compressed (Huffman encoded) version of RISC it is easy to see that CISC does have a theoretical advantage there.
I know this is heresy, and that the modern religion is RISC == GOOD, CISC == BAD; but it might at least be worth someone spending some time thinking about it. If nothing else, the reduced transistor count could do something about the spiraling power consumption problems in processors. Or you could integrate multiple processors on one die and do the SMP on chip with the much smaller cores this would make possible.
Sounds good in theory, but failed in practice. The Alpha, when Win NT was available for it, ran IA32 software extremely well with the FX-32 emulator package, and look where that ended up.
This is all I get trying to get to the page!
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MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Its so much vapor that you can download the beta and use it..
Oh wait you obviously have done that. OS X is actually pretty damn nice looking........
Jeremy
*snicker*
baby if you're going to correct peoples' spelling, you really ought to double-check your own.
According to Robert Morgan who runs Apple Recon
Steve Jobs said in a visit to Motorola
"It will be great in two years when we arn't using your chips."
After this statement is when Motorola publicly started calling the PPC line 'embedded'
How often in YOUR relationships can you walk up to your relationship partners and tell them 'to hell with you, I'll be leaving in 2 years.' and NOT expect said partner to keep giving a damn about you.
Apple then made the problem WORSE by pubically calling altivec 'the future' and spent hours about how wonderful altivec is. Apple will have a hard time leaving AltiVec with all the statements about how wonderful altivec is.
Jobs ego put Apple in the place Apple is. Motorola only reacted to the actions Jobs took. It is not like Motorola NEEDS Apple, and took actions to protect Motorola's investment.
Jobs wants to be the 'saviour' of Apple, fine. Then Jobs must also take the mantle of the person who helps kill Apple also. Amazing how the history of Jobs repeats.
If it was said on slashdot, it MUST be true!
I would hate for Apple to have to give up on AltiVec.
Yeah, it seems to work very well with MP3 ripping.. My 500MHz Cube can do 128kbps VBR normal-stereo at between 2.5x and 5x realtime..
Your Working Boy,
So can my 500mhz P3 - And I'm doing the mid/high quality encoding which goes up to ~224kbps. I don't know if that makes encoding faster or slower. MP3 encoding (ripping is a function of CD-Rom speed and I/O bandwidth, and in and of itself has nothing to do with mp3) does not parallelize well, at least as it's done today. So altivec really doesn't buy you anything there.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
That line first appeared with the 386. And it was wrong then, too.
What servers really need is multiple CPUs and huge I/O bandwidth, not faster individual CPUs. Loaded servers always have lots of threads running. On desktops, one thread typically is using most of the CPU time. Thus, the desktop is the place where the fastest CPUs are used. Servers are configured for max price/performance without sacrificing reliability, and tend to run a bit behind the fastest desktops.
On the other hand, Apple can't afford to change CPUs again. The last transition cost them a big fraction of their applications (for example, almost all the CAD vendors bailed out) and a big chunk of their user base. In retrospect, better 680x0 machines would have worked out better than going to PowerPC. The whole PowerPC thing was supposed to get IBM into MacOS, remember, and that was a total disaster. Now that everybody knows how to make CISC machines faster, there's no reason 68K machines couldn't be up there with x86 machines. And the architecture is much better.
Drop them like a hot potato and Apple and especially OS X will soar. Give them a real processor, the support is very simple..update mach and you're in. Imagine the possiblities. It's endless...
Microsoft made an Alpha version of windows NT a while ago. It sucked, but they did do it.
I'm a signature virus. Please copy me to your signature so I can replicate.
1GHz Power4 beats the crap out of a 500MHz G4 w/AltiVec. I don't care *what* you're trying to accomplish.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Now, I never said I hadn't written stupid code - And you don't have to be an experienced programmer to do that, either. Anyone can write bad code. Including me.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
First off, the basic news here (that IBM's Power4 architecture will be two processors running at Gigahertz speeds) isn't news; that's been known for a while.
However, it *is* nice to have this depth of technical information to examine, and also it's good to know that they're still doing this.
I think the big advantage that VLIW instruction sets will have is strictly architectural, and I'm not sure how IBM's approach fits in yet, but it looks interesting. Throwing more chips at the problem is one approach, but remember that your competitors can do that too, *and* make the chips do more as well...
However, IBM will have to make sure people design their apps with more than one processor in mind, which will be a Good Idea for the future, since more people might have multiprocessor computers.
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pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
- running Quake 3 Arena
- overclocking these babies
- A Beowulf cluster of these
Hardly a "discussion" IMHO.It's as silly as the debate when AtheOS came out - is this going to compete with Linux? Is it a threat?
No, it's an option. When it comes to computer's, options are good.
(honestly, it looks like a newspaper headline - that's a bad bad bad thing.)
--Giving to trolls for the benefit of us all
a lot of macs are single purpose : for fast photoshop. Multitasking not required.
So far, it is vapor
-bzzzzt-!! try again ! mac os x server shipped over a year ago (not to mention the release of macosxbeta)
on a side note i wonder how old you are ? 15? 16? your post certainly doesnt read like it was written by a grown up.
I know MOSR is not the most reliable of all sources (they were right about the cube though) but a few months ago they put up a rumors about Apple and IBM trying to get the Power4 to work in Apple's UMA-2. The rumor also had a pretty good link to some info on the Power4 chip. The link gives you a PDF that cover some of the same material in the article of this story but it is still worth a look.
p ower4.html
The rumor is now archived at:
http://macosrumors.com/?view=archive/8-00
If you dont feel like going to MOSR the link in the rumor to the Power4 info is:
http://www.austin.ibm.com/resource/features/1999/
Maybe this:
Apple didn't supported the PREP or later CHRP efforts made by IBM, Motorola and other hardware companies around the PowerPC and instead prefered to stay on its little Mac-island with Apple-crap.
Imagine that: You might have been able to buy your PowerPC based PC (with working OpenFirmware!) from your local dealer at low-low prices and install your favourite OS as you do with IA32 PCs today...
Probably more accurately: the dominant 64 bit processor will be the one that runs your $K's worth of legacy 32 bit software reliably, and faster than its 32 bit predecessor. The other architectures will have to be amazingly faster, or amazingly cheaper than whatever intel offers, in order to outperform that huge advantage.
Now we've gone full circle and memory is the bottleneck again. CISC could provide a performance advantage again.
Also, I hope not.
Hey, this chipset is for some serious computing. Serious, serious. The range of boring, mundane software that would get a big boost from these fat, fat pipes into these fast, fast cores is limited.
Quake]|[ would absolutely drip with 3D VR gore. (I get ill just thinking about it. Gibs everywhere!)
But would you really need that kind of horsepower to run Word or an Excel spread sheet of even the maximal complexity that Excel can handle? I thought not. (Excel plays fast and loose with some math functions, Newton's approximations, etc. I just implemented algorithms which don't. Banks can't use Excel for real world amounts.)
Face it, M$ can't use it. Even GHz x86 chipsets are a waste for the desktop.
The server market is better served by Unix solutions that runs multi-user(NT is not), multi-threaded,) and across a range of big iron that's growing steadily bigger.
M$ support this? I hope the [expletive deleted] not!
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Yeah, my weather man said a cold front is coming in, and the gust of cold wind is threatening to blow all the vapor away. Intel had best batten down the hatches for this one.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Calling it a "supercomputer " is more a description of the specialized functionality of the processor, rather than the total speed. It used to be that vector processing was reserved only for the "big iron" machines from Cray & others. The introduction of AltiVec in PowerPC chips meant it was possible to get vector functions on a desktop machine for the first time. It really was a big step, and not just marketing blow.
Free Hans!
One of the big complaints rolling around is, why Apple doesn't get faster mhz.
IBM is the primary source for all Apple G3 processors. Moto is the source for G4, solely because IBM up until now, has opted to not produce a chip with AltiVec.
I have said for over a year now that if IBM fabbed the G4 for Moto, that the high speed yields would come up, and that if IBM produced the G4 that the speed rating would increase.
IBM just dropped 5 billion on new fabrication plants. IF IBM wanted to *own* the OEM contract for all of Apple's processors, they'd only have to produce their flavor of a PPC7400.
I predict they will within a years time, and at speeds comparable to Power4
A host is a host from coast to coast, but no one uses a host that's close
-bzzzzt-!! try again ! mac os x server shipped over a year ago (not to mention the release of macosxbeta)
MacOS X Server has absolutely nothing to do with MacOS X. It is a totally different operating system. MacOS X Server is based on NeXT, not BSD like MacOS X. MacOS X Public Beta is NOT A RELEASE. RELEASE means that it is a FINAL PRODUCT.
on a side note i wonder how old you are ? 15? 16? your post certainly doesnt read like it was written by a grown up.
On the contrary, your post is the one that reads like something written by a 15 year old. If you want to get particular, the only word that you capitalized correctly is multitasking - something that your precious Macs can't even perform!
FYI, I am 29 years old. My first computer was a TRS-80 Model 1. I got a Color Computer when I was in the 6th grade. Since then, I've personally moved through an Amiga 1000, an Amiga 2000, a Quadra 840av, a 7200/75, a Power Computing PowerCenter Pro and various Intel boxes. I've used Macs almost every day for the last seven years, and I know the operating system inside and out. Believe me when I say that MacOS is shit.
I used to like Macs because at one time, they actually performed better than PCs. Sure, the G4's AltiVec crap is wicked fast, but the OS does not take advantage of it. Advantages are found only in applications written specifically for the use of it. The only thing that it is good for is so that Apple can take benchmarks performed on AltiVec (which have no relevance to 99.9% of the computer's real performance) and use the results in a misleading ad campaign about G4 Macs being "supercomputers." The only thing that I have found that actually uses AltiVec is the Distributed RC5 client. It is fast as hell, but to what gain? When I'm not cracking RC5 keys, my 18 month old PIII/500 Linux box kicks the shit out of the G4/400 that I am writing this on 99% of the time - and for FAR less money.
So, let me say it again: Give me a break! :P
Only on Slashdot can your post be moderated down for stating facts.
You Mac zealots just can't stand the fact that I'm right! I know, I used to be one of you. There is help available to you all!
(Score: -1 Troll)
Out of order? Fuck! Even in the future nothing works! - Dark Helmet (Rick Moranis) "Spaceballs"
Apple and Motorola repeatedly turned down attempts by IBM to share the burden of producing these chips. These Power4, which are really just 64-bit enhanced PowerPCs, are produced for IBMs enterprise server division. For political reasons, I seriously doubt IBM will sell these processors in anything other than a complete system, they have to date been totally unwilling to share these chips with anyone who wouldn't kick the cash in to sell them. On a side note, I have worked for IBM in the past, and know those who work for them still, and this chip has gotten an enourmous amount of resources. To the point it has become one of the largest projects IBM has ever executed. The processor team is rather large, so I doubt anyone at IBM would consider this chip Ho-Hum by any measure. While the industry and others are moving towards SMT architectures rapidly, for once in recent history, IBM seems to hold the current lead.
The error you received
indicates that someone was doing maintenance on the table in which the data is stored, probably updating a typo or something similar in the story.
The only crime committed here is by a stupid programmer who doesn't know how to redirect you to a less-lame error page than the default.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The error you received
indicates that someone was doing maintenance on the table in which the data is stored, probably updating a typo or something similar in the story.
The only crime committed here is by a stupid programmer who doesn't know how to redirect you to a less-lame error page than the default.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The article is very strong, but it would have been enhanced if it also touched on AMD's upcoming 64-bit offerings, the Hammer family of chips.
Hammer does not have a track record in the marketplace, but neither does Itanium, and it's odd to ignore an architecture that in all likelihood will sell in much greater volume than several of the chips profiled here. Even if AMD's 64-bit implementation turns out less than ideal, it will probably outsell the Power, Alpha and Sparc offerings by virtue of the vastly larger market it targets.
A simulator for a Hammer chip has been released. A comparison, or at least an acknowledgement, would have made the article more valuable.
Tastes Like Chicken
That said, I don't what Motorola's plans for a G5 are, if any. It may turn out that Apple has no choice but to go with IBM's chips after a while.
Free Hans!
What do you think they compile Mac OS X with? The changes aren't yet merged into the official GCC tree, but they are out there.
Microsoft's OS dominance is limited to low-end desktop systems. In the server arena they are but one player among many.
Lee Reynolds
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
Alphas are not dead. A few days ago, Compaq had a major deal with Ericsson to supply them with Alpha processors for Ericsson's upcoming AXE switchboards.
Imagine, embedded Alphas!
As this is a major deal, Compaq will have an output for years to come and the Alphas seem far from dead, or even threated.
Isn't it amazing what entrenched bureaucracies can do to each other (with the users as innocent bystanders)
It didn't run so extremely well. x86-win32 binaries on alpha-nt ran slower than on the equivalent x86 hardware, and stability also suffered, and not everything worked. On top of that was the fact that native alpha-nt software didn't start appearing, and NT had to pretend your alpha was a 32 bit machine to run. In other words, there wasn't really a good reason to choose for NT.
It's true the Power4 isn't designed for graphic artists or desktop users. The cost is also not in line with that market. However, Apple _could_ use the discards. Power4 chips where one of the CPUs is non-functional. It will still be fast. It will still be expensive. However, it won't be nearly as expensive, and IBM would have tossed those chips anyways. This way IBM recoups more $ per wafer. As long as the non-functional CPU can be disabled and not use any power, I think a 1 way Power4 would be a great personal workstation CPU.
Another approach is to just port Darwin to RS/6000's.
I see mebbe Embedded Linux, 'Official' (Linus) Linux, and Big Iron Linux as 3 forks that could happily live with each other
But marketing would have to think of a name for the embedded kernel and the big iron kernel; as Linux® is taken by 'Official' (Linus) Linux.
Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.Will I retire or break 10K?
On The Other Hand, Apple's direction has lately been to using convection cooling, not the water cooling that would be necessary for the number of watts the Power4 dissipates.
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
It WILL be great when Apple can start buying CPUs from IBM again. Moto has dropped the ball in a big, big way by failing to raise the G4 and G3 clock rates significantly over the last year. Apple is getting screwed and they have no options for an alternate vendor at this point. I can certainly understand Jobs frustration but you would think the guy would have grown up by now. Its really sad seeing a so called buisness man acting in such a childish manner.
Apple has no options because they're still pursuing their monopoly software & hardware.
Let's hope they lose that urge and get OS X ported to other platforms. It'd be nice to see it running on Intel for cost, and Sparc, Alpha and even Power4 for true variety.
Heh! If only Apple would use these, the new iMacs wouldn't exactly be quite able to hit their price points. Paul (the author of the article) and some others were involved in a thread over on the tech forum at Ace's about (amongst other things) the expected cost of one of these puppies.
To quote Paul's response:
Maybe another way of looking at it is perhaps the price of four POWER4 known good die and the ceramic substrate and metal carrier totals $3000 (although I suspect that a tested and 100% functional ceramic substrate itself might approach or exceed $3000 in cost).
The real question is the cost of a fully assembled and tested, 100% functional, POWER4 8-way module? After all what are the chances one of these can be reworked if even just one of the 20,000+ solder ball joints was bad?
So for one of these 8-way on a chip jobs (unsure if they'll be offering 4-way configurations too or if those were just a prototype) it's looking like upwards of $10,000 just for IBM to fab, package, and test the darn things. Add in a system capable of feeding it the tremendous bandwidth it requires to run up to its full potential--8 GB/s to DRAM and a phenomenal 84 (!) GB/s I/O--and...ok, so I know Hemos was just joking when he made that comment about Apple, but you get the idea. These are MPUs you use to fold proteins and run gigantic dynamic-content websites, not surf the web and edit the home video of your kid's elementary school graduation.
On a related note, man these things oughtta show Intel a thing or two about how to marry clever instruction scheduling to brute-force functional units--forget about Itanium; it's gonna take a several-way McKinley system to even take a swing at this these. And it oughtta show Sun a thing or two about the dangers of resting on the laurels of your marketing success when designing new chips. And, as Paul notes in the article, it really oughtta make Alpha engineers worry that for the first time, having the most elegant design may not guarantee the best performance. Compaq has an 8-way SMT Alpha core on the way as well (EV8); too bad the Alpha group's customary position in the world--stepped on and neglected by their corporate masters--means they haven't got the money or manpower to bring it to market until well after POWER4.
they have no options because of contractual obligations with Motorola. before the G4, Apple had 2 vendors for CPUs. but i, as you, would also like to see support for more hardware.