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IBM PowerPC 970 Architecture
riclewis writes "Hannibal from Ars Technica offers an explanation of some of the internals of the new IBM chip. It's certainly more powerful than anything on the desktop now, but by the time it's released a year from now, it looks to be middle-of-the-pack (which could still be a step up for Apple...) This excitement over the early release of hardware specs kinda reminds me of all the hype surrounding the Sony's Emotion Engine when it was introduced a couple years ago. In fact, some are suggesting the PPC 970 chip might be closely related to the PS3's 'Cell' processor..."
This could help push Apple back to a respectable market share over a couple of years. A *nix box with a decent processor and lots of commercial software? Of course, Apple has proved to be just as fierce in protecting their proprietary code as Microsoft, so I wouldn't expect the price to drop significantly for every million sold. But still, alternatives (especially of this caliber) are good.
Unlike the P4, the 970 does one more trick after it has cracked the PPC instructions down into iops. The 970 divides up the iop stream into "groups" of five iops a piece. So first it cracks the PPC instructions down into iops, then it collects the iops back together into groups. The iops are placed the group's five slots in program order with the stipulation that all branch instructions must go in slot 4 (the last slot). Furthermore, slot 4 can hold only branch instructions and nothing else. It is these groups of five iops that are dispatched in-order to the issue queues. (I haven't yet seen a functional diagram of the 970's core, so I'm not sure how many issue queues there are.)
computing in chunks... sounds a lot like a Cray. Together with the 900MHz-effective (jesus... that's a lot) FSB, Apple really will be selling supercomputers in the next few years.
But what do I know. I'm just looking for anonymous gay sex.
when the p4 debuted it was sort of average too... the p4's power has come from it's ability to scale to higher mHz ratings pretty quickly. what kind of life are they going to get out of this chip? if it's going to top off at 2gHz then it doesn't really seem worth it, but if they can chip can get up to 3 gHz or so within a year of its release...
... so could somebody who understands this processor tell me this:
Would a 3D rendering app such as Lightwave potentially see a huge benefit to this processor? I understand that it's up to the developer to tune it, yadda yadda yadda, I'm concerned with potential not real world numbers.
I'm trying to get an image in my mind about how the various processor descriptions (32-bit, 64-bit, Altivec, SimD, etc...) can radically change how an app like that would work.
Us vertex pushers have a substantial interest in machines that excel at that type of work...
Oh wow, now that brings back some memories! I remember a friend of mine bringing over this ST he got at a garage sale and had a Mac emulator disk on it. Since I was a Mac person and he wasn't he asked me to help him get it running.
We managed to get System 7 running on it and even managed to coax AOL 2.x to run on it via the modem, getting it online! It was slow and it was AOL running on a Mac emulator on an Atari, but hey, it was geeky and it was fun to do.
But back on topic, if they do use the same or similar chip it could possibly work though Sony would DMCA it straight to hell.
--Won't that be grand? Computers and the programs will start thinking and the people will stop. - Dr. Walter Gibbs
Also keep in mind that SPEC marks are *highly* manipulatable. Here you have a benchmark that is supposed to test the CPU. The problem with this is that is both compiler dependent *and* OS dependent . As has stated many times before, the current G4 machines score in the low 300s in SPEC marks. Does this mean that the G4 is 3 to 5 times slower than the P4? In practice, it isn't. Yes, the P4 2.8 is much faster than the current G4 in most day-to-day activities, but not by *that* much. Anyone can "cook" SPEC marks.
What you *really* want to do is use the machine, *then* consider whether or not the machine is fast enough for your purposes. Personally, I think that machines with the 970 in them will be quite competitive with the machines that are available at launch.
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Blocklevel: Practical Information Architecture
You are right, most of us can't wait, at least those of use with really old Macs (about to retire my Beige G3 in fact). I just ordered one of the Dual 1.25 GHZ machines and that should be more than enough power for me for some time. I'll move up to a 64 bit Mac in 3-5 years when they've worked out the kinks and about the time most people quit making 32 bit apps.
I did at least learn my lesson with the Beige G3 when it comes to jumping onto the latest thing just as it first comes out. While my old Beige G3 Rev A box has been a fairly solid machine for the past 5 years, it does have some serious shortcomings (possible voltage regulator blow out if upgraded to a G4, 66 MHZ bus (ick) and Rev A rom means no IDE slave support!).
I feel fairly confident this possibly last of the line G4 should be fairly solid other than the chips not fully utilizing DDR (at least DMA operations will take advantage of it) and the silly idea of making the second IDE channel only ATA66.
Once the issues of moving to a 64 bit chip and the new Hypertransport bus and such are worked out and my machine starts to look as slow as my Beige G3 is now compared to the latest machines, then I will start itching to move up.
--Won't that be grand? Computers and the programs will start thinking and the people will stop. - Dr. Walter Gibbs
"Hannibal" also has an incredible knack for making the workings of microprocessors understandable to those with no hardware engineering backgrounds.
// I will show you fear in a handful of jellybeans.
Ouch. I just had a very nasty thought that you might be very Very wrong. Assuming Jobs is that insideous, I'd give it a slim chance. IBM brokers the deal between Sony and Apple to bring economies of scale to the 970 and. . .
... now realise that Sony is able to ship a number of exclusive titles, without making a loss on a console AND maintaining their premium on their titles.
Sony wants to sell less hardware and sell more games with a higher per title margin. Selling hardware at a loss is typical of the console market.
IBM supplies the goods, Sony & Co supplies the reference PS3 platform and games backing.
Apple continues building its brand name computing with the ability to run PS3 games. That gives Apple a MAJOR supplier of video games. People who own an Apple typically will be able to afford the various PS3 games.
-Tim
"Mhz doesn't matter"
The MHz Myth that Apple talks about is not about trying to say that "Mhz doesn't matter", it's about the fact that MHz cannot be used as a direct comparison between architectures.
Of course MHz (brute force) matters. But what also matters is smart design.
I think showing a 333MHz G3 running faster than a 500MHz Pentium III, kinda proves the MHz Myth is just that. Bear in mind, that the G3 is not AltiVec equiped! So not getting a huge vectorized benefit here.
If you think that's impressive, look at the G4! I can't wait to see what CPU Apple actually unleashes next.
I'm astonished that there are actually people who think MHz is THE sole number to go by.
War crimes, torture, lies, illegal spying... Would someone give Bush a blowjob, already, so he can be impeached?