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PowerPC 970 Running at 2.5 GHz
kuwan writes "IBM has just released a press release that indicates they have the new PowerPC 970 running at 1.8 to 2.5 GHz making it 'the fastest PowerPC so far.' IBM's original estimates were to have the chip running at 1.4 to 1.8 GHz at introduction, so this is very good news for those of us hoping Apple will use this as their next-generation chip."
Who cares how fast IBM has this running in the lab--let's see how fast those fab lines are running before we get too excited.
I wonder how they managed to up the clock so dramatically? Is it just SOI and other techniques, or did they lengthen the pipeline significantly.
If it's just a pipeline lengthening scheme, well, meh, but if they kept the same execution pipeline and are now at 2.5ghz operating range, they're going to kick some ass.
I just hope Apple has their motherboards ready for 2.5GHz. The original spec of 1.8GHz with 6+GB bus was a little heady compared to Apple's current technology (no thanks to Motorola). I'm hoping they know how to build motherboards with the best of them to take advantage of IBM's new 970 chip. Pushing the envelope from 1.8GHz to 2.5GHz just makes the whole motherboard engineering issue more challenging. Let's hope Apple hardware design it up to the task (and then some).
Ok, this is great news. I hope Apple decides to use this chip. I could just see dual ppc 970 Power Macs running at 2.5Ghz x 2 :) Why stop there maybe they'll go quad, and that would be awesome :)
I just hope apple doesnt go back to using single chip on their high end systems...its ok if they do use one chip for say the iMac, *book line but the Power Macs should stay with dual if they end up using this chip.
Oh and the obligatory, karma whoring
"Imagine a Beowulf of these!!!!"
.... ... }
int main (void) {
Does this chip match the power consumption and low heat dissipation that we have all come to know and love from the PPC arch? Does anyone know?
Fnord.sig
that the IBM press release states that it includes "Altivec"? I don't seem to remember them actually using the trademarked name before now...
Here you can find a more technical details than just press release.
Here is the actual spec about the PowerPC 970.
Ars Technica articles. Apparently, PPC 970 just last year's news. The real news is just the cranked-up speed...
--
Error 500: Internal sig error
Can you imagine a Beow---
Oh, nevermind.
IBM had PL/1, with syntax worse than JOSS,
And everywhere the language went, it was a total loss...
"It is ideal for very computing intensive applications, for example in the area of simulation like meterology or geological calculations."
Along with the rollout of the 970 chip, Apple will introduce two new insanely great iLife Apps: iWeather and iEarth. Now you can calculate weather patterns in your neighborhood and export the results to iMovie! Also, use iEarth's predictive powers in landscaping your front yard, planning your garden, and preventing cracks in your house's foundation.
Perfect for your digital lifestyle.
Eat that Miscrosoft!
The Rise and Fall of Online Community
2.5GHz now is interesting. 2.5GHz in 12-18 months if/when Apple gets them into actual production hardware will not be that interesting. By that time we'll probably see >= 4GHz Intel and AMD chips. Apple needs 2.5GHz machines *now*.
~Perhaps this will lead to some sort of debate regarding the virtues of Macs compared with PCs, something so rarely discussed on SlashDot.
how many people have been holding off (or switching to other platforms) on a new Apple computer purchase for these new chips. I'm sure Apple is chomping at the bit waiting for these chips to be mass produced so that they can get them into Powermacs (and hopefully Powerbooks too), like, yesterday.
The POWERLite series (which is basically what the 970 is) is a great alternative to x86 for Apple for quite a few years ahead. Not only does IBM have an incentive to keep producing these chips at ever-greater clock speeds (something that Motorola with the G4 doesn't seem to have a great deal of interest in doing) because IBM actually uses these in their Blade servers, but it sets up a nice roadmap for successive generations of chips (the POWER5 is just around the corner, with a Power5Lite a la PowerPC 980 coming shortly thereafter? Such a chip is probably only a year and a half off and, running MacOSX, would rocksock).
Yum.
sig my booty, check my website
if (PC == "Personal Computer")
printf("Why do we say Mac vs PC?\n");
else if (PC == "Wintel architecture")
printf("Why confuse people with something called 'PowerPC'?\n");
else
printf("WTF?");
I wonder how they managed to up the clock so dramatically?
Xeon + hobby paint.
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Interesting: this PR release seems to confirm the planned extensions are in fact, Altivec. I haven't followed it too closely, but I thought this wasn't confirmed yet.
Guess that makes it clear this is Apple's next chip.
"First of all, what is the processor that Apple using now? Isn't it some sort of PowerPC already? I see this one supports Altivec and I know that G3 and G4 Apple computers have the same instruction sets. Is this just another implementation, or is G3 and G4 relatives of this new processor?"
Apple does currently use a PowerPC processor in their computers. They have for the past eight years or so. Currently they're using the "750" edition, a'la G3 and G4, which are supplied by both IBM and Motorola.
"Second: what operating system does the IBM PowerPC run?"
The IBM machines with these series of microprocessors are things like the later generation AS/400s and RS/6000's. There are also some workstation machines (both badged as such and badged differently) with IBM PowerPCs in them. AS/400s use OS/400. RS/6000s can run many different OSes, including Linux and AIX.
"I suspect that the article is just confusing and processor itself is not made by IBM. Right??"
Wrong, at least on who makes the microprocessor. Motorola hasn't been doing so well lately, and even early on they had to deal with IBM to meet quota. IBM's hand in the PowerPC line is visible in Macintosh 5200's, which were common schoolroom computers that are starting to be end-of-lifed. They're dating back to August 1996 or so.
IBM had PL/1, with syntax worse than JOSS,
And everywhere the language went, it was a total loss...
Here's some:
- The new chip has a 54 stage pipeline, thus making it as effective as a current 700 MHz G4.
- The chip tested eliminated all ability for cache, thus allowing the speedup in clock but making it slower than all current G4s available in Apple computers.
- It is being developed as PowerPC but will be transitioned into x86.
- It will not support multiprocessing and MP applications will have to be done through a hackneyed clustering.
- This chip will help to propel Apple to 20% market share. (I'm a shareholder.)
- When worked hard, the chip gives off an odor vaguely reminiscent of shrimp flavored chips.
- The 970 is slightly faster than a Porsche 944.
Please feel free to add your own misinformation because there's not all that much real information to be discussed, anyway.
The 970 has the same instruction set (99%) as the G4, but it also has a very, very different internal architecture that should make it quite a bit faster than the G4 at the same clock rate. It's actually a scaled-down version of the Power4 chip, the CPU in a lot of IBM's much larger systems. The Power family is the root of the PowerPC chip, which was actually created by IBM/Apple/Motorola to simply use the same instruction set.
The IBM Power4 runs many of IBM's OS's.
Although an 8600/300 speed comparison might be
interesting from a historical perspective, it's not
that relevant these days as a benchmark point.
A dual G4 running OS X is a whole 'nuther animal.
IF Apple happens to be a consumer of these chips, what is IBM likely to charge for them? It really seems that most consumers complaint about Apple computers is the price, given consumers even consider them an option. I can't imagine Apple would take a hit on these to keep PowerMacs at their current prices. And I don't imagine most switchers will really want to pay for speed when they get it for a commodity price in the PC world.
First of all, what is the processor that Apple using now? Isn't it some sort of PowerPC already? I see this one supports Altivec and I know that G3 and G4 Apple computers have the same instruction sets. Is this just another implementation, or is G3 and G4 relatives of this new processor?
Apple currently uses the G4 and G3 family. The G4 has AltiVec, G3 does not. G4/G3 are product names, whereas 970 are more like model numbers. There all related in that they implement the PowerPC ISA (Instruction Set Archetecture).
Second: what operating system does the IBM PowerPC run?
Depends on who is selling the machine the chip is in. Apple sells OS9 and OSX. IBM has AIX. And of course there's Linux and BSD. These are the most common.
I suspect that the article is just confusing and processor itself is not made by IBM. Right??
Nope, IBM does manufacture the 970. IBM also makes G3's. AFAIK Motorola is the only one making G4's right now (could be wrong here, could be that IBM is cranking some G4's as well). Also note that both Motorola and IBM sell other variations of the PowerPC (most well known is the PPC that powers the Nintendo GameCube).
I'd take that bet, I'll say September 7th '03. "The Price is Right" rules, closest person w/o going over wins.
Whodathunk that one day we'd be reading a story titled "Apple: ..." with an IBM icon? Maybe I'm getting old, but I think it's kinda cool.
.
Two things struck me as odd. First, there's an inconsistent use of a comma as a decimal seperator:
6,4 GB/s I/O system bus throughput
Second, they direct you to a German IBM site for more info:
Further information in the Internet: www.ibm.com/de/entwicklung
Which leads me to think this was originaly a German IBM press release, which was quickly translated.
What does this mean? I have no idea. Is IBM's PowerPC development done in Germany?
One man's -1 Flamebait is another man's +5 Funny.
PowerPC is an open architecture; several companies make different CPUs based on the design. IBM's historically made them for servers (the 970 was originally intended to be a server chip) while Motorola made them for desktops (Apple). Only problem is, Motorola sucks -- and their growth in the wireless business has gotten them to the point where they don't need Apple's business any more, so they have no real reason to improve their CPU line.
The G3 and G4 are also PowerPC chips -- they just are specific models made by Motorola. It's half new implementation, half relative.
Finally, a CPU doesn't run any specific OS -- OSes just have to be written for that CPU (and more generally, for the system architecture that CPU uses). Linux has supported the PPC for a long time; there's a distro called Yellow Dog that specifically targets Macs, and does a good job of it. Mac OS X's kernel, Darwin, has been backported to Intel IA-32. Windows used to be available for Alpha processors. It's just a matter of coding and hardware knowledge.
You have to have the patience of Job to be a graphic designer. That's Job, not Jobs.
From reading the specs it says:
9 Fetch, Decode Stages
5-13 OoO Execute Stages
2-3 Dispatch, Commit
So at total of 16-25 pipelined stages. I also notice that the longest(25) is for the Alti-Vec engine. This is very comparable to Pentium 4 which has 26 pipelined stages, although Pentium 4 does not have a vector engine.
Where the Music Matters
First of all, what is the processor that Apple using now? Isn't it some sort of PowerPC already?
G3 and G4 are Apple marketing terms for current PPC chips, made by IBM or Motorola (the G3s in the iBooks are made by IBM). The only real difference between the two is that the ones with a G4 sticker on it supports AltiVec and SMP (I'm simplifying here for the sake of brevity, before I get flamed). Both are 32-bit chips.
The 970 will probably be called a G5 by Apple (although they may drop the G_ naming convention and call it a PPC64 or something) and is a 64-bit PPC chip based on IBM's Power4 series, with AlriVec tacked on. Power4 is a PPC-derived architecture, specifically designed to run in high-end UNIX servers, where x86 just doesn't cut it. With the 970 IBM are trying to move this technology to the desktop.
Second: what operating system does the IBM PowerPC run?
It will run any OS that runs on current PPC chips (PPC Linux and OS X, for example), although it will probably require OS modifications to take advantage of the 64-bit features of this chip.
I suspect that the article is just confusing and processor itself is not made by IBM. Right??
The chip indeed is made by IBM, as are the G3s in the current iBook range (as I recall Motorola G3s top out at <600MHz, while IBM make them up to 1GHz). Apple is expected to be one of the largest customers for these chips, hence their mention.
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The following is a simplistic view of things, but we are talking about a 64bit processor. Remember the Itaniums Intel is selling are running at around 1GHz - 1.5GHz I believe and they run circles around the 3Ghz P4.
IIRC. this is the new-fangled Power4 stripped down for use in desktops. It is a 32bit chip with full backward compatibility with 32-bit applications.
Typically Apple would release a machine with this kind of new technology at a big tradeshow like Seybold or something since it is aimed at the more professional user. So, labor day weekend might be when we'll see this baby hit the market. Maybe even Macworld Boston, but that would more likely produce speed-bumped iMacs and iBooks, possibly a Powerbook speedbump too.
Pooty tweet
"2.5 GHz PPC sure would close the gap with x86."
:(
Yeah!! I can't wait to see my Quake 3 scores then! Damn I want a new game.
I don't know what story you're refering to but the 970 is derived from the Power4.
64-bit
How much does IBM use PowerPC in its own servers, whether they by AIX or Linux, or do they mostly install them on Intel servers?
"Install them on Intel servers?" I think you're a bit confused here. The PowerPC chips are used instead of Intel chips, not WITH them. At any rate, IBM only uses the PowerPC on their low end. They use PowerIII, RS64, Power4 on their mid-high end stuff. The announcment was about their blade server, blade servers typically use lower end processors that don't run as hot because of the dense packaging.
Is PowerPC going to implement Palladium and DRM
Typically the only thing that a processor lends to the DRM equation is a unique serial number. I don't know if they support it or not. Wouldn't surprise me however if they did as this scheme is very popular on higher end systems to do software licensing.
If so, then this is good. If all computers become hard-wired with DRM as well as Windows, then I could conceivably still assemble my own system with commodity hardware, a PowerPC chip, and run a Linux PowerPC distro on it.
You will not likely be able to assemble a "commodity" box using a PPC. You'd have to either dig up an Apple mobo or an IBM mobo. Possible to do, but far from bopping down to Fry's and grabing the latest VIA PPC mobo and chip.
Not really. Intel intends to speed up the P4 by increasing the length of the pipeline. This offsets quite a bit of the performance benefit of the higher clockspeed. The 4Gz P4 will however be better for building toasters and blast furnaces.
Now that Centrino is out, how will Intel keep up the facade that clock speed matters for than MFLOPS or other (imperfect, but far better that clock speed alone) benchmarks ?
Dean G.
Didn't you post this to the last article that mentioned Apple? If you hate your Mac so much, why is it still on your desk? And why do you keep copying this 19MB file around anyway? Your disk must be getting pretty full of copies of the same file by now...
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
will laptops be feasible?
These chips are targetted at blades. Blades require:
Laptops, on the other hand, require:
Draw your own conclusions
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And they will continue to be over and done with for several more decades, while still turning out incredible computers.
It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
For comparison's sake, the P4 Xeon @ 1.8ghz pulls 703/717 (int/fp) on SPEC CPU2000.
Assuming a linear scaling in SPEC performance, we can look forward to a 2.5ghz 970 scoring about 1294/1460, which is pretty respectable. Not a world beater (especially for 2H03), but a far cry from the abominable performance of the current G4.
'jfb
To spur "enterprise Linux," Big Bang, the distributed two-phase commit.
8600??? Pentium Pro??? Where do you work, a museum?
Lost: Sig, white with black letters. No collar. Reward if found!
You think they suck because they base their computer and OS designs on what their customers want, unlike MS which designs its own ideas and forces them on its customers (HTML email, VBS, ASP and now the new IE5, with it's different rendering of web pages and 96dpi images) because, being the market leader (due to great marketing, not great design), people have no choice.
You think Apple hardware sucks because it uses parts compatible with PC's, despite the fact that Apple hardware components have (for the most part) always been designed by other manufacturers, merely this time they have selected less unique hardware, because this is what their customers wanted and Apple customers are willing to spend extra for this.
You all think Apple sucks because they build computers up to a quality, not down to a price. They suck especially because they took the bold step of designing harware that simple, straightforward and attractive to alot of people (iMac), and in great defiance of the PC market, sells very well. More insulting are the PC owners who discovered their friends' iMacs ran faster.
Oh, and you think Apple sucks most of all because it forces PC owners to realise that they are MS and Intel lemmings - in no control of the chipset's and OS'es they use, as what they do is controlled by both these companies. If it weren't for Apple, AMD and others, everyone, with the exception of companies that can afford expensive un*x workstations, would be complete slaves to MS and Intel.
This is like saying Mercedes Benz sucks because they design innovative cars who's designs influenced car designs for many decades.
Maybe Apple should apologise for shattering people's ideas of what a computer should be.
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Isn't Apple going to suffer the same problem that the industry has where people's systems are good enough for the apps they are using? Consider that Apple seems to be targetting the end-user arena, are users gonna care if they can run Itunes in 1 second instead of 4?
How many people are choosing PC over MAC based on top-end speed?
I would suspect that price is the biggest determining factor for most users. The addition of $x,000 for that big of a speed jump will not intice many new "switchers".
Not that I am predicting the end of Apple but this news should be taken in context.
Well, that's the RISC you run...
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That's funny, we had a 9600/300 working as a professional non-linear edit suite, producing programs for TV and video handling multi-gigabyte files and full frame video with no problems.
Your Mac is broken.
By that time we'll probably see >= 4GHz Intel and AMD chips
.. less important to me than my video card. I have a PC at home pretty much just for gaming, and that's the only upgrade I've done since DDR memory and motherboards were available - a long time ago. I don't think Apple is in any trouble, so long as this chip makes it out the door by this time next year.
You know what, a year ago I would have agreed with you but now I'm not so sure. The prices for the top end chips are very high. I'm not so sure that AMD and Intel are currently going to continue their breakneck R&D budgets into the next year. I suspect you will see a dip or a flat spot in the new PC tech for the next 12 months to let them recoup some of the bazillions that have been invested into fabs and development. In that time frame prices will drop on the higher speeds - but the introduction of even faster chips will slow until new architectures become viable/microsoft gets their head out of their ass. Wouldn't it be ironic if Intel got screwed because Microsoft couldn't get Windows XP stable on a new architecture? The reverse situtation happening to apple, now?
PC speed has become less important
*shrug* I have a Apple Powerbook 1Ghz that I use for everything except games. It's fine, zippy, etc. Games I use my PC for. I don't know of any hardcore apple gamers. Apple's focus on notebooks is partially because of this - their powermacs are suffering, but there isn't anything they can do about that right now. In much the same vein, I have a openBSD box, two linux boxes, and a QNX box all running 3-4 year old motherboards and processors fine.
I don't think Apple needs to get involved. The extra time spent making their software better NOW will make it even faster when the new machines come out.
Pick the right tool for the job, duh. Mac isn't the right tool for a FPS or flight sim game monster. It kicks some serious ass as a unixy workstation-to-go, though. Their developer tools are excellent, and free. etcetcetc.
..don't panic
The 2.5GHz number isn't the same as Intel talking about 5GHz P4s. IBM means that they're going to sell 2.5GHz Blade servers. The reason that Intel talks about their insane GHz processors is to impress consumers into buying Intel. People in the market for mid-range Blade servers couldn't care less about what IBM can do in one in a million chips, and they would likely be annoyed if IBM misrepresented it in that way. If IBM can't manufacture the chips in quantity (I'm not aware if they're manufacturing any 970's in mass yet), they will be able to shortly, certanly before the release of the chip.
To my half thought-through way of seeing things, this is a strong argument for coming up with a product roadmap, even if such things are half-truths in the end. Apple is so secretive about everything that it's impossible to know if something like this -- or something else entirely! -- is going to come out in a month or a year or ever, and consumers like me are perfectly willing to wait. And wait. And apparently, wait indefinitely. Clearing up some of that uncertainty would certainly make me more eager to buy new gear...
</wibbling>
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
I was drooling so much, my g4 cube got upset and wont talk to me. This just proves my point that computers are definately female. I mean, its not like i was going to replace it... just add a second one...
From what I have read (mostly at macspeedzone.com), I would think that Apple will NOT be ready to show a 970-based computer at the July Macworld. Notice that I said "show", as opposed to "ship".
I hope I'm wrong though.
So this is my question: what do they do as a stopgap? Ship a G4 with four processors? Punt and simply lower prices until the 970 is ready?
Steve Jobs has been dealing with Motorola since, when.. 1983 or so? Might be high time for a divorce.
The G3 (PPC750) is a development of the PowerPC 603. It's got superb integer performance, decent FP, no Altivec and extremely low power draw.
The G4 (PPC74x0) is a development of the PowerPC601 and 604. Integer Performance is about the same as the 750, but it has a much faster FPU and Altivec. Moderate power draw and a much more powerful CPU overall.
There are more differences between the PPC750 family and the PPC74x0 Family than just Altivec, although that's the most notable difference.
All of these CPU's are descendants of the Power CPU line. Theoretically Mac OS X could run on teh Power4 with some minor work. Now that would make a killer system, at the expense of cost (A single Power4 CPU package, with multiple cores, costs as much as a PowerMac.)
"You've got an invalid haircut" -Warren Zevon - Life'll Kill Ya
Wow guy take it easy!
He has a valid point. It would be fair to compair it to the best chips out now. I don't care what AMD + rating it has or what MHZ Intel has it running, just the best chips out. It would also be good to see how the best sparc chip, Xeon, (whatever SGI uses), etc compared.
I realize that this is just ONE benchmark and a lot goes in to a system, but it would still be interesting to see.
The more I learn about science, the more my faith in God increases.
With 3GHz CPUs on the horizon, i am kinda confused as to how these cpus can function. I mean, assuming electricity travels in copper/semiconductor (or whatever they use in ICs these days) as fast as light in vaccum (in fact it travels at a fraction of 'c'):
in one 3GHz cycle, a signal in the the CPU can only travel less than 10cm (~4 inches for those still stuck with the imperial units). With CPU dies sizes of a similar magnitude (~4cm), and with all the routing inside the CPU, why dont we get some very serious race conditions? are the intel engineers actually going in and laying out the chip keeping this speed in mind? as the speed will vary with the CPU temperature, its even more difficult.
And doesnt that impose a HARD LIMIT on how many MHz can be squeezed out? I mean, a comment below mentions intel demoing 5GHz CPU (this is the first time i'v heard about this, so i dunno how true this is), and that means the signal only travels 6cm, which means it cant even traverse the whole die in one cycle.
Is there something i am forgetting here? Can someone in the know please shed some light?
Ghoul2
Sigura Non Grata
I'd be surprised if there won't always *be* a premium for Apple stuff, although I'll grant you it could be quite a bit less. Apple has a reputation for providing nice, upscale hardware and a better user experience compared to the shoddier, cheaper PC. That's why people (including myself) are willing to pay quite a price premium for a machine that really can't keep up performance-wise.
I'm not saying this is always the case; there are very nicely engineered PC's and Macs that aren't as nice as they could be. But Apple products are perceived as being premium products and are generally priced accordingly... and lots of people are willing to pay. Keeping that in mind, I doubt if Apple will ever really get into a PC price war. They'll keep doing just fine in the upper price scales, and with a better profit margin to boot.
Hi... I'm Larry... the shivering chipmunk... brrrrr!... I'm cold... I need a sweater...
Trust me, if Apple's 970 machines come out in January, it will be like Christmas in January. Mac folk have been waiting way too long for this.
Fair enough. Right now, the fastest processor in the world is the Pentium 4 3.06ghz: 1130/1103 (int/fp). For pure floating-point horses, it's the Itanic 2 743/1427 (int/fp).
So a 2.5ghz 970 would be close in performance to both of today's fastest shipping processors. It's likely that the P4 and Itanic will be 15-20% faster in six months, so IBM will still be lagging in the performance hunt. However, it's striking how much closer to the peak performers this chip will move IBM -- and, by extension, Apple.
'jfb
To spur "enterprise Linux," Big Bang, the distributed two-phase commit.
They shrunk the size of the gates on the transistors, basically trading reliability for performance. Considering that one of the main selling points of Apples is their longevity and ability to hold value due to it, I can't help but wondering if this is the right move.
Apparently, in order to increase the reliability of the Power4 for the high-end server market, IBM used much thicker gate oxides on the chip's transistors. The trade-off for this decreased failure rate and improved reliability was that the Power4's transistors have slower switching speeds, so even with process shrinks it's harder to push the design to higher clock speeds. Since the 970 is made for the desktop market, there's no need for such measures and therefore the new chip's clock speed will scale much higher than the Power4's. In sum, the 970 is made to be faster, cheaper, and significantly less reliable than the Power4. (Of course, when I say "significantly less reliable than the Power4," you have to understand that this puts the 970's product life and failure rate on par with other mainstream CPUs, since the Power4's increased gate oxide thickness makes it significantly more reliable than most mainstream CPUs.)
ArsTechnica overview
It's a given that Apple enthusiasts will be happy as can be once they fire up a brand new powerfull box, the question is how they will feel when they find out it has the lifespan of a typical Intel or AMD CPU.
Did you read the press release? I doubt it. You saw "Apple" as the subject of the headline and just half-hazardly clicked the reply button and started a schpiel about how Apple really needed this, etc. If you go and check the press release out, you'll see that only the Blade server architectures are even mentioned.
For anyone who has been paying attention to Apple and IBM and the PowerPC 970 the article didn't NEED to mention Apple. It has been an open and obvoius secret that this chip was developed by IBM specifically for Apple - The presense of Altivec (which is largely useless on a server) is proof enough of that even without the coy public statements (and a few explicit slip-ups despite the standard policy of "we never comment on unannounced products" ).
Yeah, Apple hopes to use this some day, but it'll be a long time coming.
They will be using it the moment IBM can produce them in sufficient quantites.
Someone resection this to strictly IBM rather than an Apple > IBM article.
Despite the article itself having nothing to do with Apple it IS of interest to Apple users because it reveals that the chip everyone knows will replace the G4 is reaching speeds up to 2.5 GHz when it had previously been reported to be between 1.4 - 1.8 GHz.
http://www.intel.com/home/desktop/pentium4/faq.
Q: What is Streaming SIMD Extensions 2?
A: Streaming SIMD Extensions 2 extends Intel® MMX(TM) Media-enhanced technology and the Streaming SIMD Extensions. Single Instruction Multiple Data (SIMD) allows a single instruction, such as addition or subtraction, to operate on more than one data set concurrently. The 144 new cache and memory management instructions enhance performance to accelerate the most-demanding Internet and computing applications. SIMD double-precision floating point accelerates demanding content creation, 3D rendering, financial calculations and scientific applications. In addition, 64-bit MMX technology (SIMD integer) instructions have been enhanced and extended to 128-bits, accelerating video, speech, encryption, imaging and photo processing.
I believe and they run circles around the 3Ghz P4.
Not that I'd heard - if the Itanic ran circles around anything, Intel wouldn't be saying nobody needs 64-bit yet. They'd just double the clock speed (with no performance change) for marketing reasons. No, Itanic is slow and has been doomed to fail for some time now - thus the name.
Anyone know who came up with that name first?
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
Your comparison only goes to show how much both of those above companies are gouging their customers. You can build a faster system for a lot less that will probably have higher quality components. Let's see:
Pentium 4 2.4GHz CPU: $160
Asus P4S533 mainboard: $100
512MB memory: $70
Enlight case: $47
nVidia GeForce 4 4600: $220
120GB Western Digital HD: $128
Plextor CD RW/DVD combo drive: $100
NEC / Mitsubishi 17" LCD flat panel: $450
Microsoft OS Tax: $200
Mouse & keyboard & floppy & network card: $100.
$1575 total.
The only problem is that you have to supply an afternoon's worth of assembly with a screwdriver and have a little knowledge about what you're doing. And I could save $2000 over your estimate, more if I installed Linux (or my prefered OS, FreeBSD - and it would scream on such a machine).
You'd end up with a fully-functional system that will blow both your above specced machines out of the water. If you don't believe me, go price up the components yourself on NewEgg.com. Sure, the components I've picked above aren't top-of-the-line, but just off the top of the price/performance curve.
You can't really do-it-yourself with Apple machines - too much is proprietary and there's certainly not a choice of components. This is a real turn off for those who have knowledge and are comfortable building their own system.
Fantastic news for Apple, and trouble for Intel and HP.
For all your Wintel idiots out there who know nothing other than GHz, PPC 970 is a super efficient 64 bit server grade RISC processor with the G4 style Altivec engine, and will blow away your P4, Xeon and Itanium. I home Apple will make a PowerBook with one of these.
According to benchmarks by Intel and HP, the floating point performance of Itanium 2 @ 1 GHz is about 50% faster than P4 @ 3.06 GHz, so clock rate clearly doesn't equal to performance.
In other news, out of 4.5 million servers shipped in 2002, only 3500 were Itanium. In contrast, Apple apparently had already sold approximately 8000 Xserves 6 or 7 months after it was launched in May 2002 - not too shaby for a new product.
At the same clock speed, and for short sequences of instructions, a Z80 can beat a P4. The problem is... they don't make them at the same clock speed.
It's irrelevant how many times per second the chips clock says "tic-tac", what matters is how fast real chips can get real jobs done. For real-world purposes, you can compare the best (ie, the fastest chips) or the most valuable (ie, the ones with the best speed/price ratio).
So you see, Mr. Anonymous Coward, comparing the performance "per clock cycle" is irrelevant. It's like comparing the performance "per instruction length", or "per transistor count". It might be interesting from a theoretical point of view, but if a chip that does a lot of work per cycle cannot do more than a couple of cycles per second, it's still a terribly slow chip. The P4 was designed to do less work per cycle, but work at higher frequencies. The Athlon, on the other hand, does more work per cycle but cannot reach such high frequencies. In the end, they're more or less matched. So, in that situation, which one do you buy? Perhaps you buy the one with better "performance per clock cycle". I buy the one that's cheaper (funnily enough, in this case they would be the same).
I thought Macs were competitive with PCs. Or are you saying that anyone who buys a Mac is totally clueless? It all depends on the market you're talking about. When this chip is finally released, PC processors will be twice as fast than they are now, and will probably cost half what they cost now. Anyone buying a Mac for raw number-crunching is an idiot, just as anyone using Windows for a firewall or a quad Xeon for an office machine is an idiot. It doesn't matter is something is faster or slower, as long as it's fast enough.
To use a car metaphor (that most people seem to understand), not everyone needs or wants to drive a Lamborghini. It's expensive, it's hard to park, it's hard to drive, it's cramped and it drinks like a fish. Most people are better off with a "normal" car, that's fast enough and powerful enough for them, is easy to drive, and has room for the kids and the dog.
Having said that, if you spot someone selling a metallic-gray Lamborghini Diablo Roadster (convertible) for less than 15K, let me know, will you?
RMN
~~~
Hear hear. Why are new chip speeds ALWAYS compared to P(insert number here) speeds? Fair enough they are the PC industry standard, but why not do a comparison to some of the higher end chips? Then we could see where our new processors fit into the bigger picture of things and find new markets for them, rather than focusing on the Desktop market every single time. Case study: Transmeta. Good chips for laptops coz of heat issues, but just couldn't cut it on the desktop. (Not trying to be flamebait, but it's a damn good example)
In Soviet Russia, the monkey spanks you!
Bah. I miss the days when the fastest Mac around was an Amiga running a Mac emulator.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
These chips are targetted at blades. Blades require:
1. Low power consumption
2. Low heat dissipation
Laptops, on the other hand, require:
1. Low power consumption
2. Low heat dissipation
Draw your own conclusions
Uhhhh...Blaptops That's it, they're making Blaptops!!!
When you're done with mobile computing you just stick it back in the rack mount docking station.
Heh.
Have you read the moderator guidelines? Well, have you, PUNK? (and I want a Karma: Gnarly option)
I don't know what you mean by 50% (like, compared to what?), but some applications definitely benefit from SMP. 2 1GHz chips will perform almost as well as 1 2GHz chip for some of these things. In that case, I would say the (unacheivable ideal) for 2-way SMP is 50% speed-up. Time goes from 2 minutes to (just over) 1 minute, for example. Of course, going from 1Ghz to 2Ghz chip for the same application will probably give you somewhat less than a 50% speed up. Hence my confustion at your comment.
I find desktop SMP systems nice not only for the parallel apps I run, but also because the general responsiveness of the system seems to be better on average under load.
I haven't done rendering in a while, but SMP systems seem like they would help there. They definitely help in compiling, in my experience. Don't know about games.
YMMV
XML causes global warming.
Unfortunately, shortly thereafter, Earth blue-screened
Arrgh! The dreaded Blue Sky Of Death! Microsoft has already hit!
"We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!" - Vroomfondel, H2G2
Assuming the same bus speed (which is impossible, so take these numbers to be within, say, one hundred points of reality) and linear performance progression, the 2.5GHz chip should have:
;)
SPECint2000 =
937 / 1.8 = 520.5 points/GHz * 2.5
Estimated Score ~= 1300
Average P4@3.0GHz score ~= 1080 (the 970 = 20% faster)
SPECfp2000 =
1051 / 1.8 = 583.9 points/GHz * 2.5
Estimated Score ~= 1460
Average P4@3.0GHz score ~= 1100 (the 970 = 33% faster)
RC5 =
18 / 1.8 = 10 * 2.5
Estimated Score ~= 25M keys/sec
Average P4@3.0GHz score ~= 4.3M keys/sec (the 970 = 581% faster)
Take these numbers with a grain of salt, but they're somewhat interesting. I like the RC5 score, especially.
> The following is a simplistic view of things, but we are talking
> about a 64bit processor. Remember the Itaniums Intel is selling
> are running at around 1GHz - 1.5GHz I believe and they run
> circles around the 3Ghz P4.
That's overgeneralized. The 3GHz P4 is very much faster at most tasks than the 1.0GHz Itanium II, which is the fastest instance of the chip that has been given entries at spec.org. The reason why the Itanium II appears much faster is that you only see benchmarks that relate to its very narrow field of marketing. It's a server processor. You won't see it tested in areas more suited to general purpose computing (games, office suites, etcetera). And, hell, the Itanium sucks in specint, one half of the single processor version of the most prolific server benchmark suite in the world. The 900MHz (fastest speed submitted -- for some reason, they only gave specfp scores for 1000MHz, unless I missed an entry or few) Itanium II gets 674, compared to scores above 1100 for the 3.06GHz P4. That's a whopping 63% difference! The fastest Itanium II is almost 40% slower than the top of the line non-Xeon Pentium 4!
The Itanium II does fantastically in specfp -- bested, I believe, only by the DEC Alpha, which is sadly being pushed under the carpet for reasons more political than I'd like (Alpha IP is owned by HP and Intel, the companies that created the Itanium's core architecture) -- and many other benchmarks. But you can't simply ascribe a single, simple feature to the performance advantages of the processor. Yeah, the processor can address a 64-bit memory space and, yeah, the processor has 64-bit GP registers. But you're ignoring many other features piled on top. Itanium II is a server processor, so it can afford to have some extra doodads added to it, doodads that would be considered financially unfeasible on mainstream processors.
Hmmm, I did a quick google search, so I apologize if I pulled incorrect info on the following:
The Itanium II has a more than a megabyte and a half of cache memory on the die of the processor. It seems to optionally go up to 3MB on-die L3 cache. In comparison, the Pentium 4 has 512KB cache (there's some more cache, the L1, but that's inclusive), and the Athlon XP has either 384KB or 640KB cache (depending on whether you're counting the older Thoroughbred or the newer Barton). So the Itanium gets about three times as much cache memory on the processor die!
Itanium II has a 400MHz, 128-bit data path to the chipset. Pentium 4 is 533MHz, 64-bit. So the P4 gets a chipset that can send it 4.27 GB per second while the Itanium II gets a chipset sending it data at 6.4GB/s.
The Itanium II has more functional/execution units. The Itanium II gets predication, which is a very expensive (in terms of how much bulk it adds to the die) feature that effectively gets rid of a lot of the penalty associated with branch misprediction (a problem which is rather huge with the trillion-stage netburst microarchitecture of the Pentium 4, though I'm told that the multithreading implementation of the P4 can help alleviate some of that).
The number of bits in the processor don't matter *that* much, not after the 32-bit level. Yeah, it helps, but you have to take the whole package into account. A 64-bit scalar one-stage processor with a ten-byte, off-die cache would get its ass kicked mercilessly by an 80486DX-50.
To take another tack: I'm somewhat interested in possibly purchasing an Athlon 64 late this year or early next year. But if the Athlon 64 was just an Athlon with 64-bit extensions, I wouldn't give it the time of day. I'm interested because the Athlon 64 will have an on-die memory controller. I'm interested because the Athlon 64 will support twice as many registers as a typical x86 chip (which may decrease the need for cache accesses, which could increase performance on my recompiled linux apps). Either of these two advantages promise a far greater advantage for me than the simple increase in register size and memory addressability.
-JC
I really wish manufacturers would cut the crap and just give a FLOP rating off of some standard test that could be performed cross-platform. Then they can stop worrying about turning processors into microwave ovens and focus on more efficent silicon techniques. They are starting to run into problems in these high frequencies because on a motherboard, because by the time the signal reaches another side of the board, it has already switched from a 1 back to a 0 or whatever. That's fast.
Moar fastaaaaar!
-ted
I can't wait to put one of these in my powerPC Amiga
3 GB of cache? I sure hope that's a typo.
One thing you overlook is the performance improvement that vector-ops can provide. To start with, Intel eviscerated the vector-processing (MMX/SSE/SSE2) capabilities of the P4 compared to the P3; limiting the number of execution units it can run on and various other things. The G4 (and presumable the PPC970) has the Altivec unit which provides significantly more vector registers, operates on vectors double the size, and is capable of running vector operatons on multiple execution units.
The end result is that the PPC chip is capable of doing heavy number crunching (think photoshop & scientific apps, rather than updating spreadsheets & getting higher framerates in games) more effectively when it counts. How much the increased efficiency would help is highly dependant on the specific application (and the effort the developer puts into optimization).
Combine this with the lower power consumption and you could see blade systems packing the new PPC become a viable choice for compute clusters.
IE -
Imagine a Beowulf of these things...
my sig's at the bottom of the page.
ugly as shit and expensive beyond reason.
macz suckz big time
die apple die
An excellent specimen. Succinct, to the point. If I may, allow me to draw attention to some of the more prominent features.
You see, your typical Apple Homo Trollus has a sloped brow, approximately 20% shallower than normal. Also, the knuckles are large and calloused from dragging on the ground. These two factors both work in tandem to create the keyboarding style of said troll: the lack of caps, the atrocious spelling, etc.
But more than that, the rage plays into consideration. Studies are inconclusive at this point; the theory currently in vogue points to a severe inferority complex, possibly misplaced feelings of abandonment by Homo Trollus' platform of choice.
The question as to the source of the Trollus' rage remains a mystery, however. While one would logically assume that a typical Homo Sapiens would simply ignore a computer choice that he/she deemed unsuitable, the Trollus is angred, and somehow threatened by the very existance of another choice).
In the end, we may never know what drives these poor stupid brutes to such outbursts. The only recourse is what we've always done... sedatation, and an absolute lack of 'feeding' are critical.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
Apple shipped 7484 servers (presumably mainly Xserve) in Q3 2002. In contrast, there were only 3500 Itanium 2 based servers sold in the whole of 2002.
The future looks even better for Apple in the server space, following the recent release of the new Xserve and the Xserve RAID. I can't wait to see an Apple 64 bit PPC 970 blade server to blow the crappy Dell out of the water.
Quoting numbers attributed to Internet World, MacInTouch (Saturday, Jan 12) reports that Apple's share of the server market has more than trebled from 0.2 percent to 0.7 percent (Q3 '01 vs Q3 '02). An equally telling statistic is the fact that approximately 40 percent of growth had taken place by the end of Q2 '02 (ie before Apple's Xserve was released).
In terms of unit sales, Internet World quotes the following for Apple:
? Q3 '01 2,049
? Q2 '02 3,937
? Q3 '02 7,484
That's because the G4 in its current state cannot support a faster bus (hence the abstraction of the DDR memory from the system bus). The 970 will fix this problem (and so would the G4 7457-RM, but that's still vapor at this point).
Conglom-O: We Own You (TM).
MacAddict and others are reporting that the press release has been removed from IBM's site; clicking the link to it in this story now takes one to a listing of IBM's German press releases. The pr on the 2.5 GHz 970 seems to have been completely removed. Might the announcement have been premature?