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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
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
"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.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
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.
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).
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.
.
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.
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.
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...
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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.
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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Well, that's the RISC you run...
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.
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
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.
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)
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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.
Yeah you're right I didn't account for MMX and SSE.
However there is little comparison.
Alti-Vec
# 32 separate Registers
# 128 bits per register
# No interference with FP registers
# no context or mode switching
# max throughput: 8 Flops / cycle
MMX/SSE
# 8 MMX registers shared with the FPU, 8 for SSE
# 64 bits per mmx register, 128 bits per xmm register
# MMX stalls the FP registers
# context switching required for MMX
# max throughput: 2 Flops / cycle
When you are playing a 3D game do you really want your FPU stalled for vector calculations?
To be fair, you could program your 3D game to do all FPU calculations in SSE. gcc has an option to do this automatically now. And SSE2 is one step ahead of AltiVec in one regard - it supports a few double-precision operations.
But aside from those two nitpicks, I agree completely. I've hand-optimized code for both Pentium/SSE and G4/AltiVec and there's no comparison: SSE provides a small performance boost for a lot of work, while AltiVec provides a large performance boost for a little bit of work. AltiVec has very fancy shift, rotate, and shuffle instructions that are completely lacking in SSE. These are useful for more than just RC5 - they're totally necessary to vectorize many more complicated algorithms without the overhead of putting the data in the right place eating up any potential speed gains.
That's why the 970 in a Mac will easily beat the P4 in a number of tests: Apple has optimized hundreds of system calls to use AltiVec already, so many programs get the speed gain automatically.
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
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?