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Motorola to Have Rapid I/O in All Future Processors
Anonymous Cow writes "This PDF from Motorola states that all future processors from Motorola will have rapid I/O (page 32). Further down (page 34) it claims that that Motorola has got a dualcore PPC processor in development. No launch dates are given." It also notes that they could achieve 3+ GHz, without significant increase in power consumption.
Was the development of the 970 chip by IBM a ploy by Apple to provide Motorola with a much needed kick in the rear? Moto seems to be playing catchup with it's PowerPC line lately.
Playing 'hard to get' is in Apple's best interests; but it's also a good idea not to 'put all your eggs in one basket', and as such, Apple shouldn't spurn Motorola outright. 'A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush', and right now Motorola is a known quantity, and IBM is an unknown.
So perhaps the best course is to...
Keep Motorola
Bet on IBM
Plan around both
GPL Deconstructed
I think this chip is actually aimed at the embedded market, to compete with some of the newer MIPS-based CPUs. At any rate, if it's just appearing on a road map, it won't be in ANY machines for at least 2 years, and God help Apple if they are still using G4s by that time.
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
I think Motorola went to Fantasy Land at Disney Paris before their presentation!!! They said for a long time that they are looking towards the embedded market. That should have sent a red flag to Apple. But, I understand Apple too, being a long time customer and beliving in them to come through. PCs are at 3ghz, have faster I/O, 8X AGP, etc. Apple design is great, but they need machines to perform. To be right up on the heels of the PC or even steping on their feet. Instead Apple is in the cloud of dust and once in a while sticking their head out with design and software. I think Apple should go into other directions or the Mac is doomed. Direction #1: Stay with Motorola to have them supply the chips for the iBook ( they need to make the move to the G4 and these new Moto chips can do it.) and the iMac/eMac. Then Apple should look to IBM's 970 for the Power Mac and PowerBook. To take it to another level, they should go to AMD and use their "Clawhammer" for the Xserve. They have been not only talking to IBM but to AMD as well. AMD's chip will be great for the Xserve to run a whole slew of OSs for the corporate environment giving Dell and Compaq a run for the money. And the 970 to catch up to or pass (hopfully) the PC. I owned Apples all my life, and yes I do have a PC too, but my heart is with Apple and I do not want them to go the way like Sega.
Given the effort IBM has gone to in order to make the 970 perfect for Apple, I'm left with little doubt that all high-end Macs will soon be powered by the 970. Motorola's last-ditch efforts to boost the G4 are simply too late to dissuade Apple from that course of action.
But the 970 will almost certainly be more expensive than the G4 at its introduction and possibly for some time afterward. Therefore, its probable that Apple is already planning to relegate its low-end offerings (iBook, eMac) to the G4 initially. These rumblings from Motorola are probably meant to persuade Apple to keep things that way for longer than it was perhaps already planning to. And if Motorola really does ramp the G4 to 3GHz in the near future (somehow I have my doubts about that) then they might just succeed.
In any case, I still believe that it is only a matter of time before the the Mac line is converted entirely to the 970. But what I want to know is this: will Motorola gain access to the 970 design specs because of the Apple-IBM-Motorola (AIM) PPC contracts. If so, will we see Motorola 970s in the future? I hope so; competition of this sort always benefits the consumer.
This makes a lot of sense, actually.
The dual-core G4's could become something of an iBook line "Look, kids - faster iBooks, low power consumption", while the 970's could still be used in a new Powerbook line. "Need to warm up your lap? You can still do that with the 970 Aluminum 15"!"
Apple would be wise to use both IBM and Motorola - that way if one causes a problem, Apple can turn to the other and say "So - what's your offer?"
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
It's ironic that this move, which saved Apple from certain doom, has come back to bite them. Motorola has truly been just ignoring their G3 / G4 business for too long, and it shows.
Steve knows that Moto is just fuckin' with him this time. With much lower estimated cost re: the 970 vs the G4, IBM knows it is the apple of Apple's eye.
We may see these G4's, if they ever really DO come out, in iBooks and iMacs.
Just like I said when I heard that Sony was making a video game console. "I'll belive it when I see it."
They drag their asses for years and leave the G4 stuck in the doldrums, making Apple (read: Steve Jobs) look bad. Now that Apple is most likely going to take their business to a vendor who is interested in meeting the needs of their client (what a concept!), Motorola's getting interested in competing again? Please!
It's way too late for that-- the die has been cast, and more than likely has been since the first generation of "we can't get faster CPUs, so we put in two CPUs" Power Mac G4s. Spend your development money on more uber-annoying "Hello Moto" ads, and leave the CPU business to companies who are serious about it, ya friggin' tards.
~Philly
- Powerbooks - dual core G4
- iBooks/eMacs - single core G4
- Power Macs - 970
The 970 won't be used in other systems, because it'll eat power more than Moto's PPC. The only question is what will they put in the iMacs, where their is no power constraint like on the laptops. My guess is dual core G4, but chip costs will ultimately decide it.Another problem is the dreadful quality problems with clones. I worked phone support for several thousand MacOS installs, spread across anything from the first model powermacs to the newest G4s at the times.
When it came to hardware failures, the mac clones outnumbered the apple made macs by something like 10 to 1. Considering there were far less clones in our installation than real macs, that's a pretty heavy bias against the clone boxes. The most common things to go were power supplies, CDROMs and floppy drives.
Quality control was just nowhere near Apple's own. There are varying thoughts on how good Apple's quality is, but there's no doubt the clones were far, far worse.
"G3, etc.? Ever heard of those?"
.13 process with 512KB of L2 and a DDR FSB while Moto have the "higher end" G4 on a .18 process with 256KB of L2 and an SDR FSB just about says it all. Altivec is EASILY the most powerful SIMD unit on the commodity CPU table at the moment, but it's Motorola's total failure to scale clock speed in the way that they promised that's been holding back the integer and FP performance of the Mac platform for the last few years.
Perfect example - Apple buys ALL of it's G3s from IBM. Why? IBM's are faster and cheaper. Apple would buy them from moto if Moto's were any good. Apple is only squeezing life out of the G4 in the way that it is because motorola have catastrophically failed to deliver on the roadmap that they set out at the introduction of the G4. The fact that IBM have the G3 on a
"By over 50% did you mean the "angry, overly defensive, self-absorbed, deluded, creative professional market?""
No, I meant what I wrote, the Apple Macintosh market.
That was classic intercourse!