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PowerPC 750GX Begins Sampling Next Month
Trollaxor writes "The June issue of IBM's PowerPC Processor News features an article on the latest G3, Big Blue's PowerPC 750GX. The chip, which begins sampling next month, runs at 1.1 GHz and has 1 megabyte of on-chip L2 cache. Could this be Apple's next speedbump to the iBook?" Or, maybe, they will kill the iBook altogether in favor of the 12" AlBook.
We have been hearing about that next great thing for months and finally it comes with No Altivec.
At least it will be a good way to get some new life out of an old iMac or an Ibook.
with G5's announced, why would they still produce any G3 machines? G5 for pro, G4 for consumer seems the path to go. An iBook with a G4 and Altivec should run Jaguar and Panther much better than the G3 versions. They could use features and clock speed to differentiate between iBook G4 and Powerbook G4 until the G5 Powerbooks are ready.
also, a g3 is faster than a g4 for non-altivec operations. I even have toy benchmarks to prove it!
I'm not going to shell out $600 bucks for a 1 gigahertz G4 upgrade for my trusty 400mhz G3 server, but I might consider a 1 gigahertz G3 if the price was under $300.
This is hardly an Apple story. The G3 (aka PPC 750) has many applications other than Macs.
P.S. It's only a G3, G4, or G5 when it is used in a Mac, otherwise it's just a plain old PowerPC.
"Or, maybe, they will kill the iBook altogether in favor of the 12" AlBook." Apple still needs a sub $1000 laptop for college students that provides e-mail, web browsing, instant messaging and small ventures into the graphical arts. There is no way a PowerBook would ever breach the $1000 barrier... The G3 processor still has legs. My iMac DV Special Edition (purchased in 1999) runs Jaguar quite well with only 256MB of RAM at a 400Mhz clock speed. Throw a 1.1Ghz G3 with 512MB RAM and that would be one kickass machine. It would run quietly, have a more compact design and offer speeds that would, if not by benchmark than by real-world usage, equal that of a much-higher clocked Pentium 3.
I'm not popular enough to be different.
Homer Simpson, The Simpsons
A lot of this stuff will really hinge on Panther. It will be tough for apple to sell G3's if Panther doesn't run well on the processor. I know Jaguar runs fine for what it does, but it still misses having Quartz. How much of Panther will require more than what the G3 can handle.
What's worse is that there is no guarantee from Apple that they will even continue to really care about the G3. They are already trying to steer people away from the sub 1ghz G4's with the creation of Pixlet. So it definitely leaves a hole with concern to the G3.
I hate to say it, but the G3's time may be almost up.
Slashdot...it's like Fox news, but without the biased sl...or maybe not.
The G3 is still a good, fairly fast, cool-running chip. I've seen plenty of gumdrop iMacs still kickin' butt out there, same with the iBook. But now we have the G5. Apple isn't going to have a spread of three generations of processors in their line-up. We could ramble on and on about technical features, etc, but the simple marketing is that there will be the "low-end" G4s and the pro-level G5s. No more G3.
"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts...for support rather than illumination." - Andrew Lang
Until the G3 has an AltiVec unit, Apple will not be ditching Motorola completely.
The next PB will probably use moto's G4+. Apple's reluctance to put the same chip in both its "consumer" and "pro" laptops will mean that the iBook wont get Altivec for a while.
Pixlet is designed for HD quality video with good compression. How many FinalCut Pro users are working on iBooks?
QuartzExtreme is not dependent on the CPU but on the GPU. There is no reason why Apple couldn't continue to use G3 processors and upgrade the video hardware to support QuartzExtreme.
Rumor has it that the next generation of G3 processors will also have AltiVec. This will extend the lifespan of teh G3 line of processors.
The G3 has 2 major factors going for it low cost and low power. The G3 will continue to find a niche in Apple's product line. Perhaps we will see it in future iPads or other consumer lifestyle devices.
I [...] wish that Trollaxor would disappear from the 'net entirely.
Not likely, mate.
Apple
PowerPC
- The G5 Bits Drought NEW
- The PowerPC "G4" Is a Lie
- The PowerPC 7455: Too Little, Too Late
- The PowerPC Conspiracy
- Trading MHz for Mega Hurtz
4278065203895703295870239572398457329873298523087With Apple's announcing that beige G3s won't be supported for Panther, that's probably an indication of Apple moving away from the six year old processor.
As for Apple not using the same processor in pro v. consumer notebooks, the same was true in Power Macs and iMacs until the iMac G4(and then eMac). There will probably be a short time in which Apple will put the G4 into an iBook replacement to co-exist with the Powerbooks.
My guess is they will put a new name on the 12" AlBook and maybe even a "new" 14" version. The 17" with a better processor(MPC7457 G4)/motherboard(DDR333 RAM) combo will be the main selling feature until they can get heat to a manageable level on the G5.
I can't imagine them phasing out the iBooks right now. This being the "year of the laptop" and all, the price point on the iBooks is just right for competing with low-end PC offerings.
The iBook is also a more durable machine, designed to better hold up to the kind of abuse you'd expect from students and whatnot.
Chris -- http://www.bitter.net/
God forbid anyone with a sense of humor post on the Internet.
Does anyone else find it strange that there is currelty only $250 difference between similar 12" iBook and Powerbooks, yet the PB has .11g, G4, nvida, and such? Seems odd for apple to have these so close, and I think it shows the weakness of the G4.
iChat AV will install on any Mac capable of running OS X 10.2.6. The video works on a 400 MHz G4 and may even work on a 350 MHz G4. However, the video will not work on any G3 running at less than 600 MHz. The video does work fine on a 700 MHz iBook (a G3, of course).
In the past I have run FireWire video on a 400 MHz G3 PowerBook with no problems. For that matter, I have done NTSC video on a 100 MHz PPC601.
I have no doubt that Apple has instituted a rather artificial lower limit on G3 video participation with the primary goal of encouraging new hardware purchases. Certainly the vast majority of the millions of gumdrop iMac owners with G3 CPUs running under 600 MHz would prefer the option of a lower frame rate, a lower pixel depth, or a lower resolution than having no videochat at all.
Bad move, Apple. It will only be a matter of time before iChat AV is hacked to run on slower machinery.
They renamed the ibm 970 to "G5" for marketing reasons, so if they used the 750GX why on earth would they give it the outdated sounding G3 name? Calling it a G750 or G5e or something else would be far better from a marketing point of view.
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
If apple keeps the G3 in the iBook for another year, it may not be able to compete against other sub 1000 notebooks with desktop 2.2 Ghz P4, 15 inch displays, and combo drives. You can argue small size and battery life (I would agree), but that would still be a tough sell to those on a slim budget and don't look that far down the spec sheet. Unless Apple leverages the low power capabilities of the G3 and built a sub 5 pound notebook with a 14 inch display to replace 12 inch, I wont be able to recommend it.
You don't have to be smart to use a Mac, you just have to be smart enough to buy one
Yeaah, man, the G3 is a beleaguered platform!
Apple will certainly keep the iBook around forever, but I certainly expect it to go G4 eventually (certainly by the time PowerBook goes G5). The big advantage of the G3 was that it was cheap and power efficient. The new Motorola G4 chips are going to be as cheap and power efficient.
There are lots of reasons why Apple would like to have ALL new Macs have AltiVec, so they can rely on its awesomeness. Note that iChat AV requires a G3 600+, or any G4.
My video compression blog
In fact, current iBooks have Quartz Extreme. Minimum requirement is a Radeon, which my wife's six month old iBook 800 MHz has.
My video compression blog
Why are you wasting your time amongst the slashdot filth? Granted the apple. section is better than the rest it is still slashdot.
-Concerned Arsian
PowerLogix produces an 800MHz PPC750FX upgrade now, I expect them to move up to the GX when they can. I run my G3 as a server,the G4 would be a wasted upgrade for me as I don't use ANY of the altivec enhancements. I've been waiting for this for a long time. The only reason I haven't bought the PowerLogix FX upgrade is the smaller cache, this new chip satisfies that requirement.
"Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
And Apple's OS X will continue to get faster and faster on all CPUs because they're stilll getting it more and more optimized. They use GCC, which has a LOT of room to grow on the PPC arch (not to say that it's bad now). I think Panther uses GCC-3.3, which has a new processor pipeline description model (DFA) that makes scheduling for a particular CPU easier to describe and produces code that takes better advantage of the CPU.
Also, (AFAIK) Mac OS X has the ability to put multiple compiled versions of code into any binary, meaning that the application you run (or the OS itself) could have seperate binaries for the 970, 74xx, and 7xx CPUs all rolled into one file, your machine picks the best one to use at runtime. The same feature works for seperate archs too, so you could have one app file and INSIDE it you have the PPC binaries and x86 binaries. Resource forks are kewl!
"Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
But adding AltiVec to the G3 would negate all the advantages of the G3 that keep it alive. Altivec is really 80% useless, it accelerates a few media operations at the expense of power consumption, die size, and cost to produce.
Remember that the G3 chip is primarily marketed for use in big routers and other embedded applications, where altivec is useless. Apple uses it because it works well and costs very little.
Adding AlitVec to the G3 would be like adding SSE to the PII, but even more so.
Now, if IBM has an alternative to AltiVec (which they seem to for the 970) maybe PARTS of it can be backported to the 750, but I don't expect that to happen as it would cost a lot and it would not increase the chip's marketability much.
"Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
They should call it the G3se, Special Edition. Why not? It works for cars.
"Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
Whoops! I just got to thinking. I may be wron in the above post.
The G4 is going away, it won't clock-up enough, and Apple pays through the nose for them. The IBM 970 is a power/heat hog (compared to the G3 and G4) because it's based on the POWER4 chips. IBM has the G3, which is low power and heat, but a bit feature-starved. I don't think the 970 will ever scale down well for laptop usage, it's from a family of CPUs with no power considerations to worry of.
IBM could certainly reengineer the G3 line with some SIMD stuff from their 970, not an 'AltiVec unit' but just add some SIMD instructions to the CPU. You wouldn't even need the full set of SIMD instructions, just get the core features in. The resulting CPU would be very attractive for Apple and DVR manufacturers (for video compression).
I hope they juice up the bus if they do this, maybe they can put the memory controller/ethernet/usb2/firewire onto the chip as well (in the package, but not on-die), since those are all features that I'll bet most of their target market will want.
"Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
This is what Apple calls anything that's the same as a previous product, but accelerated or enhanced. I'd put money down that Apple would call it "G3 Extreme" if they use it in their products.
Ah, but there are many who view the small size as the key factor for buying the 12" model. For some, it's more imortant that it fits in their backpack with a lot of room to spare.
I doubt they will kill the 12" model.
G3 machines don't miss Quartz - all OS X machines use Quartz, which is Apple's name for it's graphics system.
Some G3 machines miss Quartz Extreme, which is the hardware accelerated form of Quartz, where the OS passes off all the drawing and compositing tasks to the graphics chip - it's completely CPU independent. If you have a graphics chip that will support it, it will work on a G3 system. Every iBook with an 700Mhz or higher has a graphics card that supports Quartz Extreme.
A 1Ghz G3 with 512/1Gb RAM and a 32Mb GeForce/Radeon would be a belter of a machine - this pretty much describes the top of the range iBook right now.
When talking about Apple v. Wintel, let's not forget Centrino. Intel certainly thinks that less power hungry processors are the way to go in laptops, even at the expense of MHz. They are planning on phasing out any P4s in laptops. It would seem the size/battery life advantages of the iBook will be coming to an end.
Let's let PowerLogix know that we'd buy a 750GX upgrade (as opposed to their current FX offering)!
"Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
If they did, they'd know their facts.
This was in "The PowerPC Conspiracy" and is worth a LOLROFFLELMAO or three.
The 602 was used in stadium scoreboards, remote-controlled Transformers, and the popular Nintendo64.
The Nintendo64 used a custom-made-for-Nintendo MIPS R4400 running at 93.75MHz. It had a custom MIPS GPU as well. And if the N64 had used a PPC602, it couldn't have been a Nintendo64, since the 602 is a 32-bit chip(as he correctly inferred in mentioning that the PPC620 was 64-bit).
The only device(that I know of) to ever use a PPC602 was the Apple Pippin. Even then, revision 2(yes, there was a second production run) used a faster, better-optimized PPC601e.
But the current Centrino offerings pale in comparison to the iBook - for all intents and purposes, they're iBook copies that have been run through a bad photocopier several times.
Ugly, creaky, Windows-based etc etc.
I think the iBook will get faster, much faster, while still keeping its low power consuption. It will also retain its good looks and rock solid build quality. I've yet to see anything in the PC world that even comes close.
I agree that the iBook is a great laptop -- I've had mine for 2 years now. But that doesn't mean you should discount the competition so quickly.
Firt of all, the Centrino is a processor (the Pentium M) + built in wireless card. It's not a laptop. That would be like calling the G3 a laptop. Lots of different companies make P-M/Centrino based laptops. The Centrino compares favorably with the P4 in terms of performance, while consuming remarkably little power. As Apple themselves will admit , a single P4 compares pretty good to the new G5. So it would seem crazy to think that a G3 can compare at all to a P-M in terms of performance. It also compares well in terms of battery life.
Centrino is one of Intel's most remarkable accomplishments. It's a processor specially designed for laptops. It would be very hard for Apple to have such a processor, since who could they get to do the R&D for it?
As I mentioned earlier, dozens of different companies make Centrino based laptops. The overall quality varies quite a bit. More often than not, the quality is well below anything Apple would make. But sometimes it is not. Be careful when making blanket statements. If you want to see a really nice Centrino check out IBM's ThinkPad X31. It's 1.19" thick, 3.6 lbs., gets 4.5 hrs of battery life, and while not the fastest Centrino, is plenty fast compared to a G3.
Finally, it's hard to imagine that a whole lot more performance is going to be squeezed out of the G3. The G4 only got up to 1.42 GHz, so it's hard to expect the G3 to get over that.
I agree with you on the Centrino point - my argument being that Intel, and the PC world, are playing catchup to Apple.
The G3 and G4 are different chips entirely - IBM's processes and chip fab factories are different to Motorola's. The fact that Motorola doesn't want to put in the time/money/effort to get the G4 to scale past 1.42Ghz doesn't mean that IBM won't be able to with their chip. I'd expect to see the G3 going up in speed by quite a bit over the next year or so.
Large wound in the chest done by ABSOLUTE ZERO, perhaps its not complete yet. The weak point is here? Last time, Kiryu swayed from battle. The conflicting spirit was strong. It would appear that life force is still powerful. A more powerful armament is attached. Also, the right arm and chest are new. The secret is ??? It warns mankind who has the weapon which is too powerful!
... unless it's just a troll. A good troll shouldn't make you look stupid tho ;^)
Individuals and Apple can argue all day long about how great Mac laptops are, but let's be realistic for a moment here. The PC world doesn't have to compete. They can happily chug along sifting design elements from Apple and sell enormous amounts of computers. If Apple wants to compete in this market they need to put some serious thought into price/performance. Despite the advantages of OSX, Joe public could care less. He needs to perceive that he's getting his money's worth.
You have a point there, and alas, it's the only drawback of having competition.
Mac laptops are already very good value for money, dropping the prices to compete with creaky brick laptops in the PC world would just cause a price war.
There are some nice PC laptops out there, but the majority are dull, poorly constructed and unimaginative.
I have yet to see a PC laptop that compares favourably with the current iBook in all areas.