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90nm 3GHz PPC 970FX by Summer
dmdimon sent in linkage to a Forbes story on the upcoming PPC chips and notes "IBM is said to be ready to deliver a new version of its PowerPC processor to Apple by the end of this year in from sizes of 130 nanometers to 90 nanometers...
Apple CEO Steve Jobs has already gone on the record saying that the G5 computer will contain PowerPC chips that run at 3 GHz by the summer of 2004. A mid-step between the current systems, which top out with two chips running at 2 GHz, and systems with chips as fast as 2.6 GHz would be a logical move come January..."
I agree with the wisdom of letting others find the flaws in a first generation laptop--It's too easy to get burned with a brand new laptop design, pun intended.
That said, Apple puts more effort into laptop design than just about any other manufacturer I can think of. I seriously doubt they'd slap a G5 processor into a G4 design and call it done.
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
Why would AMD be talking to Apple? If anyone AMD would be talking to IBM but even then unless IBM will be manufacturing the chips or has some kind of partnership agreement with AMD they would n't be inclined to pass on that kind of valuable experience to AMD.
Hell, if you have to "save up" for anything Apple chances are you can't afford it anyways.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
don't click, nasty goatse.cx and defecation pictures
Mod this asshole down as a troll, plz
"There are no technical hurdles to producing a Powerbook G5. It could easily appear in January," Glaskowsky says.
I dunno ... that sounds more like rumor-mill feedstock. 'No technical hurdles'? Seems far-fetched. Reducing the heat output is a good start, but the 970 still eats power. Something like 74W, IIRC. Most portable chips draw something in the 20W range. Again, reducing the transistor size is a good start, but there are significant hurdles still to be jumped if it's going to fit in a laptop with a reasonable battery life -- and not burn poor, unsuspecting scientists' winkies.
"Diplomacy is something you do until you find a rock." --Richard Pound
Does anyone even care about the leetness of their speed with Apple stuff?
Yes I do... The more speed, the faster my photoshop projects render.
and...
Computers are more than raw CPU speed, and this is what Apple has learnt. I can only imagine how cool the 3 Ghz Macs will be when compared to other PCs. And the fact they're lagging behind on the Ghz race is not a big deal as long as they keep making high quality hardware/software that actually squeeze every single drop of potential our of your computer.
Diego Rey
diegoT
It takes a lot of R&D whenever you move from one feature size to a smaller one and since chip fabrication R&D costs $$$ that's why unless AMD have some kind of technology sharing agreement I doubt they would just "give away" something they've put a lot of money into.
Well, unless you're paying for Premier or something like that, I think most "consumers" are pretty much willing to pay for either open source tools (free) or Windows Movie Maker (free).
I'd say for most consumer editing, the iLife Suite (free or $49 with iDVD) is a pretty compelling package. And power users can get their paws on Final Cut Express if they want to shell out some more bones for something a little more full featured.
at least the memory addressing and memory management need to be 64 bit, otherwise your limiting yourself to 4GB of ram or some overhead to get 32 bits to address >4GB (like 16 bit dos did with expanded/extented ram)
but your right, you probably won't see much difference in using 32 vs 64 bit instructions to read your 200GB harddrive or 32 vs 64 bit idling.
Windows Movie Maker (free).
Since everything bundled with windows is free (IE, mediaplayer, explorer, the kernel and whatever) why isn't the cost 0.0 USD. Nothing is free, thats the answer.
Most People? You must mean most people trading Paris Hilton WMVs... For those of us who do not live in our mom's basement, who actually make a living in the audio/video industry, Macs are still the dominant platform. Yes, I know PCs have been gaining ground, but they've hardly sent the Mac home with a pink slip. I work in 5 different OSs daily (2 Mac flavors, and 3 Windows flavors)... In the 8 years I've been doing this work for this company, the Macs have always been more reliable and offered more flexibility. Though they may not be as fast per se, the amount of time a stable system can save you over a cheap system adds up... and of course in this business, time is indeed roughly equal to money. We've had this argument a few hundred times in the last few years, so I will spare everyone the usual lengthy comment. Suffice to say that I work in that industry, use those machines, and you are mistaken. I'll grant you the games comment though... But I have to tell you, it's not exactly breaking my heart.
Someday a real rain is gonna come...
You supply 3% of the computer market with chips, you can hand pick your chips and speed bin the rest.
Right... How does the *size* of the market relate to the yield? If a certain fraction of the chips you produce are exceptionally good, Intel/AMD can "hand pick" just as much, or as little as Apple. Their chips aren't 3% hand picked from 100%, they produce 3%, and a fraction of those again could be "hand picked".
The rest are just unsubstantiated rumors, following up a good troll. And the moderators are falling for it hook, line and sinker.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Apple has always stated that there is a Megahertz myth when comparing computer platforms, to which I agree.
However, non-technical people are still buying Intel/AMD-based computers because they have the largest processor speed posted on the shelf (More MHz/GHz = more power, right?).
It's interesting that Apple's upcoming 3+GHz G5 processors will now tout the same speed numbers as Intel/AMD chips.
Surprisingly enough, if "3.xGHz" is on the Mac's box, Apple just might win a few Joe Sixpacks and a few PC converts.
Only time will tell.
Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, START
"post hoc ergo propter hoc"
Ben "You have your mind on computers, it seems."
Some people think Failures in Time (FIT) rates will get better at 90nm than 130nm. Some think the opposite. Xilinx and Actel are arguing over it. Caches are epecially vulnerable. In a critical software application, this is unacceptable, and sometimes the cache needs to be disabled altogether.
Actually, it'd be better stated that Actel is arguing with the rest of the FPGA industry, as Actel's the only one that makes antifuse FPGAs. Xilinx is vocal, but almost everyone else would agree with them as well.
I've got a guess that Actel might be a little bit biased.
If you had to believe one or the other based on equal information, you'd tend to believe Xilinx: they can afford to give up the rad hard market, as it's not that large, so they really have very little incentive to lie. Actel, however, is completely unable to compete on price issues (god, their development kits/hardware/programmers are insane!) and so they'd have a strong incentive to lie about the reliability of the competition to get people to switch to them.
However, I also know that if I had wanted to fly a PLD on any NASA mission, I'd have to choose Actel. So someone believes them...
I wonder how many software errors will be caused by neutrons hitting the processor and upseting logic gates?
Er? I don't see many free neutrons running around in a normal environment, unless you're working near a nuclear reactor. That 11-minute half-life tends to make them go away - they're a negligible component of cosmic rays. Do you mean alphas? Alpha particle strikes on electronics are a known thing - that's why ECC is around.
IA32 may be obsolete, but the majority of software is still designed for it, and for many tasks it is still quite sufficient - The needs of the average desktop word Processing and web browsing system were reached years ago. That's not to say x86-64 isn't far better - it is, and the sooner it's implemented by intel, the better (I don't want an AMD monopoly, the same as I don't want an intel one). But as long as the majority of software is written for x86-32, it will still be a perfectly suitable architecture for most people's needs.
Here's the thing: If you're a Mac user into high end whatever (gaming, video, music, graphics, art, ...) you automatically move up with the processors Apple provides.
...).
Already the G5 gives a huge performance boost on all apps and an even greater one on those that are optimized - mainly the pro apps (FCP, Photoshop, Logic,
So while it's perfectly possible to keep buying G4 processors in iBooks, Powerbooks and iMacs, there's no reason to go looking for G4 towers when you can buy very reasonably priced G5 towers that will blow away all previous models both in features and in performance.
While I get your drift - and don't want to interfere with your personal preferences- I feel that with the backward compatibility and the performance boost Apple provides, your point is utterly moot for everybody else.
I think, therefore I am...I think.
On SPEC, the G4 performs comparably to the P3 (yes, P3) MHz for MHz. The Megahertz myth was a fabrication by Apple based on unfair comparisons and unattainable extrapolations.
What about the G5? Unlike previous PPCs, it is competitive, but no more. An Athlon64 or Opteron still gives you more bang for the buck. And comparing a planned PPC for next summer against today's Pentiums, like you did, also makes no sense.
Apple had a lot to do with the 970 design. If you loot at the design, Apple's fingerprints are all over it. The used the ALU and the FP2 unit from the Power4, then they specified the SIMD unit, they specified new PowerPC 32-bit to 64 bit protected instructions to allow for their OS X 32bit VM to work in native 64-bit mode. Apple developed the proprietary hyper-transport derived "coherent interconnects" (3 in all that would allow for 8-way systems and cache sharing when more than one processor is present, similar to Opteron.) and of course the non-coherent hyper-transport connectivity for all other bus interfacing. IBM was not previously a hyper-transport proponent. In addition, Apple developed a unique 130NM ASIC controller that is described as more complex than the 970 itself. This ASIC is just as important as the 970 in the G5 computer, if not arguably more important as it enables the fastest and widest FSB among mass produced computers. As far as volume, in this price range, I bet Apple is one of the volume leaders right now. It would be nice if the analyst would segment their market share numbers better. Who cares how many $400 PCs are sold. (At least I don't, IMO they are throw away computers with very short desk life.)
And these people will buy low priced, commodity, wintel boxes, on which the profit is next to zero.
The big profits are to be made in high end, near-workstation class machines, and high end laptops. In both of these markets, Apple's machines not only compete favorably, but surpass the competition in power, usability, and reliability.
Apple is in business to make money, not to compete in the low-to-no-profit arena of commodity boxes.
Marketshare is not what it used to be as an indicator of influence. Type of user may be more important as far as influencing technology. A lot of the exciting stuff is happening in the Multimedia and OpenSource world. In both these worlds Apple has gained a huge mindshare and marketshare. Go to any technology conference and half the people are walking around with Powerbooks. Look at these threads, you would get the impression that more than half the users on Slashdot owned a Mac.
As I have read previously, the G5 runs cooler than the G4 only when running at the same clock speed as the G4. The temperature gets hot however when you run the current 130nm G5 at its native speeds. I think as long as Apple can get a hold of 90nm G5s, and use very effective processor speed ramping, they can create a Powerbook G5 without too much trouble. I don't think they'll need nitrogen cooling or anything like that. :^)
Slashdot's first reaction to VMware
I am still thinking of replacing this iBook eventually with another iBook but only when they come up with the model that's at least twice as fast as the 600MHz iBook (actually CPU speed is the only reason I want to upgrade it).
Now, while I would rather recommend holding all iBook/powerbook purchases (I think that major speed progress is intevitable in 2004), you would actually notice huge difference between your iBook and a contemporary one, sometimes even surpassing the "at least twice as fast" condition. Your old iBook uses ATI RAGE 128 with mediocre 8 megabytes of video RAM, the new one is a RADEON 7500 with 32 MB VRAM. If you play games, the difference is huge. But even if you don't, MacOS X GUI heavily relies on the GPU support, so your CPU has to sweat a lot just on calculating all those pretty widgets. And finally, many applications actually take the full advantage of the G4 architecture and they also could have a ~2x boost on a new iBook (a megahertz of G4 is not the same as a megahertz of G3).
Carbon is a procedural API, Cocoa is OO. There is room for both and we should expect both to continue evolving together for the next 5 years. Carbon isn't going anywhere.
Here.
OS/2 and NT share a considerable code base, the first three versions of OS/2 and the first version of NT. OS/2 v3 became Windows NT 3.0.
GPL Deconstructed
the new one is a RADEON 7500
Small corecction: the new Ibook uses a Radeon 9200. It is much better than the 7500.
You don't have to be smart to use a Mac, you just have to be smart enough to buy one
Apple stole the idea on which they built the gui concepts microsoft in turn cloned, from xerox.
Not quite, one reason Xerox invited Jobs to PARC was because Xerox was investing in Apple and than likely he'd be able to do better job of commercializing home/small computer technology than they could. And that's born out by history, PARC has come up with a bunch stuff but they rarely ever commerically release what they do. Done properly it's the smart thing, go ahead and create new stuff then incubate a startup to commercialize it.Steve Jobs Tours Xerox
"In 1979, the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center developed the first prototype for a GUI. A young man named Steve Jobs, looking for new ideas to work into future iterations of the Apple computer, traded US $1 million in stock options to Xerox for a detailed tour of their facilities and current projects. One of the things Xerox showed Jobs was the Alto, which sported a GUI and a three-button mouse. When Jobs saw this prototype, he had an epiphany and set out to bring the GUI to the public. "
www.smalltalk.org
Should there be a Law?