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Apple's Dev. Tools Hint @ Dual-core G5 & Quad Mac
Eug writes "Apple just released a new version of its CHUD tools, which provides clues about dual-core G5s and quad core Macs (dual dual-core).
The clues include a reference to the 970MP, which is dual-core G5 with increased L2 cache. Also, there is now support for 4 CPUs, whereas previous versions of these Mac OS X tools only supported 2.
This likely means we'll see dual-core Macs by WWDC, and possibly quad Macs based off these dual-core chips by then too."
So, while it is interesting to speculate on what Apple may be doing and where they may be going with various products, I have never really understood the rabid nature of the fan sites and rumor sites. What is the point with rumors? Can anybody explain that to me?
I am going to be practical here: It has always amazed me that people say "I am going to wait to buy XXXX until they come out with the new one". Buy what you need for the job you need it for and realize that whenever you buy something computer related, it is likely already obsolete and will be replaced with the next shiny thing in a couple of months. There are very few times where waiting will recoup your investment. Get what you need for the job and start being productive now. If something comes out that will make you more productive, then sell off the previous system and get the new one if 1) it will pay off the investment or I suppose, 2) if you simply like shiny things.
Don't get me wrong. Apple builds some sexy hardware and software, but I prefer to use their stuff for my work and research because it simply allows more productivity and is more pleasurable to work with, but somebody, please explain to me why the rumor sites are so popular? I understand why business analysts might be interested, and competitors, buy why the obsession of fans with these rumors?
Oh, and is not it time for the Slashdot Apple desktop icon to be updated to reflect the current desktop line? i.e. G5.
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i'd be willing to wait for a g5 powerbook, if i could get a dual-proc one ..
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
I can't help thinking that this is bad timing on Think-Secret's part. To raise your profile by doing (again!) the thing you're being sued for, at the very time you're being sued means that (if he loses), the penalties are going to be that much worse (reckless, showed no remorse, uncontrollable, etc. etc.). Lawyers will have a field day.
On the other hand, there's the case that if he's not doing anything wrong, why not continue doing exactly that. And let's face it, if this turns out to be true, it's definitely something that Apple would want to hide. Definitely news that Apple-lovers will want to read.
Gaah. Brain hurts.
Assuming he's right, then at least this time (apart from 'De Plume's "sources" who know a lot more about the cpu than CHUD tools would tell you), Apple only have themselves to blame regarding the release of 4-way dev tools...
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
Dual-Core Dual-CPU G5 will be the ultimate design powerhouse....esp if Apple/IBM can up the cores to like 2.8 or even 3GHz each, then you can have a theoretical 12GHz workstation. Even accounting for SMP overhead, a dual-core dual-cpu G5 can chunk a massively parallel job (e.g. HD movie rending) at the equivalent of 10GHz.
I'm impressed.
To get to the point where fans will scan random binaries for strings that give clues as to the features of upcoming products, write their speculations in blogs, and where these blogs then make the front page of the world's most popular news site for geeks...
I'm impressed.
Now if only I knew what CHUD, 970MP, or WWDC meant...
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...will they call it a Quadra? ;)
Hey, I thought Slashdot had a policy of never removing a posted story. But the dupe article on Israeli Army Bans Dungeons & Dragons Players has totally disappeared, with all the user comments!
Singularity: a belief in the "God" idea with the "demiurge" relation inverted.
There were plans for 4 processor g4's also, remember? Then there was a cpu shortage and they stopped at dual proc models.
music lover since 1969
Even though Apple Computer's stock is pretty high in regards to the P/E ratio (ever since the iPod got the investors' interest), I still think it might be a good buy for the future.
They seem to be sort of like Google in that they are constantly experimenting with new ideas, and coming out with new products/services and business models.
Unfortunately, I didn't get in on either stock on the ground floor, and even though they went up pretty high now I think they both might still be great buys for the future. I recommended a relative get out of MSFT buy some Apple, and he took his Microsoft dividends and put it in Apple. It's stayed pretty steady since then but hopefully for the long term it will be going up, so I am vindicated!
[quote] "Also, there is now support for 4 CPUs, whereas previous versions of these Mac OS X tools only supported 2"[/quote]
Before you work yourself into a tizzy of excitement that requires you to wipe off your keyboard, remember that quad processor mac rumors have been around for a long time.
If we ever do see A quad processor mac it will likely be in a server configuration such as the xServe, not in a PowerMac.
July 23, 2004
SteveM
blakespot
-- Heisenberg may have slept here.
iPod Hacks.com
Its like IBM in the 60s (boy I feel o-l-d) and the seventies, when all of the trade rags were committing acts of stochastic tittilation trying to perceive the direction that an elephant was going in from a point of view slightly below and in front if its tail.
/null/zero bit-bucket.
Apple is a live player and everybody who can't DO like to play at pre-guessing on ones who can as to what they're actually going to DO.
If they're right, they can claim guru-hood and if they're wrong, they bury the evidence in the
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Rumors for Nerds!
Stuff that may or may not be true!
I am convinced thay have missed the boat until now. They need to make a PC crusher at the top of their line, something that is so much faster than any PC for creative work that no one would dare say any PC is faster.
They got a lot of attention and doubting when they introed "The World's Fastest Personal Computer" when they came out with the G5. What they need to do is actually make that come true beyond anyone's doubt, and then keep up with it. To hell with what it costs - if they sold those IIfx's for 10K back in 1993 they can do the same thing today but even better for far less money.
This time, make that boast true, and shove it straight down the naysayers throats.
Can anyone tell me if a Dual-Dual-core processor box is better than a quad-single-core box? I know none are out yet so we can't do benchmarks, but I would think that there might be bottlenecks or something that would make a quad-single-core perform better.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
Would two dual-core CPUs be considered 4 discrete processors by the OS? It seems to me that 4-processor support in OSX probably means two physical dual-core CPUs
One CPU is always one CPU. A dual core die is two CPUs both in software in hardware. In this context, a CPU is a processor is a core. So they are talking about discovering the ability of the software to handle four processors. That could mean a single quade-core (unlikely), two dual-core CPUs, or four CPUs on four dies (also unlikely).
When you mix hyperthreading in, that gets tricky because then it is a single CPU represented as two CPUs to the OS. The pipeline of a G5 is not designed in a way that would benefit much from hyperthreading, so that will probably be left to Pentium IV processors for now.
CHUD tools are most useful for testing products, but they happen to have some utility for those of us who want to tweak our computers at home. The latest release indicates that the developers have modularized the product and made it more adaptable when chips change.
What's likely happened is that Apple will get hot under the collar about the way these tools can inadvertantly indicate possible future plans. They used to release WWDC sessions on Quicktime CD's for free (back in 98 or 99). They used to not make developers sign their life away in non-disclosure agreements. They used to allow more access to developer docs, tools, and seeds to the dedicated hobbyist. Now these are all restricted because of leaks that have come from eager fans searching resource forks, out of context remarks, and misunderstood uses as "evidence of Apple's future plans".
If no quad processors are actually in the production pipeline, this rumor will be forgotten. If there is something that has been revealed by the Chud tools, it's more likely that Chud tools will be even more restricted and difficult to get hold of. Slowing down development as developers fear for their jobs for accidentally including a reference to a product they may know nothing about (e.g. Asteroid, a cpu number, a code name, etc.)
It's not like these strings tell you any useful information. Since Apple has a lengthy design, testing and production pipeline all it really says is we might have some new tech in a couple of years if it seems like a good marketing move. There's no pricing, case design, release dates, or anything marketing related in these leaks. In fact, since Apple is strongly dependent on a suprising and innovative marketing aura these leaks and speculations probably worsen that marketability.
One other example: the rumors sites have seen some "evidence" in seed releases that Apple will be making a push to release OS X on x86 chips. That may be the case, but more than likely they're confusing efforts to make a Window's user's transition to a Mac easier as "evidence" that Apple is moving to x86. All that happens is that OS X users will be disappointed that future releases don't run on the x86 line as their speculative "evidence" promised.
Get over the obsession with the rumors; you're only setting youreself up for disappointment.
People become addicted to Apple rumors because they tend to be first to market for a lot of stuff.
If you have an interest in where desktop computing is going, it's good to know what Apple's got in the oven.
...They'll be enterprise-class 4-way XServes. Hopefully with dual power-supply available.
Really, these two features are the last things keeping Xserves out of my datacenter... (Our corporate IT policy is that all servers have dual-PS.) You can't imagine how much it sucks to have the Macs for the design team saving data to Windows servers, because Microsoft's AFP implementation blows, and so does Apple's SMB implementation. I know you can't see, but I'm doing the happy dance now.
Tough day? How about a free Mac mini?
I take personal offense! Quadra is a perfectly acceptable name!
"Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
You have to do a click-through NDA just to get the -current- version ( 4.0.1 ) of the CHUD tools, I don't want to think about where this guy got his clearly pre-release copy of CHUD 4.1.0.
Are there sites that show off pre-release Microsoft software covered by NDAs? Where can you get the unannounced plans for Intel's next big thing? Why is it that people don't expect Apple to sue their pants off when they report this stuff ??
Don't get me wrong, I'm big on freedom of speech, press, and just about anything else, but... if it was my company whose not-publicly-announced-plans were being outed all over the internet, I'd be pissed, and probably suing, if just to find the source of the leak and fire someone.
Clearly, Apple's not going to make too big a deal out of this, since it's info in an app that anyone can download ( after creating a free account and clicking past an NDA ) , but still... I certainly wouldn't put this kind of stuff up on *my* website without a sure way to keep the lawyers at bay. On the other hand, since the noted version isn't actually available _yet_, they might sue... maybe it wasn't going to go out until after Apple announced quad-processor plans. Given Apple's recent lawsuits ( and court victories ) in this area, I'd think people would be a *little* more careful what they blog, but I guess not. Eug looks pretty annon, I don't know what you have to do to get an EverythingApple blog going, maybe he feels that Apple just can't get to him. For his sake, I hope he's right.
In any event, it'll be interesting to see how long AnythingApple can keep this page up, and I am definitely keeping my eye out for a new CHUD update...
quad G5s?? Damn, I almost forgot to drool about that !! 64-bit number-crunching goodness!!
Just to rephrase the last part of your statement: The latest Pentium IV processors have such extremely long pipelines that "bubbles" in the flow cause huge performance penalties. Hyperthreading is an attempt to kill this penalty by allowing the processor to do unrelated work during this bubble, rather than effectively sitting idle during that time.
The G5 does have the longest pipeline of any PowerPC processor, but it is still short enough that "bubbles" are rarer and not the enormous penalty that they are on the Pentium. Therefore Hyperthreading is neither needed, nor would it be beneficial.
Saying that the G5 is not designed to benefit from pipelining is misleading.
CHUD = Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dweller.
I thought everyone knew that. I also have reservations about the direction Apple is going with this new CHUD thing they're doing. I presume this has something to do with the word "lickable".
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
This is not a rumor about another dual-core chip. There is no mention of a chip at all. Apple uses IBM chips,and, as you mention, "IBM has been doing it for a while."
This is about Apple's diagnostic and performance tools supporting more than 2 CPU cores. The implication is, whatever prototypes Apple's working on needs these tools *right now.*
Further, Apple is not much of a server vendor. XServe is great, sure, but it's not how Apple makes its money. You can bet that, if Apple's going 4-way, it's going to have 4-way desktops or workstations.
Windows XP, on the other hand, does not yet support more than two logical CPUs. So any dual-core chip used on an XP box would be by itself...a two-way box. 4-way or larger Windows boxes would have to run Server 2003. Windows Server is not usually blessed for use on personal machines. (Though plenty of people do it.)
So what's the point? The point is, four cores on your desk, not in your closet.
Hyper-Threading is a marketing term for a perfectly legitimate microarchitectural feature more generally known as simultaneous multithreading (SMT).
SMT has nothing to do with "dual input pipes" and absolutely requires more than "a single execution unit." The essential features include storage for more than one processor state (data and status registers, program counter, etc.), the ability to mix instructions from multiple threads within the CPU, and multiple execution units.
The Pentium 4 processor with Hyper-Threading has all of those things, including SEVEN execution units that can operate in parallel (but very rarely all at the same time). HT is a simple version of SMT, but it was also fairly inexpensive to add, giving a 20%-30% performance boost for just a few percent more die area.
Yes, a true dual-core processor without SMT can achieve much better throughput on some code than a single-core SMT processor. But that dual-core processor will be almost twice the size of a single-core SMT processor. Dollar for dollar, SMT is a much better way to get more performance than a multi-core design.
The best designs will use both-- SMT within the core because it's such a big win in cost and power efficiency, and multiple cores because that's the most practical way to take advantage of the high transistor counts available in current semiconductor manufacturing processes.
. png
Okay - so when the slashdot story hit, the update was available, and now (as of 2005.03.11, 1830 CST) the update is no longer available...
...
Maybe those multi-CPU tabs were NOT supposed to be seen after all
You don't want one. Trust me. There's no advantage of slapping a 970-class chip into a portable. Who needs 64-bit computing in a form factor you can't put more than 2GB of RAM into?
What you want is a PowerBook that uses the freescale MPC8641D CPU. It's the heart of a dual-core G4 but it's got the memory controller built onto the CPU, which solves the age-old problem of the G4 being bandwidth-starved.
A bona-fide G5 portable would have to be horribly underclocked, and it would be a square peg in a round hole, a power-hungry and moderately efficient (pipeline-wise) 64-bit CPU where a low-power super-efficient 32-bit CPU can do better.
The only problem now is that the Freescale chip uses RapidIO, which is not HyperTransport, to talk to the system. It would probably behoove freescale to HyperTransport-ize the G4 series and get in on the game.
I expect the next major PowerBook revision to be MPC8641 based, it'll require a new motherboard, but a dual-core 1.8GHz PowerBook will more than meet anyone's needs.
"Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails