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IBM Officially Unveils Dual-core PowerPC Chips
PM4RK5 writes "Today at the Power Everywhere Forum in Japan, IBM officially unveiled its rumored dual-core PowerPC line of chips, the 970MP. Code-named Antares, these chips have been rumored to be under development since 2004. It is believed that Apple has been working with prototypes and is likely to use them in forthcoming updates to the PowerMac G5 line. The press release is in Japanese; as of this writing, IBM has not released an English version. Some of the slides from the presentation given by IBM are available.
The processors pack some impressive specs, ranging from 1.4 to 2.5 GHz and including 1MB L2 cache per core; the chips also include the ability to power down the extra core when it is not needed. Alongside the 970MP, IBM also announced its low-power 970FX chips, ranging from 1.2 to 1.6 GHz, with power consumption ranging from 13 to 16 Watts, respectively."
Why would Apple want to waste any more time with PowerPC? I thought Intel had the most appealing "roadmap".
Now that Apple has ditched PowerPC for Intel, where is this line of chips going?
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
I wonder if Apple will reconsider the decision regarding the migration. I don't think it will feasible for them to support products with both the processors. According to the rumors on the web, Apple wasn't happy about the low power processor option from IBM. I wonder if this is it ?
That sounds impressive. Will there much of a market for these processors after Apple makes the conversion to Intel? I can understand upgrading the G5 line... but after that, then what?
Get some.
It would be nice if Apple would offer a machine with one (two would be even better). I know they are going to be using PowerPC for a while longer. Maybe when Apple stops using PowerPC, another company will come along and start putting these chips in desktop machines (are there any already?) In all honesty, I use a 1.25 GHz G4 Mac Mini with Debian Linux, which compiles my source fast enough with GCC, same with my x86 desktop machines. This is probably more for a server. With IBM getting away from hardware manufacturer, who will offer this CPU in their servers? Disclaimer: Right now my server is a 300 MHz x86 PC tower with FreeBSD.
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It sounds like that apple would most likely use the PowerPC for Power Macs and Power Books and xServes... while reserving Intels for the consumer line of products, iMac and iBook and Mac Mini.
As for the dual core, I believe, it may be exciting to many Apple PowerPC fans and may provide a reason to some to buy Apple machine in this transition period.
Still and all, Apple has been harping on about the superiority of PowerPC for so long that I'm even more surprised to see them switch when IBM has these things, which look like the answers to a couple of Apple's problems, coming up.
I'd be interested in seeing what Steve Jobs saw on Intel's roadmap for the next few years that convinced him...
Whoever corrects a mocker invites insult;
whoever rebukes a wicked man incurs abuse.
--Proverbs 9:7
Why use a 13-16 Watt PowerPC chip when you can use a 27-watt Pentium M?
"Scientists don't change their minds, they just die." -- Max Planck
This is definately not the same chip. For starters the Freescale chip is a 32-bit processor and the IBM chip is 64-bit.
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Apple (Steve-boy) already mentioned that there were moreproc. updates coming, and even said there were some good updates coming down the pipeline. His big concern was not just "now" but the future road map.
We'll see. IBM promised Steve 3 GHz in one year and didn't deliver. They've announced these chips, but give no indication as to when they'll be shipping in quantity. Could be the same as before.
Also, we don't know how compelling the roadmap looks in the future. Apple will get to use these chips in the short term and then switch to Intel by the time these chips have completed their "lives." Steve may be getting what he wants now, but he knows as well as you and I that it is not necessarily an indication of things to come.
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The Freescale chip was deemed to hot to be used in an Apple laptop. Presumably the 970MP would be too hot as well, but the low power ones would be well suited to a laptop.
The obvious application for these newly announced chips will be low-end servers and workstations, particularly high density servers for the low power chips. I say low-end not because the chips are slow, but because IBM's OpenPOWER machines are pretty reasonably priced already. In fact, there's enough overlap that I'm not really sure how appealing the 970MP will be to anyone. Apple would have been an obvious customer, but that is pretty temporary, now.
Whoever corrects a mocker invites insult;
whoever rebukes a wicked man incurs abuse.
--Proverbs 9:7
From the notes:
The dual 64-bit core PowerPC970MP(TM) (970MP) is the next evolutionary step in the PowerPC 970 family of microprocessors. The higher frequency grade versions of the 970MP consume higher amounts of power than earlier IBM microprocessors do, and that can cause temperature issues. Each 970MP processor core contains a thermal diode used to monitor its operating temperature. The thermal diode must be monitored to ensure that the maximum operating temperature of the 970MP is not exceeded.
The press release is in Japanese; as of this writing, IBM has not released an English version.
Assembly is bad enough. I can't imagine assembly in Kanji.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Speaking of Roadmaps... Why not would Apple not switch to AMD? AMD's chips run with less power consumption and way less number of transistors. When comparing the Dual core chips from AMD and Intel, AMD wins on power consumption. But I thought Jobs said Intel had the best Performance per watt? ADA4800DAA6CD (AMD Dual core 64-bit): 110W Intel® Pentium® Processor Extreme Edition: 130W These are the latest and greatest from Intel and AMD right?
From the roadmaps and rumor mill, even the Pentium EE 130 W(clocked at what, 3.8ghz?) and the AMD Athlon 110 W and too high power and not good enough on performance.
It appears Intel plans on dropping the P4 line and going to enhancing the Pentium M edition. It is expected that Apple will be going with the Pentium Ms (which apparently have dual core slated in their lineup) instead of with the Pentium EE.
In summary, Apple won't touch the Pentium EE due to high power consumption. However, they do like the Pentium M with has much better performance per watt/clock cycle and much lower power consumption.
From that I would guess that either AMD could not give Apple the same deal as Intel could. Either that or Apple expects Intel to have much better performance than AMD by that time. Also, as far as I know the Pentium Ms are much better than AMDs mobiles in power and performance.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
Low power g5 in a ws ibook, that would be so nice.
Also-ran, anyone?
Seriously, not an anti-Apple troll, but this strikes me as just a wee bit sad...
With both Intel and AMD having decent dual-core offerings now (with AMD's absolutely dominating anything else on the market for both performance and low power), not to mention the impending dual core Pentium-Ms... Combined with Apple choosing to go with x86 (most likely, the same aforementioned dual-Ms)...
Does IBM even have a market for these anymore? This strikes me as nothing but wasted effort on their part. Even their embedded market won't care about this, when a few watts means far more than a second core...
Best performance per watt != Lowest power usage of highest-performing part.
The Pentium M family is much lower power than the Pentium 4, and has reasonably good performance. I don't think AMD really has a chip that competes with the Pentium M, even though AMD's chips are generally less power-hungry than a Pentium 4.
Yes, most individual programs don't fully take advantage of multiple processors. However, if you have multiple applications open at a given time and each is actively doing something, that's when you're glad you have processor #2 available.
Foreground app has the first processor, some busy app in the background (file copy, MP3 encoding, DeCSS, photoshop filter, etc) gets the second. You're much happier because your system isn't taking a few seconds to respond to each mouse click.
If these had been around a year ago we could be talking about Apple innovation etc, but the fact is the x86 market is ahead and Motorola/IBM have their eyes on high end servers and the embedded market.
:)).
But still, the power use of these chips is very impressive. Always liked Motorola but AMD64 is where I'm at now (it's close in name to CBM64 too
Now that would make a good shirt for a lass. Check out my dual processors!
And that, my liege, is how we know the Earth to be bannana-shaped.
... they want their 2.something GHz CPUs back.
Why use a 13-16 Watt PowerPC chip when you can use a 27-watt [tomshardware.com] Pentium M?
Your batteries will last longer. It'd be nice if your laptop could last the length of long plane flights. This may not matter as much now as it did previously, what with some airlines offering outlets, and wireless.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Short answer, Microsoft in thier Xbox. Which is the better business opportunity, iMac or Xbox?
PowerPC is in many places you wouldn't think of. Many blade servers and storage boxes use PPC. Since IBM isn't branding "PowerPC Inside" on with thier customers, it's a little harder to tell who is using it and who isn't.
IBM wont miss Apple too much. Apple really wont grow the PowerPC business much. There's more growth for the PowerPC elsewhere, and that growth is occuring.
Pentium Ms perform a bit better than G5 chips at similar clock speeds, and Pentium Ms scale to much higher clock speeds than these lower power FX chips.
The new FX chips would probably be a welcome replacement for G4s if only to replace the archaic bus (though I doubt Apple will bother), but they're not good enough to replace Intel's current laptop chips, much less the future chips.
Intel is releasing Yonah-core Pentium Ms early next year. They're going to address the Pentium M's floating point weaknesses, increase clock speed, lower power usage, and there will be dual-core versions within the same power budget as current chips. I don't think a single G5 at 1.6 ghz would do too well against a dual-core 2 ghz Pentium M.
Basically, IBM is releasing chips that fit into the lower end of current laptop chips a few months before Intel releases the next generation.
I rarely criticize things I don't care about.
Also, according to the link you posted, the 27-watt Pentium M only goes up to 2.13 GHz. That is not much more than the 970FX chips which use _half_ the power for up to 1.6 GHz. I would rather have a 1.6GHz processor at 16 watts than a 2.13 GHz Pentium M at 27 watts. That is almost _twice_ the power consumption for only 0.53 more GHz. I think I will pass.
Almost half the power consumption, _plus_ the ability to run Mac OS X on sweet Apple hardware? Gee, let me think? Which one should I pick!
If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land,
it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. -James Madison
They're not going to reconsider.
IBM is releasing laptop chips that fit into the lower end of the spectrum of current chips while Intel will be releasing the next generation early next year.
Yonah-core Pentium Ms include floating-point improvements (the Pentium M's current weakness), clock speed improvements, power improvements, and there will be dual-core versions in the same power envelope as current chips.
A single 1.6 ghz G5 might be welcome on PowerBooks (particularly since it replaces the archaic bus), but it's not going to stack up very well against a dual-core 2 ghz Pentium M. IBM simply is not willing to put in the kind of R&D it takes to keep up with Intel on laptop chips. IBM might be not-quite-so-behind now, but brief periods where their chips are not a crippling weakness for Apple are not enough to change the decision.
I rarely criticize things I don't care about.
In other news, nobody really cares because Apple is switching to x86 based hardware sooner than these will make it into the hardware stream.
Part of what makes the Mac experience what it is is that Apple doesn't try to cram legacy support into every product they make. With Apple it's out with the old and in with the new; PPC will be a dead end like 68k.
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The 3GHz promise is completely irrelevant to the Intel switch. In the last two years, IBM has gone from 2.0 to 2.7GHz, which a proportionally larger increase than Intel going from 3.0 to 3.8. Everybody ran into the same problems at 90nm; it's not a case of IBM dropping the ball. The real motivation is laptop chips, where the Pentium-M trounces the G4 today, and Yonah will easily beat a 970FX at 1.6GHz.
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
the Power4, which the power970 is a derivative of, was dual core. They were put into AS/400 (iSeries) and pSeries (think RISC/AIX) boxes years ago.
Apple got the plain jane 970 version, single core out of this chip from IBM. So the question that stands out is, why did it take so long to offer a 970 version that was dual core?
What I don't understand most about the switch Apple is making is that everyone harped on megahertz yet the AMD64 chips have great performance "ratings" with low megahertz. My current chip is only a 1.8G and many Power chips are just that as well, so where is the big boost for Apple except in the powerbook line? A well designed chip, and PowerPCs are very well designed, can run circles around faster chips as AMD has proven with the AMD64 series.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Alongside the 970MP, IBM also announced its low-power 970FX chips, ranging from 1.2 to 1.6 GHz, with power consumption ranging from 13 to 16 Watts, respectively.
This sounds exactly like what Apple needed for a G5 powerbook. Did Steve just get a little too impatient? Had he waited another month maybe he would have found the answer for a G5 powerbook? Did Apple threaten IBM that they would go to Intel if something didn't change soon? (and now IBM has delivered, but perhaps a bit too late)
I don't understand how some people are saying "OMG Apple switched at the wrong time oh noes!@#!!"
Does everything HONESTLY think Apple didn't know the exact release date of the 970MP BEFORE they announced their switch?
Apple knew when and where this was going to be released, and they know when and where Intel will release their next series. They switched because they wanted to, this isn't a surprise to them.
Ya know. that made me think about something
A lot of people are going to want to stay with the old architecture despite whatever apple starts issuing, i wonder if there's any hope in upgrading what will then be the old powerbooks with newer PowerPC's. I don't plan on getting rid of my G4 anytime soon. sorry: spelling and grammar probably poor.
Lower speed Pentium Ms also consume less power. I believe 2.13 ghz is currently the fastest Pentium M.
Besides, Apple isn't going to use these things. They'd have to redesign PowerBook chipsets and motherboards for a computer that, at best, they'd be selling for less than 2 years. It's much more likely that they'll transition all current G4 computers to Pentium Ms first.
These just-announced FX chips compete with the lower end of Intel laptop chips, while the Yonah-core chips Intel is releasing early next year will improve in every way. Higher clock speeds, lower power consumption, and dual-core versions that fit within current power envolopes.
You might prefer a 1.6 ghz G5 to a 2 ghz Pentium M, but would you prefer it to a dual-core 2 ghz Pentium M that takes the same amount of power?
I rarely criticize things I don't care about.
I don't know why they don't just call it a day and make the G (exponent) 4 with all the available processors in one box. I'm getting a little tired of this lagging 2-architecture roadmap.
"I wonder if Apple will reconsider the decision regarding the migration."
After the WWDC and the trauma it inflicted on some devs, I find it highly unlikely that Apple is going to suddenly decide tomorrow that they've made a bad move and are going to stick with the PPC path in the future. Apple knew this G5 development was coming, hence the comment that has been repeated numerous times that the next 2 years are going to produce some interesting developments in the PPC platform, but by 2007, things will be at a point where Intel will overtake them and that the PPC roadmap does not offer anything that can keep up with the pace of Intel. Jumping hardware platforms is hard enough as it is, jumping back would work to obliterate the confidence that Steve Jobs has tried to instill in those who support the Mac. He and his fellow execs are trying very, very hard to appear as if this is really worth it and that they have a solid plan that will not leave 3rd parties burned.
Nobody wants to have another Amiga situation, where every week there is a new roadmap to follow, dramatically different than the one before. That is the perfect way to scare off the community that keeps a platform going.
Looks like Steve Jobs is getting all the things he said he couldn't have. ... a year late (*). That's why he's switching.
It's "put a lot of effort and money in to be a year or more late" vs. "get crazy R&D for free and be guaranteed to be current". Tough choice.
(*) Ignoring for a moment that he was also promised 3GHz by mid-2004!
Didn't you intend to say: "...has such A poor command of the English language?
Sheesh! Pot meet kettle.
because they have two boobs. funny.
Glad to see someone else still kicking on the other side of the silicon curtain. MIPS, Alpha, HP-UX, Ultrasparc, m68k, Itanium are all more or less dead. The only players in the 32-bit/64-bit arena are x86(x64), PPC and ARM. ARM just isnt aiming for the same market, which really leaves PPC and x86/x64 for the Desktop AND the server market. Its amazing so many architectures are now powered by the same chips (mac, AS400, RS6000, game consoles, industrial VME cards) by PPC and everything else by x86/x64.
Personally I'd be glad to see x64-only chips with the 32-baggage dropped, and a BIOS standard that allows booting straight into 64-bit. That will really split the x64 from the x86, and give us cheaper and lighter chips. As for the PPC, I'm glad its still there. The price/performance ratio may be bad (relative to the Athlon64), but for one the base architecture is good, and diversity, which pushed semiconductors in general so far during the 90s is good for the industry.
Software for which source code is available (free or otherwise) is the only thing that can diversify the CPU market. People are stuck with a single CPU and operating system, both ill-designed, simply because their closed-source software will only run on that combination. Some awesome technologies like the Alpha chip, the Ultrasparc, the IRIX OS etc have died simply for that reason.
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
IBM has since released an English press release, available here.
This should be significantly more informative than the earlier available Japanese documents.
It's the older Banias core that draws 27W. The newer 765, based on the Dothan core, draws 21W at 2.1GHz - a 33% increase in clock speed at 24% more power when compared to the 1.6GHz 970FX. Or if you're most interesting in power, how about the 758? That draws 10W at 1.5GHz - 37% power savings over the 1.6GHz 970FX with only a 6% drop in clock speed.
On top of that, the Pentium M outperforms the 970FX core clock for clock by most metrics.
AMD has approximately 20% of the PC Processor market.
Apple has 3% of the PC Market.
3% of the PC market is 15% of AMD's market.
AMD's market is normally capped not by distribution but rather by production. If AMD won the Apple contract, they would EITHER need to increase their production by 15% (not historically AMD's strong suit), or increase prices to the PC market...
If AMD picks up the Apple contract and CANNOT increase production...
Then AMD has to reduce their PC market-share by 15% of their production, which means increasing prices.
Either way, Apple would be a HUGE account for AMD, and would require a substantial portion of AMD's manufacturing resources.
Alex
Please :-)
I'm not an expert, but I don't think that Apple will give up on the PowerPC processors for a long time. It seems that Apple is pushing the move towards Universal Binarys, not Intel. While IBM Powers are electricity sucking monsters, they are still tops when it comes to performance in servers and applications that require lots of vector processing (the multi-media creation tools that has kept Apple alive in the content industry). Universal Binaries gives Apple the choice of using a processor that meets the machines requirements, for laptops they could choose a Pentium M, for the iMac they could use a Pentium D (does dual cores mean SMP, or does it use an Intel proprietary technology like a sort of HyperThreading to schedule tasks?), for xServes and PowerMacs they could stick to the PowerPC.
But laptop CPU upgrades are too expensive to even develop. There isn't even a market for PC laptop upgrades.
If you paid $2500 for a 2003 G4 PowerBook, and used it for 3 years until you feel it needs an upgrade, it makes a lot more sense to sell it for $900 and buy a new 2006 $2500 PowerBook than to pay $500 to upgrade your old PowerBook and still have a 2003 PowerBook with a slightly faster CPU, that is still worth $900.
It sometimes makes sense to upgrade components in the PC world, but CPU accelerators for Macs haven't made any sense since the days when new Macs cost $8000.
The G5 PowerMac was so much better than the G4 PowerMac on so many levels, that it simply doesn't make sense to buff up a G4 rather than getting a new G5.
PowerBooks upgrades make even less sense. They depreciate faster. Laptop parts are small and light and get banged around more than a desktop, so they don't hold up as well.
An upgraded PoweBook CPU wouldn't be nearly as fast as a new one, it would likely not work right, and the rest of your PB would still be 3 years old.
If you can't afford a new PowerBook, stick with what you got, and maybe throw in a new HD and more RAM if it makes sense. But the idea of putting in a faster CPU is just throwing money down a hole.
Anyway, the original comment sounded more like they wanted to cling to a PowerPC out of misplaced emotional attachment, not because they wanted to make the most of an investment.
It's a shame that the 970MP's two 1MB caches are not shared like the power4+'s cache is. A shared cache is great for single threaded performance and for sharing variables between threads (threads running on different cores).
Is shared cache a premium feature, maybe similar to power4+'s external L3 cache?
AMD operates their own CPU fab in Dresden, Germany. AFAIK IBM has no direct role in the fabrication of K8-based processors.
AMD and IBM do work together on developing fabrication technology. But AMD is not fabless nor totally dependent on IBM for manufacturing.
Why was this modded off topic? Hellooooo, moderators. The topic is about IBM PPC chips, not Apple! The poster has a good point...
g5 is to g4 as p4 was to p3 better overall IPC, less picky about memory latency, less power, basically a great thing to quad core if you're looking for perf/watt
I refuse to believe that the 28- and 31-stage Pentium 4 pipelines are a better thing than the 10-stage pipeline in the Pentium III, particularly when we're talking about IPC. Do you remember the fuss made about P4 being slower at the same clock speed than the PIII? That's proof it has worse IPC rate.
Neither the P4 or the G5 are lower-power than their predecessors and they fail to provide better performance/watt, in any configuration. This is why the P3 architecture has been adopted into the Pentium M line for low power use and the G4 processors remain the chips used at the core of Apple's iBooks and PowerBooks.
The great thing to do with the Pentium 4 architecture would be to put in on good Strained Silicon and SoI processes to push it above the 4.0GHz clockrate at which it is believed to be a very strong chip.
The differences between the G4 and G5 chips are what happens when you move from a desktop computer chip to a cut-down Big Iron chip (IBM's POWER4, IIRC). The G5's are inherently 64-bit capable in a way that the first three generations (Willamette, Northwood and Prescott) of the Pentium 4 are not, although there exist Prescott-based Pentium 4 processors with Intel's EM64T implementation.
BTW: http://arstechnica.com/ is your friend. Hannibal has done a good job of talking through the history of the Pentium chip family (1 & 2) and the PowerPC family (1 & 2, part 3 hasn't yet arrived) up to the G4's. There's discussion of the IBM POWER5 architecture too, and some commentary on pipelines in processor design (1 & 2). I learned a lot from these, and value their information. But I'm going to stop telling Granny to suck eggs now.
Are you saying that AMD has something that beats the Pentium M? Can you back that up?
No. The M certainly beats even the Venice core for power consumption (though not by much, when a fan alone can draw more than either of them at idle) - No arguing that, Intel wins that battle for now.
But when the dual Athlon 64s trounce Intel's best offerings, and with a power consumption at least in the same ballpark as the Pentium M... Well, that makes for a pretty impressive product, to the point that it amazes me anyone would even consider a dual core P4 as an alternative.
Actually, as an aside, we'll have to wait for some performance numbers, but I do believe the Geode will draw far less power than the Pentium M. Unfortunately I expect it will perform more like the Via C3 line, but if AMD can get it at least into the realm of "tolerable" (ie, at the last-gen 1 to 1.5 Ghz level), it could still give the M a run for the laptop market.
here already. I subscribe to InfoWorld, and this article discusses available systems from IBM using the dual-core Power5.
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