According to a brief paragraph on MacOS Rumours Apple may be switching to IBM POWER4 CPUs instead of the Motorola G5 for future Macs.
The quote reads:
“Also, Apple sources have recently told Rumours that when Apple ships computers branded as PowerMac G5s next year, they will almost certainly not include Motorola PowerPC 8500 processors, which are the G5 as we know it today — they will be IBM-built chips based on its Power4 architecture, and may even include multiple cores on a single chip. More on this after Macworld….“
With constant complaints about the performance of the current crop of G4 CPUs a new faster CPU is needed and soon, while a speed bump to the current top end PowerMacs is due soon they will still be outperformed by the current top end x86 CPUs from Intel and AMD.
Apple appear to be looking to take ground from UNIX vendor SGI in the Audio / Visual fields however SGI use MIPS 64bit Rx000 CPUs for which the G4 is likely not a match, especially on intensive floating point which workstation CPUs specialise in.
If Apple have chosen instead to use IBMs POWER4 CPUs in the future they couldn’t have made a much better choice if they want performance.
Currently the POWER4 ships in a multi-CPU module consisting of 4 chips and a separate L3 cache. Each chip contains 2 individual POWER4 CPUs. They don’t however need doubling up to provide performance – In Spec SFP2000 benchmarks a single POWER4 CPU at 1.3GHz outperforms Pentium 4 at 2.53GHz by about 40% (1266 Vs 901).
IBM have already announced they plan to make single chip POWER4s available in their own workstations, Apple using the chip isn’t surprising, It uses the same PowerPC instruction set and IBM have been making G4s since 1999/2000.
It won’t all be plain sailing though – The POWER4 is a big expensive chip although a shrink to 0.13um will help here along with providing a significant frequency boost (2GHz+ is already on IBMs roadmap). POWER4 also consumes copious amounts of power unlike the current G4. Just don’t expect a POWER4 notebook any time soon…
What remains to be seen is how will the Altivec vector instructions be used? This is a big selling point for Apple so it’s possible IBM may be planning to include a vector unit in a future version of the POWER4.
So what of the Motorola G5? The 8500 is really only an enhanced G4, the “real” G5 is the 7500 with an extended 13 stage pipeline and already rumoured to reach 2.5GHz. Motorolas main market is Embedded CPUs so it’s likely the chip will still come to market but if the above story is true it may not appear in Apples flagship products. However that wouldn’t rule it out from appear in lower and mid range products at some point in the future.
About the Author:
Nicholas Blachford is a Software Engineer / Architect currently living
in Amsterdam. He has numerous geeky interests including CPUs.
The Power4 is a good chip but it be $$$$$
I agree. Power4 cpus cost from many-many thousand dollars to millions. Even a cut down version it would be extremely expensive, and not suitable for workstations/desktops.
I will pass this Macosrumour rumour.
I believe that one of the reasons for the high cost of the power4 is that it has LOTS of high speed cache on it. Now I’m not a hardware guy but from what I have been reading about cpu’s, if you feed it fast enough, you don’t need so much cache. It might be possible that they are going to strip the power4 of all the cache and add RapidIO (or HT) and altivec.
– Mark
hehehe… you are missing the point that power4 is fast *because* of its 100+ MB of cache. Take that out, or give it a “normal” 2 MB of cheap cache and it will now be just like any other cpu perfromance-wise, maybe even slower. All its power is in the cache. And it will still be expensive to produce anyway.
As I said above, I will just pass this rumour.
Perhaps the chip will be some derivation of the Power4, but I have a hard time believing Apple would ever use such a chip in their consumer desktops. The price would have to be around $10-15k to cover the cost of the chip and the ancillary hardware.
Of course, there’s the possibility Apple has decided they want to play in the high-end workstation or server space. Obviously, they now have an OS that would allow them to compete against SGI or Sun or even IBM in that space. But don’t expect to see a Power4 in your iMac anytime soon.
I did hear an interesting rumour a while ago, to the effect IBM was going to license OS X for their RS6000 workstations. While intriguing, I’ve never been able to get any kind of follow-up or verification of it. Perhaps that’s what this is about.
Having been burned by an iMac, I vowed not to buy Apple again. Apple have started improving their act a bit, and before I can consider them again, they need to do the following:
1. Release a **fast** system. They need to increase the speed of their CPU (G5, power4, whatever), increase their RAM speed (currently 133MHz), increase their bus speed (also 133MHz), use a faster GPU (GF4-4600), faster harddrives (at least 7200 RPM). All these speed increases should not cost more than what a current PowerMac costs. $ for $, I can get a dual Xeon with SMT from Dell for an equavalent amount to what Apple charge for PowerMac. I’ll take a Dual Xeon with SMT any day.
2. Make OSX as fast as BeOS. Introduce journalling to HFS+/UFS. Use a MIME type filesystem with attributes, with database features (or port XFS or BeFS). Improve display speeds. Scrolling through a directory listing via Finder is still sloooooooowwwww.
Thats basically it. $ for $, currently its wiser for me to buy a Xeon system from Dell and run Win2K and (hopefully) OBOS.
Apple is trying to move forward in different areas. Motorola has really put Apple in a jam…well, they’re laying off thousands of workers themselves…but Apple has stuck with them all this time. I don’t know, maybe Apple has made a mistake by doing that as Motorola is a large and diverse company and it’s hard to be their number one priority in those circumstances. In the past, I’ve always thought rumors of Apple going to Intel, for example, were insane. But now, I don’t know. Things are happening so fast and Jobs is trying to drive Apple in certain directions. The thing is, Apple *must* keep up. The “megahertz myth” was okay for awhile, but now Windows XP runs like lightning on our 1.3 Celeron box. And OS X is okay, but no speed demon on my wife’s G4 700 eMac. If any OS needs a fast processor, it’s OS X. I can’t see someone like Jobs waiting around forever – that is not in his make-up.
So, the rumor is that new Power Macs will come out in August with maybe 1.2 or 1.4 GHz models and dual processors. If that’s true, that is not enough. I’m pro-Apple…I don’t show it here much because I like using all OS’s. Objectively though, I really do think a healthy Apple is good for the computer industry. But my God, you can get entire P4 systems from Dell and Gateway for $599!!
IBM never liked Altivec (what Apple calls the Velocity engine). It would indeed be interesting for Apple to move everyone to a 64 bit G5 when they are still trying to move everyone to Mac OS X. It does give them bragging rights in the future “all of our stuff is 64 bit vs the PC world still stuck at 32. Even with Opteron around, where is the incentive to switch”
Doesn’t this rumour keep coming up?
That is an interesting thought, arielb!
For an application server, a 64-bit OS may provide some benefit, but for a desktop, not really.
However, if you really need a 64-bit OS in a desktop computer, you can get a Sun Blade 100 for less than a grand.
i think what Apple really needs is an iMac without the monitor. that would be cheaper and lets you use your old monitor (they last longer than computers)
Motorola or IBM or Apple is the same on the power lineup. They all share developement as a joint venture.
Apple does know they will need to compete with the Intel 64 bit , needed or not on higher end user desktops. IBM’s with the Power4 alread start at $12K. So, make a few million of them and what is the cost? $3K? The price of a mac now.
try to think outside the square. A 64 bit OS is useful for more than just high end servers. Current 32 bit OSes are already constrained by the size of disk drives and memories which even modest workstations are capable of.
P
Nintendo Gamecube.
The Nintendo uses a version of the chip. So I don’t think that IBM will be that stupid to charge Apple $1000+ per chip when Nintendo get it at a cut down price.
But I suppose you get what you pay for.
Damn, you’re a genius! We could have an incredible multimedia powerhouse of a system all for $149. And you could use your own monitor. Well, television monitor, close enough.
This sounds like the breakthrough Apple has been looking for. All they need to do is figure out how to paint a Gamecube white and stick a shiny little metal Apple sticker on it.
Oh, and I guess they do have to figure out how to make all the games work with their new one button controller. But that’s what they get paid the big bucks for, isn’t it?
#m
If I remember correctly, the PowerPC architecture IS a POWER4 derivative design. The article hinted that the new Mac may be inheriting from another POWER4 derivative. Well that wouldn’t appear to be much more than what the PowerPC already is. Perhaps?
Interesting article, though.
>>>If I remember correctly, the PowerPC architecture IS a POWER4 derivative design.
No, PowerPC was derived from the original Power architecture and the only powerpc chip that is both powerpc compliant and power1 compliant is the powerpc 601.
After that, both architectures diverged significantly.
>>>Nintendo Gamecube.
>>>The Nintendo uses a version of the chip. So I don’t think that IBM will be that stupid to charge Apple $1000+ per chip when Nintendo get it at a cut down price.
Nintendo uses a customized PowerPC chip —- NOT a power3/power4 chip.
> No, PowerPC was derived from the original Power architecture and the only powerpc chip that is both powerpc compliant and power1 compliant is the powerpc 601.
After that, both architectures diverged significantly.
Exactly.
Thanks for clearing that up….
I thought there was some sort of POWER architecture in PowerPC history… Just couldn’t remember exactly.
A reference I have just perused confirms your information. I got POWER and POWER4 confused.
Nothing new about outpreforming a PC… all Mac-users know that even the current 800 MHz G4 outperforms a current P4 by 237864%, runs circles around it, bla, bla… the only question remaing is why they actually need new CPUs at all with the current gear being so damn fast as it is…?!!
I think the main problem is:
OS X is based on Mach, a very old microkernel with many obsolete performance leaks.
The real reason OS X runs so slowly is that it is secretely processing porn in the background. This is actually what has generated Apple’s $4.5 billion in the bank. As soon as the porn industry found out about the power of Altivec, they cut a deal with Apple to do porn post-processing courtesy of Apple’s rich, entertainment-loving user base.
Porn is behind MP4, aka MyPorn4, Money Shot Pro, pMovie, pTunes, and the recent xxxServe.
Apple has committed to being the world’s leading porn workstation, acquiring software companies to obtain key porn technology, advancing the state of the art in adult entertainment.
#m
1. Release a **fast** system. They need to increase the speed of their CPU (G5, power4, whatever), increase their RAM speed (currently 133MHz), increase their bus speed (also 133MHz), use a faster GPU (GF4-4600), faster harddrives (at least 7200 RPM).
Custom PowerMacs come with GeForce Ti 4600, and new PowerMacs come with 7,200rpm HDDs.
2. Make OSX as fast as BeOS. Introduce journalling to HFS+/UFS. Use a MIME type filesystem with attributes, with database features (or port XFS or BeFS). Improve display speeds. Scrolling through a directory listing via Finder is still sloooooooowwwww.
So in other words you want Apple to ditch OS X and buy BeOS from Palm or use OBOS? Anyway, if the rumours are true, the next major release of Mac OS X (not 10.x) would include a database metajournaling file system (but, then, it is just a rumour). Scrolling speeds have improve a lot, and if Jaguar is anything they say it is, scrolling would be very fast, provided you have a pretty good GPU. (Besides, perhaps Finder’s speed may attribute to HFS’s speed)
IBM never liked Altivec (what Apple calls the Velocity engine). It would indeed be interesting for Apple to move everyone to a 64 bit G5 when they are still trying to move everyone to Mac OS X. It does give them bragging rights in the future “all of our stuff is 64 bit vs the PC world still stuck at 32. Even with Opteron around, where is the incentive to switch”
What’s the incentives to switch the consumer market to 64-bit anyway? The limitations of 32-bit HAVEN’T yet been a problem, and people who need 64-bit in the first place are already using it. 64-bit is not twice the speed of 32-bit.
However, if you really need a 64-bit OS in a desktop computer, you can get a Sun Blade 100 for less than a grand.
I almost bought it, but then I saw there wasn’t any new consumer Linux distributions when the computer was release, I shoted the idea down.
try to think outside the square. A 64 bit OS is useful for more than just high end servers. Current 32 bit OSes are already constrained by the size of disk drives and memories which even modest workstations are capable of.
These is not problems of 32-bit itself. It is problems with the chipset and the processor. I have yet to see a workstation to even support the limit of memory and storage 32-bit allows.
The Nintendo uses a version of the chip. So I don’t think that IBM will be that stupid to charge Apple $1000+ per chip when Nintendo get it at a cut down price.
I thought Nintendo uses custom PowerPC. Anyway, for the same price for a Game Cube, I could get a PS/2 or a XBox… which have better specs.
If I remember correctly, the PowerPC architecture IS a POWER4 derivative design.
Wrong, it is the other way around.
Nothing new about outpreforming a PC… all Mac-users know that even the current 800 MHz G4 outperforms a current P4 by 237864%, runs circles around it, bla, bla… the only question remaing is why they actually need new CPUs at all with the current gear being so damn fast as it is…?!!
Yeah right :-D. Even Apple go that far in lying. Everybody rational enough knows that the 2.56GHz Pentium 4 coupled with RDRAM is the fastest 32-bit workstation processsor.
what about the pentium 4 xeon
you know you want this http://www.compaq.com/products/workstations/w6000/index.html
POWER4 is horribly expensive right now because it is a top end server unit. I say unit because it is not a chip, it is a selecetion of at least 5 large expensive chips, 4 Dual code CPUs + Cache all in a metal case with thousands of pins and requires several tons of pressure to seal. Being in an expensive market they are made in very small numbers so don’t have the benefits of mass manufacture.
They are not going to put one of these things in a Mac unless Apple decide to start chasing the high end Unix market.
Take just one of these chips, shrink it to 0.13um and churn them out by the thousands and you’ve cut the costs right down. Changing the L2 to slower (but higher capacity) L2 will reduce performance but could cut costs, Apple already use external L3. Cutting one of the CPU corse out will save about 1/4 of the silicon but drasticly reduce costs.
Remember IBM will do this for their workstations anyway and they will use it to counter the Itanium 2 which will probably appear in the same price range as top end Power Macs. Apple get a nice new fast processor and IBM with the higher volume have a stick to beat Intel with.
Workstation processors always start off horribly expensive but also tend to be followed with much cheaper cut down versions – Sun have a low cost version of the US3 on the way…
I think it would be a smart move for Apple as they would be able to do away with all the G4 is too slow complaints which probably don’t effect their core markets much but does deter PC users from switching. Personally I think switching to DDR and improving the speed of the OS will show the G4 is a more capable chip than can currently be measured.
Whether they do this or not we have yet to see but Apple does have this option and unlike Motorolas G5, POWER4 is not as some folks put it “vaporware”.
I am sure, this will be Apple’s solution. It fits for both of them:
Intel needs support for its Itanium platform, especially when it comes to the Desktop. For one or two years until Itanium is ready for the desktop, Apple will stick to PowerPC.
Apple can get a lot of help from Intel including an adoption of its formerly DEC technology FX-32 ! which allows you to run PowerPC code.
And they are already on the Itanium platform before Microsoft arrives (in volume).
So – why not?
regards
MM
I thought Nintendo uses custom PowerPC. Anyway, for the same price for a Game Cube, I could get a PS/2 or a XBox… which have better specs.
How do you get that the PS/2 has better specs than the Gamecube???
what about the pentium 4 xeon
you know you want this http://www.compaq.com/products/workstations/w6000/index.html
It isn’t the fastest. It’s difference with the main Pentium 4 processor line is that it supports multi-processor. So, if you are going for a quad or a dual, Xeon may be a good idea, but dual/quad processor doesn’t mean extra performance – because most applications out there aren’t SMP. Anyway, on its own, Pentium 4 2.56GHz with a 533MHz bus is still the fastest 32-bit processor out there 🙂
Besides, did you know for $200 lower price of Apple’s PowerMac G4 Dual 1GHz Ultimate, you could get a dual 2.2GHz Pentium 4 Xeon, with a DVD-R/RW drive, NVIDIA Q4 200NVS 64mb, and 2x80GB UltraATA 7,200rpm drives, with 1GB of RDRAM (yes, it is 0.5GB less than that PowerMac, but there wasn’t any option to make it 1.5GB, and it is cheaper buying the RAM from elsewhere anyway)? All that for a system that is faster than Mac OS X and more suitable for 3D graphics editing. Not a bad deal, if you ask me. (plus, if you add $250, you would be Premier). I wonder how much the system would cost if we swap the Quaddro for a GeForce – certainly cheaper.
yeah but you said Pentium 4 with RDRAM-that’s a system not a processor. And a faster system would be the dual xeon with rdram.
If anyone’s looked at the SPEC benchmarks lately, a single Power4 1.3 GHz with 128MB of cache loses to a P4 2.53 GHz by a small margin. It beats the P4 by only about 30% in floating point. The key strength of the Power4 architecture is insane I/O bandwidth, multi-processing, and giant caches. Once you strip all that out and put it into a Mac, you’ve got a chip that’s SLOWER than current P4s. Sure, Apple + IBM might be able to ramp up the clock-speed before release, but then again, so can Intel.
apart from not being cost efective for IBM to fab. how much performance will be lost in cache reduction for desktop units (1mb? 2mb?), the cost increase to apple to make new mobo design with higher pin count, higher wattage required to run it. it all adds up. require active cooling (making teh hush hush imac no longer hush hush)
What Apple needs RIGHT NOW is a multi-pronged aerial artillery bombardment on Intel’s manufacturing plants. It’s the only thing that can save the PowerPC.
man…from your requierments, you seem to be setting up for them to fal short for ever.
We don’t know how fast a future CPU would be, but I can assure you that future iNTEL and AMD CPUs will be faster than they are today, and most certainly because they are pumping a lot of money into making desktop and low end server CPUs (Itanium is a chapter of its own, so lets not include it yet).
IBM on the other hand doesn’t seem to like desktop computers that much (or harddisks), and Motorola isn’t too into putting a huge effort into desktop CPUs.
What a mess for Jobs… Really expensive computers without any real performance, and soon possibly without an office package from M$. If this is not the time for action, there has never been a time for action.
What Apple needs is a new injection of partners. They need new subcontractors to make certain parts in their computers. How about paying a visit to Taiwan for high performance chipsets? How about a joint venture with some large companies to produce really fast CPUs? Something has to be done if they are not to be left behind completely.
And, on a personal note, good design can be joined with practical issues. I would never buy an imac, it is just way to impractical. The Cube should have been the iMac, but at $1,000 (and not a cent more).
The key strength of the Power4 architecture is insane I/O bandwidth, multi-processing, and giant caches. Once you strip all that out and put it into a Mac, you’ve got a chip that’s SLOWER than current P4s.
On what exactly do you base this assertion?
A POWER4 “Lite” will be slower than the full POWER4 but there’s no reason to suggest x86 will be able to beat it.
It may indeed be slower than x86, I don’t know. It depends on the implementation and I don’t expect IBM are likely to mess this up. IBM are not Motorola!
Sure, Apple + IBM might be able to ramp up the clock-speed before release, but then again, so can Intel.
Indeed, but not to the same degree, 2.53GHz P4 are already 0.13um whereas POWER4 are 0.18um, that means an immediate boost and further boosts in the future since IBMs silicon process is better than Intels. Intel can boost their clock speed also but not by as much and it wouldn’t have the same effect – All CPUs are bandwidth limited and this increases with frequency. 10% greater Frequency does not mean 10% better performance, especially at higher frequencies.
A minor point, but isn’t the name G4 an Apple invention? Motorola’s names are the number 7400, 7450 etc etc. So if Apple chooses to use a Power4 chip and call it a G5, surely that would be fine and dandy? It wouldn’t have to be a Motorola designed chip at all on that basis…
the most expensive super mac only comes with an 80 gig 7200 rpm hard drive and sdram. A faster cpu may not help so much if the other parts of the system are slow
I doubt this is happening, but it would be fun, and make sense.
Back in the day apple sold rebranded IBM servers. These servers are the same servers that evolved into the Power4 line of today. They didn’t run MacOS, because the OS was technically lacking. Now OSX runs well on multi-cpu PowerPC systems, using that G4 from Motorola. With a little effort a 32 bit port to Power4 (Power4 does run 32 bit as well) could be done, a small team with a few months would be sufficient. Apple could offer pSeries boxes running OSX rebranded as Apple servers, to complement their recent Xserve line. With the volume they could move they could cut the prices (remember economics of scale). A little more work and OSX could run 64 bit.
Now firewire/usb/etc would have to be done with add-on cards, but still.
Forget SPECint, SPECfp. Look at TPC, Fluent, SPECjbb, or Linpack. The Power4 is wicked fast.
Then apple would have the whole scale, from the low end iMac to the high end p690 Turbo, and the whole range inbetween. Desktop, Graphics Workstation, Video Workstation, Low end server, high end server, etc.
Wow that would make me happy.
aren’t motorola’s ppc assets up for an option by apple this summer? and if so, they would need a fab partner. perhaps this has much to do with the sony/ibm partnership… eliminate mot and bring in a capable partner–sony.
The truth to the rumor is that Apple will use IBM cpu’s rather than Motorola’s from here on out in their flagship products. IBM is a “Can do” company; Motorola is a mess.
Ladies and Gents, check out the author’s website and it may help explain why this poor gentleman has trouble making rational predictions about the future computing market.
In it he claims theories for:
– faster than light travel
– how to control (and stop) gravity
– solving the father/son time travel paradox
– ‘Absolute Gravity’ (where he claims that the redshift of the universe is NOT doppler, but instead some other phenomenon)
– UFO’s
I suppose in his world the Power4, a CPU that is a distant relative of the G4, might be a candidate for the next Macintosh.
I just read this article on The Inquirer http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=4423
Apparently Windows 2000/XP doesn’t like high speed CPUs such as the Pentium 4 2.8 GHz. The result is an unstable system that would crash often. The same symtoms can be seen when combining a slower clocked P4 with a high speed chipset like the Intel 845G.
My point? What good is ridicuously high clock speeds if the OS can’t handle it? I’m wondering how OSX will handle thier own CPUs at higher clock speeds.
My company will release before end of this year a dual G4 SMP blade based on 2 MPC 7455 @800 MHz – 2 GB DDRAM – 2 Gigaethernet… the plan is to build a world class cluster based on > 1500 blades for selling Raw Computing Power at the lowest possible price.
Ladies and Gents, check out the author’s website and it may help explain why this poor gentleman has trouble making rational predictions about the future computing market.
Correct, I have an interest in avant guard Physics and other oddities. Plenty of people do, I happen to use my website to express ideas on the subjects. What exactly is wrong with that?
If you had actually read the article I didn’t make and predictions. I read a rumor and commented on it.
I suppose in his world the Power4, a CPU that is a distant relative of the G4, might be a candidate for the next Macintosh.
In a cut down versions I’m sure it’s perfectly feasible, they do after all use the same instruction set.
You clearly disagree, do you think you explain this view without the personal insults?
I remember someone from Transmeta was asked whether they could emulate a PowerPC CPU. The answer given was that it “should be possible” or something similar. Whatever Apple does they should really try to move away from a Megahertz designation of the chip since many people are incapable of grasping the fact that clock speed is not a measurement of performance. While the very latest Pentium IVs are an improvement, the previous ones are junk. I tested two extremely similar systems, one with 1200Mhz Celeron and the other with a 1600Mhz P IV. The Celeron had better performance in most areas, probably due to an L1 cache two times larger.
See:
http://www-1.ibm.com/servers/eserver/pseries/hardware/workstations/
The RS/6000 43P Model 150 comes with a 375MHz 604e and costs $8817.
How much was that PowerMac again?
Just to elaborate on some earlier comments before; the Power4 does not get all its speed or bandwidth simply by adding 100MB of cache to its core, grab of the issue of the Microprocessor Report of IBM’s Power4 site. Further, the Power4, despite its name, is a PowerPC processor implementing the BookE architecture. Among other things, it can run 32-bit and 64-bit PPC code natively and it can grow to accommodate extra functional units (AltiVec) should IBM wish to do that. A Pentium anything cannot even touch its performance (bandwidth or raw power)and anyone who argues that the Pentium marginally outdoes it on SPECint is smoking crack. Who cares about SPECint? It became irrelevant about 5 years ago and the Pentium 4 (Pentium Pro with SSE), is irrelevant now insomuch as Itanium, formerly Merced, formerly PA-RISC is Intel’s current direction while AMD will go down the path of 64-bit x86. FYI, P4 outdoes most samples of Itanium on SPECint. So much for benchmarking.
because mhz isn’t a TRUE measure of processor power, what’s the best bang for your buck processor/ram combo out there right now?
http://commerce.www.ibm.com/content/home/shop_ShopIBM/en_US/eServer…
A POWER4 system starts at $12,495.
IBM uses mostly POWER3-II chips in its UNIX workstations and has quite a few servers that use POWER4.
#m
The Pentium 4 contains a double-pumped ALU. That is one of the key reasons it does so well on SpecInt. Intel has shown prototype ALU’s running as fast as 10Ghz.
Power4 was designed for high system throughput. That’s why it has all the wide busses, the big caches, the multi-chip modules, etc.
Pentium 4 was designed for high speed execution of a single thread, a much different goal than Power4.
#m
yeah but you said Pentium 4 with RDRAM-that’s a system not a processor. And a faster system would be the dual xeon with rdram.
The reason why I said Pentium 4 with RDRAM is because Intel is promoting DDR so much even though it is an bottleneck to Pentium 4.
apart from not being cost efective for IBM to fab. how much performance will be lost in cache reduction for desktop units (1mb? 2mb?), the cost increase to apple to make new mobo design with higher pin count, higher wattage required to run it. it all adds up. require active cooling (making teh hush hush imac no longer hush hush)
The new iMac G4, little that you know, actually uses active cooling. But of course, you wouldn’t notice because they use a very good heatsink, a very good geometrical casing shape and also a very quiet fan. Of course, except #2, all of what iMac does to make the iMac “hush hush” is available for PCs.
We don’t know how fast a future CPU would be, but I can assure you that future iNTEL and AMD CPUs will be faster than they are today, and most certainly because they are pumping a lot of money into making desktop and low end server CPUs (Itanium is a chapter of its own, so lets not include it yet).
And the very fact of such stiff competition forces both AMD and Intel to overperform and underprice the other.
IBM on the other hand doesn’t seem to like desktop computers that much (or harddisks), and Motorola isn’t too into putting a huge effort into desktop CPUs.
They are pushing desktop computers. But not those based on Power4 nor PowerPC. They are pushing, ironically, Intel stuff. As for HDD, IBM sold it off because it wasn’t profitable. But heck, they made the best hard drives around for the past few years.
And, on a personal note, good design can be joined with practical issues. I would never buy an imac, it is just way to impractical. The Cube should have been the iMac, but at $1,000 (and not a cent more).
From the physics stand point of view, the iMac G4 had much better heat management than the Cube mainly because of its shape. If they ship the rice bowl (the base) and the stick (the LCD) seperately, they could meet your demands, however.
A POWER4 “Lite” will be slower than the full POWER4 but there’s no reason to suggest x86 will be able to beat it.
You really didn’t read the first part of his comment? He said that because of the small difference in performance in the full blown current top-of-the-line POWER4 and Pentium 4. So in other words he is saying it would be futile, because it would be slower than Pentium 4 anyway.
It may indeed be slower than x86, I don’t know. It depends on the implementation and I don’t expect IBM are likely to mess this up. IBM are not Motorola!
It also depends on the processor. The processor speed relies much on the cache and other stuff that needs to be striped out before going into a Mac.
Indeed, but not to the same degree, 2.53GHz P4 are already 0.13um whereas POWER4 are 0.18um, that means an immediate boost and further boosts in the future since IBMs silicon process is better than Intels.
Intel would be (and probably is using) IBM’s silicon process. Besides, while waiting for Power4 to come to 130nm, Pentium 4 might have already started using 90nm transistors (they are planing this for next year, IIRC).
Apple could offer pSeries boxes running OSX rebranded as Apple servers, to complement their recent Xserve line.
I don’t think this would work out. For one, because Apple has to pay money to IBM as well as make a profit, it’s custom version would be more expensive. Also, people trust IBM more in servers than Apple, and would buy an IBM, even more so with cheaper prices. Also, I don’t see how Darwin could compete with Linux for server stuff. Maybe some other BSD like FreeBSD, but not Darwin.
aren’t motorola’s ppc assets up for an option by apple this summer? and if so, they would need a fab partner. perhaps this has much to do with the sony/ibm partnership… eliminate mot and bring in a capable partner–sony.
But then again, AMD or perhaps Intel could outprice Apple and buy off Motorola’s PPC assets. Also, I don’t see how Sony fits into all of this. Sure, Apple is trying to be the Sony of USA, but Sony uses Windows for a reason – not because they can’t afford making their own OS, but because of the applications. So in other words, Sony is not such a worthy partner, as they wouldn’t use the PPC chips
Apparently Windows 2000/XP doesn’t like high speed CPUs such as the Pentium 4 2.8 GHz. The result is an unstable system that would crash often. The same symtoms can be seen when combining a slower clocked P4 with a high speed chipset like the Intel 845G.
I’m wondering: Why, if you have an unreleased fastest CPU for 32-bit workstations out there, you would want to use Windows 2000?
I tested two extremely similar systems, one with 1200Mhz Celeron and the other with a 1600Mhz P IV.
Could you like use processors from the same timeline? The 1.2GHz Celeron is so much newer than the 1.6MHz P4 (sorry, they had modernized from roman characters to modern ones
because mhz isn’t a TRUE measure of processor power, what’s the best bang for your buck processor/ram combo out there right now?
Three words: Advance Micro Devices.
Hello. Craig Williamson said that GameCube utilises as cheap implementation of POWER4 chip… that didn’t sound right to me, so a quick search showed the GameCube CPU modelled on a cheap version of the PowerPC 750.. ie commonly know as the G3, that sits inside those candy-colored old style iMacs… hence the price.
Refer to this…
http://cube.ign.com/articles/088/088906p1.html
Cheers
PJ
Jesus, you should not believe all the BS… 3 GHz P4 systems are all over the place and I haven’t seen one single sentence on any OC page that there are issues with W2K/XP and stability…
I know this is about hardware but the main reason for me to stay with Apple is software. Having to work with both Windose (2k and XP) and OS X, I have to say I wouldn’t even consider buying a PC. The latest builds of Jaguar (OSX 10.2) are *very* fast. Any G4 is fast enough for a regular Desktop machine. What really saves me time is the much faster system navigation , stability, install procedures etc. on a Mac.
To put it another way: What good is a car that does 250mph instead of 200mph if the seats hurt your back all the time ?
I think it’s not wise to use Windows OSes at all.
Most of these “Avante Gaurd” physicists can be grouped into the same realm as creationist scientists. They babble psuedo-science to the masses who don’t apply critical thinking to those theories. If there was any truth behind the theories posed by these pseudo-sciences, Autodynamics to name another one, then it would be able to withstand rigorous scientific proof. None of them do. It is completely within one’s right to study such concepts, however I wouldn’t bet the farm on any of them actually amounting to anything.
the costs of power4 are high, when you consider that each contains 8 processors, and buttloads of cache. This can be reduced somewhat by reducing the specifications, and going to a smaller process, but the biggest savings would be economics of scale. If IBM only sells a million of these a year or so, apple can certainly deliver another million or so units a year, and probably 2 milion in the first year. And that’s if they don’t gain any market share. Which they hopefully would if they could release hardware that didn’t “feel” like 2 year old wintel stuff at 1.2x the cost. (that’s what windows ppl like to say)
Apple should pick a CPU that is popular next time around. They have traditionally chosen off-the-main-path CPU’s so customers have to pay top dollar for Apple’s hard-to-afford-ware.
If Apple cut a deal with Intel, I bet they could get Itanium for a very reasonable price. Looking at the workstations, specifically the xz6000, that HP is able to field, the Itanium would make a great processor Apple.
The basics of the good HP Itanium workstation:
http://www.hp.com/workstations/products/itanium/zx6000/summary.html
The performance Apple would be able to achieve:
http://www.hp.com/products1/itanium/performance/index.html
Yes, Hammer would be a good bet too. Itanium is shipping today, however, and Intel would be fabulous technology partner.
If Apple shipped 1 million Itanium workstations, it would be a huge success for both Apple and Intel.
#m