IBM PowerPC 970FX G5 2.5 GHz power specs out - PowerTune

[Eug]

Here are the PPC 970FX PowerTune details, from this article (Japanese):

[*] It is fabbed on a 90nm, 10-layer metal, Cu-SOI process
[*] Transistor count (58 million) is not changed from 130nm version
[*] Die size is shrunk from 118mm^2 to 62mm^2
[*] Frequency is 1.3-2.5GHz
[*] In "normal" mode, 970+ changes the frequency in three steps; full, 1/2 and 1/4.
[*] As the change of frequency, the core voltage is also scaled
[*] From any combination of frequency/voltage, 970+ can move to "nap" mode
[*] In "deep nap" mode, the frequency is reduced to 1/64.
[*] Typical power usage is ~50W@2.5GHz (normal voltage), 31W@625MHz (normal voltage) and 15W@625MHz (1.0V).

Sounds great for a quiet high-end desktop, and also good (at say 1.6 GHz) for a PowerBook or revised iMac. (The 1.6 would be a lower voltage version. IBM specs a 1.4 GHz that runs normally at 1.0 V and that has a typical power usage of ~12 Watts.)

 

[Lyfer]

Looks nice, prolly gonna be in a revamped G5 coming in macworld expo.

 

[Eug]

Originally posted by: Lyfer
Looks nice, prolly gonna be in a revamped G5 coming in macworld expo.

It's already in the G5 Xserve, and it should be coming in the next G5 Power Mac, probably next month.

We just didn't know the chip details until now, despite the fact the G5 Xserve is already shipping.

 

[klah]

http://www-306.ibm.com/chips/techlib/techlib.nsf/techdocs/7874C7DA8607C0B287256BF3006FBE54/$file/PPC_QRG_1-22-04.pdf

970FX
Typical Power
12.3W @ 1.4GHz
24.5W @ 2.0GHz

 

[Eug]

Originally posted by: klah
http://www-306.ibm.com/chips/techlib/techlib.nsf/techdocs/7874C7DA8607C0B287256BF3006FBE54/$file/PPC_QRG_1-22-04.pdf

970FX
Typical Power
12.3W @ 1.4GHz
24.5W @ 2.0GHz

Yeah, I saw that. That's from January. However, the details about PowerTune and the 2.5 GHz chip were not released until last week (with more details this week).

 

[RaynorWolfcastle]

Man, I'd love to buy one of these if they weren't offered exclusively by Apple at ridiculous prices. One can only dream that one day IBM will offer something like that for the enthusiast.

BTW, it's interesting to note that the Inquirer talks about rumours of Intel bringing the 90nm Pentium M's (or some modification thereof) into blade servers and maybe the desktop!

 

[Soulkeeper]

haha i just wanna see benchmarks
i'd never buy one

but looks cool

 

[Eug]

Originally posted by: RaynorWolfcastle
Man, I'd love to buy one of these if they weren't offered exclusively by Apple at ridiculous prices. One can only dream that one day IBM will offer something like that for the enthusiast.

IBM is supposed to bring server boxes based on these this year. They already have server blades based on the PPC 970, but those are kinda useless to most of us.