IBM talks about the PowerPC 970.

[Eug]

See here for IBM's spin.

Ars recently talked about it here, and a new article should be out soon.

 

[Adul]

 

[cmdrdredd]

so? all this means to me is I can expect to see a new Mac lineup at the next Macworld expo

 

[UlricT]

Originally posted by: cmdrdredd
so? all this means to me is I can expect to see a new Mac lineup at the next Macworld expo

which just MIGHT kick some serious butt.... not that its going to topple intel or anything...

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

Originally posted by: cmdrdredd
so? all this means to me is I can expect to see a new Mac lineup at the next Macworld expo

so? all your 3L33t 3DMark2K1 SE Score means to me is....oh wait...

 

[krackato]

Wow. You got told.

 

[BD231]

IBM talks about the PowerPC 970

Oh joy

 

[MercenaryForHire]

Wow. 64-bit at 1.8GHz. Gee, that's going to school Itanium and Hammer.

Don't forget to factor in Macintosh pricing - which means that all chips must quadruple in price.

- M4H

 

[Eug]

Originally posted by: cmdrdredd
so? all this means to me is I can expect to see a new Mac lineup at the next Macworld expo

You won't see it at the next Macworld expo. Jan is too soon. I wouldn't expect to see it until fall at the earliest.

This is gonna be a fast chip, but it's not going to be a PC killer by any means. What it will mean however, is that Apple will no longer have to depend upon Motorola, who is languishing in desktop CPU development land. Without IBM's 970, Apple would be up the creek without a paddle depending only upon Motorola.

As for price, we don't know what it's going to be. But if it means a single PPC970 vs overclocked dual G4s, maybe the price won't be so bad.

 

[nortexoid]

everyone's knocking the chip, but dual 64-bit power pc 970s on a 900mhz bus running OS X will be sweeeeet.

 

[n0cmonkey]

IBM makes quality chips. When Intel or AMD make good platforms (not just processors!) let me know. Im tired of the damn BIOS!

 

[krackato]

It'd be great if IBM wasn't there to pick up Motorolla's slack, cause guess what the only choice Apple would have then. That's right, x86. Intel or AMD and god knows we would all be the better for it.

 

[ElFenix]

fed by an up to 900-MHz processor interface bus, which can deliver data at a rate of up to 6.4 GBps.

that right there gets my attention... maybe yall weren't paying attention but thats hellaciously fast.

this thing would kick butt for server farms! 64 bits so thats good, but the real kicker is these things probably suck down 20 watts, maybe 30 at max...

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: krackato
It'd be great if IBM wasn't there to pick up Motorolla's slack, cause guess what the only choice Apple would have then. That's right, x86. Intel or AMD and god knows we would all be the better for it.

Will not ever happen. PPC is a much better processor design.

 

[nortexoid]

the chip by itself doesn't have to rival a 3.6ghz p4 upon release - two of them have to and i'm sure that wont' be a problem.
of course u can build dual xeons, but that's not the point.

 

[EdipisReks]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
IBM makes quality chips. When Intel or AMD make good platforms (not just processors!) let me know. Im tired of the damn BIOS!

buy an e-machines. you'll never have to worry about dealing with a bios ever again.

 

[EdipisReks]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
Will not ever happen. PPC is a much better processor design.

if you ignore performance, price, and clockspeed scalability.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: EdipisReks

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
IBM makes quality chips. When Intel or AMD make good platforms (not just processors!) let me know. Im tired of the damn BIOS!

buy an e-machines. you'll never have to worry about dealing with a bios ever again.

I bet you an emachine still has a bios and not a better firmware.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: EdipisReks

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
Will not ever happen. PPC is a much better processor design.

if you ignore performance, price, and clockspeed scalability.

Performance is fine, clockspeed means nothing to me I only care about the work I can get done with the chip, and price is not important when considering the technical merits of a processor. What is important though, is the overall architecture. Unfrotunately x86 still lags behind other architectures in the high end arena, someplace the PPC does quite well in.

BTW, how much does a PPC chip go for from IBM or Motorola? I havent seen figures on that...

 

[EdipisReks]

generally a couple thousand for a high end IBM PPC, and they generally lag behind the Xeon's. check aceshardware for details.

 

[EdipisReks]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: EdipisReks

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
IBM makes quality chips. When Intel or AMD make good platforms (not just processors!) let me know. Im tired of the damn BIOS!

buy an e-machines. you'll never have to worry about dealing with a bios ever again.

I bet you an emachine still has a bios and not a better firmware.

i've seen farked firmware before, and i've never had a problem with a bios.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: EdipisReks
generally a couple thousand for a high end IBM PPC, and they generally lag behind the Xeon's. check aceshardware for details.

They lag behind the xeons in what?

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: EdipisReks

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: EdipisReks

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
IBM makes quality chips. When Intel or AMD make good platforms (not just processors!) let me know. Im tired of the damn BIOS!

buy an e-machines. you'll never have to worry about dealing with a bios ever again.

I bet you an emachine still has a bios and not a better firmware.

i've seen farked firmware before, and i've never had a problem with a bios.

Fark? Ummm ok... I have had plenty of problems with BIOSes and Firmware. But I have not seen any major problems with either. Firmware is still more useful.

 

[EdipisReks]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
Fark? Ummm ok... I have had plenty of problems with BIOSes and Firmware. But I have not seen any major problems with either. Firmware is still more useful.

yes. farked. as in a synonym for f*cked. welcome to the internet. if you haven't had problems with BIOS', then why are you bitching about them?

Originally posted by: n0cmonkeyThey lag behind the xeons in what?

power4 gets beaten in SPECint2000 for one. the power4 has a tremendous floating point unit, so it's win in SPECfp2000 is expected, but not worth the money (since you can build, at a minimum, a dual Xeon system for the price of a single power4 box). you can check on the full spec results on various CPU's here. this is, keep in mind, the full power4 with a large L3 cache installed (in this case 32mb) and not the chopped down version that Apple would be using. the motorora powerpc chip get's beaten on the Mac platform, but i'm sure you already knew that..

it is, unfortunately, extremely difficult to find benchmarks on the high end chips, but i know of a couple businesses in my area who were considering power4 based servers and bought xeon based ones instead. better performance to dollar. i know that anecdotal evidence isn't what you are looking for, but one can infer performance fron the spec benchmarks.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: EdipisReks

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
Fark? Ummm ok... I have had plenty of problems with BIOSes and Firmware. But I have not seen any major problems with either. Firmware is still more useful.

yes. farked. as in a synonym for f*cked. welcome to the internet.

Heh.

if you haven't had problems with BIOS', then why are you bitching about them?

Because I like the control and usefulness of Firmware.

Originally posted by: n0cmonkeyThey lag behind the xeons in what?

power4 gets beaten in SPECint2000 for one. the power4 has a tremendous floating point unit, so it's win in SPECfp2000 is expected, but not worth the money (since you can build, at a minimum, a dual Xeon system for the price of a single power4 box). you can check on the full spec results on various CPU's here. this is, keep in mind, the full power4 with a large L3 cache installed (in this case 32mb) and not the chopped down version that Apple would be using. the motorora powerpc chip get's beaten on the Mac platform, but i'm sure you already knew that..

it is, unfortunately, extremely difficult to find benchmarks on the high end chips, but i know of a couple businesses in my area who were considering power4 based servers and bought xeon based ones instead. better performance to dollar. i know that anecdotal evidence isn't what you are looking for, but one can infer performance fron the spec benchmarks.

Im not saying an x86 based solution is not a good one for some purposes, but frankly if I were given a box to keep and use on a daily basis for me, I would prefer something better than a couple of Xeons thrown into a boring old case and given second rate hardware. Solutions from IBM or Sun can do wonders that most gamers never understand. And generally they are not bought for fast benchmarks...