Enough G5, how about some G3 news

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Article in The Register about IBM's upcoming 750GX (thats G3 to you and me) processor. It's expected to clock in at 733Mhz to 1.1Ghz. Big deal you say, well other improvements have been made. Most noticable is a doubling of L2 cache to 1MB. Other performance enhancements should combine to produce a speed bump above what can simply be expected with the Mhz increase.

Will this see the light in any Apple products, will it be too late for inclusion in an iBook, maybe not too late for a tablet or iPhone or iPad?

the article:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/39/31492.html
 
If MacOSX 10.3 remains backwards compatible with 32 bit PPC chips, and it looks like it is, then those chips will still be around for a while. I think Apple will continue using G3's in iBooks using this new chip from IBM, and the newer G4 chips from Motorola for PowerBooks. The G5 will be reserved just for desktop PowerMacs and maybe iMacs.
 
That would be in the generation after this one AFAIK.This one being Gobi (?) and the next one ... Mojave? Or did I mix up the codenames?
 
BUMP! There's a nice PDF available from IBM:
http://www-3.ibm.com/chips/techlib/techlib.nsf/techdocs/7874C7DA8607C0B287256BF3006FBE54

The gist:

PowerPC 750GX highlights
•Manufactured in IBM’s 0.13 µm CMOS with SOI to deliver high clock rates with leadership low power and smaller die size
•Products from 733MHz to 1.1GHz for computing, networking, storage, imaging, and consumer systems
•Expands the range of use of PowerPC 7xx processors to include more cost-sensitive, high-performance applications
•Provides 1MB of internal L2 cache operating at core frequency to lower systems costs, save board space, and avoid performance bottlenecks
•Additional performance improvements in bus pipelining
•Identical package and pinout as 750FX for easy upgrade path
Click to expand...

No news about the G6 ... :D
 
Originally posted by Lycander
I think it's more than just a rumor. IBM does have a license to use Altivec technology...
Click to expand...

They don't??

The PowerPC G5 gets its smarts from the execution core of IBM’s 64-bit POWER4 processor — recipient of the Microprocessor Report’s 2001 Analyst’s Choice Award for Best Workstation/Server Processor. The POWER4 drives IBM’s successful eBusiness servers, with highly parallel processing, two double-precision floating-point units and advanced branch prediction logic. Apple collaborated with IBM to leverage this industry-leading design for the G5, combining an optimized Velocity Engine with a new superscalar...
Click to expand...

Maybe they can't call it altivec, but it does the same thing if im not mistaken.
 
Whatever. IBM _has_ a Velocity Engine in the G5, so they can build it into Mojave - if they choose to do so.

I'm not sure if they can use such an engine for their embedded market, but it'd certainly be useful for the iBooks.

However: It was often said that the G4 was not much more than a G3 with an AltiVec engine (or two), and as such, IBM's Mojave would be IBM's G4 and could also be named a G4 by Apple.

If Apple does the _right_ thing (my opinion only, of course), they' push Motorola to create ever better G4s for notebooks (i.e. cool processors at higher frequencies) that can be used in both PowerBooks and iBooks, while using IBM's 64bit Power in desktop computers.
 
If Apple does the right thing, they'll pop that G5 chip into every notebook they can. Not only are G5's cheaper than G4's, but the power consumption problems that have been mentioned on this list can be refuted by looking at the information from IBM and the article by Jon "Hannibal" Stokes on Ars Technica.

The core voltage for the 970 1.8 GHz is 1.3 volts and power dissapation is 42 watts. The 1 GHz G4e is 1.6 volts and 30 watts.

This information is nearly a year old, but I cannot imagine that in the last year the wattage or the volts would increase.

http://www.arstechnica.com/cpu/02q2/ppc970/ppc970-1.html
 
Originally posted by fryke
...
(i.e. cool processors at higher frequencies)
Click to expand...
hehehe those 2 kinda contradict each other. Anyway, it makes more sense to majorly upgrade the laptop versions of the G3's and G4's, since much of the work has already been done and these processors still have life in them. Leave the hot G5's in the towers for a while.
 
Sheepguy,

Why in the world would Apple or better yet, me the consumer want to leave the G5's out of a laptop? Do you really think 12 watts at a lower voltage is going to give you the ability to fry eggs on a PowerBook? I see no evidence that the G5s will be hotter than G4's. The only evidence I see is that Apple has released a case for the G5's that appears to be designed to make them as quiet as possible by eliminating fan noise.

Think about it, how wonderful would it be if Apple had G5s across the board with the 12, 15 and 17" Powerbooks and possibly even the iBook series? What possible reason would you have at that moment to wait and make a purchase of a new Apple product?
 
Sure it would rock. But Apple themselves in an interview said that the G5 wasn't going to come to a notebook near you anytime soon. And it's QUITE clear from looking at those G5 boxes...

Now the choice is between G3s and G4s. And I'd rather see IBM do G3s with AltiVec than ever hotter G4s in PowerBooks...
 
Odd how MacBidouille can report on G5 rumors but is unable to tell us about happenings in their own back yard, (Crolles, France) with Motorola's VP telling about 90nm PowerPCs by next year on their 300mm wafers. As has always been the case with Motorola, they had problems with defect density per wafer, particularly at their Arizona and Austin plants. These are 200mm wafers and if they are having processing problems then they will cost even more than the CPUs from IBM. I believe they are trading technology over to their old Thompson buddies (now STMicroelectronics) in exchange for their manufacturing expertise so they can get the hang of producing a good crop of 130nm PowerPCs, or the 7457. And this is a no-brainer for the next PowerBook update.

Of course IMHO Apple now has a heck of a time differentiating their top-of-the-line iMac with the lowend PowerMac. It's already an underperformer compared to the eMac with the same frequency and you can get a similar speed leftover PowerMac with an Apple 17" LCD display for $50 more than the top-of-the-line iMac or a new PowerMac 1.25GHz, a 1MB L3 cache, and all that expandability with a nice DVI 18" LCD panel (Viewsonic VG800b - $519 delivered) for about $20 more. And to get to the maximum 1 GByte RAM on the iMac you'd have to spend another $350, $200 from Apple to increase the base memory to 512MBytes and another $150 for the 512MByte DDR SODIMM. The PowerMac can be expanded to the max 2GBytes for less than $300. Of course the lowend G5 will steal a lot of sales from the iMac if you have a display already. The only fix is to give the iMac the same CPU as the PowerBook (Apple already does this) which will be the 7457. The iMac is just too darn small for a G5 retrofit but they will benefit nicely from a faster frontside bus on the 7457 to go along with their DDR RAM architecture (on the 1GHz model only). The whole iMac line will probably go DDR RAM and 17" because of 17" LCD prices falling through floor. And to keep the price up they may also upgrade the base RAM on the high end model.

I believe iBooks will get the 750GX but probably not until Feb. I think Apple will keep the iBook at G3 levels for a while and with LCDs falling at an ever increasing rate you'll be seeing $700 iBooks for schools.
 
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