G4 and G5 chips

knighthawk

knighthawk

Registered
I just read an article about the new Quicksilver from MacAddict and I was amazed to find out a few things about the newest of the G4 line.

1) The 867 and the 800DP both come with a 2MB Level 3 cache that is suppose to make the machine a lot faster. The 733 only comes with the 256kb Level 2 cache, and I do not think there is an upgrade to add it to the 733. Too bad because I just got the 733 at work...

2) The 867 is said to consume 14 Watts of energy!!!!

I have no idea what the die size manufacturing process is at motorola. I do know that Intel has developed the 0.13 micron die process for their new 2Ghz Petium 4. I have heard that the main reason why Intel and AMD are shinking their die size is because the smaller the chip, the less power it consumes and the less heat it radiates.

Also there are rumors right now that Motorola is going to give up their PowerPC chip manufacturing division. Apple has an option to buy the the PowerPC chip and staff which would allow Motorola focus on the smaller integrated chips that they make all of their money on. If Apple buys the PowerPC, it is said that they will do in-house designing of the chip, but will have IBM manufacture the chips. The technologies that IBM has been developing for the past several years would really benefit the PowerPC (IBM and Motorola had some kind of quarrel). For example the Copper combined with their on die insulator. Copper is so much better of a conductor that the chips can reach much better speeds without as much power. But Copper melts too easily... which brings in the on die insulator which holds the copper in place even if it is slighly liquidy.

They say that the G5 (which is in development) is running around 1.2Ghz without any of IBMs technologies. The G5 might be production ready within the next few months which will mean G5 Professional computers and maybe iMacs with G4s in the 500-700mhz range.

I can't wait for Christmas.
 
I hear the G5 will be using RAMBUS, "LAF", I love my iBook, but new 1.6 Athlon MP versus Dual G4, and I wager a large sum of money versus G5, it will be no contest. I've been using AMD platforms at home w/ DDR since it came out last year (DDR that is) and it does everything I want and more, Apple should just adpot AMD hardware and get it over with.

-Drew
 
I would like to see a nice merger between the PPC's AltiVec for pure DSP work and the Atlon's strong overall performance.

-Rob
 
Hi
PC processors use mostly CISC. I mean come on get with the times. Peh AMD and Intel blow though I do prefer AMD over Intel but IBM and the PowerPC over them both. Apple MAY start uisng a 200MHz DDR-SDRAM bus this Jan. And the Itanium (wink wink) sucks big wompy! The G5 and AltiVec would just kill! But you know it all ocmes down to quality. MS doesn't use the hardware to maximum because they can't. The PC market is too large and too universal so you can't really push things to the limit. And well they worry about faking you out with numbers instead of quality so they can kiss my rudy poo candy $%^. I'm done now.
 
Okay, and I'll say "get with the times". The line between CISC and RISC chips are blurred so much now that even the architects are confused by the whole bit (well not really). Let's put aside our own biases (as a owner of both Mac and PC), and face the real numbers. Ignore Intel for a moment and PIV and take a look at some of the Athlon MP benchmarks, absolutely mind blowing, for the price, and then still. 200mhz DDR bus, AMD has had that since almost this time last year, and is now moving past the 266mhz DDR mark.

Blah

-Drew

[EDIT: Spelling]
 
Hi
I'll make it simple. It might be the OS but a Mac just "feels" faster at basically everything. I am not fooled by those numbers. Hey maybe the bus is better but eh whatever I said it simple.
 
Hi there,
I've been reading that G5 might have 256 bit Altivec engine, which will speed up the altivec process. But, we are not seeing alot of altivec applications. Which won't help that much tho. Also, the G5 will support up to 16 GB of RAM, and uses a frontside bus like in PC. I'm not sure on that one. Why use a crappy PC bus? LOL....anyway, we'll find more details as time comes closer. I bet it would kick ass if OS X 10.2 probably will be the one to support G5 opimization. It should be exciting, yet smok'n fast. I'm hearing that G5 consumes alot of watts. I think 22 watts, I think it's because it's a prototype or something like that. Still, cooler than a PC based processors like AMD or Intel.





http://members.home.net/galen2001/profile.html
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top