PowerPC 970 Info Thread

fryke

fryke

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It's been all over news & rumour sites: The PowerPC 970 by IBM will be out in the second half of 2003 (some say early, some say late) at speeds _starting_ at 1.8 GHz. IBM will present Server Blades based on the chip at CeBIT in Germany, which is about to start soon.

So, will we see 2.5 GHz PowerMacs in Autumn?

On another forum I've also read a very interesting point: As long as IBM is selling their own machines with the newest PPC 970 processors, Apple can't only deliver slower CPU speeds, because we all SEE that higher levels can be achieved. (In comparison to the G3, which is at 800 MHz at Apple, while IBM has long ago presented 1 GHz chips of the PowerPC 750FX, but hasn't sold any computers with them on their own. This will change with the PowerPC 970...)
 
Now I have seen a lot of information supporting the apple adopting ppc 970 rumors, and personally would love to see a dual 2.5 ghz powermac, but these are just rumors! The most compelling thing that I have seen aginst the ppc 970 being adopted by apple is Steve Jobs saying something to the extent of 'I like to have lots of options...'
I am sure apple is prototyping new processors now, the g4 is just so old apple would be crazy to not have a new plan in place. But how do we know it will be the ppc? We don't. I bet Steve and other apple big guys are up in their office now laughing up the fact that practically the whole mac community thinks that ppc 970's are gonna be in new macs. Or mabye they are up there discussing plans for releasing the dual 2 ghz powermacs... The funny thing is that nobody knows :)
 
well if Steve is up there laughing at everyone thing the PPC 970 is going to be in the new macs, he'll be crying in 6 months when it isn't, and hes shipping 1.5 Ghz G4s and Intel has 3.5 Ghz chips shipping.
 
What I haven't seen though is anyone put forth a valid reason why Apple WOULDN'T use the 970? Even if they were going to drop a bombshell late this year, early next, they could still shore up their marketshare by introducing a more powerful cpu. The 970 is still a PowerPC, so the amount of work would be minimal, and unless Motorola has something up their sleeve with a G5, it's Apple's best bang for the buck.
 
Yes, please try and keep the thread on the PowerPC 970. There _are_ other options for Apple (and Steve said that _before_ IBM announced the 970), but this thread is basically about _that_ processor and whether Apple should be using it.

For PowerMacs, there doesn't seem to be a better option, though.

It's binary compatible with the G4. Fully. Plus it _adds_ quite a bit of ooomph and is a 64bit processor which lends a hand to going 64bit computing in the OS (which Apple doesn't _have_ to do, as the 970 is also a good 32bit compatible processor as far as we've heard).
 
What's the cost per processor with respect to a Motorola G4? If it's an order of magnitude higher (which is possible - price a Power 4 some time) then I think you'd be visiting him with torches and pickforks.
 
Nope. IBM is aiming this at desktop workstations. While it _might_ be pricier than the G4 processor, it will certainly not compare to the Power4 series.
 
One of the things Apple has done to cut the cost of systems is to drop L3 cache. The POWER4 could have up to 32 MB of cache as I recall which helped push it past all the other processors on the market, but also put it out of most people's price range.

The 970 should come with 512 k of on chip cache (at speed I believe), which means the additional L3 cache would be nice, but not a requirement for performance. As production increases at IBM (bringing down the cost per chip) Apple could start adding L3 cache again to the higher end models. I believe the 970 supports up to at least 4 MB of L3 cache (though it may actually be higher).

Also I don't think Apple is going to be going after the fastest of the earlier 970s produced (which it looks like IBM has set aside for it's lower end servers). I'm sure Apple it looking at performance vs price to see where they are going to start out at (I would expect the 1.8 GHz version myself in the early models)
 
Originally posted by RacerX

Also I don't think Apple is going to be going after the fastest of the earlier 970s produced (which it looks like IBM has set aside for it's lower end servers). I'm sure Apple it looking at performance vs price to see where they are going to start out at (I would expect the 1.8 GHz version myself in the early models)
Click to expand...

I would disagree here. To get beat up as much as they do about clock rates and then to suddenly become conservative once they finally get their hands on something that performs would be a major error. I assume what they'll do is to go ahead and produce using the fastest 970 they can get their mitts on. However, they will have lower speed models and the fastest one will have a very significant price tag associated with it. People will still buy it however. I would suspect the models will break down something like:

2.5ghz w L3 cache
1.8ghz w L3 cache
1.8ghz w/o L3 cache

What would be sweet is if they still manage to sell DP models. I don't know what the price of the 970 will be, but if it's at a point that they can throw a couple in the same box for a reasonable cost, the thing would rock big time.
 
I'm pretty sure there won't only be 1.8 and 2.5 GHz models.

But I agree that I don't think Apple will introduce a 'high-end' machine that _doesn't_ make use of the best PowerPC 970 available, IF Apple's going to use the PowerPC 970.

However, we still don't know what chips exactly IBM will be able to bring to market and when. Let's wait a bit. CeBIT isn't that far away. :)
 
One of the largest computer shows in the world. Hosted in Germany. IBM's gonna present their PowerPC 970 based Blade Servers there. And I'm sure we'll also hear more interesting stuff, although not necessarily Macintosh related.

-> http://www.cebit.de (also in English)
 
I found some specifications that could enhance the speculations:

The 970's bus ratio is fixed at 1/4 the CPU clock speed, and its clock is doubled. So a 2.5GHz 970 will have a bus that runs at an (effective) clock speed of 1.25GHz.
For those wondering, that's 10GB/s theoretical bandwidth, or about 8.8GB/s observed, assuming that the percentage lost to packet overhead is constant.

Going from .13 micron to .09 micron gives another increase, figure 30%. So 2.3 - 3.25 GHz.

IBM PPC 970:

SPECint2000
937 @ 1.8 GHz
SPECfp2000
1051 @ 1.8 GHz
Dhrystone MIPS
5220 @ 1.8 GHz
....
So let's extrapolate this to 2.5ghz...

SPECint2000
1301 @ 2.5 GHz
SPECfp2000
1459 @ 2.5 GHz
Dhrystone MIPS
7250 @ 2.5 GHz
.....
Here's what the current MOT G4 does:

SPECint2000
418 @ 1.4 GHz
SPECfp2000
248 @ 1.4 GHz
.....
That would make a single PPC 970 processor running at the same MHz as a G4 a bit less than 2x faster for SPECint2000, and a bit over 3x faster for SPECfp.

A single PPC 970 @ 2.5 GHz vs. a single G4 @ 1.4 GHz would result in the PPC 970 being about 3.1x faster for SPECint, and about 5.8x faster.

This is all "on paper" of course, but still, quite interesting.
.....

Oh, and here's a Pentium IV @ 3.06 GHz:

SPECint2000
1032 @ 3.06 GHz
SPECfp2000
1092 @ 3.06 GHz
.....
Looks like an interesting future indeed...
Click to expand...

Mostly taken from the fora of Appleinsider.com
but I found the very same specs also posted elsewhere.
Of course all this has to be taken cum grano salis. It's highly theoretical but interesting nevertheless. :)

When the PPC 970 will be available in mass production later this year, it would constitute a very enticing alternative for the G4, even for a dual 1.5 GHz G4 ... The main reason I can see for Apple to adopt the 970, is that there appears to be no drawback of any kind: the 970 is faster, fully 32 bit compatible, has AltiVec™, runs relatively cooler, has a much faster FSB, is expected to be more scalable to much higher speeds than the G4+, has great potentialities as 64 bit processor, etc., etc., ... Chi piú ne ha, piú ne metta...
 
Cat wrote:
the 970 is faster, fully 32 bit compatible, has AltiVec?
Click to expand...
I believe that when I see the results of Photoshop tests, though. ;)
No, just kidding. Of course the 970 will be faster. Whether it'll be faster at the _same_ clock speed, ... Dunno. I'm really interested in Macintosh based tests.
 
Originally posted by fryke
Cat wrote:

I believe that when I see the results of Photoshop tests, though. ;)
No, just kidding. Of course the 970 will be faster. Whether it'll be faster at the _same_ clock speed, ... Dunno. I'm really interested in Macintosh based tests.
Click to expand...

But if you are able to ramp the clockrate up at a much faster pace than the G4, does it really matter? The P4 is the ultimate example of going a bit backwards to performance to be able to go forwards. From what I've read of the architecture, this is NOT the case, but I think that from a marketing standpoint, it's better to join them than to spend lots of money to fight them (in regards to clock rates).
 
So, since all of the speculation about these chips has started I've been wondering how hard or easy it will be for apple to make the transition. Will they have to have 2 different versions of OSX for people with the new chips and people with the old ones? Or will they just make a hybrid kind of version of OSX that would take advantage of the 970's speed, but might not take advantage of the 64bit stuff right away. Isn't it impossible to have an OS that runs 64bit and 32? As you can see I have know idea what I'm talking about, but I'm just wondering how smoothly the future switch might be. I'd hate to do an OS9 to OSX type of battle all over again.
 
Unless Apple has been working on a 64bit port of OSX for a while, it would seem to make sense that they would just run in 32bit mode on the 970. They could come out with a 64bit version of OSX and the OS installer would just choose the appropriate one depending on hardware. Sun does this already with Solaris. You can run 32bit apps on a 64bit OS but usually not the other way around.
 
ah, so in other words, then all of these software companies would then have to make yet another version of their software that would take advantage of the 64bit OS, if they wanted too anyway. Hopefully companies would be excited about doing this so that their software could run even better. On the other hand it might be kind of a pain, since they just had to port over to OSX. I'm sure apple's got all of this figured out though. And I guess everyone has to understand that in the computer world, things are always advancing and changing.
 
Originally posted by fryke
I'm really interested in Macintosh based tests.
Click to expand...

I would really like to see this chip running in an IBM workstation. It is nice that they are running it in a server, but I want to see it running side by side with POWER3-II and PPC604e systems running the same software. If it can run 32-bit apps designed to run on those processors at speeds close to what it is able to run benchmark tests compiled as 64-bit apps, then I would be completely convinced.

( :rolleyes: not that I'm not now of course)
 
Well, its practically spring already, so we will most likely find out soon enough (in the comming months). Personally, I would be excited about Apple taking up the PPC970. But I would also be interested in Apple going to x86...but thats a whole 'nother topic.:D :p
 
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