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http://www.macnn.com/articles/03/05/14/ars.technica/

Ars Technica looks at PowerPC 970 processor

updated 04:05 pm EDT, Wed May 14, 2003

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Ars Technica has posted a second part of its , IBM's upcoming 64-bit Power4 derivative desktop chip, which is rumored to be used in future Apple desktops: "I believe that Apple is poised for a huge overhaul of its hardware line based on this processor and a renewed relationship with IBM. I'm finally convinced that Apple's days of wandering in the wilderness with Motorola are over, and that personal computer users will be able to see the Mac as a real option again in terms of desktop, and not just portable, performance."

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05/14, 04:28pm | report spam | close Reply |
But...

Who knows when (or even IF) these processors will be used by Apple. Apple should just step up to a microphone and say "We're going to use it, and this is when...". I mean, it can't hurt sales of their current crop of c***, as no one's buying those anyway. Everyone's just waiting, hoping, etc. At least if apple said something, it would be waiting, knowing.

But of course, it don't matter. By the time they come out at 1.8GHZ, the Intel folks will probably be at 4 GHz, and that's all that matters to most users.

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05/14, 04:45pm | report spam | close Reply |
business

Obviously Apple won't say when or if they're even using the processors. Come on. That common sense to anyone in business. The high end desktops they have out now are great. Could they be faster? Sure. But they'll always be the next thing that's faster and better... that's computers. At some point, you just have decide to buy and stop waiting.

On rumors, it's not even Apple's job to respond to all the rumors that come out. People continue to disappointed by Apple only because Apple can't seem to reach some people's lofty expectations - only made worse by rumors of machines and devices that don't exist. Not to mention that when they come out with something, say for example the new iPod, people are upset it doesn't have something like a color screen or something. Apple never said it was going to. Rumor cites did.

Rumors are all fun and games, but they can seriously hurt business.

As for me, I'm going to go have fun with my iWalk...er, um. Nevermind.

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05/14, 04:49pm | report spam | close Reply |
ok troll

> no one's buying those anyway.

They are selling 10's of thousands. Yes that number is down significantly. Announcing too early would send sales down to 0 resulting in a loss for the quarter.

>4 ghz.
A) they won't be
b) if you don't believe the mhz myth from apple then believe it from intel for their centrino and itanium.care to explain that dorkus?
c) cost wise apple will be selling machines with 2 970s in them at a lower cost then intel selling dual xeons

apple wins.

you on the other hand need to go back to

i_own_a_pc_and_all_i_do_is_play_games_steal_from_kazza_and_wait_for_crappy_mac_knockoffs_to_come_to_windows.com

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05/14, 04:51pm | report spam | close Reply |
get real

they will be used by apple. no if. seriouslky folks, several reliable publications have even quoted ibm execs as saying that the 970 was custom fab'd for apple.

lets put that to rest.

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05/14, 05:48pm | report spam | close Reply |
Non-Announcements...

This is why Apple doesn't make way-ahead-of-time product announcements (and yes, this refers to the Osborne Portable computer from 1981):

Two years after the Osborne d�buted in the marketplace, the company was bankrupt! Why? Osborne made a fatal mistake! They failed to plan! To make matters worse, they announced a second machine, the Osborne 2, which was supposed to be a great improvement over the initial Osborne and all of its competition. However, the announcement was premature since the Osborne 2 was not ready for customer shipments. As a result, the sales for the original Osborne dried up while their customers waited for the Osborne 2. Consequently, the company had no sales, and that translated to no revenue and subsequently to no cash. Meanwhile, the market was waiting for the new and improved Osborne 2 that never materialized because the company ran out of money, and went bankrupt. The company failed in large part to a lack of honest and intensive business planning. In summary, by failing to plan, it planned to fail and was found guilty of "eating its own children."

-Rance

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05/14, 06:02pm | report spam | close Reply |
PowerPC 970

Have a look at this site - http://www.looprumors.com. If the information are true, we will get to play with a new Mac very soon.

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05/14, 06:21pm | report spam | close Reply |
970 better?

The ONLY way that people will believe that a 1.8GHz 970 is faster than a 4+GHz P4 and forget about MHz is if the 970 beats the pants off the p4 in ALL benchmarks, real or artificial, in EVERY software package, AND in slower macs. If the fastest 970 comes close to the P4 it won't be enough.

Now, if Apple sells a dual 970 or a quad 970 for the same price as a single 4+GHz p4, then maybe we'll have some bragging rights.

How about a 970 based iMac and all Dual or Quad 970 based Powermacs? Wouldn't that be impressive?

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05/14, 06:56pm | report spam | close Reply |
try this on for size

The ONLY way that people will believe that a 1GHz Intel Itanium is faster than a 4+GHz P4 and forget about MHz is if the Intel Itanium beats the pants off the p4 in ALL benchmarks, real or artificial, in EVERY software package, AND in slower macs. If the fastest Intel Itanium comes close to the Intel Itanium it won't be enough.

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05/14, 06:56pm | report spam | close Reply |
Time to cut Motorola off

Hope Apple goes with IBM and starts to sell Intel as well. Lety the best machine win.

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05/14, 07:26pm | report spam | close Reply |
4GHz P4

won't be here when the 970 comes out. The P4 will be at 3.2 GHz and the 970 will beat it.

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05/14, 08:03pm | report spam | close Reply |
this all sounds good...

...but...

The thing that concerns me is that from the benchmarks that I've seen (on that weird french Mac-oddity site... who knows if that is even real or not...) compare the 970 to a 3ghz p4. So... the 970 is the new kid on the block and the p4 is nearing the end of its cycle. What happens when the new P-chip comes out at the end of the year? Is the new G5 going to be back to where the G4 currently is? Stuck in the P4's dust?

Also, does anyone know what Apple has in store as far as motherboard and RAM specs go? I hope the bottleneck is finally obsolete.

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05/14, 08:45pm | report spam | close Reply |
I disagree with optimists

Given that Macs have been lagging behind in speed for quite some time except in executing some Photoshop filters most people don't have to deal with their whole life, it's hard to be convinced whatever Apple will come up with next will beat the c*** out of whatever the Wintel world'll have available. I personally doubt Apple will have any 970-based macs out this year. We are just wishing, like we've been doin.

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05/14, 09:23pm | report spam | close Reply |
MacOS X Smokes Windows

The only thing holding Apple back right now is the G4.

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05/14, 09:37pm | report spam | close Reply |
I await the 3CPU mac.

That's right. s**** dualies. I want a 970 threesome.

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05/14, 10:23pm | report spam | close Reply |
Re: await the 3CPU mac.

Ooooh, kinky. Me, I think I'd like to try a Mac with a 970 AND a G4 in it. Alhough I'll keep the shades drawn, as I'm sure the right-wing conservatives in my state would deem it an unnatural act and try to get me arrested....

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05/14, 10:31pm | report spam | close Reply |
No Show!

The 970 will have to spank the P4 silly! Jobs is too smart to demo a new processor without it being up there, and with the Macs 20th anniversary coming-up they need this thing to spank hard.

If Adobe is not going to write the appropriate code for Photoshop to take full advantage of the 970, Apple will. They will most probably use Shake3. They would compare a SUN, an SGI, a Windows, and an OSX. They most probably have already optimized Shake's code for the 970. Yup... a 64Bit spanker!

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05/15, 12:40am | report spam | close Reply |
Hoggin

Apple needs a horsepower jump big time to push that hog OS X up to the speed of OS 9. OS X runs loops around 9 in network performance and stability, but it is SLOW when you are doing heavy duty Photoshop/Illustrator work if you have less than a dual Ghz machine. I think the reason they are pushing dual processors so much is that they know that they need one whole processor just to push the GUI. I hope that they have something soon, moving toward the pro end of the spectrum, not selling music. Why aren't Macs known as the most powerful systems on the planet? As software bloats, and OSs bloat, the machines need to bloat too. Time to catch up Apple!

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05/15, 01:27am | report spam | close Reply |
threesome?

who doesnt want a threesome.

and to the early posters, 970 is a forgone conclusion. you're a sodding idiot thinking there is any 'maybe' left in the Apple 970 discussion.

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05/15, 09:42am | report spam | close Reply |
re:MacOS X Smokes Windows

MacOS X Smokes Windows with a 500mgz chip or 5ghz chip. No matter how you play the numbers, MacOS X is quite simply the best.

I own a 2 Mercedes E class's, I could've bought a Porsche with a quicker engine, but, I prefer elegance, performance(stability), ease of use and just over all coolness.

We had 10 PC's in the house 2 years ago, and am very happy to report they have all been replaced with various Mac models. My kids always ask, "Daddy, why don't these computers brake down like the other ones did?" I always say " Daddy made a big mistake buying PC's based on market share and popularity." well, I was so wrong. We now have 15 Macs in the house and not even 1 of them has crashed in the past 2 years. Tech's coming to the house for PC repairs was a monthly thing prior to our Macs. We have not had 1 Tech over since replacing the PC's. the amount of money I spent on the PC's + Tech costs was far more than the cost of the Mac's. I hear some people complain about the cost of Mac's, but, I have saved a significant amount of money with these Mac's. I just can't believe we went so long with PC's. If more people knew, The Mac's market share would not be what it is today.

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05/15, 10:42am | report spam | close Reply |
So sayth Jobs.

Jobs pretty much said at the share holders meeting - theres going to be a processor change real soon.

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05/15, 10:59am | report spam | close Reply |
read

http://arstechnica.com/cpu/03q1/ppc970/ppc970-6.html

Preliminary thoughts on the 970's performance versus the P4
In order to know how the two processors will stack up against each other, you have to know how fast the 970's clock will be when the processor launches and how fast the P4's clock will be during that same timeframe. If the 970 can stay at 2/3 of the P4's clock speed, I would expect it to be very competitive for floating-point and vector code. The ratio will need to be even higher for it to match the P4 on integer code. Ultimately, though, I think we can count on the P4's clock rate to scale much faster than that of the 970 for the following reasons:

Architecture: The P4 is designed to scale to higher clock speeds than the 970, and it's designed to do so more rapidly. (I've discussed the P4's high clock speed design in detail in this article.)
Process: Intel will be the first to bring its 90nm fabs online, and I expect that by the time the 970 comes out the P4 will have migrated to the new process. Once on a 90nm process, the P4's clock speed will continue to climb. The 970, which will debut on a 13um process, is expected to transition to 90nm a bit later. We'll probably see some speed increases from this transition, as well as the addition of new features to the die (e.g. more cache, an on-die DDR controller, etc.)
Competition: If AMD's new Hammer line starts to do well, it will put more pressure on Intel to get the P4's performance up by any means necessary (i.e. increased clock speeds, more cache, etc.). IBM, on the other hand, hasn't as of yet given any clear indication as to the role of the 970 in its overall business plan. Just now committed IBM is to PowerPC on the desktop and how aggressively they're willing to scale the 970's clockspeed and feature set remains to be seen.
Based on the discussion so far and the bullet points above, here are my predictions for the 970's performance vs. the P4:

Integer: The 970's integer hardware was designed to deliver 64-bit integer performance, and it was also designed with the ridiculously large caches of the Power4 in mind. When it you decrease the cache sizes to desktop computing levels and run 32-bit code on it, it starts to look less impressive next to the P4. Therefore I don't expect the 970 to close the performance gap for Apple on integer code. It will put forth a respectable showing, but unless IBM stuns the world by maintaining a 3:4 clock speed ratio or higher versus the P4, Mac users will have to look to floating-point and vector performance for bragging rights. Which brings me to my next two points...
Floating-point: The 970 will perform very well on floating-point code. The two symmetrical FPUs and dual LSUs make the processor a floating-point monster, and there's a distinct possibility (or even a likelihood) that it will completely close the performance gap with the P4. Expect

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05/15, 11:59am | report spam | close Reply |
RE: Read

The problem with the writer's comparisons, as he himself admits, is that he used the prcocessor layout of the 640 for most of his comparison because IBM would not respond to any of his questions!! So basically I would use the article to get basic ideas about the processor and not to make final decisions.

It really shows that he doesn't know the facts about the 970! Most of the article is just speculations and assumptions.

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05/15, 07:45pm | report spam | close Reply |
970 real or mirage?

I hope for Apple's sake (and mine) that the rumors of the 970 based Power Mac are all true (including faster front side bus, faster memory, 8X AGP, etc.). It's long overdue.

The advent of the 970 Mac wouldn't hurt the Apple stock price, either.

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Ars Technica looks at PowerPC 970 processor

updated 04:05 pm EDT, Wed May 14, 2003

But...

business

ok troll

get real

Non-Announcements...

PowerPC 970

970 better?

try this on for size

Time to cut Motorola off

4GHz P4

this all sounds good...

I disagree with optimists

MacOS X Smokes Windows

I await the 3CPU mac.

Re: await the 3CPU mac.

No Show!

Hoggin

threesome?

re:MacOS X Smokes Windows

So sayth Jobs.

read

RE: Read

970 real or mirage?

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Ars Technica looks at PowerPC 970 processor

updated 04:05 pm EDT, Wed May 14, 2003

Related Articles

Recent Articles

But...

business

ok troll

get real

Non-Announcements...

PowerPC 970

970 better?

try this on for size

Time to cut Motorola off

4GHz P4

this all sounds good...

I disagree with optimists

MacOS X Smokes Windows

I await the 3CPU mac.

Re: await the 3CPU mac.

No Show!

Hoggin

threesome?

re:MacOS X Smokes Windows

So sayth Jobs.

read

RE: Read

970 real or mirage?

Login Here

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Subscribe

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