“Although Apple has only this year begun shipping G5 Power Macs and Xserves with the PowerPC 970FX processor, IBM plans to raise the bar with the chip’s successor, a dual-core processor code-named “Antares.” Known officially as the PowerPC 970MP, the chip will feature two interconnected microprocessors,” Nick dePlume reports for ThinkSecret.
Full article here.
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they are actually being developed for the next generation ipod.
ah, by the way, first post.
Call me a thicky – but can anyone explain to me what the real benefit of this is?
Does it mean faster Macs or what??
solarflare- what is means is another excuse for another andelay in higher speed g5 computers…
Simply put, this means that for every processor in the machine, you get roughly the performance of two. So yeah, this means faster Macs.
Its cheaper and consumes less heat than two separate processors, and would (1) clear up some room in the G5 tower, or (2) allow for essentially 4 processors: 2 chips with 2 cores each.
What it means is that clock speed is going to continue to be less and less useful for determining the performance of a computer. Chip manufacturers have been hitting a wall with upping clock speed, so they are looking at other ways to improve performance (and deal with high heat issues).
This is probably a good direction to go in as it opens new creative thinking about increasing chip performance.
i believe that’s what steve meant when he said, “this architectures really got some legs”
even the processing power of 4 X 1.6 GHz is an incredible 6.4 GHz G5
The only problem with putting work into 2 core rather than making one core faster, is that some jobs can not be parallized, and if it can not be paralleled, you dont have much use for a dual core.
If the job can be paralleled, a dual core is usualy better than a dual cpu, because the speed of communication is faster with in the same cpu, rather than needing to get external.
If you can run more than one job, you get paralleled. And we run increasingly more jobs at the same time.
iTunes to play music
a browser on a java website with a flash add
a mailclient that also checks the mail for spam
and your actual work program, this could be coding, creating images or movies, music, …
Sounds good!
Anybody know Sputnik’s thoughts about this topic?
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Ok, all of this is way over my head. So I’ll just talk about something else.
Am I the only person who sees the add for the “Bikini touch”?
I had no idea that so many women in need of trimming their bikini line visited this website to make the ad a wise marketing decision. Any thoughts?
“I had no idea that so many women in need of trimming their bikini line visited this website to make the ad a wise marketing decision. Any thoughts?”
Thanks Turkey,
I needed that laugh! You’d probably be better off directing the question to Mac Beth though. Most guys can’t grasp the concept of applying hot wax to their pubic hair and ripping it off, so the Bikini Touch may be welcomed by many women.
solarflare,
JonB puts it in a nutshell quite nicely. Apart from that though, according to Think Secret, “Antares” will probably be debut at 3GHz, so yeah, it will mean faster Macs, possibly significantly faster. Think dual 3GHz processors, each with an AltiVec unit, on a single silicon chip. Interprocessor communication will be an unknown factor faster than communication between processors on two separate chips. Not only that, the reputed power management system will scale power consumption to meet demand, so they’ll probably use less power overall and dissipate less heat. This is a significant hardware development, and if IBM starts production in January 2005 as reported, Macs will extend the technological advantage over Intel/AMD machines. Next year should be very, very interesting for Mac users.
Intel and AMD are both working on the very same thing. The race is on. IBM has done it before but not at 90 nm so I would say IBM will probably win the race.
Al,
I’m aware that both Intel and AMD have announced their intention to develop multicore chips, and I’m with you as far as IBM winning the race is concerned. They’re the pioneers in the field.
The next step is the so-called “mulcoth” processor: multicore, multithreaded processors. Each core is multithreaded, so that it can appear to the OS as multiple processors, for example, a dual core “mulcoth” could appear (and function) as four processors. I believe that IBM’s POWER5 chip has this capability, but I could be wrong. In any case, I look forward to fully threaded releases of OS X that can take full advantage of this breed of hardware. Mac clusters have already started to change the supercomputing landscape; this would be huge.
There is an importan point about the 970 and P4 and succesors is about the design of the CPU. The P4 is mor suitable to accept higher clock speeds and the 970 is designed more for arrays of 2, 4 or more processors.
http://arstechnica.com/cpu/02q2/ppc970/ppc970-2.html
Intel and AMD both announced that they will introduce multiple core chips somewhere in a near future, as IBM reported. The big difference is that IBM 970 will take much more advantage of the multicore.
Also, Intel announced that its new Pentium processor (at 90nm technology) will be delayed at least until February. IBM, meanwhile, toght with problems on the 90nm procces, have being doing better doubleing the production each month on the last two months at least.
So, I think that Apple will get many benefits both from the dual core at 3 GHz AND the 90nm 970 of today.
I love coming here as much for the comments as for the original article. I have found few sites with this high of a level of knowledge and information contained in the comments. I am not a super geek (heck, I was a biology major) but love the Mac and the things that even I can do on it. The Mac just makes sense.
FYI, ThinkSecret’s “source” is actually just info given in a thread at the forums at applenova.com. So if credit is given, it should go to the poster that leaked the info at applenova.
1: Read MDN story
2: Develop RANT
3: Write RANT
4: Don’t read others RANTS
5: Go elsewhere
Will they call these chips G6’s?
Microsoft Longhorn recommended specs are for 8GB memory and a 12GHz CPU. Hence your puny Macs dual dual core G6 totaling a puny – what a most? – 8GHz will be smashed just as usual.
Longhorn, the ultimate OS on the ultimate PCs.
“Put on your seat-belts and hold on tight, Mac fans. Apple’s putting the peddle to the floor from park and there’s no telling where they’ll bury the needle.”
For those of you too lazy to do your own research, and depend on MDN for watered down and regurgitated news, you can learn more about the IBM microchips here…
http://www.osopinion.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=1706
For example, rather than speculating about what IBM might/should do, it is ALREADY outlined…
Power PowerPC Apple Initial Clock Max Clock
Power4 PowerPC 970 G5 1.4 GHz 3.0 GHz
Power5 PowerPC 980 G6 3.0 GHz 6.0 GHz
Power6 PowerPC 990 G7 6.0 GHz 10.0 GHz
These are NOT dual core unit specs, they are for single core chips. If you want to estimate what their performance would be as a dual core CPU, multiply the clock speeds by 2.2 (dual CPUs are slightly more efficient than a mere doubling).
I think dual core CPUs will mean that the PowerMac will get a major case modification because Apple could stop using dual processors. They would do this to bring the prices of PowerMacs down and to have more processors to use in their iMac and PowerBook lines.
As for dual dual-core processors, I do not think that it will happen unless OS X and its software get a major overhaul. It took a long time for many applications to support dual processors so a lot of work would have to be done before end users see any benefit from quad-core systems.
Intel cannot get their head out of their a** with single core 64-bit chips. The “China Syndrome” should be rewritten for a runaway Intel CPU-not a Nuke Plant. The way they have been going, a “Longhorn Spec” Intel CPU (Dual Core/High Clock Speed) would take your own personal Power Plant and a Window Mount A/C to run. Even AMD has yet to figure out how to run 64-bit/32-bit stuff side-by-side as the G5/Mac OS already does without emulation (read “dog slow”).
Windoze XP 64-bit isn’t even out of Beta and already has been found to have security holes- so much for “Trustworthy Computing”. Nice to see that some things never change. The Windoze crowd is going to need all that horsepower to handle all the adware/spyware installed on their Pee-Cees, not to run VaporHorn (The mythical new Micro$oftopoly OS).
Want a good OS to run on your x86 box? Try OpenDarwin x86 version with the KDE.
Sputz, honey, I think you forgot to take your pills this morning. 12 GHz processor for Longhorn? So what are they testing it on right now? You’re obviously a man – it’s not the first time a 4 has been called a 12 by a guy!
Annie, what do you mean 4! That water was very cold!