“Was that maybe, just maybe, a chip aimed at a forthcoming PowerBook that Freescale Semiconductor was talking about? Apparently not–or at least not yet. In a presentation at this week’s Fall Processor Forum, Freescale, the former chipmaking unit of Motorola, disclosed plans to produce a dual-core version of its PowerPC chip that it said was aimed primarily at networking applications,” Arik Hesseldahl reports for Forbes. “…Adding a second core essentially turns one single chip into two without significantly boosting power consumption.”
“But news of Freescale’s impending presentation of a dual-core version of its e600 chip, (e600 is the new name for the line of chips that used to be called G4), prompted a bit of speculation that perhaps a new Mac-oriented chip with two cores might have been in the offing, which would indeed be news,” Hesseldahl reports.
“The Freescale chip’s power consumption is also low enough, in the range of 15 to 25 watts, that it could be used inside a high-end laptop computer such as Apple’s PowerBook,” Hesseldahl reports. “When asked about the speculation, an Apple spokeswoman said the company routinely declines to comment about its future plans for microprocessors. But that was the same thing the company said two years ago when IBM was talking about the chip that ultimately landed in the G5.”
Full article here.
Related MacDailyNews article:
Motorola to detail dual-core PowerPC G4, could be next leap for Mac laptops – August 18, 2004
New Freescale 90nm G4 processor likely to find home in Apple PowerBook, iBook – September 28, 2004
There needs to be a stepping stone to the G5 and this at least allows the line up to be updated!
The Dual Core G4+ would be FASTER than the 90nm G5s currently in use in the iMac. The new FreeScale chip lifts the system bus limitations of the current G4 chips and operates at higher clock speeds than the scaled G5s in the new iMac. Not as hot either. Not a transition until the G5- a better answer.
Interesting. If what NoPCZone says is true, I’d highly recommend they market the chip under a different name than G4 though so as to avoid confusion.
How about the Power PC Q
Q = quiet/quicker/quality
NoPCZone:
AMD 90-nanometer dual-core chips are expected in PC’s and/or Windows-based servers in 2005. I reckon that Apple will also release competing 90-nanometer dual-core processors for Mac’s and Xserves, along with Tiger in 2005.
What are the hopes for 65-nanometer dual-core processors for Apple in 2005 or 2006?
How would 65-nanometer dual-core processors affect power consumption, especially for laptops?
The new chips would not just plug into the current laptop motherboards and require a redesign of the innards. Will Apple spend the time and money to R&D a new machine as a stepping stone to the G5 laptop?
But a high-speed single-core version of the e600 will pop right into current motherboard designs. That’s what’s going to be in the next Powerbooks this winter or early spring.
NoPCZone, these chips will be faster than 1.6 and 1.8 GHz iMacs, but I have to believe that by the time they’re available, next summer, the iMacs will have been bumped up a bit.
Meat, isn’t it true that Wintel architecture can’t take very much advantage of dual processors? Do Macs have more to gain from dual-core chips than PCs do?
Sweeet
dooods
the timing is alll wrong
by the time this thing ships in volumes IBM will have superlowvoltage parts of the 970.
FOR SURE.
it has it’s own reasons to make sure this happens, as they are trying to ship a variety of their own products that require the low voltage parts in particular, bladecenter products and parts for their new low cost open source market, among other things.
The problem with this product is that by the time it ships it will not really have a market on the desktop.
the only contender would have been the iBook, but a dual core part for this platform makes no sense since most applications an iBook owner probably use do not have multithreatding or a need for it.
sure the workstations have dual cpu’s but that is because applications like APSD, and AAE, and Maya can use those multiple processors.
so I think this is a no go as the timing is all wrong.
Apple needs a refresh in January for their PB line.
silas:
I don’t know how current or future versions of Windows, Office, other PC applications, or PC’s themselves will benefit from dual-core processors.
Then again, I don’t know how Apple will integrate dual-core processors either into their hardware and software designs.
However, I have more faith in Apple maximizing the potential of dual-core processors for both laptop and desktop computers and OS X in 2005 than Microsoft releasing the beta version of Longhorn in 2006.
The IBM processors are supposed to become dual core after the next update so until then Freescale has room to maneuver. At this point we do not even know if IBM’s processors will ever be suitable for the PowerBooks.
I would also like to point out that although it sounds good on paper, a 64 bit processor on a laptop would not be an improvement on a 32 bit processor unless RAM capacities increased tenfold. So far RAM progress is measured in speed rather than size.
Hmmm, Maybe a G4D chip? D as in Dual? Since 64 bit seems to be the future eventually I think they will have to get a G5 into the laptop. As more apps are written for 64 bit they should run faster on a 64 than even on a dual 32 right? Hmmm, this really muddies the waters for seeing where Apple will be going.
Sol:
In layman’s terms, please, what is the relationship between 32- and 64-bit processing on single- and dual-core to processors to RAM speed and total MB of RAM?
It could make sense for Apple to keep 2 processor suppliers in the mix and have them compete with each other for Apple’s affections.
And if the IBM dual core G5 went into the Powerbook, the Freescale dual core 64 bit G4 could go into the iBook.
The clock speed/bus speed of the iMac G5 are because of HEAT issues, not the max performance of the chipset. In order to get the form factor Apple wanted and to prevent performance overlap with the PowerMac line, Apple scaled the bus speed down to keep heat within the fan performance/noise levels they desired.
The new Freescale processor will not have the 166mHz bus limitation of the current G4 and will be able to perform at 2 gHz with DUAL CORES while consuming 25w or less. A dual core G4+ (or whatever it’s called) with Dual AltiVec VPU’s running a comparable system bus would run much faster than the last PowerMac G4’s with Dual G4s and probably faster than any single processor G5. Remember the current G4 does not fully use the DDR memory installed, while the new chip will.
The new single core models will provide an upgrade path for the iBook series and the Dual Core model would be great for the PowerBook line. The performance gain would be very real for processor intensive apps like media creation and editing, number crunching and should also be much more “responsive”.
The real limitation of the G4 was it’s lack of full support for DDR memory and faster bus speeds. Apple’s use of large caches on the PowerMac G4 was an attempt to offset this problem. This new PPC chip will in some form end up in the PowerBook line, unless IBM has some heavy magic up it’s sleeve. My guess is MWSF (Jan 2005) at the earliest.
NoPCZone:
If I understood you correctly:
Dual-core processors run cooler and faster than single-core processors at the same clock speed.
Additionally, dual-core processors can utilize DDR RAM and faster bus speeds than single-core processors.
How will dual-core processors take greater advantage of DDR 2 RAM than single-core processors?
Any word on the next speed bump to the current Powerbook line? I am considering buying one for work use and heard that possibly the end of October as a release of a new revision. Any help would be appreciated.
Re: Meat of Moose
1
The Dual Core FreeScale 90 nm G4+ will run cooler than a single 90nm G5 and consume less power at the same clock speed. FreeScale is using Silicon on Copper and IBM is using a different process amng other differences.
2
The new family of FreeScale Processors removes the old G4 limitation of 166mHz bus speed and should support system speeds in the range of the iMac G5 chipset while running at comparable clock speeds.
3
The difference in DDR support has nothing to do with the number of cores, just the design of the previous generation of Motorola/FreeScale chips. Apple went to DDR memory in order to squeeze every last cycle of memory speed available. Existing G4 chips do not fully utilize the DDR memory’s speed, the new FreeScale chipset will.
4
The primary difference in performance between the G4 “Sunflower” iMac and the New iMac G5 lies in the full utilization of DDR memory and the faster system bus. The 1.6 & 1.8 gHz chip speeds of the G5 are only marginally faster than the last G4 iMac, although the system performance is much greater.
5
FreeScale Dual Core PPC CPUs will run faster than two separate chips of the previous design. The I/O will be much faster than on current G4 chips. Many parts of OS X and many apps are dual processor aware and will get a great boost from a fast dual core chip.
6
The dual core FreeScale chip is reported to have dual AltiVec “Velocity Engine” Vector Processing Units on the chip. Applications optimized for AltiVec will have 2 fast VPUs that have a faster I/O than 2 existing G4 chips mounted on a motherboard.
7
When running 32-bit apps, the G5 will have no great advantage over this improved G4 chip if all other major elements (memory type/system bus/cache/etc) are the same.
8
For mobile computing the 2 great problems are heat and power consumption. The new FreeScale
should EASILY beat any power scaled version of existing G5 chip on both counts. With dual 32-bit cores and 128-bit VPUs running on a 15-25 watt chip the new design is already well ahead of a power scaled and power hungry G5 chip that is 64-bit with one VPU running 32-bit apps. Mac OS X and almost all apps are 32-bit- not 64-bit.
I’ll take dual cores and VPUs over a single core G5 any day until OS X and the apps are 64-bit.
hmmmmm
dual dualcore.
now thats my cup of tea:)
this is most likelt what will be found in powerbooks soon
http://www.freescale.com/files/32bit/doc/fact_sheet/MPC7448FACT.pdf
NoPCZone:
Thank you. I thought that Apple stated that Tiger permits both 32-bit and 64-bit addressing? Is this only possible for G5 processors? What design issues have to be solved to make dual-core processors 64-bit compatible?
Like absentminded I wonder, what would be the advantage for a dual-processor computer with dual-core chips? Is such a configuation possible in a laptop computer?
Currently, all OS X contains is 64-bit extensions and addressing, no part of 10.3.5 is 64-bit. Adobe and a few others have G5 optimized code that utilize the additional capacity. The G5 processor is not currently being used to it’s capacity, whixh is why a much improved 32-bit PPC chip will compare so well.
The new FreeScale design will run at comparable bus speeds and CPU clock speeds as the G5 as set up in the iMac G5, so even a single core of this design should run very close to a G5 of similar speed. The dual core model should run away from it, unless Apple cripples it for marketing reasons.
My whole point was that if Apple uses the dual core version of the FreeScale chip there will be no need to design a G5 PowerBook. I do not care what the designation of the CPU chip is, I am interested in performance.
The only fly in the ointment would be if Apple has plans to heavily optimize the OS and major apps for a 64-bit processor, then the 32-bit design would not be on the same playing field. Running 32-bit apps, a dual-core 32-bit 2gHz PPC with dual on-chip 128-bit VPUs running DDR 400 memory on a 800mHz bus should be able to be the fatsest laptop in current use easily.