“Earlier this week, a MacRumors Page 2 article reported that the most recent Apple CHUD Developer tools had made minor UI changes allowing for the possibility of upcoming Quad processor Macs,” arn reports for Mac Rumors. “More evidence pointing specifically to Quad processor support, however, can be seen in the MONster.app seen posted here showing checkboxes for 4 CPUs. Of even more interest, however, [are] internal references to a processor called the PPC 970MP.”
More info, screenshots, and links here.
Mac developers have to write their applications with multiple processors in mind. Good thing that Apple does this with their own applications. I am sure that Final Cut Pro will do even more amazing things in real-time with so many processors.
WOW, Good news
I distinctly remember being shouted down a couple of years ago when I suggested that it was inevitable that Apple would ship a 4-way box.
So, yah boo sucks to all those involved.
so, does this mean we can start dreaming of a “quad-Cell” Power Mac ??
Oh….what a dream machine that would be…. but, the Ram sticks would probably be expensive !
I suppose this means two dual core chips.
From a energy and heat stand point it would be akin to two chips with the actual power of four.
could somebody please help me with this; how do these differ from say the conventional dual processors that we use now??? Sorry to be a pain, I just haven’t figured this one out……
Thanks for the spoon feeding……
Hooty
MCCFR: a couple of years ago, huh? talk about a grudge.
The 970MP has been long expected to be used in our Mac’s.
It’s a dual core, two processors on one chip with shared cache. Really not much more powerful than what we already have in the Dual Processor PowerMac’s.
It will not be much any faster either in clock speed or cooler running chips. But because of the smaller size it might be possible to get one into a Powerbook with elaborate cooling, which will sell like hotcakes.
Intel and AMD is coming out with thier own to go into all PC’s across the board and supposely “Longhorn” will require it as the OS is so big it will require a whole chip to itself.
Not many programs can utilize multiple processors as A has to be done be B can be performed.
Where the benifit comes in with multiple processors is daisy chaining large work flows, like a assembly line, every processor does a little part.
With the Cell processor and multiple cores on one chip, the sub processors can even hand off work to the other processors that are not busy as they all communicate with each other. Very interesting and most likely my next PowerMac Mac upgrade purchase.
I’ll take a dual core Powerbook though.
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Woohoo!!
MCCFR: I was dreaming of a 6-way box, my friend said 10.
They all laughed. That was at least 5 years ago.
Did you read my post and think only 4 was smarter way to go?
Guess you were right….again!
Apple should hire you!
What is your next prediction?
AppleRules, how would a dual core chip get into a PB where a single core chip could not? Its not a size issue, its a heat issue, since Apple will not change the Size/shape of the PB very much to be the mammoth “portables” which have the AMD 64s. Hell, the iMac is as portable as those.
Please someone correct me if Im wrong, but I dont believe the dual corre share cache, they have their own, they just talk to each other faster and can share the workload more efficiently that 2 seperate processors. Also, as this story shows, with 2 in a PM, you would have 4 processors rather than 2, now we just need a dual core grafx chip and it will run even Doom 3 at 300fps ^_^
Quad CPU’d mac’s are, I’d bet, intended for X-serves.
Not to say that desktop versions won’t appear, but quad or more cpu’s are usually intended for servers.
Xserves are selling well.
Unless there is a demand for such product I don’t if Apple will rock that boat quite yet.
If the MP chips are truly available, they may be slated for the PowerMac. Those machine have little demand because all the power users are waiting for a 3 GHz DP.
Coming out with a Quad 2.5 GHz PM may be carrot these guys need.
AMD just announced their mobile 64bit CPU. Apple and IBM need to address this issue ASAP.
Apple has been on the forefront of new technology. To allow M$ to be on a 64bit laptop would not look good for Apple.
Me13: Yes, I do bear grudges – I blame the esoteric blend of Middle Eastern genetics, but then again I might just be a grumpy bastard.
Gringot: Yes, you’re right, they should hire me! And here’s another prediction – 4-way/8-core Xserves that can be knitted together using a low-latency high-speed fabric, like Infiniband, to create large NUMA clusters that scale to 512 processors or maybe more, for either scientific or commercial data processing/warehousing. Apple finally has large-scale RDBMS support from Oracle and Sybase, and they should exploit it to the full by going after Sun Microsystems’ customer base with a product line that will scale from one processor (the current Xserve) to my killer system. And whilst they’re at it, they should be marketing the bejaysus out of Xsan and Xserve RAID.
But then that would require Apple to get really serious about the enterprise market, and that’s just silly.
I don’t care how many bits it is… if it’s M$ it wil blow massive chunks.
If Windows was 128 bit compatible, that would just mean that you’d get the blue screen 4 times faster!!
According to this link, we have multiple CPUs, at speeds of just under 10Ghz
http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/ubb.x/a/tpc/f/8300945231/m/9080959175/r/414009612731#414009612731
:^)
I wonder if Tiger or the next version of OSX can send multiple integers in one 64bit address space and perform calculations on both numbers. That would help utilize 64bit processors as well.
Most apps do not need 64 bits so there is wasted space in each 64bit piece of data. This can be seen in the speed tests of Doom 3.
There’s a multiprocessor made by Apple. It’s called Xserve
It’s easy to become an equipment freak, I know because I’m smitten with the bestest and fastest as well.
But if a G4 500mhz CUBE or Sawtoothe was awesome 4 years ago, why is it worthless now?
Because it’s not. And I push around big Photoshop files and long 3D renders. Which is where the difference really matters.
I remember buyng a dual processor G4 for my 8500 around 1997. Needed it to finish a job that my (I think) stock G3 180mhz processor couldn’t handle fast enough. It cost around $1500 I believe.
In this case the Altivec G4 power was of use.
But I think that what is MOST imortanrt is developing our skills and exercising our creativity in whatever software packages and apps we use. Those things, however, can’t be measured with charts or tests.
And as a photographer, I have noticed forums changing into almost 100% content based on hardware and software issues. Mainly because we are being hit with a constant barrage of hardware changes, software updates and clients demands. Stock agencies are beginning to demand image files of 50-100mb in size. Which they are doing to impress clients, or “just to be safe”.
Anyway, if the scanner we use is perfectly fine, why don’t we let it drift for awhile and talk about Patrick Demarchelier’s latest shots in Vanity Fair. Or discuss what lifestyle shots sell the best. Or even the best way to change the color temperature of an image to give us the most luscious ‘sunset’ look. We are all very close to hardware and software issues these days, so its going to come up a lot. And quality is important. But GREAT IDEAS trump PERFECT QUALITY. I know, just by looking at it, that my best selling digital files that I submitted almost 10 years ago would get bounced based on image size, artifacts in ths shadows, etc. The image is FINE, but an editor with stringent rules to follow would kick it back. I hear no complaints, because it sells about 10 times a month. And there are rules about GRAIN (film images scanned to digital files). Grain is and can be an aesthetic tool. Yet agencies feel they can measure and weigh too much grain, to decide if the shot will be accepted.
Why is that so much music from the 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s recorderd on humble equipment, with minor flaws in the recording,mixing, process is more loved, sells better, and will continue to do so for years to come?
Why will “Louie,Louie” live forever, but “Candy Shop” by 50 Cent (the number one single on the charts) most certainly will not. Or most popular music recrded in the last 10 years. Altho I’ve heard some bands lately that rock my world.
It’s the idea, and a perfect execution, in my mind, comes way second. And endless talk about things like memory speed can indeed be important, but they are becoming everything. And they seem to be pushing what we DO out of our minds and our discussions.
With all humility if I sound preachy,
David Vesey
“AMD just announced their mobile 64bit CPU. Apple and IBM need to address this issue ASAP.”
Apple doesn’t want the user to have to carry around a suit case to keep the processor cool.