Yesterday, “IBM announced two new lines of its PowerPC 970 processor, better known as the G5, and they’re impressive beasts,” Andrew Orlowski writes for The Register.
Orlowski writes, “A new, low-power 970FX consumes between 13W and 16W at frequencies of 1.2GHz, 1.4GHz and 1.6GHz. That’s more than the 10W that the Freescale MPC7448 found in today’s 1.5Ghz PowerBooks consumes, but around half the maximum power consumption of Intel’s Pentium M, which powers today’s Centrino laptops. IBM is also unveiled the dual-core 970MP codenamed ‘Antares’, at clock frequencies of 1.4GHz to 2.5GHz. Each core has 1MB of L cache, and one core can be turned off to save power.”
Orlowski speculates that these new processors will be the last PowerPC-based Macs that Apple will produce before switching to Intel-based processors.
Full article here.
Related MacDailyNews articles:
IBM introduces dual-core PowerPC G5 chips up to 2.5GHz, could be used in Apple Power Mac G5 – July 07, 2005
Intel-based Macs running both Mac OS X and Windows will be good for Apple – June 10, 2005
pbg5?
Interesting that how these 3 processors seem to compare on power consumption. I didn’t know how much the current G4s used.
But certainly it seems odd that the Pentium Ms appear to consume around 28W, although the article does say maximum, so maybe in practice it’s only about 20W. Even so, strange that it’s higher than these G5 chips.
I’m guessing that the next iMac revision will see these low power FX chips, and maybe the next eMac as well. The really interesting one will be the PowerMacs. For a start, in terms of clock speed this MP tops out before the current FX chips. So will Apple actually use them? It will seem a little odd from the customer’s point of view that the ‘new’ PowerMacs have a lower clock speed than the ‘old’ ones. The only way to resolve this is put 2 of this chips in and stress this point – 4 processors effectively? I wonder how well OS X deals with more than 2 processors?…
Who gives a fat rats ass. It over … Apple is going with Intel. Move on.
IBM … who is that?
“Who gives a fat rats ass. It over … Apple is going with Intel. Move on.”
Its amazing to see how much rage people have by reading these boards. If you get so worked up over something as simple as a processor launch, then perhaps you need a realigning of priorities.
It sounds like a good product to me. Might be in the PowerMac I buy next year. Why? Because I’m not afraid of this transition that’s apparently got everyone and their grandmother so freaked out.
I have this funny feeling (no no, not the itch, that’s been taken care of) that Apple may keep IBM around for the Xserve. The DC chip makes it attractive in the Xserve environment where low power consumption (less heat outout?) is welcome.
Much has been made of the new low-power G5’s. Here’s what Steve Jobs has to say:
“[W]hen we look at the future road maps projected out in mid-2006 and beyond, what we see is the PowerPC gives us sort of 15 units of performance per watt, but the Intel road map in the future gives us 70, and so this tells us what we have to do.”
So that’s 15 “units of performance” times 16W, which gives 240 “units of performance.” For the Pentium M, we have 70 “units of performance” times 28W, which gives us 1960 “units of performance.” According to SJ, a comparable Pentium M processor will be approximately 8.2 times more powerful than the new G5.
THAT’S why they switched to Intel.
Sure…IBM will continue to develop and produce PowerPC
chips as long as there’s a market for them. I kid you not.
Now that Apple’s not breathing down thier neck, they may
have something for us at some point down the road.
Without becoming too obvious…I think the play was called
and technowizards scored. Apple, IBM, Intel…and the beat goes on.
“How about a piece of some Cool J candy?”
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CT =======]————- The Color Purple (Green)
Just for the record, power consumption does not equal heat output — there’s a function of efficiency in between. And it seems that the whole G5 line has been affected by efficiency problems right along, which is why it needed liquid cooling in the first place.
A clocked-down G5 would run slower and consume less power, but it still ran too hot for use in the small PB form factor. There’s been no indication (that I’m aware of?) that these new low-power models are any more efficient, and nobody who knows anything has said that they’d be able to operate in Powerbooks.
My guess: This is IBM’s revenge on Apple. They come out with a product that SOUNDS like it should be the PBG5. Apple doesn’t use it, ‘cuz it’s actually not useful, and the consumers end up blaming Apple.
“So that’s 15 “units of performance” times 16W, which gives 240 “units of performance.” For the Pentium M, we have 70 “units of performance” times 28W, which gives us 1960 “units of performance.” According to SJ, a comparable Pentium M processor will be approximately 8.2 times more powerful than the new G5.
THAT’S why they switched to Intel.”
Actually, this is probably backwards. It is more likely that you will see the next generation of Pentiums with similar “units of performance” with much lower power consumption.
I don’t think I’m alone in my hardware requirements. I really don’t need more speed than my 1Ghz Powerbook currently has, but I’d certainly like a few more hours of battery life.
Remember, the laptop market is now driving the industry.
A 1.6Ghz laptop chip!
I’m so impressed, i’m about to run out to Moscone center and change my mind. quick. get the press.
…please. Power to performance of Freescale chips is meaningless – you get two hours of laptop and a few people will use 64-bit apps? What does that get you?
A switch to Intel.
take two. (sorry, i haven’t had my tofu/guacamole smoothie this morning)
I’m so impressed, i’m about to run out to Moscone center and change my mind. quick. get the press.
…please. The power compared to performance of Freescale chips is meaningless. While its a G5 in a laptop, you’ve gotten a G5 machine, but its a laptop in name only. When i stood up there with a G5? and a powerbook on that screen, i meant a serious quality, power manageing G5, not a slowed down G5.
It would break the whole point of the laptop – which is totally wireless function – to get the 4 of our customers that want to to DNA research on the road their laptops? What does that get you?
a switch to intel.
critic-
How much lower in power consumption can you go? If the newest Pentium M processors went all the way down to 8W (which would be a 71% reduction in power — ummm, not likely), according to SJ the Pentium M would still outperform the G5 by more than 200%. Half the power, twice the performance.
Again, THAT’S why they switched to Intel
PS – To give you an idea of how much a 71% reduction in power consumption is, it would be the same as a Honda releasing a new Civic, which currently gets about 34 MPG, that achieves 117 MPG. Yeah. That’ll happen.
The 7448 is in 1.5GHz Powerbooks? Gee, I thought it was the 7447a. The 7448 “may” be coming later this year using a 90nm process. Ok enough nitpicking.
Apple isn’t necessarily switching. They are using the best of both worlds. I hope there is enough competition that Apple can take advantage of both platforms at the same time and people can choose which one to use based on need. I also hope that “universal” binaries are the new “Fat Binary” and will be used by everyone. Apple would do well to share their technology with other compiler makers.
PC Apologist: There is no such thing as power efficiency when it comes to chips. Every watt of power that goes into the thing comes out as heat, as the chips do not convert the electrical energy taken in into any other form. Why the G5 needed liquid cooling was the fact that the chip die is smaller than previous chips but consumed roughly the same power. Concentrating all that power into an ever-smaller area means that temperatures go through the roof. So they needed a method more efficient than air to get that heat out, and quickly.
If Apple puts this into a PowerMac I’m buying, especially if it is a dual/dual. That will keep me happy for many, many years into the future.
MDN word “paid” – as in “I’ve paid my dues, gimme a dual/dual G5.”
Frank:
“Apple may keep IBM around for the Xserve”
From Tom’s Hardware Guide:
“Intel today said that a 4-way server system based on the upcoming Montecito dual-core processor outran a 4-way RISC-based system by about 60 percent in a benchmark test.”
Now, this is Intel’s Itanium line, definitely for high end servers, but it’s up against RISC chips (like IBM’s POWER5), which are also super-high end. Wonder what Intel’s got up their sleeves for XServes.
Quad-core(!) Xeons? Maybe. They’ll be out by 2007, in time to be included in the “switch.”
Itanium 2? Sounds unlikely due to price, but “The entry level Itanium 2 with 1.30 GHz and 3 MB L3 is listed at $530.”
Who knows what Apple has planned. They may stay with PowerPC processors, or they may not. It’ll be fun to find out.
“the other Steve Jobs – to get the 4 of our customers that want to to DNA research on the road their laptops? What does that get you?”
You are missing a large group of apple customers: Video editors.
An industry that was once planted infrot of mega-priced desktop machines with Avid software, etc. was freed by the FinalCutPro and PowerBooks. They are now happy to have some flexibility. They would certainly like more. More power, more storage, more speed, more battery life, more RAM. 64bit machines allow for some of that (RAM, power, speed).
PowerBook G5? Hah. Here’s what ArsTechnica said in 2002 about the G5 (note the power consumption numbers):
“And if you consider the fact that the 970’s power consumption at 1.2GHz is a mere 19W, it’s almost certain that we’ll see a future notebook from Apple based on the new chip.”
Let me get this right. 19W is “the mother of all thermal challenges”, but now 16W – 18W is somehow doable? Get over it people. PowerBook G5 isn’t gonna happen.
PS – Hey Wingsy, try reading this. You might learn something.
“intel today said” – gee, there’s a good standard to judge results of Intel processors by.
“[W]hen we look at the future road maps projected out in mid-2006 and beyond” – hmm, says “mid-2006”, not “mid-2005”, so calculations based on currently-shipping chip performance is not applicable.
Any further quotes or statistics we wish to mis-quote and twist to serve whatever invalid point we wish to make? Heavens, this entire thread is completely corroborates “a little information is a dangerous thing”.
And certainly a dual processor dual-core G5 is entirely better architected than anything Intel has out today (read Tom’s / anandtech’s and other articles for info) since AMD is evidently not an option. Until Intel has something better, a dual 970MP G5 machine would wipe the floor with anything else out there for the next year.
At THAT point, please feel free to have an opinion about the IBM / Intel switch.
ajaxbruno: I am a video editor for a living as well, tho not a traditional one – i do it for engineering (video of scientific experiments, to determine timing and such), not “the arts” per se.
FCP, Motion, and Compressor are all 32-bit applications – while i could see some benefit with 64-bit background processing for Compressor, i don’t see a lot of benefit for a 64-Bit FCP. What FCP needs is disks – lots of em, and fast. You can do some basic editing in a laptop, but the biggest performance enhancer for video editing would be a 7200 RPM disk in that Powerbook – a faster processor would be nice, but an additional 100Mhz – for a lot less battery life? I say, its not worth it.
i’ve got on my desk here a iMac G5 2Ghz, Its about 30% faster than the G4 1.5 PowerBook i have in another lab.
If you read the article, they are not talking about low-power 2.7Ghz chips. They are talking about 1.6 Ghz chips. That’s a whole 100 mhz of additional speed. – with about half the battery life.
That’s about the worst tradeoff i’ve ever heard of.
What you’ll see with the Intel-based systems next year is – DUAL CORE portable chips. FCP will FLY on those chips – even if they are 32-bit. That will be nearly the equivalent video editing machine as my current dual 2.0 Ghz G5 i use at home…. in a LAPTOP! Holy shnickes!
Honestly, i’m probably going to get a DP DC G5 if they come out – i can use the power.
I wish my alter ego would use Intel for powerbooks, and provide G5’s for the desktops.
This is all moot, however, if Intel delivers on its next-gen dual core Xenons…
Power’s architecture is better – but Intel’s producability is better. In the end – Hannibal was right, Apple had the performance lead.. for like 6 months when the G5 came out…
we’re behind again, and will continue to be behind until we start getting Intel (and AMD) chips.
btw: when do you think that these chips are going to be available…?
in quantity…?
so that I don’t have to mke another embarassing announcement of “And we’ll begin shipping this in August”, with everyone laughing under their breath knowing that that probably means “October, for the first batch”?
this announcement is meaningless. They may not be deliverable in quantity until December, for all we know – but if you use history as a guide – and i do – i say that December may be optimistic.
Heat times space equals processing power.
In a cool environment…speed and power go hand in hand. You can
have both and that’s what Apples targeting.
When the environment is small…keeping cool is closer to craziness.
When it’s big…you have the luxury of that extra space to stay cool.
Cat skins.
Boats float because they don’t accept too much water.
Maybe Apple needed to get some pumping assistance lined up to
accomodate the niche PowerBook market they need to address.
PowerBook users don’t want to be kicked in the head with “No’s”.
In the meantime…Apple keeps thier SERIOUS PowerMac users and
everyday people, who aren’t feeling neglected, happy with thier
current offerings and the mobile crowd will only grow, until thier
processors get a speed/performance bump.
So hard to buy hardware that will slow you down. Too boring using
a slow machine…way too hard watching the chip get knocked off of
your shoulder and having to respond. The PowerBook is hibernating,
not to worry. This could just be “sleep mode”.
<•>|<•>
CT =======]————– Plucking chickens…from the inside out!
whoze the sucker to buy the last ibm powered apple computer???
Know who your friends are.
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”confused” style=”border:0;” />
CT =====]———— What’s pleasure?
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”excaim” style=”border:0;” />
I can’t keep up with these beans any more.
CT
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”mad” style=”border:0;” />
Nothin’ but sweet talk.
CT
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”mad” style=”border:0;” />
Consumer satisfaction.
CT
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”mad” style=”border:0;” />
Complacency
CT
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”cool hmm” style=”border:0;” />
We got a GREAT ride!
CT
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”wink” style=”border:0;” />
The Speed Brokers know.
CT
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”sick” style=”border:0;” /> 9
The new dual core 2.5 GHz processors have double the L2 cache for each core than the 2.7 GHz 970FX chips do. When this is combined with the other minor efficiency improvements of going to dual core the 2.5 GHz dual cores will be about as fast as a system with two 2.7 GHz processors.
Will it be practical to create a machine with two dual core processors (four cores total)? Maybe. Yet it is not as trivial an issue as many believe. The 2.5 GHz dual core chips are certainly as hot as the single core 2.7 GHz chips and may be hotter. (I’ve yet to see any numbers on this.)
With regard to the low power 1.6 GHz G5 showing up in a laptop… The 1.6 GHz G5 could be faster than the 1.67 GHz G4 currently shipping in Powerbooks. If so, this would be due to the fact that the G5 has a much faster front side bus.
However…
Many of Apple’s current laptops have less than 50% of the power requirement (and heat) due to the CPU itself. So a moderate change in power requirements (and heat) due the the change to a G5 processor would probably not be an issue. Yet the same thing that would make a 1.6 GHz G5 as fast as, or faster than, a 1.67 GHz G4 is what may break the bank on power and heat. The front side bus is faster on the G5. This means faster glue chips (those that interface betweent the CPU and the rest of the system), faster memory, etc., etc. All these faster components lead to more power required and more heat to be disipated.
All those little things do add up. It’s not just the CPU.
Will we see a Dual Processor, Dual Core (i.e., four total cores) Power Macs in the near future? I hope so, I’d probably buy one, but I won’t count on seeing them soon.
Will we see a 1.6 GHz G5 Powerbook in the near future? I’m not betting on it. But if they do ship one *and* they have faster graphics processors than the current ones have then I’ll buy one in a heart beat.
Apple is passing up a GOLDEN opportunity. Let me ask the question:
“Why switch processors when you can use both?”
Why would Anybody that has the choice to use two chips only use one? I mean if you could choose to use the best processor for the job or just the best processor that a single supplier why wouldn’t you have more choice? Being able to use more than one processor is a trick that no other computer maker can do. OK Sun. But think about this if you want a tablet Pentium M, if you want a multi processor server with massive bandwidth use PowerPC.
Apple has for too long hitched its future to the progress of a single chip design. If they develop systems for two chips (three if you include AMD) Apple could guarantee to have the fastest workstation / server on the market. But now they are going to just take whatever Intel gives them. Yes it’s more engineering but apple has always been about having the best not having the lowest common denominator.
One last point. Intel has an even more abysmal track record at meeting performance benchmarks than any other chip company save Motorola. The problem has always been having only one source. If Steve Jobs really thinks that Intel is going to be orders of magnitude better than IBM in performance/watt years from today he has slipped into his own reality distortion field. We all know that years from now is never ever how it appears today.
HEDGING YOUR BETS IS THE WAY TO GO!!!
It will be interesting to see what happens if IBM actually pulls its finger out and starts producing the CPUs that Apple has been clammering and screaming for.
I understand that certain sections of IBM were none too pleased that the chip manufacturing side of things cut Apple adrift. Not all of IBM is so short-sighted it would appear.
the only thing stopping me from adopting a two-chip future is a another keynote speech.
i’m in the catbird’s seat. totally.
Wingsy wrote:
“There is no such thing as power efficiency when it comes to chips. Every watt of power that goes into the thing comes out as heat”
It seems to me all that lost heat is tremendous lost potential. Are there any ways Apple could recover the heat energy as electrical energy? Extended battery life beats a nuked lap any day.
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Ralph:
The “Script Kiddies”, as they are often called, are taking advantage of the Windows operating system. Windows just happens to be running on Intel (or AMD).
As I understand it (and while I’ve been writing software since the 60s, I’m no expert on computer security) the issue has virtually nothing to do with the Intel chip. The issue is how Windows is coded. The issue is software access points that seemed intelligent back in the early 90s when Win95 was developed that are just security holes now and/or just dumb design and coding mistakes.
Windows running on a PowerPC chip, or an Alpha chip, or anything else would be almost as vulnerable. It would be almost as easy to write a virus for Windows on Itanium as it is to write one for Windows on Intel/AMD. Would there be as many viruses, trojans, etc. as there are for the Wintel (Windows + Intel — and I include the Windows + AMD in the same group because the use virtually identical instruction sets and execution schemes) platform? No. Reality is there are so many viruses for the Windows platform because it is so prevalent.
This absolutely does NOT mean that the only reason there are viruses for the Wintel platform is because it is so prevalent. However, Windows on a different chip (say the PowerPC chip if Microsoft still supported it as it once did, or Windows on Alpha chip if Microsoft still supported it as it once did) would maybe have 5,000 viruses instead of the almost 100,000 on the Wintel platform.
How many does Macintosh OS X have on PowerPC? Not 5,000. Not even 5. Not even 1. It has zero. Mac OS X does not have zero viruses because it is on PowerPC. It has zero viruses because it was designed and implemented intelligently.
If Apple transitions to the Intel CPU intelligently (and there’s every reason to believe they will) then there will be zero viruses for Macintosh OS X on Intel for quite a while to come.
re. Wingsy: “There is no such thing as power efficiency when it comes to chips. Every watt of power that goes into the thing comes out as heat, as the chips do not convert the electrical energy taken in into any other form.”
– this is why Apple needed to “think different” … a Powerbook that doubles as an oven or an iBook toaster/coffee-maker … Now that would get me to upgrade.
Now we are looking at cooler Intel chips I’ll have to wait a while.
re. zamboni: “It seems to me all that lost heat is tremendous lost potential. Are there any ways Apple could recover the heat energy as electrical energy? Extended battery life beats a nuked lap any day.”
– I see auxilliary steam power laptops coming in the very near future …
The Powerbook Iron – you know it makes sense.
Clarify how “HEDGING YOUR BETS IS THE WAY TO GO!!!” is “Apple is passing up a GOLDEN opportunity.”
Apple is hedging it bets, so why are they passing up a golden opportunity?
I want a honda that gets 117mpg
zupchuck:
I truly believe that any advantage that Intel has currently or in the near futrue will be short lived. I believe that each chip will always have over time some sort of competitive advantage over another. It may be power consumption, or bandwidth, or integer processing, or floating point processing, or Single instruction multiple data processing. The point is that if Intel has an advantage today in a particular performance criteria it will likely be shortlived and surpassed in another category.
Apple could take advantage of the competitive advantage of a particular chip and build a device that takes advantage of that. That is if they build a tablet today they would certainly use a Pentium M, where if they were building a server where bandwidth was a big deal a PowerPC chip would be the choice. Software would run on either with the fat binaries so you wouldn’t have to worry about that. The point is “MICROSOFT DOESN’T RUN ON 2 CHIP ARCHITECTURES!!!” This is a competitive advantage for Apple. Apple could always have the best machine for the task.
By totally switching to Intel, or staying with PowerPC for that matter, Apple cuts itself out of any future advancements in the opposing chip architecture. Apple has had one chip supplier forever and it has almost killed it. What if in two years the road map isn’t going as planned? I know chip manufacurers always meet their goals, but what if Intel doesn’t? What if IBM has 3 to 4 times the perfomance per watt that Intel has? Shouldn’t Apple take advantage of that? What if IBM starts using carbon nanotubes to fabricate chips and pushes its chip speeds out of reach of Intel, shouldn’t Apple take advantage of that? Using both chips would hedge apples bets. There is no logical reason that AMD should be outpacing Intel in performance but it is. IBM has as many smart people and as much access to capital as either AMD or INTEL. If Apple continues to use both architectures Apple could always be on top.