Altivec confirmed for Power4-Lite

[DannyZR2]

Register has an article verifying the 160+ instructions are Altivec compatible. Very good news.. I didn't see this talked about in the other threads.. and it's getting old reading people talk about the new 970 processor vs other chips... and what not.. so i started a new thread so all could see.

http://www.theregus.com/content/3/26650.html

"IBM's Peter Sandon disclosed technical details for IBM's PowerPC 970 processor in San Jose this morning and confirmed that the processor supports the AltiVec instruction set. "

Register writer Andrew Orlowski notes

"The 970 smokes today's desktop competition in terms of raw number crunching."

-- not sure if he's speaking of apple's current desktops or pc desktops in general. I would assume the latter.

 

[springscansing]

Hurray! I am sitting here drooling at my computer constantly waiting for more Power4esque news!

Well... no... not really... but I totally check in at least once a day, haha.

 

[gaomay]

Surely

Apple must be using this chip - please let it be so...........

 

[pretentious]

Tom Halfhill of MDR, which is hosting the conference, said the 970 would still be slower than x86, but that performance should be better than clock speeds imply

It will be slower??? WTH is he implying, that it is the clock speed? I wouldn't think that someone hosting MDR would be so blatant and construed like that. Unless he knows that it is slower than x86.

 

[pretentious]

Slower in actual speed I mean.

 

[j763]

Re: Surely

Originally posted by gaomay
Apple must be using this chip - please let it be so...........

apple will definetly use this chip. No questions about it. Apple's definetly IBM's target and they wouldn't have put this much time & effort into it if apple hadn't approached them (which apple have). i hope it comes out early (unlikely).

 

[Bear]

Originally posted by pretentious
Slower in actual speed I mean.

Do you mean slower in clock speed? or slower in processing speed?

I suspect you mean slower in clock speed and faster at processing speed which would get more work done in a give unit of time.

 

[drastik]

Its got to mean slwer in clock speed. A slower clock pushing at eight times a cycle is going to kill anything at 2 times a cycle.

w00t! I'm amped up now. I wonder what kind of memory ther'll drop in these things. 6.4G throughput, smokin!

 

[Macpoops]

I think it is obvious that "it will be slower then x86" means that it will be slower in clock speed. How long has it been that a PPC chip out clocked a x86 chip in clock speed. When has a PPC ever been slower in actual work done per cycle? Look at it this way the PPC is like a V-8 engine and the x86 is like a 4 cylinder engine. Sure they both can go 60 mph but think about how much faster the 4 has to rev to get it going that speed? No matter what kind of performance upgrades you can add to that 4 cylinder it is still not going to be as efficent as a similarly equipped V-8. Think of it as Fast and the Furious vs. 70 muscle cars if you want to

 

[Over Achiever]

Originally posted by Macpoops
I think it is obvious that "it will be slower then x86" means that it will be slower in clock speed. How long has it been that a PPC chip out clocked a x86 chip in clock speed. When has a PPC ever been slower in actual work done per cycle? Look at it this way the PPC is like a V-8 engine and the x86 is like a 4 cylinder engine. Sure they both can go 60 mph but think about how much faster the 4 has to rev to get it going that speed? No matter what kind of performance upgrades you can add to that 4 cylinder it is still not going to be as efficent as a similarly equipped V-8. Think of it as Fast and the Furious vs. 70 muscle cars if you want to

eek! Another car analogy! Wheres KC!

Anyway, thats a good way to put it...but the easiest way is that the processor is more efficient. The Pentium chips work twice as hard, but get the same amount of work done as the efficient Power4 Lite chips.

Ok..that was also a stupid analogy...

 

[Bradcoe]

WHAT?!

Get that fast and the furious crap out of here. That portrayed it's "subjects" worse than I could have ever imagined. Except for the blue 4th gen Maxima's burnout, everything in that movie was horrible.

Your example of 'those' cars (referring to 4 bangers) versus muscle cars is horrible. Muscle cars suck against todays cars. Straight 1/4 mile is the only place they have a CHANCE. Aftermarket mods and current technology allow cars with engines that have fractional amounts of a muscle cars displacement to eat them alive. But all thats off subject. Sorry

 

[kperry8]

Yay! ... But....

How much will this chip cost, I wonder? How large is it? Will we see these in any consumer products or laptops, or will the iBook still be stuck with a G3?

It's exciting, but not that exciting if these things are answered negativly...

 

[Catfish_Man]

I'm afraid...

...that he really means slower than x86, not lower clocking. The SPEC numbers for the PPC970 are higher than any current x86 chip, but lower than the numbers for a 2GHz Hammer which is what it'll be competing against. The performance difference isn't as big as the current one, but we'll still need duals to be faster than x86 (this *may* change when it goes to .09 micron).

 

[kenkooler]

Originally posted by Macpoops
I think it is obvious that "it will be slower then x86" means that it will be slower in clock speed. How long has it been that a PPC chip out clocked a x86 chip in clock speed. When has a PPC ever been slower in actual work done per cycle? Look at it this way the PPC is like a V-8 engine and the x86 is like a 4 cylinder engine. Sure they both can go 60 mph but think about how much faster the 4 has to rev to get it going that speed? No matter what kind of performance upgrades you can add to that 4 cylinder it is still not going to be as efficent as a similarly equipped V-8. Think of it as Fast and the Furious vs. 70 muscle cars if you want to

Nice... does that mean we're going to have a W-16 with this new chip?

 

[Chaszmyr]

This chip will follow the general rule of high end chips. If it is used properly it will smoke any "normal" chip, but it won't all the time. One thing to note is that the Power4 970 has a data throughput like three times faster than the fastest RDRAM on the market, and Apple couldnt even use that RDRAM if they wanted. What are they going to do in terms of memory?

 

[DannyZR2]

good question.. that's what I was wondering.. if we can get 6.4GB or Gb.. not sure which.. of throughput.. exactly how is that done?

If the processor can do 8 operations per second that's great, but how is going to *get* all of those instructions? ARsTechnica said something about northbridge.. is that already part of the 970? or is it something we are hoping apple will go with?

I'm just confused as to how we figure the 6.4gb/s.. because the processor has to fetch all this from memory and memory has to be fast enough to get it back to the core... someone please explain...