Apple, PPC 980, and Upcoming G5s

[macshark]

Originally posted by Frobozz
I agree that your skepticism is warranted, but I don't agree with your logic. I've taken this particular rumor with a grain of salt, but here are some hard facts that I think this rumor may be based on (or fabricated from?):

1) The only way Apple is getting a 3 GHz chip from IBM, in June, is by moving to the 90nm process. This is clearly stated in IBM's documents that the 970 will not go faster than a top end of 2.5 to 2.8 GHz, and to do that it will need a 90nm process.

Similar IBM documents have indicated the maximum clock speed for the 130nm PPC970 to be 1.8GHz. It would not be a big deal for Apple to come up with a 10% surprise on the clock speed of 90nm 970

2) A 3 GHz processor, according to similar documents, is only slated as a 980.

3) Apple has stated the G5 will reach 3GHz in one year. We assume this to mean June, the annoucement date, and not Sept., the ship date.

I am sure Steve will agree that showing a 3GHz demo in June 2004 will qualify as "reaching 3GHz in one year" even if it takes until August or September for the systems to be shipped to customers.

4) We know Apple will not rebrand the 980 as a "G6" for various reasons. Notwithstanging is the 980 is commonly referred to as the big brother of the 970. Also, it wouldn't make sense to rebrand the processor jump since it will essentially scale linearly and only be released one year (980) after the first (970).

5) Many sources have stated, including IBM it's self, that the 980 is being produced in parallel with the Power5, and that both are in alpha stage now. Shipment expected in Q2 of next year (June is the last month of Q2).

Architectural work, which involves a much smaller number of architects and engineers may be going in parallel, but the actual design is very resource intensive, it is more likely that IBM will pipeline these projects over a few large teams instead of setting up a dedicated team for each. Even assuming that Apple can eventually sell a million G5 chips per year, this still does not generate enough income for IBM to be able to fund 3 or 4 complete and parallel CPU design projects.

I put all these indicators together and it reads one thing to me. Granted, I could be wrong, but here it is:


The 3GHz G5 in June of 2004 will be a 980 PPC on a 90nm process.

Not impossible, but highly unlikely. The more likely scenario, as I stated earlier, is 2.4GHz (and potentially 2.7GHz) 90nm PPC970 in January 2004, followed by a 3GHz 90nm PPC970 (potentially with 1MB of L2 cache instead of 512KB) in June 2004.

If we are lucky, we will see a 3GHz+ PPC980 in January 2005, which will still make this the best 18 months of processor upgrades in the history of Apple.

No, I won't lose sleep if this doesn't happen... but based on the above facts and a little conjecture from public statements by Jobs and IBM at conferences, it looks like it will be true.

The bottom line is that Apple is kicking ass and taking names... and I am happy either way.

Same here...

 

[macshark]

Originally posted by Frobozz
The speed ceiling of the 980 is stated at 4 to 4.5 GHz. Initial yields will be from 2.5 to 3.2 Ghz by most accounts. So, yes, given IBM's stellar capabilities thus far it's easy to believe 3 GHz chips are available now. Again, they're ALPHA's. This means they're the first off the line that work relatively reliable. Bugs exist.

The specualted clock target for 980 is 4 to 4.5GHz, but in 65nm, not 90nm. It is likely that the first (90nm) version of the 980 will run somewhere around 3GHz and an upgrade to 65nm will bring the speed over 4GHz.

90nm manufacturing is giving nightmares to all silicon vendors that are running fabs. Intel is deep trouble, and TSMC is having major problems with their 90nm process. IBM and UMC seem to be doing better, but I can't believe that 90nm manufacturing is a "smooth operation" for IBM at this point.

 

[ddtlm]

Sheesh, your all so optimistic.

 

[pgwalsh]

Originally posted by x86isslow
i think if you re-read the article, it says that the next revision of the G5 is different from the 980, so i doubt speeds up to dual 2.8 by feb.

I agree. I am thinking 2.5 Ghz... That seems fairly reasonable. 500Mhz speed bump.. I'm wondering if they found an architecture issues and will be revising the motherboards?

It would be great if there was room for 5 serial ATA drives for RAID. Redundancy and Speed.

 

[pgwalsh]

Originally posted by Phil Of Mac
If this is true, I'm going to kiss Steve Jobs, and then I'm going to kiss the people at IBM, and then I'm going to give the people at Motorola a roundhouse kick to the groin.

And then people will either be visiting you at the nutt house or in jail..

 

[Genie]

What do you think we'll be at in January?

 

[pgwalsh]

Originally posted by Genie
What do you think we'll be at in January?

I think the next release of G5's will be at 2.5 for top end. 2.2 for middle and 1.8 for bottom.. Hopefully all dual processors.

 

[Genie]

Originally posted by pgwalsh
I think the next release of G5's will be at 2.5 for top end. 2.2 for middle and 1.8 for bottom.. Hopefully all dual processors.

You think this will be ship in February?

 

[wizard]

While I have no idea at all if the original poster got some information mixed up I do know a few things. First is that Apple and IBM have been using parallel development techniques. Second the 980 if it is being sampled to Apple would almost have to be in the 3GHz range with the expectation that production versions will be even faster. There would otherwise be no reason to intorduce the new chip. I would expect a true Power % derivative chip to arrive sometime after the middle of next year.

What I think the orignal article is alluding to is a 90nm 970 derivative. This would be achip with minor improvements, most likely in the area of cache. It is interesting that some of the material in the article that is claiming new features already exist in the 970 such as the differrent bus multipliers. A 90 nm 970 running with a slower bus would make one hell of a laptop processor. This would be the ultimate slap in intels face - see what we can do with 64 bits in a laptop!

I do have the suspicion that come the new year we will be dazzeled by Apple in a number of ways with a number of new products. We are talking here XServes, IMacs, upgraded G5's, 970 based PowerBooks and a whole bunch of other things that are possilbe.

Dave

Originally posted by macshark
The first parapgraph of this rumor does not sound very plausable. It is nearly impossible for IBM to have 980 alpha units running at 3GHz right now. Normally, the first few spins of a new processor has many problems and parts do not run anywhere near the speed target.
snipped a bunch of stuff.<<<<<<<<<<<

 

[pgwalsh]

Originally posted by Genie
You think this will be ship in February?

I hope it'll ship in the middle of Jan... but right now I know squat. Thought I do know a vp at apple. He wont share anything with me... I've tried for a few years.. Nadda. Not even a hint..

 

[x86isslow]

with all the initial shipping delays, there was some talk that apple would ship DP 1.8 ghz G5s to take some ppl off of the waitlist for the DP2ghzG5.

If they didnt ship 1.8DP then do you really think they would do so in a few months?

i think that they would ship with the dual 2's as the base, then scale up with dp2.4(mid), dp2.6(high) or so.

mebbe then, the 1.6, and the 1.8 would drift on down to the consumer lines

 

[macshark]

Originally posted by Genie
What do you think we'll be at in January?

Here is my best guesses for what will be annoucned in Jan 2004:

PowerMac:
1. 2.4GHz G5 based on 90nm PPC970 with 800MHz bus (90% confidence)
2. 2.7GHz G5 based on 90nm PPC970 with 900MHz bus (60% confidence)
3. 3.0GHz G5 based on 90nm PPC970 with 1GHz bus (30% confidence)

XServe:
1. 2.0GHz G5 based on 90nm PPC970 with 1GHz bus (70% confidence)
2. 2.4GHz G5 based on 90nm PPC970 with 800MHz bus (60% confidence)

 

[pgwalsh]

Originally posted by x86isslow
with all the initial shipping delays, there was some talk that apple would ship DP 1.8 ghz G5s to take some ppl off of the waitlist for the DP2ghzG5.

If they didnt ship 1.8DP then do you really think they would do so in a few months?

i think that they would ship with the dual 2's as the base, then scale up with dp2.4(mid), dp2.6(high) or so.

mebbe then, the 1.6, and the 1.8 would drift on down to the consumer lines

That makes sense, but there's other logistical reasons for not shipping dual 1.8's. What a hassle...

People waited and I think they were up for waiting a little longer. I do think they should have dual processors on all the pro models. All consumer models should have single processors and I think the top consumer model should contain the same processor as the bottom of the proline.

 

[deputy_doofy]

Originally posted by macshark
Here is my best guesses for what will be annoucned in Jan 2004:

PowerMac:
1. 2.4GHz G5 based on 90nm PPC970 with 800MHz bus (90% confidence)
2. 2.7GHz G5 based on 90nm PPC970 with 900MHz bus (60% confidence)
3. 3.0GHz G5 based on 90nm PPC970 with 1GHz bus (30% confidence)

Why are the bus speeds so small in your prediction? I thought they were using 1/2 processor speeds for the FSB speeds, which would allude to a 1.2GHz bus for the 2.4 chip, a 1.35GHz bus for the 2.7 chip, and a 1.5GHz bus for the 3.0 chip.

Can someone confirm this?

 

[Phil Of Mac]

Originally posted by pgwalsh
I hope it'll ship in the middle of Jan... but right now I know squat. Thought I do know a vp at apple. He wont share anything with me... I've tried for a few years.. Nadda. Not even a hint..

That's why they made him VP!

Originally posted by deputy_doofy
Why are the bus speeds so small in your prediction? I thought they were using 1/2 processor speeds for the FSB speeds, which would allude to a 1.2GHz bus for the 2.4 chip, a 1.35GHz bus for the 2.7 chip, and a 1.5GHz bus for the 3.0 chip.

Can someone confirm this?

Indeed, but it's not quite easy to scale up bus speeds at the same rate of processor speeds. We must remember that originally, bus and processor were at a 1:1 ratio.

 

[x86isslow]

well the snippit from the source says that multipliers are available in 1x, 2x, 4x, etc, that they were using 2x so far, and would likely stick with it.

tho, it would still be possible to have an 8x or wutnot.

 

[pgwalsh]

Originally posted by Phil Of Mac
That's why they made him VP!
.

yeah.. sure..

He's VP of a division not of the entire company...

 

[Phil Of Mac]

Originally posted by pgwalsh
yeah.. sure..

He's VP of a division not of the entire company...

My point is, they tend to make trustworthy people VP's. Even if they're only VP's of divisions.

 

[pgwalsh]

Originally posted by Phil Of Mac
My point is, they tend to make trustworthy people VP's. Even if they're only VP's of divisions.

And my point was that is not why they made him vp... They made him vp because he good at what he does.. They trusted him enough to hire him..

 

[Phil Of Mac]

For God's sake. My point was just that Apple keeps their secrets close to the chest, so they don't put people into positions where they know company secrets unless they're trustworthy in the first place. If you want to split hairs, be my guest, but that's not what I'm here for.

 

[ffakr]

hehe, this is getting too funny

Does anyone realize that everyone has glossed over the fact that, by complete coincidence, IBM generated Integer scores that scale exactly with cpu speed and that scale faster in FP.. but also coincidentally in a whole number fraction increase.

Someone did have the insight to figure this out earlier, but everyone is so gung ho for 980 rumors that they completely ignore this.

This report is totally bogus. It's based on information that we all think we know so we want to believe, but what are the odds that a 50% increase in speed on a new chip would yield a 50% increase in interger performance and a 66% increase in FP? Who ever posted it is laughing their asses off.

Personally I think IBM has 980s in the lab but they are under wraps because: a) Apple wants them under wraps, and b) IBM hasn't even shipped 970 boxes yet. Heck, I wouldn't be at all surprised if Apple had engineering samples of 980s since Apple will likely design the controller (Apple designed the 970 controller after all).

That aside, we have every reason to believe that when IBM does spin off a Power5 knock off it will probably do better than scale with processor speed. The Power 5, after all, supports HT (supposedly much better than Intel's HT). A '980' will probably have a better implementation of Altivec... maybe even Altivec+ with support for DP Floats (that's a guess, but a reasonable one). IBM has said in the past that the Power5 may be 4x as powerful as the Power4+...
There are lots of reason to expect even more than a linear scale of computing power.

my 2 cents.
ffakr.

 

[stingerman]

Hey kids, isn't this exciting. Well anyway to shoot down some trolls here:

1. The 970 already does have 3 processor to processor interconnects. They are coherent interconnects to allow the 970's to form a 8-way SMP system. And, like the Opteron, the processor share each others L2 caches if they are available. So in this case the design of the Opteron and the G5's are similar.

2. I doubt the 980's will have on-board memory controllers. But if they do all the better, however it isn't that important for the G5's. Why? Because the flexible bus (bus slewing) more than makes up for the additional latency. The processor at 3GHz will have a 1.5GHz FSB with RAM still peaking between 800 and 1000 Mhz. If you build the memory controller on the processor than every time AMD wants to use the latest faster memory they have to redesign the processor portion to handle it and do a new run, instead of just changing the south bridge. So there are trade-offs to either approach, but the latency issue is not a factor now and will be less so as the FSB continues to increase. For AMD it is more of a one-up on Intel.

3. IBM Germany has achieved 2.8GHz on the 970 back in February 2003 in the labs.. Hello.

4. The current G5's though advertised at 2GHz, can actually peak at 2.2 GHz. Apple only needs to change a software configurable parameter. Anyone know Forth out there? Apple is still refining the bus slewing before they implement dynamic over-clocking as part of bus slewing.

5. The 980 was in development in parallel with the 970. IBM was completing work on the Power5 (980 core) at about the time they announced the 970; they announced their work on a 970 at 90nm at the same time. They invested 3 Billion dollars on the Fishkill plant for a business that is dominated by Intel for a reason. Expect a very fast roll-out cycle and a move to 90NM sooner then later. With wafers the size of a large pie of Pizza, IBM can get tremendous efficiencies to be price competitive with Intel and AMD.

6. IBM already fit a dual Opteron system into a 1U Server. It's a big deal. But let me tell you a secret: The G5 at 130nm generates less heat than the Opteron. So let your imagination on what areas Apple can put a 90nm G5, besides up the b*tt of these Wintel trolls. LOL.

 

[wizard]

Very nice summation stingerman.

I'm personally having trouble understanding why people don't think apple will push as hard as possible for a large performance increase someitme in early 2004. Frankly if they want to continue to claim top performance each time a G5 is updated they will need atleast 500MHz more with just the current 970 implementation. The possibility of a 970+ giving us a little extra is all the better.

Maybe the non believers will take another look at the world outside of Apple. AMD will certainly be outperforming the current G5's by January in the vast majority of the areas where it matters. Apple needs and wants to maintain the perception of being the leader in performance, pulling out the stops to get it isa given.

Thanks
Dave

Originally posted by stingerman
Hey kids, isn't this exciting. Well anyway to shoot down some trolls here:

1. The 970 already does have 3 processor to processor interconnects. They are coherent interconnects to allow the 970's to form a 8-way SMP system. And, like the Opteron, the processor share each others L2 caches if they are available. So in this case the design of the Opteron and the G5's are similar.

2. I doubt the 980's will have on-board memory controllers. But if they do all the better, however it isn't that important for the G5's. Why? Because the flexible bus (bus slewing) more than makes up for the additional latency. The processor at 3GHz will have a 1.5GHz FSB with RAM still peaking between 800 and 1000 Mhz. If you build the memory controller on the processor than every time AMD wants to use the latest faster memory they have to redesign the processor portion to handle it and do a new run, instead of just changing the south bridge. So there are trade-offs to either approach, but the latency issue is not a factor now and will be less so as the FSB continues to increase. For AMD it is more of a one-up on Intel.

3. IBM Germany has achieved 2.8GHz on the 970 back in February 2003 in the labs.. Hello.

4. The current G5's though advertised at 2GHz, can actually peak at 2.2 GHz. Apple only needs to change a software configurable parameter. Anyone know Forth out there? Apple is still refining the bus slewing before they implement dynamic over-clocking as part of bus slewing.

5. The 980 was in development in parallel with the 970. IBM was completing work on the Power5 (980 core) at about the time they announced the 970; they announced their work on a 970 at 90nm at the same time. They invested 3 Billion dollars on the Fishkill plant for a business that is dominated by Intel for a reason. Expect a very fast roll-out cycle and a move to 90NM sooner then later. With wafers the size of a large pie of Pizza, IBM can get tremendous efficiencies to be price competitive with Intel and AMD.

6. IBM already fit a dual Opteron system into a 1U Server. It's a big deal. But let me tell you a secret: The G5 at 130nm generates less heat than the Opteron. So let your imagination on what areas Apple can put a 90nm G5, besides up the b*tt of these Wintel trolls. LOL.

 

[legion]

To throw more fuel on the fire, but IBM is planning to announce a four-way 970 low-end server in December. Would IBM want Apple to announce 1 month later a product with faster chips?

On top of that, IBM"s semiconductor production division is losing money. Apple is still too small a customer and they really need higher quantity orders. IBM would rather increase quantity on their current production than scrapping current machinery (which leads to IBM developing more uses for the 970)

 

[Telomar]

Originally posted by legion
To throw more fuel on the fire, but IBM is planning to announce a four-way 970 low-end server in December. Would IBM want Apple to announce 1 month later a product with faster chips?

On top of that, IBM"s semiconductor production division is losing money. Apple is still too small a customer and they really need higher quantity orders. IBM would rather increase quantity on their current production than scrapping current machinery (which leads to IBM developing more uses for the 970)

Server speeds will quite frequently be below what you'd see in the desktop market.

Apple would be one of IBM's better revenue streams. IBM also produce a lot more products than the 970 but it is a high margin product that they can also use for their own needs. There are benefits for IBM to move the 970 to a 90 nm process since they already have the process running for some products.