Past Chip Performance & Information

Why PC World's 64-bit test was skewed, and why it wasn't - The 3 fastest computers were running 256MB Video Cards, while the G5 Mac was running a 128MB Card. Comparing ANYTHING involving the Video card would be like comparing a Corolla to a BMW

PC World: Apple G5 Gets Trounced By Athlon 64 - StewedSquirrel writes "PC World magazine has published an article comparing the AMD Athlon 64 and Opteron versus Apple's G5 processor, both 64-bit contenders for the title of 'fastest desktop processor.' Apple has made many claims to be the first, fastest and only 64-bit processor for the desktop and workstation market, but (not mentioning the fact that Opteron beat the G5 to market by over 4 months) the benchmarks should speak for themselves. Of note is the 3.2GHz Pentium 4, coming in competitive with the G5, but significantly behind the Opteron and Athlon 64 systems."

Microprocessor Forum: IBM talks Power5 - Like the Power4, the Power5 contains two processor cores on one chip. These cores share one 1.92 MB on-die L2 cache compared with a 1.44MB L2 on-die cache on the Power4. The Power4 and Power5 both have an off-chip L3 cache, but IBM designed the L3 cache to connect directly to the L2 cache instead of between the memory controller and the processor like on the Power4. Sinharoy said that this "backdoor" cache allows the Power5 to be more scalable with multiprocessor designs. The "backdoor" cache improves performance by reducing the L3 cache latency

John Sculley Clarifies Comments For TMO About Apple Using Intel - It turns out, according to Mr. Sculley, that we were taking his comments completely out of context. He wrote to us with the following note

Sun: New chip can double performance - Sun Microsystems will announce Monday that its upcoming UltraSparc IV processor will outperform its predecessor by a factor of 1.6 to 2, providing more competition to Intel, IBM, Advanced Micro Devices and others

Apple, Scully, And Intel vs. Motorola - fsharp writes "I've heard too many comments suggesting that Apple should have moved to Intel (x86). The Register has an article exploring John Scully's recent comments about his failure to move the Mac to x86

Intel, AMD and Apple test on-chip water cooling tech - Intel, AMD and IBM could soon been shipping water-cooled processors to boost clock frequencies without putting extra strain on notebook, desktop and server heat management systems, courtesy of a new technique developed by Stanford University spin-off company Cooligy

Motorola to shed chip business - Cellular phone maker plans IPO, says semiconductor industry cycle seems to be in an upswing - Motorola Inc. plans to separate its semiconductor operations to form a new, publicly traded company, the world's No. 2 cellular phone maker said Monday

Startup throws cold water on hot CPUs - The Cooligy system uses an electrokinetic pump to circulate water from the chip to the radiator. Water flows through a porous glass disk that is negatively charged. When a positive electric field is applied, hydrogen ions push water through the openings. It's a well-understood effect, and is commonly used as a filter in the biological sciences

Chip power battle hots up - ADVANCED Micro Devices' launch of its Athlon 64 chip for Windows PCs last week means the Apple Power Mac G5's days as the only 64-bit desktop PC on the market are numbered. The first Windows PCs to use the new AMD chip are due in the next few months

IBM boffins boost combo computing, wireless chips - IBM now has to perfect the process and start adding CMOS circuitry alongside the SiGe transistors. Then the work toward commercialising the technique can begin. The company reckons we'll see combined computing and communications chips using this technique within the next five years

IBM Creates New Transistor That Uses 80 Percent Less Power Than Current Technology - Demonstrates World's First Thin-Silicon SiGe Bipolar Transistor - This achievement builds on IBM's recent announcement of clever new design and manufacturing methods that improve the performance and lower the power consumption of pure computing chips. As the wireless industry grows, device manufacturers will need better mixed-signal chips that support both computing applications and high frequency communications applications. This new chip design uses a revolutionary wafer thin enough to maximize the performance of both the computing and communications components

Via Shows Smallest PC Processor - Tiny 1-GHz C3 chip and new motherboard will ship this year. - The Nano-ITX motherboard measures 4.7 inches by 4.7 inches, substantially smaller than the Mini-ITX motherboard form factor, the smallest PC motherboard form factor measuring 6.7 inches by 6.7 inches

Breaking the Speed Barrier: The Frontside Bus Bottleneck - AMD, Intel, Apple and Motorola seem headed down the right path -- at least in terms of frontside bus technology. After all, in a market hungry for speed, the disparity between processor and bus speed is certain, at least eventually, to foster major breakthroughs

Looking At Apple's Secrecy: Steve Jobs Reiterates Summer Target For 3 GHz G5 - It's so unusual for Steve Jobs to talk about what his company will be doing a year out, that we were quite surprised to see this story from Macworld UK. It will be interesting to see what happens to G5 sales in 7-8 months, as Mac users with long memories begin sitting tight on new orders

Jobs: 3GHz G5s 'by next summer' - Apple CEO Steve Jobs repeated his promise that Power Mac G5 speeds would reach 3GHz "by next summer" at Apple Expo today

IBM boffins boost chip performance by 65% - IBM scientists today claimed they have merged two key manufacturing techniques - strained silicon and silicon-on-insulator (SOI)- allowing them to create chips that deliver the performance improvements provided by the former without the implementation headaches the technology has so far caused

And I Thought the Salsa Was Hot! - A big physical difference between the PPC and the Pentium is the PPC's Reduced Instruction Set Computing (RISC) character. Relative to CISC (Complex Instruction Set Computers), like the original Pentium, RISC architecture — with fewer instructions baked into silicon — sacrifices complexity for increased speed: the lean and mean approach.

Gobi, Mojave, and the Future of the G3 - processor, more popularly referred to as the G3 , has been around for nearly six years now, and most of the PPC chip excitement today is focused on the IBM PPC 970, dubbed the G5 by Apple's marketeers. However, the old G3 750 has new life in it yet, and I'm provisionally expecting the next generation of Apple iBooks to remain G3 powered

IBM Releases Compiler for Power4 and G5 - davids-world.com writes "IBM offers its optimized XLC compiler not just for Intel CPUs, but also for its own G5 processor (article in German at Heise ). Unlike gcc, it is optimized for the G5 and achieves a major boost in speed, as first results show

AMD's Opteron party squashed by AMD - That bold claim set off a string of hollow predictions made by AMD execs about Opteron's impressive sales. As we've pointed out before , AMD insists on claiming that it's beating out Intel in a competition for the slowest selling server chip

IBM adds multithreading to Power 5 - The trick, however, will be to get corporate and third-party developers to redesign their software to take advantage of the chip's multithreading capability, as well as its new "thread-switching" capability, which can dynamically switch any chip over to single-thread mode

PowerPC G5 Performance Primer - The PowerPC G5 processor is at the heart of Apple's latest computer models. Beyond the obvious increase in clock frequency from the previous generation of G4 CPUs, a number of significant changes have been made to the core CPU and system architecture that can affect the way programs run on these systems. This document is a high-level summary of the more conspicuous features to keep in mind while (re)targeting your programs to run on the G5

IBM furthers multithreading revolution - "We're seeing in the order of 40 percent (in performance improvement) being pretty common" in lab tests, Joel Tendler, director of technology assessment in IBM's systems group, said on Tuesday at Hot Chips, a semiconductor design conference taking place this week at Stanford University

IBM Shows Some Ankle on Power5 - During the annual "Hot Chips" technology conference in Palo Alto, Calif., this week, IBM executives are unveiling new details about the Power5 processor, such as its Simultaneous Multi-threading (SMT) technology that enables two virtual processors for each semiconductor

All Eyes on IBM's Power5 - If it weren't obvious already, stop counting clock cycles and start looking at processor bus and SMT. Even Intel, with its Centrino, has had to concede that, although in its marketing it's stressed the chip's 'low-power' use, rather than its relatively low clock speed

More power to you - Apple's muscular 64-bit chip could help launch a new wave of software innovation - The G5 chip that gives the machine its name is, in fact, IBM Corp.'s PowerPC 970, developed with Apple over a year-and-a-half. Though the 64-bit G5 is part of the PowerPC family of processors at the heart of the Macs since 1994, it's a significant technological leap over its 32-bit predecessors, the G3 and G4. Simply put, a 64-bit chip can process data in chunks twice as large as a 32-bit chip. Though of little benefit to such common tasks as word processing, a 64-bit chip greatly accelerates activities that call for the manipulation of very large files, such as video editing

G5! The Apple Killing Chip? - It has been bantered about by some that the upcoming G5 could be one decidedly long-lived computer. Friends have opined that your grandchildren will be using the next G5 you buy, even an IBM executive said that the 64 bit G5 was probably overkill for desktops. Then you have any number of sites talking about how the G5 is really a workstation powered computer wrapped up in a pro level desktop. Others feel differently, they maintain that the processor and the up to 8 GB of accompanying memory will soon be taxed be programmers

The Next PC Chip Blowout - The most important thing about Prescott is that is uses the 90-nanometer process technology and 300mm wafers. The chip will perform better and run cooler with lower operating voltages. And 90 nanometer means Intel can squeeze more dies onto a single wafer

IBM's Power5+ to hit 3GHz - Another handy NDA document has fallen into our hands, laying out the roadmap for IBM's Power5 and Power5+ processors along with some Power6 details. IBM has already struck fear in the hearts of its competitors with the dual-core Power4 chip and looks set to apply more pressure on rivals with the future processors.
The Power5 processor will first appear in 2004 at the heart of the Squadron family of servers.

A conversation with Intel's Pat Gelsinger - Intel’s senior VP and chief technology officer Pat Gelsinger recently talked with Journal writer Steve Makris. Gelsinger joined Intel in 1979 and worked his way to his current position 10 years ago, making him the youngest VP in Intel’s history at age 32. He was a key contributor to Intel’s original i286 and i386 chip design teams and holds six industry patents and has more than 20 publications to his credit

Sex, Lies and G5 Chips - Blurring the facts, being economical with the truth - maybe. But outright lies? From Jobs and Co? Unlikely. The point is, if you make a claim like "fastest", there's so much data out there to disprove it (if it's untrue), then you lose your credibility quickly enough. Apple tests I've seen even had one of the Intel processors winning a test. That, at least, looks good.

Are Apple's 64-bit claims exaggerated? - After all, Apple and IBM, Intel, AMD, and even Sun Microsystems all claim to have the fastest microprocessors on the planet. If every semiconductor company that exaggerated claims were to be boycotted, nobody would buy any CPUs

Intel, AMD accused of cooking the books - According to Mr Carson, writing to the INQ today: "Every other 64 bit machine and processor on the market before the G5 were priced and marketed as workstations. This includes the Boxx machine and the AMD Opteron processor. Both are in fact priced and marketed as high end workstations, servers and processors, not desktop machines". He claims that Apple is the "first and so far only company" to market a 64-bit RISC machine as a desktop with prices to match

Senior chip analyst says Apple lying about PowerMac G5 - However, given this blast at Apple's hype, he does say that Powermacs are, once more, competitive with Windows PCs in performance. They also have advantages that will help Apple expand its market, he says

Are You Ready for a 64-Bit PC? - The next generation of desktop computers is coming, and here's why it matters - Let's put it this way: If you think today's computers are fast, wait until they make the leap from 32 bits to 64 bits. This isn't about more megahertz--it's about actually doubling the amount of data a CPU can process per clock cycle. Servers and high-end workstation have been reaping the technology's benefits for years

G5 chips in spotlight - "The important thing for us is we didn't want to create a separate OS that is 64 bits," Joswiak said: "What is essential is that this OS and this hardware will run 32-bit applications with no recompiling – it will just run them."

PowerPC 970 "Not Yet in Production" at IBM Plant - IBM's gleaming new fabrication facility in Fishkill, NY, is the product of $2.5 billion in new investment - but Apple's G5 chips aren't rolling off the assembly lines yet

Ars Interviews PPC 970 Design Team - xdfgf writes "Jon "Hannibal" Stokes at Ars Technica has posted an interview with Pete Sandon (Chief PPC 970 Architect), David Edelsoh (compiler and optimization engineer for the 970), and Rick Bause (IBM PR Manager). The article also ties up loose ends from Stokes last article he wrote about the 970. Very good read."

PowerPC 970 Redux: Dialogue and Addendum - If you follow some of the 970 threads in the Mac Ach, then you know that for quite some time I've had in the works a phone interview with some of the IBM folks behind the PowerPC 970. Last week I finally got the chance to sit down and chat with Peter Sandon and David Edelsohn, who're respectively the 970's chief architect and an IBM scientist who's working on compiler optimizations for the new processor.

IBM Servers to Pair Linux, New PowerPC Chips - In a quest for a bigger piece of the entry-level server market, IBM Corp. has drawn up a three-year plan for producing and marketing systems that pair Linux and IBM's own 64-bit PowerPC family of processors, sources report

Trouble for IBM could spell trouble for NVIDIA, Apple - A number of you have mailed in regarding this Reuter's report detailing some of the problems with IBM's new US $3 billion microprocessor plant. The company has said that its microchip business expected to lose money this year on account of "production problems."

Alpha was first to power 64-bit PC desktops - WHILE AMD AND Apple squabble over which is the first to make a desktop machine that uses a 64-bit CPU, let us not forget the DEC Alpha microprocessor. For that matter, there was a Windows NT for MIPS, as well...

Intel Replies to G5: 3.4GHz for Desktops, 1.8GHz for Portables - Leaked from Intel are details of its Prescott and Dothan chips. Prescott is expected to be a 3.4GHz desktop CPU, while Dothan will be an energy-saving portable chip, running at 1.8GHz, but with a "server-sized" piece of cache

LETTER: Apple benchmarks are fair comparison - Regarding Jared Strong's July 3 column "Ignorance is bliss for Apple computer users," I'd really like to know who is spreading more fallacies -- Apple Computer, or Mr. Strong himself? Once I read his statement about Microsoft "tossing a life preserver in the form of boatloads of cash," I knew he hadn't done his research

Analysis: x86 Vs PPC - This article started life when I was asked to write a comparison of x86 and PowerPC CPUs for work. We produce PowerPC based systems and are often asked why we use PowerPC CPUs instead of x86 so a comparison is rather useful. While I have had an interest in CPUs for quite some time but I have never explored this issue in any detail so writing the document proved an interesting exercise. I thought my conclusions would be of interest to OSNews readers so I've done more research and written this new, rather more detailed article. This article is concerned with the technical differences between the families not the market differences

Rumor: G5, G6 roadmaps fleshed out - MacRumors.com is running a report that details upcoming G5 and G6 releases, as well as a thumbnail sketch of the processor platform's future through 2011. As noted by Mac Rumors, this information mirrors that published earlier by MacBidouille , but includes many more details.
Here are the salient points:

G5 roadmap revealed - Apple's G5 chip family will reach 25GHz in less than ten years' time, according to an anonymous poster over at MacRumours.com. The same correspondent also posts what purports to be a roadmap for the G5.
The chip family's future goes something like this. IBM will follow the current G5, the PowerPC 970 with the 980, based on the Power 5. The 980, says the source, will be chip that delivers Steve Jobs' promise of a 3GHz Power Mac this time next year. The part will kick off at 2.6-3GHz and max out at 4.5-5GHz. By comparison, the 970 will peak at 2.8GHz

G5 Energizes 64-Bit Race - With the arrival two months from now of Apple Computer Inc.'s new desktop machines and their 64-bit CPUs, the race to the next generation of mass-market processing power suddenly has a third horse running hard. Intel Corp.'s Itanium, Advanced Micro Devices Inc.'s Opteron and Athlon 64, and now the IBM PowerPC 970 (or G5) processor in forthcoming Apple systems offer distinctly different options to users of memory-intensive applications

G5: NASA evaluation inconclusive - A scientist at NASA's Langley Research Center in Virginia has been putting Apple's new G5 Power Macs through their paces. NASA uses computers to calculate fluid dynamics of jets, and pitted the top-of-the range G5 against a 2.66GHz Pentium 4 system running Linux, a dual-1.25GHz G4 and a dual-1GHz Xserve

Topic: G5: Do We Need 64-Bit Computing? Will The Apps Catch up? - The PowerMac G5 will be a new beast in the desktop jungle and I'm betting that it will take the software industry a while to catch up to the new features that it offers.
An interesting question is, will the consumer be able to take advantage of that power? Most of us probably won't, but there are some fields of computing that surely will. What apps will best take advantage of the 64-bit registers and which developers will actually step forward and code for it? Will there be any new Apps coming to the Mac because of the new chip? (Will we finally see a port of Autocad?)

Apple powers up 64-bit G5 - In key tests based on SPEC CPU 2000 benchmark results and leading professional application performance tests, the G5 came out on top three out of four times when compared to 3.0-GHz Pentium 4-based systems and 3.06-GHz Dual Xeon-based systems. Single processor results show the G5 is an impressive 21 percent faster than the 3.0-GHz Pentium 4-based PC on SPECfp_base2000, which measures single processor floating point performance, and 10 percent slower on SPECint_base2000, which measures single processor integer performance

Product managers: G5 '4.3 billion times better than G4' - Boger started his look at the new Power Mac G5 by running through the "giant leap" in processor technology made by IBM and Apple. The PowerPC G5 is the PowerPC 970 chip, which is based on IBM's Power4 processor - which Boger called "the world's most sophisticated processor". The G5 is the size of an adult's fingernail and yet includes 300 metres of wiring; the circuitry is 800 times thinner than a human hair.

An Evaluation of PowerMac G5 Systems for Computational Fluid Dynamics Applications - This paper describes testing conducted by NASA Langley Research Center during an evaluation of a PowerMac G5 system for computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation. Preliminary evaluations are conducted in Part I of this two-part document. In this phase of testing, an existing version of the NASA Jet3D [1] code (developed and compiled on G4 systems) was run on a G5 system without any re-compilation or additional optimization. As G5-specific FORTRAN compiler tools have not yet been released, this is both appropriate and a reality. In Part II of this document, G5-specific testing will be conducted as revised compiler tools become available. In addition, testing will be expanded to include other NASA CFD codes

Secrets of the PowerPC 970: Why the G5 Runs So Fast - In some ways, Apple actually understates the floating-point performance of the G5. One of the most common functions used in 3D rendering and games, Photoshop filters, and other media applications is the "Multiply Accumulate." Basically, two numbers are multiplied together and added to a third.
A Pentium 4 requires a minimum of two operations to complete this algorithm, one multiply and one addition.
A PowerPC 970 can perform this common function in one instruction. Because the PowerPC 970 has two floating-point units, it can perform two FMAC functions per clock cycle (maximum theoretical throughput). This is four times the throughput of a Pentium 4

IBM claims Power4+ puts it first in server benchmarks - Cranking up the heat in the computer server wars, IBM Corp. announced a new benchmark for its Power4-based systems that it claims puts it first in performance and price

IBM confirms PowerPC 750GX 'Gobi' spec. - IBM has also added cache line miss buffers between the L1 data cache and the L2 cache, and the L2 and the bus interface unit (BIU), which controls the flow of data and instructions in and out of the chip. Essentially this provides further fall-back positions if the data the processor needs isn't in a particular cache. The BIU can stack up to five bus transactions - the 750FX's BIU could pipeline up to three transactions - just in case the cache doesn't contain what the processor needs. This is all about readying memory transactions just in case they're needed, speeding things up if they are

IBM PowerPC 750GX - IBM's 1.1-GHz PowerPC microprocessor - By Mark Schaffer, Advanced Technology Engineer, IBM Corporation

New 1.1-GHz G3 Chip The next iBook CPU? - IBM engineer Mark Schaffer describes the 750GX or "Gobi," as "offering world-class performance at very low power levels utilizing its leading-edge process technologies to meet these requirements."

If Anyone Can Do It, IBM Can - With the imminent release of Gobi, the 32-bit IBM G3 chip also known as the 750GX, questions are now arising as to the nature of Mojave, the G3 processor expected to follow that of Gobi. Gobi is expected to enter the iBook line around Macworld in January (at the earliest, it would seem; volume production of the chip will only begin around late November), but even as the chip breaks 1 GHz (the current line of G3 chips in Books, the 750FX ("Sahara"), tops out at 900 MHz ), the G3 is fast become a dated design anyway

Why IBM Needs Apple - The G5 is a big thing for Apple. Never mind the stupid benchmark wars -- the fact that they are even in the same ballpark as the Intel/AMD competition at a competitive price is news. It's a pity though that they have clouded the issue with questionable claims of being "the fastest" before really independent evaluation can be made

Michael Kanellos: 'Tis the season for new benchmarks - but do the tests that manufacturers run actually produce useful results? - Apple conducted a series of Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation (SPEC) tests to compare the two. In the floating-point (fp) test, which measures how well a computer performs calculations that include decimal points, Apple's dual-2GHz processor G5 scored 840, while Dell's Dimension 8300 with a single 3GHz Pentium 4 scored 693. In the SPEC integer mathematics (int) test, Apple's dual-processor machine scored 800, while Dell's scored only "slightly higher" with 889, according to the Mac maker. It took an Intel about half an hour to respond

Deciphering jargon about PC processors - When you are using your computer, the microprocessor is constantly crunching data. Not all of it comes from RAM. All chips have level 2 cache, which is a pool of very high-speed memory on or close to the chip. The microprocessor attempts to guess what you'll need next and stores that data in L2 cache

Of hype and horse manure - Apple's announcement of a 64-bit Power Mac G5 triggered a tsunami of hype, and you can expect another if, as expected, Advanced Micro Devices releases an Athlong 64 chip in September

IBM "G3" hits 1.1GHz, has 1MB L2 cache - IBM says it will begin sampling its new IBM PowerPC 750GX microprocessor next month, the next generation of the "G3" processor. Based on the PowerPC 750FX processor, the new chip uses IBM's advanced 0.13-micron copper process with Silicon-on-Insulator technology and will be offered at frequencies up to 1.1GHz. The 750GX includes 1MB of internal L2 cache, 4-way set-associative, additional L1 and L2 cache buffers for pipelining of up to four data cache miss operations, and support for up to 200MHz operation of the 60x system bus interface with additional bus pipelining

Intel 'responds' by proxy to G5 speed claims - MacFixIt reports that it contacted Intel for comment on the recent G5 benchmark brouhaha only to be referred by the behemoth to Gartner Group analyst Martin Reynolds for the appropriate comments on the mothership's new PowerMac speed claims. And, here's what Intel's chosen respondent had to say on the subject

The G5 is the heart of Apple's latest computers. Beyond the obvious increase in clock frequency from the previous generation's G4 CPUs, a number of significant changes have been made to the core CPU and system architecture that can affect the way programs run on these systems. This document is a high-level summary of the salient features to keep in mind while (re)targetting your programs to run on the G5

Rumor: PowerPC - The Roadmap - Fairly educated guesses, although it means pro portable users are going to be hanging out for the 980 PB for a fair while. Maybe then the iBook will get the G4 (it'd be nice). Remember how long we had to wait for the G4 TiBook?

Motorola hurries release of 0.13µ G4 - The 7457 remains the leading contender for upcoming Apple PowerBooks. While some Mac users hoped IBM's 64-bit PowerPC 970, which Apple is calling the G5, would make it into PowerBooks, the chip's significant heat dissipation prevents it from taking on such a role

Intel launches 3.2GHz P4 - h'ware sites launch reviews - But how fast? Testing the new chip, PC World.com reports that the new chip scored 132 when tested to the magazine's internal benchmark suite, PC WorldBench 4. "That's a largely imperceptible four per cent faster than the average score of 126 achieved by three previously tested and comparably configured 3GHz P4 systems," the site says. All test systems include Intel's recently introduced 800MHz frontside bus

Analysts say new PowerPC 970 only 2GHz 'won't erase gigahertz gap' - "Apple Computer appears poised to boost its Power Mac line in what could be a much-needed overhaul of its high-end desktops. Apple is preparing to introduce a new line of machines that are built around IBM's speedy new PowerPC 970 chip, analysts say, a move that won't erase the 'gigahertz gap,' but should at least narrow the chasm," writes Ian Fried for CNET News.com. We pause here now to let that sink in... Now, take a deep breath, you're going to need it.

Apple to update desktop chips - Power Mac sales dropped in half from $2.75 billion in 2000 to $1.38 billion in 2002. Even though Apple's overall sales also declined in that period, Power Mac did far worse; while it once contributed 34 percent of Apple's sales, in 2002 it contributed just 24 percent

IBM PowerPC Vice-President Speaks - We're speculating here, but Apple's 'great leap forward' is probably to bridge the gap between desktop and server computing. The difference will be in the software; XServe will share architecture with desktop Macs, as it does already, but the paradigm will be the same: 64-bit computing for the rest of us. Server software where required. To be fair, it's AMD's idea as well

Apple To Discuss HyperTransport For Future Macs - macrealist writes "CNET is reporting that Apple will discuss the use of HyperTransport in Macs at the Developer's conference. The interesting thing is that the article claims that Apple is not likely to use hypertransport to link the CPU to the memory, but instead to link chipsets together because IBM would have to 'to adapt it to the Power architecture.' But according to arstechnica, the 970 does have a frontside bus that operates at similar speeds to Hypertransport .

Macs to drive on HyperTransport links - HyperTransport 1.0 features an aggregate data transfer rate of 6.4 gigabytes to 12.8 gigabytes, depending on the configuration. This is faster than most existing chip-connection technologies, a change that in turn should lead to overall better performance

Intel brings 533MHz FSB to Mobile P4 - The 533MHz bus models are dubbed 'Mobile Pentium 4' processors, rather than the existing members of the family, all called 'Mobile Pentium 4-M' chips, with a 400MHz FSB. In come parts clocked at 2.4GHz, 2.66GHz, 2.8GHz and 3.06GHz. Intel has also introduced a 2.6GHz Pentium 4-M. All are fabbed at 0.13 micron and contain 512KB of on-die L2 cache

Notebooks passed the 3GHz mark on Wednesday. - The increase in speed comes courtesy of a new 3.06GHz mobile Pentium 4 chip, which was introduced as part of a volley of new processors fired off by Intel. As previously reported , the latest mobile Pentium 4, part of a new family of four chips, marks a change in focus for the notebook version of the P4. The 3.06GHz chip and its siblings, which run at 2.4GHz, 2.66GHz and 2.8GHz, were created for larger, weightier, more performance-oriented notebooks. The chips offer higher clock speeds and lower prices than their predecessors in the Pentium 4-M line

The Need For Speed, The 970, & The Marquis de Jobs - Let's be totally honest with ourselves, shall we? We don't really care about all the technical mumbo-jumbo, and we don't give a fat rat's pancreas about the Megahertz Myth. We just want the speed. We NEED the speed. It's not because the speed will make AppleWorks run any better (it would take more than a 970 to do that), and it's not because the speed will help us get our jobs done quicker; we want blistering fast 970's so that we can raise our heads up and stare, unflinchingly, into the eyes of our smug WinTel friends once more and say with complete conviction, "Nah, nah-nah, nah-nahh, nahh!"

Apple to ship PPC970 Macs ahead of 64-bit OS X - Apple may not await the arrival of a 64-bit version of Mac OS X 10.3, codenamed 'Panther', before shipping new Power Macs based on IBM's 64-bit PowerPC 970 processor. Instead, a version of the 32-bit Mac OS X 10.2 - possibly 10.2.7; the current release is 10.2.6 - will ship with the machines, allowing Apple to benefit from the new chip while it completes a full 64-bit version of its operating system

The Sixty Four Bit Question - Part One - It should be pretty obvious by now, unless you have been residing under a rock somewhere in the nether reaches of the Gobi Desert, that Apple is definitely going to use IBM's new PPC 970 processor sometime. The sixty four bit question isn't if , but when ... not to mention how much, how fast and what does it all mean anyway in the Grand Scheme of things? To start answering these questions I had to dig through an amazing amount of material from press releases and specifications released by IBM, leaks from Apple's hardware suppliers, various and sundry rumor mongers

  64-Bit Macs May Outpace OSX 'Panther' - eWEEK is reporting that Apple is nearing the release of a new Power Mac known internally as Q37, which will include the new chip. However, Q37 will ship before Apple rolls out a 64-bit version of Panther in September. Instead, the new Power Macs will ship with a special Jaguar build train code-named Smeagol. Smeagol will run on the new chip but won't take advantage of many of its key features, limiting initial performance gains

64-Bit Macs May Outpace 'Panther' - Apple Computer Inc. is nearing the release of desktop systems featuring IBM's 64-bit PowerPC 970 chip, sources report - but a 64-bit version of Mac OS X may lag behind by a month or two

IBM Posts Pictures Of PPC 970 (Pics Included) - The IBM PowerPC 970 has been surrounded by much rumor and speculation , including being called the " Fastest PowerPC so far ." TMO recently discovered that there were product pictures of it on IBM's Microelectronics Photo Catalog that we hadn't seen before

AMD Keeps Its Value Crown New Athlon XP 3200+ gets a faster 400-MHz bus and is still a good deal - AMD has cooked up the best value for PC buyers all year long--and its newest chip continues to do so. In our first tests, production-level systems from Polywell and Sys based on the 2.2-GHz Athlon XP 3200+ chip easily outran top Pentium 4-based PCs on business apps. And each saves you $100 to $400. To find the sweet spot of power and price, though, consider an Athlon XP 3000+ PC. These models run many apps at much the same pace and save you another $150.

Motorola plots 3GHz PowerPC future - In a presentation to the Smart Networks Developer Forum held in Disneyland Paris this week, Chuck Corley, director - Applications Engineering, and Glenn Beck, marketing chief of staff, from Motorola Semiconductor's Computing Platforms Division briefly outlined the key elements of the company's current PowerPC strategy

Apple CPU Plot Thickens; Apple Software Releases - TheRegister reports that Motorola boosting its PPC processors by 20 percent. According to the article, " With Apple expected to announce a shift to IBM's 64-bit PowerPC 970 processor in just a few weeks' time, the timing of Motorola's announcement takes on a new relevance. "

Motorola to Have Rapid I/O in All Future Processors - Anonymous Cow writes "This PDF from Motorola states that all future processors from Motorola will have rapid I/O (page 32). Further down (page 34) it claims that that Motorola has got a dualcore PPC processor in development. No launch dates are given." It also notes that they could achieve 3+ GHz, without significant increase in power consumption

Motorola starts to talk up PowerPC 7457 - The chip is essentially a die-shrink of the current 7455 (aka 'Apollo 6') as Motorola moves from a 0.18 micron to a 0.13 micron process. That has allowed the company to expand the chip's on-die L2 cache from the 7455's 256KB to 512KB. That, says Motorola, brings the 1.3GHz 7457 a 40 per cent speed increase over the 1GHz 7455. The clock frequency hike provides just a 33 per cent performance boost - the rest comes from the chip's extra L2 cache

Motorola to Boost 0.13-micron PowerPCs - There are so many reasons why Apple needs more speed out of their processors. For one, I am not going to invest in a machine that won't be able to run the operating system being released in 2-3 years. Even if it's a little slow, being a few years old, it should at least be able to deal with things well. There are also a lot of people that need power. Apple wants a share of the server market. They're not going to do it with only dual 1.4GHz G4s. They need more power!

Motorola to boost 0.13µ PowerPCs with low-k dielectrics - Speculation that Motorola may soon cease to be a supplier of processors to Apple may be premature. The chip maker yesterday said it had successfully implemented low-k dielectric materials in its 0.18 micron silicon-on-insulator (SOI) processors, bringing an estimated 20 per cent speed bump to the PowerPC line

Motorola: 20% Faster, 2GHz PowerPC G4s Using 0.18 Micron Process - Adding some substance to the Motorola rumors IGM reported yesterday, UK publication EE Times confirms that Motorola has successfully transferred its 0.13-micron CMOS process back to 0.18-micron silicon process, utilizing low-k dielectrics. resulting in speed gains of up to 20% for its PowerPC 7455 and 7457 CPUs

PowerPC 970 - There's been a fair amount of speculation around the net on whether the PowerPC 970, IBM's version of the POWER4 for the mainstream, was specifically designed for Apple. While it's clear that it's a design that Apple could use, that doesn't mean it was designed specifically for Apple. But one small detail of the design doesn't make sense if it wasn't designed with Apple in mind as a major customer: AltiVec

OS X Awaits PPC 970 as LinuxPPC Boots on Power5 - As Apple prepares to reveal its widely-anticipated PowerPC 970 at the WWDC, LinuxPPC.org reveals that LinuxPPC version 2.5.59 is already up and running on IBM's Power5 hardware

PowerPC's outsourced to Samsung - IBM is to outsource some of its PowerPC processor production to Samsung, reports DigiTimes

PPC 970 Confirmed for Apple? - batboy78 writes "In what perhaps is the first 'official' confirmation that IBM's PowerPC 970's will be used by Apple, BusinessWeek claims that IBM has confirmed that it's developing a new set of chips for the Mac : 'IBM says the new Apple chip will be of the 64-bit variety, which means it can process twice as much information per cycle as existing 32-bit chips.'"

State of the Art: Wasted Chip Power - While 64-bit processors found early traction in the technical computing applications, databases just now are beginning to exploit 64-bit computing power, Grimes said. They can take advantage of the larger memory addressability of 64-bit chips to cache the database inside main memory and thus enable faster access to data. Improving the performance of the database, of course, also improves the performance of the application layer

New Athlon chip speeds ahead - Reports that the Athlon XP 3200+ would be AMD's last 32bit processor were denied by the company, which said it expected the Athlon range to carry on alongside the Athlon 64. The introduction of the new 400MHz front-side bus means that new motherboards and chipsets will be necessary to support the Athlon XP 3200+

PowerPC 970 made for Apple - Speculation that Apple would be using the 970 has been rife since IBM first announced it, not least because Motorola, current PowerPC chip supplier for the Power Mac G4s, has fallen a long way behind PC chip makers Intel and AMD in the processor speed stakes

Is Apple about to unveil a PowerPC 970-based iMac? - A website called looprumors is claiming that IBM has already shipped 60,000 970 CPUs to Apple . Apparently, 20,000 are 1.4GHz models, and 40,000 are 1.61Hz CPUs. IBM should have 2GHz models available within the next few months, and should have 2.5GHz models available within the next 9 months

IBM PowerPC 970 Dissected - displaced writes "arstechnica has posted the second part of their Inside the 970 article (first part here. ) A very detailed look at the design and capabilites of the CPU, and how its methodologies compare to those of the G4 and the Pentium 4. Overall, quite favourable - and concludes with some interesting commentary on how much of a boost this could bring to Apple's line-up. There's also some good explanation of how the 970 is designed from the ground-up to be used in SMP configurations."

Inside the PowerPC 970 - daveschroeder writes "Jon "Hannibal" Stokes has posted a long-awaited, very detailed analysis of the IBM PowerPC 970

Inside the PowerPC 970, Part II - In this latest (and last) installment, I discuss the PPC 970's execution core in painstaking detail. And along the way, I try to put things in perspective by thinking about how the 970 might stack up against the G4e and P4 on different types of code. I also make some other types of predictions about the kinds of systems we might expect to see the 970 in, and the role it could play in both Apple's and IBM's product lines

60,000 Apple Power PC 970s flying to Foxconn - A REPORT SAID Foxconn, another name for large Taiwan manufacturer Hon Hai, has received a total of 60,000 Power PC 970 chips from Apple

Pentium 4 works better with hyperthreading off, AMD claims - Damon Muzny, a representative for the product review department of AMD Public Relations, said that the Pentium 4 performed better with hyperthreading switched off than when it was turned on. That's with the Canterwood motherboard

AMD Ships Athlon XP 3200+; Bus Boosted To 400-MHz - According to AMD, the chip is the fastest available, outperforming the fastest Pentium 4 by an average of 6 percent on conventional benchmarks. The chip has begun shipping, AMD said

Intel reveals Itanium 2 glitch - Intel disclosed an electrical problem Monday that can cause computers using its flagship Itanium 2 processor to behave erratically or crash.

Comments: Processor Strategy? - If the Forbes.com and Microprocessor Review sources quoted by Macworld UK are anywhere near correct, a gusher of IBM PowerPC 970 chips offering 64-bit computing at multi-gigahertz speeds will sooner or later find their way into new Apple hardware

Forbes (Sort Of) Throws Fuel On PowerPC 970 Speculation - TMO is of the opinion that Apple will likely move the PowerPC 970 as soon as it can, but speculation as to when that will happen is just that, speculation. One should keep that in mind

IBM preps 1GHz-plus PowerPC 750GX 'Gobi' - Further details have emerged about IBM's next revision of its G3-class processor family, codenamed Gobi, but set to ship as the PowerPC 750GX. It will finally take the G3 family to 1GHz and beyond

Rumor: Alleged PowerPC 970 Benchmarks Posted - The performance levels, if accurate, are staggering. The Mhz/GHz rating the 970s (and competing Pentium 4s, for that matter), become superfluous. A major contributor to the reported speeds includes the 64-bit ('Mach-64') motherboard

EE story contradicts some published info on Moto G5 - it appears perhaps the issue on choice of I/O technology to use for the ApplePI (Apple Processor Interconnect) may not have been the problem with the G5's development. If Apple insisted on HyperTransport as the high-speed medium for the G5 back in 2001, why would Moto resist that? One possible answer is that Moto wanted to prove that RapidIO had legs. But perhaps the real reason for the G5's untimely delay (is it permanent or is it just a long delay?) came down to manufacturing difficulties

AMD loads bus for speedy desktop chip - The chipmaker is set to deliver its new Athlon XP 3200+ chip during the first half of the month. The chip will sport at least one new feature, a 400MHz system bus, according to sources familiar with the company's plans

PowerPC overview - updated May 2003

Faster chips on the horizon - With a new generation of home PCs using 64-bit chips due to go on sale within the year, BBC ClickOnline's Chris Long looks at the quest for faster processing

The Great Chip Feud The AMD-Intel Feud Continues - The history of the digital age is filled with great business feuds: Apple and Microsoft, HP and Tektronix, DEC and Data General, Ellison and Gates, IBM and everybody …
But no feud has been deeper, longer, more expensive, and more bitter than Intel vs. Advanced Micro Devices. Indeed, Intel vs. AMD may be described as THE great American business grudge match, the Hatfields and the McCoys of our time

IBM's PPC 970, AMD's Opteron, and Apple - Pharmboy writes "I haven't seen enough info on the new IBM PowerPC 970 CPU expected shortly. I found some info direct from IBM here plus more info in a couple other places . For those of us wanting to get away from Windows, but feel Linux is still not ready for the desktop yet, this might make Apple a more viable alternative

Apple and AMD working together, claims senior AMD official - All tier one and tier two vendors? we wondered, and later popped the question, "so can we conclude you've been talking to Apple as well, then?" Said senior official fell silent for a moment then turned to his PR minder and asked, "Can we talk about what we're doing with them yet?" The answer was a muddy 'not sure... have to get back to on that' kind of thing

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