MacSlash has an original editorial regarding different PowerPC projects that never made it to shipping. It mentions things like the obscure PowerPC 615 that could run x86 instructions, or the PowerPC 750VX, which would have been IBM's answer to the Motorola G4. This article reads like a requiem, but lest we forget: here, here, here, and of course, here. I'm starting to believe IBM won't miss Apple all that much.
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Member since:2005-07-06
Because the 970 was built in the same spirit as the P4 - long pipeline, high clock speed, very little concerned paid to power usage, heat disappation
No, I'm talking about mobile chips, these use low power transistors to cut power, it limits the clock speed but cuts power consumption sharply. They do this with the 750s but have never done this with the 970.
and if you look at the situation now; they've gone even MORE extreme than the P4.
How so?
Member since:2005-07-06
No, I'm talking about mobile chips, these use low power transistors to cut power, it limits the clock speed but cuts power consumption sharply. They do this with the 750s but have never done this with the 970.
They were designed to be lower power and low heat disappation on day one - they were used not only in computers but embedded devices; it was merely a spin off that they provided reasonable desktop performance considering the main concern was embedded.
How so?
Have a look at the POWER 6 design for instance; I'd hardly call that a conservative, 'doing as much work per clock cycle", low power usage and heat disappation design - its the P4 ideology taken to the extreme/
Member since:
2005-07-06
R&D should have been a lot cheaper on the 970 as it wasn't a completely new design. The core was just a modified POWER4.
What I don't understand is why IBM never did a laptop version, they could have sold that into embedded markets, put it into blades and would have of course made Apple more than happy.
Because the 970 was built in the same spirit as the P4 - long pipeline, high clock speed, very little concerned paid to power usage, heat disappation, and if you look at the situation now; they've gone even MORE extreme than the P4.
Even if Apple were to have stuck with IBM, they would have been screwed as the next geneation of processors wouldn't have addressed the power and heat issues which were need as due to the comfined space of a laptop. The only alternative was to wait till Motorola pushed out there vapourware that is their dual core, 667Mhz fsb etc. chip, that seems to have been promised each year, and failed to deliver each year.
Ultimately it was the failure of IBM and Motorola to merge their semi-conductor units or IBM purchase out Motorola's semi-conductor business that has resulted in this needless duplication of resources, that if combined, would provide the necessary economies of scale to drive down per unit costs.
Edited 2006-08-25 19:13