"There have been a few recent PowerPC announcements that have caused the Mac Faithful to wonder anew about The Switch and the "real" reasons behind it. First, there was the 970FX announcement, which clearly showed that IBM is capable of putting out a 970 processor that compares quite well with the Pentium M in performance/watt. And then there's the 970MP, which Apple has used to make a monster of a quad-processor 64-bit RISC workstation. To make matters even more interesting, P.A. Semi has just announced a dual-core 64-bit PowerPC processor SoC that, if the specs and numbers are to be believed, could take PowerPC to a whole new performance/watt level."
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Member since:2005-07-06
If anything, PPC has been a shining star in the processor industry.
In what alternate reality???
Intel and AMD have to throw more money at the processor because its a 30 year old chip technology.
Why do people have this illusion that the ISA == the chip? The fact that the Opteron uses an ISA based on a 30 year-old doesn't do a lot to constraint the design of the CPU itself. x86 is little more than a particular compact if somewhat baroque intermediate language for a modern processor. It adds a couple of decode stages to the pipeline, and a few million transistors here and there. The vast majority of the chip is new technology.
It takes a lot to keep it competative. PPC has at least equaled or exceeded the performace of x86 for less money
Again, in what alternate reality?
AMD/Intel are only able to match the PPC price because of volume.
I have a very hard time believing that the PPC is that much cheaper to fab than a comparable x86 chip. The Opteron dual-core at 90mm has only about a 25% larger die than the 970MP at 90mm, while featuring 32KB more L1 cache, bigger TLBs, an integrated memory controller, and 3 hypertransport links. The facts simply don't back up your claims.
Member since:2005-10-25
>"In what alternate reality???"
[roll eyes]
>"Why do people have this illusion that the ISA == the chip? The fact that the Opteron uses an ISA based on a 30 year-old doesn't do a lot to constraint the design of the CPU itself."
Why do so many people think that increased financial resources automatically translates to increased performance?
>"Again, in what alternate reality?"
Something tells me you've been reading too many PC fanboy sites that go aout of their way to help PC users justify their computing choice.
>"I have a very hard time believing that the PPC is that much cheaper to fab than a comparable x86 chip."[/i]
Much of it has to do with the physical size. The smaller the chip, the more you can reap from each waffer
"The facts simply don't back up your claims."
This has been a significant talking point for Mac users for many years as it has been repeatedly reiterated by IBM and Moto. The fact that you don't know of it, confirms for me that you've only been reading the afformentioned PC news sites that do little more than help PC users justify their computing choice.
Member since:
2005-09-26
"History has shown that PPC is a losing battle."
Its not that PPC is a losing battle... but competing with a company has tied their OS and illegal monopoly around that processor is a losing battle. If anything, PPC has been a shining star in the processor industry.
"It's a great design, but nobody can match the money Intel and AMD can throw at x86. "
Intel and AMD have to throw more money at the processor because its a 30 year old chip technology. It takes a lot to keep it competative. PPC has at least equaled or exceeded the performace of x86 for less money. AMD/Intel are only able to match the PPC price because of volume. The performace argument is somewhat relative but supporting price argument is a losing battle.
"The smart money is still on Intel based on the history of PPC."
Apparently so, if Apple saw the future road maps of both and saw that x86 was finally going to have a performace advantage in the future