“IBM has plans to make the midrange and low end of its Unix line stronger in a move that could liven up competition within the company between competing chip architectures. In 2004, IBM will roll out its Power5 processor, which will in some ways complete an overhaul of the company’s entire Unix server line. […] With chips tuned for each class of Unix server it sells, IBM is looking to keep the heat on Sun Microsystems and stop users from defecting to Intel’s Itanium processor.” Read the article at InfoWorld.
IBM Plots Road Ahead with Power5
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I fail to see why Apple haven’t used the Power series in the high-end of their range (XServe and workstations).
If they can use m68K and PPC at the same time (1994-1997) then they can run PowerPC in consumer and Power in pro.
Sigh…
They sold their micro-electronics gear to the general public. If IBM came out tomorrow and started selling Power4 + Motherboard kits for $AUS1600-AUS$2000 I would be first in line to pick up one, however, with the price they charge for their workstations now I am better off buying a SUN or second hand IRIX MIPS station.
They could… Except POWER is missing the ATIVEC multi media extentions. POWER line is 64bit versions of PPC601-G3; ATIVEC was added to the G4 with out IBM’s permission.
Apple would also need to make Mac OS X 64bit and convince developers to release a 64bit version of their software. Which doesn’t sound too likely for the small market share of the XServe line.
I’m expecting Apple to start using the POWER4e in their new line of xServe and high end desktop systems come fall.
First off, correcting Joe: The G3 doesn’t have AltiVec either–with the power of Power, AltiVec would be little missed.
AltiVec wasn’t added “Without IBM’s permission”; each member of AIM is fully able to introduce their own uniue design elements. It is just the opposite–for years, IBM refused to license/implement AltiVec. Apparently, this has changed–I realize the 970s Vector Unit is not AltiVec, but I imagine producing compatibility required working with Moto.
The entire PowerPC/Power family is 64 bit compatible. Some modifications would be required of the system, but little to none would be required of the apps. 32bit apps can run on the 64bit memebers of the PPC family.
I’m not sure what Power4e is. The 970 is technically a PowerPC not a Power chip, even though it was built “down” from the Power4.
There are already plans to do a similar build “down” of the Power5, but only after the first couple of revs of the PPC970.
The real reason, Jay, is Power chips are extremely expensive. Plain and simple. On top of the astronomical cost, there is little need for that type of power (despite the lack therof in the Mac line), they run hotter, and their yields are lower.
It is simply a highend chip unsuitable for the market even if Apple needs more speed and power.
Just a minor correction to the above posts.
The POWER4 is a full-fledged PowerPC. The original POWER and POWER2 had a similar instruction set, but had a few different instructions/registers. Starting with the POWER3, they were all PowerPCs.
As far as why Apple is not using the POWER4 now. Just guessing, but i’d suspect those chips are relatively expensive to manufacture. (128MB of cache on the MCM isn’t cheap!)
Tom
OK, so they’re expensive, but wouldn’t it make sense for Apple to produce a very high end machine to compete with the NT and IRIX users of Maya and Shake (for example).
How expensive are we talking about here?
Thanks for the relpies, by the way.
Jason…
Untill now though they haven’t had an OS that could take advantage of that hardware though. So if anything we still might have to wait a while if they do plan to go that route.
Not sure on the price per CPU. Only thing I found was price on 4 way servers in the 75K range.
You are lazy aren’t you? (No offense) But you’ll post a question and sit back, but are unable to browse the IBM site yourself?
Jeez!
You can find lowend POWER4 servers at the 15,000 to 40,000 range, but they shine in the mid to high range pSeries where you can find 4-,6-,8- up to 32- and 64-way POWER4 servers that run from 400,000 to 1.5 million.
Do you get the sort of prices we are talking about now? High end, big iron more or less.
You need apps to take advantage of this power (the OS isn’t tuned for it, but it’s more important that Apple and its developer community are not in the business of creating Enterprise-class 64 bit APPS–the OS could be easily modified–not quite tuned but that’s not the issue… we are talking mid to highend enterprise class computing and software.)
It has nothing to do with being lazy. I know how much IBM servers cost – what was speculating was how much a Power CPU cost on its own, in order to work out how much a Power based Mac would cost.