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Has IBM an answer to Woodcrest/Conroe?
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Author:  Donar [ Sat Aug 12, 2006 12:22 am ]
Post subject:  Has IBM an answer to Woodcrest/Conroe?
Topic says it. I have seen a review of the new MacPro and it seems that the new Xeon/Woodcrest Quad Mac's:

Run Cooler
Are faster in running (universal binary) applications
Lower in price,

than the "old" PPC Quad Mac's.

So does anybody know what IBM's or maybe Freescales plans for the Desktop are? And please do not point me to the Power5 and say that XEON stinks because the Power5 is much faster. Unless you can get me a POWER5 system that is priced equally to a MacPro.

C'ya
Author:  ironfist [ Sat Aug 12, 2006 4:31 am ]
Post subject: 
Neither IBM nor Freescale has any desktop-as-we-know-it plans.
The desktop PowerPC - in their eyes - died with Apple.

The PowerPC today is for embedded use and available desktops -
like the ODW - are perfectly suited for embedded PowerPC
development if you don't want to cross compile from x86.

High-end POWER5 workstations for 10000 USD is in a totally
different segment.
Author:  ronin [ Sat Aug 12, 2006 5:31 am ]
Post subject: 
its really like comparing apples and oranges, although they are the same generic objects (fruit) PPC and x86 are very different beasts. The way i look at it is; consoles need a lot of processing grunt to draw all those pretty polygons and all the next gen consoles are using PPC cores... but the question is why they'd use PPC architecture in favour of something like x86 ?
Author:  Patrick102076 [ Sat Aug 12, 2006 7:58 am ]
Post subject: 
My guess for the preference for Powerpc is that (provided something horrible isnt done along the way) you can often accomplish goals with less instructions. The architectural differences between the two make powerpc vastly more efficient..if, as I said, nothing horrible is done along the way. x86 as a 32bit processor or even a 64bit processor is stunted, at best; its just that intel has found ways to keep it competative all these years. I feel its a dying architecture.
Author:  ironfist [ Sat Aug 12, 2006 4:44 pm ]
Post subject: 
Patrick:
"I feel its a dying architecture."

I'm sorry to say this, but it's just as dying as Microsoft Windows.. :cry:
Author:  tarbos [ Mon Aug 14, 2006 5:24 am ]
Post subject: 
Quote:
High-end POWER5 workstations for 10000 USD is in a totally
different segment.
Power5+ have become affordable - a nice 1U 1.65 GHz quad configuration with 72 MB L3 Cache is available for about 5500 USD when Apple's Xserve 2 GHz will start at 3000 USD in October 2006.
Considering IBM ships 4 GB and dual U320 SCSI disks with it, that's not such a big difference anymore.
Author:  lu_zero [ Mon Aug 14, 2006 5:46 am ]
Post subject: 
The problem isn't the price/quantity ratio, it is the fact the entry level is still too high. (about 2500e too high)
Author:  tarbos [ Mon Aug 14, 2006 7:27 am ]
Post subject: 
Quote:
The problem isn't the price/quantity ratio, it is the fact the entry level is still too high. (about 2500e too high)
Enter Genesi with OSW ;-)
Power5 systems start at 3400 USD.
Author:  Donar [ Mon Aug 14, 2006 4:36 pm ]
Post subject: 
Ok, if there is no desktop in PPC World with endusers in mind, it's not a world for me...

Also porting Amiga (like) operating systems to the PPC was then in vain.
Author:  christian [ Sat Aug 19, 2006 8:08 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Has IBM an answer to Woodcrest/Conroe?
Quote:
Topic says it. I have seen a review of the new MacPro and it seems that the new Xeon/Woodcrest Quad Mac's:

Run Cooler
Are faster in running (universal binary) applications
Lower in price,

than the "old" PPC Quad Mac's.

So does anybody know what IBM's or maybe Freescales plans for the Desktop are? And please do not point me to the Power5 and say that XEON stinks because the Power5 is much faster. Unless you can get me a POWER5 system that is priced equally to a MacPro.

C'ya
Run Cooler ? Are you sure, I heard about 65W per processor, arround the same than dual core G5
Are faster ... ? I didn't see any benchmark showing this, only crazy numbers from Steve Jobs
Lower in price ? Nothing else to say than better material is ofen sold at a higher price. :wink:


... and ... I really thing that Intel has still no answer to the MPC7448 and the PPC970MP... even whith the pieces of silicon you're talking about.
Author:  lu_zero [ Sat Aug 19, 2006 10:13 am ]
Post subject: 
sadly the pieces of silicon you are talking about are waiting for some usage =/
Author:  Donar [ Mon Aug 21, 2006 1:25 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Has IBM an answer to Woodcrest/Conroe?
Quote:
Run Cooler ? Are you sure, I heard about 65W per processor, arround the same than dual core G5
Are faster ... ? I didn't see any benchmark showing this, only crazy numbers from Steve Jobs
Lower in price ? Nothing else to say than better material is ofen sold at a higher price.
Oh at least the MacPro is only cooled with big heat sinks instead of liquid cooling, i think i somewhere saw that the G5 MP's would be more close to or over 100W per processor.

Ok what else too look at, instead of Jobs or arstechnica 's crazy numbers in benchmarks? At least if the benchmark is running a common application and one will notice the difference.

The MacPro (24xx€) is about 800€ lower in price as the G5 (32xx€ German Apple Store prices), so yes maybe the PPC is better in design or maybe better to write Assembler programs for, but that's a good amount of money....and if you asked why Mac's are so high in price Apple always told you it was because of the very pricey PPC 970 Chips, more on that later.

One of the initial questions also was if Desktop PPC Chip development is dead, there were rumours about a PPC 980 (improved 970) i never heard of again....

As it seems (Searching for Data for this reply i read some articel on ppcnux.de) IBM takes the offensive road, even prices for the PPC 970 came out (which i have never seen before). And they don't look bad, so one will see. Maybe we will get a Roadmap from IBM too???

Bye
Author:  Crest [ Mon Aug 21, 2006 2:02 am ]
Post subject:  >
IBMs next big step will be the POWER6 and rumors suggest it will beat any other server or desktop cpu on the market if IBM will start shipping in Q1 2007.

The POWER series cpus arent desktop cpus, but Apple uses the Woodcrest as a (high-end) desktop cpu. IBM seems to have no interrest in developing a successor of the PPC970MP and Freescale imho isnt capable to do so. => Their is no PowerPC like the Woodcrest. IBMs POWER line is far beyond the Woodcrest and Freescale aims for the embbedded market far below the Woodcrest.

Maybe PA Semi multicore cpus with 4 PA6T cores will reach performance of a dualcore Woodcrest.
Author:  Neko [ Mon Aug 21, 2006 10:29 am ]
Post subject:  Re: >
Quote:
IBM seems to have no interrest in developing a successor of the PPC970MP
Well, it may just be that for the current time period there is no point in producing such a chip. The 970MP works very well for the applications it was designed for, and the applications it has eventually been used for.
Quote:
Maybe PA Semi multicore cpus with 4 PA6T cores will reach performance of a dualcore Woodcrest.
I somehow doubt PA Semi chips will be around in time to matter in terms of Woodcrest.
Author:  etmani [ Mon Aug 21, 2006 9:54 pm ]
Post subject: 
Quote:

Crest wrote:
IBM seems to have no interrest in developing a successor of the PPC970MP


Well, it may just be that for the current time period there is no point in producing such a chip. The 970MP works very well for the applications it was designed for, and the applications it has eventually been used for.
I have seen an IBM document mentioning
POWER6L as a successor to PPC970MP.
Could this be used in future genesi products?
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