Hello,
I would like to ask Genesis' folks here if there is already some known hardware specification for their new and not available yet OSW. So far I only know about 2xIBM 970MP, which means 4 64bit cores. What I'm looking to find out now is which north/soth bridge is used, which ethernet controler etc. I'm asking since I'd like to find if there will be any NDA needed to give not so usuall OSes a try on this machine. Yes, I know, Linux probably does have drivers for everything, but hardware specification is always better to have on desk and if it is free, it's even better. Example: I'm not able to find free spec for Marvel's controlers in ODW, but I'm able to find Tundra's specification of Tsi109.
Well, and as a PPC fan I'm also curious what will be used inside.
Thanks,
Karel

Hi Karel, send us an email to remind us in a week and we will post more information here. We need to check to see what we can say first. We have a very important customer for the product and we want to run the preliminary release of information by them first.

R&B

_________________
http://bbrv.blogspot.com

(BUMP!)

Here's another bump on this one. I've been interested in this computer since I first heard about it, and the only reason I'm not 100% sure that I'll be getting one is because of a few unanswered questions I still have.
1.What is a ballpark cost?
2.Is it rack-mount or stand-alone?

Those are the main questions. If these questions have already been answered somewhere then please pass the information along.

_________________
Joshua Purcell

The ballpark cost will be >$1000 but the eventual goal is to - on mass production - bring system cost down to a round $1000 in order to be super-affordable. Apple's quad G5 is very overpriced and not a great entry to the world of PowerPC.

The system will be a microBTX motherboard design (or maybe picoBTX, I heard both. I guess it depends on the layout issues the guys have..) and profile at less than a 1U rack chassis so it can be used as a server or in a small workstation case if desired.

We're not sure of cases/configuration for shipping at this stage (it's still 3 or 4 months from what we hope is general sale) but personally I hope we'd offer a selection for different uses, including a 1U rack chassis and a desk-side box.

Does its clock speed begin where the 7448 ends?

How is this:

http://bbrv.blogspot.com/2006/03/problemsolution.html

See last image. OK for now?

R&B

_________________
http://bbrv.blogspot.com

With only 4 RAM sockets, is the OSW able to use faster RAM that is on par with Mac Mini now (DDR2-667) or just standard DDR2-533 speeds?

Preliminary and subject to change, Arno

What relevance does the number of sockets have to do with the speed, by the way?

I think you can assume two things - the memory will be fast enough considering system performance, and you will be able to enter at least 8GB of SOME kind of memory (what is the point of a 64bit machine with 1GB limit?), but cost is your main enemy - not the number of slots. Buying 8GB of RAM for your PowerMac G5 is going to set you back $4000 whichever option you choose!

The faster the memory is, the more expensive it is, and the less likely that larger sizes are available anyway.

> What relevance does the number of sockets have to do with the speed, by the way?

You can see it with your Tsi109 chip.
IIRC the documentation says if you use two sockets with double sided DIMMs, you cannot use DDR2-400 speeds anymore.

A very interesting example exists with the new Sossaman server boards.
It is a great performer in SPECint_rate but this board sucks in SPECfp_rate because it chose to have 8 DIMM sockets installed instead of 4 or 2, so that only DDR2-400 speeds are supported.

> I think you can assume two things - the memory will be fast enough considering system performance

For 2x Elastic Interface, PCIe 16x and Hypertransport ?:-)
Ok then...

> Buying 8GB of RAM for your PowerMac G5 is going to set you back $4000 whichever option you choose!

Are these IBM prices? ;-)
If you don´t buy from Apple it should only be 1000€, even with 2GB ECC modules.

> The faster the memory is, the more expensive it is, and the less likely that larger sizes are available anyway.

Can you please make sure the OSW supports the popular MDT RAM?

They produce in 100 miles distance from bplan (on the way to DCE...) and 2GB DDR2-667 CL4 sound really nice! :-)

I also think that i heard of some PC boards that could not use Ram in all Slots if in fastest mode, could be that it was some signal to noise thingy at the last slot - but this is from DDR1 time don't know about DDR2-but physics (need to have some ratio between signal / noise) should be the same.

Bye

Arno,

Stop doing this. Repeating values you read on websites, in PDFs, for whole other systems, playing this numbers game?

Forget Sossaman, forget Tundra.

Disregard everything you read elsewhere, even from IBM.

You will see when it is released what the performance and limits are. You will also see if you even need to care. At the end of the day the OSW is a machine for POWER developers. It's true value is in providing a machine with a very high performance and processing solution, quite reasonably, which is simply not offered or is about to be otherwise discontinued.

The POWER market today is a bunch of engineers and software developers which run 2x Opteron systems and simulate and cross-compile. This has to change. This is the point of the system (originally the Pegasos targeted this for Freescale too)

It is not about how many microseconds you can get between X and Y, neither of which you own, neither of which you can think of a real application for.

What about running SOFTWARE and not BENCHMARKS?

Does SPECint and SPECfp really matter to you that much?

Let's go back to reality here for once and out of the realms of theory and planes of possibility. How many quad-processor G5 boxes will you be able to buy after Apple discontinue theirs? What if you need a quad-processor G5 box to do your work? Will you say "no! I refuse to buy that, because Intel have a better RAM solution, or AMD have a built in memory controller, or the HT link is too slow on it!" - no, you will use the POWER box because it is what you need to do the job, because it does it's job exactly how it needs to be done.
http://www.crucial.com/store/partspecs. ... 5672AB53ES

2 of those kits = 8GB with he potential to buy another one and upgrade to 16GB later..

Welcome to $3600+ territory. Taxes not included there

Buying it direct from the Apple store with the system gives you 8GB in an EIGHT ONE-GIGABYTE-STICKS configuration. It is not expandable to the full configuration of the system. Of course it is cheaper ($1500-$2300) but not so flexible.

> http://www.crucial.com/store/partspecs. ... 5672AB53ES
> 2 of those kits = 8GB with he potential to buy another one and upgrade to 16GB later..
> Welcome to $3600+ territory. Taxes not included there

Well, I do not know where you buy, but if possible (and it should be, since they produce just around the corner from bplan) I would like you to certify the following MDT RAM for OSW:

http://www.alternate.de/html/shop/produ ... tno=IBIEUG
and
http://www.alternate.de/html/shop/produ ... tno=IBHEU1

the latter being a 2048 MB Reg. DIMM with ECC for 239 EUR, so 8 GB will be less than 1000 EUR (incl. 16% VAT) and make your machine a capable and highly affordable system.

Help me if i'm wrong tarbos, but isn't it RAM modules supporting chipsets. as far as i know from MDT their Chips work fine on Apple-G5. So having followed the rights specifications should let the RAM work wonderfull on OSW. I think it is no problem for the developers of HAL/OF to follow specifications.


By the way tarbos, comrads don't have to wait for the doors of a shop to open. Comrads ask me for price and i give the best conditions possible.