Next IBM-Apple chip getting high-end feature
Posted by malebolgia on 22 December 2004 - 15:39 · 36 comments & 4345 views
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(9 replies)
#1 Posted by giantsnyy on 22 Dec 2004 - 15:42
- some people are just lame and take every possible statement and turn it into a flame war.
Last edited by 8889 on 22 Dec 2004 - 21:59 -
#1.1 Posted by amdme3200 on 22 Dec 2004 - 15:55
- You mean way to go IBM. Thats cool now might have a choice of IBM,AMD and Intel for a pc do I hear price drops.
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#1.2 Posted by mrogers on 22 Dec 2004 - 16:09
- "Way to go Apple"? Tell me where in there is says that Apple did something. Apple didn't do crap. This is a great move on IBM's part, positioning an advanced alternative to Intel and AMD desktop chips. I didn't know they were planning to do this. I hope it works out; the more competition the better!
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#1.3 Posted by jagedEdge on 22 Dec 2004 - 16:47
- Well, Apple and IBM are co-developing the PowerPC 970, so he can support either company. You guys won't really have a choice between IBM, AMD, and Intel because the IBM chips will still be RISC-based.
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#1.4 Posted by amdme3200 on 22 Dec 2004 - 17:44
- So how are they going compete with x86 cpus if they cant run on x86 os?
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#1.5 Posted by jagedEdge on 22 Dec 2004 - 18:14
- PowerPC OSes can compete with x86 OSes. Many Linux distros work on both x86 and PowerPC.
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#1.6 Posted by threedaysdwn on 22 Dec 2004 - 19:23
QUOTE Well, Apple and IBM are co-developing the PowerPC 970, so he can support either company. You guys won't really have a choice between IBM, AMD, and Intel because the IBM chips will still be RISC-based.
PowerPC chips haven't been RISC-based in ages.
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#1.7 Posted by threedaysdwn on 22 Dec 2004 - 19:27
- There are growing signs that IBM may look to take back the desktop CPU crown.
Xbox 2 may just be the beginning of Windows on PPC. -
#1.8 Posted by Surr3al on 22 Dec 2004 - 20:04
QUOTE PowerPC chips haven't been RISC-based in ages.
You are very wrong, the Power5 processor is definately RISC based.
POWER stands for: Performance Optimization With Enhanced RISC-
#1.9 Posted by threedaysdwn on 23 Dec 2004 - 00:36
QUOTE You are very wrong, the Power5 processor is definately RISC based.
POWER stands for: Performance Optimization With Enhanced RISC
Wrong.
First of all, these are discussing PowerPC 970 chips, which are based on Power4, not Power5.
Second, that acronym is not correct.
There's some RISC heritage, yes. Old Power chips were true RISC. However, the Power4 and Power5 have about as much RISC as an Athlon 64 or Pentium 4. Which is to say, only some.
However, the move away from pure RISC isn't a bad thing. Especially for top-end systems. RISC makes sense for embedded designs, not for workstations or servers.
In fact, IBM is working to do away with some of the "baggage" that the Power line still has from its early years.
If you look at the Power4 specifications, it is a speculative superscalar out-of-order design just like modern x86 processors. It implements branch prediction for parallelism just like the Pentium 4.
The Power4 actually breaks down PPC instructions into an internal form much like that of a modern x86 processor. They've also made the pipeline WAY longer (17 stage integer pipe, up from the 5 stage RS IV - the Power4's predecessor).
The function of the visible and hidden GPRs, use of TLBs and SLBs, and virtual memory addressing are all very x86-like.
All of these architectures are moving toward highly parallel designs (more or less towards a VLIW implementation). And in doing so, becoming more alike.
Furthermore, the PowerPC 970 chips that Apple uses have Altivec, Apple's SIMD implementation. SIMD is very much a CISC concept. As is the "mutlithreading" (ie. HyperThreading) technology going into the Power5.
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(2 replies)
#2 Posted by MR_Candyman on 22 Dec 2004 - 16:16
- wow...my next computer just might be a mac
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(4 replies)
#3 Posted by vbagaria on 22 Dec 2004 - 16:27
- what the hell does apple do if everything else is done by other companies???
only design? -
#3.1 Posted by jagedEdge on 22 Dec 2004 - 16:48
- Hardware design, the operating system, and co-production of the logic boards (motherboard).
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#3.2 Posted by Surr3al on 22 Dec 2004 - 19:59
- What do most PC manufactures do? Design.
Your attack on Apple = NULL -
#3.3 Posted by threedaysdwn on 23 Dec 2004 - 00:02
QUOTE Hardware design, the operating system, and co-production of the logic boards (motherboard).
Actually, they only do *some* of the operating system design. A lot of it is just FreeBSD.-
#3.4 Posted by Jstphish on 23 Dec 2004 - 23:40
- Apple mainly does management and puts everything into a nice neat package. They actually make or design more of their pieces than most other companies do. Do you all realize how many computer companies make there own hardware? Hardly any. Most just buy pieces and put them together. Heck, even the pieces they make aren't made by them. They contract it out to other manufacturers. It's how the business world works.
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(5 replies)
#4 Posted by kellym on 22 Dec 2004 - 16:29
- I think you guys are assuming that you will be able to run x86 operating systems on this new chip. Thats not what the article is saying.
Its simply saying that you can run multiple PPC OSes on this chip. You wont be able to run Windows on this chip setup if thats what you're thinking.
What I dont understand is how this is a big deal. You can already run multiple OSes on any PC/Mac right now. -
#4.1 Posted by MR_Candyman on 22 Dec 2004 - 16:39
- it's talking about multiple OSes at the same time, without one nesting inside the other, without it having a direct connection to the hardware. Windows as it is would not be able to run on it, but give it some minor modification and it will. imagine having mac osx, windows longhorn, and linux all running at once, not in confflict with each-other.
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#4.2 Posted by jagedEdge on 22 Dec 2004 - 16:49
- Windows would have to be completely recompiled to run on a RISC core. The direct connection isn't there, but Windows still needs to be compiled for PowerPC.
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#4.3 Posted by akuma-x on 22 Dec 2004 - 18:46
- Seeing that Xbox 2 will be on the Longhorn kernel and will be using an IBM PPC chip I do not think it's going to be all that hard to do
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#4.4 Posted by Surr3al on 22 Dec 2004 - 19:49
QUOTE it's talking about multiple OSes at the same time, without one nesting inside the other, without it having a direct connection to the hardware. Windows as it is would not be able to run on it, but give it some minor modification and it will. imagine having mac osx, windows longhorn, and linux all running at once, not in confflict with each-other.
No no no, that won't be possible. You will not be able to run windows on this new processor, without some MAJOR modifications.
Last edited by 51428 on 22 Dec 2004 - 19:58-
#4.5 Posted by threedaysdwn on 23 Dec 2004 - 00:01
QUOTE No no no, that won't be possible. You will not be able to run windows on this new processor, without some MAJOR modifications.
Correction:
You won't be able to run Windows Longhorn on it unless Microsoft releases a PowerPC version of it.
You actually could run Windows NT on it (as there were PPC versions up until Windows 2000).
Microsoft is already developing a Windows kernel for PPC (for Xbox Next), and is also working out x86 emulation on that platform (WOW86) so that the Xbox 2 will be able to play Xbox 1 games.
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(1 reply)
#5 Posted by kellym on 22 Dec 2004 - 16:31
- Yes, Apple did the case design but they also did things like motherboard design, internal cooling engineering etc. You're making it sound like they're only about aesthetics.
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(7 replies)
#6 Posted by GRex on 22 Dec 2004 - 16:44
- Check out VM Workstation by VMware. This has been out for awhile.
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#6.1 Posted by jagedEdge on 22 Dec 2004 - 16:51
- This isn't a virtual machine. Virtual machines require an OS to run on. This chip modification would allow you to run OS X and Linux beside each other, not on top of each other.
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#6.2 Posted by GRex on 22 Dec 2004 - 17:01
- Ahh. I see. Thanks for the clarification. It seemed ver similiar by allowing multiple os's to run on one pc.
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#6.4 Posted by Surr3al on 22 Dec 2004 - 19:55
- Here's the big question: Why do you need the real deal, when you can emulate it just as effectively?
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#6.5 Posted by XP_01 on 22 Dec 2004 - 20:07
- Here's the answer to the big question: The real thing a probably faster and more efficient
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#6.6 Posted by bogd on 22 Dec 2004 - 20:08
QUOTE Here's the big question: Why do you need the real deal, when you can emulate it just as effectively?
because emulating an OS is slow and unresourceful?-
#6.7 Posted by Billprozac on 22 Dec 2004 - 20:19
- Why would you buy a car from a dealer and pay more money AND go through all of the hassel when you COULD build one yourself?
It is almost like needing a french to english translation. Since a computer can only run one translation software(OS), you would either need to be running the French or the German translation software(OS). But what if you wanted to be able to do both? With VMware, you translate the French(Guest OS) to German (Host OS) then the Host translates it into english (which is what the harware speaks). Here , the PC could translate French and german at the same time.
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#7 Posted by Coolme on 22 Dec 2004 - 21:20
- wow, if these things are powerful enough, companies could save money by having 2 or more users (by attaching 2 or more moniters) running on 1 PowerPC based computer. You won't even notice the difference...
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#8 Posted by tiwaris on 23 Dec 2004 - 22:52
- I am still not clear, what "simultaneous means". What I am getting is that I can boot multiple OSes at the same time or one after another (eg. Linux and Windows, if it was for x86, but perhaps it is not) and both run independent of each other (but at a particular time stamp, only one is active and other is dormant) and I can switch between the two.
How is this possible, is there something (firmware) more fundamental that is sitting in between the OS and the hardware that does this job.
The next-generation chip will have technology that lets it run multiple operating systems simultaneously, said Karl Freund, vice president of IBM eServer pSeries. Doing so allows a computer to handle more jobs at the same time and to be used more efficiently. The technology, called partitioning, relies on a concept called virtualization that breaks the hard link between an operating system and the underlying hardware. Partitioning is available today only on servers using IBM's higher-end Power4 and Power5 processors and in competing server designs from Sun Microsystems, Hewlett-Packard and Intel.
"The goal is to make virtualization capability ubiquitous across the Power line," Freund said in a Tuesday interview. "We want to drive it down to lower price points and make it available on products like BladeCenter as well." IBM is in the midst of a major, years-long effort to make its Power family of processors an alternative not just to high-end rivals from Sun and Intel but also to widely used x86 chips such as Intel's Pentium and Advanced Micro Devices' Opteron.
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