Freescale Debuts Faster, Cooler G4 37
acsinc writes "The Register reports that Freescale (Motorola's chip division) has launched the 90nm G4, and is planning a dual core version for next year. The chip is faster -- over 1.5GHz -- and cooler than the old chip, but it is also pin compatible. This ought to help provide a speed bump for PowerBooks, which still don't have G5s."
new laptops (Score:1)
Huh? (Score:1)
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Informative)
What? G4 merely defines the PowerPC generation 4, which means existance of AltiVec, multi-processing capability, etc. It doesn't have to be on the same hardware at all. The G4 exists for everything from embedded devices over laptops to servers.
Re:Huh? (Score:1)
The G4s are named PPC7xxx by Motorola/Freescale, the G5 from IBM is a PPC9xx.
You bet that if Motorola would've brought something like the PPC8xxx it would be named G5 now.
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Informative)
It is NOT dual core. The article is talking about a 90nm G4 processor, and they are planning a dual core for later. The single core is what is pin-compatible.
Re:Huh? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Huh? (Score:2)
Re:Huh? (Score:3, Interesting)
As others have pointed out, the newly released version is not dual core. But more to the point, what's to prevent the dual core version from having the same, or substantially same, pinout? No matter how many processing units you have on the chip, you still only need one address bus, one data bus, one clock, etc. Maybe multiple cores would require a few extra signals -- I'm certainly not a chip designer -- but it seems unlikely that the pinouts would ha
Re:Huh? (Score:3, Informative)
The dual cpu G4's can have two cpu's on a single daughtercard even though there are two separate daughtercard sockets. You just leave one of them empty. As long as you have a UniNorth rev 7 or later you can run multiprocessor. I do believe that two cpu's is the limit for some reason. I don't think you can have two dual cpu daughte
Cunningly...? (Score:5, Interesting)
My that is rather cunning...!?
So when the dual core G4s do come out I could run 2 separate operating systems simultaneously? That's odd, how (and which ones) is that pulled off. Getting a dual boot mac is enough of a pain in the ass, to have it multi boot is, yeah I don't see that happening.
Re:Cunningly...? (Score:5, Informative)
Not necessarily. Freescale's Web site [freescale.com] speaks of them as a vendor of embedded microprocessors; perhaps that feature is intended for use in embedded systems, where the OS can be tweaked as necessary to handle two processors sharing an I/O bus and peripherals, so that doesn't necessarily imply that the dual-core processor magically turns any system into which it's plugged into two separate systems that can boot separately and communicate separately with peripherals on the system.
(BTW, when I tried Googling for "8641D freescale" and "MPC8641D freescale" to see if I could find anything giving details about that feature - nothing turned up - Google asked whether I wanted "firesale" instead of "freescale". Is Google expressing its opinion of Motorola's spinning off Freescale?)
(No, don't bother explaining to me how that Google feature works; I'm already aware of it. "It's a joke, son....")
Re:Cunningly...? (Score:2)
You're not my dad!
new powerbook cpu (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:new powerbook cpu (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:new powerbook cpu (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:new powerbook cpu (Score:1)
this is going to be an interesting marketing conundrum to Apple when it happens because how are they going to sell us this new G4 which in all respects is as good as a G5 (sans 64Bit) and possibly better (cooler running, better FPU/SIMD performance
Re:Enh? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Enh? (Score:1)
G4's last gasp? (Score:2)
Re:G4's last gasp? (Score:4, Informative)
Apple would be nothing short of certifiably insane if they stopped supporting 32-bit machines before probably five years after they stopped shipping them.
Let's say the entire lineup goes 64-bit tomorrow. They're wouldn't require 64-bit machines for OS upgrades until 2009 or so. Individual *features* might require 64-bits, but none of the core functionality.
For example, Panther still supports original iMacs, which are from '98 ('97? I really should know that...). Features like Quartz Extreme won't work, but the OS itself installs and runs fine. Panther updates install and work just fine.
-Ster
Re:G4's last gasp? (Score:5, Insightful)
After Tiger there isn't likely to be another OSX upgrade until the first half of 2007 or so. So between now and the release of Tiger's successor you've got plenty of time to use a Powerbook. Even when Tiger's successor (Ocelot?) is released it will very likely still support old 32-bit Macs considering there will still be millions of them in use. It was only with Panther's release the Apple dropped official support for the last of the Old World machines, Wallstreet Powerbook and Beige G3 PowerMac, though with a little hacking [opendarwin.org] they work just fine. Those systems were both five years old when Panther was released.
Re:G4's last gasp? (Score:2)
Apple has too much interest in selling OS upgrades to people with still-usable hardware for that to happen. I have a 1998 vintage iMac (G3) which has been a modest source of income for Apple via OS upgrades since then, leading to (so far) version 10.3. To say nothing of the G3 iBooks that Apple was still selling a year ago, which they aren't about to
Missing the Bus... (Score:5, Interesting)
But having said that, I (who own a 1.5Ghz 15' Powerbook) would rather see the G5 in a laptop.
While the G5 is a GREAT processor, the 64bitness is not it's strongest points. The G5 is simply a very efficient processor... But still, most apps are not CPU constrained, but Bandwidth constrained. In fact, I would bet that a 2Ghz G4 on a 200Mhz bus would still be outperformed by a 1.6Ghz G5 on a 800Mhz bus.
What I would like to see would be a ~ 1.5Ghz G5 laptop with a 1Ghz bus and a 7200rpm disk and a good video card. They could do that right, and not have heat problems. But it wouldn't be cheap...
Interestingly, if you don't believe how much things OTHER than the processor can impact performance, if you have a PowerBook (especially one with a 4200RPM drive) - Run XBench, note the score, then plug it into a 7200RPM firewire drive, and run it again (using the firewire drive instead of the internal). Note the score. That one little change should give you a pretty good speed boost!
Re:Missing the Bus... (Score:1)
New G4 - can it replace old ones? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:New G4 - can it replace old ones? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:New G4 - can it replace old ones? (Score:2, Informative)
The CPU in the iBook is integrated to the main logic board.