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IBM 64-Bit PowerPC Details

Details of IBM's new PowerPC chip to be released in late 2003 are trickling in. The official Press Release is found at IBM's site, and provides little additional information on the upcoming processor.



Mr.Hey provides this article from Silicon Strategies which provides more detailed information on the 32-bit/64-bit implementation of the processor:




    IBM's approach to implementing a 32/64-bit architecture appears straightforward. The 970 supports full 64-bit registers and addressing. When a flag bit is sent it triggers a 32-bit mode in which the high-order words on an arithmetic logic unit and on memory addresses are ignored. In either 64- or 32-bit mode, the processor issues up to eight instructions per clock cycle.


According to the article, 32-bit PowerPC OS's simply need to support new data structures and interrupt handlers, but 32-bit PowerPC apps would run unchanged.



The Register provides details from the Microprocessor Forum conference... and reports projections of SPECint2000 and SPECfp2000 scores of 937 and 1051 respectively at the 1.8GHz speed. According to this chart the 2.8GHz Pentium 4 currently has SPECint2000 and SPECfp2000 scores of 970 and 938 respectively.



Some sites are reporting that Apple will be using the new chips... but no official word is yet available.

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122 months ago
UGGGGGGHHHHHHHH................ A year is too long. They expect me to be able to sit here on this 400 MHz AGP powermac for another year! This comp sounds to good to be true, but I still can't wait that long.
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122 months ago
well i guess thats a projection... and i hope its low, by the time it is released the pentium will probably be higher... athough i am sure it will rock my world
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122 months ago
The Power4 and the Intel have just about the same scores. But the thing is, that Intel is OUT, and the Power4 is not. That means the Intel will just get better and better, and surpass the Power4. Same thing with AMD
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122 months ago
But Intel and AMD don't have Altivec.:)
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122 months ago
Yes, but wouldn't those benchmark scores related to the Power chip be based on 32 bit software and commands?

Those scores should go way up with 64 bit addresses.
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122 months ago
the pentium beat the power4 in one test and was only a little behind in the second. this is not good news. if the best ibm can do in a year is 1.8ghz with this thing, we're screwed. intel is not going to take a year long break so that we can catch up. i really hope that apple has something else up it's sleeve.
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122 months ago
Again, you can't compare 32-bit chips to 64 bit chips. These benchmarks are most likely based on 32 bit integers and executions.

Anyone here ever used a Flame / Flint / Inferno? Well, those chips aren't even 1 GHz 64-bit processors, and those things do real time high-definition renders. they're absolutely insanely fast.

Just be patient. These chips should me much faster than benchmark scores indicate. I think these types of scores will be deceptive when compared to real world performance.
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122 months ago
Everyone seems to be missing the fact that those are processing only numbers.

What this processor is likely to have is vast bandwidth, which means it will help enormously in memory throughput, which is a bottleneck far more often than processor.
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122 months ago

Originally posted by Nipsy
Everyone seems to be missing the fact that those are processing only numbers.

What this processor is likely to have is vast bandwidth, which means it will help enormously in memory throughput, which is a bottleneck far more often than processor.


Add to that the 2 SIMD units and 16 way SMP capability. If they do it right, system performance with this CPU will be amazing.
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122 months ago
Also remember that this chip is likely going to be used in Apple computers and we all know how they like to keep secrets.
I wouldn't be suprised if this chip is used just for the low end PowerMacs, Xserves & possibly some of the 'i' line.



Initial quantities will debut at 1.4 to 1.8Ghz, with 512kb of Level two cache. In his presentation, he (Peter Sandon) described these as "conservative" estimates.



IBM's and Apple aren't stupid, they know that Intel is oing to be way above 3Ghz by the time this gets released so I wouldn't be shocked at all if they have somthing a bit quicker up their sleeve.
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