PPC970 at 2.5GHz only at 0.09microns?

According to this article on ZDNet;

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/story/0,,t269-s2131244,00.html

Pushing the 970 to 2.5Ghz will require a process shrink to .09micron. So it look like we won't be getting to that until early 2004.

no biggie, considering the 970 is "supposed" to be 3x faster per Mhz than the current G4, just having the chip running in my mac would be worth it. 1.8 ghz is still faster than what we have.

if apple could get a machine running on the ibm 970 for us this year, that will be great...even if it only tops out at 1.8 ghz using the .13 micron process

a .09 micron process will really be cool and i wouldn't be surprised if it took until 2004 to get that...but then the intel chips will be at 4 ghz

i can see pro apple desktops with the 970s, the pro laptops with G4s, and everything consumer with G4s at the end of this year

what i am waiting for is to see a laptop with a 970 in it but that will most likely be next year when the wintel world will have 3+ ghz mobile, low power chips

...i guess we can never catch up:rolleyes:

does this mean we will still have duals? I want a dual so much because of how people rave over their performance. And Pro Tools now supports duals, so i would get more bang for my buck. MMMM Dual 1.8 970 /drool

970 can have dual-core chips, iirc. Which means two processors on one chip. I think it would be smart of Apple to offer dual's still, but the need for them with these faster chips may only be ont the top end, due to the rather high prices of the 970.

Originally posted by timbloom
970 can have dual-core chips, iirc. Which means two processors on one chip. I think it would be smart of Apple to offer dual's still, but the need for them with these faster chips may only be ont the top end, due to the rather high prices of the 970.

when any new chip comes out, it is very high at first but then drops in price fairly quickly

apple will have to keep the prices more competitive to keep up market share

but us macheads being who we are, apple could stay afloat with less than a 1 percent market share...it's just that they won't really grow much and more likely than not, they will shrink

but as long as apple inc breaks even or makes a profit, there is a reason for them to survive

i think apple saw it's most recent all time market share with the crt imac back in the late-90s and that great episode in apple's history will never be repeated since it also corresponed with the growth spurt of the internet and the dot.com revolution

if apple stays a small efficeint company like bmw is to the car world, that will be ok but not optimal

...optimal would be apple inc slowly gaining market share until they became the leader in hardware and operating systems (like they used to be more than a couple of decades ago)...but with steve jobs at the helm, that will not likely happen since he is a good short term sprinter, but not a marathon runner like bill gates and microsoft

Originally posted by timbloom
970 can have dual-core chips, iirc. Which means two processors on one chip. I think it would be smart of Apple to offer dual's still, but the need for them with these faster chips may only be ont the top end, due to the rather high prices of the 970.

can you point me to a link where anything says the 970 has dual cores as a possibility. the power4 is a dual core chip, and although that 970 is based on that, its a single core cpu. I suppose it might be possible to make it dual core, but I haven't read anything indicating that could happen or is likely to happen. My feeling is that it won't happen.

I would like to see that site, too. I think what has happened is maybe that people have been using the two chips so synonomously that they have forgotten the difference in a way. True, a dual core (and note the usage of "dual";), Ryan) 970 MIGHT be a possibility, but I don't think we will see it. Remember, the 970 is more of a consumer/low-end server chip, unlike the Power4, and I don't think that they are going to stress the dual core in Blade servers considering Blade servers are designed to be racked like the Xserve. I think the 970 will be more focused on higher Ghz rather than efficiency like dual cores or SMT (hyperthreading). I do think that we will see SMT eventually, which will be a weak replacement to dual cores, but I don't think that we will see it until Intel gets the bugs worked out of their's. I envision dual 970s for quite a while in PowerMacs. Plus, Apple didn't design an OS to operate with multiple processors (up to 32) just to abandon that feature as soon as possible.

Originally posted by timbloom
970 can have dual-core chips, iirc. Which means two processors on one chip. I think it would be smart of Apple to offer dual's still, but the need for them with these faster chips may only be ont the top end, due to the rather high prices of the 970.

According to the information I have read from both rumors and real news sites, the 970 will be a cheaper part than the g4. The 970, if I'm not mistaken, will only have a single core.

Originally posted by KingArthur
I would like to see that site, too. I think what has happened is maybe that people have been using the two chips so synonomously that they have forgotten the difference in a way. True, a dual core (and note the usage of "dual";), Ryan) 970 MIGHT be a possibility, but I don't think we will see it.

Yeah, I agree. I think that it makes more sense to provide a SMP capable single-core chip. It's a more flexible design. They can be used in a varety of applications, either as one chip, in tandem, or in fours, etc. But the customer, Apple, has that option and is not forced to pay higher prices, produce more heat, and eat more power than the single core chips.