Dual-core G4 in October

Freescale will introduce its dual-core G4-based e600 chip (PDF) on October 5th at the MDRonline.com 2004 Fall Processor Forum.

The dual-core support in this 2+ GHz G4-class chip is interesting, but just as interesting is its integrated memory controller, which is a long time coming. The current G4 (MPC7447A) does not have the ability to communicate with memory at DDR speeds. Thus, any machine using DDR with a current G4 has effectively half the memory bandwidth when communicating with the CPU. The new dual-core e600 (and possibly single-core variants) will go a long way to alleviate the memory bandwidth constraints plaguing current G4 designs.

One may ask if this chip can compete with the G5. In many ways, yes, most definitely. Freescale is not known for being at the forefront of process technology or raw performance, but it is very well respected when it comes to low power embedded designs. Freescale's e600 will undoubtedly offer a very good speed to wattage ratio, and it will most likely compete favourably with IBM's 970FX in comparative MHz-for-MHz performance, at least when it comes to integer and Altivec code.

However, it's hard to see where a dual-core e600 will fit into Apple's lineup, at least in the near term. The new iMacs and Power Macs are using IBM's G5 970FX, and it's likely that the PowerBook will get this chip as well, in 2005. That leaves the eMac and iBook. Of these two machines, the most likely machine to use a next-generation G4-class chip would be the iBook, but dual-core is not necessary. Thus, it will be interesting to see what Freescale has to offer in single-core G4-class designs in the near future. At this point it is not clear if Freescale will be able to bring a single-core e600 variant to market quickly, or if it will continue to scale its current G4 design (which does not have true DDR support) to higher speeds. Possibly both, with the single-core e600 coming later. In the meantime, the iBook still has room to scale, since the G4 7447A is already available up to 1.5 GHz, and the current top-end iBook is at 1.2 GHz.

Update August 20, 2004:

The Register last year published an article that suggests Freescale could produce this chip with a power spec of 25 Watts at 1.5 GHz, utilizing a 90 nm process. That seems rather optimistic, but if true, then it would mean that a dual 1.5 GHz (or possibly even a dual 1.8 GHz) G4 PowerBook is feasible. However, this assumes that the 25 Watt spec is true, that Apple wants another 32-bit PowerBook, and that Apple is willing to bet on Freescale's 90 nm shrink (despite Freescale's history of delayed process shrinks compared to the competition), when IBM has already solved its 90 nm problems and could ship a laptop oriented single-core G5 970FX chip (perhaps up to 1.9 GHz) in fairly short order comparatively.

We shall see in 2005.

New iSight available

The iSight has undergone some minor modifications and now comes with a magnetic mount, compatible with the new Cinema displays. The new SKU is M8817LL/B. The previous model was M9330LL/A.

Otherwise, besides the new magnetic mount and some changes to the plastic attachments, the iSight appears identical.

It's unfortunate that the new H.264 based iChat AV is not yet available. That is coming with Tiger, and will improve image quality dramatically, and will allow multi-user conferencing.

The 130 nm G5 970 is (still) dead

I previously wrote that the 130 nm G5 970 has now been retired. Further evidence to support this is that the current G5 2.0 also shares a motherboard with the G5 2.5, and the machine is recognized as a different one than the original G5 2.0.

If one types "ioreg | egrep Power" in the Terminal, one will see that the current G5 2.0 is called "PowerMac7,3". The previous G5 2.0 was called "PowerMac7,2". Apple's published G5 block diagram also shows a common motherboard for the new G5 2.0 and the G5 2.5.

I'm not aware of all the differences between the previous and current motherboard revisions, but one notable difference is that the HyperTransport speed has now been increased to 4.8 Gbps (vs. 3.2 Gbps in the original Power Mac G5).

Think Secret releases iMac G5 specifications

In my first Everything Apple article I wrote about the iMac G5, to be announced at the end of this month in Paris. In the article I predicted a top of the line machine with something like these specs:

G5 970FX 1.8 GHz, with 512 KB L2 cache
3:1 multiplier, for a 600 MHz bus
256 MB Single-channel DDR333 memory, with 2-3 memory slots
80 GB 7200 rpm hard drive, upgradable to 160 GB
8X SuperDrive (DVD-R/W, CD-R/W)
nVidia GeForce FX 5600 Ultra 64 MB DDR
Airport Extreme ready
Bluetooth ready
Firewire 400 and USB 2.0 ports
VGA/S-video/composite video output
Analogue audio input and output

Think Secret has now published an article detailing the specs of the new machines, and confirming the Paris announcement. The top end machine looks very similar to my top end prediction, although Think Secret's machine has a GeForce FX 5200 instead of the 5600 I predicted.

What's worrisome is the initial speculation about the price. The top end machine might be $2200 (or $2300 with the 160 GB option). If true, that would still be very expensive. I had expected a price drop, and hoped it would be in the range of about 15% or possibly more for some units. If there is no price drop, then Apple's iMac line will continue to sell poorly.

Also, there is mention of an "educational" iMac with a 1.6 GHz G5, 17" LCD, 40 GB hard drive, GeForce4 MX graphics, and no optical drive. These specs are quite mediocre, but are tolerable for institutions. At least, it would be tolerable if the price is not $1300 as initial speculation suggests. It seems to me a more appropriate price would be closer to the magical $999 price point. Some have wondered about the lack of an optical drive in this low end machine, but I believe this is a smart move, since institutions often prefer to have machines with such a configuration, for various reasons. (OS updates and software installation can simply be performed over the network.) The GeForce4 MX is also somewhat worrisome, since it cannot support Apple's new Core Video and Core Image technologies coming in OS X 10.4 Tiger next year. On the other hand, if these machines are to see very restricted usage in institutional environments, the lack of Core Image and Core Video support may not be very important.

However, as it stands now, all of this is still conjecture and rumour. We shall see the truth in just a few more weeks.

The 130 nm G5 970 is dead

I wrote in a previous article that the newest rev. B G5 2.0 GHz Power Mac was no longer using the older 130 nm G5 970 chip.

This has been confirmed. Typing "ioreg -l | grep cpu-version" in the Terminal yields an identical CPU ID in the new G5 2.0 as the G5 2.5, and both are different from the rev. A and apparently also different from the earliest rev. B G5 2.0 machines. Thus, all new rev. B machines (including likely the 1.8 GHz machines) seem to be utilizing the 90 nm 970FX chip.

Given that the new iMac G5 will also use this chip, there remains no machines in Apple's lineup that use the old 130 nm G5 970 chip. In other words, we have already moved completely to a new chip generation now, a year after the original G5 was introduced.

G5 970 RIP.


[Update August 18, 2004]

There seems to be some confusion about the CPU IDs mentioned in this article. To clarify, if you type "ioreg -l | grep cpu-version" on a new rev. B dual 2.0 you will get one of two numbers:

003c0300 - PowerPC G5 970FX (90 nm)
00390202 - PowerPC G5 970 (130 nm)

In other words, both of these chip types are found in rev. B dual G5 2.0 Power Macs. Even if you have the older (hotter) chip, don't worry. The speeds of the two chips are identical, and fortunately, reports are that the older chip still makes for a very quiet Power Mac as well, despite being a higher power chip.

Also, please note my later article about the rev. B G5 motherboard.

iTunes Music Store hits 1 million

Apple today announced they have hit the 1 million mark in their iTunes Music Store US catalogue. This includes songs from over 600 labels, including the 5 major record labels.