AMD to Build G4 CPUs? 177
the eric conspiracy writes "Bloomberg news is reporting that Motorola and AMD are in talks to include manufacturing of Motorola CPUs at AMD's Dresden facility. This could help cash-strapped AMD particularly if its x86 compatible line runs into problems. Motorola and AMD already have cross-licensing agreements - AMD gets its copper technology from Motorola, while Motorola uses AMD's specialized RAM chip technologies.
"
Gimmie Gimmie Gimmie! (Score:1)
'Course, I can't afford on til the New Year, but I'm sure the 2nd generation will be out by then with the bugs worked out of the hardware.
Go Mac!!
Pope
AMD making Alpha chips? (Score:2)
It seems like everyone looking for excess state-of-the-art fab capacity is going to AMD.
AMD G4? cool. (Score:1)
Wintel vs. the World (Score:1)
It seems like the computer industry is seeing a mass movement for the major parties to align themselves together. Sounds like what Europe was going through just before WWI broke out (ok, well it sorta does anyway).
I can't wait for the *price* wars to break out...
good. (Score:1)
so now that apple is facing a smaller shortage of G4s, will their stock go back _up_? or am i naive to impose some kind of logic on the stock market?
Extra info (Score:1)
1) Apple solves part of its supply problem. They have been short handed on G4 processors, and need another manufacturer.
2) AMD has a new plant in Germany that they don't want to waste if the Athlon does not sell well.
-B
Re:AMD G4? (Score:2)
Can't wait for the price war? (Score:1)
Competition makes for strange bed fellows (Score:2)
But I'm hoping that this will drive g4 prices down, I'm no mac fan, but their prices are always high. And Hopefully this would cause athlon prices to go down, since amd would be bringing in a profit for a change
Course, a 500mhz athlon IS cheaper then a 500mhz pIII right now, so thats good.... plus its faster.
Also This is REALLY convient (good?) timing for motorola and apple.... since silicon valley's #1 LSD takin' CEO just stated that they were takin' a huge hit in the pocket book due to motorola's poor G4 production numbers. I'm sure the stocks will reflect this news.
Spell checking is over-rated,
Ecc
=]
Re:good. (Score:2)
whoo hoo! (Score:1)
Right On (Score:2)
What I _really_ want is a compiler that's efficient and that builds fast code, like gcc/ix86. But I don't want to run linux/ix86. The gcc/ppc people are doing nice work, but need more support.
Another Side note - The Fab 'partnership' (Score:1)
G4 using IDE? Why? (Score:2)
I looked over the G4 System Specs [apple.com], and I can't help but notice that it uses IDE drives. So, of course, I poped over to the "Apple Store" online and checked if you could get one with SCSI drives. Not avaliable.
I thought the iMac was cute, I'll admit it, but Apple started to move away from SCSI then, and it seems they are still moving away. Apple was using SCSI drives exclusively when most companies didn't even offer them as an option, now the tables have turned again. Being that SCSI not only allows higher data flow rates, but off-loads the processing power needed to run the drives from the CPU to the controller card (or subsystem), it will clearly provide a preformance boost (that most people miss the significance of).
So, I guess I have to ask, why is it when Apple is pushing the new G4 as a "Super Computer on a Chip" and pushed the G3 as the "Pentium Beater" that they are takeing steps backwards with other componants?
I have to admit that the G4 price range (starting at about $1500, and topping off under $4000 not counting monitor) is quite impressive considering the claims of the CPU. But it's total system preformance that matters, and when even the $3500 decked out G4 system uses IDE drives, I just have to ask.... "WHY?
I guess when we actually see any G3/G4 generic systems come out, which is "suppose to happen" when IBM released mother board specs, this won't matter. But I haven't seen that happen yet, and since Apple is the primary source of the G4 systems to the consumer, it matters for now.
Second-sourcing (Score:2)
Lately it has been unusual to have foundries cross the great Motorola-Intel divide... but AMD is the ideal candidate for doing so.
Let's hope this will indeed happen. It's a win-win situation for everybody (except perhaps for Intel, of course)...
V-A-G-U-E (Score:1)
this article doesn't actually _say_ anything, but i didn't realize that until the second time i read it. now that's good writing.
look.. it deals with a hypothetical result of talks that may _or may not_ be going on. they don't know _anything_. They're reprinting a rumor with no basis except the fact it would make a lot of sense if it were true, but presenting it in such a way it _looks_ like they're reporting fact. You don't notice that every statment made is ambiguous unless you're specifically reading for that. I guess that's how "journalism" works these days.
What would be really funny is if some executives right now in Motorola reading Slashdot, hearing about this for the first time, thinking "hey! that's a pretty good idea!" and calling up AMD caused the events in this article to actually _happen_. Life Imitating Journalism, or something.
silicon on insulator and bad old ISA (Score:1)
I saw in a microprocessor report that silicon on insulator gave a 35% boost
is this true ?
I know that the G5 is surposed to use it who do you pay in order to use this ? (who owns the method to do SOI ?)
The important thing to notice is that these companies want to replace PCI with some non open royalty paying standard like PCI64 instead Intel are doing the_right_thing and making NGIO open
so don't go saying that they are good just because you want proprietary stuff.
Me I thank Intel ISA is no longer on any machines that come in.
Cheers
john
a poor student @ bournemouth uni in the UK (a deltic so please dont moan about spelling but the content)
Re:AMD making Alpha chips? (Score:3)
It is entirely possible that the "talk" could have been a corrupted understanding of this transfer.
I'm sure AMD is happy enough to see some extra business come their way that isn't solely predicated on head-to-head battle with Intel.
It would be rather neat if this resulted in there being a third-party source for PPC motherboards, as that is a Critical Resource. [slashdot.org]
It looks like the AMD involvement hasn't led to cheap Alpha motherboards, which means that it's not time to replace my Multia/UDB [hex.net] yet; probably the same for you, too...
R-e-a-d (Score:1)
Any questions? It's usually a good idea to get the right information before starting on a rant.
R-e-a-d (Score:1)
Any questions? It's usually a good idea to get the right information before starting on a rant.
Re:G4 using IDE? Why? (Score:1)
Why did they ever use SCSI in the first place?
Re:G4 using IDE? Why? (Score:2)
Also, anyone needing very high performance, reliable disks nowdays goes with RAID.
Re:silicon on insulator and bad old ISA (Score:2)
I did, it's not correct (Score:1)
I'm not saying it's impossable to use SCSI in a G4. Not at all.
What I am saying is Apple is "pushing" IDE in the G4's. If you go to the Apple Store, it contradicts thier statement "Support for up to three internal SCSI drives." In fact, it's an "option" you can choose, or at least it seems that way.
I have no doubt you can (and probably -should-) use SCSI with an Apple G4 system, what I am saying is that Apple consumers don't clearly have that as an option on the configuration page, and more notably, what I feel is important to note... Apples use to use SCSI drives exclusively, they were "standard," not an option. When they moved to IDE, and then made IDE the standard and SCSI the option, they took a step backwards.
Re:G4 using IDE? Why? (Score:1)
Strange.. (Score:3)
Here is what I believe: There must be something else behind this, if it is true. Motorola must have made a really attractive offer for AMD to have taken this risk..
Re:AMD making Alpha chips? (Score:1)
luge
Re:Strange.. Not really (Score:1)
Re:G4 using IDE? Why? (Score:1)
Re:G4 using IDE? Why? (Score:1)
http://store.apple.com/1-800-795-1000/WebObject
2. Macintouch.com reports some interesting test comparisons between IDE drives and LVD SCSI drives. It appears that for many users their is no performance difference between SCSI and IDE. After all, we know that the interfaces are generally faster than the hardware. There are also 3rd party add-in IDE controllers that support RAID on the Mac too, so I am sure that high-end SCSI is not a huge part of Apple's market.
Re:silicon on insulator and bad old ISA (Score:3)
Electricity passing through copper encouters less resistance and therefore produces less heat than electricity passing through aluminum (the current standard). This is why aluminum wiring in houses caused so many house fires and has been outlawed in the U.S. This is also why copper interconnects on a chip are better than aluminum -- less heat.
Less heat allows faster processors (ask any overclocker), but how much faster depends on specific factors of the implementation. Anything that says "copper processors are x% faster than the same design using aluminum" is BS unless accompanied by three pages of conditions and explanations.
Me, I want gold interconnects
Re:G4 using IDE? Why? (Score:1)
G4 Processors and Computing (Score:2)
It's been my belief that Apple doesn't do well with competition. For example, I remember the "Power Computing" cases where Apple managed to "show" that they had a copyright to anything remotely "Macintosh". This is one reason I was hesitant to believe in the stories that Apple had devoted site space to MkLinux. It doesn't seem to me that Apple is interested in open hardware, software, or standards for that matter.
I've secretly been lusting after a G[2-4] chip for a while now. I'm have yet to try LinuxPPC, but I have heard very good things from graphics artists and designers. This sounds to me to be a PowerPC UNIX box for cheap, a luxury which only the rich normally have available to them.
I sure hope no problems are run into by AMD, and I *really* hope AMD doesn't just put out chips that are merely poor mirror images of an existing chip.
I like AMD as much as the next guy, especially now, with the new processors available and impressive benchmarks galore. But, let's face it, most of us wouldn't have bought AMD if our lives depended on it a year or two ago.
For now, long live the AMD G4.
Re:G4 using IDE? Why? (Score:2)
So..now that Apple finally has a UNIX-based operating system which would really make their [superior] hardware shine, they're cutting back on the hardware? Their choice, I suppose..
(and yes, I read all the things saying that the SCSI is still available. How many of Apple's customers do you think even know that SCSI and IDE are 'things in their computer', let alone the differences between the two? No, I don't mean "does anyone here use Apple and know the difference", I mean "how much of Apple's target market knows the difference?")
Daniel
Re:Strange.. Not really (Score:1)
1 billion $ is not that much if being able to meet the demand for Athlons will give AMD the opportunity to secure a beach-head in the server and corporate market that it was never successful in. It is what AMD has its eye on. Do you think the AMD CEO is happy because most of his customers are enthusiasts or cash-strapped teenagers? Businesses have not been buying machines with AMD processors, period. Athlon was supposed to change that.
Now if AMD throws away the corporate market in return for a big check from Steve Jobs; I believe it deserves a swift death in the hands of Intel. I will be among the first to short the stock..
Re:Extra info (Score:1)
Okay, 6 days, no caffeine. . . Must. . . gouge. . . eyes. . . out. . . with . . . SIMM-puller. . . arrrrrgh!
"The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
This is a good thing. (Score:1)
DON'T YOU READ?!?! ARRG!@$*(#) (Score:1)
In advance, I don't intend this as a personal attack, it's just that I am getting tired of replying to the same comment.
I did not say that the G4 can't do SCSI
I said, SCSI was standard on all Apple systems not long ago, and it's sad to see that this is no longer true. In addition, trying to order SCSI as an option from the Apple on line store seems a bit difficult, more difficult that it should be for the average consumer trying to equip thier $1,500 base priced G4 system.
If you go with a SCSI option, you will see a great benifit. By not useing SCSI, your bogging down your G4 un-nessessarly. It's a sad thing to see Apple move away from using SCSI as standard.
Again... I didn't say the G4 couldn't do SCSI. But if you look at the specs page, it says SCSI support for up to 3 devices, but when you go over to the order pages, you see this is an "option" and not standard.
It's an economic move on Apples part to sell more systems, I know. But it's sad. As someone else mentioned, SUN has made this step too, and that too is sad. If SGI does it too, that would be sad.
But, taking a step backwards, useing cheaper componants for the standard systems is the point I am trying to make. I am not trying to tell you that Apple's G4 system won't do SCSI. And... This seems to be the thrid time I am saying that.
Oh, I wish I could go back and add a little note at the bottom of my first post just to say "Yes, I know the G4 systems _can_ use SCSI"
Re:silicon on insulator and bad old ISA (Score:1)
Re:G4 using IDE? Why? (Score:2)
450 MHz PowerPC G4 - 1MB L2 cache
128 MB SDRAM - 1 DIMM
18 GB Ultra2 SCSI, 2-channel card
Zip drive
DVD-ROM drive with DVD-video
RAGE 128 AGP card - 16MB SDRAM
$2,899.00
This is all configurable at the online Apple store
Re:G4 using IDE? Why? (Score:1)
I was recently listening to a conversation in the lab where two QA guys were discussing how to add disk space to a machine, they had a bunch of spare IDE drives, and were digging around for two IDE controller cards to attach the drives to, because they already had primary and secondary IDE controllers filled. I try to imagine what happens to that machine's CPU when they striped those disks.
"The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
Re:G4 using IDE? Why? (Score:1)
Re:G4 using IDE? Why? (Score:3)
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Linux user: if (nt == unstable) { switchTo.linux() }
Re:Extra info (Score:1)
Still, it's kind of interesting to think about a fab that is making two different CPU designs K7 & G4) that intel can't match.
Re:G4 using IDE? Why? (Score:1)
Assuming that the do not need the other benefits of SCSI (more units per bus, longer cable lengths) then they get a better price/performance ratio from IDE.
Looking at the Chart on my wall, a UDMA-66 drive gets 66 mb/sec. this is better than SCSI UW, but not as good as Ultra2 SCSI.
Now, a 10 GB UDMA66 drive from maxtor at 7200 RPM costs about $110. An equivalent drive using either of the above SCSI technologies costs about $225, and this does not include the cost of the motherboard bus.
Since USB/Firewire is Apple's solution of choice for external drives, it is no wonder they went with IDE.
Re:Extra info (Score:2)
The earthquake in Taiwan is going to put a crimp in many manufacturers Christmas quarters...
Also, AMD licenced the Cu technology from Moto, so it's not all that out of line for this deal to happen.
One other reason... (Score:2)
One other thing to keep in mind is the Unified Motherboard Architecture. Apple's new computers will soon all be using the same basic motherboard. The iBook and the high-end "Sawtooth" G4's are UMA-based right now, and the soon-to-be released iMac revision will be as well. The Powerbook will be UMA-based early next year.
A big reason for this is to allow economies of scale, both to spread R & D around and to allow cheaper production costs. They took SCSI off the motherboard to save money on the low-end machines, and they're puching FireWire as the replacement on the new G4's.
Interface bandwidth != Transfer Rate (Score:2)
This is almost completely wrong! These speeds are for the device interface, the speed at which data can be moved on the chain. The speed of the actual drive is independent of this! Most current ide drives have around a 6--10 MB/s sustained transfer rate. Nicer scsi drives are in the vicinity of 20+ MB/s. Also note, that for these speeds, your cpu for ide is having to work very hard, whereas with scsi it may not even be doing any work.
So, if you can only have two ide devices per chain, that means maybe 20MB/s transfer rate. Further, ide is single-tasking: when you do a request to a device, all other devices on the chain must sit and wait for the other device to find what it needs, read it, and send it back. SCSI is multithreaded: you say "hey, give me data", while grabbing data from two other drives, a fibrechannel array, send data to your 8x dvd writer, do ip-over-scsi, and receive the data you just requested!
Lastly, since scsi drives are often targetted at higher-end markets, they tend to be of higher quality than their ide counterparts.
And, finally, a (/very/) brief example:
Burning CDs on my box to my scsi cd writer from an ide drive pegs me around a load of two or three! The machine (a dual 166 pentium) is barely able to respond to mouse events. Doing the same task, but with the data coming from an
Don't get me wrong, ide drives definately have their places, but for large work loads they come nowhere near scsi drives and arrays or fibrechannel drives (which haven't started to really crop up yet).
Just my thoughts on the subject (hope they help).
Re:Right On (Score:1)
Re the compiler issue: egcs is the compiler Apple is using for Mac OS X, so that should take care of the optimization issues. It's clearly in Apple's interest that it's as fast as possible.
--
Re:G4 Processors and Computing (Score:3)
(sigh)
Power Computing (and the other clone manufacturers) lost their licenses because the CEO of Apple determined that if the company he was legally responsible for was to survive, the cloners' licenses had to go. The clones were in fact NOT increasing Apple's market share, which meant that they were poaching dollars from Apple, selling hardware cheap.
Apple makes its money from selling its hardware. The systems were theirs to license, or not. The systems are yours to buy, or not. Vote with your pocketbook.
Y'all rant about 'Free software' then piss and moan when the beer isn't free.
The fact that no one else is making PPC mobo's for your use is NO FAULT of Apple's; it's not exactly like Motorola would turn down other customers for their chips, they have Intel breathing down their necks.
Re:G4 using IDE? Why? (Score:1)
I still maintain that it's sad that it's not a standard feature.
Re:G4 using IDE? Why? (Score:2)
And the fact that Apple uses USB (which is 1/33rd the speed of Firewire, not peer-to-peer, and can't provide guaranteed bandwidth for real-time stuff) for keyboards and mice doesn't undermine Firewire any more than ADB undermined SCSI.
Just noticed though (Score:1)
Seeing rapid price fluctuations in most computer componants, it's a little scary to order something that isn't even going to ship for that long.
they were on tv (Score:1)
char *stupidsig = "this is my dumb sig";
Re:G4 using IDE? Why? (Score:1)
Copper, aluminum, and gold (Score:3)
As for wanting gold interconnects, no you don't. For one thing, copper is a better conductor than gold. Besides that, gold is a disaster in silicon processing (it diffuses like lightning and scavenges carriers. Low transconductance and high leakage everywhere = slow and hot.)
Re:Again, That's NOT my point. (Score:1)
Re:AMD making Alpha chips? (Score:1)
That probably went nowhere because the DEC Hudson plant was never more than 30% (? seems like I heard this number) utilized. This utilization included the many StrongArms made there.
This isn't about sharing production capacity (Score:1)
At AMD's dresden fab they are only using something like half of the clean room (50K sq ft?). I believe what this deal would entail would be giving motorola access to the unused space
Re:AMD making Alpha chips? (Score:1)
Not strange (Score:1)
AMD gets motorolla experience, and enough cash to surrvive. Motorolla gets a new fab (going price, 5 billion) and extra capacity. All in all, a good deal on both sides
Re:G4 using IDE? Why? (Score:1)
I don't know about what your troubles were, but I have had very few problems or complaints with SCSI. I have yet to run into cable length problems. Firewire sure is great in theory, but there aren't any true FW drives that I know about, so far they are external with a FW to IDE bridge that I know about. SCSI IDs have never been a problem, just come up with a consistent, easy to remember numbering scheme. On my system, the hard disks are 0,2,3,4 on one chain, another chain has Zip, CD Changer and SyJet on 5,6,7. And I didn't have to look up my
Yes, IDE drives ARE much cheaper. They'll work for anyone. The problem for me is the lack of decent chaining. One U(2)W card can run 15 drives (not worth trying, but you can), as both IDE chains in a standard computer can only run 4 drives. I have seven disk drives in my system, not including the ones that aren't connected but could be (too lazy). For the end user that doesn't do much with computers, IDE is great. The 'hackers' should demand better for themselves, stressing every part of their system.
I've seen standard Ultra33, UW and U2W drives compared on latency and throughput on random seeks - the same drive, different electronics, nets 50% better on UW, 100% better on U2W.
Last I heard, the 'shark' boards on the G(3|4) units can't boot from FW yet. This sounds like a possible security concern too, but the choice isn't available.
kinda like (Score:1)
(only not as violent, I think)
Internal Firewire.. huh? (Score:1)
also, your comment about RAID is totally mind-boggling. did i just misunderstand ou? RAID is a design philosophy, not a protocol. It stands for Redundant Array of Independant Disks and bascically means that any RAID drive contains several hard disks inside it in case one fails. You can have a RAID disk under SCSI, IDE, firewire, or anything-- it's independant of connection type.
Anyway, i have a random question for anyone who may be listening: _is_ internal firewire a good idea, or even possible? i'd imagine there's some reason apple isn't doing it already. What is it?
IDE is usually not slower (Score:1)
SCSI allows you to connect non-drive devices (scanners and the like), allows you to connect more devices total, has a common interface for external devices, and devices exist to do RAID in hardware.
There is one way in which "speed" is related: with most IDE controllers found in intel boxes, the cpu needs to handshake every block sent over the bus. This may or may not slow down the transfer, but it sure as hell bogs down the cpu itself.
However, there's no reason that this needs to be the case for all IDE controllers. Specifically, the controllers used in Mac hardware do such handshaking themselves, much the way that a SCSI controller is expected to do bus arbitration. (This is actually _because_ of the fact that IDE came to the Mac much later than SCSI, so the controllers were more self-sufficient, to make them easier to integrate into the system.)
This does mean that the IDE controllers are more expensive than their Intellish counterparts. It still turns out to be more cost-effective, given the relative cheapness of IDE drives.
And, as many people have already pointed out, individual drives (or even pairs of them) are not generally capable of saturating either bus.
(And by way of history, IDE has been around in Apple machines for about five years now, and has been the default for over two.)
What else was there? (Score:2)
What else were they supposed to use, ST-506? Or should they have simply delayed the introduction of the Mac for six years while they waited for IDE to come out? ;-)
The real question is why did the PeeCee switch from ST-506 (and then ESDI) to IDE, when they could have settled on SCSI instead. The reason IDE is cheap is mainly due to economy of scale, which didn't exist in IDE's early days. I never understood that... but I never understood WinModems either.
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Have a Sloppy day!
Why is the media so quick to jump to conclusions? (Score:2)
At the bottom of the article however, is this interesting link [cnet.com]to a previous story ran by cnet. Guess what this one says. That Motorola is going to produce chips for AMD. Well, this article is equally as worthless as the current story, as they even in there own article state that its not true. The article is about how Mot is going to make AMD's chips, and then it states that the agreement did not include manufacturing of any of AMD's PC processors.
Pretty sure this is true.... (Score:1)
Take it for what it's worth.
Re:Competition makes for strange bed fellows (Score:1)
Even before today's bloodbath in the stock market (AMD and Apple both went down 9-10%), they were both in trouble. AMD can barely keep up with Intel, and Apple can't get their hands on enough chips to sell their computers.
It would certainly be good for us computer buyers if AMD could keep forcing Intel to lower their prices. (and lower theirs at the same time ...)
Apple had been on a pretty good run, considering their stocks doubled in the last 6 months. I will always remember using my first Macintosh a long time ago, after years of DOS and W3.1 and thinking "woa, this is what a computer should be !"
I think all those companies really need each other if they want to be able to compete against the Wintel business. If AMD doesn't make it, then you can forget about those sub $500 computer !
Re:Interface bandwidth != Transfer Rate (Score:1)
matt
Re:DON'T YOU READ?!?! ARRG!@$*(#) (Score:1)
Apple's been using IDE on lower-end models for at least three or four years.
Frankly, I think 'build-to-order' SCSI is a better option than Apple's old plan of producing one lower-end IDE model (Say PMac 4400) and a slightly faster higher-end SCSI model costing much more (PMac 7300).
Re:Copper, aluminum, and gold (Score:2)
I am no expert on all of this, but i am a chemist (theoretical, no inorganic).
Copper atoms are heavier than aluminum atoms...
it [gold] diffuses like lightning...
Gold is even heavier than copper, and therefore should diffuse less and be less suseptible to electromigration. So while what you say may indeed be true, I question you explainations of these phenomena...
Artificially high SCSI prices (Score:1)
Re:Internal Firewire.. huh? (Score:1)
Also, the main reason noone's doing internal firewire is that Apple has sold firewire with the promise that it's incredibly hot-swappable; plug it in, wait 10 seconds, and you have access to the drive. No external power source needed. So if you're buying a technology because it's hot-swappable, why would you enclose it?
One more thing: different RAID levels mean different things. Only a few RAID configurations allow for redundancy. RAID0, for example, is merely a volume set, with no parity.
Re:Apple vs. AMD, Current Pricing (Score:1)
Anyway, onto my box!
AMD K7-500
Enlight EN-7233 ATX Mid Tower Case w/235W AGI P/S (K7)
Dual Turbine K7 Cooling Kit (Double Fan)
Yamaha 6/4/16X 6416S SCSI-2 CD-RW
Toshiba 40X CD-ROM Drive - Internal SCSI-2
IBM DNES-318350U 18.2GB U2/WS (7ms-2M-7200rpm)
FIC SD11, Slot A, ATX, U/ATA66, (5/1/1X2) 3DIMMs
Intel 8475B EtherExpress PRO/100 PCI 10BT/100BTAdaptec AHA-2940U2W PCI W-U2 SCSI Bus Master
Matrox Millennium G400 16MB SGRAM AGP
PC100 128MB SDRAM 16Mx64 - Crucial Tech (Micron Original K7)
Iomega 100MB Zip SCSI
Parts Price: $2648.40
Shipping: $51.75
Geek total: $2700.15
Assembly (estimate): 150.00
End User Total: $2850.15
Possible merger? (Score:1)
Mac and IDE (Score:1)
Also, my Centris 660av does take advantage of all the SCSI stuff without the OS getting in the way, This has something to do with a different SCSI controller to previous Macs, as well as a built in DSP chip.
Both these machines are pre-PowerMac (PowerPC) Macintoshes, based on the MC68040 processor. It just goes to show how Apple can put good technology to waste. If they had've kept going with these machines instead of jumping to PowerPC systems, who knows what we might be using today. Anyone remember PinkOS?
Re:FireWire only for External? (Score:1)
Re:Internal Firewire.. huh? (Score:1)
internal fireware is a good idea.
macs in the future will have internal firewire drives.
apple hasn't done it yet because:
a) firewire hasn't caught on totally, yet
b) ide is cheap
Re:Strange.. (Score:2)
1. AMD is not currently suffering from capacity problems on its K6 line. Yields on the K6 line in their
2. Gateway is married to Intel. They always have been. They have never used AMD chips, and have never really even considered them. Take any statements you hear from Gateway with a grain of salt.
3. AMD is currently producing Athlons from its
4. AMD doesn't really care that much about their stock price. They are primarily concerned about having enough cash reserves to get through the next 6 months. Money from Motorola should help. In fact, it works out well since producing the G4 at Dresden might help iron out some of the bugs with the new fab before transitioning Athlon production there.
Re:good. (But is it really?) (Score:2)
Once things settle, they'll all have their own territory. MS and Sun will still make servers and Motorola and Intel will still make processors, but Windows NT could, say, own the small business market while Sun controlls the high-end server/workstation market. Likewise, all PCs might have Intel CPUs while all cars have PowerPCs. So they technically compete, but are stil able to gouge the consumer.
I prefer to see many (ie 5) companies working in the same industry. If Intel, AMD, Cyrix, WinChip, and (maybe) Transmeta were all making compatible chips with each adding features here and there, I think we'd see a much more consumer friendly market.
Re:G4 Processors and Computing (Score:1)
Re:FireWire only for External? (Score:1)
Re:they were on tv (Score:2)
Re:FireWire only for External? (Score:2)
Almost every Mac at the office has external drives connected to it (Audio, Video, and Graphic work). Swapping 18 GB external HDs around is common practice here. Some even have arrays.
Apple has gone with ATA becuase it's cheap and for most purposes just as fast as SCSI, Macs (new Macs at least) don't suffer the same kind of CPU usage with ATA drives that many PCs do. For Apple the low-end get's IDE, the mid-end get's IDE and Firewire ,the high-end gets SCSI (via a PCI card) and Firewire.
Firewire is going to be very cool, the problem right now is there are no native firewire drives, all the firewire drives you see for sale have a SCSI or IDE drive with a IDE/SCSI--FireWire converter in the exclosure. The Sawtooth G4s have an internal Firewire port and once two things happen you're likely to see internal firewire offerings. First someone has to start shipping firewire HDs, second Open Firmware has to support booting from FireWire.
They cheaped out on the Disk subsystem and that's that.
I'd rather see SCSI offered as an Ultra2 LVD dual channel PCI card then the 5 MBps SCSI port seen on the 9600...
Re:G4 Processors and Computing (Score:1)
And what third party's would you be referring to here? Its not OpenBSD, FreeBSD, NetBSD, or any of the Linux distros. You might be refering to Be, but declining to give the specs for your own products to others is not "hostile".
Re:G4 Processors and Computing (Score:1)
Microsoft doesn't do well with competition either. It hasn't hurt them.
Apple's real problem is that they are too vertically integrated. The PC market is so much more successful because it is sliced horizontally..Microsoft owns everything to do with OS and some apps and nothing else, Intel owns everything to do with CPU and support chips and nothing else, a handful of companies (Dell, Gateway, emachines) own most of the integration market, and lots of small companies fight it out for the various device markets, each staking out one corner of it or another. Apple, on the other hand, tries to Own It All. For this, they fail to conquer and will always fail to conquer. I doubt they will ever mend their ways.
Re:DON'T YOU READ?!?! ARRG!@$*(#) (Score:1)
This IMHO is as it should be. (The old on board SCSI was a good thing when they first introduced it. But it didn't keep up with the market and in the end it was was an added expence that was only really good for slow devices like CD-ROMs. And even in those cases when they offered faster SCSI on the internal bus, the OS wasn't really up to taking advantage of it, particularly as faster IDE implementations began appearing in the Wintel world.)
Re:good. (Score:1)
Re:Interface bandwidth != Transfer Rate (Score:1)
Re:G4 using IDE? Why? (Score:1)
Re:DON'T YOU READ?!?! ARRG!@$*(#) (Score:2)
Re:Second-sourcing (Score:1)
Re:GCC on PowerPC (Score:3)
Apple is using EGCS/GCC 2.95 as its compiler for Mac OS X [client] (not OS X Server; that uses gcc "2.7.2.1" for now).
They've submitted a large quantity of code (mostly from the work done at NeXT) to the GCC maintainers, and work proceeds to integrate the two source bases.
Furthermore, Apple would be nothing short of braindead to release OS X [client] for G4 systems without using an AltiVec-aware vectorizing compiler to generate their code. Since GCC Is the compiler that they're using, it seems more than likely that they will expend considerable resources to making GCC's PowerPC codegen as good as possible. (And LinuxPPC will see the benefits, too. Very cool.) Perhaps they can even integrate some of their work from MrC/MrCpp, Apple's fantastically good optimizing PowerPC C and C++ compilers for MPW.
Re:G4 Processors and Computing (Score:2)
IDE vs SCSI (Score:2)
Re:they were on tv (Score:1)
This may have some merit to it... (Score:1)
Anyways......
This may actually happen, unlike every other Apple related RUMOR I've seen on slashdot, this could be true, because AMD and Motorola have made many deals in the past, including some stuff about that nifty K7 processor.
If you've seen or heard of a K7, look at it again. Yup theres quite a bbit of Motorola technology in that sucker.... Wiring, design, etc... Parts of it mysteriously resemble the G4 (really don't want to go into detail here...)
Maybe AMD will finally return the favor and manufacture some G4's... Why not?
-Curt
PCI64 not closed (Score:3)
You may be thinkng of PCI-X, which is an extension to PCI to up the clock rate to 133 MHz. PCI-X may require royalty payments, I'm not sure.
Intel intended to make NGIO an open spec. NGIO and FutureIO recently merged into a single proposal, and I'm not sure where they are going wrt licensing.
Re:Strange.. (Score:3)
This is a win-win deal for AMD. They get to equip their fab with
When the Dresden plant is up to speed, they will start migrating K6-3 (their Celeron killer at the low end) over to copper at Dresden and phase out production in Austin, while the K6-2 will continue as an embedded CPU only while Austin is rebuilt to manufacture at
AMD isn't being very cagey with their plans, either. I think that this is one reason why Intel is nervous. Yes, the K7 is good. But remember, the K6 was good as well. For that matter, the K5 kicked some serious ass. (And I guess that I am not too jaded because I recall how delighted I was to finally get a 66MHz 486!) These chips did not help AMD too much. What kept AMD in the status of also-ran? Remember, they have had a lot of excellent embedded products for years -- they are a well respected company in the market outside of x86 CPUs (and would bet better respected inside the x86 market if Jerry Sanders could keep his salesdroid mouth shut -- the bulk of the problems that AMD has had have to do with Sanders' selling the idea that AMD will ramp up better and faster than anyone ever before to the press; in reality, AMD's fabs have run better than most and the ramp-up has rarely been slow, Sanders had just worked everyone into a froth ahead of time so that there was no way to meet demand). What beat Intel was marketing and Intel managing to turn the Pentium into a brand. Now that AMD is learning to play the same game and people are seeing that there isn't much of a difference/AMD is competing on MHz which people look for, AMD is doing better. When they are at a decent volume, I think that the simple economics will push the majors (IBM, Compaq) to go heavily AMD, because this will be happening that the same time (end of this year, beginning of next) that the direct channel will be putting pressure on them to cut costs.
So, I think that AMD will do fine.
Wow -- sorry about the rambling. Back to coffee and work.