[Eug]

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=5584

Many believe that the race for GHz ended with the Pentium 4 architecture, but you wouldn’t be able to tell by looking at the speed of these two upcoming IBM processors. According to the agenda of the International Solid State Circuits conference, IBM’s Power6 Processor will operate at speeds of over 5GHz in high-performance applications. The second-generation of the Cell Broadband Engine processor, which was co-developed by IBM, Sony and Toshiba, will run at 6GHz. More details of Intel's "teraflop-on-a-chip" network processor will also be revealed.

[Lateralus]

Not trying to be a prick Eug, but you're gonna have to start doing more than including a link and an article caption every time you want to create a thread on a new bit of news. The Lounge is meant to function as more than an RSS feed.

[Visnaut]

6GHz you say? Wow, we may yet see a 3GHz G5 after all!

[mduell]

From what I saw in earlier POWER6 previews, the way they get to 6Ghz is by destroying IPC; we're talking things like abandoning OOP. But if you can make it up with clockrate and keep the power down, it's a good way to go.

POWER6 will be another $$$$-$$$$$ chip, not a $$$ chip like the G5.

[OreoCookie]

The G5 was a cheap chip mduell (AFAIK even $$), much cheaper in the production (and final price) than you might think. When Apple has switched to Intel cpus, the prices rose, despite the fact that Apple had to design logic board chips by themselves.

[Chuckit]

I'll be interested to see this in practice.

[willed]

Wow, if only Apple had hung on another year with the G4 PowerBooks then we could have had the possibility of this in only another 2-3 years' time.

Darn.

[Salty]

You don't want a POWER6 in a laptop. Nor do you want a Cell. Xcode could be updated for any new architecture. If PPC or any other chips came out that would be better for Apple to use they could switch again. Hopefully they'll have no reason. But.

[OreoCookie]

That's one of the beauties of OS X: it's pretty much platform-independent. Intel has proposed a new 80-core prototype. For now, it's just a proof-of-concept, but I guess they'll switch platforms then. Windows will hit another wall right then and there.

IBM has (obviously) little interest in making a low-power derivative of the Power6, and I assume this won't change any time soon.

[Eriamjh]

Just remember "3GHz in one year" and you will learn to forget about predictions of faster processors from chip companies.

I guess the company that is using cell processors in its PCs will just blow away the competition. Oh wait, that's nobody!

[OreoCookie]

Originally Posted by Eriamjh 

I guess the company that is using cell processors in its PCs will just blow away the competition. Oh wait, that's nobody!

Actually cell-based cpus are very interesting for the super computer market. That's why scientists were thrilled to learn that Sony allows people to install Linux onto their PS3s! IBM also offers cell-based blades for an arm, a leg and a first-born (I seem to remember something like $18,000), so it is interesting, just not interesting for every-day tasks at this point. (This is partly due to the rather slow multi-purpose core).

[Eug]

Originally Posted by Visnaut 

6GHz you say? Wow, we may yet see a 3GHz G5 after all!

No Altivec I presume.

Originally Posted by Chuckit 

I'll be interested to see this in practice.

I suspect POWER6 will be a floating point monster.

Not so sure about Cell. Perhaps for supercomputers and TVs, although for TVs the chip will be much, much slower. Similarly, the PS3 will continue to use a chip at 3+ GHz however.

[OreoCookie]

Originally Posted by Eug 

No Altivec I presume.

The Power6 will have an AltiVec unit.

[Eug]

Originally Posted by OreoCookie 

The Power6 will have an AltiVec unit.

Hey cool. I didn't know that.

I suspect Apple will have a proof of concept version of OS X running in the lab basement somewhere on Power6. However, for obvious financial reasons, it will never see the light of day, unless suddenly all Intel and AMD chip designs self-destruct.

BTW, it seems from the description is it the same Altivec instruction set, not some altered set like on Cell. Took them long enough...

[OreoCookie]

Originally Posted by Eug 

BTW, it seems from the description is it the same Altivec instruction set, not some altered set like on Cell. Took them long enough...

Cell's special instructions have nothing to do with AltiVec. IBM suggested Apple to use Cell cpus, but Apple declined. The reason is simple: you need to optimize applications to use these 7 (or 8) SPEs. If you don't, you have to resort to the relatively slow multi-purpose core.

The Power6 will sport a regular AltiVec engine (IBM refers to it as VMX). I guess it would be easy to run OS X on such a machine.

[macintologist]

Funny how Mac users have totally turned on the PPC platform after meeting the Intel chip with such skepticism

[Visnaut]

Originally Posted by macintologist 

Funny how Mac users have totally turned on the PPC platform after meeting the Intel chip with such skepticism

I think that since Apple did such a formidable job in transitioning the entire platform in such a short span of time, and with such immediate speed benefits in doing so, that it really assuaged any fears and skepticism that the large majority of the mac community had.

And for average users, they probably didn't care much, other than it was faster; that in and of itself shows how quickly and transparently they were able make that transition.

[iranfromthezoo]

I'm confused. Can someone better explain the cell processor compared to a G5 or a Core2Duo? I have no clue what it is....maybe better.

[Eug]

Simplified explanation:

Cell: 1 general purpose core (called PPE) with stripped down functionality. It runs at a very high clock rate, but this core does much less per clock because it's stripped down. However, it also has 7 (!) very specialized cores (called SPEs), which may not be useful in some general purpose computing, but may be extremely useful in specialized types of applications.

Dual-core G5 or Core 2 Duo: 2 general purpose cores that are robust in their ability to do work during each clock. However, they run at lower clock speeds than Cell.

To put it another way:

The chip in the PS3 is Cell. The chip in the Xbox 360 uses the Cell's PPE as well, but no SPEs. OTOH, the Xbox 360's chip has three PPEs.

People claim that Cell might be slightly faster, but the Xbox 360 may be easier to program for, since the design philosophy is closer to a PC in many ways (and the 360's development tools are better). In the end, the capabilities of both machines on average are about the same.

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by macintologist 

Funny how Mac users have totally turned on the PPC platform after meeting the Intel chip with such skepticism

After going from being on top with the PowerPC to being years behind, I think it's kind of understandable. In my opinion, the problem isn't with the PowerPC itself, but that the companies that make the PowerPC have never been interested in making it into the kind of processor we need.

[Salty]

In other words, technically the Cell could do some amazing stuff, but if Apple switched you'd be screwed cause it would take years before people both figured out how to code for the thing properly, and actually updated their apps. Until then you'd be SOL and the platform would likely die

[Eug]

Originally Posted by Salty 

In other words, technically the Cell could do some amazing stuff, but if Apple switched you'd be screwed cause it would take years before people both figured out how to code for the thing properly, and actually updated their apps. Until then you'd be SOL and the platform would likely die

Some OS X applications could fly on Cell, but others would suck royally, even after optimization. And like you said, that optimization wouldn't come easily, since Cell is such a radical departure from the norm. Not a great choice for a general purpose computer like a Mac. Furthermore, only one organization makes it (STI), and for very specific purposes. In contrast, on the Intel side there are both AMD and Intel duking it out, in the market in which Apple needs them to be. They're fighting for laptop and desktop customers, not console and TV customers.

[mduell]

Originally Posted by OreoCookie 

The G5 was a cheap chip mduell (AFAIK even $$), much cheaper in the production (and final price) than you might think. When Apple has switched to Intel cpus, the prices rose, despite the fact that Apple had to design logic board chips by themselves.

Good to know. Given that IBM's yields are usually so poor, I would have guessed even the cheapest PPC970 was over $100.
I wonder what all of Apple's chipset designers are doing now.

Originally Posted by OreoCookie 

That's one of the beauties of OS X: it's pretty much platform-independent. Intel has proposed a new 80-core prototype. For now, it's just a proof-of-concept, but I guess they'll switch platforms then. Windows will hit another wall right then and there.

IIRC the 80-core chip from Intel will be a FP monster (and unlike Cell, likely double precision), not a good desktop chip.

Originally Posted by OreoCookie 

Actually cell-based cpus are very interesting for the super computer market. That's why scientists were thrilled to learn that Sony allows people to install Linux onto their PS3s! IBM also offers cell-based blades for an arm, a leg and a first-born (I seem to remember something like $18,000), so it is interesting, just not interesting for every-day tasks at this point. (This is partly due to the rather slow multi-purpose core).

How many scientists are really that interested in running all of their simulations at single precision? Not many in the industries I've worked in. The double precision performance on Cell is entirely uninteresting.