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thunderous_funker · Jan 27, 2003, 09:23 PM

I keep noticing updates on HyperTransport (MacCentral reported some announcements today) and I keep wondering how HyperTransport fits into their long term strategy goals.

Anyone got facts or speculation on this?

Thinine · Jan 28, 2003, 04:34 PM

I doubt anyone has facts, but I'll speculate for ya!

When Apple releases PPC 970 based PowerMacs (trust me, it will happen), those machines will probably use some aspect of the Hyper Transport technology. We know that if Apple uses the 970 they have to use IBM's system bus (you know, the one with �ber-bandwidth). This gives the system a lot of performance potential. Hopefully, Apple will use HT based tech for the PCI and HD interfaces, giving the Mac a real leg up on the competition. Add this to 10.3's probable support for professional graphics (Quadro and FIreGL lines) and audio cards and the Mac is now a kick as* pro workstation. Personally, I'm going to buy a computer a year from now and I expect the features I mentioned to be available by then.

January 2004 PowerMac's
Dual 1.8, 2.0, or 2.2 GHz PPC 970
DDR-II memory at 500 MHz (4 slots for up to 4 GB)
4 PCI-X slots
8x AGP slot
Serial ATA HD (200 GB +)
Bluetooth and APE

Superchicken · Jan 28, 2003, 05:02 PM

Do you guys think that this'll be in the power mac or possibly something else? Do a lot of people who simply need the proccessing power need the speed of faster PCI Cards?
granted apple tends to make the power mac a one size fits all... yeah so it probably will.
Are there any advantages that someone doing video, or graphics, or 3D, or web design might see from hyper transport?
Like what areas would get benfit what wouldn't?

raferx · Jan 29, 2003, 02:46 AM

Man, more system bandwidth is brutally overdue. What benefits would someone doing video work see... how about being able to drive two monitors ar 1600x1200 or more and not have QE completely hose your PCI bus (second video card) trying to do it? I have every PCI slot filled, and there are times my machine feels sluggish, for chrissake, I have a DP 1GHZ with 1.5 GB of RAM! I paid $4700 Canadian for sluggish? I think not. Bring on a 900MHz bus, and HT system controller technology, serial ATA and 8x AGP, just for the love of bandwidth! DO IT APPLE!

BenRoethig · Jan 29, 2003, 12:03 PM

Originally posted by Thinine:
I doubt anyone has facts, but I'll speculate for ya!

When Apple releases PPC 970 based PowerMacs (trust me, it will happen), those machines will probably use some aspect of the Hyper Transport technology. We know that if Apple uses the 970 they have to use IBM's system bus (you know, the one with �ber-bandwidth). This gives the system a lot of performance potential. Hopefully, Apple will use HT based tech for the PCI and HD interfaces, giving the Mac a real leg up on the competition. Add this to 10.3's probable support for professional graphics (Quadro and FIreGL lines) and audio cards and the Mac is now a kick as* pro workstation. Personally, I'm going to buy a computer a year from now and I expect the features I mentioned to be available by then.

January 2004 PowerMac's
Dual 1.8, 2.0, or 2.2 GHz PPC 970
DDR-II memory at 500 MHz (4 slots for up to 4 GB)
4 PCI-X slots
8x AGP slot
Serial ATA HD (200 GB +)
Bluetooth and APE

Hopefully they'll be announced in New York instead of San Francisco.

bradoesch · Jan 29, 2003, 12:11 PM

They'll likely release system with HyperTransport about 1 year after something better comes along, once it's a bit obsolete.

markizack · Jan 29, 2003, 12:37 PM

who knows...apple is jus know using DDR ram, and still uses ATA 66, and 100...doesnt use ATA-133 yet....a little behind if you ask me..

Eriamjh · Jan 29, 2003, 02:01 PM

Hypertransport is hyper-expensive right now. And what peripherals support it? None that I know of.

Apple will either put in in PMs when the rest of the PC industry has or take the lead and put it in first forcing the industry to catch-up.

If they do, expect a legacy PCI slot for a year or two before PCI goes away. Unless Apple decides to go all-out and do a complete switch to HT, PCI will be with us for a little while longer.

In other words, either they will... or they won't. There's a 50% chance.

BenRoethig · Jan 29, 2003, 06:40 PM

Originally posted by markizack:
who knows...apple is jus know using DDR ram, and still uses ATA 66, and 100...doesnt use ATA-133 yet....a little behind if you ask me..

Apple didn't have a reason to start using DDR SDRAM. They didn't have a processor that supported it, they still don't. IMO, the only reason Apple included DDR memory in the MDD G4s is to get people off Apple's back about the DDR issue. It really doesn't do anything, the processor doesn't have enough bandwidth for it to be effective.

CubieDubbie · Jan 29, 2003, 06:49 PM

BenRoethig,
very well said. There is not that much of a deal for those of us who have DDR ram right now. Hopefully someday it will happen but, I bet it will be a while. Seems to me that the Dual 867 I bbought is at least as good if not a tad better than the single 1ghz. that is the bottom now. Looks to me, like they stepped backwards a little on the new models though thats only my thoughts on it. What do think??????? I think it will probably be another year or so before we see the IBM processor in the Macs???????????????

OreoCookie · Jan 30, 2003, 11:47 AM

Originally posted by Thinine:
I doubt anyone has facts, but I'll speculate for ya!

When Apple releases PPC 970 based PowerMacs (trust me, it will happen), those machines will probably use some aspect of the Hyper Transport technology. We know that if Apple uses the 970 they have to use IBM's system bus (you know, the one with �ber-bandwidth). This gives the system a lot of performance potential. Hopefully, Apple will use HT based tech for the PCI and HD interfaces, giving the Mac a real leg up on the competition. Add this to 10.3's probable support for professional graphics (Quadro and FIreGL lines) and audio cards and the Mac is now a kick as* pro workstation. Personally, I'm going to buy a computer a year from now and I expect the features I mentioned to be available by then.

January 2004 PowerMac's
Dual 1.8, 2.0, or 2.2 GHz PPC 970
DDR-II memory at 500 MHz (4 slots for up to 4 GB)
4 PCI-X slots
8x AGP slot
Serial ATA HD (200 GB +)
Bluetooth and APE

Specs seam reasonable. But I think we'll see them earlier ... (MacWorld NYC/Boston).

OreoCookie · Jan 30, 2003, 11:48 AM

Originally posted by Eriamjh:
Hypertransport is hyper-expensive right now. And what peripherals support it? None that I know of.

Apple will either put in in PMs when the rest of the PC industry has or take the lead and put it in first forcing the industry to catch-up.

If they do, expect a legacy PCI slot for a year or two before PCI goes away. Unless Apple decides to go all-out and do a complete switch to HT, PCI will be with us for a little while longer.

In other words, either they will... or they won't. There's a 50% chance.

Not true, I just bought an nForce2 Athlon mobo for my little brother ... uses HyperTransport already ...

Eriamjh · Jan 30, 2003, 01:16 PM

Not true, I just bought an nForce2 Athlon mobo for my little brother ... uses HyperTransport already ...

I said "None that I know of." Now I know of one.

Got any HT cards in that mobo?

larkost · Feb 2, 2003, 10:07 PM

HyperTransport is not intended to be a periferal interface like PCI (anymore). At one point that was an option, but now Intel's sucessor to PCI looks like it will take over that space.

Hypertransport on the other hand will be used as an on-the-board transport mechanism, both connecting main chipset (Northbridge to Southbridge, etc), and possibly partially taking over for connecting memory and the CPU. It also is starting to get some traction as the bus that connects GPU's and memory on graphics cards.

Apple Pro Underwear · Feb 2, 2003, 11:03 PM

Originally posted by markizack:
who knows...apple is jus know using DDR ram, and still uses ATA 66, and 100...doesnt use ATA-133 yet....a little behind if you ask me..

i think the idea is that in one swoop, they can get a processor and design a new system that can accompdate all the new technologies

they are not simply adding, they are completely making a new powermac...if indeed they get a new processor

Catfish_Man · Feb 2, 2003, 11:37 PM

Most likely, Apple won't use it at all. Both IBM and Motorola are going full speed towards RapidIO, which (if what I've read is true) is somewhat superior to HyperTransport and is being used in embedded stuff a lot (MPC85xx series, for example). I wouldn't be the least bit surprised to find out that the chipset Apple uses for the 970 uses RapidIO.

Also, the DDR does do something. Previously, if the graphics card/HD/CD Drive/Ethernet/etc... were using the ram, it would take away from the processor's bandwidth. Now it doesn't, because it can use the extra 1.05GB/sec the DDR is providing. Since Quartz Extreme involves a lot of GPU work, having DDR helps it out.

Mac Zealot · Feb 2, 2003, 11:59 PM

QS 2001:

slots: 4 64-bit 133Mhz PCI, 1 266Mhz (4x) AGP (used by graphics card)

QS 2002:

slots: 4 64-bit 133Mhz PCI, 1 266Mhz (4x) AGP (used by graphics card)

MDD 2003:

Four open 64-bit, 33MHz PCI slots; AGP 4X slot with graphics card installed

Is it my imagination or have powermacs had PCI-X for 3 years now?

I think the '133mhz' is a typo at apple-history but meh

Eug · 10:56 AM

Originally posted by Catfish_Man:
Most likely, Apple won't use it at all. Both IBM and Motorola are going full speed towards RapidIO, which (if what I've read is true) is somewhat superior to HyperTransport and is being used in embedded stuff a lot (MPC85xx series, for example). I wouldn't be the least bit surprised to find out that the chipset Apple uses for the 970 uses RapidIO.

I agree. Apple is part of the HyperTransport consortium, but it's possible that Apple will never use the technology as people are thinking they would. The PPC970 will be Rapid IO.

Since Quartz Extreme involves a lot of GPU work, having DDR helps it out.

Really? How does this work with the AGP bus?

EDIT:

It seems that ASSUMING that Macs make good use of DDR via AGP, then DDR may help. While PC133 SDRAM speeds is similar to 4X AGP, 4X AGP is still limited by SDRAM because of bus utilization of bandwidth by other things on the system. Having DDR can alleviate some of the bandwidth bottleneck.

It's a different story with 2X AGP though, on a PC133 SDRAM bus. PC133 has nearly twice the bandwidth of 2X AGP, so the memory bus shouldn't be a bottleneck.

SMacTech · Feb 3, 2003, 12:59 PM

Originally posted by markizack:
who knows...apple is jus know using DDR ram, and still uses ATA 66, and 100...doesnt use ATA-133 yet....a little behind if you ask me..

Show me a hard disk system that can fully utilize the bandwidth of ATA100, let alone ATA133.

Eug · Feb 3, 2003, 01:10 PM

Originally posted by SMacTech:
Show me a hard disk system that can fully utilize the bandwidth of ATA100, let alone ATA133.

ATA RAID.

OreoCookie · Feb 4, 2003, 08:09 AM

Originally posted by Eug:
I agree. Apple is part of the HyperTransport consortium, but it's possible that Apple will never use the technology as people are thinking they would. The PPC970 will be Rapid IO.

...

Really, I thought they were going for HyperTransport ... (dubbed ApplePI). Sure about this? All I have read so far was that the PPC970 will use HyperTransport as a CPU interconnect (Apple is in the HyperTransport consortium ...)

Eug · Feb 4, 2003, 10:10 AM

Originally posted by OreoCookie:
Really, I thought they were going for HyperTransport ... (dubbed ApplePI). Sure about this? All I have read so far was that the PPC970 will use HyperTransport as a CPU interconnect (Apple is in the HyperTransport consortium ...)

Here is an article from IBM itself:

"IBM sees the RapidIO Interconnect Architecture as a crucial technology for IBM's future PowerPC Strategy."

OreoCookie · Feb 4, 2003, 01:02 PM

Originally posted by Eug:
Here is an article from IBM itself:

"IBM sees the RapidIO Interconnect Architecture as a crucial technology for IBM's future PowerPC Strategy."

Thanks. Document is rather old. But that document is rather old. Didn't they mention anything in one of those presentations?

Eug · Feb 4, 2003, 02:05 PM

OK no facts, but how about conjecture?

The Inquirer thinks it's based on HyperTransport.

The Register thinks it's based on RapidIO.

Ars bets on RapidIO.

However, most of the conjecture is focusing more on other PPC chips.

OreoCookie · Feb 5, 2003, 06:44 AM

Originally posted by Eug:
OK no facts, but how about conjecture?

The Inquirer thinks it's based on HyperTransport.

The Register thinks it's based on RapidIO.

Ars bets on RapidIO.

However, most of the conjecture is focusing more on other PPC chips.

So it's a 2-to-1 decision in favor of RapidIO