If you have n’t already , check out Tom Yager ’s IBM ’s Power5 deserving a 2d face , first posted on MacCentral on December 22nd .
The Power5 has n’t yet arrived in an Apple machine , despite the similarly key PowerPC G5 , the Mac ’s latest , greatest CPU . Apple ’s G5 is really based on the Power4 — except with a single core , a smaller dice , less estrus , and lower power consumption .
In other words , the PowerPC personification of the Power architecture is optimise for smaller car . And that programme seems to be working well than ever : Apple sell 836,000 PowerPC laptop computer , screen background , and server systems in its 4th financial one-quarter of 2004 . That ’s no threat to Intel or AMD , but then there are no $ 400 Macs for sales event at Wal - Mart Stores Inc. , either . After x86 , there is little interrogation as to which CPU architecture will retain the No . 2 slot . ( Hint : It ’s not Itanium 2 . )
Back in the other ’ 90s , it was Apple ’s desire to move beyond the carrying into action limitation of the Motorola 68xxx line of microprocessors that led to the creation of the Somerset project in Austin , Texas . There , engineers from Apple , IBM , and Motorola Inc. ( AIM ) get together and fight with one another ( mostly fought ) to make the first PowerPC , the 601 , a single - crisp derivative of IBM ’s high - carrying into action RS/6000 CPU . As soon as the processor ship , Apple begin deport the first model of Power Mac . That initial PowerPC - based machine outsell Intel - based PCs , helped by the fact that Apple and Motorola developed putz that give “ fat binaries , ” computer software that ran identically on 68xxx and PowerPC - base systems . ( Hello , Intel ? )
Apple is still the driving force behind distinct PowerPC applied science . It tug Freescale , a Motorola spin - off , to make the MPC7447A to replace the ineffective CPU used in the first 17 - inch PowerBook G4 . Freescale ’s next oeuvre will be the 7448 , which repeat the cache sizing of the 7447A and evoke the ceiling on the bus and clock speed . The company also has a dual - core , 32 - bit PowerPC micro chip coming up .
Apple drive IBM to make the 64 - bit home rivulet PowerPC 970 and 970FX , chip that , like to the 601 , appeared in Apple hardware in record time . Power Mac G5 , Xserve G5 , and OS X did for Mac users what even the vivid AMD ca n’t do without Microsoft ’s supporter : transmigrate drug user to a 64 - bit political platform without one excrescence . Just as intriguing , Apple , IBM , and the public married person that sign IBM ’s open permit could carry Mac exploiter all the path to Power without the suffering that blocked user ’ migration from x86 to Itanium .
PowerPC and Power imprint a continuum of compatible , and now assailable , mainframe figure — and our hypothesis is that the Power5 design will arrive in some form in an Apple machine in 2005 . The company that rely on PowerPC will do very nicely bet on the No . 2 horse .
Tom Yager is technical theater director of the InfoWorld Test Center .
