[Ti] Impending speed bumps?

[Chris Olson]

On Aug 24, 2005, at 5:24 AM, Henry Kalir wrote:
The Mac is GREATER than the sum of its parts.

Yeah, right.  The Mac *IS* the sum of its parts.  I haven't seen any  
halo over my PowerBook lately.

Getting back to the topic, somebody asked about a speed bump.  Take a  
look at the hardware releases in the PowerBook line since Apple  
clocked the bus up to 167 Mhz.  All they've basically done, besides  
different drive and graphics options et al, is increase processor  
clock - bump the voltage on the core which increases power  
consumption with very marginal increases in performance.  You clock a  
cpu at 1 Ghz then increase its clock to 2 Ghz you don't double the  
machine's performance.  The real speed bumps happen in system  
architecture.  The 32-bit PowerPC processor has been developed  
*waaaay* beyond what's in the PowerBook G4.  Dual core, in fact, with  
a built in memory and network controller - truly cutting edge stuff.   
Stuff that Intel says they *might* have in 2007 when they released  
their joke of a processor roadmap a couple days ago.

Nobody here wonders why that stuff never made it into the PowerBook?

Minimum cost spent on engineering and development, milking an  
existing logicboard design for all it's worth, and cheapening up the  
processor in order to clock it faster.  That's what a modern  
PowerBook consists of.  The *real* technology and performance is in  
the dual core 32-bit processor manufactured by Freescale.  This  
processor integrates two e600 PowerPC cores, dual 64b DDR2, >533MHz  
ECC memory controllers, dual ethernet controllers, a RapidIO™ fabric  
interface, dual PCI Express, x1/x2/x4/x8, 2.0Gb/s per lane, 90nm SOI  
process, operates at a core voltage of 1.1VDC, full AltiVec support,  
and a high performance MPX 128-bit bus that scales to 667 MHz.  It  
outperforms the single core PowerPC970 (G5) running at 2.7 GHz hands  
down and only pulls 15 watts per core at 1.5 GHz clock.  I have one  
laying on my desk in front of me.  Those processors fit right into  
the PowerBook, although they'd require a different logicboard  
design.  Will the PowerBook ever get them?  Don't hold your breath.   
Freescale will charge Apple double for those cpu's what they're going  
for in the communications market after Apple went to IBM a couple  
years ago, and now to Intel.

Freescale has gone to the linux operating system (http:// 
www.freescale.com/webapp/community.show_collateral.framework? 
nodeId=0C0928905459414858&communityNodeId=0C0928) as a market for  
these new processors, which is like 20+ times the size of Apple's  
market.  Apple don't have many bargaining chips left (pardon the  
pun).  They got to the bottom of the barrel, had no where to go, and  
made too many enemies along the way.  And *that's* the real reason  
ya'll are running PowerBooks with 5-6 year old technology inside 'em.
--
Chris