FINALLY: A Faster Processor, Not More Cores

[mac57]

Investors Business Daily reported today that IBM has announced the next generation of the PowerPC chip, to go on sale next month. Reading it makes me wish that Apple had kept a dual stream open, sourcing both Intel and PowerPC machines...

The new Power6 runs at 4.7 GHz and yet uses less power than its predecessor (which I assume to be the G5). Since Apple was the last desktop manufacturer using the PowerPC architecture, the new chip is targetted at the server market.

4.7 GHz! I could use one of those! More cores only help if the software is written specifically for that, and even then, there are some things that just need more brute strength to make them go any faster. Not every problem can be solved by multi threading. Lets hope that Intel can figure out how to break the 3.x GHz barrier sometime soon!

 

[Village Idiot]

Investors Business Daily reported today that IBM has announced the next generation of the PowerPC chip, to go on sale next month. Reading it makes me wish that Apple had kept a dual stream open, sourcing both Intel and PowerPC machines...

The new Power6 runs at 4.7 GHz and yet uses less power than its predecessor (which I assume to be the G5). Since Apple was the last desktop manufacturer using the PowerPC architecture, the new chip is targetted at the server market.

4.7 GHz! I could use one of those! More cores only help if the software is written specifically for that, and even then, there are some things that just need more brute strength to make them go any faster. Not every problem can be solved by multi threading. Lets hope that Intel can figure out how to break the 3.x GHz barrier sometime soon!

You should know that GHz is just a number anymore. A 4ghz P4 can't touch any of the new core2 chips that run at half the speed. It's more than cores they're adding, it's faster FSB's and l2 caches, things that are more important that how many cycles a chip moves in a second.

Intel has already put out specs for their next generations of chips. They look to be much faster than the c2d chips out now.

There was an article a while back before Apple went Intel. It was a mock up of a G5 PowerBook. The base was about 1.5" thick, not including the screen because of the size of the chip and the heating issues in such a small case. Bigger numbers are not always better numbers.

 

[trpnmonkey41]

this isn't a consumer grade processor. The only known machines that will use it go on sale starting at 60,000 in june

 

[mac57]

Peace. I have no issue with the "megahertz myth". However, if for example I look at a current C2D device, and leaving all else equal, if I could make the part run faster while using less power, I would have a faster Mac.

I agree that this is not a consumer part. I am simply pleased to see that we are finally seeing CPUs that are breaking into the 4.0 GHz space. I am eager to see Macs that run faster than 4.0 GHz!

 

[Kash]

I can understand the need for a faster processor for professionals that need the extra speed, such as audio/video/photo editing. But those people DO benefit from multiple cores because their programs are multi-threaded.

The average consumer doesn't need a 4GHz processor as the average needs are easily met by the hardware currently available. What a consumer needs is either hybrid hard drives or solid state memory hard drives, simply because that will remove the final barrier to exponentially increasing battery life and reducing heat. It is also the one part slowing the computer down. If you could speed up hard drive access times, performance will shoot through the roof. A 4GHz processor can't touch that kind of performance increase.

 

[knightlie]

Any 4Ghz chip is going to need a fridge strapped to it for some time to come. I'm happier with them concentrating on efficient chips, more cores, and multi-core-optimised OS'es and apps. The Ghz race was a pointless exercise, IMO, and probably set processors back a few years while they tried to get more and more clock speed. With the bottlenecks of system bus, memory and hard disk I wonder what speed increase a 4Ghz Mac would display? If it takes 10 seconds to load an app form the hard disk, then a 4Ghz processor isn't going to make that much faster.