Talk:PowerPC 970

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The listing of every Apple product that uses a G5 in it seems rather unneeded. This is a page about the PowerPC 970, not about apple products.

Contents 1 Intel edit? 2 what about the processor itself 3 Endianness? 4 Morons 5 Insides of a Rev.? 6 970GX missing in action 7 Move

[edit] Intel edit?

A user posted information about Apple's recent transition to Intel. Is that really realevent to the article? Personaly, I don't. I will revert the edit. --CoolFox 19:22, Jun 6, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] what about the processor itself

-power consumation -unit(activec alu...) -etc...

i also am interested in the TDP of the different G5 models... Plonk420 00:36, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

I found an IBM document dealing with the power consumption of different G5 versions, and also how different voltage would affect the power consumption. It's out there on the IBM website and I'll see if I can find it again. /Håkan 2007-02-25

[edit] Endianness?

There are claims that unlike previous PowerPC processors, the 970 series cannot handle both high-byte/low-byte and low-byte/high-byte ordering of values. This is the same thing as the Big Endian and Little Endian business. The PowerPC could switch from the Big Endian standard (which is what the English language and Arabic-math systems work in) to the Little Endian format popular with the aged x86 and MOS 6502 architectures. This switching ability was perhaps first implemented as a way to faciliatet faster x86 emulation.

In any event I'm agog that the ability to handle both formats would be taken out. Frankly I find it hard to believe. I'd like to see confirmation and (ideally) justification. Please tell me the PPC series isn't heading off towards Little Endianness!

[edit] Morons

Some person, obviously with a huge sense of humour changed the image for this page to an image of a toilet. I changed it back to the image found in the previous revision.

[edit] Insides of a Rev.?

This isn't a Revolution that the page is reffering to is it? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 70.112.76.158 (talk • contribs) 01:25, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

No, it is not. "Rev." is short for "Revision" in the caption. As the caption says, it's a G5 iMac. Guy Harris 01:54, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

It would be a good idea to have a link to the broadway page. Statements by IBM, reports from Ars and various other sources indicate that it is the low power consumption G5 processor. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 64.6.0.220 (talk • contribs) 23:22, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

On the contrary.. the latest rumors (since there are no official word from either Nintendo nor IBM) suggests that it's a evolved Gekko, ie a G3 part. If you have a source where IBM states something, I'd be glad to reconsider. Either way it shouldn't be long until the official specs are revealed. -- Henriok 18:44, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

I'll try to find the quote from the IBM guy, here are a few of the ars technica articles where they report that IBM offered broadway to Apple as a laptop G5 http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060520-6877.html http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060802-7407.html. I don't think its very likely IBM would have offered Apple a chip that is simply a G3 as a potential laptop chip. Also the language in the quote from the IBM rep (which I can't seem to find) he made it sound like it was something new, and not simply a lower powered G3 class chip. I think the final nail in the coffin would be the $250 pricetag of the Wii. Unless Nintendo are taking $75 or more in pure profit on every console sold or IBM is charging Nintendo individual prices on bulk orders the processor in the Wii has to be something more than a G3. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 64.6.0.220 (talk • contribs) 20:39, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Hannibal is an excellent journalist and on any other day, his word is law, but not in this case. He's clearly uninformed and says so himself. He speculates but the rumors are quite firm for the time beeing. It's not a decendant of 970 in Wii, and the only thing we have to go on that's _NOT_ speculation is that it is indeed an evolutionary step from the previous Gekko. No more, no less. Speculation of how Nintendo choses to price their console is neither here nor there. It would be an enourmous leap to draw any conlusions regarding lineage of the processor based on their pricing strategy of the entire platform. -- Henriok 23:01, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Even if the pricing is irrellivant, it is highly unlikely IBM would consider offering a PPC750 part to Apple as a processor. "that's _NOT_ speculation is that it is indeed an evolutionary step from the previous Gekko" I haven't heard that stated by anyone in the know as being true so it is also questionable in my opinion. Really we shouldn't be listing broadway either as a PPC750 or as a PPC970 part till we know for certain. Truthfully a PPC970 chip with the gecko extensions could be considered 'an evolutionary step from the previous Gekko', certainly more than 'Gekko at a higher clockspeed' could be. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 64.6.0.220 (talk • contribs) 23:04, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 970GX missing in action

IBM "outed" the 970GX in some documentation, and it has been seen on a couple of roadmaps in the past.. but AFAIK, it's missing in action.. IBM does not list it as an available part and I haven't seen it in the wild. -- Henriok 14:42, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Move

I belive, that like all of the other apple-used proccessors, this article should be named PowerPC G5, like all of the others. I will move it, and if anyone dissagress, please feel free to move it back. 71.225.248.188 21:35, 13 November 2006 (UTC) (i will log in to move)

Gaaah :( This article should REALLY be named in the way that it was PowerPC 970. It is the OTHER articles that shoud be renamed to better reflect what the actual names are, ie PowerPC 750 and PowerPC 7400. Using codenames (G3) and Apple's marketing (G4 and G5) shouldn't really be a base of which we should name these articles. The names _are_ PowerPC 970, PowerPc 750 and PowerPC 7400, and the names of the respective articles should reflect this. Really.. this is a no brainer. I can't believe that the other articles have kept their names for so long. Rederections from Apple's names are appropriate though. -- Henriok 22:20, 13 November 2006 (UTC)