A long two weeks

by Anand Lal Shimpi on 2/11/2004 1:18 AM EST
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  • Anonymous - Thursday, February 12, 2004 - link

    We're both "everyday should be Valentine's Day" kind of people, so the 14th isn't anything more than just another day when we try to do something special for each other.

    ....yeah, that kind of attitude will last "forever"....tch...
  • Michael - Wednesday, February 11, 2004 - link

    Isn't your inbox already 99% spam free on the PowerMac? I know that as soon as Apple introduced their spam filtering feature in Mail (about a year and a half ago?) the spam count in my inbox dwindled.
  • joe - Wednesday, February 11, 2004 - link

    IBM Takes the Lead
    Peter Glaskowsky - Editor-in-Chief {02/09/2004}

    The Microprocessor Report Analysts’ Choice Award for Best Desktop Processor of 2003 goes to IBM’s PowerPC 970FX, which shipped to Apple late in the year for use in the Xserve G5 and possibly other still-unannounced systems. IBM has yet to reveal all the details of the 970FX, but we know the chip is made in IBM’s 90nm CMOS 10S process, yielding a chip that is smaller, faster, and more power efficient than the original 130nm PowerPC 970.

    We believe the 970FX has a large cost advantage over Intel’s 90nm Prescott. Because it has more than twice as many transistors as Northwood, Prescott is not much smaller—112mm2 instead of 130mm2. The 970FX is a simple shrink, without substantial changes to cache or core transistor counts, so we expect it to be a bit more than half the size of the 118mm2 PowerPC 970.

    The 970FX should yield well at 2.5GHz, up from the 2GHz speed of the 970 used in Apple’s Power Mac G5. This 25% increase in clock rate will not soon be matched by Intel or AMD. Prescott is struggling to eke out minor clock-rate improvements, and AMD will need to wait for its own 90nm products—due in 2H04—to achieve substantial speedups for Athlon 64.

    Apple has promised to deliver 3GHz G5 systems this summer, implying the arrival of further speedups for the 970FX. That’s an aggressive target, but it should be achievable. The 970FX has the necessary architectural sophistication in its deep pipelines to make this speed possible, and IBM has the necessary technology in its CMOS 10S process. At 3GHz, the 970FX should outrun the chips we expect from AMD and Intel in the same time frame. Even if IBM falls short of this goal, the 970FX has put Apple back among the leaders of the PC speed race and given it a chance to win greater sales in the PC market.

    Microprocessor Report readers can access the full story here (2 pages/1 graphic): www.mdronline.com/mpr/h/2004/0209/180602.html. To find out more about Microprocessor Report, please visit: www.mdronline.com.

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