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Amiga News and Community Announcements => Amiga News and Community Announcements => Amiga Hardware News => Topic started by: seer on February 11, 2004, 10:16:45 PM

Title: New PPC Motherboard ?
Post by: seer on February 11, 2004, 10:16:45 PM
the latest and most powerful PowerPC processor is the new 64-bit 970 series.  Momentum Computer will be the first to offer this IBM computer chip on a processor board for embedded systems and high-performance computing applications.


http://www.970eval.com (http://www.970eval.com)

Sounds like a winner.
Title: Re: New PPC Motherboard ?
Post by: downix on February 11, 2004, 10:33:07 PM
Sounds hideously overpriced.  Did you check out how many bridges it has?  Some of them are over $100 a piece.
Title: Re: New PPC Motherboard ?
Post by: seer on February 11, 2004, 10:35:28 PM
well, I guess it's because they are eval boards.. But from a hardware point of view it seems like a good motherboard, not looking at the pricetag.
Title: Re: New PPC Motherboard ?
Post by: lempkee on February 11, 2004, 10:36:14 PM
the new amiga or the new pegasos ? ...or none?
Title: Re: New PPC Motherboard ?
Post by: Wolfe on February 11, 2004, 11:43:00 PM
I saw the price and I lost Moment'um.   :lol:
Title: Re: New PPC Motherboard ?
Post by: jahc on February 12, 2004, 12:07:49 AM
If these boards can be manufactured for decent prices (not the ones they're quoting on their site) then we need to get MorphOS and AmigaOS4 running on these boards ASAP. I dont know how hard it will be to get MorphOS to run, but OS4 has some sort of HAL that makes porting to different computers easy.. I'd imagine MOS has something similar. What do you say Genesi/Eyetech?
Title: Re: New PPC Motherboard ?
Post by: mikeymike on February 12, 2004, 12:20:40 AM
IBM's newer (than 970) PPC offering produces half the heat the 970 does.  Definitely worth the wait IMO.
Title: Re: New PPC Motherboard ?
Post by: Damion on February 12, 2004, 01:54:30 AM
Quote

IBM's newer (than 970) PPC offering produces half the heat the 970 does. Definitely worth the wait
IMO.


Mikeymike I agree with this sentiment 100%. 'IF' IBM can cut down the heat and power consumption,
I'd maybe consider buying something like this...but in it's current iteration(s), the 970 impresses
me exactly "0".
Title: Re: New PPC Motherboard ?
Post by: XDelusion on February 12, 2004, 05:14:00 AM
I wish I could just by a freaking motherboard with CPU for under $300. Even a 1Ghz AMD is dirt cheap now a days, and the motherboards to support that are even cheaper, but here we are paying out the butt for motherboards with G4 CPUs and OLD RAM.

 I personally think everyone is getting ripped.
Title: Re: New PPC Motherboard ?
Post by: kgrach on February 12, 2004, 06:02:42 AM
@XDelusion

How many motherboards does ASUS sell an Hour.
Thats more than EYETECH and GENISI SOLD TOGETHER in the LAST TWO YEARS.

It all comes down to volume the more you make the cheaper it becomes to make the board.

Also I priced simular specced E- macs last weekend. guess what they priced the same.
933 Aone can be built for the same price as a 1 Ghz. E-mac

1 GHZ AMD is MUCH MUCH VERY MUCH SLOWER than a 1 GHZ G4.

Rating a computer by hertz is like  rating your car by RPMs.
Title: Re: New PPC Motherboard ?
Post by: iamaboringperson on February 12, 2004, 07:27:40 AM
I like it!

I might have to get me one, one day! :)
Title: Re: New PPC Motherboard ?
Post by: ksk on February 12, 2004, 08:21:52 AM
"1 GHZ AMD is MUCH MUCH VERY MUCH SLOWER than a 1 GHZ G4"

My friend is toying with assembler on both...
So far it seems that they are pretty equal per Mhz on traditional math operations. When AMD runs out of registers, G4 seems to be a little bit faster.

And they both are 50% faster than Pentium3 per mhz ....

He says that PPC is a bit boring because he does not need to do any traditional x86  tricks to circumvent the lack of registers....  :-P
Title: Re: New PPC Motherboard ?
Post by: ksk on February 12, 2004, 08:26:17 AM
About that evaluation board...

I think it could be as good candidate for AmigaTwo as any Mai product, except better, perhaps....

(IIRC TeronCX evaluation version was similarly priced than this board)
Title: Re: New PPC Motherboard ?
Post by: Framiga on February 12, 2004, 09:28:54 AM
Hi

ehhh?!?. . .WHAT? 6000,00 USD? . . .we can purchase a SGI system or a Mac dualG5 as well.

Ciao
Title: Re: New PPC Motherboard ?
Post by: mikeymike on February 12, 2004, 10:41:40 AM
Quote
1 GHZ AMD is MUCH MUCH VERY MUCH SLOWER than a 1 GHZ G4.

No need for allcaps, we can read it just the same without them.

A 1GHz AMD processor, as new as possible, is still at least a year older than a 1GHz G4.  Please compare processors when they came out at the same time.  Otherwise what's to stop someone comparing a 3GHz P4 to a 1GHz G4.

And btw this argument has been done before so many times.  Yawn!
Title: Re: New PPC Motherboard ?
Post by: takemehomegrandma on February 12, 2004, 12:24:58 PM
@ jahc

Quote
If these boards can be manufactured for decent prices (not the ones they're quoting on their site) then we need to get MorphOS and AmigaOS4 running on these boards ASAP. I dont know how hard it will be to get MorphOS to run, but OS4 has some sort of HAL that makes porting to different computers easy.. I'd imagine MOS has something similar. What do you say Genesi/Eyetech?


So (as poundsmack asked), what does this mean for us?

http://www.morphos-news.de/comments.php?lg=en&cpp=1&nid=645&page=6&cdir=2 (http://www.morphos-news.de/comments.php?lg=en&cpp=1&nid=645&page=6&cdir=2)

Already last summer Genesi proclaimed their ambition for a Pegasos III G5. On morphos-news it's rumoured that samples of the Marvell 970 controller  has been available to selected NDA customers since December.
Title: Re: New PPC Motherboard ?
Post by: vortexau on February 12, 2004, 04:32:15 PM
XDelusion said:
Quote
I wish I could just by a freaking motherboard with CPU for under $300. Even a 1Ghz AMD is dirt cheap now a days, and the motherboards to support that are even cheaper, but here we are paying out the butt for motherboards with G4 CPUs and OLD RAM.

Well -- howsabout YOU obtain an AmigaOne building licence and set up YOUR own production run?

Then, you can announce, to us, YOUR prices!

When you've done that; we'll have a chance to debate just how attractive the pricing that YOU are offering is!?!  :-o
Title: Re: New PPC Motherboard ?
Post by: System on February 12, 2004, 05:54:16 PM
@lempkee:

Quote
the new amiga or the new pegasos ? ...or none?


Neither. Those boards are going to cost $6000 a peice or something insane like that.

Genesi is currently on the inside track for 970 development for the next generation Pegasos board. You'll see a significantly cheaper, more for real people, less "for systems engineers" board from us in time.

I can't tell you what Mai/Eyetech are doing for the 970. They have to release their ITX board first, don't they? :)

=Neko=
Title: Re: New PPC Motherboard ?
Post by: downix on February 12, 2004, 06:09:44 PM
@vortexau

Ok, easy as pie:

License to AInc is $200
Cost of a Peg G3 is 299euro
Ok, I'll make my A1-G3 for $599!
Title: Re: New PPC Motherboard ?
Post by: Ilwrath on February 12, 2004, 06:34:29 PM
@kgrach-
Quote

How many motherboards does ASUS sell an Hour.
Thats more than EYETECH and GENISI SOLD TOGETHER in the LAST TWO YEARS.

It all comes down to volume the more you make the cheaper it becomes to make the board.


Yeah...  That was exactly what made Amithlon the product I wanted.  You could use the faster and cheaper hardware.  (sigh)  I owned a 1ghz Athlon 2.5 years ago.  I own a 3ghz P4 now.  The prices of both systems at the time I bought them, added together, might get near the price for a single A1 G4 today.

@downix-
Quote
License to AInc is $200


Is that an accurate figure?  Or is it a best-guess?  (I'm not wanting to start anything, I'm genuinely interested if that was a named figure!)
Title: Re: New PPC Motherboard ?
Post by: mikeymike on February 12, 2004, 06:36:45 PM
Quote
Is that an accurate figure? Or is it a best-guess? (I'm not wanting to start anything, I'm genuinely interested if that was a named figure!)


I think it's a pretend figure, particularly as AI and Genesi have been bitching about licensing for a *long* time now.
Title: Re: New PPC Motherboard ?
Post by: downix on February 12, 2004, 06:43:28 PM
@ilwrath

Best guess, based on how much Mai charged for the teron in batches of 5-20 when I priced them out a few years back compared to how much the A1 is adding in a 10% profit margin.
Title: Re: New PPC Motherboard ?
Post by: Kronos on February 12, 2004, 09:26:49 PM
@ksk

Sure, single Terons did sell for the same price, but they didn't cost the same (to produce).

This board seems more like a "let's put EVERTHING on board"-attempt, than a realistic
(saleable) product. Surely completly useless for home use, and even if all the chips used
on it (an awfull lot) drop down to 1$ a piece, actual production would still be over 1000$.

And by than cheapre(simpler) and faster alternatives would allready be available
(lets say one G7). Also don't forget that all this power will lay completly wasted unless
you have an OS specially adapted for it (AOS/MOS may not apply) AND SW to take
advantage of it (name one app in the market that would).

What "we" would need is a board that is cheaper as a Mac, and offers things that can
actually be used with "our" OS (dual-G5 would allready be  overkill for that), and for
that, Marvell's Discovery970 seems like the best and most likely candidate.
Title: Re: New PPC Motherboard ?
Post by: Valan on February 13, 2004, 12:32:20 AM
I think Hyperion and Eyetech should get together to bring out a G5 Amiga that can cluster really efficiently.

Then they can sell hundreds or even thousands at once like Apple Macs or even Sony Playstations.

Anyone hear if this is possible with desktop Wintel machines?
I guess not.

Valan
Title: Re: New PPC Motherboard ?
Post by: mikeymike on February 13, 2004, 01:37:18 AM
I think IBM's new-found enthusiasm for PPC (wrt the 970) is too recent to consider investing in.  It's a good sign of what I've heard about the next in the IBM PPC line being significantly better performance than the 970, while outputting half the heat, but whether the Amiga community will see the fruits of this remains to be seen.
Title: Re: New PPC Motherboard ?
Post by: Argo on February 13, 2004, 03:08:15 AM
Then I can build my "Big Ami"  :-D