X1000 CPU is PWRficient PA6T

[Karlos]

Well that's not bad news, if the SPECint2000 / SPECfp2000 scores are to be believed.

According to one source (I posted on one of the other recent thread), the above scores were 1000 and 1500 respectively, those figures being for just one core and at an average power consumption of 7W.

[Karlos]

@tmhg

2.0GHz is frequently quoted in old PASemi notes. I suspect the 1.6/1.8 GHz speeds in the X1000 may be something more to do with the fact it is passively cooled.

[Karlos]

What interests me, is how can it be a new off the fab line....PA6T.

Apple bought PASemi, who designed the PWRFicient, but PASemi were a fabless company. I don't recall off the top of my head who was responsible for fabrication, but when buying the company, it would seem reasonable that Apple would have to honour any existing production contracts PASemi / their fabrication partner may have had at the time.

[Karlos]

I think most users will be underwhelmed with its performance.  8,800 MIPS at 2.0 GHz is about where the leading Pentium processors were back in 2003.

It's a question of perspective. MIPS are not the be all and end all. The overall processor and it's memory interface seems a lot better performing than any G4 hardware that currently runs OS4.

A much better indication of performance can be had through running real code. The SPEC CPU2000 (which are based on several real-world code tests) results for the PA6T appear to rival or outperform figures quoted for PPC970:

PPC970 info here

The stated performance of a single core in the the PA6T at 2GHz is:

SPECInt2000: 1000
SPECfp2000: 1500

Now let's look at a 1GHz G4 Mac : See here

SPECInt2000: 306
SPECfp2000: varied: 147 - 187

So, even downscaling the results for the PA6T for an estimate at 1.6 GHz, we get:

SPECInt2000: 800
SPECfp2000: 1200

So, that's basically 2.6x the integer performance and 6.4x the (best) floating point performance of a 1GHz G4. In other words, the 1.6GHz PA6T is to the 1GHz G4 what the average 50MHz 060 is the 25MHz 040. Except that you get two of them (if SMP in OS4 ever materialises).

I dunno about anybody else, but the speed up from an 040 to an 060 was pretty conspicuous.

[Karlos]

Well, only the most fanatical users will pay $2225 USD for technology that performs on par with systems back in 2003.  I guess if your hobby is buying obsolete hardware, then knock yourself out.

Well, reflecting on your statement I bought (well, built) a nice quad core PC 2 years ago (see sig). It cost lest and is vastly more powerful than any G4 class machine. So, well done me. That was a job well done.

Does it run OS4? No.
Does it run MorphOS? No.
Does it run AROS? Sort of.

So, if my interest was to run OS4 or MorphOS, said system is useless. All the "much faster hardware is available for far less" arguments don't really change that.

[Karlos]

Funny, everyone using MorphOS had this one pegged months ago.

When they first said low power, dual core 64-bit PPC at 1.6-1.8 GHz, it was my first thought. It's in that "what is X" thread somewhere