In search for info on PPC cpus

[Varthall]

Hi,

next sunday me and a friend of mine will attend a Linux fair in my city. We're going to show an AmigaOne running Debian, it will be an opportunity to show off the motherboard as an alternative to x86 ones for Linuxes. I'm in search for any type of documentation about advantages of ppc type cpus over x86, as many people will certainly ask us why, for a Linux user, a PPC would be a "better" choice.
So far I've only found the recent article on OsNews, which is far from being objective IMHO. There is the heating advantage, but for others? What about the following:

- the evolution path, how does it compare against the newer 64 bit cpus from Intel and AMD? Is IBM commited in continuing the research and development?
- has ppc any advantage when used in multiprocessor machines? Some native support for this?
- how do the A1's ram and cpu buses compare against modern PCs?
- I've read that most of the next generation consoles will have a PPC, is this true? If so, will this help reducing the prices of ppc machines?

Thanks in advance for your help!
Varthall

[ikir]

- I've read that most of the next generation consoles will have a PPC, is this true? If so, will this help reducing the prices of ppc machines?

Yes and yes  :-)

[crystall]

PowerPC have both drawbacks and and advantages compared to x86s, the main drawback being the price. Power consumption is usually a higher performance/power ratio, they are more suited for multi-tasking apps (in fact it's the x86 that have some flaws which come from backward compatibility) and much more powerful vector processing capabilities. AltiVec is still unmatched by other ISAs. Anyhow you could check www.arstechnica.com, they had some nice article on PowerPC vs x86.

[jeffimix]

Uses SDRAM. I'm sure Apple will make IBM get G5 atleast somewhat faster, however A1 does not yet support them at all.

[Hammer]

crystall wrote:
PowerPC have both drawbacks and and advantages compared to x86s, the main drawback being the price. Power consumption is usually a higher performance/power ratio, they are more suited for multi-tasking apps (in fact it's the x86 that have some flaws which come from backward compatibility) and much more powerful vector processing capabilities. AltiVec is still unmatched by other ISAs. Anyhow you could check www.arstechnica.com, they had some nice article on PowerPC vs x86.

Careful with theoretical performance claims when practical performance** indicates otherwise.

Refer to latest MacWorld’s PowerPC 970(Apple) vs Athon FX-51 (AlienWare)…

References
1. http://www.alienware.com/review_pages/review_template.aspx?FileName=review_macworld_1203.asp

2.
http://www.theandyzone.com/computer/shootout/shootout.html
(Just with the older Athlon 2000+ VS PowerPC 970

3.
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,112749,pg,7,00.asp

[AmigaMac]

Careful with theoretical performance claims when practical performance indicates otherwise.

It's a matter of opinion... practical and/or theoretical.

[Hammer]

AmigaMac wrote:

Careful with theoretical performance claims when practical performance indicates otherwise.

It's a matter of opinion... practical and/or theoretical.

Opinions has limits in regards to practical results.

Refer to the removal of Apple’s “world’s fastest PC” marketing campaign in certain European countries.    

[AmigaMac]

Opinions has limits in regards to practical results.

That's right, and that's why the whole dream world of x86 being somewhat an unchallenged speed-demon quickly hits the wall or reality.

Refer to the removal of Apple’s “world’s fastest PC” marketing campaign in certain European countries.

The mistake of the plural word "countries" stretches the truth just a bit since this only affected the UK region.  Of course with anything advertising, pretty much everyone is full of cow dunk.  Take Microsoft's "Do more with less" TV ad campaign, we all know that's misleading.  But you don't see me calling up my local TV station requesting to take it off the air, because I (and many other common sense folk) take anything shown on television with a grain of salt (even the G5 commercial, though it was cute).

[crystall]

Refer to latest MacWorld’s PowerPC 970(Apple) vs Athon FX-51 (AlienWare)…

I had already saw those tests and sincerely:
- Première is a discontinued app under MacOS X so why bother benchmarking it?
- Who the heck plays Quake III today? Why not trying UT2003 or something more recent?
- Word benchmarks? They must be kidding...
- Photoshop shows the Dual G5 and the Dual Opteron with roughly the same performance (they are probably both bandwidth bottlenecked)

[Hammer]

how do the A1's ram and cpu buses compare against modern PCs?

MAI’s Northbridge is actually pretty good as a Northbridge for SDRAM class solution… IF they release that product in the Pentium II era they may have been the “NVIDIA” in core logics.

IF the claims are true, MAI’s Northbridge has ability give the concurrent AGP<>Memory access and CPU<> Memory access.

Such features has been done in NVIDIA’s nForce series core logics (with DDR and dual memory controllers).

With nForce’s Northbridge (IGP, SPP), it has the ability to use spare/excess bandwidth for filling it’s Northbridge’s cache via speculative pre-predication processor i.e. fetching common used data and store it on the Northbridge’s cache, thus bring the relevant data closer to CPU.  Between K7 Athlon <> Northbridge chip, it uses EV6 bus architecture as found in DEC’s Alpha EV6 (e.g. scales up to DDR400). K7’s EV6 bus architectures has been eclipsed by K8's Hyper-transport bus architectures.

MAI Northbridge's circular buffer is interesting i.e. I don’t know IF it has speculative prediction feature as in NVIDIA's nForce.

the evolution path, how does it compare against the newer 64 bit cpus from Intel and AMD? Is

Refer to earlier links.

IBM commited in continuing the research and development?

They have Power5….

I've read that most of the next generation consoles will have a PPC, is this true? If so, will this help reducing the prices of ppc machines?

Embedded PowerPC 4xx processor is cheap enough (e.g. Nintendo Game Cube**).
**Subsidise to certain level by Nintendo’s games sales.

[Hammer]

Première is a discontinued app under MacOS X so why bother benchmarking it?

It’s a similar app vs similar app.

Who the heck plays Quake III today?

Many games uses Quake III engine.

 Why not trying UT2003 or something more recent?

Note that Quake III is more dependant on the processor.

Anyway, refer to Barefeets.com's benchmarks in that regard.

Refer to
http://www.barefeats.com/p4game.html

Game bias Athlon 64 3200+(2.0Ghz)/Athlon FX-51(2.2Ghz)/Opteron 248(2.2Ghz) based system pretty much slaughters Pentium IV @3.0GHz (and 3.2Ghz in lesser extent; needs EE) in playing high performance games.

The K7 Athlon in that barefeet’s benchmarks is an Athlon MP 2600+ class not the Athlon MP 2800+ nor it's the Athlon XP 3200+/nForce 2 400 Ultra.

[/quote]
Word benchmarks? They must be kidding...
[/quote]
It’s similar app vs similar app.

[Hammer]

 

The mistake of the plural word "countries" stretches the truth just a bit since this only affected the UK region.

Refer to Scotland and England in the Rugby world cup....

Take Microsoft's "Do more with less" TV ad campaign, we all know that's misleading.

Why is it misleading?

Why not see your Trade Practise commission and complain?  

That's right, and that's why the whole dream world of x86 being somewhat an unchallenged speed-demon quickly hits the wall or reality.

The X86 world doesn’t have to compete with Apple’s "reality distortion field" (TM).

But you don't see me calling up my local TV station requesting to take it off the air, because I (and many other common sense folk) take anything shown on television with a grain of salt (even the G5 commercial, though it was cute).

“G5 commercial (i.e. "the World fastest PC” claim) went over the top due to existence of AMD's K8 systems (illustrated as an example).

Apple has knack of avoiding AMD’s K8 in their benchmark comparisons for certain reasons.

[AmigaMac]

It’s a similar app vs similar app.

If they're going to do such, they might as well have run Adobe Premiere -vs- Apple's Final Cut Pro.  Premiere is a dead product as far as the Mac is concerned.

[AmigaMac]

Refer to Scotland and England in the Rugby world cup....

Still the UK at the end of the day!

Windows 2003 Server is a lot easier to use compared to Linux (e.g. Red Hat 9, Mandrake 9). The overkill of MS Windows 2003 Server is a lot easier to use compared to Linux (e.g. Red Hat 9, Mandrake 9). The overkill of MS Wizards in Win2K3 made it dead easy to maintain a server (in my POV).

I'm talking about the cost aspect they're claiming, not the Wizard hell that is Windows!

The X86 world doesn’t have to compete with Apple’s "reality distortion field" (TM).

Obviously they must, or they wouldn't raise such a stink about it, now would they?!

[Hammer]

Still the UK at the end of the day!

It’s not much different to Euro Zone i.e. one common currency, one central bank, multiple parliaments** and a unified European parliament.

**National parliaments reduced as state parliaments(in effect).

I'm talking about the cost aspect they're claiming, not the Wizard hell that is Windows!

You have not offer debunking papers in that regard.

Obviously they must, or they wouldn't raise such a stink about it, now would they?!

There’s a level “marketing” before it comes to “misleading conduct”. Apple’s advertisement is too exposed in their claims of “Worlds Fastest PC” since it loses in some of the benchmarks in the older systems.