MorphZone

Pegasos 3 - G5 ?

JoannaK

# 26
Order of the Butterfly

Posts: 157 from 2003/3/3

Leo: Biggest problem on discussions like this in web forums is that most of those who write don't have a clue about hardware development. Those who actually have done something comparable are Rare bunch and they don't usually spend time on writing.
http://somequicknotes.blogspot.com/index.html
»28.09.04 - 06:03

tarbos

# 27
Order of the Butterfly

Posts: 221 from 2003/4/19

>Now: what about the Pegasos ?

Now what about Dicovery970?
Did Marvell cancel it because the G5 didn't fit the embedded niche due to its unusually high power consumption unlike everything IBM said before (12.3W @ 1.4GHZ)?

Still, Pegasos is incomplete without the whole range of PPC (generations) to choose from.

>For me a new Pegasos must not have a G5, but PCI-X (=better grafic)

I don't know any better gfxcards that use PCI-X.
The PowerMacs and Server boards have PCI-X and it is primarily used for I/O or mass storage cards at the moment.

>I still like the idea of a G5 machine, do a low-profile ATX with dual 970FX

Already there: http://www.970eval.com/
Why invent the wheel twice?

>If Genesi were to adopt PCI-Express now, they could become a brand name supplier of Graphics, Audio or Media Card
>(which incorporates graphics & audio into one highspeed PCI-E card).

Possible with a PCI-X to PCI-Express bridge chip - but you won't get top PCI-E speeds and it is quite more expensive...
Audio doesn't need much bus bandwidth.

>I wished they'd make Pegasus with faster chips. G4s with 1.5GHz like Apple has.

I'd wish they make the G4 fanless - or dual G4 with an inexpensive 1267MHz version. The top end chips are always too expensive for the real speed they deliver.

>As far as I remenber G5 consummes about 80W -> so it's not suitable for desktop computer.

Macs drive them with 1.3+V which makes a _massive_ difference to its originally spec'ed 1.0V.

>And to be honest, their upcoming dual core G4, with integrated DDR2 controller, Gigabit Ethernet and Rapid I/O etc, looks very interesting

Probably today, but not in 1 1/2 years or when it should become available...
It is not new technology either, just look at the RM9000x2 which introduced it more or less 2 years ago:
http://www.pmc-sierra.com/products/details/rm9000x2GL/
Sounds familiar?

>Before we can get a Dual G4 system MorphOS would need to take advantage of it.

Oh, I thought Pegasos would be more of a Linux machine by now.

[ Edited by tarbos on 2004/9/28 8:16 ]
»28.09.04 - 06:08

JoannaK

# 28
Order of the Butterfly

Posts: 157 from 2003/3/3

Tarbos: About Discovery970 ... IIRC it's still at works.. It's not been cancelled, nor has it been released publicly. I'd expect it sometime soon.

To save time.effort etc. I'll quote myself from ann.lu concerning making Pegasos/970.

Depends a lot of things... Tehcnically, It can't happen much sooner than Marvell getting their 970-controller ready for mass production (I have not checked it's status). Besides that .. project like that needs will, money, clients and some hard work.

I have not followed Genesi closely on lately. But I can't help noticing that Neko seems to be highly against G5 (970 series) on Moobunny. I can't tell if this is official party-line or his personal opinion, though...
http://somequicknotes.blogspot.com/index.html
»28.09.04 - 06:30

minator

# 29
Order of the Butterfly

Posts: 370 from 2003/3/28

Quote:

Did Marvell cancel it because the G5 didn't fit the embedded niche due to its unusually high power consumption unlike everything IBM said before (12.3W @ 1.4GHZ)?

Embedded is hardly a niche, by volue it's close to 50X the size of the x86 market.

There can be wildly different requirements in the embedded world, some applications require raw performance and heat isn't such a big problem, that's what the 970 is doing right now.

The 970 and G4 have quite different strengths so they're not really comparable directly. If you need low power you'll go for a G4, if you're building a supercomputer you probably wouldn't even look at it.

quote]Already there: http://www.970eval.com/
Why invent the wheel twice?

That's a development board, you'd probably start with it.

Quote:

>As far as I remenber G5 consummes about 80W

at 2.5GHz something like that, yes.

> so it's not suitable for desktop computer.

Try telling that to Apple, AMD or Intel. Tell ATI and Nvidia while you're at it, top end Intel CPUs go well over 100W and top end graphics cards are in the same league.

Quote:

have not followed Genesi closely on lately. But I can't help noticing that Neko seems to be highly against G5 (970 series) on Moobunny. I can't tell if this is official party-line or his personal opinion, though...

As far as I can tell the close relationship with Freescale means Genesi are concentrating their efforts on their devices, a "cost reduced" pegasos has been mentioned so I'm guessing there'll be a similar spec'ed machine to the Pegasos II in the works but aimed at a lower price.

They need to get volumes up so that's what they need right now.

I guess they'll be looking for a contract to do the reference board for one of the next gen devices.

»28.09.04 - 11:42

Leo

# 30
Order of the Butterfly

Posts: 419 from 2003/8/18

Quote:

I have not followed Genesi closely on lately. But I can't help noticing that Neko seems to be highly against G5 (970 series) on Moobunny.

What has Neko to do with the decision of BPlan/Genesi to develop or not a new Pegasos based on G5 anyway ?

Leo.
Nothing hurts a project more than developers not taking the time to let their community know what is going on.
»28.09.04 - 17:00

minator

# 31
Order of the Butterfly

Posts: 370 from 2003/3/28

Details of new Freescale CPUs here.
»28.09.04 - 19:00

bioterror

# 32
Just looking around

Posts: 4 from 2004/9/14

From: Espoo, Finland

As we all know that G5 is powerfull, but in here you can see how powerfull it really is.

http://www.barefeats.com/pentium4.html

Future is in the PPC instead of x86.
»28.09.04 - 21:28

AyoS

# 33
Order of the Butterfly

Posts: 410 from 2003/8/13

From: West Palm Beac...

@bioterror,

Yes I have seen those stats, but I would only believe them
if they were done on software that isn't hand optimized for the Mac.

Also x86 has been dead since the days of the first Pentiums.
Since then Intel has been forced to go the route of AMD, by building
a cpu underneath that is totally different then its x86 forefathers,
and in the process dropping instructions or emulating them with the
new chips. The original x86 designs were not thinking forward enough
to be trully usable in the 2000's unless you consider the 8085's out
in space

Yes PowerPc has great potential, and hopefully will be
with us into the future... Of course Thats what I thought would happen
to the HighEnd MIPS based machines from NEC, HP, and SGI, but I was
wrong, and so are many of the Itanium well wishers...

Katos1
»01.10.04 - 02:35

poundsmack

# 34
Paladin of the Pegasos

Posts: 1346 from 2003/6/8

From: USA California

Dual Core e600 Specs:
2 X cores @ > 1.5GHz each.
1MB cache per core
2 X 64b DDR2 memory controllers, 667MHz with ECC
2 X PCI Express
4 X 1Gbit Ethernet "MACs" with hardware acceleration
RapidIO
Power consumption: 15 - 25Watts.

and we would want a G5 why?

i think that the MPC7448 Processor running at atlest 1.5ghz would be a nice and practical upgrade.....but the dual core e600 would take the peg to a whole new level and be a major compeditor as far as computing power in the whole market......this would kick so much @$$

[ Edited by poundsmack on 2004/9/30 20:39 ]
"Poundsmack, official morphzone thread creator" -LorD
"Wanna be lord of the avatars." -JKD
»01.10.04 - 03:05

James

# 35
Acolyte of the Butterfly

Posts: 110 from 2004/9/26

From: The Land of En...

@ poundsmack

I want it now!
macsignaturebar1-small.png
Einstein.png
»01.10.04 - 03:54

artickfox

# 36
Acolyte of the Butterfly

Posts: 101 from 2004/4/17

mmm... i think "more power = good for us"!

Seem Bplan for now have done a nice job with actual pegasos board, and I don't see why they don't put a G5 in next board.
For me is only if they are capable put it and keeping a "reasonable" price.

The "option" if use a G3/G4/G5 should give at buyers the choise to take what they really need if they have a special need about CPUs.

[ Edited by artickfox on 2004/10/1 18:23 ]
************************
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Furry Italia
http://www.furryitalia.net/
Italian Furry Comunity

- Owner of a Pegasos 2/G3 -
************************
»01.10.04 - 16:21

magnetic

# 37
Yokemate of Keyboards

Posts: 2129 from 2003/3/1

From: Los Angeles

Actually Genesi has a working G4 1.3ghz CPU card working on Peg2 from what I hear - so thats almost 1.5

I have to say that Linux and 2.6 kernel with Peg2 is Very Fast - comprable to Linux on a 2ghz+ PC

The Dual Core G4 would be really cool for Peg!

AFAIK Genesi was on the early release schedule for the PPC970 but obviously it looks like the Freescale/Genesi alliance will be using Freescale CPUs!

magnetic
Pegasos 2 Rev 2B3 w/ Freescale 7447 "G4" @ 1ghz / 1gb Nanya Ram
Quad Boot: MorphOS 2.7 | Amiga OS4.1 U4 | Ubuntu PPC GNU/Linux | OS X 10.4
»01.10.04 - 18:31

poundsmack

# 38
Paladin of the Pegasos

Posts: 1346 from 2003/6/8

From: USA California

unfortunatly if genesi wants to impress companies (for the most part) 1.3ghz is old news.....the peg should be modern say the new freescale chips...not necessarly the dual core but ya....
"Poundsmack, official morphzone thread creator" -LorD
"Wanna be lord of the avatars." -JKD
»02.10.04 - 07:25

artickfox

# 39
Acolyte of the Butterfly

Posts: 101 from 2004/4/17

Quote:

I have to say that Linux and 2.6 kernel with Peg2 is Very Fast - comprable to Linux on a 2ghz+ PC

Altrough initially a OS born on 86x, seem Linux perform better on PPC platform. Maybe this can improve PPC platfom spreading (Machintos, Amiga, Pegasos), like Windows have done with 86x platforms.
For that IBM and other company with some interest into Linux and Open Source solution have find in Genesi a good business partner.
************************
Virtual Paws:
http://www.furryitalia.net/virtualpaws/index.htm
Italian furry videogame site

Furry Italia
http://www.furryitalia.net/
Italian Furry Comunity

- Owner of a Pegasos 2/G3 -
************************
»02.10.04 - 16:05

Neko

# 40
Order of the Butterfly

Posts: 301 from 2003/2/24

From: Genesi

Quote:

Now: what about the Pegasos?

Not while you need a copper brick the size of an elephant and liquid cooling to make it a viable machine in terms of performance.

A G4 at the same clock speed (which does exist..) would outperform the iMac G5 and Freescale have had the demo to prove it at the last SNDF in Dallas. And it wouldn't need a 2" thickness housing to hold the cooling.

Think long and hard about this..

By the way, the thing Neko has to do with it is that Neko has asked Gerald in person, and Leo has not.

Neko

[ Edited by Neko on 2004/10/2 17:43 ]
Matt Sealey, Genesi USA, Inc.
Developer Relations
Product Development Analyst
»02.10.04 - 16:35

Neko

# 41
Order of the Butterfly

Posts: 301 from 2003/2/24

From: Genesi

Quote:

I wished they'd make Pegasus with faster chips. G4s with 1.5GHz like Apple has.

Again this is down to cooling alone; it is hard to dissipate that much heat when all you have to hand is mass produced VGA coolers. Apple have the design resources to put millions of dollars into the heatsink alone, and also have esoteric motherboard designs and their own cases to fit them in - ATX has certain dimensional requirements, a vertical sitting CPU cannot be hung with a large weight of copper on it (it will stress the card and bend it over..) etc.

The actual design requirements for a heatsink for the G4 in the Pegasos design are quite substantial. The heatsink is in some stage of development.. one of the ones before "finished" :)

Since Freescale have made a point of pin-compatible replacements however, we will see the 7447A, 7447B, 7448, 744x upgrade path used in the future - each has faster core speeds and lower power requirements each and they will be a true plug-in replacement (for both you *AND* Genesi)

As for minator.. the e600 is a core to be used in SoC implementations, which means that they - and anything that isn't in the 744x line -won't be a plugin replacement for the Pegasos II even if it's soldered to a CPU card; simply the fact that the upcoming 8xxx chips don't expose an external MPX bus is one of the factors involved. You can't just throw them on a Discovery II.

The SoC line has other product targets. In the meantime, as above.. plenty of processors scaling from 600MHz to 1.5GHz+ (Freescale wouldn't give the high spec, but it was hinted that certain design trade-offs made it "silly" not to reach at least 1.7GHz as standard).

Neko
Matt Sealey, Genesi USA, Inc.
Developer Relations
Product Development Analyst
»02.10.04 - 16:53

minator

# 42
Order of the Butterfly

Posts: 370 from 2003/3/28

Quote:

a vertical sitting CPU cannot be hung with a large weight of copper on it (it will stress the card and bend it over..) etc.

Might be possible with Aluminium, it's far lighter and cheaper to boot. Would need a fan either directly connected or blasting across it though.

Quote:

I wished they'd make Pegasus with faster chips. G4s with 1.5GHz like Apple has.

I think waiting 6 months for the 7448 is a better idea, it won't need as much cooling and as well as a higher clock it includes a 1MB cache.

Quote:

As for minator.. the e600 is a core to be used in SoC implementations, which means that they - and anything that isn't in the 744x line

You do know the 7448 has an e600 core...

Quote:

won't be a plugin replacement for the Pegasos II even if it's soldered to a CPU card; simply the fact that the upcoming 8xxx chips don't expose an external MPX bus is one of the factors involved. You can't just throw them on a Discovery II.

I'd speculated they might include an MPX bus, I wasn't quite expecting them to include an entire north bridge!

Nope, I think it'll be turning up in a Pegasos 3 or 4 or...
It'll be a complete new machine and probably a lot closer to PC specs. VIA have even announced a new south bridge (the 8251) which can be directly hooked up which has all sorts of nice goodies included.

Don't hold your breath though, it'll be late next year at the earliest.
»02.10.04 - 17:50

Neko

# 43
Order of the Butterfly

Posts: 301 from 2003/2/24

From: Genesi

Copper is a better conductor of heat than Aluminium, overriding it's weight by some factor. It would make sense to start with copper. A fan is out of the question, or at least should be the very last resort in these cases. Airflow is the best heatsink money can buy, but airflow also creates potential mechanical failure for fans etc. which aren't desirable in many cases.

The next Freescale processor in the Pegasos will be the 7447A. Waiting 6 months.. huh.. I wish we could be that idle.

The Pegasos won't use "an e600 core", it'll use a 744x. I know the core is the same thing, but we're talking about a processor, with all it's model numbers and different packages and voltage specs and so on.

The announced spec for the e600 SoC's has been online since the start of the show; I was sure Targhan posted it to the front page of here or PPCZone.

The thing that integrating the northbridge (system controller, memory bus etc.) does is allows the MPX bus to be internal. That means it runs at 666MHz (or faster) without any crazy new protocols or latency/spec changes. Anyway. This is what an SoC is. The entire world is going to go SoC crazy soon. It reduces cost significantly and provides for incredible performance advantages - the G4's sole bottleneck right now isn't it's tiny pipeline or 32bit registers, but memory bandwidth. A 666MHz 64-bit bus is something special - the 7448's 200MHz bus is a wet dream enough for us coders for now, but not on the Pegasos :(

For the Via southbridge, as far as I know they haven't announced one that connects via PCI Express. What they have announced is one that uses a proprietary link to the system controller (VLINK) and as a fallback plain PCI - it PROVIDES a PCI-Express periheral bus. This means it's hardly going to be the best solution as-is for a processor with a PCI-Express bus integrated already (cost, redundancy, etc.).

Neko
Matt Sealey, Genesi USA, Inc.
Developer Relations
Product Development Analyst
»02.10.04 - 18:05

minator

# 44
Order of the Butterfly

Posts: 370 from 2003/3/28

Quote:

Copper is a better conductor of heat than Aluminium, overriding it's weight by some factor. It would make sense to start with copper.

I know, but it's also more expensive and if you don't want stress on the CPU connector it's a better choice, Copper is used in some heat sinks but mostly for the really high end P4s which have considerably higher cooling requirements than any G4.

Quote:

A fan is out of the question, or at least should be the very last resort in these cases. Airflow is the best heatsink money can buy, but airflow also creates potential mechanical failure for fans etc. which aren't desirable in many cases.

And they make noise but the original poster wanted a 1.5GHz CPU which I'd guess require a cooling.

Quote:

The announced spec for the e600 SoC's has been online since the start of the show; I was sure Targhan posted it to the front page of here or PPCZone

Who submitted it

Quote:

For the Via southbridge, as far as I know they haven't announced one that connects via PCI Express. What they have announced is one that uses a proprietary link to the system controller (VLINK) and as a fallback plain PCI - it PROVIDES a PCI-Express periheral bus. This means it's hardly going to be the best solution as-is for a processor with a PCI-Express bus integrated already (cost, redundancy, etc.).

None of them connect by PCI Express, they all use propriety connectors (except AMD who use HyperTransport which can be bridged to RapidIO if necessary).

You can use the southbridge as the root and the 8641 as an endpoint, that connects them up OK. The remaining PCIe on the CPU can be used for graphics. That leaves a single PCIe bus for peripherals - except it's not really a bus, it's a point to point system so we have a machine with 1 PCIe slot - A RapidIO to PCIe brige should solve this, if you can find one.

The only other solution I can see is to Go RapidIO to HyperTransport then you can use AMD64 Northbridges for PCIe connections, I don't see that as being a terribly low cost solution though.
»02.10.04 - 21:08

Neko

# 45
Order of the Butterfly

Posts: 301 from 2003/2/24

From: Genesi

Copper vastly outclasses Aluminium though; even if it is heavier, the conductivity required negates the weight issue. Alu is light but sucks. Copper will allow the heatsink not to have to need a fan.

What I was trying to get across ORIGINALLY is not that copper is TOO heavy (which everyone tagged it as) but that it needs the heatsink designing in such a way that it doesn't stress the CPU card and also meets ATX requirements for space. It can be worked. It's not just as simple as putting a block of copper on it and hoping, it needs design time.

People here think stuff like that can be done in a day.

Fan noise isn't the problem. This forum is full of people who whine constantly about the noise of the G4 fan - personally I don't have these hyper-sensitive ears they do and have no problems with it.

The problem with fans is they are mechanical - susceptible to being clogged, wearing out, and generally a source of bad things happening. What if the fan on the CPU dies? Well, the CPU burns.

Quote:

None of them connect by PCI Express, they all use propriety connectors

I just said that. You missed, however, that all Via southbridges have a fallback PCI connection to the Northbridge. A PCI-Express to PCI bridge here would work fine. But that is a part cost. A bridge between RapidIO and Hypertransport.. is another part cost.

Connecting the CPU and southbridge "backwards" doesn't work - and you'd lose completely all the lanes supplied by the CPU on one bus, and everything the Via offered. That leaves the other CPU bus to supply graphics. And what of peripherals? Bzzzt! If it isn't provided by the southbridge, there are no places left to put one except on the southbridge PCI bus.

We're waiting for the CPU, by then there will be a southbridge.

Neko

[ Edited by Neko on 2004/10/3 9:59 ]
Matt Sealey, Genesi USA, Inc.
Developer Relations
Product Development Analyst
»03.10.04 - 08:56

Tiki

# 46
Caterpillar

Posts: 21 from 2004/10/4

Before thinking about a new G5 Pegasos, BPlan must think
to repair all the broken PegIIG4
BPlan must think to anwser to phone and mails
BPlan seem to transform in a new Phase5

I had waiting 7 months to got my PegIIG4. He had working 3mn before burning. and now I'm waiting since 3 weeks with no news about my Peg. Unbelievable. I think that my Peg is near from a mountain of PPC cards

I'm really bitter !
»04.10.04 - 13:32

tarbos

# 47
Order of the Butterfly

Posts: 221 from 2003/4/19

>Not while you need a copper brick the size of an elephant and liquid cooling to make it a viable machine in terms of performance.

The c't magazine just wrote in yesterday's issue "With regard to the complex cooling of G5 in other Macs, the copper heatsink in iMac with about 1.5cm is amazingly flat. Obviously this is made possible by the use of the new PowerPC 970FX from the 90 nanometer production that at least at clocks below 2GHz eats less current than its 130 nanometer parent."

>A G4 at the same clock speed (which does exist..) would outperform the iMac G5

This a wrong oversimplification.
If you do FPU heavy stuff (or want 64Bit) you MUST go G5! Same thing for bandwidth bound apps - today's G5 system has nearly four times the theoretical CPU bus bandwidth compared to even the future dualcore SoC G4 (current MPX bus is entirely out of the question).
»05.10.04 - 00:20

minator

# 48
Order of the Butterfly

Posts: 370 from 2003/3/28

Quote:

>A G4 at the same clock speed (which does exist..) would outperform the iMac G5

This a wrong oversimplification.
If you do FPU heavy stuff (or want 64Bit) you MUST go G5!

They have different strengths, at the same clock speed they have been shown to be remarkably similar performance wise (from Mac benchmarks) but the G5 is very strong on 64bit FPU ops, on Linpack it even outguns an Itanium 2.

Quote:

today's G5 system has nearly four times the theoretical CPU bus bandwidth compared to even the future dualcore SoC G4 (current MPX bus is entirely out of the question).

How do you figure that?
The 2.5GHz PowerMac has a 6.4GB/second memory interface, with the CPU bus capable of 8.8GB / second (4.4GB Each way).

The 8641D will have 10GB / second memory interface with lower latency, the CPU/s will get (share) 5GBytes / second (assuming the internal MPX bus is 64bit).

The G5s total bandwidth is higher but lower in one diection, the 8641 will have lower latency and that is probably more important for most apps, so again they will have different strengths.

That said I'm very interested in what'll appear from IBM next - The G5 is strong on floating point, the G6 will be an absolute killer, just don't exect it to run cool...
»05.10.04 - 11:57

tarbos

# 49
Order of the Butterfly

Posts: 221 from 2003/4/19

>How do you figure that?
>The 2.5GHz PowerMac has [...] CPU bus capable of 8.8GB / second (4.4GB Each way).

Each of the CPUs has an own bus, so you can double that number.

The Dualcore G4 has to share 5.21GB/s and in case you run it at only 533MHz bus (the specs said "up to 667MHz), there is just 4.16GB/s left to serve both CPUs with their highspeed Altivec engines.
»05.10.04 - 15:58