Will A Single-Core Power PC 970 Be The PowerBook G5 Chip? (And Speed-Bumped PowerBooks Next Week?)
by Charles W. Moore
At the end of Macworld week, a news story can the Taiwanese English language IT trade publication Digitimes announced in passing that not only G5 PowerBooks, but also G5 iBooks would be shipping from Apple's Taiwanese subcontractors in Q2, 2005. The authors noted that Asustek will start shipping iBook G5 notebooks to Apple in the second quarter of this year, and that Quanta Computer will ship PowerBook G5s at a rate of 30k-50k per month in Q2 2005.
If this report is accurate, it represents a major development in the Apple portable world -- essentially the next revolution in PowerBook and iBook technology - - every bit as significant as the introduction of the first 68040 PowerBooks in 1994, the first Power PC 'Books in 1995, the original G3 PowerBook in 1997, and the G4 Titanium in 2001. To add G5 iBooks as well would make it doubly-revolutionary.
Now, some caution is in order. There is the possibility that the G5 references in the Digitimes article were typographical errors or that word-of-mouth sources informing the authors got confused about which Apple products (the G5 iMac is also produced in Taiwan) use G5 chips. My inclination is still to be skeptical that we'll see G5 'Books before fall, and if then only higher-end PowerBooks. But I am going on pure deduction. I have no "insider" knowledge, and Apple could be fixing to spring a major surprise on Mac portable aficionados.
Not that we aren't overdue. The last PowerBook new model announcement was in September, 2003 (the aluminum 15-inch PowerBook), and the dual USB iBook form factor is closing on its 4th anniversary on May 1st.
On the other hand, Apple has repeatedly thrown cold water on speculation that a G5 PowerBook release is imminent.
In November 2003, David Russell, Apple director of product marketing for portables and wireless, told that Apple would someday like to offer a PowerBook G5. "We certainly want to do that," he said, "But it's going to be a while. We think the G4 has a very long life in the PowerBook." The main obstacle in getting a G5 processor into a portable is the need to keep the processor cool, Russell said. "Have you looked at the inside of the G5 tower?"
On April 19, 2004 in an interview with BBC News, Apple's vice president of product marketing Greg Joswiak said, "In the very long run, the G5 is part of our long term processor roadmap, but it will be some time before that processor will be in a notebook," and also noted that it had taken at least two years for the G4 chip to make it from the desktop to the notebook.
In September 2004, Joswiak reiterated that: "The challenges of cooling a G5 in a PowerBook are significantly greater."
Also that month, Tom Boger, Apple director of worldwide product marketing, conceded to MacObserver that: "There are great challenges in putting a G5 processor in a laptop. The issues range from power to cooling and its overall size...You're not going to see a G5 in a laptop anytime soon."
And two weeks ago, during Apple's conference call discussing first quarter fiscal earnings with analysts, MacObserver reports, Rob Steerum of Fulcrum Global Partners asked Tim Cook, Apple's VP of Worldwide Sales and Operations, about the chances of a G5-based PowerBook anytime soon. Cook admitted that making a G5 work in a PowerBook "would be the mother of all thermal challenges." (Macworld UK says it was Apple chief financial officer Peter Oppenheimer who made the "mother of thermal challenges" observation.)
If that challenge has been met, and a G5 'Book is indeed in the offering in the near term, it will most likely be powered by a single-core, lower-powered variant of the IBM Power PC 970 chip called the 970gx. There was a flurry of discussion about such a chip last November.
On November 16th 2004, The Register's Tony Smith reported that IBM's dual-core G5-class PowerPC processor, codenamed 'Antares', would ship alongside a single-core version — the PowerPC 970GX - aka 'Antares SP' - will essentially succeed today's single-core part, the 970FX, the sources claim, but will provide double that chip's on-die L2 cache to 1MB.
Smith cited a November 12 report by thinksecret.com Senior Editor Ryan Katz, whose unnamed sources told him that the 970GX would initially come in at speeds around 3GHz and feature 1MB of L2 cache, double what the 970FX processor in current Apple G5 models has.
Katz' sources speculated that the 970GX "might be ready around the first or second quarter of 2005. "and that low-power versions of the PowerPC 970 intended for use in the PowerBook G5 were also in development at speeds of 1.6GHz to 1.8GHZ, but little else was known.
More recently, one of my readers told me he's heard from unnamed sources that the 970gx chip incorporates a heat spreader, and it has built-in speed throttling technology, all of which makes for a processor that dissipates about 14 watts at maximum load, which is in the same ballpark as the current 7447A G4s.
Katz further mused that If a PowerBook G5 chip wasn't ready by Spring 2005, then, a likely candidate for the next generation of PowerBooks would Freescale's G4 PowerPC 7448, which is pin compatible with the PowerPC 7447A used in current PowerBooks and iBooks, will exceed 1.5GHz, and feature 1MB of L2 cache, double the amount of the 7447A.
The PowerPC 7448, which is the horse I've been backing in my own speculation about next-gen 'Books will be manufactured on 90nm silicon-on-insulator process technology, delivering efficiency dividends in lower power consumption and less heat generation compared with the 130nm 7447A. Seems like an ideal laptop chip.
And it's possible that we will see refreshed PowerBooks with it on board as early as next week if the rumoristas know what they're talking about. And it's not just rumors.
Last week Hardmac's Lionel reported: "We have just been informed that PowerBooks as well as eMac Superdrive have been declared "End of Life" at the FNAC (largest multimedia consumer shop in France)... this is not a rumor, simply a fact. We let you draw your own conclusions."
The current scuttlebutt is that speed-bumped PowerBooks are ready to go, still G4s but with the top end boosted to 1.67 or perhaps even 1.8 GHz. It is speculated that the 17" AlBook will get a 100GB hard drive and the 15" model an 80GB drive, with spec. upgraded from 4200 to the 5400 RPM across the board. This all sounds very plausible to me, and it should give flagging PowerBook sales an interim B12 shot, although it is not going to result in lineups at Apple Stores.
More speculative is an intriguing rumor that Apple is planning a switch to a 13" widescreen LCD model to replace the 12" display currently shared by the 12" iBooks and PowerBooks. That will probably have to wait for the major PowerBook model change that is surely coming later this year.
The question is when, and with what CPU? G5 PowerBooks and maybe even iBooks with wide screens across the board at the Worldwide Developer's Conference in May? I wouldn't rule it out — or in.