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Architosh's PowerPC page will enlighten you to
the advantages of RISC microprocessors and the particular advantages
of the PowerPC line of chips by the AIM Alliance.
- What is PowerPC?
- The PowerPC name applies to microprocessors that currently power
all Apple computers and existent Mac OS clones machines as well
as UNIX machines from IBM and Motorola's Computer Group. A RISC
chip, the PowerPC architecture was Co-designed by members of the
AIM Alliance (Apple, IBM, Motorola) in an effort to compete with
Intel's x86 and other microprocessor architectures.
The currently shipping Apple Macintosh computers use both PowerPC
G3 and G4 processors (G is for generation of architectural changes).
Unlike the Pentium line, the PowerPC 601, 603, 604, 750/74, and
7400/7410
are all architecturally different enough to constitute different
generations. The current forth generation G4 line will move into
its second version with the highly anticipated V'Ger chip. The V'Ger
G4 processor will include not one, but two AltiVec (vector) processing
units.
Traditionally distinguishing factors in the PowerPC lines superiority
over Pentiums have included items like larger (usually twice as
large) primary and secondary caches and much lower power consumption.
Also, the PowerPC 604 chip brought multiprocessing to an easy-to-use
GUI operating system with up to four processors. Such Mac stalwarts
as Adobe Photoshop and Strata's StrataVision and many other programs
have taken advantage of multiple processors providing industry leading
performance for these applications on an pro-sumer operating system.
- The G4 Processor is a Supercomputer
- Motorola's revolutionary AltiVec vector processing units give
the G4 processor gigaflops performance and the G4
Power Mac supercomputer status by the US government. The G4
processor is capable of sustaining over 1 gigaflops or one billion
floating-point operations per second. In fact the G4 is powerful
enough to reach a theoretical 3.6 gigaflops, and in a double processor
version can reach over 7 gigaflops.
At the heart of the G4's AltiVec engine is a 128-bit vector processing
unit, capable of processing code in 128-bit wide chunks compared
to the 32 or 64-bit chunks in traditional Pentium computers. That
means the G4 processes more instruction code in a single cycle than
any Pentium chip on the planet. For more information and technical
data on the G4 visit Apple's
G4 page.
- What is so great about the PowerPC?
- These links to resources below should help you understand the
benefits of the PowerPC microprocessor
- Learning about microprocessors can be fun and will give you
an understanding of what to look for in your next computer, how
to evaluate processor upgrades and how to evaluate speed benchmark
test scores by various manufactures and magazines.
The following sites are of interest to those wishing to learn about
microprocessors.
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PowerPC News:
According
to the IBM PowerPC Newsletter for December 2000, IBM will
be showcasing new IBM PowerPC processors running in the
latest Apple products. Their booth number is 411. IBM Software
will also be showing their latest ViaVoice technology.
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