Motorola sources are now reporting that the first fully functional G4e
prototypes to be demonstrated outside the company have recently rolled off the
production line.
Running at 600-700MHz, these processors sport more than double the performance
of current G4s with a number of very attractive features:
Deeper pipelines, allowing for higher clock rates (up to 1.2GHz)
Initial clock rates ~650MHz-800MHz, with 1GHz projected at approximately five
months after release.
256K on-chip Level 2 cache running at full processor speed on a 256-bit data
bus, offering performance well in excess of current 1MB backside L2 caches.
Backside Level 3 caches up to 4MB, running at half processor speed
64- and 128-bit MaxBus support
Optimized for multiprocessing with direct processor-to-processor communications
capabilities and full-speed cache sharing across CPUs
Smaller, cooler, faster: .15 and later .13/.10 micron wiring processes
Two additional Integer units, one additional Altivec unit.
These same Moto sources had originally reported that fully functional G4es would
likely not be available to third party developers (Apple, etc.) until June.
It is much too early to draw major conclusions from this, but it does foster
hope that Motorola is going all-out to introduce this revved-up G4 that may be
the answer to many of today's clock speed and shrinking performance advantage
woes.
In fact, if progress continues at this rate, we may see the first G4e-based
PowerMacs shipping this Summer, rather than the previously projected
early-Autumn estimates.....