News for Monday, 7 March 2005

We were talking about it for months, but IBM is officially communicating regarding the PowerPC970GX, as reported by one of our reader, Lonesome Boy.

I have just read something interesting: the PowerPC 970GX is mentioned on a recently updated webpage (March 1st, 2005) from IBM web site. I do not know if the reference to the PPC970GX was present in the previous version, but I do not remember IBM officially communicating on this rumored processor.
Part of the IBM article:
"The only processors currently supporting AltiVec are the G4 and G5. The G4 (including model numbers 7400 and 7410) and G4+ (7450 and 7455) processors are made by Motorola. (There are more models than just the ones listed here, but these are the most widely discussed.) The G5 chips include the IBM 970, 970FX, and 970GX; these are essentially POWER4™ cores with an AltiVec unit bolted on."
Hereafter is the link: http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/library/pa-unrollav1/

The only piece of information regarding the 970GX in this article is that it is still a Power4-based processor (not a big info). So the PPC970GX should have other features...dual core? larger cache?

Here's a rather interesting, and well executed mod.

LEDs were judiciously placed on the face of the G5 tower, behind the grill, and hooked up to a run-of-the-mill alarm clock.
For a complete overview of the mod :
http://www.paulanders.com/G5-LED/