OL1.NOV–IBM–RM
PowerPC 601 hits the ground running
Workstations show impressive performance, including Windows and Mac
emulation
IBM's latest workstation rollout lends strength to its merchant
semiconductor activities. In particular, the PowerPC 601 microprocessor
becomes a real, up-and-running, contender. However. Unix, so far, is its
only operating system.
IBM's recent workstation rollout had more than the usual significance for
microprocessor users. New entry-level machines used the production 601,
and were impressive for performance in the under $10,000 starting range.
The High-end machines used a new RS6000 Power2 module, a plug-in upgrade
for the existing module. The eight-chip module was billed as the world's
fastest microprocessor, which it undoubtedly is if you agree that it is a
microprocessor. The top new machine recorded SPECint92 at 126, and
SPECfp92 at 260. The Power2 is the most aggressive superscalar
implementation yet of any architecture. It has two integer units on one
chip, and two floating-point units on another. These, along with storage
control, can execute as many as eight operations or six instructions in
one cycle. Machines based on Power2 start at $64,450. In the less
rarefied world of PowerPC-based workstations, complete machines start
under $7,000 with a 540 Mbyte hard disk, and a 17-in color display. For
observers who have watched depressing demonstrations of software emulation
through the years, the sight of Windows and Mac software running
simultaneously in different windows on the AIX display, and respectably at
that, was astonishing. A Windows benchmark, Wintach, is a set of Windows
program macros involving a lot of screen writing. It ran more than twice
as fast on the 601 workstation as on a 486, 66-MHz PC. The demonstrator
was careful to point out that the workstation's graphics accelerator was
much faster than anything likely to be found on a PC, whether 601-based or
not. However, He suggested a 601-based PC would be the rough equal of the
486, 66-MHz PC. The emulation was done under the Windows Application
Binary Interface,(WABI), developed by Sun Microsystems in collaboration
with IBM and others. The MacOS is presumably being ported to the 601 by
Apple, and will not be a legal issue. In addition to AIX, the PowerPC
consortium is publicly committed to porting WPOS, Apple System 7, Sun
SOlaris, and, of course, the consortium's own Taligent. WPOS is IBM's
multiplatform successor to OS/2. Based on the Carnegie-Mellon Mach kernel,
it will have personality shells allowing it to accept ABIs for many
different operating systems. Separate announcements indicate intention to
port Windows NT also. IBM has a lot of modern wafer-fab capacity, more
than it needs for a declining mainframe business. It has every incentive
to be an aggressive competitor in the merchant microprocessor market.
–Rodney Myrvaagnes
CAPTION
The $9,395 Powerstation 25T has a 2D hardware graphics accelerator. 3D
graphics are executed using the 2D hardware by extensions in the latest
version of AIX, IBM's Unix.
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