Oh dear...
Anyway, do you guys think a dual core 750VX (G3+Altivec) with 1MB of L2 cache each running at 1.6GHz would make for a powerful Revolution CPU?
Nope... At least not in comparison to it's two competitors... I also don't think you'd see a 750 core hit 1.6GHz too easily to be cost effective...
How would it compare to a dual core 970FX? Anyway I found this bit of info on the 750GX.
By dual core 970FX you mean the 970MP? It would pretty handily slaughter a 750...
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the 750FX and GX doesn't have Altivec. That's what makes the VX differe
Well that, and the VX doesn't even exist...
The 1.6GHz - 2GHz is information for the 750VX. The 750VXe was designed to go beyond 2GHz. I just picked the lower speed number and speculated dual core. It's been said that the 750VX was designed for multiprocessor configurations like the 970FX so a dual core 750VX like the 970MP is possible.
Mythology...
but so does SH4, and a few other SIMD implementations.
I wouldn't necessarily call the SH4's implementation a SIMD implementation at all...
The G4 is not more than a G3+VMX, nothing more than this.
This is incorrect...
I believe IBM has since gone on to making G4 compatibles (a G4 - Altivec + VMX), as well.
For starters, AltiVec and VMX are the same thing... AltiVec is simply the name trademarked by Motorola/Freescale. (that and most people who've programmed for it still call it AltiVec 'cause it's a cooler name and has been around much longer). Secondly, IBM hasn't made any "G4 compatibles" so to speak. They did for a brief time fab 7400s for Apple and Moto however.
Altivec was licensed by IBM before the GameCube even came out. It is part of the IBM/Freescale "Book E" spec, so any Book E compliant IBM proc implements Altivec as far as i remember.
Sigh... Now we're getting bad here folks...
AltiVec/VMX/Velocity Engine (or any other name for the given SIMD extension), is not a part of PowerPC Book E, PowerPC or PowerPC AS. AltiVec has never been licensed by IBM as IBM participated in the development of it.
PPC 7500 (G4) = G3 + Altivec. Altivec = Motorola/Freescale.
You mean 7400/7410. And no the 7400 is not *just* as 750+AltiVec. While having common heritage with the 750, the 750 lacked the MPX bus support, only supported MEI (instead of MESI the 7400 supported) coherency, had fewer rename resources and smaller completion queues. The FPU of the 7400 also had a lower latency multiplier for double-precision. And of course once you get to the 745x/744x models, you're talking about a significantly changed design from the 750...
I think the reason why Nintendo didn't go with the G4 for GCN was due to die size and the fact the G3 with it's 2-way SIMD balanced well with the Flipper GPU.
Die size would be of minimal concern really (especially with the differences between 750 and 7400 dimensionally being rather small).
And I doubt Flipper would care whether the CPU's SIMD implementation is 2-way or 4-way...
There was really no point in using a bigger more powerful chip when it would just make the system less balanced and more costly.
Less balanced? You can never have enough CPU..!
Also Motorola would've had difficulty supplying the volume Nintendo needed.
I doubt that as well... By the time the GCN launched Moto would've been able to provide plenty of 7410s to Nintendo (they actually for a long time had way more fab capacity than IBM)...
Anyways, the ideal choice would be a 1.6GHz (or faster) 970MP... If you absolutely *had* to use something lesser, than one of the newer e600 dual-core jobbies like Freescales MPC8641D would be WAAAAY more appealing than some hypthetical 750+AltiVec...