Motorola hypes G5

Less than a month after the release of the PowerPC 7400, or G4, processor, Motorola is already hyping its next chip.

Will Swearingen, PowerPC marketing director for Motorola's Networks and Computing Systems Group, told MacWEEK that the Power PC 7500 - aka the G5 - should more than match Intel's upcoming 64-bit Merced processor in both speed and compatibility.

Unlike the Merced, which emulates a 32-bit processor in order to work with existing applications written to 32-bit code, the 64-bit version of the G5 (which will also be available in a 32-bit version) will be able to run 32-bit applications "in full native mode," Swearingen said. This would eliminate the considerable overhead involved with emulation and allow applications to take full advantage of the G5's expected initial speed of 2GHz.

The full story is located at www.zdnn.com.