PowerPC 970

The PowerPC 970, PowerPC 970FX, PowerPC 970GX, and PowerPC 970MP, are 64-bit Power Architecture processors from IBM introduced in 2002. When used in Apple Inc. machines, they were dubbed the PowerPC G5. The PowerPC 970's successor is the PowerPC A2.

The 970 family was created through a collaboration between IBM and Apple. The project went under the codename GP-UL or Giga Processor Ultra Light, where Giga Processor was the codename for the POWER4 from which the core was derived. When Apple introduced the Power Mac G5, they stated that this was a five year collaborative effort, with multiple future generations, but it was short-lived. Apple had to retract the promise to deliver a 3 GHz processor one year after its introduction, and IBM could never get the power consumption down far enough for these processors to fit into a portable computer. Apple only used three variants of the processor.

IBM’s JS20/JS21 blade modules and some low-end workstations and System p servers are based on PowerPC 970. It is also used in some high end embedded systems like Mercury’s Momentum XSA-200. IBM is also licensing the PowerPC 970 core for use in custom applications. A common misconception is that the PowerPC 970 was the core in IBM's Xenon processor in Microsoft's Xbox 360, but this is false. That processor is using cores similar to the Power Processing Element (PPE) in the Cell microprocessor.