IBM unveiled two new PowerPC chips at an event in Tokyo, one month after its primary customer for those chips announced plans to switch to Intel’s proces-sors.The new PowerPC 970MP is a dual-core version of the PowerPC 970FX, which users of Apple Computer’s Power Mac and iMac computers know as the G5 processor, IDG News Service’s Tom Krazit reported. IBM also unveiled a low-power version of the 970FX chip with power consumption statistics that would make it suitable for a notebook. IBM had said little publicly about its PowerPC road map during the last several weeks of speculation, then confirmation, that Apple would make the historic switch away from the PowerPC architecture in favor of Intel’s x86 architecture starting in 2006. IBM and Apple have had a rocky partnership since IBM became the exclusive supplier of the G5 processors. Manufacturing problems at IBM caused a delay in shipments of the G5 chips last year and power-consumption issues forced Apple to use liquid cooling in a high-end Power Mac and hold back on launching a G5 PowerBook or iBook. In fact, Apple Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs cited concern about IBM’s long-term road map for high-performance processors with low power consumption when announcing the switch to Intel’s chips last month. However, he also said that Apple planned to release new PowerPC-based Macs between now and the time the switch gets under way next year. Apple won’t switch its entire lineup of Macs to Intel until 2007.An Apple spokeswoman declined to comment on the company’s plans for the new PowerPC chips.IBM has been developing the PowerPC 970MP for at least a year, said Nathan Brookwood, principal analyst at Insight64. Big Blue has other customers for the PowerPC chip besides Apple, including IBM itself, which uses it in several systems. “The PowerPC always had really attractive power performance characteristics. This (new chip) should be competitive in terms of performance,” Brookwood said. “Whether they can sell enough to make it worthwhile remains to be seen.” The new low-power PowerPC 970FX chip will consume 13 watts of power when running at 1.4GHz and 16 watts of power running at 1.6GHz, under typical operating conditions, IBM said in a press release. It’s difficult to compare the power consumption of this chip to Intel’s low-power leader, the Pentium M, because Intel publishes thermal design guidelines for PC manufacturers while IBM cites “typical” power consumption. Intel advises PC manufacturers to design Pentium M-based PCs that can handle 27 watts of power consumption, according to Intel technical documents. The company also has lower-power versions of the Pentium M that run at slower clock speeds. Likewise, it’s impossible to compare processor performance, especially processors using different architectures, without independent testing. But the power-consumption figures of the new 970FX chips would allow Apple to design a G5-based notebook that would probably outperform the company’s current crop of G4-based iBooks and PowerBooks. Technology Industry