Yes, in fact if you run FreeBSD on POWER9 currently, it's compiled with ancient gcc 4.x.whatever (the last GPLv2 version) :D (The switch to clang and ELFv2 ABI is going to happen in the coming months)

IIRC PowerPC as a separate architecture doesn't exist anymore. All extensions were folded back into POWER.

I wouldn't be surprised if they have, given that PowerPC desktops haven't been mainstream for more than a decade now, and in the meantime IBM's servers have been marching on.

The last truly mainstream PowerPC desktop was Apple's 2005 Quad-G5 PowerMac. There were other PowerPC machines after this, the PS3 being the most notable. But they were either not desktops or not mainstream.

I'm a hardware nostalgic and have both gathering dust in my basement. So I can't wait for a PowerPC revival of any kind.

Yeah, I've got my share of PowerPC Macs, too (one Powerbook G4, one PowerMac G5, one XServe G5, one eMac G4, all running various versions of OpenBSD). They're really fun machines, and it's a shame Apple decided instead to be yet another x86 vendor.

I also can't wait for a PowerPC revival. Saving up for one of them Talos workstations as my next major hardware purchase (but it's really hard to pull the trigger when the motherboard or CPU alone costs as much as I paid for the entire Threadripper rig I built last year...).

Raptor Talos/Blackbird is a niche, expensive revival, but a revival nonetheless :)

I may have been overly generous with the "of any kind" :). That's a bit on the expensive side and the ecosystem and platform flexibility in terms of upgrade are still pretty slim/locked in. Something that's open and cheap enough to spark general interest would be much more interesting.

The Blackbirds don't look too expensive, and Talos' hardware in general is about as open as it gets (putting even the x86 market to shame, let alone the PowerPC Apple desktops).

It's already here. Get yourself a Blackbird (or a Talos, if you're really going to jump in).

Out of curiosity: is there any limit on the CPU I can stick in one of the Blackbird boards (i.e. can I stick with the lower-end CPU for initial purchase and upgrade to the 22-core monstrosity later)? If so, then that might push me over the edge into investing my next paycheck ;)