More to Come for Towers?

[arn]

Matthew Rothenberg writes in an eWeek article (http://www.eweek.com/article/0,3658,s%253D25201%2526a%253D22082,00.asp) that the 1 GHz PowerMacs are only the tip of the iceburg:

Multiple eyewitnesses insist that Apple is far along in the development of new towers that already offer clock speeds in the neighborhood of 1.6GHz and triple the performance of the current systems' 133MHz system bus. My sources say the tangible boosts in graphics performance and Mac OS X speeds are immense.

[samy85114]

does this mean that the G5 is coming... well, i'm not expecting a G4 at 1.6Ghz... i guess, they'll probably stop the production around 1.2ghz because i heard it several times from reliable sources about the G4 limit and i'm just thinking they're right!

So , i will get an iMac as soon as possible and perhaps, i should decide to change it in 2 years... ! but i was told by someone that the demand is pretty large... so i'll wait...
before i was attracted by the G4 933, but have you seen the price... that too much expensive, that's why i changed my mind nad decided to buy an Imac. Just waiting for the G5... and no G5 till july!

[arn]

I've got mixed feelings about this rumor...

Personally, I think it's silly to expect significant bumps coming in July. (MacWorld Expo NY)

The timeframe is simply too close. At the very best, I feel like mild speed bumps could occur this year... speed bumped Apollo's perhaps... Historically, Apple has not done such frequent updates... expect for the last 3 expos, they've done Pro bumps (733 high end, Jan '01. Dual 800 July '01. Dual 1GHz Jan '02)

All whisps of info re the G5 is that we should not expect it until MWSF 2003 at the earliest.

arn

[GigaWire]

1 year from now is way too long for apple to hold off a major charge in the PC market. I think the iMac is a warning shot across the bows of winteldom, and that we'll see some real magic at some point later this year. I mean we're talking technology time here, and a year is just too long for Apple to hope to remain competitive, which is why they opened the stores, neh?

[Sayer]

First of all these new G4s didn't get put into production last week. They were conceived of, tested, built, wharehoused and distributed for some time before the silent intro. People have already purchased Dualies.

They are obviously a planned stop-gap solution with the iMac nipping at the heels of the "pro" level Power Macintosh line.

Virtually NOTHING has changed beyond the CPU daughter card. No new I/O, not even ATA/100 drive interface. Except for Dual 1 GHz its a total :o (yawn).

There were some reports that test boxes of substantial performance were just this past month picked up or scheduled to be picked up by February. Now this article speaks to radically new computers with monster performance coming soon.

The normal test cycle is said to be 6 months, wrapping up in January/February. One set of mystery boxes were said to have incredible performance (compapred to G4s and other Wintel junk). More than likely this is the major mobo overhaul Apple has been working on for some time. Major buzzword inclusion finally.

Now that iMac 2 rollout is actually rolling and new G4s are filling pent up demand, the next major change to Apple hardware can begin.

I would expect a totally new Power Mac by MacWorld New York or at the VERY latest Seybold this fall. Again they must be BUILT after Apple places orders for components, mfg. lines are updated and the channel is cleared.

There may be another bump to the current G4 desktop before then, but nothing major I would wager. If you need new iron BUY IT NOW! If you see a sudden promo to clear G4s, not just Displays but the G4 itself be prepared for an update. NEVER BUY BEFORE AN EXPO/SEYBOLD!! Ask the guy at As the Apple Turns, big whoops there fella (Dual 800 a few weeks before Dual 1 Ghz for less $).

BTW what happened to the server-specific hardware? Seybold is coming up in a few weeks... who knows?:confused:

[kaneda]

1.6 ghz will not be this year. I think it would be next year...The G5 hopefully will be announce at MWNY, but will not be 1.6ghz...hopefully 1.4 ghz or 1.2 ghz...

[MacManiac1224]

I think we will definetly see G5's this year, although I am unsure when exactly. I think we wil see them at MWNY, although Macworld Tokyo is possible, but not probable. We will see, me persoanlly, I am waiting for a G5.

[dshim]

The Register reported 3-4 months ago that developers were receiving test towers running G5s at 1.2-1.6 ghz with all kinds of new goodies (including the enigmatic "Gigabit," whatever that is) under the hood. These rumors were one of the reasons why people were so rabidly expecting G5s at the last MWSF. But they turned out to be pure fantasy.

this dude Rothenberg is just recycling old rumors. Don't put much stock in 'em. My guess is Apple-Moto will get more milege out of the MPC 7455 than just six months. But anything is possible. It's almost impossible to make long-term prognostications with Apple.

[Macmaniac]

Apple has to go with G5s at MWNY! Waiting a year will be too long and just speed bumping won't solve the problem completely. They should go with G5s and use the G4 chips for iMacs or iBooks. Apple needs to do something drastic with its profesional line, 1ghz is nice but that is a 200mhz speed difference with iMac. Apple needs to widen the gap by alot and they need to impress the Wintel users with 1.6ghz G5s, that would surely win converts. As I have said in other posts, Apple needs a BIG show to release a BIG new thing. That way Apple would get lots of Media coverage for G5. Lets hope for G5 at MWNY:) :D ;) :cool:

_______________________________
Not all who wander are lost.

Be sure to vote in my poll in Hardware Rumors, it fits this topic to a T.
Will we see G5s at MWNY? Vote in the poll!

[MacAztec]

The G5 may not be faster than a 1.6 G4. I do not think the G5 uses an altivec-engine, which will dramatically drop the processor. G4 1.6 GHz will be a quick puppy, escpecially if they boost the bus. I know that a G5 will not come in July, or else apple would have done a MINOR update to the G4 (ex. G4 DP 933 with GeForce 3, 512 RAM, 80 Gig HD). So please stop with "the G5 is coming July (MWNY) because you are wrong. The G5 will be out at MWSF MAYBE.

[syoung6164]

I am really hoping this is not true.I hope Apple tries to "top out" the G4 in the iMacs and give us the G5 in towers by July.If this report is to believed,look for G5 by next year!

[Unregistered]

The current shipping G4's are a minor speed bump to keep customers happy. G5's are in testing..and will be presented as soon as they are ready. Apple knows they are falling behind the Wintel world. The G5's will bring a faster bus, DDR ram, and possibly some new Apple toys.

When? as soon as they are ready. Apple wants sooner than later. I would predict MWNY. and maybe even WWDC.

[MacAztec]

Has anyone read the articles about the new G4? This is an extremely slow speed! These are the new apollo G4's. I bet if they stuck a 1.6 GHz Apollo G4 in a new case, and called it a G5, nobody would know. This new chip has POTENTIAL for faster processor speeds, and faster buses.

[GigaWire]

including the enigmatic "Gigabit," whatever that is


hahhahaha!!!!! Gigabit is already in powerMacs. I think you mean GigaWire!!!!:)

[Hemingray]

Originally posted by Mac_User
The G5 may not be faster than a 1.6 G4. I do not think the G5 uses an altivec-engine, which will dramatically drop the processor. G4 1.6 GHz will be a quick puppy, escpecially if they boost the bus. I know that a G5 will not come in July, or else apple would have done a MINOR update to the G4 (ex. G4 DP 933 with GeForce 3, 512 RAM, 80 Gig HD). So please stop with "the G5 is coming July (MWNY) because you are wrong. The G5 will be out at MWSF MAYBE.

Uhh... the G4 is only running a 133 bus, the G5 will blow that away. And the G5 will have DDR RAM. The G5 will definitely be faster than the G4.

I disagree. If Apple had made the MINOR update people would be squawking even MORE about how close the iMac is to it! Does that make much sense? I think the G5 IS coming in July. Or Seybold. And you can't rightfully say anyone is wrong because you're just as much in the dark as me and everyone else.

If not, you've violated Apple's NDA. :D

[Catfish_Man]

Originally posted by Mac_User
The G5 may not be faster than a 1.6 G4. I do not think the G5 uses an altivec-engine, which will dramatically drop the processor. G4 1.6 GHz will be a quick puppy, escpecially if they boost the bus. I know that a G5 will not come in July, or else apple would have done a MINOR update to the G4 (ex. G4 DP 933 with GeForce 3, 512 RAM, 80 Gig HD). So please stop with "the G5 is coming July (MWNY) because you are wrong. The G5 will be out at MWSF MAYBE.

The G5 will fry the G4. The G4 is crippled by weak integer and floating point hardware, and especially by its bus. Altivec is great, but even if the G5 doesn't have it (which I doubt), the G4 will still lose.
Currently the Motorola roadmap shows the G5 (MPC 8500) having Altivec.
The IBM roadmap shows their G5 (or at least their next G3/4 like PPC processor) having an "integrated SIMD engine". Sounds like Altivec to me. More interesting is that the fact that it says it will be dual core. The Motorola chip's big point (aside from the bus and DDR ram) is that it's 64 bit. Unfortunately, I have no clue whether Apple will go with Motorola or IBM.

[gbojim]

Hi everyone

I've been reading some of the threads on this site for a few weeks and this is one where I thought I could provide some info.

I have a customer that does a lot of CG work in the film industry. They have been testing one of the famous beige box systems for about the last 3 months. It just went back this week. This one had dual 1.6GHz G5's with 2GB DDR RAM and GeForce 3 graphics.

The G5s indeed use Altivec and the performance on this thing was absolutely amazing. They use several DP800s and the test unit was way more than 4x faster. None of the software has been optimized for 64 bit so all the apps were running in 32 bit mode.

Considering this is the end of the evaluation period, the timing seems about right for MWNY release.

[samy85114]

well, i've just read the entire thread and i might say that MWNY is the most popular one for the G5 annoncement... and i'm pretty sure, we're not wrong. I should be very imprested to see these G5 tower by May ( i'm talking about Tokyo, whenever it is)...
For this Macworld, i'm just expecting faster powerbook, perhaps iPod2 :) but please, do not touch to the iMac... i've just purchased one and i want the best, well at least for 2 month...

[MacAztec]

Originally posted by Catfish_Man


The G5 will fry the G4. The G4 is crippled by weak integer and floating point hardware, and especially by its bus. Altivec is great, but even if the G5 doesn't have it (which I doubt), the G4 will still lose.
Currently the Motorola roadmap shows the G5 (MPC 8500) having Altivec.
The IBM roadmap shows their G5 (or at least their next G3/4 like PPC processor) having an "integrated SIMD engine". Sounds like Altivec to me. More interesting is that the fact that it says it will be dual core. The Motorola chip's big point (aside from the bus and DDR ram) is that it's 64 bit. Unfortunately, I have no clue whether Apple will go with Motorola or IBM.
And why do you believe this? People think they know things but they dont. Who knows, it may not have DDR. It most likely will not fry the G5 because you cant really tel much faster than a 2 proccessor G4 1GHz, and if they upgrade the G4s bus, its gonna be close

[MacAztec]

Are you really on the testing team? I could say I am a developer at Apple and people would believe me if i made a new name. Where is the evidence?

[gbojim]

If your post was addressed to me, no I am not on the test team. I provide networking support to the organization that is and had the opportunity to see some of the tests they were running.

I won't provide any real evidence because I suspect Apple could trace anything hard back to my client which would cause a lot of undesired legal problems with NDAs and such. May sound lame but that's the way it has to be.

Sorry I can't give you anything more concrete.

[MacAztec]

Email me ur evidence. I will keep it on the DL

[Onyxx]

I thought about apple dumping the powermac g4 and putting the apollos into the new iMacs when some of the first rumors came out about the g5. With the iMac now boasting the "profesional" chip (the iMac right now does not have a 7455)my hopes the apollo being put into the iMacs seems closer than ever.

Yes the g4 still has plenty of life in it. Yes motorola just finished its apollos and wants them used. And yes these 7455's could very well be phased over to the iMac in favor of the new g5's in the pro line. It may be possible that apple put the apollos out in the new towers not only to appease the restless profesional crowd, but to test out their new chip as well.

Another thing to consider is that the 7455 run much cooler than the current g4 that is in the iMac. With this in mind and apple's love of fanless cooling, we may see the next iMac revamp sans fan (cube users/lovers would be all over this and it seems like something Ives/jobs would do).

Of course these are just hopes and ambitions but hey, ya gotta dream right?

gbojim- I hope you are right. Sounds good.

[#Johnny5]

It appears the Apollos have been ready for some time. So why didn't we see the towers updated @ MWSF? That's simple: it would have made the new iMac look less impressive.

But in the long run, Steve knows he needs to put a TRUE separation between the Consumer & Pro lines again. If he didn't know for sure that he could make that gap, and soon, we'd never have seen a G4 in the new iMac... especially not at 800MHz. And with the Apollos, he knows he's got some speed bumps stored up for the iMac's future.

If Steve weren't planning something big for the Pro line this summer, then he would have postponed this last little update until Tokyo, and given us a 1.2 or 1.4GHz Apollo in the pro line instead of 1GHz.

If he were to do just another little speed bump at MWNY this summer, then it would be in both the consumer line & the pro line, and so the Pro's still wouldn't have the gap over the consumer line. He knows he needs to widen that gap soon. The 1GHz update gave him enough time to finish testing the G5 for the summer. That's why we haven't seen FireWire2 or Gigawire yet, either. It's all going to be part of the whole, beautiful package. And beautiful it will be...


Of course, this is all just speculation... :)

[Pants]

Originally posted by Mac_User

And why do you believe this? People think they know things but they dont. Who knows, it may not have DDR. It most likely will not fry the G5 because you cant really tel much faster than a 2 proccessor G4 1GHz, and if they upgrade the G4s bus, its gonna be close


its 64 bit - its about the addressing, stoopid. ;)

[macmunch]

Mac_user your speaking s*** !


The P4 with 2 GHz is even slower than a AMD Athlon XP with 1533 !!!

So, its possible that a G5 is much faster than a G4 800 DP.
Dont forget the G4 was not a big jump in processor tech.
He is just a better G3 and that chip is just a better 604.
The G5 semms like a brand new chip exspecially by the long develop time.

And the spec are impressing:

64Bit
High clock rates
DDR (will have by these clock rates)
SOI
new integer and floting point units
and a bigger BUS system
multi-core

And the others here are right the G5 will have DDR because by these big clock rates we expect, you cant take SD-RAM with his 133MHz thats too slow. The multiplicator will be too high !

I predict the G5 on MWNY or later but defintifly this year !!!!
Thats the last chance to get the Wintel world, wich also gets faster and faster ........



Sorry for my English its not the best.
:D

[eric_n_dfw]

Originally posted by Sayer
[in the new G4's] Virtually NOTHING has changed beyond the CPU daughter card. No new I/O, not even ATA/100 drive interface. Except for Dual 1 GHz its a total :o (yawn).
Forgive me if I'm wrong here, but I thought they updated the bus architecture on the new G4's. No PCI bridge, Gigabit ethernet and firewire with their own controller, etc.
Were these on the DP800's and 867's ?

And, where does it say what speed the drive controller is? I can't find that anywhere on their site. If it truely is ATA/66 then I'd be surprised - in fact I thought they already were at ATA/100 with the last G4's.

[Falleron]

Now I am stuck! I just ordered my new dual 1ghz powermac. However, I will be pissed if in march they bring out higher speed powermacs.

[sparkleytone]

i said before i wouldn't speculate on g5s. so i won't. IF the g5s come out soon, they better have the software ready. all i hear about is people testing blah blah. but the network support guy made a silent good point.

everything was running in 32bit mode. not exactly what people are going to want with their shiny new 64-bit machines.

another thing i found interesting was the IBM/Moto thing. are they really both developing the same type of "g5" semiconductors?? who is IBM developing it for??? are they in testing?

and Falleron, why be pissed? you are gonna have dual-1GHz. if you are so pissed...give it to me. thats the nature of the business. its not half as bad as the PC world, where the second you buy the computer its almost two generations behind.

[kidtronix]

ok when was the last time apple upgraded their chip to a speed faster than 200mhz in a single revisit? going from 1 to 1.6 will take at least 2 revisits if apple goes by usual turns...

but hey i'd like to see it happen :cool:

[MikeH]

While I'd love to 1.6 G5's real soon, it's just not going to happen.

Everyone is yapping on about how Apple 'must' do all this stuff soon.

Why must they?

Just to please the readers of these forums? (Who will only whinge becasue the end result doesn't meet the ridiculously high expectations placed on them).

At the end of the day it's business, if people are buying what's available and there is no sign of tail off in demand, why invest truck loads of cash to release a new product line.

If all they need to do is speed bump G4's that's what they'll do. They don't need to rush out G5's just to appease the Mac rumour forums.

I'd rather they wait until they have them properly sorted and release them then.

[whatever]

Don't quote me on this, but here's what's coming:

1. Final speed bump in G4 Powerbooks (2002)
2. G5 Towers (2002)
3. G4 chips in iBooks (2002)
4. dual processor G5 Towers (2003)
5. G5 Powerbooks/ faster iMac w/17" LCD (2003)

I'll let you fight over the dates.

The plan is to phase out the G3 as soon as possible, but without confusing the consumer and professional laptop lines.

[Falleron]

Originally posted by sparkleytone
i said before i wouldn't speculate on g5s. so i won't. IF the g5s come out soon, they better have the software ready. all i hear about is people testing blah blah. but the network support guy made a silent good point.

everything was running in 32bit mode. not exactly what people are going to want with their shiny new 64-bit machines.

another thing i found interesting was the IBM/Moto thing. are they really both developing the same type of "g5" semiconductors?? who is IBM developing it for??? are they in testing?

and Falleron, why be pissed? you are gonna have dual-1GHz. if you are so pissed...give it to me. thats the nature of the business. its not half as bad as the PC world, where the second you buy the computer its almost two generations behind.

The only reason I will be pissed is if they release for example DDRAM, faster bus soon. I believe these will make a large difference to system performance so I dont want to miss out because I did not wait 6 weeks.

[GPTurismo]

well, as we know it, the Final builds of G5's haven't been in testing for that long. Look at Itaniums, we recieved hard proof they were coming out 2 years before they were released. We have only seen G5's for eight months now...

Also, Motorola has said multiple times that their main focus is to get it's altivec performance to the same ratio as the G4s, which was said to be not that high at the moment. So apple to invest so much into Altivec and then release new processors without equal or better performance, is like Intel dropping SSE alltogether now that people are starting to support it on a decent basis.

I would like to see G5's in July, but I am looking more at a MWSF/MWNY 2003 release date.

[Macmaniac]

I think when they release the G5 it will come out on Powemacs, but it will also come out on TiBook at the same time. I hope they do this so Apple can say they have the Top Pro model and top Pro laptop:) Also I would love to see iPod 2 with a bigger HD.

____________________________________
Not all who wander are lost.

[samy85114]

Originally posted by Macmaniac
I think when they release the G5 it will come out on Powemacs, but it will also come out on TiBook at the same time.
____________________________________
Not all who wander are lost.

I guess you're talking about Tipowerbook. Actually Tibook is a consumer model. I bet they'll release it on the professional market before introducing it on the Tibook!

[ftaok]

Originally posted by samy85114


I guess you're talking about Tipowerbook. Actually Tibook is a consumer model. I bet they'll release it on the professional market before introducing it on the Tibook!

Actually,

The TiBook is the Powerbook G4 (Titanium). It is the professional laptop and not the consumer one. The iBook is the consumer one.

[agreenster]

The TiBook is an affectionate name for the Titanium PowerBook. Thats what many MacUsers call it.

So, lets write it on the chalkboard: Apple makes an iBook, and a TiBook. Get it?

As far as a G5 coming out, and beige box testing:

Id love to believe that some company in the film industry is testing out G5's, but that story is highly suspect for two reasons: 1) Its Apple's policy not to have third party testers, for just this reason (gossip and NDA's). They have plenty of in-house testers and plenty of expertise to do it with. They test their own boxes, they dont have Steven Spielburg do it for them. 2) The film (and animation) industry typically uses SGI's and solaris systems, not Apple. Smaller companies (and some large) use Apple on occasion because it is more cost-efficient than buying 15,000-25,000 dollar editing systems. Yes, some companies use Apple, and Apple is more welcomed in the film industry than other industries, but the fact remains that it is an SGI's world. Jobs himself owns Pixar and they dont even use Apple. Its all SGI's,Unix, and proprietary software like Pixar's 'Marionette.' Maybe one day we will see Apple in the higher end studios, but they dont have the firepower yet.

For Apple's sake, I hope you are right. I DO want G5's in July, but it aint happening. Its the classic Apple-user flaw. Predicting high, and getting dissapointed. I predicted that there would be no hardware but iMacs announced for MWSF, and hit the nail on the head. Everyone else was predicting their brains out, and got dissapointed.

Still my prediction: G5's MWSF '03.

[Stike]

Hello all, here are my 2 €-cents :D

Macworld Tokio, 21.03.02
- Introducing OS 10.2
- Powerbook G4 800 (Apollo)
(maybe iBook G4, dont know :p )

Macworld NY, 16.07.02
- G5 Tower 1.6 GHz top (...possible)
- Dual G4 1.2 GHz (DDR RAM) (quite sure)
- G4 1 GHz (DDR RAM) low end :-)

Around September: OS 10.3, iBook G4 surely
MWSF: Speedbumps all around, even iMac2

Now, how about that?? :D

:rolleyes:
Maybe I should rename in oracle :D

[eyelikeart]

it's no surprise that Apple is in development of something....they are good at appeasing the masses while secretly working on something even better!

[Unregistered]

There is still plenty of life left in the G4. The 0.15 micron manufacturing process should make for a faster chip. Maybe G4's in laptops and imacs, then G5's in the new towers?

[rastalin]

Here is what I would do if I were in Mr. Jobs place. Keep doing little steps to increase the power of the PM line enough to keep users from completely freaking out. I would not change anything major, no bus upgrades, no new firewire, etc. Keep everything the same but just try to squeeze as much life out of the current G4 setup as I possibly could. Than as soon as everything is lined up and ready to ship drop the bomb on the world. Come out with the G5 with everything upgraded at once and just blow the freakin doors off of everything out there. Instead of doing little upgrades along the way that just complicate everything, release it all at once to the world and sit back and watch everyone’s jaw drop. I would love to see Apple come out with a fully updated PM line that beats every Windows machine out there no questions asked.

[gbojim]

Just a couple of points...

You are absolutely correct that the film industry is dominated by SGI. The folks I support have far more SGI gear than Apple. However, you may be surprised at how widely Macs are used. Maybe not for final rendering and such, but there are lots of other things Macs do well for a lot less cost than an SGI box.

Apple certainly does field test, whether they publicly admit it or not. As we all know, Apple is much more interested in real world performance as opposed to how fast they can clock the CPU, and they simply do not have the capability to really measure all of the different possible configurations in house. In addition, film, video, etc is a good place for them to test because people in those industries are used to not talking about anything they are working on. For example, a friend of my daughter went to work at ILM as a CG animator after she graduated from college a couple of years ago. The secrecy contract she had to sign made Apple's NDA look like an interoffice memo.

Finally, I want to clarify that I am not claiming to know what Apple is going to release or when. Although I wish that I knew, I simply don't. All I was saying is that at least in one case, the test period has ended. If that is across the board, with about 6 months to MWNY, there is plenty of time to finalize the spec, finish the design and be ready for release. Can Motorola supply enough G5's? Does marketing think MWNY is the right time? Who knows? Not me.

[T'hain Esh Kelch]

Originally posted by Stike
Around September: OS 10.3

Too early! How long time has it been since 10.1 and we havent seen even a shadow os 10.2! (Well, they start to appear...) :)


:rolleyes: Maybe I should rename in oracle :D
You go do that.. Then I'll rename myself to the Macintosh Sage! :D

[Ouroboros]

Here's something to mull on a bit. Let's assume that Apple isn't planning on releasing a G5 this year.

If this is so, then they would have to release updates tot he Powermac line similar to what just happened. Of all the mhz upgrades, this was THE first milestone for apple. So they just did a small press release on this one. After this way of introduction for the Powermac, how is Steve going to get up on stage and say, "well here we are, with a nifty new speedbump. Today we have a dual 1.2ghz machine! The low end is 1ghz, and the top is 1.4ghz. So now all the Powermacs are at 1ghz or greater. Now let's see the photoshop bake-off...."

That wouldn't go over well. Folks, that's six months from now. Sure those would be fine specs for the towers, but I suspect that everyone in here when that happend would be all in the hoots about how that's not enough.

Because it isn't! I've read from several different articles that say something to the effect that DDR Ram isn't compatible with the G4. Maybe I'm wrong. BUT, why release a new case and motherboard and waste that release on speed bumped G4's??? See, the whole thing needs to be upgraded. And look how old the case is for the G4. I just think it's obvious that it is going to happen this year, and no later than MWNY.

Maybe I have flawed reasoning. I hope I'm right is all I'm trying to get across. I think the cases are a good indication alone. What do you think?

[Unregistered]

from rumors I have read. And yes i realize they are rumors they might have taken out the multicore part to get the chips here fast

[AlphaTech]

I would be happy to see a G5 tower by, or before, MYSF in 2003. If it happens before then, great!!

Once I sell my current G4 tower, I am waiting until the G5 comes out before getting a new tower.

Until the G5 tower comes out, I will be using my rev. A TiBook for everything of value. Including scanning, burning cd's and such.

I just installed my spare 40 GB ATA hard drive into a firewire enclosure. It's silver metal and clear plastic, with a little yellow firewire symbol on it. Very cool looking. I am seriously thinking about getting some more hard drives and making an external RAID system. Since I use OS X 99% of the time on the TiBook, that would work out pretty well. OS X has the RAID support built in, so that you can use either external, or internal hard drives that way. I suspect that hard drive prices will be making additional drops in the coming months, and the larger ones should become more available. One thing that I need to find out is if I add additional drives to the RAID if I will loose all the old data because I would need to reset the RAID or if I can add the drive to it on the fly and retain the data. If anyone knows about Apple's RAID support under OS X, or has done this, I would like to know.

[Onyxx]

nope you lose the data. thats the way a raid works. Just back the data on one of your drives or burn som cdrs if it isn't a lot of data (but it probably is if you have the need for a raid array). For great hard drives perfect for firewire enclosures go see the barefeats.com review of them. to tell you the truth, with capacities that high and that fast there really isnt any need for a raid unless you plan on capturing more than 120 gbs worth of data.
what were you planing on using it for anyway?

[networkman]

ibook, dual usb ibook, and tibook

so what do you call the 14" inch ibook? i guess 14" inch ibook but that sounds boring...maybe the P1 site/chatroom dedicated to ibook will come up with a new name for that one

[AlphaTech]

I want to bring all my files off of the G4 before I release it. Both the 40 and 27 GB hard drives are over 1/2 full. Since I have the 40GB right now, I figured getting some more would allow me to increase the capacity, and then using the RAID would make them appear as one drive (not manny). I haven't deleted many files in the year and a half that I have had the system, even though I probably should.

I just received my new QPS burner, the 24x10x40 model, and plan on trying it out over the weekend. My last QPS burner, the 12x10x32 model worked wonderfully. I sold that to someone that really wanted a burner, and didn't want to wait. I was going to go for the 32x burner, but got tired of waiting, and also figured that since they both burn a 700MB cd in about 3 minutes, it will work good enough. I also got a 100 pack spindle of blanks with the burner (24x rated), which lets me go full bore right away. I noticed that is is real hard to find 32x media right now, although that will change in the future. Kind of makes you wonder where the cd burner speeds will stop going up.

[keithcobbett]

Originally posted by whatever
Don't quote me on this, but here's what's coming:

1. Final speed bump in G4 Powerbooks (2002)
2. G5 Towers (2002)
3. G4 chips in iBooks (2002)
4. dual processor G5 Towers (2003)
5. G5 Powerbooks/ faster iMac w/17" LCD (2003)

I'll let you fight over the dates.

The plan is to phase out the G3 as soon as possible, but without confusing the consumer and professional laptop lines.

Definately agree. Powerbooks Update in July and G5 Towers in July. I would say not till 2003 for G4 chips in iBooks. Too soon to do it now. G5 Powerbooks will come in July 2003 also. iMac with a 17" LCD? Hopefully. It could definately use it. Very nice machine and would be complimented with a bigger screen.

[Unregistered]

Think about it, Apple launches G4 with GF4MX....

Suggests to me that this is not meant to be top of the line. Real GF4 is being saved for something better.

I think we are going to see $10,000 Macs again real soon.

Three grades:

iMac

G4 Towers

G5 Towers and Servers - perfect machines for the Maya, Digidesign set and will kill SGIs and Suns.

In otherwords, don't wait unless you have lots of $$$$$

[Unregistered]

Originally posted by Ouroboros
[B]Here's something to mull on a bit. Let's assume that Apple isn't planning on releasing a G5 this year.

If this is so, then they would have to release updates tot he Powermac line similar to what just happened. Of all the mhz upgrades, this was THE first milestone for apple. So they just did a small press release on this one. After this way of introduction for the Powermac, how is Steve going to get up on stage and say, "well here we are, with a nifty new speedbump. Today we have a dual 1.2ghz machine! The low end is 1ghz, and the top is 1.4ghz. So now all the Powermacs are at 1ghz or greater. Now let's see the photoshop bake-off...."

There are a number of people posting here that seem to think that Apple can put any hardware out at anytime that they want, and/or that Apple has to get new hardware out now, and/or that the only reason they don't is because of marketing.

These people are missing the boat. If new processor are unavailable, Apple simply can't put them in systems, no matter how much they want to, or you want them to. New processors are not currently available. There are big differences between designing, taping out, testing, and production. Just as a reality check, compare the predictions for the next MW compared to the previous, and the previous before that, and etc. IOW, according to the latest reports, there may be no truth to the previous reports... think about it.

[germanknee]

by the end of this year, AMD should be releasing their new 64-bit chips (clawhammer for desktops and sledgehammer for server). Intel will also be releasing a newer version of its 64-bit Itanium. This will be the McKinley. Most software is currently 32-bit. I think that by the end of 2003, much of the major software titles will be compiled to 64-bit to take advantage of the new processors.

This is why I believe gbojim. I think that the G5's will be released roughly the same time as the peecee processors. Mainstream users don't use 64-bit applications, but I think they will begin to phase in towards the end of this year and beginning of next year. So, the 64-bit G5 will be in sync with the rest of the world.

I won't really be dissastisfied if they just keep boosting the apollos clock until then. It would be sweet if it got to 1.6 (if that's even possible on the apollo) by the before they release the G5.

Anyway, that's just a little bit of my logic.

[Ouroboros]

To the poster that responded to an earlier post of mine: I think that you miss the point of the way of interpretation with Apple. I think it is clear that Apple can't hurry technology or crack the whip at Motorola and release whatever they want, when they want. That wasn't the point of my post, and I'm fully aware that Apple can't suddenly produce a G5 because its needed for marketing purposes.

But if we look at how Apple has released things in the past, and we see what they are doing now, it still gives us hints and some interesting things. Why does this mean that Apple is controlling everything?? ON the contrary, since Apple is tied down to Motorola at the moment for its top of the line chips, their actions will in some ways give clues towards their further intentions. These intentions would obviously have the Motorola roadmap in mind. Since people can't find much on the G5 release on the Motorola site, we look to Apple. One of the suits for Motorola has stated anyway that they won't steal Apple's fire in some cases, meaning they aren't going to suddenly say, "well here's the G5" -- at least not in the next processor's case. I distinctly remember reading something that mentioned that with respect to the G5, Apple and Motorola have an interesting contract in the way that the public is given the information about the release.

I don't think we all live in some fairy world. Look at the majority of the posts here, looking at what is released now, we are trying to second guess the marketing team and the knowledge of what the hardware team knows.

Let me ask those of you who do supposedly know about the G5, can you give any urls where it says things like, "the g5 is at least a year off, etc." -- I don't think that just because the Apollo is out now, means that Motorola is stacked up with that as being all that they are capable of now. It doesn't make business sense, and it doesn't jive with something like 18 or 19 things I've read recently.

Anyway, I hope to the unregistered that you know where my "theories" come from now.

[Kid Red]

Originally posted by Mac_User
Has anyone read the articles about the new G4? This is an extremely slow speed! These are the new apollo G4's. I bet if they stuck a 1.6 GHz Apollo G4 in a new case, and called it a G5, nobody would know. This new chip has POTENTIAL for faster processor speeds, and faster buses.

Uh, I have one and they are not slow, much less "extremely slow" :rolleyes:

[TMay]

The speculation that Apple NEEDS to deliver a G5 to maintain market share with pro's seems to be a bit misguided. If the roadmap for the Apollo holds true and tops out at around 2Ghz, with dual/quad/multi capabilities of the OS, it would seem that processor performance for the applications that require it could be implemented with the Apollo, albeit the motherboard architecture would constrain those performance increases significantly.

That being said, it would be in Apple's best interest to seed proto G5 hardware to a few select companies, even in an early state, so that the process of transitioning the software to 64 bit can begin. The companies that would most benefit from this would be Alias, Maxon, Adobe, Wolfram Research, Metroworks, etc.

Note that even with the performance of the current Athlon's and Pentiums, not to mention Itanium, the software and applications are the drivers to the new technologies, and consumers have become reluctant to upgrades without some noticeable performance benefits. I believe that this would be true for Apple as well.

Apple drew a line in the sand back with the dual G4's and the introduction of OSX. From that day forward, application developers need to incorporate multithreading, and are strongly advised to support Altivec as well

One should also note, that while OSX in certainly not finished, it will soon be to the point in time where holdouts will start transitioning. Apple can start to devote more resources to hardware and applications development, with the sure knowledge that a significant number of current users will upgrade, driving revenues.

My speculation is that the G5 will appear at MacWorld SF and Apple will also annouce a "blade" server, and that 64 bit software will be immediately available from some of the companies noted above.

tom

[StealthRider]

I know this is kind of off topic, but does anyone here think it's about time to get rid of the G3? Apple's almost out with the G5 processer, or are they just keeping it out to be the equivilent of Intel's Celeron processers or AMD's Durons?

[StealthRider]

why would Apple not put DDR-SDRAM in the G5? It would be kind of a dumb thing to do, with PCs having it- even some CELERONS I've seen have DDR...