IBM Preps for Apple Announcements

[MacRumors]

In the wake of the leaked specs (http://www.macrumors.com/pages/2003/06/20030619233623.shtml), The Mercury News (http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/business/6131212.htm) reports on further signs of IBM/Apple announcements on monday:

IBM has scheduled analyst briefings on the chip to begin after Apple Chairman and Chief Executive Steve Jobs gives his keynote address. A group of IBM engineers has come to Apple's Cupertino headquarters for last-minute preparations. And Apple's close partners say significantly faster Apple machines should arrive before the end of the year.

These hints simply confirm what has been widely expected, and while the question of the PowerMac specs may have been laid to rest (for the non-conspiracy theorists), the questions of shipping time and price remain open.

[Ayre]

Good things to hear, indeed. Guess we'll just have to wait for Monday to come now.

[dethl]

Wait....

Are we going to see any machines before the end of the summer? Or am I reading this wrong and even FASTER machines (> 2ghz) will be coming at the end of the year?

[sabbath999]

It's the real deal :)

[kb9000]

yay

[Vlade]

YIPPIE!!! I knew this rumor was true!!!

[jcdenton]

Either they're there for the Keynote or they're there because Apple is panicking about the hacker who got that picture up last night:D (joking).

I'm glad we'll be getting some info from IBM about the 970 soon. We haven't heard much since last fall, except for that article from Stokes over at Ars Technica, but that wasn't really from IBM, was it.

Time to go find my credit card... :)

[starflyer 59]

It is going to be one exciting day on Monday. I have lunch at 12 pm Central and there is an Apple store less than 2 miles away... Wonder where I will be?

[mkaake]

yeah, i'm pretty sure that there's going to be no lunch for me during lunch break on monday... and it might just have to last 2 hours or so...

matt

[Bunzi2k4]

this will be interesting.... although sad... i just baught a 12" pb... darnit.... o well hope this lasts for a little while :-/

[cthorp]

Is there anyone who can give a breakdown on what PCI-x is and how it compares to the current PCI slots and some evaluation of the audio optical vs. analog would be good too. Also, how much is 8 Gigs of RAM going to run?

Thanks,
Cameron

[jethroted]

Originally posted by dethl
Wait....

Are we going to see any machines before the end of the summer? Or am I reading this wrong and even FASTER machines (> 2ghz) will be coming at the end of the year?

Yeah, I hope they mean >2 Ghz machines. Otherwise it will be a long 6 months.

[RHutch]

For once I would like to skip the weekend and go straight from Friday afternoon to Monday morning. I'm not able to buy a machine any time soon, but this is just so darn exciting!:D

[Steradian]

Heh I read that is Morning, that is great, they were a bit general and focused on how the current powermac offerings are less than grand. The Merc will sometimes jump the gun however so i don't think this is 100 percent certification, but it's still good news :)

[justathought87]

Originally posted by dethl
Wait....

Are we going to see any machines before the end of the summer? Or am I reading this wrong and even FASTER machines (> 2ghz) will be coming at the end of the year?

don't worry, it like the ITMS "by the end of the year" it is meant to let other companies relax

[macman21]

Edited so people would stop yelling at me for making a simple mistake.

[starflyer 59]

One thing I have never understood is why Apple will not let people have a single processor configuration or dual based on their needs. I think it is pretty obvious that you could fit two of the 1.6 chips in the motherboards that they are using for the dual 2.0's. Also, I would love to have the option to get a single 2.0 processor. It should not be such a big deal. :confused:

[Vlade]

Originally posted by starflyer 59
One thing I have never understood is why Apple will not let people have a single processor configuration or dual based on their needs. I think it is pretty obvious that you could fit two of the 1.6 chips in the motherboards that they are using for the dual 2.0's. Also, I would love to have the option to get a single 2.0 processor. It should not be such a big deal. :confused:

Remember the old iMacs with 5 colors, and how apple always was short on some colors and had so much tangerine it was 100 bucks less?

Sure it would be nice, but apple probably won't do it.

[pilotgi]

Are we going to see any machines before the end of the summer? Or am I reading this wrong and even FASTER machines (> 2ghz) will be coming at the end of the year?
Yes, faster than 2Ghz by the end of the year. And next year, they'll have the 980 built on the 0.90 nm process. IBM ought to be getting close to 4 Ghz by the second half of 2004.

[k2k koos]

http://forums.macrumors.com/images/icons/icon14.gif

i believe too they are reffering to even faster machines towards christmas, isn't it true that Apple usually updates its products every 6-8 months, be it minor details, or substantial upgrades...

we'll see, now I'm going to take a sleeping pill and wake up on monday, that way I don't have to wait! http://forums.macrumors.com/images/icons/icon7.gif

[emdezet]

i am actually wondering:

if the power4 is multicore by design, is it really that much cheaper to put 2 seperate PPCs 970 on the board?

couldn't they use some scaled down multicore?

[hmmfe]

Originally posted by macman21
I have serious doubts about the availability of these machines. One problem is Serial ATA. I have done some research, and while there are plenty of Serial ATA controllers out, there wont be any true Serial ATA hard drives out until December of this year.

http://www.explosivelabs.com/articles/sata/


No offense, but you need to do a bit more research. The article you linked to was Oct. 2002. So, the December reference was Dec. 2002.

Segate makes a "true" S-ATA drive. They have been shipping for quite some time now. Welcome to 2003!

[bertagert]

Originally posted by dethl
Wait....

Are we going to see any machines before the end of the summer? Or am I reading this wrong and even FASTER machines (> 2ghz) will be coming at the end of the year?

Theres no way they would announce system and not ship for 6 months. They will release the 1.6 - 2.0 GHZ on monday and by the end of the year we will see 2.2 - 2.5 GHZ. Thats my take anyway.

[DamnDJ]

Originally posted by macman21
I have serious doubts about the availability of these machines. One problem is Serial ATA. I have done some research, and while there are plenty of Serial ATA controllers out, there wont be any true Serial ATA hard drives out until December of this year.


Seems to me that Serial ATA drivers are in pretty good supply...

http://www.pricewatch.com/menus/m26.htm

Whether or not these are "true" Serial ATA drives, Apple would have no problem putting these in, just like they stuck DDR memory in the current machines.

[macman21]

Originally posted by hmmfe
No offense, but you need to do a bit more research. The article you linked to was Oct. 2002. So, the December reference was Dec. 2002.

Segate makes a "true" S-ATA drive. They have been shipping for quite some time now. Welcome to 2003!

Oooops! Sorry about that. I read it and assumed it meant December 2003.

[GregGomer]

Originally posted by Macrumors
These hints simply confirm what has been widely expected, and while the question of the PowerMac specs may have been laid to rest (for the non-conspiracy theorists), the questions of shipping time and price remain open.

Yah, that's what concerns me now, what if Apple is sitting back and saying...

"look at all these happy people, and they don't know what we originally planned to sell these at do they. Well then, lets raise the price $500 across the board, from the looks of things we could raise it $1000 and no one would care..."

[gwangung]

Originally posted by macman21
Oooops! Sorry about that. I read it and assumed it meant December 2003.

Sorry to laugh at the mistake, but I thought this was one of the funnier things over the last 24 hours....Guess it means we are REALLY on edge for Monday....

[macfan]

Can we expect the same price structure? Looks like it's time for an upgrade, but if the new chip ramps up faster on speed to make up for lost time, maybe I should wait a little while... To buy or not to buy... drool.

[hmmfe]

Originally posted by macman21
Oooops! Sorry about that. I read it and assumed it meant December 2003.

No worries - an honest mistake. It is true, thought, that most SATA drives out there are P-ATA drives with a SATA bridge added. Seagate is a native SATA drive.

[Frobozz]

Faster than the 970's about the be released on Monday, or faster than what is available as of today (dual 1.42 G4)?

There's a whole world of difference between the two. The first would imply dual 2.5 970's or something in Dec./Jan.

[Mr Jobs]

Originally posted by macman21
I have serious doubts about the availability of these machines. One problem is Serial ATA. I have done some research, and while there are plenty of Serial ATA controllers out, there wont be any true Serial ATA hard drives out until December of this year.

http://www.explosivelabs.com/articles/sata/

Unless Apple plans on using plane old IDE hard drives with an adapter so they will work with Serial ATA controllers. This will of course work, but there would be no increase in performance. I really hope they have something up their sleve for this.

Another thing I hope is that they are all DP. I want a DP G5, but I am pretty sure I don't want to fork over the money for the top of the line dual 2GHZ.

Yep you really need to get up to date with technology. i'm using a 'Western Digital 'Raptor 36GB' SerialATA HD with 10,000RPM on my PC. Now you telling me that isn't a real SerialATA but a standard ATA, then tell me how may 10,000RPM ATA HD's have you seen?

[DGFan]

Originally posted by cthorp
Is there anyone who can give a breakdown on what PCI-x is and how it compares to the current PCI slots and some evaluation of the audio optical vs. analog would be good too. Also, how much is 8 Gigs of RAM going to run?

Thanks,
Cameron

PCI-X is basically twice as fast. Google it if you want more info.

[dongmin]

Originally posted by pilotgi
Yes, faster than 2Ghz by the end of the year. And next year, they'll have the 980 built on the 0.90 nm process. IBM ought to be getting close to 4 Ghz by the second half of 2004.

Just to throw up a red flag, I think the Mercury News article was written before the G5 leak by Apple; there's no mention whatsoever of the leak. So when the article says 'significantly faster Apple machines should arrive before the end of the year' I think they're talking about being faster than the current G4s, not the soon-to-be-announced G5s. If the article was posted Friday, it probably went to press around 9-10 pm Thursday, before the leak.

The Mercury News story is mainly summarizing recent rumors (before the Apple leak) in preparation of the WWDC. The bits about IBM working closely with Apple is interesting, but it's not anything we haven't heard/assumed.

Anyways, So PLEASE DON'T SPREAD any new rumors about another update before X-mas. It won't happen. I gurantee it. Apple will have hard enough time meeting the demand for this round. Is anyone who's been waiting to buy a power mac the last year or two seriously gonna wait for the next update??? How can anyone pass this up? Are you serious? It's the biggest jump Apple has made, EVER. As soon as I go back to school in the fall, I'm taking out a serious loan. Apple has my $4000 in the bank.

[Frobozz]

Originally posted by macman21
I have serious doubts about the availability of these machines. One problem is Serial ATA. I have done some research, and while there are plenty of Serial ATA controllers out, there wont be any true Serial ATA hard drives out until December of this year.

http://www.explosivelabs.com/articles/sata/

Unless Apple plans on using plane old IDE hard drives with an adapter so they will work with Serial ATA controllers. This will of course work, but there would be no increase in performance. I really hope they have something up their sleve for this.

Another thing I hope is that they are all DP. I want a DP G5, but I am pretty sure I don't want to fork over the money for the top of the line dual 2GHZ.

Well, they did this with FireWire. There really has NEVER been a native firewire drive... only ATA drives with Oxford 911 chips to serve as a translator.

There are Serial ATA drives out right now. But my guess is that Apple is just trying to make a new standard by jumping the technology curve a bit-- even if they have to use ATA133 to SATA adaptors on the drives to do it.

[GregGomer]

Originally posted by macman21
I have serious doubts about the availability of these machines. One problem is Serial ATA. I have done some research, and while there are plenty of Serial ATA controllers out, there wont be any true Serial ATA hard drives out until December of this year.
.

I think you already realized the date error. But just tto help further explain how it may work.

My new PC has Serial ATA and standard IDE, pretty standard practice so that you can be backwards compatible. After all, Superdrives and CD ROM drives aren't serial ATA, just plain old standard ATA/IDE. It doesn't look hard to get both to fit on a motherboard either, after all, the serial ATA connectors are very very small.

[yzedf]

Originally posted by macman21
I have serious doubts about the availability of these machines. One problem is Serial ATA. I have done some research, and while there are plenty of Serial ATA controllers out, there wont be any true Serial ATA hard drives out until December of this year.

http://www.explosivelabs.com/articles/sata/

Unless Apple plans on using plane old IDE hard drives with an adapter so they will work with Serial ATA controllers. This will of course work, but there would be no increase in performance. I really hope they have something up their sleve for this.

Another thing I hope is that they are all DP. I want a DP G5, but I am pretty sure I don't want to fork over the money for the top of the line dual 2GHZ.

1. Date: October 23, 2002 Author: Adam Lechowicz (your linked article)

2. You can buy today a 10,000 rpm SATA drive (Western Digital Raptor). http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduct.asp?submit=property&DEPA=1

[soggywulf]

Originally posted by cthorp
some evaluation of the audio optical vs. analog would be good too.

Analog audio I/O connects to most stuff. Digital I/O connects only to stuff that has optical or copper digital I/O ports (aka SPDIF or toslink). The digital I/O is pure streaming bits, with no noise like the analog lines can have. E.g. if you are playing a CD, the data on the CD will stream straight out the pipe.

Also, Dolby AC3 (surround sound from DVD's etc) will most likely be piped straight through the digital output, all 5 channels intact and separated (so they can be processed individually by a surround receiver). If you play a DVD through the normal 2-channel stereo analog outputs, the 5+1 surround channels are pre-mixed by the computer into 2-channel stereo...which is non ideal if you already have a separate surround processor.

[kb9000]

Originally posted by DGFan
PCI-X is basically twice as fast. Google it if you want more info.


Be careful how you Google: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3006486.stm

[KershMan]

Originally posted by macman21
I have serious doubts about the availability of these machines. One problem is Serial ATA. I have done some research, and while there are plenty of Serial ATA controllers out, there wont be any true Serial ATA hard drives out until December of this year.

http://www.explosivelabs.com/articles/sata/

Unless Apple plans on using plane old IDE hard drives with an adapter so they will work with Serial ATA controllers. This will of course work, but there would be no increase in performance. I really hope they have something up their sleve for this.

Another thing I hope is that they are all DP. I want a DP G5, but I am pretty sure I don't want to fork over the money for the top of the line dual 2GHZ.

Hum, must be December already:

http://www.cdw.com/shop/search/Results.aspx?grp=HDA

[soggywulf]

Originally posted by macman21
I have serious doubts about the availability of these machines. One problem is Serial ATA. I have done some research, and while there are plenty of Serial ATA controllers out, there wont be any true Serial ATA hard drives out until December of this year.

http://www.explosivelabs.com/articles/sata/

By this time I am sure you have realized that this article was written last year. ;)

See http://www.pricewatch.com/1/26/5138-1.htm for a cheap list of 120 gig SATA drives. The prices are actually quite good compared to IDE, considering that they are 7200 RPM and 8MB cache.

Originally posted by macman21
Unless Apple plans on using plane old IDE hard drives with an adapter so they will work with Serial ATA controllers. This will of course work, but there would be no increase in performance. I really hope they have something up their sleve for this.

You actually will not see any increase in performance with SATA if you are not running a RAID (the majority of users). Even with a RAID, ATA133 speeds will be more than enough for quite some time, given the slow rate of HD speed progress. The data can only stream so fast from the platters, no matter what interface technology you use.

The real benefit of SATA will be the thin cables (can I get an Amen!). If you've tried stuffing a lot of extra HD's into your Mac, you will instantly realize the enormous benefit of this, at several levels.

[makkystyle]

I think Frobozz's sig summes it up perfectly:

"Oooh! There is no emoticon for what I am feeling!" - Comic Book Store Guy

I was LMAO when I saw that.

[soggywulf]

Originally posted by macman21
Oooops! Sorry about that. I read it and assumed it meant December 2003.

Sorry, just realized that about 500 ppl got in ahead of me. :) Anyway, it's clear.


What concerns me more is the availability of "PC4000" DDR500 RAM for the 1 GHz bus. As far as I can see, such RAM doesn't even exist yet, not even as a JEDEC spec. So are they just using PC3700 and overclocking? Hmm... Kinda makes me think maybe that web store slip-up was just a hack after all. :(

[JoeRadar]

Originally posted by bertagert
Theres no way they would announce system and not ship for 6 months. They will release the 1.6 - 2.0 GHZ on monday and by the end of the year we will see 2.2 - 2.5 GHZ.

Generally I would agree with you, but here is a potential approach:

(1) Since the new models will provide Apple its biggest speed delta in history (?), they may be confident that people will rush to these machines and not worry about waiting.

(2) A signal that IBM has a serious plan to continue the speed increases (i.e., they won't stagnate like Moto did) will help developers decide to commit to the new architecture and bring out 970-native applications for Panther.

[Haenk]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by macman21
[B]I have serious doubts about the availability of these machines. One problem is Serial ATA. I have done some research, and while there are plenty of Serial ATA controllers out, there wont be any true Serial ATA hard drives out until December of this year.

SATA drives are available now (though demand & supply is low) - somewhat 6 months late though

on the NDA-breaking side, one major HDD manufacturer will ship their next generation line as SATA soon (it appears to be SATA only - judging by the documents, but I don't believe that yet)

[rickag]

Well, since it appears Apple will be using IBM's 970, wouldn't it be logical to use serial ATA drives from IBM?

Wasn't there something about IBM and Hitachi combining efforts or something. Anyway here's (http://www-132.ibm.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=-840&langId=-1&partNumber=09N4254&storeId=1) IBM's serial ATA hard drive.

[gothamac]

I've done some research myself and can confirm, that we are in the year 2003.

[ryan]

Originally posted by Vlade
Remember the old iMacs with 5 colors, and how apple always was short on some colors and had so much tangerine it was 100 bucks less?

Sure it would be nice, but apple probably won't do it.
Depending on the motherboard design slapping another processor in is not the same as having to deal with maintaining an inventory of various colors. Dell offers single and dual processor configurations on the entire range of workstation machines, it would be nice if Apple were to do the same.

I agree with the OP, I would love to be able to buy a dual processor machine with two "slower" chips. As a software developer I tend to not push any one program all that hard but I typically have a dozen or so different applications (web server, database, app server, etc.) running at one time so a dual processor box can really make a difference.

[Haenk]

Originally posted by soggywulf
Sorry, just realized that about 500 ppl got in ahead of me. :) Anyway, it's clear.


What concerns me more is the availability of "PC4000" DDR500 RAM for the 1 GHz bus. As far as I can see, such RAM doesn't even exist yet, not even as a JEDEC spec. So are they just using PC3700 and overclocking? Hmm... Kinda makes me think maybe that web store slip-up was just a hack after all. :(

think about asynchronous RAM timing - this is a standard Northbridge feature within the Wintel world

Taking the ramp up in production of DDR400, I would assume PC3200 to be used (maybe 2700 or even 2100 on the slower machines?)

Quite possible is a dual channel memory concept - but I seriously doubt, that Apple has advanced this far.

On a sidenote, I expect 4 DIMM slots only, with support for 2GB modules. 8 slots are very expensive, most users won't need them and they eat up a lot of room in a desktop enclosure. (My RX4610 has 64 slots <g>)

[wrc fan]

Originally posted by rickag
Well, since it appears Apple will be using IBM's 970, wouldn't it be logical to use serial ATA drives from IBM?

Wasn't there something about IBM and Hitachi combining efforts or something. Anyway here's (http://www-132.ibm.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=-840&langId=-1&partNumber=09N4254&storeId=1) IBM's serial ATA hard drive.

I certainly hope not, IBM hard drives have been known to be prone to failure, which is one of the reasons for the Hitachi agreement. I hope they just offer a 120GB+ model from Seagate and/or Maxtor, and the 36GB 10,000rpm Raptor drive from Seagate as an option.

[wrc fan]

Originally posted by Haenk
Quite possible is a dual channel memory concept - but I seriously doubt, that Apple has advanced this far.

Apple is gonna need to have dual channel, specially if they have dual processors. If you have a 2GHz with a 1GHz FSB using DDR400, that's limiting the bandwidth enough already, add in a 2nd processor, and it's even worse. So if they don't have dual channel, then they have been seriously wasting their time.

[ryan]

Originally posted by dongmin
Anyways, So PLEASE DON'T SPREAD any new rumors about another update before X-mas.
Why not? With Apple now using IBM as the primary chip supplier we may be getting to the point where we'll see speed bumps every 3-6 months, like what happens in the PC world. Intel and AMD release faster chips every few months with very little fan fare; "Oh look, the PIV is now 200MHz faster than it was a week ago, nice." They don't setup entire conferences, web casts and such, the manufactures just release them and OEMs put them in their products. These continual small speed increases are one of the reasons for such a MHz gap. Intel didn't jump from having 1.4GHz to 2GHz chips, or from 2GHz to 3GHz, they did it in small 100-200MHz increments. If Apple and IBM were to do the same they could maintain the pace with the x86 world.

[wrc fan]

Originally posted by ryan
Depending on the motherboard design slapping another processor in is not the same as having to deal with maintaining an inventory of various colors. Dell offers single and dual processor configurations on the entire range of workstation machines, it would be nice if Apple were to do the same.

I agree with the OP, I would love to be able to buy a dual processor machine with two "slower" chips. As a software developer I tend to not push any one program all that hard but I typically have a dozen or so different applications (web server, database, app server, etc.) running at one time so a dual processor box can really make a difference.

It would be nice if apple had a seperate 2nd processor slot for the dual processors, that way, if you got a 1 processor system, you could buy a 2nd chip seperate at a later time (perhaps Apple could sell them, so they would still make money from it) and upgrade to dual. I know a lot of people that did that in the PC world with Athlon MPs.

[Abstract]

Originally posted by starflyer 59
One thing I have never understood is why Apple will not let people have a single processor configuration or dual based on their needs. I think it is pretty obvious that you could fit two of the 1.6 chips in the motherboards that they are using for the dual 2.0's. Also, I would love to have the option to get a single 2.0 processor. It should not be such a big deal. :confused:


Yeah, I want either single proc or dual proc (or both) across the entire PM line. What sense is it to release single 1.6 and 1.8 GHz and a dual proc 2.0GHz machine? Why not just release 3 models of the single proc machine, and 3 models of the dual and price them accordingly?

[SonnyCA]

Here's a link (http://news.com.com/2100-1042-1019461.html) to a new CNET article on the G5...

This pretty much confirms what everyone is saying, and shows promise to get to 5 GHz by 2005...

YAY!

[phranque27]

Originally posted by ryan
Depending on the motherboard design slapping another processor in is not the same as having to deal with maintaining an inventory of various colors. Dell offers single and dual processor configurations on the entire range of workstation machines, it would be nice if Apple were to do the same.


While that's true, Apple can't match Dell as far as inventory and distribution goes. Dell manufactures-to-order. Apple builds first, then sells/customizes later. This means that its much more difficult to create 'a-la-carte' systems.

I realize the Apple store does offer a certain degree of customization (RAM, video card, HD), but those are all 3rd-party parts that Apple would have to slap in anyway. Not so for the processor, even if it is a daughtercard.

No one can offer the degree of customization that Dell can, because dell's the industry leader in terms of manufacturing processes, right?

[billyboy]

Originally posted by ryan
Why not? With Apple now using IBM as the primary chip supplier we may be getting to the point where we'll see speed bumps every 3-6 months, like what happens in the PC world.

Why not indeed!

This sort of deal with IBM seems to be one of the serious signs that Apple are reacting well to a leanish patch and are maybe prepared to broaden their horizons in order to move up a commercial gear. Apple itself hopefully wont change or overstretch itself by trying to be all things to all people like some companies try, but by linking to the best of the bigger players, they can get a little closer to the PC world's faster and more furious development mentality, and still score heavily with their over-riding Apple touch.

How long till Monday?

[Windowlicker]

Originally posted by oaklandbum
I certainly hope not, IBM hard drives have been known to be prone to failure, which is one of the reasons for the Hitachi agreement. I hope they just offer a 120GB+ model from Seagate and/or Maxtor, and the 36GB 10,000rpm Raptor drive from Seagate as an option.

I've got two IBM HDs on my computer. The 40Gb that was there when I bought it and a 120GB Deskstar I added later. both have worked well so far. I thought IBM fixed the problems in the Deskstar HDs a long time ago..? hope I'm not wrong ;)

[lewdvig]

PCI-X is twice as fast as AGP 8x (AGP 1x was initially the same speed as PCI).

Standard PCI is 33MHz. PCI Pro is 66MHz.

PCI-X is not available in any PC that I am aware of. Maybe a server mobo somewhere.

Great future proofing against the insanely fast graphics cards using PCI-X later this year from ATI and NV (the r420 and NV40 chips respectively). These are supposed to be twice as fast as the RADEON 9800Pro and GeForce FX5900 Ultra that just came out.

If this is all true, Mac will be THE platform for Doom III. That will sell more system than Quark. Trust me.

[wrc fan]

Originally posted by Windowlicker
I've got two IBM HDs on my computer. The 40Gb that was there when I bought it and a 120GB Deskstar I added later. both have worked well so far. I thought IBM fixed the problems in the Deskstar HDs a long time ago..? hope I'm not wrong ;)

I had a 30GB Deskstar that I had to send back under warrenty 3 times, when it failed the 4th time, I decided to just get a 40GB Western Digital drive instead (and I know my story isn't the only one, I have seen over 50 articles on PC hardware sites about this). That was over a year ago though, maybe they've improved things since then.

I have the 20GB IBM Travelstar 5400rpm drive in my Pismo, and it's run great so far, so I'm certain the portable drives are nice and solid.

[Masker]

Originally posted by lewdvig
PCI-X is twice as fast as AGP 8x (AGP 1x was initially the same speed as PCI).

Standard PCI is 33MHz. PCI Pro is 66MHz.

PCI-X is not available in any PC that I am aware of. Maybe a server mobo somewhere.

Great future proofing against the insanely fast graphics cards using PCI-X later this year from ATI and NV (the r420 and NV40 chips respectively). These are supposed to be twice as fast as the RADEON 9800Pro and GeForce FX5900 Ultra that just came out.

If this is all true, Mac will be THE platform for Doom III. That will sell more system than Quark. Trust me.

Don't confuse PCI-X and PCI Express! See the specs here (http://www.pcisig.com/specifications/) (from a previous post).

In short: PCI-X (from the spec) UP TO (for the PCI-X 533 spec) 4.3 Gigabytes per second of bandwidth. PCI-X 266 half that. PCI-X is backwards compatible.

PCI Express (right now, not a finished standard) 16 Gigabytes per second of bandwidth in a 32 lane configuration (whatever that means... :) ) and directly from the site:


PCI Express provides I/O attach points for high-performance graphics, 1394b, USB 2.0, InfiniBand? Architecture, Gigabit networking and so on.


So, I think you're talking about PCI Express...

[iLilana]

Originally posted by hmmfe
No offense, but you need to do a bit more research. The article you linked to was Oct. 2002. So, the December reference was Dec. 2002.

Segate makes a "true" S-ATA drive. They have been shipping for quite some time now. Welcome to 2003!

Maxtor has just started shipping 80g sata. Ordered one today for a customer. Seagate has been too as well as Western Digital (although WD is fairly unstable). Fujitsu is crap so they will never be good again and doubt the likelyhood of sata drives from them.

Lil

[vniow]

So how wil the bandwith for PCI-X be for secondary video cards?

[iLilana]

Originally posted by ryan
Why not? With Apple now using IBM as the primary chip supplier we may be getting to the point where we'll see speed bumps every 3-6 months, like what happens in the PC world. Intel and AMD release faster chips every few months with very little fan fare; "Oh look, the PIV is now 200MHz faster than it was a week ago, nice." They don't setup entire conferences, web casts and such, the manufactures just release them and OEMs put them in their products. These continual small speed increases are one of the reasons for such a MHz gap. Intel didn't jump from having 1.4GHz to 2GHz chips, or from 2GHz to 3GHz, they did it in small 100-200MHz increments. If Apple and IBM were to do the same they could maintain the pace with the x86 world.

Actually there was an intel channel conference about 2 months ago specifically for the introduction of the D865PERL mobo with hyperthreading, SATA (with sata raid support) and 800mhz fsb (which was recalled and finally released 6 weeks later) and 3.0g processor as well as the soon to be released 3.2 . It was a big thing for intel people. They even sold mobo and chip for a reduced price for channel members. My boss bought a couple. But generally the increases in speed are no big deal to them. ALso Centrino was introduced for mobile solutions replacing the P4m and those clock speeds came way down. 1.6 ghz centrino was supposedly faster than 2.4 p4m by 2 or 3 times. The heat was significantly reduced as well. They redisigned it from the ground up for laptops.

Lil

[babydoc]

Originally posted by dongmin
Anyways, So PLEASE DON'T SPREAD any new rumors about another update before X-mas. It won't happen. I gurantee it. Apple will have hard enough time meeting the demand for this round. Is anyone who's been waiting to buy a power mac the last year or two seriously gonna wait for the next update??? How can anyone pass this up? Are you serious? It's the biggest jump Apple has made, EVER. As soon as I go back to school in the fall, I'm taking out a serious loan. Apple has my $4000 in the bank.

Yep, I plan on waiting for REV-2 whenever Apple finally releases this upgrade. It's a great jump and everything, but I have already been through enough REV-1 issues with Apple and other companies (mostly other companies) that I don't want to be the REV-1 guinea pig anymore.

Why shouldn't we start with new rumors? Do you think all of our favorite sites will just roll over and die once the next hardware REV is out? We mac geeks will always be looking for the next thing, just like our wives will always be looking for that next great pair of shoes. We know we will never find the perfect end-all and be-all, but the quest, ah the never-ending quest, it is nourishment in a barren world.

bd

http://students.washington.edu/babydoc/images/babydoc.jpg

[JoeRadar]

Originally posted by oaklandbum
if you got a 1 processor system, you could buy a 2nd chip seperate at a later time

Take this one step further. Apple would sell one chip at the high-end CPU range, and then down-clock it for the cheaper prices. Later, when you had a little more money, you send Apple the serial number of your CPU, and they send you the code to unlock the additional speed.

[HornetOSX]

Originally posted by JoeRadar
Take this one step further. Apple would sell one chip at the high-end CPU range, and then down-clock it for the cheaper prices. Later, when you had a little more money, you send Apple the serial number of your CPU, and they send you the code to unlock the additional speed.

and that would take exactly 4.3245 seconds for the cracks to be out and on the net Apple would lose money .......FAST

And as for all these rumors........
I'm already wrriting my letter

Dear Santa,
I've Been A reallllllllllly good Macer this year......

[Vlade]

Originally posted by ryan
Why not? With Apple now using IBM as the primary chip supplier we may be getting to the point where we'll see speed bumps every 3-6 months, like what happens in the PC world. Intel and AMD release faster chips every few months with very little fan fare; "Oh look, the PIV is now 200MHz faster than it was a week ago, nice." They don't setup entire conferences, web casts and such, the manufactures just release them and OEMs put them in their products. These continual small speed increases are one of the reasons for such a MHz gap. Intel didn't jump from having 1.4GHz to 2GHz chips, or from 2GHz to 3GHz, they did it in small 100-200MHz increments. If Apple and IBM were to do the same they could maintain the pace with the x86 world.

Your logic doesn't make sense, its not the fact that we wait and release big updates that makes us slower, its the fact that our "big" updates aren't very big. Your basically saying if a man takes lots of small steps he will be faster than a man who takes very large steps every once and a while, those facts aren't the point, its the walker themselves and there speed.

[Vlade]

Originally posted by vniow
So how wil the bandwith for PCI-X be for secondary video cards?

We will probably stick with AGP because its WAY faster than what video cards require right now (and it has been like that for a while)

[fpnc]

Well, since this may be my last post before next Monday's WWDC I guess I should summarized what I've been saying (off and on) for the last month. And I'll be back on Monday to "fess up" if I'm wrong.

I think all that Apple will do on Monday is announce that they are switching over to the PPC970 and that the machines will be available sometime around the end of the year. They'll probably give few details on the actual configurations, except to say that the high end will be at least 1.8GHz.

As for last night's "leaked" specs, I'm pretty confident that they are fake. How they got onto the Apple Store is anyone's guess. It could have been a hack or an inside job by someone who was settling a score or perhaps a prank that went wrong. The problems I have with these "leaked" specs is that they seem to be a shopping list for every geek's dream Macintosh. The 2GHz system is just over the top (right now anyway), the serial ATA is very questionable, the PCI-X somewhat questionable, and the audio optical out __and__ in makes absolutely no sense (wouldn't that require some type of copy protection or DRM?). Taken together it seems just unbelievable.

I do expect a new 15" PowerBook G4, that may be the one piece of hardware that actually ships at WWDC.

As for the PPC970, they will happen, the only question is when will the machines actually ship? I'm expecting that it will still be several more months and when they appear the specs will most likely not be as good as what appeared in yesterday's post to the Apple Store.

[jelloshotsrule]

how many times are people going to correct him for the outdated article? it's already been about 50...

[punter]

I can't wait to hear IBM describe this chip nice and simply for an audience. I've read some documents, but I absorb information better if someone tells me, and there is some hype thrown in.

My budget says "get a DP1.4 G4" but my eyes say "G5!!!!"

fantastic!

[eric_n_dfw]

Originally posted by starflyer 59
One thing I have never understood is why Apple will not let people have a single processor configuration or dual based on their needs. I think it is pretty obvious that you could fit two of the 1.6 chips in the motherboards that they are using for the dual 2.0's. Also, I would love to have the option to get a single 2.0 processor. It should not be such a big deal. :confused: It would be nice - didn't they do this when they first started offering Dual G4's a few years back?

[anastasis]

I am starting to lean towards what fpnc said in the above post. When I saw the leaked specs this morning I thought to myself, "Damn, this is way too god to be true!". When you think about it, there is almost nothing left out there that could go into this to make it any better... seriously. This is the type of thing that you see in the apple store, and then you wake up from that marvelous dream.....

I really hope I am wrong. I am 50/50 at this point. I would not be suprised if they just announced the usage of the 970. I will still hold hope for these machines, however.

Again..... they are almost too perfect.

[GetSome681]

Originally posted by macman21
I have serious doubts about the availability of these machines. One problem is Serial ATA. I have done some research, and while there are plenty of Serial ATA controllers out, there wont be any true Serial ATA hard drives out until December of this year.

http://www.explosivelabs.com/articles/sata/

Unless Apple plans on using plane old IDE hard drives with an adapter so they will work with Serial ATA controllers. This will of course work, but there would be no increase in performance. I really hope they have something up their sleve for this.

Another thing I hope is that they are all DP. I want a DP G5, but I am pretty sure I don't want to fork over the money for the top of the line dual 2GHZ.

this WD raptor that I'm running in my PC is what? not really there?

some people are REALLY good at doing research.

[rjwill246]

Originally posted by ryan
Why not? With Apple now using IBM as the primary chip supplier we may be getting to the point where we'll see speed bumps every 3-6 months, like what happens in the PC world. If Apple and IBM were to do the same they could maintain the pace with the x86 world.

The PPC 970 will be followed by the 980 and the roadmap ahead is now pretty clear. Indeed, the P4 can only be pushed so far as its wattage consumption is about to take it into brownout territory. The switch to Xeons for 'ordinary' dull-boxes will have to be touted soon and then there'll be that pesky Megaherz problem, with the shoe having to go onto the other foot (which will have to be forcefully disengaged from the Intel mouth first).

Oh and MacBidouille; well done folks. You nailed this one bigtime and you never backed down even when the loquacious "ex-spurts" here were rubbishing the idea that Apple would go with IBM, IBM wouldn't have chips ready anytime soon, and if they did, only one or two flavours... it goes on and on but I am taking some delight in fact that those loudmouths are suddenly silent on these fora... and so they bloody well should be!

[jelloshotsrule]

Originally posted by GetSome681
this WD raptor that I'm running in my PC is what? not really there?

some people are REALLY good at doing research.

some people are REALLY good at reading the thread so that they know the guy has been shown his mistake, has admitted being mistaken, and apologized.

[pilotgi]

Originally posted by fpnc:
And I'll be back on Monday to "fess up" if I'm wrong.
Please do and be ready to eat a healthy serving of crow while we all watch.

[lewdvig]

I stand corrected. I think.

[job]

Originally posted by rjwill246
Oh and MacBidouille; well done folks. You nailed this one bigtime and you never backed down even when the loquacious "ex-spurts" here were rubbishing the idea that Apple would go with IBM, IBM wouldn't have chips ready anytime soon, and if they did, only one or two flavours... it goes on and on but I am taking some delight in fact that those loudmouths are suddenly silent on these fora... and so they bloody well should be!

Hear, hear. :)

[burger011]

Then announce in the next 3-6 months Apple will be shipping the G5. Everyone and their mother would wait. I would seriously doubt that Apple would just announce their future plans with IBM and set a future time frame for realease. They know that every Mac head would wait. Did they announce the new iMac and say we wont ship for another 6 months, but we just wanted to share our future plans with you?

PowerMac sales are terrible and just announcing plans and not introducing the new machines would put the final nail in the coffin for the next 3-6 months until the new ones come out.

My money is on new machines Monday, I have no idea what the specs are but the ones posted by "mistake" could happen.


burger

[makkystyle]

Originally posted by ryan
Why not? With Apple now using IBM as the primary chip supplier we may be getting to the point where we'll see speed bumps every 3-6 months, like what happens in the PC world. Intel and AMD release faster chips every few months with very little fan fare; "Oh look, the PIV is now 200MHz faster than it was a week ago, nice." They don't setup entire conferences, web casts and such, the manufactures just release them and OEMs put them in their products. These continual small speed increases are one of the reasons for such a MHz gap. Intel didn't jump from having 1.4GHz to 2GHz chips, or from 2GHz to 3GHz, they did it in small 100-200MHz increments. If Apple and IBM were to do the same they could maintain the pace with the x86 world.

Sorry this is a bit off topic, but in response to a lot of the questions and comments that have been posted. The problem with Apple and customization the likes of Dell (this is in response to another later post) and continuous speed updates that you speak of in the PC world is that Apple is only selling thousands of PC's a year while the Windows world is selling millions. Apple being the sole manufacturer for MacOS products cannot afford to upgrade processors every month or two. Nor can they afford to mass customize the way that Dell does. It's all about economies of scale. Apple needs to maintain it's profit margins in order to stay alive as a company. The reason Apple limits the number of processor configs is that every option that they offer means more R&D, more manufacturing expenditure and less overall profit. I mean I think it is a HUGE testament to Apple's ingenuity and quality of product that they are still around. I mean think of the PC world as it stands now... how many other PC manufacturers have their own OS, Software, monitors, peripherals (iPod, mouse, keyboard)? None.

[Freg3000]

Originally posted by rjwill246


Oh and MacBidouille; well done folks. You nailed this one bigtime and you never backed down even when the loquacious "ex-spurts" here were rubbishing the idea that Apple would go with IBM, IBM wouldn't have chips ready anytime soon, and if they did, only one or two flavours... it goes on and on but I am taking some delight in fact that those loudmouths are suddenly silent on these fora... and so they bloody well should be!

I feel the same way. Everyone was trying to figure out a way to discount what they had to say, and they were more or less right (especially with timing) Now I hope this "mole" they have in Apple can provide some more info into future projects. :)

[JoeRadar]

Originally posted by pilotgi
Yes, faster than 2Ghz by the end of the year. And next year, they'll have the 980 built on the 0.90 nm process. IBM ought to be getting close to 4 Ghz by the second half of 2004.

Googling around for information on the Power4 (which the 970 is based on) and Power5 (IBM's next generation chip, and presumably the foundation for the 980), and I ran across this source:

http://www.macrumors.com/pages/2003/05/20030509020831.shtml


- Power5/PowerPC980 work is on target.
- Power5 due later this year, PowerPC 980 in Q3 2004 @ 90nm process.
- PowerPC 980 (4.5GHz-5GHz top speeds)
- In 2006: Power 6, PowerPC 990. 990 is targeted at 8GHz.


After reading a number of other articles on Power5 at IBM and other sites, these numbers seem reasonable. Pretty remarkable!

[Mr. MacPhisto]

I think we're going to see the new machines rather quickly, before the college school buying frenzy. AsI've said before here, sources I have inside IBM say .09 by the end of the year - and maybe up to 3.5 GHZ.

[babydoc]

Originally posted by fpnc
...and the audio optical out __and__ in makes absolutely no sense (wouldn't that require some type of copy protection or DRM?).

Makes no sense to who? I for one would love to have the optical audio out capability to hook up to a real 5.1 or better amplifier instead of using these cheesy Klipsch THX setup I have now. I am sure a lot of the folks at the Home Theater Mac Users Group

http://www.htmug.com/phpBB2/index.php

would agree.

Why would you need copy protection/ DRM for this? Optical in/out has been available on high (and most not so high) end stereo components sense at least 1989 with no type of "DRM."

Several times today I have doubted if people have a clue what optical audio is. So here is the quick and dirty. It is simply a connection that allows a digital signal to be sent from one component to another. It frees the first component from the digital-analog conversion that is necessary with other types of connections. Otherwise it is just another inter-component audio connection.


Didn't MacBidouille discuss a MOBO connector mod that no one could figure out the purpose of? It looks like the optical audio connector may have been predicted by them.
bd

[D*I*S_Frontman]

One always hears "no, Apple can't announce the new {fill in the blank} or else they will hurt the old {fill in the blank] sales."

I don't buy it at all. If they promised a Sept 1 delivery and the DP 2ghz tower was $3499 with AMD/Intel-crushing stats, how many preorders could they sell right now? Audio, video, and print businesses which can directly benefit from much faster processing (and who have been DYING to upgrade but are not enticed by 1.42 G4s) would pony up the dough in a New York minute.

It seems to me a good business model to take someone's money IN ADVANCE and deliver the product in three months, rather than wait to offer it and therefore force people to be "switchers" going the wrong way in order to have faster systems.

Example:

Scenario #1. Man needs fast system and tends to love Macs. Man must wait--Apple is not ready and isn't doing preorders, giving no clue as to a release date. On August 31st, Intel releases the MEGA-ENTIUM 5 gig processor. Man feels he cannot wait any longer and buys the Intel CPU from Dell. September 1, 970 Macs are available, but Man already blew his wad on Intel monstrosity. Man loses and Apple loses.

Scenario #2. Man needs fast system and tends to love Macs. Apple announces new G5s and takes his money, promising a September 1 ship date. On August 31st, Intel releases the MEGA-ENTIUM 5 gig processor. Man doesn't give a tinker's damn--his 970 PowerMac is bought, paid for, and on the way. Man wins, Apple wins.

Where am I wrong here?

[soggywulf]

Originally posted by babydoc
Didn't MacBidouille discuss a MOBO connector mod that no one could figure out the purpose of? It looks like the optical audio connector may have been predicted by them.

Good call...yeah that's probably it. Most people haven't seen a toslink before.

Also, I agree on the optical input...no need for so-called "DRM". My extigy (PC USB soundcard) has optical input, through which I can record whatever I want. Nice to see it coming to the Mac, built-in.

[unSane]

Originally posted by fpnc
...and the audio optical out __and__ in makes absolutely no sense ...

The optical out is, apart from anything else, essential for using macs as an audio rendering farm. The Mac has fallen behind in the audio world but Apple are clearly committed and trying to make up lost ground.

[Geetar]

A bit off-topic, but sort of further to the digital audio output thing...DRM is seemingly only an issue for the record companies when it relates to digital audio transmitted as Linear PCM at 24bit/96 KHz upwards (DVD-A) and consumer single-bit DSD (SACD), i.e. the middle and upper reaches of hi-definition audio, not for 16bit/44.1KHz sampling frequency, as spec'd for CDs.

The contents companies are ...er.... terrified that people will copy for free stuff that can be sent digitally at such high quality. Obviously no-one's pointed out to them that people can't even be arsed to copy at CD's far-from-elevated audio standards any more.

[gandalf55]

tonight @ counter (northshore mall store) (peabody, ma):

me: "so how many times have you been asked today for a sneak peek of the back?"

them:"a few :) but honestly you would be disappointed if you saw what was back there."

me:"you got your shipment of stuff already didn't you?"

them:"we haven't gotten anything."

me:"you are expecting some boxes though right?"

them:"maybe..."

me:"if they aren't here by now they must be arriving tomorrow morning or something?"

them: <big smile>

me:"so when are you re-arranging the store?"

them:"let's just say not until next Friday. I'll be here @ midnight on Friday - boy will that be fun."

me:"are you b.s.ing me?"

them:"nope. :)"

take this for what its worth. whether they have been instructed by apple to say this stuff, who knows til monday afternoon. but they reconfirmed that the broadcast will be there in all it's glory. there were a few laptops around the store with notes on them ("sorry, we are in the process of being upgraded") - but that means squat. the store did look a little sparse on hardware to be honest. There was plenty of room for an extra few desktops in the front sides (pro) area.

[Linksgolfer84]

Have any of you noticed in the Apple Store that you can buy PowerMacs that are specifically OS 9 bootable? Just thought it was interresting... may be OS9's last stand on a powermac!

Also, do any of you have any experience using conecting a powerbook to a TV and using it as a dvd player via the S-video port? If so, is the quality good? If the new powermacs do indeed have optical audio out, it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to expect the same thing in the next round of powerbooks, which would really enhance their ability to be used as an auxiliary dvd player.... just pondering the situation for my first year living in the doorms.

[sinclairZX81]

Originally posted by anastasis
I am starting to lean towards what fpnc said in the above post. When I saw the leaked specs this morning I thought to myself, "Damn, this is way too god to be true!". When you think about it, there is almost nothing left out there that could go into this to make it any better... seriously. This is the type of thing that you see in the apple store, and then you wake up from that marvelous dream.....

Again..... they are almost too perfect.

uhh... no, the low end being a 2.0Ghz and the high a 3.2Ghz would be perfect. this is good, but it still may be too little too late. :mad:

[unreg]

"uhh... no, the low end being a 2.0Ghz and the high a 3.2Ghz would be perfect. this is good, but it still may be too little too late. "

It is always too little, too late for Apple. That is why Apple went out of business in 1995.

[Sherman]

Clock speed isn't everything you silly little man. It's been proven that a mere 1.6Ghz 970 has better FPU than a 3.06Ghz P4. The P4 is amazingly inneficcient, it takes like 40 steps to do anything.

A 2.0Ghz Dual PowerMac G4 would most likely smoke a single 3.06Ghz P4. Flat.

[dabirdwell]

Just give me a 1.2 in a PowerBook and I'll be happy...

[fabsgwu]

I'm as thrilled as anyone here... But I will personally be waiting for the second generation of the forthcoming machines, let you all test it out for me ;)

[sinclairZX81]

Originally posted by Sherman
Clock speed isn't everything you silly little man. It's been proven that a mere 1.6Ghz 970 has better FPU than a 3.06Ghz P4. The P4 is amazingly inneficcient, it takes like 40 steps to do anything.

A 2.0Ghz Dual PowerMac G4 would most likely smoke a single 3.06Ghz P4. Flat.

unfortunately, to the man at compUSA clock speed IS everything. if I was at apple marketing I'd be sticking big 64bit stickers on everything. its always a numbers game.

still, I apologise profusely for bringing any kind of realism or dissent into the holy church of apple worship.

[Frobozz]

Originally posted by sinclairZX81

unfortunately, to the man at compUSA clock speed IS everything. if I was at apple marketing I'd be sticking big 64bit stickers on everything. its always a numbers game.

still, I apologise profusely for bringing any kind of realism or dissent into the holy church of apple worship.

Sinner! :-)

Honestly, these machines are incredible... you'd have to try hard to not like this lineup.

[sinclairZX81]

Originally posted by Frobozz
Sinner! :-)

Honestly, these machines are incredible... you'd have to try hard to not like this lineup.

man I know. I've waited for sooo long making do with my 450Mhz G4. I am just a bit of a pessimist and it hurts me that Intels chips still out-clock us.

apple must push the 64bit angle. hopefully average joe will see '64bit computer, 32bit computer' the same way he sees '3.2Ghz computer 1.8Ghz computer'.

[scan300]

Originally posted by ryan
Dell offers single and dual processor configurations on the entire range of workstation machines, it would be nice if Apple were to do the same.



2 things: Yield and price.

Apple used overclocked G4 chips which were rated by Moto at 1GHz. To overclock and be reliable at 1.4 GHz, you need the highest quality chips out of the batch. That means a low yield and a lower availability.

Dual processor designs are obviously more expensive than single proc designs.

Apple used the dual proc strategy to bridge the gap till the next gen chip was available, but that would have hamstrung them to make cheaper machines.

Now they have the next gen chip and it looks like IBM are well on the way in developing the 980, Apple have more config options. The best option is to release a lower priced PM by using a single proc config.

Apple will probably limit the configs of single and dual proc machines till they get a critical mass of sales. They may well be able to set-up a 'made to order' config later on, but at the moment it would hurt their margins to implement such a service.

[analogkid]

Originally posted by dongmin
It's the biggest jump Apple has made, EVER.

I dont know... the jump from the Apple II to the Mac was pretty big (discounting the Lisa in between)

[arogge]

Originally posted by sinclairZX81
hopefully average joe will see '64bit computer, 32bit computer' the same way he sees '3.2Ghz computer 1.8Ghz computer'.

Consumers will probably claim that 64-bit is unnecessary and that megahertz is still the most important measure of computer speed. Many people might assume that since 64-bit is supposed to be better, the megahertz rating should also increase. Getting people past this misconception is difficult for Intel's competitors.

[rjwill246]

Originally posted by Sherman
Clock speed isn't everything you silly little man. It's been proven that a mere 1.6Ghz 970 has better FPU than a 3.06Ghz P4. The P4 is amazingly inneficcient, it takes like 40 steps to do anything.

A 2.0Ghz Dual PowerMac G4 would most likely smoke a single 3.06Ghz P4. Flat.

I love this quote!!!! and wacko's reply was as articulate as his thought processes. What is it with these numbnuts who equate the cardinal number as THE reality in chip performance? Of course, they will choke when the 970 or 980 actually hits 4 Gigs... close to the self destruct point for the pentium... and I am told, on the highest authority, that at that point it becomes a diathermic prostate ablater!

[wizard]

Don't be concerned, my thinking right now is that the front side bus specs might be for hypertransport maybe/maybe not. In any event it is most likly that apple is making really good use of the dual channel nature of the 970.

When it comes down to it though, I'm going to put my money on the IBM guys for having the most interesting seminars at the conference. In one swoop they should clear up all of our confusion. If not, hopefuly they will have more info on their web site after the show. The reality is that there are anumber of possibilities on how this is handled, they could even have a supplier lined up with special ($$$$) memory just for this beast.

Dave



Sorry, just realized that about 500 ppl got in ahead of me. Anyway, it's clear.


What concerns me more is the availability of "PC4000" DDR500 RAM for the 1 GHz bus. As far as I can see, such RAM doesn't even exist yet, not even as a JEDEC spec. So are they just using PC3700 and overclocking? Hmm... Kinda makes me think maybe that web store slip-up was just a hack after all.

[BaghdadBob]

Originally posted by macman21
Edited so people would stop yelling at me for making a simple mistake.
Jeeze, no freaking kidding, do people just read a thread until they find a mistake and immediately reply to it no matter how old it is? I'm seeing replies an hour and a half after the first correction.

That's spam, people. Way lame.

[Note: regards the SATA article date mistake]

[Mr. G4]

Originally posted by D*I*S_Frontman
One always hears "no, Apple can't announce the new {fill in the blank} or else they will hurt the old {fill in the blank] sales."

I don't buy it at all. If they promised a Sept 1 delivery and the DP 2ghz tower was $3499 with AMD/Intel-crushing stats, how many preorders could they sell right now? Audio, video, and print businesses which can directly benefit from much faster processing (and who have been DYING to upgrade but are not enticed by 1.42 G4s) would pony up the dough in a New York minute.

It seems to me a good business model to take someone's money IN ADVANCE and deliver the product in three months, rather than wait to offer it and therefore force people to be "switchers" going the wrong way in order to have faster systems.


You just proved it to yourselves that no one would buy the old system and they would all pre-order the new-just annouced system. I don't think that Apple or any other company would take your money when you pre-order before they actually ship the product. If it was just a speed bump the sale of the old system wouldn't be hurt because useually the price go down, but with the new processor and new architecture, noone would buy the old system.

Furthermore, if by misfortune for Apple there are some manufacturing clitchs and they could not deliver as promises what a bad rap they would get...ie à la PB 17"

[analogkid]

I love this idea, especially combined with core audio... saves me a pci slot and I can probably whip audio into the mac's input, process, and feed the digital output about 3ms later.

[wizard]

Why is this to good to be true? It barely represents catching up with the PC world. The best thing to come if the post is real is the 970, but the rest of the machine is just PC hardware that has been around for awhile now.

As far as nothing left to go into this unit - well let me tell you this is not what I would call pushing the envelope. Pushing the envelope would involve a high speed graphics adapter connected to open transport, screw that AGP standard. Pushing the envelope would have dual 970 in the 17" laptop. Pushing the envelope would mean RAID hardware on all desktops. Pushing the envelope would mean access to half the address range of the 970 for real ram.

I could go on and on, but to be honest this really looks like a machine for peopel who need better CPU performance now. Besides the 64 bit issue we aren't breaking alot of ground with the specs I saw.

Dave



I am starting to lean towards what fpnc said in the above post. When I saw the leaked specs this morning I thought to myself, "Damn, this is way too god to be true!". When you think about it, there is almost nothing left out there that could go into this to make it any better... seriously. This is the type of thing that you see in the apple store, and then you wake up from that marvelous dream.....

I really hope I am wrong. I am 50/50 at this point. I would not be suprised if they just announced the usage of the 970. I will still hold hope for these machines, however.

[Paladin]

Originally posted by sinclairZX81
unfortunately, to the man at compUSA clock speed IS everything. if I was at apple marketing I'd be sticking big 64bit stickers on everything. its always a numbers game.

I've gotta agree here. Remember when Sega used 16 bit vs. 8 bit in advertising for the Genesis? Video Game hardware manufacturers have long touted bits instead of MHz, often with much success. At what speed does the PS2 Emotion Engine run? It doesn't matter because the PS2 is a 128 bit machine and the original PlayStation is just 32. How many have they sold now? Forget MHz and start talking bits. That's a language that the average consumer can understand.

P.S. - Yes, I know we're talking about graphics on these machines, but the point is still the same. ATI and nVidia advertise the same way.

[fpnc]

Originally posted by babydoc
Why would you need copy protection/ DRM for this? Optical in/out has been available on high (and most not so high) end stereo components sense at least 1989 with no type of "DRM."

Okay, then I guess you may not know about this (taken from a legal brief on the internet):

For example, Congress enacted the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992, which combined legal and technological protection for sound recordings. The Audio Home Recording Act requires a serial copy management system in all digital audio recording devices and digital audio interface devices imported, manufactured or distributed in the United States. Such a system allows unlimited first generation digital copying of sound recordings, but prevents the making of digital copies from copies. The Act prohibits the importation, manufacture or distribution of any device, or the offering or performance of any service, the primary purpose of which is to circumvent any program or circuit which implements a serial copy management system.

[solvs]

Originally posted by scan300
Apple used overclocked G4 chips which were rated by Moto at 1GHz. To overclock and be reliable at 1.4 GHz, you need the highest quality chips out of the batch. That means a low yield and a lower availability.


Then why Dual 1.4 and Single 1 GHz G4s? Sorry, but anyone who calls the current G4s overclocked, obviously doesn't know the meaning of the term. There are so many things wrong with this, and it's already been discussed to death, so I won't start flaming. But the 1.25, 1.33, and 1.4s are NOT overclocked. Besides, how do you explain the upgrade cards that are up to 1.4 GHz and can be OC'ed to 1.467+? They are rated to run at the speeds the run.

And by this logic, 1.6 GHz 970s would be duals, since they would have a higher yield, which doesn't seem to be the case.

Anyway, back on topic, I wonder when IBMs 970 Server will be ready. Seems they would have a better reason to be upping the clock speed if they use the chip themselves. Especially if they become popular. Once the R&D part is paid for, the chips (and chipsets) should be really cheap and really fast.

But no, even if you could install OS X on an IBM 970 PC, you wouldn't want to because they'll probably be expensive. It would be cheaper and easier to buy a Mac.

[unreg]

Originally posted by wizard
Why is this to good to be true? It barely represents catching up with the PC world. The best thing to come if the post is real is the 970, but the rest of the machine is just PC hardware that has been around for awhile now.
Dave

Hypertransport, serial ATA, pcix in wintel machines 'for awhile'? Where? AFAIK, these are new standards with, at best, few products actually being produced. Again, AFAIK there isn't a single desktop or laptop using all three. Prove me wrong.

[StephL]

Reuters' article posted at Forbes and other news websites:

Article (http://www.forbes.com/technology/newswire/2003/06/20/rtr1006985.html)


Wolf also noted that the new 970 chips will run at 1.4 gigahertz, or billion cycles per second, to 1.8 gigahertz, compared with Intel's Pentium 4 chips that run at more than 3.0 gigahertz.

"However, the 970 could reach a 2.5 gigahertz speed by mid-2004 and 4.0 to 5.0 gigahertz speeds by 2005," Wolf wrote.

[Stike]

Originally posted by StephL
Wolf also noted that the new 970 chips will run at 1.4 gigahertz, or billion cycles per second, to 1.8 gigahertz,
---snip

1. This was before the Apple spec mistake,
2. Those people can rely only on rumors too.

Outcome: They will correct themselves next week ;)

[solvs]

Originally posted by wizard
Why is this to good to be true? It barely represents catching up with the PC world. The best thing to come if the post is real is the 970, but the rest of the machine is just PC hardware that has been around for awhile now.


Yeah, cuz most Wintels come with Gb ethernet, Serial ATA, DVD-R drives, AGP 8x, PCI-X, built-in wireless. Maybe the high end ones. Not even that sometimes. What about FW800, 1 GHz FSBs, 8GB DDR-Ram, etc. Maybe this doesn't impress you, but it does me. Sure, some of this stuff (most of this stuff) doesn't provide much more in real world performance over what we have now, but it's still something.

I was one of many to complain about the lack of options, and price vs. performance before. No longer. If this is true, we should be very happy "just to be on par". Par's pretty good right now.

Besides, the 970 alone is worth it. This could be a VERY nice CPU.

[fpnc]

Originally posted by wizard
Why is this to good to be true? It barely represents catching up with the PC world. The best thing to come if the post is real is the 970, but the rest of the machine is just PC hardware that has been around for awhile now.

...and...

Originally posted by unreg
Hypertransport, serial ATA, pcix in wintel machines 'for awhile'? Where? AFAIK, these are new standards with, at best, few products actually being produced. Again, AFAIK there isn't a single desktop or laptop using all three. Prove me wrong.

I agree with unreg. That is one reason why I find the "leaked" specs very suspect. If Apple ships any of these configurations either at or immediately after WWDC then they arguably could be the most advanced PCs on the market. Add to that Firewire 800 and built-in support for both Bluetooth and 802.11g and you've got a computer that is second to none. The only area where they might have competition is in raw CPU performance, but a dual PPC970 at 2GHz would __easily__ outperform any single-processor Pentium. So, if these are really marketed and sold as "Personal Computers" they really could be the "world's fastest."

Of course, if you configured a dual Intel Xeon or dual AMD Opteron then the G5 performance starts to look a little less exciting.

[StephL]

Originally posted by Stike
1. This was before the Apple spec mistake,
2. Those people can rely only on rumors too.



The article is dated "Reuters, 06.20.03, 9:02 PM ET", only 5 hours ago. I guess time will only tell whether their story is accurate or not.

[Adobe75]

Originally posted by scan300
Apple used overclocked G4 chips which were rated by Moto at 1GHz. To overclock and be reliable at 1.4 GHz, you need the highest quality chips out of the batch. That means a low yield and a lower availability.

NO NO NO NO!! for the millionth time, apple is NOT using overclocked G4s. Motorola simply chooses not to market the G4 as a desktop processor, simply quoting the 1GHz max speed for EMBEDDED use.

They make the 7455 A and B version specifically for a higher voltage to be used in desktops for Apple and for upgrade card vendors. The chips are RATED at 1250, 1333, 1400 etc... Here's proof:

http://eshop.macsales.com/Images/Items/OWCME41330L2D/die.jpg

[Stike]

Originally posted by StephL
The article is dated "Reuters, 06.20.03, 9:02 PM ET", only 5 hours ago. I guess time will only tell whether their story is accurate or not.

I read that article yesterday, I am sure of that. I guess Reuters just mirrored it from the old source. It is somewhere here in the forums.

[gwangung]

Originally posted by fpnc
Okay, then I guess you may not know about this (taken from a legal brief on the internet):

Still, the point remains that these ports are COMMON, both in consumer audio and in pro audio. Ergo, the DRM on these ports are either irrelevant or already taken care of...and have been for several years.

[fpnc]

Originally posted by gwangung
Still, the point remains that these ports are COMMON, both in consumer audio and in pro audio. Ergo, the DRM on these ports are either irrelevant or already taken care of...and have been for several years.

Yes, that's true. I can understand adding optical outputs, because a reasonable number of users could make use of that feature (for connection to a multi-channel receiver). However, enabling optical audio input with support for recording might cause some concern at the RIAA and other media providers. Would Apple really take any risk at upsetting these organizations? Remember the "Rip and Burn" controversy?

In any case, it could turn out to be a non-issue, because even if they've added optical ports it may be that Apple will not support them in the initial software release. And it could be years (if ever) before the inputs ports are useful "right out of the box."

[babydoc]

Originally posted by fpnc
Okay, then I guess you may not know about this (taken from a legal brief on the internet):

...For example, Congress enacted the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992, which combined legal and technological protection for sound recordings. The Audio Home Recording Act requires a serial copy management system in all digital audio recording devices and digital audio interface devices imported, manufactured or distributed in the United States.

Ah but the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992 has proven essentially superfluous when it comes to home stereo components. AHRA applies only to "home audio recorders" with digital audio connectors that are capable of real time audio recording. The vast majority of stereo components that do contain a digital audio in connection do not have the capability of recording audio and so are exempt, i.e amplifiers. Devices that have digital connections, but do not copy in real time, i.e. mp3 players, are not effected per the 1998 RIAA vs Diamond Multimedia case.

What is covered by AHRA are the DAT, MiniDisc, and DCC type of devices that have digital connections, that record directly to digital media in real time, and are not produced for professional audio recording or computer data backup purposes. This is one reason that there are so few of these devices on the market, and the majority of them are used either for professional recording or computer data backup.

I will give you a half a point for effort, although it looks to me that, instead of knowing this information a-priori, you Googled "digital audio connection rights management" or something like that and posted a quote from Galkin's report on "the White Paper" without citing your source. I will concede the 1/2 point, there is some level of DRM required in home audio components that are capable of real time audio recording to digital media, and have digital connections.

However, AHRA does not apply to computer equipment. RIAA missed the boat on this one when they allowed computer CD-R's to be built without the the AHRA mandated SCMS protection. Of course, had they taken it to court they probably would have been trounced like they were in the Diamond Multimedia case. Like MP3 players, computer CD recorders do not record in real time and are classified as computer peripheral devices, not home audio recorders. Keep in mind that USB and Firewire are both digital connections just like optical, and the RIAA has not pulled AHRA-SCMS on the computer manufacturers yet. The addition of this connector just allows a machine that is already a digital recorder with digital I/O to integrate with a wider spectrum of legal equipment. Musicians are going to love this machine and its now-seamless integration with other studio equipment.

So it all comes down to a screwy, poorly written law that never developed into the tool that the RIAA wanted. It placed high restrictions on real-time recording devices, but was not forward looking enough to restrict the next generation of much higher speed devices that were built for another purpose, but could also be used to copy. This could be considered Hillary Rosen's one big defeat.

Until Next Time

bd

[babydoc]

Originally posted by fpnc
In any case, it could turn out to be a non-issue, because even if they've added optical ports it may be that Apple will not support them in the initial software release. And it could be years (if ever) before the inputs ports are useful "right out of the box."

Yeah right, Apple has a long sordid history of putting extraneous non-enabled ports on their MOBO's. I've been telling them what a waste of money this is, but they insist on keeping all these ports because, "we might enable them SOMETIME in the future." </sarcasm>

If it was going to be years before these ports were useful Apple would not spend the money to put them on their MOBOs now. If they are on the MOBO's when they come out on Monday, they will be supported in the Fall release of Panther at a minimum.

bd

[billyboy]

If Monday is essentially for Developers of the software variety, isnt it more likely that the real wow factor will be Panther and info on iTMS for Windows? Then a neat little boot into the PC market will be the extra hardware revelations of what is just around the corner with the 970 chip - server and consumer side.

If Panther is the upgrade that is being touted elsewhere on this forum, everyone will be able to work quite a bit faster without having to dish out on a new machine.

[soggywulf]

Originally posted by Haenk
think about asynchronous RAM timing - this is a standard Northbridge feature within the Wintel world

Taking the ramp up in production of DDR400, I would assume PC3200 to be used (maybe 2700 or even 2100 on the slower machines?)

So how does this work exactly? The 1 gig bus waits for the 800 meg RAM at every clock? That sounds like it would be equivalent to an 800 meg bus then. Unless the ram timing automatically gets faster when you put in PC3700 or PC4000, i.e. the mobo takes the ram timing from the installed memory? Is this how it works in wintel mobos?

[unSane]

Originally posted by soggywulf
So how does this work exactly? The 1 gig bus waits for the 800 meg RAM at every clock? That sounds like it would be equivalent to an 800 meg bus then. Unless the ram timing automatically gets faster when you put in PC3700 or PC4000, i.e. the mobo takes the ram timing from the installed memory? Is this how it works in wintel mobos?

Nope. LOL NOTHING in Wintel is that smart. You set it all in BIOS. everything runs at the speed of the dumbest component usually. EG my FSB runs at 133 so the 333 memory has to run at 2x which is 266 MHz. If you installed everything in default configuration it would have the FSB running at 100 MHz and the 1800 MHz chip running at 1500 MHz and the RAM at 133 MHz and AGP 1x... it would be solid as a rock but slow as a snail. I often wonder how many people have their systems set up like this.

[soggywulf]

Originally posted by unSane
Nope. LOL NOTHING in Wintel is that smart. You set it all in BIOS. everything runs at the speed of the dumbest component usually. EG my FSB runs at 133 so the 333 memory has to run at 2x which is 266 MHz. If you installed everything in default configuration it would have the FSB running at 100 MHz and the 1800 MHz chip running at 1500 MHz and the RAM at 133 MHz and AGP 1x... it would be solid as a rock but slow as a snail. I often wonder how many people have their systems set up like this.

So I wonder how this is going to work on the Mac. I get the feeling that the RAM DIMM doesn't have the info on its max speed in its eeprom (or whatever); if it did, some mobo manufacturer would have already implemented this "intelligent" functionality in bios/firmware/whatever.

But we can't fiddle with the bios on the Mac. So what does that mean? Will the Mac not recognize the new PC4000 DIMMs and speed up the ram timing when you install them? That would kinda suck.

[wizard]

Guys;


I know you are all Mac fans but come on at least look at what is happening itn the PC world from time to time.

Amd had implemented open transport. Intel has 800MHz bus systems ( which by the way over clock easily) Serial ATA has been around for a while now, mother boards are often shipping with both Serial ATA and Standard ATA ports. Many chipsets in the Intel world now support Firewire or is other wise impl;emented on the motherboard. To think that any of this is new and that Apple is leading the way is a little sad.

970's competition is not the Pentium in any of its current implementations. What we need to look out for is the Opterion and Athlon64 and the latest from intel. The 970 has to be compared with chips that are currently being introduced in the intel domain otherwise we are pulling the wool over our own eyes.

I stand by my assertion that these specs, if true, only brings Apple into parity with the PC world. The only advantage that is clear at this moment is the 970's true 64 bit address space and its raw performance. In a very short amount of time we will know more, but do understand that the darkside is also introducing hardware this month and next.

It is very possible that this massive peformance lead will last less than 30 days. I do hope that Apple and IBM do have plans to move ahead quickly with peformance gains. I'm talking a 150 to a couple of hundred MHz a month by the end of the year. Otherwise the weenies will be laughing the behinds off again. One thing you have to realize is that once you remove the MicroSoft OS from an Intel machine the performance is pretty darn good, it is in apples best interest to serve up economical machines that change the perspective on this completely.

If the posted spec are true than we can determine that there are some innovation such as 64 bit computing and firewire 800. But honestly these are not unexpected or breath taking. Lets face it a processor upgrade is long over due. Breath taking would have been a machine with an OpenTransport driven graphics controller, or the ability to address 128 GB of main memmory, or this much power in an LC size box. Nope we are just pulling up even maybe slightly ahead for a few days.

Dave


quote:Originally posted by wizard
Why is this to good to be true? It barely represents catching up with the PC world. The best thing to come if the post is real is the 970, but the rest of the machine is just PC hardware that has been around for awhile now.



...and...

quote:Originally posted by unreg
Hypertransport, serial ATA, pcix in wintel machines 'for awhile'? Where? AFAIK, these are new standards with, at best, few products actually being produced. Again, AFAIK there isn't a single desktop or laptop using all three. Prove me wrong.



I agree with unreg. That is one reason why I find the "leaked" specs very suspect. If Apple ships any of these configurations either at or immediately after WWDC then they arguably could be the most advanced PCs on the market. Add to that Firewire 800 and built-in support for both Bluetooth and 802.11g and you've got a computer that is second to none. The only area where they might have competition is in raw CPU performance, but a dual PPC970 at 2GHz would __easily__ outperform any single-processor Pentium. So, if these are really marketed and sold as "Personal Computers" they really could be the "world's fastest."

Of course, if you configured a dual Intel Xeon or dual AMD Opteron then the G5 performance starts to look a little less exciting

[ryan]

Originally posted by phranque27
No one can offer the degree of customization that Dell can, because dell's the industry leader in terms of manufacturing processes, right?
Right, and that is why Apple would do well by trying to employ more of the same sort of options that Dell offers. I don't want a choice between, 4 different Office suites, 3 OSes, 3 NICs, etc, etc; all I'm looking for is the ability to select the number and speed of processors in my new Mac.

[JoeRadar]

Originally posted by D*I*S_Frontman
It seems to me a good business model to take someone's money IN ADVANCE and deliver the product in three months

Apple cannot recognize revenue until a product ships, so if Apple does not ship any existing products for 2-3 months, then Apple's quarterly statements will be killed.

However, as you point out Apple can essentially "lock up" the consumer's money to prevent him from spending it on another product, or at least the consumer may hesitate buying that "other" product.

A balance must be struck.

[soggywulf]

Originally posted by wizard
I stand by my assertion that these specs, if true, only brings Apple into parity with the PC world.

Yep. Actually, we don't even know that yet, since we don't know the prices. If they stay at current G4 price points, then I think we are pretty close to parity.

The only sorta big deal in this (relative to wintel) is PCI-X. But that's nothing earth-shattering, especially since there are no cards out. And PCs will have that soon enough. There's no real advantage here since the cards will come out for Mac/PC at the same time.

I'm still excited about the new Macs though. God, it'll be nice to finally have a decently powerful machine!

[Hattig]

Originally posted by DGFan
PCI-X is basically twice as fast. Google it if you want more info.

PCI on standard PCs is 32-bit / 33MHz (133MB/s (around 128MiB/s maximum).

On Macs it is 64-bit / 33Mhz (266MB/s)

A PCI-X controller has 3 configurations:

- 1 slot, 64-bits, 133MHz (1GB/s)
- 2 slots, 64-bits, 100MHz (800MB/s shared)
- 4 slots, 64-bits, 66MHz (533MB/s shared)

I expect that the new Apple motherboard will be using an AMD 8131 dual PCI-X controller and possibly an AMD 8151 AGP8x controller, probably in this layout:

[ 970 ] --- [ Apple System Controller ] --- [ AMD 8131 ] --- [ AMD 8151** ] --- [ IO controller*** ]

The Apple System Controller would have a dual-DDR memory interface, one (or two) E-Bus interfaces for the processor(s), and a HyperTransport downlink to the next chip.

** AGP8x might be incorporated in the System Controller by Apple, thus negating the need for this chip.

***There is also a fair chance that Apple designed the IO controller as a PCI-X device, hence why there are only 3 PCI-X slots on the motherboard. OTOH it could simply be a HyperTransport IO device like a SATA variant of the AMD 8111 or nVidia nForce MCP-T.

I hope that we get nice pictures of the new Apple motherboard when reviews hit the streets next week.

[wizard]

Yes the wait is getting to be painful. Even more painfull is the realization that I will have to work a bunch of overtime to even consider one of these machines.

Hopefully they can come in slightly lower than G4 prices. I really love the MAC but performance and pricing have always been an issue. There is a differrence between paying a little more for value and getting taken to the cleaners. Lately the price performance ratio on the PowerMacs has been leaving people at the cleaners. If they can squeeze the low end into the 800 to 1000 dollar range that would be a start.

PCI-X is interesting, but my understanding is that there are differrent levels of implementation. We could get a significant implementation or we could something lesser that a maximum implementation. What would be really neat is if they stuck an Opentransport connection on the machine. My only concenr is backwards compatability with existing cards.

You aren't the only one that is excited. People need options besides the MS/Intel world, these machines may put apple into the running again. How long they remain in the running is another matter. That is why I believe that the IBM seminars may have the most important information of the conference. Things in the intel world have not slowed down, IBM is going to have a major challenge on their hands to get and keep leadership via the 970 & 980.

Dave

Yep. Actually, we don't even know that yet, since we don't know the prices. If they stay at current G4 price points, then I think we are pretty close to parity.

The only sorta big deal in this (relative to wintel) is PCI-X. But that's nothing earth-shattering, especially since there are no cards out. And PCs will have that soon enough. There's no real advantage here since the cards will come out for Mac/PC at the same time.

I'm still excited about the new Macs though. God, it'll be nice to finally have a decently powerful machine!

[fpnc]

Originally posted by wizard
Guys;

I know you are all Mac fans but come on at least look at what is happening itn the PC world from time to time.

Amd had implemented open transport.


I guess you mean HyperTransport. Open Transport was a networking technology that was developed by Apple way back when.

Originally posted by wizard
Intel has 800MHz bus systems ( which by the way over clock easily) Serial ATA has been around for a while now, mother boards are often shipping with both Serial ATA and Standard ATA ports. Many chipsets in the Intel world now support Firewire or is other wise impl;emented on the motherboard. To think that any of this is new and that Apple is leading the way is a little sad.


IMO, the problem with this part of your analysis is that while these technologies are available on PCs there are few if any systems from major manufacturers that implement all of them in one product, particularly at the "personal computing" level. So, if you add Firewire 800, the rumored 1GHz system bus, the built-in wireless support, HyperTransport, PCI-X, etc. you are talking about a very high-end configuration.

Originally posted by wizard
The only advantage that is clear at this moment is the 970's true 64 bit address space and its raw performance.


I disagree with this also, but in this case I think you are overstating the "advantage" that the PPC970 has over PCs. The only way the PPC970 will outperform high-end Pentium/AMD systems is to run in dual configurations. At best, a single 2GHz PPC970 will be comparable to a 3GHz Pentium and the 64-bitness of the PPC970 won't really benefit most users.

Originally posted by wizard
It is very possible that this massive peformance lead will last less than 30 days.

That will be true only if PC manufacturers go mainstream with dual processors, which I don't think will happen anytime soon. But, it's true that in single processor configurations PCs will most like remain in the lead.

I will admit, however, that Apple has a bad habit of trying to compare the performance/features of the __next__ generation Mac to what is currently shipping in the PC market. So, yes it's a moving target, Apple will have to work hard to keep up. This is another reason why I'm skeptical about the "leaked" specs on the G5, these sound like a next generation product that may not ship for several more months.

Originally posted by wizard
Breath taking would have been a machine with an OpenTransport driven graphics controller

Again, I guess you mean HyperTransport. However, I think more likely (and "Breath taking") would be PCI-Express. I suspect that HyperTransport will never be used on a high-end PC to serve as a graphics port (8X AGP will do that until PCI-Express arrives).

[Phinius]

Originally posted by pilotgi
IBM ought to be getting close to 4 Ghz by the second half of 2004.

Double the chips frequency in little over a year?! Your dreaming, IBM's 9XX processors don't have enough pipeline stages to match the Pentium 4s frequency. If IBM's 9XX chips get to 3.4GHz at the 90-nanometer level by the end of 2004, then that will be tremendous progress.

The 9XX chips not moving to 4GHz in 2004 doesn't necessarily mean lower performance than the Pentium 4. IBM has already stated that a upcoming Power5 computer is testing out at up to 4X faster than a Power4 computer, so a 980 processor based on the Power5 should have significantly higher performance than a 970 processor. But much of that speed increase will likely be in something other than frequency boosts. IBM has already indicated that the transistor count will not increase significantly moving to the Power5. Most of the performance increases will likely not be geared for a single processor desktop computer.

[JoeRadar]

Originally posted by wizard
...do understand that the darkside is also introducing hardware this month and next.

...we are just pulling up even maybe slightly ahead for a few days.
I largely agree with the wizard's statements, and that is why I think Apple needs to bring out the IBM engineers to show that there is a solid path to the future.

The 970 is based on IBM's Power4, which was introduced in 2001. It is already an old design. It just happens to be a lot better than what Apple has been using.

IBM is already producing Power5 chips (probably test quantities), and they had Linux booting on it by this past March. I should hope that Apple is at least compiling Darwin on the Power5 chips.

See CNet article (http://news.com.com/2100-1001-984808.html) and post (http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-ppc&m=104791921406815&w=2) from an IBM engineer.

[Hattig]

Originally posted by lewdvig
PCI-X is twice as fast as AGP 8x (AGP 1x was initially the same speed as PCI).

Standard PCI is 33MHz. PCI Pro is 66MHz.

PCI-X is not available in any PC that I am aware of. Maybe a server mobo somewhere.

Great future proofing against the insanely fast graphics cards using PCI-X later this year from ATI and NV (the r420 and NV40 chips respectively). These are supposed to be twice as fast as the RADEON 9800Pro and GeForce FX5900 Ultra that just came out.

If this is all true, Mac will be THE platform for Doom III. That will sell more system than Quark. Trust me.

You're thinking of PCI Express, which will only start to appear in systems towards the end of this year, and is not PCI-X which is the same speed as AGP4x at best. PCI-X 2 doubles the speed of PCI-X. PCI Express 16x yet again doubles the speed, but with a completely different connector and low-level protocol.

[unreg]

wiz,
pci-x and serial ATA aren't revolutionary, only evolutionary.
Opterion and Athlon64 are mainly used as server chips, with very few being used as home, soho and portable markets. the 970 will be used in all markets. IBM will use the 970 in desktops, workstations and servers. Apple will use the970 in portables, desktops, workstations, and servers. To compare the 970 to the Opterion and Athlon64 is the same as compering the Opterion and Athlon64 to the Power4 and Power 5.

To say the collection of the upcoming parts only brings the Macs up to parity to Intel/AMD levels is mostly garbage. Most people I know still buy PIV and Athalon mobos and proccessers. Most institions I know still buy PIV.The up coming Apple across the product line. Therefor, the Apple product line, taken as a whole, will be more advanced the Intel/AMD product offerings taken as a whole. For now.

Moving beyond the my platform is better than yours pissing match, I can see a more natural computing environment coming soon. Truly accurate voice recognition, smart operating systems that learn what you like and need - and setting them up as defaults. With nonvolital carbon nanotube RAM ( up to 10 GB) projected in the next 2 - 5 years and the nanotube processor components it won't matter any more. Your house, tranportation and workplace(s) will run something probabilly none of us can predict.

As for proving me wrong, I'll take you word on the mobos that have the included technologies. I didn't run across them while shopping to upgrade my 2 Pentiums and 1 PII. I'll look again.

[wizard]

Thanks for the PCI/X info, knew there where differrent implementations but not the specifics.

IBM it seems has not come real clean on the I/O bus implementation for the 970. Or to put it another way I haven't read in depth on it yet. What is the possibility that the 970 has opentransport ports built into the chip itself? It seems like all that IBM has done is introduced the chip but have keep alot of details out of the public eye. My thinking is that this chip is more specialized than we have been shown so far.

533 MB/sec is pretty impressive! On the ohter hand PCI in all of its recent implementations can be saturated. So one has to wonder if this is enough of an improvement. The image of Motorola being repalaced by a ocmbination of Apple, AMD and IBM is very strange but on the other hand very welcomed.

Dave



PCI on standard PCs is 32-bit / 33MHz (133MB/s (around 128MiB/s maximum).

On Macs it is 64-bit / 33Mhz (266MB/s)

A PCI-X controller has 3 configurations:

- 1 slot, 64-bits, 133MHz (1GB/s)
- 2 slots, 64-bits, 100MHz (800MB/s shared)
- 4 slots, 64-bits, 66MHz (533MB/s shared)

I expect that the new Apple motherboard will be using an AMD 8131 dual PCI-X controller and possibly an AMD 8151 AGP8x controller, probably in this layout:

[ 970 ] --- [ Apple System Controller ] --- [ AMD 8131 ] --- [ AMD 8151** ] --- [ IO controller*** ]

The Apple System Controller would have a dual-DDR memory interface, one (or two) E-Bus interfaces for the processor(s), and a HyperTransport downlink to the next chip.

** AGP8x might be incorporated in the System Controller by Apple, thus negating the need for this chip.

***There is also a fair chance that Apple designed the IO controller as a PCI-X device, hence why there are only 3 PCI-X slots on the motherboard. OTOH it could simply be a HyperTransport IO device like a SATA variant of the AMD 8111 or nVidia nForce MCP-T.

I hope that we get nice pictures of the new Apple motherboard when reviews hit the streets next week.

[matznentosh]

Originally posted by Sherman
Clock speed isn't everything you silly little man. It's been proven that a mere 1.6Ghz 970 has better FPU than a 3.06Ghz P4. The P4 is amazingly inneficcient, it takes like 40 steps to do anything.

A 2.0Ghz Dual PowerMac G4 would most likely smoke a single 3.06Ghz P4. Flat.

I suspect it won't be quite that miraculous. Ars Technica indicates the 970 is no better and maybe worse than the P4 at integer math. I would bet that a 2 Ghz 970 will wind up being about as fast as a 3 Ghz P4, since it is probably about 1.25 times as fast as a G4 at the same clock speed, and the G4 is generally considered to be about 1.5 times as fast as the P4 at similar clock speeds (The G4 would be a great processor if it could only clock up as high as the P4).

But even if a 2 Ghz 970 is "only" as fast as a 3 Ghz P4, it's very likely to clock up much more than 2 Ghz as time goes on, whereas the P4 may have trouble getting much faster than 3 Ghz and so hopefully as time goes on the Mac will again be a real competitor in all areas. It'll need to be because sooner or later Longhorn will show up and it will probably be a pretty good operating system, and again there will be fewer reasons to use a Mac.

[otter-boy]

While many people keep pointing to the MHz gap beteen the Mac and Wintel machines, people forget that there is a similar MHz gap between Intel and AMD processors. AMD's new Athlon XP processors (3000+ and 3200+) run in the very low 2GHz range and compete very well with Pentium IVs running in the low 3 GHz range. There is no reason that an IBM chip running a more efficient instruction set shouldn't be able to hold its own at similar speeds to the AMD chips.

Also, although many of the technologies that were posted for the G5 are available for the Wintel market, they are not found in consumer products. The picture from the Apple site lists the G5 as a consumer product. Most of the technologies (such as S-ATA) are only found in professional (high-end) workstations or servers in the Wintel market. While Apple may not be the first to integrate the technology into a computer, they are definitely a leader in introducing the technology into consumer (and prosumer) computers. Anyway, price a Wintel computer with all that technology built into it, and you will be paying just as much if not more than the cost of a PowerMac. Don't compare the price of a PowerMac to an Emachines or HP box. And Dell prices scale up quickly into the $3000+ range.

[Phinius]

Originally posted by ryan
Why not? With Apple now using IBM as the primary chip supplier we may be getting to the point where we'll see speed bumps every 3-6 months, like what happens in the PC world.

Motorola is expected to start manufacturing the G4 on a smaller process size in the third quarter of this year. Putting these into all the consumer Mac models would bump up the speeds by as much as 80% (7557 G4 tops out at 1.8GHz, according to an internal Motorola document).

It's unlikely that Apple would have IBM processors in more than 50% of the Mac computers in the near future. The 970 chips will almost certainly be restricted to the pro models to differentiate them from the consumer Macs and releasing the topend G4 for the consumer Macs will boost the low to midrange priced Macs performance considerably.

[Phinius]

Originally posted by otter-boy


Also, although many of the technologies that were posted for the G5 are available for the Wintel market, they are not found in consumer products. The picture from the Apple site lists the G5 as a consumer product. Most of the technologies (such as S-ATA) are only found in professional (high-end) workstations or servers in the Wintel market. While Apple may not be the first to integrate the technology into a computer, they are definitely a leader in introducing the technology into consumer (and prosumer) computers.

Don't be shocked when you find out that Apple has a PowerMac that is upwards of $5,000 with these high performance features. The listing of the availability of pro model graphics cards should give that away. Afterall, pro level graphics cards can cost $1,000+. Apple is not gearing the PowerMac for consumers. There is bound to be consumer Mac models announced very soon with faster G4 chips to compete against the low to mid priced Wintel based computers.

[wizard]

wiz,
pci-x and serial ATA aren't revolutionary, only evolutionary.
Opterion and Athlon64 are mainly used as server chips, with very few being used as home, soho and portable markets. the 970 will be used in all markets. IBM will use the 970 in desktops, workstations and servers. Apple will use the970 in portables, desktops, workstations, and servers. To compare the 970 to the Opterion and Athlon64 is the same as compering the Opterion and Athlon64 to the Power4 and Power 5.

The Opterion may be marketed at workstations but that doesn't mean that motherobard manufacture aren't coming out with workstation boards. The reality is that the opterion does make a good work station chip nad the Athlon64 is apparently going to be marketed directly at tthe workstation market.

I respectfully disagree; the Opterion and Athlon64 are contemporaies to the 970 and will be competeing agianst the 970. It is silly to compare a 970 machine against 6 month old PC technology. To be fair we have to compare agianst what is coming on the market with it.



To say the collection of the upcoming parts only brings the Macs up to parity to Intel/AMD levels is mostly garbage. Most people I know still buy PIV and Athalon mobos and proccessers. Most institions I know still buy PIV.The up coming Apple across the product line. Therefor, the Apple product line, taken as a whole, will be more advanced the Intel/AMD product offerings taken as a whole. For now.

Not garbage at all, the 970 is apparently Apples future processor direction. To compare it against what has been produced in the PC world in the past is silly. Most institutions I know buy based on price. When they can justify an Apple they can justify the price of an higher priced PC. It doesn't matter overall, all you need to have is an equivalent solution is the PC world, they exist or are coming on line. AMD's new processors can not be dismissed, especially with all of the developement around them. I still maintian that Apple and IBM will have to work very hard to keep any performance advantage that they may have at introduction. Further if AMD feels threatened by these systems they can bring the Athlon64 on line pretty darn quick.



Moving beyond the my platform is better than yours pissing match, I can see a more natural computing environment coming soon. Truly accurate voice recognition, smart operating systems that learn what you like and need - and setting them up as defaults. With nonvolital carbon nanotube RAM ( up to 10 GB) projected in the next 2 - 5 years and the nanotube processor components it won't matter any more. Your house, tranportation and workplace(s) will run something probabilly none of us can predict.

I wasn't attempting to get into a pissing match as you call it, I'm just trying to temper some wildly outrageous claims. Frankly my system is so old that it is pathetic, the informaiton so far is that the new systems from Apple will be a good replacement. The key is pricing, lets hope that Apple doesn't use a marginal performance advantage as justification for excessive pricing.

Some of the things you describe above are fantastic. Unfortunately we will have to wait beyond rev 2 of the 970 to see them.



As for proving me wrong, I'll take you word on the mobos that have the included technologies. I didn't run across them while shopping to upgrade my 2 Pentiums and 1 PII. I'll look again.

You have not been able to find mother boards with serial ata, or Hypertransport???

Dave

[Hattig]

Originally posted by unSane
Nope. LOL NOTHING in Wintel is that smart. You set it all in BIOS. everything runs at the speed of the dumbest component usually. EG my FSB runs at 133 so the 333 memory has to run at 2x which is 266 MHz. If you installed everything in default configuration it would have the FSB running at 100 MHz and the 1800 MHz chip running at 1500 MHz and the RAM at 133 MHz and AGP 1x... it would be solid as a rock but slow as a snail. I often wonder how many people have their systems set up like this.

LOL, how old is your PC?

My nForce2 based motherboard (with SATA and Hypertransport on board for those of you who think it is some amazingly new technology) allows you to adjust the settings in the BIOS, yes. But it also will run the memory and the processor and everything at the speeds that they want to run at.

DIMMs include a small ROM called the SPD ROM, that the BIOS reads to configure the memory speeds. The processor will do something similar. AGP is the same, it runs at the best speed for the card/controller out of the box.

Sheesh!

[wizard]

A few disagreements here. First if you are comparing this possible 970 introduction to a $400 dollar consumer PC machine of course not those are yesterdays technolgies. Shop around with the same amount of money that you will spend for that Apple and then you will see a differrent situation.

Besides I'm willing to bet that Apple and most people consider the PowerMac to be a professional system. We have seen nothing yet to indicate that Apple will introduce the 970 in their lower end machines (not htat I'm not hoping this). Maybe in the end we are trying to say the same thing, that comparable systems will exist. I just have trouble with the PowerMac being classified as a consumer model. I don't think anybody true believes that that is its target market.

Once one looks at pro level pc's and the supposed 970, the performance advantage doesn't look that fantastic.. It looks like Apple will have parity or a slight advantage at launch time that is all. If Apple can double performance by the end of the year then we will have something to crow about.

DAVE


Also, although many of the technologies that were posted for the G5 are available for the Wintel market, they are not found in consumer products. The picture from the Apple site lists the G5 as a consumer product. Most of the technologies (such as S-ATA) are only found in professional (high-end) workstations or servers in the Wintel market. While Apple may not be the first to integrate the technology into a computer, they are definitely a leader in introducing the technology into consumer (and prosumer) computers. Anyway, price a Wintel computer with all that technology built into it, and you will be paying just as much if not more than the cost of a PowerMac. Don't compare the price of a PowerMac to an Emachines or HP box. And Dell prices scale up quickly into the $3000+ range.

[soggywulf]

Originally posted by Hattig
LOL, how old is your PC?

My nForce2 based motherboard (with SATA and Hypertransport on board for those of you who think it is some amazingly new technology) allows you to adjust the settings in the BIOS, yes. But it also will run the memory and the processor and everything at the speeds that they want to run at.

DIMMs include a small ROM called the SPD ROM, that the BIOS reads to configure the memory speeds. The processor will do something similar. AGP is the same, it runs at the best speed for the card/controller out of the box.

Ahh, now that's more like it. This makes much more sense. Hopefully the Mac mobos will do the same thing. Since you can't get PC4000 RAM yet, I am sure then that Apple will be putting PC3700 into the 1 gig bus machines. PC3200...nah, why cripple them even further? Especially with the exorbitant prices Apple charges for RAM! I just pricewatched both 3200 and 3700, and there's like a $30 difference between them at the 512mb level. Not worth the crippling.

[MarkCollette]

Originally posted by soggywulf
So how does this work exactly? The 1 gig bus waits for the 800 meg RAM at every clock? That sounds like it would be equivalent to an 800 meg bus then. Unless the ram timing automatically gets faster when you put in PC3700 or PC4000, i.e. the mobo takes the ram timing from the installed memory? Is this how it works in wintel mobos?

Not all bus accesses involve memory. When doing I/O the majority of bus activity may involve RAM <-> device communication, but there is also direct CPU <-> device communication, like "Ok, the data's ready in RAM for you" when reading and writing. Also, depending on how the SMP is done, the multiple CPUs might have to talk to each other to keep their caches coherent, which involes CPU <-> CPU communication, again, not involving RAM.

Bus speeds change less frequently than RAM speeds do, so it makes sense to leave a little head-room, so that more engineering effort is not needed 6 months from now.

Plus, I think (don't know) that the bus speed will be 800MHz for the 1600MHz chip, 900MHz for the 1800MHz chip, and 1000MHz for the 2000MHz chip.

[Vlade]

Originally posted by Phinius
Motorola is expected to start manufacturing the G4 on a smaller process size in the third quarter of this year. Putting these into all the consumer Mac models would bump up the speeds by as much as 80% (7557 G4 tops out at 1.8GHz, according to an internal Motorola document).

It's unlikely that Apple would have IBM processors in more than 50% of the Mac computers in the near future. The 970 chips will almost certainly be restricted to the pro models to differentiate them from the consumer Macs and releasing the topend G4 for the consumer Macs will boost the low to midrange priced Macs performance considerably.

If the 970 is cheeper to make and faster why would apple not use it in all there machines?

[JoeRadar]

Originally posted by Vlade
If the 970 is cheeper to make and faster why would apple not use it in all there machines?

Product differentiation. I would not be surprised to hear about a major upgrade to the G3 line Monday.

See The Register Article (http://theregister.co.uk/content/39/30640.html) for some additional rumors.

[Phinius]

Originally posted by Vlade
If the 970 is cheeper to make and faster why would apple not use it in all there machines?

Chip manufacturers charge more for higher speed on a given chip model. So, a 970 running at the slowest speeds might sell for less than a 1.42 GHz G4 that Motorola now makes. That could also be due to Motorola introducing a low-k dielectric substance on some of the highend G4 chips and bringing the voltage up to achieve 1.42 GHz.

In the third quarter of this year, Motorola will move the G4 to the same process size as the 970, and its very likely that the G4 will then be less expensive to produce than the 970 due to the 7457 G4 being a much smaller chip than the 970 on the same process size.

[Phinius]

Originally posted by JoeRadar
Product differentiation. I would not be surprised to hear about a major upgrade to the G3 line Monday.

See The Register Article (http://theregister.co.uk/content/39/30640.html) for some additional rumors.

I would not be surprised to see Apple eliminating the IBM G3 entirely in Macs. That's due to the G4 being faster on a given process size. The listed top speed for the upcoming 7457 G4 on a .13 micron process size is 1.3 GHz and the 750FX ( G3 now used in the iBooks) seems to top out at less than 1 GHz.

If IBM does add Altivec to the 7XX series G3 PowerPC processors, then Apple may intend to use it in a low powered and inexpensive computer model. But it's extremely doubtful that Apple will eliminate the Motorola processors from the Mac lineup, since Moto intends to move the G4 to a dual-cpu chip in the near future and its's unlikely that another customer would need a dual-cpu processor (running at 25 watts) for an embedded use.

[Phinius]

The 970 is designed so that the core frequency runs at twice the speed of the main memory. So, using a dual-channel memory motherboard, the 970 will need 533MHz DDR-II memory in each channel in order to keep up with a core frequency of 2.4 Ghz. The trouble is, 533 MHz DDR-II memory is not expected to be in production until late in 2003. So for the 9XX processors to obtain 4GHz speeds in 2004, there needs to be memory running at 1 GHz for a dual-channel memory chipset or else Apple will have to come up with a more expensive quad-channel chipset in very short order.

So, its very likely that the rate of frequency boosts for the 9XX series of processors will depend very heavily on the availability of faster memory. But that does not preclude the ability to increase the performance of the 9XX chips in the near future, due to IBM using other methods to increase the speed of the upcoming Power5 and 9XX chips.

[pianojoe]

Originally posted by analogkid
I love this idea, especially combined with core audio... saves me a pci slot and I can probably whip audio into the mac's input, process, and feed the digital output about 3ms later.

That's exactly IT! Like, buy a couple of G5s, use one to run your sequencer, and the others to process your realtime digital effects. Logic 7 will sport distributed realtime audio rendering... drool :-))

[scan300]

Originally posted by solvs
Then why Dual 1.4 and Single 1 GHz G4s? Sorry, but anyone who calls the current G4s overclocked, obviously doesn't know the meaning of the term.

Originally posted by Adobe 75 NO NO NO NO!! for the millionth time, apple is NOT using overclocked G4s. Motorola simply chooses not to market the G4 as a desktop processor, simply quoting the 1GHz max speed for EMBEDDED use.

I agree, but I was using shorthand to get to the point about yields and pricing and so why it would currently be unviable for Apple to implement a Dell-style 'make-your-own' processor configuration.

I too posted in earlier discussions that the post 1GHz chips weren't overclocked, and why, but it seems to me that it still pervades the current vernacular so I thought it OK to use the phrase.

I'll clarify...

Low and high clocked chips come from the same process, are tested for imperfections and given a rating. The higher quality chips are rated with higher clock speeds and generally there is a lower yield of these. Hence the delays lately of availability of the highest performing chip ever since the 500 MHz debarcle... Motorola had fabrication issues.

My reasoning is that Apple will try to control which chips are sold by fixing the type of configuration available, by making the lower rated higher volume chips available in a larger range of products, so we don't have a backorder crisis in one area and a glut in another area.

I also made the point that Apple has an opportunity to make much cheaper PMs by offering a single processor design, now that they have better performing chips. The price of Macs being the other thorn in Apple's side as well as the performance issue.

Delivery is another issue which Apple needs to control well. By having fewer options they can manufacture ahead of orders and keep a buffer in their distribution channels, keeping distribution delays down.

The main reason, IMO, that Apple introduced dual proc PMs across the board was to give the impression that they still had competitively performing machines to the rest of the PC industry, despite only having at best 1.4GHz procs. That they could devise and implement this solution is a credit to Apple, but due to the fact that they used 2 procs meant that they couldn't offer a cheaper PM that still could brandish the moniker PM.

Thanks for not flaming me...

[pianojoe]

Originally posted by scan300


The main reason, IMO, that Apple introduced dual proc PMs across the board was to give the impression that they still had competitively performing machines to the rest of the PC industry, despite only having at best 1.4GHz procs. That they could devise and implement this solution is a credit to Apple, but due to the fact that they used 2 procs meant that they couldn't offer a cheaper PM that still could brandish the moniker PM.

But, I wonder, will the new midrange system be significantly faster than the current midrange model??

2x 1.25 G4 <-> 1x 1.8 G5

If you assume that with the G4 the performance gain of the 2nd proc is only 50%, we have a G4 performance equal to a 1.875 G4. Since the G5 is said to be 1.25 faster than the G4 (1.8 G5 -> 2.25 G4), we'll see a performance gain of, well, 20%. That's nice, but not earthshaking.

[scan300]

Originally posted by pianojoe
But, I wonder, will the new midrange system be significantly faster than the current midrange model??

2x 1.25 G4 <-> 1x 1.8 G5

If you assume that with the G4 the performance gain of the 2nd proc is only 50%, we have a G4 performance equal to a 1.875 G4. Since the G5 is said to be 1.25 faster than the G4 (1.8 G5 -> 2.25 G4), we'll see a performance gain of, well, 20%. That's nice, but not earthshaking.

You're right, but it's beyond me to speculate the optimum price/performance ratio in the product grid they design. All I can say is that Apple IMO do have an opportunity to make cheaper PMs through a single processor option. Whether they could so this with a single motherboard or whether they need 2 designs, what would be the hypertransport implications, bus controllers etc... I have no idea.

It depends on their market research. Everyone seems to want faster PMs, but they also want cheaper. Generally I find Apple will target a specific sector in the market and try to win customers by offering a product they think can win in that sector.

eg If a new mid range PM is significantly cheaper than the current G4 version, (which isn't selling well) with only a 20% perfomance gain, there might be customers, like those holding off upgrading their G3s until Quark 6 was released, who like the overall price/performance package.

[analogkid]

Originally posted by pianojoe
the G5 is said to be 1.25 faster than the G4

You obviously weren't looking at the same benchmarks i was.

[solvs]

Originally posted by scan300
Thanks for not flaming me...

See, now if you had said all that, we wouldn't have come in with guns a blazin'.

Saying the 1.4s are OC'ed 1 GHz is like saying the 3.06 P4s are overclocked ( wait... bad example ;) ).

[Phinius]

Originally posted by analogkid
You obviously weren't looking at the same benchmarks i was.

Well, according to this Aceshardware.com review (http://www.aceshardware.com/read.jsp?id=50000333), a 1.25GHz G4 has a performance equal to at least a 1.8GHz Pentium 4. If you add in a 14% speed increase moving the G4 to 1.42GHz and then another 30% boost from moving to a smaller process size, then the upcoming topend G4s should be at a minimum equal to a 2.66GHz Pentium 4 with a 533MHz bus.

A 970 at 1.8GHz might have about the performance of a 2.66GHz Pentium 4 on SPECint according to 970 SPECint estimates given by IBM. So, that would put a 1.8 GHz G4 close to the same performance as a 1.8GHz 970 processor, with both of them being made on the same process size. Of course the 970 has more potential for a higher frequency and the next version of these 9XX chips will undoubtedly jump up considerably in performance when they are based on the upcoming Power5 processor.

[rhpenguin]

Ive seen the screenshots and i think theyre brutaly ugly. But its new so i wont pass judgement till i actually use it.

Maybe a theme picker could be included :) (dont give me hell if there is one in 10.2.6 because im new)

New features are always fun so hopefully theres a beta of this available soon!