3GHz G5 PowerMacs... August 2004? [Archive]

MacRumors

Sep 17, 2003, 12:39 AM

One of the most interesting comments from Steve Jobs' Paris Keynote (http://www.macrumors.com/ae2003.html) is the promise that PowerMac G5s will reach 3GHz "before the end of next summer" (http://maccentral.macworld.com/news/2003/09/16/liveupdate/).

Jobs first claimed that PowerMacs would hit 3GHz "in 12 months" during his WWDC Keynote (http://www.macrumors.com/wwdc2003.html) on June 23, 2003.

The end of summer timeline brings us to August 2004 -- 11 months away. With an average product-life of 6 months between PowerMac releases (historically (http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/)), users can expect another PowerMac revision in the first half of 2004.

Our Buyer's Guide (http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/) tracks the releases of Apple's products... but readers should be aware that the most recent graph for PowerMac G5 releases is skewed due to the longer than usual lead time on G5 shipments. In fact, several readers are now reporting that non-educational PowerMac G5 2.0GHz machines are just shipping this week.

trog

Sep 17, 2003, 12:43 AM

I have heard that many people are starting to receive dual G5s, but they are all standard configurations. Even if you ordered on 6/23, if it was CTO then others who ordered standard several days later appear to be getting theirs first. Education ordering doesn't seem to have anything to do with it.

hobbes3113

Sep 17, 2003, 12:45 AM

Hopefully IBM will be able to back Steve up on this. Any reason to think otherwise?

mac15

Sep 17, 2003, 12:53 AM

So with this projection, we could expect up to 2.4-2.5GHz in the next revision around the real time of WWDC? give or take

Chaszmyr

Sep 17, 2003, 12:53 AM

Originally posted by hobbes3113
Hopefully IBM will be able to back Steve up on this. Any reason to think otherwise?

It's entirely in IBM's hands... they design the chips, not Apple. If Steve said it, that means it is information that came from IBM

Powerbook G5

Sep 17, 2003, 12:58 AM

It sounds about right with the timeline. As far as when the orders will be received, it is probably the same with the PowerBooks. Get it with an extra gig of RAM and instantly you go from a 3-5 day wait to a 4-6 *week* wait. I'm sure those who got a 500 gig HD option and 8 gigs of RAM will be in for one hell of a wait. I feel sorry for them, but I also know when they do get them, I will be one jealous dude as they feel sorry for the rest of us. :)

VicMacs

Sep 17, 2003, 01:10 AM

i mean, buy a powerbook now, use it, keep it clean and take good care of it, then when next summer comes, put it on ebay and get 1300+ for a 12 inch, 1500+for a 15 inch and 2000 for a 17 inch, and then get your powebook g5... oh and remember to save during the course of this year... lots... i dont think theyll release a low end model right away... im figuring get a high end model out first, very costly, 3500 or so, then in january get some out for the rest of us... but heck i dont care, i'll wait till theyre really cheap ... my 867DP will have to do till then.. 12 incher on the way!

Sol

Sep 17, 2003, 01:19 AM

While it is good to hear that faster G5 processors will be ready by the end of next summer I would rather see dual configurations for all three PowerMac models. Us PowerMac users have become spoiled with dual processors and OS X works so much better between two.

tizza

Sep 17, 2003, 01:21 AM

well that would be cool - I mean the Intel chips aren't going to be getting any slower are they, so one one hope there's heaps of room for expansion with the G5.

fpnc

Sep 17, 2003, 01:36 AM

Technically, the end of summer is on or near to Sept. 22. So, the 3.0GHz mark could be 12 months away.

The 3GHz G5 is still a long ways off and schedules will change, but we seem to have a 3-month slip from the statements made in June at WWDC. However, even then I made the observation that Steve could have meant 12 months from the time that the first G5s actually shipped, not 12 months from WWDC. Under that definition end of August 2004 would be about right. In any case, most will probably take this to suggest a potential delay in the 3GHz introduction. I agree, however, that a speed bump in the G5 seems likely at about Feb./Mar. of next year.

JtheLemur

Sep 17, 2003, 01:40 AM

I find it ridiculous that no CTO orders have shipped, for education or otherwise. and i'm sorry, but edu. inst. customers did not get any special treatment - all the orders for G5s I put it on keynote day as early as possible were still bumped back like everyone elses (OOB 9/23). in fact, out of all the K-12s i talk to that ordered them on keynote day, the only one to arrive was a standard 1.6. (yes, all others ordered were duals). so the statements that the Duals would ship by end of august, then the statement that they'd ship to eu. inst. customers in time for school, was a load of BS.

Erf. heck, maybe i'll just cancel my orders and wait for the rev. b models. =)

alset

Sep 17, 2003, 01:50 AM

I'd say it's pretty obvious that we're way off schedule. 11 months I can see, but the next machine upgrade seems a lot farther off, to me.

Dan

mvc

Sep 17, 2003, 01:54 AM

I would expect to see speed bumps by January, or even later this year. The big issue has been getting the machines out the door, putting out speed bumped versions will probably happen as fast as IBM can make them, and I'm sure Apple will want to stay "on top" in the speed game now that they have caught up as it were with the G5.

I would expect early revisions, but I think there will be no official word at this stage precisely to prevent disgruntled purchasers from cancelling these initial delayed orders and waiting for the next speed bump.

If Steve had said 3GHz by June, then everyone would divide the months from the initial release till then by two and wait around for the 6 monthly rev. So instead, its now suddenly the end of summer.

And yes, I am being optimistic. ;)

Sherman

Sep 17, 2003, 02:00 AM

What is it with you kids these days? Nothing is ever fast enough for you.

wizard

Sep 17, 2003, 02:20 AM

I'm not to sure the that the 3 GHz unit is that far off. I get the impression that the current maxing out at 2GHz is more of a marketing decision more than anything else. It is pretty obvious that the G5 was designed to handle much faster 970's, I ould not be usrprised if faster chips are not already feasable.

My suspicion is that the 3GHz units arrival will be driven more buy what is happening in the PC world than any precieved schedule that may be hanging in the halls at Apple. Lets face it if Apple starts to get mud kicked in its face over the fastest PC in the world remark, they may find faster 970's than the supposed schedule dictates.

What i really see as nice here is that we should see a very nice end of the year update.

Dave

Originally posted by fpnc
Technically, the end of summer is on or near to Sept. 22. So, the 3.0GHz mark could be 12 months away.

The 3GHz G5 is still a long ways off and schedules will change, but we seem to have a 3-month slip from the statements made in June at WWDC. However, even then I made the observation that Steve could have meant 12 months from the time that the first G5s actually shipped, not 12 months from WWDC. Under that definition end of August 2004 would be about right. In any case, most will probably take this to suggest a potential delay in the 3GHz introduction. I agree, however, that a speed bump in the G5 seems likely at about Feb./Mar. of next year.

ginoledesma

Sep 17, 2003, 02:30 AM

:lol: I guess what with the draught Apple experienced with Motorola in G4 delays, Apple is now "making up for it" with IBM. :lol:

It would be nice to have dual across the line, and have the single 1.6/1.8 be the "entry level" that replaces iMacs/eMacs. Dual 3GHz by next year sounds promising, but I'm still skeptical about Jobs's claims -- who's to say (God forbid) that something unexpected wouldn't come up?

In any case, I always wait for a Rev B. :D

cheesy

Sep 17, 2003, 02:43 AM

Originally posted by JtheLemur
and i'm sorry, but edu. inst. customers did not get any special treatment

Virgina Tech did ;)

esheep2001

Sep 17, 2003, 02:54 AM

Yeah, there's a trickle from the sounds of it and they're all stock config.

Apple out and out lied that edu customers would get prefferential treatment. Maybe a few institutions, but all in all I have been VERY dissapointed with the way that the G5 launch has been handled considering this is their premium product.

As for 3GHz by next Aug. Yes I can believe that. All the kinks will be out of the production line by then so bringing new models out will be much faster. I dare say IBM can be believed to deliver too, more so than some other companies.

e.

prewwii

Sep 17, 2003, 03:05 AM

When Jobs says something... does he mean it? Can we count on what he says?

It appears that Jobs runs off at the mouth and feels no need to be accountable. A year is a year. The news is full of CEO's who have liberal interpretations of reality.

I don't think the public needs to give Jobs a free pass for shooting his mouth off and then not being able to live up to it. Jobs needs to say what he means, mean what he says. Changing his word without an explaination is not living to a high standard. Maybe it's a small thing. Living to a high standard means putting value on the small things.

That's my opinion....

freddiecable

Sep 17, 2003, 03:16 AM

When SJ says 3 Ghz by the end of next summer it's the same as it will arrive winter 2004! I would not wait ordering my box until then! I need it now...

I ordered the dual 2 Ghz just because of it's giant leap forward compared to the MDDs on every level - interior and exterior design, technical enhancements like faster FSB, memory, HD, processors etc. Even if i wait a whole year or more - the relative bang for buck is not worth it since I need it now...

I've told myself to stay put with my new, when it comes, dual G5 2 ghz at least for 2 years...I had my Dual 533 for about two years and it worked great - and now I really can feel the difference...hopefully ;)

I ordered with Radeon 9800 Pro - hopefully that will not delay my order :)

macounaima

Sep 17, 2003, 03:28 AM

I was at the keynote yesterday. As you will see when they'll post the webcast, after finishing his bit on the next generation of G5 where he said it would reach 3 mghz by the end of next summer, but he added, in a breath almost to himself, "I think".

eric67

Sep 17, 2003, 03:29 AM

Originally posted by ginoledesma
:lol: I guess what with the draught Apple experienced with Motorola in G4 delays, Apple is now "making up for it" with IBM. :lol:

It would be nice to have dual across the line, and have the single 1.6/1.8 be the "entry level" that replaces iMacs/eMacs. Dual 3GHz by next year sounds promising, but I'm still skeptical about Jobs's claims -- who's to say (God forbid) that something unexpected wouldn't come up?

In any case, I always wait for a Rev B. :D

I agree with you and a previous post, I think it will make sens with OSX and release of Panther to move the PM G5 entirely to dual models, 1.6, 1.8 and 2.0 GHz for January 2004, in addition we can expect at that time a faster processor with a revision (let see 2.2 or 2.4 GHz, this is probably the max that it can reach with the current engraving process, when it will move to 90nm process, then maybe the low-end model will be >2GHz... by June/July 2004)

And I think it is always good to wait for RevB for a new product.

macphoria

Sep 17, 2003, 03:36 AM

When 3GHz G5 Power Mac comes out, I guess that's when G5 PowerBook will debut? How does 2GHz G5 PowerBook sound?

MacsRgr8

Sep 17, 2003, 03:37 AM

I was there in Paris, hearing (and seeing) Steve say these words, but he follwed the promise with "we think"

:rolleyes:

BTW, it doesn't matter how often you see this guy, Steve NEVER gets boring to watch.

:)

iwantanewmac

Sep 17, 2003, 04:29 AM

Originally posted by Powerbook G5
It sounds about right with the timeline. As far as when the orders will be received, it is probably the same with the PowerBooks. Get it with an extra gig of RAM and instantly you go from a 3-5 day wait to a 4-6 *week* wait. I'm sure those who got a 500 gig HD option and 8 gigs of RAM will be in for one hell of a wait. I feel sorry for them, but I also know when they do get them, I will be one jealous dude as they feel sorry for the rest of us. :)

But when they get them there will be an update around the corner.
I know I know. There is always an update around the corner, but this 1 will come pretty quickly for them.

TVGenius

Sep 17, 2003, 09:09 AM

Apple is about to screw our college in a big way. We ordered a total of five duals as quick as we could get them through Purchasing. We were repeatedly given a ship date of August 29-even after the changes for everyone else. After a week passed and we didn't have anything, I spoke to our VP of Technology's contact at Apple. He said that they should now ship sometime between the 26th of September and October 15th. Mind you, we are an instituion. Has anyone else's institutional orders been pushed back that far? If it's taking them that long to fill the education orders first it's going to be weeks until Joe Consumer gets his.

Now, the big problem for us is that they were purchased with money from a Title III grant. Stipulations for the grant require anything purchased to be on campus by September 30th... which may not happen even if they ship on the 26th. If they don't make it, we lose the $27,000 invested in these systems, and would have to go back to square one with a new order... assuming we could find money anywhere to pay for it. This is just getting ridiculous.

ImAlwaysRight

Sep 17, 2003, 09:16 AM

Originally posted by trog
Education ordering doesn't seem to have anything to do with it. Yup, my EDU institutional CTO hasn't shipped yet, although it was ordered mid-July. But I think the rumor that EDU shipments were going first mainly applied to the 1100 supercomputer order for VTech.

As for 3.0GHz G5 by summer 2003, I doubt that will happen. If from 2 months out Apple can't even ship dual 2.0's on time, do you really think they will accurately forecast dual 3.0's 12 months away? PLUS looking at Apple's past track record AND the computer industry in general, 3.0GHz G5 by August 2003 is a pipe dream. Maybe by December 2004, but probably more likely in 2005.

sososowhat

Sep 17, 2003, 10:38 AM

Arn: as you point out, the G5 buyer's guide is misleading due to the long lead-time of the product.

Why not correct the definition of "release date" to First Customer Ship, rather than the date of the product announcement?

In many cases they'd be the same, but in cases like this it'd make the guide far more useful. It doesn't matter now, but in 3 months many readers will have forgotten the details of announce/FCS dates.

[edit: minor]

Photorun

Sep 17, 2003, 10:56 AM

I know people who's 1.8 orders haven't come in, my school's G5 2.0 DP's ship dates have shipped yet again to October and they're standard config... this is a giant Apple fiasco. I don't know anyone, aside from MacAddict and VT who's actually gotten their 2.0 G5 DP. Everyone who got their emails saying next week as when they're all going to ship are in for a rude surprise. This is Apple's biggest fiasco yet that I know of. I wonder what their spin will be in October when most the G5 2.0 DPs orders (over 50,000) STILL haven't shipped yet.

What a mess.

So no... 3.0 by next summer? Sure jobs can say that, but who should believe him? Nobody.

ffakr

Sep 17, 2003, 11:41 AM

Originally posted by sososowhat
Arn: as you point out, the G5 buyer's guide is misleading due to the long lead-time of the product.

Actually, I'd say the 17" powerbook shipping was a bigger fiasco. Apple did ship (a few) of the G5s in the time frame they specified... they did get slammed with 150,000 pre-orders though.

The powerbooks didn't ship when they were supposed to.. not even close.

... just my 2cents.

As for 3GHz by next year, I think it will happen. IBM is ready to shrink to .09 this year, at considering the G5s have such massive cooling for a processor that puts out slightly more than 40 watts, I'd assume they will be pushing the MHz pretty agressively.

Personally, I think the number one thing holding back upgrades in the near future is potential customer backlash. You can't deliver a dual 2GHz to a customer 2 months after they order it and then immediately bump to 2.2 or 2.4 GHz. There would be riots on the Cupertino campus.
I figure Apple will fulfill the back orders. They will keep up for a month or two, then we'll see a speed bump. We'll see another speed bump when the .09 micron parts are available in sufficient quantities (end of the year, early next year). We'll see another bump when the .09 micron parts mature.
I'm guessing 2.2 - 2.4 GHz max, then up to 2.4 to 2.6 max, then up to 3 GHz max.
Apple has decided to take on Intel for the performance crown. Apple has to release a bump to try and match Prescott. Though Prescott won't initially clock much faster than the current P4s, it has been re-designed and it will have much more L2 cache so it's performance could be quite a bit better than the already impressive offerings that Intel is already fielding. If Intel releases a 200MHz faster [Prescott] P4 later this year, Apple can claim to be gaining [pulling away] with a 400MHz bump in the 970... even if the Prescott is more efficient than previous cores. It's all about perception anyway.

You have to figure that IBM is pushing these figures to Apple, and you have to understand that IBM is already running sample runs of .09 micron 970s... and that their speed projections are probably comming from the current 'best of batch' runs on the next gen process.

.... all just guesses and crap from Ffakr.

acj

Sep 17, 2003, 12:03 PM

Doesn't this adhere to Moores law fairly well? And 4 Ghz in 18 months. Apple has been fairly consistant in the past, hasn't it? Perhaps not so much after a big jump in speed like this...

swissmann

Sep 17, 2003, 12:06 PM

I may be wrong but I don't remember a time (at least in recent history) where Steve announced a future upgrade on the same day an upgrade was being announced. It seems to me that he will keep using this promise to keep people content and that there will be no upgrades until then. It seems to me that we have the Dual 2 for now with the promise of 3 GHz in a year and nothing in between regarding the PowerMacs. Has anyone else thought this?

ffakr

Sep 17, 2003, 12:23 PM

Originally posted by acj
Doesn't this adhere to Moores law fairly well? And 4 Ghz in 18 months. Apple has been fairly consistant in the past, hasn't it? Perhaps not so much after a big jump in speed like this...

The actual meaning of Moore's law is debated quite a bit... which is surprising when you figure that someone should be able to trace it back to a particular statement by Mr. Moore.

The common understanding of Moore's law is Processing power tends to double every 18 months.

Now, I've always heard that that is incorrect and that Gordon Moore actually said that transistor count doubles every 18 months, which in turn tends to increase [maybe double] performance.

I've also heard that Moore didn't say transistor count doubled, but rather he said that transistor density doubles, which leads to increased total counts, which leads to increases in computational power.

regardless... If IBMs plans come off as expected, all these definitions will likely remain true. There is a good chance that IBM will have a .09 micron 970 out next summer with more L2 cache on die running at significantly higher clock rates. This would mean that by next summer, we'll have a higher density chip sporting more gates at a higher frequency resulting in all around better performance. :-)

prewwii

Sep 17, 2003, 12:59 PM

Originally posted by ffakr
Actually, I'd say the 17" powerbook shipping was a bigger fiasco. Apple did ship (a few) of the G5s in the time frame they specified... they did get slammed with 150,000 pre-orders though.

The powerbooks didn't ship when they were supposed to.. not even close.

... just my 2cents.

..........snip.........

.... all just guesses and crap from Ffakr.

All this with just 3% of the market share. Imagine if Apple had a 6% market share, what a mess this would be.

As Apple says they love to innovate. Well, innovate some production. It doesn't take any innovation to announce vaporware.

Talk is cheap... produce.

That's my opinion.......

Genie

Sep 17, 2003, 01:15 PM

http://www.geniesongs.com/genie/endorsements/apple/Genie-G5Computer50pix.jpg (http://geniesongs.com/personal.html)

Apple usually makes a major breakthrough and then coasts for a long time.

That's why I went for the Dual 2 Gig now.

There's no good reason they shouldn't be at 3 GHZ next summer, that's not even keeping up with Moore's law. (By Moore's Law they should announce a dual 3.3GHZ by next June.) But they still may not hit it.

ffakr

Sep 17, 2003, 01:47 PM

Originally posted by prewwii
All this with just 3% of the market share. Imagine if Apple had a 6% market share, what a mess this would be.

As Apple says they love to innovate. Well, innovate some production. It doesn't take any innovation to announce vaporware.

Talk is cheap... produce.

That's my opinion.......

a) Vaporware is a product that is being hyped even though it doesn't exist... or a product that is being hyped before a company realizes they can't actually finish it. What announced Apple product is vaporware? (going back several years to failed OS releases is stretching ;-))
The PPC 620 was vaporware
Copeland was vaporware (apple even faked demos with Director)
The latest RealPC was vaporware
The 17" powerbook and G5 were not vaporware, they were slow out the gate.

b) If Apple had 6% market share, they would have larger manufacturing and warehousing resources.
The reason so many companies got slammed during the economic downturn is that they expanded their businesses to meet the temporary demand during the tech bubble. When demand fell off, they owned too much production hardware, too many warehouses, and they employeed too many staff.
Apple's production resources are adequate for normal production and can probably easily handle surges in demand. It probably isn't capable of handling 150,000 desktop orders in a month on a new production line. If Apple were able to easily handle HUGE surges in production, they'd have a lot of equipment and staff sitting around idle when demand leveled off.

Should Apple foreseen the demand more accurately? ...yes, there was huge pent up demand.

Should Apple have figured out how to better meet demand? ...yes.

Should they keep a standing workforce on the payroll for temporary, huge, and (for better or worse) unexpected demand? ...how much do you want to pay for your mac?

prewwii

Sep 17, 2003, 02:54 PM

Originally posted by ffakr
a) Vaporware is a product that is being hyped even though it doesn't exist... or a product that is being hyped before a company realizes they can't actually finish it.
......snip........

You are probably right, I am being hard on Apple about vaporware. My take is if Apple says it will be there on a particuliar date and it isn't..... does it exist for that customer? Until that very first G5 was delivered did we really know the production G5 existed?

Did anyone get their systems on the promised date? Might be splitting hairs to wonder how late is late enough to fit the definition of vaporware.

From what I have been reading there are lots of folks our there who believed Apple when they were given their first delivery date who are wondering right now about the validity of subsequent delivery dates.

That's my opinion......

jettredmont

Sep 17, 2003, 02:56 PM

Originally posted by fpnc
Technically, the end of summer is on or near to Sept. 22. So, the 3.0GHz mark could be 12 months away.

The 3GHz G5 is still a long ways off and schedules will change, but we seem to have a 3-month slip from the statements made in June at WWDC. However, even then I made the observation that Steve could have meant 12 months from the time that the first G5s actually shipped, not 12 months from WWDC.

That's what I'd always thought he meant (IIRC, the context was something like "these will be available in August .... and we'll be at 3.0GHz within a year").

IMHO, "By the end of next summer" is a clarification (assuming he means "US Summer" which is unofficially defined to end on the first weekend of September, Labor Day), not a slippage of dates.

ffakr

Sep 17, 2003, 03:19 PM

Originally posted by prewwii
You are probably right, I am being hard on Apple about vaporware. My take is if Apple says it will be there on a particuliar date and it isn't..... does it exist for that customer? Until that very first G5 was delivered did we really know the production G5 existed?

Did anyone get their systems on the promised date? Might be splitting hairs to wonder how late is late enough to fit the definition of vaporware.

vaporware isn't a term that's settled into a 'Websters' definition after hundreds of years of use. It probably means different things to a lot of people.

Personally, I consider vaporware to refer to something that is truely like vapor:
Something insubstantial, worthless, or fleeting.
A fantastic or foolish idea.

Vaporware is something that just doesn't exist... like the rumored PPC 615, the chip that was half PPC and half x86. Or like Copeland (supposedly OS 8), which was worked on at the core level (nu-kernel) but never approached a real product (Apple showed Director movies and claimed they were demos of the real OS instead of just a mockup)
I also think Vaporware can describe projects that are moving along in development but they are talked up (extensively) way before the company determines it isn't feasable or possible to actually create/release the finished product. Copeland could fit into this category I suppose... The first, NeXT based consumer OS X would, MacOS for Intel.. maybe.

Just because a ship date slips, that doesn't mean the product is vaporware though. Tech products slip all the time (as to tech projects at jobs)
Everyone knew the 17" powerbook and the G5 weren't vapor. There were real working units displayed. Jobs held up the 17" powerbook on stage. He ran it. Jobs demo'ed the G5 on stage. Apple opened up a whole lab of the beasts to the developers at WWDC (I played with a couple).
I don't think anyone doubted the existance of either product or whether they were in production. People may have wondered if they were being produced fast enough or if there were production problems...

just being anal and picky...
Your mileage or interpretation may vary.
ffakr.
:-)

pjhornak

Sep 17, 2003, 07:52 PM

pjhornak

Sep 17, 2003, 07:57 PM

Originally posted by ffakr
a) Vaporware is a product that is being hyped even though it doesn't exist... or a product that is being hyped before a company realizes they can't actually finish it. What announced Apple product is vaporware? (going back several years to failed OS releases is stretching ;-))
The PPC 620 was vaporware
Copeland was vaporware (apple even faked demos with Director)
The latest RealPC was vaporware
The 17" powerbook and G5 were not vaporware, they were slow out the gate.

b) If Apple had 6% market share, they would have larger manufacturing and warehousing resources.
The reason so many companies got slammed during the economic downturn is that they expanded their businesses to meet the temporary demand during the tech bubble. When demand fell off, they owned too much production hardware, too many warehouses, and they employeed too many staff.
Apple's production resources are adequate for normal production and can probably easily handle surges in demand. It probably isn't capable of handling 150,000 desktop orders in a month on a new production line. If Apple were able to easily handle HUGE surges in production, they'd have a lot of equipment and staff sitting around idle when demand leveled off.

Should Apple foreseen the demand more accurately? ...yes, there was huge pent up demand.

Should Apple have figured out how to better meet demand? ...yes.

Should they keep a standing workforce on the payroll for temporary, huge, and (for better or worse) unexpected demand? ...how much do you want to pay for your mac?

it sounds like you swallowed allen greenspan

Rocketman

Sep 17, 2003, 09:31 PM

Originally posted by Macrumors
The end of summer timeline brings us to August 2004 -- 11 months away. With an average product-life of 6 months between PowerMac releases (historically (http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/)), users can expect another PowerMac revision in the first half of 2004.

Our company is largely a PowerBook buyer with a few TiG4's, a couple if 17's and at least 2 of the new 15's slated. But if a 3 or dual 3 ghz G5 is released we will be updating our cluster as well.

Rocketman

Static

Sep 17, 2003, 10:48 PM

Just curious. What defines release B of a computer?

Jim

ffakr

Sep 17, 2003, 11:56 PM

"What defines a release B of a computer?"

typically a change in the specs. If Apple gives it a new part number, most people consider it a rev b.

In something like the original iMac, it was pretty clear to tell the difference...
rev a: 233mhz Bondi
rev b: multi color, faster processors
rev c: faster procs, 100MHz bus, slot load
...

Apple has, however, made extremely small changes to machines that warranted part number changes... One small, relatively insignificant chip on the motherboard is discontinued and replaced by a new version so Apple revs the part number to distinguish the new motherboard... but nothing significant changes, nothing that affects performance or OS support. Most people wouldn't consider this a rev. A.

Maybe the best guage for a new rev is performance. Has there been a change that affects performance? New on board video chipset? New memory controller? Faster Processor? Faster FSB?

I figure that most people won't consider the G5 to be in Rev. B until Apple releases faster processors. It's unlikely that the system controller for a while, and a simple [plug in] video card upgrade doesn't affect the core machine so that probably won't be considered a rev. B.
The whole deal is that some buyers figure that with a new platform, they should wait for the bugs to shake out before they buy.. so they are waiting for Rev. B.
In my experience, Rev. A products from Apple don't have any issues. Apple is pretty good about QC. I've run Rev A. Nubus Powermacs, PCI Powermacs, Beige G3s, Blue and White G3s, G4s.... and I don't recall any Quality Controll issues that I'd attribute to the machine being a Rev. A.

ffakr

Sep 18, 2003, 12:02 AM

Originally posted by pjhornak
it sounds like you swallowed allen greenspan

I'm sure he's smarter than me so I'll consider that a compliment. :-)

sucafrutpi

Sep 18, 2003, 12:39 AM

Originally posted by prewwii
As Apple says they love to innovate. Well, innovate some production. It doesn't take any innovation to announce vaporware.

haha, that's priceles. you should email them saying that. they always do this crap whenever they release new products. remember the disaster with the new iMacs? i'm just glad that when the rumours of the new G5 were floating around i got the dual 1.42 ghz pm rather than wait, keeping apples dramatic release then wait 2 months to ship attitude in mind. i'm really glad i did, cause if i had ordered a dual G5 in june and got an email in sept that is SHOULD ship in oct/nov, i'd be the next unibomber.

Static

Sep 18, 2003, 04:21 PM

typically a change in the specs. If Apple gives it a new part number, most people consider it a rev b.

In something like the original iMac, it was pretty clear to tell the difference...
rev a: 233mhz Bondi
rev b: multi color, faster processors
rev c: faster procs, 100MHz bus, slot load
...

I keep seeing people are going to wait for Rev. B, but it seems to me that these computers are Rev. B, as there were G4 12 and 17" PB out already.

Isn't this right?

Jim

cheesy

Sep 18, 2003, 05:27 PM

Originally posted by Static
[B]I keep seeing people are going to wait for Rev. B, but it seems to me that these computers are Rev. B, as there were G4 12 and 17" PB out already.

I would say the 17" and 12" models were revision B.

The 15" model is debatable. Is it an entirely new product because it has a new case, new features, etc. Or is it a revision of an older product because it is similar and has a similar processor.

I would say its a new product since it's an aluminum case, newer processor, slightly larger screen, FW 800, AE, Bluetooth, backlight keyboard, etc etc. So if you ask me the 15" AlBook is Revision A.

simX

Sep 18, 2003, 05:49 PM

Originally posted by Static
typically a change in the specs. If Apple gives it a new part number, most people consider it a rev b.

In something like the original iMac, it was pretty clear to tell the difference...
rev a: 233mhz Bondi
rev b: multi color, faster processors
rev c: faster procs, 100MHz bus, slot load

Not to get picky or anything, but that's not the true revs of the original iMac. It went like this:

A: 233 MHz bondi blue
B: better video card (233 MHz, bondi blue) -- this was a big deal because the VRAM jumped from 2 MB to 6 MB
C: 266 MHz, colors
D: 333 MHz (colors)

Then there was the major revision that brought about the case redesign, the slot load, FireWire, and a faster bus. But I don't think anyone considered that a Rev. E of the iMac. It was just Rev. A of the slot-loading iMac, just as the current iMac is not Rev. K of the iMac -- it's Rev. C of the flat-panel iMac.

Given that we don't call the iMac Rev. K, I'd call the current 17" and 12" AlBook Rev. Bs, and the current 15" AlBook a Rev A. It's very rare that Apple leaves a particular product of a product line to languish for so long like the 15" TiBook, which is why there's rarely a rev disparity between different products of the same product line.