More on PowerMacs at NAB?

[MacRumors]

Following tentative Page 2 Rumors (http://www.macrumors.com/pages/2005/03/20050330102917.shtml) of PowerMac G5s to be announced at the National Association of Broadcasters, Think Secret confirms (http://www.thinksecret.com/news/0504g5.html) that Apple is planning on introducing new PowerMacs at NAB.

Unfortunately, details are slim in the new report, so only the hint of upcoming PowerMac revisions are provided.

The previous unconfirmed Page 2 report (http://www.macrumors.com/pages/2005/03/20050330102917.shtml) hinted at 2GHz-3GHz 970MP based PowerMacs with significant under the hood enhancements -- but should be viewed as unconfirmed specs.

[Chaszmyr]

I think "confirmed" is too strong of a word; ThinkSecret seems fairly uncertain about that publication. Anyway, I have been having great luck this week, so I am keeping my fingers crossed! :D

[scu]

I think "confirmed" is too strong of a word; ThinkSecret seems fairly uncertain about that publication. Anyway, I have been having great luck this week, so I am keeping my fingers crossed! :D

So far the folks in the rumor business have been coming up dry with good solid specs and dates.

I would not be surprised to see these PM updates next week since they have been a long time coming. Now that Tiger news is officially out which none of the sites had the courage to report prior to the official announcement, they have build up a little courage and announced the updates for next week.

All I want to see is a 3 ghz system with faster RAM and a kick ass graphics card. This is the only way I can justify Tiger.

[aethier]

are the 970MP's dual core?

has anyone seen the reviews on the Pentium D, and Pentium Extreme Edition (both dual core)

i must say they are quite impressive

[Bear]

are the 970MP's dual core?In a word: Yes!

[cosmoed]

Hopefully they will talk about the iMac/eMac/iBook updates...

I can't afford a FREAKING pm. heh... sorry, I am deep in the apple waiting game so I am almost at my breaking point.

[ImAlwaysRight]

New PowerMacs, yes. What about new iMacs? 23" widescreen 2.0GHz G5 would be the bomb. Might even sell my current dual 2.0GHz PM over a 23" model iMac. I've only got a 19" Dell LCD for my PM right now. I'd prefer a more gorgeous screen to more processing power.

[Rod Rod]

I'll bet this rumor turns out to be true. High Definition video work demands more than today's dual 2.5GHz PM G5 has to offer.

[Chaszmyr]

are the 970MP's dual core?


It is unknown whether the new PowerMacs will use 970MPs or 970GXs. The MP is dual core, the GX is not.

[G.Kirby]

Faster CPU?
Better graphics card?
More base RAM?
Blu-Ray?

Gimmi-gimmi-gimmi!

I was right to wait and see what was coming out at NAB, I'm so exited I could puke! :D

On order: 1X life. :rolleyes:

[nuckinfutz]

Bunk info.

Blu-Ray drives. Oh please.

[CmdrLaForge]

Unfortunatly the report says no G5 PB this year. Can it be that the update late Jan will be the only PB update this year ? That we have to wait for new PBs until Jan 06 ? I don't hope so. But lately it looks like the update cycles are getting longer and longer and waiting about a year for new models is nothing special.

[GFLPraxis]

Following tentative Page 2 Rumors (http://www.macrumors.com/pages/2005/03/20050330102917.shtml) of PowerMac G5s to be announced at the National Association of Broadcasters, Think Secret confirms (http://www.thinksecret.com/news/0504g5.html) that Apple is planning on introducing new PowerMacs at NAB.

Unfortunately, details are slim in the new report, so only the hint of upcoming PowerMac revisions are provided.

The previous unconfirmed Page 2 report (http://www.macrumors.com/pages/2005/03/20050330102917.shtml) hinted at 2GHz-3GHz 970MP based PowerMacs with significant under the hood enhancements -- but should be viewed as unconfirmed specs.

Okay lemme get this straight...
Tiger and PowerMacs BOTH this month?
What is Steve saving for June?

[advocate]

Faster CPU?
Better graphics card?
More base RAM?
Blu-Ray?
For the next revision, yes, yes, probably, no. Blu-ray prototypes aren't due to be shown off for a while yet; there's no way there's a shipping product. Well, unless it'll be another year before the next PowerMac bump. Heh heh.

Apple needs to make me want a new computer before I'll buy one, and they have quite a ways to go before that!

[drewyboy]

Unfortunatly the report says no G5 PB this year. Can it be that the update late Jan will be the only PB update this year ? That we have to wait for new PBs until Jan 06 ? I don't hope so. But lately it looks like the update cycles are getting longer and longer and waiting about a year for new models is nothing special.

Ya it also seems to be that the updates are also nothing special. Come on Apple... you need to step it up! I will work for you when I get out of college!!

[Chaszmyr]

What is Steve saving for June?

Maybe nothing! WWDC isn't a tradeshow, Apple doesn't have very much pressure to make big product releases there. Hopefully there will be something big left, but don't be too surprised if there isn't.

[pimentoLoaf]

Sounds like the Ultimate FCP/LogicPro/Shake/Motion machine! :) :cool:

[Bear]

Okay lemme get this straight...
Tiger and PowerMacs BOTH this month?
What is Steve saving for June?I suspect (and have stated so elsewhere) that the "One More Thing"™ at this years WWDC will be something that may have been talked about in rumors briefly but is not really expected to be announced. And no I have no clue which it might be, this is just the feeling I have.

[Freebart]

Okay lemme get this straight...
Tiger and PowerMacs BOTH this month?
What is Steve saving for June?
The announcement that the first dual-core machines will be shipping in July.

[Porchland]

Unfortunatly the report says no G5 PB this year. Can it be that the update late Jan will be the only PB update this year ? That we have to wait for new PBs until Jan 06 ? I don't hope so. But lately it looks like the update cycles are getting longer and longer and waiting about a year for new models is nothing special.

Which leaves what for WWDC in June and MacWorld Paris in September? Maybe the two new hardware products that AppleInsider wrote about last week, but I still can't imagine what they would be.

If PMs update at NAM, I think all of the computers will have been updated in the last six months except for the iMac. (Right?)

[BOOMBA]

What's Macenstein saying?

[deputy_doofy]

Very cool.
I'm hoping to buy a top of the line dual-processor, dual-core machine.
Though if I have to, I'll buy a lowly dual-processor 970GX. lol

Why does Doofy need a top-of-the-line machine? He doesn't. He simply has saved up enough for one and that's the sole reason. Doofy wants stupid power to last over the next half-decade or so, since saving for the next computer will be another long, drawn out process.

:D

[scu]

Okay lemme get this straight...
Tiger and PowerMacs BOTH this month?
What is Steve saving for June?

Well if we follow Apple's pattern of releasing products, in June he will say that the new PowerMacs announced in April, are now in stock. :D

[ziwi]

Would they announce new PM's right after they have redesigned their home page to promote Tiger release on the 29th? I have a feeling no. It looks like June - or at least my gut is telling me that.

[wdlove]

The news of a new Power Mac update is very exciting. Hopefully it will be the long awaited dual core. Apple also needs to do a better job with shipping dates this time.

[Chaszmyr]

Would they announce new PM's right after they have redesigned their home page to promote Tiger release on the 29th? I have a feeling no. It looks like June - or at least my gut is telling me that.

No one said PowerMacs have to replace Tiger as the main ad. The little iPod and Mac mini ads could stand to be replaced.

[Frobozz]

Okay lemme get this straight...
Tiger and PowerMacs BOTH this month?
What is Steve saving for June?

You make an excellent point. I think most rumors are pointing to an HD capable home media center. Whatever it ends up being, it's going to be important for developers. Obviously Tiger is crucial, but I don't think that means it's the only gig in town for WWDC.

[Beck446]

Anyone know the exact NAB dates next week? Thanks!

[ts1973]

In one word : finally.

These rumors had better be true : I've only been waiting for an upgrade for 6 months.

[SweetFeet]

April 16th-20th

http://nabshow.com

[Chaszmyr]

In one word : finally.

These rumors had better be true : I've only been waiting for an upgrade for 6 months.

I've got you beat. I've been waiting since before the disappointing 2.5ghz announcement.

[Porchland]

I keep a spreadsheet of Apple announcements like any decent Apple geek should. According to my spreadsheet:

We are due for a new iPod. The number of months between generations from the 1G to 2G was 9 months; 2G to 3G was 8 months; 3G to 4G was 15 months. (The delay between 3G and 4G is due, in part, to the iPod mini.) As the 4G iPod was announced July '04, we are now 9 months without a 5G.

Apple has announced the number of iTMS songs sold at 1M, 2M, 5M, 10M, 25M, 50M, 70M, 100M, 150M, 200M, 250M and 300M. The last three announcements were December 16, January 24 and March 2. At the rate at which iTMS has been growing, it's probably already over 350M and on pace to hit 500M in June.

iTunes 5 is overdue.

Apple has featured iTMS/iPod at WWDC before.

All of that COULD add up to the 5G iPod at WWDC or three months later at Macworld Paris. I think we'll see color standardized, models at 20GB/40GB/60GB with some kind of BT or WiFi feature. Wireless headset?

Airport Express is one year old this month. Maybe an update here? Seems to go along with a BT/WiFi iPod.

iMac and Mac Mini updates are probably set for Macworld Paris at the earliest.

[Rod Rod]

Anyone know the exact NAB dates next week? Thanks!
SweetFeet noted the dates, but check this out:
Apple special event at NAB 2005: The Production Value of HD (http://www.apple.com/go/nab/register/)
Sunday, April 17, 11:00AM (Western Time, -8 GMT), Paris Las Vegas Hotel

[zigziggityzoo]

Apple has announced the number of iTMS songs sold at 1M, 2M, 5M, 10M, 25M, 50M, 70M, 100M, 150M, 200M, 250M and 300M. The last three announcements were December 16, January 24 and March 2. At the rate at which iTMS has been growing, it's probably already over 350M and on pace to hit 500M in June.

iTunes 5 is overdue.

Apple has featured iTMS/iPod at WWDC before.

All of that COULD add up to the 5G iPod at WWDC or three months later at Macworld Paris. I think we'll see color standardized, models at 20GB/40GB/60GB with some kind of BT or WiFi feature. Wireless headset?

It seems like they may use tech from AirTunes express to integrate into iPod since it already has integration with iTunes. instead of finding AirTunes stations, it'll find iPods.

[Porchland]

SweetFeet noted the dates, but check this out:
Apple special event at NAB 2005: The Production Value of HD (http://www.apple.com/go/nab/register/)
Sunday, April 17, 11:00AM (Western Time, -8 GMT), Paris Las Vegas Hotel

Production Suite HD? Wouldn't that mean DVD Studio Pro HD? And wouldn't that mean Blu-Ray?

Is there anywhere left for Apple to go in video production short of HD DVDs?

[Ulfhednar]

Even though I have no plans to upgrade until 10.4.7, I'm still very excited by the idea of having Quicktime 7 and the new Safari for Jaguar. It's also nice to know, for certain, that by--say--January I will be able to upgrade to Tiger. I think I'll celebrate and buy a new Power Mac for the occasion!

[drewyboy]

SweetFeet noted the dates, but check this out:
Apple special event at NAB 2005: The Production Value of HD (http://www.apple.com/go/nab/register/)
Sunday, April 17, 11:00AM (Western Time, -8 GMT), Paris Las Vegas Hotel

If you notice it has nothing to do with hardware since the tab highlighted is software.... which makes things very interesting as to new video editing?? **palms sweating in anticipation**

[Zaty]

Unfortunatly the report says no G5 PB this year. Can it be that the update late Jan will be the only PB update this year ? That we have to wait for new PBs until Jan 06 ? I don't hope so. But lately it looks like the update cycles are getting longer and longer and waiting about a year for new models is nothing special.

I don't think so. I would expect a new AlBook revision in August/September. While it would theoretically be a short cycle (for Rev. Es), keep in mind that even if PB Gs are announced at MWSF 06, they won't ship until February.

[Eevee]

Bunk info.

Blu-Ray drives. Oh please.

That will be so...sweet if PM will have Blu-Ray drives!

[Eevee]

I don't think so. I would expect a new AlBook revision in August/September. While it would theoretically be a short cycle (for Rev. Es), keep in mind that even if PB Gs are announced at MWSF 06, they won't ship until February.

Why would there be a new Al PB revision? :confused: Rev D just came out (though there are reported problems with the scrolling pad on the 15" PBs - revised maybe?). Or maybe special 15/17" PBs with blu ray drives.

Other than that, the next PB should (BETTER BE:mad: ) a G5.

[bosrs1]

So far the folks in the rumor business have been coming up dry with good solid specs and dates.

I would not be surprised to see these PM updates next week since they have been a long time coming. Now that Tiger news is officially out which none of the sites had the courage to report prior to the official announcement, they have build up a little courage and announced the updates for next week.

All I want to see is a 3 ghz system with faster RAM and a kick ass graphics card. This is the only way I can justify Tiger.
How do you figure? TS claimed Tiger was on the first or the 15th... yet it was announced the 12th for a 29th launch. I think TS is no longer a valuable source of info. They've been rooted out and their "source" is now compromised.

[Beck446]

That will be so...sweet if PM will have Blu-Ray drives!


He was being sarcastic. As in: "Oh, please"

[wdlove]

I've got you beat. I've been waiting since before the disappointing 2.5ghz announcement.

I have been waiting for a Power Mac G5 since before the original announcement. Each one has had problems, so I hope that this will be the gold master of the Power Mac G5.

[Bear]

If you notice it has nothing to do with hardware since the tab highlighted is software.... which makes things very interesting as to new video editing?? **palms sweating in anticipation**Rumor has it that IBM and Apple will be announcing something on the 15th. So the hardware announcement could be the day before NAB starts. That way Apple can have the latest hardware at NAB to demo while pushing the new and/or updated video related software.

[ImAlwaysRight]

I keep a spreadsheet of Apple announcements like any decent Apple geek should. According to my spreadsheet:

We are due for a new iPod. ... iTunes 5 is overdue ...
Dude, you missed the disclaimer: Past performance does not guarantee future results.

[swissmann]

Faster CPU?
Better graphics card?
More base RAM?
Blu-Ray?

Gimmi-gimmi-gimmi!

I was right to wait and see what was coming out at NAB, I'm so exited I could puke! :D

On order: 1X life. :rolleyes:

I think the big question will be the blu-ray. I think it will be included given Apple's recent joining to the group. I would love to see Apple jump the market on this one. Along with it of course would have to be FCP 5 with features dependant on Tiger. The problem remains with delivering a Blu-Ray disk to whom to watch on what? - Other PowerMac owners. HD is coming though soon.

[Rod Rod]

Production Suite HD? Wouldn't that mean DVD Studio Pro HD? And wouldn't that mean Blu-Ray?
Not necessarily. As far as I know, the specs for both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray are not finalized, and therefore any authoring applications cannot exist yet. First you need the spec(s), and then you can create authoring software that conforms to the spec(s). As it stands today, however, standard DVDs made from HD material look stunning, and video quality wise there's no difference between DVDSP 1.5 and 3. The real difference is made in MPEG2 transcoding.

Is there anywhere left for Apple to go in video production short of HD DVDs?
Apple has a long way to go in video production. For example, FCP lacks features that would be great to have, such as the easy color correction between shots that Avid has, built-in multi-camera support, real-time alpha-channel compositing (with drop shadows, etc) and concatenating filters and effects (as in what Shake has).

If you notice it has nothing to do with hardware since the tab highlighted is software.... which makes things very interesting as to new video editing?? **palms sweating in anticipation**
Yup, but hopefully Apple will roll out more powerful hardware to better handle everything. I'm creating 6+ hours of HD material right now and the final renders and encodes are taking a LONG time. :)

[patseguin]

has anyone seen the reviews on the Pentium D, and Pentium Extreme Edition (both dual core)

i must say they are quite impressive

That's nice. Do they run OS X? ;)

[NevadaJack]

iMac and Mac Mini updates are probably set for Macworld Paris at the earliest.

With the iMac about 30 days beyond it's average redo, what makes you say the iMac is that far off for an update? I do not doubt your history on updates but please don't say things like that...it does not help my anxiety level any.

Waiting anxiously for a Rev B 20" iMac.... :(

[Private Public]

I keep a spreadsheet of Apple announcements like any decent Apple geek should.

Or you could use the Buyer Guide

http://buyersguide.macrumors.com/

[toontra]

I have been waiting for a Power Mac G5 since before the original announcement. Each one has had problems, so I hope that this will be the gold master of the Power Mac G5.

I've watched your posts on the G5 over the past couple of years and they've expressed my own feelings almost exactly. I also have been waiting the best part of 2 years to buy. Now, finally, it looks as though it's time to crack open the wallet!

The next couple of weeks (or months at worst) will be very exciting. Let's hope the rev. C's are all we're hoping for.

[gugy]

Wow, It's about time.
I hope it's true!
Hopefully is a great upgrade. We deserve a kick ass machine because we waited so long.

[Eevee]

He was being sarcastic. As in: "Oh, please"

No really, that'll be cool if the new PMs have blu ray drives. I'm not being sarcastic.

[appleface]

might steve also announce the G5 eMac at NAB? it's been almost a year to the day (according to the buyer's guide) since a revision. the eMac is more in my price range.

[amholl]

iThink that emacs will get the 512 ram and 1.5ghz g4s but no new vid card. itll happen soon. iMacs will got up to 2 ghz and 9600s along w/512. PMs could be 2.8 or 3.5. WHO KNOWS????? :confused:

[Buhbuhb]

I'm extremely interested in getting a PowerMac... but I'm going to have to go portable for the time being (Powerbook).

[Bear]

might steve also announce the G5 eMac at NAB? it's been almost a year to the day (according to the buyer's guide) since a revision. the eMac is more in my price range.The eMac will be a quiet Tuesday morning announcement. It's not a machine that people at NAB would really get excited about.

After a bit of thought, I think what we might see is the various machies get upgraded starting in May so they can ship with Tiger. The PowerMac will be announced at/for NAB, but may not ship until it can come installed with Tiger.

[Dont Hurt Me]

1 Year between updates is a joke when tech is moving so fast.

[Panther]

Unfortunatly the report says no G5 PB this year. Can it be that the update late Jan will be the only PB update this year ? That we have to wait for new PBs until Jan 06 ? I don't hope so. But lately it looks like the update cycles are getting longer and longer and waiting about a year for new models is nothing special.Freescale was supposedly working on a dual-core G4... I guess its possible they could put that in the PB to buy themselves time... You'd have to hope they included something like Intel's Speedstep tech to slow the cores (or even stop one of them) if there was no load to conserve power though...

I think folks would be disappointed if they "only" did that... but it would still be like an 80% perf increase for the same clock speed, so not a total disaster by any means

[easy4lif]

for the last couple of Years, Apple has been releasing products on tuesdays, I suspect that the 19th, during NAB is when the New PM will be realeased. followed 2 weeks later by updated iMac's, then 2 weeks later by eMac's and finally by the begining weeks of June, the iBook. all this just in time for the summer and back to school. :cool:

[RichCoder]

has anyone seen the reviews on the Pentium D, and Pentium Extreme Edition (both dual core)

i must say they are quite impressive

That's nice. Do they run OS X? ;)

Did you miss the point? I think aethier is pointing out that dual core processors have alot to offer.

I for one can't wait for dual dual-core G5 Power Macs. :eek:

-rich

[fpnc]

Freescale was supposedly working on a dual-core G4... I guess its possible they could put that in the PB to buy themselves time... You'd have to hope they included something like Intel's Speedstep tech to slow the cores (or even stop one of them) if there was no load to conserve power though...

I think folks would be disappointed if they "only" did that... but it would still be like an 80% perf increase for the same clock speed, so not a total disaster by any means

True, Freescale (a.k.a Motorola as in G4) has announced that they are working on a dual-core G4-like processor (it's a major upgrade with lots of improvements -- the core, called an e600, will also be used in the single-core MPC7448 which some expect will be used in the next significant update to the Mac mini). However, the dual-core e600s aren't scheduled to sample until late this year and that would mean that products using the dual-core e600 would most likely not ship until the first half of 2006. However, the single-core version (MPC7448) should ship this summer (Mac mini update please).

[Blue Moon]

Here is the bottom line for me:


If the PowerMacs get Blu-ray, I'll buy one.

If the iMacs get HD, I'll buy one.


If niether or both happen, I'll be at a loss. :confused:

[rockthecasbah]

Powermacs have a real possibility of being upgraded this month. Apple always has a trick or five up its sleeve, you all know that ;) . I can easily see them upgrading PMs this month, despite some of your reasonings for "saving" something. In fact, I am pretty positive they would not save a long needed update for that reason and instead, blow everyone out of the water with a very awesome surprise that not many thought of.

PS this is my first macrumors post...woot.

[LethalWolfe]

1 Year between updates is a joke when tech is moving so fast.

But wasn't surprisingly slow tech (esp. proc development) part of the problem? I'm sure we all remember Steve's "3.0ghz" comment, but the problem was on the developmental, not the implementing, side of things.

Apple can't upgrade to vaporware.


Lethal

[nospleen]

I too am ready for the purchase. I contacted the reseller I always buy from. (I send them a lot of business.) Anyway, for what it is worth, they do not know anything about any new Powermac updates. I know there is a limit to what they say, but they always take care of me so to speak. I just hope they are wrong this time. :(

[toontra]

I too am ready for the purchase. I contacted the reseller I always buy from. (I send them a lot of business.) Anyway, for what it is worth, they do not know anything about any new Powermac updates. I know there is a limit to what they say, but they always take care of me so to speak. I just hope they are wrong this time. :(

I wonder if that may be because of the legal action and rumor-site attitude recently adopted by Apple? It wouldn't surprise me if they had tightened up security and also reminded licensed resellers of their obligations!

[Blue Moon]

I too am ready for the purchase. I contacted the reseller I always buy from. (I send them a lot of business.) Anyway, for what it is worth, they do not know anything about any new Powermac updates. I know there is a limit to what they say, but they always take care of me so to speak. I just hope they are wrong this time. :(

Resellers wouldn't be the best of sources. Friends who work at corporate, now those are sources.

[fpnc]

As for new and significantly updated Power Mac announcements at NAB, I've lost my optimism on that (a month ago I was hopeful, now I'm doubtful).

The link about the Apple event on Sunday is interesting. But, I agree, that will most likely be software only. More worrisome (at NAB) is that it appears that there are no other keynotes, sessions, or events scheduled that will be lead by Apple. If you look at the published list of keynotes and special events it is all Intel, AMD, Microsoft, HP, and Dell. And none of those speakers are likely to step aside and allow anyone from Apple to take the microphone or even mention new Power Macs. Adobe is leading one Super Session (Video, the Next Wave in Publishing), but there are no Apple representatives scheduled for that discussion either (it's Intel, Microsoft, HP, Dell, and Sony). Frankly, it appears that Apple was offered little opportunity to influence this year's NAB, or they -- for some reason -- decided not to participate in any of the keynotes and sessions.

I did find that Frank Casanova is on the panel covering the mobile media convergence -- wouldn't it be a "hoot" if he only talked about iTunes and the iPod? Actually, I expect that he will talk about H.264 video, that's more in line with his position at Apple.

http://www.nabshow.com/sessiondetail.asp?id=1202921

I'm sure Apple will have a good presence at NAB (they appear to have one of the larger spaces in the multi-media hall) and they will almost certainly make some software announcements at their Sunday event, but it looks to me that this year's NAB might turn out to be a big bust as far as new Apple hardware. At least, that's my current thinking.

One possibility, Apple decided to keep a low official profile at NAB because they wanted to surprise everyone with a blockbuster set of new hardware and software. It they were a highly visible sponsor and official participate in many NAB events that might cause some conflicts with the other sponsors. So, maybe Steve Jobs is planing a big "sneak" attack. They've sort of done that before with Final Cut Pro and Motion. However, if they introduced dual-core G5s (970MPs) and/or twin-processor, dual-core G5s (twin 970MPs, four cores per Power Mac) then they might just be able to scoop Intel and AMD. I suspect that Dell will introduce dual-core Pentium systems at NAB, so Apple has to do something at NAB is they want to be considered first to deliver dual-core systems. But, again, I think 970MPs are unlikely to be introduced at NAB (or anytime soon for that matter).

As for a Blu-ray product introduction from Apple, I think that is highly unlikely.

[davey-nb]

PS this is my first macrumors post...woot.

Bienvenue, eh!
Keep the faith, spread the word and have a nice day!

[Lloyd Intalan]

Hopefully this rumor is true and if indeed it is, I have a funny feeling that they'll ship it at least a few weeks later :p Updating Powemacs almost 12 months in between is very disappointing indeed. :mad:

[nospleen]

I wonder if that may be because of the legal action and rumor-site attitude recently adopted by Apple? It wouldn't surprise me if they had tightened up security and also reminded licensed resellers of their obligations!

I really hope that is the case. I am ready to go, but if they are going to be announced next week, then I will wait. But, if they are not going to announce them until June, then I would prefer to buy now. Either way, they probably will not ship until September. :D

[Aeolius]

I also have been waiting the best part of 2 years to buy

Add another. I have a DP 1 GHz G4 (MDD) and have been nearly swayed by the 2.5 GHz G5 on many occasions....but still, I wait.

[iGuy]

As much as I'd like to see four processor cores, I'm more interested in core improvements (no punn intended).

For me, such things as PCI Express and a fast FSB are more meaningful.

Fingers crossed,

~iGuy

[iGary]

I've been thinking about this, and it seems real enough.

First, Intel introduces a dual-core x86 chip.

Second, the last time any ground-breaking chip work on the G5 platform went on was almost two years ago in June. Yes, we have had a one-time bump (2.5), but nothing ground-breaking, and that was a year ago at WWDC (and yes, I know it did not ship for much longer after).

I guess this means IBM has had a long time to work on these new sets of chips. I cannot imagine that Apple, being in the light as it is these days, would introduce a mild speed bump to their flagship machine.

They need to keep their name in the news, and this is certainly a way to do it (along with service their creative pros who need the raw power).

I hope we get something big, the PowerMac line is stale, IMHO, and I'll be ready to retire the G4 MDD at the end of the year as my last business purchase of the year. :D

[daveL]

are the 970MP's dual core?

has anyone seen the reviews on the Pentium D, and Pentium Extreme Edition (both dual core)

i must say they are quite impressive
Actually, it looks like the weakest dual-core processor out there:

http://hardmac.com/niouzcontenu.php?date=2005-04-5

First article on the page.

[crpchristian]

I've noticed teh ati x800 shown in a few spots on the new Tiger page, which makes me think it will most likely become a build to order option, which would be great.

I think it really only makes sense for new powermacs to be released at NAB and given the comparitively long wait for an update, I really can't see the sense in apple doing it any other way.

OS X is hands down supperior and way ahead of windows so i don't think apple minds showing it off during development because they know they are safely way ahead. The hardware comparison is where the battle really lies. Since Jobs has come back, there has been a lot of 'pissing contests' going on with the 'first personal super computer', worlds fastest PC, first 64bit... Jobs obviously likes to be out in front with breaking new hardware ground and seems to always be very secretive about it until its officially announced. It seems likely that dual core will be announced, the technology is on the verge and i'm sure apple is planning on beating everyone out of the gates... and letting everyone know they did, and NAB is the best place to do that.

[arn]

Update: Page 2 article specs are confirmed to be unreliable

[Bear]

As much as I'd like to see four processor cores, I'm more interested in core improvements (no punn intended).

For me, such things as PCI Express and a fast FSB are more meaningful.

Fingers crossed,

~iGuyActually, the G5 has a fast FSB already. And as for PCI Express, what would you be adding to the PowerMac that would work better on PCI Express? *curious*

What I really want in addition to the dual cores is room for at least one more hard disk inside the PowerMac case.

[sosumi99]

Update: Page 2 article specs are confirmed to be unreliable

Arn, does this mean that there will be no new PowerMacs announcements next week at all, or that there may be new PowerMacs, just that the specific specs in the page 2 report should be ignored? Thanks!

[d.perel]

Still would be nice to see computers with these nice specs mentioned. :)

[blitzkrieg79]

I, for one, believe that the next release of the Powermac will be a significant one meaning that it wont be just a MHZ increase but even such things as dual cores, on chip memory controller, increased cache sizes... Anyway, I pretty much have as much inisghts about future Apple products as most of the people here BUT since that Think Secret lawsuit I think Apple is teasing rumor sites with false info, I wouldnt even be surprised if that the recent IBM documents regarding the 970MP were done on purpose by Apple, I know it sounds silly but why not? considering that there has been too many leaks associated with Apple product releases... Anyway, back to my prediction as I got nothing better to do at this fine hour, people on this forum tend to forget that 970 is a derivative of a Power4 class processor, originally Apple and IBM were thinking of releasing the 970 as a dual from the get go but heat and size (cost) issues kept it stripped... Now, Steve Jobs promised a 3GHZ machine withing a year of the original G5 release but Apple and IBM came out short big time, but the entire processor industry has been stale recently anyway... So, why would Apple and IBM invest their money in something that clearly isnt on par with their expectations... And thats where the Power5 derivative comes in, a totally new structure, dual cores SMTs , better scalability, 40% clock for clock performance improvement over Power4, and from the reading about it it supports simultaneous OS support and isnt this what the rumor sites have been mumbling about for the past couple of months? To make this short, Apple is on a roll right now, they updated the Powermac line basically once over two years (went from 2 to 2.5ghz) so we will see Power5 derivatives faster then some people might think, I just dont see any snse of Apple investing any money in 970 when they supposedly worked with IBM on the Power5 from scratch and Power5 has been out for a year now... Anyway, I dont know when the next Powermac revision will take place but its safe to say it will be between NAB and Mac World SF, all I know is that a lot of people will be positively surprised...

[Rod Rod]

Update: Page 2 article specs are confirmed to be unreliable
. . . which most likely means someone in Las Vegas (setting up for NAB) or elsewhere snapped a picture of the new machines (or their boxes). MR can't publish the picture because it needs to protect its sources and methods. :)

[iGuy]

Actually, the G5 has a fast FSB already. And as for PCI Express, what would you be adding to the PowerMac that would work better on PCI Express? *curious*

What I really want in addition to the dual cores is room for at least one more hard disk inside the PowerMac case.

Just because the PM has a reasonably good FSB doesn't mean that it can't be improved. However if you read ENGLISH you'll see that I was saying that a fast FSB is more meaningful than four processor cores. At least it is to me. You may dissagree.

As for AGP vs PCI Express. Go do some research. It's not my job to educate you.

I will add that in addition to PCI Express expansion slots, more useful to me than additional HD space inside the case (FW800 external HDs are just fine for me), I would like to see more expansion slots and have them placed further apart. One card should not take up the room of more than one slot.

Just my thoughts. You may dissagree. That is your right. A Canadian Federal politician, addressing his supporters after losing his seat in the House of Commons, stated that he would support to the death everyone's democratic right to be wrong. ;)

~iGuy

[Rod Rod]

I will add that in addition to PCI Express expansion slots, more useful to me than additional HD space inside the case (FW800 external HDs are just fine for me), I would like to see more expansion slots and have them placed further apart.
You want PCI Express, but additional hard drive space inside the case is lower on your list of priorities and FW800 external HDDs suffice for you. That's pretty inconsistent. Anyhow, FW800 so far is less than optimal on PM G5s (it's faster on PowerBook G4s, for instance). Everyone's best bet for fast external drives on PM G5s is external SATA drives. PCI-e's main benefits seem to be for games and probably Core Image / Core Video, but since we're 2 1/2 weeks away from seeing whether CI/CV is choked for throughput it's probably better to reserve judgment. I'll agree though that faster is always better. Finally, why would you criticize someone's English reading comprehension and misspell a really easy word in the same post? ("dissagree" instead of "disagree.")

[KindredMAC]

How about a slight form factor change? I know I could use a refresh in my cup.

How about a slightly smaller tower, maybe alittle bit bigger than the G4's but a tad smaller than the current G5's? Maybe a redesign of the front grille so that a second optical drive can be added? How about an added storage bay for a HD?

Does anyone think that we might see a minor, and remember I have said MINOR, blend of Pro and Consumer like the Mac mini with alittle white poly on the tower? Think about it, they have yet to bring out an Aluminum version of the keyboard and mouse and while I love them, I think that the all white periph's hooked up to the Silver Power Mac looks goofy.

Just some thoughts and it's more fun to speculate since people keep retracting rumors left and right....
Here are my personal thoughts:

Single 2.0 Ghz G5 Power Mac
512MB RAM (4GB Max)
64MB Video Card
SuperDrive
80GB HD
3 PCI Slots
$1499

Dual 2.0 Ghz G5 Power Mac
512MB RAM (4GB Max)
64MB Video Card
SuperDrive
80GB HD
3 PCI Slots
$1999

Dual 2.5 Ghz G5 Power Mac
512MB RAM (8GB Max)
128MB Video Card
SuperDrive
160GB HD
3 PCI Express Slots
$2499

Dual 3.0 Ghz G5 Power Mac
512MB RAM (64GB Max)
128MB Video Card
SuperDrive
160GB HD
3 PCI Express Slots
$2999

[fpnc]

All the benchmarks I've read (four or five independent sources) indicate that the dual-core Pentiums perform very well on optimized, threaded tasks. And the dual Athlon (AMD) benchmarks are roughly in the same ballpark. So, you can consider Intel the "weakest" but it still will offer significant performance improvements in content creation which has traditionally been one of the strong points of the Power Macs.

I've got to take my hat off to both Intel and AMD, they been able to move to multi-core chips faster than anyone was expecting. And you've got to ask, where is IBM and Apple? No one knows for sure, but the existing Power Macs are certainly reaching the end of their run as the premier video and image editing platform.

Actually, it looks like the weakest dual-core processor out there:

http://hardmac.com/niouzcontenu.php?date=2005-04-5

First article on the page.

[iGuy]

You want PCI Express, but additional hard drive space inside the case is lower on your list of priorities and FW800 external HDDs suffice for you. That's pretty inconsistent....

Finally, why would you criticize someone's English reading comprehension and misspell a really easy word in the same post? ("dissagree" instead of "disagree.")

It would appear that your reading comprehension could use some work. Where did I provide a list of 'priorities'? There's nothing inconsistent in stating that additional HD space inside the case is less meaningful to me than PCI Express and that external FW800 drives suffice for my purposes.

Perhaps, just perhaps, it just might be that HD space inside the case is less meaningful to me because external FW800 HDs suffice for my purposes. But I can see where that would require a relatively high level of reading comprehension.

As for the typo, I make lots of those. Allways will. :)

~iGuy

[arn]

Arn, does this mean that there will be no new PowerMacs announcements next week at all, or that there may be new PowerMacs, just that the specific specs in the page 2 report should be ignored? Thanks!

just means the specs aren't reliable. so whether or not pmacs will be released or not is still up in the air.

arn

[fpnc]

blitzkrieg79, if you haven't done so yet, take a trip over to the Arstechnica web site and do some reading in the Macintosh open forum ( http://episteme.arstechnica.com/6/ubb.x?a=frm&s=50009562&f=8300945231 ). If you check out some of the links on G5 and 970 architecture and performance I think you'll see that your expectations on POWER5, SMT, and dual-core are much more optimistic than what most others believe.

In my opinion, we'll be lucky to see anything better than a dual-core 970 at around 2.5GHz. And that chip won't include POWER5 features or SMT (that much is known for sure). Other than dual-core, about the only thing the 970MP brings is a 1MB L2 cache for each core (current 970FX has 512KB). The 970MP will be a very nice upgrade, but I don't think it will allow Apple to leap to the front of the dual-core "parade." True, a twin dual-core 970MP would be a powerful performer, but it should also command a truly titanic price (unless Apple was willing to cut their margins to the bone, which I don't think will happen).

I, for one, believe that the next release of the Powermac will be a significant one meaning that it wont be just a MHZ increase but even such things as dual cores, on chip memory controller, increased cache sizes... Anyway, I pretty much have as much inisghts about future Apple products as most of the people here BUT since that Think Secret lawsuit I think Apple is teasing rumor sites with false info, I wouldnt even be surprised if that the recent IBM documents regarding the 970MP were done on purpose by Apple, I know it sounds silly but why not? considering that there has been too many leaks associated with Apple product releases... Anyway, back to my prediction as I got nothing better to do at this fine hour, people on this forum tend to forget that 970 is a derivative of a Power4 class processor, originally Apple and IBM were thinking of releasing the 970 as a dual from the get go but heat and size (cost) issues kept it stripped... Now, Steve Jobs promised a 3GHZ machine withing a year of the original G5 release but Apple and IBM came out short big time, but the entire processor industry has been stale recently anyway... So, why would Apple and IBM invest their money in something that clearly isnt on par with their expectations... And thats where the Power5 derivative comes in, a totally new structure, dual cores SMTs , better scalability, 40% clock for clock performance improvement over Power4, and from the reading about it it supports simultaneous OS support and isnt this what the rumor sites have been mumbling about for the past couple of months? To make this short, Apple is on a roll right now, they updated the Powermac line basically once over two years (went from 2 to 2.5ghz) so we will see Power5 derivatives faster then some people might think, I just dont see any snse of Apple investing any money in 970 when they supposedly worked with IBM on the Power5 from scratch and Power5 has been out for a year now... Anyway, I dont know when the next Powermac revision will take place but its safe to say it will be between NAB and Mac World SF, all I know is that a lot of people will be positively surprised...

[daveL]

All the benchmarks I've read (four or five independent sources) indicate that the dual-core Pentiums perform very well on optimized, threaded tasks. And the dual Athlon (AMD) benchmarks are roughly in the same ballpark. So, you can consider Intel the "weakest" but it still will offer significant performance improvements in content creation which has traditionally been one of the strong points of the Power Macs.

I've got to take my hat off to both Intel and AMD, they been able to move to multi-core chips faster than anyone was expecting. And you've got to ask, where is IBM and Apple? No one knows for sure, but the existing Power Macs are certainly reaching the end of their run as the premier video and image editing platform.
Whatever you'd like to think. IBM and Sun have been getting ~70-75% scaling on their dual-core offerings (IBM has shipped dual-core CPUs for years, Sun for a year). If Intel, at 50%, is good for you, fine. My point is that they just wanted to get "dual-core" out the door, even if it's junk, compared to the field. BTW, all the other dual-core processors are 64-bit, while Intel isn't. But, if I were you, I'd buy a truck load.

[remingtonhill]

All of that COULD add up to the 5G iPod at WWDC or three months later at Macworld Paris. I think we'll see color standardized, models at 20GB/40GB/60GB with some kind of BT or WiFi feature. Wireless headset?

Airport Express is one year old this month. Maybe an update here? Seems to go along with a BT/WiFi iPod. . . .

.

Anything would be welcome over those god-awful standard iPod earbuds.

[~loserman~]

Actually, the G5 has a fast FSB already. And as for PCI Express, what would you be adding to the PowerMac that would work better on PCI Express? *curious*

What I really want in addition to the dual cores is room for at least one more hard disk inside the PowerMac case.

Here is the real kicker.
PCI Express is not only faster but it is cheaper to implement for Motherboard manufacturers.
Initially PCI Express cards will be more expensive than their PCI-X counterparts for 2 reasons. Limited numbers being manufactured and because only very high bandwidth hungry cards really need them at the moment.
I fully expect the new towers WILL add PCI Express for video.
I also expect you will see 2 PCI Express slots. 1 used for video and the other left for other expansion purposes.

I expect the next rev of Xserves to have PCI Express since technologies like Infiniband and 10 Gig Ethernet require them for full bandwidth.

[ClimbingTheLog]

. . . which most likely means someone in Las Vegas (setting up for NAB) or elsewhere snapped a picture of the new machines (or their boxes). MR can't publish the picture because it needs to protect its sources and methods. :)

Unfortunately, we must concur. Unfortunate, because if the real specs were known to be 4x4GHzDP CPU's in a transparent aluminum case, well, who could resist running with that scoop?

So, I'm expecting to be disappointed. Bugger.

[ClimbingTheLog]

Both AMD and Intel are announcing shipment of their dual-core CPU's and chipsets this week. Not systems yet, mind you, they're announcing that they're going to be shipping parts.

There is no real rush to announce part shipments, since only industry people are going to be buying them and they know the schedules already. Motherboard/machine availability is more intestesting.

But.... let's assume Intel and AMD have better corporate spies than MacRumors has and that they're fiercely competive and always want to be first and hate a particular thorn in their side that's always claiming firsts that they'd rather stake. Now, let's reconsider those press releases.

[fpnc]

KindredMAC, your Power Mac price points and configurations are certainly modest, but I expect that you are closer to the mark than most of the rumors and predictions that are being made. The only tweak (or hope) that I would make is to add the possibility of a dual-core (970MP) processor to the mix. Thus, instead of the dual-processor 970FX models (as we have today) we may see dual-core 970MP units instead. That would allow Apple to offer a lower-priced, "dual" configuration in the 2GHz range and higher performing twin-processor, dual-core units at the the very top-end price.

So, given your list:

Single 2.0 GHz G5 Power Mac
512MB RAM (4GB Max)
64MB Video Card on AGP
SuperDrive
120GB HD
3 PCI Slots
$1499

**note the following is a one-processor, dual-core system**
**thus, it offers two cores total (1 processors x 2 cores)**
Single-processor, dual-core 2.0 GHz G5 Power Mac
512MB RAM (8GB Max)
64MB Video Card on PCI-Express (replaces AGP)
SuperDrive
120GB HD
3 PCI-X Slots
$1999

**note the following are dual-processor, dual-core systems**
**thus, they offer four cores total (2 processors x 2 cores)**

Dual-processor, dual-core 2.0 GHz G5 Power Mac
512MB RAM (16GB Max)
64MB Video Card on PCI-Express (replaces AGP)
SuperDrive
200GB HD
3 PCI-X Slots
$2499

Dual-processor, dual-core 2.5 GHz G5 Power Mac
512MB RAM (16GB Max)
128MB Video Card on PCI-Express (replaces AGP)
SuperDrive
200GB HD
3 PCI-X Slots
$2999


How about a slight form factor change? I know I could use a refresh in my cup.

How about a slightly smaller tower, maybe alittle bit bigger than the G4's but a tad smaller than the current G5's? Maybe a redesign of the front grille so that a second optical drive can be added? How about an added storage bay for a HD?

Does anyone think that we might see a minor, and remember I have said MINOR, blend of Pro and Consumer like the Mac mini with alittle white poly on the tower? Think about it, they have yet to bring out an Aluminum version of the keyboard and mouse and while I love them, I think that the all white periph's hooked up to the Silver Power Mac looks goofy.

Just some thoughts and it's more fun to speculate since people keep retracting rumors left and right....
Here are my personal thoughts:

Single 2.0 Ghz G5 Power Mac
512MB RAM (4GB Max)
64MB Video Card
SuperDrive
80GB HD
3 PCI Slots
$1499

Dual 2.0 Ghz G5 Power Mac
512MB RAM (4GB Max)
64MB Video Card
SuperDrive
80GB HD
3 PCI Slots
$1999

Dual 2.5 Ghz G5 Power Mac
512MB RAM (8GB Max)
128MB Video Card
SuperDrive
160GB HD
3 PCI Express Slots
$2499

Dual 3.0 Ghz G5 Power Mac
512MB RAM (64GB Max)
128MB Video Card
SuperDrive
160GB HD
3 PCI Express Slots
$2999

[~loserman~]

All the benchmarks I've read (four or five independent sources) indicate that the dual-core Pentiums perform very well on optimized, threaded tasks. And the dual Athlon (AMD) benchmarks are roughly in the same ballpark. So, you can consider Intel the "weakest" but it still will offer significant performance improvements in content creation which has traditionally been one of the strong points of the Power Macs.

I've got to take my hat off to both Intel and AMD, they been able to move to multi-core chips faster than anyone was expecting. And you've got to ask, where is IBM and Apple? No one knows for sure

Was this a joke?

The Intel Dual Cores in the Xeon Line are a very poor implementation. No internal crossbar for processor to processor communications. They also will be crippled and starved for memory bandwidth.
In contrast AMD designed the Opteron line for dual core from the start. They already included the crossbar in the CPU and were just waiting on their 90nm process to be ready so that they could add the second core.
Unlike the Intel offering they included 2 memory controllers on die which allows ea processor dedicated memory bandwidth.
When someone tells you about benchmarks on undelivered CPUs its time to consider the sources and wonder where their paychecks are coming from.
Independent source hmmm I doubt it.

As to the IBM/Apple comment, IBM has been producing dual core CPUs since 2001. Their Power 4 CPU is dual core.
A scaled back version of this CPU the PPC970 is what Apple had IBM build for them. The PPC970MP has already been sampled and MAY be in production right now. Apple and IBM are both tight lipped at times with the former being extremely so.
If I was a betting man, I would bet on seeing a dual core PowerMac announced at WWDC.

[fpnc]

Whatever you'd like to think. IBM and Sun have been getting ~70-75% scaling on their dual-core offerings (IBM has shipped dual-core CPUs for years, Sun for a year). If Intel, at 50%, is good for you, fine. My point is that they just wanted to get "dual-core" out the door, even if it's junk, compared to the field. BTW, all the other dual-core processors are 64-bit, while Intel isn't. But, if I were you, I'd buy a truck load.

IBM POWER and Sun Sparc processors aren't used in desktop systems (they are server/workstation class systems at vastly higher price points). That means for the price of one dual-core POWER or UltraSparc server I could buy a "truck load" of dual-core Pentiums. ;)

I don't see how a high-end server architecture like POWER or Sparc fits into a discussion of what Apple, Dell and others might introduce at NAB. In that sense, I'm pretty certain that everyone else on this thread is referring to the rumored dual-core 970MP, the dual-core Pentium, and the dual-core Athlon 64 (AMD).

And finally, Intel's dual-core Pentiums are 64-bit enabled (using Intel's EM64T technology), this means when a 64-bit application is run on a 64-bit version of Windows the processor uses 64-bit addresses and has full access to 64-bit hardware registers.

Here is what Intel says about this:
Intel® Extended Memory 64 Technology, or Intel® EM64T is an enhancement to Intel's IA-32 architecture. The enhancement allows the processor to run newly written 64-bit code and access larger amounts of memory.

Intel's IA-32 processors with Intel® EM64T have 16 General Purpose Registers (GPR's) and 16 XMM registers. The GPR's and XMM registers are 64-bits and 128-bits in width, respectively, in processors with Intel® EM64T. The additional registers are only used by applications running in 64-bit mode. IA-32 processors without Intel® EM64T have 8 GPR's and 8 XMM registers. The GPR's and XMM registers are 32-bits and 128-bits in width, respectively, in processors without Intel® EM64T.

[Lorenna Bobbit]

Something else that is interesting: ATI's website has listed the x800 XT as out of stock for a very long time, and it seems that today, the day of the Tiger announcement, they're suddenly back in stock. Don't know if this is something we should read into, but it sure is funny timing...
Maybe Apple had largely bought out their x800's for the next rev. of PM's (after all, mac x800's have been notoriously hard to find recently), and only now is ATI finally catching up.

EDIT: okay, now this gets strange... the ati radeon 9800 is no longer listed as a BTO option for PMs in the apple store... its just the standard 9600 or the Geforce 6800. is this a deal made with Nvidia, or a sign that the x800 xt will be available BTO in a matter of days?

I've noticed teh ati x800 shown in a few spots on the new Tiger page, which makes me think it will most likely become a build to order option, which would be great.

I think it really only makes sense for new powermacs to be released at NAB and given the comparitively long wait for an update, I really can't see the sense in apple doing it any other way.

OS X is hands down supperior and way ahead of windows so i don't think apple minds showing it off during development because they know they are safely way ahead. The hardware comparison is where the battle really lies. Since Jobs has come back, there has been a lot of 'pissing contests' going on with the 'first personal super computer', worlds fastest PC, first 64bit... Jobs obviously likes to be out in front with breaking new hardware ground and seems to always be very secretive about it until its officially announced. It seems likely that dual core will be announced, the technology is on the verge and i'm sure apple is planning on beating everyone out of the gates... and letting everyone know they did, and NAB is the best place to do that.

[AidenShaw]

this means when a 64-bit application is run on a 64-bit version of Windows the processor uses 64-bit addresses and has full access to 64-bit hardware registers.

And Windows will have 64-bit graphics and GUI libraries - no "command line" restriction like OSX 10.4 ....
_____________________________

In some ways, these "Intel dual-core is junk" stories are reminiscent of other techno-hype myths from recent years

Claim: G3 will rule - RISC is king, CISC is dead
Truth: After a strong early start by RISC, CISC won the race

Claim: G4 AltiVec is a GFLOP supercomputer
Truth: P4 steadily increased its lead, except for a few sweetheart AltiVec apps (like BLAST)

Claim: G5 has super bus, great memory, will kill the Pentium
Truth: G5 was matched pretty evenly with the P4 (except on really AltiVec-friendly code), but has failed to keep up and is now lagging

Claim: (The initial) dual-core Intel architecture is junk, AMD/970MP much better
Truth: We'll have to see real systems from all three to understand if the claim is true, but it's far too early to claim victory.

The AMD approach looks better on paper, but so do the arguments for RISC vs CISC and for the 970's memory bus. Real world performance will vary by application - depending on how much synchronization is needed between threads on the two processor cores.

Note that Intel will be pricing dual-cores very similar to single cores, so even a 50% boost will give better price-performance.

And, by the way, if the AMD architecture is great - doesn't that mean that Windows will have a great chip? I don't understand Mac people rooting for AMD, unless their dislike for Intel is stronger than their common sense!

[~loserman~]

blitzkrieg79, if you haven't done so yet, take a trip over to the Arstechnica web site and do some reading in the Macintosh open forum ( http://episteme.arstechnica.com/6/ubb.x?a=frm&s=50009562&f=8300945231 ). If you check out some of the links on G5 and 970 architecture and performance I think you'll see that your expectations on POWER5, SMT, and dual-core are much more optimistic than what most others believe.

In my opinion, we'll be lucky to see anything better than a dual-core 970 at around 2.5GHz. And that chip won't include POWER5 features or SMT (that much is known for sure). Other than dual-core, about the only thing the 970MP brings is a 1MB L2 cache for each core (current 970FX has 512KB). The 970MP will be a very nice upgrade, but I don't think it will allow Apple to leap to the front of the dual-core "parade." True, a twin dual-core 970MP would be a powerful performer, but it should also command a truly titanic price (unless Apple was willing to cut their margins to the bone, which I don't think will happen).

I agree.
I would say that the price point for dual core 970MPs should not be too much higher than what we see in the PowerMac line today.
The simple reason is quantity of CPUs being sold.
IBM's current POWER 4 and POWER 5 CPUs run in the range of 5k to 10k per processor. The main reason they are so expensive is because IBM just doesn't manufacture/sell that many of them.
Apple's order for dual core 970MPs would be between 500 to a 1000 times as many CPUs as IBM currently produces of POWER 4 & 5 combined.
Quantity drives down price.
I would expect to see a single dual core offered as the low end PM which will out perform the current lineup and we should see 2 dual core machines coming in as the top of the line models.
I would expect a difference in price between the bottom end machine and the top end being as much as $2000
My best guess would be we might see PMs with 2 dual core CPUs in the $4500 price range with the bottom end somewhere around $2000 to $2500

[Rod Rod]

It would appear that your reading comprehension could use some work. Where did I provide a list of 'priorities'? There's nothing inconsistent in stating that additional HD space inside the case is less meaningful to me than PCI Express and that external FW800 drives suffice for my purposes.

Perhaps, just perhaps, it just might be that HD space inside the case is less meaningful to me because external FW800 HDs suffice for my purposes. But I can see where that would require a relatively high level of reading comprehension.

As for the typo, I make lots of those. Allways will. :)

~iGuy
Ok, so "less meaningful to me" is not the same as "not as high a priority compared to what I'm saying is more meaningful to me." That's an interesting world you live in. You state your priorities (http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=priority), and then doublespeak your way in and out of the statement. :)

[CmdrLaForge]

Ya it also seems to be that the updates are also nothing special. Come on Apple... you need to step it up! I will work for you when I get out of college!!

Unfortunatly you are right about this as well. At least for the PBs.

Cheers

[fpnc]

~loserman~, I think you should read more carefully, I was referring to the Athlon dual-core (and I clearly said so). I've said nothing about the AMD Opteron and I've never mentioned the Opteron until this very message. For that matter, I've never mentioned the Xeon either. As I noted earlier (to daveL), I'm certain that everyone else here is talking about the 970MP and the competition for the 970MP is the dual-core Pentium and dual-core Athlon. It is not some high-end server based upon the Opteron, POWER, or Sparc processor line.

In any case, if either you or daveL want to discuss specific details I'd have to suggest that you should at least start with a careful reading of what others have actually said. Both of you have reported some correct information, but was it really relevant? I think it would be nice if we could stick more directly to the thread topics and not try to bring high-end server and exotic architecture details into what should be a discussion on the PowerPC, NAB announcements, and the Power Mac's logical competition.
If I was a betting man, I would bet on seeing a dual core PowerMac announced at WWDC.At a minimum, I really hope you are right, since I'm not very optimistic concerning Power Mac announcements at NAB. WWDC is probably as "late" as Apple/IBM should be with the next Power Mac update.

And now a few of the "problems":
The PPC970 has already been sampled and MAY be in production right now.The PPC970 shipped almost two years ago, that's what most people refer to as the original Power Mac G5. The current G5s use the 970FX. I think you're being a bit sloppy in your writing because I guess you meant to say PPC970MP or just 970MP. I'm certain you know the difference, but to avoid future confusion you should both write what you're thinking and read (more carefully) what others are writing.

And this:
When someone tells you about benchmarks on undelivered CPUs its time to consider the sources and wonder where their paychecks are coming from. Independent source hmmm I doubt it.If you actually read my post you'd see that I said "dual Athlon (AMD)" and "dual-core Pentium." Benchmarks on both of those processors are all over the web. In fact, the Pentium dual-core will probably ship at NAB and dual-core Athlon systems are also scheduled to be available this month. However, dual-core Opterons aren't due until later this summer (I guess that is what you were trying to talk about).

Here maybe this will help:

the PPC970 is not the same as the dual-core 970MP
the Opteron is not the same as an Athlon
the POWER is not the same as the PowerPC or PPC970
the Xeon is not the same as the dual-core Pentium
the Opteron, POWER, Sparc, Itanium, and to some extent even the Xeon are not in the same class of products as the G5 (PPC970), Athlon, and Pentium.

Finally, I apologize to everyone else in this thread for my detailed responses to ~loserman~ and daveL. I'm sure most don't want to wade through these small technical details. In any case, I doubt that I will be responding to any more comments in this thread from either ~loserman~ or daveL. That is, unless they make a truly misleading or incorrect statement that I considered relevant to the "PowerMacs at NAB" topic. ;)

And my original post:
All the benchmarks I've read (four or five independent sources) indicate that the dual-core Pentiums perform very well on optimized, threaded tasks. And the dual Athlon (AMD) benchmarks are roughly in the same ballpark. So, you can consider Intel the "weakest" but it still will offer significant performance improvements in content creation which has traditionally been one of the strong points of the Power Macs.

I've got to take my hat off to both Intel and AMD, they['ve] been able to move to multi-core chips faster than anyone was expecting. And you've got to ask, where is IBM and Apple? No one knows for sure, but the existing Power Macs are certainly reaching the end of their run as the premier video and image editing platform.
To which ~loserman~ responded:
Was this a joke?

The Intel Dual Cores in the Xeon Line are a very poor implementation. No internal crossbar for processor to processor communications. They also will be crippled and starved for memory bandwidth.
In contrast AMD designed the Opteron line for dual core from the start. They already included the crossbar in the CPU and were just waiting on their 90nm process to be ready so that they could add the second core.
Unlike the Intel offering they included 2 memory controllers on die which allows ea processor dedicated memory bandwidth.
When someone tells you about benchmarks on undelivered CPUs its time to consider the sources and wonder where their paychecks are coming from.
Independent source hmmm I doubt it.

As to the IBM/Apple comment, IBM has been producing dual core CPUs since 2001. Their Power 4 CPU is dual core.
A scaled back version of this CPU the PPC970 is what Apple had IBM build for them. The PPC970 has already been sampled and MAY be in production right now. Apple and IBM are both tight lipped at times with the former being extremely so.
If I was a betting man, I would bet on seeing a dual core PowerMac announced at WWDC.EDIT: Tried to remove some of the extra blank spacing in the message (this is getting too long).

[autrefois]

If PMs update at NAM, I think all of the computers will have been updated in the last six months except for the iMac. (Right?)

What's that, Apple's releasing the new PM's in 'nam before the US?!? :D

[Rod Rod]

What's that, Apple's releasing the new PM's in 'nam before the US?!? :D
Well, at least he didn't write "NAMBLA" in place of "NAB."

[broken_keyboard]

There's new NAB info on AppleInsider now...

[CmdrLaForge]

I don't think so. I would expect a new AlBook revision in August/September. While it would theoretically be a short cycle (for Rev. Es), keep in mind that even if PB Gs are announced at MWSF 06, they won't ship until February.

If new PBs are announced around MWSF 06 and ship in Feb then it would be the new one year between updates cycle! Absolutly possible.

I thought that the last PB update should have been much earlier, but it wasn't. And the update was very disappointing. After nearly a year still the same graphics, slightly faster CPU and some new gimmicks.

[CmdrLaForge]

There's new NAB info on AppleInsider now...

I cannot see whats new there ? Beside that they have no information about PMs.

[G.Kirby]

I too am ready for the purchase. I contacted the reseller I always buy from. (I send them a lot of business.) Anyway, for what it is worth, they do not know anything about any new Powermac updates. I know there is a limit to what they say, but they always take care of me so to speak. I just hope they are wrong this time. :(

I don't think they would know anyway. I went to a demo day for FCPro 2 that was being run by our local authorized Apple seller and Tech centre. The very next day FCPro 3 was released, when I spoke to them about this they had no idea this was to happen.

[geeyesgee]

Would they announce new PM's right after they have redesigned their home page to promote Tiger release on the 29th? I have a feeling no. It looks like June - or at least my gut is telling me that.

It's just a freaking web page for chrissake. Some people here are starting to sound like Apple's in the business of manufacturing surprises instead of computers. What good is a new operating system without newer, faster computers to run them on?

The mac mini came out the same time as the ipod shuffle and had to share publicity and homepage time.

[Platform]

No one said PowerMacs have to replace Tiger as the main ad. The little iPod and Mac mini ads could stand to be replaced.

Yes...then it all fits nicley in :rolleyes: ;)

[fpnc]

In my opinion, Aidenshaw has made some good points (see quote below). I don't agree with every word, but it's a realistic and fairly balance report. However, I don't agree with that last comment about "Mac people rooting for AMD." I think some are just saying that AMD (in general) makes better designed and/or better performing processors than does Intel. There is some truth in that, and even if you are a "Mac person" you can acknowledge what you see as a "truth" in the PC-side of the world.
And Windows will have 64-bit graphics and GUI libraries - no "command line" restriction like OSX 10.4 ....
_____________________________

In some ways, these "Intel dual-core is junk" stories are reminiscent of other techno-hype myths from recent years

Claim: G3 will rule - RISC is king, CISC is dead
Truth: After a strong early start by RISC, CISC won the race

Claim: G4 AltiVec is a GFLOP supercomputer
Truth: P4 steadily increased its lead, except for a few sweetheart AltiVec apps (like BLAST)

Claim: G5 has super bus, great memory, will kill the Pentium
Truth: G5 was matched pretty evenly with the P4 (except on really AltiVec-friendly code), but has failed to keep up and is now lagging

Claim: (The initial) dual-core Intel architecture is junk, AMD/970MP much better
Truth: We'll have to see real systems from all three to understand if the claim is true, but it's far too early to claim victory.

The AMD approach looks better on paper, but so do the arguments for RISC vs CISC and for the 970's memory bus. Real world performance will vary by application - depending on how much synchronization is needed between threads on the two processor cores.

Note that Intel will be pricing dual-cores very similar to single cores, so even a 50% boost will give better price-performance.

And, by the way, if the AMD architecture is great - doesn't that mean that Windows will have a great chip? I don't understand Mac people rooting for AMD, unless their dislike for Intel is stronger than their common sense!

[rockthecasbah]

"These liquid-cooling systems, which were designed by Delphi, manufactured in Mexico, and shipped to Apple's manufacturing facilities in Asia, have been the topic of concern at several Apple exec meetings.

According to reliable sources, Delphi only guarantees the cooling systems to Apple for a period of 2.5 years, though the expected life-span of each unit is rumored to be closer to 2 years. Sources say the lifespan is limited by potenial leakage of the thermal conductive fluid inside the systems. Apple reportedly fears the fluid could cause damage to consumer's valuables or expensive carpets, which would leave the company exposted to potential lawsuits." - Apple Insider (http://appleinsider.com/article.php?id=993)
.................................................................................................... .............................
That concern worries me. While I am sure the systems would run wonderfully if they have gone into production, this could start a new rumor problem with faulty parts similar to the iPod battery myths. I know people that are still afraid to buy iPods because of that "dirty secret" campaign. If the Power Macs have similar types of breakdown issues, this could really provide a lethal blow to Apple's craftsmenship in the eyes of the customer. :eek:

[fpnc]

I found that liquid-cooling warning a bit hard to believe. I'm sure there is some concern. But, consider how long the liquid-cooling systems last in the typical automobile. I've used several cars for more than a decade without a single cooling problem (as I'm sure many millions of people have). And the hot/cold, dirty, and high-vibration environment in a car would seem to be a lot more of a problem than in a water-cooled PC. Accidents and defects will happen, however, so I'm sure some failures will eventually occur. But, I woulnd't be too worried.

"These liquid-cooling systems, which were designed by Delphi, manufactured in Mexico, and shipped to Apple's manufacturing facilities in Asia, have been the topic of concern at several Apple exec meetings.

According to reliable sources, Delphi only guarantees the cooling systems to Apple for a period of 2.5 years, though the expected life-span of each unit is rumored to be closer to 2 years. Sources say the lifespan is limited by potenial leakage of the thermal conductive fluid inside the systems. Apple reportedly fears the fluid could cause damage to consumer's valuables or expensive carpets, which would leave the company exposted to potential lawsuits." - Apple Insider (http://appleinsider.com/article.php?id=993)
.................................................................................................... .............................
That concern worries me. While I am sure the systems would run wonderfully if they have gone into production, this could start a new rumor problem with faulty parts similar to the iPod battery myths. I know people that are still afraid to buy iPods because of that "dirty secret" campaign. If the Power Macs have similar types of breakdown issues, this could really provide a lethal blow to Apple's craftsmenship in the eyes of the customer. :eek:

[Mac-Xpert]

"These liquid-cooling systems, which were designed by Delphi, manufactured in Mexico, and shipped to Apple's manufacturing facilities in Asia, have been the topic of concern at several Apple exec meetings.

According to reliable sources, Delphi only guarantees the cooling systems to Apple for a period of 2.5 years, though the expected life-span of each unit is rumored to be closer to 2 years. Sources say the lifespan is limited by potenial leakage of the thermal conductive fluid inside the systems. Apple reportedly fears the fluid could cause damage to consumer's valuables or expensive carpets, which would leave the company exposted to potential lawsuits." - Apple Insider (http://appleinsider.com/article.php?id=993)

That concern worries me. .....

This worries me too. Looking under the G5 I don't see anything yet. I guess I'm safe for now....phieuwww.. ;)

[iGary]

Well after reading that the Page 2 report is unreliable...

I have no idea now. :confused:

I'll be buying one at the end of the year regardless, I'd just like to see a PC kicking G5 from Apple again.

[pgre]

Well after reading that the Page 2 report is unreliable...


Does anyone know why the Page 2 report is unreliable. ?

Do we think this means no new Powermacs at NAB or it just means the specs mentioned in the Page 2 report are unreliable.

I know we are all clutching at straws.. I am going to wait a week before ordering my new PowerMac.. just in case.

[devman]

I found that liquid-cooling warning a bit hard to believe. I'm sure there is some concern. But, consider how long the liquid-cooling systems last in the typical automobile. I've used several cars for more than a decade without a single cooling problem (as I'm sure many millions of people have). And the hot/cold, dirty, and high-vibration environment in a car would seem to be a lot more of a problem than in a water-cooled PC. Accidents and defects will happen, however, so I'm sure some failures will eventually occur. But, I woulnd't be too worried.

Well said. I quite agree. Liquid cooling (in many forms and in other computers) is not new and is well understood.

[iGary]

Does anyone know why the Page 2 report is unreliable. ?

Do we think this means no new Powermacs at NAB or it just means the specs mentioned in the Page 2 report are unreliable.

I know we are all clutching at straws.. I am going to wait a week before ordering my new PowerMac.. just in case.

Dunno, Arn interjected about it a few pages back.

[ts1973]

KindredMAC, your Power Mac price points and configurations are certainly modest, but I expect that you are closer to the mark than most of the rumors and predictions that are being made. The only tweak (or hope) that I would make is to add the possibility of a dual-core (970MP) processor to the mix. Thus, instead of the dual-processor 970FX models (as we have today) we may see dual-core 970MP units instead. That would allow Apple to offer a lower-priced, "dual" configuration in the 2GHz range and higher performing twin-processor, dual-core units at the the very top-end price.

So, given your list:

Single 2.0 GHz G5 Power Mac
512MB RAM (4GB Max)
64MB Video Card on AGP
SuperDrive
120GB HD
3 PCI Slots
$1499

**note the following is a one-processor, dual-core system**
**thus, it offers two cores total (1 processors x 2 cores)**
Single-processor, dual-core 2.0 GHz G5 Power Mac
512MB RAM (8GB Max)
64MB Video Card on PCI-Express (replaces AGP)
SuperDrive
120GB HD
3 PCI-X Slots
$1999

**note the following are dual-processor, dual-core systems**
**thus, they offer four cores total (2 processors x 2 cores)**

Dual-processor, dual-core 2.0 GHz G5 Power Mac
512MB RAM (16GB Max)
64MB Video Card on PCI-Express (replaces AGP)
SuperDrive
200GB HD
3 PCI-X Slots
$2499

Dual-processor, dual-core 2.5 GHz G5 Power Mac
512MB RAM (16GB Max)
128MB Video Card on PCI-Express (replaces AGP)
SuperDrive
200GB HD
3 PCI-X Slots
$2999

[begin dream]Looks like a nice prediction, I'm hoping for something like this too.
16Gb max ram, even for the dual core dual proecessor machines, seems a bit of a stretch though. And I don't believe in a 2,5Ghz dual core machine, they'll top out at 2Ghz, and still sell it for $2999[/end dream]

I'm afraid we'll have to wait for WWDC though.

[blitzkrieg79]

blitzkrieg79, if you haven't done so yet, take a trip over to the Arstechnica web site and do some reading in the Macintosh open forum ( http://episteme.arstechnica.com/6/ubb.x?a=frm&s=50009562&f=8300945231 ). If you check out some of the links on G5 and 970 architecture and performance I think you'll see that your expectations on POWER5, SMT, and dual-core are much more optimistic than what most others believe.

In my opinion, we'll be lucky to see anything better than a dual-core 970 at around 2.5GHz. And that chip won't include POWER5 features or SMT (that much is known for sure). Other than dual-core, about the only thing the 970MP brings is a 1MB L2 cache for each core (current 970FX has 512KB). The 970MP will be a very nice upgrade, but I don't think it will allow Apple to leap to the front of the dual-core "parade." True, a twin dual-core 970MP would be a powerful performer, but it should also command a truly titanic price (unless Apple was willing to cut their margins to the bone, which I don't think will happen).

Well, I have always been a rather optimistic person... Anyway, my point is (and I know its a lot harder to do than to say) that Apple is on a roll right now, the current G5 seems to me has disappointed Apples expectations as it seemed basically one upgrade over the past 2 years where AMD and Intel had a bit more of a success... So I know everyone knows it and especially Apple knows it that since they r on a roll right now, wouldnt it be nice to really shock the crowd with something totally unexpected? Yeah I know I am a dreamer but thats what being an Apple fanatic is all about LOL but anyway, from the business point of view, as I suspect and expect that Apple has had their hands on Power5 since its beginning as opposed to the Power4 tag along, why would anyone invest in a technology that doesnt seem to meet Apples expectations? 2.5ghz require massive cooling technologies and the current single G5 even at lower clock speeds cant seem to find themselves in Notebooks, all of it is just speculations and high expectations and forums on Ars arent helping me with anything as they are just rumors and speculations as is the 970MP because it hasnt been officially announced by IBM so maybe even that processor doesnt even exist and maybe it wont exist... and yeah dual cores and increased cache sizes while lowering the processors temperature are nice additions indeed...

[AidenShaw]

This worries me too. Looking under the G5 I don't see anything yet. I guess I'm safe for now....phieuwww.. ;)

http://www.repairclinic.com/dbimages/00000050/00014142.jpg

Washing Machine Water Spill / Leak Preventer Floor Tray

only $29.95 at

http://www.repairclinic.com/0081.asp?RccPartID=2800&Acc=1


;) ;)

[Sunrunner]

Some research into Apples presence at NAB reveals some interesting factoids that may influence any announcement, as well as some other interesting details.

To begin, Apple has taken two adjoining exhibitor spaces at this years NAB (Booths SL1902 & SL1914). These are in the lower south hall of the exhibition center, and the combined space is going to give Apple a lot of room to show off new stuff. The schueduled frieght move-in date for these two booths appears to have been 11 April. This is the date the convention managers want the exhibitor to have all their stuff into the space.

While interesting, this does not neccesarily mean that any new announcement items Apple may announce are already present there at the convention center; it is likely that Apples NAB convention rep. would use this date to move in significant infrastructure and signage, that sort of thing (which could potentially give some tipoffs to what is in the offering bin at this years conference). Exhibitors are free to move in some items after their scheduled date, and it would be likely that any new announcements would be brought into the exhibition hall the morning of (the 18th of April) in nondescript packaging. Though if anyone wants to go down the the Las Vegas Convention Center and rummage around, they may find some interesting stuff... ;)

In the case of a PowerMac revision, even unpacking the new hardware and setting it up would likey not make much of a difference, as the next PM revision will almost certainly have a nearly identical look and form factor to the current models. What Apple CANNOT do, however, is let the exhibition hall open to the public before any new hardware is announced. The first thing any self-respecting Mac-ite would do in the exhibition hall faced with a PM at Apples booth would be to check the system info, and so all anouncements will be made before the 18th.

Also, while Apple has no openly scheduled presentations or keynotes at the NAB conference this year, there are a couple of keynotes that Steve Jobs would want to cut the legs out from under by announcing significant goodies before they occure and stealing away the buzz. These include the NAB MultiMedia World Keynote on April 18th (10:45AM-12:00PM) by AMD CEO Hector Ruiz, and a presentation about transitioning to HD on April 19th (3:45PM-5:00PM) by David Krall, the President/CEO of Avid.

It is also notable that the underling theme for much of this years convention is HD, and many of the events and presentations are centered around it. It would thusly make a lot of sense for Apple to announce a slew of hardware/software items that piggyback off of that theme, and lends some credence to the idea that Apple will be announcing new "HD" software titles and new hardware to run it all on. Given the influencing factors surrounding it all, I definitely peg significant software announcements, as well as PM updates, between the evening of April 15th and early morning April 18th.


**fingers crossed**

[Metropolis Man]

....Given the influencing factors surrounding it all, I definitely peg significant software announcements, as well as PM updates, between the evening of April 15th and early morning April 18th.


**fingers crossed**

The evening of April 15th? Is that likely given the convention starts on Monday?

[eyeluvmyimac]

From http://developer.apple.com/macosx/tiger/64bit.html:

"4 250GB hard drives, the largest currently available in the Power Mac G5, will also store a terabyte of data."

However, currently only 2 250GB drives can come in the Power Mac G5....Is this just a typo? A sign of things to come? Referring to after-market modifications? You decide.

[Frobozz]

PCI-e's main benefits seem to be for games and probably Core Image / Core Video, but since we're 2 1/2 weeks away from seeing whether CI/CV is choked for throughput it's probably better to reserve judgment.

There are more than performance based reasons to upgrade to PCI-E and DDR2 667 RAM, for example. Namely, any modern graphics card is based on PCI-E. The cost to produce an AGP 8x version creates additional cost. In the PC world, it's about a 33% premium. That's crazy. Oh, wait-- that's what we, as Mac users, pay anyway. My mistake. :-) Perhaps this means we will pay an even higher premium unless we have bus parity with the PC world (pun intended.)

The real world performance of PCI-E for graphics over AGP 8x is currently pretty much the same... but that's not why we need it right now. We need it so we can get Radeon x850's without paying $700.

I think the bus speed is also an important factor for dual core chip designs, so I have to agree with many other posters that HT 2.0 will be a key feature. On top of that, I think DDR2 (667 hopefully) will be a key factor. Maybe they go with 533 (which doesn't have much of an advantage over DDR 400), but at least we're getting our ducks in a row for current technology.

More than anything the PowerMac needs to be a cutting edge beast. We need:

Dual 3 GHz (dual core?)
DDR2 667 Ram
HyperTransport 2.0
PCI-E Graphics
3 to 4 PCI-X Slots
3 to 4 Internal Drive Bays
2 Optical or externally accessible slots

[Sunrunner]

The evening of April 15th? Is that likely given the convention starts on Monday?

Anecdotally, Apple typically does not seem to like making announcements on weekends. Also, announcing on that Friday before the convention starts would give some time for buzz to spin through the roof, as well as possibly fit better logistically if hardware is going to be on display the morning of the 18th. Certainly not certain, but certainly a possibility. :p

[Frobozz]

From Apple.com (http://developer.apple.com/macosx/tiger/64bit.html):

"4 250GB hard drives, the largest currently available in the Power Mac G5, will also store a terabyte of data."

However, currently only 2 250GB drives can come in the Power Mac G5....Is this just a typo? A sign of things to come? Referring to after-market modifications? You decide.

I wouldn't look too far into that. You can buy 400 Gig drives right now, and 500 gig drives are out any day now. So, in theory you could have 1.6 TB (or 60% more) internally today or 2 TB (100% more) very soon.

But I also think Apple is pushing the xServe and xSan as a storage solution over heavy local storage. It makes sense, too, because to me a 400 GB internal RAID provides local backup security and a SAN provides data sharing that doesn't tax the bandwidth and drive heads of my local machine.

[Sunrunner]

While some have predicted Isnt the most likely pricepoint for Apples forthcoming flagship PM going to much higher than it is currently, wouldnt it make more sense for it to be closer to current prices? And if so, would that preclude the possibility of a Daul-dual machine? Would Apple really introduce a screaming new top-of-the-line at a 5 grand pricepoint?

[Fredstar]

Here is another question for everyone to ponder. What is the most likely pricepoint for Apples forthcoming flagship PM?

The same price, or maybe slightly less. I don't recollect a time when Apple have upgraded their line's and made it more expensive.
I doubt there will be dual dual-core's at NAB, WWDC imo because it is a major announcement.

[Rod Rod]

There are more than performance based reasons to upgrade to PCI-E and DDR2 667 RAM, for example. Namely, any modern graphics card is based on PCI-E. The cost to produce an AGP 8x version creates additional cost. In the PC world, it's about a 33% premium. That's crazy. Oh, wait-- that's what we, as Mac users, pay anyway. My mistake. :-) Perhaps this means we will pay an even higher premium unless we have bus parity with the PC world (pun intended.)

The real world performance of PCI-E for graphics over AGP 8x is currently pretty much the same... but that's not why we need it right now. We need it so we can get Radeon x850's without paying $700.

I think the bus speed is also an important factor for dual core chip designs, so I have to agree with many other posters that HT 2.0 will be a key feature. On top of that, I think DDR2 (667 hopefully) will be a key factor. Maybe they go with 533 (which doesn't have much of an advantage over DDR 400), but at least we're getting our ducks in a row for current technology.

More than anything the PowerMac needs to be a cutting edge beast. We need:

Dual 3 GHz (dual core?)
DDR2 667 Ram
HyperTransport 2.0
PCI-E Graphics
3 to 4 PCI-X Slots
3 to 4 Internal Drive Bays
2 Optical or externally accessible slots
Thank you for that great explanation. Hopefully (now with the demise of ADC and rise of DVI) the day won't be far off where Mac video cards won't cost way more than their PC counterparts.

Anecdotally, Apple typically does not seem to like making announcements on weekends. Also, announcing on that Friday before the convention starts would give some time for buzz to spin through the roof, as well as possibly fit better logistically if hardware is going to be on display the morning of the 18th. Certainly not certain, but certainly a possibility. :p
Apple has introduced a new Final Cut Pro on each Sunday morning of each NAB of each of the last 5 years (1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0 and 4.5). This coming Sunday is ripe for FCP 5.

As for the "buzz" you're talking about, well not everyone out there is as impressed with Apple as we are. Besides, the show starts on the 16th, not the 18th. Apple's exhibit space and their demos will likely be packed (as they were last year) but Apple excitement isn't nearly universal.

[AidenShaw]

Dual 3 GHz (dual core?)
DDR2 667 Ram
HyperTransport 2.0
PCI-E Graphics
3 to 4 PCI-X Slots
3 to 4 Internal Drive Bays
2 Optical or externally accessible slots

Replace some of the PCI-X (*old* tech) with

- x8 PCI-e I/O slots
- HTX slots

While HTX would be marginally useful for the PM - the cluster guys would love it. Since Apple would probably share the chipset with the XServe, HTX would be a logical addition. (http://www.pathscale.com/infinipath.html)

[Sunrunner]

Apple has introduced a new Final Cut Pro on each Sunday morning of each NAB of each of the last 5 years (1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 4.0 and 4.5). This coming Sunday is ripe for FCP 5.

As for the "buzz" you're talking about, well not everyone out there is as impressed with Apple as we are. Besides, the show starts on the 16th, not the 18th. Apple's exhibit space and their demos will likely be packed (as they were last year) but Apple excitement isn't nearly universal.

Final Cut Pro, yes... though thats not really on the same level as multiple new product announcements. Sunday announcements are certainly a possibility though. While the show starts on the 16th, dont the exhibition spaces open on the 18th?

[Diavilo1]

Bring on the Mac Mini Media Center! I'm sick of hearing how great XP Media Center is. Blech

[NevadaJack]

The evening of April 15th? Is that likely given the convention starts on Monday?

The convention starts on the 16th with the Exhibits opening on the 18th.

[animefan_1]

http://www.apple.com/go/nab/register/

"The Production Value of HD"

"To see the latest Apple technology, please join
Apple for a special presentation at NAB 2005."

April 17, 2005 - 11 am PDT

[Metropolis Man]

...Besides, the show starts on the 16th, not the 18th. Apple's exhibit space and their demos will likely be packed (as they were last year) but Apple excitement isn't nearly universal.

But according to the NAB website exhibitor booths don't open until the 18th, so we'll all find out in a few days if Apple's new hardware and software debuts then or earlier.

[Sunrunner]

http://www.apple.com/go/nab/register/

"The Production Value of HD"

"To see the latest Apple technology, please join
Apple for a special presentation at NAB 2005."

April 17, 2005 - 11 am PDT


There it is, thats when those products will be the announced

[Rod Rod]

Final Cut Pro, yes... though thats not really on the same level as multiple new product announcements. Sunday announcements are certainly a possibility though. While the show starts on the 16th, dont the exhibition spaces open on the 18th?
FCP 5 will be a new product. Last year they announced multiple new products (in addition to FCP 4.5, Motion and DVDSP 3 came out). I suppose you mean hardware products.

The convention starts on the 16th with the Exhibits opening on the 18th.
Thanks, as Sunrunner mentioned. I registered but since I didn't get a plane ticket to Las Vegas I guess I didn't look into the exhibition space schedule as I probably should have anyway.

But according to the NAB website exhibitor booths don't open until the 18th, so we'll all find out in a few days if Apple's new hardware and software debuts then or earlier.
Thanks, as NevadaJack pointed out.

There it is, thats when those products will be the announced
I'm pretty sure I posted that on page 2 or 3 of this thread . . . Yup, it was post #33 (http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost.php?p=1381185&postcount=33), on the second page (http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=119806&page=2&pp=25) of this thread.

[~loserman~]

~loserman~, I think you should read more carefully, I was referring to the Athlon dual-core (and I clearly said so). I've said nothing about the AMD Opteron and I've never mentioned the Opteron until this very message. For that matter, I've never mentioned the Xeon either. As I noted earlier (to daveL), I'm certain that everyone else here is talking about the 970MP and the competition for the 970MP is the dual-core Pentium and dual-core Athlon. It is not some high-end server based upon the Opteron, POWER, or Sparc processor line.


This is where we differ. The 970MP does compete against the Xeon/Dual Core Xeon. It also competes against the Opteron and Dual Core Opteron.
The reason is the PPC970/PPC970FX have always been capable as being used as dual processor configurations and Apple sells them as such. The Athlon64 and Pentium 4 have not been. When comparing platforms the PowerMac has always competed against Workstation class machines in the X86 line. Even Apple makes the same processor comparisons on their own site. I never compared the PPC970 and its derivatives against "exotic server" CPUs such as the Sparc, Power 4/5 or Itanium. Even though those comparisons can still be made the price points are too far out.
The Athlon64 FX IS an Opteron regardless of how it is being sold. The internals of the CPU are almost identical(except for its use of non ecc memory and a different pin out). The real funny part is the Single Processor version of the Opteron actually sells for less than the Athlon64 FX. The Dual Processor Opterons sell for the same price as their Athlon 64 FX cousins. Unless something that I am unaware of changes the Pentium 4 and Athlon 64(non FX version) dual-cores will still only be used in Single processor motherboards.

Back on Topic:
I am revising my estimate of when we will see dual core PowerMacs to earliest 4th quarter 2005 but more likely 1st quarter 2006 due to a conversation with IBM and their availability of Dual Core CPUs for their JS20 Blade servers. IBM claims they will release dual core JS20 blades early 1st quarter 2006.
They also claim they will upgrade the clock hertz to 2.5 Ghz on their JS20 blades in August/September Time Frame.
This bodes well for a 2.8 to 3Ghz PowerMac soon since IBM sells the faster CPUs to Apple. Traditionally IBM has provided Apple with CPUs clocked 300mhz faster than the ones they use themselves. They have also traditionally done their updates about 2 to 3 months later than when Apple does.

[scu]

The same price, or maybe slightly less. I don't recollect a time when Apple have upgraded their line's and made it more expensive.
I doubt there will be dual dual-core's at NAB, WWDC imo because it is a major announcement.

I agree with your last sentence. However, I disagree with the same price or slightly less on the new upgrades. This would only happen if all Apple introduces is a 2.8 system without much change inside. Any new and much faster technology will increase the price of the PM. I can see Apple charging $3500 for a dual core system running at 2.5 ghz.

I have changed my mind and no longer believe that Apple will introduce PM any time soon. There have been no breakthroughs that I have seen in the cooling issues and faster more reliable chips. The iPod, the iMac, and Tiger will keep Apple afloat without new Power Macs for a few more months.

[ClimbingTheLog]

Claim: G3 will rule - RISC is king, CISC is dead
Truth: After a strong early start by RISC, CISC won the race

That's entirely wrong. CISC is dead. Intel hasn't made a CISC chip for PC's since the Pentium. Penitum Pro was the first RISC CPU from Intel but it trickled down to the Penium II, III, V, Xeon, etc.

Don't confuse instruction sets and register counts with chip design techniques.

[ClimbingTheLog]

If the Power Macs have similar types of breakdown issues, this could really provide a lethal blow to Apple's craftsmenship in the eyes of the customer. :eek:

If it becomes a problem perhaps Apple will have air-cooled modules based on SSOI available in time to replace them. In this industry it's better to ship and recall than to stagnate.

I haven't fondled one of these modules myself - are they not sealed inside the radiator? I would assume in the case of a leak the G5 module case could contain the liquid and the firmware could detect the high-temp CPU and shut it down. Even a semi-sealed design would put any potential leak points at the top and let gravity handle the overflow vector. Then the OS says, "One of your CPU's has failed. Your computer will continue to run, albeit more slowly. Please call 1-800-APLCARE to schedule a replacement. Please do not turn your computer upside down until it has been serviced."

I mean, everything made by man does fail eventually, and if you make a million of anything something invariably gets by as a dud, but if you're playing in the watercooled world it's not unreasonable to have precautions as outlined above to keep the customer informed.

Being made in Mexico shouldn't have a bearing on this - their QA process is what's important.

[blitzkrieg79]

And another thing that just popped in to my mind is that as I remember correctly Steve Jobs proclaimed the 2005 to be the year of HD video, and the president of Sony wasnt there on stage because he had nothing better to do and considering they didnt announce any collabortive product back then but it was rather "just" a speech I am wondering if any or all of it has to do with Powermac development (CELL processor/coprocessor) and whose to say Apple hasnt been on it secretly from the beginning cuz of their nature of total secrecy... Jobs already had one fiasco with the 3ghz promise and I doubt that he would be crazy enough to pop in some more words without backing it really up in the test labs...the year of hd video, what does it mean, to me it definately means more then just a release of a mac mini or some kind of media center device, first thing that pops in to my mind is seriously powerful video editing equipment with software and we all know that even the most powerful personal computers (dual 2.5ghz macs included), when it comes down to decoding/encoding pretty much are slow compared with other computer tasks we are accustomed to... I dont think that January speech was there so Apple would release just speed bumps because it definately needs more then that... Of course I may be wrong but it all makes sense to me and I also know Apple wants to redeem itself for the 3ghz fiasco, I know that some things really are not in their hands and pretty much they depend on other companies but there is too much competition going around which also helps Apple to deal with their partners...

[pgre]

That's entirely wrong. CISC is dead. Intel hasn't made a CISC chip for PC's since the Pentium. Penitum Pro was the first RISC CPU from Intel but it trickled down to the Penium II, III, V, Xeon, etc.

Don't confuse instruction sets and register counts with chip design techniques.

Indeed.. look at the IBM AS/400 line which used to be CISC and is now well and truely RISC.

Doesn't the "IT" Industry just love its acroynms.

>> "IT" << see thats the problem when you work in the industry.

[~loserman~]

That's entirely wrong. CISC is dead. Intel hasn't made a CISC chip for PC's since the Pentium. Penitum Pro was the first RISC CPU from Intel but it trickled down to the Penium II, III, V, Xeon, etc.

Don't confuse instruction sets and register counts with chip design techniques.

This is mostly true.

The Pentium Pro and its derivatives have taken the RISC based approach, even though it continues to use the x86-32 instruction set. These processors breaks up the fairly large, CISC based x86 instructions - into what is called micro-ops, tiny code fragments that the processor can digest faster (ala RISC).

AS to RISC
I would also add that RISC has also migrated back to be more like CISC.
In the last ten years almost every single RISC architecture has gradually restored the very same features that were removed during the RISC "purge" of the 1980s. Unaligned memory access, bit-wise addressing, media instructions, DSP instructions, variable-length instructions, code compression, multi-cycle functions, multiply-accumulate... etc., have all come back to RISC chips. It seems that RISC might be "reduced" in name only.

[Rod Rod]

I doubt there will be dual dual-core's at NAB, WWDC imo because it is a major announcement.
It would be ridiculous to delay a product release by one or two months for the sake of WWDC or any other event. It makes much more sense to release new products when they're ready, no matter which trade show, conference or event is on the calendar.

As blitzkrieg79 said, even today's top of the line Power Mac G5s feel slow when working with high definition video. The sooner that faster Macs come out, the better.

[Frobozz]

Replace some of the PCI-X (*old* tech) with

- x8 PCI-e I/O slots
- HTX slots

While HTX would be marginally useful for the PM - the cluster guys would love it. Since Apple would probably share the chipset with the XServe, HTX would be a logical addition. (http://www.pathscale.com/infinipath.html)

I haven't heard of HTX. Do tell? Does it offer advantages to PCI-X or PCI-E ? (I'm curious since I figure "faster" is obvious ...)

[dicklacara]

Indeed.. look at the IBM AS/400 line which used to be CISC and is now well and truely RISC.

Doesn't the "IT" Industry just love its acroynms.

>> "IT" << see thats the problem when you work in the industry.
Ahhh...


You haven't considered the latest architecture:

Tiny Instruction Set Computer-- TISC (pronounced "Tsk")

The only instructions are:

00 NOP
01x Load/Store
10x Add/Sub
11x Test/Branch

x represents a modifier bit that refines the basic op codes.

The advantage is that all ops can be reperesented on one hand (with the modifier selected by the thumb)

That's all the instructions any computer needs

[Frobozz]

When comparing platforms the PowerMac has always competed against Workstation class machines in the X86 line. Even Apple makes the same processor comparisons on their own site. I never compared the PPC970 and its derivatives against "exotic server" CPUs such as the Sparc, Power 4/5 or Itanium. Even though those comparisons can still be made the price points are too far out.

As a bit of side commentary, I think it's common for people to loose sight of the applications running on the chip and how the OS mitigates that. Correct me if I'm wrong, but server oriented chips and operating systems won't necessarily run Photoshop better. I heard a good explanation of this once: servers run many small tasks over and over. In the case of a web site with a fairly static data set, the applications that run fastest exploit the conditions they're dealing with, as do desktop processors. This is a pretty simple optimization principle.

So, even if an Itanium or Sparc were great server CPU's they wouldn't _necessarily_ be good as desktop user applications.

I think the HyperTransport 2.0 standard and the 970mp will come hand-in-hand to the PowerMac. Hopefully, this will be soon. :-)

[AidenShaw]

That's entirely wrong. CISC is dead. Intel hasn't made a CISC chip for PC's since the Pentium. Penitum Pro was the first RISC CPU from Intel but it trickled down to the Penium II, III, V, Xeon, etc.

Don't confuse instruction sets and register counts with chip design techniques.


Then please tell me what the "IS" stands for in the acronyms CISC and RISC ?? :eek:



BTW, I agree that we're in the "post-RISC" era - where the original definition of RISC has been blurred, and CISC ISAs are implemented on silicon with decidedly RISC characteristics.

My "Claim:/Truth:" statements were meant to discredit simple distinctions like CISC/RISC, not to promote them.

[Beck446]

It would be ridiculous to delay a product release by one or two months for the sake of WWDC or any other event. It makes much more sense to release new products when they're ready, no matter which trade show, conference or event is on the calendar.

As blitzkrieg79 said, even today's top of the line Power Mac G5s feel slow when working with high definition video. The sooner that faster Macs come out, the better.


It is totally ridiculous except for the fact that Apple doesn't ship the day they annouce a product. If they know they can ship in June, they can announce at any time before June. I don't think that Apple would delay announcing a product that is sitting in their warehouse. At least not for longer than a few days. ROI and all the other financial metrics would suffer enourmously if Apple kept a ton of inventory for longer than a few days.

I'd also like to say that all of you expecting Bluray should prepare to be disappointed.

[AidenShaw]

I haven't heard of HTX. Do tell? Does it offer advantages to PCI-X or PCI-E ? (I'm curious since I figure "faster" is obvious ...)

HTX brings a HyperTransport "port" to the I/O card - avoiding the HyperTransport to PCI-X bridge. Faster, much lower latency.

Yahoo for "hypertransport htx" to find out more, or look at the link that I posted for some brief info. (http://www.pathscale.com/infinipath.html)

Opterons (with the direct HyperTransport controller on the CPU chip) get great improvements for latency on InfiniBand transfers used in HPC clusters.

Since the G5 doesn't have a direct HT controller on the CPU, the improvement might not be as great. But since the PCI-X controller is a HyperTransport tunnel, you'd avoid the latency of the HT -> PCI-X conversions.

[crpchristian]

Well I heard from the head apple custodian that the new PM will be dual 3.0ghz dual core + cell. Which, for cooling, requires being hooked up to your refrigerator. If something like this (sans fridge) actually came out which is slightly unlikely ;) I wonder how many people/companies would switch and how much people would be willing to pay for it.

Like some have pointed out though, apple NEEDS to pull out some major hardware. Editing HD is serious computation, especially when you get into compositing and quick and solid NonLinear Editing with a good amount of Real Time action going on. And if its the Year of HD, you'd think they'd release stuff early in the year...other wise itd be more like the Late Autumn of HD.

[wdlove]

[QUOTE=Beck446I'd also like to say that all of you expecting Bluray should prepare to be disappointed.[/QUOTE]

I'm not expecting anything in particular for the next update Rev. C of the Power Mac G5. Don't want to be disappointed. Do expect that improvements will be made. Current noted problems should be foxed.

[MacG]

That's entirely wrong. CISC is dead. Intel hasn't made a CISC chip for PC's since the Pentium. Penitum Pro was the first RISC CPU from Intel but it trickled down to the Penium II, III, V, Xeon, etc.

Don't confuse instruction sets and register counts with chip design techniques.

That is what differentiators a RISC from CISC computer. All x86 CPU's by definition are CISC computers as they support the original x86 instruction set. Modern CPU's (especially AMD's) employ techniques borrowed from RISC computer (super pipelining for example) but they are still CISC computers.

A RISC CPU is faster than CISC cpu in that it is designed to execute fixed-length instructions very quickly and rely on the fact that most compilers rarely make use of long complex instructions when they compile code. Chip design is not what makes a CPU RISC or CISC it is the instruction set and length of instructions (fixed or variable) that determines it.

[rockthecasbah]

It would be ridiculous to delay a product release by one or two months for the sake of WWDC or any other event. It makes much more sense to release new products when they're ready, no matter which trade show, conference or event is on the calendar.

As blitzkrieg79 said, even today's top of the line Power Mac G5s feel slow when working with high definition video. The sooner that faster Macs come out, the better.

I agree, it seems to make more sense to release now rather than later. If iMacs, iBooks, or even Powerbooks (don't hold your breath) are to be updated at WWDC, the Power Mac being released early such as at NAB would increase its publicity. Spacing them out decreasing the chance of one product overshadowing another. Also, this may be a perfect point to both show High Definition Video software and products working on a new Power Mac ;) .

[~loserman~]

As a bit of side commentary, I think it's common for people to loose sight of the applications running on the chip and how the OS mitigates that. Correct me if I'm wrong, but server oriented chips and operating systems won't necessarily run Photoshop better. I heard a good explanation of this once: servers run many small tasks over and over. In the case of a web site with a fairly static data set, the applications that run fastest exploit the conditions they're dealing with, as do desktop processors. This is a pretty simple optimization principle.

So, even if an Itanium or Sparc were great server CPU's they wouldn't _necessarily_ be good as desktop user applications.

I think the HyperTransport 2.0 standard and the 970mp will come hand-in-hand to the PowerMac. Hopefully, this will be soon. :-)


I don't disagree with your premise.
The only thing I would add is the lines have blurred between what is a server CPU and what is a desktop one. ONE REASON is that chips that used to be considered as "Server" chips had larger cache sizes. This has changed somewhat recently. Another reason is that "Server" chips almost always had the ability to be used in Multi-processor configurations whereas desktop cpus were always single processor only.

For example.
Many people compare Apple's PowerMac line to lets say a Dell or Compaq.
Typically the comparisons are made between dual processor PMs vs single processor X86 machines. These are not direct comparisons. A more appropriate comparison would be the iMac to the Dell/Compaq. Since these are both single processor machines. Those comparisons are usually not made though because the top Single processor x86 boxes handily out perform the iMac.
PowerMacs are Apple's equivalent of a WORKSTATION quality offering. For several years Workstation type machines have been dual processor and in x86 land you are talking about Xeons and Opterons. Even the price of these machines reflect this. For example the top PowerMac starts at around $3000 and so do dual Processor Opteron/Xeon workstations from HP/Compaq.
Yes Xeons and Opterons can be sold as single processor machines but almost never are. When they are sold as such they come on motherboards that allow you to add the second processor later. Also I agree with some that have posted that these cpus are traditionally thought of as entry level server processors but I think as I have shown they are also the ones that are sold in the 2 processor Workstation class market( the same market segment as the PowerMac)

[AidenShaw]

Also I agree with some that have posted that these cpus are traditionally thought of as entry level server processors but I think as I have shown they are also the ones that are sold in the 2 processor Workstation class market( the same market segment as the PowerMac)

To emphasize your point, note that Xeon (DP) chips are dual capable, and are sold into the workstation and small server market.

Also note that Xeon MP chips are capable of 3-way and higher operation, and end up in larger servers.

Similarly, Opterons are available in the 100, 200 and 800 series. These are suitable for 1-way, 2-way, and up to 8-way operation respectively.

Some of these changes reflect packaging more than actual design (a Pentium Extreme Edition is a Xeon chip in a 1-way socket configuration).

[ErikGrim]

I suspect (and have stated so elsewhere) that the "One More Thing"™ at this years WWDC will be something that may have been talked about in rumors briefly but is not really expected to be announced. And no I have no clue which it might be, this is just the feeling I have.
Spoken like a true psychic. Hahaha! :p

[Platform]

Replace some of the PCI-X (*old* tech) with

- x8 PCI-e I/O slots
- HTX slots

While HTX would be marginally useful for the PM - the cluster guys would love it. Since Apple would probably share the chipset with the XServe, HTX would be a logical addition. (http://www.pathscale.com/infinipath.html)

That would be a lot better ;)

[Platform]

To emphasize your point, note that Xeon (DP) chips are dual capable, and are sold into the workstation and small server market.

Also note that Xeon MP chips are capable of 3-way and higher operation, and end up in larger servers.

Similarly, Opterons are available in the 100, 200 and 800 series. These are suitable for 1-way, 2-way, and up to 8-way operation respectively.

Some of these changes reflect packaging more than actual design (a Pentium Extreme Edition is a Xeon chip in a 1-way socket configuration).

Why don;t apple have something for serves like AMD has oct Opterons for sale :eek: :confused:

[pgre]

Just in case you hadn't seen this..
Suggestions on new specs from Thinksecret.

http://www.thinksecret.com/news/0504macs.html

The suggestion is that these will be available near the Tiger release date!!
Let hope so.

[fabsgwu]

Safari is MUCH snappier, however, its rendering seems to be jacked on some websites, Friendster is one...