New Dual Core PowerMacs - Expected Release Price??

[JasonGough]

Just wondering if anyone cares to throw in a guess as to how much the new updated PowerMacs will retail at, if they are updated to Dual core at Paris Expo.

Do apple usualy price the updates at the current price of the previous model, or do you think we will see a price increase?

[gwuMACaddict]

the prices are usually very similar... not more than a $200 difference either way i'd imagine

[macbaseball]

I have a feeling the prices will be exactly the same. Apple will be get a lot of bad media if they raise their prices, as "their prices are already to high". Tha why I think they will be the same.

[Platform]

I have a feeling the prices will be exactly the same. Apple will be get a lot of bad media if they raise their prices, as "their prices are already to high". Tha why I think they will be the same.

Agree.......the PowerMac line we have today with Dual 2.0 2.3 2.7
They cost the same as the original 1.6 1.8 and Dual 2.0 did in 2003 ;)

[Lord Blackadder]

The powermac line rarely sees big price adjustments...expect the new powermacs to cost around the same as the current ones - but that makes it a bit of a bargain since the new machines are better.

[Xephian]

The Power Macs and almost every other mac is already expensive and overpriced.

[combatcolin]

Prices do drop, but not by a huge amount.

In terms of value for money, a Dual Core PM will of course be a much better buy than the current model.

[iEdd]

The Power Macs and almost every other mac is already expensive and overpriced.

You get what you pay for. The best way to prove that is sit a pc next to a mac.

[JasonGough]

its good to know that they should remain at the same price.

will be very exciting to see what (if anything) is realased at the Paris Expo. It is about time they did somthing major to the PowerMacs rather than just a slight speed bump.

Does anyone think there is likely to be a Rev B of the Dual core powerMacs before the MacTels come out, or do you think the dual cores will come out with no problems/bugs atall?

[kalisphoenix]

Does anyone think there is likely to be a Rev B of the Dual core powerMacs before the MacTels come out, or do you think the dual cores will come out with no problems/bugs atall?

I wouldn't expect there to be any serious problems. My understanding is that dual-core CPUs are basically drop-in replacements that require no revision to the motherboard. No additional cost for Apple, oodles of additional power, and oodles o' sales. Almost no time diverted from the Intel pursuit.

[JasonGough]

that sounds pretty cool.

Will be excitedly awaiting the expo, good time to release some new Macs aswell, just before my Student Loan comes in ;)

[wdlove]

I don't expect any change in price either. Apple is good about giving us increased specifications at the same prices. We will know for sure in a month.

[Mord]

i'm thinking there will be a single 2GHz powermac a dual 2.3GHz powermac and a quad 2.5GHz powermac.

[JasonGough]

ah i hope not!

i hope they just upgrade each current power mac with the dual core proccessors, i can only afford the mid spec power mac, so that better be dual dual-core or i'll be angry!!

[VanMac]

I would think that all the PMs would be upgraded with new dual core processors.

That would allow single core for iMac, and mabe even the mini.

Either way, I'm saving up to buy one of these new PMs. Really enjoy the little iBook, but would like to do some heavy duty video editing, etc.

[lopresmb]

I wonder though if they will have to start dropping prices as they get nearer to the intel switch (or at least the publicity is there)?

Or better yet, once the first Mactel is released I would have to bet that the prices of the PPC offering would have to go down...just a thought

[twoodcc]

i hope the prices go down, but i think we are just dreaming

[GroundLoop]

I think that prices will go up ever so slightly ($100). Apple takes any opportunity to charge more for "new" technology. I still think that it would be well worth the extra cost.

Hickman

[Xephian]

They really should make it cheaper.

[shadowmoses]

Same price or cheaper i seriously doubt they will be more expensive,

ShadOW

[JasonGough]

yeah they seriusly better not go any more expensive. realy are taking the piss at the moment. £1700 for a computer. man. think what you could build in normal PC land with that? could have about 10 processors going for the same cost of 2 PPC chips :)

but a dual dual-core G5 would make my day :)

[Xephian]

yeah they seriusly better not go any more expensive. realy are taking the piss at the moment. £1700 for a computer. man. think what you could build in normal PC land with that? could have about 10 processors going for the same cost of 2 PPC chips :)

but a dual dual-core G5 would make my day :)
Yeah, you can build an amazing PC with that money. Something like Dual Core AMD with SLi 7800 GTX's and 4GB RAM.

[JasonGough]

yeah man i know. AMD are pretty good value at the moment.

I'm sure i've read this somewhere before, but i've forgot, so can anyone enlighten me as to the expected speeds of the expected dual core processors to be used, or is it still totally up in the air?

[Mord]

2.5GHz, 100MHz faster than the 4800+ X2 and 300MHz faster than the SMP capable opteron 275

[JasonGough]

2.5GHz, 100MHz faster than the 4800+ X2 and 300MHz faster than the SMP capable opteron 275

so you think with this revision of the powermac, if they do put 2 dual core proccessors in it, it will finally make the powermac faster than any PC available?

[Mord]

any pc in it's price range yes, you can get 8x opteron 875's in one case 16 cpu's at 2.2GHz.

[andiwm2003]

seem all of you expect dual dual core powermacs. is there any indication for this? i guess the dual core chips are expensive and putting two of them in a powermac will make them too expensive. i'd rather expect dual core powermacs with less heat and less expensive cooling systems. that would result in a price drop.

is there any software that profits from a dual dual core system?

[Mord]

any software that benefits from a second cpu will benefit from a third and fourth.

[cube]

any software that benefits from a second cpu will benefit from a third and fourth.

That's not true

[JasonGough]

i think it would be cheeper overall to release dual dual-core proccesors, as apple wouldn't have to re-design the motherboard and stuff like that.

if they can simply slot in 2 dual-core proccessors in place of the orignal ones it'll make their life alot easier, it'll also see the powerPC chips out in style, rather than 'upgrading' the powermac, even tho it won't actualy increase the performance.

no-one realy cares if they're powermac runs abit cooler, the case size will be the same, people want an apple computer that can compeat with the speeds of PCs.

[andiwm2003]

no-one realy cares if they're powermac runs abit cooler, the case size will be the same, people want an apple computer that can compeat with the speeds of PCs.

that's true, but if the cooler powermac costs $300 less, is less noisy and has more space for internals hd's or graphics cards then people will care.

my main concern is that dual cores won't be much faster than dual g5's. in that case you may get a dual dual core powermac but aside of running photoshop and motion in parallel you won't see a difference. so any performance increase by putting two dual cores in the powermac would be meaningless (at least to me).

on the other hand that opens up the option to grab a (hopefully) cheaper single cpu dual core powermac or a cheap refurb dual g5 2.3 GHz.

al least there is hope.

andi

[Mord]

That's not true


yeah, sorry it depends if the app is truely SMP in that it can split the workload into multiple threads or it just allocates one task to each cpu like UT does makeing one cpu do the sound and the other do the 3d.

[JasonGough]

yeah thats a good point...

i was looking at some bench marks comparing the Intel D chips with AMD64 chips, and although the Intel won on certain things, AMD won everything else that wasn't specialy designed for mutliple processors.

Maybe having 4 processors isn't actauly going to help anything cos i bet there is hardly any software designed for use with as many as 4 processors.

however i don't think replacing the dual G5 with 1 dual-core chip will make things better than they are at present will it? it can't be faster than it already is can it?

[andiwm2003]

however i don't think replacing the dual G5 with 1 dual-core chip will make things better than they are at present will it? it can't be faster than it already is can it?

i don't expect the dual cores to be any faster than the dual g5's. i just hope that you get a dual core 2.3 GHz for the price of a Dual G5 2.0 GHz.

Unless something dramatic happens i don't see speed increases of more than 15% per revision in the future.

My hopes are more in other things like a H.264 accelerator card, faster HD's, better optimized software, core image and stuff like that.

[JasonGough]

yeah i suppose. processor is not the only thing that might get changed, but i'd still like to see some more power in the powermacs if i'm gonna be able to justify buying one. more RAM and stuff would be nice, but i realy want some more horsepower, but with what everyone is saying, i realy can't see that happening.... :(

[FF_productions]

I'm sure these dual dual core macs are going to beat the majority of the g5's that are currently out. C' mon powerpc, go out with a bang!