G5 in volume

[MacRumors]

The Register (http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/39/23078.html) reports that the G5 has been cleared for volume production:


According to our mole, the G5 is tentatively being produced in three versions: 1.2GHz, 1.4GHz and 1.6GHz. We say 'tentatively' because there still appears to be some concern that there will be insufficient 1.6GHz parts for a commercial release. Says our source: "The chips that are testing at 1GHz are being set aside in case there are not enough 1.6GHz chips to release that machine."

[SPG]

No mention of a dual processor machine though, an oversight? Or is Apple not going to make a DP1.6ghz flagship...my mouth waters just thinking about it.

[Falleron]

Lets keep everything crossed!!!

[atlascott]

Ok, I have been diggin my ass out of debt for 2 years now, and if this is a reality, I will go out and buy myself a new birthday present in late January, even if it means new debt! A new G5! Wowie kazowie!

[Brent Turbo]

Considering this particular "source" is known for making up a lot of crap off the top of his/her head, I'd take this news with a grain of salt.

I hate how as Mac users, we always have to rely on hope to get us by. It's like "once we get (insert upcoming technology), THEN Apple's going to take a bigger market share and people are going to convert like crazy." I could name a grocery list of products that had that kind of hype, but I don't have an hour to type it out.

The biggies:
PowerPC
Powermac G3
Powermac G4
OS X
Virtually every major Powerbook/iBook update

All of these were supposed to be the products that pushed Apple out of the 5% zone.

[ThlayliTheFierce]

Where did you get that this source is known for making things up? How do you know it's even the same one as before? You need to stop making up crap off the top of your head. Of course we shouldn't take it as fact! It's a rumor!

[PretendPCuser]

In the grocery list of things that were going to get Apple out of the 5%, one was the iMac. Or was that what got Apple out of the 3-4% TO 5% place we are in now.

According to an older article from the Register, the G5 is supposed to be significantly faster in ALL Photoshop tests, not just the ones Apple knows it has an advantage in. Supposedly the G4 beats the Pentium 4 in some Photoshop tests, but gets beat in others. Will be nice if a G5 betters it in all the tests.

Looking forward to it, and going back (or further) in debt, may be an option.

[britboy]

Even if the G5 doesn't launch with a top speed of 1.6Ghz, it's still going to be a lot closer to the 1.6Ghz maximum that you can get from AMD, the best pc processor out there...

[SPG]

I am much less concerned with Apple's marketshare than with the ability to do video effects and video compositing faster...much faster. Small speed bumps make a big difference when you're on deadline, and big speed increases make life easier all the time.
_________________
Where's my DPG5?

[SPG]

Hey SPG, You are still an idiot! marketshare increases revenues which increase $ available for R&D you dolt.
_______________
Still waiting for your DPG5.

[ThlayliTheFierce]

Yes but AMD has their performance rating thing to confuse stupid consumers.

[Brent Turbo]

I agree with SPG...

The only reason I want to see Apple get a better market share is because that will mean more money into hardware and software development.

Case in point: Adobe Photoshop for OSX. You know that when Windows XP launched, Adobe had its whole line of products tested and ready to go. They're taking their sweet-ass time with OSX ports because they're making all of their money on the PC versions. If Apple had a larger market share, we'd all be running OSX full-time, with all of our favorite applications -- native.

But for now, I'm going to have to keep lubricating my startup disk control panel for all the use it's getting. And yes, I feel ashamed for starting a paragraph with "But."

[Macmaniac]

Me an my friend (Devote mac fans)(He wants my cube poster from mac world New York) Have some wish list items for apple.

Ahh yes the G5 our hopes were for 1.3 ghz G5 but this sounds enven better!(Take that PC speed people)

We would like to see:
1 ghz G4 iMac with a 17 or 19in screen. A model like this was posted several months ago.(With cool picture)
1.2 ghz G5 Titanium powerbook, just makes my mouth water.
800 mhz G4 iBook more speed makes more fun with a low price tag would be nice:)

These ideas are a little far fetched (The Titanum Powerbook is a little much)
Still A real fast iMac with a larger screen would attarct gamers who want speed and screen size(Their 60gb hard drive that comes with it, is bigger than the high end dells out there which only have 40gb included)
We may see 6% market share in the future.
Yes I know its crazy but hey its apple they never cease to amaze me:) (The iPod was the shocker:)

[SPG]

Sure a new iMac with a G4 and a bigger screen would be nice, but I like to think that Apple may be thinking "out of the box" on a machine that will be considered revolutionary like the original iMac was. If it is too similar in form, i t runs the risk of being dismissed as just a re-skin. I hope Apple surprises us all with something really breakthrough...what? If I knew I would go work for Apple.

[atlascott]

Nice to see Apple increasing the board/processor/bus speed. But they REALLY need to have better video cards in ALL their machines, especially the iMac and iBook, with ATI RAGE processors--just cannot run the 3d games and such as they were meant to be...

[ThlayliTheFierce]

No, what they REALLY need is bus speed and hard drive speed. Most people don't play 3d games on their Mac (at least not as a primary use). While I agree that a better video card can do a lot for a computer's speed as a whole, at this point the Mac's main bottlenecks are bus speed and hard drive speed. The PowerMac G5's need to have a 400 Mhz bus, ATA-100 (if not 133), and DDR at least, or I (along with many others) will be very disappointed.

[joey j]

> the Mac's main bottlenecks are bus speed

Low clockspeed helps ;)


> and hard drive speed.

Doesn't Apple already ship 7200 rpm HDs in all the G4s? Although I would
like to see 10k rpm HDs, maybe an 8 mb cache too :p. Heat would probably
be a problem, and it would cost you dearly, but there's still a market for
it (read: me)


> The PowerMac G5's need to have a 400 Mhz bus,

... so presumably Apple requires RAM which operates to spec at 400 mhz ...


> ATA-100 (if not 133),

So I take it you've found an IDE hard drive that tops out in excess of 100 MB/s?

[Falleron]

The PowerMac 733 has a 5400Rpm as standard

[spikey]

AMD confuses customers with dumb names.
Intel confuses customers with clock speed.
Apple confuses customers with megahertz myth.

All the f**kers do it. Right now the best chip is the athlon.


Is it just me who has noticed how much more optimistic these rumors are becoming. I thought originally the G5 entry level was going to be at 800Mhz, now its at 1.2.Ghz.
Im not saying its wrong, but we have seen it before with macworld new york and the imac.

[SPG]

The G5 needs to be a speedy machine, the "Power Users" are looking for a good boost in real productivity. I know I am, and if Apple doesn't deliver I will be dissappointed, but not upset, and I will not switch to a PC.
If the G5 debuts in January with any machine over 1ghz and especially a DP 1ghz, I will jump up and down going "whoo! whoo!" and break out the credit card on the spot to replace at least one of the older G4's here.
That's the difference, Apple will still sell a slower machine to anyone who really needs one, but not a whole lot to the people who already have them unless the new G5 is a BIG step forward.

[evildead]

Originally posted by SPG
The G5 needs to be a speedy machine, the "Power Users" are looking for a good boost in real productivity. I know I am, and if Apple doesn't deliver I will be dissappointed, but not upset, and I will not switch to a PC.
If the G5 debuts in January with any machine over 1ghz and especially a DP 1ghz, I will jump up and down going "whoo! whoo!" and break out the credit card on the spot to replace at least one of the older G4's here.
That's the difference, Apple will still sell a slower machine to anyone who really needs one, but not a whole lot to the people who already have them unless the new G5 is a BIG step forward.


I agree.. these baby seteps of mior speed bumbs are not going to make any power users go out and replace their Macs. The G5 needs to be a major upgrade:

USB 2.0
FireWire 2.0 (or gigagware.. what ever theya are calling it)
DDR Memeory
ATA 133 HD and a BIG one
and a 1.5+ Ghz CPU

Im not that conserned about the CPU.. I want DDR memory. RAM is a major bottle neck in modern Desktops.

A system like that would make me start to feal an inferiority complex come on... and I might just have to trade in my Quickslilver :)

[GPTurismo]

I will believe it when I see it.

I am perfectly happy with my Dual G4 800. Photoshop runs fast enough in classic to satisfy me.

But I think the 1.1 Gigs of ram helps. LOL.

But the thing I am tired of is people screaming about MGHZ. Even if Macs did win the MGHZ wars, they wouldn't gain market share.

Mac's really don't win users due to power, and numbers, but usually due to elegance, style and simplicity. And I think if they pushed those thigns harder, they will start to get more share.

Think of the Volkswagon Beetle. They are very expensive for the size car, but people are paying for lifestyle. Me, on the other hand, got a Ford Focus and used the other 5 Grand I saved not buying a Beetle and got my Dual G4 800 to live the Mac lifestyle. = )

I'll quit ranting now.

-GPT

[ThlayliTheFierce]

Joey J, ok, yeah, it would need ram operating at 400 mhz, so if it used DDR it would be at 266 mhz. Small mistake. But you can't tell me that 133 mhz bus is going to be faster than a 400 mhz bus. Now, there is an ATA-133 spec that Maxtor put out, and I believe I read that Maxtor and others are going to come out with drives for it soon. I'm not sure if it's out right now. That's why I said, if you'll read carefully, "ATA-100 (if not 133)". Note the "if not". And ATA-100 is faster than ATA-66, enough to make a difference. Of course the ATA-100 is just a burst-speed, but it does make a difference.

[AlphaTech]

Maxtor has the DiamondMax D540X which is an Ultra ATA133 drive (only 5400 rpm) in capacities up to 160GB.

I could see the drive makers going over 200GB during next year, considering the past trend of size increases.

One of the good things about the 5400 rpm drive is they are not all that expensive (right around $300 depending on where you get them). I have actually seen them on the shelves at CompUSA for that price (very surprising that they didn't jack it way up).

With ATA RAID cards (there are ATA 133 RAID cards available for the Mac) you can put in 4 drives, stripe them and have a kick ass system. Considering you would get somewhere between 3 and 4 times the single drive in performance when using the four drives.

Just thinking about having a G5 1.xGHz system with four 160GB drives in a RAID configuration makes me drool. Think about it, essentially having a 625GB drive (after formatting and converting the size to real numbers) spinning at between 10,800 and 16,200 rpm and writing at 4x the ATA133 speeds. That is the beauty of going with the Stripe method, it all componds. Granted, you need to use identical drives, which can be costly when you add it all up. I think it would still be cheaper then getting the system from Apple with the current SCSI configuration they offer with two or three hard drives.

Who knows, maybe there will be drives at sizes closer to the 200GB mark (or over it) by the time the G5 hits the stores. Talk about a true super computer.

[joey j]

>it would need ram operating at 400 mhz, so if it used DDR it would be at
266 mhz. Small mistake. But you can't tell me that 133 mhz bus is going
to be faster than a 400 mhz bus.

The G5 rumors claim 400 mhz FSB. Where is all this RAM (that can
handle 400 mhz FSBs) anyway? Or have I missed something?


>Now, there is an ATA-133 spec that Maxtor put out, and I believe I read
that Maxtor and others are going to come out with drives for it soon. I'm
not sure if it's out right now. That's why I said, if you'll read
carefully, "ATA-100 (if not 133)". Note the "if not".

I was planning to (rhetorically) ask if you'd found an IDE HD that tops
out at 133 MB/s, but figured that you'd have enough trouble finding one
that tops out at half that, so I posed 100 MB/s instead. So again, where
are these >= 70 MB/s IDE HDs anyway?


> And ATA-100 is faster than ATA-66, eno ugh to make a difference. Of
course the ATA-100 is just a burst-speed, but it does make a difference.

If IDE drives (take a typical high-end consumer drive, 7200 rpm) top out
at (say) 60 MB/s, precisely how is ATA-100 going to speed them up? I'm
assuming that 7200 RPM IDE hard drives don't surpass ~60 MB/s (peak read
or write).

[joey j]

AlphaTech> an Ultra ATA133 drive (only 5400 rpm)


Can we have some faster spindle speeds please? Since when has a 5400 rpm
hd saturated even an ata/33 interface?

[ThlayliTheFierce]

I guess I'll use your style...

>The G5 rumors claim 400 mhz FSB. Where is all this RAM (that can
handle 400 mhz FSBs) anyway? Or have I missed something?

Last I checked Rambus operates at 400 mhz. Besides, it is a rumor. It's more likely DDR running at 266 (or 300-that's close to being out too btw).


>I was planning to (rhetorically) ask if you'd found an IDE HD that tops
out at 133 MB/s, but figured that you'd have enough trouble finding one
that tops out at half that, so I posed 100 MB/s instead. So again, where
are these >= 70 MB/s IDE HDs anyway?

Probably on the way. The spec allows for burst (i.e. tops out) speeds of 133 MB/s. That's not sustained, but it is faster. When Seagate puts out a 15,000 rpm cheetah running on ATA 133, then you'll have your 70 MB/s hd.


>If IDE drives (take a typical high-end consumer drive, 7200 rpm) top out
at (say) 60 MB/s, precisely how is ATA-100 going to speed them up? I'm
assuming that 7200 RPM IDE hard drives don't surpass ~60 MB/s (peak read
or write).

Let's talk peak vs. sustained speed. Peak doesn't matter much, you only hit it occasionally. ATA 100 allows for higher sustained speeds. I have seen this myself. I happen to have an ATA 66 hd and an ATA 100 hd. Both are 7200 rpm. Both have a 2mb cache. The ATA100 drive is about twice as fast when connected to my controller card running benchmark tests. So it DOES make a difference.

And as for the spindle speeds, they will get up there. That's why Apple should allow for ATA100/133 interface. That's what extensibility is all about.

[KingNothing]

1 ide channel, 2hd's
each one bursts 45-50=90-100
ata133 would be nice...
especially needed in ata raid configs, stripe 0
faster hd's WILL be comin... and thus will eventually saturate the 133mb ceiling too
next step 166 or serial ata?

[ThlayliTheFierce]

I think ATA 166, haven't heard past that. Maybe go back to SCSI? i.e. SCSI 320? Maybe ditch ATA altogether, as Firewire b is supposed to scale to 1600 mbits/sec. That's like ATA-200!

[Falleron]

I think you could be right!! We may get firewire hard drives!! After all, it would enable Apple to simplify the motherboard and therefore reduce cost!!

[ThlayliTheFierce]

Hmm... an interesting idea:

So in a few years when Firewire is at 1600 and we've got 4 ghz G5's (or G6's), what if Apple made an entirely new type of computer, one that's totally modular. You'd have a small base containing the processor, ram, display card, and cooling. You would then have a monitor port and multiple firewire ports for hard drives, ipods, whatever. Think of it...with only processor, ram, and display card, they would be cheap. Schools could buy them and put them in classrooms. Each student could carry a HD with them, and just plug it in and boot up.

Ok, just a little glimpse of the future. On a more concrete note, and all-firewire system would (or at least could) be cheaper to build, assuming you could get production of internal firewire hard drives into volume production.

[Falleron]

Ok then, question!

If the firewire is updated to say 800Mbps, what is the equivelant speed of todays hard drives in PowerMacs?

[joey j]

>>The G5 rumors claim 400 mhz FSB. Where is all this RAM (that can
handle 400 mhz FSBs) anyway? Or have I missed something?

>Last I checked Rambus operates at 400 mhz.

I doubt Apple would be using RDRAM; If they had planned to, we probably
would know by now.


>Besides, it is a rumor. It's more likely DDR running at 266 (or
300-that's close to being out too btw).

A few months back The Reg reported that Nanya was preparing to crank out
DDR 333 (riding out the slump with high-margin items).


>>If IDE drives (take a typical high-end consumer drive, 7200 rpm) top out
at (say) 60 MB/s, precisely how is ATA-100 going to speed them up? I'm
assuming that 7200 RPM IDE hard drives don't surpass ~60 MB/s (peak read
or write).

>Let's talk peak vs. sustained speed. Peak doesn't matter much, you only
hit it occasionally. ATA 100 allows for higher sustained speeds. I have
seen this myself. I happen to have an ATA 66 hd and an ATA 100 hd. Both
are 7200 rpm. Both have a 2mb cac he. The ATA100 drive is about twice as
fast when connected to my controller card running benchmark tests. So it
DOES make a difference.

Fair enough. However I find it odd that the disparity would be so large
("twice as fast"); perhaps the card's ("controller card"; I assume you
installed an ata/100 card) drivers are of higher quality than the onboard
(presumably) ata/66 interface.


>And as for the spindle speeds, they will get up there. That's why Apple
should allow for ATA100/133 interface. That's what extensibility is all
about.

I would like to see 10k drives; although they generate a lot of heat apparently.

[spikey]

Originally posted by joey j
>>I would like to see 10k drives; although they generate a lot of heat apparently.

Put a HD exhaust fan in a spare bay. I would like to see apple design one of those.
10Ks arent exactly quiet though. i dont know of many 10Ks which arent SCSI2.

[ThlayliTheFierce]

Wow you're anal joey! You asked where this 400 mhz ram was, and I answered Rambus. I don't think Apple will use Rambus either, hence the comment about DDR. The difference in speed in my hard drives is probably due to the fact that one is a Maxtor and the other is a Seagate. I remember I hooked them both up to my motherboard (ATA 66) and the seagate was about 30-40% faster, so it's not all interface. But most of it is. Oh, and Maxtor has an 80 gig 7200 rpm ATA 133 drive for about $200. About 800mbit/s firewire, that would be like ATA-100 (800mbits/8). Theoretically of course. Something else I just noticed when looking up the hard drive info is that a 100gb firewire drive is about $50 less than a usb drive of the same size. I wonder why that is.

[GPTurismo]

About 90% of the HDD's out their have a top burst of around 40 to 45 MB/s. remember, thats burst speeds.

[SPG]

Increase the speed available and somebody will find a way to use it and then max it.

[Rocketman]

Someone wrote:
I am much less concerned with Apple's marketshare than with the ability to do video effects and video compositing faster...much faster. Small speed bumps make a big difference when you're on deadline, and big speed increases make life easier all the time.
_________________
Where's my DPG5?
<br><br>
It is my understanding the G5 is multi-processor on-chip. Therefore the Mhz limits they are seeing are less of an issue in overall performance. It also means the combination of all CPU's being MP and a much faster bus will allow video feeds and manipulation to become much mre effortless. I see the new limitation as being swap and storage space issues making optical-RW drives essential in the future. I also see a return to even machines with alot of memory not keeping all work in that memory and a return to 80's style memory swap schemes.<br><br>Jerry

[ThlayliTheFierce]

No, latest reports say G5 will not be multi-core. Read it at http://www.macosrumors.com. That was probably just wishful thinking. Not that this it the final word, but multi-core in a consumer chip seems a little far-fetched for right now.

[Falleron]

Does anybody know if the G5 really has gone into production??

[jefhatfield]

then there are an awful lot of people keeping a secret at apple and at motorola and in this business, that never happens

the IT field is the leakiest thing since a collander as witnessed by the "best kept" secret so far, the segway, which everybody who reads even a little bit knew what it was

but the segway was still very interesting to see when it was officially released and its potential is amazing

secrets getting out is something that steve jobs has a great way of handling...when there is a leak, then there is a buzz...and when there is a buzz, there is an audience...and when there is an audience, steve jobs delivers

that's the way it has been with him since he regained the top spot at apple

and now that apple puts stuff out between macworlds also (ibook dual usb model and slot loading combo drive in tibook), the momentum is potentially there for apple to get the finances back up and increase market share beyond five percent

that is needed and i am tired of people who think apple can operate efficiently in the highly competitive IT field catering just to the very, very small legion of mac faithful and also brag about having a twenty something dollar per share value and think that things are a-ok in the land of apple

if you have not noticed, we are officially in a recession and a real war that won't end anytime soon, so computers may not be the top item on everybody's shortened christmas list this year

[jefhatfield]

but the silicon valley is not doing as well as the rest of the nation right now, as usual

...except when there is a huge fad like dot.coms or the initial imac but those things are short lived

we should change the name of san jose to "short lived trends, usa" or "can't follow through, usa" or "we had a potentially great hockey team, usa" or my favorite, "we almost got the giants, usa"

[agreenster]

Is this a true G5, or the 7460 G4 we keep hearing about?

[Rocketman]

Originally posted by ThlayliTheFierce
No, what they REALLY need is bus speed and hard drive speed. Most people don't play 3d games on their Mac (at least not as a primary use). While I agree that a better video card can do a lot for a computer's speed as a whole, at this point the Mac's main bottlenecks are bus speed and hard drive speed. The PowerMac G5's need to have a 400 Mhz bus, ATA-100 (if not 133), and DDR at least, or I (along with many others) will be very disappointed.

The videographer market needs a super large screen Ti book with internal raid and multi-firewire and gigawire. By offering perhaps 4 or so hard discs and a much larger flat form factor the benefits of portability and large screen and massive I/O and storage would be hard to resist.

They might only sell as many as the top end MP macs, but the price premium it would command would be impressive. It is also in line with current Apple strategy and compatible with existing boards, hardware and everything except cases.

Rocketman

[AlphaTech]

Originally posted by joey j
AlphaTech> an Ultra ATA133 drive (only 5400 rpm)


Can we have some faster spindle speeds please? Since when has a 5400 rpm
hd saturated even an ata/33 interface?

joey j, I have seen ATA100 hard drives (5400 AND 7200 rpm) that are very fast. Maxtor makes excellent drives with those interfaces, as well as ATA133. If the new Apple systems ship with either ATA100 or 133 interfaces for hard drives, I plan on getting a second drive of identical spec's and then (using OSX's native RAID option) striping them (RAID 0 I believe). That will make a drive that is 1-1/2 to 2 times the spec of a single drive, and with space equal to both drives combined.

ATA hard drive technology has been making advances hand over fist ever since they broke out of the ATA33 interface. To think that the ATA133 at 5400 rpm is not a nice drive is ridiculous. If it wan't a good interface Apple would still be using all SCSI and would not have adopted it. Never mind the cost savings, there would have been too many people compaining and they would have changed (same as with the keyboards when they started making the Pro line).

peace.

[ThlayliTheFierce]

So basically you're looking for a $6000 CinemaBook? Apple probably would if they appealed to more people. I personally wouldn't buy one if I had the money. Any bigger than about 15" and a portable becomes much less so.

[Rocketman]

Originally posted by ThlayliTheFierce
So basically you're looking for a $6000 CinemaBook? Apple probably would if they appealed to more people. I personally wouldn't buy one if I had the money. Any bigger than about 15" and a portable becomes much less so.

Kaypro and companies like Grid used to sell "transportable" computers. These were largish over equipped boxes for applications requiring "on-site" work.

A Videographers does only on-site work. They dont need G5 speeds for image capture. They need I/O and viewing. Typically power is avail, if only a car battery.

As with all Apple hardware, the dedicated masses of fans will buy them for ego alone, but the people needing such a device will make Apple as prominent in videography as it is in publishing and education.

Market share is the thing.

When HDTV large screens came out, all the shows put them on TV. A Cinemabook would likely also get screen time.

My main point is that it can be done NOW with current boards and parts and only a new case.

Manufacturability is probably the primary driver for products at Apple. No decodehedron G5 macs :(

Rocketman