PowerMacs, eMac, iMac Rumor Wrapup [Archive]

arn

Aug 14, 2002, 01:04 AM

Apple's new PowerMacs were released yesterday, as expected...

The biggest information leak was that of the PowerMac enclosures (http://www.macrumors.com/pages/2002/07/20020722000753.shtml) on July 19, 2002. A mysterious PDF appeared, as well as photographs on MacBidouille (http://www.hardmac.com) which accurately depicted the new PowerMacs.

CNet (http://www.macrumors.com/pages/2002/07/20020709212103.shtml) and ThinkSecret (http://www.macrumors.com/pages/2002/07/20020712144032.shtml) provided hints of the rest of the details with reports of an August 13th release as far back as July 12th. The new PowerMacs were also expected to be "in excess of 1.2GHz, faster memory, and bus".

Spymac's prediction (http://www.macrumors.com/pages/2002/08/20020805052143.shtml) of an October Superdrive'd eMac came early.

Rumors to keep an eye on include Apple Junkyard (http://www.macrumors.com/pages/2002/07/20020726125613.shtml), more iTools integration (http://www.macrumors.com/pages/2002/07/20020730104602.shtml) and Powerbooks in January (http://www.macrumors.com/pages/2002/08/20020812205425.shtml).

sparkleytone

Aug 14, 2002, 01:06 AM

is it just me or was the eMac also bumped to 800MHz ??? was it already 800 on the top line?

i coulda sworn it was 700

imacguy

Aug 14, 2002, 02:03 AM

You're right, the eMac was running a slower processor than the iMac. If I hadn't just bought a new 667 Tibook DVI I would probably be looking at getting an eMac now that they have the Superdrive. Hopefully the eMacs will sell well to the schools.

cbrantly

Aug 14, 2002, 02:50 AM

Another thing that everyone seems to be overlooking is that the PowerMac has a larger heatsink and NO FAN! There were a bunch of people complaining on the message boards about how loud this new PowerMac was going to be...and then Apple releases it with no fan. I love Apple, and I hate how pessimistic a lot of rumormongers are.

IndyGopher

Aug 14, 2002, 03:22 AM

cbrantly

Aug 14, 2002, 03:57 AM

This is from MacMinute.com

• processor heatsink is considerably larger than previous models, but lacks a fan

Looks like a fan to me too...is MacMinute wrong?

amnesiac1984

Aug 14, 2002, 05:08 AM

yes there is a fan!! But its a huge slow moving fan that slowly moves large volumes of air across the heatsink. Hence the front and rear vent holes! This large slow fan idea is as good as a small fast one but it produces much less noise.

The same volume of air per second is moving because of the larger amount of air moving but its slower speed. Very clever, well done Apple!!! (oh i'm sure loads of other companies have done this before and its not an apple innovation so don't flame me!!)

Pants

Aug 14, 2002, 05:21 AM

Originally posted by cbrantly
Another thing that everyone seems to be overlooking is that the PowerMac has a larger heatsink and NO FAN! There were a bunch of people complaining on the message boards about how loud this new PowerMac was going to be...and then Apple releases it with no fan. I love Apple, and I hate how pessimistic a lot of rumormongers are.

love apple? yes, you have to admire some of their marketing gall. the larger heatsink is simply because these are overclocked 7455's - save your money and overclock your old 1 ghz dual for the same effect.... what surprises me even more is that given this box has more holes in it than a sieve, it needs a fan in the first place! ;) I cant believe apple can stick in DDR and call it a selling point, when the first "D" is hardly being used.

Loving apple is all well and good (I love my iBook!!), but failing to point out their flaws and lack of delivery , whilst continually being sycophantic will only lead us back to the dark days of the 90's....

tcmcam

Aug 14, 2002, 07:25 AM

I just spent 2 hours with the new PowerMac yesterday at the Apple Store.

YES, it has a fan. It actually has 3, one big one that blows across the huge heatsink that cools the processors.

A second one blows across the internal CD/DVD drives.

A third one inside the PowerSupply of the unit.

The POWER SUPPLY fan is VERY NOISY. This was a busy store and the whine of that fan was unmistakable. I walked over to an older PowerMac and it was quieter!!!

YIKES!! So don't congratulate Apple just yet. It's a really loud and noisy box.

But the 867 and 1 ghz boxes do perform well with the final release of Jaguar.

eyeONdoor

Aug 14, 2002, 07:25 AM

Originally posted by Pants

love apple? yes, you have to admire some of their marketing gall. the larger heatsink is simply because these are overclocked 7455's - save your money and overclock your old 1 ghz dual for the same effect.... what surprises me even more is that given this box has more holes in it than a sieve, it needs a fan in the first place! ;) I cant believe apple can stick in DDR and call it a selling point, when the first "D" is hardly being used.

Loving apple is all well and good (I love my iBook!!), but failing to point out their flaws and lack of delivery , whilst continually being sycophantic will only lead us back to the dark days of the 90's....

pants, i agree with what you're saying here. its difficult to tell yet just how good or lame these new machines are considering the skill and inventiveness of apple engineers. i guess we'll have to wait till some actually get these machines and put them through everyday use.

what i'm wondering now is ( and i don't think its too early to speculate) whats in store for us in january or when can we expect the next "new" powermacs?

anyone?...

StuPid QPid

Aug 14, 2002, 07:52 AM

One other question regarding the previous rumors. Anybody know how the new Power Mac motherboard compares to the red eBay motherboard that was offered a few months ago? Also wasn't there a mystery connector on that board? I'm just curious as Arn didn't seem to mention this in his round up.

amnesiac1984

Aug 14, 2002, 08:35 AM

so it is noisy! darn!

DOes anyone know if the fans are swithed off in sleep mode? I am buying one of these for university and would like to keep it on but asleep during the night so I can get some rest, my current beige g3 makes a hell of a racket when asleep so I have to boot it up every morning and close it down at night! I have a feeling that macs have been silent while asleep for awhile but seeing as my only experience with recent macs has been a TiBook 400 and an iMac DV 400. I've not even seen a recent G4 Tower let alone USED one!!

TechLarry

Aug 14, 2002, 08:38 AM

I, for one, am VERY disappointed.

Still underpowered and overpriced :(

TL

TechLarry

Aug 14, 2002, 08:41 AM

Originally posted by Pants

Loving apple is all well and good (I love my iBook!!), but failing to point out their flaws and lack of delivery , whilst continually being sycophantic will only lead us back to the dark days of the 90's....

I absolutely agree!

If customers don't demand better, then they will never get it. Espeically from Apple.

TL

jayscheuerle

Aug 14, 2002, 09:03 AM

Time to move on from this case design that's only begetting consecutively uglier face-plat changes.

Time to come up with a processor that doesn't need to be overclocked AND dualed in order to appear competitive.

Time to see some real world speed comparisons that don't involve a rigged Photoshop speed test with scripted actions that heavily revolve around Alvitec.

Perhaps Apple dropped "Think Different" because they don't anymore...

drastik

Aug 14, 2002, 09:36 AM

WOw, the most whinny people about this are the ones who come here and read the least. This is a major update. Apple's been behind for awhile, and this update has brought them into the present. Thye'll get to the future in a some time, but it will probably take awhile. For those of you waiting for a G5 for less that $800 bucks, quit dreaming. If your from the PC camp, look to SONY's high end stuff or a good comparision. Not cutting edge, but up with the new stuff and well, built, well fit together, and operrates fairly well minus windows.

If you want a cheap computer, buy an eMAc, that's what they are for. If you think its too expensive, you're gonna think an Alienware PC with almost as much stuff is too expensivve ($50 difference.) Buy an eMac or god forbid a Dell and shut up.:rolleyes:

chubakka

Aug 14, 2002, 09:49 AM

Damn... no one has seen performance tests or even used on of these machines yet, OR have used Jaguar... and the bitching never ceases.

What do you people do that a 1.2 Dual wouldn't suffice?
Or does it just irk you that the PC's have higher megahertz?
If the PC and XP is so much better... then switch.

I don't believe that Macs are running just as fast as the top of the line
PCs... and I don't really care. When I need a new Powermac I'll buy one.

Did we get spoiled there for a while when macs were faster or just as fast as PCs? Are we so jaded now that only the reinvention of the Powermac can suffice?

Do you think all this bitching is really going to make Apple come out with a Quad 2 GHz PowerMac in December? If they did you would probably complain that it's not fast enough and there's no 2 button mouse.

iShater

Aug 14, 2002, 10:09 AM

It seems that most people are looking at the high end machine, and saying oh 1.25DP instead of 1.0DP machine. Ugh.

Many (including myself at first) are failing to look that the LOW-END PM is an 867DP, compare that to the last model's 800MHz configuration and that is a big friggin jump!

Now, if someone can just tell me how fast of a machine VPC would emulate on one of those babies ... :D

drastik

Aug 14, 2002, 10:24 AM

iShater, fast enough to do any type of office tasking, I'll promise you that. If you need cusstomized aplications running, that will probably be a little slower.

crazymacfan

Aug 14, 2002, 10:28 AM

the new overclocked or hacked 1.25 seems to me like it does a pretty good job at fps. Now is the 1.25 like the xserve, which really doesnt take advantage of ddr at all, is the new 1.25 like this or is it true ddr. and i would have to say that 169 fps on the new mac aint bad. considering pc users aim for 180fps.. and apple has always been lagging behind when it came to gaming. so lemme know

ImAlwaysRight

Aug 14, 2002, 10:35 AM

Originally posted by amnesiac1984
so it is noisy! darn!

DOes anyone know if the fans are swithed off in sleep mode? I am buying one of these for university and would like to keep it on but asleep during the night so I can get some rest,

I would imagine the fans do turn off when the computer goes to sleep. The last few G4 PowerMacs have had this feature, so I'm sure this is no different (no need to keep the fans running in sleep mode).

Also, if the main noisy fan is in the power supply, that may be hard to replace. I think the power supplies are difficult to get into. But if it is as noisy as a Quicksilver, I'll sure find a way.

(FWIW - I believe the large fan that blows across the heatsink will be fairly quiet -- plus it is in the middle of the computer, which will not put out so much noise. But the small fan by the CD drives may be noisy, as, I'm sure, is the Power Supply fan. I'll be looking to make modifications to the fans on my dual 1GHz if it is noisy. Noise was the main reason I didn't like the Quicksilver.)

Captnroger

Aug 14, 2002, 10:38 AM

chubakka, well said. I can't think of any new hardware release by Apple in recent years that didn't have it's share of critics.

Pants

Aug 14, 2002, 10:39 AM

Originally posted by chubakka
Damn... no one has seen performance tests or even used on of these machines yet, OR have used Jaguar... and the bitching never ceases.

What do you people do that a 1.2 Dual wouldn't suffice?
Or does it just irk you that the PC's have higher megahertz?
If the PC and XP is so much better... then switch.

I don't believe that Macs are running just as fast as the top of the line
PCs... and I don't really care. When I need a new Powermac I'll buy one.

Did we get spoiled there for a while when macs were faster or just as fast as PCs? Are we so jaded now that only the reinvention of the Powermac can suffice?

Do you think all this bitching is really going to make Apple come out with a Quad 2 GHz PowerMac in December? If they did you would probably complain that it's not fast enough and there's no 2 button mouse.

no i don't - but when loyal mac users like myself are sitting on (corporate) money and seriously looking at the opposition, I expect apple shareholders will take notice. If nothing else, its becoming harder to justify to other workers why they should shell out a premium for apple hardware. Reports like the following are merely excuse making to shareholders:-

"Sales of the PowerMac collapsed this year, down 26 per cent from the same quarter last year, which the company attributed to "current economic conditions are having a pronounced negative impact on its professional and creative customers and that many of these customers continue to delay upgrades of their Power Macintosh systems due to the Company's ongoing transition to Mac OS X ... and in anticipation of certain software vendors transitioning their Macintosh applications to run natively in Mac OS X. Further, the Company did not experience the anticipated increase in Power Macintosh sales it expected following the introduction of Adobe's PhotoShop 7," in its most recent SEC filing"

No - I'm not buying because I dont see them as 'good value' - its no other reason than that. 4000 plus pounds is an AWFUL lot of money to pay for a fudged DDR solution and an overclocked 1 ghz dual. As I said earlier, I have absolutely no gripe with my iBook (or the tibook) - excellent design and value for money. I just wish this ethos spread throughout the range.

The more customers accept, cheer and defend poor business judgements, the less likelyhood campaigns like the current 'switch' will succeed.

The point made earlier about noise is very valid - we have had office wars over a noisy DEC workstation and who it sits near, resulting in somone turning it off and weeks worth of work being lost. Unix boxes are left on all the time, but background noise *is* an issue, and one some of us would like to minimize, if only for office harmony! :)

ImAlwaysRight

Aug 14, 2002, 10:39 AM

one other note -- I wish Apple would go back to using a jumper block for CPU speed. I didn't mind overclocking the Blue G3's (typically they were easy to overclock at least 50MHz or about 10+ % and ran stable.) I'd be nice to try to overclock my dual 1GHz, but I'm not about to try to solder teeny tiny resistors as I can't afford any goof-ups.

medea

Aug 14, 2002, 10:41 AM

You people can find something to bitch about with everything can't you?

nero007

Aug 14, 2002, 10:44 AM

Originally posted by Total OS X
You people can find something to bitch about with everything can't you?

Tell me about it. This has turned into the bitchiest forum in the Mac Community. They even have us bitching about how much they bitch! :rolleyes:

ImAlwaysRight

Aug 14, 2002, 10:50 AM

Originally posted by crazymacfan
the new overclocked or hacked 1.25 ...
Why are several people calling the 1.25GHz an "overclocked" G4? Is this because the 7455, which some are speculating as the chip in the new PowerMacs, isn't suppost to go above 1GHz? Has anyone here seen the chips? Isn't there the possibility that since the 1.25GHz model isn't shipping for two more months that even if the dual 1GHz is a 7455 that the 1.25 GHz will use a different G4 chip, like the 7470?

I've never known Apple to overclock it processors and send them out. In fact, I've found the opposite to be true. I once had a 350MHz Blue G3 PowerMac in my possession that actually had a 400MHz G3 chip in it that overclocked just fine at 450MHz. I doubt Apple will take chips only rated at 1GHz and overclock them to 1.25GHz. Apple is not going to send out computers that are not stable, and you can't always guarantee stability with overclocking. I would think the 1.25GHz may use a different G4 chip than the 7455, if that chip is only suppose to go up to 1.0GHz.

chubakka

Aug 14, 2002, 10:55 AM

"Sales of the PowerMac collapsed this year, down 26 per cent from the same quarter last year, which the company attributed to "current economic conditions are having a pronounced negative impact on its professional and creative customers and that many of these customers continue to delay upgrades of their Power Macintosh systems due to the Company's ongoing transition to Mac OS X ... and in anticipation of certain software vendors transitioning their Macintosh applications to run natively in Mac OS X. Further, the Company did not experience the anticipated increase in Power Macintosh sales it expected following the introduction of Adobe's PhotoShop 7," in its most recent SEC filing"

This is exactly why we have not upgraded or bought any new systems in the past year. I work in a small ad/design agency and we won't even consider switching to OS X until Quark Xpress comes out native for it. We had an old file server bite the dust, did we purchase a new Xserve to replace it? Nope... we converted an old G3 tower (a laid off art directors work station I might add) into a file server. The economy sucks and Quark is dragging its heels.
Apple knows who its core pro users are and they understand the bind we're in.

ImAlwaysRight

Aug 14, 2002, 11:01 AM

Originally posted by nero007

Tell me about it. This has turned into the bitchiest forum in the Mac Community. They even have us bitching about how much they bitch! :rolleyes:
Some people are just unhappy with life -- everyone owes them something and/or they've been cheated in some way...

For the record, I think the new PowerMacs are great. When you look at the new low end PowerMac, what Apple is offering for $1699 is a fantastic deal. Any older PowerMac just lost half if not more of its resale value.

elgruga

Aug 14, 2002, 11:02 AM

Its about price, a lot of the time.

For commercial use, Linux and a cheap PC is about 1/3 the price of a Powermac, and a bit faster.

Apple continue to play games, use hyperbole in advertising, change design features for no functional reason, etc.
These things are causing Apple sales problems as we move into the 'mature' computer age.

The idea of a yearly fresh potential buying public is no more - most young people know about computers, and are quite capable of running any standard app on any machine.

There isnt enough difference between Apple and other machines (that cost less cash), but Apple is still behaving as if it was 1987.
Thats because their managment cant let go of the past.

Its always the management that needs changing when things are repeatedly not going well.

Normal company loses market share = change of management.
Apple loses market share = same management.

Apple needs a more balanced approach, esp. when dealing with corporate clients, who think "switch" means the thing that turns on the lights.

Apple just cant stay the same - their user base is getting old, and the new users dont see the world the same way that Apple management do.

Either change or be changed - thats Apple choice.

These new machines are NOT significantly more powerful, or cheap enough to win back market share.

The product that was winning converts was the iPod - but not now it has Windows software.

$7500 CAD for a Powermac? Thats just silly pricing.

As I say, Apple is suffering from management problems that wont go away without changing the management.

Thats the truth, but I dont expect most will agree......

chubakka

Aug 14, 2002, 11:12 AM

Apple has been gaining market share. Incrementally but still.

It has a whole range of computers sub $2000. (Including a Powermac.)

Apple is not expected to or intends to become the run of the mill business
machine that ever office worker uses. Dell has the cheap and sleazy bulk corporate market.

A CAD workstation for $7000 running OS X sounds like a deal to me.

Apple increases it's speeds 20-30% every 6 months.

Jam

Aug 14, 2002, 11:47 AM

Originally posted by elgruga
There isnt enough difference between Apple and other machines (that cost less cash), but Apple is still behaving as if it was 1987.
Thats because their managment cant let go of the past.

But, there IS something different about macs, or else we would all be using PCs... I for one don't care if the guy next to me can render his animation in 31 seconds while it takes me 45 seconds IF to match his results I'd needto switch to a PC. I love the mac, I love the operating system and it's what I (and most of us) CHOOSE to use. There are some sacrifices we make when we choose macs, but I feel there are A LOT more benefits. Let's stop fighting over if this is DDR this and this MHz is this and enjoy the machinges... I think these new macs are sweet.. maybe the chrome on the front is a little ugly, maybe they aren't G5, but if I were in the market I'd pick one up... look at what you got from Apple for the same money last week- what an improvement! Purfect? Hell, no, but let's not lose sight of what we actually got.
I'm not saying "quit oushing Apple to innovate" but, try to appreciate what we DO get out of them and then just look forward to the great stuff that will eventually come down the line. Don't forget that Apple is our computer of choice, if it's not good enough for you, switch or wait. OK, off my soapbox... sorry to rant, but it's not always JUST about MHZ and RAM and Bus and this and that....

-J

Pants

Aug 14, 2002, 11:51 AM

Originally posted by chubakka

Apple increases it's speeds 20-30% every 6 months.

updates every 6 months? your not related to a goldfish by any chance? you have a short memory .... ;)

rugby

Aug 14, 2002, 11:52 AM

I AM PISSED ABOUT THESE NEW COMPUTERS!!!!! THe dual 1.25ghz is really just the same as my G4/400, just overclocked a lot and then cloned for twice the processing power!!! I won't buy a new Mac until we have octo-processing G9's in an ipod! That way I can always iron my pants while listening to mp7's.

People who bitch about the new computers should take a deep breath and then a deep drink.

Jam

Aug 14, 2002, 11:54 AM

Originally posted by rugby
I AM PISSED ABOUT THESE NEW COMPUTERS!!!!! THe dual 1.25ghz is really just the same as my G4/400, just overclocked a lot and then cloned for twice the processing power!!! I won't buy a new Mac until we have octo-processing G9's in an ipod! That way I can always iron my pants while listening to mp7's.

People who bitch about the new computers should take a deep breath and then a deep drink.

Amen.

-J

ConradG4

Aug 14, 2002, 11:56 AM

Originally posted by ImAlwaysRight

Why are several people calling the 1.25GHz an "overclocked" G4? Is this because the 7455, which some are speculating as the chip in the new PowerMacs, isn't suppost to go above 1GHz? Has anyone here seen the chips? Isn't there the possibility that since the 1.25GHz model isn't shipping for two more months that even if the dual 1GHz is a 7455 that the 1.25 GHz will use a different G4 chip, like the 7470?

If you would take a look at Motorola's website you will see that the 7455 is only cable of 1Ghz normally. Site: http://e-www.motorola.com/webapp/sps/site/taxonomy.jsp?nodeId=03M943030450467M98653

What also makes me wonder here is about the 133/167Mhz bus... If you haven't noticed the base model is 133 and the higher are 167... On motorla's site it doesn't name 167 to be a bus speed for the 7455..

Is this possibly an IBM chip? After a review of IBM's chip site it appears not. None of the G4 chips on these sites fit the new mac! Either they haven't updated their sites or something very odd is going on.

Maybe they have found a way to warp the proccesor into another dimension in which time goes faster than here and in doing so creating a 250Mhz gap.

I don't know... Here's IBM's PowerPC site http://www-3.ibm.com/chips/products/powerpc/

Flusterred,
Conrad

chubakka

Aug 14, 2002, 11:57 AM

Wasn't the last bump done in March?

iShater

Aug 14, 2002, 12:00 PM

Originally posted by drastik
iShater, fast enough to do any type of office tasking, I'll promise you that. If you need cusstomized aplications running, that will probably be a little slower.

I guess. I would need to run Lotus Notes, IBM Visual Age, Novell connectivity, and some compilers. If the emulation can even run as fast as an old Pentium II 400 or around that figure, I would be set!

But I could never find any benchmarks for VPC, all the ones compare VPC 5.0 to an old one, or to a Pentium 75Mhz. Does anybody know if any exist?

bbc

Aug 14, 2002, 12:54 PM

I'm just bummed that they didn't use Bill Cosby to do a promo for the new power macs. He could have done a snippet from his "200 Miles Per Hour" skit, in which a friend of his is building him a car that has "dual .... EVERYTHING".
:-)
I mean, seriously it has dual drive bays in front, dual drive bays inside, dual firewire, dual USB, dual CPUs, dual headed video cards, dual OS support, ...

(I didn't view any of their ads, but am just assuming they weren't this clever, and in general have not had any video specifically touting the new boxes.)

topicolo

Aug 14, 2002, 03:27 PM

Originally posted by elgruga

As I say, Apple is suffering from management problems that wont go away without changing the management.

Thats the truth, but I dont expect most will agree......

I wholeheartedly agree:eek: Down with Jobs!:eek: :eek: :eek: Seriously, you wouldn't happen to be an apple shareholder, would you?:rolleyes:

elgruga

Aug 14, 2002, 10:13 PM

I didnt say down with Jobs - I just think that they need a more balanced leadership group. That could include SJ, I think.

And no, I am not going to use a PC. I just want Apple to think a little more clearly sometimes......

Using OSX and I love it (mostly) and I love it more as I discover what I can do with it. I would not consider OS9 again (although I need it for SoundEdit 16 and a few other things.

Still the new machines are too expensive.

FatTony

Aug 14, 2002, 10:38 PM

Originally posted by elgruga
Normal company loses market share = change of management.
Apple loses market share = same management.

When SJ came back, he shook up the management and the board of directors. Since then, Apple has done signifcantly better than they had under Gil.

deepkid

Aug 15, 2002, 12:47 AM

Originally posted by ImAlwaysRight

Has anyone here seen the chips? Isn't there the possibility that since the 1.25GHz model isn't shipping for two more months that even if the dual 1GHz is a 7455 that the 1.25 GHz will use a different G4 chip, like the 7470?

Very interesting observation. Apple has used different chips in a powermac family before... this just might cause a few more people to wait and see what those chips will actually be...(unless someone with facts can step foward)

BTW, is there any thorough documentation of these 7460 or 7470 chips? I've done a few searches and can only find processor roadmaps and people referring to a couple of rumored reports by The Register.

Thanks.