90nm G5 Supplies Improving?

[MacRumors]

Appleinsider reports (http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=451) that Apple has received new 90nm PowerPC shipments and seeded several test PowerMac units to partners.

The test models are reported to range from 2.2GHz to 2.6GHz.

Meanwhile, Appleinsider notes that Apple Display upgrades could be delayed by oversupply of current units.

Rumors of PowerMac revisions have come and gone over the past few months. Earlier reports have indicated that Apple has already outsourced work for promotional materials for the new machines... but due to the unsteady supply of 90nm chips has been unable to commit to a ship date.

[MrSugar]

Appleinsider reports (http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=451) that Apple has received new 90nm PowerPC shipments and seeded several test PowerMac units to partners.

The test models are reported to range from 2.2GHz to 2.6GHz.

Meanwhile, Appleinsider notes that Apple Display upgrades could be delayed by oversupply of current units.

Rumors of PowerMac revisions have come and gone over the past few months. Earlier reports have indicated that Apple has already outsourced work for promotional materials for the new machines... but due to the unsteady supply of 90nm chips has been unable to commit to a ship date.
weee first post :)

This is good news to see that Apple is starting to get some constant chip supplies in, hopefully we will see them soon!

[Grimace]

Here come the "No 3GHz???" complaints.....

[Grimace]

No new Display for a while either...

"On a side note, sources speculate that the likelihood of new Apple Cinema displays seeing an introduced alongside the new Power Macs could be fading fast. Despite promotional efforts intended to help deplete the stock of current displays, inventory is still said to be heavy."

[yoman]

600 mhz increase! At least its not only 60mhz. :)

[J-Squire]

Here come the "No 3GHz???" complaints.....

Was just about to post mine.......

I was REALLY hoping for 3GHz come WWDC. I am suprised that they have spent 12 months preparing for this Rev B and it will only be a 2.6GHz. I will just cling to the faint hope that they have only seeded these speeds in order to keep the cat in the bag

[BrianKonarsMac]

600 mhz increase! At least its not only 60mhz. :)dont you mean 67 :D. here's hoping apple eventually get's their supplies together, overstocked items are no fun for anyone.

[mikeyredk]

couldn't they just OC'em to 3 ghz?

[iriejedi]

Here come the "No 3GHz???" complaints.....

Trust me I want to believe in Steve... after all he did promise 3 gig by June (or next WWDC) - but all I want is a rev B G5! I'll even take a 2.1 I accept that the new G5s are amazing... but the whole "I'm not buying a first gen thing for me is personal".

:p

Irie

[Ambrose Chapel]

if the slowest Power Mac is at 2.2 GHz, then a G5 iMac could replicate the initial Power Mac line - 1.6 through 2.0

:D

[dontmatter]

As with all news of this sort, yay for the good news, but it doesn't make you quite as happy as it would-reminds you that the news isn't good, except that it's the improvment of bad news previously. And, of course there will be complaints about 2.2-2.6 ghz, but I'm not too woried. About that- if those are the ones apple's been testing with, will they be putting slower ones in actual machines, or are they testing the technology and once they get to the machines, the chips will be faster, and we might have something more like 2.8 or *gasp* 3?

[cjc343]

OverClocking decreases stability.... I like stable macs...

[dizastor]

couldn't they just OC'em to 3 ghz?

The 2.6's are just OC's 2ghz models... lol

[ZildjianKX]

Here come the "No 3GHz???" complaints.....

I don't think wanting a 3 GHz G5 is asking too much... I personally think they should be aiming for higher than 3 GHz for one year... just my $0.02.

[strangelogic]

If the wait for the G5 xServe was less than 5-7 weeks - if they can't make them at 2 Gig in volume...

[windowsblowsass]

sweet steve will probably announce theese at wwdc shipping soon but hell announce 3s but their not gonna ship till august

[Vlade]

The 2.6's are just OC's 2ghz models... lol

No their not, the 2.0GHZ machines are over-clocked 1.8 machines (thats what IBM has specified them to work at), but the new chips are going to be rated at 2.6 from IBM.

[iriejedi]

No new Display for a while either...

Only 2/3rds way through my MBA but I can solve the display problem!

CUT THE DANG PRICE!!!!!!!!!!!!

My 55inch HDTV from Mitshubushi was less then a 23inch HD monitor.

No one doubts how amazing those Apple displays are but given the other flat panal options out there I have seen - for half the price you can get 90% as good a display. or multiple displays and look super geeky and still have cash for a new XBOX game. If they cut 50% off the price tag they would still be expensive but I bet they'd move from inventory!

Irie

PS - mentioning a microsoft product was my way of swearing in a public forum! But I did not want to offend! :rolleyes:

[musicpyrite]

Here come the "No 3GHz???" complaints.....

There will most deffinately will be.

At least they updated the procssors... what will steve-o say at WWDC?

[keysersoze]

The entire AppleInsider Quote is:

"According to the source, all of the test models were equipped with dual processors ranging in speeds from 2.2GHz to 2.6GHz. The source, however, notes that there is no indication that configurations of the test units represent final specs for Power Macs that would be sent to production."

So 2.6 is not the definite "top"

So possible 3GHZ still on the horizon.
Also possible nothing on the horizon.
I'd place my bet on the former rather than the later.

[iLilana]

I smell cheap clear out monitor sale...



yeah right. :rolleyes:

[numediaman]

Only 2/3rds way through my MBA but I can solve the display problem!

CUT THE DANG PRICE!!!!!!!!!!!!

My 55inch HDTV from Mitshubushi was less then a 23inch HD monitor.


Unfortunately, what you are advocating is a "sales" strategy -- and Steve Jobs isn't one for sales strategies. Which is too bad really.

You won't sell displays if you aren't selling PowerMacs. The only other way is to get people to upgrade their current displays -- but you get into using price cuts as an incentive again (which exactly what should be done, of course).

I just wish Jobs were more aggressive. I understand their reluctance to cut margins -- but we are talking about products that are gathering dust on the shelves, right?

[ThomasJefferson]

Best part, my next mac is pr'olly an ibook for my presentations. About next year, when I think about a new desktop, that much anticipated monster on the mac-horizon will be mine.

[mgargan1]

remember last june when we all thought that the fastest g5 we would get was 1.6GHz? Well, Jobs suprised us and then gave us 2.0's... we did not expect that at all, we most of us didn't. So maybe Steve will suprise us, and give us 3.0's... and yes, the 2.0's are OC'd 1.8's. But just because it's OC'd does not mean that it's not stable. If IBM send apple unlocked mutipliers, then apple could OC the processors to their highest extent.

[e-coli]

The test models are reported to range from 2.2GHz to 2.6GHz.

I smell a PR disaster in the making.

[Macmaniac]

I don't even care how fast they are now 2.6 or 3.0 does not matter to me, all that matters is they lower the price across the board by $100, and put the Radeon 9600 as the base graphics card!! I want to play warcarft on a Rev. B G5, and I want to have it now! Please ship these before the end of June, summer is only so long!

[gorkonapple]

couldn't they just OC'em to 3 ghz?

And suffer from stability problems? No thank you!

[oingoboingo]

Was just about to post mine.......

I was REALLY hoping for 3GHz come WWDC. I am suprised that they have spent 12 months preparing for this Rev B and it will only be a 2.6GHz. I will just cling to the faint hope that they have only seeded these speeds in order to keep the cat in the bag

You never know...maybe 2.6GHz will replace the entry level 1.6GHz, and we'll have 3GHz systems 'paper launched' at WWDC, with actual availability in September, just like the original G5 launch.

In fairness to Apple, I don't think Apple itself has spent 12 months preparing for Rev. B...more like they've waited this long for IBM to solidify their supplies of faster PPC970 and PPC970FX chips...which is what the article was about.

3GHz or not, a 600MHz increase over the previous top-end (or put it another way, a 30% jump) is quite a welcome improvement, and will push the G5s back into serious competition with newer Opteron, Athlon 64 and Pentium 4 systems.

[rdowns]

Unfortunately, what you are advocating is a "sales" strategy -- and Steve Jobs isn't one for sales strategies. Which is too bad really.

You won't sell displays if you aren't selling PowerMacs. The only other way is to get people to upgrade their current displays -- but you get into using price cuts as an incentive again (which exactly what should be done, of course).

I just wish Jobs were more aggressive. I understand their reluctance to cut margins -- but we are talking about products that are gathering dust on the shelves, right?

Obviously, the Brilliant Savings promotion has not moved many displays. Duh, the faithful are waiting for the new PMs and no incentive on old G5s and even older displays will move them. Release the damn new PMs and the old displays will move with them. It's not like you're going to hear, I'm not buying a new 2.6 (or higher) until they upgrade the displays.

[SiliconAddict]

The 2.6's are just OC's 2ghz models... lol

No their not, the 2.0GHZ machines are over-clocked 1.8 machines (thats what IBM has specified them to work at), but the new chips are going to be rated at 2.6 from IBM.

sar·casm (särkzm) n.

A cutting, often ironic remark intended to wound.
A form of wit that is marked by the use of sarcastic language and is intended to make its victim the butt of contempt or ridicule.
The use of sarcasm. See Synonyms at wit.

[plastree]

If Apple is indeed receiving 2.6 Ghz rated chips, then it's reasonable to assume that they could overclock them to somewhere near the 3 Ghz mark. Dual 2.8 doesn't quite have the same ring to it, but it would definitely suffice for me.

[mgargan1]

Obviously, the Brilliant Savings promotion has not moved many displays. Duh, the faithful are waiting for the new PMs and no incentive on old G5s and even older displays will move them. Release the damn new PMs and the old displays will move with them. It's not like you're going to hear, I'm not buying a new 2.6 (or higher) until they upgrade the displays.

maybe they want to announce both at the same time to create more of a buzz... I can just hear Steve say, "now that we have these faster machines, should we be using a display from a generation ago? No? So what do you think we should have made? How about this..." and then he shows right after he displays the faster powermacs.

[mgargan1]

one more thing, at the store that I work at, we do have an xserve G5 instock... so they are shipping, just very slowly.

[javabear90]

Well I've been waiting scence december for new PM's. It's about time that something starts happening.

[LaMerVipere]

WTF? No 3GHz within a year like steve promised? AAAAAAH!!! THIS IS ANARCHY! Not to mention bad business, like, oh "100 million songs within a year and 30 million of that will come from the iTunes/Pepsi giveaway!" NOT. "3GHz within a year!" NOT. C'mon apple, get with the program already.

[dongmin]

If Apple is indeed receiving 2.6 Ghz rated chips, then it's reasonable to assume that they could overclock them to somewhere near the 3 Ghz mark. Dual 2.8 doesn't quite have the same ring to it, but it would definitely suffice for me.Actually, no, it's not reasonable what you're asking. if the chips are rated as 2.6 ghz by manufacturer, you best use them as 2.6 ghz or risk a major consumer backlash.

"Flaming Powermacs: Overclocked G5s Burn House Down!"

Also the rumor says nothing about at what clock the G5 shipments are coming in. It onlys says that test units are in the 2.2 - 2.6 range. If test units top out at 2.6, then I'd venture to guess that the actual shipping G5s will be slower.

I was really enjoying yesterday's croquer.free.fr rumor about how Apple was bypassing the 970fxs altogether and going for the 975 juggernaut. 3.2 ghz this summer, it said. Sigh, only a fantasy...

[yoman]

so this would make the powermacs 1.1GHz faster than the fastest powerbooks. (assuming 2.6 on the top end desktop). Hmm... I guess portability comes at a cost.

[sw1tcher]

Here come the "No 3GHz???" complaints.....

That's why you should have also mentioned this:

According to the source, all of the test models were equipped with dual processors ranging in speeds from 2.2GHz to 2.6GHz. The source, however, notes that there is no indication that configurations of the test units represent final specs for Power Macs that would be sent to production.

[Steven1621]

this probably rules out PM updates on the 18th. perhaps imac g5 on that day? it seems like WWDC will be the day for new PM's.

[iBot]

Apple's current "employee sale" (discounted products available to employees and their friends ) runs through June 25. Often, the sale indicates which products Apple is trying to clear out of its inventory to pave the way for new products. All 3 of the current G5 models are on the current sale list (1.6 GHz: $1299; 1.8 Dual: $1999; 2 GHz Dual: $2399). All three of the current flat panel displays are also on the list ($549, $999 and $1499 for the 23-inch Cinema HD).

Because the sale ends three days before the WWDC begins, my guess is no updated Powermacs or displays until June 28, at WWDC.

[macridah]

Here is the only way I see steve making good on his promise to deliver a 3 ghz power mac. Here is the lineup:

dual 2.2 ghz
dual 2.6 ghz
single 3.0 ghz

There will also be a slash in cinema displays. I have spoken ...

[walser]

They need to drop the price of the current LCDs so we can get so they can come out with those new monitors!!!!

I know apple is going to make something really cool!

[jane doe]

Apple's current "employee sale" (discounted products available to employees and their friends ) runs through June 25. Often, the sale indicates which products Apple is trying to clear out of its inventory to pave the way for new products. All 3 of the current G5 models are on the current sale list (1.6 GHz: $1299; 1.8 Dual: $1999; 2 GHz Dual: $2399). All three of the current flat panel displays are also on the list ($549, $999 and $1499 for the 23-inch Cinema HD).

Because the sale ends three days before the WWDC begins, my guess is no updated Powermacs or displays until June 28, at WWDC.

whats your source?

[Hattig]

Here is the only way I see steve making good on his promise to deliver a 3 ghz power mac. Here is the lineup:

dual 2.2 ghz
dual 2.6 ghz
single 3.0 ghz

There will also be a slash in cinema displays. I have spoken ...
Well, it depends on what IBM can ship to Apple in two months time. 2.6GHz at the moment, maybe Apple could overclock that to 2.7GHz on a 900MHz FSB, and sell dual 2.7, dual 2.4 and dual 2.1 machines. Then introduce a dual 3.0 GHz machine at an even higher price premium, a massive price premium, so that Apple would have shipped it, even if the price would put off all but the rich showoffs.

It all depends on what IBM can make. If they can make 200 3.0 GHz G5's, then Apple could use them in a $4999 machine. Lol, knowing a lot of mac users, they'd sell out.

[Gyroscope]

Ah c'mon babies. 2.6 looks pretty good over here, outside of Stevo's Reallity Distortion Field. Heck,its better than AMD's top @ 2.4 ghz and it seems that Intel is coming back to 2-2.5 ghz range with its forthcoming line of CPU's. So there you have it.

:{P

[Gyroscope]

Well, it depends on what IBM can ship to Apple in two months time. 2.6GHz at the moment, maybe Apple could overclock that to 2.7GHz on a 900MHz FSB, and sell dual 2.7, dual 2.4 and dual 2.1 machines. Then introduce a dual 3.0 GHz machine at an even higher price premium, a massive price premium, so that Apple would have shipped it, even if the price would put off all but the rich showoffs.

It all depends on what IBM can make. If they can make 200 3.0 GHz G5's, then Apple could use them in a $4999 machine. Lol, knowing a lot of mac users, they'd sell out.

Yeah,and then spend additional effort,money and resources to figure out how to cool this overclocked beast. Is not gonna happen for 200 pieces of 3.0 ghz.

[areyouwishing]

They should go...

SP 2.2
DP 2.4
DP 2.6

This way it doesn't piss off all the people that bought a new dual 2.0... there would still be a huge sense of value because it would out perform the single 2.2. They need a smaller case... sheesh its huge. I also won't buy until they get the I/O throughput all figured out.

[Gabriel]

Processor manufacturers tend to rate their chips well below the point at which there will be a significant risk of failure, so it is certainly possible that Apple could overclock their G5 supplies. However, 400MHz sounds pretty high. Its possible that since IBM sells to the embedded market (where stability is MUCH more important than clock speed usually), that they would put in more of a buffer zone than others, but I don't know.

[COS]

Its been said that the PPC970 or at least its future derivatives were meant to be multi-core. From what I understand about multi-core processors, the end result is essentially double the speed... or better put (for the average lay-person) double the MHz.

Its not like dual processor configurations where applications need to be multiprocessor aware but (again) might best be regarded as double the speed.

Sure, if Steve shipped high-end PowerMacs with chips boasting dual-core 1.5 GHz G5s, the naysayers will inevitably come out of the woodwork and accuse Apple of shenanagins but for all intents and purposes... it WOULD be a 3 GHz G5.

[musicpyrite]

They should go...

SP 2.2
DP 2.4
DP 2.6

This way it doesn't piss off all the people that bought a new dual 2.0...

Apple will ALWAYS piss off people who bought a computer 2 days before they were updated, it's in the 10 commandments.

[iBot]

whats your source?

I have a friend at Apple.

[AidenShaw]

Only 2/3rds way through my MBA but I can solve the display problem!

CUT THE DANG PRICE!!!!!!!!!!!!


I don't think it's the price - it's the tacky plastic (IMHO) non-adjustable frames holding decidedly mediocre LCD panels....

Have you ever looked at the Apple 23" display next to the similarly priced 24" Samsung display?

The Apple specs (brightness/contrast/angle) are poor, the non-adjustable stand is an embarrassment, and the Samsung looks like it's from the 21st century - not like a prop from the Jetsons!

People aren't buying the old plastic stuff because they're expecting aluminum and adjustable mounts!!!!

[ZildjianKX]

They should go...

SP 2.2
DP 2.4
DP 2.6

This way it doesn't piss off all the people that bought a new dual 2.0... there would still be a huge sense of value because it would out perform the single 2.2. They need a smaller case... sheesh its huge. I also won't buy until they get the I/O throughput all figured out.

Who cares how the DP 2.0 owners feel? Apple didn't give a crap about the people who just bought the SP 1.8 model felt when they upgraded it.

[baby duck monge]

Here is the only way I see steve making good on his promise to deliver a 3 ghz power mac. Here is the lineup:

dual 2.2 ghz
dual 2.6 ghz
single 3.0 ghz

There will also be a slash in cinema displays. I have spoken ...

i'm not so sure about your PM lineup there. i don't see them allowing the top model to be outdone by a lower model in certain applications (such as anything that is DP aware).

and even if it were faster in 99.9% of the things it did, the psychological aspect of having the lower models have duals and the highest model be a single would be detrimental.

[Earendil]

600 mhz increase! At least its not only 60mhz. :)

And let us not forget there exist two procs in these puppies.
600mhz x 2

Tyler
earendil

[segundo]

WTF? No 3GHz within a year like steve promised? AAAAAAH!!! THIS IS ANARCHY!

I can't stand all this complaining about the supposed promise of a 3GHz G5 within a year. I mean really, get over it. Apple is a company making products, not a religion where quotes from those on high can be taken as a gospel. Would everyone please stop complaining about this self perpetuated myth?

[LaMerVipere]

I can't stand all this complaining about the supposed promise of a 3GHz G5 within a year. I mean really, get over it. Apple is a company making products, not a religion where quotes from those on high can be taken as a gospel. Would everyone please stop complaining about this self perpetuated myth?

Well we are only holding Steve to his word. He could eliminate such criticism if he was more careful with his wording. To make statements, as he did, about hitting 3GHz within a year, and then, presumably, failing to do so, isn't any fault of ours. How can u hold it against people for comparing what steve said and the apparent reality of the situation? Damn that reality distortion field. *shakes fist as sky*

PS_people like you, who do nothing but make excuses for steve's mistakes, aren't any better then those of us who complain about him not living up to his word

[JOD8FY]

I was really hoping for 3Ghz G5's. Maybe Steve won't let us down people - just maybe... If he does though, what will he say at WWDC? He wouldn't leave it unmentioned, would he?

Here's to 3Ghz G5's at WWDC.

Cheers,
JOD8FY

[J-Squire]

Also the rumor says nothing about at what clock the G5 shipments are coming in. It onlys says that test units are in the 2.2 - 2.6 range. If test units top out at 2.6, then I'd venture to guess that the actual shipping G5s will be slower.


Too funny! Do you really believe this!?
You think that Apple, having promised 3GHz by summer, will announce "Hey, we promised 3GHz, but we actually didn't even make it half way! Here's your 2.4GHz G5s".
I doubt it. I also think the range should be spread more. Say a 2.2 entry, 2.6 mid, and 3GHz high. That would allow for more differentiation between the products which would give a bit more incentive to spend an extra $1000 for the next model up.

[SpiceMustFlow]

Rumors are the best weapons when you have nothing to sell...

Intel make a 180 degres shift with Pentium M (7xx) and sell it now!...

Motorola (sub-contract) have G4 600e and 700e at 2ghz... and altivec...

The best friend's of Mac is Steve Jobs creativity, the worst ennemy of Apple is Steve' ego's...

:cool:

[itsa]

" test models are reported to range from 2.2GHz to 2.6GHz."

I Hope that's just for the iMacs!

[JonYo]

I don't know why we're worrying about this now. To all the people who are intent on grinding Jobs to dust if he doesn't delivery those 3.0GHz machines on time: It's not even the middle of May yet! Geez, settle down. Going by the "end of summer" quote, I'd say he's got until the middle of September or so until we all have to start saying he failed to deliver as "promised". I think the other quote from him said something more like "1 year"...I dunno, we're really going to hold him to every syllable? I'd rather the next G5s be really really late than half baked. I suppose it was kinda dumb of him to make the "promise" (if you want to call it that) in the first place, since they're relying on IBM to make the CPUs a reality. Owell. Whatever the top end of the revB G5 turns out to be, DP2.4, DP2.6, whatever, that's what I'm getting. Gentlemen, start your checkbooks...

- JonYo

[x86isslow]

" test models are reported to range from 2.2GHz to 2.6GHz."

I Hope that's just for the iMacs!

the article mentions DP, so unless there is a most welcome change to the iMac line that adds a second processor, I'd venture that these are PMs, and that any G5 iMac released at WWDC will replace the current PM line up as far as specs go.

[Duff-Man]

WTF? No 3GHz within a year like steve promised? AAAAAAH!!! THIS IS ANARCHY! Not to mention bad business, like, oh "100 million songs within a year and 30 million of that will come from the iTunes/Pepsi giveaway!" NOT. "3GHz within a year!" NOT. C'mon apple, get with the program already.Duff-Man says.....geez....how many times must people be reminded that Steve said "by the end of the summer...." when he spoke last fall at Paris Expo. Yes, that was a change from what he said at WWDC last June. Also, he never once said *promise* - he obviously no longer needs his RDF because so many people here create their own.....oh yeah!

[jackieonasses]

he will do it! i promise!

[appleface]

Its been said that the PPC970 or at least its future derivatives were meant to be multi-core. From what I understand about multi-core processors, the end result is essentially double the speed... or better put (for the average lay-person) double the MHz.

i don't think i've heard this before. what's it all about?

also,
do you think the new pm will ship with 10gb Ethernet as an option?
http://www.small-tree.com/10Gb.htm

and finally,
besides hardcore video editors, who really needs dual 3.0 over dual 2.6? i'm seriously wondering.

[ltgator333]

he will do it! i promise!


Ok, explain why you say this, will you?


I think they'll do it by mid August. Allthough the 2.6Ghz chips sound great for the time being, but to be honest I'd rather see them update the iMac line first. The iMac's have been stale for a long time... I remember when the iMac was brand new some PC magazine did an article about it ( I think PC World....) and one of their points about the machine was "not just a pretty iMac" and went on to discuss how the PPC G3 made the current offerings from Intel look so-so... I think that was part of the thing that made the machine attactive- easy to set up and use and powerful at the same time. An iMac like that will sell.....
Then come the PMacs..
The big thing I am looking forward to is seeing the difference in performance/stability when Apple puts out a rev. B motherboard- there have been some noted bottlenecks especially in the FireWire 800 I/O performance of the current G5's, which leads me to wonder how many other smaller 'wrinkles' there are in the overall chipset and everything on the board that get ironed out.
But only time will really tell...

[gop007]

If this report is true, then we are in real trouble. If Apple can't deliver on its promise from a year ago, then they will have once again shown that they can not be trusted.

I must confess that I had seen similar reports prior to the G5 systems coming out. I remember the rumors talking about the delivey of 1.3 and 1.5 ghz chips and then when the systems came out they started at 1.6 and blew everyone away. I hope this happens this time.

[adamfilip]

common people

when IBM first announced the 970 i think they said it only went to like 1.6ghz. and Apple made 2ghz machines

dont worry about it. 3ghz will live at wwdc

[IndyGopher]

i don't think i've heard this before. what's it all about?

also,
do you think the new pm will ship with 10gb Ethernet as an option?
http://www.small-tree.com/10Gb.htm

Why make it an option? They were doing gigabit ethernet as standard long before anyone else even had cards out at retail. Make it standard. Put it on the motherboard. And quit jerking around with the optional bluetooth thing.. just put it in there. If people don't want to use it, they can turn it off. The only reason to leave airport as a card instead of building it on the board is so it can be upgraded.. but the bluetooth isn't a user installable option anyway, so just chuck it in there.

[adamfilip]

They should go...

SP 2.2
DP 2.4
DP 2.6

This way it doesn't piss off all the people that bought a new dual 2.0... there would still be a huge sense of value because it would out perform the single 2.2. They need a smaller case... sheesh its huge. I also won't buy until they get the I/O throughput all figured out.

Great idea.. lets never update ! that way.. no ones upset..
wait a minute.. that way everyone will be pissed.
Computers will always get faster.. its a law! (my law)

[Koodauw]

The no new display thing is what upsets me the most. I mean the current ones are so expensive. I was really hoping for a 17'' widescreen display from Apple. Well I can still hope. and if not at WWDC, the MWSF.......

[jane doe]

wheres that one guy that knew when the eMacs were coming out?? surely he knows whats coming and when???

[jackieonasses]

i really want a apple screen bad! my plastic is waiting!!!!!!!!

hopefully something to match my G5

[mj_1903]

To start with, overclocking a CPU does not mean instability. Overclocking a CPU too far or with insufficient cooling does mean instability. A 400mhz increase from 2.6ghz is only ~14% more mhz, quite a low amount.

As can be seen in the PC world, rated 3ghz chips can quite easily reach 3.6 with a better cooling system and run like that for years. CPU's are very flexible if treated correctly, and Apple know how to treat their chips correctly (Dual 1.42 anyone? It was overclocked).

Secondly, having 2.2, 2.4 and 2.6 components now (May) does not mean that IBM cannot produce 3ghz components by September. I am glad they are sampling those components now, its a sign that their production woes are starting to disappear. I for one have faith in IBM's engineering talents and their Fishkill facilities. Both are among the best in the world, if not the best.

Lastly, no matter what happens, Steve will introduce 3ghz machines. Whether they ship at WWDC or ship a month later, they will appear. Apple have a vested interest to not miss their stated target, and Steve's ego really will not let them miss it.

[tortoise]

Ah c'mon babies. 2.6 looks pretty good over here, outside of Stevo's Reallity Distortion Field. Heck,its better than AMD's top @ 2.4 ghz.

Heh. The difference is that the AMD64 systems are available NOW, and it isn't like AMD is sitting still with their new product lines. The short-term product pipeline for AMD looks very good. While we use OSX for workstations, the heavy lifting is done by Opteron systems (sorry, PPC can't touch them for memory performance and scalability), and I am quite pleased with their broad and agressive AMD64 roadmap.

Beside which, clock for clock, AMD64 is a bit faster than PPC on average (excepting the DSP stuff which the PPC is quite excellent at). Yeah, I know, flame on. :-)

[BWhaler]

I'm waiting to give Apple 5+ grand until a) MANDATORY refresh to the displays, and b) a Rev B G5. A 3.0 Ghz would inspire me more, but with new displays, I could live with a dual 2.6 or 2.8.

The displays are the main blocker in my opinion.

[tortoise]

Its been said that the PPC970 or at least its future derivatives were meant to be multi-core. From what I understand about multi-core processors, the end result is essentially double the speed... or better put (for the average lay-person) double the MHz. Its not like dual processor configurations where applications need to be multiprocessor aware but (again) might best be regarded as double the speed.


Nope, you have it incorrect. A dual core processor is exactly like a dual CPU machine. The difference is that they fit both CPUs in a single socket. So you don't get more speed, you just effectively get two processors in the space and packaging that would have normally only contained one. Which isn't a bad thing at all.

AMD is doing something very cool with their upcoming dual core AMD64 chips: they will be socket compatible with the single core chips. This means that you can take any single processor system and effectively upgrade it to dual processor by swapping out the CPU. Or upgrade a dual processor to a quad processor.

I don't know that the socket compatibility thing would work with PPC though, at least not as the PPC is currently designed. The Opteron memory and I/O subsystems can easily scale to a large number of cores, but the PPC systems aren't so hot at two cores. In the much larger picture, this is really the Achille's heel of the PPC chips actually, and the reason they will have a hard time competing with the AMD64 systems for a lot of real-world tasks. The AMD64 systems are a subsantially more balanced architecture. And that Apple really doesn't exploit the capabilities of the HyperTransport fabric doesn't help.

[omnivector]

Nope, you have it incorrect. A dual core processor is exactly like a dual CPU machine. The difference is that they fit both CPUs in a single socket. So you don't get more speed, you just effectively get two processors in the space and packaging that would have normally only contained one. Which isn't a bad thing at all.

AMD is doing something very cool with their upcoming dual core AMD64 chips: they will be socket compatible with the single core chips. This means that you can take any single processor system and effectively upgrade it to dual processor by swapping out the CPU. Or upgrade a dual processor to a quad processor.

I don't know that the socket compatibility thing would work with PPC though, at least not as the PPC is currently designed. The Opteron memory and I/O subsystems can easily scale to a large number of cores, but the PPC systems aren't so hot at two cores. In the much larger picture, this is really the Achille's heel of the PPC chips actually, and the reason they will have a hard time competing with the AMD64 systems for a lot of real-world tasks. The AMD64 systems are a subsantially more balanced architecture. And that Apple really doesn't exploit the capabilities of the HyperTransport fabric doesn't help.

that's not entirely true. dual-core machines will be faster than dual-cpu, because there's far less latency to get from one chip to another since they are both on the same die.

[ltgator333]

I don't know that the socket compatibility thing would work with PPC though, at least not as the PPC is currently designed. The Opteron memory and I/O subsystems can easily scale to a large number of cores, but the PPC systems aren't so hot at two cores. In the much larger picture, this is really the Achille's heel of the PPC chips actually, and the reason they will have a hard time competing with the AMD64 systems for a lot of real-world tasks. The AMD64 systems are a subsantially more balanced architecture. And that Apple really doesn't exploit the capabilities of the HyperTransport fabric doesn't help.


Yeah Sun's UltraSPARC IV chip is a dual core- basicly two UltraSPARC III cores pasted together and unless your code is optimised to take advantage of both it wont. Totally agree, it doesn't necessarily double or increase performance at all.
As for the dual core PPC chips, PPC 970 is as stripped down single core version of IBM's POWER 4 which is a dual core that IBM has been implementing in their PPC based servers and workstations since 2000. POWER 5 is also a dual core + Symmectric Multi-Threading, so it's effectively got at least 4 logical cores, and actually I think more. Basicly, IBM will have no trouble making a dual core chip, but I doubt the chips they will be supplying Apple will be dual cores, but whatever chip they derive from POWER 5 I would think will probably have the SMT capability (works a lot like Intel's Hyper-Threading but better). Also, POWER 5 has an on-die memory controller and I beleive uses a full implementation of hyper-transport for the FSB, so anything AMD may have on us now is just something that IBM's playing with right now or have been doing for a while already.

I actually think that is the one thing that really sucks about having IBM make Apple's chips- IBM will always have that POWER x chip that it only makes for IBM, and their PPC chips will always just be a stripped down version of their last POWER chip.. so actually the tech your seeing now is somewhat they're yesterday's news and half baked ideas for tomarrow.. 970 uses POWER 4's core which is yesterday's chip and has a kinda-hypertransport bus, which is a half baked idea for tomarrow's chip POWER 5....

[JFreak]

they should drop single-cpu powermac altogether. duals for all models, please.

[thatwendigo]

I don't think wanting a 3 GHz G5 is asking too much... I personally think they should be aiming for higher than 3 GHz for one year... just my $0.02.

Because, you know, Intel jumped a whole gigahertz last year. :rolleyes:

You never know...maybe 2.6GHz will replace the entry level 1.6GHz, and we'll have 3GHz systems 'paper launched' at WWDC, with actual availability in September, just like the original G5 launch.

I could be dead wrong, but let's put it this way... I think Apple is being tight, tight, tight about anything they release right now. Remember that warning to the Seed program last week? If they don't even want programmers talking about what's in the OS update, what do you think they would do to anyone who leaked that there were machines over 2.0ghz?

Also... Would Steve let there even be a remote possibility that the 3.0s would be preannounced? This is, at best, an appetite whetter. It's to get attention from people like us that slaver over the rumors.

In fairness to Apple, I don't think Apple itself has spent 12 months preparing for Rev. B...more like they've waited this long for IBM to solidify their supplies of faster PPC970 and PPC970FX chips...which is what the article was about.

Exactly.

3GHz or not, a 600MHz increase over the previous top-end (or put it another way, a 30% jump) is quite a welcome improvement, and will push the G5s back into serious competition with newer Opteron, Athlon 64 and Pentium 4 systems.

It's more than 200mhz and dropping the line, that's for sure. :D

WTF? No 3GHz within a year like steve promised? AAAAAAH!!! THIS IS ANARCHY! Not to mention bad business, like, oh "100 million songs within a year and 30 million of that will come from the iTunes/Pepsi giveaway!" NOT. "3GHz within a year!" NOT. C'mon apple, get with the program already.

Psssst... It hasn't been a year yet.

Here is the only way I see steve making good on his promise to deliver a 3 ghz power mac. Here is the lineup:

dual 2.2 ghz
dual 2.6 ghz
single 3.0 ghz

There will also be a slash in cinema displays. I have spoken ...

Except that a dual 2.6 would slaughter a single 3.0. The standard gain from SMP-aware applications is around 50%, so those dual 2.6s will be more like single 3.9ghz machines.

Well we are only holding Steve to his word. He could eliminate such criticism if he was more careful with his wording. To make statements, as he did, about hitting 3GHz within a year, and then, presumably, failing to do so, isn't any fault of ours. How can u hold it against people for comparing what steve said and the apparent reality of the situation? Damn that reality distortion field. *shakes fist as sky*

Wrong, bucko. You're shouting before the deadline is even past. Steve hasn't failed until the end of the Keynote at WWDC, and even then, the wording makes it possible that he could claim that "summer" means August.

How about you actually do what you say you're doing and wait for the "apparent reality of the situation," hmmmm?

Basicly, IBM will have no trouble making a dual core chip, but I doubt the chips they will be supplying Apple will be dual cores, but whatever chip they derive from POWER 5 I would think will probably have the SMT capability (works a lot like Intel's Hyper-Threading but better). Also, POWER 5 has an on-die memory controller and I beleive uses a full implementation of hyper-transport for the FSB, so anything AMD may have on us now is just something that IBM's playing with right now or have been doing for a while already.

Read about it here. (http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=12217)

Single-chip Power5s present as four cores (two logical, two virtual, according to the article), with 120 registers for integer and FP, 8 execution units, and a shared 1.92MB L2 cache (3 640k caches on independent buses). The chips operate and a 128bit-128bit dual single-directional bus (functionally a 256-bit 2Ghz FSB) with a half-clock interconnect to other MCMs (1ghz 128-bit), and an on-chip DDR memory controller with a 6GB/s I/O bus. The 32MB L3 cache and memory bus are separated, allowing for a theoretical memory bandwidth of 20GB/s, with the L3 on a 1GHz on-die bus.

From the article:
In any case, a typical 64-way SMP POWER5 system composed out of 32 chips will support 1TB RAM at start.

..

Well, if you just repeat the system density of p655, and have two of such systems in every 4 U of rack height, there comes a 2 TFLOPs cluster with 2 TB RAM with a peak memory bandwidth of more than 2 TB / second, all in one rack, with a bit of room to spare! Just remember a proper fast interconnect with distributed shared-memory capability...

I think there would be no problem at all making the 975 a dual-core chip with a memory controller on-die. In other words... VROOOOM!

[JFreak]

only problem is that ibm might want to keep powerX series a bit more advanced than the 97x and it's just likely they drop some features.

[Fiveos22]

My 55inch HDTV from Mitshubushi was less then a 23inch HD monitor.

No one doubts how amazing those Apple displays are but given the other flat panal options out there I have seen - for half the price you can get 90% as good a display.

However nice it is to compare the mitsu TV with the monitor, it is quite incorrect. Resolution-wise the 23 inch HD monitor smokes that 55 inch TV. Original TV (vga) is 640x480, Your HDTV ($1799 currently) has a max resolution of 480p (for reference HDTV 720p is 1280x720), Apple 23 inch Cinema has a max resolution of 1920x1200. The difference is noticable and the price difference is to be expected (this is purely in regards to resolution, not other things such as USB ports, etc.).

Your TV has a contrast ratio of 50:34 whereas the Cinema display is 300:1. All of these features need to be taken into account with the price. For an lcd screen of that resolution and size the price is at a premium (think about how many pixels there are and how few are allowed to be dead for an lcd to be sold).

The crux of my argument is, a TV (HD or otherwise) is no replacement for a computer monitor (my $390 Dell has a higher resolution than your TV)...and therefore the two cannot be compared in this instance.

Apple's high end panel is one of the most economical for its quality, they shouldn't have to cut prices to sell them.

[foniks2020]

All I know is that the 2.0 duals are already faster than the available 3.0 intel and amd chips.... anything more is just kerosene on the fire. Benchmarks will tell you that in optimal conditions that the intel 3.x systems compete with dual 2.0s but in real world situations where a user has email(Outlook), Browser(IE) and anything else other than Photoshop, etc... then those x86 chips don't do nearly as well.... how many of you have a dedicated machine for your work and a secondary for daily tasks? A few... how much productivity is lost switching between them?

In any case dual 2.6 would bring you up to and beyond par with anything out there for many months to come. Plus 10.4 should add some performance gains on the software front.. while windows continues to be "patched" and gets more bloated every day, ruining performance at every turn.

[ssamani]

Well we are only holding Steve to his word. He could eliminate such criticism if he was more careful with his wording. To make statements, as he did, about hitting 3GHz within a year, and then, presumably, failing to do so, isn't any fault of ours. How can u hold it against people for comparing what steve said and the apparent reality of the situation? Damn that reality distortion field. *shakes fist as sky*

PS_people like you, who do nothing but make excuses for steve's mistakes, aren't any better then those of us who complain about him not living up to his word

Well I guess this is why Apple rarely comments on future plans. If they don't hit their targets, sometimes not their own fault, they get crucified. From all the news around the 970FX and 90nm processing for IBM and Intel it is clear that the issue is out of Apple's hands and both IBM and Intel have been caught out with the move to 90nm. If you look at the only two predictions Steve has made recently we have:

- iTMS passes its annual sales target after only a few months and Steve upgrades the target to something that is amazingly high. Pepsi screws up its own promotion, missing expected targets by 400% (5m vs 25m) - partly Apple's fault, but largely down to Pepsi not distributing codes fast enough. The news agencies, including reputable ones with no Apple axe to grind like the BBC, report that iTMS missed its "original" target, even though that had been passed 7 or 8 months previously.

- Steve predicts the G5 will hit 3GHz within a year, no-one is sure whether he means from when he said it or from ship date, giving a 3 month window. Five months later the XServe G5 is delayed and it is very clear to everyone that IBM had problems moving to 90nm just like Intel and is hitting delays and everyone complains that Apple isn't keeping its promise, even though it is anywhere up to 7 months before the target date. Hello? Apple publicly blames IBM for the XServe delay and you don't slag off your *key* partner in public unless you are very sure that they are at fault. So what does everyone say? Oh Steve to keep his promise and we are still up to four months away from the anniversary of the G5 shipping.

No wonder they never make future predictions

There are a couple of concepts here that have gone missing, chiefly innocent until proven guilty. Unfortunately we've gone down the road of passing as guilty six months prior to the crime being committed. I for one consider this Thought Crime to have been prosecuted on the basis of a Minority Report.

Now if you want to slag Apple off for something, there's plenty - we have the fact they had to settle over G3 Beige support from OS X, iBook motherboard issues, eMac display issues, PB display spotting, abysmal Finder, inconsistent use of brushed metal, etc., etc., which are all within the remit of their design, manufacture or QA (i.e. I am not an Apple apologist). CPU clock speeds are out of their hands. The other principle being missed is don't shoot the messenger of IBM's fab problems.

[ZildjianKX]

they should drop single-cpu powermac altogether. duals for all models, please.

I say drop the DP line and go SP dual core... it's going to be silly seeing a huge G5 powermac holding two processors when you'll be able to get a dual core minitower PC pretty soon.

[aussiemac86]

I dont see apple moving many more of the current PM line up with the present PM pricing. As the majority of people to purchase PM's are pro users they would have a fairly good idea of whats coming up soon, and hardly anyone who knows there must be new PM's in the next 2 months is going to pay the same amount as they will be for an inferior machine now.

Apple should release maybe a 2.2 and drop some prices just as a teaser and then relase the big guns at WWDC.

[mj_1903]

Plus 10.4 should add some performance gains on the software front.. while windows continues to be "patched" and gets more bloated every day, ruining performance at every turn.

Having seen a 10.4 build (8A68 from memory) running, I can assure you it runs faster, but at this time it crashes faster as well. :)

Don't bother asking me about new features though, there were none that I could see. The branch I saw was the development branch for the kernel and the Cocoa frameworks.

[thatwendigo]

I say drop the DP line and go SP dual core... it's going to be silly seeing a huge G5 powermac holding two processors when you'll be able to get a dual core minitower PC pretty soon.

Or we could go dual-processor, dual-core and have, at minimum, four processors per machine. With SMT, that would be eight processors. Also, "pretty" soon is next year, at the earliest. Jonah is already a year off target, though I expect some serious traction once Intel realigns their engineering teams.

Also endian (http://endian.net/roadmap.asp) seems to be pretty on top of things, and they show no AMD plans to go dual core before at least 2006. Intel is slated to ship Jonah in the second half of 2005, or more than a year from now, after it's already slipped once.

Apple should release maybe a 2.2 and drop some prices just as a teaser and then relase the big guns at WWDC.

No dice. It's a logistical problem if they do that, aside from the lowered pricing. Also, if something happens between now and WWDC, the lowered prices would hurt Apple in the long run.

[sun-ice]

What about this:

- PowerMac DP G5 2.6 GHz
- PowerMac DP G5 2.4 GHz
- PowerMac DP G5 2.2 GHz

- iMac SP G5 2.2 GHz 20'
- iMac SP G5 2.0 GHz 17'
- iMac SP G5 2.0 GHz 15'

This could be pretty nice ?

This introduce G5 in all desktop (exept eMac) and prepare the G5 LapTop...
With Luck, we could say good bye to 32Bit processors...!!!

:)

[reyesmac]

I don't care how fast the top end is as long as its 3ghz+ and the low end is the exact same model as the 2ghz that is currently selling. None of that crippled motherboard stuff. Its been too long since an update. Maybe bringing the price down to what a powermac used to cost before the G5 would be nice too. Apple used to reduce the price of the Powermac for a while before they came out with new models, I don't know what their problem is these days. Its not about volume for them anymore, its all about profit margin.
Its too early in the morning for me to see this as anything but another lack luster update. Its nice that the Mac platform will reach 3ghz, but most of the people out there wont experience that speed until a year or two later when they put that chip on a cheaper mac. Most business I know don't buy the top of the line models.

[dragula53]

Wrong, bucko. You're shouting before the deadline is even past. Steve hasn't failed until the end of the Keynote at WWDC, and even then, the wording makes it possible that he could claim that "summer" means August.


He said 12 months, not next summer

[.a]

... within 12 months . i just wonder what people would have said, when steve jobs told us "the next revision of the g5 will be within 12 months" ¿?
.a

[Skiniftz]

.... I like stable macs...

You must have really hated OS9...

[CmdrLaForge]

Ah c'mon babies. 2.6 looks pretty good over here, outside of Stevo's Reallity Distortion Field. Heck,its better than AMD's top @ 2.4 ghz and it seems that Intel is coming back to 2-2.5 ghz range with its forthcoming line of CPU's.


Exactly - most are missing the point. 2.6 is pretty fast and even faster then AMDs top CPUs. And the speed increase between 2.0 and 2.6 is significant.

In terms of solutions - why is a dual 3.0 a solution and dual 2.6 is not ? Its just about some stupid numbers. If they would follow the same numbering scheme that AMD used for a while now - everybody would be happy. Just call the 2.6 a 3.0. Most wouldn't even know the difference - same as AMD !

[Skiniftz]

http://www.skinjob.co.uk/images/g5imac.jpg

[sun-ice]

I prefer the actual design of iMac...
And I hope Apple will keep the same white half buble for the G iMac...

(sorry for your "mix"... but...)

white => low perform
http://www.apple.com/imac/gallery/images/thumb_motion.jpg
aluminium => high perform
http://homepage.mac.com/timcox/.Pictures/aluminadisplay.jpg

[gekko513]

I wish people would be a little more sensible and consider the situation as it is rather than getting caught up in predictions that were made last year.

The processor manufacturers have had more trouble making the transition to 90nm than were expected. The prediction was most likely based on a less troublesome transition.

I for one will not get pissed if we don't get 3.0GHz. But even if I expect the worst, I hope for the best.

[PPC970FX]

Maybe Vapo will be inn the 3Ghz G5, or they will have PPC975. Dual dual core 3Ghz. 1,5Ghz FSB with 725 Mhz DDR2 RAM. :cool:

[ClimbingTheLog]

Only 2/3rds way through my MBA but I can solve the display problem!

CUT THE DANG PRICE!!!!!!!!!!!!

My 55inch HDTV from Mitshubushi was less then a 23inch HD monitor.


So go ahead and hook the S-Video out of your Powerbook to the HDTV and see how you like it.

Yeah, it sure does sound like you're in an MBA program...

[ClimbingTheLog]

they should drop single-cpu powermac altogether. duals for all models, please.

Until we get dual-core chips there's always going to be a way to get a lower-cost tower out if it's single chip and there's a market for that.

So, go dual-core!

[ClimbingTheLog]

Nope, you have it incorrect. A dual core processor is exactly like a dual CPU machine. The difference is that they fit both CPUs in a single socket. So you don't get more speed, you just effectively get two processors in the space and packaging that would have normally only contained one.

It's easier and faster to have good cache-coherency on a single chip than on chips on a bus, so it ought to be a bit faster too.

[minstryoffunk]

if the slowest Power Mac is at 2.2 GHz, then a G5 iMac could replicate the initial Power Mac line - 1.6 through 2.0

:D

thats what i've been saying for a while now. its an excellent idea

[Sun Baked]

Until we get dual-core chips there's always going to be a way to get a lower-cost tower out if it's single chip and there's a market for that.

So, go dual-core!Watch, we'll probably get a single core Power5 processor -- which gives you similar performance to a dual core PPC970.

Remember, IBM said the next step was doubling the number of instructions the processor could handle per cycle.

And it was a software trick, not a dual core chip.

[centauratlas]

And he changed it in September of last year to say "End of next summer." So whoever expects 3Ghz to ship at WWDC is just not paying attention.

Trust me I want to believe in Steve... after all he did promise 3 gig by June (or next WWDC) - but all I want is a rev B G5! I'll even take a 2.1 I accept that the new G5s are amazing... but the whole "I'm not buying a first gen thing for me is personal".

:p

Irie

[centauratlas]

In Sept 2003, Steve said "by end of next summer" e.g. summer 2004. So expecting them at WWDC is somewhat unrealistic.

This is one spot I would *love* to be proven wrong, BUT for Steve to say "by end of next summer" in Sept 2003, he must have had word from IBM that that was when they were expecting to be able to ship them in volume (or within 6-8 weeks thereafter).

He'd love to go 5Ghz today, but Apple has to wait for IBM (much better than waiting on the Motorola!).

WTF? No 3GHz within a year like steve promised? AAAAAAH!!! THIS IS ANARCHY! Not to mention bad business, like, oh "100 million songs within a year and 30 million of that will come from the iTunes/Pepsi giveaway!" NOT. "3GHz within a year!" NOT. C'mon apple, get with the program already.

[minstryoffunk]

Well, it depends on what IBM can ship to Apple in two months time. 2.6GHz at the moment, maybe Apple could overclock that to 2.7GHz on a 900MHz FSB, and sell dual 2.7, dual 2.4 and dual 2.1 machines. Then introduce a dual 3.0 GHz machine at an even higher price premium, a massive price premium, so that Apple would have shipped it, even if the price would put off all but the rich showoffs.

It all depends on what IBM can make. If they can make 200 3.0 GHz G5's, then Apple could use them in a $4999 machine. Lol, knowing a lot of mac users, they'd sell out.

the G5's fsb runs at half clock, doesn't it? that would mean a 2.7 would have a 1.35 fsb. or is the fsb limited by current chipsets, or am i missing something entirely

[Sun Baked]

In Sept 2003, Steve said "by end of next summer" e.g. summer 2004. So expecting them at WWDC is somewhat unrealistic.I agree with centauratlas...

That was also a target date, not a "date" you'll be paying for whether you meet your escort or not.

Tech companies always have a habit of missing target dates due to manufacturing difficulties, and software companies miss them all the time.

Expecting to have it sitting on your desk 365 days + 1 hour after the announcement is unrealistic.

[centauratlas]

... within 12 months . i just wonder what people would have said, when steve jobs told us "the next revision of the g5 will be within 12 months" ¿?
.a

What he didn't say was WITHIN 12 MONTHS OF WHAT!!!!

Announcment or shipping or Christimas? ;-)

[Skiniftz]

Regarding speed of CPU, one can't simply put the PPC970 up against any chip of any other architecture and base a comparison on GHz. It's 64bit for starters and has a very different architecture to Intel.

HOWEVER.. Mr Jobs did say we would have 3GHz and that Apple had comitted to that "within 12 months".

[JFreak]

Until we get dual-core chips there's always going to be a way to get a lower-cost tower out if it's single chip and there's a market for that.

So, go dual-core!

always? no... powermacs were dual-only before G5 intro, there's no reason why they couldn't do it again. the current 1.6 model is so crippled compared to the duals, that one could call it the headless imac - and, in my opinion, apple should throw a G5 into every desktop they sell, but differentiate the "power" product line with dual setups and consumer line having the single.

(and for portables, please, the powerbook needs the G5. let the ibook be the only one that has a motorola inside...)

[Danrose1977]

With GPU providers (ATI and Nvidia mostly) prices drop as yields improve. Could this lead to price drops on G5 machines? Perhaps post WWDC?

[mcdawson]

Here come the "No 3GHz???" complaints.....

From the rumors that I've heard, the 970FX was never the 3GHz chip--it was the Power5 derivitive (980?). Apple was supposed to be developing the 970 (Power4) and 980 (Power5) chips in tamden. IBM has announced the Power5 shipping (soon?), so that track could still be on schedule. However, I think that Apple needs to get a faster Mac out now, but doing so based on the 2.6 MHz 970FX now (shipping in June?) would seem (for marketing reasons) to push out the 980 (even if it was going to be ready at the end of summer). The Power5 isn't currently using the 90nm process, so the 980 might not either, so these production problems may not affect it. So, if the 3 GHz is indeed the next gen G5, for marketing reasons, I would suspect that it is being delayed. If the 2.6 GHz arrives in June, I couldn't see a 3 GHz arriving any earlier than end of Sept--that would be just too quick of a marketing turnaround for a model.

[Frobozz]

I know I don't have any solid ground to stand on, but I'm willing to bet that Apple will say something like this at WWDC:

"Today we are introducing the dual 2.6, dual 2.4 and dual 2.2 GHz PowerMac G5. All duals, shipping today. And I'll bet some of you are wondering if I'll keep my promise of 3.0 Ghz within a year of the G5 release. I'm also pleased to announce that we'll be doing a little better than that, and we'll be doing it in September. In September we will ship a dual 3.2 GHz top end model to complement today's line-up."

What'cha think? Plausible? Too much gap between 2.6 and 3.2? They'd probably have to figure out a transition plan to space out the low end with the top end evenly. Assuming the top end was 3.2, maybe the low end would be 2.4 and the middle 2.8?

[wdlove]

I agree with centauratlas...

That was also a target date, not a "date" you'll be paying for whether you meet your escort or not.

Tech companies always have a habit of missing target dates due to manufacturing difficulties, and software companies miss them all the time.

Expecting to have it sitting on your desk 365 days + 1 hour after the announcement is unrealistic.

I agree Sun Baked. My thought all along is that Steve announce at WWDC. The actual shipping date may not be till the July/August time frame.

[Mord]

No their not, the 2.0GHZ machines are over-clocked 1.8 machines (thats what IBM has specified them to work at), but the new chips are going to be rated at 2.6 from IBM.

the reason ibm specifys the 970 at 1.8 is because apple buys everything faster the same trhing happened with moto but you could still overclock them yourself

[Mr_Ed]

http://www.skinjob.co.uk/images/g5imac.jpg

LOL!! :D Should have made it a bit more square so it looked like the "Cube".

[deputy_doofy]

LOL!! :D Should have made it a bit more square so it looked like the "Cube".
http://www.skinjob.co.uk/images/g5imac.jpg

If Dr. Who had a budget, this is what K-9 would have looked like.

[Borg3of5]

Heh. The difference is that the AMD64 systems are available NOW, and it isn't like AMD is sitting still with their new product lines. The short-term product pipeline for AMD looks very good. While we use OSX for workstations, the heavy lifting is done by Opteron systems (sorry, PPC can't touch them for memory performance and scalability), and I am quite pleased with their broad and agressive AMD64 roadmap.

Beside which, clock for clock, AMD64 is a bit faster than PPC on average (excepting the DSP stuff which the PPC is quite excellent at). Yeah, I know, flame on. :-)

And, since Winblow$ is such a great operating system, we'll *NEVER* have any problems with our AMD64 systems [angry sarcasm].

Wake up and smell the coffee. Windows is the worst piece of feces I've ever seen and worked on. EVERY TIME I even think of working with a Winblow$ system, my blood-pressure rises to dangerous level.

Consumers are finally realizing that any Micro$oft product is inferior to anything else out there, and the interest in opensource is growing more and more each day. I'll NEVER move back to Winblow$.

"THE LINE IS DRAWN HERE, NO FURTHER!" :mad:

[Soire]

Let me see if I've got this right:

The new G5's are being tested and they use 90nm technology?

The 970fx uses 90nm technology.

The Power5 has just been released and it uses 130nm technology.

So I've only taken one logic class, but doesn't it seem that Power5 derived chips will not be used to make the G5s in the next PowerMacs? I seriously could not be more ignorant of all the current chip designs and so forth, but I would like the latest and greatest (Power5) to be inside the next PowerMacs. Please clue me in as to what chip people are expecting. :)

[tortoise]

And, since Winblow$ is such a great operating system, we'll *NEVER* have any problems with our AMD64 systems [angry sarcasm].

Wake up and smell the coffee. Windows is the worst piece of feces I've ever seen and worked on. EVERY TIME I even think of working with a Winblow$ system, my blood-pressure rises to dangerous level.


Who said anything about using Windows? All we have around these parts are OSX and Unix. Unix (of various flavors) runs very nicely on AMD64 right now, and in 64-bit mode. I'm guessing it will still be a few more years before Apple even offers a 64-bit version of OSX. Without a 64-bit ABI, having a 64-bit CPU is almost worthless.

[Frobozz]

Let me see if I've got this right:

The new G5's are being tested and they use 90nm technology?

The 970fx uses 90nm technology.

The Power5 has just been released and it uses 130nm technology.

So I've only taken one logic class, but doesn't it seem that Power5 derived chips will not be used to make the G5s in the next PowerMacs

The Power5 Derived chips are not modified versions of the Power5. They were developed at the same time as the Power5. In the past, with the 970 and the Power4, it was not this way. The 970 was engineered from an existing, shipping product.

It's very likely that the 975 based Macs will be out this year.

[Lanbrown]

the G5's fsb runs at half clock, doesn't it? that would mean a 2.7 would have a 1.35 fsb. or is the fsb limited by current chipsets, or am i missing something entirely

That can change, that was just one of the possibilities. The 3GHz could use a 3:1, so it would still have a 1 GHz bus but be 3GHz. If the low-end was a 2.4, then it could have a 800MHz bus, the same as it is now. The 2.7 could be 900Mhz, the same as the 1.8. Just because the CPU speed increases doesn't mean that the bus will. Intel has used 400 and 533 MHz for how long?

[iriejedi]

For the record - I WAS not comparing TV to monitor - just stating a better use of $1799!

However the XBOX on the HDTV rocks!

Irie

PS - you really know yor stuff - can you stop the clock on my Betamax from blinking! :p

However nice it is to compare the mitsu TV with the monitor, it is quite incorrect. Resolution-wise the 23 inch HD monitor smokes that 55 inch TV. Original TV (vga) is 640x480, Your HDTV ($1799 currently) has a max resolution of 480p (for reference HDTV 720p is 1280x720), Apple 23 inch Cinema has a max resolution of 1920x1200. The difference is noticable and the price difference is to be expected (this is purely in regards to resolution, not other things such as USB ports, etc.).

Your TV has a contrast ratio of 50:34 whereas the Cinema display is 300:1. All of these features need to be taken into account with the price. For an lcd screen of that resolution and size the price is at a premium (think about how many pixels there are and how few are allowed to be dead for an lcd to be sold).

The crux of my argument is, a TV (HD or otherwise) is no replacement for a computer monitor (my $390 Dell has a higher resolution than your TV)...and therefore the two cannot be compared in this instance.

Apple's high end panel is one of the most economical for its quality, they shouldn't have to cut prices to sell them.

[FoxyKaye]

The test models are reported to range from 2.2GHz to 2.6GHz.


What would make me really happy in a revision B machine are the following:

* A low-end tower that remains a 1.8 or 2.0 DP with a cheaper price (something akin to what Apple is currently asking for its last G4 tower systems).

* A revised form factor that actually allows for more than two internal hard drives and space for two internal CD/DVD devices.

* Bluetooth/Airport Extreme standard on all models (modem optional)

* Six USB 2.0+ (three in front, three in back), five FireWire 400 (two in front, three in back), one FireWire 800 (I don't care where they put this, no-one seems to be adopting this standard).

:p

[afields]

My hope is that that the following models are announced:

2.2, 2.6, 3.0 PowerMac 1.6, 1.8, 2.0 iMac.

They could ship the lower models immediately, and then ship the 3.0 PowerMac and the 2.0 iMac by september. :)

[tortoise]

Also, POWER 5 has an on-die memory controller and I beleive uses a full implementation of hyper-transport for the FSB, so anything AMD may have on us now is just something that IBM's playing with right now or have been doing for a while already.


The real question is how much of the Power5 will actually make it into the PPC. An integrated memory controller would be huge, and a built-in ccNUMA fabric would be nice too. AMD has an advantage in this regard because they are the owners of the underlying HyperTransport technology (they bought it from someone else -- it was originally designed to be the fabric for the next generation Cray supercomputer).

The AMD cores are generally pretty slick, but comparable to PPC and Intel in basic capability. Their real advantage is the memory architecture and thorough integration of the HyperTransport fabric. If IBM manages to produce a PPC that fully exploits this fabric rather than using it as a glorified I/O bus, it would be make things interesting. As far as I know, Intel has not licensed HyperTransport, which will put them at a disadvantage until they can come up with something comparable. HT 2.0, with even greater scalability, is already well on its way, so Intel better hurry.

[ShnikeJSB]

As far as I know, Intel has not licensed HyperTransport, which will put them at a disadvantage until they can come up with something comparable. HT 2.0, with even greater scalability, is already well on its way, so Intel better hurry. :p

Intel, as we probably all know, is abandoning the P4, since they can't keep the heat down and can't seem to scale it right, so they are going to use the Pentium M as the basis for their future processors... LOL! What was originally a NOTEBOOK processor??? HAHAHAHA!!! I hope AMD puts Intel out of its misery! Actually, I don't, because competition is always good for consumers. I just hope IBM can work out the kinks and get the new chips OUT THERE for us! -JB :o

[The Red Wolf]

Just a thought: Anyone ever consider that when the current G5 line is out five years and whatever version of the OS Apple announces that it may actually speed up the machine? Much like putting Panther on a G3 350 MHz. Or a Keylime iBook SE 466 Mz Panther runs faster than Jaguar ever did on those machines.

How do we know that within that same 5 year time we may be seeing a 64-bit OS which will take full advantage of this hypothetical situation. Who knows having a 64-bit machine may be like not having built in USB. "OS-XII 12.1 (Komodo) will not function on any any 64-Bit machine pre Wireless Firewire" Or some such. Then again you might see "OS-XII Komodo is compatible with pre existing 32-bit machines however performance is greatly limited without at least 1 GHz bus speed".

Lastly... The "sad" 1.6 GHz G5 machines today, may see speed improvements with future OS releases. Currently, said machine out paces anything on the floor at work that I take care of. We've 80 Macs. Ranging from G3 400s to Dual 867 MMDs. The "useless" 1.6 GHz G5 is what then to our production fleet? A God? Or so much aluminum junk making all the Macs on the floor mad paperweights? Work is still done. When budget allows, with a company only goes for the low end, it's nice to know that there are cheeper versions of the high end up to date, screaming Rev B G5 PowerMac.

[Sun Baked]

Originally posted by stingerman on ARS: (http://episteme.arstechnica.com/eve/ubb.x?a=tpc&s=50009562&f=8300945231&m=9080959175&r=759005334631#759005334631)

It says 130NM but at the same time it says 300MM. This chart is for the Fischkill plant. It was filed today with the SEC.

http://www.secinfo.com/DB/SEC/2004-000/1104/659-0139/76-009.jpg

Here is John Kelly's script for this slide:

Slide 8
Much has been written on our yields recently. I want to take a minute to let you know where things stand.

As our CFO, John Joyce, said when we reported our first quarter earnings, our 200 mm yields are at or above plan while our

300 mm yields, while improving, are not yet where we want them to be.

The next chart illustrates those comments. As you can see, our 130 nm, 300 mm defect densities — the number of defects in a given section of silicon — are showing rapid improvement. As you can see, we are getting much closer to where we want to be.

It's important to point out here that we are working on extremely complex logic. At a given lithography node we can provide up to 20 percent higher speeds than our competition, though in some cases these advanced chips are more difficult to yield. And while the traditional foundries currently have less than 20 percent of their volumes in 130 nm or smaller, about 50 percent of our volumes are 130 nm or below.

As John Joyce suggested, we expect to do a better job of meeting customer demand in second quarter

[PowerMacMan]

My hope is that that the following models are announced:

2.2, 2.6, 3.0 PowerMac 1.6, 1.8, 2.0 iMac.

They could ship the lower models immediately, and then ship the 3.0 PowerMac and the 2.0 iMac by september. :)

Seems very realistic... Shipping times should be earlier though... IMO

[afields]

very true...ideally everything would be available immediately. I have a feeling that the top model will ship later. Hopefully july or something.

[ingenious]

That can change, that was just one of the possibilities. The 3GHz could use a 3:1, so it would still have a 1 GHz bus but be 3GHz. If the low-end was a 2.4, then it could have a 800MHz bus, the same as it is now. The 2.7 could be 900Mhz, the same as the 1.8. Just because the CPU speed increases doesn't mean that the bus will. Intel has used 400 and 533 MHz for how long?


and we want to be like intel, why? :rolleyes:

[Mav451]

As far as I know, Intel has not licensed HyperTransport, which will put them at a disadvantage until they can come up with something comparable. HT 2.0, with even greater scalability, is already well on its way, so Intel better hurry. :p

Intel, as we probably all know, is abandoning the P4, since they can't keep the heat down and can't seem to scale it right, so they are going to use the Pentium M as the basis for their future processors... LOL! What was originally a NOTEBOOK processor??? HAHAHAHA!!! I hope AMD puts Intel out of its misery! Actually, I don't, because competition is always good for consumers. I just hope IBM can work out the kinks and get the new chips OUT THERE for us! -JB :o

Laptop cpus aren't necessarily bad--its just that the Pentium-M's aren't running the same 800fsb for memory bandwidth as the P4's.

The reason laptop CPUs are particularly interesting, especially for desktop environments, is that they MUST, absolutely MUST run at a very low voltage. With this in mind, if it is run in a desktop environment, while adhering to the laptop standards, it would run EXTREMELY cool in a standard tower (probably <20-25C's compared to a more normal 32-35C's).

What does this mean? It means it can be "overclocked" much much higher for the desktop environment. Say an default desktop version runs @ 1.83ghz @ 1.65vcore. Pretty standard. Now, the laptop or "mobile" version, can ALSO run @ 1.83ghz, but @ only 1.45vcore. Anyone familiar with AMD overclocking knows how huge even .05 vcore is, but .2 vcore? That's ridiculous. This is easily 400-500mhz that can be squeezed through such an increase. Hence the reason many gamers hit 2400-2500 "out of the box" - literally set-it-and-forget-it RIGHT after setting up the computer.

These mobile procs from AMD are no joke: A Mobile 2500+ @ 2.7ghz (224fsb) is roughly equivalent (slightly less) to a 3.8ghz (254fsb) P4 in gaming performance--3dmark 2001se scores of 21,1k and 22,3k respectively. Obviously the P4 has a much higher memory output @ > 1ghz true cpu-memory fsb

THIS is why I am interested in seeing how Intel will work with this laptop proc in a desktop environment...with AMD's mobile proc being undoubtedly the most powerful, <100 dollar investment for serious computing power...we shall see how Intel uses its laptop technology...

[SiliconAddict]

Intel, as we probably all know, is abandoning the P4, since they can't keep the heat down and can't seem to scale it right, so they are going to use the Pentium M as the basis for their future processors... LOL! What was originally a NOTEBOOK processor??? HAHAHAHA!!! I hope AMD puts Intel out of its misery! Actually, I don't, because competition is always good for consumers. I just hope IBM can work out the kinks and get the new chips OUT THERE for us! -JB :o

Dude you ARE aware of how damn good the Pentium M is right? It actually runs rings around the G4 at = clock cycles. The CPU may have been made for laptops but the thing is efficient enough that Intel realized that this CPU can easily scale to a desktop without even breaking a sweat. AFAIK a 1.7Ghz Pentium M actually is neck and heck with a 3Ghz Pentium 4 which is pathetic as hell and now that Dothan, Intel's 2MB cache Pentium M, is shipping..... As they say don't knock it till ya try it. I know exactly where Intel is going with this. Its their typical brute force approach to computing. The Pentium M is great at only 1.7Ghz but in laptops you have to worry about batt performance. Not so with desktops. I will bet that we are going to see 3Ghz (prob higher since its using a 90nm process.) Pentium M based systems in the not to distant future that are equipped with multi-cores. Intel has been a big go getter in SMP lately most likely because they are struggling with CPU speeds. Do NOT discount the M. Its quite possibly the best CPU Intel has ever released. Quite frankly the folks on the Desktop development team should be scared pissless that Israel's Pentium M team may end up getting their jobs.

[gekko513]

AFAIK a 1.7Ghz Pentium M actually is neck and heck with a 3Ghz Pentium 4
Well .. the Pentium M is not always that great. In some test runs that I've done, a Pentium M @ 1.6GHz was slightly slower than a Xeon @ 2GHz.

[Travl]

I have a fairly simple question I hope someone can answer. Im just curious as to how hard it would be to upgrade from say a dual G5 2.0 ghz to one of the newer chipsets once they are released or if this is even possible. I know this is a little off topic but kinda has to do with the release of the rev b. Thanks