iMac G4 no longer?

[MacRumors]

According to Appleinsider (http://appleinsider.com/article.php?id=476) Apple has informed resellers to not expect any further shipments of the iMac G4, leading the way for an iMac G5 (http://www.macrumors.com/pages/2004/05/20040510053824.shtml) and has delayed PowerMac G5 shipments to some resellers for weeks to come.

Additionally, Apple Cinema displays of both the 20" & 23" models are showing signs of dwindling inventory, leading to the release of new displays to coincide with the release of an updated PowerMac G5 at the World Wide Developers Conference (http://developer.apple.com/wwdc/index.html) beginning June 28th.

[stoid]

New iMacs at WWDC! I can't wait to see the new Jonathan Ive masterpiece!!



I'm such a geek! :D

[jeffgarden]

good stuff. i don't really care what Mac gets updated with what update - any update is a good one. and a g5 iMac sounds great. unless it costs $3000 or something

[theranch]

I like the sounds of a G5 iMac but at what cost? And...if the design is completely new then that would be something exciting to look forward to.
theranch

[TBR]

G5 iMac sounds wonderous, pity my Girlfriend just bought me a suprise iMac G4 for my birthday. The one machine I wouldn't have bought at the moment.

Not that I'm complaining, it's a damn site better than my old G4 533.

Just wish it was a G5 :)

BTW I love the superdrive, wonder if the new iMac will have the duel layer capability?

[yoda13]

My credit card is ready :D

[dsspence3]

Yeah i'm telling you from personal conversation with someone that the imac will involve some sort of industrial grade aluminum almost bulletproof stuff. If not the imac plan to see this stuff in probably the power line but I'm pretty sure he said imac

[MrToast]

I would not be the least bit surprised at new iMacs.

There primary complaint is that current iMacs aren't upgradeable for the average user. (Head on over to www.xlr8yourmac.com and I'm sure you can find some pimped out iMacs) I'm predicting a continuation of the flat panel idea, but with components on the back of the screen. Maybe the same sort of neck for the screen, but one that couldn't have as much of a range of motion (due to top-heaviness). This would allow reasonable amounts of room for a PCI-X slot or two, 8 GBs RAM, some sick mad nasty graphics card, etc. This is most likely that "Powermac 8,1" that appeared in 10.3.4.

MrToast

[five04]

this is great news. this year's wwdc is going to be awesome.

[blackfox]

Well, momentum has been building on this one for a little while now...I am not sure how I feel about this...on one hand I am excited for a G5 iMac, but I wonder if the new PMs will be less than stellar improvements...It is going to make my new computer purchase decision in the fall very difficult...still, enough of being a selfish s.o.b....hardware updates are always good news...how good we shall see in about three weeks...

[flyfish29]

So, is there any reason one of those little hard drives Toshiba is making couldn't make it into a regular mac? Are the too slow? Didn't I hear about a possible 60GB one? If so, why couldn't they put it into a G% iMac and make it that much smaller, even built into the screen so you could remove the screen to make it portable around the house to connect to TV's for movies, slide shows, web surfing on a large screen, working on a iMovie project on a larger screen? Maybe it is for an iVideo player like ipod, but a DVR? which could hold 20GB of music and 40GB of video recording like a TIVO?

Just getting creative...I am sure there are many reasons why a small Toshiba drive won't/can't make it in an iMac so will wait for the replies to shoot down my ideas.

Johnny

[javabear90]

hmmm... whether to buy a G5 imac or a Powermac. that is the question

[DrGruv1]

just finished teaching the school year...

WHEN!?!?!?!?!?!

I've been waiting for Rev. B of the G5's and Logic 7 (aka: the Pro Tools Killer)....

I've got to get off the rumor mill after the next computer for awhile...

[Lancetx]

I'll miss the current G4 iMac design when it's gone just like I've missed seeing the old G3 CRT iMac in stores. I'm excited at the prospect of a new G5 iMac coming soon, but the previous 2 iMac model designs will certainly continue to have a lot of sentimental value for a long time to come. Here's hoping that the G5 version will be as great as the last 2 have been, but Jonathan Ive has never let us down so far.

[kuyu]

Well, the G5 Imac is a guaruntee for WWDC. I made my mind up last week about which mac to buy next (search for one of my 100 posts about each mac!), so they will definately screw me all up by dropping some kind of bombshell. A G5 Imac fits that bill.

Also, a $1000 price tag would mess up my decision, but that's not too likely. damn...

Maybe the new G5 imac will sport an upgradable body this time or at least an upgradeable gfx card. Here's hoping :rolleyes:

[stoid]

So, is there any reason one of those little hard drives Toshiba is making couldn't make it into a regular mac? Are the too slow? Didn't I hear about a possible 60GB one? If so, why couldn't they put it into a G% iMac and make it that much smaller, even built into the screen so you could remove the screen to make it portable around the house to connect to TV's for movies, slide shows, web surfing on a large screen, working on a iMovie project on a larger screen? Maybe it is for an iVideo player like ipod, but a DVR? which could hold 20GB of music and 40GB of video recording like a TIVO?

Just getting creative...I am sure there are many reasons why a small Toshiba drive won't/can't make it in an iMac so will wait for the replies to shoot down my ideas.

Johnny

The hard drives run at the fastest at 4200RPMs, normal internal drives run at 7200RPM. Also they are HELLLLLA expensive. However, you could RAID together 3 older cheaper 20GB drives, and have a 60GB drive that is faster than any current HD.

[MhzDoesMatter]

I'll miss the current G4 iMac design when it's gone just like I've missed seeing the old G3 CRT iMac in stores. I'm excited at the prospect of a new G5 iMac coming soon, but the previous 2 iMac model designs will certainly continue to have a lot of sentimental value for a long time to come. Here's hoping that the G5 version will be as great as the last 2 have been, but Jonathan Ive has never let us down so far.

<cough>emac<cough>

-hertz

[LaMerVipere]

YAY!

I want a 15" (widescreen) iMac G5
1.6GHz G5 processor
80GB HD
8X Superdrive
Airport Extreme and Bluetooth built in
–all for the current price (maybe sacrifice the superdrive as standard in the 15" model to keep the price from fluctuating upward)

It would be an oh so splendid addition to my Mac family, and would keep my iBook G4 company. What cozy companions they would be! :D

[Duff-Man]

Duff-Man says...Insanely Great and O'grady's Powerpage both make mention today of some kind of "significant announcement" from Apple next week...perhaps the iMac release, then the new PowerMac's at WWDC? Just another possibility....oh yeah!

[nsb3000]

Well, the G5 Imac is a guaruntee for WWDC.:

Nothing is a guarantee in the world of Mac Rumors. We can all hope, but I don't believe anything until I here it from Steve’s mouth (or Canada Time, as was the case with the last major revision of the iMac.)

[Trowaman]

I have a friend who has been waiting for at least 6 months now for an Apple LCD for his, get this, self made PC running both Winblows and Linux. At least he has enough taste in what he put in his machine (AMD 64 and Apple LCD). So I hope he gets a price break on the new LCDs and quality goes up enough.

As for the iMacs, well it'd be interesting to see me iMac to be outta date by an iMac twice as fast (2 GHZ necessary). Oh well . . .

[SpaceMagic]

iMacs are certainly due for a revamp! The eMacs are completely undercutting them at the moment! The current iMac design is great, but its lasted as long as the old iMac shape did, so I'm expecting a whole new form factor with all the trimmings Ive and his team tack on :p I like the dome shape now but I think it should be refreshed.

Maybe 1.6 to 1.8 Ghz? I don't know what they'll do!

[appleface]

WWDC is looking better all the time!

[Macmaniac]

Of course in true Apple fashion we can't eat our cake and have and have it too, watch them release new iMac G5's but take another month to announce new powermac G5's. Apple has never pimped both machines at one time so I hope that will change and they do both!

[realityisterror]

this is horrible....
my sister is looking to buy an imac before the beginning of college this fall... if they come out with g5's, her computer will pound mine... i was just beginning to accept that she would have a better computer (i was thinking 1.0 or 1.25 maybe 1.33 G4), i can't imagine my sister having a g5...

:mad:
i struggle to run games and whatnot and she'll have a g5 for word and safari...
maybe i'll convince her to get a refurb like i did... :(

reality

[MacsRgr8]

Duff-Man says...Insanely Great and O'grady's Powerpage both make mention today of some kind of "significant announcement" from Apple next week...perhaps the iMac release, then the new PowerMac's at WWDC? Just another possibility....oh yeah!

Or maybe the updated PowerMacs next week....

The launch of an iMac G5 will get far more attention than updated PowerMacs.

Would be nice if Steve would preview Tiger on an iMac ;)
Everyone assumes that the demo will be shown on tha fastest available Mac, but at the end of the show:

"Oh, and one more thing..... the demo you just gave witnessed was done on this NEW iMac G5!" :p

[Bunzi2k4]

hmm... at first thought, imacs aren't very interesting... but my dad and i have been planning on getting a good priced g5, this just might be it... a $1,200 15 inch, 1.6 ghz doesn't sound too bad... as long as it looks nice, i'll consider it!

[Trekkie]

My daughter (2 years old) has been asking for mommy's iMac for some time now. If a new G5 iMac comes out, my apple loan account is going to be hurting.

[rosalindavenue]

Eerie. I was looking at the old appleinsider rumor (http://www.appleinsider.com/article.php?id=231) from last fall about Quanta building the new-design G5 iMac (with a possible MWSF debut), then I clicked over to macrumors and found this story. Guess its finally here.

[Finiksa]

I'm predicting a continuation of the flat panel idea, but with components on the back of the screen. Maybe the same sort of neck for the screen, but one that couldn't have as much of a range of motion (due to top-heaviness). This would allow reasonable amounts of room for a PCI-X slot or two, 8 GBs RAM, some sick mad nasty graphics card, etc.

Not a chance, Jonathan Ive has stated previously why Apple didn't go for this design with the original G4 iMac. Hard drives and optical drives need to be installed at right angles, poor cooling and most importantly it would look fugly. The iMac is a consumer machine it isn't meant to be upgradeable, if you need that get a Power Mac.

[eric67]

several non-US mac web sites were reporting on extremely low stock level of iMac and PMG5 already few days ago.
hardmac.com was even making a news that the refurb store on Apple.com/fr was officially announced to be open on Wednesday (as usual) but also on Thursday!!! and what can you find mostly on the refurb at that time...iMac G4 , all models, and Apple Displays.... ;)
So Apple is probably repeating the recent promotion on the refurb store prior the release of the last PBG4 update. :cool:
Today hardmac.com is reporting that large reseller in France will receive shipment of PMG5 in 7 to 10 days; meaning that Apple has prepared a stock (big or small nobody knows yet) in order to be able to face the potential request after the official announcement at the WWDC. So at least for most future iMac and PMG5 we should have (maybe part of) them immediately avaialble...and not like last year. :)

[swissmann]

I've been tracking the display rumors for about a year now. Badly needed updates in my opinion. G5 PowerMac better make the 3 GHz mark times 2 at least or dazzle us all with 4 processors (and running quieter than current models). I would love to see a G5 iMac but the price has to stay low, or the G4 things need to drop significantly. If the eMac with Superdrive dropped to about $700 I would probably buy 3 for my business. What really needs to happen is introduce a computer with all the specs of the current eMac minus the display for a price range of $500 to $800 and then offer bundle prices of core apps like Office for cheap. It is the only way to get the zillions of low end computer users to switch and realize the potential of a real computer to upgrade to a more powerful (expensive mac) in the future. I know my wishes are probably way off the mark but remain what I wish would happen. I would buy a 20" monitor at $900. A G5 Powermac at 4x3 GHz. 3 Headless eMacs at $500. A Powerbook with at least a 1.6 G5. If none of these things happen I will stick with what I currently have.

[Dont Hurt Me]

This is good news and past due, ill be getting one unless they do something crazy. Now the question is will it evolve from current imac or is it going to be something all new? Lets hope they give imac a video card and if they dont it better have at least a 9700 in it. The biggest problem current imac has is a lame videochip(fx5200) excuse why i puke and a just as lame cpu G4 1.25 ( excuse me again ) I dont mind paying big bucks for great stuff but paying big bucks for old and slow i do mind and from the sales numbers of this current generation a lot of people felt the same. If Apple wants to sell a all in one high end consumer model then it should consist of high end parts. not last place video and a chip from 2 years ago :rolleyes:
I would like to see a more aggresive looking Imac with performance to boot. something that yells at you to put in Doom3 and then plays it as smooth as butter on high settings :cool: The ball is in Apples court now will they score or fumble?

[Lancetx]

<cough>emac<cough>

-hertz

The eMac is very underappreciated around here if you ask me... ;)

[Dustinndiego]

For all the problems that IBM has been haveing with the 970 chip I don't know how ther are upreading the iMac,
But don't mind me I am just frustrated because this rumor is going to make my alreay tough upgrade question just that much harder. I HATE THIS!!!! :confused:

[clr900]

Well the real question now is, will the new iMac be headless. If so I would seriously consider getting one over a new Power Mac. Of course it would have to be cheaper than a PM and 2ghz would be nice. I don't mind the look of the current Power Mac's but they are very large and I know that if Apple made a headless iMac it would be amazing aesthetically. I'll probably just end up with a Power Mac but I'm interested in what Apple will do, who knows.

[LaMerVipere]

Well the real question now is, will the new iMac be headless. If so I would seriously consider getting one over a new Power Mac. Of course it would have to be cheaper than a PM and 2ghz would be nice. I don't mind the look of the current Power Mac's but they are very large and I know that if Apple made a headless iMac it would be amazing aesthetically. I'll probably just end up with a Power Mac but I'm interested in what Apple will do, who knows.

I am very skeptical of the idea that Apple would ever release a headless iMac. At least, it wouldn't fall under the iMac banner, it would be re-branded as some new piece of hardware. The entire concept of the iMac is the all-in-one philosophy, and for consumers, this fits the vast majority of them quite well.

Apple made a headless iMac once, it was called the Cube, and we all see how well that turned out. But the current constraints when dealing with available hardware, the current computer hardware market, and pricing don't seem to spell well for a headless iMac/revamped cube concept. It would either be too expensive or not powerful enough.

Just my 2¢ :)

[adamjay]

i would gladly pay $2199 for a 20" G5 1.8 GHz iMac, 80GB 256MB, Superdrive.
furthermore, give me the option to downgrade to Combo drive and make it $1999, but apple wont give us that option, they'd sell too many computers that way.

either way, i am eagerly waiting for a 20" G5 iMac

[feature]

Just whipped this up quickly...but something along this line with detachable touch sensitive monitor. I can always dream.

[suzerain]

I don't understand why apple expects that all consumer-level people wish to upgrade their monitors and computers at the same time. Me, I tend to upgrade my CPUs about 2x or 3x more than my monitors; therefore, I would never buy an iMac with a built-in screen (because then I'm stuck with that monitor in the event I want to upgrade).

Sure, I could buy a Power Mac, but I haven't...know why? they are just too expensive for me right now, since I use a PowerBook as my main machine. If they had an inexpensive headless Mac, I'd buy one, just as a luxury, but as it is, Apple has gotten none of this money from me. In fact, I bought a PC instead (as my low-cost desktop "kicking around" machine).

Make a low-cost (even non-upgradeable) headless Mac, and I will buy. Force me to buy that monitor and Apple can continue to not have my money, because I already have nice monitors.

It sucks, really, because I have a really old desktop that I wouldn't mind upgrading...but I'm not going to spend $2,000 on a desktop -- ever again, unless I am just rolling in money.

[Wonder Boy]

Just whipped this up quickly...but something along this line with detachable touch sensitive monitor. I can always dream.

yikes. god i hope not.

[feature]

yikes. god i hope not.

:) :D i know it's pretty ugly...and i would hope they could do better...like i said i spent all of 5 minutes on it...

But i like the idea of a detachable monitor...ala tablet

[suzerain]

The entire concept of the iMac is the all-in-one philosophy, and for consumers, this fits the vast majority of them quite well.


Then why doesn't it sell?

[Wonder Boy]

:) :D i know it's pretty ugly...and i would hope they could do better...like i said i spent all of 5 minutes on it...

But i like the idea of a detachable monitor...ala tablet

i didn't mean to insult you. not bad for a 5 minute job at all.

[LaMerVipere]

Then why doesn't it sell?

Umm, because the iMac G4 form factor and internal hardware has remained pretty much unchanged since its inception. It's not the all-in-one philosophy that's killed it, it's the performance and outdated hardware offerings coupled with a high price tag.

[jayscheuerle]

They've found a way to make an unaffordable machine even more unaffordable...

Did they lose their "vision" thing?

[ionas]

if it doesnt have got an monitor attached to it - the emac is for that.
i want an iCube :-]

i would pay 1349$ incl tax. for a g5 2ghz, 1ghz busspeed, 512mb ram, radeon 9600 mobility where i can only switch the gfx card that got a 100 or 120gb drive and a cdrw/dvd rom.

(with hardware discount: 1125 $)

i mean if i can get more than the double performance and power (lets think about a 2.4-2.6 ghz g5 dual) i wont consider an imac anymore.

i guess this time apple wont bring a great product ;p (if they bring an imac)
cause again they wont get the "price" point.

the powermac can be expensive - the imac cannot (not if it got no display, and many ppl do NOT WANT an display, if i wanted tfts - i would buy 2 19" that do 1600*1200)

[Dont Hurt Me]

Umm, because the iMac G4 form factor and internal hardware has remained pretty much unchanged since its inception. It's not the all-in-one philosophy that's killed it, it's the performance and outdated harware offerings coupled with a high price tag.I concur, imac is really a very sweet,overpriced and underperforming machine. just give it some performance so it can game and if it can game it can then do anything people want since games stress out a system more then anything else.

[wPod]

cool so if the G5 come out then the G4 iMac will be cheap, then i can convince my parents to buy one of those so they will stop calling me with wintel questions!!!!

[QCassidy352]

the only thing is, the imac is a consumer product, and WWDC is a developer's conference. Powermacs and displays for sure (yes, displays! That's what I'm waiting for!), but I dunno about the imac... that would be a lot of hardware announcements.

[Steven1621]

i am interested to see how the prices fall for the imac line. apple really doesn't have a quality high end consumer desktop and an imac G5 would be interesting fit in that picture.

[ChrisH3677]

<cough>emac<cough>

-hertz

eh??? The eMac is a masterstroke of design. The "e" stands for "education". The eMac is meant for tortuous environments with lots of sticky fingers. Whenever I talk to dealers they say "don't buy LCD for kids" - and having 4 kids (under 10), I know why!! :D It is robust, all-in-one and CRT. Perfect for kids. And it doesn't look too bad.

The eMac is a great example of excellent design for it's target market.

[Mord]

the only thing is, the imac is a consumer product, and WWDC is a developer's conference. Powermacs and displays for sure (yes, displays! That's what I'm waiting for!), but I dunno about the imac... that would be a lot of hardware announcements.

hence the major apple announcement reported by powerpage.

and developers are interested in the products they are developing for

[Dont Hurt Me]

the only thing is, the imac is a consumer product, and WWDC is a developer's conference. Powermacs and displays for sure (yes, displays! That's what I'm waiting for!), but I dunno about the imac... that would be a lot of hardware announcements.Maybe so but imac cant linger and go sour forever with 1.25 G4, i myself think this was supposed to happen sooner but since the 970fx pushed back powermac they couldnt release imac G5 until powermac was bumped up so here we are. Bump up the powermacs and say hello to Imac G5,cordless keyboard,mouse,mic and multicolor case wrapped around a 2.0 G5 and 9700 video card.( it could happen) ;)

[silvergunuk]

I have a really strong feeling that the imac3 will look like a G4 cube with alot of glass and white in appearance (no *****). Plus it'll come in colours that match the ipod minis. The screen will be seperate from the machine.

[TrenchMouth]

The iMac needs to be upgraded, but personally I dont care what speed the G5 is, it just needs one of any speed, not because of the CPU but because of all the things that go along with it. The faster bus, and memory would be great for the iMac and beyond that a better graphics unit. If the GPU has 128MB of vid memory or more then I will be right on board for it.

[Gyroscope]

I think they'll introduce new iMac (or whatever new name it may get) week or two before WWDC. Then @ WWDC new PM's.

[suzerain]

Umm, because the iMac G4 form factor and internal hardware has remained pretty much unchanged since its inception. It's not the all-in-one philosophy that's killed it, it's the performance and outdated hardware offerings coupled with a high price tag.

Well, that's your opinion and you're certainly entitled to it. I should point out that I think the iMac has its place; I am not arguing that Apple should REPLACE it. Rather, I'd like to see a new low-end option at the bottom of the line.

Me, I'm trying to figure out a few things: (1) in what universe is $1,799 a "consumer" price? (2) How come, by your logic, the flat panel iMac has NEVER sold as well as the CRT iMac? (hint: price) (3) How can you convince Windows users to switch from their cheap-assed Dells, especially when they all already have perfectly serviceable monitors that they could re-use?

Seems to me, you lop off the monitor, and $400-$500 of cost, and then you have a "real" consumer machine. Right now, I think the iMac is more of a prosumer machine, and that's the real reason why it doesn't sell. Prosumers need expandability; the iMac is in a catch-22 price point.

Basically, it's a non-upgradeable machine at an upgradeable price point.

Apple has proven (with the original iMac) that if you place something at a consumer price point, it will sell like crazy, and maybe they could even gain marketshare, instead of continually falling behind.

Plus, there are a lot of 'prosumers' like me who would buy the headless iMac, just to have a decent serviceable box on our desks for backup, file sharing, music streaming, etc. I can think of 10 people right now off the top of my head who would spend $800 on a simple little low end G5 box tomorrow, if it was available. I can't think of any other realistic product Apple could announce that 10 of my friends would buy immediately.'

And to anyone who mentions the Cube: The Cube was NOT a consumer machine...It cost almost $2k...

[aswitcher]

I don't understand why apple expects that all consumer-level people wish to upgrade their monitors and computers at the same time. Me, I tend to upgrade my CPUs about 2x or 3x more than my monitors; therefore, I would never buy an iMac with a built-in screen (because then I'm stuck with that monitor in the event I want to upgrade).




Thats been a big issue with a few posters and hopes are that the new iMac will at least allow the cpu to be replaced and the same monitor kept...

[rdowns]

The eMac is very underappreciated around here if you ask me... ;)

More like snobs. There is a set of so-called Power users who don't want to see performance from any Mac except the PM.

[rdowns]

I am very skeptical of the idea that Apple would ever release a headless iMac. At least, it wouldn't fall under the iMac banner, it would be re-branded as some new piece of hardware. The entire concept of the iMac is the all-in-one philosophy, and for consumers, this fits the vast majority of them quite well.

Apple made a headless iMac once, it was called the Cube, and we all see how well that turned out. But the current constraints when dealing with available hardware, the current computer hardware market, and pricing don't seem to spell well for a headless iMac/revamped cube concept. It would either be too expensive or not powerful enough.

Just my 2¢ :)

First off, a headless iMac is an oxymoron as an iMac is an all-in-one.

Second, Apple never mad a "headless" iMac. An iMac is targeted at consumers (albeit the high end). The Cube was not a consumer model. It was a beautiful, over priced "pro" machine.

Third, I think Apple would sell millions of a small form factor tower. Single processor, 1 PCI slot, upgradeable video. Won't happen though. They are afraid of canibalizing PM sales and also don't want to lose the margin in monitor sales as many would opt for third party, less expensive LCDs.

Fourth, I am so buying a G5 iMac. Want the fastest chip in a 17" LCD. Will buy 20" if they force me. Knowing Apple, the bastards will put the fastest chip only in the 20".

[rdowns]

the only thing is, the imac is a consumer product, and WWDC is a developer's conference. Powermacs and displays for sure (yes, displays! That's what I'm waiting for!), but I dunno about the imac... that would be a lot of hardware announcements.

Do Apple developers only write software for the PM line? Developers already had the big G5 PM announcement last year. Probably another one this year. Why not the iMac? Oh yeah, developers, now you can really start developing software that exploits the G5 since we're announcing it in our high volume line. (well, high volume until the stagnant technology in the current iMac caught up with them).

[jackieonasses]

I have a really strong feeling that the imac3 will look like a G4 cube with alot of glass and white in appearance (no *****). Plus it'll come in colours that match the ipod minis. The screen will be seperate from the machine.
the colors maybe. headless???? NO

[sfwalter]

Just a quick check of the CompUsa website, I checked the availibility of the iMac at all (5) of the Dallas area CompUsa's. Not one of them have a single iMac installed. Also I checked the Chicago area, and most CompUsa's there report out of stock or limited quantities. Also the 20" cinema display is hard to find.

I will bet you $100 that the iMac will be refreshed before July 1st (my birthday), Now I have a hard decision to make, I was going to buy one of the revision-b PowerMacs, but if Apple upgraded the iMac to G5--it will make my buying decision very interesting.

[Creative]

my first post!!!

hi all.
Just wanted to let you all know that weirdly the apple uk refurbished store (and apparantly the french apple store - read on another site forum somewhere...) was not JUST open on the usual wed. only but was also open the thursday as well and into the hours of friday morning! it was not a mistake as they even advertised it being: "Open Wednesday and Thusday!". I thought this was weird and they had a lot more stock on there as usual. I figured this was something to do with them clearing out as much stock as possibe for WWDC.

I also bothered a local apple store guy about the release of the PBG5 and he told me it has to be liquid cooled.......RAMBLE, RAMBLE, RAMBLE FOR 5 MINS ABOUT NONSENSE......and apple werent going to go back intime and use liquid! He then says (which he thought was funny for some reason!!) that "think of the price for applecare for a powerbook g5!!".
He "thinks" (apart from giving me a quote for £200 more for an pbG4 15" than apple sell it - twat...) that it will be a new chip altogether and maybe a complete redesign and make something entirely new for a pbook G5.

Well that completes my first post guys. Was two days late as couldnt post for some reason. My ibooks on the brink and john lewis want to repair it but i want a replacment!! Im sure im in my legal right to do so....

Peace,
Creative.

[Sun Baked]

First off, a headless iMac is an oxymoron as an iMac is an all-in-one.

Second, Apple never mad a "headless" iMac. An iMac is targeted at consumers (albeit the high end). The Cube was not a consumer model. It was a beautiful, over priced "pro" machine.

Third, I think Apple would sell millions of a small form factor tower. Single processor, 1 PCI slot, upgradeable video. Won't happen though. They are afraid of canibalizing PM sales and also don't want to lose the margin in monitor sales as many would opt for third party, less expensive LCDs.

Fourth, I am so buying a G5 iMac. Want the fastest chip in a 17" LCD. Will buy 20" if they force me. Knowing Apple, the bastards will put the fastest chip only in the 20".Would be nice if that new board we saw was part of the new consumer mini tower...

Putting the CPU and the System Controller on the same side might mean some silly big heatsink...

But what are the chances of that?

[jettredmont]

(3) How can you convince Windows users to switch from their cheap-assed Dells, especially when they all already have perfectly serviceable monitors that they could re-use?


True, but the flip side of that is, Gorgeous Mac + Crappy Dell Monitor = Poor Image + Sore Eyes = Crappy experience. The monitor is *the* most important piece of the computer; in consumer land where monitors are treated as commodities, maybe it's not all that bad a thing to force Joe Sixpack to retire the 10-year-old strobe box CRT and give his eyes a rest ...

Granted, the opposite argument is that some people actually buy quality monitors to start with, and can't use them with their iMacs ... but that's why god invented PowerMacs ... :)

[jocknerd]

Not a chance, Jonathan Ive has stated previously why Apple didn't go for this design with the original G4 iMac. Hard drives and optical drives need to be installed at right angles, poor cooling and most importantly it would look fugly. The iMac is a consumer machine it isn't meant to be upgradeable, if you need that get a Power Mac.

<sarcasm>
I agree. Why do consumers think they should have the right to upgrade their video card or hard drive. They are just lowly consumers. They aren't real professionals like the PowerMac users.
</sarcasm>

Get off your high horse dude. You better hope Apple makes a consumer line that is actually liked by the consumers or else Apple's market share will continue to drop. Consumers drive the market not professionals. And if Apple actually made a consumer friendly computer they might actually gain a little market share. Having an all in one machine with limited upgradeability and charging twice as much for it doesn't sit well with the lowly consumers.

[jocknerd]

I've been tracking the display rumors for about a year now. Badly needed updates in my opinion. G5 PowerMac better make the 3 GHz mark times 2 at least or dazzle us all with 4 processors (and running quieter than current models). I would love to see a G5 iMac but the price has to stay low, or the G4 things need to drop significantly. If the eMac with Superdrive dropped to about $700 I would probably buy 3 for my business. What really needs to happen is introduce a computer with all the specs of the current eMac minus the display for a price range of $500 to $800 and then offer bundle prices of core apps like Office for cheap. It is the only way to get the zillions of low end computer users to switch and realize the potential of a real computer to upgrade to a more powerful (expensive mac) in the future. I know my wishes are probably way off the mark but remain what I wish would happen. I would buy a 20" monitor at $900. A G5 Powermac at 4x3 GHz. 3 Headless eMacs at $500. A Powerbook with at least a 1.6 G5. If none of these things happen I will stick with what I currently have.

I agree totally with everything you are saying. Consumers don't want an all in one computer. They want a headless machine that they can use with their existing monitor. They want to know that if their monitor fails, they can replace it with another one.

[LaMerVipere]

True, but the flip side of that is, Gorgeous Mac + Crappy Dell Monitor = Poor Image + Sore Eyes = Crappy experience. The monitor is *the* most important piece of the computer; in consumer land where monitors are treated as commodities, maybe it's not all that bad a thing to force Joe Sixpack to retire the 10-year-old strobe box CRT and give his eyes a rest ...

Granted, the opposite argument is that some people actually buy quality monitors to start with, and can't use them with their iMacs ... but that's why god invented PowerMacs ... :)

:D :p *laughing and laughing* So true! ;)

[sigamy]

Get off your high horse dude. You better hope Apple makes a consumer line that is actually liked by the consumers or else Apple's market share will continue to drop. Consumers drive the market not professionals. And if Apple actually made a consumer friendly computer they might actually gain a little market share. Having an all in one machine with limited upgradeability and charging twice as much for it doesn't sit well with the lowly consumers.

While I agree with your point that the current iMac hasn't won many hearts, I have to completely disagree with the notion that consumers drive the market and market share. The reason Apple has 5% or 3% market share is because corporations ("professionals") buy Dells and ThinkPads by the truck load.

Just look back to the CRT iMac, which was a huge consumer hit. How much did Apple's market share increase during those years?

[ClimbingTheLog]

I agree totally with everything you are saying. Consumers don't want an all in one computer. They want a headless machine that they can use with their existing monitor. They want to know that if their monitor fails, they can replace it with another one.

Yeah, some do, some don't.

Imagine an iMac, made from two geometric shapes, each cast in solid brushed aluminum - an 8x8x1" thick square plane base upon which sits a 6" sphere. Glowing Apple in the front of the sphere, of course.

The top of the sphere has a 1" round trap door into which slides a mast for the adjustable LCD monitor. If you want a headless iMac, use the VGA or DVI port on the back of the base. If you want a simple all-in-one, buy the integrated screen option - the panel simply snaps into the top of the sphere, the integrated video/airport connector locks everything in place. The back of the sphere has a simple release button (with Kensington security latch, of course) for easy portabiliy.

Inside the base is the motherboard, with connectors on the back. The sphere serves as both a monitor base and a heatsink. With so much metal involved no fans are necessary to cool the 1.8GHz G5.

Somebody should recommend a decent freeware modeling/rendering package to me so I don't prattle on so much.

[Sun Baked]

Somebody should recommend a decent freeware modeling/rendering package to me so I don't prattle on so much.Dixon Ticonderoga has a decent low tech modeling/rendering package available to help you get your point across. ;)

[notreallyhere]

Okay, so many things and so little time. I have created a new user account so I can at least have a shred of anonymity. I really don't care, but a good friend of mine can lose his job if anything I say is traced back to him. Even though I am putting some definite things in here there are some that are still listed by apple as pending and I will mark them as such. There are also a few things I will have to withhold since I guess there is a way to track who has looked at what on the apple internal site and if the userlist is small for certain subjects it's easy to know who to fire. That aside:

The "big heatsink" you are seeing in the appleinsider pictures is not really a heatsink at all. It is actually just a cover for the rather ugly piping of the liquid cooling system. It seems to be a fairly standard active cooling setup, but none of the info shows where the radiator is located.

iMacs aren't going to be G5, but they are changing a bit with them. There will still be a 15", 17" and 20" model linup, but the 15 is going widescreen and using the same screen as the PB. Speedbumps are on the way too with *pending* either 1.25 , 1.3, 1.5 OR 1.25, 1.5, 1.5 for the 15", 17" and 20" respectively. There are two different set of specs listed. Once again, only the top two models will have a superdrive. Video cards 32MB Geforce FX5200, 64MB ATI Radeon 9600, 64MB ATI Radeon 9600. Once again respective to the models. It doesn't say if the ATI's are pro or XT models though. One of the spec sheets seems to think bluetooth will be standard with the top model. Design wise they really didn't change from looking at the pictures although the border around the monitor might be a little smaller.

The LCD monitor line is being updated. The only thing is, I can only find a picture of the new 20". The 17" and 23" inch sizes are also absent on the current spec sheet. Curiously enough, on the spec sheet the 20" is to the far left and there are two blank columns to the right of it. Does this mean the 20" is now the smallest of 3 monitors or was somebody just being lazy? We don't know. Oh, the new 20" is a brushed aluminium with the familiar tripod type of design.

The best for last: What are the dang G5 speeds going to be? The answer is.... I don't know. They weren't listed, the area in the specs sheets for the processor were completely empty. Didn't even bother leaving the G5 and just leaving out the speed. Let the G6 rumors commence! What I do know is the base model now has 512MB of ram and they are probably deciding if they want to go to 1GB for the other models since it was blank. I doubt they will though, RAM is where you make money upgrading. Although a macmall deal for doubling your ram for the $40 install charge might be fun with 1GB (just kidding, the ram macmall uses is utter crap. Don't EVER do that to your precious mac.) Video cards aren't listed. Hard drives are 120GB, 250GB, 250GB. All list the 8x superdrive. The internal upgradability isn't listed, but I'm hoping for PCI Express video cards since they didn't list the rather unimportant detail of what cards they come with.

There you have it. I tried very hard to differentiate between specs that appeared set in stone and ones that seemed incomplete. Okay, time to put this account in mothballs and continue with my regularly scheduled posting.

[jackieonasses]

Yeah, some do, some don't.

Imagine an iMac, made from two geometric shapes, each cast in solid brushed aluminum - an 8x8x1" thick square plane base upon which sits a 6" sphere. Glowing Apple in the front of the sphere, of course.

The top of the sphere has a 1" round trap door into which slides a mast for the adjustable LCD monitor. If you want a headless iMac, use the VGA or DVI port on the back of the base. If you want a simple all-in-one, buy the integrated screen option - the panel simply snaps into the top of the sphere, the integrated video/airport connector locks everything in place. The back of the sphere has a simple release button (with Kensington security latch, of course) for easy portabiliy.

Inside the base is the motherboard, with connectors on the back. The sphere serves as both a monitor base and a heatsink. With so much metal involved no fans are necessary to cool the 1.8GHz G5.

Somebody should recommend a decent freeware modeling/rendering package to me so I don't prattle on so much.

that would be the ugliest....

[Abstract]

Sure, I could buy a Power Mac, but I haven't...know why? they are just too expensive for me right now, since I use a PowerBook as my main machine. If they had an inexpensive headless Mac, I'd buy one, just as a luxury, but as it is, Apple has gotten none of this money from me. In fact, I bought a PC instead (as my low-cost desktop "kicking around" machine).

Make a low-cost (even non-upgradeable) headless Mac, and I will buy. Force me to buy that monitor and Apple can continue to not have my money, because I already have nice monitors.
.

Get a 1.6GHz G5 PM. The new iMac is probably just going to be a PM 1.6 GHz G5 anyway, so you're getting the iMac with no monitor if you get it. You have options you're simply not using.

FROM THE ARTICLE: The iMac G4 product line, which was last refreshed over 6 months ago, is quickly nearing the end of its life cycle. Some Apple resellers have recently sold through their allotment of 20-inch and 17-inch iMac G4s and were told by Apple not to expect a restock, while other merchants have been put on a 3 week waiting list for new orders of 15-inch and 17-inch iMacs.

I can't imagine them making 2 huuuge product releases on the same day like this. What happened to spreading it out a bit? I think half of you are going to be disappointed. THe people waiting for a G5 iMac will be disappointed if they only revamp the PM's, and the people waiting for PM's will be disappointed if they only come out with new iMacs. I don't know which they'd come out with, but what are the chances of Steve coming out with both on the same day? I see disappointment for one of these two groups of people...

And what would he end the Keynote on this year: the new iMac, or the new "fastest personal computer in the world" dual G5 3GHz PowerMacs? :p How about, "Oh, two more things...." :)

[cb911]

oohhh... sounds good.

expect the PowerBook G5 in the not too distant future... ;) :D

[Sped]

Well the real question now is, will the new iMac be headless.

"You just don't get it, do you Scott?"

When are people on these rumor sites going to understand that Apple is NEVER going to deliver a headless iMac? It ain't gonna happen! The whole concept behind iMac is the ability to unpack the box, plug in power, keyboard, mouse, and your internet source du jour, and start rocking. A separate display would only complicate this, albeit not by much, and what would it really get you? The ability to upgrade your computer, yet continue using your display? Rubbish!

Do you think a headless iMac would get you a top of the line CPU for much less than current PowerMac's? Maybe. However, Apple is never going to cut margins so you tight wads can own a hi-end CPU for the price of a Celeron. Stop dreaming, get a better job, and drop the money on a PowerMac. My guess is you really don't need anything faster than the iMac design as it stands. You just want to brag about having a 9 gHz G6, but you don't have the coin for it.

[ChrisH3677]

Where's the cMac??

We've got eMac for education and home... pMac for power users... iMac for inbetween e & p

I agree with what suzerain says, we need a good cheap workhorse Mac. The iMac and pMac are too expensive to replace corporate or business desktops and the eMac is too bulky for office desks (pity the poor IT guys lugging 100 of them around!)


So...again.. the iMac is the odd-bod. It's time to go... iMac. Bring on the cMac.

[Titian]

Yeaah!

new iMacs??!!
I am just waiting for the Dual 2.0 G5 with the 30" screen. :D
Maybe with a double combo drive?

Yes I'm ready!!

[Trimix]

My daughter (2 years old) has been asking for mommy's iMac for some time now. If a new G5 iMac comes out, my apple loan account is going to be hurting.

I know the feeling, mine 3 1/2 plays on the office iMac which I then could gracefully retire. My AMEX is itching :D

[Trimix]

"You just don't get it, do you Scott?"

When are people on these rumor sites going to understand that Apple is NEVER going to deliver a headless iMac? It ain't gonna happen! The whole concept behind iMac is the ability to unpack the box, plug in power, keyboard, mouse, and your internet source du jour, and start rocking. A separate display would only complicate this, albeit not by much, and what would it really get you? The ability to upgrade your computer, yet continue using your display? Rubbish!

Do you think a headless iMac would get you a top of the line CPU for much less than current PowerMac's? Maybe. However, Apple is never going to cut margins so you tight wads can own a hi-end CPU for the price of a Celeron. Stop dreaming, get a better job, and drop the money on a PowerMac. My guess is you really don't need anything faster than the iMac design as it stands. You just want to brag about having a 9 gHz G6, but you don't have the coin for it.

i am with you all the way

[Steak]

We really do need a cheap, high level machine. My wife works with her sister. A fashion-design, and retail store company. Very High-end. 2-3 of the people need pro-machines, the rest need decent machines, that can last a few years.
At the moment, they are using mostly old CRT iMacs. They know they are old and slow, but apple offers no alternative. Being family, as well as a mac geek, (while they are totally mac in the office) I cannot recommend a machine for them to buy for the common staff. iMac is too expensive for very little performance or longetivity. Powermacs are more than they need, or would want to deal with. Apple does not make a business machine, and that is probably their greatest block from gaining some market share. A small, maybe headless iMac type machine, for between 800 and $1000, with a G5, I would recommend they order at least 20 tomorrow,, yet at this point, I can provide them no reason to upgrade their computers, even with the tax write off. there are much better machines out there now, but not better enough to buy 20-30 machines. I've had my Sawtooth since 1999,, not quite new tech. Current iMacs are not much better than this machine, yet cost a lot of pennies.
Apple, at least try to build a business machine,, despite fears of cannibalising sales of other lines. If it sells well, good on ya! If it does not, can always ditch it. I think a headless, consumer priced G5 would sell faster than they could make them. why do they not have one?

[Mord]

(pity the poor IT guys lugging 100 of them around!)

yes but they are unstealable

In my freinds school they orderd 20 imacs the following week in the night people went in grabed them by the necks put them in there bags and walked off.

the week alfter that the school put in an order for 20 emacs they are being used to this day.

[G4-power]

yes but they are unstealable

In my freinds school they orderd 20 imacs the following week in the night people went in grabed them by the necks put them in there bags and walked off.

the week alfter that the school put in an order for 20 emacs they are being used to this day.

They had never heard of Kensington locks? Kinda dumb. I'll buy a Kensington lock for my first laptop, for sure.

[Telomar]

"You just don't get it, do you Scott?"

When are people on these rumor sites going to understand that Apple is NEVER going to deliver a headless iMac? It ain't gonna happen! The whole concept behind iMac is the ability to unpack the box, plug in power, keyboard, mouse, and your internet source du jour, and start rocking. A separate display would only complicate this, albeit not by much, and what would it really get you? The ability to upgrade your computer, yet continue using your display? Rubbish!

Do you think a headless iMac would get you a top of the line CPU for much less than current PowerMac's? Maybe. However, Apple is never going to cut margins so you tight wads can own a hi-end CPU for the price of a Celeron. Stop dreaming, get a better job, and drop the money on a PowerMac. My guess is you really don't need anything faster than the iMac design as it stands. You just want to brag about having a 9 gHz G6, but you don't have the coin for it.Well keep in mind where I work the displays have a longer life than the computers they use. At home for my last 4 macs I've only gone through 2 displays. Simple fact is a decent display outlasts your computer and being forced into replacing it is stupid.

Apple could easily rip off the display, put the iMac contents in a more basic case and offer the low end sub $1000 with the high end around $1300. That wouldn't be difficult in the least and would easily cover markets where a powermac isn't necessary. I really don't need my powermac for writing reports so if that's all I was doing it'd just be idiocy if I went out and spent that sought of money for nothing. If most people want to spend their excess money on something why would they throw it at Apple instead of something more worthwhile. Sounds to me like you just lack common sense.

[Little Endian]

I have owned 3 imacs over the Past 4 years and I have come to realize what poor values they are. My first imac was a G3 500Mhz purchased in late 2000 by the time Jan 2002 came around I was lusting for more Power and that G3 imac just was'nt cutting it so I handed down that G3 imac to my brother after less than 18 months of use. So as soon as the G4 15" 800 imac was released I sprang for it. After about another 18 months of use I found the Graphics card crippling as well as it's slow 5400 RPM drive and the 2X superdrive was getting on my nerves plus the 15" LCD was too cramped for my needs once I got into FCP and Pro tools with Mbox was also a laggard on this machine. So in Mid 2003 I sold the 15" G4 800 for about $1200 and got the 17" 1.25Ghz imac which was fine in the beggining but really it's getting long in the tooth after just a year especially with new Games like Halo, Call of Duty and UTK2004 and of course DOOM III would be a joke on this machine. So I sold my last imac on Ebay and got a sweet $1400 for it. Right now my brother and I share the imac G3 and I have no computer. The imac G3 is almost a relic now Panther Creeks on it, ichat AV is unsupported, No games within the Past 2 years work well on it and it's not worth doing any heavy work on.

The imacs will always be non upgradeable and Apple will always find ways to slow them down like how previous imacs always lacked the L3 cache and were almost always behind on FSB, Graphics and drive speeds in comparison to the towers, compound that by the fact there is nothing you can do to upgrade makes it worse. True the imacs will always be behind but Apple could always do more but they don't the last 20" imac revison 6 months ago could have at least sported a 1.33Ghz or even 1.5Ghz G4 with 512Kb L2 and could should have been equipped with a 128MB Geforce FX but they purposely cripple it so they can upkeep that Pro Vs. Consumer line facade.

I swear buy it that Apple has always purposely configured the imac line in a way that most users would be forced to upgrade the whole Machine after just 18-36 months Max of use that way Apple keeps a nice upgrade cycle for themselves and Users can actually wind up paying more than they Would had they just bought a Power Mac Tower that could last them more like 3-5 years with upgrades. I would have been better off had I just Purchased a top of the line G4 dual 533 back in 2001 it would have cost the same in the end even when calculating the money I get back from selling my imacs and I would have had a better machine thruoght that time frame and would Have at least had the option of keeping my monitor and or upgrading the Machine to Dual 1.33GHz rather than having to buy a new machine.

From now on I vow only to buy PowerMacs!! I would rather shell out 4-5 grand for an awesome system that will last and grow rather than stressing over selling an imac every 18 months or so. My next machine will be a Dual G5 and I am certain that at least that will last me 3 years without me so much as twitching a nerve for more speed and if neccessary I could stretch my Purchase till the end of the Decade with upgrades. On the other hand even if they release a 2.0 Ghz G5 imac I know it will only be a Couple of years or so before the Graphics chipset becomes too obsolete and that single Processor will start to seem slow for me and worse of all no upgrade options available whatsoever beyond adding RAM so heres hoping to Dual 3GHZ Power Macs. Sure the imac may be fine but for Serious Audio Work any amount of Digital Video and Gaming the imac will always fall grossly short and the investment killed further when there is nothing you can do to Upgrade beyond selling the Whole system.

[Mord]

They had never heard of Kensington locks? Kinda dumb. I'll buy a Kensington lock for my first laptop, for sure.

two words: bolt cutters

[G4-power]

From now on I vow only to buy PowerMacs!! I would rather shell out 4-5 grand for an awesome system that will last and grow rather than stressing over selling an imac every 18 months or so. My next machine will be a Dual G5 and I am certain that at least that will last me 3 years without me so much as twitching a nerve for more speed and if neccessary I could stretch my Purchase till the end of the Decade with upgrades. On the other hand even if they release a 2.0 Ghz G5 imac I know it will only be a Couple of years or so before the Graphics chipset becomes too obsolete and that single Processor will start to seem slow for me and worse of all no upgrade options available whatsoever beyond adding RAM so heres hoping to Dual 3GHZ Power Macs. Sure the imac may be fine but for Serious Audio Work any amount of Digital Video and Gaming the imac will always fall grossly short and the investment killed further when there is nothing you can do to Upgrade beyond selling the Whole system.
I know what you're talking about, since my dad's iBook (Dual USB) is a 500 MHz G3, and it's not upgradeable, only 10 GB HD and the old 8 MB Mobility Rage. Well, yes, it's a laptop, but quite much comparable to an iMac. Compared to that a Sawtooth performs really well (specs listed in signature). The Sawtooth has still got 2 free HD bays and one free slot for RAM, I could upgrade the processor to even 1.4 GHz (for an example Sonnet's Encore/ST G4) and the DVD-ROM drive could be changed, I think (correct me if I'm wrong). Taking into account that these were introduced in September 1999, this performs really well. My dad'll probably be getting a rev. B PowerMac G5 when they start to ship into Finland, so this machine will have it's fifth birthday. I'd say that's a good job, at least compared to PC's.

[G4-power]

two words: bolt cutters

Oh, yes, I understand.... :o

[Dont Hurt Me]

I have owned 3 imacs over the Past 4 years and I have come to realize what poor values they are. My first imac was a G3 500Mhz purchased in late 2000 by the time Jan 2002 came around I was lusting for more Power and that G3 imac just was'nt cutting it so I handed down that G3 imac to my brother after less than 18 months of use. So as soon as the G4 15" 800 imac was released I sprang for it. After about another 18 months of use I found the Graphics card crippling as well as it's slow 5400 RPM drive and the 2X superdrive was getting on my nerves plus the 15" LCD was too cramped for my needs once I got into FCP and Pro tools with Mbox was also a laggard on this machine. So in Mid 2003 I sold the 15" G4 800 for about $1200 and got the 17" 1.25Ghz imac which was fine in the beggining but really it's getting long in the tooth after just a year especially with new Games like Halo, Call of Duty and UTK2004 and of course DOOM III would be a joke on this machine. So I sold my last imac on Ebay and got a sweet $1400 for it. Right now my brother and I share the imac G3 and I have no computer. The imac G3 is almost a relic now Panther Creeks on it, ichat AV is unsupported, No games within the Past 2 years work well on it and it's not worth doing any heavy work on.

The imacs will always be non upgradeable and Apple will always find ways to slow them down like how previous imacs always lacked the L3 cache and were almost always behind on FSB, Graphics and drive speeds in comparison to the towers, compound that by the fact there is nothing you can do to upgrade makes it worse. True the imacs will always be behind but Apple could always do more but they don't the last 20" imac revison 6 months ago could have at least sported a 1.33Ghz or even 1.5Ghz G4 with 512Kb L2 and could should have been equipped with a 128MB Geforce FX but they purposely cripple it so they can upkeep that Pro Vs. Consumer line facade.

I swear buy it that Apple has always purposely configured the imac line in a way that most users would be forced to upgrade the whole Machine after just 18-36 months Max of use that way Apple keeps a nice upgrade cycle for themselves and Users can actually wind up paying more than they Would had they just bought a Power Mac Tower that could last them more like 3-5 years with upgrades. I would have been better off had I just Purchased a top of the line G4 dual 533 back in 2001 it would have cost the same in the end even when calculating the money I get back from selling my imacs and I would have had a better machine thruoght that time frame and would Have at least had the option of keeping my monitor and or upgrading the Machine to Dual 1.33GHz rather than having to buy a new machine.

From now on I vow only to buy PowerMacs!! I would rather shell out 4-5 grand for an awesome system that will last and grow rather than stressing over selling an imac every 18 months or so. My next machine will be a Dual G5 and I am certain that at least that will last me 3 years without me so much as twitching a nerve for more speed and if neccessary I could stretch my Purchase till the end of the Decade with upgrades. On the other hand even if they release a 2.0 Ghz G5 imac I know it will only be a Couple of years or so before the Graphics chipset becomes too obsolete and that single Processor will start to seem slow for me and worse of all no upgrade options available whatsoever beyond adding RAM so heres hoping to Dual 3GHZ Power Macs. Sure the imac may be fine but for Serious Audio Work any amount of Digital Video and Gaming the imac will always fall grossly short and the investment killed further when there is nothing you can do to Upgrade beyond selling the Whole system.I feel your pain and have also wondered how Apple will cripple G5 Imac. I do have a powermac now and know that this thing is just way more upgradeable,stays in the game longer etc. You have a very good point we will just have to wait and see how they cripple it up :confused:

[kangaroo]

What are the actual iMac stats? In fact what are the stats for all Apple machines/components? Which is the best seller, which is the worst? (Please no personal opinion here).

[JFreak]

From now on I vow only to buy PowerMacs!! I would rather shell out 4-5 grand for an awesome system that will last and grow rather than stressing over selling an imac every 18 months or so.

wow. it only took you three low-power computers to realize you need a high-power one. congrats ;)

[Phinius]

Maybe so but imac cant linger and go sour forever with 1.25 G4

The small production Xserve has a back order of 4-6 weeks. That seems to be entirely due to a lack of enough 970FX processors and its unlikely that IBM has another 9XX PowerPC in production right now, other than the 970 and 970FX. So, in order for the PowerMacs to have a processor upgrade Apple needs to get a much larger supply of 970FX processors than is being supplied currently. Its very unlikely that Apple would up the demand for 970FX processors, and thereby lengthen the delivery time for PowerMacs, by introducing a G5 iMac in the next month or so. Instead, I'd expect Apple to announce a 1.5GHz G4 iMac in the interim, and perhaps a completely new iMac in 2-3 months when faster chips are available in sufficient quanities.

Apple could help justify the prices of iMac computers by upgrading the performance substantially. But, in order to do that there has to be a adequate supply of much higher performing processors.

It sure looks like the 970FX was designed with a small 512MB L2 cache in order to reduce the costs of manufacturing. Why else would IBM only put 512KB of L2 cache, instead of 1MB like Intel did with Prescott? It could very well be that Apple intends to move the PowerMacs to the Power5 derived 9XX PowerPC processors in January, then bring the highest performing and cooler/cheaper 970FX processors to the iMac consumer line. With a likely larger die size from adding SMT and a doubling of L2 for the G5 processor after the 970FX, Apple could have both the consumer and pro line processors topping out at the same frequencies and yet still differentiate them by as much as a 50% boost in speed offered by a bigger cache and SMT on the pro line. Apple could then offer a single processor PowerMac running at the same frequency as a iMac and yet charge substantially more for the PowerMac.

[Dont Hurt Me]

What a lot of people dont seem to get is the 970 has been in production for a year and was suppose to scale up to 2.4 ghz, why couldnt Apple design a Imac around the 970? Heat issues are nothing more then B.S. make a bigger base and add a fan or two big flipping deal,not hard, not impossible. Apple has had plenty of time to work on it. A G4 1.5 imac will do little to spur sales. its still a old & slow cpu that cant compete with AMD or Intel and everyone knows it. Ill have none of that talk of staying with slow old last place G4 that moto forgot about 2 years ago. we will have a G5 Imac it may be a 970 or it may be a 970fx either way it wont be last place G4 with a crippled bus,crippled ddr, and crippled clock. waste of time and money to build a machine around this stagnation king of all cpu's. Apple knows better.

[Trekkie]

More like snobs. There is a set of so-called Power users who don't want to see performance from any Mac except the PM.

Yeah I've noticed that a lot around here. Personally I have a Powerbook 12" and an iMac. I bought the iMac for the flat panel.

I've given an eMac as a present to my inlaws when their computer roasted and flipped them to the Mac side.

[Trekkie]

Just a quick check of the CompUsa website, I checked the availibility of the iMac at all (5) of the Dallas area CompUsa's. Not one of them have a single iMac installed. Also I checked the Chicago area, and most CompUsa's there report out of stock or limited quantities. Also the 20" cinema display is hard to find.

I just filled out an order for an iMac 20" and got 1-3 day shipping ona CTO model I built.

Didn't order it of course, but if it goes G5 in June I'll definitely order that setup to replace the imac 800MHz we have. Baby girl needs a computer and rendering in iMovie is a bit slow some days.

[Trekkie]

<sarcasm>
I agree. Why do consumers think they should have the right to upgrade their video card or hard drive. They are just lowly consumers. They aren't real professionals like the PowerMac users.
</sarcasm>

I'm not a consumer when it comes to computers by a long shot. But based on watching my family members who use computers for web and email, and one uses it for home movies upgrading a video card is the most foreign idea on the planet to them.

Example one: I bought a PC Game for my new brother in law for christmas. Said game required a 3D card and I didn't realize his machine had one of those 'intel extreme' video card crap things in it. Instead of buying a $50 - $100 3D card he took the game back and found something else instead.

Example two: Sister is trying to get the Windows 'version' of iMovie to work with her new camcorder. Lots of problems hardware related. She asks me how I do it and I tell her iMovie on my iMac. Instead of spending $300 or whatever it was on a new DVD Burner & some more memory, they buy the iMac (I tried to steer her to the eMac for cost savings but she wanted a flat panel)

So some 'consumers' do just that - consume. They don't upgrade, add features. The concept is foreign to them. You don't replace a part of your CD Player, DVD Player, Television, etc. You get a new one.

[Trekkie]

I swear buy it that Apple has always purposely configured the imac line in a way that most users would be forced to upgrade the whole Machine after just 18-36 months Max of use that way Apple keeps a nice upgrade cycle for themselves and Users can actually wind up paying more than they Would had they just bought a Power Mac Tower that could last them more like 3-5 years with upgrades.

You've never bought a PC have you? 18 months is a lifetime on a PC. Even if you bulit your own the only way you're going to upgrade it is to replace whole chunks of the system. In the last 18 months there have been *3* new front side buses all requiring completely different memory subsystems.

Only the PowerMac and the upgrade community make those things actually last. There is no processor upgrade kit (of any value) in the INtel world. The processor upgrade kit is a new motherboard, new proc, and new memory.

[manu chao]

The small production Xserve has a back order of 4-6 weeks. That seems to be entirely due to a lack of enough 970FX processors and its unlikely that IBM has another 9XX PowerPC in production right now, other than the 970 and 970FX. So, in order for the PowerMacs to have a processor upgrade Apple needs to get a much larger supply of 970FX processors than is being supplied currently. Its very unlikely that Apple would up the demand for 970FX processors, and thereby lengthen the delivery time for PowerMacs, by introducing a G5 iMac in the next month or so. Instead, I'd expect Apple to announce a 1.5GHz G4 iMac in the interim, and perhaps a completely new iMac in 2-3 months when faster chips are available in sufficient quanities.

Apple could help justify the prices of iMac computers by upgrading the performance substantially. But, in order to do that there has to be a adequate supply of much higher performing processors.

It sure looks like the 970FX was designed with a small 512MB L2 cache in order to reduce the costs of manufacturing. Why else would IBM only put 512KB of L2 cache, instead of 1MB like Intel did with Prescott? It could very well be that Apple intends to move the PowerMacs to the Power5 derived 9XX PowerPC processors in January, then bring the highest performing and cooler/cheaper 970FX processors to the iMac consumer line. With a likely larger die size from adding SMT and a doubling of L2 for the G5 processor after the 970FX, Apple could have both the consumer and pro line processors topping out at the same frequencies and yet still differentiate them by as much as a 50% boost in speed offered by a bigger cache and SMT on the pro line. Apple could then offer a single processor PowerMac running at the same frequency as a iMac and yet charge substantially more for the PowerMac.

My theory is that they have enough 970FXs by now, but the assembly capacity is rather small and the backlog of orders so big that they can't put them together fast enough.

Really, why upgrade the eMac to 1.25 Ghz, the Powerbook to 1.5Ghz (before that for a long period the iMac had about the same top speed as the Powerbook) and not upgrade the iMac to 1.5Ghz? There will be G5 iMac soon.

[manu chao]

I'm not a consumer when it comes to computers by a long shot. But based on watching my family members who use computers for web and email, and one uses it for home movies upgrading a video card is the most foreign idea on the planet to them.

Example one: I bought a PC Game for my new brother in law for christmas. Said game required a 3D card and I didn't realize his machine had one of those 'intel extreme' video card crap things in it. Instead of buying a $50 - $100 3D card he took the game back and found something else instead.

Example two: Sister is trying to get the Windows 'version' of iMovie to work with her new camcorder. Lots of problems hardware related. She asks me how I do it and I tell her iMovie on my iMac. Instead of spending $300 or whatever it was on a new DVD Burner & some more memory, they buy the iMac (I tried to steer her to the eMac for cost savings but she wanted a flat panel)

So some 'consumers' do just that - consume. They don't upgrade, add features. The concept is foreign to them. You don't replace a part of your CD Player, DVD Player, Television, etc. You get a new one.

I agree completely, look at these 50% of computer buyers who get a laptop (at Apple this number is close to 50% at least), they hardly can upgrade anything (mainly the hard drive) and they are happy with it.

[nmk]

Whats the chance that we might see one of the new 2Ghz Dual Core G4's that Motorolla (Freescale) is supposed to start putting out soon. That would be much faster than any slowed down G5 they would be able to fit into a iMac. I would also mean we will be seing that processor in the PB's soon.

[Phinius]

What a lot of people dont seem to get is the 970 has been in production for a year and was suppose to scale up to 2.4 ghz,

IBM officially states that the 970 scales to 1.8GHz and the 2GHz version seems to be a exclusive for Apple. The 970 is derived from the Power4+ core and the Power4+ is going to scale up to 2GHz, according to IBM. The Power5 will scale to 3GHz. So, expect no more than 3GHz for the 970FX and the 9XX Power5 derivitive.

why couldnt Apple design a Imac around the 970?

Probably for many of the same reasons that Apple chose to wait for the 970FX before moving the Xserve to the G5. The heat that the 970 would create in a 1U server box, or small form factor iMac, was probably a major issue. If it wasn't then Apple could have also have come out with a 970 based PowerBook by now.

A G4 1.5 imac will do little to spur sales. its still a old & slow cpu that cant compete with AMD or Intel and everyone knows it.

The G4 could compete with AMD or Intel in small form factor boxes if it gets faster memory and bus, along with moving to 2GHz with a dual-core chip like Motorola has mentioned. The biggest problem would probably be heat generated in a notebook computer with a dual-core G4 chip.

Ill have none of that talk of staying with slow old last place G4 that moto forgot about 2 years ago.

Do you honestly believe that the G4 will not be moved to a 90-nm process size and that FreeScale will not continue to make improvements to its architecture as has been the case in the past? If you believe that there has been little or no improvements to the architecture in the past, then you are ignoring the facts. The G4 doesn't run at 3Ghz, but neither does the Pentium-M or Itanium. In fact, Itanium runs at a top speed of 1.6GHz and yet it is arguably Intels fastest processor. Motorola expects the G4 to reach 2GHz in its next incarnation. Thats not a groundshaking speed improvement for running it on the desktop, but compare that to the current topend speed of 2GHz for the Pentium-M. The G4 will have essentially reached frequency parity with the Pentium-M if a 2GHz G4 comes out in the next 2-3 months. With a dual-core and memory/bus improvements the G4 should stack up very well against the Pentium-M in performance.

[Phinius]

My theory is that they have enough 970FXs by now, but the assembly capacity is rather small and the backlog of orders so big that they can't put them together fast enough.

The Xserve is a low production product and Apple has clearly stated that the reason for the backorders is lack of sufficient amount of 970FX processors from IBM. If there are enough 970FX processors in production, then there would not be a 4-6 week waiting time, as there is now, on the Xserve.

Really, why upgrade the eMac to 1.25 Ghz, the Powerbook to 1.5Ghz (before that for a long period the iMac had about the same top speed as the Powerbook) and not upgrade the iMac to 1.5Ghz?

How about the possiblity that there was not a sufficient supply of 1.5GHz G4s to equipe both the iMac and PowerBook with the proccessor? Afterall, Motorola just recently introduced the 1.5GHz G4 and it does take time to increase production on a processor.

[Phinius]

Whats the chance that we might see one of the new 2Ghz Dual Core G4's that Motorolla (Freescale) is supposed to start putting out soon. That would be much faster than any slowed down G5 they would be able to fit into a iMac. I would also mean we will be seing that processor in the PB's soon.

Well, an Apple spokesperson has recently stated that the company is interested in using the G4 in small boxes. So, it could be that Apple intends to continue to make notebooks and possibly one or more consumer desktops with the G4. Apple would be foolish to bet the farm on one company that is using a single chip manufacturing facility to make the processors for Apple. What if that facility has a horrific accident that shuts it down for some time? Or better yet, what if IBM runs across some problems in moving the design to a different manufacturing process, which is exactly what is happening now?

[Dont Hurt Me]

5 year old G4 is still 7 year old G3 with altivec,nothing more. Still amazes me that people dont think a bigger base and a couple of fans and presto in goes the 970. no mystery no problem. Having used Macs for over a decade and watching moto crawl forward(perhaps crawl gives them to much credit) I fail to see the logic of staying with a last place Cpu in Imac. Moto also said a G5 was coming years ago and it never happened. Moto says this Moto says that and still has just got G4 up to 1.5 with half used DDR, 167 mhz which is but a joke when i can buy a $500 PC that comes with a P4 that will still kick Motos sorry behind every which way. Enough of Motocrap and motostagnation, Apple needs computers that can compete not computers that come in last place on everybench as G4 has done for year after fricking year! Apple didnt kick out G4 in Powermac and invest big money in G5 just to keep selling last place G4. Sorry G4 is fine for grandma's and kiddies in a sub $1000 machine not for a $2000 machine that is suppose to go against P4s & AMDs 64 bit stuff. Face it G4 is last place and all benches show it. Lets not pretend that G4 is anything more then a worn out old design that got walloped by the otherside. Apple needs a Imac that kicks butt not a imac that gets its butt kicked. This is Imac and Apple's problem for years staying with the dog(moto).

[jared_kipe]

"You just don't get it, do you Scott?"

When are people on these rumor sites going to understand that Apple is NEVER going to deliver a headless iMac? It ain't gonna happen! The whole concept behind iMac is the ability to unpack the box, plug in power, keyboard, mouse, and your internet source du jour, and start rocking. A separate display would only complicate this, albeit not by much, and what would it really get you? The ability to upgrade your computer, yet continue using your display? Rubbish!

Do you think a headless iMac would get you a top of the line CPU for much less than current PowerMac's? Maybe. However, Apple is never going to cut margins so you tight wads can own a hi-end CPU for the price of a Celeron. Stop dreaming, get a better job, and drop the money on a PowerMac. My guess is you really don't need anything faster than the iMac design as it stands. You just want to brag about having a 9 gHz G6, but you don't have the coin for it.

Hi-end CPU for the price of a Celeron?? AH ha ha ha. Dell ships a 2.4GHz Celeron for $350, so I tell you what, when Apple ships a ..mm.. 1.5GHz G3 for $350 we can talk. So what kind of Dell could we get for $1300(price of the 15" iMac)? Well we could get us a 2.8GHz P4 with 800MHz bus and HT, 512MB DDR , NVIDIA Quadro NVS 280 64MB... for $1200, no it doesn't have a monitor but dell offers a 15" LCD for $170, a very fair price. All in all, thats a whole lot of computer for the price of the low stock iMac. Things would look worse if we continued up the iMac price line.

[danvdr]

Just to try to keep a voice of sanity, I'm going with the few posts saying iMac is going to 1.5 G4, maybe with a new form. Top end PM at 2.4-2.6 GHz. Can't imagine Apple jumping 50% CPU speed in one shot (i.e. 3 GHz). IBM is ramping up production, but let's get real: they can't keep up with Xserves yet.

Fall '04/winter '05 will be the big changes. PB and iMac go G5, eMac not far behind.

[Dont Hurt Me]

Just to try to keep a voice of sanity, I'm going with the few posts saying iMac is going to 1.5 G4, maybe with a new form. Top end PM at 2.4-2.6 GHz. Can't imagine Apple jumping 50% CPU speed in one shot (i.e. 3 GHz). IBM is ramping up production, but let's get real: they can't keep up with Xserves yet.

Fall '04/winter '05 will be the big changes. PB and iMac go G5, eMac not far behind.yeah like that makes a lot of sense, design a all new computer around a completely old cpu. please pass the dubie

[LaMerVipere]

5 year old G4 is still 7 year old G3 with altivec,nothing more. Still amazes me that people dont think a bigger base and a couple of fans and presto in goes the 970. no mystery no problem. Having used Macs for over a decade and watching moto crawl forward(perhaps crawl gives them to much credit) I fail to see the logic of staying with a last place Cpu in Imac. Moto also said a G5 was coming years ago and it never happened. Moto says this Moto says that and still has just got G4 up to 1.5 with half used DDR, 167 mhz which is but a joke when i can buy a $500 PC that comes with a P4 that will still kick Motos sorry behind every which way. Enough of Motocrap and motostagnation, Apple needs computers that can compete not computers that come in last place on everybench as G4 has done for year after fricking year! Apple didnt kick out G4 in Powermac and invest big money in G5 just to keep selling last place G4. Sorry G4 is fine for grandma's and kiddies in a sub $1000 machine not for a $2000 machine that is suppose to go against P4s & AMDs 64 bit stuff. Face it G4 is last place and all benches show it. Lets not pretend that G4 is anything more then a worn out old design that got walloped by the otherside. Apple needs a Imac that kicks butt not a imac that gets its butt kicked. This is Imac and Apple's problem for years staying with the dog(moto).

So very true, sadly! *shakes head* :(

[BeoVir]

Hi-end CPU for the price of a Celeron?? AH ha ha ha. Dell ships a 2.4GHz Celeron for $350, so I tell you what, when Apple ships a ..mm.. 1.5GHz G3 for $350 we can talk. So what kind of Dell could we get for $1300(price of the 15" iMac)? Well we could get us a 2.8GHz P4 with 800MHz bus and HT, 512MB DDR , NVIDIA Quadro NVS 280 64MB... for $1200, no it doesn't have a monitor but dell offers a 15" LCD for $170, a very fair price. All in all, thats a whole lot of computer for the price of the low stock iMac. Things would look worse if we continued up the iMac price line.

I have yet to see any x86 based computer run as smoothly, as quickly, as reliably as my 12" PB 1Ghz. No matter what specs a PC has as soon as it gets loaded down with the lead weight of wondows it crawls.

[Phinius]

5 year old G4 is still 7 year old G3 with altivec,nothing more.

Do you realize that the Pentium-M is substantially based on the old Pentium III? There are advantages to using a slower clocked processor for multiple cpu chip designs and also in situations that require a low power use.

Still amazes me that people dont think a bigger base and a couple of fans and presto in goes the 970.

And presto in goes the 970? Since when does Apple ever do major upgrades like that? You seem to want Apple to evolve into a Dell like PC company.

Moto also said a G5 was coming years ago and it never happened. Moto says this Moto says that and still has just got G4 up to 1.5 with half used DDR, 167 mhz which is but a joke

Do you realize that Motorola has to make improvements to the G4 in order to continue selling it in the embedded market? The G4 went to a faster bus when it was moved to the 130-nm process size and it is extremely unlikely that the processor would again have a minor bus improvement moving to the smaller 90-nm process. Thats because as the core frequency rises, at some point the processor has to have the capacity for using DDR and DDR-2 memory, and that time will likely have arrived on the 90-nm process size. On the 130-nm process, Motorola introduced SOI, Low-K dielectric and dynamic frequency switching. At the 90-nm process level Motorola will move the memory controller onboard the G4 and come out with a dual-core version.

The G4 would move up considerably in performance with a faster bus, higher performing memory and using dual-core. I seriously don't believe that Motorola would have been as willing to commit to going dual-core without Apple having a strong interest in using it. Afterall, Motorolas host processor sales are mainly coming from Apple and Motorola has stated that a dual-core G4 running at 1.5GHz will use an average of 25 watts. That power use is out of the range of the 10 watts, and under, that Motorola targets for the embedded market.

Or, do you honestly believe that the G4 will move to a smaller process size and have minor, or no changes, made to the processor? Thats unlikely to happen. IBM is making extremely minor changes to the 970 architecture as it moves to the 90-nm process, but then again, IBM is introducing a major addition with strained silicon in the chip manufacturing. At this point I'd say that IBM has enough problems just handling moving to a 90-nm process size that adds strained silicon to the mix. Introducing more complexity to the chip architecture would compound the problems for them and require even more time to reach full production.

Apple didnt kick out G4 in Powermac and invest big money in G5 just to keep selling last place G4.

Did you notice that Apple also kicked the G3 off of the iBook and put a G4 in its place? Does that seem like a company that is intend on quickly getting rid of Motorola? It seems more likely that the G5 now not only gives Apple a new level of performance, but also gives the company more options to move into other markets such as more than two processor server boxes. You might want to think of the G4 as moving into the position that the G3 occupied when the G4 was introduced. Did Apple immediately drop IBM and its pokey moving G3 when the Altivec equipped G4 came on the scene? No, and Apple is unlikely to drop Motorola and the G4 in the near future, so get over it. Motorola or Freescale will continue to improve the design of the G4 host processors that Apple uses for some time to come.

[anonxxxxx]

I disagree. For kicks, I built myself a liquid cooled PC last year. It currently has a AMD XP 2000+ (1.6 ghz) in it. I can upgrade that to a Barton 3200 (2.2 ghz) 333 mhz FSB chip and still keep my current memory (1 gig PC 2700, expandable to 2 gigs). This would just cost me about $150 and a little time; and while it wouldn't jump my computer to the front of the pack, it holds off the complete overhaul for a while longer.

I have a Nvidia 4200Ti 128 mb AGP 8x video card in that box, which I can upgrade to something more powerful when required. I don't game much and use my computer mostly for audio production and recording.

My motherboard also came with SATA drive controllers so I could switch if I felt like it later on.

Point is, if you choose your parts correctly, PCs are very serviceable and upgradeable if you just want to maintain decent performance with some of the latest games and applications. Sure, if you want to be at the bleeding edge, you might have to overhaul mobo, memory, and processor; but there's always a premium to be paid for being an early adopter.

Having said that, I love my G4 Powerbook, my first Apple, which I purchased in April 2004 when the new updates came out. I would completely switch over to Apple if the hardware caught up with the stuff that's available on the PC said of things.

I don't like the snobbery I'm hearing in this forum regarding iMac vs. PowerMac performance. Being able to drop thousands of dollars on a computer is a luxury that most people don't enjoy. It's kinda sick the way some PowerMac users disparage the wish for a high performance, slightly upgradeable iImac.

Gamers drive the "consumer" market. Maybe the average person doesn't know enough or wouldn't bother to upgrade a machine that's upgradeable but they know enough to understand that Dell can build them a cheap Wintel box that will outperform anything but the most powerful PowerMacs. Now, if most "consumers" are just using their computers for relatively non-critical applications like email, occasional word proc, Web surfing, and gaming, I think they can and will overlook the whole Windows vs. OS X argument to hundreds of dollars. And really, most consumers don't even know how good OS X is... I hadn't even given it much thought until a friend of mine started raving about his new 12" Powerbook. Until, you actually sit down and use it, it's hard for most PC users to understand how easy things can be...

Whatever the strategy, there's a huge potential market out there between the eMacs and the PowerMacs. Apple needs to figure out a way to tap it.

BTW, I've had my 17" Viewsonic CRT for 6+ years and while I would like a large LCD display, I just can't justify the purchase to myself right now, because the monitor still works just fine.




You've never bought a PC have you? 18 months is a lifetime on a PC. Even if you bulit your own the only way you're going to upgrade it is to replace whole chunks of the system. In the last 18 months there have been *3* new front side buses all requiring completely different memory subsystems.

Only the PowerMac and the upgrade community make those things actually last. There is no processor upgrade kit (of any value) in the INtel world. The processor upgrade kit is a new motherboard, new proc, and new memory.

[manu chao]

IBM officially states that the 970 scales to 1.8GHz and the 2GHz version seems to be a exclusive for Apple.
IBM sells the 970 officially at up to 1.8Ghz (and at 2Ghz to Apple) but it said in the beginning that the design should scale up to around 2.5Ghz, that means that they expected to produce 2.5Ghz versions (presumably that includes variations like the 970FX) at some point down the line (one, two, three years later).

IBM also publically stated that the 970FX consumes less power at 2.5Ghz than the 970 at 2.0Ghz. It does not make any sense to say something like this, if they don't expect to produce it at that speed in the not-to-distant future.

[manu chao]

The Xserve is a low production product and Apple has clearly stated that the reason for the backorders is lack of sufficient amount of 970FX processors from IBM.
I think Phil Schiller used the word 'was' in that sentence: 'the reason for the backorders was [the] lack of sufficient amount of 970FX processors from IBM'.
But it naturally could very well be that even if there are enough 970FXs for the Xserve, there are still not enough for a higher volume product line.


How about the possiblity that there was not a sufficient supply of 1.5GHz G4s to equipe both the iMac and PowerBook with the proccessor? Afterall, Motorola just recently introduced the 1.5GHz G4 and it does take time to increase production on a processor.

That's a good point, and since there is no waiting time for the 1.5Ghz Powerbooks let't hope that the situation is not that bad, and they will soon have enough for the iMac as well.

[Dont Hurt Me]

imac isnt getting another G4 no matter what all you motorola lovers say, Apple invested millions into a new chip and deal with IBM so if you are clamoring for G4 stagnation,low performance,slow bus,1/2 used ddr just so you can be proud to be hammered by those pc's then i would suggest looking at the laps or perhaps a Emac. Imac is going to get something a little more special then another slightly bumped G4. Apple likes to look forward not backward. :eek:

[nmk]

5 year old G4 is still 7 year old G3 with altivec,nothing more. Still amazes me that people dont think a bigger base and a couple of fans and presto in goes the 970. no mystery no problem. Having used Macs for over a decade and watching moto crawl forward(perhaps crawl gives them to much credit) I fail to see the logic of staying with a last place Cpu in Imac. Moto also said a G5 was coming years ago and it never happened. Moto says this Moto says that and still has just got G4 up to 1.5 with half used DDR, 167 mhz which is but a joke when i can buy a $500 PC that comes with a P4 that will still kick Motos sorry behind every which way. Enough of Motocrap and motostagnation, Apple needs computers that can compete not computers that come in last place on everybench as G4 has done for year after fricking year! Apple didnt kick out G4 in Powermac and invest big money in G5 just to keep selling last place G4. Sorry G4 is fine for grandma's and kiddies in a sub $1000 machine not for a $2000 machine that is suppose to go against P4s & AMDs 64 bit stuff. Face it G4 is last place and all benches show it. Lets not pretend that G4 is anything more then a worn out old design that got walloped by the otherside. Apple needs a Imac that kicks butt not a imac that gets its butt kicked. This is Imac and Apple's problem for years staying with the dog(moto).

DHM, your commentry is starting to get quite tiresome. First of all, I hope you realize that a processor design does not necessarily become useless with age. The Pentium M, as one poster has already stated, is based on the Pentium three. Intel has recently decided to dump the Pentium 4 and move to Pentium M based processors for their desktops. The pentium 3 architecture is almost as old as the G3.

Additionally, I have posted benchmarks on these forums on a number of occasions that show that the G5 is not much faster than the G4 at equal clockspeeds. A dual core 2Ghz G4 with faster system bus and onboard memory controller would be quite a beast. In all likelihood, it would put a single core 2Ghz G5 to shame. The reason some people are interested in seeing this type of processor in the iMac or PB, is that it would provide superb performance while keeping power usage and heat output to a minimum.

This particular processor is supposed to go into production sometime in the next few months. The only reason Apple might choose a G5 over this processor for the iMac is for marketing reasons. It would satiate the apetite of certain users who blindly believe that the G5 is better than the G4 (does this remind you of anyone).

Anyway, as far as I'm concerned, the future of Apple (in terms of processor performance) seems good. The G5's will probably progress to at-least 2.4-2.6 Ghz. The freescale processors at 2Ghz should be comming into the market soon as well.

[Dont Hurt Me]

Anyone who thinks a G4 is on par with a G5 is missing the boat, sure there are some apps written for G4 and have no idea what a G5 is. On those the G4 is still behind but lets not pretend G4 is the same as G5 because its not. I would suggest a read through of Apples pdf on the G5. lets see 167 bus vs 1000??? or how about the part of addressing 64 bits vs 32? how about that ddr that is half used in G4. I dont want to hear about vaporware im talking chips that are made now and G5 smokes a G4. Not if G4 had this and if G4 had that and moto is going to do this oneday maybe.
We pay top dollar to go with Mac it should have a top cpu not a cpu (G4) that performs at levels that Intel hit 2 years ago with a 2.0 P4. sorry i expect more out of Apple then last place cpu being sold forever at top prices. you should also. There is no more G4s in my future, a year of 1.47 G4 in my 3 year old machine is enough. If anyone is blind its the ones saying G4 is close or even near the G5. Maybe someone is trying to sell more G4s or trying to justify going with a new G4. Now thats blind. G5 is the future and its not in xserve and powermac because it is only slightly better. fool yourself all you want but we are still waiting for a G5 os and G5 apps. right now G5 is simply running G4 apps in its G4 mode. Here here to killing off G4 imac and giving it some muscle(G5)

[LaMerVipere]

DHM, your commentry is starting to get quite tiresome. First of all, I hope you realize that a processor design does not necessarily become useless with age. The Pentium M, as one poster has already stated, is based on the Pentium three. Intel has recently decided to dump the Pentium 4 and move to Pentium M based processors for their desktops. The pentium 3 architecture is almost as old as the G3.

Additionally, I have posted benchmarks on these forums on a number of occasions that show that the G5 is not much faster than the G4 at equal clockspeeds. A dual core 2Ghz G4 with faster system bus and onboard memory controller would be quite a beast. In all likelihood, it would put a single core 2Ghz G5 to shame. The reason some people are interested in seeing this type of processor in the iMac or PB, is that it would provide superb performance while keeping power usage and heat output to a minimum.

This particular processor is supposed to go into production sometime in the next few months. The only reason Apple might choose a G5 over this processor for the iMac is for marketing reasons. It would satiate the apetite of certain users who blindly believe that the G5 is better than the G4 (does this remind you of anyone).

Anyway, as far as I'm concerned, the future of Apple (in terms of processor performance) seems good. The G5's will probably progress to at-least 2.4-2.6 Ghz. The freescale processors at 2Ghz should be comming into the market soon as well.

I don't know WHY everyone keeps saying that the Pentium-M is based on the Pentium III, that just isn't the case. It's well known that the Pentium-M is an entirely new processor. It was designed from the ground up in Israel. Though they studied the Pentium III architecture when designing it, it isn't specifically based on the P-III.

[MacsRgr8]

Last year we were bashing the G4 due to its low clock speed, slow bus and not using "true" DDR RAM.

We (finally) have the G5 now, and all these issues seem solved. The G4's still have the same problems, but now running @ 1.5 GHz...

Now people want more G4s??????

I don't get it. The iMac NEEDS a G5 if Apple wants to sell it! CPU speed sells. Apple knows it. The only reason Apple wouldn't do it, is if there were not enough G5's to go around. You just cannot sell a consumer $ 2,000 Mac running @ 1.25 GHz, with a GeForce 5200!
Make this baby the (ultra) low-end iMac, for $ 1,000, and all the rest G5s, with at least a Radeon 9800 Pro in the top model.

Consumer Macs: Single G5 (PPC 970, fx, 975... I don't really care)
Pro-Macs: Dual G5

Please.

I'm with you, Don't Hurt Me

[aswitcher]

I don't get it. The iMac NEEDS a G5 if Apple wants to sell it! CPU speed sells. Apple knows it. The only reason Apple wouldn't do it, is if there were not enough G5's to go around.

I agree. G5 or bust for the iMac. Within lots more prosumers using the likes Photoshop and DigitalVideo editing software, a more powerful machine is needed. G5 with 4 slots for ram, and options for high end graphics cards, 160 gig HDD, works for me.

[Telomar]

I don't know WHY everyone keeps saying that the Pentium-M is based on the Pentium III, that just isn't the case. It's well known that the Pentium-M is an entirely new processor. It was designed from the ground up in Israel. Though they studied the Pentium III architecture when designing it, it isn't specifically based on the P-III.No Intel Israel said it was a completely new processor. In reality it is very much an evolution of the old PIII core.

[Michael Vance]

G5 iMac sounds wonderous, pity my Girlfriend just bought me a suprise iMac G4 for my birthday. The one machine I wouldn't have bought at the moment.

Not that I'm complaining, it's a damn site better than my old G4 533.

Just wish it was a G5 :)

BTW I love the superdrive, wonder if the new iMac will have the duel layer capability?

At least the girlfriend sounds like a keeper. ;)

[Windowlicker]

imac isnt getting another G4 no matter what all you motorola lovers say, Apple invested millions into a new chip and deal with IBM so if you are clamoring for G4 stagnation,low performance,slow bus,1/2 used ddr just so you can be proud to be hammered by those pc's then i would suggest looking at the laps or perhaps a Emac. Imac is going to get something a little more special then another slightly bumped G4. Apple likes to look forward not backward. :eek:

I would think the 1.5GHz G4 is more likely to be installed on a future eMac rather than an iMac. The iMac's going G5 -- at least I hope so. It doesn't sound impossible. the iMac isn't a PB, and therefore it can produce more heat. not as much as PM's, but surely enough to hold a (new version of a) 1.6G5.

Prove me wrong.

[dontmatter]

I agree completely, look at these 50% of computer buyers who get a laptop (at Apple this number is close to 50% at least), they hardly can upgrade anything (mainly the hard drive) and they are happy with it.

You're oh so right and oh so wrong. I'm on a powerbook. and yup, it's not even worth it to upgrade the HD, I'll just get an external one. But, I bought it because it does not stay in one spot. Now here at home, earlier at college, I hardly ever bother to plug in external mouse and keyboard, because I'm so frequently taking it to classes, library, friends house to share music, and I'm finding all sorts of times when I want my computer with me that I never thought of before I had a laptop. Yes, the price sucks for the power, and it's a buy, upgrade ram, HD, use to the last drop and then replace kind of computer, at an enormous price, but it is so worth it to be able to pick up and go, be it to the other side of the room or to another part of the country. I will never be tied down to a desk again.

However, you're still right in a lot of ways-I see SOOOO many PC users with laptops as their only computer, and I swear, they move less than some people's desktops. PC comsumers buy the computer for some idea of what they're going to do with it, for flexibility, and then never actually use it. They buy it because it is there. The most computer inept person in my entire dorm (I was always helping her with stuff on her PC, and I've never had a pc, never worked on one, and can say I am 100%, disgustingly incapable on one) had trouble with her dell, looked to me like some windows fault. She replaced it with a 17" toshiba desktop replacement, cost nearly as much as a 17 inch powerbook, but specs sucked, and she still didnt' know how to use it, and it still NEVER left her desk.

The same happens with mac users, but it still seems that a very disproprtionate number of laptops being used as laptops are apples, from my experience.

Wow, I just realized how off topic this post is. Sorry.

But, I think it kind of does fit in to the whole argument about consumer macs not existing, and the question of if a G5 would fix that, or if we need headless, etc. is not complete if we look at emac, imac, pmac. Truth is, every consumer mac user i know is buying ibooks. I've helped 4 different consumer mac users buy and set up ibooks over the last 8 months, and the only consumer mac user I know running anything but an ibook or something that long, long ago needed to be replaced (CRT imac or before), is a guy with a 12" PB who spend money without even noticing it, several hundred on usless pleasure items a week, courtesy of rich lawyer parents.

[whenpaulsparks]

mark my words -- there will be a iMac G5 this summer. and i'm starting my next year of college in the fall, hopefully it will be available before mid-August. if not, i can always have it on order and "suffer" with just my 1GHz Ti PowerBook G4 :-)

but yes, the PowerMac 8,1 thing definitely means iMac, and since it jumped to 8 instead of staying on 6, that means a huge change, so iMac G5 here we come. it just makes sense. they last updated it, what, a few years ago, to the new form factor? the only thing that doesnt make sense is that both desktop machines would have G5s, and both laptops would have G4s (dont give me PBG5 crap). usually the Power series has the step up (remember when it was PowerMac G4, PowerBook G4, iMac G3, and iBook G3? IIRC) but i think the iMac deserves a G5, if it is to continue selling. and i was just about to buy an iMac G4, but then i realized that all the rumors were coming together for a G5, so i'm gonna hold off.

but about the comment of the iMac not selling, its big in educational markets, and a lot of people (like my mother, who bought one in november 2003) don't NEED the power of a G5 to justify the price. the iMac is expensive (but still powerful) enough for them. my only complaint is that 256 MB is not enough. even for basic stuff, when you have 2 or more accounts logged in with fast user switching (yes, on the new, top of the line iMac) it slows to a crawl.

[segundo]

the only thing that doesnt make sense is that both desktop machines would have G5s, and both laptops would have G4s (dont give me PBG5 crap).

This makes sense to me . . . it may be a bit before IBM is able to get the G5 in a form factor that is useable for notebooks. I totally agree with you that we will have G5 desktops and G4 notebooks. I'm always more concerned with battery life than raw performance in a notebook but for a desktop raw performance is what I'm looking for.

I'm excited about the prospects of a G5 iMac. Does anyone have any clue what the new form factor might look like?

[joelypolly]

I don't know WHY everyone keeps saying that the Pentium-M is based on the Pentium III, that just isn't the case. It's well known that the Pentium-M is an entirely new processor. It was designed from the ground up in Israel. Though they studied the Pentium III architecture when designing it, it isn't specifically based on the P-III.

Well sorry but thats because its true. Intel would like the world to believe it's a brand new chip but its really just a based of the P3. It has be reworked with longer pipeline and that but it is based of the Pentium III. BTW the Pentium III is based of the Pentium II which is based of the Pentium Pro with each generation Intel added stuff like MMX, SSE and stuff like that.

[~Shard~]

So what happens if the G5 iMac is announced at WWDC, or in the near future, however instead of being cheaper it's more expensive? What if it becomes the mid-grade model, between the PowerMac (Pro) and leaving the eMac as the only consumer-level machine? What if it has a G5 and updated hardware, updated display, etc., but as a result, is placed in a higher price bracket? Just a thought...

[Phinius]

IBM sells the 970 officially at up to 1.8Ghz (and at 2Ghz to Apple) but it said in the beginning that the design should scale up to around 2.5Ghz, that means that they expected to produce 2.5Ghz versions (presumably that includes variations like the 970FX) at some point down the line (one, two, three years later).

IBM also publically stated that the 970FX consumes less power at 2.5Ghz than the 970 at 2.0Ghz. It does not make any sense to say something like this, if they don't expect to produce it at that speed in the not-to-distant future.

The 970 topped out at 2GHz on the 130-nm process and it should go up to 3GHz, judging from both Jobs statement last June and statements from IBM about the expected Power5 topend frequency.

[aswitcher]

So what happens if the G5 iMac is announced at WWDC, or in the near future, however instead of being cheaper it's more expensive? What if it becomes the mid-grade model, between the PowerMac (Pro) and leaving the eMac as the only consumer-level machine? What if it has a G5 and updated hardware, updated display, etc., but as a result, is placed in a higher price bracket? Just a thought...


I think the 15/17 low end should try and hit the consumer market. Maybe no BT or WiFi as standard

I think the 17/20 should come with a mid and high level package options on ram, graphics card, HDD. BT and WiFi as standard.

[Phinius]

imac isnt getting another G4 no matter what all you motorola lovers say,

Since the low production Xserve has a 4-6 week wait time and Apple has stated that is due to production problems from IBM, then I would expect that Apple could very well put the 1.5GHz G4 in the iMac very soon even if there is plans to move the iMac to a G5 in the next few months. Afterall, Motorola has sufficient production capacity to make the 1.5GHz G4, while IBM is at full production and cannot yet meet demands by Apple for 970FX chips.

Imac is going to get something a little more special then another slightly bumped G4. Apple likes to look forward not backward. :eek:

I wouldn't bet the farm on that. You honestly believe that Apple will leave the iMac at the speed it is now for a few more months, rather than moving it up in frequency by 20% with a 1.5GHz G4? Even if Apple plans on coming out with a G5 iMac in the near future it is very unlikely that IBM can supply enough 970FX chip in the next month or two for Apple to do that. IBM is still having yield problems with the 970FX as you can see by the backorder for the Xserve. It would not be a big deal for Apple to drop in a 1.5GHz G4 into the iMac in the meantime.

[~Shard~]

I think the 15/17 low end should try and hit the consumer market. Maybe no BT or WiFi as standard

I think the 17/20 should come with a mid and high level package options on ram, graphics card, HDD. BT and WiFi as standard.

I think this would work. Either that, or essetially just upgrade the 17" and 20" iMac to the G5 and leave the 15" and perhaps another version of the 17" as G4s (with minor updates?). This would then be similar to the PowerMac situation when the G5s came out - you could still purchase the G4 PM systems, for a lot less money, but you also had the G5 option. Of course, with G5 iMacs out, I question how many people would be rushing to buy the G4 iMacs unless they were one hell of a deal. ;)

[aswitcher]

I question how many people would be rushing to buy the G4 iMacs unless they were one hell of a deal. ;)


Big fire sale to try and move them I would think unless of course as you suggest they are not at the same price point as the current line.

Current iMac is not a BAD machine its just getting old and slow limit its uses. Its also pretty overpriced in Australia...

[Phinius]

Anyone who thinks a G4 is on par with a G5 is missing the boat,

The G4 doesn't have to be on a par with the G5 as a mono-processor. If the G4 has two processors on one chip then the chip has the capacity for two threads in much the same way when Apple put two processors into the G4 PowerMac. The G5 will simply be outgunned at or near the processor frequencies that a dual-core G4 would be at.

I dont want to hear about vaporware im talking chips that are made now and G5 smokes a G4.

So where is that G5 iMac now that Apple has had the G5 for 12 months now. It is looking rather obvious that Apple did not plan on moving the iMac to the 970 that is now being used for the PowerMac and IBMs current lack of production capacity makes it seem unlikely that a G5 iMac will be announced this month. If there is a G5 iMac coming soon, I would expect it to not be available until August at the earliest due to IBMs 90-nm chip yield problems. In the meantime there might very well be a speed bump for the iMac to a 1.5GHz G4. That should keep you ranting and complaining about Apple for at least the next two months.

[~Shard~]

Since the low production Xserve has a 4-6 week wait time and Apple has stated that is due to production problems from IBM, then I would expect that Apple could very well put the 1.5GHz G4 in the iMac very soon even if there is plans to move the iMac to a G5 in the next few months. Afterall, Motorola has sufficient production capacity to make the 1.5GHz G4, while IBM is at full production and cannot yet meet demands by Apple for 970FX chips.

Apple invested millions into a new chip and deal with IBM so if you are clamoring for G4 stagnation,low performance,slow bus,1/2 used ddr just so you can be proud to be hammered by those pc's then i would suggest looking at the laps or perhaps a Emac.



I wouldn't bet the farm on that. You honestly believe that Apple will leave the iMac at the speed it is now for a few more months, rather than moving it up in frequency by 20% with a 1.5GHz G4? Even if Apple plans on coming out with a G5 iMac in the near future it is very unlikely that IBM can supply enough 970FX chip in the next month or two for Apple to do that. IBM is still having yield problems with the 970FX as you can see by the backorder for the Xserve. It would not be a big deal for Apple to drop in a 1.5GHz G4 into the iMac in the meantime.

I agree - I don't think a 1.5 GHz G4 iMac would be out of the question. Perhaps it would even figure into my scenario described above, with the high-end iMacs receiving G5s and a lower-end model staying with G4s.

[~Shard~]

Big fire sale to try and move them I would think unless of course as you suggest they are not at the same price point as the current line.

Current iMac is not a BAD machine its just getting old and slow limit its uses. Its also pretty overpriced in Australia...

Yes, a price adjustment would definitetly be in order! But, depending how Apple handles the iMac line-up, and whether or not G5s are introduced, there are many possible variants on what will actually happen. As I said, maybe the iMacs will get pimped out with G5s and really impressive hardware, but carry a significantly higher price tag as a result...

[Phinius]

I agree - I don't think a 1.5 GHz G4 iMac would be out of the question. Perhaps it would even figure into my scenario described above, with the high-end iMacs receiving G5s and a lower-end model staying with G4s.

Even if the complete adoption of G5 processors in every Mac computer were the dream of Apple, the reality is that IBMs only 300-mm wafer chip facility is running at full production and cannot meet the demands for G5 chips by Apple for the Xserve by virtue of ongoing yield problems at 90-nm. In other words, Apple will be using G4 chips for quite some time even if Apple wishes to move completely to the G5 in the near future. So, it is very likely that Apple will use a 90-nm G4 before IBM has the ability to meet the demands of supplying Apple with millions of G5 chips per year for an all G5 Mac lineup.

[jmustretch]

What we didn't see in the new G5 images…

new imac??

[~Shard~]

So where is that G5 iMac now that Apple has had the G5 for 12 months now. It is looking rather obvious that Apple did not plan on moving the iMac to the 970 that is now being used in the PowerMac and IBMs current lack of production capacity makes it seem unlikely that a G5 iMac will be announced this month. If there is a G5 iMac coming soon, I would expect it to not be available until August at the earliest due to IBMs 90-nm chip yield problems. In the meantime there might very well be a speed bump for the iMac to a 1.5GHz G4. That should keep you ranting and complaining about Apple for at least the next two months.

Very good point. Apple's strategy was not to incorporate the G5 into the iMac as soon as possible, and this was a wise move due to the yield problems that have been encountered with IBM and the 90nm chips. If Apple had pushed for a G5 iMac, they would have bene in big trouble. But, this should have come as no surprise, as this is the exact same strategy Apple had with the iMac when the G4s were released. How long was it after the G4s were announced that the iMac actually was upgraded from a G3? Quite a while if memory serves me correctly...

And yes, DHM will gladly keep ranting for the next couple of months I'm sure. I've been around long enough to hear him argue about the same points over and over for the past year at least and it gets a bit tiring. Oh well, when you keep rehashing the same points over and over at least you can save yourself some time from typing up new posts all the time - you can easily just cut and paste comments from your previous posts months earlier, since they haven't changed one bit! ;)

[~Shard~]

Even if the complete adoption of G5 processors in every Mac computer were the dream of Apple, the reality is that IBMs only 300-mm wafer chip facility is running at full production and cannot meet the demands for G5 chips by Apple for the Xserve by virtue of ongoing yield problems at 90-nm. In other words, Apple will be using G4 chips for quite some time even if Apple wishes to move completely to the G5 in the near future. So, it is very likely that Apple will use a 90-nm G4 before IBM has the ability to meet the demands of supplying Apple with millions of G5 chips per year for an all G5 Mac lineup.

Precisely. Another important thing to realize here is that we're talking about the iMac - a consumer level machine. If Apple stuck G5s in all the iMacs, Apple would simply not be able to keep up with demand, due to the masses wanting this new hot (hmm, perhaps literally) machine! At least with xServes, you don't have every Tom, Dick and Harry buying them, but the iMacs are a different beast. And Phinius is correct - Apple/IBM would not be able to keep up with this level of demand, so the G4s will definitely still be around for some time to come. It makes logical sense.

[aswitcher]

Precisely. Another important thing to realize here is that we're talking about the iMac - a consumer level machine. If Apple stuck G5s in all the iMacs, Apple would simply not be able to keep up with demand, due to the masses wanting this new hot (hmm, perhaps literally) machine! At least with xServes, you don't have every Tom, Dick and Harry buying them, but the iMacs are a different beast. And Phinius is correct - Apple/IBM would not be able to keep up with this level of demand, so the G4s will definitely still be around for some time to come. It makes logical sense.



Couldn't they have been stockpiling sub 2.0Ghz chips for sometime now. And if they stop the 1.6 and 1.8s PMs those lines could be freed up for the iMac...

[Phinius]

I agree - I don't think a 1.5 GHz G4 iMac would be out of the question. Perhaps it would even figure into my scenario described above, with the high-end iMacs receiving G5s and a lower-end model staying with G4s.

That would mean that Apple would have to keep the current iMac design in production when a new G5 iMac is produced due to moving to a G5 processor requiring a whole new motherboard design and likely different form factor. I can't see Apple having production capacity for two distinctly different iMac designs even though Apples web based store still does list the G4 PowerMac for sale long after the G5 PowerMac became available and the original iMac was available long after the G4 iMac started selling. There just would not be enough consumer demand for the older iMac design to justify keeping it in production.

[~Shard~]

Couldn't they have been stockpiling sub 2.0Ghz chips for sometime now. And if they stop the 1.6 and 1.8s PMs those lines could be freed up for the iMac...

I don't know about the 2.0 GHz chips (I think those are in very high demand with the PMs and xServes) and the 1.8 were doubled up, but possibly the 1.6 Ghz G5s. And yes, if the 1.6 and 1.8 models were discontinued that would in theory free up more chips for the imac, I suppose. Same goes I guess if the 2.0 GHz model is discontinued as well, for a 2.4/2.6/3.0 GHz line-up (or whatever), but I still don't think there would be enough of these chips around for a mass distribution into the iMac line - I still don't know if Apple could keep up with demand... <shrug>

The iMac line could definitely go all-G5, don't get me wrong, but I wouldn't be surprised at all if we did see the G4s sticking around, either in their current form or as 1.5 Ghz G4s or something along those lines. In general, the G4 is going to be around for quite a while yet.

[Phinius]

Couldn't they have been stockpiling sub 2.0Ghz chips for sometime now. And if they stop the 1.6 and 1.8s PMs those lines could be freed up for the iMac...

That is another possibility, but the problem is that IBM also has plans on using the 970FX in server computers. It could be that Apple may be forced to use the older 130-nm process 970 chips for the iMac and run them at less than 2GHz. Apple is very likely to announce a completely new iMac in the next couple of months since the sales of the computer have been in a nose dive for several quarters and to make that happen they may have to resort to using the older 970 design if a G5 is indeed in the works. Apples former chief financial officer, Fred Anderson, stated at a quarterly meeting six months ago that the iMac was getting long in the tooth and that is more than a strong hint that a completely new design was in the works at that time.

[aswitcher]

That is another possibility, but the problem is that IBM also has plans on using the 970FX in server computers. It could be that Apple may be forced to use the older 130-nm process 970 chips for the iMac and run them at less than 2GHz. .


Thats what I am saying, iMacs get the older chips because Apple know they can produce them in quantity.

[~Shard~]

That would mean that Apple would have to keep the current iMac design in production when a new G5 iMac is produced due to moving to a G5 processor requiring a whole new motherboard design and likely different form factor. I can't see Apple having production capacity for two distinctly different iMac designs even though Apples web based store still does list the G4 PowerMac for sale long after the G5 PowerMac became available and the original iMac was available long after the G4 iMac started selling. There just would not be enough consumer demand for the older iMac design to justify keeping it in production.

Yah, I agree with you - just speculation on my part. And yes, I was thinking along the lines as the G4 PowerMacs vs. the G5 PowerMacs as I had indicated in one of my previous posts. If the iMac line-up did retain G4s and add G5s, the G5 iMacs would probably be with the new form factor, with the G4 iMacs remaining as they are today.

[Phinius]

Apple discontinuing use of the older 130-nm 970 G5 in the PowerMacs in the near future would theortically free up the availability of that chip production for the iMac. Apple using those chips for the iMac would probably come down to whether Apple engineered a G5 iMac to handle that kind of heat production. On the other hand if Apple had always intended for the fastest 970FX to eventually move to the iMac, then a G5 iMac design should be able to handle the watt usage from the older 130-nm 970. Plus, the 970 and 970FX should be pin compatable, so there shouldn't be any problem in fitting the older 970 onto a 970FX motherboard.

[Abu Reno]

Just sold my 20inch Cinema on EBAY. BRING ON THE BIG DOG!!!!!!!!!!!!! :cool:

[~Shard~]

Just sold my 20inch Cinema on EBAY. BRING ON THE BIG DOG!!!!!!!!!!!!! :cool:

And this large canine would be... ? ;)

[PolarbearTed]

I wanted to add to the rumour pot that the Apple Web Store is currently down and being 'refreshed'.

Hmmm... could mean nothing.

[aswitcher]

I wanted to add to the rumour pot that the Apple Web Store is currently down and being 'refreshed'.

Hmmm... could mean nothing.

Good spot :)

[rdowns]

Since the low production Xserve has a 4-6 week wait time and Apple has stated that is due to production problems from IBM, then I would expect that Apple could very well put the 1.5GHz G4 in the iMac very soon even if there is plans to move the iMac to a G5 in the next few months. Afterall, Motorola has sufficient production capacity to make the 1.5GHz G4, while IBM is at full production and cannot yet meet demands by Apple for 970FX chips.



I wouldn't bet the farm on that. You honestly believe that Apple will leave the iMac at the speed it is now for a few more months, rather than moving it up in frequency by 20% with a 1.5GHz G4? Even if Apple plans on coming out with a G5 iMac in the near future it is very unlikely that IBM can supply enough 970FX chip in the next month or two for Apple to do that. IBM is still having yield problems with the 970FX as you can see by the backorder for the Xserve. It would not be a big deal for Apple to drop in a 1.5GHz G4 into the iMac in the meantime.

A lot of people are pointing to the long lead time on xServes as an indication that chips are still in short supply. Maybe IBM is supplying them in adequate volumes and Apple's lines are busy making new iMacs and PMs ready to ship at announcement at the expense of the xServe which is a low volume product.

I think Apple will announce and ship new G5 iMacs and PMs. They know the long delays between upgrades is hurting them big time and if they don't, the press will absolutely slam them.

[chasingapple]

Well Im either going to get one of the new iMacs with a G5 or one of the new Powerbooks (12") with superdrive. Im excited to see what it looks like!

[Belly-laughs]

Very good point. Apple's strategy was not to incorporate the G5 into the iMac as soon as possible, and this was a wise move due to the yield problems that have been encountered with IBM and the 90nm chips. If Apple had pushed for a G5 iMac, they would have bene in big trouble. But, this should have come as no surprise, as this is the exact same strategy Apple had with the iMac when the G4s were released. How long was it after the G4s were announced that the iMac actually was upgraded from a G3? Quite a while if memory serves me correctly...

Who says Apple didn´t have plans to introduce a new-chip iMac earlier? I´m sure they planned a rev. B PowerMac earlier but due to the yield problems had to postpone or cancel these. The yield problems probably came as a surprise to both companies, causing Apple to alter their plans for product announcements. Wether IBM is in big trouble because of it I don´t know, but the G4 iMac sure is.

[ifjake]

i think in a year from now we can start realistically expecting G5s to be in models other than the powermac. however, if apple wants to surprize us they can go right ahead, but we can't realistically expect surprizes.

[manu chao]

The G4 doesn't have to be on a par with the G5 as a mono-processor. If the G4 has two processors on one chip then the chip has the capacity for two threads in much the same way when Apple put two processors into the G4 PowerMac. The G5 will simply be outgunned at or near the processor frequencies that a dual-core G4 would be at.

Apart from that vague Freescale roadmap, I see no indication as to whether or when a dual-core G4 will ermerge.

I wouldn't even be surprised if the G5 (or G6) goes dual-core quite some time before the G4.

The only advantage the G4 has is its lower power consumption. In that respect a dual or dual-core G4 consuming about the same as a single G5 could outperform it.

[ChrisH3677]

A thought... why would Apple get rid of the current iMac form? It works.

The current PowerMac form has been around for 20 plus years, the current laptop form has been around for over 15 years, the current eMac form has been around since the first iMac (6 years).

The current iMac form is less than 2 & 1/2 years old. As an all-in-one form, there's never been anything better - Mac or Wintel.

When it was realeased it was seen not as an evolution but a revolution. It is a design that still ahead of its time. As costs come down, especially the cost of LCDs and miniaturized components, it will become more cost competitive.

I can't see Apple dropping this design after so much time and money to develop it. It's way too early for Apple to "cut their losses" on it.

[Dont Hurt Me]

Couldn't they have been stockpiling sub 2.0Ghz chips for sometime now. And if they stop the 1.6 and 1.8s PMs those lines could be freed up for the iMac...This is what i think, forget the cute little basketball and build a aggressive looking and colorful base around a 1.4,1.6.1.8 or perhaps 2.0 G5. Everyone just cant seem accept the idea that a imac may be designed around the 970. 970 production was no problem. who says Apple has to have a itsy bitsy base? not me. enlarge and spread out that base add 1 fan for sucking and 1 for blowing as powermac and in goes the 970. Im sure they had plenty of 970s left over since the G5s was introduced. Perhaps the 970fx was ment for powerbook/xserve and not imac. perhaps 970 was planned for imac right from the start but apple couldnt release it until powermac got bumped up. I just dont see a all new design built around non ddr capable G4. I really find in ironic so many people are crying for last place G4 as if they want slow computers? old and slow doesnt sell computers as G4 has proven for many years. I think a lot of people just dont want a new system that makes their current one look stale. This just what apple needs for sales, a new Imac that makes sure the current G4s look stale(which they are) so everyone goes out and buys a new imac. :D putting a 1.5 G4 into a all new machine would only bring severe criticism onto Apple in this day of 1 gig busses,full use ddr,powerful video systems and everything else. it would be a dissapointment and Apple wouldnt be getting my money and marketshare would continue the G4 slide :eek:

[jwdawso]

i think in a year from now we can start realistically expecting G5s to be in models other than the powermac. however, if apple wants to surprize us they can go right ahead, but we can't realistically expect surprizes.

The iMac would have been updated by now if it were just a G4 upgrade - see the eMac! The G5 iMac will be here (or announced) this month. My prediction - updated PowerMac G5s announced this week, updated iMac's and ? at WWDC. ;)

(And of course I've never been wrong before... :rolleyes: )

[rosalindavenue]

putting a 1.5 G4 into a all new machine would only bring severe criticism onto Apple in this day of 1 gig busses,full use ddr,powerful video systems and everything else. it would be a dissapointment and Apple wouldnt be getting my money and marketshare would continue the G4 slide :eek:

Amen brother. Introducing another G4 Imac would be an unmitigated PR disaster. I know that the G4 is perfectly sufficient for 90% of layperson computing, but video editors, garageband users and (dare I say it) gamers want and need more.

[stoid]

I think that it is time for Apple to release a prosumer model based on a G5 processor but more easily upgradeable in terms of RAM an HD, maybe grfx card too. Maybe it is time that the iMac died. It's been around long enough and served it's purpose. Lets move on.

[whenpaulsparks]

we didn't think they could put a 20" screen on the iMac, and they did.

we didn't think they would have the G5 ready, and they did.

so i'm expecting a big surprise at WWDC. although i still think there will be an iMac G5, to see it would still surprise me.

[nmk]

This is what i think, forget the cute little basketball and build a aggressive looking and colorful base around a 1.4,1.6.1.8 or perhaps 2.0 G5. :

I find that quite amusing. So you are looking forward to Apple installing slow, outdated, G5 chips in an iMac. Reality check. The current dual 2 Ghz G5 is slower than top of the line Pentiums in most benchmarks (conducted by Macworld magazine). A 1.4, 1.6., or 1.8 single processor, single core, G5 would be a joke. This is the only reason that I support the introduction of a dual core G4 in both the iMac an PB lines. Its very much on Motorollas published roadmap. It would be orders of magnitude faster than the suggested G5. I find it amusing that you assume that people want to continue seeing Apple make G4's so that they can feel better about their current computers. I can afford to upgrade multiple times a year, so this isn't a concern for me. I just want to see Apple use the best product for the job at hand. In the case of the PB and iMac, it would be foolish not to use the new G4's (if indeed Motorolla releases them on skedule.)

[Belly-laughs]

In the case of the PB and iMac, it would be foolish not to use the new G4's (if indeed Motorolla releases them on skedule.

...and the scheduled release of the dual core G4 is?

[Dont Hurt Me]

...and the scheduled release of the dual core G4 is?you took the words out of my mouth, nmk doesnt seem to fathom that why the whole industry moved on we were saddled with G4 for years that showed little to no progress and this happened more then once with poor old G4. nmk i still would rather have last years G5 then this years G4 :eek: Dreamware is nice but its hard to build machines around dreamware and sell them. what has moto done this past year? the year before? not squat so how the heck you get people to buy new machines if there is no progress? G4 is a joke or what did Steve call it? a Tonka truck, we dont need tonka trucks we need a sportscar if Apple is going to ask sportcar prices.

[jackieonasses]

I find that quite amusing. So you are looking forward to Apple installing slow, outdated, G5 chips in an iMac. Reality check. The current dual 2 Ghz G5 is slower than top of the line Pentiums in most benchmarks (conducted by Macworld magazine). A 1.4, 1.6., or 1.8 single processor, single core, G5 would be a joke. This is the only reason that I support the introduction of a dual core G4 in both the iMac an PB lines. Its very much on Motorollas published roadmap. It would be orders of magnitude faster than the suggested G5. I find it amusing that you assume that people want to continue seeing Apple make G4's so that they can feel better about their current computers. I can afford to upgrade multiple times a year, so this isn't a concern for me. I just want to see Apple use the best product for the job at hand. In the case of the PB and iMac, it would be foolish not to use the new G4's (if indeed Motorolla releases them on skedule.)
oh and say the pentium 3 is faster than the 4 (not true but pretend)
if a mom or kid comes up with money in there hand they want what "seems newer" the pentium 4. now the g4 is old dual-core is nowhere to be found and the g5 screams look at me i am new!~!!!!

[nmk]

you took the words out of my mouth, nmk doesnt seem to fathom that why the whole industry moved on we were saddled with G4 for years that showed little to no progress and this happened more then once with poor old G4. nmk i still would rather have last years G5 then this years G4 :eek: Dreamware is nice but its hard to build machines around dreamware and sell them. what has moto done this past year? the year before? not squat so how the heck you get people to buy new machines if there is no progress? G4 is a joke or what did Steve call it? a Tonka truck, we dont need tonka trucks we need a sportscar if Apple is going to ask sportcar prices.

No, it's certainly not dreamware. The processor is simply not out yet. I suppose any G5 faster than 2.0 Ghz is also dreamware. Using your logic, we shouldn't expect G5's faster than 2.0 Ghz anytime soon either. You seem to be missing the fact that the G4 of which I'm speaking is an annonced processor. Its production is much more certain than the ghost IBM 975's and 980's that people seem to put so much faith in on these boards. Quite frankly, you better hope that Motorolla starts delevering these processors, becuase if Apple is forced to use low clockspeed G5's in all their products other than the PM, the situation will be the same as it was in the past.

I do fathom that Motorolla kept Apple back for the last few years. However, that is the past and things can always change. You don't seem to fathom that IBMs track record in its first year is not particularly stellar either.

[Phinius]

A lot of people are pointing to the long lead time on xServes as an indication that chips are still in short supply. Maybe IBM is supplying them in adequate volumes and Apple's lines are busy making new iMacs and PMs ready to ship at announcement at the expense of the xServe which is a low volume product.

Apple stated in the last quarterly meeting with financial analysts that the reason for the delays in shipping Xservers has all to do with IBM and not with the manufacture of the product from Apples side. But Apple has also stated that they expect to catch up with Xserve backorders by the end of June. I would expect that Apple could announce updated PowerMacs this month with the slowest model available in a couple of weeks thereafter and the highest speed model available in August, which is similar to what happened last year.

IBM has been improvements in chip yields for the 970FX, much is not something that is done all at once, it takes months of steady progression towards meeting the yield goals.

I think Apple will announce and ship new G5 iMacs and PMs. They know the long delays between upgrades is hurting them big time and if they don't, the press will absolutely slam them.

All of the iMac and displays on Apples website are ready for immediate delivery, which in essense means there is a good supply of the current models and you can also conclude that there is no replacement imminent.

All of the PowerMac models, however, have a ship date of 6-10 days, which means that a replacement is arriving very soon and the amount of days before shipment strongly indicates a major change to the line. If it was simply a bump up in processor speed, then Apple would have little, if any shipment delays to display on the online store.

[Dont Hurt Me]

If moto did come out with a dual core G4 running at 2.0 and had a bus of at least 400 mhz and could use ddr to its fullest then i would say great, its about time you guys did something, but they arent producing them right now and imac is way way overdue for a cpu better then current G4 so what does that leave apple? either a 970 imac or a 970fx imac and both of those cpu's are being made. Moto may have plans for this but history shows moto/freescale has a poor poor and very poor record of implementing anything. I have no faith in Moto after year after year of nothing and more nothing. If i was to put my finger on the one thing that has hurt Mac more then anything the past 3 years it would be its last place G4.

[Phinius]

Apart from that vague Freescale roadmap, I see no indication as to whether or when a dual-core G4 will ermerge.

A dual-core G4 got the green light from Motorola last year and that it why dual-core appears on the roadmap for the 600e model. Motorolas chief technology officer mentioned in a interview in June 2003 that a test PowerPC 90-nm chip would take place in the summer and you could expect that this would go into production about a year later. That would mean the summer of 2004.

Here's the link to that interview:

http://www.siliconstrategies.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=10802061

and a summary of some of that interview:

http://www.siliconstrategies.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=10802058

The e600 will take the G4 to 2GHz simply due to moving to the smaller 90-nm process size. The improvements that come along with that will be a onboard memory controller, much faster bus speeds, RapidIO (similar to Hypertransport) and the ability to utilize DDR and DDR-2 memory.

I wouldn't even be surprised if the G5 (or G6) goes dual-core quite some time before the G4.

What basis do you have to form that opinion? Putting two G5 processors together on a 90-nm process size would make a rather hot running chip and the die size would be on the large size. I'd expect the possibility of a dual-core G5 arriving when IBM moves it to the 65-nm process size no sooner than the second half of 2005.

The only advantage the G4 has is its lower power consumption.

That's a rather big advantage when it comes to moving to a dual-core chip.

Intel decided to not release the Tejas version of Pentium 4 because of its high power use and the ability to replace it with a dual-core Pentium-M. This comparison has a lot of similiarities to the G4 versus the G5. The G4 can move to a dual-core much sooner than the G5 due to lower power use. Having two lower speed processors on a chip can have speed advantagies over a faster single processor.

To take that a bit further, IBM is making the Blue Gene supercomputer from thousands of lowly 500MHz PowerPC processors. Why on earth would they do that? Because you can get a lot more slower speed processors in a small space than you can power hungry higher speed mono-processors.

[Zaty]

AAll of the iMac and displays on Apples website are ready for immediate delivery, which in essense means there is a good supply of the current models and you can also conclude that there is no replacement imminent.



I don't agree with you there. The fact that iMacs and displays are ready for immediate delivery only means that Apple still has a certain number of them in stocks. Secondly, I'd think that demand for those is not too high right now. If they still had enough iMacs to sell/or wanted to continue selling them for the time being, why would they tell their resellers not to expect any further shipments? Apple clearly wants to make sure resellers get rid of the current iMacs. Besides, regardless of the question if we'll see a G5 iMac anytime soon, iMacs are due for a new revision as they're bad value in comparision with the recently updated eMacs. The same applies to the displays.

[Phinius]

Everyone just cant seem accept the idea that a imac may be designed around the 970.

Everyone? I like how you speak in generalities. Everyone? You mean every single person on this website? Everyone?

who says Apple has to have a itsy bitsy base? not me. enlarge and spread out that base add 1 fan for sucking and 1 for blowing as powermac and in goes the 970.

Then you would complain about how bad Apples engineering is because of the excessive sucking and blowing sounds you hear coming from the iMac.

Perhaps the 970fx was ment for powerbook/xserve and not imac.

There will be a supply of 130-nm 970 chips when the PowerMac is soon moved to the faster 970FX chips. It could very well be that Apple will use those 100,000+ per month production of 970 chips to make a G5 iMac and the slower 970FX chips could be used for the PowerBook. Then when the Power5 derived 9XX PowerPC chips arrive, the iMac could move to the 970FX. Then again, Apple may be waiting for the 90-nm G4 to arrive in order to update the iMac. Apple has several options to go with on this.

I just dont see a all new design built around non ddr capable G4.

I don't either and Motorola should be producing a DDR and DDR-2 capable G4 very shortly.

I really find in ironic so many people are crying for last place G4 as if they want slow computers?

Did you whine and complain like this when Intel used the Pentium III as the basis for the Pentium-M? How dare Intel update that old, tired and last place Pentium III, and then have the gaul to make it for notebook computers. How dare they use a processor that only runs up to 1.7GHz! Well the nerve of those people!

[Phinius]

The iMac would have been updated by now if it were just a G4 upgrade - see the eMac! ) this month.

There has to be an adequate supply of faster chips in order to do that. The 1.5GHz G4 has only been out a short while and its obvious that the first product that Apple would want it in would be the higher priced PowerBook models, rather the less expensive iMac.

[Phinius]

what has moto done this past year? the year before? not squat so how the heck you get people to buy new machines if there is no progress?

Let's see, Motorola in the second quarter of this year produced a 1.5GHz G4 that has about 15% higher frequency than the previous 1.3GHz topend model. Compare that to the top speed of 1.7GHz that Intel got with the Pentium-M on the same process size.

Last year Motorola moved the G4 up to 1.3GHz from the previous years 1GHz. That's a 30% boost in frequency.

And for the second half of 2004 Motorola will boost the G4 frequency to 2GHz.

Your absolutely right, Motorola hasn't done squat and neither has Intel recently with notebook computers I reckon.

[Phinius]

I have no faith in Moto after year after year of nothing and more nothing.

I'm in complete agreement with you on that, finally you have gotten the facts straight. Why, the G4 now tops out at 450MHz just like it did years ago. This whole notion that Motorola has more than tripled the frequency of the G4 since then is all hog wash and so is that ridiculous idea that we have put men on the moon. We ALL know that men used to depend on horse and buggies and so those SAME men could not possibly put people in outer space.

If i was to put my finger on the one thing that has hurt Mac more then anything the past 3 years it would be its last place G4.

I would say it was Apple getting their asses kicked by not only Intel but also Microsoft. Just look at the less than 200,000 per quarter sales of the PowerMac compared to the 300,000+ sales that it had three years ago. The introduction of the G5 did NOT pull Apple out of its marketshare nosedive. The blame rests squarely on Apples shoulders and not its suppliers.

[ClimbingTheLog]

I feel your pain and have also wondered how Apple will cripple G5 Imac.

Only 1 CPU. :)

[ClimbingTheLog]

We really do need a cheap, high level machine. ...
At the moment, they are using mostly old CRT iMacs. ... iMac is too expensive for very little performance or longetivity. Powermacs are more than they need, or would want to deal with.

The eMac sounds perfect for them. It's just a faster CRT iMac. 500MHz G3 -> 1.25GHz G4 is a nice bump. Bigger disk and faster everything subsystem too.
Maybe it's not ideal but at $799 for a refurb it's a great deal.

The current iMac is also much faster than what they're using, but at twice the price of an eMac it's hard to justify. Still, for a chic fashion botique it might be worth it just on looks.

[Dont Hurt Me]

I'm in complete agreement with you on that, finally you have gotten the facts straight. Why, the G4 now tops out at 450MHz just like it did years ago. This whole notion that Motorola has more than tripled the frequency of the G4 since then is all hog wash and so is that ridiculous idea that we have put men on the moon. We ALL know that men used to depend on horse and buggies and so those SAME men could not possibly put people in outer space.



I would say it was Apple getting their asses kicked by not only Intel but also Microsoft. Just look at the less than 200,000 per quarter sales of the PowerMac compared to the 300,000+ sales that it had three years ago. The introduction of the G5 did NOT pull Apple out of its marketshare nosedive. The blame rests squarely on Apples shoulders and not its suppliers.I agree with part you say, going from G4 powermac to a all aluminum beast that was bigger,uglier,held less optical drives was a shock to many of us me included. I really thought the G5 was going to be a lot better looking and would least still fit my desk which the current one doesnt. Apple has a few problems and they are being overpriced,underperforming,little advertising,and the fact you just cant walk into a store and buy a mac anywhere like you could 10 years ago. I bought my first Mac performa at Wal-mart. so yeah they got problems but i still think the biggest problem is performance wise they are getting their arses handed to them by pcs that cost a lot lot less and people can walk into anystore and come home with a pc. Is there 1 G4 machine that can match a P4 3.0 in benches? well is there? heck no even the dual 1.42 from over a year ago was getting slaughtered by Intel. People dont go out and buy a new machine because it had a slight bump. People do go out and buy a new machine when there is a big increase and with G4 there wll never be a big increase. That is moto's legacy,lil bump,stagnation,promises,stagnation and another lil bump.

[Phinius]

Like it or not the G4 currently has very comparable performance to the Pentium III. So, a good comparison would be to see some of the improvements that Intel made to the Pentium III design in order to arrive at the Pentium-M and what Motorola has planned for the next round of improvements for the G4.

First, the Pentium III topped out at 1.4GHz on a 130-nm process size. It had a bus speed of 100MHz and a L2 cache size of 512KB. Intel increased the P III pipeline stages for the Pentium M to boost it to 1.7GHz on a 130-nm process size and doubled the L2 cache to 1MB and quadrupled the bus speed to 400MHz.

Compare the PIII top frequency of 1.4 on a 130-nm process size to the 1.5GHz that Motorola achieved with the G4. The G4 will also move to at least a 400MHz bus speed on a 90-nm process size, but instead of doubling the L2 cache like the Pentium-M, Motorola chose to double the amount of processors. Doubling the amount of L2 cache on the Pentium 4, at the same frequency, achieves about a 23% increase in performance. However, doubling the amount of processors boosts the speed by about 50%.

Unlike the transition from PIII to Pentium-M, the G4 will not get a increase in the amount of pipeline stages until it is moved to a 65-nm process in the second half of 2005. That should put it at about 3GHz, according to Motorola, which should be about parity with the Pentium-M in frequency.

Judging from the Pentium III and G4 having equivilant performance on the same process size, I'd expect a dual-core G4 to have comparable performance to a Pentium-M on the same process size.

[LaMerVipere]

Motorola hasn't done squat and neither has Intel recently with notebook computers I reckon.

http://news.com.com/Intel%27s+Dothan+sets+sail/2100-1006_3-5209454.html
http://news.com.com/Intel+plans+processor+party+for+June/2100-1006_3-5226981.html?tag=nefd.top

^ Neither has Intel?
Reeeeeally? Are you sure about that? :rolleyes:

I can't believe all of you people trying to justify the performance of the G4 vs. pentium or even amd's processors, it's laughable really, the G4 gets killed and we all know it. Why are you all wasting your breath trying to defend a piece of crap?

[Dont Hurt Me]

http://news.com.com/Intel%27s+Dothan+sets+sail/2100-1006_3-5209454.html
http://news.com.com/Intel+plans+processor+party+for+June/2100-1006_3-5226981.html?tag=nefd.top

^ Neither has Intel?
Reeeeeally? Are you sure about that? :rolleyes:

I can't believe all of you people trying to justify the performance of the G4 vs. pentium or even amd's processors, it's laughable really, the G4 gets killed and we all know it. Why are you all wasting your breath trying to defend a piece of crap?I have wondered the same, what is their true motive?

[Phinius]

I agree with part you say, going from G4 powermac to a all aluminum beast that was bigger,uglier,held less optical drives was a shock to many of us me included. I really thought the G5 was going to be a lot better looking and would least still fit my desk which the current one doesnt.

Apple obviously was planning to put more hardware into the G5 box than they did with the G4. I'd venture to guess that would include more than two processors perhaps and more hardware drives. Judging from the service manual pictures that also includes adding a fluid based cooling system also. That metal looking cover with the G5 logo in that PowerMac is not a heatsink its a box of some sort that takes up the entire corner of the PowerMac. That's likely to have a liquid cooling system inside of it.

Apple has a few problems and they are being overpriced,underperforming,little advertising,and the fact you just cant walk into a store and buy a mac anywhere like you could 10 years ago.

Those are problems that come with a shrinking marketshare. Apples' marketshare was sliding well before the G4 came along. Whatever the performance of the Mac has been in comparison to a PC, Apple has continued to have a eroding marketshare. It seems that the performance of PCs have been good enough for the great majority of people. Will technology reverse that slide for Apple? Perhaps somewhat, although the introduction of the G5 did not push PowerMac sales to where the G4 PowerMac was at three years ago and personal computer sales overall have gone up for the industry in the last three years.

Is there 1 G4 machine that can match a P4 3.0 in benches? well is there? heck no even the dual 1.42 from over a year ago was getting slaughtered by Intel.

Compare what Apple might be doing with the G4 and G5 to what Intel did with the Pentium 4 and Pentium III. The Pentium 4 seemingly replaced the Pentium III and yet in reality Intel made some modifications to the Pentium III architecture which transformed into the Pentium-M. In much the same way Apple will be using an updated G4s for boxes that need processors that use less watts. There doesn't have to be a major performance hit to do that though. It seems likely that Apple will use the G5 for all desktop computers, in that the desktop does not have the power use restrictions that notebooks require and because of that the G5 can hit greater speeds as a mono processor than can be achieved with the G4. The G4 will overcome a lot of that with dual-cores, but a 970FX will be a much smaller chip than a dual-core G4, and because of less manufacturing costs due to a smaller chip, there is a possibility that IBM would price it competitively with the dual-core G4.

[ingenious]

This is just about the only time I am in agreement with Don't Hurt Me. If Apple introduces another G4 iMac, it's going to send the marketshare problem into a horrible spin down the tube (even farther). Apple's marketing is horrible! Consumers should be able to purchase iMacs and eMacs in Walmart, Kmart, and Target! Apple needs to have commercials on TV, showing how easy it is to use a Mac, and how well they work, etc. If they come out with an iMac G5 and bump up their marketing, we may see some increase in sales and marketshare.

<sarcastically hopeful>
Can anyone say 12-20% marketshare again?!?! :D
</sarcastically hopeful>

[Dont Hurt Me]

This is just about the only time I am in agreement with Don't Hurt Me. If Apple introduces another G4 iMac, it's going to send the marketshare problem into a horrible spin down the tube (even farther). Apple's marketing is horrible! Consumers should be able to purchase iMacs and eMacs in Walmart, Kmart, and Target! Apple needs to have commercials on TV, showing how easy it is to use a Mac, and how well they work, etc. If they come out with an iMac G5 and bump up their marketing, we may see some increase in sales and marketshare.

<sarcastically hopeful>
Can anyone say 12-20% marketshare again?!?! :D
</sarcastically hopeful>I agree,maybe not imac since its gotten so expensive but Emac and ibook should be in Dept stores for anybody to see. I still think apple would be wise to have say 1 shelf of Emacs,ibooks,ipods and minis along with some software and a few goodies in sears,walmart and a few other places so those places with no apple stores can still show off Macs. Apples marketing is a lost cause and so is current G4 imac.

[Phinius]

^ Neither has Intel?
Reeeeeally? Are you sure about that? :rolleyes:

I was using sarcasm since several people don't seem to grasp the whole notion when it is explained using facts.

I can't believe all of you people trying to justify the performance of the G4 vs. pentium or even amd's processors, it's laughable really, the G4 gets killed and we all know it. Why are you all wasting your breath trying to defend a piece of crap?

Frankly, Apple is trying to catch up with the performance of Intel on the desktop and notebook computers. The G5, as of yet, has not reached parity in speed compared to the Pentium 4 and to believe that Apple can lower the frequency of the G5 enough to be competitive in speed to the Pentium-M for notebooks is rather misguided. Quite simply, the G4, with updates, has the basic architectural design to compete with the Pentium-M in notebooks and the higher watt G5, also with some updates, should compete very well against the Pentium 4 in future desktops or servers.

Whether Apple uses an updated G4 for the iMac, or a G5, is something that Apple will have to decide. Putting a dual-core G4 into the iMac will make it easier to cool compared to a G5, so the choice is not obvious. As for performance differences, a dual-core G4 should be very comparable to a much higher frequency 970FX.

[Phinius]

I agree,maybe not imac since its gotten so expensive but Emac and ibook should be in Dept stores for anybody to see. I still think apple would be wise to have say 1 shelf of Emacs,ibooks,ipods and minis along with some software and a few goodies in sears,walmart and a few other places so those places with no apple stores can still show off Macs. Apples marketing is a lost cause and so is current G4 imac.

Apple did recently test market Macs in several Best Buy stores but it evidently was a failure since Apple and Best Buy discontinued it.

It seems that Apples' tiny marketshare has brought up the costs of manufacturing each computer to a point to where they have priced themselves out of the lowend market. An Apple executive has recently stated that the company has no intentions of entering the $600 and under computer price category due to not being able to differentiate their products, compared to competitors, at that price. It seems more likely that Apple would have a hard time justifying to their shareholders the losses that would result from selling a lot of computers at much lower gross margins. To give you an example, HP only made .75% profit margins on their PC sales last quarter and that was at perhaps 6X the volume that Apple sells at.

[Belly-laughs]

The G4 iMac as we know it is out according to this rumour. But does that mean a change of form with a 1.5 G4, same form with a G5 or brand new design with a new processor?

What´s really great about this rumoured new iMac is that we don´t know what CPU it will use. I doubt the 970 will make it onto the iMac, the fx however is my bet. Or the e600 if Freescale has employed Harry Potter. The fx will be in the new PMs, higher clocked than in the Xserve, like the G4 PMs were. 970fx at around the 2.0GHz mark in the iMac and higher rates (up to 3.0?) in the PMs seems to make sense.

The reason I don´t think the e600 is ready is the launch of the 1.5 G4 PowerBooks earlier. If Apple knew that the e600 were ready, surely that would be the chip of choice.

The G5 seems to be the chip for Apple´s desktop range at the moment. I would not be surprised to see a G5 eMac when the G5 iMac hits rev B. Or maybe the e600, if ready, which might lead to upgraded PBs too.

[Phinius]

The G4 is on a schedule of yearly updates, which means that when a dual-core G4 comes out the next update after that would likely occure no sooner than a year later. Assuming that a dual-core G4 would be used in a new iMac model, and it could be equal in speed to a 3GHz 970FX, Apple would not be able to update the iMac for another year. Compare that to the scenerio of the 970FX first moving to the PowerMac and the 970 (or slower speed 970FX chips) going to the iMac. Then, when the Power5 derived 9XX chip arrives in a few months, the fastest 970FX can move down to the iMac and this new higher performance chip would be used for the PowerMac. Then, if IBM moves the G5 to dual-core at the 65-nm process size, in the second half of 2005, then that chip in turn could go to the PowerMac and the single core version could move on down to the iMac.

This above scenerio for the G5 would involve a lot more updates to the iMac in a given time frame than if Apple stayed with the G4.

[thatwendigo]

The G4 is on a schedule of yearly updates, which means that when a dual-core G4 comes out the next update after that would likely occure no sooner than a year later.

Is the e600 on a yearly revision schedule, or do you think that Freescale will be making minor architectural changes as they have with past G4 cores? I could easily see the kind of bumps that have come in the past, with power consumption and cache tweaks, with the occasional clock bump when the process allows. If this isn't the case, could you show me the current roadmap that you're referring to?

Assuming that a dual-core G4 would be used in a new iMac model, and it could be equal in speed to a 3GHz 970FX, Apple would not be able to update the iMac for another year.

The thing that a lot of people don't seem to realize is that SMP tends to give Apple's systems a 35-60% boost if the applications are written to take advantage of it. That means that a 2.0ghz e600 could equal a 3.0ghz 970FX in a lot of ways, while also running cooler and handling multiple processes in a more fluid way. Of course, this is assuming that the core revision doesn't at all change performance and it's a linear scale, which I've seen is probably not the case. The e600 is supposed to be instruction-set compatible with the G4, but it's supposed to be more efficient per clock, to the tune of a 30-40% increase in performance. In other words, the debut chip at 2.0ghz could perform like a 4.2ghz G4 (2.0 x 1.5 x 1.4) would have, but at far lower heat, because the dual core is supposed to run 25-30 watts maximum.

By comparison, the current 2.0ghz single-core 970 has no on-die memory controller, but still runs 24.5 watts typical.

This above scenerio for the G5 would involve a lot more updates to the iMac in a given time frame than if Apple stayed with the G4.

The scenario calls for more potential updates. None of that mandates that Apple has to use the revision for the iMac.

[thatwendigo]

http://news.com.com/Intel%27s+Dothan+sets+sail/2100-1006_3-5209454.html
http://news.com.com/Intel+plans+processor+party+for+June/2100-1006_3-5226981.html?tag=nefd.top

^ Neither has Intel?
Reeeeeally? Are you sure about that? :rolleyes:

Funny that they axed all further development of the P4 after this revision, isn't it? Sounds like a lot of progress to me. :rolleyes: However, I was predicting the move to Pentium-M on the desktop some time ago, while people were still crowing about the P4EE and how it was competing with AMD and supposedly stomping the G5.

Also, as the really sparse article noted, there's a big push to sell notebooks to consumers lately. Things are just getting to the "fast enough" and "lasting enough" points on the PC side of things that Apple has a serious challenge to their crown. Of course, they're still a major player in the game, with something like the overall 6th or 7th highest sales of notebook computers in the entire computer market last year. That's with G4s, too.

I can't believe all of you people trying to justify the performance of the G4 vs. pentium or even amd's processors, it's laughable really, the G4 gets killed and we all know it. Why are you all wasting your breath trying to defend a piece of crap?

Actually, depending on the test, the G4 doesn't get "killed" any more than the G5 does. What a lot of people don't seem to realize is that many, many of the benchmarks that are thrown around are software optimzized for PCs and not macs. Games don't use OpenGL all that much on the x86 side, and lots of the companies use ICC to produce shiny, but meaningless, numbers. Even the hardware sites like anandtech and Tom's are pushing some things - like DirectX - that just aren't available on the mac because of Microsoft's proprietary coding.

Then again, you could have realized that Phinius has been talking about a chip other than what you think of when you hear "G4" and then kneejerk. So, to be explicit about this, the e600 allows programmers to use existing G4 code, but adds on-die DDR control, triples the system bus and eliminates one stage of it because there's no external memory controller, raises the core clock to 2.0ghz, adds a second extremely low latency processor that will likely perform far better than a traditional SMP system, runs heat equivalent to a single 2.0ghz 970fx, and which has the superior G4 AltiVec unit.

[windowsblowsass]

Funny that they axed all further development of the P4 after this revision, isn't it? Sounds like a lot of progress to me. :rolleyes: However, I was predicting the move to Pentium-M on the desktop some time ago, while people were still crowing about the P4EE and how it was competing with AMD and supposedly stomping the G5.

Also, as the really sparse article noted, there's a big push to sell notebooks to consumers lately. Things are just getting to the "fast enough" and "lasting enough" points on the PC side of things that Apple has a serious challenge to their crown. Of course, they're still a major player in the game, with something like the overall 6th or 7th highest sales of notebook computers in the entire computer market last year. That's with G4s, too.



Actually, depending on the test, the G4 doesn't get "killed" any more than the G5 does. What a lot of people don't seem to realize is that many, many of the benchmarks that are thrown around are software optimzized for PCs and not macs. Games don't use OpenGL all that much on the x86 side, and lots of the companies use ICC to produce shiny, but meaningless, numbers. Even the hardware sites like anandtech and Tom's are pushing some things - like DirectX - that just aren't available on the mac because of Microsoft's proprietary coding.

Then again, you could have realized that Phinius has been talking about a chip other than what you think of when you hear "G4" and then kneejerk. So, to be explicit about this, the e600 allows programmers to use existing G4 code, but adds on-die DDR control, triples the system bus and eliminates one stage of it because there's no external memory controller, raises the core clock to 2.0ghz, adds a second extremely low latency processor that will likely perform far better than a traditional SMP system, runs heat equivalent to a single 2.0ghz 970fx, and which has the superior G4 AltiVec unit.

i agree the new eseries (ae i will call it from now on to many 500 600 700 numbers)from frescale semms to be the future wave of low power/portable proccessors unless it goes the way of moto ie not coming out for another 3 years

[Phinius]

Is the e600 on a yearly revision schedule, or do you think that Freescale will be making minor architectural changes as they have with past G4 cores?

It's my understanding that the e600 will be manufactured as both a mono-processor and a dual-core. So, perhaps the dual-core could arrive a few months later.

Motorolas' microprocessor division has been losing buckets of money, with a long string of quarterly loses, but Motorola just posted a $100 million profit from the division in the last quarter. I would expect that this return to profitability will help speed development a bit after Motorola cutback on development severely in the last two years. IBM, incidently, is losing money from their microprocessor manufacturing.

I could easily see the kind of bumps that have come in the past, with power consumption and cache tweaks, with the occasional clock bump when the process allows. If this isn't the case, could you show me the current roadmap that you're referring to?

I interpret the e600 going to 2GHz+ on the FreeScale roadmap as meaning it will arrive on the 90-nm process. The e700 is listed for 3GHz+ and that is likely to arrive on the smaller 65-nm process no earlier than the second half of 2005. The e700 would get up to 1/3 of this speed increase from the smaller process size and the rest would likely be from more pipeline stages. I'd expect the e700 to have about 3-5 more pipeline stages than the 7 for the latest G4.

The thing that a lot of people don't seem to realize is that SMP tends to give Apple's systems a 35-60% boost if the applications are written to take advantage of it. That means that a 2.0ghz e600 could equal a 3.0ghz 970FX in a lot of ways, while also running cooler and handling multiple processes in a more fluid way.

A Aceshardware.com article compared a dual processor G4 against a Pentium 4. The author thought a G4 processor was about equivilant in performance to a 1.8-2GHz Pentium 4. Assuming that, two G4s running at 2GHz should be at least equal in performance to a 3GHz Pentium 4. Apple will be making remarkable strides, in the next few months, catching up to the performance of the Intel processors.

The e600 is supposed to be instruction-set compatible with the G4, but it's supposed to be more efficient per clock, to the tune of a 30-40% increase in performance.

I don't know where you are getting that increase in efficiency per clock. The bus to core speed ratio should improve from about 9-to-1 to about 5-to one using 400MHz DDR memory and the memory latency will improve with the onboard controller. But, it remains to be seen how much affect that will have per clock.

maximum[/i].

Motorola has already stated that a dual-core G4 running at 1.5GHz will typically use about 25 watts. The maximum would be higher than that.

By comparison, the current 2.0ghz single-core 970 has no on-die memory controller, but still runs 24.5 watts typical.

That's a rather unfair comparison since you are taking the word of IBM on what the typical watt usage is and yet ignoring what Motorola has stated about the typical watt usage of the 90-nm G4.

The scenario calls for more potential updates. None of that mandates that Apple has to use the revision for the iMac.

It's more than likely that Apple will use a updated G4 in some capacity. It's to early for the G5 to be used in all of the Mac computers, even if Apple wanted to do so.

[Phinius]

i agree the new eseries (ae i will call it from now on to many 500 600 700 numbers)from frescale semms to be the future wave of low power/portable proccessors unless it goes the way of moto ie not coming out for another 3 years

Motorola now has two major chip manufacturing partners to help speed thing up and a state of the art 300-mm wafer plant that they share with the two partners. Each partner brings different expertise to the collaboration and that significantly reduces the time it would take compared to if Motorola went at it alone.

Motorola did get behind in implementing new process technologies and architectural changes in the last three years, but there has been significant progress in the past year or so. Essentially the G4 is at the performance stage where the Pentium III was on a 130-nm process, but Motorola is close to moving the G4 to a smaller 90-nm process with some significant performance boosts to the chip.

[ClimbingTheLog]

I can't believe all of you people trying to justify the performance of the G4 vs. pentium or even amd's processors, it's laughable really, the G4 gets killed and we all know it. Why are you all wasting your breath trying to defend a piece of crap?

Maybe their point is that it's not a piece of crap.

Perhaps it doesn't benchmark all that well and you might not want to use it for the next terascale supercomputer, but it runs Mac OS X just fine. That's the only measure of performance that matters for many users.

It runs iMovie fine, and iPhoto fine, iDVD works well enough and Garageband is OK for most. Oh, and you can surf the web and send e-mail without any trouble. Heck you can even video conference now.

And that's about 90% of the potential consumer market.

The consumer market automatically disqualifies blowers and expensive thermal control systems, so depending on your target use, one can argue that your precious G5 is a piece of crap.

Right tool, right job, that's all.

[~Shard~]

Maybe their point is that it's not a piece of crap.

Perhaps it doesn't benchmark all that well and you might not want to use it for the next terascale supercomputer, but it runs Mac OS X just fine. That's the only measure of performance that matters for many users.

It runs iMovie fine, and iPhoto fine, iDVD works well enough and Garageband is OK for most. Oh, and you can surf the web and send e-mail without any trouble. Heck you can even video conference now.

And that's about 90% of the potential consumer market.

The consumer market automatically disqualifies blowers and expensive thermal control systems, so depending on your target use, one can argue that your precious G5 is a piece of crap.

Right tool, right job, that's all.

Very well said. I am quite enjoying the discussion going on here, but see quite a contrast in the posts - from the intelligent, technology-based and educated posts from the likes of Phinius, thatwendigo, yourself, and many others, to the ignorant and uneducated posts of others who, instead of composing constructive comments and debates, use sophistocated terms like "crap" or "sucks", or seem to ignore the detailed technical posts due to their obvious lack of knowledge, and their ability to only see things with a very narrow, simplistic focus - these appear to be the types that see the G4 as a horrible chip and that the G5 is the be-all and end-all because it is new and is a higher number. Meanwhile, they ignore the facts.

I always shake my head when I read posts indicating that the G4s are "slow", that they get stomped by other processors hands-down, and that Motorola has been horrible these past couple years, that IBM is Apple's savior, and Motorola is to blame for EVERYTHING. Sales and marketshare did not rise significantly this past year with the introduction of the G5, so how can people say IBM is better than Motorola yet, at this stage of the game? And it isn't IBM's fault, and it isn't Motorola's fault - it's Apple's fault when it comes down to it. And what has IBM done so far? They've released their G5, almost a year ago, and we haven't seen anything from them since. Now, if this was still Motorola, man, would there be complaints flying about their slow advances - but because it's IBM, nothing is mentioned by these G4-bashers. They just keep going on about how Motorola hasn't done anything for the past 3 years - right, moving from 450 MHz (or whatever it was) to 1.5 GHz is pathetic and insignificant... :rolleyes:

I could go on, but it's time for bed - too much to comment on, so little time... ;) :cool:

[Apple //e]

First, the Pentium III topped out at 1.4GHz on a 130-nm process size. It had a bus speed of 100MHz and a L2 cache size of 512KB.

actually, the pentium IIIS 1.4 had a 133 bus with 512k L2. the tualatin celerons had a 100bus with 256k L2

[Apple //e]

However, I was predicting the move to Pentium-M on the desktop some time ago, while people were still crowing about the P4EE and how it was competing with AMD and supposedly stomping the G5.


many, many people were wondering when (and if) intel would release a desktop pentium m when it was released.

[Belly-laughs]

Judging from the material Motorola has on their site, we can only guess when the e600 is ready for prime-time. Their 2004 chart shows no sign of it, only referring to the G4 7447A that was released earlier this year @ 1.42GHz.

Still, it will make for great competition between IBM and Moto when they have it ready and available for Apple to use, hopefully speeding up development on both the 97x-series and e600.

[nmk]

Judging from the material Motorola has on their site, we can only guess when the e600 is ready for prime-time. Their 2004 chart shows no sign of it, only referring to the G4 7447A that was released earlier this year @ 1.42GHz.

Still, it will make for great competition between IBM and Moto when they have it ready and available for Apple to use, hopefully speeding up development on both the 97x-series and e600.

I would think that the e600 will appear on their website when it is shipping in quantitiy to customers. As things stand right now, they have put out a very solid roadmap showing the development of the e600. I think someone mentioned on this board a while back that Apple mysteriously dropped development of the IBM 750, which was to be the G4's successor in low power consumption applications. This indicates that they have renewed confidence in Motorollas ability to provide them with something competitive soon for their portable and budget machines.

[nmk]

many, many people were wondering when (and if) intel would release a desktop pentium m when it was released.

I read an article on the desktop Pentium M a while back. Even though I don't remember specifics, there are a few interesting details worth considering. First of all, the desktop Pentium M is supposed to debut some time in the middle of next year. It will likely be somewhere in the range of 2.5+ Ghz. More interestingly, it will be a dual core processor. One of Intels primary reasons for moving to the PM architecture for desktops is to improve performance using dual cores. This will provide them with substantial gains in performance, while keeping power consumption much lower than the 100w+ that the Pentium 4 consumes. Dual core Pentium M's will find their way into laptops later in that same year. So Apple really has its hands full in terms of competition. There are going to be some seriously fast processors commming out of Intel next year.

[Belly-laughs]

I would think that the e600 will appear on their website when it is shipping in quantitiy to customers. As things stand right now, they have put out a very solid roadmap showing the development of the e600. I think someone mentioned on this board a while back that Apple mysteriously dropped development of the IBM 750, which was to be the G4's successor in low power consumption applications. This indicates that they have renewed confidence in Motorollas ability to provide them with something competitive soon for their portable and budget machines.

The 750 sits in my beige G3 desktop which sits in the loft collecting dust.

[nmk]

The 750 sits in my beige G3 desktop which sits in the loft collecting dust.

Yes, but there were plenty of rumors ciculating (with some confirmation i believe) that Apple was working with IBM on a 750 variation that would include Altivec. This would become the future G4 in the event that Motorolla couldn't deliver substantial improvements to the existing G4.

[Belly-laughs]

Yes, but there were plenty of rumors ciculating (with some confirmation i believe) that Apple was working with IBM on a 750 variation that would include Altivec. This would become the future G4 in the event that Motorolla couldn't deliver substantial improvements to the existing G4.


...and Moto didn´t and yet no G3 w/altivec appearance. I sincerely hope the e600 is ahead of track, according to the Freescale roadmap it wont be ready until 2005.

[nmk]

...and Moto didn´t and yet no G3 w/altivec appearance. I sincerely hope the e600 is ahead of track, according to the Freescale roadmap it wont be ready until 2005.

Aren't you kind of making my point for me. I was attempting to show that since Motorolla has not yet produced a processor up to spec, the officially annonced e600 may well be the reason that Apple has dropped plans for developeing a new processor with IBM. Additionally, I don't see where the Freescale roadmap shows the e600 production for next year. Can you please provide a link for that.

[Bigheadache]

I think that was the 750VX, which they decided to abandon/sell off I believe. (i'm sure I read that somewhere - someone correct me)

BTW I think we're more likely to get G5 powerbooks before seeing an e600, besides which, Freescale is more focussed on the embedded device market so expect them to concentrate more on that sector before they throw some resources behind general purpose CPUs again.

[nmk]

I seriously doubt that you will see a G5 in the Powerbook any time soon. There are too many power consumption/heat issues for this to be a possibility. Freescale may be primarily developing processors for the imbedded market, but there is no reason Apple could not use their processors.It was alrady mentioned once before in this thread that the 25 watt typical power consumption for the dual core e600 is far to high for most embedded devices. Also, the dual core 64 bit e700 thats meant to come out a year later seems very much targeted towards the computer market. It really does seem like Apple is a major potential client of theirs with these processors.

Also the e600 is a general purpose processor. It is fully instruction set compatible with the PPC architecture.

[Belly-laughs]

Aren't you kind of making my point for me. I was attempting to show that since Motorolla has not yet produced a processor up to spec, the officially annonced e600 may well be the reason that Apple has dropped plans for developeing a new processor with IBM. Additionally, I don't see where the Freescale roadmap shows the e600 production for next year. Can you please provide a link for that.

I think it rather means that the 750 development didn´t go as well as prospected. If Apple/IBM canned it because the e600 was ready surely we would have seen it by now. The e-series roadmap can be read here (PDF):

http://search-sps.motorola.com/cs.html?url=http%3A//e-www.motorola.com/files/archives/doc/roadmap/PPCRMAP.pdf&qt=e600+roadmap&col=product&n=1

It doesn´t state the launch date specifically, but judging from other information on the Moto site, the processor is still in development and samples are not yet ready for developers/manufacturers.

[Phinius]

the desktop Pentium M is supposed to debut some time in the middle of next year. It will likely be somewhere in the range of 2.5+ Ghz. More interestingly, it will be a dual core processor.

Motorola should have a e700 G4, made on a 65-nm process ready in the second half of 2005 and it will run at 3GHz. Since a dual-core G4 will be made on a 90-nm process very soon, then it's likely that the e700 will also be produced as a dual-core chip. That would certainly be very competitive with what Intel will be offering.

[Phinius]

It doesn´t state the launch date specifically, but judging from other information on the Moto site, the processor is still in development and samples are not yet ready for developers/manufacturers.

Since Apple is a large, and important customer of Motorola, its very likely that Apple will have gotten samples of the e600 long before Motorola publicly announces samples are available. I would expect Apple to announce a product available with the e600 at the time of, or shortly after, Motorola puts out a news item on the processor. As an example of that the 1.5GHz G4 was available in PowerBooks shortly after Motorola made the public announcement about it.

[Phinius]

IBMs' two chip manufacturing facilities are running at full production, and with a shortage of 970FX chips for the small volume Xserve, that brings up the question of how Apple could possibly get ahold of a sufficient quantity of 3GHz 970FX chips to announce a dual 3GHz processor PowerMac at the end of this June.

Well, the older 970 chips that were going to the PowerMac are no longer needed in large quanties since the 1.6-2GHz PowerMacs are not manufactured now. That means IBM can replace most of that 100,000+ per month 970 production capacity, that was destined for the PowerMac, with the 970FX. Since the 970FX is about 40% smaller than the 970, then even with poorer chip yields, IBM should be able to meet the quantity demands for the higher speed 970FX chips. But, I would not expect Apple to announce the availability of a G5 equipped iMac or PowerBook until at least a month or two after the 970FX is available. That's to make sure that Apples' supply of 970FX chips can be entirely devouted to filling the orders for these new PowerMacs in a timely manner. In 2-3 months the demand for the new PowerMacs will fall off and the production of 970FX chips will increase, and at that time a G5 iMac and or PowerBook can then be made available.

[Belly-laughs]

Since Apple is a large customer and important customer of Motorola its very likely that will have gotten samples of the e600 long before Motorola publicly announces samples are available. I would expect Apple to announce a product available with the e600 at the time of, or shortly after, Motorola puts out a news item on the processor.

I certainly hope you´re right. But I have my doubts that we will see it anytime soon. Reason being the release of the 1.5GHz PBs. If the e600 was ready, I´m sure Apple would have introduced it in a pro computer before maybe now putting it in the iMac.

[nmk]

[QUOTE=Belly-laughs]I think it rather means that the 750 development didn´t go as well as prospected. If Apple/IBM canned it because the e600 was ready surely we would have seen it by now. The e-series roadmap can be read here (PDF):

Well, I guess at the end of the day its speculation. Apple invested a substantial amount of money in the 750 just to find out that is wasn't going as expected. Alternatively they may well have stopped funding because they were expecting a superior processor from Motorolla within the same timeframe.

[Phinius]

I certainly hope you´re right. But I have my doubts that we will see it anytime soon. Reason being the release of the 1.5GHz PBs. If the e600 was ready, I´m sure Apple would have introduced it in a pro computer before maybe now putting it in the iMac.

The 1.5GHz PowerBook was announced in April. There could be an announcement about a e600 equiped Mac in July or August, which would be 3-4 after the 1.5GHz PowerBook release.

[Belly-laughs]

Motorola should have a e700 G4, made on a 65-nm process ready in the second half of 2005 and it will run at 3GHz. Since a dual-core G4 will be made on a 90-nm process very soon, then it's likely that the e700 will also be produced as a dual-core chip. That would certainly be very competitive with what Intel will be offering.

History has tought us never to say when Motorolal should have something ready... You´ll be disappointed.

[Belly-laughs]

The 1.5GHz PowerBook was announced in April. There could be an announcement about a e600 equiped Mac in July or August, which would be 3-4 after the 1.5GHz PowerBook release.

Yes, we may very well see the e600 in a Mac in the near future, but my point was that I doubt very much that Apple would put this chip, that should suit the PBs nicely, into the iMac first which is now likely to make a June debut. The 970xx however is not currently suited for the portables and Apple will be excused for that very reason. But, I could be wrong :)

[Belly-laughs]

Well, I guess at the end of the day its speculation. Apple invested a substantial amount of money in the 750 just to find out that is wasn't going as expected. Alternatively they may well have stopped funding because they were expecting a superior processor from Motorolla within the same timeframe.

Yes, it´s all speculation. I also think they may have stopped funding the project caused by other alternatives that might have emerged. If the alternative was Moto, I am afraid Apple once again will experience pushed deadlines. I think we all agree that the e600 or similar chip was needed ages ago..?

[nmk]

Yes, it´s all speculation. I also think they may have stopped funding the project caused by other alternatives that might have emerged. If the alternative was Moto, I am afraid Apple once again will experience pushed deadlines. I think we all agree that the e600 or similar chip was needed ages ago..?

True, Apple would have certainly benefitted if Motorolla has started delivering up to date chips earlier. However, I guess late is better than never. I really see that Motorolla is the only option that Apple has for their portables and eMacs currently. It would be very harmful for Apple if Moto could not deliver this chip on time.

[Crikey]

The small production Xserve has a back order of 4-6 weeks. That seems to be entirely due to a lack of enough 970FX processors and its unlikely that IBM has another 9XX PowerPC in production right now, other than the 970 and 970FX. So, in order for the PowerMacs to have a processor upgrade Apple needs to get a much larger supply of 970FX processors than is being supplied currently. Its very unlikely that Apple would up the demand for 970FX processors, and thereby lengthen the delivery time for PowerMacs, by introducing a G5 iMac in the next month or so. Instead, I'd expect Apple to announce a 1.5GHz G4 iMac in the interim, and perhaps a completely new iMac in 2-3 months when faster chips are available in sufficient quanities.

Apple could help justify the prices of iMac computers by upgrading the performance substantially. But, in order to do that there has to be a adequate supply of much higher performing processors.

[/QUOTE>

I suspect Apple will put the 970 into the G5 iMacs. There are plenty of them being made, and the current news is that the "old" G5 towers are being discontinued to clear the channel for the June upgrades. That means a big pile of 970 chips and no systems to put them in.

The iMac is a consumer system and doesn't need the latest-and-greatest version of the G5, as long as it has something to justify the "G5" logo on the side. (If Apple had an unlimited amount of 970FXs, sure they might put those in the new iMacs, if only as a way of doing a large-scale engineering test of using that chip in thermally-constrained designs (practice for the G5 PowerBooks).

[QUOTE=Phinius]

It sure looks like the 970FX was designed with a small 512MB L2 cache in order to reduce the costs of manufacturing. Why else would IBM only put 512KB of L2 cache, instead of 1MB like Intel did with Prescott? It could very well be that Apple intends to move the PowerMacs to the Power5 derived 9XX PowerPC processors in January, then bring the highest performing and cooler/cheaper 970FX processors to the iMac consumer line. With a likely larger die size from adding SMT and a doubling of L2 for the G5 processor after the 970FX, Apple could have both the consumer and pro line processors topping out at the same frequencies and yet still differentiate them by as much as a 50% boost in speed offered by a bigger cache and SMT on the pro line. Apple could then offer a single processor PowerMac running at the same frequency as a iMac and yet charge substantially more for the PowerMac.

By SMT, do you mean the same thing Intel calls HyperThreading? Since most G5 systems are SMP (multiple actual CPUs), why would Macs need single-chip pseudo-multiprocessing? Especially since it seems to complicate doing real SMP with those chips (you can't do SMP with a Pentium 4, you have to use a Xeon for that on the Intel side).

Cheers,


Crikey

[windowsblowsass]

IBMs' two chip manufacturing facilities are running at full production, and with a shortage of 970FX chips for the small volume Xserve, that brings up the question of how Apple could possibly get ahold of a sufficient quantity of 3GHz 970FX chips to announce a dual 3GHz processor PowerMac at the end of this June.

Well, the older 970 chips that were going to the PowerMac are no longer needed in large quanties since the 1.6-2GHz PowerMacs are not manufactured now. That means IBM can replace most of that 100,000+ per month 970 production capacity, that was destined for the PowerMac, with the 970FX. Since the 970FX is about 40% smaller than the 970, then even with poorer chip yields, IBM should be able to meet the quantity demands for the higher speed 970FX chips. But, I would not expect Apple to announce the availability of a G5 equipped iMac or PowerBook until at least a month or two after the 970FX is available. That's to make sure that Apples' supply of 970FX chips can be entirely devouted to filling the orders for these new PowerMacs in a timely manner. In 2-3 months the demand for the new PowerMacs will fall off and the production of 970FX chips will increase, and at that time a G5 iMac and or PowerBook can then be made available.
another scenario g5 pm willnot use 9 70fx rather the ruored 975 which is hotter explainig the huge heatsink in the photos

970 fx goes into imacs
970 fx still to hot for the laptops there fore e600 / 700 will be named g5(afterall they are suppposed to be motos g5)

[Belly-laughs]

...aaah, those fabled chips!

[Dont Hurt Me]

I was just over at Apple's site and no news on powermacs but i noticed they are still selling 1.0 G4 15" imacs for $1299 I think Apple is loosing its marbles or perhaps they lost them a long time ago. That is pathetic performance for high dollar price and that has a mx video, the G4 and the mx are both over 3 years old. no wonder sales suck! They dont have a clue.

[MacsRgr8]

Indeed.
That's why Steve must announce the G5 iMac at WWDC.
And what's more for the same price as the iMacs now. Not a penny more.
Also mention a true gaming cosumer Mac: iMac G5 with a good grfx card.
That has never been done before, and its bloody time.....

How the hell are game developers going to keep (or start) developing gr8 games, if hardly any Mac owner has the hardware to run them looking good?
Even if ID wants to release Doom 3 for Mac, who the hell can play it? Only the Dual G5 owners?? Nice market share... :rolleyes:

[Dont Hurt Me]

MacsRgr8 i agree, please forgive but i was just at alienwares site- base aurora comes with a 2.0 Amd 64 with a bus of 1600, 9600xt,512 ram, for under $1600. this machine would give the dual G5s a run for their money let alone making any Imac look like they came out of the 90's. If the powermacs stay with base fx5200 i doubt they would put anything greater in Imac. Am i expecting to much from Apple or have the Pcs simply ran away from them in every category. that Aurora can be opted with ATi's fastest card on the planet X800.

[MacsRgr8]

That's the problem.
Now we know not all consumers play games on their Macs, but its pretty impossible to get a game like Call of Duty running decently on a brand new $ 1799,- iMac, let alone future games. Hasn't got the CPU power NOR the GPU.
So for the same $ 1799 (middle iMac) there sould be at least a 1.8 GHz G5 in there with the Radeon 9800 Pro. Nothing special at all! All last year's technology.
Get the X800 (or 6800) in the upcoming PowerMacs and we should be on par with the best PC's out there.
But we will have Mac OS X on them too! :) (to compensate the extra cost :D )

[Dont Hurt Me]

That's the problem.
Now we know not all consumers play games on their Macs, but its pretty impossible to get a game like Call of Duty running decently on a brand new $ 1799,- iMac, let alone future games. Hasn't got the CPU power NOR the GPU.
So for the same $ 1799 (middle iMac) there sould be at least a 1.8 GHz G5 in there with the Radeon 9800 Pro. Nothing special at all! All last year's technology.
Get the X800 (or 6800) in the upcoming PowerMacs and we should be on par with the best PC's out there.
But we will have Mac OS X on them too! :) (to compensate the extra cost :D )Thats just so true, if base Powermac ends up being a single 1.8 as thinksecret says then you can be sure imac wont exceed that machine. If so i just may jump ship and buy me a hot gaming rig from Alienware but i have been waiting this year as a long time Mac user to see if Apple would ever make up all the ground they lost. I'm into Hardware and Apples seems to be allways behind. When Doom3 comes out ill be making a purchase one way or the other.

[MacsRgr8]

A single 1.8 Ghz G5 as a PowerMac is outrageous. 7 months ago Apple noticed that the Single 1.8 Ghz G5 wasn't selling at all. So they made it a Duallie, and presto: it sold gr8.
So now, those 7 months later, Apple expects a Single 1.8 GHz would be sold AT ALL??? This can't be true....

I hope that this rumor is a bit mixed up:
Single 1.8 G5 = iMac
Dual 2.5 G5 = PowerMac

I also hope Doom3 is launched after WWDC, so that hopefully you gan go and get a decent Mac, able to play Doom3 fine at a resonable price....

....otherwise you'll have to get that sub $ 1600 alienware.

"Choose wisely" :D

[windowsblowsass]

uncle zeppy said this on the blocked in cj=hina thread
It used to blocked here in Shanghai but now it's working again. I thought first maybe the reason is the Apple store; you can check the prices around the world and then go to local Apple store and complain, and end up getting the laptop from Hong Kong or some other country. Then I realized the store is accessible directly (store.apple.com). The blockage was annoying mostly because even the Chinese website has always worked (www.apple.com.cn) there were some things I needed to see in English.

I think in the future things might be the otherway around, the Chinese Apple site will be blocked from outsiders. According to my source all the Apple computers are made in China and there will be cheaper models targeting the local market. The new iMac G5's are made here but production is very slow (lack of CPU's?). They must be just filling the pipeline.
heres the post (http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=72062&page=6&pp=25)

[RichardCarletta]

Does Apple really need to showoff a consumer mac at a softtware show ?

[stockscalper]

There are no G5 imacs being made.

[~Shard~]

There are no G5 imacs being made.

Whether we see the G5 iMac soon or not is one question, however whether it's next Tuesday @ WWDC or February 2005, they will undoubtedly be released in the near future, and furthermore, Apple is definitely at least working on them as we speak. Whether they are technically "being made" right now, i.e. manufcatured, I guess is open for debate, but they are definitely in the development cycles right now - how far along is the question everyone is curious to know the answer to...

[ClimbingTheLog]

Does Apple really need to showoff a consumer mac at a softtware show ?

What do you have against developers who write consumer software or hardware accessory developers?

[DakotaGuy]

Whether we see the G5 iMac soon or not is one question, however whether it's next Tuesday @ WWDC or February 2005, they will undoubtedly be released in the near future, and furthermore, Apple is definitely at least working on them as we speak. Whether they are technically "being made" right now, i.e. manufcatured, I guess is open for debate, but they are definitely in the development cycles right now - how far along is the question everyone is curious to know the answer to...

Okay here is what I think. If the current iMac was going to be upgraded to a 1.5Ghz G4, 512K L2, a better gfx card, bigger std HD, etc. it would have already happened, so something is different about this new iMac then just a speed and feature bump. I think it has to come soon. Right now the eMac has a better, newer version of the G4 with 512K L2 and the base 15 inch iMac is a 1Ghz G4 while the base eMac is a 1.25Ghz. This line up makes no sense to last much longer. I think we would have seen 1.5Ghz iMac's released when the Powerbook was upgraded if they did not plan to do something major soon to it...anyone else see what I do???

[G4-power]

Okay here is what I think. If the current iMac was going to be upgraded to a 1.5Ghz G4, 512K L2, a better gfx card, bigger std HD, etc. it would have already happened, so something is different about this new iMac then just a speed and feature bump. I think it has to come soon. Right now the eMac has a better, newer version of the G4 with 512K L2 and the base 15 inch iMac is a 1Ghz G4 while the base eMac is a 1.25Ghz. This line up makes no sense to last much longer. I think we would have seen 1.5Ghz iMac's released when the Powerbook was upgraded if they did not plan to do something major soon to it...anyone else see what I do???

I agree. The current iMac is not what we should expect from Apple. Keeping the 15" iMac slower than the eMac would be just plain stupid. They have to come up in WWDC, or at least Paris Expo with a better processor, grfx card, and something new that makes people "ooooohh!!!". Otherwise the iMac is dead. Also, they should decide are they going to sell it at what price. Being a consumer machine, the iMac should be sold with a consumer-like price.

[MacinDoc]

Okay here is what I think. If the current iMac was going to be upgraded to a 1.5Ghz G4, 512K L2, a better gfx card, bigger std HD, etc. it would have already happened, so something is different about this new iMac then just a speed and feature bump. I think it has to come soon. Right now the eMac has a better, newer version of the G4 with 512K L2 and the base 15 inch iMac is a 1Ghz G4 while the base eMac is a 1.25Ghz. This line up makes no sense to last much longer. I think we would have seen 1.5Ghz iMac's released when the Powerbook was upgraded if they did not plan to do something major soon to it...anyone else see what I do???

I agree, if they were just going to bring the specs up to the eMac specs, we would have seen it already - you can't have your educational/consumer machines outperforming your prosumer machines. Also, remember that we are still waiting for "Power Mac 8,1", which is likely the iMac with a new architecture.

[MacinDoc]

I agree. The current iMac is not what we should expect from Apple. Keeping the 15" iMac slower than the eMac would be just plain stupid. They have to come up in WWDC, or at least Paris Expo with a better processor, grfx card, and something new that makes people "ooooohh!!!". Otherwise the iMac is dead. Also, they should decide are they going to sell it at what price. Being a consumer machine, the iMac should be sold with a consumer-like price.

Sorry, but unless Apple sells them without attached flat panel displays, the iMacs will likely continue to be priced in the prosumer range, especially if they get new graphics cards, the elastic bus, SATA, and faster RAM. :rolleyes:

[G4-power]

Sorry, but unless Apple sells them without attached flat panel displays, the iMacs will likely continue to be priced in the prosumer range, especially if they get new graphics cards, the elastic bus, SATA, and faster RAM. :rolleyes:
Yeah, true. But they shouldnt sell a consumer machine at a prosumer price, like they are doing now. It's just too old and slow for that price.

[sambo.]

why would i buy an iMac, when the eMac is the same machine, but a little less sexy and a ****eload more expensive..? :D