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macrumors bot
Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
63,523
30,809
In the wake of the leaked specs, The Mercury News reports on further signs of IBM/Apple announcements on monday:

IBM has scheduled analyst briefings on the chip to begin after Apple Chairman and Chief Executive Steve Jobs gives his keynote address. A group of IBM engineers has come to Apple's Cupertino headquarters for last-minute preparations. And Apple's close partners say significantly faster Apple machines should arrive before the end of the year.

These hints simply confirm what has been widely expected, and while the question of the PowerMac specs may have been laid to rest (for the non-conspiracy theorists), the questions of shipping time and price remain open.
 

Ayre

macrumors member
Jun 7, 2003
82
0
Good things to hear, indeed. Guess we'll just have to wait for Monday to come now.
 

dethl

macrumors regular
Aug 28, 2002
246
0
Austin, TX
Wait....

Are we going to see any machines before the end of the summer? Or am I reading this wrong and even FASTER machines (> 2ghz) will be coming at the end of the year?
 

jcdenton

macrumors newbie
Jun 10, 2003
29
0
British Columbia, Canada
Or they're panicking....

Either they're there for the Keynote or they're there because Apple is panicking about the hacker who got that picture up last night:D (joking).

I'm glad we'll be getting some info from IBM about the 970 soon. We haven't heard much since last fall, except for that article from Stokes over at Ars Technica, but that wasn't really from IBM, was it.

Time to go find my credit card... :)
 

starflyer 59

macrumors newbie
Oct 12, 2002
20
0
Memphis, TN
It is going to be one exciting day on Monday. I have lunch at 12 pm Central and there is an Apple store less than 2 miles away... Wonder where I will be?
 

mkaake

macrumors 65816
Apr 10, 2003
1,153
0
mi
yeah, i'm pretty sure that there's going to be no lunch for me during lunch break on monday... and it might just have to last 2 hours or so...

matt
 

cthorp

macrumors member
Aug 28, 2002
46
3
Western North Carolina
PCI-X

Is there anyone who can give a breakdown on what PCI-x is and how it compares to the current PCI slots and some evaluation of the audio optical vs. analog would be good too. Also, how much is 8 Gigs of RAM going to run?

Thanks,
Cameron
 

jethroted

macrumors 6502a
Jan 2, 2003
619
0
Cyberspace
Originally posted by dethl
Wait....

Are we going to see any machines before the end of the summer? Or am I reading this wrong and even FASTER machines (> 2ghz) will be coming at the end of the year?

Yeah, I hope they mean >2 Ghz machines. Otherwise it will be a long 6 months.
 

RHutch

macrumors 6502
May 21, 2003
311
76
Amsterdam, OH
Skip the weekend

For once I would like to skip the weekend and go straight from Friday afternoon to Monday morning. I'm not able to buy a machine any time soon, but this is just so darn exciting!:D
 

Steradian

macrumors 6502
Dec 3, 2002
393
0
San Jose
Heh I read that is Morning, that is great, they were a bit general and focused on how the current powermac offerings are less than grand. The Merc will sometimes jump the gun however so i don't think this is 100 percent certification, but it's still good news :)
 

justathought87

macrumors newbie
Jun 4, 2003
5
0
Originally posted by dethl
Wait....

Are we going to see any machines before the end of the summer? Or am I reading this wrong and even FASTER machines (> 2ghz) will be coming at the end of the year?

don't worry, it like the ITMS "by the end of the year" it is meant to let other companies relax
 

starflyer 59

macrumors newbie
Oct 12, 2002
20
0
Memphis, TN
One thing I have never understood is why Apple will not let people have a single processor configuration or dual based on their needs. I think it is pretty obvious that you could fit two of the 1.6 chips in the motherboards that they are using for the dual 2.0's. Also, I would love to have the option to get a single 2.0 processor. It should not be such a big deal. :confused:
 

Vlade

macrumors 6502a
Feb 2, 2003
966
4
Meadville, PA
Originally posted by starflyer 59
One thing I have never understood is why Apple will not let people have a single processor configuration or dual based on their needs. I think it is pretty obvious that you could fit two of the 1.6 chips in the motherboards that they are using for the dual 2.0's. Also, I would love to have the option to get a single 2.0 processor. It should not be such a big deal. :confused:

Remember the old iMacs with 5 colors, and how apple always was short on some colors and had so much tangerine it was 100 bucks less?

Sure it would be nice, but apple probably won't do it.
 

pilotgi

macrumors regular
Jul 22, 2002
193
4
Are we going to see any machines before the end of the summer? Or am I reading this wrong and even FASTER machines (> 2ghz) will be coming at the end of the year?
Yes, faster than 2Ghz by the end of the year. And next year, they'll have the 980 built on the 0.90 nm process. IBM ought to be getting close to 4 Ghz by the second half of 2004.
 

k2k koos

macrumors 6502a

emdezet

macrumors member
Feb 12, 2002
55
0
cologne, germany
dual processors

i am actually wondering:

if the power4 is multicore by design, is it really that much cheaper to put 2 seperate PPCs 970 on the board?

couldn't they use some scaled down multicore?
 

hmmfe

macrumors 6502
Feb 28, 2003
262
69
Originally posted by macman21
I have serious doubts about the availability of these machines. One problem is Serial ATA. I have done some research, and while there are plenty of Serial ATA controllers out, there wont be any true Serial ATA hard drives out until December of this year.

http://www.explosivelabs.com/articles/sata/

No offense, but you need to do a bit more research. The article you linked to was Oct. 2002. So, the December reference was Dec. 2002.

Segate makes a "true" S-ATA drive. They have been shipping for quite some time now. Welcome to 2003!
 

bertagert

macrumors 6502
Jan 13, 2003
326
0
Originally posted by dethl
Wait....

Are we going to see any machines before the end of the summer? Or am I reading this wrong and even FASTER machines (> 2ghz) will be coming at the end of the year?

Theres no way they would announce system and not ship for 6 months. They will release the 1.6 - 2.0 GHZ on monday and by the end of the year we will see 2.2 - 2.5 GHZ. Thats my take anyway.
 

DamnDJ

macrumors 6502
Feb 17, 2003
263
80
Baltimore
Originally posted by macman21
I have serious doubts about the availability of these machines. One problem is Serial ATA. I have done some research, and while there are plenty of Serial ATA controllers out, there wont be any true Serial ATA hard drives out until December of this year.

Seems to me that Serial ATA drivers are in pretty good supply...

http://www.pricewatch.com/menus/m26.htm

Whether or not these are "true" Serial ATA drives, Apple would have no problem putting these in, just like they stuck DDR memory in the current machines.
 

macman21

macrumors newbie
Jul 18, 2002
22
0
Originally posted by hmmfe
No offense, but you need to do a bit more research. The article you linked to was Oct. 2002. So, the December reference was Dec. 2002.

Segate makes a "true" S-ATA drive. They have been shipping for quite some time now. Welcome to 2003!

Oooops! Sorry about that. I read it and assumed it meant December 2003.
 
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