PowerBook Rumors (17 and 15inch)

[MacRumors]

PowerPage claims a dual 17" Powerbook is in the stars for 2004:

The latest from the campus is that the 17" PowerBook will be dual processor by 2004, or should I say sometime in 2004. Apple wants to be the first mass produced dual processor laptop on the market.

While MacWhispers reports 15" Powerbooks are ramping up, with the possibility of 970's in the PowerBooks in the future:

The new 15.4-inch PowerBook has recently been contracted to the same assembly plant that is building the 17-inch PowerBook. We have been told that "integrating the IBM chip into both products has been underway for some time," and that a PPC 970 variant of the largest PowerBook is "only slightly behind" its mid-size brother.

The IBM PowerPC 970 was announced by IBM last year (2002) and has been the subject of much speculation and interest in the Mac community. Multiple sources have indicated that the 970 will find its way into Apple computers. The first incarnation is likely to be the PowerMac line -- while eventual PowerBook integration is expected, the timeframe is unknown, with MacWhispers providing the only source of rumors that such integration will happen sooner than later.

[AhmedFaisal]

Yes, brothas, YES!!! Keep the rumors like that coming .
Lets smite those infidel x86 Taliban into the dust!

Ahmed

[utilizer]

In the spirit of continuing the theme of the year of the notebook for Apple, this is fantastic news. And oh yeah, dual 970 PowerBooks by next year. It doesn't get much sweeter than that!

[mymemory]

Well, if I get a dual processor PB that will end up slower than a PC laptop... Mmmmm.

The idea sounds nice but sound like another exotic feature if those are 2 x 1.2Ghz processors.

Now, lets see what the future prepare for us.

I would like to have a unit like that of course, a powerfull fully portable machine!

[GeneR]

After trying the dual 1.42GHz Powermac, I am stoked. Now, if the world doesn't end before then, I'd like to get one of them dual 17" babies too!

[e-coli]

Yeah, baby.

I called it first. Here

[Steamboatwillie]

I'll bet dual CPU's will chew up the batteries pretty durn' quick!

Sure would be cool but is it needed? I suppose mobile video/audio production. Personally I would prefer to sit in front of a fast desktop to do heavy duty stuff as much as possible, given the choice. If there is a need though I am all for it!

[suzerain]

While at first glance putting 970s in the "mid-range" PowerBook before the top of the line seems ridiculous...if the rumors of the 970s being available soioner than previously thought, it *could* possibly br true, because Apple knows that they need to get these things out the door as soon as is humanly possible.

I dunno...I'm feeling optimistic with today's rumors...maybe I'll be working on a 970 by the end of July?

[idkew]

i am still a naysayer.

we will see a g4 based Al 15.x" before a 970 based one.

or

we will see the update (970) to the 15" AFTER desktops get the 970.

[Hous68]

I parsed the title as two 17" screens, not processors. heh.

[GeneR]

I said this before in another post (which I can not remember where), but I hope having dual chips in a PB doesn't lead to sterilization due to their close proxity to certain family jewels... ahem!

[idkew]

Originally posted by Steamboatwillie
I'll bet dual CPU's will chew up the batteries pretty durn' quick!

Sure would be cool but is it needed? I suppose mobile video/audio production. Personally I would prefer to sit in front of a fast desktop to do heavy duty stuff as much as possible, given the choice. If there is a need though I am all for it!

it would be easy to set a preference to shut off or cycle down one of the processors while on battery power to save juice. i am sure it would eat more juice, but the 970 uses roughly half the power than the current 1ghz g4 does, so that makes it possible and useable.

right now, from what i have read, the 970 eats 10 or so watts at low clock speeds. it jumps a bunch for higher clock speeds, so that would mean we might see two lower speed cpus in one configuration and one higher speed cpu in another config.

[thies]

"The new 15.4-inch PowerBook has recently been contracted to the same assembly plant that is building the 17-inch PowerBook."


Does that mean it'll again be half a year between the laptop being released and it actually being delivered?

[GeneR]

Originally posted by thies
"The new 15.4-inch PowerBook has recently been contracted to the same assembly plant that is building the 17-inch PowerBook."


Does that mean it'll again be half a year between the laptop being released and it actually being delivered?

I hope not.

[Stelliform]

OK, I just got my Powerbook in November. I will have it paid off in October. I figured at least two years would be a good run. If the 970's preform like expected, and then they release dual CPU's... I'll ebay my TiBook in a second to get a dual laptop. (Just for bragging rights, because really the 1Ghz is probably more than I need anyway. )

[zedwards]

Please ppl, They havn't even come out with a Pro desktop and your already squacking/dreaming about a "seemingly killer" laptop.

Q: tell me what utilizes 64 bit processors??
A: High end servers, render farms, and clusters.

Few desktops (even Pro) let alone laptops will ever utilize a 64 bit processor. Sure the power consumption is low, but you think the Al 12" is hot... Also, all the apps will need to be rewritten to even take advantage of the 64 bit addressing. Most apps dont even utilize the second processor.

[herr_neumann]

Let me quote myself from the other thread:

"MHO.... Apple needs to have the new Shiznit shipping by the back to school market. Period. That is it. How many new college students will be getting computers as graduation presents? They should be making them availible to order by june shipping by august (finally one situation were semester schools are good for something, long live the quarter system).

This also coincides with educational purchasing. I know the UC System Departments spend every last dime of their budgets on the last day of their financial year, old computers line the halls here at Davis. (good place to get a monitor or old system for FREE)

Even though I am probably wrong, it just makes sense to me."

I know you feel me here....

[phampton81]

Originally posted by zedwards
Q: tell me what utilizes 64 bit processors??
A: High end servers, render farms, and clusters.

Few desktops (even Pro) let alone laptops will ever utilize a 64 bit processor.

Man oh man have we been over this a thousand times. The 64-bitness if you will, is not what we are screaming about, we are exstactic because this 970 just blows the doors off the G4, not because it is 64 bit, but because it just flat out rocks. Can I get a 'hell yeah' out of anyone here?

[jettredmont]

Originally posted by mymemory
Well, if I get a dual processor PB that will end up slower than a PC laptop... Mmmmm.

The idea sounds nice but sound like another exotic feature if those are 2 x 1.2Ghz processors.

Now, lets see what the future prepare for us.

I would like to have a unit like that of course, a powerfull fully portable machine!

1.2GHz processors running full bore (970's have such a low power consumption they really don't need to be throttled down to preserve battery like their Intel counterparts) which, in desktops, are each approximately as fast as a 2GHz P4 (the 1.8GHz 970 SPEC's at about the same as a 2.8GHz P4) ... this would end up being slower than a Wintel desktop, but not by much.

Combine this with a more multi-proc-using OS X and the inevitable speed bump we'll see between now and 2004 when dualie PBs are introduced, and I can see a Dual PowerBook working it just as fast as most if not all non-Mac desktops (excepting, of course, HDD-intensive operations, which just can't be as fast on a notebook as they are on a desktop).

Assuming, of course, that the rumor is right ...

[idkew]

Originally posted by zedwards
Please ppl, They havn't even come out with a Pro desktop and your already squacking/dreaming about a "seemingly killer" laptop.

Q: tell me what utilizes 64 bit processors??
A: High end servers, render farms, and clusters.

Few desktops (even Pro) let alone laptops will ever utilize a 64 bit processor. Sure the power consumption is low, but you think the Al 12" is hot... Also, all the apps will need to be rewritten to even take advantage of the 64 bit addressing. Most apps dont even utilize the second processor.

and how will we ever fill that 20MB hard drive?

[jettredmont]

Originally posted by zedwards
Please ppl, They havn't even come out with a Pro desktop and your already squacking/dreaming about a "seemingly killer" laptop.

Q: tell me what utilizes 64 bit processors??
A: High end servers, render farms, and clusters.

Few desktops (even Pro) let alone laptops will ever utilize a 64 bit processor. Sure the power consumption is low, but you think the Al 12" is hot... Also, all the apps will need to be rewritten to even take advantage of the 64 bit addressing. Most apps dont even utilize the second processor.

1) In non-server applications, the 970 still kicks G4's butt on 32-bit processing code.

2) For apps that would benefit from 64-bit processing, there's very little "rewriting" to be done. Primarily, if the app is using pseudo-64-bit ints now then a simple recompile will push it up to using 64-bit native ints. In cases where the benefits are deeper (ie, using 64-bit ints instead of some floats, etc), a bit of design and investigation will be required to root out the places where it can be used. This is, as I've said before, nothing compared to rearchitecting for Altivec, Cocoa, or dual processors.

3) While most apps don't utilize dual processors in and of themselves, you always have multiple apps running on your machine (just OSX itself running spreads across the processors), and so your overall workload in real usage is often fairly well distributed. Note that the reason that you see very little relative performance boost on dual processor machines is more due to their shared bus than to uneven load distribution.

4) Power consumption for a .18-process 970 at 1.2GHz is 11W. Power consumption for a single .18-process G4 at 1GHz is 27W IIRC. Dual 970's would then consume (and thus dissipate) 0.3W less power than a single G4. Add to this that the two processors need not be piled one atop the other (one could be on one side of the laptop while the other is on the other side, though in reality they would likely be much closer), and you should end up with a much cooler lap in all than the current machines. Note that with smaller-scale manufacturing process (0.09 micron) a higher core frequency will yield the same power dissipation, so it is likely that sometime next year we'll be seeing significantly faster than 1.2GHz chips with similar (~11W) power dissipation figures.

[beatle888]

Originally posted by zedwards
Please ppl,

please zed, its not just about 64bit computing. its about all the goodies that come with it.

[type_r503]

hell yeah!

[e2chris]

omg I am drooling over the thought of dual processors.... Bugs and all (heat) I could care less.. the bragging rights alone are well worth this machine. =P

[DharvaBinky]

Originally posted by zedwards


Q: tell me what utilizes 64 bit processors??
A: High end servers, render farms, and clusters.

And game decks, and graphics cards, and graphics workstations, and network switches, and ... ...

narrow vision = narrow market

Dharvabinky