PowerBook G5 - 'Some Time'

[MacRumors]

BBC reports on the PowerBook/iBook updates today.

In the article, Greg Joswiak refused to speculate about the target for a PowerBook G5 introduction, but did state that "it will be some time before that processor [G5] will be in a notebook". He also points to the long lead time that it took for the G4 to make it into portables when it was first introduced.

[Ja Di ksw]

not to upset people who want one, but considering I bought my first G4 pb a few hours ago, this makes me happy . Good to know they will continue to make software that works with it for "some time"

[nuclearwinter]

I just bought a PB G4 1.25 last September. Two years of use will be just fine before I buy a new Powerbook!

[Freg3000]

Oh the pain! The horror!

Joswiak made similar comments before, with the same "not anytime soon" line. I'll look for it.

Def. not good news...

Edit: Here is the MacCentral Article .

"Motorola is huge for us," said Joswiak. "Our partnership with Motorola is not going away, G4s are in every other part of our product line. As you can see, [the G5] is not going in a PowerBook anytime soon. Motorola remains very important to us, but IBM is the one that can take us to the next level."

That was from June 2003 btw. Not much has changed in almost a year.

[neonart]

If Moto can come up with a decent FSB for the G4, it would be a great processor for Powerbooks for sometime.

If we could just get true DDR333 or 266 it would be outstanding! The G4 is not so bad - it's simply a matter of bandwidth that causes the problems.

[IndyGopher]

Originally Posted by Freg3000

Oh the pain! The horror!

Joswiak made similar comments before, with the same "not anytime soon" line. I'll look for it.

Def. not good news...

He makes mention of the lead time the G4 had, which was 18 months. This puts the time frame around MWSF in 2005... which seems right. However, one has to admit that even if they were going to bring them out next week, they couldn't very well say "Oh you'd be nuts to buy one of these now.. the G5 ones will be out any day now!"

[~Shard~]

It was an awful long time before the G4 made it's way into the portables after being introduced, so that's fair enough, but the other thing to consider is that that was when Apple was stuck with Motorola and slow progress in general - hopefully things will be slightly accelerated with IBM now. Mind you, that G5 chip is truly a monster - I can only imagine the amount of re-engineering that will have to be done in order to put that thing in a laptop without having it melt instantaneously and fuse into the user's lap.

Plus, there's always the question: Right now, what do you absolutely need a G5 in a portable for that a nice 1.5 GHz G4 can't accomplish? I'm sure there are exceptoins, but really, does anyone truly NEED a G5 in a PowerBook other than simply for bragging rights? If you need a G5, I say get a tower...

[Awimoway]

Rome wasn't built in a day.

I'm glad Apple is being vocal about the timetable (albeit a bit vague) because drooling fanboys need to have this stamped on their pasty little foreheads: The G5 Powerbook is a monumental undertaking. Customers expect every other component, such as battery life, to remain the same or better than the previous generation. So it's not just a matter of slapping a G5 in there and doing some minor retooling.

Expect to see it January '05 at the earliest, and don't be surprised if we don't see it until June '05.

[Dippo]

...pointed out that it had taken at least two years for the G4 chip to make it from the desktop to the notebook.

Two years?!?!??

If the same thing applied to the G5...then wouldn't that mean that we wouldn't see G5 Powerbooks until Summer 2005...

That's a long time, and would mean at least one more and maybe two more G4 powerbook updates. The Powerbook G4 might be up to 2.0Ghz before the G5 is released!!

[SiliconAddict]

Originally Posted by Ramza

meh, I can wait

You can wait. The rest of the industry and many consumers who are interested in performance however will not. Current Pentium M laptops already kick the G4’s ***. Screw OS X. If Apple is going to neglect the hardware what’s the point?

[Brandon Sharitt]

If IBM can get two PowerPC 970s in a blade server, why can't Apple get one in a laptop!

(And those are really 1.6 GHz PowerPC 970s, and not POWER 4s. See here)

[Marlon_JBT]

Originally Posted by neonart

If Moto can come up with a decent FSB for the G4, it would be a great processor for Powerbooks for sometime.

If we could just get true DDR333 or 266 it would be outstanding! The G4 is not so bad - it's simply a matter of bandwidth that causes the problems.

Is there a reason why Apple or Moto can't (or refuse) to increase the bus speed? I have to agree, the FSB is the G4's problem.

But I don't really mind. I've got a friend who believes my 867MHz G4 is comparable to a 2.4GHz P4. I'm not saying anything...

[SiliconAddict]

Originally Posted by Dippo

Two years?!?!??

If the same thing applied to the G5...then wouldn't that mean that we wouldn't see G5 Powerbooks until Summer 2005...

If that's the case screw apple. I'm not waiting over a year for a high performance Apple laptop. And don't tell me the current 1.5Ghz laptop is high performance. Apple users are falling into the Mhz myth. Reality time. PC laptops outperform Apple's *books. I'll get an IBM. Here's a realization Apple better get in a freaking hurry. If they are going to charge a premium for their laptops they DAMN well better have performance to go with it and if not they better change their price scheme accordingly.
This is NOT cool.

[SiliconAddict]

Originally Posted by Marlon_JBT

Is there a reason why Apple or Moto can't (or refuse) to increase the bus speed? I have to agree, the FSB is the G4's problem.

But I don't really mind. I've got a friend who believes the G4 is comparable to a 2.4GHz P4. I'm not saying anything...

I believe its a limitation of the CPU. Thanks Moto.

[Dippo]

Originally Posted by ~Shard~

Plus, there's always the question: Right now, what do you absolutely need a G5 in a portable for that a nice 1.5 GHz G4 can't accomplish? I'm sure there are exceptoins, but really, does anyone truly NEED a G5 in a PowerBook other than simply for bragging rights? If you need a G5, I say get a tower...

If you take a comparable Pc laptop processor say the Pentium Mobile, they max out at 1.7Ghz. So the 1.5Ghz G4 certianly isn't slow. Not as fast a Dual 2.0Ghz G5, but not slow either.

Also, the Radeon 9700 graphics is really top notch. You certianly can't complain about the video card! Dell doesn't have anything above a Radeon 9600 for their notebooks.

[Dippo]

Originally Posted by Marlon_JBT

Is there a reason why Apple or Moto can't (or refuse) to increase the bus speed? I have to agree, the FSB is the G4's problem.

Increase in bus speed creates A LOT more heat than just increasing the divider inside the chip.

Sure they could increase the bus speed to 400Mhz but there would be an excessive amount of heat that would have to be removed.

Even in the PC world, laptops are usually clocked at lower FSB speeds than their desktop counterparts. I know that the Athlon Mobiles are clock at 266Mhz FSB.

[bar italia]

Originally Posted by Awimoway

I'm glad Apple is being vocal about the timetable (albeit a bit vague)

"some time" is a timetable? Who's the "fanboy" here?

Originally Posted by Awimoway

[b]The G5 Powerbook is a monumental undertaking.

[Bhennies]

Originally Posted by ~Shard~

Right now, what do you absolutely need a G5 in a portable for that a nice 1.5 GHz G4 can't accomplish? I'm sure there are exceptoins, but really, does anyone truly NEED a G5 in a PowerBook other than simply for bragging rights? If you need a G5, I say get a tower...

I would like a desktop replacement that can adequately run Pro Tools. The powerbooks don't even come close, even with the updates. I would love it if I could reduce my audio hardware to just a g5 powerbook with a firewire interface and a small rack of outboard gear. Ahhhh...just dreaming.

[iGuy]

I don't really think there is much that can be said about performance until these units ship and some benchmark tests have been run.

At that time I would be interested in seeing how a 'decked-out' 17" compares to the latest Pentium-M. Real numbers, not just what things 'feel like.'

We were told to expect speed bumps and that's what we got. However I'm more concerned about the display than the processor.

Apple hasn't updated their LCD panels in some time. With the recent 'refresh' of the PBs, it would seem there won't be a major upgrade to the PBs for some time.

Would Apple release a new LCD panel in a Display and not update the LCD panel in the PBs at the same time? In other words, do we have to wait until the next major upgrade to the PBs before we see new Displays?

I hope not. I think Apple could release a new Display seperately but wouldn't that make the PBs look less attractive?

Just thinking out loud - please don't shoot me.

~iGuy

[kwimalar]

I've got a 1.0Ghz Titanium Powerbook and have no problems with
the CPU performance whatsoever - compiling, video rendering, etc..

It's a beautiful machine.

The only speed issue I've encountered is DVD burning
(I've got a 1x drive), but since the current lineup
have 4x drives, even this limitation vanishes.

If you absolutely needed G5 performance, you'd get a desktop.

In fact, I'm much keener on hearing news about a dual 3Ghz G5
desktop than a G5 laptop.

[AndrewMT]

Originally Posted by Macrumors

"it will be some time before that processor [G5] will be in a notebook".

It will be some time before I buy a notebook from Apple.

[PlaceofDis]

we just need to be realisitic, i mean yeah apple needs to get the G5 into a laptop as soon as possible, but really look at what problems this presents... the heat issue is not that easy to get around. my 12 inch G4 PB gets hot enough as it is. Unless IBM gets cooler chips or apple finds some new way to cool the laptops this is going to take a while...

[Sped]

I am going out of the country soon so I needed this update. I had to get a laptop. Yesterday I would have spent around $2500 for a 1.25Ghz PB, but today I can spend the same on 250 more Mhz and 64MB more video ram - I am happy about that. Although a G5 would be outstanding, the reality is the G5 is just beginning to be used in Apple computers. G5s WILL trickle down to the remaining products but it won't be as fast as most of us would like. Meanwhile, you can sit and bitch or you can hunt for more info on when it will happen - your choice.

[Some_Big_Spoon]

You mean the Power 4 & 5, but I getcha'... You have to think about the power draw though. Those Blades don't run on batteries, they're plugged in, just like the G5 Tower.

If we had come to expect 30 minutes of battery life, like the PC "desktop replacements" then I'm sure we'd have a G5 PB now that was 3" thick and needed to be plugged in all the time, but we all expect 5 hours (or 2.5-3 in reality), so we have to wait.

I don't like it, I think Apple's charging too much, etc., but there's real engineering going on at Apple, so as long as the chips keep flowing, then we just need to sit tight..

I hate it too..

Originally Posted by Brandon Sharitt

If IBM can get two PowerPC 970s in a blade server, why can't Apple get one in a laptop!

[hulugu]

Originally Posted by Brandon Sharitt

If IBM can get two PowerPC 970s in a blade server, why can't Apple get one in a laptop!

Uh, how thick and heavy is a blade server? And, um how much power does such a thing use? I know their efficient, but enough to fit into a laptop?
Just a thought.
Also, I have to agree with the people who pointed out that the G4 FSB could be better, and I can't believe that Motorola hasn't been able to get closer to 2.0GHz.
Thirdly, what's the deal with IBM's G3? Was there ever a chance that it's development could have surpased the G4?