No 3GHz Soon and No G5 Laptop

[MacRumors]

MacCentral quotes Apple's Directory of Power Mac Product Marketing, Tom Boger regarding the 3GHz prediction from Steve Jobs last year. According to Boger, Apple will not meet the 3GHz promise:

When we made that prediction, we just didn't realize the challenges moving to 90 nanometer would present. It turned out to be a much bigger challenge than anyone expected.

All-in-all, no we are not getting to 3GHz anytime soon, but what we are announcing today is a very significant upgrade in performance and its something that are customers will be very happy with.

Boger also states that users should not expect G5 PowerBooks this year.

[Over Achiever]

Ouch ... I was really looking forward to getting a G5 powerbook this year.

Another broken promise it seems? Not like it wasn't expected after all. Oh well, nice upgrades. Looking forward for new displays! ^_^

-OA

[aussiemac86]

He says
" but what we are announcing today is a very significant upgrade in performance and its something that are customers will be very happy with. "

Im not that happy.
Firstly the proc speed i am happy with ( not their fault and it is a decent speed anyway) and the upgraded bus is nice.After almost a year though i would have expected better gfx cards, and maybe even a slightly new case, something....anything, and with him saying no 3GHz soon that means no more upgrades until when? January at the eariliest, next June?....

I just hope we get something special with new displays soon.

[G3-Pwnz-G4]

Originally Posted by aussiemac86

He says
" but what we are announcing today is a very significant upgrade in performance and its something that are customers will be very happy with. "

Im not that happy.
Firstly the proc speed i am happy with ( not their fault and it is a decent speed anyway) and the upgraded bus is nice.After almost a year though i would have expected better gfx cards, and maybe even a slightly new case, something....anything, and with him saying no 3GHz soon that means no more upgrades until when? January at the eariliest, next June?....

I just hope we get something special with new displays soon.

uhm, maybe i'm wrong but apple did upgrade the gfx cards. now they have ATI 9600XT and 9800XT cards in the lineup, with 128 and 256MB vram respectively.

but yeah...i was kinda looking forwards to 6ghz of macness. maybe he will suprise us at wwdc? *crosses fingers*

[thatwendigo]

Originally Posted by AidenShaw

Want more - how about a 32-way Xeon with 128MiB of L3 cache and a whopping 512 MiB of L4 cache ? (http://www.pc.ibm.com/us/eserver/xseries/x445.html) Or a 16-way Itanium?

Good to see that those Longhorn systems will be out for the release, after all.

Sorry, but a 4-way Mac won't "vaporize" the debate

It would at the consumer and professional price point, where you're not buying a 4U rack chassis from IBM that they don't even give a price quote for. Even the marketing blurb mentions that those machines are intended to "turbocharge your datacenter."

So, yeah... The debate isn't as simple as either of you are trying to make it.

Originally Posted by yuphorix

Check out ABS Computers and check out there performance lineup.

Hmmm... GeForce 5200, no DVD-R, Athlon 64 2800+, 512B RAM, 80GB SATA, no 802.11, Realtek onboard audio (no SPDIF), no productivity software, no OS X or comparable features.

Wonderful comparison...

Let's try that more realistically:
ABS Awesome 6300
CoolerMAster WaverMaster Case
Allied 500W PSU
AMD Athlon FX-53
1GB PC3200 (Kingston HYPER-X is default)
2x 120GB SATA
Sapphire ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB
Plextor 8x DVD+/-RW
Sony 16x DVD-ROM
D-Link 802.11g
Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS
Microsoft Keyboard and Optical Mouse
MS Works Suite 2004
McAfee Virus Scan 8.0 with 1 Year Enrollment
Cost: Well, I'm not setting cookies for them, but it roughs out to about $2800-2900

In other words, it's still not a better deal than Apple, or not by much. The graphics card is a lamentable two generations behind, there was no standard DVD-R drive, and the security is abysmal. The feature set is sparse and has no software options to improve it, and you're still paying almost as much as that new top of the line G5.

Also, if you look closely, the reason why Dell and Gateway and big name companies have $1k computers with integrated graphics is because most of the money goes towards the processor. The processors themselves are a step about the performance lineup by ABS but the other components aren't. I personally wouldn't buy a PC from Dell or Gateway because their PC's aren't any more and probably even less reliable than smaller names like ABS or Velocity Micro and likewise.

You're completely missing my point, though. Apple can't compete with the whole PC industry, and the only fair comparison is to point your scrutiny at large companies that succeed without a secondary electronics business. That severely limits the field, but gives you a far better idea of what it's like.

ABS uses a massive slew of commodity parts and Apple doesn't, just to name one difference. A lot of those prices would go up if they only used ATI-branded cards and not board partners' offerings, for just a single example.

[yuphorix]

Originally Posted by thatwendigo

Wonderful comparison...

Let's try that more realistically:
ABS Awesome 6300
CoolerMAster WaverMaster Case
Allied 500W PSU
AMD Athlon FX-53
1GB PC3200 (Kingston HYPER-X is default)
2x 120GB SATA
Sapphire ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB
Plextor 8x DVD+/-RW
Sony 16x DVD-ROM
D-Link 802.11g
Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS
Microsoft Keyboard and Optical Mouse
MS Works Suite 2004
McAfee Virus Scan 8.0 with 1 Year Enrollment
Cost: Well, I'm not setting cookies for them, but it roughs out to about $2800-2900

In other words, it's still not a better deal than Apple, or not by much. The graphics card is a lamentable two generations behind, there was no standard DVD-R drive, and the security is abysmal. The feature set is sparse and has no software options to improve it, and you're still paying almost as much as that new top of the line G5.



You're completely missing my point, though. Apple can't compete with the whole PC industry, and the only fair comparison is to point your scrutiny at large companies that succeed without a secondary electronics business. That severely limits the field, but gives you a far better idea of what it's like.

ABS uses a massive slew of commodity parts and Apple doesn't, just to name one difference. A lot of those prices would go up if they only used ATI-branded cards and not board partners' offerings, for just a single example.

First off... I was trying to prove that you can get quality performance at a $1k level... I'm not even trying to compare it to apple... Also, you state that the 6300 machine you configured has an outdated graphics card. Well just like everyones been saying about the G5's, you can have the system custom built with a different card, and in this case a X800 is only $172 more. Compare that to the $300 extra you need to spend for the 9800xt on the high end G5. And DVD-R is standard. Hacking at windows is another debate which I won't get into because it's almost useless to argue... and don't forget the Linux also runs on wintel boxes.

I never hacked at apple, I nearly brought in the fact that midrange PC's still pack a punch in components such as HD and memory and video memory... something apple can learn to include in their systems without charging an arm and a leg.

[~Shard~]

Well, I'm not reading through 16 pages of posts, so let me just say that in general there are far to many picky people out there who are whining now about no 3 GHz anytime soon. You have a DP 2.5 GHz G5 which is an amazing machine, so quit complaining and always wanting the next best thing - the 3 GHz will arrive when it arrives.

I'm glad the news about the G5 PowerBooks was released officially as well - I was getting tired of typing post after post and reply after reply to naive people who thought that G5 PowerBooks would be coming this year - some even thought at WWDC! I'm glad that my reasoning has proved right, and I'm glad I won't have to explain things anymore to people saying G5 PowerBooks are coming soon. Not until 2005...

[AidenShaw]

Originally Posted by thatwendigo

Good to see that those Longhorn systems will be out for the release, after all.

Don't see what Longhorn has to do with anything that I've said?

XP/Server2003 32-bit release version runs on Xeon and Opteron today.

XP/Server2003 64-bit release version runs on Itanium today.

XP/Server2003 64-bit for Opteron and Xeon-64 is available as a free public download today, with full release this summer or fall.

-----

What's this have to do with the fact that in someone's wet dream he had the idea of a quad Mac would "vaporize" the competition between x86 and PPC? Multi-way x86 machines were here yesterday, are here today, and will be here tomorrow.

[DMann]

Originally Posted by Over Achiever

Ouch ... I was really looking forward to getting a G5 powerbook this year.

Another broken promise it seems? Not like it wasn't expected after all. Oh well, nice upgrades. Looking forward for new displays! ^_^

-OA

With a scaled down version of a 970 FX running at
1.6 Ghz, (90nm) it could happen

[arn]

Hopefully this will stop the "Apple will release 3GHz machines next week" speculation

arn

[Over Achiever]

Haha, that'd be kinda silly to release new machines next week ... ^^;;

[azdude]

Originally Posted by arn

Hopefully this will stop the "Apple will release 3GHz machines next week" speculation

arn

Yes, but we can still (realistically) hope for a G5 iMac.

Steve loves triumphant, major iMac revisions... it'll be a great show.

[Over Achiever]

Originally Posted by azdude

Yes, but we can still (realistically) hope for a G5 iMac.

Steve loves triumphant, major iMac revisions... it'll be a great show.

The iMac was quoted without a timeframe, was with the same cooling issues as the powerbook. So don't expect a G5 iMac anytime soon as well.

[autrefois]

Steve should really not make claims he isn't sure can be made. 100 million downloads on iTunes; 3 GHz G5s in a year...heck, they didn't even release iTunes 4.6 when he said they would (they can't even get "today" right?!).

Still, I'm excited about the liquid cooling technology on the new G5s and will have to read up on that. I'm just saying that you shouldn't promise people the Moon when your rocket ain't even close to being built yet.

[jxyama]

Originally Posted by autrefois

Steve should really not make claims he isn't sure can be made. 100 million downloads on iTunes; 3 GHz G5s in a year...heck, they didn't even release iTunes 4.6 when he said they would (they can't even get "today" right?!).

those were goals.

at the time the statements were made, perhaps under optimistic views, he thought those statements would come true.

i think it says more about some of us who take his words too literally and cling to them as if they are some sort of infallible promises.

[Lanbrown]

Originally Posted by autrefois

Steve should really not make claims he isn't sure can be made. 100 million downloads on iTunes; 3 GHz G5s in a year...heck, they didn't even release iTunes 4.6 when he said they would (they can't even get "today" right?!).

Still, I'm excited about the liquid cooling technology on the new G5s and will have to read up on that. I'm just saying that you shouldn't promise people the Moon when your rocket ain't even close to being built yet.

That's life with technology. Many companies have promised a lot of things. Motorola has a history of being late with processors, IBM has had their issues as well, add Intel into it, as well as Sun, AMD and SGI. Processors are usually at the cutting edge; you have to expect problems here and there. Some companies have done better at 90-nm then others. Ti has some processors on 90-nm, the second generation is sampling now. They have their process down pat. It's not the same as what IBM is using though. IBM tried a few things at once, and when you do that and problems arise, what's the cause? It can be any of the new techniques you implemented. That's why the Power 5 is at 130-nm, tried and true process.

100 million downloads was a projection, no one can predict what consumer demand will be. The Mini sold better then Apple expected and thus had to hold off releasing it to the rest of the world. The iTunes giveaway was not as successful as they hoped, iTMS for the rest of the world was delayed. So what, things happen.

Even car manufacturers have delays, airlines do, mobile phone makers, carriers, the list goes on and on. Some companies do set an expectation and they do meet it, one software company did that. Every year a new release. Unfortunately when it was released it was so buggy that it took three months before its really useable. I would rather have a delayed product then deal with problems because they wanted to meet a deadline.

[PolarbearTed]

Originally Posted by autrefois

Steve should really not make claims he isn't sure can be made. 100 million downloads on iTunes; 3 GHz G5s in a year...heck, they didn't even release iTunes 4.6 when he said they would (they can't even get "today" right?!).

Still, I'm excited about the liquid cooling technology on the new G5s and will have to read up on that. I'm just saying that you shouldn't promise people the Moon when your rocket ain't even close to being built yet.

Hey good idea. Let's drive Apple with no goals!!

Why aren't you on the executive board?

Amazing really, You all get up Apple for being to secretive and then come down like a ton of bricks when they can't manage to get to 3Ghz. And here I thought the "mac faithful" was all about support and lauding innovation - it seems some of you are more concerned with being snipy and critical.

Also you are a bit wrong with the iTunes 4.6 remark, check your software update buddy!

[Lanbrown]

Originally Posted by Over Achiever

The iMac was quoted without a timeframe, was with the same cooling issues as the powerbook. So don't expect a G5 iMac anytime soon as well.

I would disagree; it said "similar challenges." The iMac needs a facelift; the current form factor is 30 months old. They could change the form factor and put a G5 in it. Liquid cooling at 1.6 or 1.8 GHz would work. The bus also doesn't need to run at half clock speed. Doing that in a PB would be harder to do. The question is, has IBM fixed their yield problems?

[per4manz]

It is somewhat disappointing that the 3's aren't out. Overall, I do not care, as I am more than happy with my MDD 867 and couldn't move to the G5 if I wanted to right now anyways. However, I do have some "speculations":

1. There will be a g5 imac announced at WWDC. Hopefully headless and a hell of a lot cheaper than the one I have upstairs.

2. Is it possible that the rumored XStation or whatever it was called could be announced as well - running dual 3s or quad 2.5s?

3. Perhaps the 3s will be released in new Xserves first. I know that Apple updated these not too long ago, but they also pissed off a lot of people with fulfillment problems. Maybe this is their way of making up for it.

4. Given the announcement of AirTunes, I do believe the fabled "tablet" will arrive - perhaps not in the manner it has been typically envisioned (like a notebook) - rather as I wireless access system to control iTunes as well as do basic browsing and email. Or even just an embedded and flash-able version of a system with a really redesigned Apple Remote Desktop. It's also possible that these functions will be added to the iPod along with WiFi streaming. We already know that a 60 gigger is eminent. The tablet would also pave way for something like AirPort Express Extreme with video as well as audio capabilities.

We shall see.

[Ensoniq]

It's true that everyone will "do the math" their own way to decide if the new PowerMac lineup is an upgrade or downgrade...but here is how I see it.

Yesterday, $1799 got you a single processor 1.6 GHz/PCI machine.
Today, $1999 gets you a dual processor 1.8 GHz/PCI-X machine.

* $200 more for TWO faster processors, but you give up PCI-X.
* $100 upgrades you to a 160 GB Hard Drive, $75 to 512 MB RAM.
* For $2175, you get what cost $2499 minus PCI-X. ($325 savings.)

Yesterday, $2499 got you a dual processor 1.8 GHz/PCI-X machine.
Today, $2499 gets you a dual processor 2.0 GHz/PCI-X machine.

* $50 upgrades you to 9600XT video, $100 to 160 MB Hard Drive.
* For $2650, you get what cost you $3000 yesterday. ($350 savings.)

Yesterday, $3000 got you a dual processor 2.0 GHz/PCI-X machine.
Today, $3000 gets you a dual processor 2.5 GHz/PCI-X machine.

* Same price as yesterday, with a 25% speed increase per processor.

It looks like an upgrade to me. YES, I completely agree that this upgrade should have come in January/February, with the promised 3 GHz updates at WWDC. But unfortunately, that is not going to happen now. Neither IBM nor Steve "lied", it was simply an "act of god" that prevented the transition to 90nm from going as planned. I bet we see 3 GHz before year end though.

Everyone whining about the 9800 XT not being standard should recognize that the damn card eats up an extra PCI slot. That is not AT ALL something Apple should include standard. Apple could have given the Dual 1.8 512 MB standard. Apple could have made 160 GB on the Dual 1.8 and 250 GB on the Dual 2.0/2.5 standard. Apple could have made the 9600XT standard across the board. BUT they didn't...probably to keep distinction between the 3 models.

Like it or not, it works. Many people will buy the new 2.0 because they feel that the "downgrade" to non-PCI-X and the 4 GB "limit" is a problem. For most people though, buying the low end machine, they'd rather pay $1999 for a great Dual 1.8 machine than the $2500 it cost yesterday. They won't be considering it a "downgrade".

In January/February, these specs would have been perfect. In June, the RAM/HD/Video does come into question. When 3 GHz comes along, let's hope Apple fixes these "limitations". But for today, this is still a solid, if completely overdue, upgrade.

[mpopkin]

I would actually expect a g5 imac at WWDC as well as new Displays which is a pity since i bought my studio display in January, but i love it so no qualms here, but i believe the g5 imac and new displays will be announced at WWDC and then ship in august, with a possible announcement of a hopefully improved pmac in August with a oct/nov ship date( 3ghz?) but they have been working on a g5 imac for a while and it will probably be done by wwdc, dont forget the rumors regarding that quanta was making a new device/computer for apple that was due to be shipped in june(laptop style, not desktop)

Originally Posted by Over Achiever

The iMac was quoted without a timeframe, was with the same cooling issues as the powerbook. So don't expect a G5 iMac anytime soon as well.

[thatwendigo]

Originally Posted by mpopkin

dont forget the rumors regarding that quanta was making a new device/computer for apple that was due to be shipped in june(laptop style, not desktop)

*cough* Airport Express *cough*

I know that I'm probably going to sound like an oldster, since I lurked a long time before I started posting, but... Does anyone besides me remember the rumor from last year about a white plastic case being fabbed with a couple of ports down the side?

Does anyone know where that one went?

[CyberB0b]

Today, the glass is definitely half empty.

[mactastic]

BOOOOOO! What good is a reality distortion field if you can't actually distort reality with it?

Ah well, the 3.0 Ghz machines will come soon enough, even if SJ is made out to be a liar. As for G5 PBs, not too many of us were actually expecting those before January '05 anyways.

[macridah]

I wonder what steve is going to have to say at the WWDC to explain why he couldn't deliver what he promised. I know it's "technical challenges", but steve always has something more witty to say. Well i'll be there.

Steve said this "will be worth it". There must be some super amazing announcement other than Tiger.