[RUMOUR] No PPC 7457's in new PB's

[AHDuke99]

Don't worry guys, it's going to be a G5. This site has missed this 7 or 8 times and I don't believe this will happen. If it does, I'll be ashamed for Apple and embarassed. Waiting 10 months for the SAME processor is just inexcusible. I highly doubt this. But if this is true by some stretch, this will be one on the most dissapointing releases in Apple's history. And amunst all the hyp right now, this could be a killer.

 

[AllenPSU]

Hehehe!

Originally posted by Powerbook G5
And IBM is the 25 ton weight that falls from the sky and squishes Motorola like a Looney Toon character.

That's good!

 

[wakedog]

i'm with the last poster... actually i've given up. i'm going to spend my money on a new p4 machine and then get a g5 laptop sometime next year.

 

[Zuckuss]

Originally posted by pyrotoaster

My first Mac, a 1992 Mac Classic II, still runs just fine. My first Powerbook, a 165, works too.

That's right. I'm currently use my pre-usb beige G3 tower at school while waiting for a 15" AL p-book. It still works better than my roomate's brand new peecee. By the way, my Uncle owns the first ever Apple laptop and it still starts up just fine.

 

[neutrino23]

Originally posted by AHDuke99
Don't worry guys, it's going to be a G5. This site has missed this 7 or 8 times and I don't believe this will happen. If it does, I'll be ashamed for Apple and embarassed. Waiting 10 months for the SAME processor is just inexcusible. I highly doubt this. But if this is true by some stretch, this will be one on the most dissapointing releases in Apple's history. And amunst all the hyp right now, this could be a killer.

Do you have some proof for this assertion? In the past the G4 was stuck at 500MHz for something like 18 months. IIRC there was actually a time where the spec went backwards to a lower clock rate (550 -> 500?). This thing with the 15" PB is bad but we've seen worse.

My take on the G5 PB is that the G5 itself might be marginally acceptable, but the faster clocked interface chips and memory draw more power so that the overall power consumption exceeds the power budget target.

 

[cb911]

i'm sure that Apple would have released the new PowerBooks by now if it was at all possible. this is a situation that they would do everything to avoid.

the 7457 was originally said to be shipping in the 4th quarter, then they thought that they could get it out in Q3, then the problems with low yields, so they moved back to the original date of Q4. since the original shipping date for the 7457 was Q4, you'd think that Apple would plan their release of the new PowerBooks around that date. so if they knew that the 7457 would be here in Q4, i doubt that they'd sit around, waiting until then to update the PowerBooks.

personally, i'm still optimistic of G5 PowerBooks in September somtime. but i guess we'll see if MacBidouilles report of 7455s in the new PowerBooks is true if more sources start saying that as well.

 

[sacrilicious]

I'm not asking for a 1.8Ghz G5 or a 15.4" screen or a really fancy video card. I just want Apple to update the freakin' machine with whatever they have working.

 

[MattG]

I really hope Apple is just throwing us all for a loop and is going to introduce something BIG in the coming months. A G5 Powerbook, even if it were reduced down to a 1.2ghz processor, would kick some serious ass.

 

[ZildjianKX]

Originally posted by MattG
I really hope Apple is just throwing us all for a loop and is going to introduce something BIG in the coming months. A G5 Powerbook, even if it were reduced down to a 1.2ghz processor, would kick some serious ass.

For Apple being primarily a hardware company, they're starting to suck at it, at least in their portables line. I'm starting to look at the G5 towers, and a 1.2 GHz G4 PB seems really sad.

I still have a little bit of hope that Apple will wow me... but its starting to fade fast. If Apple falls way short with the next PB upgrade, I'm going to feel pretty burned (like many others). I don't think anything short of a G5 processor could wow anyone after almost 10 months of waiting.

 

[pigwin32]

A faster processor would be nice but I desparately need decent airport reception, a superdrive, and a larger hard drive. Plus I've got a wad of cash burning a hole in my bank account. <sigh /> Of course the longer the delay the less desparate my need. Eventually I will come to my senses and spend the money on something important.

 

[macounaima]

I don't believe a second there will be a WOW surprise G5 at the PAris expo. I'm sure Steve is already using one but it's all about money.
They're gonna milk it for what it's worth. If they are suckers like us (and I am one of them) ready to buy whatever comes out they'd be stupid not to do it.
I let's hang on and wait for the G5, force them to put it out ASAP because of bad G4PB sales.

 

[Gericault]

Originally posted by Vlade
Who's going to want the 7457 when they come out, because in about a month after they come out we will have PB G5's

They won't come out with a G5 PB a month after a new PB release. Think of all the xtra stock they would have of the old PB be. That would be a truly stupid business manuever. They can't have survived as a company that long by making that kind of decision. Whatever happens I doubt the G5 will come for a long time. Just my guess but it seems like a G5 PB is too good to be true for any time in the next year or so.

 

[Marble]

All of the Powerbooks can be ordered with a Superdrive, and they all seem to qualify for decent airport reception as well (the 15" has a construction issue that can be simply solved by removing the battery and pressing along the edges of the indentation). Is an external drive not an option for extra hard drive space?

 

[fraggle]

Originally posted by neutrino23
My take on the G5 PB is that the G5 itself might be marginally acceptable, but the faster clocked interface chips and memory draw more power so that the overall power consumption exceeds the power budget target. [/B]

The 12" and 17" already use DDR memory but can make no use of it. A low clocked G5 would take advantage of that memory and AFAIK DDR RAM actually uses less energy than SDRAM (lower core voltage).

Plus a G5 does not need a level 3 cache which reduces power consumption of the system (of course only compared to the 17").

 

[neutrino23]

Originally posted by fraggle
The 12" and 17" already use DDR memory but can make no use of it. A low clocked G5 would take advantage of that memory and AFAIK DDR RAM actually uses less energy than SDRAM (lower core voltage).

Plus a G5 does not need a level 3 cache which reduces power consumption of the system (of course only compared to the 17").

I'll freely admit I don't know the details of the design and I am speculating about this. Having said that...

The G5 clocks the bus at half the CPU clock. Let's say the G5 is clocked at 1.2GHz to keep the power consumption down. Now the memory is being clocked at 600MHz - about four times faster than it is clocked in the 17" PB. This faster clock will drive up power consumption.

I make the same argument for the peripheral chips around the G5. They are running at a much faster clock than those of the 12" or 17" PB and so should use more power.

You do make a good point about the lower core voltage of the memory.

Only the Apple engineers know for sure.

 

[Mezzo]

Do you guys don´t think of the possibility that the 12" Book may become an iBook because there is no reason to keep up the G3 any longer.

Even in the past the difference between an iBook and the 12" Powerbook was not that big for the difference in the price.

So I think that Steve will announce the 12" Book as the future iBook and 15" + 17" will become the new line für Powerbooks

 

[groovebuster]

Re: Who keeps computers anymore?

Originally posted by ncbill
Nothing's going to last you 4-5 years, especially not a G4 Powerbook.

You'll want to switch to the G5 Powerbook in a year...

It really depends on what you are doing with your Powerbook. My G3 Wallstreet is still in service and a decent machine for word processing, e-mails, a little surfing the web and fast Pohotoshop corrections (if the files are not too big) under MacOS 9. I even use Mac OS X on it (even though it is anythging but fast) to run LaTeX for a documentation project. Right now I am using Safari on that Wallstreet to post this message.

Everything else is done on decent desktop systems, since I don't need to do programming, video or music editing on a portable...

So you see... my Powerbook is 5 years old now and I don't see any reason so far to get rid of it... Maybe next year, when Apple has something interesting to offer again or the machine is just starting to work not reliable anymore. But in the meantime it's all I need and I am sure there are lots of people who are in the same position as I am ...

groovebuster

 

[ssamani]

Originally posted by Vlade
Who's going to want the 7457 when they come out, because in about a month after they come out we will have PB G5's

Motorola's embedded processor market where they are now focusing their development efforts. Performance isn't an issue, FSB speeds aren't an issue, their clients don't lose market share, share price or credibility because they're not on 3Ghz chips. There is only two issues they care about: power usage and heat dissipation.

Perfect market for a company using somebody else's processor design but can't deliver on updates....

 

[Analog Kid]

Good news?

Anybody else see this as potentially good news?

I've been making strong arguments that the G5 won't be suitable for laptops for at least a year and I'm sure Apple marketing sees some life left in the PBG4 if chips were available, but if Mot is bungling things this badly and Jobs lives up to his reputation as a vindictive sob, I can see Mot getting black listed as soon as Jobs can manage it.

Let's say the 7457 really is a mess, but the 7455 using low-k dielectric is ok. Educated users can get the current 1GHz PBs at cut rate. They speed bump the 7455 to get the Alu PB out, spend 4-6 months working with IBM to build a portable chip set then put the G5 PB out ahead of schedule?

I don't think they'd do this because the G5 is the better technical choice at that point (I still think it would be too hot) but just to cut out Motorola.

Given the hype people seem to feel for the G5 they'd probably sell, even with the problems they'd cause, and the power users might be happy if they keep a phone book on their lap to insulate from the glowing Aluminum shell.

By the time people start to think it might have been a bad call, the updated G5 is out 6 months after that, the design is balanced again, and everything's happy.

Yeah, it's a stretch, but I'm just trying desperately to find a ray of hope...

At the very least, maybe they'll restart production of the current line and cut prices to keep up demand until things work out. Maybe put the G5 in the 17" only?

 

[AllenPSU]

Re: Who keeps computers anymore?

Originally posted by ncbill
Nothing's going to last you 4-5 years, especially not a G4 Powerbook.

You'll want to switch to the G5 Powerbook in a year...

>I do want a machine that is going to last 4-5 years

That depends on what you want to use them for. We currently use three computers, two of which are more than 5 years old. In fact I have a 11 year old PowerBook 180 that still does the rounds. (Takes care of all that floppy disk stuff and occasionally is used as remote web browser and word processor).

 

[AllenPSU]

Don't do it!

Originally posted by wakedog
i'm with the last poster... actually i've given up. i'm going to spend my money on a new p4 machine and then get a g5 laptop sometime next year.

Don't do it! I've had a P4 laptop (provided to me while I am at my current job), and it is aweful. My last windows based laptop was better, but not much. Settle for an iBook before you go with a P4.

 

[AllenPSU]

Power...

Originally posted by fraggle
The 12" and 17" already use DDR memory but can make no use of it. A low clocked G5 would take advantage of that memory and AFAIK DDR RAM actually uses less energy than SDRAM (lower core voltage).

Plus a G5 does not need a level 3 cache which reduces power consumption of the system (of course only compared to the 17").

The minor power savings you're talking about are insignificant compared to the extra 10-20 watts a G5 will need. If you can get a G5 to run around 10-15 watts, you could might make it work with good power management within the OS.

I with the crowd that believes we will have to wait for the smaller fabrication process before we see a G5 in a laptop.

 

[cb911]

i read somewhere a while ago that the 970 had some specially developed power conserving features, as if it were designed specifically as a mobile chip. and doesn't the PowerMac G5 scale down the clock speed when it doesn't need the processing power?

G5 PowerBooks might be closer then many people think.

 

[RichardCarletta]

Apple could replace ibooks with 12" Powerbook combo

Reduce the 12" Powerbook combo drive by $300 down to $1300 , reduce the 15" 1GHZ Powerbook superdrive by $600 down to $2000 , eliminate the 12" superdrive and 15" combo powerbooks, introduce 15" and 17" 1.33 GHZ Powerbooks and Apple could kiss the iBook good bye.

Do you really think that could happen ?

 

[Sun Baked]

Re: G5's Power Saving Features...

There's a bit on the update G5 developer docs...

Processor and Bus Slewing

To lower power consumption, heat generation, and fan noise, the Power Mac G5 computer incorporates an automatic power management technique called bus slewing. Bus slewing is designed to run at high processor and bus speeds and high voltage when the demand on the processor is high, and to run at low processor and bus speeds and low voltage when the demand on the processor is low. Switching between different processor/bus speeds and voltages is achieved by a gradual transition that does not impact system or application performance and operates seamlessly to the user. In slewing, the bus runs at half the speed of the processor.

The ranges of the slewed processor speeds are listed below:

Configuration 	Processor range
1.6 GHz 	1.3 GHz to 1.6 GHz
1.8 GHz 	1.3 GHz to 1.8 GHz
2.0 GHz 	1.3 GHz to 2.0 GHz

In addition, the Power Mac G5 computer allows the user to control bus slewing mode. The options for specifying either high, reduced, or automatic processor and bus speeds are located at System Preferences>Energy Saver>Options; then select Automatic, Highest, or Reduced.

If the Power Mac G5 computer detects a system temperature that is too high, due to high ambient temperatures or other factors, it will automatically enter bus slewing mode regardless of the selected setting.

Processor States

The following processor states are defined:

* Run: The system is running at maximum processing capacity with all processors running at full speed.

* Idle: The system is idling; this is the default state. All clocks are running and the system can return to running code within a few nanoseconds. If the system has no work to do, it will be in idle mode.

System Modes

The Macintosh system has the following power-saving modes. If the system does not support full sleep, it will use the less efficient doze mode.

* Run: The system is fully functional in normal operating mode with all components powered and operating.

* Doze: The power to the disk drive motors and the display is turned off, but the power supply and fans are still on. PCI cards that don't support full system sleep (some SCSI cards, some graphics cards) will cause the machine to doze rather than fully sleep.

* Full sleep: The main power supply is shut down. A trickle supply provides auxiliary power to the PCI slots and keeps the DRAM state preserved for a quick recovery. All processors are powered off with their state preserved in DRAM. All non-essential clocks in the system are suspended. This mode allows the computer to meet Energy Star sleep requirements while providing the ability to start up without rebooting. This system may be awakened by administrative network packets, keyboard or mouse activity, USB device removal, or PMU scheduled wakeup.

* Off: The Power Mac G5 computer meets FEMP (Federal Energy Management Program) requirements and supports FireWire ports functioning as repeaters when operating on AC power.