970 Machines Assembled/Sealed?

[Cubeboy]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Intel 64-bit desktops - buy one today...

Originally posted by Shadowfax
this is only natural, as they don't take advantage of the extra 32 bits, but how do they compare to 32 bit chips at the same clock rate? isn't it fairly similar or is it worse?

An application that has outgrown a 32-bit computing environment or require larger amounts of memory than 32 bit computing can offer or high precision arithmatics will run faster in 64 bit. These include large databases (larger memory allocations/user, large file implementation, reduced swapping), decision support (direct addressing ,large file implementation, reduced swapping), and technical applications (high precision arithmatic, reduced swapping).

32 bit applications will perform better staying as a 32 bit binary (unless it can take advantage of a specific 64 bit feature) since more of the application fits into the system's cache. When a 32-bit application is recompiled to 64 bits, the 64-bit binary will be significantly larger. Performance will therefore decrease due to the greater number of cache misses when running the 64-bit binary.

 

[jettredmont]

Originally posted by Snowy_River

[ ... implied "0 ..." ... ]

Woohoo! Snowy got his avatar!

So, you think macRumors posting volume will now decrease to its normal level again?

 

[jettredmont]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Intel 64-bit desktops - buy one today...

Originally posted by Shadowfax
this is only natural, as they don't take advantage of the extra 32 bits, but how do they compare to 32 bit chips at the same clock rate? isn't it fairly similar or is it worse?

Significantly worse.

This is why Opteron et al are getting so much buzz: you don't pay for 64-bit capability with 32-bit speed.

 

[shadowfax]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Intel 64-bit desktops - buy one today...

Originally posted by jettredmont
Significantly worse.

This is why Opteron et al are getting so much buzz: you don't pay for 64-bit capability with 32-bit speed.

apparently, whether it's worse or similar depends a lot on the processor. the opteron you cited does do much worse.

 

[bertagert]

Re: Re: What Nonsense

Originally posted by MacWhispers
I have suspected that the editor of MacBidioulle has been intentionally spoofing and flaming the PPC 970 rumors, just for fun and games... as **NONE** of their past five or six published reports jives at **ALL** with what my own daily, very-real human contacts in Taiwan have been telling me about PPC 970 based Macs.

If anyone's really interested in first-person supplied info, from a Mac guy who's just trying to share what he knows, here's the reality:

The problem with you Macwhispers aka Power Jack aka Jack Cambell, is you really don't have much clout either. Remember when you were on spymac and did the whole alabama bob thing? Or the time you bought a domain name and pointed it to apple.com as a hoax?

That's my beef with you. I actually hope this turns out to be true. Then maybe you'll get discredited. Meaning, you may not have said that this isn't true, its that your "contacts" aren't in the know and that means neither are you. I'm not trying to be mean, I'm just still have problems with your alabama bob thing.

Maybe I should just let it go?

 

[Snowy_River]

Originally posted by jettredmont
Woohoo! Snowy got his avatar!

So, you think macRumors posting volume will now decrease to its normal level again?

Honestly, this hasn't been that dissimilar to my usual volume. I tend to post in spurts. When I come across a thread that has lots of posts already (like this one had something like 80 posts already when I started reading it), I tend to post a lot of replies. (I do try to double up replies when it seems appropriate.)

Anyway... Thanks!

 

[zeroaxs]

Re: Re: What Nonsense

Originally posted by MacWhispers
FijiBoy: Glad to see someone here who knows the Apple distribution process. Your accurately described process is why I snickered out loud when I first read this MacBidoule joke; aside from info from my own sources, just knowing Apple's methods flatly makes these claims impossible, at face value.

Take it for what you will.

OK, a J-I-T manufacturing system for custom machines makes sense, but how about the pre-manufactured ones that they have to ship to retail and wholesalers? Those have to be manufactured well before the initial rollout of the machine to ensure that there is quantity enough to supply the different chains that sell Apple products.

 

[Snowy_River]

Re: name

Originally posted by nagromme
...
an M5...

"M5 tie-in"
"M5"
"M5, this is Daystrom."
"Daystrom, acknowledged."
"M5, do you know me?"
"Daystrom, Richard, originator of Contronic DuoTronic Systems. Born..."
"Stop. M5, your attack on the starships is wrong. You must break it off."
"Programming includes protection against attack. Enemy vessels must be neutralized."
"But these are not enemy vessels..."

Okay, okay, maybe we're not quite up to that M5.

 

[job]

Originally posted by Snowy_River
What makes you think that they are so unlikely? We know that they are coming. Rumors have been around for some time that the 970 chips have been ahead of schedule as they didn't end up having as much production difficulty as they first anticipated. Apple is certainly in a position to want to hustle these things to market ASAP. So why are they unlikely?

Eh, not to rain on your parade, but didn't we "know" the G5 was coming too?

I'd sure like to see a 970 based Mac this summer, but we also have to remember that these are rumors, not facts. Yes the chip exists. For IBM servers, not Apple Macs.

 

[beatle888]

this is bs, for one, what happened to apple realising products once ready? if thats the case then why arent they shipping now?

secondly, if apple was this close to releasing a 970, they would have announced it....even though supposedly the new trend is for them to release once ready, i dont see them following this sticking to it. look what they did with the 17 laptops. theres no way apple is going to stock pile these machines THEN make the announcement.

 

[Sol]

Re: 970 in the new machines

Originally posted by Balooba
The previous names were a disaster as for example "G4" means "prostitute" in Spanish with sales dropping significantly in for example Cuba.

I thought the word was 'puta'. I am not a Spanish speaker but anyone would know that. Get your facts right before you satirize anything.

 

[bertagert]

Originally posted by beatle888
look what they did with the 17 laptops. theres no way apple is going to stock pile these machines THEN make the announcement.

I bet they don't want that mistake to happen again. Plus, wouldn't it be best if they had these to ship right now? That way their sales would be immediate. I think Apple wants a faster machine out there asap! If they have it, they'll bring it out. I highly doubt people will wait for months again. Didn't we have to wait for the 1.42 ghz as well as the 17" PB? People are tired of these waits and Apple knows it!

If the 970 is true to form and carries good speed, a ton of people will be buying. Apple will want these in everyone's hands with such a big transition as soon as they announce them.

Now, lets just hope its true.

Fingers Crossed - X

 

[mathiasr]

Originally posted by beatle888
theres no way apple is going to stock pile these machines THEN make the announcement.

They may have learned from their mistakes.
The G4 introduction was a disaster, the 500 MHz could not be fabed, 3 months later they had to slow down the entire product line by 50 MHz.

 

[beatle888]

well i HOPE more power is coming to the mac. I SICK and tired of AE's looking at me like IM the bottle neck. even the dual gigs with osx lags too much. i really hate waiting five seconds here or ten seconds there for the stupid beach ball of death to stop spinning when im trying to kick some ass.

i really really really thought about how a pc would do the job ALL DAY TODAY. that SUCKS. i need a system that can keep up damn it.

 

[The Ancients]

Originally posted by arn

Personally, I feel that 970 PowerMacs are coming... I think WWDC is very optimistic to have shipping machines, however. I do think we'll probably hear about the 970 chip at WWDC... as for when they will ship - I don't know... but knowing how manufacturing/product introductions have gone historically... I can't say I often remember anything ever shipping "early".


arn

Motorola - shipping early......shipping early - Motorola. It just doesn't go to together, does it?

IBM - shipping early......shipping early - IBM.

aahhhh, now that's better

 

[nagromme]

Am I crazy, or was the PowerMac G4 out earlier than rumored?

IBM - shipping early......shipping early - IBM.

Sounds good to me!

Actually, didn't the original G4 Macs actually ship MONTHS earlier than expected?

I swear that the rumor sites were all saying that the G4 was having problems, and wouldn't be out until the following YEAR! And then, in the midst of that doom and gloom, Apple shipped the PowerMac G4, using a chip that supposedly didn't even exist yet in final form. Macintoshes became supercomputers, PCs fell behind in the benchmarks, and Apple ran the "weapon" ad with the tanks. Am I crazy to remember it that way?

(Not that the G4 anecdote tells us much about today--I still doubt the 970 is ready--I'm just curious whether I recall correctly. I know there WERE some actual G4 delays first--but then didn't Apple surpsise us?)

 

[VIREBEL661]

Rumors, rumors

I don't get much time to surf rumor sites other than this one... Have any of you heard stuff corroborating all the stuff that MacBidouille has been saying? I DO understand Apple not saying anything though - it would undercut any present sales. I imagine they'll stay tight lipped until the new products are ready to ship, or even until the old ones are sold out.

 

[maradong]

Originally posted by Mr. Anderson
Well if this is true and MacBidouille's specs on the IBM 970 are to be believed, well, this is going to be fantastic.

I just hope they offer duals, but given that a single 1.8 GHz 970 is faster than the dual 1.43 G4, I wouldn't be surprised if they don't offer them immediately. That way they can sell more units in the first offering of the new machines (having more processors available and not putting 2 in all the boxes). And then in September with Panther they'd offer duals when IBM has had a chance to make more.

D

true.
also i hope to see the ppc in a notebook. i am not interested in which one. I just want to see it. perhaps in the new 15.4 but it is very improbable, i know .(

 

[macnews]

apple delays

From what I have read in press and rumors sites, Apple's problems in the past with supply have come in two forms - the biggest being from Motorola. The G5 DID come in to production but what many of the rumor sites ended up reporting on were for stats on a G5 used in cell phones - not one ever intended for desktop computers. Later, even these became "proof" that a G5 was very close to ready and just "had" to be shipping soon. Now if we are talking about an IBM chip things might be different. Does anyone know IBM's recent status with on-time shipping? Since they use/plan to use the 970 in their own products I would think JIT processing would allow for many of these chips to be available. This, however, leads to Apple's other "delay".

Apple also seems to delay things to move their inventory out of the current supply chain. So perhaps we will see the 970 previewed at WWDC but no official announcement until MacWorld. I would love to see a 970 for purchase, even if I had to wait a month, at WWDC. Maybe with all the new Apple retail stores they can move out the "older" G4's to newer switchers or mac users that don't read the rumor sites!

Just thought about this...
Perhaps we will see a shipping 970 machine at WWDC. If Apple is going with the 970 there should be BIG fan fare - which will mean benchmarks, and not the kind mentioned here. Normal benchmarks usually included comparison software results. Wasn't it just back in March when the rumors were not to expect Quark 6.0 until July and maybe get it by Aug/Sept? Now, it appears Quark is ready to go at WWDC and not just previewing. They have already done previews and the press from Quark leads me to think they will do more than just "preview" 6.0 at WWDC. Perhaps Steve called and said "Hey, we are going to be introducing a major hardware change and we want you on board. Deadline is WWDC, which I can move back to end of June if you need more time." Wouldn't a benchmark showing Quark 6.0 in OS 10.3 kicking XP's ass be a big seller?! Again from Steve - "Not only do we have a 970, I'm happy to say Quark is officially 10 native - so why not upgrade now! And look at how much faster they both are!"

I can dream can't I!

 

[NuVector]

Re: Re: Re: What Nonsense

Originally posted by zeroaxs
OK, a J-I-T manufacturing system for custom machines makes sense, but how about the pre-manufactured ones that they have to ship to retail and wholesalers? Those have to be manufactured well before the initial rollout of the machine to ensure that there is quantity enough to supply the different chains that sell Apple products.

Couple of things.

1. Fijiboy is confusing component inventory with channel inventory.

Channel inventory is the amount of boxed machines in distributor's and retailer's hands (or enroute to them).

Component inventory is the amount of parts on hand required to build machines.

Apple tries to keep channel inventory at about 3-4 weeks. They try to keep component inventory at about 3-5 days.

2. Anyone who claims industry contacts should know this.

 

[rickag]

Originally posted by maraczc
According to another rumors site, IBM has confirmed that production of the new proccessors will not even begin until late June. Just to add another side to this discussion.

Just curious what that other rumor site is?

 

[WasteGate]

G5.....970....... Only time will tell!

 

[whooleytoo]

Re: What Nonsense

Originally posted by FijiBoy
How can anyone take this claim seriously? Apple runs a "just-in-time" manufacturing process with one of the industry's shortest inventory storage times (I believe only Dell is any better). They try not to build computers more than seven days out from sale.

Apple's inventory times are a bit 'strange'. For instance, in the Cork plant, some of the suppliers occupy part of the plant, they push a pallette of components through a gate and it becomes Apple inventory, it goes through the production line and out another gate and it's no longer Apple inventory. All in the same building.

This is how Apple are able to keep inventory times so low.

The units are assembled at factories (mostly in Asia) and then air-freighted in racks (ie unboxed) to distribution points where they are boxed and whatever localisation needs are included (eg keyboards, power cords and modems differ from country to country).

Of course, the boxes mentioned here might not be production machines either, I think Apple still has a production line in the US for limited runs of pre-production machines. If they were planning on announcing the machines at WWDC but not releasing them, these might be seed machines for developers.

Apple does a global release of new equipment ie all countries get their hand on new gear at the same time. So there would need to be sealed boxes in around a dozen warehouses worldwide.

Not so. The localised kits aren't always released simultaneously, so the release times can vary, depending on which tier the country is in.

In addition sealed boxes would indicate that whatever software was in the box was finalised.

All of the above mean one simple thing - there are NOT new towers sitting in boxes in some warehouse waiting to go.

Well, all we know (assuming this rumour is true) is that there is new hardware coming, these could be pre-production machines for developers, or perhaps they are going to ship limited numbers initially - perhaps in the US only. We don't know much about what software is going on the 970 machines, so we can't know if/when it's ready or not.

Mike.

 

[Kid Red]

Re: Re: it's not a rumor - it's a humor!

Originally posted by mim
No no - it's a TUMOR!

A big fat cancerous brain rumor tumor that's effecting our ability to think rationally. It's not humor. It's a conspiracy created by zoomer baby-boomers to destroy our....

....mojo?

<...quietly curls up over the keyboard and goes insane - and there's still another 8 pages of this thread to get through...>

It's not a tu-ma! I got a headache!

 

[Kid Red]

Re: Re: 970 in the new machines

Originally posted by Sol
I thought the word was 'puta'. I am not a Spanish speaker but anyone would know that. Get your facts right before you satirize anything.

I think it was quite obvious he was being sarcastic. It is fairly easy to deduct that 'G4' doesn't mean much in any language other then 'G4'. So relax and realize sarcasm is hard to convey thru text.