eMac G5?

[areyouwishing]

Can someone show me what evidence supports the fact that G5s are less expensive than G4s.

I know the new iMacs are less expensive than the G4 iMacs but there are other things to take into consideration, like the type of ram used is no long SO-DIMM, so it's not as expensive.

That being said, I don't think eMacs will go G5 yet... just because of the perception of the pro laptop line... there are a lot of people that would complain about that switch... the G4 has a REALLY negative history, and if you put a g5 in your cheapest model before your pro laptop goes G4m or something portable, exciting/new and energy efficient sounding, you are going to have a lot of people complain, these people may not understand to the best of their abilities why it is the way it is... but they will still complain.

 

[blackfox]

As others have mentioned in this thread, I could see the G5 becoming the de-facto desktop processor (eMac, iMac and PM) and the freescale G4 becoming the portable chip (PB and iBook). I see this as analgous to the Centrino line by Intel.

This random speculation is based on the following reasoning:

a dual-core G4 with a low power draw would be amazing for a PB. Motorola is also working on a 64 bit version in their line-up of freescale chips, so that base is also covered. In any case, a 4GB vs 8GB ceiling for RAM in a portable is kinda silly - where do you fit it all? Rebranding might be needed, however.

It is nice to have Two chip suppliers instead of only one.

Anyways, while I think this could be a possibility, and one I would enjoy, I doubt that it will happen before 2005, as the PB would have to be updated before or concurrent to the eMac. I do not think either the Freescale chips or the G5 portable logistics have been adequately worked out for production.

Just educated guessing...

 

[CMYanko]

To me, Apple is simply getting it's hardware in line for it's upcoming OS. Tiger wants a G5 and a video card that support all of core image.

I don't think there is any concern within Apple that their 'Pro' laptop is not up to snuff with an 'educational' desktop model.

 

[diehlr]

Boy, that would be totally swank and I would spring for a G5 eMac if it were priced accordingly! However, I highly doubt the eMac will be updated to a G5 before the Powerbook. I think the G4 still has plenty of horsepower left in it for its purposes. If it is updated soon, I think the eMac will probably be near a 1.5 ghz G4 and perhaps some updates which address a more pressing issue such as a video chipset with programmable pixel shaders.

 

[wizard]

I look at that 970FX as a processor designe from the very begining to hold the low end of the market. Yes it was introduced at the high end but that pretty much happens with newer processors. Believing that a G5 eMac is a given, the question becomes when?

Well I don't really know so I can only speculate. First I'm not convinced that the processor situation is as bad as it sounds with IBM. Or atleast I don't believe that processor availability is the only reason for poor G5 tower shipments. So the question beocmes is there enough 970FX's for an eMac introduction. I'd have to say yes given that this won't be a fast machine by any measure.

If I'm wrong and there simply isn't a bunch of slow 970FX's around then it appears that we won't see a eMac upgrade until the new year when the high integration Frescale processors come on board. A G4+++ certainly is a possibility but I think Apple is on a drive to go 64 bits wherever they can.

Dave

 

[thatwendigo]

I'm with you, Rod Rod. The eMac should go G5 because it would be one more machine that would have the "G5 marketing sparkle" on it, and at sub-$1000 prices.

You're making more than a few conclusions that aren't exactly obvious or logical, I hope you realize. Yes, they managed to knock the price down a notch or so on the G5 iMac when it was released, but that doesn't translate to a similar change in a lower framework. This is, once again, where I bring up economies of scale.

If Apple is paying X amount for the main portions of an iMac - processor, motherboard, RAM, HD, graphics chipset, and so on - and they put the same specs in another machine and charge less, it could very easily hurt them. Let's say, for the sake of argument, that a single-processor G5 with the same specs as the 20" iMac costs Apple $500 in bulk parts. When you add in the display, manufacturing, shipping, marketing, and other costs, we'll arbitrarily crank an additional $500 on top, leaving a total basic price of $1,000 without R&D and other associated recouping costs.

Now, when you sell that machine for $1,400-1,600, you're making a tidy profit and increasing your bottom line. We don't know what Apple's overhead for their production is, but if we remove approximately $300-400 for the display, that still leaves us with $600-700 in cost to produce with all other factors being taken care of. When you sell that machine for $799 or $999, you are making a much smaller margin than you are on the other ones, and thus not increasing the bottom line as much. That means that you have to make up for it in overall units moved, which I find ridiculsouly unlikely.

There is no way that selling a G5 for $999 and under could be "bad" for Apple.

See above.

I prefer Configuration 2 ... as I think that Apple should keep the eMac models as close to the iMacs as possible, not intentionally cripple them. It worked before with the G4 eMac/iMac situation, so why not now?

I think that you have no understanding of economics, then. It didn't work with the G4 iMacs and eMacs towards the end of the life cycle, and there's even less reason to believe it would do so now. There was a bubble where people bought a lot of the iMacs, and then sales became tepid and uninspiring, with most of the figures made up of the eMac.

As for their supposedly being matched in specs:

June 2002 iMac G4
17" flat panel
800mhz G4
100mhz bus
128/256MB PC100 SODIMM, expandable to 1GB
GeForce 4 MX 32MB
80GB
SuperDrive
3 USB, 2 FireWire 400
$1,999

April 2002 eMac (and August Superdrive addition)
17" flat CRT
700/800mhz G4
100mhz bus
128/256MB PC100 DIMM, expandable to 1GB
GeForce 2 MX 32MB
40GB
Combo Drive/superdrive
$1,199/$1,499

Feb 2003 iMac G4
17" Flat panel
1.0ghz G4
133mhz bus
256MB RAM, expandable to 1GB
GeForce 4 MX 64MB
80GB
SuperDrive
3 USB, 2 FireWire 400
$1,799

May 2003 eMac G4 (Superdrive)
17" flat CRT
1.0ghz G4
133mhz bus
256 MB PC133, expandable to 1GB
Radeon 7500 32MB
40/60/80 GB
SuperDrive
3 USB, 2 FireWire 400
$1,299

September 2003 iMac G4
17" flat panel
1.25ghz G4
167mhz bus
256MB PC2700, expandable to 1GB
GeForce Ultra 5200 64MB
80GB
3 USB 2.0, 2 FireWire 400
$1,799

So, just when have they been price comparable, other than the lulls between upgrades? At best, it's been a few months where the eMac was allowed to catch up briefly, then the iMac was beefed up in response.

Based on the above, selling eMacs at $799/$999 with low-end iMacs priced at $1299/$1499 make the iMacs only $500 more expensive than the eMac counterparts this time. So for $500 more, many people will choose the space spacing LCD over the CRT eMac...EVEN if Apple does offer the more powerful machines I list in Configuration 2.

The problem is that you're wrong about what Apple offered. For the $500 difference, you usually get a faster processor, better bus, more HD, more and better RAM, better I/O to external sources, and more overall options.

Thank you, drive through.

 

[thatwendigo]

(and right now, many of them correctly see this as getting a G5 system).

Wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

The benchmarks don't bear this out, the specifications don't bear this out, and it's still entirely possible (and likely) for a G4 system to beat a G5 system at some things. With the enhancements that are coming for the 7448 core (1.8ghz clock, 200mhz bus, and 10 watts is insane) and the MPC8461D dual-core lines... No. The 970 is not the be-all and end-all of the mac world, and people need to get over themselves and start to realize that FreeScale is a competitor again.

Just to remind people, yet again, the MPC8461D will have the more efficient G4e execution core, backed up with 1MB of L2 per processor and the ability to read each other's caching, an on-die memory controller with access to 667mhz DDR2, system-on-chip speedups for networking, encryption, and other tasks, frequencies rising up from 1.8-2.0ghz and above, more advanced power management, lower latency in multiprocessor designs (thanks to being on the same die), and no northbridge chip to slow things down. Oh, and we can't forget the twin AltiiVec units, which Freescale has always done better than IBM has.

Unless you're doing very specialized math or use more than 4GB of RAM, the "bitness" of the processor means nothing, and you can still do both things without needing it at a hardware level. Saying that consumers respond to it is bowing to the new megahertz myth, and it's repulsive to hear mac users not up in arms over a new spin on the old tactic.

 

[Demon]

bring it. i hope the price will not disappoint.. i've always prefered eMacs over iMacs, but the current iMac is pretty dope. the I/O ports are in a silly location, looks good, but when you actually plug things in... it looks terrible. Expected better from Apple. Anyway, eMac should be dope!

 

[MacinDoc]

if Apple does release an eMac G5 soon, i suspect the specs would be as follows:

Combo Drive (799.00)
1.6GHz PowerPC G5
512K L2 cache
533MHz frontside bus
256MB DDR400 SDRAM
NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 Ultra
64MB DDR video memory
40GB Serial ATA hard drive
Airport Extreme Ready
Bluetooth built-in option

Superdrive (999.00)

1.6GHz PowerPC G5
512K L2 cache
533MHz frontside bus
256MB DDR400 SDRAM
NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 Ultra
64MB DDR video memory
80GB Serial ATA hard drive
Airport Extreme Ready
Bluetooth built-in option

the looks will be the very similar to the current eMac, just the sign "eMac G5" to be on top of the screen.

edit: i think this may be announced on Nov 2. since the Mac + HP printer promo ends on Nov 1.

I agree with Doraemon that these specs are too similar to the iMac. 1.4 GHz G5s (probably a lot of the G5s would bin out in this lower range, and would be almost dirt-cheap) and corresponding 466 MHz buses would be more reasonable. I agree with your other specs, with the exception of Bluetooth, which I suspect will be a BTO option. I suspect the prices you have suggested are correct.

And yes, I believe this will happen soon. Apple seems to be trying to migrate its desktops to the G5, and I suspect that Tiger will be highly optimized for the G5.

 

[Rod Rod]

You're making more than a few conclusions that aren't exactly obvious or logical, I hope you realize.
{snip}

thatwendingo, when you went through all those model iterations, why didn't you include the current (April 2004) eMac? That's the proof Ensoniq and I are citing. Leaving out the current eMac and its contrast with the last iMac G4 is a startling omission for someone so full of facts. Inconvenient facts tend to get in the way.

Further, you go on and on about a non-shipping Moto chip, which for all practical purposes is currently vaporware. The iMac G5 is an actual bona fide shipping product. The 1GHz 15" and 1.25GHz 17" and 20" iMac G4 had been shipping concurrently with the latest and current eMac (which is still a currently shipping model.) It's not a strain on the mind to consider the price differences between the equivalent G4s, and apply that to what may be equivalent G5s, between Apple's two white all-in-one desktops.

bring it. i hope the price will not disappoint.. i've always prefered eMacs over iMacs, but the current iMac is pretty dope. the I/O ports are in a silly location, looks good, but when you actually plug things in... it looks terrible. Expected better from Apple. Anyway, eMac should be dope!

Everything will be nice and neat when you run your wires (USB, FW, ethernet, headphones, speakers, mic) through the opening in the stand. Get one of those velcro ties and bunch the cables together back there if it helps you. Run the USB and/or FireWire to hubs on the corner or side of your desk for the stuff you plug in and out. I think it's better than the alternatives - front or side-mounted i/o would look nasty.

 

[thatwendigo]

thatwendingo, when you went through all those model iterations, why didn't you include the current (April 2004) eMac? That's the proof Ensoniq and I are citing. Leaving out the current eMac and its contrast with the last iMac G4 is a startling omission for someone so full of facts. Inconvenient facts tend to get in the way.

They were left out because Apple's pattern was clear, and the only reason the eMac was competitive was that they'd missed the mark on shipping the new iMac. The cycle broke. That's it.

I was pointing out that, while things were running as they should, this is how things were. The eMac being updated fit in just fine with what I've said to this point, but the performance parity with the iMac revision still isn't exactly true.

eMac April 2004 revision
17" flat CRT (1280x960 max)
1.25ghz MPC7445A
167mhz bus
256 MB PC2700, expandable to 1GB
Radeon 9200 32MB
40/80 GB
8x SuperDrive
3 USB 2.0, 2 FireWire 400
$999

iMac (USB 2.0 revision from six months before)
17" flat CRT (1440x900 max)
1.25ghz MPC7445A
167mhz bus
256 MB PC2700, expandable to 1GB
GeForce FX 5200 Ultra 64MB
80 GB
4x SuperDrive
3 USB 2.0, 2 FireWire 400
$1,999

So, once more, there's a significant difference in price and performance, though there's a the typical "me too" bump of the eMac. The only reason it wasn't swiftly fixed was the revision of the iMac, which took far longer than originally planned.

Further, you go on and on about a non-shipping Moto chip, which for all practical purposes is currently vaporware. The iMac G5 is an actual bona fide shipping product.

I'm sorry, non-shipping? The 7448 part is being released this quarter, and there's no concrete manufacturing of the MPC8461D just yet, but it's pretty certain to be coming sooner than a high-clock, low-power 970. As I've previously noted, the 7448 runs at 1.8ghz with 10 watts, as opposed to 25.6 watts for a 1.6ghz 970.

Compare the performance of a 1.5ghz 7447A powerbook to the iMac G5. Stare, weep, and realize that the 970 isn't a magical savior.

The 1GHz 15" and 1.25GHz 17" and 20" iMac G4 had been shipping concurrently with the latest and current eMac (which is still a currently shipping model.) It's not a strain on the mind to consider the price differences between the equivalent G4s, and apply that to what may be equivalent G5s, between Apple's two white all-in-one desktops.

You mean the $1000 price difference in the final model, which had better features than the eMac, until some six months or more later? It's quite a strain to accept that the current iMac could be crammed into the eMac's footprint, efficiently cooled, and produced for cheap enough prices to sell it at the price point of the current model.

Remember, in technology, you can usually have one (or, at most, two) of the three:
Fast, stable, cheap.

 

[MacSA]

With eMacs, iBooks and Powerbooks well past their average update cycles, don't you think it's a little unusual that we haven't seen any reliable rumours about updates to these products?

 

[Rod Rod]

I'm sorry, non-shipping? The 7448 part is being released this quarter, and there's no concrete manufacturing of the MPC8461D just yet, but it's pretty certain to be coming sooner than a high-clock, low-power 970. As I've previously noted, the 7448 runs at 1.8ghz with 10 watts, as opposed to 25.6 watts for a 1.6ghz 970.

{snip}

It's quite a strain to accept that the current iMac could be crammed into the eMac's footprint, efficiently cooled, and produced for cheap enough prices to sell it at the price point of the current model.

I'll either have to revise my definition of shipping, or I'll just read your present-tense as future-tense (albeit near-future). In any case, I'll believe the 1.8GHz / 10W figure when the chip makes its way to a shipping product.

Thanks for correcting me on the specs.. I remembered later that the 64MB nVidia FX5200 Ultra has the advantage over the 32MB ATI Radeon 9200. To correct you, both the current eMac and the last G4 iMac are expandable to 2GB of RAM.

As for your last point, a G5 eMac can be efficiently cooled using the same footprint. It would need multiple fans (blowers, to be pedantic) and vents. Economies of scale will permit the price point to match its G4 predecessor. Apple sells a lot of eMacs, so it's an important product, and it needs to be replaced relatively soon as it's the oldest current desktop.

 

[thatwendigo]

I'll either have to revise my definition of shipping, or I'll just read your present-tense as future-tense (albeit near-future). In any case, I'll believe the 1.8GHz / 10W figure when the chip makes its way to a shipping product.

It's no skin off my nose. I'm just trying to show you that you're not exactly in possession of all the facts, since it's already been pretty well established that Freescale (and Motorola before them) were the kinds of power efficiency under active performance. The current PowerBook G4s use the 7447A part and clock at 1.5ghz while drawing only 10-12 watts on average. A major revision of the core could improve both effiency and performance, and they've done it before (the 7447A is 15 watts co0ler and 200mhz faster than its predecessor, the 7455).

Thanks for correcting me on the specs.. I remembered later that the 64MB nVidia FX5200 Ultra has the advantage over the 32MB ATI Radeon 9200. To correct you, both the current eMac and the last G4 iMac are expandable to 2GB of RAM.

I was pulling stats straight from lowendmac and the Apple Museum project, so you can blame any factual errors on them. That being said, I wouldn't be surprised if both writeups were done before consumer-available 1GB DIMMS were all that readily available. Even now, they're not exactly pocket change, and you can spend a significant fraction of the eMac's price in buying a single stick.

As for your last point, a G5 eMac can be efficiently cooled using the same footprint. It would need multiple fans (blowers, to be pedantic) and vents.

You obviously don't own an eMac or understand anything about how it's designed. The machine, as it exists, doesn't even have an internal fan blowing across the components. It uses a heatpipe that contacts the processor and the optical drive, pulling excess away to the back so that a single exhaust fan pushes air across the radiators. This is, quite obviously, a measure that takes into account the smoothness of its lines and the fact that the CRT already adds a whole lot of bulk to the overall shape.

I know, because I own one and use it daily, have researched the overclocking options, and read the teardown guides.

Economies of scale will permit the price point to match its G4 predecessor.

I'm curious just what "economies of scale" you're referencing here, since the majority of the world's computers still run on PATA, x86 motherboards, and other, older standards. Like it or not, the PowerPC platform isn't much helped by the general computing trends, mostly thanks to driver and firmware related issues.

I've done the research into other, non-Apple PowerPC systems, and they're typically even more expensive for what you get.

Apple sells a lot of eMacs, so it's an important product, and it needs to be replaced relatively soon as it's the oldest current desktop.

Even if I were to agree with you, the statement "it needs to be replaced relatively soon as it's the oldest current desktop" does not automatically translate to "it needs a G5." Despite what marketing hype would have you believe, there are plenty of power and heat conserving measures that could be taken that would yield a faster machine.

Just one example:
Two MPC7447A processors at 1.5ghz each consume less power than a single 1.6ghz 970, outperform it at nearly every benchmark, and could be wedded to a newer chipset that allows things like 8x AGP. Apple could also add SATA and other options that would provide performance boosts, without harming their chip supply. The use of faster drives and a better bus for the graphics card would speed performance, but the addition of multithreading and SMP could drastically increase system responsiveness.

Oh, and it uses parts that you can't possibly argue are vaporware.

 

[Sol]

Rumour round-up & Half-Life

With eMacs, iBooks and Powerbooks well past their average update cycles, don't you think it's a little unusual that we haven't seen any reliable rumours about updates to these products?

G5 processors and dual-core G4s make up the rumours about those lines.

iBooks and eMacs are the budget Macs and both can be connected to external displays. I do not care which processor the next-generation eMacs utilise; if they are silent, like the second generation G3 iMacs, then I would want one for the TV room.

I also want it to run Doom 3 and Half-Life 2. There has been talk of decent x86 emulator that could make the original Half-Life playable.

 

[guez]

This makes sense to me

I agree with Doraemon that these specs are too similar to the iMac. 1.4 GHz G5s (probably a lot of the G5s would bin out in this lower range, and would be almost dirt-cheap) and corresponding 466 MHz buses would be more reasonable. I agree with your other specs, with the exception of Bluetooth, which I suspect will be a BTO option. I suspect the prices you have suggested are correct.

And yes, I believe this will happen soon. Apple seems to be trying to migrate its desktops to the G5, and I suspect that Tiger will be highly optimized for the G5.

Perhaps two models: 1.4 GHz (@799) and 1.6 GHz (@999). It seems to me that the costs would be low enough for Apple to make a profit comparable to the iMac, maybe a little less but with greater total volume.

 

[guez]

Why?

Now, when you sell that machine for $1,400-1,600, you're making a tidy profit and increasing your bottom line. We don't know what Apple's overhead for their production is, but if we remove approximately $300-400 for the display, that still leaves us with $600-700 in cost to produce with all other factors being taken care of. When you sell that machine for $799 or $999, you are making a much smaller margin than you are on the other ones, and thus not increasing the bottom line as much. That means that you have to make up for it in overall units moved, which I find ridiculsouly unlikely.

Why? Why, in your opinion, is Apple's only viable marketing strategy to get the highest possible margins by milking the existing base (rather than expanding the base with lower margins)? It seems to me that if Apple followed your argument, they would have never introduced the iMac at all. Where would we be now?

 

[thatwendigo]

Why? Why, in your opinion, is Apple's only viable marketing strategy to get the highest possible margins by milking the existing base (rather than expanding the base with lower margins)? It seems to me that if Apple followed your argument, they would have never introduced the iMac at all. Where would we be now?

Do you want the short answer or the long one?

The short version is, to borrow what someone once told me, "You can't out-Dell Dell."

The longer version is that Apple has more expenses, proportionially, than pretty much any other computer vendor. They do their own R&D, software, and other things that many OEMs just don't have to worry about, because they're not using x86 standrd, million-run parts. Even the iMac, in its original incarnation, was a risk that Apple managed to turn into gain, but that doesn't change the fact that Jobs took a gamble.

They need hardware margins to support the OS and other factors that make the macintosh platform superior to others, and dropping those would require that the machine sell ridiculous numbers. It's not a safe proposition, especially not with Chinese and Taiwanese OEMs looking to cut the bottom out of the market by removing the middleman and selling their parts themselves.

 

[Zigster]

Apple isn't worried about you guys, you guys are mac fans already.

What apple wants is - me. A pc guy who wants a mac.

And I'm not switching unless it's under 1000, because apple knows I can buy a screaming pc for that. And I'm not paying 1800 for an imac *L*.

So they are going to make a g5 emac for $999.00, because I want to edit video and run Tiger on it. And because they want to sell 200k of these a year.

So there.

 

[NNO-Stephen]

those of you claiming that a G5 eMac would eat into the profit margins of an iMac G5 really have no grasp of how much thigns cost. first off, an LCD is MUCH more expensive than a CRT. the engineering costs associated with getting a G5 inside an eMac are far FAR lower than that of an iMac that is two inches thin INCLUDING SCREEN. Not to mention the lower capacity hard drives...

and the availibility of G5s is a non-issue as well. IBM is having trouble producing G5s. this is somewhat misleading. they are having troubles with higher-clocked G5s. low clock speed G5s can be produced more effectively. and cost less than G4s (more per wafer)

so a G5 eMac would increase the profit margins from the current model and preform better. ok, makes sense to me to include a 1.4Ghz G5 in the eMac G5 ASAP. Also, you forget that the price difference between a high end eMac and a low end eMac is simply a few hundred and that is covered by the LCD.

 

[thatwendigo]

those of you claiming that a G5 eMac would eat into the profit margins of an iMac G5 really have no grasp of how much thigns cost. first off, an LCD is MUCH more expensive than a CRT.

It's about $300-400, retail, and so almost certainly less for Apple when they buy parts in bulk. When you start to add in the other parts, it becomes less and less of an issue because both are using newer components in many places.

the engineering costs associated with getting a G5 inside an eMac are far FAR lower than that of an iMac that is two inches thin INCLUDING SCREEN. Not to mention the lower capacity hard drives...

Have you ever been inside of an eMac? It's about two or three inches high, has less internal volume than an iMac, and no blowers shoving air across the components to help with cooling. Everything has to fit around the heatpipe and be capable of being exhausted through the use of a single fan mounted at the back, blowing over the radiator from the pipe. Hard drive capacity has nothing to do with the engineering cost, and would only affect the final price of components.

and the availibility of G5s is a non-issue as well. IBM is having trouble producing G5s. this is somewhat misleading. they are having troubles with higher-clocked G5s.

Source, please. Apple themselves have come out and said, in their financial call, that they're expecting shortfalls of G5s to finally stabilize in Q1 2005. This applies to the iMacs, which are the low-end of the performance scale, as much as it does to the PowerMacs.

low clock speed G5s can be produced more effectively. and cost less than G4s (more per wafer)

Not if the process is flawed, they can't. All that having more chips on a wafer does is increase the likelihood of a good yield. It doesn't magically cause it to be so.

so a G5 eMac would increase the profit margins from the current model and preform better. ok, makes sense to me to include a 1.4Ghz G5 in the eMac G5 ASAP.

Riiiiight...

http://www.barefeats.com/ut2004.html

The single 1.6 and 1.8ghz G5s barely, if at all, defeat the late-model G4 machines, and that's when you're talking about full-strength PowerMacs. If you get into the iMacs, things get even less pretty and the only way to make them look all that stunning is to fiddle the numbers on the G4 benchmarks.

Also, you forget that the price difference between a high end eMac and a low end eMac is simply a few hundred and that is covered by the LCD.

What in the world do LCDs have to do with the price difference between eMacs?

 

[Toe]

The eMac may have been designed for education, but it is the perfect enterprise Mac. For my company, I buy almost exclusively eMacs (for desktops).

Many corporate budgets renew on January 1st, and many IT folks, myself included, start buying lots of equipment on January 2nd. (Budgets often run out well before the end of the year, so we accumulate a backlog of needed purchases.)

If Apple only has a G4 eMac at the time, I'll be more reluctant to buy any more than I absolutely need. If there is a G5 eMac, I will order a slew of them on January 2.

It would be illogical for Apple to wait for MWSF to release something that corporate buyers will want on 01/02. Especially since planning for purchasing happens well before the actual purchase.

 

[NNO-Stephen]

I would hope it's obvious I meant low end iMac, not low end eMac.


and even you say two to three inches high... that is greater than the internal area of a G5 iMac.

and increased likelihood of a good yield means that you are likely to get more working chips out of the same amount of wafers than you would from higher clocked parts, driving availability up and cost down.

and it should be obvious I was talking about hard drives not in terms of design, but in the final build of materials. lower capacity = lower cost.

and the barefeats numbers refer to dual processor PowerMacs, at 1.42Ghz. the eMac, as we all should know by now, is a single 1.25Ghz machine.

 

[pinto32]

Just one example:
Two MPC7447A processors at 1.5ghz each consume less power than a single 1.6ghz 970, outperform it at nearly every benchmark, and could be wedded to a newer chipset that allows things like 8x AGP. Apple could also add SATA and other options that would provide performance boosts, without harming their chip supply. The use of faster drives and a better bus for the graphics card would speed performance, but the addition of multithreading and SMP could drastically increase system responsiveness.

Oh, and it uses parts that you can't possibly argue are vaporware.

So...your idea for keeping the eMac powerful and profitable is to put two processors in it? Hmm....If only more people with your ideas worked for Dell....

 

[thatwendigo]

I would hope it's obvious I meant low end iMac, not low end eMac.

Nothing you say is obvious, with all due respect. I'm not sure why, but you manage to suggest that you mean something else while saying what you seem to think is a clear point.

and even you say two to three inches high... that is greater than the internal area of a G5 iMac.

I see that we've forgotten basic goemetry, too.

The volume of an object is arrived at by multiplying length by width by height. Typically, for an object the size of an iMac or an eMac, you're talking about something in the range of cubic inches. Because of the irregular shape, the eMac is going to be hard to pin down an exact figure for, but I'd be willing to state that it's going to be a third less (or more) than the new iMacs. That's just talking about dimensions, and not the internal clutter of the design, in which the iMac clearly has far more room.

As I asked before, and you've dodged... You've never seen the inside of an eMac, have you?

and increased likelihood of a good yield means that you are likely to get more working chips out of the same amount of wafers than you would from higher clocked parts, driving availability up and cost down.

Since I seem to have to be entirely blunt with what I'm saying, I'll do so now. The "likelihood" is not the same as reality, and odds do not always translate to what actually exists.

and the barefeats numbers refer to dual processor PowerMacs, at 1.42Ghz. the eMac, as we all should know by now, is a single 1.25Ghz machine.

Look again, sunny jim. The bottom row is a Powerbook G4 1.33 with mobility 9600, which is the last generation they offered, and it just barely gets eked out by the G5 PowerMac. That means that, with full bus and other issues applied, the G5 still doesn't hammer the G4, despite its 300mhz clock and 600mhz bus advantage.