G5 Specs for WWDC!

[snooziums]

G4 is still much more expanable

Just kill off the G4 in the desk top line before G4 kills Apple computer. G4 is slow garbage that cant compete with anything. we all know this so why the endless argument over the worst performing cpu being made? G4 may be ok for a lap or tablet device but for a real machine that sits on your desk it simply sucks. Apple is dragging their arses getting rid of this junk and are paying the price with dismal sales with a dismal chip. Apple is getting what it deserves taking so long to oust the dog.

However, the DMM G4 currently selling is far more expandable than the current G5.

The G4 has two drive bays that can be use for any 5 & 1/2 drive, whereas the G5 only has one that can only be used for their combo or super drive. What if you want to use a different drive, such as a ATA 8x +/- DVD RW Burner? Cannot do that, since you cannot replace the only optical drive in the G5. And no chance for a second drive, such as tape, zip, jazz, or another burner.

And what about expansion slots? The G5 uses PCI-X slots, which there are practically no cards made for. What if you wanted to use SCSI or standard ATA? There are no current PCI-X cards for those, and normal PCI cards will not work in the PCI-X slots. Yeah, there is the G5 1.6 GHz with normal PCI slots, however everyone says that model is being phased out.

And what about places to put those drives? The G5 only has two hard drive spaces inside of thee case, whereas the G4 can house four with a drive bracket kit.

So if Apple is to do away with the G4, they are going to have to introduce a G5 with some expandably.

 

[thatwendigo]

I dont care about the 7447 you broght it up for no reason but in a vein attempt to prove your invalid points

My "attempt" is neither vain (correct spelling) nor invalid, though it does seem to be completely escaping you whenever you reply to me. As I said in my lat post, the entire point of bringing up the 7447A is that there is a processor available to Apple right now which is competitive with the 970FX with lowered clockspeed, and that it's cooler than previous generations of G4s that passed the gigahertz mark. You have yet to answer numerous counterpoints of mine, and I see no point in moving forward until you do.

They are, to whit:

1. Where in the Motorola PDF that was shown does the list show what frequency that 35 watt waste heat is reached? By my reading, the numbers are intended to go across linearly, but there is no frequency given for that figure. Also, when you compare the 970FX xServe's overall power draw and heat output, the previous generation G4 xServes are about the same on typical power (7455s, incidentally), but are three to four times lower on max power draw and around five times lower on total BTU output.
2. The major heat expenditure differences in the dual G4 xserve and the single G5 towers seems to be the always-on fans in the server, and the inclusions of a graphics card, higher bus, and moderately higher clocked processors in the towers. Even the single 1.6ghz is hotter than two 1.33ghz G4s of the previous, hotter generation of the MPC74xx family.

There will be more as necessary, once you've covered those.

you have obviosly never seen the innerds of the cube in detail apple desighned the desighn to last and accomadate faster new prosessors there is even a fan bracket at the base and a connector on the dc-dc board the only reason you cant currently put a dual in it is because of the weak dc dc board which can now be inproved apon

Actually, I have seen the innards of a cube, and they're not at all as heat-ridding as a current Shuttle XPC case, and don't look to me as if they were designed to run anything hotter than a single processor inside the case. As I've seen, it's possible to use a lot of expensive parts to put a hotter processor or a dual processor machine into the formfactor, but that means nothing for a consumer machine. A purpose-built enclosure would serve much batter, and the technology is far better exploited by Apple at this point - witness the eMac for examples. The machine on my desk probably has around the same internal volume as that cube (perhaps a shade more) and it can hold a G4 1.25ghz, a 4x SuperDrive, and a more modern GPU with a single fan and remain mostly quiet. However, it's not nearly as hot at the 970FX would be.

go bash apple at the many anti-mac pc forums. and thanks for insulting the cpu so many of us use and are quite happy with.

That's DHM, and you're wasting your time if you want him to stop ceaselessly bashing on the G4 without offering a viable solution in its place. The best response you're likely to get is "Put a G5 1.8 or 2.0 and a Radeon 9800 in the iMac and they'll sell like crazy."

Well, duh... Now the problem is seeing if it can be done.

 

[maverick13]

However, the DMM G4 currently selling is far more expandable than the current G5.

The G4 has two drive bays that can be use for any 5 & 1/2 drive, whereas the G5 only has one that can only be used for their combo or super drive. What if you want to use a different drive, such as a ATA 8x +/- DVD RW Burner? Cannot do that, since you cannot replace the only optical drive in the G5. And no chance for a second drive, such as tape, zip, jazz, or another burner.

And what about expansion slots? The G5 uses PCI-X slots, which there are practically no cards made for. What if you wanted to use SCSI or standard ATA? There are no current PCI-X cards for those, and normal PCI cards will not work in the PCI-X slots. Yeah, there is the G5 1.6 GHz with normal PCI slots, however everyone says that model is being phased out.

And what about places to put those drives? The G5 only has two hard drive spaces inside of thee case, whereas the G4 can house four with a drive bracket kit.

So if Apple is to do away with the G4, they are going to have to introduce a G5 with some expandably.

PCI-X is back-wards compatipble to PCI.
You can put PCI card to a PCI-X slot.

Maverick

 

[snooziums]

PCI-X is back-wards compatipble to PCI.
You can put PCI card to a PCI-X slot. Maverick

I ask this question before, and I was told that PCI cards will not work in PCI-X slots from other members of this board.

Also, there is this from Apple's support site:
Power Mac G5 computers have only Serial ATA busses. There are third-party adapters to connect Parallel ATA hard drives to Serial ATA busses, but these adapters are not supported for use on the Power Mac G5 computer. If you wish to upgrade your hard drive or add a second hard drive, you should use only native Serial ATA hard drives.

And what about SCSI? I have not seen any PCI-X SCSI cards out there (nor 64-bit PCI cards for that manner), and the PowerMac G5 does not have built in SCSI support.

So how does one use internal non serial-ATA drives in the PowerMac G5? And how does one install another internal optical drive in the PowerMac G5?

Until these issues are resolved, the PowerMac G5 cannot fully replace the DMM G4.

 

[patrick146]

I ask this question before, and I was told that PCI cards will not work in PCI-X slots from other members of this board.

And what about SCSI? I have not seen any PCI-X SCSI cards out there (nor 64-bit PCI cards for that manner), and the PowerMac G5 does not have built in SCSI support.

Google for "pci-x scsi": first result is an Adaptec PCI-X SCSI card.
Google for "pci-x backwards compatible compaq": first result is a Compaq site stating you can run PCI-X cards in PCI slots, and vice versa.

Chris

 

[Mord]

My "attempt" is neither vain (correct spelling) nor invalid, though it does seem to be completely escaping you whenever you reply to me. As I said in my lat post, the entire point of bringing up the 7447A is that there is a processor available to Apple right now which is competitive with the 970FX with lowered clockspeed, and that it's cooler than previous generations of G4s that passed the gigahertz mark. You have yet to answer numerous counterpoints of mine, and I see no point in moving forward until you do.

They are, to whit:

1. Where in the Motorola PDF that was shown does the list show what frequency that 35 watt waste heat is reached? By my reading, the numbers are intended to go across linearly, but there is no frequency given for that figure. Also, when you compare the 970FX xServe's overall power draw and heat output, the previous generation G4 xServes are about the same on typical power (7455s, incidentally), but are three to four times lower on max power draw and around five times lower on total BTU output.
2. The major heat expenditure differences in the dual G4 xserve and the single G5 towers seems to be the always-on fans in the server, and the inclusions of a graphics card, higher bus, and moderately higher clocked processors in the towers. Even the single 1.6ghz is hotter than two 1.33ghz G4s of the previous, hotter generation of the MPC74xx family.

it says here: http://e-www.motorola.com/webapp/sps/site/taxonomy.jsp?nodeId=03C1TR04670871 that the 7455 consumes 35-50 watts at 1Ghz let alone 1.2 that the cube upgrade used

you still have not awnsered my question are you denying it?

btw I am dyslexic and it makes me deppressed when people bash my spelling no matter how hard i try there are always a few words that slip through my spellcheck i would appreciate it if you dont make snyde comments like "(correct spelling)"

 

[thatwendigo]

it says here: http://e-www.motorola.com/webapp/sps/site/taxonomy.jsp?nodeId=03C1TR04670871 that the 7455 consumes 35-50 watts at 1Ghz let alone 1.2 that the cube upgrade used

No, it doesn't. The chart says that some 7455 processor consumes 35-50 watts, but it doesn't correlate on a 1:1 on the statistics. Read across the chart and tell me this, since you believe that the numbers are so clear... What voltage is the 1.0ghz running at? The possibilities are 1.3, 1.6, and 1.85, but it isn't at all clear which is which, just as the heat figures aren't exactly crystalline.

you still have not awnsered my question are you denying it?

Let's try to do this more civilly than we have been. Would you mind restating the question as clearly as possible, so that I could respond to it?

btw I am dyslexic and it makes me deppressed when people bash my spelling no matter how hard i try there are always a few words that slip through my spellcheck i would appreciate it if you dont make snyde comments like "(correct spelling)"

I'm sorry, then. I honestly don't mean to belittle anyone who has a serious disability, and if you're dyslexic, then it makes some sense. It's just that constant errors that don't look like typos tend to annoy me, and I can see now that you have extenuating circumstances. I meant no harm.

 

[Mord]

can you find the specs for the 1.2GHz 7455 that is used in the current cube upgrade and compare it to the power consumption of the 970fx which has been recorded by real world users as 25-45 watts see xclr8urmac for the test

 

[Bigheadache]

I ask this question before, and I was told that PCI cards will not work in PCI-X slots from other members of this board.

Also, there is this from Apple's support site:
Power Mac G5 computers have only Serial ATA busses. There are third-party adapters to connect Parallel ATA hard drives to Serial ATA busses, but these adapters are not supported for use on the Power Mac G5 computer. If you wish to upgrade your hard drive or add a second hard drive, you should use only native Serial ATA hard drives.

And what about SCSI? I have not seen any PCI-X SCSI cards out there (nor 64-bit PCI cards for that manner), and the PowerMac G5 does not have built in SCSI support.

Obviously you haven't been looking hard enough. There are plenty of PCI-X products. In addition to high end SCSI RAID controllers, the Blackmagic Decklink HD system uses PCI-X, as do alot of fibre channel controllers (not sure about the Apple one, but ATTO are PCI-X). Most of these products are high end in nature and normal users may not ever see them, but professionals which the G5 are pitched at would know about them. Anyway, you can stick your PCI cards in PCI-X slots so there is no loss in not having plain PCI slots.

As for using non-SATA hard disks, try checking at xlr8yourmac, I recall seeing people there using converters.

 

[Mercury]

My "attempt" is neither vain (correct spelling) nor invalid, though it does seem to be completely escaping you whenever you reply to me. As I said in my lat post, the entire point of bringing up the 7447A is that there is a processor available to Apple right now which is competitive with the 970FX with lowered clockspeed, and that it's cooler than previous generations of G4s that passed the gigahertz mark. You have yet to answer numerous counterpoints of mine, and I see no point in moving forward until you do.

They are, to whit:

The funny thing about correcting other people's spelling or grammar is that you must then be absolutely perfect in thine own.

For example, "whit" is an outdated word meaning an incredibly small amount or iota. The phrase "to wit," which is what you meant to say, on the other hand, means "namely."

 

[agreenster]

The funny thing about correcting other people's spelling or grammar is that you must then be absolutely perfect in thine own.

For example, "whit" is an outdated word meaning an incredibly small amount or iota. The phrase "to wit," which is what you meant to say, on the other hand, means "namely."

Roasted.

 

[Frobozz]

I ask this question before, and I was told that PCI cards will not work in PCI-X slots from other members of this board.

Also, there is this from Apple's support site:
Power Mac G5 computers have only Serial ATA busses. There are third-party adapters to connect Parallel ATA hard drives to Serial ATA busses, but these adapters are not supported for use on the Power Mac G5 computer. If you wish to upgrade your hard drive or add a second hard drive, you should use only native Serial ATA hard drives.

And what about SCSI? I have not seen any PCI-X SCSI cards out there (nor 64-bit PCI cards for that manner), and the PowerMac G5 does not have built in SCSI support.

So how does one use internal non serial-ATA drives in the PowerMac G5? And how does one install another internal optical drive in the PowerMac G5?

Until these issues are resolved, the PowerMac G5 cannot fully replace the DMM G4.

I assume you don't want to convert the data to SATA drives, but I would consider it. SATA drives are the future, and I can attest to how clean the cabling is, and how fast (and quiet) the HGST/IBM drives are.

 

[thatwendigo]

can you find the specs for the 1.2GHz 7455 that is used in the current cube upgrade and compare it to the power consumption of the 970fx which has been recorded by real world users as 25-45 watts see xclr8urmac for the test

Sonnet Encore 1.2ghz
(requires Sonnet Encore Cube Installation Kit)

The card is listed here as a "1.2ghz G4 745X" with 2MB DDR L3 cache. If you cross-reference the Motorola Product Sheet that we've been quoting, the only part that shows as a being in the 745X series and reaching 1.2ghz is the 7457, which has a heat expenditure of 17.5 watts typical and 24.2 watts maximum. This compares to the 24.5 to 49 watts of the 970FX at 2.0 ghz, which I believe someone stated would be around 16 to 18 watts typical for the 1.6ghz part.

I'd be stupid to say that a 400mhz jump and a change in architecture wasn't a good thing, but the fact of the matter is that the bus and a modern graphics card would add more need for cooling and, in the case of the GPU, a whole other fan. So, all things being equal, this isn't so big of a problem. All things aren't equal, though, and it doesn't compare directly.

The funny thing about correcting other people's spelling or grammar is that you must then be absolutely perfect in thine own.

For example, "whit" is an outdated word meaning an incredibly small amount or iota. The phrase "to wit," which is what you meant to say, on the other hand, means "namely."

Perhaps, but there's a vast difference between misusing a phrase that isn't exactly common and repeatedly destroying the Enlgish language. I tend to ignore things that could be typos, but it can be painfully obvious when people are just too clueless to know better.

In this case, Hector and I have come to a reasonably peaceful conclusion.

 

[DavidCar]

New ATI PCI - Express cards

I am no expert, but the announcement today of ATI PCI Express cards makes the rumoured specs of a new G5, including a PCI Express card slot, sound much more reasonable, also more reasonable because the new cards are Radeon type cards rather than FireGL type cards.

http://www.technewsworld.com/story/34152.html

 

[Mord]

Sonnet Encore 1.2ghz
(requires Sonnet Encore Cube Installation Kit)

The card is listed here as a "1.2ghz G4 745X" with 2MB DDR L3 cache. If you cross-reference the Motorola Product Sheet that we've been quoting, the only part that shows as a being in the 745X series and reaching 1.2ghz is the 7457, which has a heat expenditure of 17.5 watts typical and 24.2 watts maximum. This compares to the 24.5 to 49 watts of the 970FX at 2.0 ghz, which I believe someone stated would be around 16 to 18 watts typical for the 1.6ghz part.

I'd be stupid to say that a 400mhz jump and a change in architecture wasn't a good thing, but the fact of the matter is that the bus and a modern graphics card would add more need for cooling and, in the case of the GPU, a whole other fan. So, all things being equal, this isn't so big of a problem. All things aren't equal, though, and it doesn't compare directly.



Perhaps, but there's a vast difference between misusing a phrase that isn't exactly common and repeatedly destroying the Enlgish language. I tend to ignore things that could be typos, but it can be painfully obvious when people are just too clueless to know better.

In this case, Hector and I have come to a reasonably peaceful conclusion.

ok, yes thankyou

(cant resist pointing out that only powerlogix uses the 7457 sonnet still uses a 7455. that chip clocked way higher than is listed on moto's site hence the non corresponding values for the wattage and the clock speed. The g4 in the dual 1.4GHz MDD was a 7455 hence it used a giant 120mm fan and copper heatsink with fan and heat pump, also apple could use a radeon 9600 non pro with a faned radeon 9800 pro as a bto option (there is no problem in getting a mac fanless radeon 9600 non pro from ati))

 

[Mercury]

Perhaps, but there's a vast difference between misusing a phrase that isn't exactly common and repeatedly destroying the Enlgish language. I tend to ignore things that could be typos, but it can be painfully obvious when people are just too clueless to know better.

In this case, Hector and I have come to a reasonably peaceful conclusion.

No, you didn't misuse the phrase. You criticized him for using the wrong homonym, then did exactly that in your own post, later on. Regardless, I'm glad you have come to an understanding, but if you're going to pounce on others, you should be sure not to make the exact same mistake a paragraph later.

As for the G5s, I guess I'm biased, but as long as there are decent mhz increases(maybe 500 mhz or so), I'll be happy as long as they have new graphics cards!

 

[G4-power]

I think we'll see PCI-Express, and new graphics cards in the rev. B G5, and more hard drive bays would be welcome too. And I'm quite sure Steve Jobs keeps his promise. Just after Steve had promised 3 GHz in June 2004 in WWDC 2003, he showed the G5 intro.
In the 6'32" long G5 intro, on about 2'30" IBM Corporation Technology Group Senior Vice President, Dr. John E. Kelly III says:

"...but this is only the beginning, we have already built the prototypes for the next generation PowerPC microprocessors..."

I don't think he was talking about 970fx, and I don't know did he mean PPC 975/980, or what, but would the words "next generation" make it G6?
It's quite sure that it's only dreaming about a G6, but they really have had time to refine the new PowerMac, so whatever we get from Apple, I think it's going to be tremendous.

 

[Wyrm]

As for the G5s, I guess I'm biased, but as long as there are decent mhz increases(maybe 500 mhz or so), I'll be happy as long as they have new graphics cards!

Good point - the G5/970 is pretty slick, even a year after it's release. I think only the 500Mhz G4 lastest that long (er and then some) without a speed kick.. and the masses were seething ("Death to MOTO!").

An update to the processor is icing on the cake.

Video cards on the other hand... egads, the appetite can never be satisfied!
Push more PIXELS! Until a perfect realism is achieved.

I hope Tiger has more practically useless eye-candy to amaze our peecee friends ("Look at the User Switch! Rotate Rotate Rotate!" ooohhhh... "Dock Icon Magnify"... ahhhh )

Why IBM and Apple don't make boxed processors, with an upgrade design only Apple could come up with (easy, foolproof, clean)? - is beyond me. IBM could sell pretty much everyone who bought a Powermac with an upgrade. Is that not a lucrative business proposition?

-Wyrm

 

[jane doe]

Why does everyone want to nit pick someone else's spelling/grammar... As long as they get the idea across thats all that counts. right? it's suppose to be a discussion of technical topics. Not an english class.

What does this have to do with G5s?

and PCI express wont be in the G5s anytime soon.

 

[Studio Dweller]

Are standard PCI cards generally compatible with PCI-Express? I'm presently running a 3-card Pro Tools HD system in a G4 and am wondering if I should expect to be able to run them in a new G5 if they happen to have PCI-Express slots. The Pro Tools cards are 3.3 volts.

Thanks.

 

[dduchene]

Really big heat, considering IBM has been publishing their typical # (which is about 1/2 of max.)

So it would be more than the current 130nm 970 in 2GHz PowerMac, and Apple didn't publish the 970 Max numbers only the 970fx -- because they were quite hight.

I haven't read all of the post so excuss me if some one else has brought this up already. The 1st G5 in the tower was published at 150Watts of heat

The one in the Xserve where 100 If you read the arts about the virgina Tech instalation you will see these numbers cited as one of the reasons for upgrading to the Xserve. So no these numbers are not high for a desktop in this day at all.
Yes they are still a little high for a laptop but are cause for hope for us laptop users for sure

 

[Sun Baked]

I haven't read all of the post so excuss me if some one else has brought this up already. The 1st G5 in the tower was published at 150Watts of heat

Could you point to where Apple/IBM published the numbers for the 970's Maximum Power Dissipation, I saw the one Apple published for the 970FX -- but have yet to see something from Apple/IBM on the 970.

And yes the stuff that VT had to do to cool down the heat the PM G5s generated was quite interesting.

The numbers were not too high for single processor units, but we are running two of these suckers in the dual models.

This pushed them outside the capacity of many people's 300W UPS power supplies.

 

[Dont Hurt Me]

ok, yes thankyou

(cant resist pointing out that only powerlogix uses the 7457 sonnet still uses a 7455. that chip clocked way higher than is listed on moto's site hence the non corresponding values for the wattage and the clock speed. The g4 in the dual 1.4GHz MDD was a 7455 hence it used a giant 120mm fan and copper heatsink with fan and heat pump, also apple could use a radeon 9600 non pro with a faned radeon 9800 pro as a bto option (there is no problem in getting a mac fanless radeon 9600 non pro from ati))

You may be forgetting the Mercury Extreme from OWC. it uses a 7457 and i have one running at 1.47 for 10 months though its a 1.4 clocked just a tick up but it needed help. still not enough

 

[dduchene]

Could you point to where Apple/IBM published the numbers for the 970's Maximum Power Dissipation, I saw the one Apple published for the 970FX -- but have yet to see something from Apple/IBM on the 970.

And yes the stuff that VT had to do to cool down the heat the PM G5s generated was quite interesting.

The numbers were not too high for single processor units, but we are running two of these suckers in the dual models.

This pushed them outside the capacity of many people's 300W UPS power supplies.

As I said I found the power listed in the resurch that I did on the VT cluster. It was listed in many of the stories about the upgrade And qouted both apple and VT people as the soruce So I believe it to be the truth.
As some one else noted this is lower than Both P-4s and AMDs.
I do not know when these will show up in the Xserves but as some one that has Built and run high density Data Centers (my last was 500 servers 1 Billion transactions a Day @ peek and over 800 meg ) I can tell you that I find this number to be very encoraging.

 

[Wyrm]

Are standard PCI cards generally compatible with PCI-Express? I'm presently running a 3-card Pro Tools HD system in a G4 and am wondering if I should expect to be able to run them in a new G5 if they happen to have PCI-Express slots. The Pro Tools cards are 3.3 volts.
Thanks.

Nope. Not compatible. Not even close.
Someone might make a conversion adapter... but I've seen nothing yet.

Luckily, the mechanicals of the PCIe are such that you can't even stick a PCI card into a PCIe slot (and vice versa).

Maybe there will be PCIe version of what you need?

-Wyrm