If 90nm PPC 970 is ready soon whats the Powerbook holdup?

[willmg]

Hey all just curious if anyone has heat specs for the 90nm G5s as it seems almost ridiculous that apple couldn't get a low clocked one of these puppies into a 1-2 inch thick form factor. If I remeber correctly the potential problem with the 130nm was more the chipset than the cpu heat. Now that 90nm is imminent and if they say scaled back the bus to 1/4th which would still kick my current machines butt shouldn't they be able to do this?? Sorry for the rant I am just kinda dismayed that right now the time frame is seen by most as late summer to early fall of 04 for these to premier with dualie G4s in the pipeline or faster motos ughhhhhh

 

[Lanbrown]

No one knows what Apple will do until they typically announce it. Samples of the 970 have been given, that means that production will typically start within three to six months. Initial quantities could still be limited and Apple may decide the PM G5 will get them first and then the PB. Maybe they will wait for the 980 to ship and then they move the 970 to the PB line.

There can be many reasons for a delay. No one has any concrete evidence when the G5 PB's will be unveiled. So since that information is not known, there is a lot more that is not known as well. One could supply.

 

[willmg]

But don't you think a scaled back chip and chipset would be possible? If I remember the 130nm at 1-1.2GHz was very similar if not better than the 7457 in terms of wattage, so I am curious as to what part of the cipset would be responsible for the heat which would bake our legs? I realize we would never see a 10 pounder like on the intel desknote side, but even those dont kill you for heat and they are up at desktop wattages with 533-800 FSBs. I guess I just don't understand why Apple wouldnt want to put a G5 even if slightly crippled(as it would most likely beat up on a G4 anyways) compared to the desktop version into the powerbook asap esspecially since ibooks now have G4s and AMD already has 64bit notebooks showing up.

 

[ddtlm]

willmg:

The 7457 uses less power than a PPC970 at similar clockspeeds, its the 180nm 7455 that is in the 970's range. But do you really want a G5 clocked so slowly? I haven't seen much suggesting that the per-clock performance of G5's is significantly better than G4's.

In other news, its quite likely that the 90nm 970 is 6 months away from general availability, and its also quite likely that the 980 isn't gona show up till 2005, despite the endless rumors.

 

[jamall]

...I just don't understand why Apple wouldnt want to put a G5 even if slightly crippled...

"crippled" isn't the right word as laptops are always slower than the desktops they accompany - "lower spec" would be more appropriate. Apple might be waiting for cooler chips. Engineering challenges and chip supply might have absolutely nothing to do with it. They could be announced next week. This is the tech industry, and most people will never know what is really going on in the board rooms/marketing departments/engineering labs of the big corporations. You'll just have to wait like everyone else.

 

[jefhatfield]

Originally posted by Lanbrown
No one knows what Apple will do until they typically announce it. Samples of the 970 have been given, that means that production will typically start within three to six months. Initial quantities could still be limited and Apple may decide the PM G5 will get them first and then the PB. Maybe they will wait for the 980 to ship and then they move the 970 to the PB line.

There can be many reasons for a delay. No one has any concrete evidence when the G5 PB's will be unveiled. So since that information is not known, there is a lot more that is not known as well. One could supply.

maybe there is not concrete evidence of a G5 chip in a powerbook, but it would be very stupid for apple to wait too long on this one and i hope that apple unveils such a machine in six months to a year, but closer to six months of course

it is crazy how far and how fast/powerful the PC side has gone with their portables and i would hate to be seeing apple have G4 powerbooks for the '04 christmas crowd

while i don't suspect a G5 powerbook at mwsf in a little more than a month, i know apple inc is probably planning their strategy for their G5 powerbooks

 

[iEric]

hey hey..you never know what apple has up their sleeve...and an expo is coming very soon...lets just cross our fingers...
also, i'm excited cause the faster the powerbooks get their G5, the iMacs follow. I'm really interested in a G5 iMac...wwith a 20" monitor...wow

 

[Counterfit]

Apple releases a G5 PB at MWSF = me (and thousands more) very pissed
Apple releases G5 PB at (whatever it's called) in June = me not pissed, saying "kick ass" etc. Some will still be pissed.



wow, that had almost no point...

 

[jefhatfield]

did anyone see the december macworld magazine? the benchmarks show the PCs ahead...still

if we are to catch up, we need at least a G5 powerbook announcement at mwsf

and we desperatley need the dual G5/3.5 ghz by the end of 2004...and everything at drastically lower prices

apple inc is now back on track with momentum on their side and it's about time that we can be back into intel and amd benchmark territory and play tit for tat instead of catch up

i have some hope since apple inc is focusing on this right now, but it also explains why apple is not at its best in quality control...but that is the lot of a tiny 7,000-8,000 person comany in the massive silicon valley...ibm is dozens of times bigger and even intel is ten times larger than apple