Intel Powerbook and iMac in January?

[bjohn]

Missing The Point....

As a first generation iMac G5 owner, it is obvious to me the reasoning (other than even more obvious business and marketing ones) as to why iMacs are being chosen as one of the first intel updates- Heat and Noise. There has been a common thread (no pun intended!) throughout the run of the iMacs about heat and noise concerns on Apple's own support site. Now there are some complaints about the new iSight, although there have been major improvements in that area since my first generation model- especially with the new design of Gen. C. Still, since Apple first announced a "whisper quiet" iMac, many people expect near silence- and even the iSights do not deliver to that degree. What better way to reach closer to that goal than new, cooler running intel processors that do not require as much cooling from noisy fans- yet deliver more power?

 

[Chundles]

I love this time of year:

My birthday, end of november.
Christmas, end of December almost one month to the day since my birthday
and then one month later, iChristmas in January.

S'great!!!

Love it.

 

[Bear]

I can see 2 good reasos for Apple to use the same case as the iMac G5 (iSight):

1) Designing new cases and preparing the production lines cost money.

2) Imagine a row of iMacs at MacWorld. Some are Intel based and some are PowerPC based. Walk up to an iMac and play with it - does it really matter which processor it has in it?

 

[sjo]

ok, now i am truly pissed off!
if they do introduce the mentioned products, when will they ship them?

i was about to get a new powerbook because my titanium powerbook is becoming unbearably slow and I simply refuse to upgrade it in any way, what am I supposed to do?

well depends of what you use your powerbook for. if it's for photoshop your probly better off buying one of the last g4 powerbook models, it'll be a while before adobe releases native mactel versions of their software. that could still take a year or even more, cs4 could realistically be mactel, cs3 not.

if you're using your computer for say ms office stuff waiting might be an option, using those with rosetta may be feasible, though not necessarily any faster than on older powerbook!

 

[generik]

well depends of what you use your powerbook for. if it's for photoshop your probly better off buying one of the last g4 powerbook models, it'll be a while before adobe releases native mactel versions of their software. that could still take a year or even more, cs4 could realistically be mactel, cs3 not.

if you're using your computer for say ms office stuff waiting might be an option, using those with rosetta may be feasible, though not necessarily any faster than on older powerbook!

Using rosetta might incur a penalty but in the long run it is still a better deal. Besides how bad can it be? 50% penalty?

Hey, Yonah is dual core.. assuming a 50% increase in system performance it is ONLY 25% slower to eat that penalty.

Of course in reality it is not just 50% faster, nor is rosetta that pathetic.. it is going to fly.

 

[jdechko]

Sweet... the sooner the better. Powerbook specs are less than spectacular at this point so I can't see Steve putting off their release if they are truly ready just because he said June 06.

As for the iMac, I'm not so sure that they really need another update so soon after the last one. I know that the PB really needs it, and probably the mini next. Maybe they're having more problems with the mini... it seems like the iMac, PowerMac and iBook are all pretty decent at this point, so they just randomly decided what to update next and the iMac got chosen.

 

[Bear]

Using rosetta might incur a penalty but in the long run it is still a better deal. Besides how bad can it be? 50% penalty?
...

For Photoshop? It could be that bad. Remember Rosetta emulates a G3, so Photshop under Rosetta will not have acess to SIMD (AltiVec on G4, G5) type instructions. Depending on what you use Photoshop for, this could be rather noticeable.

On the Intel side of things, a Pentium II and a Pentium III with the same bus, clock speeds and cache size, the PIII was ~40% faster for Photoshop due to the use of SIMD instructions.

So to sum it up, Photoshop under Rosetta has two things going against it - no SIMD and it's emulated.

 

[Bear]

Sweet... the sooner the better. Powerbook specs are less than spectacular at this point so I can't see Steve putting off their release if they are truly ready just because he said June 06.
...

Actually Steve did not say in June, he said by June 2006.

I do not think Apple will rush anything out the door before it is ready. They just need one of the Intel Macs ready to ship in the first half of 2006 to meet the expectations that Steve Jobs has set.

 

[jdechko]

it'll be a while before adobe releases native mactel versions of their software. that could still take a year or even more, cs4 could realistically be mactel, cs3 not.

One of the good things, though, is that Apple and Adobe are business partners so to speak... Adobe knows that there is a good deal of its user-base who are also Mac users (the design studios, etc). In my opinion, there isn't much stopping Adobe from re-compiling a universal binary "patch" for all current CS2 users that allows CS2 to run natively under intel. All of the support files (brushes, filters, etc) are all the exact same anyway, right? Plus, for Mac CS1 users, they could do a special "last chance" upgrade price to get them from PPC-CS1 to intel CS2.

It's just a thought, and obviously I am assuming that Adobe pretty much already has a universal binary pretty close to completion. Apple stands to make money from customers not being afraid to switch: CS2 runs natively without Rosetta. Adobe offers a one-time special "cross-platform" upgrade from PPC-CS1 to Intel-CS2 and doesnt have to wait for CS3.

 

[Will Cheyney]

Anyone with a iSight iMac - check this out..[/B]
--Apparently the Photobooth App is the FIRST officially released INTEL AND POWERPC compiled program. Just go to get info about that app and apparently it will tell you that it was created using a universay bianary and able to run natively on both systems. I thought this was pretty dag on cool.....

Hahaha! Awesome.

 

[Dont Hurt Me]

Its good news, iMac and Powerbook have gone nowhere performance wise and who wants to replace their computer with one that offers nothing more? Its why Apple threw in everything but the kitchen sink. If you would have told me 5 years ago my quicksilver would still be current I would have called you a liar but here we are. This is cool, bring on the Intel and as far as PPC goes R.I.P. It will be nice to again have computers moving forward in performance instead of updates with no cpu updates. iMac's .1 ghz increase was a joke as was Powerbooks no increase.

 

[stuepfnick]

This rumor sounds ugly...

The PowerPC G5 is a top-of-the-line CPU and every Mac application is available for PPC-CPUs.

It would be horrible to be only able to buy Intel-based iMacs, they won't benefit from Intel-CPUs, the iMacs could be upgraded to Dual-Core-G5s, I am sure, then I would buy one, but no Intel crap (yet).

I want a powerful PPC-Mac to wait some years, until there is enough software for the Intel-Crap, although the Powermac is too expensive to me. Maybe if later in 2006 we get Dual-Core iMacs and Quad-Powermacs accross the line, I'll get a new Mac.

What do you want to do with Intel-Macs early 2006? Run windows on it? Why not buy a PC? You can do the same with it.
Even in mid-2006 there won't be much Intel-OS X Software available, so this makes no sense.

And as some of you pointed out, the G5 is a pretty powerful processor and it's up to date, so there an Intel-CPU makes no sense.

Apple has to wait until Mid of 2007 to switch the Powermacs to Intel. They'll have to wait until Intel has some CPUs to offer which will offer at least the same power as the Dual-Core-G5s and that won't be until Mid of 2007.

And guess what, in Mid of 2007 we will also get High-Volume productions of very-low-power PPC-CPUs from PA Semi.
There will be a Dual-Core PPC Chip with Altivec, S-ATA II, PCIe, and all the fine stuff in one processor. It will use 13 Watt @ 2 Ghz. They start shipping in late 2006. In 2007 there will be Single and Quad Core types of this CPU as well.

Apple is really doing a big mistake here. Just to get more powerful Powerbooks a half year earlier, all the effort. And then it even can't be as powerful as future PPC-Chips. It will hard for Apple to explain all the downgrades and less Perormance-per-Watt compared to PA Semi CPUs.

The badest thing is all the effort of all the companies who need to change their apps to Intel code. Many will jump of, there won't be any more Classic. So no old games, no old Apps.
No one will redo all the old stuff for Intel CPUs. Many Developers will jump off. Many will offer their Windows Version only, they'll tell us: Just boot into Windows to use our Apps. The same will happen to games.
Also we can't use any of the Apps that need a G4/G5 at least, Rosetta won't run them.

And have fun with your Intel Macs in early 2006 using everything with Rosetta! So you are back at the speed of early G4s. Really a big step forward.

I wish Apple will only offer one Intel-based Mac mini and keep everything else at PowerPC.
Yes, we will have to wait another 4-8 months to get fast, state-of-the-art powerbooks, but I think it's worth the waiting.

So we won't need Rosetta, have the power to blow away all the Intel stuff again. (the only real competition to the G5 comes from AMD)
We can use ALL of our Apps natively, can continue to use Altivec, will get Altivec 2 (VERY powerful) in 2007, can continue to use ALL our classic and G4 software, etc.
Also we will get great games coming from the PS3, XBox360 and the new Nintendo. They ALL use PPC now and they all have ALTIVEC. Also the PS3 has some Vector-processors, that work pretty similar to Altivec. AND there will be Auto-Vectorisation in the near future, as well a broad range of experienced vector-code programmers (coming from the consoles). So the PPC-future looks VERY, VERY NICE.

The only disadvantage of not using Intel-CPUs in Macs would be some months more waiting for a powerful Powerbook and not being able to use windows on our Macs. But who wants this? Just buy a cheap PC to use this crap!

In my opinion it is the absolutely wrong time to switch to Intel. I could understand it, in the end times of the G4 Powermacs, if they did it INSTEAD of the G5.
But now we have the G5 and we will get VERY STRONG and LOW POWER PPC-CPUs soon from PA Semi. A Dual-Core 2 Ghz chips will utilize 13 Watt (compared to 130 Watt of a Dual Core Pentium).

Also Intels Dual-Core CPUs use a very weak design. The cores have to comunicate over the FSB, that slows down everything very much. The Dual-Core G5 has a Backbridge, over which both cores can talk to each other directly, speeding things up.

Also Steve Jobs argument of IBM, that they don't offer 3 Ghz chips yet is big nonsense. If they did go with Intel, Steve would tell us: In late 2004 we will have CPUs reaching 5 Ghz. (as Intels roadmap was saying).

So it won't be any difference. And the Quad 2.5 Ghz is more powerfull than any Dual 3 Ghz could be!
I just hope, ALL Powermacs (or at least the middle-one) will become Quad too.

I hope I can afford some Dual-Core iMac or Dual/Quad Powermac, before the Intel Crap comes. So I can stay with it as long as possible. I would love to run the Unreal-Engine3 on a Quad-Core Powermac.
Also I hope there will be some alternative OS, that works with PPC, with a broad User base. If yes, I am sure, I will switch. I am very excited about the cool chips from PA Semi, coming late 2006 and 2007.

Greetings,
Stefab

 

[zap2]

good i can get my iBook now and not worry(or worry less)

and my mom's PB she needs now

 

[stuepfnick]

Ps:

btw, have fun buying ALL the software upgrades for Intel-native apps. I personally can't afford the switch, because all the new software costs much more than a new Mac. (and working with Rosetta is not worth it. So it's better to just stay with PPC for the moment)

 

[Hattig]

I'm in two minds about this.

One mind is 'yeah, right, AI is being taken for a ride here, the iMac G5 is plenty competitive at the moment, a bump to a single 2.3GHz G5 in January would be all it'd need until Merom comes out'. I can see the Mac Mini and the iBook getting Intelified early next year of course, the G4 has nowhere to go unless Freescale somehow miraculously create 2GHz 7448s in quantity, and that'd only hold off the inevitable for a few months.

I've reassessed my Powerbook won't go Intel until 2007 stance. It'd be killed if it remained a single-core G4 throughout 2006 because all the Intel based laptops would have dual-core Yonahs. Quite simply the only choice Apple has is to go dual-core, and Yonah is the only viable option in early 2006. Dual-core G4 probably won't be available in quantity until the end of 2006. Quite possibly two G4s could be used, but at considerable cost and the shared POS FSB wouldn't really make it work well.

So from a marketing point of view, PowerBook will go dual-core Yonah as soon as Intel can provide them to Apple. Possibly even before the iBook goes Intel - the pressure for dual-core will be in the medium-to-high-end of the market. iBook will hopefully get a dual-core 1.66GHz Yonah however, the PowerBook will get dual-core 1.83GHz, 2GHz and 2.16GHz (13", 15", 17"). The 13" might be restricted to LV Yonah however, that's dual-core 1.5GHz.

But the iMac? It's decent already, it uses a G5, it's got up to date components. Surely it can wait for Merom? Or maybe Intel has told Apple that Merom is delayed (Intel has had terrible issues with delays and cancellations this year, but I don't think they had extended to Merom) and Apple is just going to use Yonah as it will be electrically compatible.

As long as Apple don't use anything from the awful Pentium 4 family, I'll be reasonably happy. Even with G3-level performance (albeit a fast G3 at around 70% the speed of the intel processor) the dual-core aspect should make up for some of the altivec losses. However I do think that Apple should at least have all their applications intel-native by release, no Rosetta for them.

 

[Photorun]

Need I remind everyone on this thread we're talking about AppleInsider.com... aka "used to be relevant in 1998 and even then maybe not." They are, in fact right... about 3% of the time. Who can forget their fanciful predictions of the next generation of quad G4 processors or "G5 Powerbooks right around the corner" (um, right) or their always usually laughably wrong specs and price points that even a fanboy would find hard to swallow.

The last time AppleInsider actually got something considerable that was right, and mind you, I check them all (mosr, appleinsider, thinksecret, etc.) was almost two days before the newer style, post toilet-seat looking, iBook they predicted it. Okay... that was ONE occasion, but again, it was only two days prior.

What makes this prediction like the iBook? Nothing. They're pulling this one out of their arse.

Move along people, nothing to see here.

 

[takilu]

need some opinion here...

Hello, i need an opinion yours. I am a student of multimedia design (just finishing the course) and i need to buy a laptop.

Do you find a good purchase, if i buy a PB of 15"? or it is better i wait for intel?

I use programs like photoshop, flash, dreamweaver, illustrator, after effects and some (not much) maya.

Please help me, i´m confuse about this....

 

[adamfilip]

For Photoshop? It could be that bad. Remember Rosetta emulates a G3, so Photshop under Rosetta will not have acess to SIMD (AltiVec on G4, G5) type instructions. Depending on what you use Photoshop for, this could be rather noticeable.

On the Intel side of things, a Pentium II and a Pentium III with the same bus, clock speeds and cache size, the PIII was ~40% faster for Photoshop due to the use of SIMD instructions.

So to sum it up, Photoshop under Rosetta has two things going against it - no SIMD and it's emulated.

what does it matter if it emulates with no Alivec SIMD , since the Intel stuff cant do it anyways

 

[iMeowbot]

Do you find a good purchase, if i buy a PB of 15"? or it is better i wait for intel?

I use programs like photoshop, flash, dreamweaver, illustrator, after effects and some (not much) maya.

Well, Photoshop and Illustrator kind of point at going with PowerPC in the near term. Adobe aren't planning to have their stuff ported until closer to 2007.

 

[ksz]

Oh no, where to begin??

The PowerPC G5 is a top-of-the-line CPU and every Mac application is available for PPC-CPUs.

It would be horrible to be only able to buy Intel-based iMacs, they won't benefit from Intel-CPUs, the iMacs could be upgraded to Dual-Core-G5s, I am sure, then I would buy one, but no Intel crap (yet).

You are really afraid of change. Why? Intel-based Macs may well benefit greatly compared with the anemic pace of development the PPC has had. The time for the PPC is over. Apple gave the PPC consortium more than enough time and they failed to deliver new generation processors quickly and with high performance per watt.

I want a powerful PPC-Mac to wait some years, until there is enough software for the Intel-Crap, although the Powermac is too expensive to me. Maybe if later in 2006 we get Dual-Core iMacs and Quad-Powermacs accross the line, I'll get a new Mac.

Rosetta will allow you to run PPC binaries on an Intel Mac. Universal binaries do, however, need to be released quickly by software developers. I do not want to use Rosetta for more than 1 year.

What do you want to do with Intel-Macs early 2006? Run windows on it? Why not buy a PC? You can do the same with it.

R O S E T T A.

Even in mid-2006 there won't be much Intel-OS X Software available, so this makes no sense.

R O S E T T A.

And as some of you pointed out, the G5 is a pretty powerful processor and it's up to date, so there an Intel-CPU makes no sense.

If you are happy with 0.1 GHz upgrades to the PPC every 6 months, be our guest.

Apple has to wait until Mid of 2007 to switch the Powermacs to Intel. They'll have to wait until Intel has some CPUs to offer which will offer at least the same power as the Dual-Core-G5s and that won't be until Mid of 2007.

Why does Apple have to wait until mid 2007? Who enacted that law? According to AppleInsider's latest article which you haven't read, Apple may complete the transition by Fall of 2006 -- yes, Fall of next year. That would include the PowerMacs.

And guess what, in Mid of 2007 we will also get High-Volume productions of very-low-power PPC-CPUs from PA Semi.

This seems like a sinking ship. It's the right move for Apple to jump ship.

There will be a Dual-Core PPC Chip with Altivec, S-ATA II, PCIe, and all the fine stuff in one processor. It will use 13 Watt @ 2 Ghz. They start shipping in late 2006. In 2007 there will be Single and Quad Core types of this CPU as well.

Promises promises. Apple has been the unfortunate victim of promises. They need a far more confident, capable, and aggressive supplier. Intel is that supplier.

Apple is really doing a big mistake here. Just to get more powerful Powerbooks a half year earlier, all the effort. And then it even can't be as powerful as future PPC-Chips. It will hard for Apple to explain all the downgrades and less Perormance-per-Watt compared to PA Semi CPUs.

What future PPC chips? You are comparing vaporware with something that exists now and will continue to exist for a long time. Apple cannot partner with an unknown designhouse that probably has no fabs of its own and operates like a small company. Do you know who these guys are?

The badest thing is all the effort of all the companies who need to change their apps to Intel code. Many will jump of, there won't be any more Classic. So no old games, no old Apps.

In the best case you just click a checkbox that says "Intel Binary" and rebuild your app. That's it. In other cases there's more work, but not on the scale of a rewrite.

No one will redo all the old stuff for Intel CPUs. Many Developers will jump off. Many will offer their Windows Version only, they'll tell us: Just boot into Windows to use our Apps. The same will happen to games.

Not really. An OS is more than the processor on which it runs. Different processor architectures have provided a wider rift between OSs, but even if we bridge the processor gulf, the OSs are not the same. Linux exists for Intel and it's doing very well.

Also we can't use any of the Apps that need a G4/G5 at least, Rosetta won't run them.

These might be among the first to go native.

And have fun with your Intel Macs in early 2006 using everything with Rosetta! So you are back at the speed of early G4s. Really a big step forward.

Remains to be seen.

I wish Apple will only offer one Intel-based Mac mini and keep everything else at PowerPC.
Yes, we will have to wait another 4-8 months to get fast, state-of-the-art powerbooks, but I think it's worth the waiting.

It's better to make the transition quickly and get it over with so comments like yours go away that much faster.

So we won't need Rosetta, have the power to blow away all the Intel stuff again. (the only real competition to the G5 comes from AMD)
We can use ALL of our Apps natively, can continue to use Altivec, will get Altivec 2 (VERY powerful) in 2007, can continue to use ALL our classic and G4 software, etc.

You're again banking on promises and thinking that some unknown small player will be able to solve all the yield and design problems that IBM and Motorola/Freescale could not solve.

Also we will get great games coming from the PS3, XBox360 and the new Nintendo. They ALL use PPC now and they all have ALTIVEC. Also the PS3 has some Vector-processors, that work pretty similar to Altivec. AND there will be Auto-Vectorisation in the near future, as well a broad range of experienced vector-code programmers (coming from the consoles). So the PPC-future looks VERY, VERY NICE.

Not true. The CELL processor cores are not designed for general purpose computing and perform less efficiently for those tasks. It looks like performance of the XBOX 360 will be underwhelming -- it's already beginning to disappoint some people (check the Games section of Macrumors). Playstation 3 might provide more oomph, but it remains to be seen.

The only disadvantage of not using Intel-CPUs in Macs would be some months more waiting for a powerful Powerbook and not being able to use windows on our Macs. But who wants this? Just buy a cheap PC to use this crap!

Don't think so. Many of your premises are unfounded, so many of your conclusions are unwarranted.

In my opinion it is the absolutely wrong time to switch to Intel. I could understand it, in the end times of the G4 Powermacs, if they did it INSTEAD of the G5.

But now we have the G5 and we will get VERY STRONG and LOW POWER PPC-CPUs soon from PA Semi. A Dual-Core 2 Ghz chips will utilize 13 Watt (compared to 130 Watt of a Dual Core Pentium).

Also Intels Dual-Core CPUs use a very weak design. The cores have to comunicate over the FSB, that slows down everything very much. The Dual-Core G5 has a Backbridge, over which both cores can talk to each other directly, speeding things up.

Also Steve Jobs argument of IBM, that they don't offer 3 Ghz chips yet is big nonsense. If they did go with Intel, Steve would tell us: In late 2004 we will have CPUs reaching 5 Ghz. (as Intels roadmap was saying).

So it won't be any difference. And the Quad 2.5 Ghz is more powerfull than any Dual 3 Ghz could be!
I just hope, ALL Powermacs (or at least the middle-one) will become Quad too.

I hope I can afford some Dual-Core iMac or Dual/Quad Powermac, before the Intel Crap comes. So I can stay with it as long as possible. I would love to run the Unreal-Engine3 on a Quad-Core Powermac.
Also I hope there will be some alternative OS, that works with PPC, with a broad User base. If yes, I am sure, I will switch. I am very excited about the cool chips from PA Semi, coming late 2006 and 2007.

Greetings,
Stefab

PA Semi is a startup company in Santa Clara backed by venture capitalists. They've been in business for 2 years. You want Apple to bank its future on this? For all we know, PA Semi might become another Transmeta.

http://www.pasemi.com/about/index.html

And I think this is pretty cute!

 

[Hattig]

what does it matter if it emulates with no Alivec SIMD , since the Intel stuff cant do it anyways

The Intel FPU (especially on the Pentium M chips) is pretty poor. Yonah and Merom will have improved FPUs apparently.

However they do have SSE2, which is a poor-mans Altivec. However it does significantly improve performance.

Unless Rosetta is enhanced to also translate Altivec instructions into SSE/SSE2/SSE3/emulated instructions, then you really are in the worst of both worlds - the standard floating point path.

 

[Hattig]

PA Semi is a startup company in Santa Clara backed by venture capitalists. They've been in business for 2 years. You want Apple to bank its future on this? For all we know, PA Semi might become another Transmeta.

http://www.pasemi.com/about/index.html

I generally agree with everything you've said.

Regarding PA Semi, the integer performance is quite poor - ~1100 SPEC_int per core. The floating point is very good however at ~2300 SPEC_fp per core. I don't think it'd make a great 2007 Mac processor unless the integer performance was significantly tweaked. Don't get me wrong, it would make a pretty good Mac processor, and the integration would remove a lot of the chipset woes that Apple has had in the PowerPC arena.

I do, however, have a lot of confidence in the people who are running PA Semi, and they will deliver what they have said they will deliver. They'll probably deliver it on time as well. Maybe come 2010 they'll be leading the entire market performance-wise and it'll be time for Apple to go back to PowerPC - which they'll be able to do much quicker than Windows Vista will be ported to PowerPC. However the distant future is pointless to speculate on.

 

[jbembe]

I hope this is true. If things work out at my job, I could get a new laptop when this happens. They just put wireless for my entire building. That would simply be exceptional!!

 

[hyperpasta]

I predict...

My entirely useless predicitions:

The Powerbook will be the sexiest compuer Apple has shipped. Thin, shiny, and dual-core! The 12" version WILL be dropped, and it WILL have an iSight.

The Mac mini will be slightly redesigned, with a thin white plastic stripe through the lower half of the brushed metal shell. While it looks like decoration, it houses an IR receiver for Front Row, which is included.

New Cinema displays will come out at some point with built-in iSights and maybe swiveling.

The iMac will ship later on, maybe around WWDC. The case will get slimmer and trimmer, and maybe get Dual-Core chips. I expect a 17" model for educational institutions only (replacing the current eMac), a 20" model for $1399, and a 23" model for $1699. If the Cinema Displays get swiveling, so will the iMac.

The PowerMacs will ship in fall or winter, using the new Conroe (?) chip.

Oh yeah, and Leopard will ship the day before Vista.

 

[ksz]

I do, however, have a lot of confidence in the people who are running PA Semi, and they will deliver what they have said they will deliver. They'll probably deliver it on time as well. Maybe come 2010 they'll be leading the entire market performance-wise and it'll be time for Apple to go back to PowerPC - which they'll be able to do much quicker than Windows Vista will be ported to PowerPC. However the distant future is pointless to speculate on.

Their executive team appears to have very good credentials, but so did the Transmeta team. Transmeta's goal was to produce high performance processors at very low wattage. Unfortunately, the Crusoe failed to live up to its performance promises.

I wish PA Semi every success, but it's too early and completely imprudent for a company with Apple's requirements to bank its future on a 2-year old startup.