likelyhood of a new (faster) frontside bus in mac notebooks?

[kallaway1]

Hey all,

I plan on buying a new laptop in november, probably around thanksgiving. I do a bit of gaming, and I've read many places that if you like to play games, don't get a mac. However, I'd like to disagree with that statement, because all of my favorite games are available on mac (UT 2K4, Warcraft 3, Neverwinter Nights, and later on - World of Warcraft! ). So, what about the performance? I've read many places that the G4 cpu is excellent, but it's the 133mhz frontside bus that's really holding back performance in the powerbooks. Comapred to the 400mhz fsb in dothan-based notebooks, this is kind of a big selling point. So here's the big question: Can we expect to see a fsb speed increased in the last G4 revision of powerbooks?

 

[Zaty]

First, the PowerBooks have a 167 MHz frontside bus. I don't think the next revision will get a faster bus as the current G4 architecture doesn't support faster buses. Nevertheless, the performance of the PowerBooks is not as bad as seems. Of course, any Pentium M notebook will be faster if it has a decent graphics chip (w/ dedicated VRAM) as well as a fast HDD. But you trade that plus in performance for less securitiy and stability.

 

[t300]

I can tell you for a fact that Apple notebooks will only get faster. It's true. If your so skeptical, head to an Apple store and try it out because around here people could tell you its the best all day...Go find out for yourself. We don't know you so we can't possibly tell you if something will work for you. It will be YOU who decides.

 

[crazzyeddie]

The FSB holds the Powerbooks back on very memory intensive apps, but not so much on games. The mobile GPUs and CPUs are still not fast enough to be completely held back by the FSB. The 9700M is a great card and will push WarIII at full res with full graphics with zero problems (except maybe 8 A.I. players in a battle at once). World of Warcraft should also run great on Powerbooks. Sounds to me like you don't have much to worry about

 

[invaLPsion]

Based on the information we have, this next revision of powerbooks will sport a multitude of performance improvements, making this one of the most significant updates to date.

Three different sources have confirmed speeds at 1.6 and 1.8GHz (a 300MHz improvement), DDR400 memory, 9800 mobility graphics in the 15 and 17 inch models, and an all new 200MHz FSB, decreasing the gaming bottleneck.

These will be tremendously fast and could make people forget about a G5 revision for a while. I can't wait to see gaming performace on that 17 inch monster.

BUY BUY BUY if this information proves to be true. We should find out within the next two months.

 

[thatwendigo]

Three different sources have confirmed speeds at 1.6 and 1.8GHz (a 300MHz improvement), DDR400 memory, 9800 mobility graphics in the 15 and 17 inch models, and an all new 200MHz FSB, decreasing the gaming bottleneck.

I could buy faster processors, but there are serious issues with faster RAM and the 9800 that makes them far, far less likely in my mind. Also, I doubt the 200mhz bus, since the MCX architecture that Freescale has left over from Motorola is at maximum with the current PowerBooks (167mhz). Basically, in a system where heat and power draw is a major concern, the 9800M is just too much.

More likely, we might see a holiday-era PowerBook with an e600 single core or (potentially) dual core chip, a 400mhz FSB, advanced power management that scales down to a mere 4 watts at idle, and on-die memory control. I'd expect the chips to clock in around 1.6-1.8 on the early models, ranging up to 2.2 on the second revision (samples of the chip are over 2.0ghz at this point, apparently). We might also see the premium 9700M with 256MB of RAM on the 17 inch as a BTO option, but I put that at an outside chance at the very best.

 

[Sun Baked]

Freescale has promised both a DDR FSB and RIO, and while RIO has shown it's face in other Motorola CPUs (along with a host of other nifty feathers) -- neither has shown up in the G4 line, since it's not a "core market" chip.