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Low End PowerMac G5?

wPod said:
er how is that low end? if its the same price as the iMac G5 why would anyone buy it?

the e-mac is low end!!!! and this is about twice as much as that! you can go to dell and get something low end !!!!

(sorry i want a mac about the price of the e-mac w/o the built in monitor!)
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Good luck with that one! You can go to Dell and get a POS $499 with generic parts that they didn't design, and they didn't build, low RAM that you have to share with for the video, poor HD Specs, and no CD-RW/DVD (Combo Drive). Also, you don't get any real software, no office suite.

You get what you pay for son!
 
This is a crippled PowerMac and not a Headless iMac, which is what we have been asking for. It should be U$ 999 otherwise you will always have the feeling that you're losing a great 17"monitor and a better graphic card in exchange for some PCI and memory slots that you might need some day. But Apple will never price a Pro product cheeper than a consumer one for obvious reasons so this a shoot in the foot. Save more 400 bucks and you get another processor and a better card.
 
This is good for people looking for a qualit machine that dont have a lot of money. Will they be introducing a new emac as well??? :confused:
 
GFLPraxis said:
This would seriously suck.

1) It has the same specs as the iMac, and the same price. The only difference is that the iMac has a FASTER graphics card (Ultra, not normal FX 5200), and includes a $600 LCD screen.
2) It would ruin their "all-dual lineup".

Now, if it had an FX 5200 Ultra, and was dual 1.6, this would be nice. But otherwise, stay far away unless you have a spare $600.
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If you had a spare $600, why would you be buying an affordable, low end system?
 
AndrewMT said:
Apple needs to update its 17" cinema display to widescreen format and the new aluminum look to give the headless G5 owners more options.

I'm hoping for a cube-style G5 desktop.
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A person after my own heart. Cube all the way. :D
 
Gahhhhh!
I have a new G5 iMac in the mail right now coming to me. I wanted to pony up for a PowerMac but I just couldn't spare the extra cash, now all the sudden there's gonna be a low end PowerMac? ARGH
 
Hmmm, interesting, but I think doubtful. Who would be the market for these machines? Sure, you can upgrade the video and hard drive, but then you are spending more money. So you wait two years and put in a killer video card. Into a single processor machine. Why? I know there are people on this forum that are yelling "me, me, I'll buy one", but really? Really?

This product would just confuse the product line-up and really just seems like another Cube. Sure, "everyone wants one", but in the end most will buy the 17" iMac because it comes with a monitor and the Single G5 price will be determined to be "too high". Hey, the Cube was cool. It just didn't sell.

As the one poster said, he wants this computer for the price of an eMac, which is what I think most "headless Mac" advocates want. Who wouldn't? But that's not what this is, and that "dream" price/power ratio seems unlikely to ever happen (note, I did not say "never").
 
It's a huge disappointment. It probably will look cool. Probaby it's biggest selling factor will be that you can take out the slow graphics card and upgrade it with something faster compared to the iMac.
 
why does Apple decide that a Superdrive should be the standard on these machines, yet 256 MB of ram is good enough?

I predict the Powerbook G5s will be Apple's first line of computers to offer 512 MB as the standard.
 
Anyone else get this when they try to check their order status?

Thank you for shopping at the Apple Online Store

Apple's Online and phone Order Status services are temporarily unavailable due to a scheduled upgrade to our systems.

We apologize for any inconvenience.
 
Not quite the headless Mac I need

Noone mentioned whether or not they thought this "headless" Mac would share the same case as the towers. From the price, it must. The headless Mac I want shares more with an iMac than the Power Macs. It would have just enough horsepower to run OS X well, small enough to place on a bookshelf or tuck in a home theater, and cost much, much less than a grand. It would be the perfect second or third Mac. For me it would be my 111th Mac.

I read an excellent online article a few months back. It ran the numbers and pointed out how making such a Mac would not be profitable unless it caused their number to increase by an order of magnitude -- tough to envision even with the great Apple news of late. Profitable or not, I'd still like one!
 
This is a crippled PowerMac and not a Headless iMac, which is what we have been asking for. It should be U$ 999 otherwise you will always have the feeling that you're losing a great 17"monitor and a better graphic card in exchange for some PCI and memory slots that you might need some day. But Apple will never price a Pro product cheeper than a consumer one for obvious reasons so this a shoot in the foot. Save more 400 bucks and you get another processor and a better card.
Click to expand...

You obviously don't know what "crippled" means. I guess my Honda is "crippled" because it doesn't have a 8 cylinder engine :rolleyes:

Hmmm, interesting, but I think doubtful. Who would be the market for these machines?
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Jeebus folks this isn't a mensa question. A $1499 Powermac G5 would benefit anyone who cannot budget a $1999 Powermac but can budget a $1499 one. Yes people still need expandability..yes some people still need bigger graphics cards and more storage. The iMac is a nice consumer computer but it doesn't address the sub $2k prosumer market that well. If this PM does happen I'll change my plans from buying a iMac and get this PM because I value having more expandability at this point.

I know the audio guys would love it. Sure Dual Procs are nice but so is saving $500 or having a better resale value.
 
Pedro Estarque said:
This is a crippled PowerMac and not a Headless iMac, which is what we have been asking for. It should be U$ 999 otherwise you will always have the feeling that you're losing a great 17"monitor and a better graphic card in exchange for some PCI and memory slots that you might need some day. But Apple will never price a Pro product cheeper than a consumer one for obvious reasons so this a shoot in the foot. Save more 400 bucks and you get another processor and a better card.
Click to expand...

You also get (presumably) a faster bus, more connectivity, potential for more internal storage (you can put 4 250GB drives in there with 3rd party add ons), gigabit ethernet, firewire 800, much more memory capacity, upgradeable graphics, upgradeable CPU, and, when you finally get a new Mac, you can take your screen with you. For many people, the expandability is well worth it.

As for the next model only costing 400 more, go ahead, buy it. Apple would love to sell you one. That's called an upsell; it's standard marketing.

--DT
 
I believe this is a good decision. Not everyone buys an Apple LCD (though I would if I bought a PowerMac). People now have the chance to buy an upgradeable PowerMac G5 and a generic LCD for under $2K, or they can keep the monitor they may already have and spend less than that. Being an owner of a new iMac G5, I may have considered this option over the iMac if there had been that choice when I ordered mine.......though I love my G5 iMac:)
It would be great if they went ahead and released a 1.6 G5 PowerMac with it.......for say $1199 (with the same specs as the 1.6 G5 iMac).
 
BornAgainMac said:
It's a huge disappointment. It probably will look cool. Probaby it's biggest selling factor will be that you can take out the slow graphics card and upgrade it with something faster compared to the iMac.
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Think a little harder ...I'm sure you can come up with more than just a graphics card.

why does Apple decide that a Superdrive should be the standard on these machines, yet 256 MB of ram is good enough?

I predict the Powerbook G5s will be Apple's first line of computers to offer 512 MB as the standard
Click to expand...

Because Apple knows that the Maczone, MacMall, MacConnection etc will toss in $512MB for free to get the sale. Thus Apple doesn't have to expend the cash...sounds like a smart business strategy to me.

People need to forget about low headless Macs. How many times does Apple keep stating they don't want to "play" in the sub $800 arena. This generally means the eMac starts at $799 with built in crt of course and then the next step is the iMac. Begging for it isn't going to make it come any sooner. The Mac market isn't ready for a low cost headless computer primarily because Apple's business initative is quite pathetic and consumer sales of low end desktops are not profitable.
 
It would be nice if this rumored model was a bit different.

A cut down box still with PCI slots...not quite a cube :)

or

Cheaper than $1500...

or

better speced than rumoured...
 
I agree with those saying this sounds like more of a crippled PowerMac than a headless iMac. The headless iMac (iCheap) concept is meant to be cheap as possible... $699-$799 is probably too low to hope for, but $999 would be a sweet spot. $1499 way overshoots what is meant to be "iCheap". A new form factor (cube) would make it more appealing... we can dream....

But still, a cheaper single processor PowerMac is welcome. It does lower the barrier to entry... and some people think a second proc is unnecessary.
 
not exactly

This is definitely NOT the headless low-end Mac that people've been pining for. It's merely a stepped-down Power Mac. Not much to get excited about.

For an entry level machine (not an AIO), Apple would do a lot better designing something from ground up that's cheaper to produce and more compact than the towers. They may even be able to recycle the iMac motherboard. Bascially take the iMac, strip out the LCD, fold/chop it down to a more boxy form, and sell it at $1299. It seems a $999 price point is unrealistic for Apple. Maybe they can make a decent profit at $1299.
 
GFLPraxis said:
This would seriously suck.

1) It has the same specs as the iMac, and the same price. The only difference is that the iMac has a FASTER graphics card (Ultra, not normal FX 5200), and includes a $600 LCD screen.
2) It would ruin their "all-dual lineup".

Now, if it had an FX 5200 Ultra, and was dual 1.6, this would be nice. But otherwise, stay far away unless you have a spare $600.
Click to expand...

Why do people keep getting this wrong?

The Power Mac G5 comes with the ATI Radeon 9600 XT or NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 Ultra graphics card installed in a AGP 8X Pro slot for a maximum bandwidth of 2.1GB per second. And that’s a good thing, because the Power Mac G5 uses graphics cards not only to accelerate the latest video games, but the entire system as well.
Click to expand...

And then there’s the NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 Ultra graphics processor with 64MB of DDR SDRAM. It’s a combination that delivers unparalleled 2D and 3D graphics performance and an immersive, photorealistic gaming experience with three times the frame rate of previous-generation processors.
Click to expand...

I have to disagree with you. A dual processor machine is not completely important. In higher-end professional software, the dual processor will help, but the single 1.8 GHz is still a force to be reckoned way.

Apple sure has a lot of 1.8 GHz chips laying around... The 17-inch iMac has a 3-5 shipping day (I think) and the 20-inch iMac is taking weeks for some reason. Maybe the new PowerMac is for dealing with the iMac demand?

I also like the idea that maybe this is a separate G5 with its own case. Cut back on PCI/PCI-X slots and maybe a few RAM slots and all will be good. It's almost ideal for a gamer (more CPU power would be nice, but not completely necessary yet). Perhaps there can be a single-processor line with a smaller mobo and size? Would be nice...
 
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