Motorola completes 1.6GHz PowerPC G5

[MaxRool]

I found this article while surfing about. Even though its a bit old I thought some may not have seen it yet.

Particular interesting i thought was this paragraph

"We don't know the ship date either, though we've been told that Apple is shooting to get boxes out for a January launch. If Motorola is sampling the G5 now or is about to, then we'd estimate that volume won't begin until early to mid Q1 2002, which would enable Apple to launch at Macworld Expo San Francisco and ship the higher end boxes in, say, February, as it's done before. "

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/39/21692.html

 

[agreenster]

Cool. Hope its true. Us high-end users are kinda tired of long rendertimes.

If it IS true, we may see G5's instead of speed bumped G4's in the near future. Time will only tell, but Id love to see a 64-bit G5 with 16GB of DDR ram, OS 10.2, and all the other bells and whistles.

Sweet.

 

[OSeXy!]

Yes, please

The sooner there are G5s in towers, the sooner they'll be in Power Books, which is what I "need". -- OK, it's what I lust for, which is a kind of need.

 

[eyelikeart]

nice....but it's an old article

very nice....

I think it would have had a bigger impact if they were able to announce them at San Francisco.....that article was dated September 17, 2001...

Still it's a good sign for a lot of people (esp. on this site!) to be able to read something about the G5 processors being completed at 1.6 Ghz...

 

[Falleron]

I am not buying into any more rumours!! I will just wait and see, even though I need to buy a new computer in the next month or so!

 

[Smurfman]

MW SF G5 announcement = DISTRACTION

Since Macworld San Francisco was a consumer oriented expo, announcing the Powermac G5 would have been a huge distraction. It also would have taken away a number of orders from the new iMac.

If all there is, is "speed-bumped" G4's, then why did they not announce these at MW SF?? This, as opposed to a G5 announcement, would NOT have been a distraction.

This is one reason I believe a lot of the posts and articles that are saying the G5 is "just around the corner" (probably Seybold). It makes no sense that Apple would wait 2 weeks to announce a modest G4 speed-bump.

Our company has had $20,000+ waiting to spend on new Powermacs (since last July) for our 3D animation department. We will not be purchasing a speed-bumped G4 if it's only a small MHz bump! If Apple comes out with a dual 1GHz G4 with a faster bus and DDR RAM, then we will buy. Anything less is not worth it. We will wait.

I believe, however, we will have G5's on our desk by March.

 

[Hemingray]

I have to agree. I don't see why Apple would put out another G4 just slightly better than the new iMac. It makes more sense to let the PowerMac lag for a couple months so they can 1) focus consumer interest on the new iMac, and 2) get the new G5's ready.

I'm waaaaaiting....

 

[blackdog]

Actually, it makes a lot of sense to delay the release of new PMs until after MWSF. If all you have to offer is a little speed boost for the PMs (especially after all that hype) better to leave Pro users waiting for the next best thing than piss them off completely. Keeps the spotlight on the iMac, which is truly a leap forward.

The speed boost speculated on (up to 1GHz DP) would be progress, but by no means newsworthy, and is still gonna upset a lot of people, hence press release rather than horns and fanfare, to minimize the degree of bad press it is likely to garner.

There has been no real evidence the G5's will be ready before summer (at the earliest) and several timetables have indicated that may even be a stretch.

 

[Falleron]

To be honest even though I need a new computer I would much rather have NO update now + wait until march to get a propper update than to get a small update now + wait until summer for a big update.

Its pretty obvious I think that 10.2 is gonna be released in march(full circle on clock). Also, its a major OS update which means that this is the most likely point at which the G5 would be released. Otherwise, we would have to wait until 10.3 for the 64bit version of OSX. This makes me hope because a 10.x.x is not where we get a change from 32-->64Bit version. What do you think?

 

[blackdog]

What will be will be

It's obvious that Apple has gotten pretty good at keeping secrets (Time article notwithstanding), but in the end, nothing in the iMac was intrinsically new (just repackaged in a nifty way).

Apple wants to catch up to the rest of the world as much as we want them to, so I'm sure they are working as fast as they can. But the bottleneck still seems to be with the G5 itself, and if it isn't ready then that's all she wrote.

I think we'll continue to see small PM speed boosts and perhaps some infrastructure improvements (bus speed, etc.) and incremental improvements to the PB to show SOME progress, but (and I'd like to be wrong here) no G5 before it's time (still smells like summer, at best, to me).

Other opinions?

 

[OSeXy!]

Anyone know?

The Register's article says, "If our source's claims are accurate, the timing would be right for Motorola to unveil the new chip (i.e. the G5) at this autumn's Microprocessor Forum, on 15 October."

Anyone know if that happened?

At the Forum's website Motorola is listed as a sponsor, but I can't see that they actually presented anything about the G5 at the Forum itself (link: http://www.mdronline.com/mpf/), just a PowerPoint presentation on a different theme (http://e-www.motorola.com/collateral/MPC8540E500RPT.pdf).

Everyone at Motorola obviously knows to keep their heads down, or suffer the wrath of Steve!

 

[dantec]

Don't listen to the register... they have been the source of crap for the past two years!

 

[blackdog]

Oh, and I forgot to mention, the Apollos still need to debut in the Mac, if we are assuming that they have a role to play in the PM's. Seems likelier that they will run in the PM's for a while (even if short) before moving into the consumer machines when the G5 enters the pro line, rather than dropping the old G4 chip completely (since it's probably fairly cheap to produce now).

Although it's odd - haven't heard much about the Apollos lately.

 

[OSeXy!]

Dawn

I'm really beginning to believe that Apollo is for iBook/iMac and G5 is for PBook/PMac. But WHEN?

 

[Digidesign]

Originally posted by Falleron
To be honest even though I need a new computer I would much rather have NO update now + wait until march to get a propper update than to get a small update now + wait until summer for a big update.

I'm in the same boat! I need a new powermac asap, but if I have to wait till March to get a Powermac that will last me three years, I'll wait.

 

[jadam]

First of all, I doubt that Apple will be using the g4's for ibooks/imacs, what i think is that Apple will use the "sahara" G3's for ibooks, while using the "Apollo" G4's for imacs. The G5's for Powermacs and Powerbooks. If Apple did use G4's on ibooks, where would that leave IBM?? and i really hope apple does use AMD Hypertransport bus on their G5's, this would allow for something link AGP 48x, or 12.8 GB/sec of bandwith.

 

[-=AsukA=-]

OHHH BABY! HOLD ME BACK!

Hello GHz! i hope Apple releases 1.6 Ghz as TOTL modle! Mac and Pee-Cee speed will soon reach equalibrium (not true equal speed, just same GHz #'s)
after all mac will always be faster at graphics! can you imagine a DP 1.6?
WOWSA! it would KILL a AMD, and supporting 16Mb or DDR RAM? OUCH! I wounder if apple will put more ram slots in then?

when photoshop come out.... will it be 32 Bit? or 64 Bit? and take advantage of the G5? maby that is why they havent release it yet!

BTW what is the fastest the Pentium 4 will reach B4 it reaches its limmit? 2.6Ghz? eather way after the P4 reaches full speed i doubt intell will make any more chips with just high GHz #'s. i think they will work on copying the PPC desighn even more and put alot of work into the itanium (which isent even a GHz!)

 

[teabgs]

I'm in the same boat

I too am in the market for a new computer. I need it for 3D animation, and editing DV. If I need to wait till march for a good upgrade thats fine. Well, I guess I can live with it...I just take it one day at a time. I just hope that the G5's will be out by Tokyo. If there is a speed bump but it is not that big, I'll wait. I need this computer to last me for at least 3-4 years if not more, and I want it to render AS FAST AS POSSIBLE. I won't switch to PC, but apple needs to update faster so as not to turn others away. Sure I'm loyal, but I know others who arent willing to hold out.

 

[Xeri]

Tired old guesswork

By now this story has been circulating for months with very little along the lines of real solid information.

I'm feeling more and more like the entire G5 BS has been cooked up by one person that's sitting somewhere laughing at us all.

This thing is just too good to be true given Motorola's track record to date. The spec performance numbers that were supposedly leaked made no sense. The process they're supposed to be using makes no sense. Nothing makes sense here except that it's a big old hoax.

At this point, I think we will still be on the G4s for the foreseeable future.

 

[networkman]

dual 1 ghz, 1.6 ghz...those are really nice

but i would be happy with 1 ghz right now so we can join the club

...and soon

 

[Onyxx]

another rower for the mac tower boat...

i'm in that boat with you as well teabgs. I need a new machine to run my 3d and dv apps (my friends are thinking about charging me for "borrowing" time on their machines )

yes the 1.6 ghz g5 has been completed, but is it being produced in large enough quantities to allow apple to actually get them out to us?

 

[Shaktai]

It isn't how fast they can get but how many they can make?

Motorola has had 1.6 ghz G4's and G5's for sometime, but the problem is with the quantity. They haven't yet been able to consistently produce in sufficient quantity to meet demand.

The plan was for Motorola to have G5 "seed" chips available to Apple by January. If any rumors are to be believed, then Apple has provided some developers with prototype G5's (in beige or B&W boxes to disguise them). They are still in the prototype and debugging stage. Do they exist? Yes. Are they ready for primetime? NO. Are they available in quantity? NO.

Expect 1 more G4 upgrade first, then maybe, G5's this summer.

G4 Appollo's are also available at speeds up to 1.6 or 1.8 ghz, but again the quantity is the question. A few G-5's chips have actually been produced at up to 2.3 ghz, but again only a very few. Apparently if Apple is going to introduce a dual 1 ghz G4 machine, they must be getting good yields at that speed. It is a step in the right direction. I would suspect that 1.2 to 1.4 Apollo chips may also be approaching sufficient quantity to make them available in the not too distant future, maybe by March. It is more likely that Apple will introduce a significatnly updated motherboard and system in the next couple of months. They have toyed with the marketing idea of calling it a G5 (generation 5), even though it would have the G4 Apollo chips running at faster speeds. This would be the machine with 200-400mhz motherboard and DDRAM, Firewire 2, etc. It would also be better able to support the faster G4 chips. I think this is what we will see at Seybold or Macworld Tokyo. The Actualy G5 Processors? Not before summer. Then again I hope Apple makes a liar out of me.