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New PowerBooks (up to 1.8 GHz G4) in October?!

djkny said:
Bogus rumor. Nothing new until 2005.
Click to expand...

I was looking up info on this 7448 chip and found this... Is Mac OS Rumors a reliable site? Anyway's this shows that another site to somewhat confirm the speed of the 1.6Ghz processor chip and it being 7448 (whatever benefits that bring).

"Mac OS Rumors: Freescale PowerPC G4s, new ATi GPUs demoed for Apple"
September 21, 2004

It's been a big week for Apple, according to sources.

Both Freescale Semiconductor (formerly the bulk of Motorola's Semiconductor Sector, now spun off into an independent entity) and ATi visited Cupertino this week to demonstrate their latest technologies, soon to ship in new Macs...

...As for Freescale, they demonstrated two G4-class CPUs that are nearly ready for Apple's use in iBooks and eMacs -- the 1.6GHz PowerPC 7447B which is optimal for desktop (eMac) use, and the PowerPC 7448 which ships initially at up to 1.6GHz, is optimized for laptop (iBook) use through a series of revisions to the PPC 7447 core. Performance lost to the changes is made up for by a 1MB on-chip L2 cache.


EDIT: also found this...
AppleInsider: Freescale 7448

...claims that the 7448 is 90nm w/ 1MB on-die L2 cache
 
G5 is not ready for the Powerbook

Josh said:
I dont understand why they'd put faster G4's in there instead of putting a 1.8 G5 in there.

If they can put a G5 in an imac and make it tiny, surely they can fit it in the powerbook.

Seems like apple's retaining marketting techniques are slowing down what could be amazing progress.
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No, I honestly don't think that Powerbooks are ready to go G5 yet for a few reasons. First of all, I think the G5 iMacs are the absolute smallest package that Apple can currently fit a 970FX G5 chip into (and there is already some speculation that these may suffer from overheating problems like the Cube). A G5 Powerbook the size and weight of an iMac (those things are not light) would not be very attractive.

Another issue is the battery life. Unless Apple adopts a radically different technology for their batteries (which they may when the G5 Powerbook comes out), I think the current G5 chip still draws too much power to give a reasonable battery life for a portable computer.

I'm not an expert, but I believe I am right about this, and I think there are other factors also of which I am unaware. Perhaps someone else can bring them up...
 
So here is what i have gathered...

by end of year 2004:

Powerbook 12" 1.6 ghz g4 (combo or super)
Powerbook 15" 1.6 and 1.8 ghz g4 (comp or super again, maybe lower prices)
Powerbook 17" 1.8 ghz g4(lower prices?)
(if powerbook does not get upped now it will at macworld sf and will have dual core g4 hopefully!)

Ibook 14" 1.5 ghz (maybe?) (with 64 meg vram)
Ibook g4 12" and 14" 1.33 ghz

Emac 1.5 ghz combo or super

between macworld SF and wwdc 2005:
Powermac g5 3 ghz (maybe by then we will have 512 meg vram cards for it!!)
2.5 and 2.0 ghz as well

WWDC and apple expo paris 2005:
Powerbook g5 2.0 ghz highend and 1.8 ghz lowend
maybe a speed boosted ibook and imac somewhere around this time

by end of year 2005:
emac g5 maybe, if not make it a 2.0 ghz dual core g4 :D hehee (unlikely)

Macworld sf 2006:
Powermac g5 3.5 or 4 ghz with a dual core g5 :D (ya like this will happen....) (it will become a (as steve would call it)dual dual powermac g5)
 
ashon3611 said:
I was looking up info on this 7448 chip and found this... Is Mac OS Rumors a reliable site? Anyway's this shows that another site to somewhat confirm the speed of the 1.6Ghz processor chip and it being 7448 (whatever benefits that bring).

"Mac OS Rumors: Freescale PowerPC G4s, new ATi GPUs demoed for Apple"
September 21, 2004

It's been a big week for Apple, according to sources.

Both Freescale Semiconductor (formerly the bulk of Motorola's Semiconductor Sector, now spun off into an independent entity) and ATi visited Cupertino this week to demonstrate their latest technologies, soon to ship in new Macs...

...As for Freescale, they demonstrated two G4-class CPUs that are nearly ready for Apple's use in iBooks and eMacs -- the 1.6GHz PowerPC 7447B which is optimal for desktop (eMac) use, and the PowerPC 7448 which ships initially at up to 1.6GHz, is optimized for laptop (iBook) use through a series of revisions to the PPC 7447 core. Performance lost to the changes is made up for by a 1MB on-chip L2 cache.


EDIT: also found this...
AppleInsider: Freescale 7448

...claims that the 7448 is 90nm w/ 1MB on-die L2 cache
Click to expand...

As nice as that seems, it's unlikely that Freescale could get a 130/180 nm version going in quantity by spring of 2005, let alone a 90 nm device. They are not resourceful people, so it only takes a little imagination to see what they would have done with the 90 nm problems experienced by IBM, AMD, and Intel.

I'd like to believe as much as the next person hoping for speed boosts but they would have to had brain surgery to really make changes this significant work.
 
i want a 12" powerbook so badly but i'll never buy one untill apple banishes the 5200, it would be ok if they put in a better nvidia chip but the 5200 plain sucks on a pro mac. a 15" would just be too inconvenient for school but if apple keeps to the damn 5200 i'll have to.
 
AmigoMac said:
Apple can't take Nvidia out of the cake, They are trying to be fair with both companies... IMO. The low end PB for Nvidia , not bad .. now what apple needs is the top end iMac for ATI ... actually ATI has a big piece... iBook, eMac, PM, PB ... actually that 5200 for 1024*768 is not bad, pretty comparable to the ATI in the 17" PB ...IMO.
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I do not think of the 12'' as low end, I choose the 12'' as it is more mobile. That said I would think that there are plenty of user who could appreciate a mobile computer, with a power (ATI) video card for when they are not workin with an external display.
 
Hector said:
i want a 12" powerbook so badly but i'll never buy one untill apple banishes the 5200, it would be ok if they put in a better nvidia chip but the 5200 plain sucks on a pro mac. a 15" would just be too inconvenient for school but if apple keeps to the damn 5200 i'll have to.
Click to expand...

a long comment for a short contradiction... you will never but you will do if you have to... :eek: ;)

by the next revision we might see the 5200 again or maybe a 5300 but the 12" will be always Nvidia... or is the 13" coming for the next revision? :rolleyes:
 
That's great news about the PB updates. Better if there will be a dual processor, though. And I agree that the 12" is NOT a "low end" model. It's light and very mobile.

Was curious about the ATI 9800. Now, it's possible to get a PB with ATI 9700 128 VRAM. Will it be possible to get the ATI 9800 with a bigger VRAM?

Will this be the LAST G4 PB? I thought the last update in April 2004 was suppose to be the last.
 
I agree that the 9800 does seem like a long shot. However, I think that there is one change that nobody else is predicting: 15" and 17" will have a dual link DVI port so that you can connect it to a 30" LCD. No basis for that other than my own wishful thinking :). But it makes sense if they can do it with the 9700.

I also think that they'll make 128 standard on the 17". Again, my own wishful thinking, but makes sense, seeing as Core Image and Motion need it now.

As for the 1.8... That number doesn't make sense unless they bump the FSB to 200 MHz, as 1800/167=10.778... 1.75 for a 10.5 multiplier or 1.83 for an 11 multiplier.

Really, I just want some kind of updates, even if they only last a couple of months. I really need to buy a powerbook before I travel in late november (I want a 17", can't you tell?), and I know that I'd be happy with the last-of-the-line G4.
 
wordmunger said:
Does anyone know anything about Macnews.net's reliability? How much faith can we put in this rumor?
Click to expand...
Not sure if this is relevant but they are giving away Gmail accounts - for a 5 Euro donation :rolleyes:.
 
Hector said:
i want a 12" powerbook so badly but i'll never buy one untill apple banishes the 5200, it would be ok if they put in a better nvidia chip but the 5200 plain sucks on a pro mac. a 15" would just be too inconvenient for school but if apple keeps to the damn 5200 i'll have to.
Click to expand...

maybe if IBM's roadkill facility *oops* Fishkill facility would start shipping some NVidia 5950s, NVidia would be able to make a mobility version and then Apple laptops could have a kickass NVidia chip

*note. i freely admit i know **** about graphics cards :p
 
brap said:
Of course they're there. I do research before I post, and I do believe my sarcasm was wasted on you, sir.
Click to expand...
I thought you were serious too. That's what a ;) is for.

For those that don't know, a 9800 mobility is like the 9700 mobility. High-end graphics, low power. Probably at 128MB standard. The 5200 isn't as good, but at 64MB it's ok. Maybe they'll bump it to 128MB, but I don't know know.

A G4 with a 200MHz FSB with 1MB cache and 128MB 9800 won't be bad, but I can already hear the complaints from people who don't understand how the G5 works. Apple will put it into a P'Book as soon as it can. Until then, we get a G4.
 
GHZ questions

- The 12" PB chip will be 1.5, it doesn't make sense to make a 1.6 when they already have a 1.5 and recent upgrades have seen the 15" and 17" PB pass their processor onto the 12" in the next rev. But i do agree the 12" needs a new GPU but it is as likely as the 15" and 17" having a Nvidia 6800 Ultra. But we have to be hopeful, maybe a little too hopeful though.
 
Lets hope there is some truth in this thats the most important the rest will be up to Apple to decide.
 
G4 fsb tops at 167MHz - if they would change the spec and were able to up it to 200MHz, why the hell wouldn't they up it to for example 400MHz if they are not limited to 167MHz?

G4 is a kick-ass chip, it's only crippled with low fsb speeds - clock-for-clock the G4 is better than the G5, so if apple released a powerbook with G4@1.8GHz having 600MHz fsb, it would be a lot faster than top-of-the-line iMac.

however, i doubt they change the spec. i guess the fsb will still be 167MHz - so 1.75HGz would be a good possibility for the high end, leaving 1.5GHz for the low end.
 
One important issue right now is the Mobility 9800, currently Dell and ATI have a deal whereby Dell is the only PC manufacturer with access to the limited shipping quantities of this chip. I have no idea if this deal will exclude Apple since they aren't windows boxes, or if they like alienware and voodoo will have to wait for this deal to end once ATI can ship in quantity. Also, some people may not realize what a huge upgrade the 9800 is over the 9700, its not a desktop 9800 shrunk to mobile, it is based of of the brand spankin new X800 series, it has 8 pipelines vs. 4 and crushes the 9700 even though it is clocked slightly lower, check out anandtech.com and other pc sites for reviews/previews of its performance.
 
Eevee said:
Now, it's possible to get a PB with ATI 9700 128 VRAM. Will it be possible to get the ATI 9800 with a bigger VRAM?
Click to expand...

Note that Sony has the ATI 9700 already in their latest S series notebooks 13" although who would go that route in lieu of a cool Alu PB ? :rolleyes:

EDIT: Oh and shouldn't this thread hit front page rumors rather being stuck down under hardware tips.... so that all our hopes maybe heard louder ?
 
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