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New PowerMac G4's at MWNY

Yea right "there not going to release a new PowerMac." If they were not going to put out new boxes they wouldn't open the market for 1Ghz G4 to third parties. I think they fed the article so it would be a surprise. Almost everything else in the article is known except for the PDA.

Cheaper deals to get ride of what they can before they introduce new machines.
 
Games & DDR

As far as games on OS X go, I'll admit I'm no expert. That's what my GameCube is for! :)
Is WarCraft Carbonized or is it running in the Classic environment? What would be telling would be how it runs on a single G4 800 (with the same L3 cache - if such a beast is out there) compared to the dual.

I am afraid you are right about the DDR being like that of the XServe - which is also dissapointing because it is not "true" DDR into the G4. It's better than nothing, but just barely.

I hope MWNY and/or this new, rumored, August announcement make us wrong, but I am not holding my breath.
 
Originally posted by pgwalsh
If they were not going to put out new boxes they wouldn't open the market for 1Ghz G4 to third parties.
Click to expand...
Um, I must have missed something, what 3rd parties are you talking about? And why wouldn't Motorola be allowed to sell it to whomever they wanted?
 
Originally posted by eric_n_dfw

Um, I must have missed something, what 3rd parties are you talking about? And why wouldn't Motorola be allowed to sell it to whomever they wanted?
Click to expand...

Motorola and Apple are partners in the production of PPC chips. The partnership prevents Moto from releasing chips (as far as I know). I've read this numerous times over the past few years. Checkout XLR8yourmac.com and read on the new 1Ghz upgrades.
 
Re: Re: Re: same price points?

Originally posted by Backtothemac


I am sorry jef, but if that is what they come out with, then they should be tar'd'n'feathered.
Click to expand...

he he

besides the 933 g4 to the dual 1.2 ghz and ddr ram, i was also thinking the use of the best video card available in all models

if apple goes to 1.4 ghz, that will be a significant jump in speed and will hold the pro users over until the arrival of the g5

if g5 comes out next year, i sure hope by then it will be 2 ghz...and after that, who will really be thinking about cpu clock speed?

faster bus and faster ram will top the list, followed by better and better video cards

...and all this at lower and lower prices

personally, i don't care if g5 tops out at 2.7 ghz or 3.7 ghz in the future...at a certain point, raw cpu speed won't woo the masses and there seems to be an indication of this in the pc world due to faster clock speeds and an apathetic pc clientele

i mean how fast do you need to run the internet with 56 k modem and microsoft office? a fast cpu will make little difference in those "most used" applications

another thing i think many people would like to see is multiple processors in more machines...and not just the pro line

i am waiting for a dual processor laptop...from anybody

to my knowledge, i have never heard of such a monster
 
RE : no new G4 PowerMac's at MWNY, just a 17" iMac

I doubt it, how many macworld expos can you remember where they only updated the lowend consumer models, especially after they already had to increase the retail cost of the iMac to compensate for the cost of the LCD. 17" iMac, I don't think so.

Updated powermacs are a definate, it goes without saying there's going to be new towers, the clock speed, Motherboard, Case and features are all being discussed as being updated, I think no update at all in highly unlikely.

As for the specs...

They went from 350,400,450 and 500Mhz to 400, Dual 450 and Dual 450Mhz once. I'm hoping they're actually going to put the L3 cache on the entry level model this time to make it fair on people who want a powermac with a decent motherboard and expansion options.

I think if we do see the 1Ghz, 1.2Ghz x 2 and 1.4Ghz x 2 specs at macworld the top 2 models (3 counting the 'Ultimate' model) will make the entry level model look pretty bad in any benchmark.

Right now if configure the entry level with a 60Gb HD and drop the modem, a mid range G4 with an Ati Radeon 7500, no modem and a CDRW comes to £340.75 extra. I wouldn't pay that much more for a L3 cache and under 17% extra clock speed even thought the L3 makes the mid range perform a lot faster than the entry level.

If they still offer BTO options like they do now, £340 is definately going to be worth it for 2 CPUs with a 20% higher clock speed on each one. I could live without the superdrive and faster graphics card just to get a dual 1.2Ghz myself.
 
Originally posted by pgwalsh


Motorola and Apple are partners in the production of PPC chips. The partnership prevents Moto from releasing chips (as far as I know). I've read this numerous times over the past few years. Checkout XLR8yourmac.com and read on the new 1Ghz upgrades.
Click to expand...

the moto chips made for apple is only 12 percent of moto's chip production, so i seriously doubt that

that is the fundamental problem and why moto was stuck at 500 mhz for so long

how could 12 percent of your chip business run your company and get high priority, especially since motorola does way more than chips, or chips for cpus

cellphone unit is more influential at moto
 
I could imagine a possible solution with all dual-processor Macs.

Here it goes:

iMac - Low-end Single G4

Cube (it returns) - High-end Single G4

PowerMac - Dual G4 configuration
 
Originally posted by jefhatfield


the moto chips made for apple is only 12 percent of moto's chip production, so i seriously doubt that

that is the fundamental problem and why moto was stuck at 500 mhz for so long

how could 12 percent of your chip business run your company and get high priority, especially since motorola does way more than chips, or chips for cpus

cellphone unit is more influential at moto
Click to expand...

You're talking about the embedded chip market. Different chips based on the same technology.
 
no new powermacs???

re: http://www.thinksecret.com/news/mwny02apple.html

fyi, the shipping time for apple online store is 10 days... maybe nothing!

*Power Mac G4 Z058 10 days Remove $3,348.00 $3,348.00 *
 
Oh, by the way...

I believe ThinkSecret's recent article on "no new PowerMacs" more than any of the rumors in existence.

Besides, the iMac needs a few updates here and there.
 
eric_n_dfw:

Yeah warcraft3 is OSX native and has worked flawlessly (well, once it crashed while I was starting a single-player game). I think that getting a GF4TI would help it out performance-wise, but I also think the CPU isn't fast enough when the games get big, no matter what the video card is. The minimum spec for warcraft3 is a 400mhz P2/G3, by the way, so a lot of people, PC and Mac, are gona be stuck in smaller games.
 
Who cares about MHz?

Or GHz, for that matter.

Everyone is focused on the processor, but forgeting about the important stuff. Motorola can sit on their butts for as long as they want (well, not too long I hope), it's Apple that's not keeping up. They want us to spend so much on the PRO machines, but they use yesterday's technology.

LCD's are expensive, obviously. So is GB Ethernet. But they use those. I can see why they would not want to use USB2 until FW2 is available. And Bluetooth, don't get me started, but what about everything else?

DDR-Ram is a must have. There is enough of a difference in performance versuses the small (if not negligible) increase in price to make it worth it. We see that it is possible with the xServe, however bastardized it may be. And we could easily have 333 MHz DDr-Ram with a 166 (or 2x 166) MHz FSB. For the guy who said it's not possible, it is. Read Motorola's spec sheets. Up to a 166 MHz FSB for the G4 as it is now. IBM's G3 can have a 200 MHz FSB, but no Altivec or Dual-Procs.

And why isn't anyone else p*ssed they still use ATA/66. Does anyone else still use that anymore? Don't give me that old arguement about how current drives can't even saturate a 66MB bus. It's the same as with DDR-Ram, performance vs. cost makes it worth it. We need ATA/133 to utilize drives over 128-137GB (mentioned in a previous post in this article). Of course, eventually we'll be using Serial Drives anyway, so I guess I'll have to buy a PCI card anyway (no eMac for me). Who knows how long it'll take Apple to use that, anyway.

It's still better than a PC, but I'm not upgrading 'til it's worth it. Great OS, good CPU, ancient hardware specs, pissed off people with no reason to want to buy a new computer. It works fine for the iMac, iBook, and eMac (just make them cheaper). For the pros, we need PRO stuff. You want Hollywood to pay attention, give them a reason. I'm getting in to video-editing and need as much speed as possible. And external drives are a pain. 2 Drives are better than 1.

The CPU looks slow, but it's not. It just need better hardware to feed it.

---

Just my opinion, I could be wrong... But I'm not.
 
ya right.

no new powermacs? thats just stupid. i wouldnt get your underwear all
bunged up over that.

thats just idiotic.:p :p :p :p :p :p :p :p
 
Originally posted by pgwalsh


You're talking about the embedded chip market. Different chips based on the same technology.
Click to expand...

some of that 88 percent is embedded and it's big business

there is also the router business using some of the 0x0 chips

and the mid to high level server business

and mainframes like the as400

risc processors and moto processors are used in other places besides macs

apple does not have any control per se over motorola as much as we would like

the cpu raw speed issue will eventually die down and many of us won't be so critical of moto's slow progression thru the speeds...but it may take years for that criticism to die down
 
and if we get updates on other things besides the g4 towers, then we will just have to wait

a speed bump and larger monitor option on imac, apple's flagship computer, would not be bad but a little undershelming to say the least since we are looking new powermacs this time around

maybe ibook and tibook upgrades? now that would be cool, too
 
Originally posted by jefhatfield


some of that 88 percent is embedded and it's big business
Click to expand...

I'm not saying Apple has any say in the embedded market. Cisco Systems has signed up to use the G4 in their routers as you said. They sell a lot more products then Apple. What I'm saying is third party manufactures of ziff cards etc don't have access to those chips. That's why you don't see upgrades matching current cpu released by Apple.

If they didn't have say in it, then Moto would do press releases with the new processors as they come out. When Apple announces the products Moto releases the specs shortly after. This is only for the PPC used in Apple systems.
 
solvs:

"The CPU looks slow, but it's not. It just need better hardware to feed it."

I would actually argue that it is getting slow, FSB or not. AltiVec is nice but the rest of the G4 core seems to be outclassed item-for-item by the Athlon. It is especially lacking in floating point units, having only one whereas the Athlon as 3. Sure the one G4 unit is better than a single Athlon unit because of register count (vs the fake-registers of modern x86 FPU stacks), but we are still looking at a 3-to-1 ratio here. Integer resources of the G4 are much more compeditive, so I bet a 1.0ghz Athlon would be more or less as fast as a 1.0ghz G4 in most integer tests.

Obviously when the G4 can use AltiVec, it's performance goes "through" the roof, but unfortunately the roof is the 133mhz bus and PC133 RAM. Note also that not all apps can gain from AltiVec, mainly certain raw number-crunching things can, such as certain Photoshop filters and also cryptography routies such as RC5 or whatever they call that.

I'm not sure how many people know this, but AltiVec is actually more impressive at handling integers than floating point; 3 of the 4 units can work on int's (of various sizes) whereas only 2 of the 4 units can work on float's (of one size).

Anyway, enough rambling about that!

"And we could easily have 333 MHz DDr-Ram with a 166 (or 2x 166) MHz FSB. For the guy who said it's not possible, it is. Read Motorola's spec sheets. Up to a 166 MHz FSB for the G4 as it is now."

166mhz FSB perhaps, but thats a lot different than 166-DDR, AKA 333mhz. Basically the difference is in "pumped-ness" and the current bus is single-pumped, while DDR is double-pumped and the P4 uses a quad-pumped bus. Performance does not scale exactly with "pumped-ness" (like clock speed) but more does help some.
 
What I find most irritating about this news is that the iMac is guaranteed little or no speed bump. Why? Because if the iMac is bumped past 933MHz it offers more value than the PowerMacs, eats into those "trickling" sales, and Apple’s inventories remain bloated. If both machines were updated at the same time, at least we would have the assurance that the iMac might hit a GHz.

Furthermore, since when have MacWorlds been about "facelifts" rather than major overhauls? A new PowerMac with a new case, faster processors, DDR RAM, and who knows what else SHOULD be displayed at MacWorld in front of a large audience. If new LCD displays were coming with the PowerMacs, then one would assume those should also be displayed in front of such an audience. I understand that the 17-inch "facelift" for the iMac is necessary, however, I would not consider such an update equally or more important than a major overhaul to Apple's pro desktop models. Isn't Apple trying to capture Hollywood and maintain its strong market share in music and desktop publishing? Well last I knew these markets needed more than an iMac for their processor-intensive work and a 17-inch screen will not make the difference. OK, I'm done ranting. :)

Bill
 
Anyway, in other news, I think people here are getting overly excited about nothing. As far as I can tell, even the DDR-supporting G4 is unconfirmed, let alone one with 512k of L2 and more L3. I more expect G4's with the same ol 133mhz FSB but the DDR memory as seen on Xserve. I can't imagine they would have created that Xserve chipset for just the Xserve for just a few months. I would be very surprised if Apple could afford to do that.
Click to expand...
This has been my expectation since the Xserve came out. IMO, Apple meant to put that lopsided memory-FSB arrangement to work immediately on its powermacs, but didn't b/c they were selling quite fine, having been refreshed in feb.
Anyway, if you hype yourselves up and then crash after the expo, you're at fault.
Click to expand...
Naw. :D
 
etoiles:

The nForce is not high-end, this new one will be no better than Apple's GeForce4mx. It would be good for the iMac though (if Apple didn't mind an iMac with DDR, possibly dual-channel DDR).

(Of course there is an nForce without graphics at all, which would be suitable for high-end.)
 
oops, you are right, my mistake :rolleyes:

they might announce some PowerPC related product for future release, though, maybe to use the technology in iBooks and iMacs. I am still a bit unclear about the whole nForce thing, but I guess it is cheaper ? Possibly maybe ? :p

ok. ok, one rumor at the time
:D
 
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