Originally posted by wumpus
The low-end represents a serious downgrade - the only reasons Apple did not retain th 867 at the lower price point is because they want to increase their margin on it while giving the illusion of better without cannibalising the iMac. The 1ghz SP is a price/performance DISGRACE. Nothing Apple can do about the FSB bottleneck, Motorola's poor fabbing or any of the G4s shortcomings (at least at this stage), so two processors, built-in Bluetooth, FW800, USB2, ATA/133 (if not Serial ATA) and 8x AGP are REQUIRED to give the ILLUSION at least of value.
When Ars Technica called the current 'Pro' lineup an 'overpriced embarrassment'
some months ago it was an accurate assessment. It is even more accurate now. The LCD and good looks of the iMac can compensate somewhat for PC-trailing performance. But for towers Apple needs to have dual CPUs across the entire line just to PRETEND to compete on performance - of course, at this stage informed pros who don't need a new machine NOW will wait until the 970 comes to close a bit of the gaping gap with WinTel. Maybe Apple knows this and is barely bothering? Why bother to add more than a speed bump when you know that this lead turkey architecture (the 'G4') is on its last legs?
Also, no-one seems to know yet if these are the 7457s or if there is full DDR support (somehow I doubt it). Are these the overclocked 7455s again? (before anyone gets upset about that word - Apple's chips are rated by Moto at that speed, just like I am sure there were 604e chips at the fab that could hit 400mhz with heavy chilling - but the 7455 DESIGN is NOT advertised by Moto as capable of more than 1ghz, thus Apple's are for all intents and purposes overclocked - thus the heavy heat sink and big noise).
And like others, I do get jealous of some of the advantages of commodity computing - just going onto Dabs.com every so often and get a CPU that will SMOKE any G4 for $70 is sickening sometimes?
..An Apple lover since the daze of the ][+?
