PowerBook G5 in January a give in?

[AmigoMac]

Yeah!

And you KNOW that Steve is NOT going to releaze a new PowerBook without a radically new enclosure.
'.

You're right, I just will tell you, apple is going Wide-screen for the PB line and staying 4:3 for iBooks... I can really see a 13" 15" 17" G5 PB line...

 

[AmigoMac]

MWSF 05

is the second week of January...

So, to sum up:

No one knows, no one has any idea, and everything you read is pure speculation!

The only given is that Apple has said it won't be this year. Anything else is rumor, conjecture, a best guess, etc.

 

[Florida Gator]

You're right, I just will tell you, apple is going Wide-screen for the PB line and staying 4:3 for iBooks... I can really see a 13" 15" 17" G5 PB line...

I hope so 13 is JUST right

 

[jsw]

I'm sure Apple will try their damnedest to get a G5 PB out by the time Tiger is released. They might not be able to, but I'd imagine that is their target date. I'd not be surprised by PB screen res improvements, a 7200 RPM drive, and other tweaks before then to keep buyers coming.

 

[Dr. Dastardly]

I'm thinking MWSF 05 unlike most. Just based on some of the stuff you hear about powertune, the Imac line getting the G5. Also they said it probably won't be this year, good thing MWSF is the second week of 2005.

I DO NOT think that it will be liquid cooled though. That is fine with a desktop but not a Powerbook.

 

[FuzzyBallz]

I DO NOT think that it will be liquid cooled though. That is fine with a desktop but not a Powerbook.

And I suppose you have a better way to cool the super hot G5 CPU w/o the need of enlarging the PB chassis or keeping the noise down while multiple mini fans are screaming inside?

 

[aswitcher]

And I suppose you have a better way to cool the super hot G5 CPU w/o the need of enlarging the PB chassis or keeping the noise down while multiple mini fans are screaming inside?

Possible liquid cooling.

I think the G5 will have the new fuel cell technology under serious consideration to get the power requirements to run the chip and the cooling for the next generation of PBs... They could blow the market away with a machine capable of 8-10 hours operating time, and Apple are a market leader so I think they will do this.

 

[Dr. Dastardly]

Possible liquid cooling.

I think the G5 will have the new fuel cell technology under serious consideration to get the power requirements to run the chip and the cooling for the next generation of PBs... They could blow the market away with a machine capable of 8-10 hours operating time, and Apple are a market leader so I think they will do this.

Thats what I was thinking about. Liquid cooling just seems to risky in a $3000 laptop. What if god forbid you drop it? Bent aluminum (if they still keep alu) will be the least of your worries.

 

[Dr. Dastardly]

Also, can someone answear me if the liquid cooling technology is really in the 2.5 because the chip is "super hot" or is it just to make it super quite?

 

[bertagert]

I'll put my money where my mouth is if anyoone wants to take me up on the offer. The PowerBook will have a moto chip in for the next two speed bumps (maybe even three).

Any takers?

 

[Florida Gator]

I'll put my money where my mouth is if anyoone wants to take me up on the offer. The PowerBook will have a moto chip in for the next two speed bumps (maybe even three).

Any takers?

but will it be the same G4 or an e600, e700 or something else?

 

[bertagert]

but will it be the same G4 or an e600, e700 or something else?

e600

 

[yamabushi]

I don't think so. The pipeline in the G5 is much longer. If they get the bus speed up + L3 cache then maybe. But just the chips at the same clockspeed - G4 should be faster.

Anyway, my guess is that IBM needs to develop a special notebook chip which runs cooler. And that takes its time.

The performance of a G5 beats a G4 at the same clock speed despite the longer pipeline with code that is optimized for each. Early tests of the G5 showed it would only perform about as well as the G4 with G4 optimized code. Anything that is compiled with the G5 in mind will absolutely crush the G4. Even with old G4 code NASA was able to achieve a slight improvement in perfomance efficiency per clock cycle. The G5 is more powerful than the G4.

Also, Apple only needs to beat a 167MHz bus speed which is simple even with a 4x multiplier. If the bus were run normally at one quarter of the cpu then we have a 1.4GHz cpu w/350MHz bus, 1.5GHz cpu w/375MHz bus, and a 1.6GHz cpu w/400MHz bus. Heck, even at a 8x multiplier they would have a faster bus than the G4. I think we can safely assume the bus speed will improve significantly.

I think the benefits of L3 cache are not nearly as great as a much smaller increase in L2 cache. I have seen reports that L3 cache can actually be detrimental for applications that are not specifically optimized to take advantage of it. I think L2+fast RAM is a better solution in the real world for the time being.

As I stated before, heat is a not a serious issue for the G5 at lower clock speeds. The G5 produces less heat on average than the G4 at similar speeds. The small die will require some innovative design because of the greater heat for a given amount of surface area but the overall heat produced is less. If Powertune is implemented and works as advertised it will make both heat dispersion and power draw even less of an issue.