The 12" really needs L3 cache more than it needs that extra clock speed-- that's the main reason I'm hoping for an update.
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PowerBook Updates -- As Early as Next Week?
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The 12" really needs L3 cache more than it needs that extra clock speed-- that's the main reason I'm hoping for an update.
Yeah, as far as I know, that's you built it, you bought it on the BTOs. As I remember, it's a little complicated to return stock, standard units to the online Apple Store -- not impossible, but complicated.
And for Mikoyan, yes, a hard drive upgrade is a BTO.
Some of you aren't following the rules: if you buy a Mac and have any propensity to freak out if you don't have the latest and greatest, under no circumstances are you to read anything about Apple for 3-6 months.
Why is it that when HP or Dell releases new, better, faster computers, nobody even notices? I mean you can't even tell the difference between half of the current models, anyway.
Oops, I plagiarized. Oh well, call me Stephen Ambrose.
Anyway, also for Mikoyan, there's apparently some point in the process where you can't even cancel a BTO.
None of these little things (USB2, FW800, etc) are really going to help sales--not to objective buyers anyway. What will help sales is a price drop, or a real update. The current models are very long in the tooth, and a 1.3 rev will still be long in the tooth--certainly at existing prices.
Re: Will nobody stand up?
@Paulie
I'll stand up!!
I took all (!) the time to think over (and think over - again) which PB i would purchase, believe me...
The 15'' PB is The wet dream of every demanding user. But, some disadvantages about the 15'' are the price combined with the fact that they actually had to be updated as soon as the 12'' and 17'' were introduced (which makes it the least updated PB in the pipeline).
Considered this, i decided that the 12'' PB will be "The One" for me. Biggest, overwhelming reason was; it's a lotta computer crammed into a small package, a real must-have for those who like to take it with them. Maximum mobility garanteed.
Paulie, i fully agree the PB 12'' is the cutest, smallest and most powerful supercomputer currently offered in such a beautiful package.
I can't wait 'till they start shipping them!!
@Paulie
I'll stand up!!
I took all (!) the time to think over (and think over - again) which PB i would purchase, believe me...
The 15'' PB is The wet dream of every demanding user. But, some disadvantages about the 15'' are the price combined with the fact that they actually had to be updated as soon as the 12'' and 17'' were introduced (which makes it the least updated PB in the pipeline).
Considered this, i decided that the 12'' PB will be "The One" for me. Biggest, overwhelming reason was; it's a lotta computer crammed into a small package, a real must-have for those who like to take it with them. Maximum mobility garanteed.
Paulie, i fully agree the PB 12'' is the cutest, smallest and most powerful supercomputer currently offered in such a beautiful package.
I can't wait 'till they start shipping them!!
This objective buyer is holding out for USB 2.0. There are a lot of devices that need USB 2.0. FW 800 is a wash but a slight boost in CPU would also be nice... but your right it not worth holding out for.
Why wait for a "mobile" G5? An existing 1.0 or 1.2 G5 would probably draw little enough power, certainly compared to the toaster G4 chips we have now. That would give us faster memory as well, which will help matters tremendously.
What I think we are waiting for is not the chip--we are waiting for Apple's G5 laptop motherboard. Which is my point--they should divert all powerbook resources to getting the G5 out.
I don't see why we cut Apple so much slack. Other manufacturers are able to improve speed in a timely fashion--why can't Apple? The 970 is here, and Apple has had plenty of time to ramp up for it; CPU problems are no longer an excuse. I think the proper timing for a G5 powerbook is by the end of the year, shipping in time for Christmas.
"Fine for most users" should be at an iBook price point, not a powerbook one.
No it's not. We are still very much hampered and bottlenecked by the bus speed. The larger L3 is not going to make that much of a difference. Performance will be quite similar to the existing models, except maybe a placebo effect. Perhaps some speed increase in QE due to possibly faster graphics hardware, but again not a huge deal.
Squire
macrumors 68000
Re: Will nobody stand up?
I did the exact opposite. I ordered a 12" PB with Superdrive right after they were introduced and when the reseller finally got one in, it had a combo drive. Then, the iMacs were upped to 1GHz and I bought one of them instead.
I think the 12" would be a great machine. In fact, sometimes I wish I had bought one. However, a lot of people claim that it was originally intended to be a G4 iBook and that the difference between an iBook and 12-inch PB is slight.
Be that as it may, I'd still love to have one. It'll be my next Mac.
Squire
I did the exact opposite. I ordered a 12" PB with Superdrive right after they were introduced and when the reseller finally got one in, it had a combo drive. Then, the iMacs were upped to 1GHz and I bought one of them instead.
I think the 12" would be a great machine. In fact, sometimes I wish I had bought one. However, a lot of people claim that it was originally intended to be a G4 iBook and that the difference between an iBook and 12-inch PB is slight.
Be that as it may, I'd still love to have one. It'll be my next Mac.
Squire
I understand. But I think you will agree that such things should not be delayed for such a long time, or wait for the next CPU upgrade. They should have done a half rev with USB2 and AE and FW800, and saved their design work for the G5. And gradually dropped the prices on the G4's as well.
Of course, I don't know what the production bottleneck is. Perhaps it is just as time-consuming to retool for USB2 as it is to redesign for a G5.
I doubt that last though. Again, other manufacturers are able to upgrade their products in a smoother fashion--Apple should be able to as well.
People are getting excited by reports of low inventory. Historically that happened just before introduction of new products, as Apple would stop old production and sell off the leftovers. So if a store just got a large batch of Powerbooks, it contradicts the notion of end of life for these products...
i.e., I think it means next week is too optimistic. Anyway, I'm going on vacation and won't be near the internet to check MacRumors, so for me it actually doesn't really matter.
Meager?
You are clearly not a fan of the 15 inch powerbooks. I'm a linux guy about to make the switch. The only reason I didn't buy the 15 inch a few weeks ago was that it NEEDS to be upgraded desperately. One of the biggest bottlenecks of a computer is the RAM. It's still running PC133 SDRAM, while the 12 inch has DDR 266 and the 17 inch has DDR 333. That's what I'm waiting for. If it has DDR 400 when upgraded (which isn't even the newest right now, they have DDR 500 i've heard ), the RAM will be 3 times as fast! You can't argue with that. This would be a major speed enhancer. I agree though, the other stuff will be icing on the cake, but not necessarily a selling point. G5 laptops won't come out until 2nd quarter next year (at the minimum), so they need to upgrade the 15s in the meantime. Pretty please, Apple?
You are clearly not a fan of the 15 inch powerbooks. I'm a linux guy about to make the switch. The only reason I didn't buy the 15 inch a few weeks ago was that it NEEDS to be upgraded desperately. One of the biggest bottlenecks of a computer is the RAM. It's still running PC133 SDRAM, while the 12 inch has DDR 266 and the 17 inch has DDR 333. That's what I'm waiting for. If it has DDR 400 when upgraded (which isn't even the newest right now, they have DDR 500 i've heard ), the RAM will be 3 times as fast! You can't argue with that. This would be a major speed enhancer. I agree though, the other stuff will be icing on the cake, but not necessarily a selling point. G5 laptops won't come out until 2nd quarter next year (at the minimum), so they need to upgrade the 15s in the meantime. Pretty please, Apple?
CrackedButter
macrumors 68040
I would love the things that don't seem to interest you. I plan to keep the laptop for at least 3-4 years. Over those years i can purchase those FW800 drives and DVD writers, move on up to wireless internet and so forth. But this depends on the user of course. I'm coming from a G3 800 iBook so i will see an increase won't i?
Re: Meager?
Some techie help me out here, but isn't DDR RAM in G4 Macs mainly window dressing, as the G4 processor doesn't properly support DDR RAM and the system buses aren't fast enough to move data in and out of the RAM quick enough to take advantage of the extra speed?
Some techie help me out here, but isn't DDR RAM in G4 Macs mainly window dressing, as the G4 processor doesn't properly support DDR RAM and the system buses aren't fast enough to move data in and out of the RAM quick enough to take advantage of the extra speed?
Long before broadband Internet connections can take advantage of Airport Extreme, there will be another, faster WiFi standard. AE is more a local area network solution than a faster way to access the Internet from a typical home broadband connection.
You are correct the current G4 "speaks" to the memory in non-ddr terms. The move was made because DDR chips tend to be the norm and therefore it could get harder and / or more expensive to find quality SDRAM chips. Other than that the G4 does not support DDR. I heard that the new G4 though the 7457 if I am right might actually support DDR RAM but I am not sure at all about that.
Re: Re: A voyage to nowhere
Ahh, a kindred spirit! Cooool Picture... 😀Originally posted by curious-au
Re: Meager?
You are missing the vital point that the bus on the powerbooks is limited to a paltry 167 MHz (or is it 133?). That means, even if you put DDR500 in the machines, the processor will only access the RAM at 167 MHz. It's like draining a 2-meter oil pipeline with your kitchen faucet.
So, in other words, the "speed boost" that is rumored for next week is not going to significantly speed up the 15, or the 12 or the 17.
Unless they go G5, that is. 🙂
You are missing the vital point that the bus on the powerbooks is limited to a paltry 167 MHz (or is it 133?). That means, even if you put DDR500 in the machines, the processor will only access the RAM at 167 MHz. It's like draining a 2-meter oil pipeline with your kitchen faucet.
So, in other words, the "speed boost" that is rumored for next week is not going to significantly speed up the 15, or the 12 or the 17.
Unless they go G5, that is. 🙂
I agree that these things should be in a laptop. But as I said, this stuff does not justify the absurd cost that they are demanding. For example, better wireless internet (airport extreme) is just a matter of swapping out a card. FW800 and USB are probably pretty simple alterations as well. Keeping the powerbooks at their current prices for just these things (and a very minor speed bump) is pretty ridiculous.
Furthermore, if you are planning on keeping your laptop for 3-4 years, you will miss the speed of the G5. The difference between G5 and G4 (considering bus differences also) will make much more of a difference in the long term than FW800 (which is what, after all--an extra 50MB/sec for your DVD burner and camcorder, which can't even use the extra speed!). Yeah, I know--if you have more stuff on the FW chain, the extra 50 comes in handy; but I maintain that this is far less significant than the G5. Even today a 1 GHz single G4 is painfully slow when running a couple apps at once (IMO). Imagine what that will feel like 4 years from now.
You certainly will. That doesn't mean you should have to pay such high prices. A Honda Civic is much faster than a Trabant. That doesn't mean you should spend US$50,000 on one.
Hmm, I don't know about that. I agree that AE (11g) won't be any faster than airport (11b) to access the internet, at current residential access speeds. But 54Mbps is pretty damn good--I don't know if that will get any better by the time we get cheap fiber to the home. 802.11 has to remain in the unlicensed spectrum, and it seems to me that schemes for maximizing throughput given the radio bandwidth have been fairly well developed at this point.
But, who knows.
I was reading an article and they were saying that the actual speed of AE (802.11g) is around the 20-24MB and not even close to the 54MB.
CrackedButter
macrumors 68040
I'll admit I overstated my scope of knowledge about wireless networking protocols when I wrote "long before". You are probably correct that faster connections to the home will be distributed sooner than faster WiFi is developed.
As vrapan wrote that the real-world speeds of AE are about half the specification, I've also read that practical speeds of Airport 802.11b are little more than half the specification: about 6 Mbps. In theory, I would probably be ecstatic if my home network connection approached the practical limits of 802.11b. But in reality -- unless we reach the point where DVD quality movies are sold over the Internet and can be recorded on a medium suitable for playback on a television via a standard DVD player -- I probably wouldn't notice the difference. For work and recreation, I do little more than Web and e-mail, and do not download much more than software updates. My mother has a 3Mbps cable connection that seems to operate on average at 1.5 - 2Mbps. I have 768kbps DSL. And I can't tell the difference between her connection and mine, since apparently their are many other factors -- such as remote server connection speed -- that affect Web performance. Safari gave me more of a speed boost than upgrading my broadband connection would have.
Since I do use my iDisk for back-up, I'd get more benefit out of a higher upload speed cap than I would a faster download connection.
This speed perception is so dependent on what one does with one's computer. On the one hand, Apple has a lot of video/graphics professionals demanding a lot of raw power in their hardware. On the other hand, many professional writers and students use Macs, as well as home users that have no specific demands on system performance.
I used to write for the video game industry, requiring me to own a fast (at the time) gaming PC. It is still, I believe, a fairly formidable PC -- 2GHz Pentium 4, RDRAM, GeForce 4 Titanium, fast system bus, etc. Unfortunately, I don't really play games recreationally, and now that I've left the industry, it's sort of a large, blue object that serves no particular purpose. But, while I did use it on a regular basis, I noticed no appreciable difference in performance for basic tasks when compared with my Quicksilver 867Mhz Mac or even my 667Mhz TiBook. I suspect that if I compared games side-by-side or did something intensive in Photoshop I might see anywhere from a noticeable to significant difference, but as it is, my slower Mac isn't slower to me at all.
I tend to want a new Mac for design features -- call it the Zen-factor or whatever -- long before I come close to *needing* a new Mac. For example, right now, I'm tempted by the 12" PowerBook, although by technical specifications it would be less powerful than my desktop Mac and has a smaller screen than my TiBook. iMacs, too, are tempting because of their elegance of form.