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PowerBook Updates in September?

hmmm i still think im gonna hold out on a laptop for a bit. dont really have a need for it right now. 😀
 
I'd like to add that every os that attempts to seriously run MySql works with them to optimize threading. Apple has not at this time.

If the new chip is the 8641 I'll buy, if it's the 7448 I'll have to see some xbench scores first.
 
I was considering buying a Powerbook in the next few weeks, do you reckon it would be best to wait for a few more weeks?

Also, does anyone know if (when) the new Intel powerbooks are released, there will be much cosmetic change?
 
digitalbiker said:
If you are waiting for a cheaper PB than right now, I think you will be waiting for quite awhile. Nowhere has Apple said anything about cheaper. The higher end Pentium M chips, Yonah, Merom, etc. are all going to be very expensive. Much more than the G4's.

I am one of those that is cautiously optimistic about the Intel switch.

I would like the possiblity of running native window apps in a shell. I would like the access to all those cutting edge GPU's, HD's, ram, etc. instead of waiting for the mac version to be released.

But I hate the thought of going CISC architecture when RISC is so much better for many scientific endeavers that I am involved with.

I am also very skeptical of Intel, and their ability to innovate, improve, and meet projected roadmaps.

I also wonder just where Apple will sit on the pecking order for access to Intel chips. Will Dell, HP, Sony all get preference for new chipsets that are in short supply, leaving Apple holding the ***ty end of the stick?

I guess we will see! 😱
Click to expand...

Thank you for an intelligent reply. Yes, one of the reasons Apple wants to go with Intel is because of price. They want to be competitive. As you are probably aware, Apple is about so much more then just the cpu. Apple chose Intel because Intel is going to deliver a platform just for Apple. Intel is going to manufacture the cpu, chipset and mobo for Apple and nobody else so no need to worry about Apple getting the short end of the stick. Only the ones who buy Apples for the current hardware and superior thoughput are going to recieve a unpleasant stick in the a$$.
 
The Real Quote

First, the thing is fast. Native apps readily beat a single 2.7 G5, and sometimes beat duals. Really.


- First, Apple doesn't sell a SINGLE 2.7 G5.
- Second, when ever someone says REALLY, then it's really wrong.
Just like Rush Liar, any time he says "Folks, this is TRUE", it isn't.

The current P4 doesn't beat the current G5. The current Dual Xeon doesn't beat the G5. But, future versions might, and Apple won't have to pay for processor R&D.
 
al3000 said:
I was considering buying a Powerbook in the next few weeks, do you reckon it would be best to wait for a few more weeks?

Also, does anyone know if (when) the new Intel powerbooks are released, there will be much cosmetic change?
Click to expand...
Hmmm...a beaten to death topic...well here's my opinion...if you need a laptop now...buy it now....if you can wait....make sure you know why you are waiting....and once you are sure, then you can wait.....

The present g4 Pbs are all very good laptops, as for cosmetic changes for the mactels, are you first of all willing to wait till next year (hopefully) to get one???? I still stand by waht I said, get one if you need one....cheers!!!
 
fordlemon said:
Why would anybody buy an Apple now if you all believe that the Macintel will be better and cheaper?
Click to expand...

To be blunt, because they know how to do cost analysis.

For example, I own probably close to $2K in application software, all of which is PPC-Mac based. It will run on a current Apple with no problem, and at known performance levels.

If I wait a year for an Intel-Mac, not only do I lose out on a year's worth of productivity today, but it takes clock cycles to run that emulation, so the odds are pretty good that that new Intel-Mac system isn't going to be any faster than the current PPC-Mac hardware that I can buy today.

Plus I'm taking the risk that the emulation works 100% flawlessly, too.

Overall, what this really means is that a PPC Mac today is the better investment for me, because I don't need to promptly repurchase all of my software applications to take advantage of any Intel-based speed bump.

This basically means that I can defer around $1000 in software upgrade expenses for the "fat binary" versions.

Assuming that they appear in a timely fashion, that is. I didn't forget that it took Adobe roughly 2 years to get around to it with Photoshop with the 68K --> PPC conversion, and given the relatively recent release of Photoshop CS2 and Adobe's investments in Altivec, I have my doubts as to how soon they're going to come out with CS2.5 fat binary.

Pragmatically, by the time that all of the major software titles that I want have done their fat binary upgrades *and* I've successfully budget & purchased them, the odds are pretty good that three years has transpired, which means that Apple will have also delivered their 2nd generation Intel-Mac machines.

It all depends in how much you have invested in what part of which lifecycle....a system isn't just hardware, you know.

-hh
 
Yep. That's what people should be thinking about.

-hh said:
To be blunt, because they know how to do cost analysis.

For example, I own probably close to $2K in application software, all of which is PPC-Mac based. It will run on a current Apple with no problem, and at known performance levels.

If I wait a year for an Intel-Mac, not only do I lose out on a year's worth of productivity today, but it takes clock cycles to run that emulation, so the odds are pretty good that that new Intel-Mac system isn't going to be any faster than the current PPC-Mac hardware that I can buy today.

Plus I'm taking the risk that the emulation works 100% flawlessly, too.

Overall, what this really means is that a PPC Mac today is the better investment for me, because I don't need to promptly repurchase all of my software applications to take advantage of any Intel-based speed bump.

This basically means that I can defer around $1000 in software upgrade expenses for the "fat binary" versions.

Assuming that they appear in a timely fashion, that is. I didn't forget that it took Adobe roughly 2 years to get around to it with Photoshop with the 68K --> PPC conversion, and given the relatively recent release of Photoshop CS2 and Adobe's investments in Altivec, I have my doubts as to how soon they're going to come out with CS2.5 fat binary.

Pragmatically, by the time that all of the major software titles that I want have done their fat binary upgrades *and* I've successfully budget & purchased them, the odds are pretty good that three years has transpired, which means that Apple will have also delivered their 2nd generation Intel-Mac machines.

It all depends in how much you have invested in what part of which lifecycle....a system isn't just hardware, you know.

-hh
Click to expand...


HH, you are EXACTLY RIGHT!! People in these forums always seems to completely forget total cost of waiting to buy new hardware and the cost of software that they'll use to run on their bleeding edge machines. I've got THOUSANDS of dollars worth of software invested in OS X as it now stands. I know that it will run smoothly with very rare glitches (if any) NOW with Tiger on PPC architecture. Most here think that Rosetta is like fairy dust that can be sprinkled on current software written with PPC chip architecture in mind without any performance hits. Rosetta may be a good stopgap, but it won't be flawless. Heck it will probably have a lot of glitches that the Intel chips aren't going to be able to smooth over with pure processesing speed. It took me 3 years to finally get all the applications on OS X at great expense. It would take me at least another 3 years or more to replace all of my current PPC chips software with Intel chip native software. Heck, Quark XPress took forever to get on OS X (3 freaking years!!!) If you have to wait and buy a new library of software, it makes a lot of sense to go ahead and purchase one of the final revisions of the G4's and G5's to extend the life of your current software without having to worry about the inevitable complications of emulation. My PowerBook is now 3.5 years old and I'm praying that the next update is soon, before an Intel switchover.

Give me a 1.8 G4 with 200 FSB, 120 gig hard drive and hopefully a better GPU; and I'll drop my money down immediately. Hopefully this will also let me sell my current 667 G4 for some cash while I still can.

I know also that such a PowerBook revision would still be viable for years considering that software companies will have to cater to current PPC chip AND Intel chip Macs.
 
Just to add to this particular rumour, Apple Korea has a promotion where you get an iPod shuffle when you buy an iBook or PowerBook. The promotion runs until September 25. The interesting part is, for the PowerBook, they specify "old model" in the add. Well, there isn't any "old" model...yet.

Squire
 
I think it is very likely for this minor update to happen, the PowerBook hasen't been updated and the iBook is really close as far as performance goes. I am really hoping it happens because I have been holding off on a new PowerBook for a while. If this update does happen then I will buy the last revision of the PowerBook and won't buy a Mactel for a while for these reasons...

(1)stability
(2)software
(3)price
(4)Native apps.
(5)Heat and other issues that would need to be fixed in future revisions.

For some reason I just like the PowerPC chipped and will be sticking with it as long as I can.
 
There is definitely going to be a update next month in September and the Paris Expo. If they keep the 12", expect it to have a similar RAM configuration like the iBook with 512MB soldered on and it ships with 1 RAM slot free for a max of 1.5GB RAM.
 
-hh said:
To be blunt, because they know how to do cost analysis.

For example, I own probably close to $2K in application software, all of which is PPC-Mac based. It will run on a current Apple with no problem, and at known performance levels.

If I wait a year for an Intel-Mac, not only do I lose out on a year's worth of productivity today, but it takes clock cycles to run that emulation, so the odds are pretty good that that new Intel-Mac system isn't going to be any faster than the current PPC-Mac hardware that I can buy today.

Plus I'm taking the risk that the emulation works 100% flawlessly, too.

Overall, what this really means is that a PPC Mac today is the better investment for me, because I don't need to promptly repurchase all of my software applications to take advantage of any Intel-based speed bump.

This basically means that I can defer around $1000 in software upgrade expenses for the "fat binary" versions.

Assuming that they appear in a timely fashion, that is. I didn't forget that it took Adobe roughly 2 years to get around to it with Photoshop with the 68K --> PPC conversion, and given the relatively recent release of Photoshop CS2 and Adobe's investments in Altivec, I have my doubts as to how soon they're going to come out with CS2.5 fat binary.

Pragmatically, by the time that all of the major software titles that I want have done their fat binary upgrades *and* I've successfully budget & purchased them, the odds are pretty good that three years has transpired, which means that Apple will have also delivered their 2nd generation Intel-Mac machines.

It all depends in how much you have invested in what part of which lifecycle....a system isn't just hardware, you know.

-hh
Click to expand...


Thank you for a very good answer. The system isn't just hardware, true. Every reason you gave comes down to the software investment running on the current RISC hardware system. It's too bad that the Macintels will not use Altivec. Emulation is bad, VPC is proof of that.
 
MikeAtari said:
- First, Apple doesn't sell a SINGLE 2.7 G5.
Click to expand...

Whilst I cannot argue the point the CHUD tools let you turn off one CPU. This is so as developers can see how their app runs on a single CPU box. It would be easy to test how code perfroms versus a single 2.7Ghz G5 this way.
 
Mac_Freak said:
Come on, Microsoft can't even make their native OS to be stable and run well, so how do you expect their emulation to be any good?
Click to expand...

Probably you haven't used a PC since win95/98/me. XP is rock solid.
 
minimax said:
Probably you haven't used a PC since win95/98/me. XP is rock solid.
Click to expand...

LOL.

So I happen to use it every day, too. And it's a constant pain in the ass, even with a state of the art PC. It can be very unresponsive when you're running more than one application at a time-- especially if that one thing is a game. It needs constant updates and spyware / adware / virus protection which slows down the whole system. I'm not speaking with here-say, this is my own experience on multiple Wintel 'boxes' running Win XP. It looks a lot nicer than predicessors and *is* a major improvement... but moving from a 3 / 10 to a 7 / 10 is hardly something to cheer about.

It's usability is horrendous at times, satisfactory at others, but never as usable as OS X. Now, there is a short list of stupid things in OS X, but let's face it-- the concept of a registry, lack of robust user support (viruses?), configuring your computer through it's convoluded "wizard" concept ... what a MESS. Win XP is terrible. Don't fool yourself.
 
AidenShaw said:
Note that my post said "what are they saying" about the MacIntel. The "snot" remark is just one of many comments that have been posted about the good performance of the MacIntel developer systems.

Use the "find text" feature of your browser and search for "snot" on that page (http://www.neowin.net/forum/lofiversion/index.php/t330170.html), you should see:
Click to expand...
Actually, I do know how to search, I was just looking for something a bit more objective than that quote.

AidenShaw said:
And the first sentence of that final link says "benchmark reports of programs running under Rosetta"....
Click to expand...
Xbench was translated, but the OS was not emulated. This is not like VirtualPC, and translated apps are expected to 80% as fast as native apps (with the exception of those with Altivec or G5-specific code).

AidenShaw said:
Xbench was emulated/translated....and still outperformed the dual 2.5 in graphics.
Click to expand...
Since the graphics results are so markedly different from the other results, I suspect that this demonstrates how poorly Xbench is optimized for G5/Mac graphics compared to P4/Windows graphics. I seem to remember reading (sorry, no time to find a quote today) that optimizations were done to the P4 to ensure that it would do well on Xbench, whether or not they resulted in any real-world improvements...

AidenShaw said:
Until then, however, the following is interesting: SPEC Scores

Code: 
  Model       Speed    CPU Type   SPECint   SPECfp
----------  --------   --------   -------   ------
IBM JS20     2.2 GHz    PPC970       986     1178
IBM HS20     3.6 GHz     Xeon       1684     1769

Is it fair to say that the Xeon "kicks the snot" out of the PPC970 here?

Wouldn't it be reasonable to believe that on applications that don't use MP well, the Xeon would "kick the snot" out of a dual 2.7?
Click to expand...

Sure, if, as you say, an app doesn't use MP well (although even these apps are often accelerated with DP due to off-loading of OS-related tasks onto the 2nd processor), and if you are comparing the mid-range G5 with the top-of-the-line Xeon (why don't you compare it with a 3.06 GHz Celeron while you're at it?). I have little interest in benchmarks that require that one of the processors on a DP machine be disabled and that the remaining processor be underclocked (since they don't make the 2.2 anymore); these changes result in poor correlation between benchmark results and real world performance. These benchmarks essentially demonstrate that a machine barely faster than the low-end SP configuration of the PowerMac (which most MR members seem to feel is substantially inferior to the other configurations) is out-performed by the top-end Xeon. How surprising!

In reality, if the changeover to Intel happened today, Macs would probably not be any faster than they are now. Of course, next year's MacIntels be faster than today's Macs, but next year's Windows boxes will be faster than today's Windows boxes, as well. The switch, as Jobs explained it, was not because of performance, but because of heat production.

IMO, there were 2 reasons for the switch:

1. IBM could not or would not deliver the required PPC 970s in sufficient quantity in a reasonable period of time.

2. The PPC 970s were designed too efficiently for their own good. Although they did not produce excessive heat compared to P4s, they had too little surface area from which to dissipate the heat, hence liquid cooling.
 
HD Resolution is what we want!

Some have questioned the possibility of adding HD resolutions (1920x1200) to anything but 17"-size models.

What's the difficulty? Dell have been offering a (quite nice looking) WUXGA (yes, 1920x1200) panel on their 15.4" Latitude models for a long time now.
Ok, that's marginally larger than the current PowerBook 15.2", but not impossible.

James.
(Damnit, I want a higher resolution PowerBook screen!)
 
jrg_i said:
I want a higher resolution PowerBook screen
Click to expand...

I am curious as to why. This is a real question. I have a Pismo which is 1024x768 and am happy with that. My sons just got an iMac G5 20" which is a lot larger screen. I find the extra width unconfortable for mousing around and when viewing web pages I set the window to the same size I use on the Pismo's smaller screen for comfortable reading. The only three times I can think when I might want it larger is for Illustrator, Photoshop and very big spreadsheets but even then the 1024x768 feels like enough.

So, what is it about a wider screen that you want?
 
jrg_i said:
Some have questioned the possibility of adding HD resolutions (1920x1200) to anything but 17"-size models.

What's the difficulty? Dell have been offering a (quite nice looking) WUXGA (yes, 1920x1200) panel on their 15.4" Latitude models for a long time now.
Ok, that's marginally larger than the current PowerBook 15.2", but not impossible.

James.
(Damnit, I want a higher resolution PowerBook screen!)
Click to expand...

For games (that could run that high a res, doubtful on a mobile platform), movies or other HD video, that resolution cap would be awesome making some amazing images possible on a notebook. Problem being, can you imagine the size of things if you were at 1920x1200 just using the OS? Have you actually used a PC notebook with those screen figures? because I have seen one, and I didn't care for it. That is the argument most are making if they are opposed to the HD resolutions in smaller screens.
 
How about they just give the 15" Powerbook then old 17" resolution of 1440x900 and give the new 17" the resolution of 1680x1050.
 
Mac_Freak said:
Come on, Microsoft can't even make their native OS to be stable and run well, so how do you expect their emulation to be any good?
Click to expand...

Uh, Microsoft bought VPC not too long ago.. If you were a true Mac Freak, you would know that. I have never had one stability issue with Windows XP on my Autodesk box. Stability is just not a relevant argument anymore.
 
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