digitalbiker said:
DDR2 would make a lot more sense with a low power G5. Maybe Apple IS delivering the G5 PB at 1.5 - 1.8 Ghz with a very high speed FSB and new graphics subsystem. That would be exciting!
There are several recent occurings that may support this rumor.
[Removed the wonderful acid trip.]
*sighs* Guys. A G5 isn't happening. Unless Apple has had a chipset ready for a year and it was simply sitting around waiting for a chip its not going to happen. Why? Because of Jobs standing on stage with a Big G5? and a PowerBook under it. If Apple knew that IBM had the chips and were sampling them Jobs wouldn't have had that graphic. And lets say for the sake of argument that the week AFTER WWDC IBM up and produced a G5 out of thin air that works in a PowerBook it would take months of thermal testing, testing the hardware to make sure it doesn't overheat, tweaking the fan settings, tweaking the powermanagement settings, and ramping up production of the chips on IBM's part and so on. WWDC killed the G5 PowerBook for all intents and purposes. Even if they somehow produced the chip Apple is close enough to bringing out a dual core Pentium M PowerBook (In all likelihood less then a year now.) that from a $$$$ standpoint it doesn't make much sense for them to bring out an entire new platform now.
Is there a chance? Yah. But to summarize again the following would have to occur IMHO:
-Apple would have to have a chipset ready NOW. The bugs would have to be already worked out and such by this time. Because right now they would be fabing the mainboards as we speak at this point.
-IBM would have had to have sent Apple samples of this new cooled chip months ago. Prob around the beginning of 2nd quarter. (Which brings us back to Steve's onscreen graphic.)
-Apple would have to have beta testers of this new laptop out there NOW and be out there since at least the beginning of second quarter. So literally they slapped the chips in the system and said "Here...enjoy"
-They would have had to do so battery tests to find the right mix of power to battery life. I'm assuming this G5 can scale in speed to a certain extent right? Well finding that mix isn't done overnight. They would also have to figure out when the fan turns on. What is an acceptable thermal threshold for the CPU, the mainboard, the GPU, the hard drive, etc. Figure out what size battery to put in it.
-IBM would have to be able to ramp to meet the insane demand. Think about it. The last PPC mobile system on the market that prob would increase the performance pretty drastically. Everyone who has PPC apps (Which is everyone.) would want to get their hands on this puppy so they aren't stuck with rosetta. Apple would need some massive guarantee from IBM that they can meet the demand within weeks of launch.
That is simply off the top of my head and I'm not even an engineer. I'm certain someone who works in the field could spell it out more clearly but the fact is the window to put out a G5 PowerBook is so narrow its really not even a possibility at this point.
Guys I want to beleive but realistically it just ain't going to happen. If you asked me this 6 months ago I would say its a 50/50% chance or better. Now its something like 80/20. Its not going to happen. That's just my take on it. *shrugs*