Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
I don't like to sound negative, but...
Didn't Apple want to move away from the "hardware announcements at MacWorlds".... the release of new iMacs and iPods being the evidence?
I'm pretty convinced NO hardware will be introduced, just the G5 and new iMacs demoed and highlighted.
I'm sure Steve will show the newest release of Panther, new i-Apps, and talk about iTMS Europe (hopefully EU Sherlock Channels, and EU iPhoto Service).

I'm gonna be there (got my K-bagde!!!!), hence I would love a PowerBook G5 intro, but some little voice inside me says: "Same as last year...." (all software).
Ofcourse the G5 demos will be fun!:)
 
Re: Powerbooks are definatley going to be a G5 now

Originally posted by AHDuke99
Powerbook Specs (Final Prediction)
15.4" and 17" Screens
1.2-1.4GHZ G5
600MHZ-700MHZ FSB
512K L2 Cache
512 DDR 400 RAM
Superdrive all around
64-128MB Raedon 9600 Mobility
Bluetooth
Airport Extreme
USB 2.0
Firewire 400/800


12" Powerbook
1.0-1.25GHZ MPC 7457 (When Moto finally ships it)
512K L2 Cache
1MB L3 Cache (Maybe)
256MB DDR266 RAM
Combo-Superdrive
64MB nVIDIA/ATI Raedon?
AE, FW800
USB 2.0
Backlit Keyboard (Possibly)

I think this is a sound prediction.

A few signs, taken together as a whole, point to G5 PBs announced at Paris.

1) OS Development has at this point, far outstripped hardware development. A new G4 PB at this point would still lag

2) Al case design was made with the G5 in mind. You think Aluminium cases for both towers and powerbooks are a coincidence? It's called consistency in design. Al = G5. I don't think Apple would spend all that money designing an Al notebook case just to ditch it in a year and they wouldn't release it too far in front of its intended use (to cool a portable G5) because they would have to update the case design at an awkward time after the towers were released. Al cases were released early so they would have more than prototypes to work with - they have practical experience with them now (lesson learned from Ti book issues)

3) Speed bumped iMacs and higher-capacity iPods are just foreplay. Y'all know what's coming.

Reasons against that really don't work:
1) Apple wouldn't want to relase a G5 PowerBook because it would cannibalise G5 tower sales. Huh? We're talking about two different markets here - portable use and desktop use. Not that it would even matter, but having a 1.2 GHz PB is enough of a performance gap to differentiate the two lines. Besides, margins on portables are greater than on desktops. Even if somebody decided to buy a G5 PB as a desktop replacement, Apple would be better off.

2) Apple would want to release the new PBs in its major market, the US, so they will delay until SFExpo. Huh? Any company should be looking to its growth market and Europe is certainly a growth market for Apple, especially since the EU is a bit more aggressive about keeping MS in check. Besides, an announcement in Paris will have just as big an impact in the US as an announcement in a major US city would. Besides, if you had a great product on your hand, why wouldn't you want to try to start selling it as soon as possible?

3) The heat/power issue. Don't even get me started.

Apple, if you release a 15" G5 PB at Paris, I'll snap it up. $2.5K is a lot of money, but it'll be worth it.

If you release a 1.33 GHz 15" G4 PB - hahahahah! For $2.5K? hahahaha - no sorry, I'll stop now.
 
Great reasoning hose this!
At last someone has posted some logical reasonings.

Though I'm have no idea whether the new pb will have a G5 or not, they should have been designing the notebook architecture since they got the G5 sample.

It's not like you do
"DESKTOP FIRST! ok we're done. now let's think about the laptop"
 
Originally posted by yujini

It's not like you do
"DESKTOP FIRST! ok we're done. now let's think about the laptop"

too right - i think apple would have been like:
FASTER PROCESSOR - now lets make some machines to use it
 
SJ announces G5 Powerbooks (12" thru 17"), shipping in December/January, 1GHz to maybe 1.2GHz. Do you think Apple's portable techs have been sitting idly by since the 12 and 17 were released? Faster G4s would require almost no engineering, the more efficient chips would just slot in. Also, regardless of the processors, it would be nice to see faster hard drives, maybe 5400rpm standard with 7200rpm as BTO option.
 
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Powerbooks are definatley going to be a G5 now

Originally posted by patrick0brien
-panphage

Yes, but that's just the chip. As others have alluded to around here, there is a whole architecture change behind the use of the chip - Apple didn't simply plop a 970 into a 7455's slot. pretty much everything was updates, which is the big deal. And that whole kaboodle is where the heat comes from. Yes you could pop a G5 in to a powerbook, but you'd have to compromise so much it would be pointless. And we all know that Apple prefers to release a mature product rather than a half-baked one (was that a pun?).

Did you read my whole post? I know it's long, but if you read it I tried to adress this concern. Anyone with a G5 tower want to comment on the cooling for the System Controller chip? I'm sorry, apple has had ~three years to develop a portable system for the 970 chip. They already designed the case and released it into the wild to see how it stood up. If they didn't get it solved yet, you think another four months is gonna cause a breakthrough? And don't anyone cite me 90nm chapter and verse, pentium chips are getting HOTTER as die sized decrease. Add to that the fact that the smaller processes result in smaller die sizes result in more cooling difficulties (cooling is easier with larger surface area) and that don't wash with me.
 
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Powerbooks are definatley going to be a G5 now

Originally posted by panphage
Did you read my whole post? I know it's long, but if you read it I tried to adress this concern. Anyone with a G5 tower want to comment on the cooling for the System Controller chip? I'm sorry, apple has had ~three years to develop a portable system for the 970 chip. They already designed the case and released it into the wild to see how it stood up. If they didn't get it solved yet, you think another four months is gonna cause a breakthrough? And don't anyone cite me 90nm chapter and verse, pentium chips are getting HOTTER as die sized decrease. Add to that the fact that the smaller processes result in smaller die sizes result in more cooling difficulties (cooling is easier with larger surface area) and that don't wash with me.

There are many companies that sell PC laptops will normal desktop P4s in them, the P4s use the biggest fans/heatsinks in the PC world. So I also don't think the heat is a major problem. But what I do see as a problem is the avaliability of G5 chips. There are always supply problems when new chips are introduced.

Also about the earier post where someone talked to a Apple Store Manager who said somthing is coming at Paris, well I have found them to be very knowable on these things. There were serval reports from Apple Store people like this before the G5, that proved to be very acurate.
 
Thanks to charlesc for this post in the News forum... Any G5 PB guys want to comment on this? I see points in both the G5 and the updated G4 realm, so I'm neutral. I post this to just help the rumors along.. :)

Apple to Refresh PowerBooks in Paris

By:_Kasper Jade
09.11.03

For some Apple loyalists the wait for a new breed of PowerBook G4s has seemed like an eternity. Rumors routinely began to surface back in May, just prior to the company's annual World Wide Developer Conference. At the time, much of the buzz surrounded hints of a revised 15" model and soon spanned across the entire PowerBook product line.

A month later Apple's developer conference had come and gone and new PowerBooks remained as nothing more than hearsay. By mid-July sales of the current line of PowerBooks had slumped considerably in anticipation of the overdue revisions. The bi-annual Macworld trade show arrived shortly thereafter and high expectations once again turned to disappointment among eager PowerBook buyers.

With little to no explanation from the Apple, and frustration building among avid consumers, sources began to paint a muggy picture of Apple microchip supplier, Motorola. As it was reported, problems with the chip-maker's 0.13 micron process were resulting in extremely poor yields of the high-end PowerPC 7457 G4 processor, code-named 'Apollo 7.' Unfortunately for Apple, the PowerPC 7457 family of semiconductors were to power the entire line of new PowerBook G4s.

By late August the situation fared no better. Apple's two largest hardware distributors showed an almost completely depleted inventory of all current PowerBook G4 configurations. The computer company had missed out on potential millions in educational and back-to-school sales and their retailers were growing anxious. To levitate some concerns -- during the last week of August -- Apple told some of its select retail partners to expect new PowerBooks in early to mid September.

It wasn't until last week that sources began mumbling the first bits of promising information on the subject. According to an AppleInsider source, Apple's chip supplier had finally accumulated an ample supply of the faster PowerPC 7457 mobile chips. This news was soon echoed by French Mac news publisher, MacBidouille. According to the site, success rates on high-end PowerPC 7457 production improved this month with Motorola producing 30,000 and 20,000 units of the 1.25GHz and 1.3GHz chips, respectively. However, since Motorola's engagement with Apple sets a pre-defined price on microprocessors, they are currently eating a loss of approximately $125 per functional unit.

Nevertheless, AppleInsider has positively confirmed with multiple sources that the new species of PowerBook G4s will make their debut on September 16th during Apple Expo in Paris, France. While the confirmation has been specific to a remodeled 15" PowerBook, it's expected that the entire portable line will be refreshed. This information also corroborates last week's report stating all PowerBook orders would be full-filled within the two week period.

According to reliable sources, demo versions of these new PowerBooks are currently being produced and shipped to the site of the expo. Upon arrival, the laptops will be met by Apple engineers who will update their system software to the recently finalized version of Mac OS X 10.2.7 Blackrider.

Previous rumors put the new 15" PowerBook in an aluminum enclosure with ports on the sides, a backlit keyboard, USB 2.0, FireWire 800, and a 1.25 GHz PowerPC G4 processor. The 17" configuration is said to gain USB 2.0 and a 1.3GHz PowerPC G4 processor. It will be interesting to see if Motorola's current yields have allowed Apple to meet these original specifications.

Meanwhile, the computer company is also readying updates to their consumer iBooks. The new units will sport USB 2.0 and AirPort Extreme support, sources said. Additionally, the PowerPC 750FX flavor of IBM's G3 processor allows for the implementation of a 200MHz 60x bus that could potentially keep the portables running Apple's latest OS offerings at more than respectable speeds for a fraction of the cost of the PowerPC G4. Further information pertaining to the official release of these iBooks, as well as their processor generation, is currently unconfirmed.
 
Steve Jobs will not make an announcement about Powerbooks at the Paris Expo unless he's got G5's to brag about. An anemic update to the 7457 and aluminum enclosure for the 15 after 9 months is not something steve is going to stand up and trumpet. If it's just to be G4's @ 1.25, expect a quiet update like the imacs.
 
Re: Re: Powerbooks are definatley going to be a G5 now

Originally posted by hose this!
I think this is a sound prediction.

A few signs, taken together as a whole, point to G5 PBs announced at Paris.

1) OS Development has at this point, far outstripped hardware development. A new G4 PB at this point would still lag

2) Al case design was made with the G5 in mind. You think Aluminium cases for both towers and powerbooks are a coincidence? It's called consistency in design. Al = G5. I don't think Apple would spend all that money designing an Al notebook case just to ditch it in a year and they wouldn't release it too far in front of its intended use (to cool a portable G5) because they would have to update the case design at an awkward time after the towers were released. Al cases were released early so they would have more than prototypes to work with - they have practical experience with them now (lesson learned from Ti book issues)

3) Speed bumped iMacs and higher-capacity iPods are just foreplay. Y'all know what's coming.

Reasons against that really don't work:
1) Apple wouldn't want to relase a G5 PowerBook because it would cannibalise G5 tower sales. Huh? We're talking about two different markets here - portable use and desktop use. Not that it would even matter, but having a 1.2 GHz PB is enough of a performance gap to differentiate the two lines. Besides, margins on portables are greater than on desktops. Even if somebody decided to buy a G5 PB as a desktop replacement, Apple would be better off.

2) Apple would want to release the new PBs in its major market, the US, so they will delay until SFExpo. Huh? Any company should be looking to its growth market and Europe is certainly a growth market for Apple, especially since the EU is a bit more aggressive about keeping MS in check. Besides, an announcement in Paris will have just as big an impact in the US as an announcement in a major US city would. Besides, if you had a great product on your hand, why wouldn't you want to try to start selling it as soon as possible?

3) The heat/power issue. Don't even get me started.

Apple, if you release a 15" G5 PB at Paris, I'll snap it up. $2.5K is a lot of money, but it'll be worth it.

If you release a 1.33 GHz 15" G4 PB - hahahahah! For $2.5K? hahahaha - no sorry, I'll stop now.


I like this guy...I like his post so much, I'm gonna quote the whole damn thing...why? because it makes sense!!!
 
When the G4 Towers came out, it took over a year before the Ti Powerbook was introduced.

And althouh mimicing the Ti, the new 12 and 17 PB are made of Al, and seeing how they we're introduced 9 months ago and can't see the guys at apple going to far from that design anytime soon. My point being, that if a redesign is in order for the G5 PB as it was for all other new generation PB's, it won't happen so quickly after the release of the others.

But as am an optomist, and i would LOVE to see a G5 powerbook atleast introduced this coming week, we could maybe suggest that the Al redesign was an indication of what apple has in store for us with the G5, be it as it may, the PB's aspecially the 12 and 17 looking pretty simular to the G5 tower (well minus mesh)

but thats just wish full thinking, mixed with speculation based on past evidence, we'll all find out what STEVE has for us in 2 or 3 days anyway.
 
Originally posted by beefcake
I don't see why Apple would want to rain on their own parade. Right now, with the G5 finally hitting people's desktops, it's the center of attention and will likely turn a lot of skeptical heads. If Apple goes ahead and drops a G5 PB out there, it will not only draw most of the attention, but possibly cut into PowerMac sales.

i disagree.
 
Originally posted by tomf87


By late August the situation fared no better.

fared...?

According to reliable sources, demo versions of these new PowerBooks are currently being produced and shipped to the site of the expo. Upon arrival, the laptops will be met by Apple engineers who will update their system software to the recently finalized version of Mac OS X 10.2.7 Blackrider.


am i wrong or right? x.2.7 is smeagol... no?
 
Originally posted by plinkoman
why on earth would they upgrade the 15 and 17 to a G5 and leave the 12 as is? the 12 is a powerbook, not a weaker computer, just a smaller one, i hate how people always talk about it as if it were a glorified ibook....

Well...I think it's just that. no L3 cache.
And in a lot of cases not that faster than a 900 ibook. And considering the price.. But that's just me.
 
panphage:

The G5 at 1.8Ghz eats 42W. The G4e at 1.0Ghz uses 30W. That ain't that much difference. A P4 @ 2.8Ghz uses 68W!!
The numbers you quote for the G5 and G4 are "typical" power usage numbers as far as I know, whereas the Intel numbers are the maximum power usage numbers. We don't actually know how much juice a P4-M "typically" uses, or how much a G5 can use at the peak.

The ASIC may generate the majority of the heat in the G5's case, BUT, the FSB doesn't HAVE to run at 1/2 proc speed.
No, in the G5 system it is the CPU's that are sucking most of the power and generating most of the heat (which are actually the same thing in microprocessors). Just look where the heatsinks are... pretty clearly establishes where the heat is coming from and therefore where the power is going. So I don't think there's a compelling reason for a serious FSB downclock, it does make a difference in power usage... but would it be worth the performance hit? I don't think a G5 would work very well with a slow FSB, since its RAM access is apparently pretty high latency (compared to the competition) even with a fast FSB and since it has only 512k of cache.

And maybe the 700Mhz FSB isn't impossible after all: All the bitching about the 12" PB heat problems I've heard miss the point. The heat isn't due to the proc OR the ASIC. That thing burning your left wrist in the 12" is the HARD DRIVE.
I bet the disk isn't actually generating much heat (even 10k RPM SCSI disks only use about 10W when not seeking)... just the heat it does generate is not being taken away by fans and heatsinks, so it comes through the case.

And don't anyone cite me 90nm chapter and verse, pentium chips are getting HOTTER as die sized decrease.
Yeah, because the clock speed and performance-per-clock is being raised too. A 90nm chip would use less power than a 130nm chip of the same basic design, at the same clockspeed.

hose this!

1) OS Development has at this point, far outstripped hardware development. A new G4 PB at this point would still lag.
If G5 laptops can't be designed quickly enough to be released at Paris, or generate unacceptable heat, then your point is irrelevant.

Rediculous. Right now, design scheme reflects "pro" and "consumer" and processors have been going whereever they are suited. I cannot think of a time when Apple made design schemes across lines to reflect on the hardware inside.

Speed bumped iMacs and higher-capacity iPods are just foreplay.
Meaningless postulation.

The heat/power issue. Don't even get me started.
Eh? For all we know a 1.2ghz G5 system would be the hottest hardware Apple has ever crammed into a laptop body. (Remember, all we have is "typical" power use figures to go by, and we have no idea how much the other system chips on each are using.) If Apple just sticks in a 1.0ghz G5 to keep things tame, then I fail to see a compelling advantage over a 1.25ghz 7457. In either case, they almost certainly would loose noticable performance over the desktop G5's, not only because of clockspeed but also because it is highly unlikely that they could reasonably run dual-channel RAM in a laptop. The 7457 has less main memory bandwidth, but that main memory is probably a lot lower latency, and it has an L3. The G5's 64-bit advantage is also pretty much negated by inability to stick more than 4GB of RAM into a laptop at this time. I'm just not seeing why a G5 laptop is a big enough deal for Apple to invest the engineering so soon.

If you release a 1.33 GHz 15" G4 PB - hahahahah! For $2.5K? hahahaha - no sorry, I'll stop now.
Imagine taking a 1.6ghz desktop G5, removing half the RAM bandwidth, and then chopping the clockspeed and FSB by 25%. Can that really beat a 1.33ghz 7457? Thats pretty much the best-case G5 laptop.
 
Originally posted by panphage
Steve Jobs will not make an announcement about Powerbooks at the Paris Expo unless he's got G5's to brag about. An anemic update to the 7457 and aluminum enclosure for the 15 after 9 months is not something steve is going to stand up and trumpet. If it's just to be G4's @ 1.25, expect a quiet update like the imacs.

Exactly right! So that's why Paris will be all about Panther and iSight, and nary a word about PowerBooks.
 
Originally posted by tomf87
The only reason I could see for not upgrading the 12" version is heat. I was browsing the local Apple store and noticed the 12" was very hot on the left hand side. Unless they can improve the heat dispersion, I would venture to say that a CPU upgrade would cause failure in the laptop. Comparing the 867Mhz 12" and 15", the 15" was much cooler.

Any other comments on this?

I think you're being a little dramatic about it. It gets hot... but it's using the case to disperse heat. It could use a bigger vent on the hard drive and the back but it's not that bad.
 
Originally posted by Dont Hurt Me
g5 at 1.2 is not to hot or using to much power. how many times does this has to be said.

I agree, 10 watts is the same as 10 watts, 30 watts is the same as 30 watts, 75 watts is the same as 75 watts, so why do people think the G5 is so much hotter than the G4???
 
Supply and Demand.

Stores are running out of supplies of 15" PBs and close on 12" PBs, and we demand a new supply. There needs to be something released or announced soon.

"Year of the Laptop"? How about "Year of Waiting for Laptops?" ;)

Regards,
Gus
 
Re: Re: Re: Powerbooks are definatley going to be a G5 now

Originally posted by job
I agree. I don't know where all these other people are getting DDR400 (PC3200) SDRAM from, but that would be too fast for even a 600/700 Mhz bus to handle. Why do you think the 1.6 tower only has PC2700?
Because it has two channels of PC2700. The FSB is 800 MHz ---> around 700 MHz effective (there's some overhead on that particular kind of bus [ApplePI]). Each channel of PC2700 is 333 MHz ---> 667 MHz total effective clock speed, so PC2700 actually is a fairly good match for the FSB--and it's cheaper and cooler than the alternative, I imagine.

Point is, if there's a 1.2 GHz G5 in the PowerBook, with a 600 MHz FSB (~500 effective), it wouldn't be unreasonable to expect DDR400 (aka DDR3200) RAM to be used, since it would be silly to have a dual-channel memory system on a laptop (it would require installing DIMMs in pairs). With a 1.4 GHz G5, the FSB would probably run at 1/3 the processor speed, 467 MHz, which would also be a good match for DDR400.

As for whether we'll see G5 PBs in Paris at all, I give it a 40% chance. 60% that we see 7457s topping out at 1.25 or 1.33 GHz. Either way, we're getting a 15-incher. :)

HTH
WM
 
WM.: (and others I guess)

As for whether we'll see G5 PBs in Paris at all, I give it a 40% chance. 60% that we see 7457s topping out at 1.25 or 1.33 GHz.
Actually I'm gona guess that the odds of a G5 PB are even lower, perhaps 20%. The way I see it, there is just too many new bits of hardware Apple needs to design:

1) A new case. It seems pretty likely that they'll be going to aluminum, and that they'll be needed more cooling capacity, if not for current G5's then for the G5's they expect to put in there before another redesign. Also, more powerful video cards will require more cooling.

2) A new motherboard. Obviously the G5 is not using a G4 motherboard.

3) A new system controller, and possibly other chips. Since the system controller in the G5 desktops is a dual-FSB dual-DDR chip, it uses extra power (a few W perhaps), has extra pins (more complex mobo) and costs more to make. A better system controller would have only one FSB, one DDR channel, and it would integrate more periphrials so that there are fewer other chips on the mobo (which is more space efficient and generally more cost effective).

I also find it unlikely that a G5 laptop would use DDR-400, although I admit I also didn't expect DDR-333 in the Alu-17. The faster RAM uses more power. Maybe DDR-400 in the Alu-17, DDR-333 in the Alu-15.

128 MB of video RAM would be a surprise to me because that's what Apple's top-end G5 desktops have, and because it seems quite exravegant for a slow G5 (or a 7457). These systems just are not fast enough for 128 MB to seem appropriate.
 
Originally posted by Jodge407
He said "12 inch will be getting minor updates but as for the 15" and the 17" you know about the Paris Expo so expect the unexpected thats all I can say" He seemed as if he knew what he was talking about.

He didn't. just speculating like the rest of us. Apple isn't going to release prod info to a store manager. And if he knew, then told someone, he'd never work in tech again. Apple's sort of, well, unbelievably obsessive on that.
 
Originally posted by ddtlm
WM.: (and others I guess)

Actually I'm gona guess that the odds of a G5 PB are even lower, perhaps 20%. The way I see it, there is just too many new bits of hardware Apple needs to design:

1) A new case. It seems pretty likely that they'll be going to aluminum, and that they'll be needed more cooling capacity, if not for current G5's then for the G5's they expect to put in there before another redesign. Also, more powerful video cards will require more cooling.

2) A new motherboard. Obviously the G5 is not using a G4 motherboard.

3) A new system controller, and possibly other chips. Since the system controller in the G5 desktops is a dual-FSB dual-DDR chip, it uses extra power (a few W perhaps), has extra pins (more complex mobo) and costs more to make. A better system controller would have only one FSB, one DDR channel, and it would integrate more periphrials so that there are fewer other chips on the mobo (which is more space efficient and generally more cost effective).

I also find it unlikely that a G5 laptop would use DDR-400, although I admit I also didn't expect DDR-333 in the Alu-17. The faster RAM uses more power. Maybe DDR-400 in the Alu-17, DDR-333 in the Alu-15.

128 MB of video RAM would be a surprise to me because that's what Apple's top-end G5 desktops have, and because it seems quite exravegant for a slow G5 (or a 7457). These systems just are not fast enough for 128 MB to seem appropriate.
Excellent points. I do maintain that DDR400 would make sense--although I can't say I have any power consumption numbers. Any insights there?

Again, great post!
WM
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.