When will Apple release a G5 PowerBook
Originally posted by stockscalper
With respect to power/battery issues, consider this fact.
The G4 currently draws about 7 watts while the new
980 G5 chip only draws 12 watts, well within the realm of Powerbook use.
Contrast this to Intel's new chip, Prescott, which draws a whopping 100 watts!
It is conceivable that a G5 could be used in a Powerbook in the near future.
The issue is not whether it can be used, but rather
will Apple choose to use it.
Given their history they have been slow to adapt newer faster technology that was available to them
which is why they have fallen behind in the speed race in the past.
Although by comparison to a 100 watt Intel Prescott chip, the new smaller G5 (980) chip at 12 wattS seems immediately practicable,
the difference between the 7 watt G4 and a 12 watt G5 is more than one and a half times the wattage and potentially a similar factor in heat (1.714 to be more precise).
So if Apple has been having problems with heat (TiBooks evolving into AlBooks) from a 7 watt G4, their problems with heat generated by a 12 watt G5 is 71% greater, a not an insignificant figure.
That being true, it must be a truly daunting task for Dell, Gateway, or even IBM to get a Prescott chip to work in a laptop.
At least Apple's goal appears to be more attainable.
But when?
As to Apple's slowness in adopting "newer, faster technology" as it became available, your position appears to have some merit But I'm not so sure how your argument applies to PPC chips or their clockspeed in general. We've all seen how Apple historically introduces a chip at a low clockspeed and then cranks the same chip up as newer releases are made. What was the real physical difference between single 1.6, 1.8 and 2.0 G5 chips that warranted such a difference in asking price? How far can the 2.0 chip be "overclocked" if it isn't already?
Clearly, the quicker Apple releases faster chips on their way to a 3.0GHz goal the happier everyone will be.
I just hope Apple doesn't get caught shooting itself in the foot like Audi did with an early model of the Fox, where the only difference between two models sold at significantly different retail prices was not the engine (exactly the same) but that their engineers had installed a $2.00 exhaust restrictor plate which any knowledgable mechanic could easily remove from the exhaust pipe leading to the muffler thereby resulting in a significant power boost.
We've all been left shaking our heads while Apple has for years repeatedly ignored the status quo of USB 2.0 throughout the personal computer industry by not upgrading Mac USB 1.1 ports. Why, because we didn't understand the superiority of FireWire 400 to USB 2.0 (400) when doing video and connecting external hard drives, so we had to wait until Apple was ready to release FireWire 800?
Other examples are the old bottlenecks in its bus, slow ATA speed for laser and hard drives, and slow RAM.
However, while IBM and a few others rushed into installing high speed DDR RAM chips with excellent error correcting capabilities into PC desktops and laptops, Apple appears to have been more appropriately cautious considering the high cost of being an early adopter.
Apple has adopted many of these technologies in excellent fashion when designing the motherboard and system to house and support G5 chips. Much of Apple's motivation may have finally been that in the G5, they finally had a fast and powerful enough PPC chip that they could truly exploit using a high speed bus architecture.
Finally, instead of dozens of models with curious even confusing differentiations many apparently only for marketing affect, Apple's chips and models are now concentrated into just a few baskets: G4 & G5 (and new G5), laptops, desktops and towers. So now maybe, just maybe Apple will focus on real differences instead of trying to market perceived variations. Will Apple try to sell us anymore 1.6GHz single chip G5s?
What I do expect is new faster G5 models being released as soon as IBM can deliver a couple 10,000 G5 chip shipments running at higher and higher clock speeds. We are already seeing new G5 Xserves with the smaller cooler chips clocked at 2.0GHz, so how could 2.2 through 2.6 be far behind?
Hey Apple, got CHIPS?
You think?
