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G5 at NAB

I personally can't imagine that Apple is going to wait much longer to announce updated G5s. They will AT LEAST be announced at NAB, but might not ship until Tiger is ready, which I presume will be at WWDC. For something like an update, Jobs doesn't need to stand up in front of a bunch of people to announce it...3 Ghz or not.

Anybody else think we might see a cosmetic change to the G5?! They made some here-and-there facelifts to the G4 towers during it's life.
 
Chomolungma said:
Playstation 3 this year? Toshiba is said to use it in plasma/flatscreen TV this year, although i'm uncertain of this particular.

-Chomo

Yup the Playstation 3 is coming this year around Q4'05 and will have the cell cpu running it.
 
hector:

err the 970fx uses 25w at 2GHz..... it just has a very small core and runs only above 1V
So sounds reasonable that a 970gx could pull 30w for two cores at 1.6ghz. It'll be interesting to see which of AMD and IBM can provide lower per-clock power, but apparently Moto is somewhat better than them both. (Which they had better be, considering what processor cores we're talking about here.)
 
wrldwzrd89 said:
The Cell won't be ready for production until 2H 2006 at the earliest (more likely not until 2007). You can forget about ANYBODY using Cell technology until then.

Sony is demoing the PS3 at E3. that's in May of this year. They'll have to wait a while for sufficient quantites of the Cell before the release the game but if they have working silicon in Q2 of 2005 that they can use for public demos (meaning it's probably running full speed and actually working), I doubt it will take over 1 year, or a year and a half to hit production volumes.
I'd suspect Sony and IBM will do everything in their power to get them out before christmas.

And.. Cell won't replace the PPC 970 in the Mac line. It's just not designed to be a general CPU. The main core is NOT a Power5 core.. IBM has said it's something new. The main core is fairly simple. The real work is done in the streaming units and those wouldn't be useful for most common computing tasks. And.. of course, the wishful keep ignoring that the memory controller can only addres 256 MB of RAM because that particular RAMBUS technology was designed for embedded applications.
 
sinisterdesign said:
uh, "about friggin' time you caught up?"

don't get me wrong, i LOVE the G5 and Apple, but i get PC envy from time to time. i know all processor speeds have stalled lately, and trying to shoehorn the G5 into a PB has been quite a challenge, but PCs put some cool stuff out there from time to time. i was in CompUSA the other day and was blown away by the LCD on a HP 17" laptop. it was gorgeous. bright, crisp and ultra saturated. how come those really sweet PB screens don't look as good?

[/rant] sorry, just a little envy rearing it's ugly head...


You were blown away by that monstrous hideous excuse of a laptop. Take a gander at the 17" Powerbook and you'll have to see that the HP looks like a giant rectangular toilet. Same as the Toshiba 17". HP is in dire need of a good design team. Now, I know you are just talking about the screen's luster, but even still. I'd never trade a Powerbook 17" for that HP. I love me my macs. 🙄
 
If I were Apple I dont think I would want to release a 3GHZ or sub 3GHZ Powermac at WWDC simply because it was supposed to happen last year, Steve can appologise and blame all he wants but he was the one that promised it and besides he should have sat quiet because Powermacs are rather expensive pieces of equipment and I bet they lost a lot of sales because people were waiting for the 3GHZ... The only thing that would make them wait and announce a new Powermac at WWDC if it would really be something huge such as maybe a dual core versions of 970 or better yet the 980 (some people call it 975)... If its just a 500Mhz speedbumb without any other enhancements then Apple just invested in the wrong technology... Apple is on a huge momentum right now and they need to take full advantage of it if they want to gain a marketshare in computer sales... Wintel world is too competetive and in order for Apple to really gain customers they have to come out with something out of this world, something totally unexpected, or they will just become a software and media company... I also dont think that the current Cell processor design will appear in Macs BUT whose to say that Apple and IBM havent been secretly working on some kind of variant of the cell for the past two years, maybe the G6 is an Apple version of the Cell processor... For all I know is that Cell is supposedly a rather flexible design... Either way, Apple needs something shocking in order to gain more customers and switchers, speedbumps are common in the Wintel world and its nothing too unordinary for average customer...
 
eliamx said:
You were blown away by that monstrous hideous excuse of a laptop. Take a gander at the 17" Powerbook and you'll have to see that the HP looks like a giant rectangular toilet. Same as the Toshiba 17". HP is in dire need of a good design team. Now, I know you are just talking about the screen's luster, but even still. I'd never trade a Powerbook 17" for that HP. I love me my macs. 🙄

He was talking about the screen quality.

Apple is known to use inferior screens on their laptops (100DPi ?).
 
blitzkrieg79 said:
If I were Apple I dont think I would want to release a 3GHZ or sub 3GHZ Powermac at WWDC simply because it was supposed to happen last year, Steve can appologise and blame all he wants but he was the one that promised it and besides he should have sat quiet because Powermacs are rather expensive pieces of equipment and I bet they lost a lot of sales because people were waiting for the 3GHZ... The only thing that would make them wait and announce a new Powermac at WWDC if it would really be something huge such as maybe a dual core versions of 970 or better yet the 980 (some people call it 975)... If its just a 500Mhz speedbumb without any other enhancements then Apple just invested in the wrong technology... Apple is on a huge momentum right now and they need to take full advantage of it if they want to gain a marketshare in computer sales... Wintel world is too competetive and in order for Apple to really gain customers they have to come out with something out of this world, something totally unexpected, or they will just become a software and media company... I also dont think that the current Cell processor design will appear in Macs BUT whose to say that Apple and IBM havent been secretly working on some kind of variant of the cell for the past two years, maybe the G6 is an Apple version of the Cell processor... For all I know is that Cell is supposedly a rather flexible design... Either way, Apple needs something shocking in order to gain more customers and switchers, speedbumps are common in the Wintel world and its nothing too unordinary for average customer...
Steve is not Santa Claus. Just because he promissed something, doesn't mean it's gonna happen. And now you are asking Santa Claus for a computer revolution and nothing else is good enough? He should even sit quiet? You sound like a spoiled little brat. Get your reality field checked.

The 975 and 980 probably don't even exists. They are produced by the rumormill.
 
News on the XBox2

Supposedly the new XBox will feature tripple-core 3Ghz processors instead of 3.5Ghz tripple-core processors. Sounds like this might be the same processor as the 970MP. Similar like the 970FX that should have come at 3Ghz, but was only able to get to 2.5Ghz, this processor's targets seem to have been lowered. IBM has underestimated the problems that go with the 90nm.

see:

http://xbox.gamespy.com/xbox/microsoft-xbox/594331p1.html
 
eliamx said:
You were blown away by that monstrous hideous excuse of a laptop. Take a gander at the 17" Powerbook and you'll have to see that the HP looks like a giant rectangular toilet. Same as the Toshiba 17". HP is in dire need of a good design team. Now, I know you are just talking about the screen's luster, but even still. I'd never trade a Powerbook 17" for that HP. I love me my macs. 🙄

Do I detect a Mac fanboy here? 😀

I know HP's designs aren't anywhere as nice as Apple's PowerBooks, but "a giant rectangular toilet?" 🙄
 
Regardless of when the Cell technology is actually ready, nobody will use it until it is ready. I agree with ffakr that Apple wouldn't use the Cell as a PPC replacement. The Cell just isn't general-purpose enough to be up to that task. However, Cell would make a GREAT vector code accelerator and AltiVec replacement in a Mac.
 
isgoed said:
Steve is not Santa Claus. Just because he promissed something, doesn't mean it's gonna happen. And now you are asking Santa Claus for a computer revolution and nothing else is good enough? He should even sit quiet? You sound like a spoiled little brat. Get your reality field checked.

The 975 and 980 probably don't even exists. They are produced by the rumormill.

As a macrumors newbie I won't cry about how you are calling me names and all... But as a computer veteran I can tell you that Jobs has done a great job considering that Apple was about to fold in 1996-97... Steve is not Santa but his ego probably lost Apple a lot of powermac sales not to mention his private plane flying expenses... In the corporate world when you make bold statements or PROMISES if you won't accomplish it you step down... He was lucky there... As far as all the rumors are concerned, if the 975 or 980 dont exist then there must exist something that will replace the 970 or else they will just lose more ground... As I said, they need something revolutionary and I dont mean Mac Mini because they should have saturated the sub $500 market 4-5 years ago (again Jobs ego was the problem)... I am talking about an Amiga like revolution, maybe u remember maybe u dont but back in the mid 80s when Amiga and Atari ST came out there really wasnt anything close to them in terms of performance, what killed them was the lack of expandibility and lack of marketing (something current Apple shouldnt have any problems)... If it was once possible then I dont see why it wont happen again, computer technology has become stale lately, I know I know, all i do is criticize but I am also an educated customer where just pumping up the MHZ wont really satisfy me and simply I buy the cheapest in hope that someone will come out with a product of an Amiga magnitude where I will spend some serious dough because I will know that someone has put a lot of thought and originality in something... I know I am just one individual that isnt going to make a whole lot of difference but this is a forum site where the point is to discuss certain issues... To make it all short, Jobs has lost a lot of credibility in my eyes and he better think of how to make up that 3GHZ flop, and second, Apple already has a small market share as it is so they need to stay on top of the technology circle, dual dual core Powermacs would certainly make me spend some money...
 
blitzkrieg79:

The industry has far too much intertia now for there to be another revolution. Much like other developed industries, change will come slowly and will typically come from those who have the huge research budgets needed to deal with the exceptionally complex issues at hand.

Isn't it interesting that Intel and AMD have run so close in peak performance for years? Then here comes IBM, with a totally distinct product, and boom same problem. Something like cell has a chance for major change, but it requires major changes in software too, and much software could never benefit.

Look at ATI vs nVidia. Look at the hard drive makers, look at almost any part of the market and you will find the same things happening.
 
sinisterdesign said:
i was in CompUSA the other day and was blown away by the LCD on a HP 17" laptop. it was gorgeous. bright, crisp and ultra saturated. how come those really sweet PB screens don't look as good?

The reason the HP display looks so much better is the backlight in the powerbooks is insufficent.(Because of its form factor being so thin)
Trade offs... Trade offs.
 
ddtlm said:
blitzkrieg79:

The industry has far too much intertia now for there to be another revolution. Much like other developed industries, change will come slowly and will typically come from those who have the huge research budgets needed to deal with the exceptionally complex issues at hand.

Isn't it interesting that Intel and AMD have run so close in peak performance for years? Then here comes IBM, with a totally distinct product, and boom same problem. Something like cell has a chance for major change, but it requires major changes in software too, and much software could never benefit.

Look at ATI vs nVidia. Look at the hard drive makers, look at almost any part of the market and you will find the same things happening.

Yes I understand what you mean but to me Apple (in the 1980s there were a whole lot more of those such as Atari, Commodore, Amstrad, Sinclair just to name a few) is the last computer comapny left in this world that passion seems to be above dollars... I mean I understand the market concepts and all that other corporate crap but I guess my point is that if Apple wont start a revolution I doubt there will be another company to be that bold...
 
visor said:
how about 'cinema4d renders twice as fast on a P4 notebook than on a 2*2ghz G5'
i wouldnt belive it, too - but i saw it... pretty darn embaressing. thank god it wasnt my g5
Total FUD. According to Barefeats, the 2x2.5 ghz G5s more than holds its own against the newest AMD and Intel processors. Remember that the 2.5 ghz G5 is 9 months old. The GX will have double the L2 cache, on top of whatever increases it gets in clock speed. And according to old Thinksecret rumors, a dual-core version of the GX is being developed at the same time.

Edit: P.S.: Cinebench = Cinema 4D
 
dongmin:

Unless I misread that article, they did not test Cinema 4D and therefore have nothing to say about its performance.
 
SweetFeet said:
I personally can't imagine that Apple is going to wait much longer to announce updated G5s. They will AT LEAST be announced at NAB, but might not ship until Tiger is ready, which I presume will be at WWDC. For something like an update, Jobs doesn't need to stand up in front of a bunch of people to announce it...3 Ghz or not.

Anybody else think we might see a cosmetic change to the G5?! They made some here-and-there facelifts to the G4 towers during it's life.

Sounds like a good plan to me.

I definitely would be against any facelifts. Like the G5 the way it looks currently. With each facelift of the G4, I disliked them less. The original was awesome. The last was just plain terrible.
 
wdlove said:
Sounds like a good plan to me.

I definitely would be against any facelifts. Like the G5 the way it looks currently. With each facelift of the G4, I disliked them less. The original was awesome. The last was just plain terrible.


LoL, actually I think that the latest G4 tower looked the best of them all but... I guess its just a matter of taste... But I would like to see a little facelift of the G5 tower here and there, maybe somehow shrink it a bit or make the empty space inside of it more usefull (I know it needs the space for air circulation cuz of processor temperatures but maybe somehow they find a way to fit in a 2nd optical drive and/or two additional hard drives) but then again I could care less how the tower looks, I mean I guess I would rather have Apple invest the money in processor research rather then make it look pretty but then again Apple likes to be sexy lol
 
Mirrored doors? I don't see how the last G4 revision added to the aesthetic of the original quicksilver case. The G5 is nearly perfect, except that it needs to be redesigned so you could fit in 4 internal drives in the same amount of space. I don't see how Apple could improve on the G5 design since the entire front surface is grilled and serves a vital purpose.
 
I'm still hoping that they will use dual-core G5's as an oppurtunity to reduce the size of the machine. Its way too big and quad-core is really not useful at this time. (Though they may need to go quad core at the high end to provide the appearance of progress.)
 
As long as we are making a wish list.

Power Mac
2 Dual Core 3GHZ G5's
DDR2 Memory
3 PCI express
2 PCIX
Quadro FX 4400 512MB ram
Blue tooth 2.0
Integrated SD card reader
Cardbus slot
Firewire 1600
16X Dual Layer DVD Writer

Hey its a wish list after all
 
~loserman~ said:
As long as we are making a wish list.

Power Mac
2 Dual Core 3GHZ G5's
DDR2 Memory
3 PCI express
2 PCIX
Quadro FX 4400 512MB ram
Blue tooth 2.0
Integrated SD card reader
Cardbus slot
Firewire 1600
16X Dual Layer DVD Writer

Hey its a wish list after all
Realistically, if Apple was going to put PCI Express in one of their Macs, they wouldn't throw in PCI-X slots (which is what I believe the Windows PC manufacturers that use PCI Express do). Can anyone back me up or provide evidence that invalidates this reasoning?
 
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