Q 'bout Apple and ageing hardware

[LethalWolfe]

I'm not trying to flame here. I'm relatively new to the Mac community and I just have some honest questions 'bout Apple. Namely, why are they so behind hardware wise? I'm not meaning in proc speed, but things like RAM, FSB, etc. I mean, we're waiting for DDR to be introduced to the Mac, and on the PC side of things people are talking about/waiting for DDR 2. So, if it is Jan 2003 before the G5 and DDR is released, the PC community could possibly be making the jump to DDR 2 during the same time frame. I realize that there are tons of companies making PC parts, and only one Apple. But should it really be taking this long? DDR became mainstream (at least in the PC geek realm)over a year ago, and it might be another 10 months before we see DDR in a Mac. Like I said, I'm not trying to flame, but I am honestly confused as to why it's taking Apple so long to use newer tech.


Lethal

 

[Ensign Paris]

DDR is not what I would call Main Stream yet, bog standerd of the shelf home Windows PCs still have SD-RAM.

Ensign

 

[Beej]

Originally posted by Ensign Paris
DDR is not what I would call Main Stream yet

No, you're right, but it is, "at least in the PC geek realm" like Lethal said.

I don't really know why they've taken so long, but they:
1. were possibly waiting for prices to come down
2. were possibly waiting to see which out of rambus and ddr would be more widely accepted (although that wasn't a tough one to predict...)
3. don't have a proc capable of handling it? I've read a little about this elsewhere, do I correctly recall this?

 

[PCUser]

That's not exactly true. The vast majority of Compaqs, Dells, Gateways, etc have DDR or RAMBUS. Just a very few model lines (one or two) from each have SDRAM.

From visiting the sites of the major PC companies and looking at the posted details, about 95% of their systems use DDR or RAMBUS.

Including the "Home PC's". Just the "bargains" (bargain my bum) that cost around $600 - $700 have SDRAM... simply because 256MB of DDR costs about $60, which would be 1/10th of the cost. (If you'd like to get some PC2100 DDR RAM at that price, go to Pricewatch.com...)

So, I'd call that "mainstream".