how long before g5 Powerbooks? - Page 2

Yes Panther will be for everyone, which means I can run it on my current PB. But if if I am going to spend over $2000 for a new 15" PB in 2004 I want a G5 so if I have to wait for a G5, I will simply wait.

Anywhere between 12 and 18 months would be consistant with history.

Power Mac G4 = September 1999
PowerBook G4 = January 2001

In early-ish 2002, Apple said "the G4 isn't going anywhere"

12-18 months later... it's gone in Power Macs.

The G4 will probably disappear from iMacs much faster (because it doesn't really have a future) than usual, however.

Barto

I agree If there is a new mobo then the new G5 is further off than I would like. But my guess if they were designing new mobo for the G5 Powermacs they are doing the same for the PB line. I can't see them spending any large amount of money designing a new mobo for a new G4 chip (unless they plan to move it to the iBook down the road).

I think Apple just doesn't want to piss off Motorola while they are still invested in their G4. The two CPUs that do/will come from IBM are the G3 and the G5. I remember hearing a while back that IBM could really push ahead with the G3 in speed, except Mot couldn't pull through with their speeds and thus you don't want to market a lower performance CPU with higher clock rates even if it doesn't perform faster. A lot of buyers just look at the numbers, 800 versus 900 versus 1000, etc.

IBM is a MUCH, MUCH more driven company than Mot ever seems to have been, at least in the computing area. And I think it would be possible to launch a G5 Powerbook by sometime mid-late October and be shipping by sometime in December. I don't think the heat factor is as huge a problem as we think if used in a portable-type design. Lets just look at the desktop, I'd imagine the most heat comes from the drives, high-performance graphics card options, dual CPUs and the interconnect system, and 8-RAM slots with large capacity modules. A powerbook would use a lower-energy system, 2 RAM slots capable of 512MB-1GB each, and a slightly less agressive graphics system, not to mention the portable drives will produce less heat as well.

I think we are overplaying the heat factor and stepping aside the marketing standpoint. Apple needs to play catch up to what buyers are used to with the PC machines to stay competitive. They have done this starting with the PMG5 and will move next to the PB, then on to the iMac while likely bringing the iBook to a G4 or something similar ASAP making a complete transition away from Mot by the end of 2004. Mot has been dragging them down with less capabilities and drive to move Apple's products forward which help the industry innovate. It takes competition to innovate less we think of that also.

On a last side note, with the scuffle going on over IBM and the AIX OS they use and call their own, too bad Apple and IBM don't get together to produce a killer combo, IBM technology, Apple OS that's has a great & easy OS for all to use, you don't have to be trained to use it. They could use an Apple-like hardware spec on the low-end, with full power, POWER4 machines up the line making great cost effectiveness. Also, many of the great engineering apps available for AIX would potentially be ported and make the availability to Mac users, oh and you could even run those powerful apps in a portable environment, can't do that currently with any other UNIX-type machine other than Apple OS X machines and one Sparc portable I think made by Tadpole. Just a little idea that would be awesome to be realised. I wouldn't want to see them lose their Windows machines though as the XP/2000/NT-type market is big and IBM is a respected player there. It would be the best of both worlds.

BTW, I am holding out with my iMacG4-800-Superdrive until the G5 Powerbook is out also. Ordering as soon as it's released. I think Apple will see the urgency with hopefully a renewed interest in the platform with the new PMG5.

"IBM is a MUCH, MUCH more driven company than Mot ever seems to have been, at least in the computing area. "


That's only been true for last couple of years. Motorola WAS an incredible company. They lost interest in the chip and didn't want to invest billions once the economy tanked.

I think they lost interest during the last days of the G3, the G4 didn't have the steam it could have if designed by IBM IMO. 3-5 years is a LONG time in the computer industry.

According to Greg Joswiak who talked to David Coursey at www.news.com, there will be no G5 Powerbook for quite a while. Well now I'm pissed off.

Go here: http://news.com.com/2009-1042_3-1020...g=fd_lede1_hed

Then click on the video link called "New G5 out performs Windows PC". Ironically, you have to deal with a bunch of M$ Windows ads in the video, damn you Gates!

*melodramatic* "The G4 is dead to me" *melodramatic*

Seriously, the G4 is a fine notebook chip. I expect at least 1 more iteration of PBs to have these. But....I personally won't buy another PB until it contains a G5. Also, if a G5 notebook is truly 6-12 months away...can we expect a new enclosure as well? One you can slice your fingers on, if you know what I mean. \

Yep, IBM has been very very lazy in the past. Also, moto started spending WAY TOO MUCH money when the economy was great and kept hanging on to those dreams once it got sour. WHere are thos satellites now?

Meh, in any event, when the economy turns to crap, that's the time to invest, if you've got the cash and the stones. Wanna guess what fishkill might have cost during the last great days of the bull?

Apple, lauded as genius for their turnaround, might have been a fortunate beneficiary of circumstance when the other shoe dropped. When the economy was storming, they were in horrible shape, and so they didn't have the money to spend on a thousand and one bad and vastly overpriced investments. So while others bought into plans with neary the slightest foundation in business reality, APPL bought nothing, not 'cause they didn't want to i'd guess.

Now when things went to crap, Apple picked up nice strategic investments in software and media back end, made money, got a nice bank balance, etc etc...

I wonder, with a couple months to go before the introducion of the PowerMac, whether the other products (Powerbook, iMac) will not also be updated to use the 970 in subsequent announcements to ship at the same time.

Seems to me to be a good way to maintain interest from this point until that.

Yes I know about those interviews. Does Apple come out and say, this is what we are going to do this year, end of story. A big fat NO here. There is a lot of competition out there lest we think of it, Apple is realy fighting for the multimedia content area where both Windows and Linux have made big in-roads, not to mention many other markets they are concerned about. The less the competitors know, the less they can prepare for, giving Apple or the manufacturer whomever it may be a chance. Did they say flat out, we're coming out with the PM G5 just before it was out, no, they didn't comment to the effect of IBM and Apple working together IIRC. There are likely to be a lot of things happening we don't know about which will benefit us sooner than later. I think with working closely with IBM which is very dedicated to the PPC platform, things will happen sooner than later and the platform will take off much faster, starting at 2GHz, perhaps scaling to 2.4GHz within 3-5 months and so on, unlike the previous scenario, 733, many months later, 800, many months later 933, and so on. I think this new ability to scale and improve the hardware will make things happen much faster, not to mention IBM has had better manufacturing for some time and the engineering resources are far greater. The new IBM is just a whole lot better. We'll find that out in a hurry I think.

I think we'll see some serious modifications to the PB line by the holidays. At latest, a real display of a G5 notebook at MWSF 2004. It may not ship until March, but it will be there by then.

Why would the new 15 have a new motherboard unless it had the 970? If it's not a G5, it will either use the current G4 on the current motherboard, or the 7457 which is pin-compatible with the current motherboard.

My guess: we're waiting for the 15 because Apple is waiting for the 7457 from Moto, and that chip will also go into the next revision of the 12 and 17.

until they figure out how to have a quality water-cooled G5, it ain't coming in a laptop.

you see the fans they had on that sucker? i'd love to see 9 cooling fans on my powerbook. oh, wait, no i wouldn't.

Yes, to summarily agree with some: heat is not as big an issue as we'd like to think. Apple could very well put a 970 in a PowerBook now, albeit with less of the razzle-dazzle technology to accompany it. It would still be incredible. But let's let the Power Mac give the new chip a run first, then the PowerBook. With the soon-coming die shrink, we'll have faster PMs and PBs by the beginning of next year. And like Steve himself said, "And this is only the FIRST six months!"

Something in me wants to think we'll not see a re-designed 15"-er until the G5 lands in it. People are still buying the TiBooks. They're not slugs.

But the pragmatic something in me knows that we'll see a 15" AlBook come out very soon with a G4 inside, intended to exhaust supplies of existing 7455 chips. The 7457 confuses me; I've heard it's been canned; I've heard it's on track. What to think?

I hope it's canned, gives Apple motivation!

It was awesome for Apple to give us a peek at the fab process for the G5 in the keynote, eh? Amazing stuff!!

The problem with having one more version of a G4 Powerbook is what features can you add to it to make it desirable?

The top of the line currently reaches 1Ghz. How much more can they overclock this? Will prospective buyers be jazzed about a speed bumped 1.25 GHz machine when they know a 1.6 G5 is potentially around the corner?

I'm digging around on Moto's site and from their promotional PDFs it sounds like the 7457 may be in or near production. One sheet (last modified February 17, 2003) says production 2Q of 2003. 0.13 process, SOII, 512K on-chip L2.

Speeds up to 1.3GHz and a bus up to 200MHz. I'd buy a PowerBook with that.

I think the rumor was that the 7457-RM was canned.

The answer's upthread: 16 months or so.

However, they didn't just stuff a G4 into an existing PowerBook. The titanium case was an engineering nightmare. Just look at the number of revisions it took them to get it right.

The issues probably have more to do with the total amount of work necessary to ready an all-new laptop motherboard, squeeze out decently cool operation and good battery life, and either wrap it into the current case or whip up a new one (I don't really see them making it any thinner, though...).

Even though low-voltage CPUs are premium products, I don't see that as an obstacle: The PowerBook has always had the best margin of any Apple line.

Completely off topic:


Does anyone know what happened to Belle? Last I remember (in December), she was getting up in the wee hours of the morning to take her medications. I like to think that she left AI because her work and NDA made it impossible. OTOH, I fear that cancer took her from us. If only there were a way to determine whether she is alright. \

Back on topic: With Greg Jozwiak's comments to MacCentral, there's no way we're going to see a PowerBook G5 this year. In fact, I suspect that even MWSF or Spring 2004 may be too early. I predict that we will see .9 process PPC 970 chips across the PowerBook line (12-, 15-, and 17-inch), but not until WWDC 2004 a year from now.

Escher

Perhaps this would indeed provide some painful motivation, of the cattle prod kind, but lack of the 7457 could be very troublesome for Apple. Without it, a lot of Apple's current product line could stagnate while waiting for major motherboard redesigns and lower power versions of the G5. It would be difficult to stagger new product introduction if many needed updates were held up for a long time, after which many updates might be bursting to get out of the door at the same time.

As I'd said in this thread, I think the 7457 (which I'm thinking of as a "G4+") could help smooth out the update paths for the whole Mac lineup over the next year or so.

I doubt that Apple has any huge inventory of 7455s to burn through. If they're smart, they warehouse only a small inventory of parts and order the bulk of their materials on a just-in-time basis. Contrary to the idea of using new 15" AlBooks to use up old 7455s, I think it's more likely that 15" AlBooks are being held up waiting for the 7457.

Consider the following:

1) For heat and power reasons, 1 GHz might be the fastest Apple would want to push the 7455 in a portable device.
2) Apple is not likely to issue an update of the 15" that doesn't include a speed boost. I can't think of a time when Apple issued a major form-factor change without a speed increase at the same time.
3) The 7457 would provide a way to get a speed boost, while perhaps even improving battery life at the same time, as a simple drop-in replacement for the existing 7455.

eh, heard of the 17" LapZilla?

Amorph, I really though that the Powermacs had the best margins. I don't see how there could be more profit in a 12"PB than a 1.6Ghz G5 and certainly not any of the previous gen G4's. LCD and battery and all sorts of miniaturization penalties to pay in a book. I think that the 15" superdrive and 17" probably do pull in a nice margin though.

Judging by edu discounts, I wouldn't be sure. None of the PM's nor the 15" or 17" PB's have a really great percentage discounted. The 12 OTOH, does, so who knows? I may be completely off, or Apple is just unwilling to make too much of an edu discount for students who they'd rather have buy consumer stuff? The 15" must be on the outs though, becuase the recent edu prices have been pretty nice.

Can't wait to see what the Canadian G5 edu prices are like.

I'm not sure if this has been mentioned or not, but someone here asked what would be compelling enough, beyond the current feature set, to make people buy a G4 based Powerbook. I think the FIRST DUAL CPU notebook would be a big draw. What Greg said today doesn't in anyway rule that out.

If newer G4's are a lower power/heat configuration then it would stand to reason that Dual 1.42+ AiBooks would be a huge advance for the portable pro.

It's true that config wise there isn't much more other than larger memory capacity to add to the existing powerbooks, it seems to me that cramming a huge 970 CPU into laptop with lower FSB and 4200/5400RPM hard drives doesn't make much real world sense....Hopefully the architecture of a dual cpu unit would be bottleneck minimal...Not having a ton of tech experience I don't know for sure...

Any thougts?

Don't remember where I read it but some folks I believe over in Ars forums are convinced that the G5 case is totally over developed cooling wise at the moment. These cases are made for the whole generation, not just the first salvo. So what I'm saying is, I don't think its right to say that these G5's NEEDED 9 fans. Part of all those fans undoubtedly have to do with the whole architecture working together to make a lower db rating. I mean they got a lot of bad press with the MDD G4's sounding like windtunnels. I don't think it will take a year to see the G5's move down...

I'm not going to rule out the possibility that things have changed, but the simple fact is that notebooks aren't all that expensive to make: They're basically iMacs, only without the costly swivel arm, and with slower drives. The boards have fewer expensive RAM slots and fewer ASICs, requiring fewer expensive traces to connect them all. BTO options are limited, simplifying manufacturing and logistics. The titanium shell was cut from sheets and stamped rather than poured and cast, which got around the main reason why titanium is a costly metal to work with. It wouldn't surprise me to hear that the PowerMac's case cost Apple more than the PowerBook's. Certainly, the XPC7455 in the PowerMac costs more than the MPC7455 (and certainly the L3-cache-less MPC7445) in the PowerBook.

If the PowerBook goes to a 7457 while the PowerMac goes to a 970, this will only become more true.


Apple's edu discounts for individual purchase have hovered around nominal since they brought their prices down out of the stratosphere 6 years ago. Before then a student could save a good chunk of money on a Mac, but only because consumers were paying an average 40% margin on their kit. You win some, you lose some.

MOTO has been a company in decline for more than a few years now. They are a much, much smaller company than they were just a few years ago and are more concerned with their survival that with whether they provide Apple with better CPUs. Their fabs are not up to date either for the most part.

The engineers' first task would be to eke out the room for a second CPU on PowerBook's crowded board. Assuming an MPC7457, cooling issues are manageable, but cost could be a problem; and, of course, you'd have bottlenecks galore. It would be an open question, I think, as to whether it would be easier to engineer a saleable dual-G4 PowerBook or a single-970 PowerBook.

I'm sure there have been dual-CPU notebook board prototypes on Apple test benches for years. It seems like a logical next step, and a worthy engineering challenge. But it might not be worth taking it from a way to hone your chops to a retail product.


The 970's FSB is fixed relative to the CPU clock speed, so the "slow FSB" is not a problem in practice. Even if Apple used the current RAM technology, there would be an immediate doubling of real-world memory bandwidth to the CPU, just because the CPU bus would no longer be a bottleneck.

The answer for slow hard drives, on all platforms, is lots of RAM. In fact, as Steve pointed out in the WWDC keynote, this is true for PowerMacs as well. Hard drives are slow, period, relative to RAM.

Sounds about right. Of course IBM could have slower G5 processors at say 1.0 and 1.25 Ghz that run a lot cooler than their big brothers in the new PowerMacs. Still, considering Greg Joswiak's comments and the upcoming release of 7457 G4 chips taylor made for PowerBooks I think we are stuck with G4s for the PowerBooks until next year. Here is what I think we will see announced within the next month:

PowerBook 12" 1.0 Ghz G4 (can we have a backlit keyboard please?)

PowerBook 15" 1.0 Ghz / 1.3 Ghz G4 models (this will be the best selling line)

PowerBook 17" 1.3 Ghz G4

I would love to see at least one of the PowerBooks go dual but it's doubtful. Hell, I would love to see a dual 1 Ghz iMac while we're at it. Why not?

I don't think we'll see Apple stick with the G4 in the PowerBooks for any more than a year. They'll want to keep the separation in the pro and consumer lines, so we'll see iBook G4, eMac G4 and iMac G4.

I'd say they'll revise the 15" model quite soon..perhaps at Macworld, or possibly in September. Then, we'll see a speed bump in January and a a G5 redesign next summer, with the entire PB line going to G5. I don't believe the Dual PB specualtion AT ALL. The power consumption and physical space limitations (not to mention heat) are all major factors.

Sounds about right. BRING ON THE ALUMINUM 15"!!!

Motorola appears to have brought forward volume production of the next major G4-class PowerPC processor, the MPC7457, from Q4 to Q3. The 7457 remains the leading contender for upcoming Apple PowerBooks. While some Mac users hoped IBM's 64-bit PowerPC 970, which Apple is calling the G5, would make it into PowerBooks, the chip's significant heat dissipation prevents it from taking on such a role.

From The Register, today. See here.

If the story is correct and DUAL boards are being evaluated...I wonder if Apple will keep a low-priced G4 7457 tower in the lineup for a while, until G5 prices fall.

I WAS wondering WHAT was keeping the Powerbook 15 incher.

Now I know. NO WAY is the 970 going into the 15 incher anytime soon. Looks like its a low power 1.3 G4 with the latest Ati Mobility Radeon. Should make for a nice machine.

Dual 1.3 G4? Hmmm. In the 17 incher? More room to get away with that...but would that put out more heat than a 1.2 970?

Dual Powerbook. That would certainly turn a few heads.

Keep the Wintel Centris at bar for now. Could always turn one of the cpus off in powersaving 'non mains' use...?

Lemon Bon Bon

G5 Powerbook. Not gonna happen until late 1st half 04.

How long is it since the TiBook got an update?

I agree with everyting here except for the within the next month part. Why? Because these updates hinge on Motorola getting the 7457 out the door. When that happens, the upgrades will follow, but don't expect you're 15" aluminum powerbook before that.

I'm just hoping that they get that 15" Al out the door as soon as possible. I was hoping for a G5 Powerbook too, but I guess I'll just have to deal with 15" Al. I hope they don't wait until fall to udate the thing.... that would be the timespan of a YEAR to update something and that usually doesn't happen with Apple. My guess is that they have their processor plan all ready and are just waiting for compal to finish up production... They could be waiting for some new "special" feature to help combat centrino and keep up pace with the new G5's??

Maybe IBM or Motorola has a processor specificaly made for laptops that they haven't been discussing with anyone. I think we'll see an announcement in July and they'll be shipping immediatly...

I'm not sure in what sense you mean , but at the risk of taking your wink the wrong way, I'd like to say that the 17" PowerBook was more than just a "form factor" change from the previous PowerBooks, with the most salient feature being the extra screen real estate.

Well this came out today. Means good stuff, right? I think so!

http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/39/31424.html

What, exactly, is Q3...July, August and September, right?

If those specs/claims are accurate, there's NOTHING wrong with having a new aluminum 15.4" PowerBook based on that!



I'm guessing that's what the hold up has been, then? Waiting for this chip?

This might work out REALLY sweet, as I'll be putting the final chunk of my PowerBook fund in place in mid August, so...



Question: does that business about the 2MB L3 cache mean that's what that chip automatically has or does (I know nothing about this sort of stuff) and, by that I mean: if Apple uses this, does that mean the revved PowerBooks using this chip will automatically, no-questions-asked have this 2MB of L3 cache? Or, in typical fashion, do you suppose Apple might somehow downclock or cripple it (who knows why, they just will).



A 1.3GHz with all those specs mentioned would be GREAT.

Q3 is... now. And the next couple of months, too.

And it's sounding like Mot does in fact have the surprise up their sleeve that I've speculated they were trying to have - all this talk about a performance oriented "PowerPC" in 2004, built in Crolles on 90nm with all the goodies.

If true, this is all great news for us. The more healthy PowerPC partners Apple has, and the more great products they make, the better off we all are.

Cool, that's what I was wanting: some sort of comment or opinion by someone here who has a bit of a clue (the influx of teenaged chuckleheads spouting off "dual G5 17" PowerBooks!" stuff of late has REALLY been working on my last nerve).



This news just spurs me to keep on saving, keep on doing a little overtime here and there, snag the occasional freelance job, cook at home more, etc. for the next few months in anticipation of a very sweet reward, come late summer/early autumn.

Amorph, we know Moto has (or had, hi Centrino!) some good people working on their stuff, production and an unwillingness to invest in it always seemed to be the problem. Now we hear of strategic partnerships, and a .09u capability lurking in the confines of SMC/moto. Frankly, for even a PB, I'm more interested in that kinda product. If the .13u numbers are correct, a surprise .09u product should absolutely sip power. iBook or PB, I'm very interested in that...

I was thinking about that over that a little while ago: maybe, for whatever reason, Motorola got their stuff together a bit more and, since we have this new G5 for the pro tower crowd, maybe the other things get snappier G4s for the remainder of 2003 and early 2004...including...the...dare I say it...iBook?



Hell I don't know...