Rumor: 500-600 MHz jump for next G5 Rev - Page 2

I don't see anything in the first three which is going to bring down costs.

1) Design/test/fabricate new processor - huge cost

2) Design/test/fabricate new controller - huge cost

3) Change to much more expensive discs.

Yes, you cold manage a simpler, cheaper motherboard, and getting rid of the PCI(X) would also reduce costs (although not much), same for the onboard audio.

A whole computer can be shoved into a very small form factor, but it is a lot more expensive than putting one in a big box.

If a new processor with onboard memory controller appears anyway, then it makes good sense to try something like this, but to design one specifically would be ludicrous at the volume it is likely to sell at.

michael

It doesn't have to be this complicated for cheap G5 machines. Apple should use the same exact ASIC chips in the PowerMac G5.

The system ASIC supports dual CPUs, 128 bit dual channel DDR memory, AGP 8x Pro, and 16 bit Hypertransport. In a low-cost system, they only use 1 CPU, a slower CPU bus, single channel DDR memory, AGP 4x. These changes should be nothing but resistor settings to the system ASIC. If they are not they should be.

For the I/O ASIC, it supports too many things to list, but it's the same concept as the system ASIC. For hard drives, use the ATA/100 bus that is already on there. Use a cheaper Firewire PHY layer that only supports Firewire 400, use a cheaper audio device, use the same PCI-based USB 480 device, etc.

Lastly, don't use the PCI/PCI-X Hypertransport tunnel, and just directly connect the system ASIC and I/O ASIC with the Hypertransport buses already on there. If they are not compatible HT buses, they should be made to be. The rest is just using cheaper graphics card, RAM, etc.


Remember my optical-drive-in-the-keyboard idea? Well... how about we go really really old-school.

Child, there's no logic in assuming people who don't want the huge towers will want small-form factor PCs. Most people will want, *GASP*, mini-tower sized PCs. It's what they are used to.

Something very important to place emphasis on is this:

Jobs wouldn't have told us about the speed bump if it wasn't certain!

This is the same guy who had to eat crow over the 500MHz G4 Moto debacle. There is NO way that he is going to promise a speed gain that won't be delivered. So I think that we can assume that your timeline is correct because I profoundly doubt that Apple is going to jump from 2GHz to 3GHz in one single jump. We should see a speed boost announced in January (hopefully along with a second dual CPU machine so that there are 2 dualies on the lineup).

True, but having more transistors and having them more densly packed has to affect production costs. If I remember correctly, it has been mentioned that IBM utilizes some automated design tools to speed up the actual design. This might explain the less densly packed transistors??


No comment here, I've not a clue, well maybe, but no point in appearing to bash Motorola. More densly packed transistors/traces may affect yields??


Kind of my point. The MPC7455 is still on the 0.18µm process and unless Motorola is having a fire sale or their yields are tremedous, the IBM 970 should be price competative with the MPC7455/7445 and the MPC7457/7447.

I just can't see why using the G4's, in and of itself, would allow Apple to produce computers cheaper than using the G5. Unless of course all the other stuff, companion chip, Hypertransport, etc. disproportionately increases the cost over the G4's equivalents.

I guess you are right. Anyway i still wait for my dualie. I expect it will ship before the rev B G5 towers

The 970 is made on larger wafers which tends to improve the cost/die.

If indeed IBM can sell a 1.3 GHz 970 cheaper than Moto can sell a 1.3 GHz 74x7 and associate motherboard costs are about equal, then yeah, Apple would be stupid not to migrate all of its systems to the 970. The real unknown is how much Apple actually pays for each CPU. That's been the question for a long time now.

Also, I think G4 parts are probably a good percentage cheaper than G5 parts right now because they've been in production for such a long time already and Apple can get them cheaper and cheaper as time goes by.

Eugene, is child a term of endearment for you? Maybe I'm out of the infinite loop, but surely I can't be the only one wondering what that's all about. . .

I found it incredibly interesting that the G4 has more transistors than the G5. Doesn't that defy all forms of common sense logic? More complex, powerful chips have more transistors, right?

Anyway, even though all of us would love to see a midrange tower, Apple doesn't want to go that route. It has the eMac covering the low-end, the iMac the <chuckle> "midrange" and the Power Macs at the high end. They're not going to engineer a new case and motherboard for something that will have limited appeal. If the Cube had succeeded, that would be one thing. Since it didn't I doubt we'll see anything similar from Apple for many moons.

Up to a point. The vast majority of the transistors are in the caches and associated tags.

The G4 has a L3 controller and tags on-board, which probably explains most of the extra transistors. The L3 tags will use a lot of transistors, and very densely, also explaining the higher average density for the G4. The G4 may also use more redundancy in the caches, giving higher yields, increasing transistor count, and increasing average density.
The G5 has more logic transistors, which are less dense than memory transistors.

michael

Child, if you have to ask you don't know!

look child, it's a bit of an inside joke. don't worry about it. it'll get old real quick

Hasn't the high end normally become the low end on each new rev?
(Except for the jump to G5)

We're making predictions?


As I said to Eugene. I'm not making a prediction and I'm sure many others aren't either. I'm putting down what Apple should sell, and I'm usually attentive to whether such hardware can be engineered.


From the Apple store:

PowerMac G4

$1,299.00
1.25GHz PowerPC G4
1MB L3 cache

$1,599.00
Dual 1.25GHz PowerPC G4
2MB L3 cache/processor

Here Apple added another CPU and 3 MB of cache for 300$. In my dual G4 iMac proposal, it would be without L3 cache. Even so, the dual 1.25 GHz PowerMac G4 only costs 1599$. For 200$ more at $1800, Apple sells an iMac 17 with 1 1.25 GHz processor without cache, a SuperDrive, a 17" LCD, and a whole lot less expansion.

So take the dual 1.25 GHz PowerMac G4, take out all of the L3 cache, add a SuperDrive and an LCD screen, and I think Apple can charge 1800$ for it and get the same margins.


You didn't see my "Firewire based keyboard with an optical drive" idea from a previous thread. By moving the optical drive to the keyboard, Apple will have a lot more room in the iMac for a quiet cooling system to cool 2 processors. Apple could use a dual processor card employing the same sawtooth socket in Power Mac G4 systems since the PowerMac G4 shipped, thereby saving motherboard space for other components.


Well, I can't say anything about this.

When I bought my 2x1000 MHz QuickSilver 2002, the low-end was a single 800 MHz model. The previous high-end was a 2x800 MHz model.

The next revision's low-end model was a 2x867 MHz G4.

Also, the 2x1250 MHz was the high end of that revision, and the low-end of the next revision was a single 1000 MHz G4.

Just wanted to jump in here and say that the onboard memory controller concept will probably be present in the G6 (if Apple chooses to call the Power5 variant a G6).

Look for an expansion of dual machines and little or no change in price.

Thus,

Dual 2.5Ghz 2999
Dual 2Ghz 2499
Single 2 Ghz 1999

Then

G5 CUBES !!!

All single CPU, 1299-1799, 1.6-2.0Ghz G5's depending on price and availability.

And, if Apple really had balls, the intro of a standalone 17" widescreen LCD to be bundled at the 1799 price point and the death of the iMac for all but an extreme low end solution!

More expensive? Compared to what? I haven't seen this as an issue. There certainly is a bit of a premium at the moment, as there is with all new technology, but are we surprised at all here. Beside are we so sure that Apple would be paying those premiums?

The whole equation is dependant on Apple / IBM implementing a alternative G5 for lowcosts systems. I just don't see the current G5 implementation migrating to low cost systems anytime soon. I could be completely wrong on that but it is what I precieve right now.

I don't think the costs would be as huge as some imagine either, First we are talking hihg volumn. Second there is a great deal of resue of peripherials and standard cells. Since the memory controller is on board the PPC and you intend ot limit the number of ports supported I see this as very doable. We are just talking AGP, USB, Firewire, Networking and SATA here. The SATA could easily be replaced with a Firewire port also. So you're basically talking about a DMA cntroller manageing 4 or 5 types of ports. Seems to be completely doable. It is really not much more than is traditionally supported on a laptop. With a little thought the chip set could support both the laptop and the small form factor market.

Multiple iterations of a chip set happen all the time. Just look at how many Intel produces, though Intel seems to lack the maketing skills to fully explot some of those sets.

Obviously I have no idea what Apple s up to. I do know that they don't ignore market trends, small form factor is a reality and in Apples case is important due to the size of the G5. People will want alternatives and while the IMac is nice it has a couple of issues that I personaly don't like. That mainly revolves wanting the CPU unit out of site along with all the wires dangling out the back. The perfect IMac would have a screen arraingement similar to what it currently has with one thing cable running to the CPU assembly else where.

I'm still leaning towards on chip memory interface. The performance of the G5 is to closely tied to the dual channel arrangement. Maybe if this new PPC had larger caches we would be all set.


So I'm not disagree that the I/O asic supports alot of stuff . The question is how much does it really have to support. My postion is not much especially if one relys on USB and Firewire to take over traditional hardware.

This is exactly what I don't want. I want a low cost system with reasonalbly good performance. That means a very good graphics processor, like whatever is #2 at the moment. The rest of the I/O should provide state of the art performance. That is why I want to limit capabilities, give the user what they need but don't scrimp.

The reality of Hypertransport just hit me like a 2x4. If this was implemented onboard the PPC along with the memory controller Apple would have a huge number of options for I/O, as HT has become widely supported. But agian don't add things not needed. Lots of USB, firewire ports, SATA port and thats about it. What would be even neater is seeing a HT based graphics chip implemented - that would be hot.

If they release a drastically improved lineup before March, I'll poop a brick. I'm about to order one (because I need the horse-power now as opposed to four months from now). I expect an update fairly soon because I doubt they'll jump 1000MHz in less than three updates (total). It just can't be a "big" update.



Such is the nature of this beast. Everything you buy just became obsolete.

It hardly becomes obsolete. Not leading-edge, yes... but not obsolete and certainly not any less capable than when you bought it.

I don't think there need to be a separate line for a 'mini' G5. Take the current Powermac line, and for the next revision simply make the low end version a cut down one.

Leave just 1 AGP/1PCI-X for expansion. Trim the processor bay down to a single processor /HS unit in height, 2 memory slots (DDR400). Stick with 2 HD slots/ 1 optical. Stick a single G5 2.0 in it.

For the standard machine, simply turn the HD's through 90 degrees and shuffle slightly to make space for 4 HDD instead of 2, and most of the cmplints about the box would disappear. Alternatively, add the second optical drive and two more hdd to the stack. Go all duals, lets say 2x2.0(DDR 400), 2x2.5(DDR500).

End up with:

2x2.5 G5 @ 2999
2x2.0 G5 @ 2399
1x2.0 G5L @ 1799

What this would do is provide a differentiated lower end that has more of a USP that the current one, and a more capable normal model for those who want that.

Good point, but we dont know really the real price of CPU. AMD and INTEL sell at very high price their high clocked CPU. But i suspect they have a far better margin on the high clock CPU than the low ones. I suspect that this way of make the price is exagerated. IBM and Apple have a different agrement. We don't know it, but i am sure that the increase in price is more linear than the exponential one in the PC market.

I really don't see Apple bringing back the cube or coming out with a mini. The only reason to add to the midrange of the line up is to sell significantly more computers. It bad for Apple to sell fewer powermacs or imacs by replacing them with cubes/minis. This makes it hard for them to manage supplies and reduces their volumn purchases of components. It could work if they made a killing on the new product, but they tried that with the cube didn't they.

I see the midrange as having many options right now: The imac for AIO buyers-its really an improvement of the original cube IMHO. The imac becomes even more of an attractive buy if they stuff a G5 in it. The low end Powermac if you want expansion. Also, laptops are being used by many as a small footprint desktop. Again, if they get a G5 in a Powerbook than you have a "mini."

The only place I can see the need for a cube is at the bottom end. A G4 cube, i.e. headless eMac, that could expand the number of sales to those looking for a cheap computer. This would work well for those with a monitor already and wouldn't buy another computer unless they could use their old monitor (buyers on a tight budget). However, I doubt Apple could make much profit on such a cube and keep it price well below an eMac. It would also look a lot like a simple update to the original cube-not very ground breaking and could result in bad PR. I doubt it will ever happen.

As for staying on topic:

I guess in the first quarter of next year we'll see SP 1.8, DP 2.0 and DP 2.5 at the current price structure.

The cost to manufacture something isn't the only thing that determines the price it sells for. For example the 3.2 Ghz P4 costs Intel the same exact amout to make as does the 2.6 Ghz P4 but Intel sells the 3.2Ghz chip at a much higher price. Actually the 2.6 Ghz chip costs more to make since it has to go through the testers a couple more times.

The probablility that the 7455 is cheaper than the 970 isn't really anything new. Every time a new generation of chips come out the older chips drop in price, often by a substantial amount. There are some factors that could possibly change all this. IBM could be offering Apple some exceptionally good prices on the 970, which I doubt. The other is that Motorola is somewhat screwed up at the moment.

This is just wrong. There are only so many chips per manufacturing 'unit' that are able to run at 3.2 GHz while bein operational. Similarily, there are a lot more cpus that run stable at 2.6 GHz, making its yield better, and hence cheaper.

True that the material might be cheaper, but the fastest chip is still more expensive...

.:BoeManE:.

The price of CPUs are really just arbitary marketing prices. By having really high prices on the fastert CPUs IBM/AMD/Intel stear the consumer to the midrange were they have the highest yield and have the highest margins on the fastest ones.

If you get a batch of 100 CPUs for 10 000 dollars the cost really is 100 dollar/ CPU. If they all would run a 2 GHz they would have the same price. Now if they do not you try to jack up the price of the fastest CPU as much as the market can take. The lower yield the smaller segment of the market you are aiming at and the higher price you can extract

The "science" part of the price is not that difficult to calculate in terms of R&D yields, die size and so on. But that only set the basal level of the price (no not sell at a loss). The real price is more of making as good ROI as the consumer can be billed. If IBM could make CPUs at 1% of current cost would they sell them at 1% the price? Hell no, they would just undercut the competition as little as possible to gain market share for maximum profits.

A while back there was a development conference in China regarding there future investments in computer technology, and of course IBM was there and showed a presentation. Read it [page 23] and you you'll see that he list the (?current?) IBM PPC 970 to clock up to 2.5Ghz.

One of the things I've been trying to figure out recently is how possible it is to do a case-mod on an eMac. It looks, from everything I've seen, not terribly practical - circuit boards and key parts being difficult to get to.

Maybe Apple's best-of-both-worlds option would be to have the non-monitor part of the next generation eMac easily seperatable. That way they can sell the thing as one unit (appealing to the AIO market), but people who do not want the bulk of a monitor they have no intention of using can easily discard it.

This doesn't decrease the price any, but I suspect those calling for a monitor-less eMac in order to simply decrease prices are not looking at as much of a cost saving as they realise.

A good 17" monitor can be bought for just above 100 dollars and that include powercable, onof button and a case all that stuff is shared in the eMac so the price reduction of a headless eMac would be even less than that.

Both the headless eMac and the small tower design sound like a good idea but there is a risk of leaving the clean pro/home portable/stationary quadrants and stray into a product jungle as bad as the LC, performa Quadra Centrino days...

The over priced underpowered iMac is a greater problem than the lack of a headless eMac. The current top of the line iMac is not that mcuh faster than the budget portable iBook... Apple have to first get the current lines in good shape before they add others to the mix.\

With the pro towers are all duals, the servers using G5 and the iMac having fast G5 substantially outperforming the portable and the eMac then they can add a Minitower for gaming students and other that want more than the iMac but not the big tower. They can have a Single CPU tower (quadra 700 size or less but G5 cheese grater design) AGP slot, one PCI slot one optical and one HD. It would enable users to upgrade the graphcial card and also get various funcionalities from the PCI card.

This is precisely what I had in mine for the G5 mini. Essentially, take the 1.6 GHz PowerMac G5 board, remove 2 PCI slots, and shrink the board down to half the size. Then wrap a 12x12x8 inch box of the same design around it.

Same deal with a G4 mini. Take the current El Capitan case and board, remove 3 PCI slots, 1 external bay, and shrink the El Capitan case down to 12x12x9.

They are however separate lines of "computer" even though though use the same components.


A lot of people have a single processor model for the PowerMac G5. Given the existence of a G5 mini, most assuredly with 1 processor, that'll make a single processor PowerMac G5 and its cost rather undesireable. If Apple doesn't have a G5 mini line, well, forget what I just said.

True. I guess obsolete is the wrong word. "Dated" maybe? Anyway, I'm sure the machine I'm going to get will more than adequately meet my needs for at least 2.5 years. Probably 3+ unless something drastic happens to software requirements in the interim.

With what I'm seeing from Adobe, I can't see myself upgrading next time around (CS part deux) unless there are some *really* compelling reasons to do so. Feature-wise I think the CS Suite has reached a point where, for my particular work, I won't need anything more for a good while.

Not unless Photoshop adds in some professional grain removal tools for example. That's if the 3rd party tools out there don't improve in the meantime. There are some pretty effective ones out there, but none that I've found to be particularly intuitive or efficient.

Interesting find if true, Eric_Z. That particular page is gone now; would you have a copy of it?

DrBoar wrote:

You meant Centris, not Centrino, just for the record.

Hey Guys;


I really hate to break the news to you but if you cut up the mother board, offer different options and a new case you pretty much have a new line. Sure this product may just offer the essentials but in a sense so does the IMac line.

What I was hoping for was a minimal system that would almost be considered a transportable that would use an external display device. The idea is zero impact on the desktop and reasonablly close to state of the art pefromance.

I still think this ( a mini) is extremely doable if a couple of things come to fruition. Key here is a 970 based processor with a built in memory interface, and a low cost high performance interface to a I/O chip. The I/O chip should support nothing more than is required to deliver a computational machine to the user. I'm even thinking that an integrated GPU on this I/O chip may be doable.

So in the end you have two or three major chips, memory and the associated buffering logic on the motherboard. Very low costs and with a enough modern ports (Firewire and USB) very flexible.

Thanks
Dave

For me, the iMac line replaced the desktop models of long ago (powermac 7200-7600). At that time they had desktops and towers - consumer and pro models. I purchased a 7500 because it was the first consumer mac to have PCI slots, nice for upgrading.

I purchase 2 PCI cards and considered a third. The first was for USB and Firewire. The second was for a good graphics card. The other slot, which would have been for a video or audio converter didn't get filled because I realized my system would have been to slow to do me any good with it.

I also upgraded the processor to the best I could, which only made the system viable for 1 more year. That happened over about 4 years.

My point with all of this is, a computer, pro or consumer will only last 5 years max in my opinion before software advances make it unusable. A consumer grade computer, like the iMac, wouldn't really need PCI slots, only pro users need audio/video PCI cards, and all graphics cards are now AGP based. New formats of I/O don't work as well as they should through a PCI bus anyway, so they can wait. So I don't believe PCI slots are necessary on a consumer grade model, but an AGP slot is essential. I realize an upgradible processessor is becoming more difficult with the new systems, but it would help consumers believe their system had more longevity to it even if it's no more than 1 year.

For the most part I see very few problems with the current iMac, except for the price/performance ratio, but that's another story. As far as it being headless, you know I'd love that. I think everyone would. Being able to choose your own display - size and price - is a very personal decision when buying a computer. It's what you stare at for hours each day, not the case. Apple would be wise to return this option to the consumer if they want consumer sales. I'm sure Ives could figure out a way to make the current LCD's on the swivel arm swappable. I really like being able to adjust the screen on my LCD iMac with just a touch, and do so very often.

Anyway, just a few thoughts,

Zhar

Yes, can I mail it to you so that you can put it upp for all to see?

[Ed]You should be able to see it now, try the link again.[/Ed]

strange...

That's pretty much what I would to see. Actually I would like to see is a 1.8 GHz 17" Powerbook G5, I'm fine with it being 1.5+ inch thick, with a 1680x1120 resolution screen.


You want a laptop without a screen?

Well not exactly, more of an IMac without the screen. Also without the cpu limitations that seem to crop up in the IMac line. In other words a 2.5 GHz 970 in a small box with just the ports it needs to run. Most likely that would be SATA, Firewire and USB. The unit could potentially also have Blutooth or other wireless technology. The idea is to have plenty of Both Firewire and USB ports available. The unit should take either standard AGP GPU's or possibly a Hypertransport based GPU.

The whole idea is to get really good CPU peformance and GPU peformance and drop the other crud. Mind you I believe the IMac is close to providing what is needed, but there are a couple of problems. One as already mentioned is the ability to upgrade the GPU or atleast have options. Another problem is the limited performance of the IMac, the lack of a screen selection and memory expansion.

I look at it this way the G5 is too limited in its expansion capabilities for its price and size. Eventually the G5 will have to be addressed or Apple is likely to see a huge slow down in sales as the early adopters satisfy themselves. Once the G5 becomes a proper tower then a limited expansion potential machine will fill that void.

Thanks
Dave

Getting a larger tower and still lose one optical bay and two hard disk bays
And I do not care for getting a stack of FW boxes. The whole point of having a big tower is to get rid of the clutter. Otherwise I could have a iMac and then daisychain what ever I wish for