3GHz G5 this summer?

3Ghz by late summer 2004? You can take that to the bank.

That 's what Ive been waiting to hear..finally the wait can be over and I can sell my left kidney to repalce my good ol B&W G3, it still gets the job done but just quite a bit slower being that its the 300mhz model. man do I feel archaic...

3ghz by summer 04?????? oh wait, i've hear dnow for about 6 months!

this is not the thread we're looking for, move along

It is still an old story that has been heard many times there is nothing new here.

Yup, just restating old news. On to the next thread.

Steve said 3 Ghz by Summer 2004, and so it shall be.

Heh... didn't he say we'd have twice the market share by now too?

Is it just me or is IBM beginning to look more and more like Motorola with each passing month...

Cheers,

C.

No more so than Intel or AMD. High speed processors are complicated things, and 90 nm processes are hard. Its not unusual for delays measured in months. Motorola was having delays measured in years, and then under-delivering on that.

No, he said all Apple had to do to double its US market share (which was 5% at the time) was to get a relatively small number (I don't remember the exact number) of Windows users to switch to the Mac. This, of course, was before 9-11 and the recession, not that it matters to global market share.

Steve said it months ago. And that's the way it is, cause Steve said so.




OK, people...nothing to see here...

It's been almost 9 months since the G5 was introduced. Even the troubled PC camp has made progress in this time...

The point was that what you want isn't always what you get. What makes you think Steve has any more influence over IBM's fabs?

C.

So true.Intel went from a 3.2 to a 3.4 ghz part.Ibm may as well give up right now.

Oh, don't act so childish. Thing is, we know Intel is in troubled waters right now and to be fair they did also introduce a new class of processor recently as well (as sucky as it is). What does that say about IBM?

All I've said was that (at least so far) IBM doesn't seem to be able to produce faster chips any quicker than Motorola. 9 months without a peep is getting into Motorola territory for delays... and people expect to see 3 Ghz machines in 4 months?!?

C.

To be fair: we don't know the cause of the delays, it isn't necessarily availability of the 970FX.

Motorola's delays were measured in years. They were almost three years behind the industry in moving to 130nm, for example.

Besides, you're counting from the date when Steve revealed the PM G5 existence, not the date IBM started shipping its CPU in volume. That's cheating.


By the end of summer, which is September 21st if memory serves.

It doesn't seem that difficult to me: The 970 just underwent a die shrink to the process it was designed for in the first place. Unlike the G4, it's designed to clock high. It should have very little trouble scaling up.

Steve wouldn't have made a big to-do about 3GHz by summer if he wasn't damn sure it would happen. He stands to lose a lot of face if IBM doesn't deliver, and so does IBM.

That is true, but by extension we never know any of Apple's plans, release dates, and so on... But that's another issue.

However I think only once did Motorola have gap longer than 1 year between upgrades.

Actually what he said was 3 Ghz within 12 months at the WWDC last July. That's why everyone's is harping on that date.

Cheers,

C.

Yeah, what are you talking about? Does a die shrink not count? How many times did the G4 go through a die shrink? I would not start doubting IBM just yet. They are not going to spend 3 billion on a fab just to let it sit there and fail.

And he "clarified" that at Paris Expo to be 3GHz by the end of Summer.

I'm surprised no one's called you a troll yet, concord, because that's a good definition for you based on your posts to this thread. Nine months is a long time for you? How could you possibly call anyone else childish?

He has a point, 9 months is a long time for a products life. For example, the graphics card options are ridiculous by todays standards. No 256MB card, and the mid and low are only 64 and 128 respectivly? And the cost to upgrade to the 128 card is absured by todays street prices for the cards. Don't even talk about the system ram (256 on the low, and only 512 on the top end model...) Apples problem is they only update everything at once. So by the end of a products life, the components and costs just seem stupid.

It seems like it would make sense if Apple either adopted a faster turnaround between updates (6 months), or they take a different aproach where they would update various components (ram, hd, optical, vid card for example) and prices in between major updates (new cases, faster processors, etc).

That's exactly what I would like very much see. I am wondering though how easy would be for Apple to do this, with the current update strategy and secrecy.

Slightly off topic, but still relevant (well, just for fun): it seems Apple is no longer a computer hardware company. Their main page does not have any computer displayed. Only software and iPod-iTunes related stuff. Now guess how long it will go like that...

I meant more from an end user's perspective...

I'm not calling on anyone to "give up", just disappointed that things haven't progressed more quickly as we were led to believe. PowerMacs are usually updated roughly every 6 months. We've just lost a Mac at work and it would have been nice to have replaced it with the next revision.

Ahh... I missed that little bit of backpedalling. Thanks!

Cheers,

C.

Yah you're right PB. Only thing is... thats how its always been with apple's hardware. Nothing has changed between the date that the iPod was released until now. It seems apple is always focusing on something else and the hardware comes "2nd".

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Replying to G5's being out by end of summer. The only way that will happen is if Apple doesn't release an update before that, that doesn't have a 3ghz in it. Apple isn't going to update the g5's to 2.x ghz then update to 3ghz 4-5 months later. I also can't see them waiting a year+ for powermac updates. Deadlines slip... if anything we should know that after dealing with Motorola for 10 years. Steve Jobs can't control what happens in the manufacturing plants... anything could have happened.

My prediction is 3ghz will be out around October / early November.

Well technically the G5s where updated. dual 1.8

It would be nice though to have a ~2.4GHz revision to the line to tide it over until 3GHz.

Why are you eye rolling at my RAM comment? Maybe (maybe) back when teh G5s came out this made some sense. But today, right now, it seem crazy. I will bet that Apple updates this to 512, 512, 1GB in teh next udpate. I mean, the G5s are supposed to be the "Pro" machines, having only 256 on the base is crazy. Apple is being a little stingy here.


How would secrecy get involved? Changing around the RAM, HD, video card, or optical would have no baring on the secrecy of a major update. I think it is pretty doable, but I doubt this is not an aproach Apple wants.

Childish? Not worthy of a comment.Let me spell out what is wrong with your cynical view.

1) The G5's have only been shipping for around 6 months or so (not 9 months).They were announced long before production began.

2)The only fact we know about the state of the 970fx is that they have just begun production on the 90 nm process and all reports are excellent.Great numbers on power consumption and about a 2.5 ghz clock speed (the one that was mentioned at the conference).And of course a new dynamic power usage feature. Anything else you think you know about it is bull.

3)Just because Apple hasnt put a new G5 in your hand doesnt mean there is a problems at Ibm.The problem is Apple.They only do upgrades about 2 times a year and it is near time now as the G5's actually shipped about September.

4) How does Ibm stack up against the others? They just moved to the 90 nm process and as I said it sounds excellent. Intel did the same and their new process looks pretty poor,especially in power consumption.They recently pushed back their timetables,so no 4 ghz this year.The pentium M is still awaiting the 90 nm process,I believe it is due in May now-many months late.Amd has a 2.4 ghz amd64 planned for may but 2.6 ghz is due in the first quarter of next year when their 90 nm process is due to be ready.
Both Intel and Amd seem pretty lame next to Ibm.

5) Motorola only moved to the 13 nm process over a year after everyone else did and they havnt had a higher clocked G4 in over a year and their next offerings due in "3 to 6 months" are not any faster and certainly useless for any desktop Apple has any bussiness trying to market.So in what way is Ibm in the same boat? Clearly it is not at all!

In the face of facts your cynicism is unfounded.The G5's will come when Apple is ready.At this point we have no evidence that Ibm is the hold up.It is FUD,plain and simple.I dont believe they will go to 3 ghz in "4 months".
I believe we will see 2.5 ghz in a few weeks or maybe less.I believe the 3 ghz system will come at the end of the summer,about a year after the first ones shipped.

You just answered your own question: rolling eyes don't point to you, but to Apple. Offering today a professional 64-bit, mind you, machine of the class of the G5 with 256 MB RAM is beyond ridiculous. It would not be so if RAM was too expensive, but that's not the case.


That's how: updating regularly the components, except processor, would make the hardware updates much less significant (for Apple, that is). Apple sells computers as complete packages, not processors. It seems they (still) love update this computing package as a whole, so most components take at the same time a bump, while no one knows until the introduction moment, what will come exactly.

Truer words were never spoken: "... while no one knows until the introduction moment, what will come exactly."

Ah, the joys of having a retail channel.


Their resellers would howl if they were too aggressive with this. Extra RAM is one of the main ways they attract people, since Apple doesn't let the MAP (minimum advertised price) budge very much. And MAP stays put mostly to prevent predatory pricing and protect the little guys.


It would also raise the cost of the components (since they couldn't lock in a supply for nearly as long), raise the cost of manufacturing, and draw howls from their resellers. There is an average of 4-5 weeks of inventory in the channel at any given time. Regular updates would just leave retail outlets charging MAP for yesterday's stuff on a more or less constant basis.

Dell can update constantly because 1) they don't have a retail channel; 2) they're big enough that they don't need the supplier lock-in that Apple does; 3) they don't do the level of integration testing that Apple does. When you sell "complete packages" there's a lot of pressure to settle on one package that works and ship it as long as possible. Every change is a chance for something to break, and Mac users aren't as tolerant of that as PC users are, because Apple is a systems integrator.

Maybe a strategy that has run it's course, and is time to change to be more competative at minimal cost to Apple. I have noticed that when CompUSA advertises Apple products in my area they NEVER list the low end price for Macs, and most of the time they list the high end price. This does nothing for Apple's image but hurt it. At the same time, there is no incentive for CompUSA to advertise Apple products at all since their fliers are "Sales" but there are never any "Sales" that they can advertise. It's no wonder Apple is viewed as bieng over priced.

Fair points, Amorph. I was trying to explain somehow the "secrecy" part of my statement, but you backed up very well the "strategy" part, which remained without comments. Thanks .

Frankly, I would like to see Apple and IBM just break the 2 GHZ mark.

I am smelling Moto again.

Anyways, its all about iPod at Apple now anyways.

The good thing is my 2.0 GHZ dualie still holds the title as fastest Mac ever.

Guys, does the 3 ghz model mean dual 3ghz, or just 3 ghz?

Steve will be executed on-stage by fanatics if 3Ghz is single only, and no dual at higher clockspeed is offered.

I am afraid that the consequences would be far more profound than this one.

I might be wrong but about two years ago did Mr. Jobs not coin the phase two brains are better than one. There could be no chance of a single processor at the high-end.


Johnny