Timeframe for next PowerMac?

I believe that this would be a really bad decision if Apple were to do this. Apple will have a great chip-set from Intel next year about this time or a little later. Visit tom's hardware to see that Yohna can currently run neck and neck with the P4 and Itaniums and consume less than 40 watts. To do what you are guessing would mean that Apple would redesign a MB and ship it only to have it on the market for less than a year and then have to redesign again to take advantage of the Intel chip set. A smarter move would be to use PPC in things like the mini and iMac. The pro crowd is too smart for this. They like always will buy what they need, and only what they need. A Mac with four processors, may be a great thing, but it will be weighed against what is the value of an obsolete computer going to be 5 years from now. If you need a PowerMac to put food on the table, buy one. If you think that it will be out dated sooner rather than later than you are correct. I see better video cards, maybe even better memory options, and better DVD drives as to what to hope for in updates, not much more.

Odds are Apple is going to introduce one more G5. Yonah is already done (has been final for a few months) so the laptops wouldnt be a problem. However I do belive Apple is going to wait transitioning their iMac and PowerMac line until Yonah's psudo-sucessor (a desktop derivitive without the netburst) will appear at the end of 2006.
I belive Apple is going to transitions its laptops, mini, and development kits to Yonah, wait untill the re-engineared Yonah for desktops comes out, then release PowerMacs based on it. Xserve will probebly be the last item to transition sometime in 2007.

Apple will likely have 2 powermac updates before moving to Intel. Perhaps this fall and then April/May of 2006. I don't expect big changes just slightly faster procs and bigger HD and RAM configs.

Then in 2007 all hell breaks loose in the Powermacs with Dual-Core Conroe chips taking pole position and running Leopard 10.5.

Merom will be in the Powerbooks and kicking major tailend.

The iMacs will be using Dual-Core Sossamon chips and the Mac mini/eMac line will use Yona Dual and Single core chips.

The transition begins in one year, and we know that the Powermacs will be the last Mac to switch to Intel, except for maybe the xserves. That's at least 2 years, probably longer, that the Powermacs have to go, and they've got to absolutely ROCK if Apple is to convince anyone to buy them with Intel coming. A twin dual-core G5 Powermac would be just the ticket to ease Apple's transition.

IMO IBM promised Apple this dual core chip and has missed their deadline by about 6 months or so, and so now Apple is just waiting. This last PM update was scheduled to be the dual core version, but since IBM couldn't get it up, Apple had to go for the 7% speed bump and hold their breaths. We probably still will see the dual core PMs, probably this summer, but I could also so the Steve getting pissed off and switching Powermacs to Intel sooner than we all thought.

edit: IBM's delay of the 970mp was probably the last straw for Jobs, on top of IBM's inability or lack of motivation in designing a mobile 970.

Actually, that's mostly untrue. Jobs indicated that intel-mac products would be shipping within a year of 6/6/05, or in other words could potentially ship anytime between today and 6/6/06. I would highly doubt that he's going to wait more than 2 years before starting to ship new PM's. I'd suspect that he wants to get the intel elephant into the masses as soon as possible to keep sales of macs positive.

Only detail: don't expect Intel-based Macs before Apple takes back the P4 developer machines (around middle 2006) and makes sure that there is already a solid code base for the new platform from third-party developers, so that releasing an Intel Mac makes sense.


Why? It is him that said that. Transition starts in a year from now from the consumer machines and portables that suffer mostly in perfomance, followed by the Power Macs and/or Xserves in 2007. Apparently, given IBM and Intel roadmaps (which Apple is aware of and we here are not), Apple expects that the G5 will hold well his ground against x86 processors for two years from now or so. This means that there will be at least one more Power Mac update with PowerPC (G5) processors. What exactly, it remains to be seen.

It is interesting to see how the iMac, the only consumer-level G5 machine, will be positioned in this transition.


Of course, this is another reason to start with the consumer machines and the Powerbooks.

I don't expect to see intel-based PowerMacs until after we see other intel macs. I'd expect X-Serve to straddle the line, because depending on use you may get better performance/value from one CPU platform versus the other.

That said, I'd expect new PowerMac models before January. And these would be more than just a minor bump, but an actual revision. After that, those newer models could get bumped at least once before switching to Intel.

Steve kept his options open. I think what will keep pace for Apple's transition is software availability. Apple will not release the first Intel-based Mac before the major software titles have been ported to it. If developers for all the big OS X apps are ready in 6 months, then so Apple will follow.

With the Powermacs Apple wants both the big apps, and the smaller, more specialized apps to be ready. Since Powermac users use a more diverse array of software, it makes sense to transition them last, and again, if Apple sees that anyone can buy an Intel-based Powermac and run their niche applications on it, then they'll release it.

Two years is a conservative guess, but it is realistic. Apple has never been a company to refresh all of the lines within a few months; they pride themselves on having among the most efficient inventory and distribution networks in the business, which may not be good for consumer but is perfect for the bottom line. I don't see Apple throwing out their conservative business model for this transition, if anything I see them playing it MORE safe so they avoid getting burned and tainting the image of Intel-based Macs.

Let me put it this way: do you ever remember not waiting on a new Apple product? Whether it be in waiting for the new product to be announced, or waiting for an announced product to ship, it seems like we are always waiting on Apple. I even remember a few times where Apple emptied the channels, and then left them dry for weeks while they got a new product set to go in the pipeline.

Maybe these problems were due solely to Motorola and IBM, but I'm not convinced.

Although not as drastic as ppc->intel. Wasnt the MDD a redesign of the Quicksilver? It introduced a brand new MB, and less than a year later, the G5s came out.

Im assuming the MDD was mostly an experiment for the G5 towers. Therefore, its should be fairly feasable for Apple to release one more G5 update, a redesigned MB and possibly case, as precursor to the intel powermacs.

But again, the ppc->intel is a much different beast. So yeah, the chances of this happeneing are probably slim, but still entirely possible.

The interesting thing at this point is probably the release date of any Mactels. We all know that the Yonah should be ready for shipping about now, so Apple could send out laptops at any point. The only thing is that virtually no software is available for Mactels, and that is the thing that is holding Apple back im pretty sure of..

I would expect them to release the first Mactel when most of the major software has been Intellified.

What chips will Apple use on two more G5 updates!? The top G5 is water cooled because it's over clocked. I don't see Apple over clocking it more, especially not for two more updates. I see them cutting costs maybe boosting speed slightly but adding memory and HD space etc. They'll announce in Jan and ship march or so.

They've been with Intel for 4 years now and decided to drop IBM 2 months ago. You think Steve doesn't have something lined up? I wouldn't be surprised if they have a box ready to go right now.

My neighbor just got a Dell dual core 3 GHz intel box in some super quite case (audio recording), 1 GB ram, 160 GB hdd, printer, and monitor for $1600 delivered.

Yeah, we all know Apple's stuff is better but I believe this is where a lot of the gripes come from.

It is amazing how rapidly the dual core Intel chips have spread through the PC lineups. Dell has already moved the chips down into the mid range market. Even more amazing is how rapidly the 64 bit instruction set has spread throughout the P4 line up and even into the Celeron line. Bragging rights of two years ago are gone.

I don't see a super quite case at Dell. The Pentium D chip has Speedstep TM which allows low power operation when it isn't doing anything however per Intel documentation the 3 Ghz Pentium D has a thermal load of 130 watts which hardly makes it a dainty chip when it starts doing hardcore audio work. It will probably still sound just like a Hoover. (The 2.8 Pentium D drops the max. load down to 90 watts.)

Intel has priced the Pentium D at a very small price premium over the standard Pentium. Smart move...take the hit right now while you have the less effective dual core processor(as compared to AMD) and then prep the market for your nextgen dual core stuff starting with Yonah.

I'm interested in knowing what kind of performance Conroe is going to have. It's supposed to have a TBD of only 90 watts for both cores. Not too shabby and a 4MB cache sounds good as well.

I see Apple have maybe two more PPC Powermac upgrades and then it's on to Intel.

With the arrival of G5 there was talks of 3 GHz and dual cores ahead of the x86. Two years later still below 3 GHz, still lacking PCIe and dual core, all aviable for the x86.
Back in 95 I waited for the PCI powermacs to arrive before I replaced my LCII and that was a smart move.
Back in 2000 I waited for AGP to replace my 7200 and that was smart to.

Why would I buy an AGP non dual core G5?

If Apple has allredy done the support chips and other designs and IBM can deliver dual core G5s we will a substantial G5 upgrade and the G5 will last until 2007.

But what if the G5 stagnate and the Intel CPU in the minimac of 2006 will be faster than the the G5 in the tower...

My guess is that the towers will be replaced in 2006 not in 2007.

Here is the link to the case that looks like the one he has. Notice that it has air inlets on both sides and then more around the front bottom. The case has a huge air intake with fans you would see in a powermac. He placed his order 1 month before it was supposed to debut and Dell sent it to him 2 weeks early.

The dual 3 GHz chip steps down to 2.8 GHz. Evidently, that is the biggest step down this chip will do.

You can specifiy which processes use which processor, but you have to do that every time you reboot (or write some script thing or program to do it for you).

My neighbor has noticed that every once in a while, when you are doing something that is processor intensive, the computer will swap processes on the processors. We assume this is to spread the heat over both chips.

The 970 MP and GX have been announced:

http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/

Looks really interesting!

All sorts of wild things happening lately. A dual core 1.6 Ghz Powerbook would be nice. But I guess this is still too far behind for Apple?

A double dual core machine would get me in a powermac a lot faster than a single dual core intel box.

I wonder if Apple does use the dual core version will they use one or two of the dual core units in the next powermac?

Do you still think 970MP PowerMacs will ship before the end of the year?

Course I do, especially since the Apple Euro Store shippping times for the 2.7 have climbed to 3-4 weeks, US store says 3-5 days.

Maybe we will see something @ Siggraph...?!?

Of course that is this coming week, so maybe not...

No. I don't see them coming before MWSF 2006. There will be zero to little benefit from 970MP Power Macs over today's models, since the clock speed will be lower (at 2.5 GHz), unless there is some configuration with two dual core chips, the so called quad mac. But even so, this Mac will be very expensive, certainly not below $3500, and the benefit from the extra processors is not going to become visible in general use, only under specific circumstances (for example if you write scientific computational code for four processors, or if you run at once many CPU hungry applications taking a long time to finish).

This may be the most depressing thread I've ever followed. Everything in the future will be better, probably, but there are downsides, and it will be expensive, but today's machines are not adequate, so we could buy, but I don't see anyone recommending buying anything at all...

The Dual 2.7 GHz is now showing 2-3 weeks at the US store so I don't think updates are too far away. I'm thinking that the Dual 2.0 and Dual 2.3 will each move down a price point and Dual Dual machines will take the top two price points. Now that the single 1.8 GHz is gone I think it might be possible.

They may even all be dual cores (if the price of the CPUs is right), like at the bottom dual-core 2.0GHz, dual-core 2.5GHz, dual-dual-core 2.0GHz and at the top dual-dual-core 2.5GHz. I still think that we may have to wait at least for Apple Expo Paris (end sept) to see them.

Ha, you're joking right. You won't see a Power Mac G5 update until at least November, and my bet is on January 2006, like PB said. Although in January 2006, I see dual dual-core machines. I don't think they be that expensive.

Ok then what is your explanation of the increase in ship times? The shortage of processors has been worked out by IBM, there was no delay for when the dual 2.7 was introduced so why should there be one mid product cycle. As far as cost have you looked at the cost of AMD's dual core offerings? They are considerably more expensive then their single core counter parts. Anandtech was just talking about the prices here.

The Apple Store this morning continues to show 2-3 weeks for the 2.7. It makes it difficult to choose - am about ready to buy but could wait until Expo Paris if I thought there might be an upgrade/speed bump at that point. I'm not counting on dual-dual PowerPCs that soon, though - it hasn't been that long since IBM announced the new chips.

17" CRT isn't worth $100. The $30 free printer can be had free with your order anywhere. So it's within a few hundred of the 2ghz G5. Not sure about all the smaller specs but it's close enough compared to a few years ago.

If Apple does release a new PowerMac before the intel machines are ready, I think there will be more people holding off on buying one than there were people holding off when Steve Jobs said we'd see 3GHz in a year. Everybody that waited for that 3Gig machine is probably waiting on intel, and so are a lot of people that just don't want to purchase the last in line of the PPC PowerMac. Resale value on those probably isn't going to be that great after the intel machines are released.
I for one am not planning on buying another PPC.

Hmm, you must already have a quick mac. My Tibook is fairly old, though it works well. I'd rather have a new, and reasonably quick, PPC desktop machine than wait 2 years for a desktop mac w/Intel inside, + another year for all the bugs to be worked out...

I for one am buying another PPC ... question is whether to wait for Paris, or buy soon.

Do you sell your old macs? I keep them until they fail, which tends to be a very long time, so resale value isn't of much interest to me.

Steve Jobs is Keynote bound for Macworld Expo Paris. I'm betting on a Quad core tower to be released on that day. Of course I just bought the dual 2.7 for a photoshop workstation... such is life! =)

... tell me about it \

on the other hand, my 2.7 (4.5 gigs ram, external SerialATA raid for scratch) is FAST AS HELL! I swear the most bottlenecks I see day to day, (besides ripping open huge Quark EPS files that wont print) are OS glitches. As far as working in PS with very large files, this machine flies! for example, when I click on the .mac pref pane to adjust sync, i get a huge delay as the machine looks to the .mac servers i suppose, and mounting network volumes, stuff like that, which feel more like kinks in OSX than the speed of my machine. This stuff at least can be improved by releasing better code.

yea. I bought my G5 2.7 in original configuration few weeks ago as well. I still havent gotten it yet as frigging USPS is taking their sweet azz time with the package. I'm gonna pop in 2x1gb memory modules to work with it on learning advanced photoshop and Motion2. I got my 2.7Ghz machine for $2670 final price. I'm hoping once quads show up i'll be able to get rid of it for $2500 or so.

Although i really wonder , are aplications other than After effects and Final Cut Pro really gonna benefit from 4 cores ?
Quads most likely will top at 2.5Ghz. So if Aplications wont have use for other 2 cores , only benefit is added cache. And that shouldnt overtake 2.7Ghz machine by too much , i presume.