Do you think you will see G4 mobo with DDR ram ?

I hope we see a G4 motherboard with DDR, I am one who buys into the theory that G4 performance is memory starved.

I think that all the G4 machines will get DDR in their next rev and the G3 machines will get it when they switch to G4. Nothing to back this up, just pure speculation on my part.

I think G5 won't be out before MWNY, but I hope we'll see new G4 (Apollo) in a brand new enclosure (with 2 x 5"1/4 bays, please...I want a DVD player and a separate CDRW).

Here are my predictions:

Fast: §1599
G4 800MHz
128MB DDR PC2100
40GB
DVD or CDRW
GeForce 2MX 32MB
FireWire2 - USB 1 - Gigabit

Faster: §2199
G4 1200MHz
256MB DDR PC2100
60GB
DVD + CDRW
GeForce 2MX 32MB
FireWire2 - USB 1 - Gigabit

Fastest: §2999-3199
2 x G4 933 or 1066MHz
512MB DDR PC2100
60GB
Superdrive
GeForce 3
FireWire2 - USB 1 - Gigabit

I think USB2 will be out with the next minor revision of the mobo coming with the G5 in July.

This is pure speculation, évidemment.

If the G5 is pin-compatible with the G4 and if the share the same bus (MaxBus), a small revision of the motherboard ( e.g. processor voltage ) may be enough, but I'm not a processor guru.

Perhaps motoman or Mr.NSX could help us.

Will Apple use Moto's chipset or nVidia's nForce ?
I think integration of basic graphics (such as GeForce2Mx) and good audio layer (5.1), with high-speed bandwith would be a great jump to cut costs and increase performance.

PS: As the G4 uses MaxBus and the G5 use Rapio-IO (don't know about a possible compatibility), G4 and G5 may not fonction properly on the same motherboard.

Won't be necessary, as the G5 will ship witha brand new mobo anyway. And no, I don't think G5 will be introduced like the Yikes G4 (a new chip on an old board). Apple knows these machines sucked any everyone hates them by now, they won't make that mistake again.
If there will be no G5 in Jan, there will be a totally new system in summer or at MWNY with it.
Also those predictions above seem fairly sensible, not very good, but sensible. only that i think Fast will already have 256MB RAM. 128 is no longer bearbale for Mac OS X. lets face it, Apple knows that.

G-News

[quote]Originally posted by powerdoc:
<strong> :eek: It seems that the prediction of a new mobo for G4 for january seems correct. :eek:
At the contrary the apparition of the G5 in juanury seems to optimistic.

Is anyone here thinks that the new mobo for G4 with DDRAM can be easily adapted for the brand new G5 ?</strong><hr></blockquote>

:eek: The expectation of a new UMA is what got me miffed the past few times there was an Apple announcment. I believe there are a few possible reasons as two why we have not seen one. My Favorite is that Apple has been working on somthing revolutionary with the technical assets aquired from the Raycer graphics aquisition. Hence they have not put much towards recent UMA improvments as to make this UMA with all the bells and whistles seem much more dramatic. :eek:

Of course these are the type of rumors that get get people miffed when nothing that dramatic happens at a MacWorld show. Which is what I believe will be the case.

But don't loose hope.
Apple has to be planning a UMA with greater memory performance for the future, but I don't expect to see DDR RAM until SJ deems it necessary. He may be able to do more with a pricing if uses PC 133, and G4's for another MW announcment. Remember, Apple is going after the educational market in a big way, and pricing is whats getting them there.

This next part may hurt a little. So be careful before reading.

If you have not noticed, Apple has not been the incredible innovater of Newtons, (ground breaking tech) lately, nor have they been on the leader of the processor speed race, and this may be for a reason. Not taking the cutting edge inovater route has it's pricing bennifits.

Apple's low cost efforts have taken them far in the past 3 years, and overexpencive tech has hurt them more times than not.

example: iMac brought Apple out of the gutter, and the Cube, (a mere design innovation) flopped hard, and must have been somewhat embarrasing.
Now, if Apple had the great OS, (10) and hardware performance to with that cube they probably still would have asked for a fortune to own one. Example TAM. ??? :confused:

Don't get your hopes up for ground breaking offerings from Apple, because some of the goals people would like to see them meet are unobtainable, not to mention unreasonable.

Back to reality


Prediction: Expext a G4 at MacWorld - no G5.

Maybe a flat pannel iMac with similar pricing to the current imac's. No G4, or just a G4 iMac.

That is a lot to ask for right there in the real world. <img src="graemlins/smokin.gif" border="0" alt="[Chilling]" />

Think Secret is now chiming in with <a href="http://www.thinksecret.com/features/powermacg5.html" target="_blank">a report</a> that all but says that the next PowerMac rev will be based around the 7460.

[quote]Originally posted by powerdoc:
<strong>
Thanks for your link amorph, it's seems we see a 7460 on new mobo with 266 mhz DDR ram.</strong><hr></blockquote>

How does that compare to our or my current PC100?

[quote]Originally posted by Bogie:
<strong>I hope we see a G4 motherboard with DDR, I am one who buys into the theory that G4 performance is memory starved.</strong><hr></blockquote>

Well, DDR-RAM unfortunately won't help much until the G4 get's a faster front side bus. Current G4 processors run on a 64 bit wide 133MHz bus, which would only be able to utilize half of the bandwith DDR-RAM has to offer.

Bye,
RazzFazz

DDR with the G5---but the G5 probably won't be ready until MWSF 03.

For the Apollo G4, I bet Apple just uses the same damn MOBO and slaps the new G4 in it. So 133 MHz bus, pc133 RAM, and lame-ass performance that we've come to expect from Apple.

But we can count on new styling for the Powermacs. Apple spares no expense on the case.

[quote]Originally posted by Junkyard Dawg:
<strong>DDR with the G5---but the G5 probably won't be ready until MWSF 03.

For the Apollo G4, I bet Apple just uses the same damn MOBO and slaps the new G4 in it. So 133 MHz bus, pc133 RAM, and lame-ass performance that we've come to expect from Apple.
</strong><hr></blockquote>

I hope you're wrong, but knowing Apple you might be right.

[quote]Originally posted by powerdoc:
<strong>much better memory bandwitch.
There is a strong difference of memory bandwitch between the mobo with 133 mhz comparing to the old mobo with 100 mhz. I have forgot the benchmarks, but the difference was about the twice in many memory opérations (we do not speak of general performances).</strong><hr></blockquote>

Actually, the real world performance difference between PC100 and PC133 isn't very impressive, if really noticeable at all in general use. Besides, the theoretical peak advantage of PC133 over PC100 is, well, 33%, not 100% as you suggest.
On the PC side, even moving from PC133 to PC2100 (i.e. DDR266) only sported an overall performance increase of less than 10%.

Bye,
RazzFazz

[quote]Originally posted by powerdoc:
<strong>According to those benchmarks the difference of speed is a 2,5 factor. This difference is due to the new chipset of the 133 mhz mobo with 64 bits PCI slots able to have 215 MBytes/sec data rate transfer (twice the previous pci slot)
</strong><hr></blockquote>

Oops, my bad, I was thinking of using the same chipset running different memory speeds (as in the new PowerBooks).

Bye,
RazzFazz

Much as the platform needs to catch up with the Industry, both in MHz and memory bandwidth I don't see Apple delivering a new mobo with Apollo at MWSF. With the release of the G5 we will see all sorts of wonderful things, including UMA-2.

At this time I don't think Apple will release a new mobo for the G4 as all R&D funds will be put to better use on G5 systems.