What's the latest on the towers?
The place has been quiet. Have we all given up hope on new towers before Fall? I still have a pile of money burning a hole in my pocket and I'm holding out for at least a tower with an updated MB. The G5 would be great but a dual 1.4-1.6 G4 with a new MB for under $3k would suit me fine. Is everyone else caving in and buying a dual gig?
Comments
<strong>The place has been quiet. </strong><hr></blockquote>
It sure has been.
I think after all the MWSF hype and let down for some (no G5's), and recent speed bump, we've exhausted ourselves and resigned to just waiting until a new tower is introduced.
You know who to blame for that!
[ 03-02-2002: Message edited by: Matsu ]</p>
YMMV. The rumor mill's been pretty dry lately. Any announcements before MWNY will almost certainly be software or digital-device announcements.
So what is left?
Apple tell's us no new hardware till after MWTY.
MWTY is quite a bit off yet, thus we wait.
My Radeon is ticking in soon.
G-News
There is no hope of Powermacs that don't suck until MWNY at the very earliest, but more likely we will have to wait until MWSF, by which time even a 1.6 GHz G5 will still be merely half the GHz rating of Intel's latest CPU, and Powermacs will still be slower than Wintels at everything save a handful of Photoshop filters.
<strong>The latest on the Powermacs is that they suck.
There is no hope of Powermacs that don't suck until MWNY at the very earliest, but more likely we will have to wait until MWSF, by which time even a 1.6 GHz G5 will still be merely half the GHz rating of Intel's latest CPU, and Powermacs will still be slower than Wintels at everything save a handful of Photoshop filters.</strong><hr></blockquote>
lmfao. you are just too depressed. a 3GHz p4 with all the goodies will still only be 25% faster than a 2GHz p4. its the sad truth. meanwhile, a dual g5 at 1.6 GHz will be around 75-100% faster than the current dual gig (ya know, faster bus, ddr, better graphics, faster hds and ata 133). while the p4 just gets another almost useless GHz, the powermac will be getting an a$$load. and apple could market that 1.6x2=3.4 if they wanted to.
also, intel only says they will be at 3GHz. intel says a lot of things.
However Apple does need to get off their duff and produce some faster ( G5 ) towers. They certainly have got thteir milage out of the Mhz myth. Lets hope we don't have to wait until January again.
I would buy one today if it was available. Apple are you listening? I have a G4 450/ Radeon/ 640 Mgs of RAM but, the dual Gig isn't enough to make me want to sell that just yet. I mean when you look around and see what else is out there on the PC side.
[ 03-04-2002: Message edited by: jimmac ]</p>
2 GHz P4 --> 3 GHz P4 = 25% faster? Uh no. I have no reason to believe it would be anything other than 50% faster.
<strong>If Apple's towers truly sucked, I would not have bought one.
2 GHz P4 --> 3 GHz P4 = 25% faster? Uh no. I have no reason to believe it would be anything other than 50% faster.</strong><hr></blockquote>
FYI a 2GHz P4 is only 25% faster than a 1GHz P4. Therefore a 3GHz P4 would probably be about 16% (did my math wrong earlier) faster than a 2GHz...and this is assuming the P4 scales linearly, which it doesn't. The P4 is meant only to get sky-high GHz ratings, not actual speed. The P3 is actually faster at equivalent MHz/GHz but Intel couldn't make it scale as fast.
<strong>If Apple's towers truly sucked, I would not have bought one.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
Eugene, your actions do not decree or reflect the truth.
The fact is, Apple's towers are vastly underpowered and overpriced. Dual processors, even in OS X, do not make a significant difference unless multitasking. Other than a few niche applications, even the top-of-the-line PowerMacs are outmoded by the cheaper sub-$1500 1.6-1.8GHz Pentiums and 1.2-1.5GHz Athlons. The main memory bus utilizing SDRAM is now a joke compared to now commonplace DDR and Rambus buses. It's getting to the point now that mobile P4's systems in the competition's laptops will outperform the PowerMacs in processing power and memory bandwidth.
As performance is concerned, Apple is hopelessly behind and will remain so for the foreseeable future. Dwindling sales over the last two years are a testament to the market's opinion of the PowerMacs.
<strong>I'd buy a new machine every year or two if Apple gave me something worth upgrading to over what I have. Of course Apple wants us to buy a new machine instead of attempting to upgrade what we have. They're in the business of selling computers. I'm OK with that. The only problem is they don't offer anything worth upgrading to. They cut their own neck in a way. Hell, if the machines were worth it, I'd be a happy Apple customer and buy one every year or two regardless of if they were forcing the issue with things such as compatibility and upgradeablity. It's like they have a total disregard for their customers anymore. Do they want us to become the Borg and just comply like the MS freaks?</strong><hr></blockquote>
you somewhat accidentally touched on a really interesting topic...
Although many of us complain that Apple's machines aren't cutting edge enough, etc., we rarely stop to acknowledge the clear lifespan advantage of apple hardware. Search ebay for about 30 minutes for used apple hardware. consider the prices vs. the original sticker prices. then try doing the same with old Dells. no comparison. clearly, Apple hardware has at least, a perceived, though i would argue real, lifespan advantage. personally, i find my beige G3 MT 300MHz (oc'd to 333MHz), which is now exactly four years old, much more useful than my 500MHz Celeron (less than three years old). in fact, the only useful thing i find to do with the celeron is act as a Freesco router.
of course, the G3 was top-of-the-line when it was purchased, and the celeron was not. but the point still holds. (in general)
[ 03-03-2002: Message edited by: concentricity ]</p>
If Apple charges $2000 for a brand new machine that is only marginally better than a 3 year old machine, then yes, used Apple hardware will retain it's value quite well.
If clockspeeds were to double across the board tomorrow, what do you think would happen to the value of the 3 year old hardware?
<strong>
you somewhat accidentally touched on a really interesting topic...
Although many of us complain that Apple's machines aren't cutting edge enough, etc., we rarely stop to acknowledge the clear lifespan advantage of apple hardware. Search ebay for about 30 minutes for used apple hardware. consider the prices vs. the original sticker prices. then try doing the same with old Dells. no comparison. clearly, Apple hardware has at least, a perceived, though i would argue real, lifespan advantage. personally, i find my beige G3 MT 300MHz (oc'd to 333MHz), which is now exactly four years old, much more useful than my 500MHz Celeron (less than three years old). in fact, the only useful thing i find to do with the celeron is act as a Freesco router.
of course, the G3 was top-of-the-line when it was purchased, and the celeron was not. but the point still holds. (in general)
[ 03-03-2002: Message edited by: concentricity ]</strong><hr></blockquote>
I don't disagree that Apple computers hold their value longer. I feel though a lot of the reason is that there is not that much of a technology jump in 2-3 year old Macs and today's latest offerings. People can save alot of money buying a used Mac and still have much of the capability of the newer machines. In the PC world it's different. There are constant changes and upgrades that machines become dated quickly and don't hold their value. Thus PC manufacturers sell more PC's. To take it a step further, add economies of scale in there from the higher volume they move and that's one reason they can keep their new PC prices lower. Maybe Apple can learn from this(I know, I know. Steve isn't stupid). Again, give us we want, something worth upgrading to and they will sell more Macs. This increased volume could even increase their margins by lowering their cost since most Mac users are used to paying a premium over PC's anyway. Mac users generally don't complain about the price, only what they are getting for that price. With OS X and the other great software available, Apple could sell Macs like crazy if they could just give us a reason to upgrade.