A few G5 tidbits
For the past month or so, Apple Demo Days have been going on in France, promoting the XServe. Apparently, the Apple managers there have been a bit talkative, and have leaked eerily similar info... Here's what has been told:
The G5 is being evaluated right now, and the G4 will further be modified. The G5 isn't stated for this year, perhaps the end of 2003. It does exist though, and works fine right now, however the manufacturing process is far from ready, much too costly and low yield percentage. (confirmed by many different sources) The G5 will be manufactured in France (Grenoble), the factory is not finished yet.
The G4's evolution will not be dramatic, however the motherboards will significantly change with HyperTransport (some say the XServe already implements HT) and better cache structures.
The next mobos will not support 9, so it's pretty much the end of the line for it...
The kernel following that of Jag will be clusterable at a system level...
all this is here
<a href="http://www.macbidouille.com/niouzcontenu.php?date=2002-06-21#2827" target="_blank">http://www.macbidouille.com/niouzcontenu.php?date=2002-06-21#2827</a>
The site has been quite reliable for a while now, since they rarely indulge in rumormongering... So take it FWIW.
The good news being that since the G5 is still far away (further than MWSF), Apple has no reason whatsoever to introduce stop-gap solutions at NY, except if the mobos aren't ready.
[ 06-21-2002: Message edited by: SYN ]</p>
The G5 is being evaluated right now, and the G4 will further be modified. The G5 isn't stated for this year, perhaps the end of 2003. It does exist though, and works fine right now, however the manufacturing process is far from ready, much too costly and low yield percentage. (confirmed by many different sources) The G5 will be manufactured in France (Grenoble), the factory is not finished yet.
The G4's evolution will not be dramatic, however the motherboards will significantly change with HyperTransport (some say the XServe already implements HT) and better cache structures.
The next mobos will not support 9, so it's pretty much the end of the line for it...
The kernel following that of Jag will be clusterable at a system level...
all this is here
<a href="http://www.macbidouille.com/niouzcontenu.php?date=2002-06-21#2827" target="_blank">http://www.macbidouille.com/niouzcontenu.php?date=2002-06-21#2827</a>
The site has been quite reliable for a while now, since they rarely indulge in rumormongering... So take it FWIW.
The good news being that since the G5 is still far away (further than MWSF), Apple has no reason whatsoever to introduce stop-gap solutions at NY, except if the mobos aren't ready.
[ 06-21-2002: Message edited by: SYN ]</p>
Comments
[ 06-21-2002: Message edited by: ouroboros ]</p>
How the hell are any print professional supposed to keep up with anything now?
the amount of software, drivers, etc etc required before we move to X hasnt even been scratched.
I told my boss to hold off on buying a new machine because of the newer ones coming out soon.
Man, this sucks.
OSX is fine for consumers - but no print /graphic design professional office is gonna have anything to do with it.
UGH
1) there will be for the moment no factory in Grenoble : it's a research center of big chip companies like Mot or Phillips
2) if the G5 is ready , i don't think that it needs 18 months in order to have a good production. 6 months will be certainly sufficiant. The G5 will be fabbed upon the same process than the 8450. So if they are not able to produce industrialy the G5 they wont be able to produce the 8450 either.
I Still hope a G5 for MWSF 03 and a minor speed bump of the 7455 on a simplified version of the Xserve mobo, with DDR memory dealing with a single MPX bus.
[QB
all this is here
<a href="http://www.macbidouille.com/niouzcontenu.php?date=2002-06-21#2827" target="_blank">http://www.macbidouille.com/niouzcontenu.php?date=2002-06-21#2827</a>
The site has been quite reliable for a while now, since they rarely indulge in rumormongering... So take it FWIW.
[ 06-21-2002: Message edited by: SYN ][/QB]<hr></blockquote>
I ran that through Google to translate it (for shame, an essentially unilingual Canadian... <img src="graemlins/embarrassed.gif" border="0" alt="[Embarrassed]" /> ) and was wondering why they kept referring to "bone 9", and then I remembered that in french "OS" is "bone"...
the perils of machine translation.... <img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" />
Blark
I hope this French rumor site has a better source for Apple information:
<a href="http://membres.lycos.fr/applefr/Rumeurs.html" target="_blank">http://membres.lycos.fr/applefr/Rumeurs.html</a>
<strong>I doubt this rumor is true :
1) there will be for the moment no factory in Grenoble : it's a research center of big chip companies like Mot or Phillips
</strong><hr></blockquote>
Well, it seems like there is no Fab *yet* in Grenoble, but <a href="http://http://www.minatec.com/minatec_uk/lettre/numero3.htm#last" target="_blank">soon there will be one ...</a>
Considering that AMD's Fab30 in Dresden, Germany, took 3 years to build, the end-of-2003 timeframe seems somewhat optimistic. On the other hand, Motorola is already going for 13 micron in its Austin fabs, maybe Grenoble would be more about the later switch to 90 nm and below, i.e. mobile/low power G5s, as well as 300 mm wafers... . As always, only time will tell.
[ 06-21-2002: Message edited by: heinzel ]</p>
<strong>
Well, it seems like there is no Fab *yet* in Grenoble, but <a href="http://http://www.minatec.com/minatec_uk/lettre/numero3.htm#last" target="_blank">soon there will be one ...</a>
Considering that AMD's Fab30 in Dresden, Germany, took 3 years to build, the end-of-2003 timeframe seems somewhat optimistic. On the other hand, Motorola is already going for 13 micron in its Austin fabs, maybe Grenoble would be more about the later switch to 90 nm and below, i.e. mobile/low power G5s, as well as 300 mm wafers... . As always, only time will tell.
[ 06-21-2002: Message edited by: heinzel ]</strong><hr></blockquote>
Or perhaps the rumours of the G5 on the 0.13 process are wrong (imagine that, incorrect rumours!) and it will require a 0.09 micron process.
If Motorola has a couple of G4s lined up for the meantime (and for the consumer lineup once the G5 arrives) then Apple will be able to "hang on" until then. They have said the G4 will make it to 1.8 GHz, and who knows what enhancements they are going to build into (a la 7500 rumours).
I'm not being pessimistic but fat chance that the G5 ships even close to second Gen Operton/Clawhammer and Intel Prescott based machines.
This rumor has to be false ...we'd better hope.
No need to get all emotional about it
G-News
Let me repeat myself:
Which G4?
Which G5?
engpjp
PS I do believe things will look up - but not as quickly or as dramatically as hoped for.
If there's something missing and you need it for OS X, shoot the company an email and let them know you'll buy it when they bring it out.
What am I saying? As if all those fancy native OS X Adobe apps aren't good enough for you . . .
No need to get all emotional about it"
(Picture of Lemon Bon Bon on chair with rope around neck...)
'You said 'sometime' in 2003...so we're not ruling out San Fran? Well, that's alright then...'
(Get's down from chair...)
Lemon Bon BOn :eek:
Classic will still be around for a good long while, of course. But OS X-boot-only sounds like a good security / switch to OS X, dammit! step.
Suspicious though. Is OS X-boot-only even technically possible?
<strong>
Well, it seems like there is no Fab *yet* in Grenoble, but <a href="http://http://www.minatec.com/minatec_uk/lettre/numero3.htm#last" target="_blank">soon there will be one ...</a>
Considering that AMD's Fab30 in Dresden, Germany, took 3 years to build, the end-of-2003 timeframe seems somewhat optimistic. On the other hand, Motorola is already going for 13 micron in its Austin fabs, maybe Grenoble would be more about the later switch to 90 nm and below, i.e. mobile/low power G5s, as well as 300 mm wafers... . As always, only time will tell.
[ 06-21-2002: Message edited by: heinzel ]</strong><hr></blockquote>
This would tie in to what appears to be Apple's 3-year product lifecycle , with MWSF03 used for the launch of PMac G5 (which I think is 3 years after G4), and MWSF04 used for TiBook G5 (equally 3 years after TiBook G4, which I'm sure was when I purchased mine).
The launch of smaller, more thermally efficient G5s for 2004 could also imply 4-way servers in a dense package (3U anyone) which would be neat for a number of markets.