Should I wait for a 970 or buy an eMac now?

tiktik
Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
Right now I'm on an iBook and feeling significantly cramped (iBook 600 with Rage 8MB video).



Is it worth it to wait for a 970? I will not have the money available again right away, so I'd hate to blow it on an eMac when a 970 could be right around the corner.



Any advice?
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 26
    tiktik Posts: 57member
    Sorry...I posted this in the wrong place. Please move me before the forum Gods decend upon me!
  • Reply 2 of 26
    teddyteddy Posts: 155member
    I am not an expert on the 970 but I assume it will be pretty expensive when it comes out. I have an iBook 600 with 640 Ram and Jaguar and it is a pretty nice computer for email internet and writing papers. I also have an eMac 800 with the DVD-R drive. For the basic applications mail, safari, itunes it isn't that much faster. If you are using iMovie and Photoshop then that is a different story so if you aren't doing anything to heavy dudy I would stick out the wait, save some money and get the 970 when that comes out. Hope I helped you a little bit.



    Teddy
  • Reply 3 of 26
    rogue27rogue27 Posts: 607member
    I'd guess the 970 is about 6 months off. Getting an e-mac now and maybe getting a 970 next year after they've gone through a revision may be the best thing if you are feeling cramped on your iBook.



    However, you'd probably feel just as cramped on the eMac or get a headache from the low refresh rate you get at max resolution.
  • Reply 4 of 26
    cosmocosmo Posts: 662member
    I'm not sure about waiting for the 970 because even if it is released in Macs within the next 6 months it won't make its way to the emac for a long time. If you are looking at an eMac i would wait for the next reversion (4x superdrive, faster processor, etc) because the current offering has been out for a long time.

    When this reversion will come is another question, but if you can wait it might be worth it.
  • Reply 5 of 26
    tiktik Posts: 57member
    The eMac would just be a cheap upgrade in ability until the 970s come out.



    I'm not waiting for a 970 in an eMac. I have enough money to buy a dual 867 NOW, but I don't want to get soaked in 6 months, so I was thinking about an eMac as a stopgap solution.
  • Reply 6 of 26
    tiktik Posts: 57member
    The eMac has a much larger screen and I've found out that I don't need the portability after all. The eMac also has a G4 and is upgradable to 1G of RAM.



    BUT....if I can hold out and wait for a 970 Dual Processor, I'd be willing to pay $2,500-$3,000 for it. And if it's cheaper, I'm definitely getting an Apple Display.



    But can I wait? Should I? The agony!
  • Reply 7 of 26
    powerdocpowerdoc Posts: 8,123member
    I will buy a 1 Ghz Powermac, it cost 1500 $, but will kick the ass of any emac (better HD, better Mobo, better video card, L3 cache, PCI slots, firewire 800, gigabit ethernet ...). This computer will let you wait for 12-18 months, at this moment you will have very good PPC 970 at a good prize. The first PPC 970 could be expansive.

    You will have to buy a screen, but if you consider to buy a PPC 970, you will need also a screen.



    I use to think that i will buy a PPC 970 as soon he will arrive, but i think that late april i am going to order a dual 1,43 ghz powermac. It will replace my g3 333 (who sucks : cannot upgrade it to mac OS 9 :mad; for a weird reason) and i think he will be a lot, lot faster.
  • Reply 8 of 26
    os10geekos10geek Posts: 413member
    Seeing as the eMac costs about 40% of what the 970 will cost without a monitor, the eMac would be a good choice to keep you tided over. The bad thing is that the eMac will resell for a price so low that anyone in the market for an eMac (read: very few people) will say "It is so cheap to buy it new, why take the risk of buying it used?" and go and buy one through Apple. I would recomment a "disposable" Mac, such as a Beige G3.
  • Reply 9 of 26
    i-bent-my-wookiei-bent-my-wookie Posts: 326member
    [quote]Originally posted by Tik:

    <strong>The eMac has a much larger screen and I've found out that I don't need the portability after all. The eMac also has a G4 and is upgradable to 1G of RAM.



    BUT....if I can hold out and wait for a 970 Dual Processor, I'd be willing to pay $2,500-$3,000 for it. And if it's cheaper, I'm definitely getting an Apple Display.



    But can I wait? Should I? The agony!</strong><hr></blockquote>



    That is a very optimistic price for a dual 970 in my opinion. Apple may even create a higher-end line for the 970 until it realizes economies of scale and can introduce it into the remainder of the mac lineup.



    Conceivably it could be 12 - 18 months before we see a 970 in that price range.
  • Reply 10 of 26
    os10geekos10geek Posts: 413member
    Seeing as the current fastest dual config could tie with the fastest single processor (1.8 ghz) 970, the dual 970 should be about 3500+ dollars.
  • Reply 11 of 26
    tiktik Posts: 57member
    [quote]Seeing as the current fastest dual config could tie with the fastest single processor (1.8 ghz) 970, the dual 970 should be about 3500+ dollars.<hr></blockquote>



    Is that really justified? It's not the speed jump that's important, it's the cost of production. If Apple can make a reasonably priced dual 970, they would do well to price it in a range that switchers who want something faster than a pentium 4 (or whatever Intel has cooking at that time) could be comfortable buying. The single processors won't necessarily smash the P4s the way a dual would. Not only that, but it would sort of waste all the time and effort that Apple has put into making OS X dual processor compatible if only a few people can take advantage of that built in power...AND it now makes all the dual processor code that Adobe and others have built into their software marginal. Can Apple really expect third party software companies to cater to the dual system and then drop it now that there's a decent PPC chip that will run in singles? That might frazzle some already tenuous relationships.
  • Reply 12 of 26
    mrmistermrmister Posts: 1,095member
    I don't think Apple will impose a giant premium on PPC970 chips--they know they have been behind on performance, and while I expect it will be just as expensive as the PowerMacs are now, I don't think they'll be trying to gouge.



    It *is* Apple, though--they've been stupid on this count before.
  • Reply 13 of 26
    sc_marktsc_markt Posts: 1,402member
    [quote]Originally posted by Powerdoc:

    <strong>I will buy a 1 Ghz Powermac, it cost 1500 $, but will kick the ass of any emac (better HD, better Mobo, better video card, L3 cache, PCI slots, firewire 800, gigabit ethernet ...). This computer will let you wait for 12-18 months, at this moment you will have very good PPC 970 at a good prize. The first PPC 970 could be expansive.

    You will have to buy a screen, but if you consider to buy a PPC 970, you will need also a screen.

    </strong><hr></blockquote>





    I'd say an even better move would be to buy one of the dual 867's that are still available. With these, you can still boot into OS 9, you get dual processors, and this machine can be modified to run as a dual 1GHz with 167MHz bus and the faster memory that you use when you get a dual 1.25 or dual 1.42.

    Duals rule!
  • Reply 14 of 26
    gizzmonicgizzmonic Posts: 511member
    It depends on how desperate you are. Personally, I wouldn't buy a new Powermac right now, they are horribly overpriced. That eMac will be half as much as the cheapest Apple offering and perform around 80% as fast (and it will come with a monitor).



    I suggest that you hold out for the 970, especially if you're willing to spend $2,500-$3,000. Otherwise, you could buy a used Powermac or eMac and sell them when the 970 hits the market.
  • Reply 15 of 26
    tiktik Posts: 57member
    How about a Dual 867 Power Mac for $1420? Is that overpriced for where Power Macs will be in six months?
  • Reply 16 of 26
    bodhibodhi Posts: 1,424member
    Off to General Discussion....
  • Reply 17 of 26
    rokrok Posts: 3,519member
    i said it before, i'll say it again...



    i will NEVER buy a computer where i can't upgrade either the processor or the video card over time. the only exception is a laptop, and i had better be out and about with it for at least 5 days a week (school or work) before paying almost 100% more for half the speeds, no upgradeability, etc.



    that being said, remember that even though an emac has a lot going for it compared to your ibook, it is still the runt of the apple litter right now (ibooks notwithstanding, and i see them moving to 700 and 800 MHz G4's with their next revision to be on par with the eMac... hell, they may as well just rename it the eBook, but i guess there are trademark problems there). going by MHz alone, the emac is 1/4 the speed of the high-end machine. and the next upgrade -- even if it's just another g4 -- will dwarf that emac quickly.



    now, having said THAT, buy whatever you can afford to get the work you need to get done right now. that is the best advice i can give. if you can't afford a tower, then buy what you can afford, and invest in peripherals that can migrate up to a new computer in the future.some piece of hardware always comes out around april/may, to give them something to talk about for wwdc, and then summer...



    there's my two cents.



    [ 02-23-2003: Message edited by: rok ]</p>
  • Reply 18 of 26
    tiktik Posts: 57member
    So I guess the consensus is that I should wait for the 970s?
  • Reply 19 of 26
    scottscott Posts: 7,431member
    I'm a 970 sceptic. You'd be luck to see a 970 machine you want to buy this year. I'd be happy if Apple shipped one you want to buy but they have a history of botching new CPU production units.
  • Reply 20 of 26
    splinemodelsplinemodel Posts: 7,311member
    When the 970 goes to 90nm next year you'll see it pop up in books. However, the 7457 will be pretty damn fast too, and that will be in books sooner, as will it be a lot cheaper, I'm guessing, since IBM has a lot of R&D to pay for with the 970.
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