Deducing from a marketing standpoint
Okay, I'm going to work backwards here. All this is based on the assumption that there won't be any G5's announced at MWSF.
In order to differentiate the consumer and pro lines, a G4 iMac seem unlikely.
The fact that current G3 iMacs are at speeds of 500,600 and 700, any G4 (should it be used) regardless of AltiVec, would be difficult to sell at anything lower than 700mhz.
So if a G4700 is the new low end unit, perhaps the high end is 867mhz. (The low end having a 100 bus with a 133 speed bus in the high end)
That leaves little headroom for the towers at 1.0, 1.2 and 1.4. and not enough of a difference in performance between the two product lines.
Therefore, I think Apple may keep the iMac at a G3 chip (thus keeping the cost as low as possible) and increading speeds to 800 and 900 mhz.
Obviously, if there is a G5, then...never mind
In order to differentiate the consumer and pro lines, a G4 iMac seem unlikely.
The fact that current G3 iMacs are at speeds of 500,600 and 700, any G4 (should it be used) regardless of AltiVec, would be difficult to sell at anything lower than 700mhz.
So if a G4700 is the new low end unit, perhaps the high end is 867mhz. (The low end having a 100 bus with a 133 speed bus in the high end)
That leaves little headroom for the towers at 1.0, 1.2 and 1.4. and not enough of a difference in performance between the two product lines.
Therefore, I think Apple may keep the iMac at a G3 chip (thus keeping the cost as low as possible) and increading speeds to 800 and 900 mhz.
Obviously, if there is a G5, then...never mind
Comments
So if a G4700 is the new low end unit, perhaps the high end is 867mhz. (The low end having a 100 bus with a 133 speed bus in the high end)
That leaves little headroom for the towers at 1.0, 1.2 and 1.4. and not enough of a difference in performance between the two product lines.</strong>
That's more than a little headroom. There could be an entire swath of headroom. It's very simple:
iMac:
667 to 867 MHz MPC 74xx
No L3 backside cache
PC133 SDRAM
5400 RPM ATA/66
32 MB Radeon
Power Mac:
867 to 1067 MHz MPC 74xx
2 MB L3 backside cache
PC2100 DDR SDRAM
7200 ATA/100
64 MB GeForce 3 or Radeon 7500/8500
I would estimate about 10% performance difference between an iMac G4 at 867 MHz with SDRAM and w/o backside cache versus a Power Mac G4 with DDR SDRAM and with backside cache. And this doesn't take into account dual processors, hard drive performance and graphics performance.
<strong>Therefore, I think Apple may keep the iMac at a G3 chip (thus keeping the cost as low as possible) and increading speeds to 800 and 900 mhz.</strong>
800+ MHz PPC 750fx chips aren't a foregone conclusion for Q1 02. They might only be available at 700 to 800 MHz only. It won't be a bad bet to take at all.
[ 12-15-2001: Message edited by: THT ]</p>