Anyone know the future of the Power Mac G4?
1.25GHz PowerPC G4
1MB L3 cache
256MB DDR333 SDRAM
80GB Ultra ATA drive
Combo Drive
ATI Radeon 9000 Pro
Mac OS 9 boot supported
Will they cut the price even more?
Upgrade beyond 1.25 G4?
Kill off the G4 and have only G5?
Comments
Originally posted by M.O.S.T
Anyone know the future of the Power Mac G4?
1.25GHz PowerPC G4
1MB L3 cache
256MB DDR333 SDRAM
80GB Ultra ATA drive
Combo Drive
ATI Radeon 9000 Pro
Mac OS 9 boot supported
Will they cut the price even more?
Upgrade beyond 1.25 G4?
Kill off the G4 and have only G5?
If you want a G4 PowerMac, you better act now. The G4 processor family will be alive and well for a few more years in consumer-level macs, but the G5 is taking over in the pro-level macs ... and the PowerMac is meant for pros.
I strongly suspect that Apple will introduce a new, affordable G4 desktop next year ... not an all-in-one like the current eMac or iMac but more like the old Cube or a smaller version of the PowerMac G4.
The G4 will stay around for a while simply because the G5 is too expensive for low-priced consumer-level machines. It's the same reason Intel has Celerons and Pentiums ... one is cheaper to make than the other and goes into cheaper machines. Still, the cheaper processors are MORE than capable of doing what most people need.
Anyway, if you want a G4 PowerMac (particularly one that can boot into OS9) you're better off buying one now or risk missing the last G4 PowerMac.
It's only a question of months. A 1,8 single G5 will be more performant than the dual 1,25 model.
The G4 has only an advantage of price, but Apple is more interested by selling G5 than G4. The more he will sell G5, the more his margin will be higher, or the prices of the G5 will be lower. I think that the G4 tower will disappear before the end of 2004.
On the other hand, they might keep the dual G4 tower around for awhile longer just for the shops that need to boot into os9.
FileMaker Server.
The PowerMac G4 is an incredibly valuble machine for those of us who continue to deploy FileMaker servers. It's the only Mac that can still boot into OS 9, and FM Server for OS X bites so bad that users are still demanding OS 9 bootable Macs to run Server on. When FileMaker fixes the issues and releases 7.0 Server (It's at 5.5 now) then Apple will probably kill off the G4 tower.
And before you say anything, yes I know that FM Server runs great on a windows machine but come on, I still would rather use yesterday's outdated, OS 9 booting G4 than to have to use a pee cee.
Joe
Originally posted by wmf
Dead G4 walkin'. It has no future.
People said the SAME thing about the G3 back in 2000 when the G4 was taking over. The G3 had life in "new" desktops and laptops until this year.
The same thing will happen with the G4. Apple cannot afford to put the expensive G5s in all their desktops and laptops ... unless they don't want average consumers to buy their expensive products ... which would be suicide.
When the G5 prices go down, G4s will disappear ... but by that time we'll probably have G6 chips. The only random factor is Motorola. If Motorola can continue to produce the G4s and continue to squeeze more MHz out of the chips, G4s will be around probably until 2006. If Moto continues to have problems getting G4s to Apple, IBM will have a window of opportunity to release two levels of G5s (cheap and expensive) or rush the development of the G6 and become the EXCLUSIVE supplier of processors for Apple by 2005.
Still, even in the worst-case scenario for Moto, G4s will have AT LEAST one more full year of life in "new" production desktops and laptops from Apple.
Perhaps they'll do one more price cut before not offering them anymore. That would definitely be cool! With the G5 being twice as fast shouldn't that mean the PMG4s are half their price?
Although a price cut wouldn't go a miss...
Peace,
Marc
Originally posted by Aquatic
They're still way to expensive on the Apple Store.
Perhaps they'll do one more price cut before not offering them anymore. That would definitely be cool! With the G5 being twice as fast shouldn't that mean the PMG4s are half their price?
Yes, G4s are too expensive ... but G5s are even more expensive.
Be careful about the "twice as fast" comment. Benchmarks indicate that in some apps a dual 1.25GHz G4 PowerMac is actually FASTER (by a very slim margin) than the single processor 1.6GHz G5 PowerMac.
A Dual 1.25GHz G4 is $1,599 from the Apple store. A single 1.6GHz G5 is $1,799 from the Apple Store. The dual G4 still looks like a good deal to me. When the G5 PowerMacs all go dual, the G4 PowerMacs will no longer compete at the upper level.
Originally posted by Powerdoc
The power Mac G4 has no future. The prize of the entry model of the power G5 is decreasing. When it will reach 1500 $ (it's only 300 $ less than the current G5 1,6) the G4 will disappear.
It's only a question of months. A 1,8 single G5 will be more performant than the dual 1,25 model.
The G4 has only an advantage of price, but Apple is more interested by selling G5 than G4. The more he will sell G5, the more his margin will be higher, or the prices of the G5 will be lower. I think that the G4 tower will disappear before the end of 2004.
It's for os 9 holdouts, for one thing.
Originally posted by rustedborg
The dual G4 still looks like a good deal to me. When the G5 PowerMacs all go dual, the G4 PowerMacs will no longer compete at the upper level.
The low-end G5 PowerMac will most likely always be a single processor machine. Once the low-end G5 PowerMac is a single 2.0Ghz or better, the G4 PowerMacs won't look so enticing, which may not be too long from now.
And as many have iterated - the G4 PowerMacs are hanging around only for MacOS 9 support. They'll probably be around for no more than another year - for all those Quark users (yeah Quark has a MacOS X version but people don't seem to like it or want to upgrade), FileMaker users, and other MacOS 9 holdouts.