Remember about a year ago, when the iMac was the best price/performance in Apple's lineup? The 800 MHz iMacs were close enough in speed to the low end PowerMacs (particularly the 733, which became 800 soon after the release) that they completely stole sales away from the PowerMacs. Who wants an 800 MHz G4 with a CD-RW when you can get an iMac of equal speed, for just slightly more, that includes a Superdrive and a 15" flat panel? The 933 was a true pro machine, with 2 MB of L3 cache and a SuperDrive, but the 800 was very disappointing. I believe the 800 MHz SlowSilver was one of the biggest targets of ridicule against Apple. And now look what they've done! They're going to release iMacs that wipe the floor with the new low-end PowerMac, if not literally then at least in terms of value. A non-dual PowerMac isn't even worthy of the "Pro" moniker. Pros want and need duals, and that's what they'll buy.
I expect this new machine to be a slow seller once updated iMacs come out. In fact, the only way Apple can get around it is to a) add an extra processor to it at no charge or b) never update the iMac. It looks like they're already trying option b, but I hope they break the cycle pretty soon...
Damn, you'd think they would have learned from their mistake...
Oh, in case I haven't made this clear, duals are much better than singles. Sheesh. From the way a lot of people here are handling it, it looks like BRussell's Misguided Brigade would just LOVE a PowerMac with a single 1.7 GHz Pentium 4 in it.
"It only has one processor but GHz number is teh biger!"
OS X uses dual processors. The OS itself spreads its work onto both so running any application is technically multitasking - you're running OS X and whatever application you're running. Even the OS is divided into a number of things - look in process viewer to see. The Dock, the Window Manager, the Finder, etc... they are all different processes, they are all optimized for dualies and they can all have their work spread out.
I don't even think it's possible nowadays to "single-task" anymore. It just doesn't happen, even if you only have one app open. You will even see an advantage on a dual processor machine if you're running a single application that is single-threaded, just because the OS will be able to use the other processor to give the application as much power as it can use.
Remember about a year ago, when the iMac was the best price/performance in Apple's lineup? The 800 MHz iMacs were close enough in speed to the low end PowerMacs (particularly the 733, which became 800 soon after the release) that they completely stole sales away from the PowerMacs. Who wants an 800 MHz G4 with a CD-RW when you can get an iMac of equal speed, for just slightly more, that includes a Superdrive and a 15" flat panel? </strong><hr></blockquote>
Well, me actually.
I ordered the high end iMac but cancelled it when the low end 800 MHz G4 PowerMac was announced shortly afterwards.
Reasons?
Speed. Both lacked a level 3 cache, but the PowerMac was still faster due to the 133MHz bus.
Hard drive speed. 7200 rpm rather than 5400 rpm.
CD burning speed. I regularly burn CDs but never DVDs. The SuperDrive in the iMac would have reduced CD burning speed considerably.
Internal expandability (hard drives, optical drives, graphics cards, PCI cards etc). Now the SuperDrive (Pioneer DVR-105) burns CDs relatively quickly, I might replace the CD-RW with one.
Separate monitor. I got a 15 inch studio display with the PowerMac that I can now replace with a 20 inch without ditching the computer.
Taking all things into consideration, I'm happy I made the right decision.
All I want to know is where in the hell is the iMac upgrade!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm getting pissed off!!!!!!!!!!!!!! APPLE!!!!!!!!!!!!! Remember the iMac yea the sunflower freaker computer you guys released last year...? Well you guys do realize it's been over 12 months, right???!!!! DAMN UPGRADE THE FREAKING THING NOW!!!!!!!!!
I actually love the specs of the 1Ghz tower-its just what I wanted, especially the quiet part. The problem is that it is still too expensive at $1500. Apple just can't seem to get itself to price their desktops properly. I don't know what their problem is, but they would be just selling like crazy at $1199 and they should have either kept a 15 inch LCD or made the 17 inch no more than $600. Oh well-next tower upgrade I will buy the current model at a reduced price......................
Comments
I knew the MiniPB-induced lovefest wouldn't last forever.
Remember about a year ago, when the iMac was the best price/performance in Apple's lineup? The 800 MHz iMacs were close enough in speed to the low end PowerMacs (particularly the 733, which became 800 soon after the release) that they completely stole sales away from the PowerMacs. Who wants an 800 MHz G4 with a CD-RW when you can get an iMac of equal speed, for just slightly more, that includes a Superdrive and a 15" flat panel? The 933 was a true pro machine, with 2 MB of L3 cache and a SuperDrive, but the 800 was very disappointing. I believe the 800 MHz SlowSilver was one of the biggest targets of ridicule against Apple. And now look what they've done! They're going to release iMacs that wipe the floor with the new low-end PowerMac, if not literally then at least in terms of value. A non-dual PowerMac isn't even worthy of the "Pro" moniker. Pros want and need duals, and that's what they'll buy.
I expect this new machine to be a slow seller once updated iMacs come out. In fact, the only way Apple can get around it is to a) add an extra processor to it at no charge or b) never update the iMac. It looks like they're already trying option b, but I hope they break the cycle pretty soon...
Damn, you'd think they would have learned from their mistake...
"It only has one processor but GHz number is teh biger!"
OS X uses dual processors. The OS itself spreads its work onto both so running any application is technically multitasking - you're running OS X and whatever application you're running. Even the OS is divided into a number of things - look in process viewer to see. The Dock, the Window Manager, the Finder, etc... they are all different processes, they are all optimized for dualies and they can all have their work spread out.
I don't even think it's possible nowadays to "single-task" anymore. It just doesn't happen, even if you only have one app open. You will even see an advantage on a dual processor machine if you're running a single application that is single-threaded, just because the OS will be able to use the other processor to give the application as much power as it can use.
<strong>I agree with you, Matsu.
Remember about a year ago, when the iMac was the best price/performance in Apple's lineup? The 800 MHz iMacs were close enough in speed to the low end PowerMacs (particularly the 733, which became 800 soon after the release) that they completely stole sales away from the PowerMacs. Who wants an 800 MHz G4 with a CD-RW when you can get an iMac of equal speed, for just slightly more, that includes a Superdrive and a 15" flat panel? </strong><hr></blockquote>
Well, me actually.
I ordered the high end iMac but cancelled it when the low end 800 MHz G4 PowerMac was announced shortly afterwards.
Reasons?
Speed. Both lacked a level 3 cache, but the PowerMac was still faster due to the 133MHz bus.
Hard drive speed. 7200 rpm rather than 5400 rpm.
CD burning speed. I regularly burn CDs but never DVDs. The SuperDrive in the iMac would have reduced CD burning speed considerably.
Internal expandability (hard drives, optical drives, graphics cards, PCI cards etc). Now the SuperDrive (Pioneer DVR-105) burns CDs relatively quickly, I might replace the CD-RW with one.
Separate monitor. I got a 15 inch studio display with the PowerMac that I can now replace with a 20 inch without ditching the computer.
Taking all things into consideration, I'm happy I made the right decision.
[ 01-30-2003: Message edited by: RodUK ]</p>
...Now I feel a lot better