Timeframe for next PowerMac?
Does anyone think that the last speed bump was to clear out some stock of the outdated logic board PowerMacs? Until, the dual core comes out? I believe they used to introduce new PowerMacs in August too...instead of the 1 year to update that seems currently what has been happening.
Any thoughts?
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Any thoughts?
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Comments
Originally posted by namachtag
Does anyone think that the last speed bump was to clear out some stock of the outdated logic board PowerMacs? Until, the dual core comes out? I believe they used to introduce new PowerMacs in August too...instead of the 1 year to update that seems currently what has been happening.
Any thoughts?
g
I believe that this would be a really bad decision if Apple were to do this. Apple will have a great chip-set from Intel next year about this time or a little later. Visit tom's hardware to see that Yohna can currently run neck and neck with the P4 and Itaniums and consume less than 40 watts. To do what you are guessing would mean that Apple would redesign a MB and ship it only to have it on the market for less than a year and then have to redesign again to take advantage of the Intel chip set. A smarter move would be to use PPC in things like the mini and iMac. The pro crowd is too smart for this. They like always will buy what they need, and only what they need. A Mac with four processors, may be a great thing, but it will be weighed against what is the value of an obsolete computer going to be 5 years from now. If you need a PowerMac to put food on the table, buy one. If you think that it will be out dated sooner rather than later than you are correct. I see better video cards, maybe even better memory options, and better DVD drives as to what to hope for in updates, not much more.
I belive Apple is going to transitions its laptops, mini, and development kits to Yonah, wait untill the re-engineared Yonah for desktops comes out, then release PowerMacs based on it. Xserve will probebly be the last item to transition sometime in 2007.
Then in 2007 all hell breaks loose in the Powermacs with Dual-Core Conroe chips taking pole position and running Leopard 10.5.
Merom will be in the Powerbooks and kicking major tailend.
The iMacs will be using Dual-Core Sossamon chips and the Mac mini/eMac line will use Yona Dual and Single core chips.
Originally posted by Brendon
I believe that this would be a really bad decision if Apple were to do this. Apple will have a great chip-set from Intel next year about this time or a little later.
The transition begins in one year, and we know that the Powermacs will be the last Mac to switch to Intel, except for maybe the xserves. That's at least 2 years, probably longer, that the Powermacs have to go, and they've got to absolutely ROCK if Apple is to convince anyone to buy them with Intel coming. A twin dual-core G5 Powermac would be just the ticket to ease Apple's transition.
IMO IBM promised Apple this dual core chip and has missed their deadline by about 6 months or so, and so now Apple is just waiting. This last PM update was scheduled to be the dual core version, but since IBM couldn't get it up, Apple had to go for the 7% speed bump and hold their breaths. We probably still will see the dual core PMs, probably this summer, but I could also so the Steve getting pissed off and switching Powermacs to Intel sooner than we all thought.
edit: IBM's delay of the 970mp was probably the last straw for Jobs, on top of IBM's inability or lack of motivation in designing a mobile 970.
any thoughts?
which machine would you configure?
after effects, illustrator and photoshop are the main apps i use
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Originally posted by Junkyard Dawg
The transition begins in one year, and we know that the Powermacs will be the last Mac to switch to Intel, except for maybe the xserves. That's at least 2 years, probably longer, that the Powermacs have to go.
Actually, that's mostly untrue. Jobs indicated that intel-mac products would be shipping within a year of 6/6/05, or in other words could potentially ship anytime between today and 6/6/06. I would highly doubt that he's going to wait more than 2 years before starting to ship new PM's. I'd suspect that he wants to get the intel elephant into the masses as soon as possible to keep sales of macs positive.
Originally posted by mynamehere
Actually, that's mostly untrue. Jobs indicated that intel-mac products would be shipping within a year of 6/6/05, or in other words could potentially ship anytime between today and 6/6/06.
Only detail: don't expect Intel-based Macs before Apple takes back the P4 developer machines (around middle 2006) and makes sure that there is already a solid code base for the new platform from third-party developers, so that releasing an Intel Mac makes sense.
I would highly doubt that he's going to wait more than 2 years before starting to ship new PM's.
Why? It is him that said that. Transition starts in a year from now from the consumer machines and portables that suffer mostly in perfomance, followed by the Power Macs and/or Xserves in 2007. Apparently, given IBM and Intel roadmaps (which Apple is aware of and we here are not), Apple expects that the G5 will hold well his ground against x86 processors for two years from now or so. This means that there will be at least one more Power Mac update with PowerPC (G5) processors. What exactly, it remains to be seen.
It is interesting to see how the iMac, the only consumer-level G5 machine, will be positioned in this transition.
I'd suspect that he wants to get the intel elephant into the masses as soon as possible to keep sales of macs positive.
Of course, this is another reason to start with the consumer machines and the Powerbooks.
That said, I'd expect new PowerMac models before January. And these would be more than just a minor bump, but an actual revision. After that, those newer models could get bumped at least once before switching to Intel.
Originally posted by mynamehere
Actually, that's mostly untrue. Jobs indicated that intel-mac products would be shipping within a year of 6/6/05, or in other words could potentially ship anytime between today and 6/6/06. I would highly doubt that he's going to wait more than 2 years before starting to ship new PM's. I'd suspect that he wants to get the intel elephant into the masses as soon as possible to keep sales of macs positive.
Steve kept his options open. I think what will keep pace for Apple's transition is software availability. Apple will not release the first Intel-based Mac before the major software titles have been ported to it. If developers for all the big OS X apps are ready in 6 months, then so Apple will follow.
With the Powermacs Apple wants both the big apps, and the smaller, more specialized apps to be ready. Since Powermac users use a more diverse array of software, it makes sense to transition them last, and again, if Apple sees that anyone can buy an Intel-based Powermac and run their niche applications on it, then they'll release it.
Two years is a conservative guess, but it is realistic. Apple has never been a company to refresh all of the lines within a few months; they pride themselves on having among the most efficient inventory and distribution networks in the business, which may not be good for consumer but is perfect for the bottom line. I don't see Apple throwing out their conservative business model for this transition, if anything I see them playing it MORE safe so they avoid getting burned and tainting the image of Intel-based Macs.
Let me put it this way: do you ever remember not waiting on a new Apple product? Whether it be in waiting for the new product to be announced, or waiting for an announced product to ship, it seems like we are always waiting on Apple. I even remember a few times where Apple emptied the channels, and then left them dry for weeks while they got a new product set to go in the pipeline.
Maybe these problems were due solely to Motorola and IBM, but I'm not convinced.
Originally posted by Brendon
To do what you are guessing would mean that Apple would redesign a MB and ship it only to have it on the market for less than a year and then have to redesign again to take advantage of the Intel chip set.
Although not as drastic as ppc->intel. Wasnt the MDD a redesign of the Quicksilver? It introduced a brand new MB, and less than a year later, the G5s came out.
Im assuming the MDD was mostly an experiment for the G5 towers. Therefore, its should be fairly feasable for Apple to release one more G5 update, a redesigned MB and possibly case, as precursor to the intel powermacs.
But again, the ppc->intel is a much different beast. So yeah, the chances of this happeneing are probably slim, but still entirely possible.
I would expect them to release the first Mactel when most of the major software has been Intellified.
They've been with Intel for 4 years now and decided to drop IBM 2 months ago. You think Steve doesn't have something lined up? I wouldn't be surprised if they have a box ready to go right now.
Originally posted by namachtag
And prices now are so cheap for the top of the line machines, i don't see why people gripe... my 9600 was $5200 new!
My neighbor just got a Dell dual core 3 GHz intel box in some super quite case (audio recording), 1 GB ram, 160 GB hdd, printer, and monitor for $1600 delivered.
Yeah, we all know Apple's stuff is better but I believe this is where a lot of the gripes come from.
Originally posted by aplnub
My neighbor just got a Dell dual core 3 GHz intel box in some super quite case (audio recording), 1 GB ram, 160 GB hdd, printer, and monitor for $1600 delivered.
It is amazing how rapidly the dual core Intel chips have spread through the PC lineups. Dell has already moved the chips down into the mid range market. Even more amazing is how rapidly the 64 bit instruction set has spread throughout the P4 line up and even into the Celeron line. Bragging rights of two years ago are gone.
I don't see a super quite case at Dell. The Pentium D chip has Speedstep TM which allows low power operation when it isn't doing anything however per Intel documentation the 3 Ghz Pentium D has a thermal load of 130 watts which hardly makes it a dainty chip when it starts doing hardcore audio work. It will probably still sound just like a Hoover. (The 2.8 Pentium D drops the max. load down to 90 watts.)
I'm interested in knowing what kind of performance Conroe is going to have. It's supposed to have a TBD of only 90 watts for both cores. Not too shabby and a 4MB cache sounds good as well.
I see Apple have maybe two more PPC Powermac upgrades and then it's on to Intel.
Back in 95 I waited for the PCI powermacs to arrive before I replaced my LCII and that was a smart move.
Back in 2000 I waited for AGP to replace my 7200 and that was smart to.
Why would I buy an AGP non dual core G5?
If Apple has allredy done the support chips and other designs and IBM can deliver dual core G5s we will a substantial G5 upgrade and the G5 will last until 2007.
But what if the G5 stagnate and the Intel CPU in the minimac of 2006 will be faster than the the G5 in the tower...
My guess is that the towers will be replaced in 2006 not in 2007.
Originally posted by Silverdog
I don't see a super quite case at Dell.
Here is the link to the case that looks like the one he has. Notice that it has air inlets on both sides and then more around the front bottom. The case has a huge air intake with fans you would see in a powermac. He placed his order 1 month before it was supposed to debut and Dell sent it to him 2 weeks early.
The dual 3 GHz chip steps down to 2.8 GHz. Evidently, that is the biggest step down this chip will do.
You can specifiy which processes use which processor, but you have to do that every time you reboot (or write some script thing or program to do it for you).
My neighbor has noticed that every once in a while, when you are doing something that is processor intensive, the computer will swap processes on the processors. We assume this is to spread the heat over both chips.
http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/
Looks really interesting!
Originally posted by anand
The 970 MP and GX have been announced:
http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/
Looks really interesting!
All sorts of wild things happening lately. A dual core 1.6 Ghz Powerbook would be nice.