Your probably right, but we now know the new iMac has a fan so any heat from the front side bus can' t be used as an excuse.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
Um, it's not like the presence of a single, possibly as-small/silent-as-possible fan would nullify any heat issues, you know?
[quote]<strong>"Share in development cost" would be the paramount reason, but if Apple is to be moving to DDRsdram why not try it out in the new iMac, get some experience.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
Guess they'd have dedicated test machines for, well, testing. Why use shipping machines?
[quote]<strong>
What about backside cache, wouldn't want to upstage the low end PowerMac that lacks it??
</strong><hr></blockquote>
All Macs currently shipping have backside cache. (You're probably referring to the L3 cache on the high-end PowerMacs.)
[quote]<strong>Maybe you can tell me, since I'm not in the graphics industry, When will dual processor AMD chip sets be introduced at a competative price to Apples $3500 dual 800? Will the dual G4 800 Apple computer still be competative with a dual 1.6GHz AMD? I honestly don't know.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
There are dual AMD chipsets right now, but they are hard to come by, pretty expensive and need a special power supply.
Given Windows NT or above, dual Athlons will be as efficient compared to dual G4s as single Athlons are to single G4s (the Athlons might even scale better because of their FSB).
The statement above about not being drag racers is only partially true. Being in the graphic arts industry, I know very few graphic designers, art directors etc that cannot take advantage of real speed increases in their systems. In fact, they NEED those increases to stay competitive in an industry that is requiring faster turnarounds and production timeframes. Make Photoshop faster? Any 3d rendering program faster?
It is not the end of the line for Apple in the professional sector. Many graphic artists are as emotionally attached to their systems as we who wander these boards are. However, as the difference in speed between these systems becomes QUANTIFIABLE, there will be no way to tell management NO when they come in and require a change for the sake of productivity increases. </strong><hr></blockquote>
Well, it depends on how you define 'productivity,' right? A shop switching to PC (for instance) would not only have to clear out all the Mac hardware, install and set up a new server and clients etc., it would have to train all its personnel on the new platform, and designers hate anything that impedes their ability to work. Slow render times relative to an Athlon box aren't really relevant. If you're rendering something or running a PS filter, with OS X you can switch to another app and work on something else. I know you can do that on XP or W2K but that's not the point: the point is that second-by-second render times don't mean a hell of a lot compared to working on a system that's comfortable for you and that you know well.
Well, I don't know about G5. I think so, but....Steve did say that it would take about a month to transition the product line over to OSX. This may point to an UPGRADE of some kind.....it damn well better.
It really seems that Apple has ignored the Pro line for quite some time....They need some serious work in that department....
"Guess they'd have dedicated test machines for, well, testing. Why use shipping machines?"
If Apple & Motorola have not already tested the pee waddly squat out of DDRsDram by now they are in worse shape than I thought. My guess is they have. A shipping model under manufacturing conditions would almotst always result in further refinements.
"All Macs currently shipping have backside cache. (You're probably referring to the L3 cache on the high-end PowerMacs.)" - Your right L3 backside cache provides increased speed - so the point still stands.
"There are dual AMD chipsets right now" ummm interesting - so the dual arguement is slowly waning.
Look, I'm not slamming the new iMac. For its' intended market it's a great machine, but just because Apple introduced a G4 iMac, does not mean that the Apollo nor the G5 is imminent. The Apollo and the G5 will be introduced when ready.
They will not be introduced because the need for them requires it. They will not be introduced because the PowerMacs must have them to compete or be better than the iMac. Apple wouldn't hold them back for any spurious market reason. Apple knows they are behind in speed and will slap those suckers in computers as fast as they come off the assembly line.
As for the Apollo(ie. 0.13µ ??and SOI), it will absolutely rock. If it runs @ 1.4GHz the speed will be amazing and be competative with anything AMD or Intel currently has. But I think too many people have way to high expectations for when they will be introduced.
\tSuperDrive (combination DVD-R/CD-RW drive; writes DVD-R discs at 2x speed, reads DVDs at 6x speed, writes CD-R and CD-RW discs at 8x speed, reads CDs at 24x speed,)
Description of the SuperDrive in the PowerMac:
SuperDrive (2) (combination DVD-R/CD-RW drive; writes DVD-R discs at 2x, reads DVDs at 4x, writes CD-R discs at 8x, writes CD-RW discs at 4x, reads CDs at 24x)
The one in the iMac is faster than the one in the Powermac. Apple has yet to update the drive in the Powermac. Could this mean that a PowerMac upgrade is immenent?
To me, however, there is no evidence more incontrovertible of the impending release of the G5 than the specs of the new iMac. Does anyone actually believe that Apple would bump the specs of its consumer product so dangerously close to the professional line if a substantial increase wasn't imminent? Granted, the G5 might not make it until MWNY, but there will definitely be a substantial speed bump (Apolo) before then.
BTW, don't mean to go off on a tangent here, but if the iBooks were outselling the Tibooks when they only had a 12.1 display I can only imagine how much this gap will increase now.
<strong>By then who knows what speeds AMD and Intel will be at. Will AMD and Intel have their 64 bit processors in desktops by then? I don't know, but when Steve Jobs said Apple will be closing the MHz gap, he was wrong, way wrong. It's now a GHz gap and widening.
Motorola doesn't give one rats a$$ about desktop CPU's and it's time Apple realized this. Please don't misunderstand me, I'm not saying Motorola is a bad engineering company, it's just that they design embedded processors and they obviously think it's in their best interest NOT TO CONCENTRATE ON DESKTOP CPU'S and this has been apparent for a very long time. Apple desperately needs to change suppliers for their cpu's and they for some reason haven't done anything about it.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Hey, this is "Future Hardware", right? I'll bet, somewhere, deep in the bowels of Apple HQ, there's a road map that includes moving from PowerPC to x86. No! I'm not saying moving Mac OS to 3rd party x86 PC's. I'm talking about switching the architecture of Mac's from PowerPC to x86. Like they did with 68K to PowerPC. They'd retain the tight hardware/software integration, but reap the benefits of keeping up, CPU-speed-wise, with the other 95%.
Of course, there are some really neat things about PowerPCs that would be hard to give up. Less power, heat and size.
Does anyone actually believe that Apple would bump the specs of its consumer product so dangerously close to the professional line if a substantial increase wasn't imminent?
</strong><hr></blockquote>
I kind of do, actually. I think the next upgrade will be absolutely minimal, topping around 1.1 Ghz. I think this "but they have to release G5s now!" sort of reasoning is not very healthy, and a ticket to more disappointment come MWT (or whatever).
the g4 supports only two chips and will most likeley max out not too far above 1.1ghz.
Final cut pro 3 needs upgrades to do it's job well. The 867 I work on does the job marginally well.(the memory gets tired after 5 or so hours of steady taxing use; mostly that's what I do) Apple towers Need ddr ram, 64 meg vid card (ddr) 233mhz. bus , embedded cache etc to work well doing new jobs.
Apple wants to "own" the low end video film prod/ editing market.Recent aquisition film logic inc.
If the g4 is to remain consumer prosumer fine but pro needs major attention and allot more power than even a dopped up g4 can provide (not more than 1.6ghz and probably only duall chips. a g5 from what I remember is promised to do just that. Finally give the macs raw power within non-accelarated apps.(most of them) Even those that actually work well with altivec are still a bit sketchy (fcp). I have to be patient or else crash the system.
Is the g5 a rumor? No it's a nescessity unless the appollo turns out to be an unheard of mod that will take it anywher's neer the equivilent amd/ pentium systems. The fact that they utilize ddr ram, faster buses etc doesn't help either.
Speculation yes but it's also what I've come to excpect if Apple expects me to buy a new tower versus an avid suite.
[quote]<strong>"Sure you can't drop in a second hard drive or a new video card" -EXACTLY
", but would you really need to with 60 GBs or a 32 MB graphics card?" Maybe not, but a scratch disc for music, video etc would be very nice.</strong><hr></blockquote>
So buy one and plug it in via FireWire. VST even offers a FireWire RAID solution. SCSI doesn't make sense unless you're assembling 10K or 15K RAIDs.
And if you haven't noticed, under OS X PCI cards have been rapidly obsoleted by software. The only ones left cost 6-10 times more than the iMac. If you're going to spend that kind of money, might as well get a tower.
Obviously, we can't be certain but there are several interesting points that make the g5 a likely addition within the coming months.
Imac's get g4's fantastic but why buy a tower? Slots? you really don't need many of those anymore. usb and few audio video devices abound. A non-pro limitation that is easily overlooked with a 40% price drop.
The Apollo, probably won't support more than two processors, probably won't exceed much more than 1.4ghz.
The Apollo, why bother making it a low power consumption, low heat model if it's bound for towers. Further, why the longer pipeline? Won't that just reduce its efficacy in rendering, rasterizing etc. Not the best way to gain a few mhz. if it's bound for pro systems.
Apple wants to be the low-end media editor of choice replacing even low end (under $25k us) avid suites. Thier recent acquisition of film logic corp. is evidence enough to support that but if you add the recent updates to QT and FCP you can't deny it.
I run an 867 with final cut pro three and film logic at work. It works well given it has no hardware support but it still needs to be coddled. The memory eventually bogs after seven or so hours of intense use. Still the same with adobe ae. I have to shut it down for several minutes every few hours. (usually corresponds with my break so it's not a hassle)
A 1.6 ghz g5 (which notably is said to embed all of the altivec enhancements into the processor) would ease those memory bogs significantly. Add ddr ram, a 333mhz bus (big if but at least 233mhz) 64 meg ddr vid card etc. and you have the machine that apple needs to take over the offline edit market.
As recent film grad whose watched all of this go down while my employers buy the toys and set them against their avid systems puts me in a good place to observe. I'm now ready to buy, but apple needs to make several improvements to their hardware before they become full-fledged film/ broadcast video editing suites. I've come to expect it because what apple wants cannot happen until the hardware reaches the next plateau and I can?t imagine that they?ll wait too much longer with such an impatient public.
Remember the PowerMac and iMac shared the G3 for a while? Why not the G4? There's no rule that they have to have a different CPU. So long as people shell out money for over price under powered hardware Apple will be fine.
The register reported that G5s are imenint. Also, Architosh reported that developers have noted massive speed increases of 10-20x using sealed powermac boxes.
Both of these reports suggest that the G5 is nearing completion.
I'm sure that motorola has the capacity to work on more than one chip at a time. The G5 will be for the powermacs, the apollo G4 is for the portables and consumerables. They will both come out about the same time.
Sheesh, you guys make it sound like Moto has a single fab, where they have to make ONE CPU at a time. Already there are several versions of the G4 shipping, just add a G5 to the mix and you have the near future.
Remember the PowerMac and iMac shared the G3 for a while? Why not the G4? There's no rule that they have to have a different CPU. So long as people shell out money for over price under powered hardware Apple will be fine
But in this case the g4 really represents a dead end for the pro user. Especiall interms of media editing. What could they possibly bump it up to maybe a 933mhz dual chip. Pointless but you make a good point apple has done it before.
They'd be underestimating the power needs of FCP Adobe AE and even OSX. If that's their plan they'll regret not making headway into a market that they've wanted for years now simply because the users are ready but not willing to wait. As much as I hate pc's if my editing suite had to be one then so be it. I work on them all the time it's a machine. Fortunately I've got time to wait.
A 1.6 ghz g5 (which notably is said to embed all of the altivec enhancements into the processor) would ease those memory bogs significantly. Add ddr ram, a 333mhz bus (big if but at least 233mhz) 64 meg ddr vid card etc. and you have the machine that apple needs to take over the offline edit market.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Why would that have any effect on the memory at all? I assume you are usin OS 9? Then your problem is most likely memory fragmentation which is why the restart fixes it. You'd have to move to OS X to fix it for real. But then OS X makes your 866 feel like a 500.
Exactly, I've run it both with osx and os9. Osx "feels" more stable but it is slow. but I really think the problem is that apple is trying to replace the need for a $10-15k video card with its cpu. It works, just not perfectly well when compared to the avids I work on. I geuss you can't excpect miracles for 1/5th the price.
Comments
<strong>
Your probably right, but we now know the new iMac has a fan so any heat from the front side bus can' t be used as an excuse.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
Um, it's not like the presence of a single, possibly as-small/silent-as-possible fan would nullify any heat issues, you know?
[quote]<strong>"Share in development cost" would be the paramount reason, but if Apple is to be moving to DDRsdram why not try it out in the new iMac, get some experience.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
Guess they'd have dedicated test machines for, well, testing. Why use shipping machines?
[quote]<strong>
What about backside cache, wouldn't want to upstage the low end PowerMac that lacks it??
</strong><hr></blockquote>
All Macs currently shipping have backside cache. (You're probably referring to the L3 cache on the high-end PowerMacs.)
[quote]<strong>Maybe you can tell me, since I'm not in the graphics industry, When will dual processor AMD chip sets be introduced at a competative price to Apples $3500 dual 800? Will the dual G4 800 Apple computer still be competative with a dual 1.6GHz AMD? I honestly don't know.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
There are dual AMD chipsets right now, but they are hard to come by, pretty expensive and need a special power supply.
Given Windows NT or above, dual Athlons will be as efficient compared to dual G4s as single Athlons are to single G4s (the Athlons might even scale better because of their FSB).
Bye,
RazzFazz
<strong>
The statement above about not being drag racers is only partially true. Being in the graphic arts industry, I know very few graphic designers, art directors etc that cannot take advantage of real speed increases in their systems. In fact, they NEED those increases to stay competitive in an industry that is requiring faster turnarounds and production timeframes. Make Photoshop faster? Any 3d rendering program faster?
It is not the end of the line for Apple in the professional sector. Many graphic artists are as emotionally attached to their systems as we who wander these boards are. However, as the difference in speed between these systems becomes QUANTIFIABLE, there will be no way to tell management NO when they come in and require a change for the sake of productivity increases. </strong><hr></blockquote>
Well, it depends on how you define 'productivity,' right? A shop switching to PC (for instance) would not only have to clear out all the Mac hardware, install and set up a new server and clients etc., it would have to train all its personnel on the new platform, and designers hate anything that impedes their ability to work. Slow render times relative to an Athlon box aren't really relevant. If you're rendering something or running a PS filter, with OS X you can switch to another app and work on something else. I know you can do that on XP or W2K but that's not the point: the point is that second-by-second render times don't mean a hell of a lot compared to working on a system that's comfortable for you and that you know well.
It really seems that Apple has ignored the Pro line for quite some time....They need some serious work in that department....
"Guess they'd have dedicated test machines for, well, testing. Why use shipping machines?"
If Apple & Motorola have not already tested the pee waddly squat out of DDRsDram by now they are in worse shape than I thought. My guess is they have. A shipping model under manufacturing conditions would almotst always result in further refinements.
"All Macs currently shipping have backside cache. (You're probably referring to the L3 cache on the high-end PowerMacs.)" - Your right L3 backside cache provides increased speed - so the point still stands.
"There are dual AMD chipsets right now" ummm interesting - so the dual arguement is slowly waning.
Look, I'm not slamming the new iMac. For its' intended market it's a great machine, but just because Apple introduced a G4 iMac, does not mean that the Apollo nor the G5 is imminent. The Apollo and the G5 will be introduced when ready.
They will not be introduced because the need for them requires it. They will not be introduced because the PowerMacs must have them to compete or be better than the iMac. Apple wouldn't hold them back for any spurious market reason. Apple knows they are behind in speed and will slap those suckers in computers as fast as they come off the assembly line.
As for the Apollo(ie. 0.13µ ??and SOI), it will absolutely rock. If it runs @ 1.4GHz the speed will be amazing and be competative with anything AMD or Intel currently has. But I think too many people have way to high expectations for when they will be introduced.
\tSuperDrive (combination DVD-R/CD-RW drive; writes DVD-R discs at 2x speed, reads DVDs at 6x speed, writes CD-R and CD-RW discs at 8x speed, reads CDs at 24x speed,)
Description of the SuperDrive in the PowerMac:
SuperDrive (2) (combination DVD-R/CD-RW drive; writes DVD-R discs at 2x, reads DVDs at 4x, writes CD-R discs at 8x, writes CD-RW discs at 4x, reads CDs at 24x)
The one in the iMac is faster than the one in the Powermac. Apple has yet to update the drive in the Powermac. Could this mean that a PowerMac upgrade is immenent?
<a href="http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/filters/bursts/0,3422,2336937,00.html"; target="_blank">http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/filters/bursts/0,3422,2336937,00.html</a>;
To me, however, there is no evidence more incontrovertible of the impending release of the G5 than the specs of the new iMac. Does anyone actually believe that Apple would bump the specs of its consumer product so dangerously close to the professional line if a substantial increase wasn't imminent? Granted, the G5 might not make it until MWNY, but there will definitely be a substantial speed bump (Apolo) before then.
BTW, don't mean to go off on a tangent here, but if the iBooks were outselling the Tibooks when they only had a 12.1 display I can only imagine how much this gap will increase now.
<strong>By then who knows what speeds AMD and Intel will be at. Will AMD and Intel have their 64 bit processors in desktops by then? I don't know, but when Steve Jobs said Apple will be closing the MHz gap, he was wrong, way wrong. It's now a GHz gap and widening.
Motorola doesn't give one rats a$$ about desktop CPU's and it's time Apple realized this. Please don't misunderstand me, I'm not saying Motorola is a bad engineering company, it's just that they design embedded processors and they obviously think it's in their best interest NOT TO CONCENTRATE ON DESKTOP CPU'S and this has been apparent for a very long time. Apple desperately needs to change suppliers for their cpu's and they for some reason haven't done anything about it.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Hey, this is "Future Hardware", right? I'll bet, somewhere, deep in the bowels of Apple HQ, there's a road map that includes moving from PowerPC to x86. No! I'm not saying moving Mac OS to 3rd party x86 PC's. I'm talking about switching the architecture of Mac's from PowerPC to x86. Like they did with 68K to PowerPC. They'd retain the tight hardware/software integration, but reap the benefits of keeping up, CPU-speed-wise, with the other 95%.
Of course, there are some really neat things about PowerPCs that would be hard to give up. Less power, heat and size.
<strong>
Does anyone actually believe that Apple would bump the specs of its consumer product so dangerously close to the professional line if a substantial increase wasn't imminent?
</strong><hr></blockquote>
I kind of do, actually. I think the next upgrade will be absolutely minimal, topping around 1.1 Ghz. I think this "but they have to release G5s now!" sort of reasoning is not very healthy, and a ticket to more disappointment come MWT (or whatever).
apple has deveoped a new motherboard,
the g4 supports only two chips and will most likeley max out not too far above 1.1ghz.
Final cut pro 3 needs upgrades to do it's job well. The 867 I work on does the job marginally well.(the memory gets tired after 5 or so hours of steady taxing use; mostly that's what I do) Apple towers Need ddr ram, 64 meg vid card (ddr) 233mhz. bus , embedded cache etc to work well doing new jobs.
Apple wants to "own" the low end video film prod/ editing market.Recent aquisition film logic inc.
If the g4 is to remain consumer prosumer fine but pro needs major attention and allot more power than even a dopped up g4 can provide (not more than 1.6ghz and probably only duall chips. a g5 from what I remember is promised to do just that. Finally give the macs raw power within non-accelarated apps.(most of them) Even those that actually work well with altivec are still a bit sketchy (fcp). I have to be patient or else crash the system.
Is the g5 a rumor? No it's a nescessity unless the appollo turns out to be an unheard of mod that will take it anywher's neer the equivilent amd/ pentium systems. The fact that they utilize ddr ram, faster buses etc doesn't help either.
Speculation yes but it's also what I've come to excpect if Apple expects me to buy a new tower versus an avid suite.
", but would you really need to with 60 GBs or a 32 MB graphics card?" Maybe not, but a scratch disc for music, video etc would be very nice.</strong><hr></blockquote>
So buy one and plug it in via FireWire. VST even offers a FireWire RAID solution. SCSI doesn't make sense unless you're assembling 10K or 15K RAIDs.
And if you haven't noticed, under OS X PCI cards have been rapidly obsoleted by software. The only ones left cost 6-10 times more than the iMac. If you're going to spend that kind of money, might as well get a tower.
Obviously, we can't be certain but there are several interesting points that make the g5 a likely addition within the coming months.
Imac's get g4's fantastic but why buy a tower? Slots? you really don't need many of those anymore. usb and few audio video devices abound. A non-pro limitation that is easily overlooked with a 40% price drop.
The Apollo, probably won't support more than two processors, probably won't exceed much more than 1.4ghz.
The Apollo, why bother making it a low power consumption, low heat model if it's bound for towers. Further, why the longer pipeline? Won't that just reduce its efficacy in rendering, rasterizing etc. Not the best way to gain a few mhz. if it's bound for pro systems.
Apple wants to be the low-end media editor of choice replacing even low end (under $25k us) avid suites. Thier recent acquisition of film logic corp. is evidence enough to support that but if you add the recent updates to QT and FCP you can't deny it.
I run an 867 with final cut pro three and film logic at work. It works well given it has no hardware support but it still needs to be coddled. The memory eventually bogs after seven or so hours of intense use. Still the same with adobe ae. I have to shut it down for several minutes every few hours. (usually corresponds with my break so it's not a hassle)
A 1.6 ghz g5 (which notably is said to embed all of the altivec enhancements into the processor) would ease those memory bogs significantly. Add ddr ram, a 333mhz bus (big if but at least 233mhz) 64 meg ddr vid card etc. and you have the machine that apple needs to take over the offline edit market.
As recent film grad whose watched all of this go down while my employers buy the toys and set them against their avid systems puts me in a good place to observe. I'm now ready to buy, but apple needs to make several improvements to their hardware before they become full-fledged film/ broadcast video editing suites. I've come to expect it because what apple wants cannot happen until the hardware reaches the next plateau and I can?t imagine that they?ll wait too much longer with such an impatient public.
Both of these reports suggest that the G5 is nearing completion.
I'm sure that motorola has the capacity to work on more than one chip at a time. The G5 will be for the powermacs, the apollo G4 is for the portables and consumerables. They will both come out about the same time.
Sheesh, you guys make it sound like Moto has a single fab, where they have to make ONE CPU at a time. Already there are several versions of the G4 shipping, just add a G5 to the mix and you have the near future.
<strong>Architosh reported that developers have noted massive speed increases of 10-20x using sealed powermac boxes.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Oh yea that unnamed source with non-specific information on software of unknown function on mystery hardware
But in this case the g4 really represents a dead end for the pro user. Especiall interms of media editing. What could they possibly bump it up to maybe a 933mhz dual chip. Pointless but you make a good point apple has done it before.
They'd be underestimating the power needs of FCP Adobe AE and even OSX. If that's their plan they'll regret not making headway into a market that they've wanted for years now simply because the users are ready but not willing to wait. As much as I hate pc's if my editing suite had to be one then so be it. I work on them all the time it's a machine. Fortunately I've got time to wait.
<strong>
A 1.6 ghz g5 (which notably is said to embed all of the altivec enhancements into the processor) would ease those memory bogs significantly. Add ddr ram, a 333mhz bus (big if but at least 233mhz) 64 meg ddr vid card etc. and you have the machine that apple needs to take over the offline edit market.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Why would that have any effect on the memory at all? I assume you are usin OS 9? Then your problem is most likely memory fragmentation which is why the restart fixes it. You'd have to move to OS X to fix it for real. But then OS X makes your 866 feel like a 500.
Exactly, I've run it both with osx and os9. Osx "feels" more stable but it is slow. but I really think the problem is that apple is trying to replace the need for a $10-15k video card with its cpu. It works, just not perfectly well when compared to the avids I work on. I geuss you can't excpect miracles for 1/5th the price.
Maybe Apple did get G4/Alti-Vec lust and just dropped it?
<strong>The facts,
(...)
the g4 supports only two chips
(...)
</strong><hr></blockquote>
This is most definitely not true, as there are numerous quad G4 boards in the embedded market.
Bye,
RazzFazz