The AI "Braintrust": Speculation of what is to come. Join in with your knowledge.
Lets think here what has just happened.
First the facts.
We have gotten New PowerMacs. They are MPC7455 G4s that could be called the Apollo. We have a $500 price drop on the top of the line and a $200 price drop on the middle of the line. The bottom end has gotten a $100 price drop which is not all that good. Apple is putting the fastes chips in the dual model. This indicates that they have a lot of these chips. Also apple is putting 800mhz chips in the bottom of the line instead of the suspected 866Mhz. We have G4 iMacs that are selling faster than viagra and a old powermac that is selling worse than...well worse than they should be. We have no hard facts that we will see a G5 any time soon other than Dorsals post which, although I believe he is who he says, does not really provide a time table. Motorola has only about 12 people left in their semiconducter devision and the chance of them coming out with a G5 is all in the hope of others.
Motorola is sampling the MPC7445 which is the low power version. With a top speed right now of 800Mhz. This means We will see new powerbooks soon. OR DOES IT...
FireWire 2, Gigawire or IEEE1394b what ever you want to call it is indead ready. ( At least in the beginning of January it only awaited formalization) So why is it not in the current PowerMacs?
The ibooks are still G3s the only G3s apple really has left. The iMacs are G4s. Ummm.
Screen saver runs out the last day of march. This does not mean anything in its self but does add to what we already know.
Could it be that IBM is making the G5? Why would it have to be Motorola? IBM does make the G3s that are in the iBooks. Why not the G5s for the powermacs.
The way things are set up now really makes it seem like a new chip is about to come out. I mean just look at apple's product line up. But if the MPC7455 is the apollo what could it be beside the G5. Does any one know what chip the iMac has? I am thinking it's the same one in the low in powermac.
People have been asking apple for a prosumer tower and it seems that we may be getting one with the price drops we have seen on these new powermacs. yea sure 1699 is still kinda high but it is a hundred cheaper than the top end imac.
I think the facts abviously point to a new chip coming out. The questions are what will it be. Have we yet to see the G4 apollo. Will it be a G5 made by IBM. Maybe apple has just given up on the promarket.
If we do not see some sort of major revision at MYT I will be very surprised. But what will be in these revisions.
I think if all of us put our heads together we can find out what is to come from apple. I have started the appleinsider "BrainTrust". Lets not have any debates over credibility but instead just take every thing with a "grain of salt". I will request this topic closed if it gets completely off topic like some of the other ones.
GENTLEMAN START YOUR ENGINES!!!
[ 01-29-2002: Message edited by: M5884 ]</p>
First the facts.
We have gotten New PowerMacs. They are MPC7455 G4s that could be called the Apollo. We have a $500 price drop on the top of the line and a $200 price drop on the middle of the line. The bottom end has gotten a $100 price drop which is not all that good. Apple is putting the fastes chips in the dual model. This indicates that they have a lot of these chips. Also apple is putting 800mhz chips in the bottom of the line instead of the suspected 866Mhz. We have G4 iMacs that are selling faster than viagra and a old powermac that is selling worse than...well worse than they should be. We have no hard facts that we will see a G5 any time soon other than Dorsals post which, although I believe he is who he says, does not really provide a time table. Motorola has only about 12 people left in their semiconducter devision and the chance of them coming out with a G5 is all in the hope of others.
Motorola is sampling the MPC7445 which is the low power version. With a top speed right now of 800Mhz. This means We will see new powerbooks soon. OR DOES IT...
FireWire 2, Gigawire or IEEE1394b what ever you want to call it is indead ready. ( At least in the beginning of January it only awaited formalization) So why is it not in the current PowerMacs?
The ibooks are still G3s the only G3s apple really has left. The iMacs are G4s. Ummm.
Screen saver runs out the last day of march. This does not mean anything in its self but does add to what we already know.
Could it be that IBM is making the G5? Why would it have to be Motorola? IBM does make the G3s that are in the iBooks. Why not the G5s for the powermacs.
The way things are set up now really makes it seem like a new chip is about to come out. I mean just look at apple's product line up. But if the MPC7455 is the apollo what could it be beside the G5. Does any one know what chip the iMac has? I am thinking it's the same one in the low in powermac.
People have been asking apple for a prosumer tower and it seems that we may be getting one with the price drops we have seen on these new powermacs. yea sure 1699 is still kinda high but it is a hundred cheaper than the top end imac.
I think the facts abviously point to a new chip coming out. The questions are what will it be. Have we yet to see the G4 apollo. Will it be a G5 made by IBM. Maybe apple has just given up on the promarket.
If we do not see some sort of major revision at MYT I will be very surprised. But what will be in these revisions.
I think if all of us put our heads together we can find out what is to come from apple. I have started the appleinsider "BrainTrust". Lets not have any debates over credibility but instead just take every thing with a "grain of salt". I will request this topic closed if it gets completely off topic like some of the other ones.
GENTLEMAN START YOUR ENGINES!!!
[ 01-29-2002: Message edited by: M5884 ]</p>
Comments
Only reason that it makes sense to me that IBM wouldn't develop the chip is Altivec. Motorola owns that, which as far as I know, is why IBM only makes the G3 and not the G4 right now.
Just my $0.02.
For the rest of 2002, we'll have to put up with countless angry "F**k Apple" threads from people who expect the G5 tomorrow. We'll also suffer thousands of "insiders" who insist the G5 will be out tomorrow/Monday/next week and that it'll have 3.2Gb FireWire, USB 2.0, a bus that has more bandwidth than the machine needs, and an ATI/nVIDIA card depending on which manufacturer is hottest at the time.
More posters will threaten to buy an Athlon-based machine, and tell us so repeatedly and with excessive use of capital letters.
Apple will introduce slightly bumped iMacs in the summer, G4 iBooks in summer or fall, a tweaked and bumped PowerBook in spring or summer, and bumped Power Macs in the fall.
Everyone here will find more to complain about than last year.
For the rest of 2002, we'll have to put up with countless angry "F**k Apple" threads from people who expect the G5 tomorrow. We'll also suffer thousands of "insiders" who insist the G5 will be out tomorrow/Monday/next week and that it'll have 3.2Gb FireWire, USB 2.0, a bus that has more bandwidth than the machine needs, and an ATI/nVIDIA card depending on which manufacturer is hottest at the time.
More posters will threaten to buy an Athlon-based machine, and tell us so repeatedly and with excessive use of capital letters.
Apple will introduce slightly bumped iMacs in the summer, G4 iBooks in summer or fall, a tweaked and bumped PowerBook in spring or summer, and bumped Power Macs in the fall.
Everyone here will find more to complain about than last year. <hr></blockquote>
The simple fact is, NO ONE is more right or wrong than anyone else on these boards. It's been interesting watching those who say "There is no G5" claim some sort of superiority over those who insist the G5 is coming out tomorrow.
Fact is, no person here has any more insider information than the next person. And the mere statement that the G5 will _not_ be here is based on as much (or little) fact as any other argument.
<strong>
Only reason that it makes sense to me that IBM wouldn't develop the chip is Altivec. Motorola owns that, which as far as I know, is why IBM only makes the G3 and not the G4 right now.
Just my $0.02.</strong><hr></blockquote>
IBM doesn't use AltiVec because they don't like it, not because Motorola won't let them.
IBM is the company that came up with the RISC philosophy in the first place, and they're still quite fond of it. They want the CPU to be a clean, general-purpose design that farms out specialized tasks to specialized hardware.
If they start making PowerPCs with vector units, it's either because someone paid them to (was it Nintendo?) or because they changed their minds about the role a CPU should play. The latter is unlikely, but Motorola might have convinced them by winning a number of big contracts for the 74xx series. Digital signal processing is huge now, and getting bigger, and that's AltiVec's (and any other vector processor's) playground.
<strong>
The simple fact is, NO ONE is more right or wrong than anyone else on these boards. It's been interesting watching those who say "There is no G5" claim some sort of superiority over those who insist the G5 is coming out tomorrow.
Fact is, no person here has any more insider information than the next person. And the mere statement that the G5 will _not_ be here is based on as much (or little) fact as any other argument.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Sure.
Want to argue that my requested prediction is inaccurate, though?
<strong>I like the fact that we are all on equal playing field here not having any informaiton on when the G5 is going to come out...however, I feel that the question should not be when we would expect it to come out, but whether or not to wait until it does. Right now I will be very content with my new flat-panel imac since it has all the features i could want at a reasonable price. So that when I do drool over the new G5, whenever it comes out; I will still have money left-over to convince the wife to let me get one.
So true. If you keep waiting for "the next big thing", you'll never have a computer on your desk, and Apple's current offerings are more than capable of performing 95% of the tasks users need to do.
Don't get too itchy about that G5, though. What I didn't mention in my first post is that once the G5 is finally announced next year, we'll have six to twelve months (possibly more) of people complaining in Software Discussion about when their favorite app is going to be optimized for G5...
Only reason that it makes sense to me that IBM wouldn't develop the chip is Altivec. Motorola owns that, which as far as I know, is why IBM only makes the G3 and not the G4 right now.
Just my $0.02.
funny cuz I'm pretty sure apple wasn't to happy with altivec, it is great but their bich was that apps had to have exrta code specifically for altivec. Further, it was my understanding that altivec commands were to be imbedded into the G5 chip. It would sure speed things up especially fro non altivec stuff (games?) I came across this info a long time a go (a year or so) so I'm sure it's all up in the air by now but hey wild sprculation abounds.
it's my understanding that the chip in the new pm's are apolo's. Although apple hasn't made any mention of this the tech's I know are talking like that's the case. It seems to be a reasonable assumption since the appolo isn't planned to scale too much further. Any comments to this? I trust my sources but since I haven't seen the machine first hand....
Personally I can smell the g5's right around the corner, even with the latest update apples product line makes little sense. I can't see pro's continuing to be content using the same processor as an imac for too long. Expandability alone does not make a pro kit. Also, it just feels like update time apple crosses product features when transitioning from new to old tech usually for about one revision. Take the g3 tower to g3 imac transition, or the powerbook g3 - powerbook g4. Maybe they like to test hardware configs with the older "older hardware" (wich they know works) as sort of a test for the real world. Logical, since they can never be sure what new hardware is gonna do once freaky consumers and pros add all of their third party software and hardware.
ofcourse, moto could F---- things up yet again for the apple faithfull. The apolo could be thier delay mechanism cuz they still can't get thier heads out of thier a----. Obviusly apple is not as large of a concern for moto as apple customers would like them to be, hell, Apple would like them to be. I can't figure it out.
Why am I so hung up on a G5? cuz of the rumored features, 64 bit (intrigeuing), L3 ddr cache, (what do you know, it's in the newest machine in the middle of a crossover?), faster bus DDR ram architecture, embedded cache, (hey we got that too) scalability, (well beyond 1.4GHZ) and cooloest of all is the embedded altivec commands, altivec as we know it (so I've read on apples website itself) is that they wanted the g5 to have the altivec commands built deirectly into the chip. Cool, cuz app's no lomger need xtra code to execute these commands. Not only does it mean all apps get altivec but it also means that it's be a snappier process without xtra code. This includes games for those types who can't quite thier bitchin. (Apple would almost have to do this in their own cuz moto sure as hell doesn't care about altivec in it's embedded chips).
Whatever..... In the face of waiting I appreciate a forum for such speculation. Sort'a like some whacked support group for disenfranchised mac fans. I love my apple I just whish they were a bit more cutting edge like they were when I bought my Beige. Ofcourse maybe I just know far too much for my own good compared to what I used to think I knew about computers. ?????
I do think we will see new powerbooks at MWT. This is because of the MPC7445 chip that should be ready by then.
[quote]Further, it was my understanding that altivec commands were to be imbedded into the G5 chip.<hr></blockquote>
Although it may be possible to "auto-vectorize" sequences of instructions on the fly, this would (most likely) require huge resources on the chip. I suspect that Altivec references would refer to a reworking of the vector units and some new SIMD instructions added to Altivec II, or some CPU architecture differences re. Altivec in the G5. Code vectorization is most likely to be done by programmers/compilers rather than on the fly.
Part of the reason that the PowerMac G4s have L3 cache is that their memory is still single data rate SDRAM, compared to RDRAM and DDR SDRAM in the PC world. Without it, memory bandwidth and benchmarks would suffer. Also, it differentiates their performance from the new iMacs more. Hope it's still there for G5s/DDR Apollos/monkeys and typewriters/whatever's next.
Cutting edge Apple: mmmm, PowerMac 9600
<strong>Apple will introduce slightly bumped iMacs in the summer, G4 iBooks in summer or fall, a tweaked and bumped PowerBook in spring or summer, and bumped Power Macs in the fall.</strong><hr></blockquote>I don't think the iMacs will be updated... the low end iMac will only have seen like 3 months of retail exposure... I'd look to either a special event later in the summer or MW expo paris. (hopefully before school starts...) G4 iBooks sound good tho. PMs I think have a better chance of being updated at MWNY then the iMacs... I mean the rumors posted on MOSR and The Register will have been more then 6 months old, "Dorsal" has been testing G5 boxes, the PM's are a lot cheaper then they used to be. If no G5s then look for DDR and faster FSB G4s if for no other reason then for marketing purpses.... As for the display promotion, it ends on the 31st so maybe new displays @ MWTYK?
[quote]Everyone here will find more to complain about than last year.[/QB]<hr></blockquote>
no doubt...
[ 01-29-2002: Message edited by: orb24 ]</p>
IBM could certainly make G5's but they've never wanted altivec, either because it didn't fit into their processor philosophy or because it came from motorola. we know recent apple software relies heavily on altivec, so it couldn't be totally abandoned UNLESS IBM were in a position to deliver something equivalent...or better. but what would that be?
can a 64bit G5 (SOI, .13 micron process) running a 64bit version of OSX take the place of altivec's specialized 128bit processing unit? could apple leverage the hardware it acquired from raycer to create its own version of altivec...one that would not only do heavy numbercrunching but also accelerate aqua too? i think motorola is short for the earth. we see it. undoubtedly apple sees it too.
Once (better said, if) Mot moves to 0.15 fabbing, the G4 can scale quite nicely for a while, first to be found in the pro towers, allowing the older chips (read: the ones announced now in the towers) to migrate to the iMac.
Here's were things get funky: if IBM makes the G5 (altivec or not), it doesn't necessarily mean Apple's 'dumping' Mot, as everyone seems to think. Putting the G4 in the iMac (higher volume of sales vs. tower) keeps Mot happy, hell, they just sold 150,000 of the puppies in a month.
I see the following over the year:
new bump in the laptop sector at tokyo, Ti and iBook get a bump, with the iBook going to faster bus across the board, and Ti topping out at say 800 MHz. G4 not likely n the iBook, but you never know, they could throw one in the 14" model....
WWDC gives us 10.2 and the 'real' appolo, repleate with photoshop bakeoffs which noone cares about. I'm also liking the posts about Apple doin stuff in the audio sector (i.e. the Pro side to iTunes ala iMovie/FCP). Initial speeds in the 1Ghz-1.4Ghz range.
MWNY gives us 1.4-1.8 GHz towers, bump the iMac to 1 GHz, possible monitor choices (iMac SE all over again), and what the heck, make the iBook a G4.
Finally MWSF: Just as the iMac was the show this year, the G5 finally rises from the vapour, and the world basks in its glow (which might be read as a heat issue
Just a guess....and not all that educated to boot
<strong>zooming out for a second, it seems highly unlikely that apple would feel confident in motorola's ability to continue development of the PPC. remember when the 867's came out? much of the work was done by apple in-house because even then motorola simply didn't have the resources to dedicate to it. i doubt the situation has improved much since then.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Apple has always had an active part in PPC development. Mot learned from the mistakes that stalled the G4, and the result has been an aggressive schedule of improvements, no delays, and increasingly good yields (notice that the highest clocking chip is now offered as a dual? instead of the lowest-clocking chip this time last year?).
[quote]<strong>IBM could certainly make G5's but they've never wanted altivec, either because it didn't fit into their processor philosophy or because it came from motorola. we know recent apple software relies heavily on altivec, so it couldn't be totally abandoned UNLESS IBM were in a position to deliver something equivalent...or better. but what would that be?</strong><hr></blockquote>
At worst, IBM will fab whatever you pay them to. You have to pay them a lot, but they'll do it.
[quote]<strong>can a 64bit G5 (SOI, .13 micron process) running a 64bit version of OSX take the place of altivec's specialized 128bit processing unit?</strong><hr></blockquote>
Not unless it represented a truly breathtaking leap in performance. Even if it did, that only means that an AltiVec-compatible SIMD unit bolted onto that platform would really scream, and that would preserve the significant efforts Apple and other developers have poured into AltiVec.
Apple helped hammer out the spec for AltiVec. In fact I have read that they wrote the spec wholesale, but the point is that they didn't just make do with this wierd thing that Mot came up with for their own purposes.
[quote]<strong>could apple leverage the hardware it acquired from raycer to create its own version of altivec...one that would not only do heavy numbercrunching but also accelerate aqua too?</strong><hr></blockquote>
First, AltiVec is one of the things that Motorola unambiguously did right. It's a beautiful implementation of a beautiful (for a SIMD unit) instruction set, and it has delivered in spades. All it needs to lap the competition again is the ability to work with vectors of double-precision (64 bit) floats, and more registers. Neither would be surprising in a big, hot (for Motorola) 64-bit CPU.
In sum, Apple would be crazy to abandon it. If any of OS X can be accelerated by a SIMD unit, Apple could do a lot worse than use Motorola's tech.
[quote]<strong>i think motorola is short for the earth. we see it. undoubtedly apple sees it too.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Motorola - specifically, Motorola SPS - is in a transitional period. They're trying aggressively to turn the company around. The 7451 and 7441 have won them some big customers besides Apple. In the worst case, Apple now has the option to buy out Motorola's interest in AIM, and thus in the PowerPC, so if everything goes wrong Apple can at least recover all the IP.
[ 01-29-2002: Message edited by: Amorph ]</p>
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Personally I can smell the g5's right around the corner, even with the latest update apples product line makes little sense. I can't see pro's continuing to be content using the same processor as an imac for too long. Expandability alone does not make a pro kit. Also, it just feels like update time apple crosses product features when transitioning from new to old tech usually for about one revision. Take the g3 tower to g3 imac transition, or the powerbook g3 - powerbook g4. Maybe they like to test hardware configs with the older "older hardware" (wich they know works) as sort of a test for the real world. Logical, since they can never be sure what new hardware is gonna do once freaky consumers and pros add all of their third party software and hardware.
---------------------------------
This is half my argument.
Just in case there is still doubt on whether the MPC7455 is the apollo go to <a href="http://www.appleturns.com"; target="_blank">www.appleturns.com</a> and read their first part.
I guess we have come farther than we thought. Apple really didn't make a big deal about the apollo at all. This could mean they are not going to stay with it for long. If they had to stick with the apollo till MWNY they would have hyped it. The MPC7455 is really a better chip than the other G4s. They could have saved it till seybold and made a little bigger deal about it.
It just keeps getting stranger...
<strong>
Sure.
Want to argue that my requested prediction is inaccurate, though?
A safer prediction is no more or less accurate than any other.
As far as your prediction of users on these boards posting the demise of Apple, and berating them for every move, that is a prediction that I can wholeheartedly agree with.
Oh, I think we'll be past that speed on desktops by then. The slowest CPU in the Power Mac line is currently 800 MHz. I don't think they want to backtrack from that clock frequency.
[quote]Apple will introduce slightly bumped iMacs in the summer, G4 iBooks in summer or fall, a tweaked and bumped PowerBook in spring or summer, and bumped Power Macs in the fall.<hr></blockquote>
The iMacs will be 800 and 933 MHz in 6 months. The Power Mac G4s will start at 933 MHz and go as high as 1.2 GHz...hopefully. I'm not sure if the iBooks will go G4 yet or not...Apple might want to keep an IBM CPU in its product line. The PowerBooks will be available at 667 and 800 MHz before Summer.
[quote]Everyone here will find more to complain about than last year. <hr></blockquote>
I won't. I got my first new pro desktop in more than 4 years.
<strong>
Sure.
Want to argue that my requested prediction is inaccurate, though?
OK I'll bite Belle...
Top ten reasons why Belle is wrong:
10): Intel Alpha
9): Intel Itanium
8): AMD Hammerhead
7): "Fuel" from SGI
6): Maya for OSX
5): PhotoShop for OSX
4): iMac 2 with G4
3): Low key Apollo "roll-out", er release
2): "We're going to kick ass" - Steve Jobs
1): @ MWNY. If not the G5 ... then what?