A look at the July Power Macs now that we know the Xserve specs
Okay well we know they will increase the processor speed, thats obvious. I am guessing up to 1.4GHz with the entry model at 1 GHz. For marketing purposes that would be nice to say that the slowest Power Mac is a GHz. Now taking what we have today with the Xserve we know that there are G4's that will work with DDR on board RAM. But can Mot and Apple develop a G4 chip that can run at a faster bus than 133? Will we have dual 1.4GHz G4's with DDR ram and a 133MHz bus? Will the fiber Firewire make it on to the Power Mac? I think ATA-100 is a given. Faster PCI slots?
Lets discuss...now that we have more info to go with.
Lets discuss...now that we have more info to go with.
Comments
I think that the speed could range from 1 to 1,4ghz (1,5 ghz max) if i assume that the 7455 is able to reach 1,1 ghz (even if it as been deleted from Mot PDF files).
Like you i think that ATA 100 will be present : for the number of channels i don't know : if Apple has developped a special asic supporting 4 ata 100 : why not use in all the powermac line also, if it is 4 chips supporting each one single ATA 100 channel : i will ready to bet that it will have only one channel and one atapi channel for CD writer and DVD player or ZIP or whatever you want.
[ 05-14-2002: Message edited by: powerdoc ]</p>
<strong>This Xserve is a bad omen, IMO. I think it confirms that the Apollos don't support anything over a 133 bus, so they'll have to come out with an entirely new chip in order to support DDR. I doubt that's going to happen since the Apollos just came out a few months ago.</strong><hr></blockquote>
I agree with the Sprout.
-G4 1 - 1.4 GHz, some dual configurations, hopefully the top config.
- 256-512MB DDR-SDRAM 266
-L3 cache 2MB, L2 cache 256 or 512 KB (really depends on what Moto can do)
-ATA 133 bus (100 is nice, but doesn't support the latest really big drives. Most likely it's going to be 100 only, but I wish it was 133)
-USB 1.1
-FireWire 800Mbit
-Gigabit Ethernet
-4 RAM slots
-AGP 4x slot
-4 x PCI 64bit/33MHz, probably 2 of them 66MHz, depending on cost of the extra controller even all 4 of them
-HDs from 60 to 120 GB
Graphics cards depending on what's the latest & greatest, then at least one generation backwards, and you got it.
SuperDrive 2 in all but the entry level model
New case
Basically I'd say we'll get the mac that is based on the board that surfaced on ebay a few days ago.
I'd love to see a G5 with 333MHz DDR RAM and ATA 133 and Gigawire etc, but knowing Apple, these machines are at least a year off.
We're the lemons, and Steve is squeezing the most out of us.
G-News
Also, G-NEWS - is the superdrive 2 a prediction or do you have knowledge of one?
I would guess 1.2 Ghz DP G4s in July, with unfortunately - a 133mhz system bus. But hey, DDR SDRAM is nice.
If Apple came out with faster PowerMacs, wouldn't that look bad for the servers? Yes, I think they are a bad omen. No G5. This year! Oh well. Next MWSF maybe? I'm not buying a new tower until most of this happens:
-FireWire 2.0
-G5 64-bit whoohoo CPU
-DDR RAM. Time to update to the last millenium, Apple.
-A real "Pro" Mouse (more buttons, maybe a scroll, Blue Tooth would be uber cool)
-USB 2.0 (don't really care, actually, but..)
-ships with OS X 10.2.1 or higher and 9.2.3 or higher
-a better audio out/audio capabilities. So OS X has support for all those channels. Great, where are they going to go? At least they should get a 3rd party to make a cheap prosumer add-on card. Hopefully not Creative!
In order of importance. I think this echoes common sentiment. I bet they haven't sold many towers for over a year. The new iMac, and iBook, are probably how APPL and Apple are staying in the black. The new PB is decent, and if I had the cash, I would definitely have ordered one! But the towers, well, there's no good defense for the lack of DDR RAM. And it is Motorola's fault the G5 isn't here, but Apple should do something about it, and get the ball rolling, like they did with Zayante. I'm hopeful FireWire 2.0 will make this MWNY, at least.
Still, wouldn't it be weird for the PowerMac to be better than the XServer?
Maybe I'm just being hopefull..
<strong>The XServer is awesome, but...
If Apple came out with faster PowerMacs, wouldn't that look bad for the servers? Yes, I think they are a bad omen. No G5. This year! Oh well. Next MWSF maybe? I'm not buying a new tower until most of this happens:
-FireWire 2.0
-G5 64-bit whoohoo CPU
-DDR RAM. Time to update to the last millenium, Apple.
-A real "Pro" Mouse (more buttons, maybe a scroll, Blue Tooth would be uber cool)
-USB 2.0 (don't really care, actually, but..)
-ships with OS X 10.2.1 or higher and 9.2.3 or higher
-a better audio out/audio capabilities. So OS X has support for all those channels. Great, where are they going to go? At least they should get a 3rd party to make a cheap prosumer add-on card. Hopefully not Creative!
In order of importance. I think this echoes common sentiment. I bet they haven't sold many towers for over a year. The new iMac, and iBook, are probably how APPL and Apple are staying in the black. The new PB is decent, and if I had the cash, I would definitely have ordered one! But the towers, well, there's no good defense for the lack of DDR RAM. And it is Motorola's fault the G5 isn't here, but Apple should do something about it, and get the ball rolling, like they did with Zayante. I'm hopeful FireWire 2.0 will make this MWNY, at least.
Still, wouldn't it be weird for the PowerMac to be better than the XServer?</strong><hr></blockquote>
Not even in the x86 market the fastest processors are not available to Servers for a few months. It's ok to have your Servers lag in speed a bit.
[ 05-14-2002: Message edited by: hmurchison ]</p>
lowend: 1 GHz, 133 MHz SDRAM, cdrw, ATI
middle: 1.2 GHz, 266 MHz DDR RAM, superdrive, Nvidia
highend: 2x1.2 GHz, 266 MHz DDR RAM, superdrive, Nvidia
Of course, it won't matter much (the DDR) becuase the chip will probably still choke the FSB to 133 MHz.
Jet
No, it's pessimistic.
In fact, it's pathetic.
Lemon Bon Bon
1.2 ghz? Yeah. That'll arrest the decline in Powermac sales.
<strong>reealistically couldn't the RAM be on a seperate bus from the rest of the mobo... I think that I saw this... That would mean that they could push the RAM up and still leave everything else behind untill they can get an archetecture that supposrts past 133MHz. </strong><hr></blockquote>
This has been discussed repeatedly -- the problem is not the bus or the chipset, or the memory. The problem is that the bus going into the G4(s) is the MPX bus and it is limited currently to 64-bit 133 MHz non-DDR... i.e. ~1 GByte/sec.
Rackmount servers certainly do not have to be faster processors than the desktops -- different markets. The rackmount use of DDR makes sense because servers need lots of I/O bandwidth and DMA devices (Ethernet, ATA, FireWire, USB, PCI, AGP) can access this memory at full speed even if the main processor(s) can't. On a desktop machine, however, you really don't gain much. I suppose that DDR is no more expensive these days so there would be no cost to adopting this system and it would allow Apple to roll out its new chipset. I'm still hopeful that an enhanced G4 will come with the expected update of the PowerMacs @ MWNY (or whenever it happens now, given the new apparent "media event" policy).
<strong>"1.4 GHz by July is way optimistic."
No, it's pessimistic.
In fact, it's pathetic.
Lemon Bon Bon
1.2 ghz? Yeah. That'll arrest the decline in Powermac sales.
I disagree... if its a new G4 with DDR support and/or other enhancements. I also don't think that 1.4 GHz is out of reach if they've moved to a new process as is expected.
Motorola officials give an interesting interview in the June Macworld, in which they openly state 0.13 is close at hand with the G4, and the G5 is still some way off. But the alarming thing is the suggestion in the article that 0.13 opens the way to "scaling to 1.3GHz." If that's all, Apple may well be stuck at 1.2 GHz for July, with 1.3, or 1.4 if they're lucky, once Motorola takes its own sweet time to scale the processor. The other implication of scaling to 1.3 means scaling to 10 times 133, and presumably no more than that. If these new 0.13 micron chips don't fully support DDR, this processor speed situation is going to look pretty embarrassing for Apple's appeal to high-end videographers and gamers. At least there's always the G4 iMac and the PowerBook to carry them.
Now, more than ever, it is going to be up to Apple to deliver the superior speed on software that OS X promises but hasn't yet delivered. If Jaguar is able to multi-task better than OS 9.1 was able to single-task (which, after all, is the main reason for so changing the OS), they should still be able to cover their tracks -- I would hope. But that suggests a lot more people buying system software upgrades than buying new computers.
<strong>I disagree... if its a new G4 with DDR support and/or other enhancements. I also don't think that 1.4 GHz is out of reach if they've moved to a new process as is expected.</strong><hr></blockquote>Seems kind of early to me to come out with totally new G4s. They just came out with the long-awaited Apollos a few months ago. I think we're just looking at a clock-speed increase.
Still, under the circumstances of Motorola's processor development, I think Apple ought -- especially with the direction the iMac is taking of actually being useful to mid-range home and business users -- to consider making dual processors standard across the PowerMac line. If Jaguar does what it is supposed to, a policy of standard dual processors should by and large address most speed concerns as far as competitiveness with other platforms is concerned.
would be nice if apple offered style minus the lackluster specs.
i guess i'll have to settle for a dual 2.4Ghz P4 Xeon system with a gig of 800Mhz rdram. damn i guess i'll have to get used to windows, it's gonna be different running a stable operating system that runs everything under the sun.
Don't let the swinging G4 access door hit you on the way out
I work with a bunch of people who deal with Windows on a daily basis, and it's not the OS you're describing.
Howabout: Install sound card, and mouse stops working?
Install video card, and it's stuck at only one res- 800x600 on a 21" monitor?
Date changes mysteriously in BIOS, leaving co-worker locked out of machine because computer is complaining that the clock is wrong?
I could go on, but most people's daily lives with Windows machines (that I have observed), can be summed up in two words:
NIGHT
MARE
And I plod along with my 450 mhz G4, loving every minute of it...