OK you all, there's a lot of discussion here and I want to try to address some of the important points brought up. Bear with me--this is a long post.
First off, these specs are optimistic in every way conceivable. 1.6 Ghz not so far off what I hear about 1.5 Ghz Duals--though I'm much more inclined to believe my sources than any Spymac poster who most likely pulled their info off other boards/The Register.
333 Mhz bus is optimistic--this would be 2.5 times what we have now, and not too feasible even for Apple. I'm betting the farm on either 166 or 266 Mhz.
An AGP Pro slot would be nice, but I don't see that happening yet. It may though--I have no information to the contrary.
802.11g as far as I've heard, isn't ready for the public. It either hasn't been approved by the IEEE or was JUST approved, and I'll wager its not ready yet.
Firewire2 ports as described: Nope. New firewire port incompatible with the old one, and Apple won't drop support for the old Firewire since so many people have the devices now (it'd shoot themselves in the foot). I'd say 1 FW2 port on back, 1 or 2 old firewire ports on back, 1 old FWport on front.
USB2--Only if FW2 comes too.
Graphics cards: Again, possible, but I don't see this happening. Apple and nVidia have a nice relationship right now--I doubt nV would be happy if Apple made the top-of-the-line graphics card an optional ATi...
Hard drives: Wrong. Won't be hot-swappable (no reason in a desktop, Apple is steering Powermac away from serverhood, as that is Xserve now). Probably will not have their own busses, and will not be ATA/133. Also won't have 8MB caches on the drives. Why all this? Well Xserveis a server. And for those of you at home, servers are very very disk intensive. File sharing, web sharing, etc. all require fast disk read/write. Thats why Xserve has its own busses for each drive, and they are hot-swap for techs who need to change a HD without taking the system down. Xserve's HDs are only ATA/100 and each have 2MB cache. Apple would be dumb to release a Powermac with ATA/133 and 8MB cache, resulting in faster disk ops in the desktops. It would make Xserve look bad. So, Powermac will have ATA/100 with 2 MB cache, will not be hot swappable, and I'd say there's a 70% chance the drives will not have their own busses.
Now that the specs are looked at, lets look at some comments:
"We all know and expect the new PowerMacs to have a new logic board. The Xserve has a new one."
The Xserve is an entirely new architecture, and as Steve described in the intro, it's exclusive to the server. Apple's days of sharing the server and desktop architectures are over. I am sure the new Powermacs will have a new Mobo but you cannot base it on Xserve at all.
"Its obvious we will be getting DDRAM (witness Xserve)"
Again, coming, but see above.
"The new workstations need to be higher performance, so a higher bus speed is almost guaranteed over over the Xserve."
Higher bus needed, but its all dependent on Moto. You can't just slap a 333 Mhz bus on because you feel like it.
As far as the red prototype board goes:
Apple makes TONS of prototype logic boards. They want to try a bunch of things. This one was probably only for sale because it was one of the rejects that Apple scrapped. And they pulled it because it was an illegal auction, and its perfectly possible that they didn't want people to see it because its NOT whats coming and they don't want consumers to be disappointed.
New case?
Yes I'm expecting one.
References to the benches comparing the Xserve to the other servers:
These benchmarks are for very disk-intensive operations (print services and Photoshop opening) and the Xserve has the advantage of independent ATA channels (see above). Thus the difference between the Xserve and the Dual Ghz Powermac (yes I know, DDR too, but its not as important as the disks). This next line is important:
DON'T BASE ANYTHING ABOUT THE POWERMACS ON THE XSERVE!
I semi-expect dual proc across the board, but not 1.2, 1.4, 1.6 because the multipliers don't work at the right busses. I expect 1.5 at the top, scaled down.
WHEW! Done.
Keep these things I say in mind. I use logic and reasoning as well as viable sources when I post, not speculation and guessing like most.
I suspect Xserve is half way between the QuickSilver G4 and the next G4 (I call it G4/DDR).
The Xserve has a new system controller with DDR support and lots of fast I/O. Why would Apple NOT use it in a G4 desktop running monster apps like DVDSP or FCP?
Or Photoshop? Or InDesign? Or anything else that is Apple's core market?
I think the specs are a bit over the top as far as port count and PCI slots goes. This would be a MONSTER sized Mac not seen since the 9500.
Rumormongering on specs is silly, they will prolly be lower than anyone expected as is Apple's way of doing things.
FireWire 2 MAY show up finally as Apple designs its own mobo chips and is not entirely dependent on third-parties (plus they bought a FireWire hw company not too long ago to get their tech and/or engineers/designers).
Look to the Xserve for what is really coming. It should be shipping now and preceeded the work done on the next G4 by several months so the tech is ready to move to the desktop G4. Apple would be stupid NOT to move it up/down/over to the desktop.
Its only a few more weeks till we know no matter what.
Regardless of all the hardware spec speculation, nothing new will ship till Jaguar is ready to go. That puts it at the end of August/Sept. I have a feeling quad processor versions will also be available, which explains the long wait. Ramp it up baby!
Why can't an OS based on BSD address more than 2 gigs of ram? Or is this another G4 shortcoming?
</strong><hr></blockquote>
Its not a G4 restriction -- the G4 supports up to 36-bit physical addresses across MPX. The chipset is probably the limiting factor, unless there are motherboard design issues with having too many slots on 133/166 MHz 64-bit traces.
How are they going to get 1.2/1.4/1.6 on a 166 bus? even with .5 multipliers you don't get clean numbers. On a 133 bus you can get 1.2 and 1.6 easily but not 1.4
4 Firewire Ports? 4 USB Ports (not including the keyboard)...possible but probably not.
600MHz bump? Highly unlikely. They are getting excellent yeilds on GHz G4's, they would probably keep that for the low end.
It would be nice but it probably will not happen. This is Apple after all! They do very cool things but every now and then when you say to yourself that they need to or probably will do something cause it's a given, they do not.
<strong>Rumormongering on specs is silly, they will prolly be lower than anyone expected as is Apple's way of doing things.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
I think you mean, "as are people on the AI Boards' way of doing things."
Somehow I don't think Steve bases decisions on what hardware specs to release on what outlandish speculation people here make. "Oh, people on AI are saying to expect 1.8 GHz G4s, so instead of releasing those, lets go with dual 1.1 GHz!" Sorry, the wording just sounded funny!
Since FW2 is compatible with existing FW1 devices through the use of a converter cable, wouldn't you expect Apple to simplify the motherboard with all FW2 ports and supply one (or two) converter cables with the machines?
Also, I'd think that if and when we see DDR RAM with a bus/processor that truely supports it, we will also see quad-proc machines at the high end (or maybe as a separate product line, a la Graphics Workstation). The OS should handle it fine (once compiled for more than two procs), and to my knowledge, the only thing really holding it back now is that the memory bus isn't wide enough to effectively feed more than 2 procs with data.
Question... at something like 1.6 GHz (or even 1.2 or 1.4), can a 133 MHz bus properly feed dual G4s, or will we see increasingly poor (i.e. non-linear) gains in performance with clockspeed in dual-proc models?
<strong>OK you all, there's a lot of discussion here and I want to try to address some of the important points brought up....</strong><hr></blockquote>
Wow... that was definitly the voice of reason. Thanks for putting the ground back under my feet.
I think you have a strong point about the lack of a need for hotswappable drives in Powermacs (not rackmounts like the X Serve). We already have it to some extent with Firewire. If Firewire 2 does arrive, that will only bolster the idea of external FW drives.
Also, a 600mhz speed jump is a bit much. We would be more likely to see quads. And 6 PCI slots is absurd now that you can get dual DVI + ADC cards, the very real lack of audio board choices, etc. 4 is good enough.
And finally, the cost of these new overhauled macs (as they are outlined in the first post) might be prohibitively expensive for Apple to introduce around their current price... they have enough problems keeping their margins when the price of PC133 RAM goes up.
Its not a G4 restriction -- the G4 supports up to 36-bit physical addresses across MPX. The chipset is probably the limiting factor, unless there are motherboard design issues with having too many slots on 133/166 MHz 64-bit traces.</strong><hr></blockquote>
That is exactly it. The trace length is the problem. The good part is that DDR already supports 1GB per DIMM.
Also, if Apple where to make a dual bus memory controller, there could be 4 slots on each side of the processors.
<strong>I think you have a strong point about the lack of a need for hotswappable drives in Powermacs (not rackmounts like the X Serve). We already have it to some extent with Firewire. If Firewire 2 does arrive, that will only bolster the idea of external FW drives.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Actually, Apple already tipped their hand: The first PowerMac G4s had internal FW ports.
For that reason I don't think hot-swap drives are out of the question. I do, however, think they'll be a less exotic implementation: FW drives chained on a single bus instead of hot-swap ATA drives with dedicated busses.
I don't want to be pessimistic but these specs are too beautiful to be real :
- 512 K L2 cache (it needs a new fab process, on 0,18 it's too big : SOI 0,15 minimum)
- 333 mhz front side bus, expect 166 mhz or 266 mhz DDR but nothing further (for cost reasons, concerining memory this last years, Apple is always behind the PC world)
- dual memory controller : 5,4 GB/s throughput : can i ask you the prize of this baby ?
-AGP pro universal 8,4,2 110 watts universal : nothing less than the highest standart available in the industry ... and 6 huge PCI slot : how many watts to feed the monster : size of the alimentation ? 300 ? (no not enough 400 or 500 or a double secure power supply).
- two independant 133 mb bus, the brand new I serve only shipping now has just ata 100 bus, and Apple is still improving it : fascinating !
Take the dual 1,6 ghz configuration : improve of the performance due to the mhz : 60 % , extra performance due to the better memory : L2 cache : 5 % alone (difference between a pentium 4 2000 256 K. and pentium 4 2000 512 K) , performance bonus with the help of the new memory bus and the ddr ram : from 10 to 15 % : 1,6+ 0,8 + 2,4 : 1,92. So you are betting that in 4 month that there will be a 92 % increase of the performance. <img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" />
I don't want to be a troll, but these specs seems to be write by a teenager wanting to have the best things avalaible in every aera. Apple is able to make this machine for sure , but for what cost : 10 000 $?
Time for a reality check : a 1,2 ghz powermac G4 will be wellcome, a real DDR memory bus will be a fair surprise, and if these rumor is true, promise i will never eat anymore an Apple
[quote] Full 128-bit internal memory data paths <hr></blockquote>
Not going to happen. It's too expensive to implement on any machine less than $10k.
[quote] 2MB DDR SRAM L3 cache per processor
333MHz system frontside bus supporting over 2.7GB/s data throughput <hr></blockquote>
These won't happen on the same machine. The only reason Macs have an L3 cache now is because of their anemic FSB. Fix the FSB, and there's no reason for the L3 cache.
[quote] 512MB or 1024MB of 333MHz PC2700 DDR SDRAM with up to 5.4GB/s throughput(dual memory controllers 2.7 for each channel) <hr></blockquote>
No way. To expensive to implement on a machine < $10k.
Powerdoc's right. This looks like it was put together by someone who doesn't know anything about the costs involved in designing such a machine.
All I have to say is this: Apple changed the original iBook (Hello Kitty) the the current design and we didn't expect it. They changed the new iMac design and we didn't expect the new look.
So after over 3 years of using the same design for the PowerMac do you honestly think they will continue to use it and not improve? I don't think so. Besides, if they did people would accuse them of not innovating and improving (which is a huge misconception for PC folks who think the Mac still has a 9" mono screen).
If you were Apple, would you rather introduce Aqua going from OS 8.5 to OS 9, or would you rather introduce Aqua going from OS 9 to OS X?
If you were Apple, would you rather introduce a new PowerMac case going from 1.x GHz G4 to 1.y Ghz G4, or would you rather introduce a new PowerMac case going from G4 to G5?
I don't see anything wrong with Apple changing the case before they release a G5, they changed it before they introduced the G4 and we still have the same basic case. Also considering that all the product lines have fairly reciently changed there cases(with in a year and a half) and the only one that hasn't is the powermac. Not to mention that if all that is said in this post is true(which I do not believe) this would be a very big upgrade, justifing a new case
Comments
First off, these specs are optimistic in every way conceivable. 1.6 Ghz not so far off what I hear about 1.5 Ghz Duals--though I'm much more inclined to believe my sources than any Spymac poster who most likely pulled their info off other boards/The Register.
333 Mhz bus is optimistic--this would be 2.5 times what we have now, and not too feasible even for Apple. I'm betting the farm on either 166 or 266 Mhz.
An AGP Pro slot would be nice, but I don't see that happening yet. It may though--I have no information to the contrary.
802.11g as far as I've heard, isn't ready for the public. It either hasn't been approved by the IEEE or was JUST approved, and I'll wager its not ready yet.
Firewire2 ports as described: Nope. New firewire port incompatible with the old one, and Apple won't drop support for the old Firewire since so many people have the devices now (it'd shoot themselves in the foot). I'd say 1 FW2 port on back, 1 or 2 old firewire ports on back, 1 old FWport on front.
USB2--Only if FW2 comes too.
Graphics cards: Again, possible, but I don't see this happening. Apple and nVidia have a nice relationship right now--I doubt nV would be happy if Apple made the top-of-the-line graphics card an optional ATi...
Hard drives: Wrong. Won't be hot-swappable (no reason in a desktop, Apple is steering Powermac away from serverhood, as that is Xserve now). Probably will not have their own busses, and will not be ATA/133. Also won't have 8MB caches on the drives. Why all this? Well Xserveis a server. And for those of you at home, servers are very very disk intensive. File sharing, web sharing, etc. all require fast disk read/write. Thats why Xserve has its own busses for each drive, and they are hot-swap for techs who need to change a HD without taking the system down. Xserve's HDs are only ATA/100 and each have 2MB cache. Apple would be dumb to release a Powermac with ATA/133 and 8MB cache, resulting in faster disk ops in the desktops. It would make Xserve look bad. So, Powermac will have ATA/100 with 2 MB cache, will not be hot swappable, and I'd say there's a 70% chance the drives will not have their own busses.
Now that the specs are looked at, lets look at some comments:
"We all know and expect the new PowerMacs to have a new logic board. The Xserve has a new one."
The Xserve is an entirely new architecture, and as Steve described in the intro, it's exclusive to the server. Apple's days of sharing the server and desktop architectures are over. I am sure the new Powermacs will have a new Mobo but you cannot base it on Xserve at all.
"Its obvious we will be getting DDRAM (witness Xserve)"
Again, coming, but see above.
"The new workstations need to be higher performance, so a higher bus speed is almost guaranteed over over the Xserve."
Higher bus needed, but its all dependent on Moto. You can't just slap a 333 Mhz bus on because you feel like it.
As far as the red prototype board goes:
Apple makes TONS of prototype logic boards. They want to try a bunch of things. This one was probably only for sale because it was one of the rejects that Apple scrapped. And they pulled it because it was an illegal auction, and its perfectly possible that they didn't want people to see it because its NOT whats coming and they don't want consumers to be disappointed.
New case?
Yes I'm expecting one.
References to the benches comparing the Xserve to the other servers:
These benchmarks are for very disk-intensive operations (print services and Photoshop opening) and the Xserve has the advantage of independent ATA channels (see above). Thus the difference between the Xserve and the Dual Ghz Powermac (yes I know, DDR too, but its not as important as the disks). This next line is important:
DON'T BASE ANYTHING ABOUT THE POWERMACS ON THE XSERVE!
I semi-expect dual proc across the board, but not 1.2, 1.4, 1.6 because the multipliers don't work at the right busses. I expect 1.5 at the top, scaled down.
WHEW! Done.
Keep these things I say in mind. I use logic and reasoning as well as viable sources when I post, not speculation and guessing like most.
<strong>I am really hoping the original predication is true.
HA! Now I REALLY, REALLY hope this is true!!</strong><hr></blockquote>
I'll post pics
The Xserve has a new system controller with DDR support and lots of fast I/O. Why would Apple NOT use it in a G4 desktop running monster apps like DVDSP or FCP?
Or Photoshop? Or InDesign? Or anything else that is Apple's core market?
I think the specs are a bit over the top as far as port count and PCI slots goes. This would be a MONSTER sized Mac not seen since the 9500.
Rumormongering on specs is silly, they will prolly be lower than anyone expected as is Apple's way of doing things.
FireWire 2 MAY show up finally as Apple designs its own mobo chips and is not entirely dependent on third-parties (plus they bought a FireWire hw company not too long ago to get their tech and/or engineers/designers).
Look to the Xserve for what is really coming. It should be shipping now and preceeded the work done on the next G4 by several months so the tech is ready to move to the desktop G4. Apple would be stupid NOT to move it up/down/over to the desktop.
Its only a few more weeks till we know no matter what.
Why can't an OS based on BSD address more than 2 gigs of ram? Or is this another G4 shortcoming?
k
<strong>6 pci slots but only 4 Dimm slots?
Why can't an OS based on BSD address more than 2 gigs of ram? Or is this another G4 shortcoming?
</strong><hr></blockquote>
Its not a G4 restriction -- the G4 supports up to 36-bit physical addresses across MPX. The chipset is probably the limiting factor, unless there are motherboard design issues with having too many slots on 133/166 MHz 64-bit traces.
600MHz bump? Highly unlikely. They are getting excellent yeilds on GHz G4's, they would probably keep that for the low end.
It would be nice but it probably will not happen. This is Apple after all! They do very cool things but every now and then when you say to yourself that they need to or probably will do something cause it's a given, they do not.
<strong>Rumormongering on specs is silly, they will prolly be lower than anyone expected as is Apple's way of doing things.
</strong><hr></blockquote>
I think you mean, "as are people on the AI Boards' way of doing things."
Somehow I don't think Steve bases decisions on what hardware specs to release on what outlandish speculation people here make. "Oh, people on AI are saying to expect 1.8 GHz G4s, so instead of releasing those, lets go with dual 1.1 GHz!"
Also, I'd think that if and when we see DDR RAM with a bus/processor that truely supports it, we will also see quad-proc machines at the high end (or maybe as a separate product line, a la Graphics Workstation). The OS should handle it fine (once compiled for more than two procs), and to my knowledge, the only thing really holding it back now is that the memory bus isn't wide enough to effectively feed more than 2 procs with data.
Question... at something like 1.6 GHz (or even 1.2 or 1.4), can a 133 MHz bus properly feed dual G4s, or will we see increasingly poor (i.e. non-linear) gains in performance with clockspeed in dual-proc models?
<strong>OK you all, there's a lot of discussion here and I want to try to address some of the important points brought up....</strong><hr></blockquote>
Wow... that was definitly the voice of reason. Thanks for putting the ground back under my feet.
I think you have a strong point about the lack of a need for hotswappable drives in Powermacs (not rackmounts like the X Serve). We already have it to some extent with Firewire. If Firewire 2 does arrive, that will only bolster the idea of external FW drives.
Also, a 600mhz speed jump is a bit much. We would be more likely to see quads. And 6 PCI slots is absurd now that you can get dual DVI + ADC cards, the very real lack of audio board choices, etc. 4 is good enough.
And finally, the cost of these new overhauled macs (as they are outlined in the first post) might be prohibitively expensive for Apple to introduce around their current price... they have enough problems keeping their margins when the price of PC133 RAM goes up.
ting5
<strong>
Its not a G4 restriction -- the G4 supports up to 36-bit physical addresses across MPX. The chipset is probably the limiting factor, unless there are motherboard design issues with having too many slots on 133/166 MHz 64-bit traces.</strong><hr></blockquote>
That is exactly it. The trace length is the problem. The good part is that DDR already supports 1GB per DIMM.
Also, if Apple where to make a dual bus memory controller, there could be 4 slots on each side of the processors.
<strong>I think you have a strong point about the lack of a need for hotswappable drives in Powermacs (not rackmounts like the X Serve). We already have it to some extent with Firewire. If Firewire 2 does arrive, that will only bolster the idea of external FW drives.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Actually, Apple already tipped their hand: The first PowerMac G4s had internal FW ports.
For that reason I don't think hot-swap drives are out of the question. I do, however, think they'll be a less exotic implementation: FW drives chained on a single bus instead of hot-swap ATA drives with dedicated busses.
[quote]Originally posted by DevNull:
<strong>
Storage
Two external 5.25 bay one filled with tray-loading 40x20x40x CDR/RW drive with front-panel eject button
</strong><hr></blockquote>
They removed the eject button on the case with the QuickSilvers AND the new iMac, and I just don't see them adding one back on.
[ 06-27-2002: Message edited by: clonenode ]</p>
If this is true- OH JOY!
- 512 K L2 cache (it needs a new fab process, on 0,18 it's too big : SOI 0,15 minimum)
- 333 mhz front side bus, expect 166 mhz or 266 mhz DDR but nothing further (for cost reasons, concerining memory this last years, Apple is always behind the PC world)
- dual memory controller : 5,4 GB/s throughput : can i ask you the prize of this baby ?
-AGP pro universal 8,4,2 110 watts universal : nothing less than the highest standart available in the industry ... and 6 huge PCI slot : how many watts to feed the monster : size of the alimentation ? 300 ? (no not enough 400 or 500 or a double secure power supply).
- two independant 133 mb bus, the brand new I serve only shipping now has just ata 100 bus, and Apple is still improving it : fascinating !
Take the dual 1,6 ghz configuration : improve of the performance due to the mhz : 60 % , extra performance due to the better memory : L2 cache : 5 % alone (difference between a pentium 4 2000 256 K. and pentium 4 2000 512 K) , performance bonus with the help of the new memory bus and the ddr ram : from 10 to 15 % : 1,6+ 0,8 + 2,4 : 1,92. So you are betting that in 4 month that there will be a 92 % increase of the performance. <img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" />
I don't want to be a troll, but these specs seems to be write by a teenager wanting to have the best things avalaible in every aera. Apple is able to make this machine for sure , but for what cost : 10 000 $?
Time for a reality check : a 1,2 ghz powermac G4 will be wellcome, a real DDR memory bus will be a fair surprise, and if these rumor is true, promise i will never eat anymore an Apple
Not going to happen. It's too expensive to implement on any machine less than $10k.
[quote] 2MB DDR SRAM L3 cache per processor
333MHz system frontside bus supporting over 2.7GB/s data throughput <hr></blockquote>
These won't happen on the same machine. The only reason Macs have an L3 cache now is because of their anemic FSB. Fix the FSB, and there's no reason for the L3 cache.
[quote] 512MB or 1024MB of 333MHz PC2700 DDR SDRAM with up to 5.4GB/s throughput(dual memory controllers 2.7 for each channel) <hr></blockquote>
No way. To expensive to implement on a machine < $10k.
Powerdoc's right. This looks like it was put together by someone who doesn't know anything about the costs involved in designing such a machine.
<strong>
All I have to say is this: Apple changed the original iBook (Hello Kitty) the the current design and we didn't expect it. They changed the new iMac design and we didn't expect the new look.
So after over 3 years of using the same design for the PowerMac do you honestly think they will continue to use it and not improve? I don't think so. Besides, if they did people would accuse them of not innovating and improving (which is a huge misconception for PC folks who think the Mac still has a 9" mono screen).
[ 06-27-2002: Message edited by: DevNull ]</strong><hr></blockquote>
If you were Apple, would you rather introduce Aqua going from OS 8.5 to OS 9, or would you rather introduce Aqua going from OS 9 to OS X?
If you were Apple, would you rather introduce a new PowerMac case going from 1.x GHz G4 to 1.y Ghz G4, or would you rather introduce a new PowerMac case going from G4 to G5?
Just my two cents on the new case at MWNY.