Well I did a bit of research including reading Apples Technology Overview pdf. While it is totally possible that IBM has addressed the size of the cache and ohter issues it certainly isn't stated as so in the Technical Overview.
In fact the specifications still have a 512K L2 cache listed. It is not impossible for Apple to release a new machine with an upgraded cache in a month or two but I really doubt that they will do that.
Before you go about calling someone an idiot you really ought to look at the information that Apple has released. Everything that I've seen so far indicates that all we are getting is a process shrink with possibly some minor tweaks. This does not inspire me at all. The information available does not offer much hope that the G5 Towers will scale well to 3GHz or there about.
Now maybe this is just one of a couple of 90 nano meter processors that Apple will deliver this quarter, if so that would be fantastic. But I do doubt that that is the case.
Dave
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Originally posted by geekmeet
perhaps you should do a bit more research before you talk about "what sucks".
you DONT know what your talking about.
first.
the details of the 0.09um 970 processor will be given next month by ibm.
im sure this is why it was not even mention in the expo that the g5 in the new xserves were 0.09um.
you look like an idiot when you dont know what your talking about and are beligerent to boot.
It's truly amazing how many people think that Apple pays the same price for components that you and I do at a brick and mortar storefront. Truly.
That is exactly what I was getting at when I suggested that Apple, or any computer manufacture for that matter, should have a big advantage. Keck I buy electronic components for industrial maintenance all the time, even at those low volumns there is a big price differrence with respect to retail. A high volume users can expect even better pricing which people seem to not understand at all.
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I'd go one step further and state: if Apple computer put as much effort into market research and advertising as they do into technical innovation and case design, then they would be the number one computer/software solution in the world today.
And this is the reason why Apple continues to produce award-winning products without increasing market share.
They spend SO much time developing hardware that LOOKS good without being functional, and marketing said products at OUTRAGEOUS prices, that they sacrifice HUGE amounts of cross-platform sales (to Windows users).
Yep they certainly do. Frankly Apple engineers some of the nicest electronics one is likely to purchase as a consumer. The problem is that not much of that hardware meets the needs of a consumer, thus all the focus on i86 PC's.
The OS is nice, no doubt about it, but it is only going to clinch a sale for a small segment of the market. Some of the missing features on Mac hardware can be likened to an SUV without cup holders. Granted a cup holder has nothing to do with an SUV doing its job, but boy are they nice to have. Apple builds fully functional hardware, everyone can agree on that, but they drop the ball on the cup holders; that is the little details that make the hardware more usable.
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The cube is the perfect example of how Apple had the potential of selling the 'product of the millenium' to every PC user on the face of the Earth. And because of cosmetically-motivated-engineering and sloppy marketing, they managed to completely destroy any chances of selling said product to thousands of Wintel users who WANTED to switch to the MacOS.
Well hopefully after the two years of devlopment of the 970 and the associated G5 Apple will begin to refocus a bit on user needs. They should be able now to introduce a consumer mac (iMac, EMac whatever) that is atleast competitive from the standpoint of processor performance. This should free them up to get back in touch with there customers. Of course there is always the question that asks if they every where intouch.
I can answer that question at least from the standpoint of the XServe. The XServe does represent a really good attempt to engineer a 1U server. It is a box that has what it needs to do the job of a server and little else. Consumer wise it does look a bit retro, the coming updates to this segment are critical. It will be very interesting to see what is deployed. Hopefully it will be hardware that can draw the consumer over for more than a quick look.
It is rather funny that Apple is promoting the computer as a digital hub but has few computers that really fill that role. Especially from the consumer standpoint.
The information available does not offer much hope that the G5 Towers will scale well to 3GHz or there about.
no because apple doesn't go out and tell everyone that the 90nm G5 scales way beyond 2GHz. or did you expect them to? they want to sell the actual products... AND you've got the word of steve himself that the G5 scales well... what else do you want to have?
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Now maybe this is just one of a couple of 90 nano meter processors that Apple will deliver this quarter, if so that would be fantastic. But I do doubt that that is the case.
don't be so pessimistic. my bet is that the 970 at 90nm will reach 3GHz. (or did you ever see a die-shrink that hasn't resulted in higher clockspeeds? me not) the next PowerMac revision will be announced in february and will come in clockspeeds up to 2.6GHz (at 90nm there's a little chance for an even higher clock)
did you ever see a die-shrink that hasn't resulted in higher clockspeeds?
Motorola when it went from the 7455 to the 7457. They actually dropped from 1.4GHZ to 1.3 GHZ, but that is just one aberation and nitpicking on my part. The vast majority of the time you see an increase.
Hmm, well going back to that thread and reading through it, there was some discussion about the PBG5, but you're right on the bet that was offered - which I apparently would have lost, had you taken it up.
Motorola when it went from the 7455 to the 7457. They actually dropped from 1.4GHZ to 1.3 GHZ, but that is just one aberation and nitpicking on my part. The vast majority of the time you see an increase.
Well this is moto we are talking about. They haven't been able to do much right, so inverse logic was clearly used by them too.
Yep they certainly do. Frankly Apple engineers some of the nicest electronics one is likely to purchase as a consumer. The problem is that not much of that hardware meets the needs of a consumer, thus all the focus on i86 PC's.
The OS is nice, no doubt about it, but it is only going to clinch a sale for a small segment of the market. Some of the missing features on Mac hardware can be likened to an SUV without cup holders.
No it can't. Anyone in the world can use a cupholder. The only people I know who swap in old hard drives also build radio transmitters powerful enough to bounce signals off the moon just for fun. It's not a consumer activity, and it's not relevant to consumer hardware.
You're one of a handful of people for whom the ATX case - designed when expansion of all kinds was not optional - is actually still useful. This is an accident of the inertia of a commodity market, not a product of market-driven design. eMachines and HP use ATX cases because they can get ATX cases and boards that fit in ATX cases anywhere, and because they can use the expansion options for factory BTO. Once the machines are off the assembly line, I can guarantee you that the overwhelming majority are running exactly what they shipped with, modulo dying hard drives in Dells and the odd video card.
Motorola when it went from the 7455 to the 7457. They actually dropped from 1.4GHZ to 1.3 GHZ, but that is just one aberation and nitpicking on my part. The vast majority of the time you see an increas
Well this is moto we are talking about. They haven't been able to do much right, so inverse logic was clearly used by them too.
What nobody has mentioned with the new 90nano and reduction is speed is that potentially there could be more drive bays in the current PowerMac G5 enclosure. I always hated all of that wasted space, just for the cooling vents. If they could get duals in a 1U enclosure, surely they'd be able to reduce the amount of space the processor takes up.
I doubt, they'll change the enclosure size, etc., but that would mean more room for additional drives, optical drives, etc. That's what I'm waiting for.
Probably not. In the xServe, noise is not a problem. They're hidden away in server-rooms, cabinets, closets, basements or bathrooms. Consequently you can put in all the leafblowers you want and add thermal ducting and whatnot because it makes no diffence at all. Have you been around one of the CURRENTLY shipping xServes? Not funny at all. I'm sure one of the new ones are even more noisy.
The PM G5 enclosure is very thoughtfully designed in order to avoid a repeat of The Great MDD Windtunnel Debacle(tm) and I don't think they're going to compromise on that in order to provide expansion capabilities which possibly 5% of the market is ever going to need.
Some of the missing features on Mac hardware can be likened to an SUV without cup holders. Granted a cup holder has nothing to do with an SUV doing its job, but boy are they nice to have. Apple builds fully functional hardware, everyone can agree on that, but they drop the ball on the cup holders; that is the little details that make the hardware more usable.
Actually, I disagree with this analogy. Though I do think you're on to something.
For me, it's analagous my 1987 Camaro RS. I bought it (used) in my Junior year of high school. It was a beast of an automobile, with a pristine Candy Apple Red paint job, ground effects, rear spoiler, and gorgeous mag wheels/comp tires. Problem was, the RS only had a 2.8L V6 under the hood. So while it LOOKED great, it simply didn't PERFORM well. Sure it got me from point A to point B, but I kicked myself after paying TOP DOLLAR for a sports car that had very POOR acceleration. The features just weren't there.
And that's kind of how I feel about Apple's hardware. It's beautifully-crafted, but there's not much under the hood that supports the high price tag.
Sure, I can go out and purchase an eMac for around $800. And it'll have a decent monitor and be able to do basic tasks. But it's completely inadequate for DVD burning and video games. And I ask myself, "Shouldn't the $800 Macintosh be able to perform functions that the $800 Wintel machine can for the same price?"
So maybe I can go out and purchase a G4 PowerMac for around $1300 instead? And I can use my 17" (smurf) Apple CRT display. And the PowerMac will be able to do basic tasks FASTER than the eMac. But it's STILL completely inadequate for DVD burning and video games.
So I guess that means that the entry-level G5 is really the ONLY Apple product that can suit my needs. But even with the DVD burning capability, the 1.6GHz G5 machine still has an AVERAGE video card. Which kind of makes me scratch my head. Because I'd think that a machine that costs $1800 should have more than an AVERAGE card. (But I suppose that's more of a personal preference, and not a requirement at this point)
So, my choices are:
1) Buy an Apple product at $1800 in order to utilize OSX
2) Buy an x86 product for (approx.) HALF the price and utilize XP
Truth be told, I don't like EITHER option.
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It is rather funny that Apple is promoting the computer as a digital hub but has few computers that really fill that role. Especially from the consumer standpoint.
Dave
I found that awkward, also. Particularly so in the case of the Superdrive and iDVD. Apparently, it's impossible to burn a DVD with the Apple iTools unless you have a built-in Superdrive (or you're able to self-install a DVD-R drive into your Apple machine).
So, Apple is pretty much giving away iDVD with every new eMac, iMac, and G4 purchase. But it only actually WORKS with those consumers who UPGRADE to the Superdrive option.
Pity the poor bastard that buys an iMac combo drive, only to find out that s/he wants to do DVD burning 6 months later using iDVD. Looks like they'll need to shell out thousands more if they want to use the iDVD tool.
The Xserve's cooling system is designed to handle two G5s at 2.0 GHz each.
The PowerBook and the iMac will only need one G5 processor. That G5 could run at speeds like 1.6, 1.4, and even 1.2 GHz, and still provide a performance boost over current G4 products.
And don't forget that not only do they have blowers to keep TWO 2.0GHz processors cool, but that:
1. The blowers are designed to be redundant so that if one or two fail the others compensate and
2. The blowers must not just keep the processors cool when the XServe is surrounded by cool circulating air, but also when the XServe is packed into a rack with 25 other XServes all puffing away crunching numbers at full power.
Your average powerbook with one 1.6Ghz G5 surrounded by cool air and gently surfing the net or playing music (with a fan for when it has to push itself encoding a DVD or processing film transition effects) can presumbly cope with the (less) heat generated without multiple noisy fans.
The only people I know who swap in old hard drives also build radio transmitters powerful enough to bounce signals off the moon just for fun. It's not a consumer activity, and it's not relevant to consumer hardware.
Two things: you don't know many "consumers", and you obviously hang out with serious geeks. I think you know that adding a hard-drive rarely involves more than the following:
1. Turn off machine
2. Remove case.
2. Unscrew bay mounts.
3. Insert drive.
4. Screw in HD to bay mounts.
5. Attach supplied eide/ide cable.
6. Attach power supply.
7. Turn on Machine.
Anyone whose ever been to BestBuy and seen the racks of wintel pci/AGP cards, optical drives, hard-drives and memory they offer knows expansion is a consumer demand. If Best-Buy isn't a "consumer" oriented store, than try Target or Walmart. Same deal. Every E-Machines computer offers PCI slots and the ability to add an extra hard-drive. Or are eMachines targeted at "Prosumers."
Check out the offerings from Dell... They offer 11 desktops in three lines (Dimension, Optiplex and Precision). 10 of the eleven offer pci expansion (including ALL of the low-end Dimensions). 9 of 11 offer internal expansion bays.
The argument that consumers don't want expansion slots is belied by the fact that overwhelming majority of consumer machines ARE expandable.
Last but not least...the consumer doesn't want an expansion slot because they NEED an expansion slot...they want an expansion slot as an insurance policy for the future. Who knows what the future will bring? In 2 years will your eMac need Firewire 800? Gigabit Ethernet? USB 2.0? A 300 Gig SATA drive? Whose to say? But regardless of what the device-makers drea, up with next, you're pretty much screwed if you own an eMac. Ditto the iMac, except for its cutting edge use of USB 2.0.
Two things: you don't know many "consumers", and you obviously hang out with serious geeks.
Actually, I know lots of consumers, and lots of people whose interest in computers is tenuous at best. I also know some serious geeks.
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I think you know that adding a hard-drive rarely involves more than the following:
1. Turn off machine
2. Remove case.
2. Unscrew bay mounts.
3. Insert drive.
4. Screw in HD to bay mounts.
5. Attach supplied eide/ide cable.
6. Attach power supply.
7. Turn on Machine.
And if you know any consumers, that's about 5 steps too many. Especially since, in most cases, steps 2 (the first 2 ) through 6 are fidgety, tedious, and trigger the "I don't want to break anything!" instinct in people who aren't used to mucking around with hardware.
When I installed a hard drive for my roommate, step 4 proved to be quite interesting because the screw holes in the drive didn't line up with the screw holes in the drive bay (the machine is a Compaq). Once we'd jimmied it in, attaching the IDE cable and getting the right jumper settings took a couple of tries too (the BIOS didn't like the auto setting - go figure).
This is nothing I'd expect, say, my mother to do. Or my brother (for whom I installed RAM in an original iMac). Or my father. Or my bandmates. Or any of the other non-geeks I know.
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Anyone whose ever been to BestBuy and seen the racks of wintel pci/AGP cards, optical drives, hard-drives and memory they offer knows expansion is a consumer demand.
There's not all that much at the local Best Buy, actually, and of course they sell those because they know full well that the buyer will want Best Buy to install whatever it is. For a fee, of course.
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Every E-Machines computer offers PCI slots and the ability to add an extra hard-drive. Or are eMachines targeted at "Prosumers."
eMachines are targeted at cheapskates and fools. They offer PCI slots and drive bays solely and exclusively because ATX cases and boards do, and those are the cheapest options. eMachines makes $5 per machine. They're never going to do market research and they're never going to do a clean-sheet design based on the results of that research. They're going to take advantage of the commodity market, which has been faithfully recycling the same design for about 30 years now, because that's what commodity markets do.
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The argument that consumers don't want expansion slots is belied by the fact that overwhelming majority of consumer machines ARE expandable.
And that argument is mooted by the fact that any other option would involve more than just putting somebody else's board in somebody else's case and competing on price, which is the PC OEM business model. The boards support PCI because that's in the standard their suppliers adhere to; the cases have the drive bays because they're in the standard their suppliers adhere to; and there you go.
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Last but not least...the consumer doesn't want an expansion slot because they NEED an expansion slot...they want an expansion slot as an insurance policy for the future. Who knows what the future will bring? In 2 years will your eMac need Firewire 800? Gigabit Ethernet? USB 2.0? A 300 Gig SATA drive? Whose to say? But regardless of what the device-makers drea, up with next, you're pretty much screwed if you own an eMac. Ditto the iMac, except for its cutting edge use of USB 2.0.
This argument only holds for sea changes like serial->USB, which are incredibly rare because, again, the industry wants ubiquity and compatibility above all. Improvements like FireWire 800 and Gigabit ethernet take long enough to trickle down that by the time they're common you probably need another machine anyway.
Mostly, this is just a sales tactic to push people up to more expensive models. It's not a real concern. The exception would be machines that are so stripped down that they have to be upgraded to remain functional, but Apple doesn't generally do that. It's not Mac-like to have to crack your machine open and fiddle with it.
And don't forget that not only do they have blowers to keep TWO 2.0GHz processors cool, but that:
1. The blowers are designed to be redundant so that if one or two fail the others compensate and
2. The blowers must not just keep the processors cool when the XServe is surrounded by cool circulating air, but also when the XServe is packed into a rack with 25 other XServes all puffing away crunching numbers at full power.
3. The current XServe case is likely designed to be compatible with expected CPU upgrades over the life of the product, i.e. dual 3.0 GHz 90 nm 970's; if Steve Job's WWDC prognostications are reliable.
The whole point is large manufactures such as Apple do not pay retail prices for their hardware. Not even close to retail. The manufactures are at a huge advantage when it comes to buying components and like wise have production advanatges that one nevers sees with either home built or a PC from the local shop.
Look at the eMac I would be surprised if it cost much more that a $200 to make. That is a stretch too.
Dave
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Originally posted by fresco
Ok you assembled your machine for approx $900. What about marketing and support costs? apple has to factor these into their machine cost. I'm sure that if they had to price their machine with just the cost of the machine they could match the price of the assembled machine.
no because apple doesn't go out and tell everyone that the 90nm G5 scales way beyond 2GHz. or did you expect them to? they want to sell the actual products... AND you've got the word of steve himself that the G5 scales well... what else do you want to have?
You are confusing an increase in frequency with a processors ability to scale. I fully expect the 90 nano meter chip to hit 3GHz or more real soon now. How well it scales is still up in the air. Without a cache size increase or dramtically faster access to main memory we may not see the speed increase we are expecting.
Now IBM could have taken other approaches to improve the cache at its present size. Any info on that being done is not yet become public. Even then, for certain applications, cache size can be very important.
I look at scalling as a processors ability to increase performance with the same ratio as the clock rate increase. Once the difference between internal processor clock speed and main memory starts to increase cache becomes very important to the processor to allow it to maintain full speed.
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don't be so pessimistic. my bet is that the 970 at 90nm will reach 3GHz. (or did you ever see a die-shrink that hasn't resulted in higher clockspeeds? me not) the next PowerMac revision will be announced in february and will come in clockspeeds up to 2.6GHz (at 90nm there's a little chance for an even higher clock)
I think Steve would like to have nothing better than a 3GHz PowerMac G5 on display for the 20th. I see absolutely nothing that will stop Apple from delivering such a machine. The big question is will they or will they play safe with the lead.
Don't misunderstand me the fact that IBM is at 90 nano meters if fantastic, especially for the low end. The 970, as described in the online information that Apple has on display now, is not the processor you will want to move into the high end. Maybe they have something else up their sleeves, who knows?
The whole point is large manufactures such as Apple do not pay retail prices for their hardware. Not even close to retail. The manufactures are at a huge advantage when it comes to buying components and like wise have production advanatges that one nevers sees with either home built or a PC from the local shop.
Look at the eMac I would be surprised if it cost much more that a $200 to make. That is a stretch too.
Dave
You might be right in parts costs, but I think you might be low balling that figure by at least $50. Don't forget to add in packaging, shipping (and the required in insurance), advertising, Research and development, and industrial design, plant operating expenses, employee pension plans, etc, etc, etc... and on top of that some profit margin because Apple is a for profit business isn't it?
No it can't. Anyone in the world can use a cupholder. The only people I know who swap in old hard drives also build radio transmitters powerful enough to bounce signals off the moon just for fun. It's not a consumer activity, and it's not relevant to consumer hardware.
Well I do not believe this is the case at all. Even if partly true, many people just take their case down to the local computer store for the latest and greatest.
The cup holders I'm actually refering to though are what is built into the machine that various people pick up at the store. Things such as multifunction card readers and the like.
They can be likened to cup holders as many people using these devices don't have a clue when it comes to the technology. They do understand that their camera (or whatever) takes a memory card that fits one of the slots in the reader. Much like a CDROM reader, the consumer starts to expect that certain things will be in place as convience to them.
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You're one of a handful of people for whom the ATX case - designed when expansion of all kinds was not optional - is actually still useful. This is an accident of the inertia of a commodity market, not a product of market-driven design. eMachines and HP use ATX cases because they can get ATX cases and boards that fit in ATX cases anywhere, and because they can use the expansion options for factory BTO. Once the machines are off the assembly line, I can guarantee you that the overwhelming majority are running exactly what they shipped with, modulo dying hard drives in Dells and the odd video card.
Well I tend to disagree, many people do add harddrives to their machines. Sure you can argue that with present drives sizes this is less likely to happen but I will take the other side of the fence in this argument. What is new, and quite literally chewing up harddrives, is the digital technology that has moved into the home front. Digital photos, movies and sound take up consderable space and are the latest examples of what users install on their machines to plug up a drive. Believe me it doesn't take long to fill a harddrive with digital photos.
Another point in this argument are sales fliers. Every computer store of any significant size runs weekly specials on harddrives. Very few of these are going into new boxes. Add to to harddrives things like CDROM's, memory and video cards. Sure many of these go to geeks but just as many if not more are going into non geek computers.
Actually, I disagree with this analogy. Though I do think you're on to something.
For me, it's analagous my 1987 Camaro RS. I bought it (used) in my Junior year of high school. It was a beast of an automobile, with a pristine Candy Apple Red paint job, ground effects, rear spoiler, and gorgeous mag wheels/comp tires. Problem was, the RS only had a 2.8L V6 under the hood. So while it LOOKED great, it simply didn't PERFORM well. Sure it got me from point A to point B, but I kicked myself after paying TOP DOLLAR for a sports car that had very POOR acceleration. The features just weren't there.
MY god another Comaro owner. A Comaro was my first new car, boy did I love that thing. Put 90 thousand miles on it then traded it in for a pickup, its been pickups ever since. Even so I still kick myself for getting rid of that car.
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And that's kind of how I feel about Apple's hardware. It's beautifully-crafted, but there's not much under the hood that supports the high price tag.
Well I do feel this way about much of Apples line of PC's. That is not however my opinion of the G5 XServe. As a server it delivers just what it needs to and nothing more at an almost reasonable price. I'm not at all thrilled with the processor going into the XServe at the moment but hopefully that is addressed in the future.
AS to the rest of the line well that is another issue. I certainly see a place for consumer and or low end machine with little in the way of servicable parts. The problem is these are Apples only solutions.
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Sure, I can go out and purchase an eMac for around $800. And it'll have a decent monitor and be able to do basic tasks. But it's completely inadequate for DVD burning and video games. And I ask myself, "Shouldn't the $800 Macintosh be able to perform functions that the $800 Wintel machine can for the same price?"
So maybe I can go out and purchase a G4 PowerMac for around $1300 instead? And I can use my 17" (smurf) Apple CRT display. And the PowerMac will be able to do basic tasks FASTER than the eMac. But it's STILL completely inadequate for DVD burning and video games.
So I guess that means that the entry-level G5 is really the ONLY Apple product that can suit my needs. But even with the DVD burning capability, the 1.6GHz G5 machine still has an AVERAGE video card. Which kind of makes me scratch my head. Because I'd think that a machine that costs $1800 should have more than an AVERAGE card. (But I suppose that's more of a personal preference, and not a requirement at this point)
Well it has been well known that Apple has been at a performance disadvantage for some time. You would have thought that they would have tried to make up for it in some manner such as advance video cards in the IMac. Actually memory is where they really drop the ball. I'm talking both GPU and main CPU memory. The soldered in memory in the ibook has been pathetic for years.
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So, my choices are:
1) Buy an Apple product at $1800 in order to utilize OSX
2) Buy an x86 product for (approx.) HALF the price and utilize XP
Or buy any of the above and run Linux (Fedora). I won't run XP at all, that is completely out of the question for me.
I've always said that Mac OS/X is worth a little extra money over most PC OS'es. But that is in the context of equal hardware. Now that some of the hardware is equal of better we are paying alot more than the combination is worth.
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Truth be told, I don't like EITHER option.
I found that awkward, also. Particularly so in the case of the Superdrive and iDVD. Apparently, it's impossible to burn a DVD with the Apple iTools unless you have a built-in Superdrive (or you're able to self-install a DVD-R drive into your Apple machine).
So, Apple is pretty much giving away iDVD with every new eMac, iMac, and G4 purchase. But it only actually WORKS with those consumers who UPGRADE to the Superdrive option.
Pity the poor bastard that buys an iMac combo drive, only to find out that s/he wants to do DVD burning 6 months later using iDVD. Looks like they'll need to shell out thousands more if they want to use the iDVD tool.
You are confusing an increase in frequency with a processors ability to scale. I fully expect the 90 nano meter chip to hit 3GHz or more real soon now. How well it scales is still up in the air. Without a cache size increase or dramtically faster access to main memory we may not see the speed increase we are expecting.
well - the 970 will scale very good bet on it. but i don't think it has to go further than 3GHz. IBM and Apple are developing the successor based on the Power5. this will be the high-end processor of upcoming macs starting from 2005. for this year a 970 at 3GHz will deliver the performance we're all expecting. along with its well designed bus-technology (half the clock) it has the potential to perform much better than the current 2GHz 970. bet on faster RAM-technology. also the fact that the cache speed scales with the cpu speed will help to boost performance. we don't have the bottlenecks as we had with the PowerMac G4 (especially the slow bus).
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Originally posted by wizard69
The 970, as described in the online information that Apple has on display now, is not the processor you will want to move into the high end. Maybe they have something else up their sleeves, who knows?
planned for the 970s successor is the processors multi-threading capability as well as a new implementation of altivec. i think this alone will to the trick
Comments
In fact the specifications still have a 512K L2 cache listed. It is not impossible for Apple to release a new machine with an upgraded cache in a month or two but I really doubt that they will do that.
Before you go about calling someone an idiot you really ought to look at the information that Apple has released. Everything that I've seen so far indicates that all we are getting is a process shrink with possibly some minor tweaks. This does not inspire me at all. The information available does not offer much hope that the G5 Towers will scale well to 3GHz or there about.
Now maybe this is just one of a couple of 90 nano meter processors that Apple will deliver this quarter, if so that would be fantastic. But I do doubt that that is the case.
Dave
Originally posted by geekmeet
perhaps you should do a bit more research before you talk about "what sucks".
you DONT know what your talking about.
first.
the details of the 0.09um 970 processor will be given next month by ibm.
im sure this is why it was not even mention in the expo that the g5 in the new xserves were 0.09um.
you look like an idiot when you dont know what your talking about and are beligerent to boot.
have a nice day.
Originally posted by Antithesis
It's truly amazing how many people think that Apple pays the same price for components that you and I do at a brick and mortar storefront. Truly.
That is exactly what I was getting at when I suggested that Apple, or any computer manufacture for that matter, should have a big advantage. Keck I buy electronic components for industrial maintenance all the time, even at those low volumns there is a big price differrence with respect to retail. A high volume users can expect even better pricing which people seem to not understand at all.
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I'd go one step further and state: if Apple computer put as much effort into market research and advertising as they do into technical innovation and case design, then they would be the number one computer/software solution in the world today.
And this is the reason why Apple continues to produce award-winning products without increasing market share.
They spend SO much time developing hardware that LOOKS good without being functional, and marketing said products at OUTRAGEOUS prices, that they sacrifice HUGE amounts of cross-platform sales (to Windows users).
Yep they certainly do. Frankly Apple engineers some of the nicest electronics one is likely to purchase as a consumer. The problem is that not much of that hardware meets the needs of a consumer, thus all the focus on i86 PC's.
The OS is nice, no doubt about it, but it is only going to clinch a sale for a small segment of the market. Some of the missing features on Mac hardware can be likened to an SUV without cup holders. Granted a cup holder has nothing to do with an SUV doing its job, but boy are they nice to have. Apple builds fully functional hardware, everyone can agree on that, but they drop the ball on the cup holders; that is the little details that make the hardware more usable.
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The cube is the perfect example of how Apple had the potential of selling the 'product of the millenium' to every PC user on the face of the Earth. And because of cosmetically-motivated-engineering and sloppy marketing, they managed to completely destroy any chances of selling said product to thousands of Wintel users who WANTED to switch to the MacOS.
Well hopefully after the two years of devlopment of the 970 and the associated G5 Apple will begin to refocus a bit on user needs. They should be able now to introduce a consumer mac (iMac, EMac whatever) that is atleast competitive from the standpoint of processor performance. This should free them up to get back in touch with there customers. Of course there is always the question that asks if they every where intouch.
I can answer that question at least from the standpoint of the XServe. The XServe does represent a really good attempt to engineer a 1U server. It is a box that has what it needs to do the job of a server and little else. Consumer wise it does look a bit retro, the coming updates to this segment are critical. It will be very interesting to see what is deployed. Hopefully it will be hardware that can draw the consumer over for more than a quick look.
It is rather funny that Apple is promoting the computer as a digital hub but has few computers that really fill that role. Especially from the consumer standpoint.
Dave
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-Antithesis
Originally posted by wizard69
The information available does not offer much hope that the G5 Towers will scale well to 3GHz or there about.
no because apple doesn't go out and tell everyone that the 90nm G5 scales way beyond 2GHz. or did you expect them to? they want to sell the actual products... AND you've got the word of steve himself that the G5 scales well... what else do you want to have?
Now maybe this is just one of a couple of 90 nano meter processors that Apple will deliver this quarter, if so that would be fantastic. But I do doubt that that is the case.
don't be so pessimistic. my bet is that the 970 at 90nm will reach 3GHz. (or did you ever see a die-shrink that hasn't resulted in higher clockspeeds? me not) the next PowerMac revision will be announced in february and will come in clockspeeds up to 2.6GHz (at 90nm there's a little chance for an even higher clock)
Originally posted by Krassy
did you ever see a die-shrink that hasn't resulted in higher clockspeeds?
Motorola when it went from the 7455 to the 7457. They actually dropped from 1.4GHZ to 1.3 GHZ, but that is just one aberation and nitpicking on my part. The vast majority of the time you see an increase.
Originally posted by Clive
Hmm, well going back to that thread and reading through it, there was some discussion about the PBG5, but you're right on the bet that was offered - which I apparently would have lost, had you taken it up.
But you bottled it, same thread:
-- Clive
i know.
next: powerbook G5
Originaly posted by gar
Motorola when it went from the 7455 to the 7457. They actually dropped from 1.4GHZ to 1.3 GHZ, but that is just one aberation and nitpicking on my part. The vast majority of the time you see an increase.
Well this is moto we are talking about. They haven't been able to do much right, so inverse logic was clearly used by them too.
Originally posted by wizard69
Yep they certainly do. Frankly Apple engineers some of the nicest electronics one is likely to purchase as a consumer. The problem is that not much of that hardware meets the needs of a consumer, thus all the focus on i86 PC's.
The OS is nice, no doubt about it, but it is only going to clinch a sale for a small segment of the market. Some of the missing features on Mac hardware can be likened to an SUV without cup holders.
No it can't. Anyone in the world can use a cupholder. The only people I know who swap in old hard drives also build radio transmitters powerful enough to bounce signals off the moon just for fun. It's not a consumer activity, and it's not relevant to consumer hardware.
You're one of a handful of people for whom the ATX case - designed when expansion of all kinds was not optional - is actually still useful. This is an accident of the inertia of a commodity market, not a product of market-driven design. eMachines and HP use ATX cases because they can get ATX cases and boards that fit in ATX cases anywhere, and because they can use the expansion options for factory BTO. Once the machines are off the assembly line, I can guarantee you that the overwhelming majority are running exactly what they shipped with, modulo dying hard drives in Dells and the odd video card.
Originally posted by Crusader
Originaly posted by gar
Motorola when it went from the 7455 to the 7457. They actually dropped from 1.4GHZ to 1.3 GHZ, but that is just one aberation and nitpicking on my part. The vast majority of the time you see an increas
Well this is moto we are talking about. They haven't been able to do much right, so inverse logic was clearly used by them too.
did i say that...????
wow
Originally posted by contempt
What nobody has mentioned with the new 90nano and reduction is speed is that potentially there could be more drive bays in the current PowerMac G5 enclosure. I always hated all of that wasted space, just for the cooling vents. If they could get duals in a 1U enclosure, surely they'd be able to reduce the amount of space the processor takes up.
I doubt, they'll change the enclosure size, etc., but that would mean more room for additional drives, optical drives, etc. That's what I'm waiting for.
Probably not. In the xServe, noise is not a problem. They're hidden away in server-rooms, cabinets, closets, basements or bathrooms. Consequently you can put in all the leafblowers you want and add thermal ducting and whatnot because it makes no diffence at all. Have you been around one of the CURRENTLY shipping xServes? Not funny at all. I'm sure one of the new ones are even more noisy.
The PM G5 enclosure is very thoughtfully designed in order to avoid a repeat of The Great MDD Windtunnel Debacle(tm) and I don't think they're going to compromise on that in order to provide expansion capabilities which possibly 5% of the market is ever going to need.
Originally posted by wizard69
Some of the missing features on Mac hardware can be likened to an SUV without cup holders. Granted a cup holder has nothing to do with an SUV doing its job, but boy are they nice to have. Apple builds fully functional hardware, everyone can agree on that, but they drop the ball on the cup holders; that is the little details that make the hardware more usable.
Actually, I disagree with this analogy. Though I do think you're on to something.
For me, it's analagous my 1987 Camaro RS. I bought it (used) in my Junior year of high school. It was a beast of an automobile, with a pristine Candy Apple Red paint job, ground effects, rear spoiler, and gorgeous mag wheels/comp tires. Problem was, the RS only had a 2.8L V6 under the hood. So while it LOOKED great, it simply didn't PERFORM well. Sure it got me from point A to point B, but I kicked myself after paying TOP DOLLAR for a sports car that had very POOR acceleration. The features just weren't there.
And that's kind of how I feel about Apple's hardware. It's beautifully-crafted, but there's not much under the hood that supports the high price tag.
Sure, I can go out and purchase an eMac for around $800. And it'll have a decent monitor and be able to do basic tasks. But it's completely inadequate for DVD burning and video games. And I ask myself, "Shouldn't the $800 Macintosh be able to perform functions that the $800 Wintel machine can for the same price?"
So maybe I can go out and purchase a G4 PowerMac for around $1300 instead? And I can use my 17" (smurf) Apple CRT display. And the PowerMac will be able to do basic tasks FASTER than the eMac. But it's STILL completely inadequate for DVD burning and video games.
So I guess that means that the entry-level G5 is really the ONLY Apple product that can suit my needs. But even with the DVD burning capability, the 1.6GHz G5 machine still has an AVERAGE video card. Which kind of makes me scratch my head. Because I'd think that a machine that costs $1800 should have more than an AVERAGE card. (But I suppose that's more of a personal preference, and not a requirement at this point)
So, my choices are:
1) Buy an Apple product at $1800 in order to utilize OSX
2) Buy an x86 product for (approx.) HALF the price and utilize XP
Truth be told, I don't like EITHER option.
It is rather funny that Apple is promoting the computer as a digital hub but has few computers that really fill that role. Especially from the consumer standpoint.
Dave
I found that awkward, also. Particularly so in the case of the Superdrive and iDVD. Apparently, it's impossible to burn a DVD with the Apple iTools unless you have a built-in Superdrive (or you're able to self-install a DVD-R drive into your Apple machine).
So, Apple is pretty much giving away iDVD with every new eMac, iMac, and G4 purchase. But it only actually WORKS with those consumers who UPGRADE to the Superdrive option.
Pity the poor bastard that buys an iMac combo drive, only to find out that s/he wants to do DVD burning 6 months later using iDVD. Looks like they'll need to shell out thousands more if they want to use the iDVD tool.
-Antithesis
Originally posted by shetline
The Xserve's cooling system is designed to handle two G5s at 2.0 GHz each.
The PowerBook and the iMac will only need one G5 processor. That G5 could run at speeds like 1.6, 1.4, and even 1.2 GHz, and still provide a performance boost over current G4 products.
And don't forget that not only do they have blowers to keep TWO 2.0GHz processors cool, but that:
1. The blowers are designed to be redundant so that if one or two fail the others compensate and
2. The blowers must not just keep the processors cool when the XServe is surrounded by cool circulating air, but also when the XServe is packed into a rack with 25 other XServes all puffing away crunching numbers at full power.
Your average powerbook with one 1.6Ghz G5 surrounded by cool air and gently surfing the net or playing music (with a fan for when it has to push itself encoding a DVD or processing film transition effects) can presumbly cope with the (less) heat generated without multiple noisy fans.
Originally posted by Amorph
The only people I know who swap in old hard drives also build radio transmitters powerful enough to bounce signals off the moon just for fun. It's not a consumer activity, and it's not relevant to consumer hardware.
Two things: you don't know many "consumers", and you obviously hang out with serious geeks. I think you know that adding a hard-drive rarely involves more than the following:
1. Turn off machine
2. Remove case.
2. Unscrew bay mounts.
3. Insert drive.
4. Screw in HD to bay mounts.
5. Attach supplied eide/ide cable.
6. Attach power supply.
7. Turn on Machine.
Anyone whose ever been to BestBuy and seen the racks of wintel pci/AGP cards, optical drives, hard-drives and memory they offer knows expansion is a consumer demand. If Best-Buy isn't a "consumer" oriented store, than try Target or Walmart. Same deal. Every E-Machines computer offers PCI slots and the ability to add an extra hard-drive. Or are eMachines targeted at "Prosumers."
Check out the offerings from Dell... They offer 11 desktops in three lines (Dimension, Optiplex and Precision). 10 of the eleven offer pci expansion (including ALL of the low-end Dimensions). 9 of 11 offer internal expansion bays.
The argument that consumers don't want expansion slots is belied by the fact that overwhelming majority of consumer machines ARE expandable.
Last but not least...the consumer doesn't want an expansion slot because they NEED an expansion slot...they want an expansion slot as an insurance policy for the future. Who knows what the future will bring? In 2 years will your eMac need Firewire 800? Gigabit Ethernet? USB 2.0? A 300 Gig SATA drive? Whose to say? But regardless of what the device-makers drea, up with next, you're pretty much screwed if you own an eMac. Ditto the iMac, except for its cutting edge use of USB 2.0.
Originally posted by Ompus
Two things: you don't know many "consumers", and you obviously hang out with serious geeks.
Actually, I know lots of consumers, and lots of people whose interest in computers is tenuous at best. I also know some serious geeks.
I think you know that adding a hard-drive rarely involves more than the following:
1. Turn off machine
2. Remove case.
2. Unscrew bay mounts.
3. Insert drive.
4. Screw in HD to bay mounts.
5. Attach supplied eide/ide cable.
6. Attach power supply.
7. Turn on Machine.
And if you know any consumers, that's about 5 steps too many. Especially since, in most cases, steps 2 (the first 2
When I installed a hard drive for my roommate, step 4 proved to be quite interesting because the screw holes in the drive didn't line up with the screw holes in the drive bay (the machine is a Compaq). Once we'd jimmied it in, attaching the IDE cable and getting the right jumper settings took a couple of tries too (the BIOS didn't like the auto setting - go figure).
This is nothing I'd expect, say, my mother to do. Or my brother (for whom I installed RAM in an original iMac). Or my father. Or my bandmates. Or any of the other non-geeks I know.
Anyone whose ever been to BestBuy and seen the racks of wintel pci/AGP cards, optical drives, hard-drives and memory they offer knows expansion is a consumer demand.
There's not all that much at the local Best Buy, actually, and of course they sell those because they know full well that the buyer will want Best Buy to install whatever it is. For a fee, of course.
Every E-Machines computer offers PCI slots and the ability to add an extra hard-drive. Or are eMachines targeted at "Prosumers."
eMachines are targeted at cheapskates and fools. They offer PCI slots and drive bays solely and exclusively because ATX cases and boards do, and those are the cheapest options. eMachines makes $5 per machine. They're never going to do market research and they're never going to do a clean-sheet design based on the results of that research. They're going to take advantage of the commodity market, which has been faithfully recycling the same design for about 30 years now, because that's what commodity markets do.
The argument that consumers don't want expansion slots is belied by the fact that overwhelming majority of consumer machines ARE expandable.
And that argument is mooted by the fact that any other option would involve more than just putting somebody else's board in somebody else's case and competing on price, which is the PC OEM business model. The boards support PCI because that's in the standard their suppliers adhere to; the cases have the drive bays because they're in the standard their suppliers adhere to; and there you go.
Last but not least...the consumer doesn't want an expansion slot because they NEED an expansion slot...they want an expansion slot as an insurance policy for the future. Who knows what the future will bring? In 2 years will your eMac need Firewire 800? Gigabit Ethernet? USB 2.0? A 300 Gig SATA drive? Whose to say? But regardless of what the device-makers drea, up with next, you're pretty much screwed if you own an eMac. Ditto the iMac, except for its cutting edge use of USB 2.0.
This argument only holds for sea changes like serial->USB, which are incredibly rare because, again, the industry wants ubiquity and compatibility above all. Improvements like FireWire 800 and Gigabit ethernet take long enough to trickle down that by the time they're common you probably need another machine anyway.
Mostly, this is just a sales tactic to push people up to more expensive models. It's not a real concern. The exception would be machines that are so stripped down that they have to be upgraded to remain functional, but Apple doesn't generally do that. It's not Mac-like to have to crack your machine open and fiddle with it.
Originally posted by tompage
And don't forget that not only do they have blowers to keep TWO 2.0GHz processors cool, but that:
1. The blowers are designed to be redundant so that if one or two fail the others compensate and
2. The blowers must not just keep the processors cool when the XServe is surrounded by cool circulating air, but also when the XServe is packed into a rack with 25 other XServes all puffing away crunching numbers at full power.
3. The current XServe case is likely designed to be compatible with expected CPU upgrades over the life of the product, i.e. dual 3.0 GHz 90 nm 970's; if Steve Job's WWDC prognostications are reliable.
Look at the eMac I would be surprised if it cost much more that a $200 to make. That is a stretch too.
Dave
Originally posted by fresco
Ok you assembled your machine for approx $900. What about marketing and support costs? apple has to factor these into their machine cost. I'm sure that if they had to price their machine with just the cost of the machine they could match the price of the assembled machine.
Cheers..
Originally posted by Krassy
no because apple doesn't go out and tell everyone that the 90nm G5 scales way beyond 2GHz. or did you expect them to? they want to sell the actual products... AND you've got the word of steve himself that the G5 scales well... what else do you want to have?
You are confusing an increase in frequency with a processors ability to scale. I fully expect the 90 nano meter chip to hit 3GHz or more real soon now. How well it scales is still up in the air. Without a cache size increase or dramtically faster access to main memory we may not see the speed increase we are expecting.
Now IBM could have taken other approaches to improve the cache at its present size. Any info on that being done is not yet become public. Even then, for certain applications, cache size can be very important.
I look at scalling as a processors ability to increase performance with the same ratio as the clock rate increase. Once the difference between internal processor clock speed and main memory starts to increase cache becomes very important to the processor to allow it to maintain full speed.
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don't be so pessimistic. my bet is that the 970 at 90nm will reach 3GHz. (or did you ever see a die-shrink that hasn't resulted in higher clockspeeds? me not) the next PowerMac revision will be announced in february and will come in clockspeeds up to 2.6GHz (at 90nm there's a little chance for an even higher clock)
I think Steve would like to have nothing better than a 3GHz PowerMac G5 on display for the 20th. I see absolutely nothing that will stop Apple from delivering such a machine. The big question is will they or will they play safe with the lead.
Don't misunderstand me the fact that IBM is at 90 nano meters if fantastic, especially for the low end. The 970, as described in the online information that Apple has on display now, is not the processor you will want to move into the high end. Maybe they have something else up their sleeves, who knows?
Dave
Originally posted by wizard69
The whole point is large manufactures such as Apple do not pay retail prices for their hardware. Not even close to retail. The manufactures are at a huge advantage when it comes to buying components and like wise have production advanatges that one nevers sees with either home built or a PC from the local shop.
Look at the eMac I would be surprised if it cost much more that a $200 to make. That is a stretch too.
Dave
You might be right in parts costs, but I think you might be low balling that figure by at least $50. Don't forget to add in packaging, shipping (and the required in insurance), advertising, Research and development, and industrial design, plant operating expenses, employee pension plans, etc, etc, etc... and on top of that some profit margin because Apple is a for profit business isn't it?
Originally posted by Amorph
No it can't. Anyone in the world can use a cupholder. The only people I know who swap in old hard drives also build radio transmitters powerful enough to bounce signals off the moon just for fun. It's not a consumer activity, and it's not relevant to consumer hardware.
Well I do not believe this is the case at all. Even if partly true, many people just take their case down to the local computer store for the latest and greatest.
The cup holders I'm actually refering to though are what is built into the machine that various people pick up at the store. Things such as multifunction card readers and the like.
They can be likened to cup holders as many people using these devices don't have a clue when it comes to the technology. They do understand that their camera (or whatever) takes a memory card that fits one of the slots in the reader. Much like a CDROM reader, the consumer starts to expect that certain things will be in place as convience to them.
Quote:
You're one of a handful of people for whom the ATX case - designed when expansion of all kinds was not optional - is actually still useful. This is an accident of the inertia of a commodity market, not a product of market-driven design. eMachines and HP use ATX cases because they can get ATX cases and boards that fit in ATX cases anywhere, and because they can use the expansion options for factory BTO. Once the machines are off the assembly line, I can guarantee you that the overwhelming majority are running exactly what they shipped with, modulo dying hard drives in Dells and the odd video card.
Well I tend to disagree, many people do add harddrives to their machines. Sure you can argue that with present drives sizes this is less likely to happen but I will take the other side of the fence in this argument. What is new, and quite literally chewing up harddrives, is the digital technology that has moved into the home front. Digital photos, movies and sound take up consderable space and are the latest examples of what users install on their machines to plug up a drive. Believe me it doesn't take long to fill a harddrive with digital photos.
Another point in this argument are sales fliers. Every computer store of any significant size runs weekly specials on harddrives. Very few of these are going into new boxes. Add to to harddrives things like CDROM's, memory and video cards. Sure many of these go to geeks but just as many if not more are going into non geek computers.
Originally posted by Antithesis
Actually, I disagree with this analogy. Though I do think you're on to something.
For me, it's analagous my 1987 Camaro RS. I bought it (used) in my Junior year of high school. It was a beast of an automobile, with a pristine Candy Apple Red paint job, ground effects, rear spoiler, and gorgeous mag wheels/comp tires. Problem was, the RS only had a 2.8L V6 under the hood. So while it LOOKED great, it simply didn't PERFORM well. Sure it got me from point A to point B, but I kicked myself after paying TOP DOLLAR for a sports car that had very POOR acceleration. The features just weren't there.
MY god another Comaro owner. A Comaro was my first new car, boy did I love that thing. Put 90 thousand miles on it then traded it in for a pickup, its been pickups ever since. Even so I still kick myself for getting rid of that car.
Quote:
And that's kind of how I feel about Apple's hardware. It's beautifully-crafted, but there's not much under the hood that supports the high price tag.
Well I do feel this way about much of Apples line of PC's. That is not however my opinion of the G5 XServe. As a server it delivers just what it needs to and nothing more at an almost reasonable price. I'm not at all thrilled with the processor going into the XServe at the moment but hopefully that is addressed in the future.
AS to the rest of the line well that is another issue. I certainly see a place for consumer and or low end machine with little in the way of servicable parts. The problem is these are Apples only solutions.
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Sure, I can go out and purchase an eMac for around $800. And it'll have a decent monitor and be able to do basic tasks. But it's completely inadequate for DVD burning and video games. And I ask myself, "Shouldn't the $800 Macintosh be able to perform functions that the $800 Wintel machine can for the same price?"
So maybe I can go out and purchase a G4 PowerMac for around $1300 instead? And I can use my 17" (smurf) Apple CRT display. And the PowerMac will be able to do basic tasks FASTER than the eMac. But it's STILL completely inadequate for DVD burning and video games.
So I guess that means that the entry-level G5 is really the ONLY Apple product that can suit my needs. But even with the DVD burning capability, the 1.6GHz G5 machine still has an AVERAGE video card. Which kind of makes me scratch my head. Because I'd think that a machine that costs $1800 should have more than an AVERAGE card. (But I suppose that's more of a personal preference, and not a requirement at this point)
Well it has been well known that Apple has been at a performance disadvantage for some time. You would have thought that they would have tried to make up for it in some manner such as advance video cards in the IMac. Actually memory is where they really drop the ball. I'm talking both GPU and main CPU memory. The soldered in memory in the ibook has been pathetic for years.
Quote:
So, my choices are:
1) Buy an Apple product at $1800 in order to utilize OSX
2) Buy an x86 product for (approx.) HALF the price and utilize XP
Or buy any of the above and run Linux (Fedora). I won't run XP at all, that is completely out of the question for me.
I've always said that Mac OS/X is worth a little extra money over most PC OS'es. But that is in the context of equal hardware. Now that some of the hardware is equal of better we are paying alot more than the combination is worth.
Quote:
Truth be told, I don't like EITHER option.
I found that awkward, also. Particularly so in the case of the Superdrive and iDVD. Apparently, it's impossible to burn a DVD with the Apple iTools unless you have a built-in Superdrive (or you're able to self-install a DVD-R drive into your Apple machine).
So, Apple is pretty much giving away iDVD with every new eMac, iMac, and G4 purchase. But it only actually WORKS with those consumers who UPGRADE to the Superdrive option.
Pity the poor bastard that buys an iMac combo drive, only to find out that s/he wants to do DVD burning 6 months later using iDVD. Looks like they'll need to shell out thousands more if they want to use the iDVD tool.
-Antithesis
Originally posted by wizard69
You are confusing an increase in frequency with a processors ability to scale. I fully expect the 90 nano meter chip to hit 3GHz or more real soon now. How well it scales is still up in the air. Without a cache size increase or dramtically faster access to main memory we may not see the speed increase we are expecting.
well - the 970 will scale very good bet on it. but i don't think it has to go further than 3GHz. IBM and Apple are developing the successor based on the Power5. this will be the high-end processor of upcoming macs starting from 2005. for this year a 970 at 3GHz will deliver the performance we're all expecting. along with its well designed bus-technology (half the clock) it has the potential to perform much better than the current 2GHz 970. bet on faster RAM-technology. also the fact that the cache speed scales with the cpu speed will help to boost performance. we don't have the bottlenecks as we had with the PowerMac G4 (especially the slow bus).
Originally posted by wizard69
The 970, as described in the online information that Apple has on display now, is not the processor you will want to move into the high end. Maybe they have something else up their sleeves, who knows?
planned for the 970s successor is the processors multi-threading capability as well as a new implementation of altivec. i think this alone will to the trick