Looks like a completely stripped down single-CPU system, except for the CPU and GPU.
I guess it depends on exactly what you hope to get out of the machine, but I could summon any number of reasons to pick a PM over that. Even without considering the fact that I don't like Windows, and I don't want to lose BBEdit, OmniGraffle, and the other top-shelf Mac-only apps I use daily, it only seems like a good deal on a workstation dedicated to rendering 3D scenes and little else.
What are you actually expecting to do with the machine? That should drive your choice.
I don't actually plan to buy this system, but it just points to the price/performance issue.
I am hoping to get the middle level model of the next revision and use my educational discount. I have my Dell 2005FPW already (same screen as 20 inch Cinema Display), so all I need is just my Mac.
I don't actually plan to buy this system, but it just points to the price/performance issue.
By ignoring other issues, yes. If I was going to get a PowerMac, I'd much rather have the dual CPUs, onboard everything, expandability to 16GB RAM, etc., a reasonable semblance of quiet, bedrock reliability (not something you can always count on from Dell) and the ability to hook up two 30" Cinema Displays.
Quote:
I am hoping to get the middle level model of the next revision and use my educational discount. I have my Dell 2005FPW already (same screen as 20 inch Cinema Display), so all I need is just my Mac.
I've been trying so hard to wait for the Rev. C PM's, but as someone noted before, the price/performance of the Wintel world can't be denied, I just configured this system at Dell for about $2100...
Dual Xeon for 2100.00 ain't half bad. Methinks that we need new Powermacs in the next 60 days.
I'm really growing weary of Apple's flaky upgrade cycles. This is one of the reasons why I think sites like Thinksecret need to exist. Apple's secrecy and obsfuscation of future plans is great for them but puts their users at odds.
We should know a bit about what's coming down the pipe. Time for Apple to move beyond the Dog and Pony show that exists today. Bring on the new Powermacs...and make'em good.
I understand they make more money there, but we professionals are relying on Macs for so many years. Apple cannot let us down.
Hopefully the upgrade for Pormacs will happen before WWDC. Steve Jobs likes impressive keynotes, my feeling Powerbook G5 there. But, before that Powermacs (hopefully March). And if the upgrade don't hit the 3 Ghz mark, is going to be pathetic for Apple and IBM to take more than 2 years to achieve that goal.
Dual Xeon for 2100.00 ain't half bad. Methinks that we need new Powermacs in the next 60 days.
I'm really growing weary of Apple's flaky upgrade cycles. This is one of the reasons why I think sites like Thinksecret need to exist. Apple's secrecy and obsfuscation of future plans is great for them but puts their users at odds.
I'd agree, but have you noticed that every time Apple tries to telegraph their plans, they get burned?
100 million songs sold! 3GHz!
The problem with being out on the edge like they are (not with every conceivable component, but with overall design and some crucial parts) is that not even they can be sure of what they'll release when.
Over on the other side, there was an article about how the Taiwanese manufacturers do their own laptop design now, and US (and other) companies simply rebrand the designs. That makes it a lot easier for those companies to say "we'll be offering this in x months." That, and anything daring ends up in a 10 pound luggable that's designed to present the least possible number of design obstacles...
The dual 1.8 & 2.0 towers should also see at least the 128MB GPU as a minimum
RAM specs for a GPU are rather dubious. It's a poor metric to use. A 128MB 5200fx isn't going to beat a 64MB 6600GT card. Larger frame buffers help if you have a lot of textures to store. That varies wildly. I agree though base RAM should be min 512MB. Why Apple ships the computers with 256MB is beyond me. They are creating a bad example and handcuffing OSX speed.
Looking at the consumer line...perhaps we see Apple decrease the price of the Powermac lineup. Powermacs are static in sales and this is understandable because the need for expansion cards is dwindling for the average consumer.
X800 XT's aren't going to help the situation but add another graphics card in the middle of the pack. A 6800 Gt and 6800 Ultra will whomp on a X800 XT. Don't believe me? Go to anandtech.com and do some research. ATI is selling them for 500 a pop right now... so you can assume thats about the price apple will get rid of them for. This adds NO significance to graphic card line ups.
I do agree however that they need to bump up the graphic card situation. 9600xt as the default card in the most high end machine is insane. That card should at the VERY VERY LEAST be a 9800xt. Though it really should even be a 6800GT.
Either way I know on the next revs this will be fixed. They will have no choice but to drop the 5200 ultra. This card offers nothing and is the very bottom of the barrel for Core Technologies. Therefor they will have to drop it to allow it to be put in other machines.
As far as when these machines will come out... I know apple won't release any updates this quarter... so forget that much. If I had to pick dates I'd say April - June area. I would be willing to bet Apple releases Tiger and these machines at the same time. I do suspect that Tiger won't be announced at WWDC, but a bit earlier. Tiger affects everyone, not just developers. Developers have had almost a whole year to work on tiger and get their programs ready. This was last years theme, i doubt it will be this year's as well.
As far as upgrading to 2.8 970fx processors. Apple can do a few things here. Obviously they will stick with liquid cooling. I believe they need better fan control. IMO speeding up the fan to full blast for 30 seconds isn't the most efficient way to cool a machine. They should have silent low rpm fans running on this cooler all the time... instead of the jet airplane, my machine is leaving my desk, spinup every few minutes. I understand this is what they do now, but I believe they should spin up the fans a little faster. As it stands I can't hear them AT ALL... so spin em up a little more. It is my belief this is why the harddrives are where they are at. This will prevent HOT airflow from hitting the processors.
If I can have really cheap fans in my pc running 24/7 at 25db and barely hear it, then they can make some great fans that run at 22db and have better cooling.
I know hmur is aware of this so I'm not attacking him... but everything relies on IBM and their yields. It's not really apple's job to get those processors to work. Somehow everyone still blames apple. IBM has basically caught up with demand, except for 2.5 processors. This is a sign that they can't move the 2.5's down yet and replace with a faster machine. They WILL have to catch up with these processors before they can commit to another faster model. They are getting closer to getting these chips undercontrol. The fact that they've been catching up shows that their yields are getting much better. They've had to produce double the chips from last year.
As soon as their yields are under control, I'd expect to see a new powermac.
I'm really growing weary of Apple's flaky upgrade cycles. This is one of the reasons why I think sites like Thinksecret need to exist. Apple's secrecy and obsfuscation of future plans is great for them but puts their users at odds.
We should know a bit about what's coming down the pipe. Time for Apple to move beyond the Dog and Pony show that exists today. Bring on the new Powermacs...and make'em good.
But the X800 XT is still slower than the Nvidia 6800 Ultra... so whats the point of adding it?
Are you saying that the x800 xt won't occupy a PCI slot next to the AGP slot? or are you saying that the x800 xt uses pci? I'm confused by your statement.
I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you meant it uses agp but won't occupy the space of the pci next to it... if so... then yah that's cool and understandable why they are needed. But I'd still prefer that 6800... but I have an extra PCI slot to spare.
I've been trying so hard to wait for the Rev. C PM's, but as someone noted before, the price/performance of the Wintel world can't be denied, I just configured this system at Dell for about $2100...
But the X800 XT is still slower than the Nvidia 6800 Ultra... so whats the point of adding it?
Are you saying that the x800 xt won't occupy a PCI slot next to the AGP slot? or are you saying that the x800 xt uses pci? I'm confused by your statement.
I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you meant it uses agp but won't occupy the space of the pci next to it... if so... then yah that's cool and understandable why they are needed. But I'd still prefer that 6800... but I have an extra PCI slot to spare.
The 6800 Ultra DDL, The 6800GT and the ATI 980XT are all so large that you must commit 2 or your 3 available PCI-X slots to use it.
The X800 XT is thinner, thus requiring only one dedicated PCI-X slot
[B]I've been trying so hard to wait for the Rev. C PM's, but as someone noted before, the price/performance of the Wintel world can't be denied, I just configured this system at Dell for about $2100...
I agree with Anand with the update at the same time as Tiger, I'm guessing at the NAB.
3.0 GHz 970MP x2 so four processor cores, according to TS, Apple received samples back in Aug and should finish testing around end of Jan so March would be about the time they could put them in Macs. Also TS said they would start at 3.0 GHz so it will be 3.0 GHz with a bang.
As for the rest of the system:
at least PCI-e possible SLI
Reason 1: PowerMac 9,1 in the plist files since back in 10.3.5 and it's not the Mac Mini because it's G5 based, this would also be a big enough change in the system to require a new profile to be added
Reason 2: the heavy use of GPUs in Tiger and Motion so an update in graphics is really needed
400 GB HD for BTO possibly 500 GB if Seagate and Hitachi get their act together
Reason: They use the 400 GB in the Xserve RAID
RAM 1 GB for top model 512 MB on the low end
Reason: Powerbooks
I'm thinking that this would be June at the latest. I'm not all that concerned however as my CD doesn't expire until then.
I think it sound great, but I have time believing TS until SJ announces it. It sounds a a little like extraordinary BS to me. Mostly because I don't think the G5, 2 cores or not can reach 3.0 GHz until they switch over to a 65nm fab.
If the 128MB ATI 9700 inside the latest Powerbook 17" can drive the 30" display, shouldn't the next round of Powermacs all be able to, and without having to spend an extra $400 to $500 ?
Comments
I guess it depends on exactly what you hope to get out of the machine, but I could summon any number of reasons to pick a PM over that. Even without considering the fact that I don't like Windows, and I don't want to lose BBEdit, OmniGraffle, and the other top-shelf Mac-only apps I use daily, it only seems like a good deal on a workstation dedicated to rendering 3D scenes and little else.
What are you actually expecting to do with the machine? That should drive your choice.
Oh, and welcome to AppleInsider.
I am hoping to get the middle level model of the next revision and use my educational discount. I have my Dell 2005FPW already (same screen as 20 inch Cinema Display), so all I need is just my Mac.
Originally posted by lrrobinson
I don't actually plan to buy this system, but it just points to the price/performance issue.
By ignoring other issues, yes.
I am hoping to get the middle level model of the next revision and use my educational discount. I have my Dell 2005FPW already (same screen as 20 inch Cinema Display), so all I need is just my Mac.
Enjoy!
in the next few weeks.
The immediate and obvious update will surely bump the default
RAM to 512MB minimum.
The dual 1.8 & 2.0 towers should also see at least the 128MB GPU as a minimum.
Across the board price adjustments like the PowerBook.
I would love to see a PCI-e/ SLI motherboard update.
That seems to be the most important issue.
If they solve that issue, then they've allowed the Pro users
much more in workstation class expandability.
We may see a few more options added to the configurations.
10,000 RPM enterprise SATA HD's
ATI X800 XT
Superdrive update?
With what I'm reading about the fans running in the 2.5 water cooled towers,
Im not sure if they can afford the additional noise issue by over-clocking
to 2.8 +/-GHz. You guys are more qualified than me on that guess.
They HAVE to bring the prices down on the single G5 tower and will very likely put the current towers on clearance.
Gut feelings tell me that unit will eventually become some version
of a headless 1.8 G5 iMac CUBE. w PCI-X or PCIe from $1099.
That combined with a 20" display would bring the line just one step above the AIO iMac G5's starting at $1999.
Many will jump fast on any G5iMac 128MB GPU upgrade.
A 3 Ghz dual core PowerMac is what I hope for, but
others like me will probably leap at any solid PowerMac improvement.
I'm tired of waiting.
BTW,
putting my "Mac fund" in a 3 month CD would earn me a whopping 1.67%. ( don't ya just love banks! )
I've been trying so hard to wait for the Rev. C PM's, but as someone noted before, the price/performance of the Wintel world can't be denied, I just configured this system at Dell for about $2100...
Dual Xeon for 2100.00 ain't half bad. Methinks that we need new Powermacs in the next 60 days.
I'm really growing weary of Apple's flaky upgrade cycles. This is one of the reasons why I think sites like Thinksecret need to exist. Apple's secrecy and obsfuscation of future plans is great for them but puts their users at odds.
We should know a bit about what's coming down the pipe. Time for Apple to move beyond the Dog and Pony show that exists today. Bring on the new Powermacs...and make'em good.
RAM to 512MB minimum.
The dual 1.8 & 2.0 towers should also see at least the 128MB GPU as a minimum.
Across the board price adjustments like the PowerBook.
If they solve that issue, then they've allowed the Pro users
much more in workstation class expandability.
10,000 RPM enterprise SATA HD's
ATI X800 XT
Superdrive update?
A 3 Ghz dual core PowerMac is what I hope for, but
others like me will probably leap at any solid PowerMac improvement.
I'm tired of waiting.
That's right! we need an upgrade very soon. I am also in the waiting game.
More Hard Drive, more RAM, Faster Superdrive with dual layer burner and lower prices across the board would please many people.
Maccentral has an interesting article about consumer Macs cannibalizing Pro Macs:
http://www.macworld.com/news/2005/02/02/10q/index.php
I understand they make more money there, but we professionals are relying on Macs for so many years. Apple cannot let us down.
Hopefully the upgrade for Pormacs will happen before WWDC. Steve Jobs likes impressive keynotes, my feeling Powerbook G5 there. But, before that Powermacs (hopefully March). And if the upgrade don't hit the 3 Ghz mark, is going to be pathetic for Apple and IBM to take more than 2 years to achieve that goal.
Originally posted by hmurchison
Dual Xeon for 2100.00 ain't half bad. Methinks that we need new Powermacs in the next 60 days.
I'm really growing weary of Apple's flaky upgrade cycles. This is one of the reasons why I think sites like Thinksecret need to exist. Apple's secrecy and obsfuscation of future plans is great for them but puts their users at odds.
I'd agree, but have you noticed that every time Apple tries to telegraph their plans, they get burned?
100 million songs sold! 3GHz!
The problem with being out on the edge like they are (not with every conceivable component, but with overall design and some crucial parts) is that not even they can be sure of what they'll release when.
Over on the other side, there was an article about how the Taiwanese manufacturers do their own laptop design now, and US (and other) companies simply rebrand the designs. That makes it a lot easier for those companies to say "we'll be offering this in x months." That, and anything daring ends up in a 10 pound luggable that's designed to present the least possible number of design obstacles...
The dual 1.8 & 2.0 towers should also see at least the 128MB GPU as a minimum
RAM specs for a GPU are rather dubious. It's a poor metric to use. A 128MB 5200fx isn't going to beat a 64MB 6600GT card. Larger frame buffers help if you have a lot of textures to store. That varies wildly. I agree though base RAM should be min 512MB. Why Apple ships the computers with 256MB is beyond me. They are creating a bad example and handcuffing OSX speed.
Looking at the consumer line...perhaps we see Apple decrease the price of the Powermac lineup. Powermacs are static in sales and this is understandable because the need for expansion cards is dwindling for the average consumer.
X800 XT's aren't going to help the situation but add another graphics card in the middle of the pack. A 6800 Gt and 6800 Ultra will whomp on a X800 XT. Don't believe me? Go to anandtech.com and do some research. ATI is selling them for 500 a pop right now... so you can assume thats about the price apple will get rid of them for. This adds NO significance to graphic card line ups.
I do agree however that they need to bump up the graphic card situation. 9600xt as the default card in the most high end machine is insane. That card should at the VERY VERY LEAST be a 9800xt. Though it really should even be a 6800GT.
Either way I know on the next revs this will be fixed. They will have no choice but to drop the 5200 ultra. This card offers nothing and is the very bottom of the barrel for Core Technologies. Therefor they will have to drop it to allow it to be put in other machines.
As far as when these machines will come out... I know apple won't release any updates this quarter... so forget that much. If I had to pick dates I'd say April - June area. I would be willing to bet Apple releases Tiger and these machines at the same time. I do suspect that Tiger won't be announced at WWDC, but a bit earlier. Tiger affects everyone, not just developers. Developers have had almost a whole year to work on tiger and get their programs ready. This was last years theme, i doubt it will be this year's as well.
As far as upgrading to 2.8 970fx processors. Apple can do a few things here. Obviously they will stick with liquid cooling. I believe they need better fan control. IMO speeding up the fan to full blast for 30 seconds isn't the most efficient way to cool a machine. They should have silent low rpm fans running on this cooler all the time... instead of the jet airplane, my machine is leaving my desk, spinup every few minutes. I understand this is what they do now, but I believe they should spin up the fans a little faster. As it stands I can't hear them AT ALL... so spin em up a little more. It is my belief this is why the harddrives are where they are at. This will prevent HOT airflow from hitting the processors.
If I can have really cheap fans in my pc running 24/7 at 25db and barely hear it, then they can make some great fans that run at 22db and have better cooling.
I know hmur is aware of this so I'm not attacking him... but everything relies on IBM and their yields. It's not really apple's job to get those processors to work. Somehow everyone still blames apple. IBM has basically caught up with demand, except for 2.5 processors. This is a sign that they can't move the 2.5's down yet and replace with a faster machine. They WILL have to catch up with these processors before they can commit to another faster model. They are getting closer to getting these chips undercontrol. The fact that they've been catching up shows that their yields are getting much better. They've had to produce double the chips from last year.
As soon as their yields are under control, I'd expect to see a new powermac.
Originally posted by hmurchison
I'm really growing weary of Apple's flaky upgrade cycles. This is one of the reasons why I think sites like Thinksecret need to exist. Apple's secrecy and obsfuscation of future plans is great for them but puts their users at odds.
We should know a bit about what's coming down the pipe. Time for Apple to move beyond the Dog and Pony show that exists today. Bring on the new Powermacs...and make'em good.
Well said.
The performance review at xlr8your mac showed the ATI X800XT
doing a pretty good job of holding it's own against the other current
offerings.
When you only have 3 PCI slots available, the ATI X800 XT will be preferred by those who want a 256MB GPU that only needs ONE
PCI slot.
The point we've all made here is that Apple needs to address the professional workstation upgrade issue allowing for industry specific
options that will keep Apple on the leading edge of Pro technology.
Are you saying that the x800 xt won't occupy a PCI slot next to the AGP slot? or are you saying that the x800 xt uses pci? I'm confused by your statement.
I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you meant it uses agp but won't occupy the space of the pci next to it... if so... then yah that's cool and understandable why they are needed. But I'd still prefer that 6800... but I have an extra PCI slot to spare.
Originally posted by lrrobinson
I've been trying so hard to wait for the Rev. C PM's, but as someone noted before, the price/performance of the Wintel world can't be denied, I just configured this system at Dell for about $2100...
Dell Precision Workstation 670\tIntel® Xeon? Processor 3.00GHz, 1MB L2 Cache\t6T30\t[221-4427]\t1
Operating System\tMicrosoft® Windows® XP Professional, SP2 with Media\tXPP2E\t[420-4860]\t11
2nd Processor (Must match speed selection above)\tIntel® Xeon? Processor 3.00GHz, 1MB L2 cache\tPR30\t[311-3862]\t2
Memory\tFREE UPGRADE! 1GB,DDR SDRAM, 4x256 for the price of 512MB\t1GN4DYM\t[463-3042]\t3
Keyboard\tEntry Level, PS/2, No Hot Keys\tE\t[310-1609]\t4
Monitor\tNo Monitor Option\tN\t[320-3316]\t5
Graphic Cards\t128MB PCIe x16 ATI FireGL V3100, Dual VGA or DVI + VGA Capable\tATI128\t[320-3958]\t6
First Hard Drive\t80GB SATA, 7200 RPM Hard Drive with DataBurst Cache? without RAID\t80SAT\t[341-1138]\t8
Hard Drive Configuration\tC1- All SATA drives, Non-RAID, 1 to 2 drive total configuration\tSATA12\t[341-1113]\t9
Floppy Drive Options\t3.5 inch 1.44MB Floppy Drive\tFD\t[341-0497]\t10
Mouse\tDell USB 2-Button Mechanical Mouse with Scroll\tELD\t[310-5203]\t12
File System\tNTFS File System\tNTFS\t[420-3699]\t13
CD-ROM, DVD, and Read-Write Devices\t48X CD-ROM\tCD48\t[313-1304]\t16
Speakers\tNo Speaker option\tN\t[313-2663]\t18
Resource CD\tResources CD contains Diagnostics and Driver for Precision Systems\tRCD\t[310-5419]\t21
Hardware Support Services\t3 Year Basic Plan\tW3YOS\t[980-7000][980-7002]\t29
Onsite System Setup\tNo Onsite System Setup\tNOINSTL\t[900-9987]\t32
Quick Reference Guide\tQuick Reference Guide\tREF\t[310-5420]\t40
Energy Star\tEnergy Star?\tES\t[310-4821]\t50
Mail- In Rebate\tNone\tNONE\t[463-1832]\t81
TOTAL: $2,108.00
so buy it. see if anyone cares.
Originally posted by emig647
But the X800 XT is still slower than the Nvidia 6800 Ultra... so whats the point of adding it?
Are you saying that the x800 xt won't occupy a PCI slot next to the AGP slot? or are you saying that the x800 xt uses pci? I'm confused by your statement.
I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you meant it uses agp but won't occupy the space of the pci next to it... if so... then yah that's cool and understandable why they are needed. But I'd still prefer that 6800... but I have an extra PCI slot to spare.
The 6800 Ultra DDL, The 6800GT and the ATI 980XT are all so large that you must commit 2 or your 3 available PCI-X slots to use it.
The X800 XT is thinner, thus requiring only one dedicated PCI-X slot
[B]I've been trying so hard to wait for the Rev. C PM's, but as someone noted before, the price/performance of the Wintel world can't be denied, I just configured this system at Dell for about $2100...
Danger irrobinson DANGER!
http://www.alienware.com/product_det...de=SKU-DEFAULT ONLY $5000!
If only you didn't have to connect to the internet running XP Pro
tsk tsk.
Originally posted by FallenFromTheTree
You would have to be seriously insane about gaming to get that beast.
3.0 GHz 970MP x2 so four processor cores, according to TS, Apple received samples back in Aug and should finish testing around end of Jan so March would be about the time they could put them in Macs. Also TS said they would start at 3.0 GHz so it will be 3.0 GHz with a bang.
As for the rest of the system:
at least PCI-e possible SLI
Reason 1: PowerMac 9,1 in the plist files since back in 10.3.5 and it's not the Mac Mini because it's G5 based, this would also be a big enough change in the system to require a new profile to be added
Reason 2: the heavy use of GPUs in Tiger and Motion so an update in graphics is really needed
400 GB HD for BTO possibly 500 GB if Seagate and Hitachi get their act together
Reason: They use the 400 GB in the Xserve RAID
RAM 1 GB for top model 512 MB on the low end
Reason: Powerbooks
I'm thinking that this would be June at the latest. I'm not all that concerned however as my CD doesn't expire until then.
that a company like Apple SHOULD be able to offer
in a professional class desktop workstation.
You may also note that availablility of this expansion seems to be more important than price.
All a matter of just making it possible.
PCI-Express is not some futuristic dream
and apparently dual 256MB nforce SLI cards are available.
Pro sound cards and plug in interface capabilities are simply a matter of budget.
Enterprise quality 10,000 RPM Hard Drives plug right in.
Beyond that you're getting into external storage, Xserve, XsAN and RAID.
The point is ...
none of these expandability options would require any major re-tooling
of the current G5 chassis.
It's more a matter of freeing the chains that bind us.
Even without dual core, the G5 PowerMac should be on even ground
with the competition in connectivity.
That's all I'm asking