Updated Apple Power Mac G5 systems en route to company stores

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  • Reply 141 of 185
    gamblorgamblor Posts: 446member
    Quote:

    Nobody's saying PCIe should replace PCI/PCI-X yet.



    That's the thing-- when Apple goes for PCIe, I expect them to go for it completely. I don't think they'll have machines with both PCIe & PCI-X slots. What they probably will do, is keep a machine around from the previous revision-- kind of like they did with the G4 Powermac after the G5 was introduced. After that, though, it'll likely be all PCIe slots on all Powermacs.



    Quote:

    The jump from PCI to AGP was quick



    And yet, PCI video cards are still available.



    I agree that PCIe is going to replace AGP (and already is, to a large extent). I just don't think that it's going to do it so fast that you won't be able to find AGP upgrade cards in a year or two (or even three, for that matter).



    Quote:

    So it doesn't exactly make sense to buy a brand spanking new $2-3000 computer which comes with a video card interface that is rapidly becoming obsolete.



    Sure it does. If you buy a Powermac today with a 9600 with the intent of upgrading the video in two years, I think it's a safe bet that there will still be at least x850 & 6800 AGP cards on the market two years from now. Hell-- there might even be x900 & 6900 (or whatever ATI & nVidia call their next generation high end chipsets) cards in AGP versions available, as well. C'mon man-- the upgrade options for AGP aren't that bleak...
  • Reply 142 of 185
    emig647emig647 Posts: 2,455member
    The more I look at the new systems the MORE I don't think those ATI 9600's and 9650's are even Pro or XT!!!!!!



    I looked all through the specs on the machines, through the BTO. Not one time was the XT or Pro acronyms used! The cards have obviously been changed, the 9650 can now run dual 30" lcds... hrm.



    I have a feeling these are just plain 9600's. That means lower gpu and memory speeds. This would be a new low of apple, to replace elite parts with inferior parts.



    Along with that, a modem doesn't come standard any more (so there is another $35 dollars off of the price tag). These machines are looking like they upped the price more than lowering it. The 6800ultra still sells for 500 BTO on the 2.3. I'm really shocked at all this and I hope someone can confirm that I'm wrong about the ATI cards.



    On a side note, they did lower the LCD prices (like they should have a long long time ago).
  • Reply 143 of 185
    hmurchisonhmurchison Posts: 12,419member
    Quote:

    C'mon man-- the upgrade options for AGP aren't that bleak...



    Gamblor you are correct. I just recently read that ATI will be doing parallel development of both AGP and PCIe verisons of their upcoming cards. So AGP is safe for at least 2 years.



    I seriously doubt that even a third of Powermac owners upgrade their graphics cards. No the new hardware isn't a tour de force but it works and is proven.
  • Reply 144 of 185
    pbpb Posts: 4,255member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by emig647

    I'm really shocked at all this and I hope someone can confirm that I'm wrong about the ATI cards.





    I am afraid you are right. Sorry.
  • Reply 145 of 185
    emig647emig647 Posts: 2,455member
    Well its obvious that apple has an extreme low supply of AGP graphics cards. Looks like all they have now is 9600, 9650 and 6800ultra. To me that means that they don't want to put any mroe production because they plan on moving to a new interface soon.



    This is unacceptable, at least give us a mediocre card like a 9800xt or EVEN A 9600XT!!! Jesus! I'd rather have the older machines with the other graphics cards options. These machines got worse! not better!
  • Reply 146 of 185
    emig647emig647 Posts: 2,455member
    I would also like to point out that the dual 2.7 is still liquid cooled:



    Liquid Cooling Sucks
  • Reply 147 of 185
    dave jdave j Posts: 84member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by emig647

    I would also like to point out that the dual 2.7 is still liquid cooled:



    Liquid Cooling Sucks




    That's cool: the 2 year expected lifespan of the cooler will mesh nicely with the unavailability of any AGP solution in 2 years.
  • Reply 148 of 185
    emig647emig647 Posts: 2,455member
    ROFL!!



    No kidding.
  • Reply 149 of 185
    Still Liquid Cooled!!!???





    Since we know Apple reads these fora, here's a little hint:



    http://arstechnica.com/guide/cooling/peltier-1.html
  • Reply 150 of 185
    dfilerdfiler Posts: 3,420member
    Dave J: "2 year expected lifespan"

    The OEM supplier warrantees the cooler for that long... which is completely different from "expected lifespan". Sorry bub, go troll somewhere else.



    Has there even been a single destructive failure reported for the powermac liquid cooling system?



  • Reply 151 of 185
    arty50arty50 Posts: 201member
    I have a question. Everyone seems to be wary of the liquid cooling system, but I have yet to read of a single problem with it. In fact, people seemed really happy with it (for noise reasons) before the otherwise unsubstantiated rumor was posted on TS. So what's the deal? Why is a part that has been completely trouble free now being lambasted? I guess time will tell as far as the rumor goes, but for now I think the concern is unwarranted.



    As for AGP vs. PCIe. I don't think AGP will be dead in two years time. But I think your options will be more limited than they are today. That's all. While most people don't replace their GPUs, it's a concern for me. I tend to keep my Macs for several years.
  • Reply 152 of 185
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Junkyard Dawg



    Anyone know the shortest time between Powermac updates? Are there any other examples of Apple putting out stop-gap machines while they toil over the next insanely great thing?




    Yikes / Sawtooth?



    Mandricard

    AppleOutsider
  • Reply 153 of 185
    Oh yes, now I remember! The Yikes - Sawtooth, what was that, like 3-4 months? The last G3 update was very soon before the promising G4 announcement.



    Apple isn't hyping these updates at all, so thankfully they don't see them as anything special, either. I bet within 6 months Apple has twin-dual core liquid nitrogen cooled beasts.
  • Reply 154 of 185
    gullivergulliver Posts: 122member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by fahlman

    Unless my math is wrong, I am from Indiana, if the Dual 2.7 GHz Power Mac is released tomorrow we will have seen a 35% increase in processor speed in 20 months. Is this so bad?



    Right:



    +35% processor speed (2GHz -> 2.7GHz)

    +100% RAM (256MB->512MB)

    +56% hard disk space (160GB->250GB)

    +200%VRAM (64MB->256MB)

    +53% graphic card speed (325MHz->500MHz)

    +100% optical drive capacity (single layer->double layer)

    +400% optical drive speed (4x->16x)



    Not bad at all - not even bad as compared to my Dual 2.5GHz in the office! I just ordered my new Dual 2.7!
  • Reply 155 of 185
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by hmurchison

    Gamblor you are correct. I just recently read that ATI will be doing parallel development of both AGP and PCIe verisons of their upcoming cards. So AGP is safe for at least 2 years.



    I seriously doubt that even a third of Powermac owners upgrade their graphics cards. No the new hardware isn't a tour de force but it works and is proven.




    The last high end cards ATI will have for AGP are the 800 series. The last high end NVIDIA cards will be the 6800 series.



    Those are pretty high end cards now. But two years from now they will classed as the 9800 is now, possibly even the 9600. Even a year from now these cards will be at least one generation behind.



    The industry is switching over to Express rapidly. By January, most all PC's sold, except for the $500 or less models will be Express. Most PC's will remain PCI because thats what's out there. But all high end developement is shifting over to Express support.



    Powermac sales are in the dumps. Remember the numbers they quoted were for the entire professional line, which includes the X-serves. So it's a matter of politics as well.



    Professional users such as my company (I'm retired now, sold off my half) buy new machines as we need them. It can be every year. But we also keep machines. We like to know that a $4,500 (after memory, video card, etc. enhancements) investment has legs. At this time a PCI machine has no legs.
  • Reply 156 of 185
    emig647emig647 Posts: 2,455member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by dfiler

    Dave J: "2 year expected lifespan"

    The OEM supplier warrantees the cooler for that long... which is completely different from "expected lifespan". Sorry bub, go troll somewhere else.



    Has there even been a single destructive failure reported for the powermac liquid cooling system?







    Actually yes there has been failures on the liquid cooler. At least on the dual 2.5s (obviously not on the 2.7s, maybe they are different).



    Apple has discovered (and sent out memos on this to Techs), that the coolers life span is more like 2 years where Delphi said it was 2.5 years.
  • Reply 157 of 185
    emig647emig647 Posts: 2,455member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Arty50

    I have a question. Everyone seems to be wary of the liquid cooling system, but I have yet to read of a single problem with it. In fact, people seemed really happy with it (for noise reasons) before the otherwise unsubstantiated rumor was posted on TS. So what's the deal? Why is a part that has been completely trouble free now being lambasted? I guess time will tell as far as the rumor goes, but for now I think the concern is unwarranted.



    As for AGP vs. PCIe. I don't think AGP will be dead in two years time. But I think your options will be more limited than they are today. That's all. While most people don't replace their GPUs, it's a concern for me. I tend to keep my Macs for several years.




    Compare a dual 2.0 Rev B to a dual 2.5 Rev B... the 2.0's fans do not spin up as much, being quieter.
  • Reply 158 of 185
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Gene Clean

    IBM is Apple's CPU supplier, therefore IBM's problems, become Apple's problems.



    Apple chose IBM as a partner, therefore they both share the same problem. IBM may be the only one responsible for the technical side of the problem, but Apple, and by that I mean Steve Jobs primarily, are the ones that are responsible for the marketing side of the problem: 3 Ghz was spoken with a true conviction by SJ, it was not a false marketing plot.



    Because IBM failed to deliver, does not mean that Apple didn't believe that IBM would deliver.



    In any case, 3 Ghz is a long gone, nowadays forgotten thing. If IBM can deliver dual-core, then it will be just a bad memory.




    You're oversimplifing. The entire industry is in the same hole as Apple and IBM. Intel promised that Prescott would scale to at least 5GHz. It didn't make 4. The same thing with AMD.



    No one expected the problems with 90nm would be so severe.



    I have my doubts about 65nm at this point. I'm hearing that the chip companies are talking rosy talk, but they still haven't fixed 90nm.



    Yes, both AMD and Intel now are shipping dual cores. I'm concerned about the fact that we've heard nothing from IBM yet. And they have been producing dual core POWER chips for three years already.



    So that bothers me, yes.



    But not 3GHz. At least IBM is still raising speeds. Both AMD and Intel have both stopped months ago. Don't forget that their dual core chips are significantly slower per core than their single core chip.



    I hope that the GX's will come out. Then we'll see. The MP's are also based on those.
  • Reply 159 of 185
    gamblorgamblor Posts: 446member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by melgross

    The last high end cards ATI will have for AGP are the 800 series. The last high end NVIDIA cards will be the 6800 series.





    What evidence do you have for this? What hmurchison wrote (and what you even quoted) directly contradicts that statement, at least for ATI. (Unless, ATI's next cards are going to be in the x800 series. x875?)
  • Reply 160 of 185
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Gamblor

    What evidence do you have for this? What hmurchison wrote (and what you even quoted) directly contradicts that statement, at least for ATI. (Unless, ATI's next cards are going to be in the x800 series. x875?)



    Any cards in the 800 series are going to support PCI and AGP. ATI stated that. But it's been widely known that ATI has turned their development solely to Express on new card development. Any new cards developed from EXISTING lines will support existing machines, but new lines (900 series?) won't. Remember that ATI's 800 series cards supported Express first, with direct Express support, and an AGP to Express bridge chip was developed later, as they said, solely to support existing machines, but that they would not commit to continued use of the chip. They said (this was several months ago) that there were STILL (I emphasize that word) enough customers to make it worthwhile not to ignore them.
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