Look, we can mope over the calender all we want - fact is that while the powerbooks remain a very well designed tool, Apple's premier portable should not be thrashed by their midrange desktop (connectivity and GPU performance aside).
I'm still hoping for a dual core G4 - now that would say PRO.
I plan to go big and get the 17in with all the goods but I do not want to buy it and a week later see the G5 release. I know that no one knows but, does anyone have an IDEA when this could happen?
Please give me some opinions. I am not asking for facts because I know that it's all speculation at this point.
Thanks and as you can tell, this is my first post. I have been reading these forums for about a month, just never registered.
Look, this is the problem with undocumented posts. Before Apple can have a PB G5 it has to have a low power G5 chip. The first low power G5 chip will be the 970gx but that is not even completed yet. And not even close to being massproduced. So the good news you PB will not be outdated in a few months. Untill we even see a 970gx it won't be oudted buy a G5 anytime soon. The bad news is that the rest of us will have to wait a while for the PB G5 and hope the 970gx is cool enough to run in a laptop. Good luck, while in college.
Look, this is the problem with undocumented posts. Before Apple can have a PB G5 it has to have a low power G5 chip. The first low power G5 chip will be the 970gx but that is not even completed yet. And not even close to being massproduced. So the good news you PB will not be outdated in a few months. Untill we even see a 970gx it won't be oudted buy a G5 anytime soon. The bad news is that the rest of us will have to wait a while for the PB G5 and hope the 970gx is cool enough to run in a laptop. Good luck, while in college.
And your sources for this string of assertions are...?
We have no indication that the 970gx is the low power chip. The source that broke the 970MP and GX story also suggested the existence of a third, explicitly low power variant.
The MP and GX were sampling to Apple last year, and there have been some indications that there may have been production problems holding up their use in Apple products. It is also possible that any hold up is because Apple wants to use up stocks of the FX.
If there is a low-power chip - and I think it is almost certain there is, Apple and IBM have had at least two years to work on one - then there is a very good chance it is ready to go into new laptop models.
The almost complete absence of substantive rumours in the build-up to WWDC (contrast that with the impressive flow of news about Tiger's release) suggests to me that they are planning on making a big noise at WWDC. There are also large slots open in the conference programme, where a big announcement and follow-up sessions could go (according to a Macintouch correspondent).
So is that going to be new PowerBooks with a G5 badge (whatever might be inside), or new MP powered PowerMacs, or both? You don't know, I don't know, and those who do know aren't talking because they don't want to lose their Jobs.
But I will not be replacing my Pismo for a while yet.
I'm suspecting that possibly niether, that Apple will spend that valuable conference time on something new. Maybe the tablet rumors are a reality, there are also other new technology possibilities.
That doesn't mean the 'books won't be updated just that they might not be the focus of the show. From what we know of technology, from public IBM information, I'd have to think that any 64 bit 'book is likely to have some sort of PPE like processor in it. I just can't see the 970 moving forward and at the same time significantly lowering power.
The other issue with respect to the 970 is its need for a support processor just to start up. For any sort of portable this strikes me as a waste. So I don't see a 970xx based portable coming soon, at least not a version we know about today.
Maybe I'm a little to focused on what a portable is. In my mind the idea behind a portable is to be able to run on a battery free of a power cord. Performance is important here of course but not at the expense of 0.8hrs of run time.
Dave
Quote:
Originally posted by Bucolic Old Sir Henry
So is that going to be new PowerBooks with a G5 badge (whatever might be inside), or new MP powered PowerMacs, or both? You don't know, I don't know, and those who do know aren't talking because they don't want to lose their Jobs.
But I will not be replacing my Pismo for a while yet.
They aren't manufacturing a new machine. For all intensive purposes, it is the same machine with a few part bin swaps. If the powerbook sales are slowing, it doesn't make economic sense not to update it. Apple knows people want the G5 or at least something more than the current G4; as soon as they have that "something" ready for manufacturing it will be announced, recent update or not.
Not to be nitpicky, but it's for all *intents and* purposes, not intensive.
Not to be nitpicky, but it's for all *intents and* purposes, not intensive.
Although it might be for intensive purposes. I've seen my share of unintensive purposes. We could also add, since we're on this topic that it's NOT card shark but card sharp. Nor is it long shot as in "not by a long shot"; it's long chalk. Therefore, you ask, "Hey, are we gonna see a G5 PB at WWDC?" and I reply, "No way, man, not by a long chalk." But a Dual G4 would be acceptable.8)
And your sources for this string of assertions are...?
We have no indication that the 970gx is the low power chip. The source that broke the 970MP and GX story also suggested the existence of a third, explicitly low power variant.
The MP and GX were sampling to Apple last year, and there have been some indications that there may have been production problems holding up their use in Apple products. It is also possible that any hold up is because Apple wants to use up stocks of the FX.
If there is a low-power chip - and I think it is almost certain there is, Apple and IBM have had at least two years to work on one - then there is a very good chance it is ready to go into new laptop models.
The almost complete absence of substantive rumours in the build-up to WWDC (contrast that with the impressive flow of news about Tiger's release) suggests to me that they are planning on making a big noise at WWDC. There are also large slots open in the conference programme, where a big announcement and follow-up sessions could go (according to a Macintouch correspondent).
So is that going to be new PowerBooks with a G5 badge (whatever might be inside), or new MP powered PowerMacs, or both? You don't know, I don't know, and those who do know aren't talking because they don't want to lose their Jobs.
But I will not be replacing my Pismo for a while yet.
Pip pip!
This gives me some type of hope, thank you. In this situation, considering I do not have the money right now anyhow, this is a good hope even if it's a false hope.
This gives me some type of hope, thank you. In this situation, considering I do not have the money right now anyhow, this is a good hope even if it's a false hope.
Dual G4 laptop... hmm... Now if the G5 is too hot could dual G4s be cool enough? That would be excellent. :P
I've been saying this the last year. That I'd rather have a dual g4 than a single g5. The e600MP may be done before the lowpowered g5... This is the only thing I'm waiting on... if it doesn't happen by WWDC, then I'm ordering my powerbook.
I freakin hate this preoccupation with thin PowerBooks!!! Either make one thicker, or perhaps split the line, or something. A slightly thicker PB G5 is a heeell of a lot better than a thin one that has 1/5 the performance! The G4 bus performance is now very, very behind. Liquid cool the thing if you must. The G5 needs to come or PB sales will suck. And they have good margins.
Liquid cooling doesn't add that much more cooling than a good heatsink / fan combo.
Apple DOES have room for growth in the thickness of their machines. I've seen some pretty bulky PC laptops lately... personally I'd never own one, but I can see the apple growing another .25 inch and still being acceptable.
I freakin hate this preoccupation with thin PowerBooks!!! Either make one thicker, or perhaps split the line, or something. A slightly thicker PB G5 is a heeell of a lot better than a thin one that has 1/5 the performance! The G4 bus performance is now very, very behind. Liquid cool the thing if you must. The G5 needs to come or PB sales will suck. And they have good margins.
With a little bit of creativity and a few years to perfect it, Apple (or anyone interested) could develop a technique to make laptops thin without sacrificing heat dissipation. For example: if the CPU were sunk into a glass-like subtrate -- preferably a amorphous metallic ceramic -- and channels were molded into the glass, the heat of the chip would be enough to cause liquid to circulate in the channels, spreading the heat across the entire bottom section of the laptop. Apple already uses this kind of convection cooling. The trick would be molding the metallic glass and sinking the chip in it. But more outrageous things have been done. . . and been commercialized.
I've been saying this the last year. That I'd rather have a dual g4 than a single g5. The e600MP may be done before the lowpowered g5... This is the only thing I'm waiting on... if it doesn't happen by WWDC, then I'm ordering my powerbook.
Same here. I'm typing on my first Apple laptop, an iBook purchased new in Jan. 2000 366mHz/Firewire/572mb/20G. It has held up great, Panther runs fine on it, but I finally want a little more power, so I could make do with a current iBook or Powerbook. If WWDC yields something, I'll take it. If not, I'll take what Apple's got right now because it's still gonna run a dozen times faster than what I've got.
You're joking right? Why? Well, Freescale and IBM produce PowerPC chips and all code is compiled for that line. In order to have both PowerPC and x86 chip lines in their products, they would have to maintain two completely different code bases and their 3rd party software vendors would have to do the same. Why in the hell would anyone spend the money on that??!?!!
don't distract him, he is happy... besides such arguments are fruitless in the face of whose who hope for an AMD powered Mac.
I freakin hate this preoccupation with thin PowerBooks!!! Either make one thicker, or perhaps split the line, or something. A slightly thicker PB G5 is a heeell of a lot better than a thin one that has 1/5 the performance! The G4 bus performance is now very, very behind. Liquid cool the thing if you must. The G5 needs to come or PB sales will suck. And they have good margins.
Oh please no! I've owned two inch thick dells that weigh ten pounds, have two fans and get three hours of battery life even when you have two batteries in them...
Of course despite having a G4, Apple sells ALOT of PBs- they are still competetive because laptops aren't ranked on overall speed so much as how good of a complete computer solution they are. Apple's laptops are incredibly well rounded.
I'm suspecting that possibly niether, that Apple will spend that valuable conference time on something new. Maybe the tablet rumors are a reality, there are also other new technology possibilities.
That doesn't mean the 'books won't be updated just that they might not be the focus of the show. From what we know of technology, from public IBM information, I'd have to think that any 64 bit 'book is likely to have some sort of PPE like processor in it. I just can't see the 970 moving forward and at the same time significantly lowering power.
The other issue with respect to the 970 is its need for a support processor just to start up. For any sort of portable this strikes me as a waste. So I don't see a 970xx based portable coming soon, at least not a version we know about today.
Maybe I'm a little to focused on what a portable is. In my mind the idea behind a portable is to be able to run on a battery free of a power cord. Performance is important here of course but not at the expense of 0.8hrs of run time.
Dave
Compared with the relatively detailed leak of the 970MP and GX specs, we've heard nothing about the putative low-power chip beyond that it was sampling at speeds of 1.6 to 2.0GHz. There were rumours a year or so ago that Apple and IBM were playing around with multi-core laptop chips, but that was dismissed at the time. However, with what we now know about Waternoose and Cell, it's at least conceivable that Apple and IBM decided to play with the same ingredients. Two PPE cores and a couple of SPEs perhaps? With an on-die memory controller? Clocked relatively low (to save power & heat), but in combination handily outpacing any single 970 core at laptop friendly clock rates?
Tiger's "core" technologies may be the key here, and getting Tiger out of the door necessary to allow the release of new hardware with CPUs that ship a lot of the "core" tasks out to SPE-type co-processors. That's what the big holes in the programme are for, perhaps. Sessions to get devs focussed on making hte best use of this new, but relatively specialised processing power.
On the other hand, I'm not expecting the above. It's possible, that's all. I suspect that what we will actually get will be a single core 970-based design.
Comments
I'm still hoping for a dual core G4 - now that would say PRO.
john
Originally posted by ryanschmidt
I plan to go big and get the 17in with all the goods but I do not want to buy it and a week later see the G5 release. I know that no one knows but, does anyone have an IDEA when this could happen?
Please give me some opinions. I am not asking for facts because I know that it's all speculation at this point.
Thanks and as you can tell, this is my first post.
Look, this is the problem with undocumented posts. Before Apple can have a PB G5 it has to have a low power G5 chip. The first low power G5 chip will be the 970gx but that is not even completed yet. And not even close to being massproduced. So the good news you PB will not be outdated in a few months. Untill we even see a 970gx it won't be oudted buy a G5 anytime soon. The bad news is that the rest of us will have to wait a while for the PB G5 and hope the 970gx is cool enough to run in a laptop. Good luck, while in college.
Originally posted by two
...For all intensive purposes
Originally posted by AquaMac
Look, this is the problem with undocumented posts. Before Apple can have a PB G5 it has to have a low power G5 chip. The first low power G5 chip will be the 970gx but that is not even completed yet. And not even close to being massproduced. So the good news you PB will not be outdated in a few months. Untill we even see a 970gx it won't be oudted buy a G5 anytime soon. The bad news is that the rest of us will have to wait a while for the PB G5 and hope the 970gx is cool enough to run in a laptop. Good luck, while in college.
And your sources for this string of assertions are...?
We have no indication that the 970gx is the low power chip. The source that broke the 970MP and GX story also suggested the existence of a third, explicitly low power variant.
The MP and GX were sampling to Apple last year, and there have been some indications that there may have been production problems holding up their use in Apple products. It is also possible that any hold up is because Apple wants to use up stocks of the FX.
If there is a low-power chip - and I think it is almost certain there is, Apple and IBM have had at least two years to work on one - then there is a very good chance it is ready to go into new laptop models.
The almost complete absence of substantive rumours in the build-up to WWDC (contrast that with the impressive flow of news about Tiger's release) suggests to me that they are planning on making a big noise at WWDC. There are also large slots open in the conference programme, where a big announcement and follow-up sessions could go (according to a Macintouch correspondent).
So is that going to be new PowerBooks with a G5 badge (whatever might be inside), or new MP powered PowerMacs, or both? You don't know, I don't know, and those who do know aren't talking because they don't want to lose their Jobs.
But I will not be replacing my Pismo for a while yet.
Pip pip!
Now if Apple returned to that thickness a PB G5 might be more doable.
That doesn't mean the 'books won't be updated just that they might not be the focus of the show. From what we know of technology, from public IBM information, I'd have to think that any 64 bit 'book is likely to have some sort of PPE like processor in it. I just can't see the 970 moving forward and at the same time significantly lowering power.
The other issue with respect to the 970 is its need for a support processor just to start up. For any sort of portable this strikes me as a waste. So I don't see a 970xx based portable coming soon, at least not a version we know about today.
Maybe I'm a little to focused on what a portable is. In my mind the idea behind a portable is to be able to run on a battery free of a power cord. Performance is important here of course but not at the expense of 0.8hrs of run time.
Dave
Originally posted by Bucolic Old Sir Henry
So is that going to be new PowerBooks with a G5 badge (whatever might be inside), or new MP powered PowerMacs, or both? You don't know, I don't know, and those who do know aren't talking because they don't want to lose their Jobs.
But I will not be replacing my Pismo for a while yet.
Pip pip!
Originally posted by two
They aren't manufacturing a new machine. For all intensive purposes, it is the same machine with a few part bin swaps. If the powerbook sales are slowing, it doesn't make economic sense not to update it. Apple knows people want the G5 or at least something more than the current G4; as soon as they have that "something" ready for manufacturing it will be announced, recent update or not.
Not to be nitpicky, but it's for all *intents and* purposes, not intensive.
Originally posted by steppenwolf
Not to be nitpicky, but it's for all *intents and* purposes, not intensive.
Although it might be for intensive purposes. I've seen my share of unintensive purposes. We could also add, since we're on this topic that it's NOT card shark but card sharp. Nor is it long shot as in "not by a long shot"; it's long chalk. Therefore, you ask, "Hey, are we gonna see a G5 PB at WWDC?" and I reply, "No way, man, not by a long chalk." But a Dual G4 would be acceptable.8)
Originally posted by Bucolic Old Sir Henry
And your sources for this string of assertions are...?
We have no indication that the 970gx is the low power chip. The source that broke the 970MP and GX story also suggested the existence of a third, explicitly low power variant.
The MP and GX were sampling to Apple last year, and there have been some indications that there may have been production problems holding up their use in Apple products. It is also possible that any hold up is because Apple wants to use up stocks of the FX.
If there is a low-power chip - and I think it is almost certain there is, Apple and IBM have had at least two years to work on one - then there is a very good chance it is ready to go into new laptop models.
The almost complete absence of substantive rumours in the build-up to WWDC (contrast that with the impressive flow of news about Tiger's release) suggests to me that they are planning on making a big noise at WWDC. There are also large slots open in the conference programme, where a big announcement and follow-up sessions could go (according to a Macintouch correspondent).
So is that going to be new PowerBooks with a G5 badge (whatever might be inside), or new MP powered PowerMacs, or both? You don't know, I don't know, and those who do know aren't talking because they don't want to lose their Jobs.
But I will not be replacing my Pismo for a while yet.
Pip pip!
This gives me some type of hope, thank you. In this situation, considering I do not have the money right now anyhow, this is a good hope even if it's a false hope.
Originally posted by ryanschmidt
This gives me some type of hope, thank you. In this situation, considering I do not have the money right now anyhow, this is a good hope even if it's a false hope.
Dual G4 laptop... hmm... Now if the G5 is too hot could dual G4s be cool enough? That would be excellent. :P
Apple DOES have room for growth in the thickness of their machines. I've seen some pretty bulky PC laptops lately... personally I'd never own one, but I can see the apple growing another .25 inch and still being acceptable.
Originally posted by Aquatic
I freakin hate this preoccupation with thin PowerBooks!!! Either make one thicker, or perhaps split the line, or something. A slightly thicker PB G5 is a heeell of a lot better than a thin one that has 1/5 the performance! The G4 bus performance is now very, very behind. Liquid cool the thing if you must. The G5 needs to come or PB sales will suck. And they have good margins.
With a little bit of creativity and a few years to perfect it, Apple (or anyone interested) could develop a technique to make laptops thin without sacrificing heat dissipation. For example: if the CPU were sunk into a glass-like subtrate -- preferably a amorphous metallic ceramic -- and channels were molded into the glass, the heat of the chip would be enough to cause liquid to circulate in the channels, spreading the heat across the entire bottom section of the laptop. Apple already uses this kind of convection cooling. The trick would be molding the metallic glass and sinking the chip in it. But more outrageous things have been done. . . and been commercialized.
Originally posted by emig647
I've been saying this the last year. That I'd rather have a dual g4 than a single g5. The e600MP may be done before the lowpowered g5... This is the only thing I'm waiting on... if it doesn't happen by WWDC, then I'm ordering my powerbook.
Same here. I'm typing on my first Apple laptop, an iBook purchased new in Jan. 2000 366mHz/Firewire/572mb/20G. It has held up great, Panther runs fine on it, but I finally want a little more power, so I could make do with a current iBook or Powerbook. If WWDC yields something, I'll take it. If not, I'll take what Apple's got right now because it's still gonna run a dozen times faster than what I've got.
Originally posted by Rhumgod
You're joking right? Why? Well, Freescale and IBM produce PowerPC chips and all code is compiled for that line. In order to have both PowerPC and x86 chip lines in their products, they would have to maintain two completely different code bases and their 3rd party software vendors would have to do the same. Why in the hell would anyone spend the money on that??!?!!
don't distract him, he is happy... besides such arguments are fruitless in the face of whose who hope for an AMD powered Mac.
Originally posted by Aquatic
I freakin hate this preoccupation with thin PowerBooks!!! Either make one thicker, or perhaps split the line, or something. A slightly thicker PB G5 is a heeell of a lot better than a thin one that has 1/5 the performance! The G4 bus performance is now very, very behind. Liquid cool the thing if you must. The G5 needs to come or PB sales will suck. And they have good margins.
Oh please no! I've owned two inch thick dells that weigh ten pounds, have two fans and get three hours of battery life even when you have two batteries in them...
Of course despite having a G4, Apple sells ALOT of PBs- they are still competetive because laptops aren't ranked on overall speed so much as how good of a complete computer solution they are. Apple's laptops are incredibly well rounded.
Originally posted by wizard69
I'm suspecting that possibly niether, that Apple will spend that valuable conference time on something new. Maybe the tablet rumors are a reality, there are also other new technology possibilities.
That doesn't mean the 'books won't be updated just that they might not be the focus of the show. From what we know of technology, from public IBM information, I'd have to think that any 64 bit 'book is likely to have some sort of PPE like processor in it. I just can't see the 970 moving forward and at the same time significantly lowering power.
The other issue with respect to the 970 is its need for a support processor just to start up. For any sort of portable this strikes me as a waste. So I don't see a 970xx based portable coming soon, at least not a version we know about today.
Maybe I'm a little to focused on what a portable is. In my mind the idea behind a portable is to be able to run on a battery free of a power cord. Performance is important here of course but not at the expense of 0.8hrs of run time.
Dave
Compared with the relatively detailed leak of the 970MP and GX specs, we've heard nothing about the putative low-power chip beyond that it was sampling at speeds of 1.6 to 2.0GHz. There were rumours a year or so ago that Apple and IBM were playing around with multi-core laptop chips, but that was dismissed at the time. However, with what we now know about Waternoose and Cell, it's at least conceivable that Apple and IBM decided to play with the same ingredients. Two PPE cores and a couple of SPEs perhaps? With an on-die memory controller? Clocked relatively low (to save power & heat), but in combination handily outpacing any single 970 core at laptop friendly clock rates?
Tiger's "core" technologies may be the key here, and getting Tiger out of the door necessary to allow the release of new hardware with CPUs that ship a lot of the "core" tasks out to SPE-type co-processors. That's what the big holes in the programme are for, perhaps. Sessions to get devs focussed on making hte best use of this new, but relatively specialised processing power.
On the other hand, I'm not expecting the above. It's possible, that's all. I suspect that what we will actually get will be a single core 970-based design.
Pip pip!
Originally posted by macinJosh
POWERBOOK G5 -- PHOTO!!!
You can tell it's a fake, that's obviously just a cardboard box with an apple taped on it. Bigfoot must think we're all fools.