For you and the other guys afterward who are *hoping* that what you say is correct: forget it!
That's wishful thinking, and you know it. "By" means *possibly* late spring. The chips Apple needs won't be out till then.
Don't knock this new FX either. A 1.6 GHz model can compete with a 2.2GHz x86. A 2GHz G5 has been shown to compete with a 3GHz P4 quite well.
Actually, a 2 GHZ G5 is more like a 2 GHZ Pentium M. And the 2 GHZ Pentium M has been proven to be a match for a P4 at 3.6 GHZ. Only the 3.8 P4 is slightly faster.
A 1.6 G5 would get smoked by a Pentium M. Even the original bottom end Powermac 1.6 left much to be desired. The key to the 970 was that it could clock high. Yes, it is efficient like Athlon 64 and close to Pentium M, but not quite.
The fact is a 2.1 GHZ Pentium M our NOW (not to mention what will be available byt he time the mobile 970 is) will blow the doors off of a G5 at 1.6 and a 1.6 Centino would hold its own very well.
The G5 is a great processor, no doubt. Superior to the P4. However, it is equal to the Athlon 64, and less than the Penitum M, per clock.
Actually, a 2 GHZ G5 is more like a 2 GHZ Pentium M. And the 2 GHZ Pentium M has been proven to be a match for a P4 at 3.6 GHZ. Only the 3.8 P4 is slightly faster.
A 1.6 G5 would get smoked by a Pentium M. Even the original bottom end Powermac 1.6 left much to be desired. The key to the 970 was that it could clock high. Yes, it is efficient like Athlon 64 and close to Pentium M, but not quite.
The fact is a 2.1 GHZ Pentium M our NOW (not to mention what will be available byt he time the mobile 970 is) will blow the doors off of a G5 at 1.6 and a 1.6 Centino would hold its own very well.
The G5 is a great processor, no doubt. Superior to the P4. However, it is equal to the Athlon 64, and less than the Penitum M, per clock.
That is just the way it is.
I don't completely agree with that. The integer performance is better, as I said, but that isn't the only thing that matters.
You also have to look at what is being run on these machines. FCP and other programs rely heavily on Altivec, and despite what you might think, that gives a big advantage to these hi performence apps.
The other thing not being considered here is that not everyone measures their machine to what an x86 can do. In my industry, we measure our Macs against a new Mac, not against a PC. That's irrelevant. Here on the forums there is much posturing about this, but not as much in the actual places where we use these machines. The reason why the Powermac's sales have fallen is not because they are slower than a PC, but because they haven't risen much against last years model, giving little reason to upgrade. This really has to be understood.
In a year or more things will be different. If x68 gets much ahead of the PPC then we WILL look to it and wonder, but not when performance is only 10--20% less, if at all. there are functional matters that are important, and most of those reside in the OS. If that were not the case, then all video, graphics, photo, music, and publishing would have completely left years ago. College students and staff wouldn't be increasing the use of Macs, esp. Powerbooks.
But Apple has to make some kind of push or it will lose sales to the "Osborn Effect". I think that Apple will, if possible, come out with some really hot machines over the next 9 months or so. Again - if possible.
They don't want to lose the momentum that they have maintained over the last year: 36%, 43%, 51%, and now 79% growth in computers year over year. This is incredible!
I think that if the 1.6 G5 could run Final Cut Pro, Photoshop, etc (high end apps) say 15% faster than the current 1.67 G4, I think Apple might go for it--it certainly wouldn't hurt to do a "stop-gap" release before the Intel ones. It wouldn't be a "major" release, but it's likely that they've prepared for it (they wouldn't be surprised by this announcement) AND they DO need to keep selling PB's until the Intel's are ready, so even a modest speed bump would be better than none--waiting another 11 months (at most) for Intel w/o a speed bump along with the anticipated Intel machines would temporarily kill PB's after MW SF (Jan) (my opinion, of course). I think a 1.6 G5 might slow down the loss,, but not prevent it--but that's better than nothing.
It WOULD be a major release. You'd need a whole new motherboard and support chips for a start and almost certainly a new outer design. The G5 also has seriously slow firewire performance so in some respects, a faster G4 is desirable.
I predict, we'll see the 7448 in Powerbooks and iBooks soon and almost certainly at faster speeds than the 1.7Ghz speed Freescale are quoting to the embedded market. It's a drop in replacement - a no brainer.
That will tide us over till there's a decent Pentium M based laptop.
It WOULD be a major release. You'd need a whole new motherboard and support chips for a start and almost certainly a new outer design. The G5 also has seriously slow firewire performance so in some respects, a faster G4 is desirable.
I predict, we'll see the 7448 in Powerbooks and iBooks soon and almost certainly at faster speeds than the 1.7Ghz speed Freescale are quoting to the embedded market. It's a drop in replacement - a no brainer.
That will tide us over till there's a decent Pentium M based laptop.
It's not entirely a drop in replacement, but it's as close as can be gotten to one.
Again, it's all about momentum.
I also don't think that most consumers buying iMacs care much about the processor speeds. They're buying them for design, the OS, and because they aren't infected.
It's not entirely a drop in replacement, but it's as close as can be gotten to one.
Again, it's all about momentum.
I also don't think that most consumers buying iMacs care much about the processor speeds. They're buying them for design, the OS, and because they aren't infected.
Where did iMacs come into it? ;-)
The 7448 is pin compatible with the old 7447A. The north/south bridges Apple use should be 200Mhz compatible already. It uses less power. IIRC there's some extra heat probes on the 7448.
But those are minor compared to a G5 upgrade which would need everything changed.
Whilst we're diverted on iMacs, lower power G5s would still be handy there. Apple placed them right below the drives in the iMac and the heat from the G5 heats up the hard drive to temperatures beyond what the drive manufacturers claim is acceptable. IMHO that could be a class action lawsuit in the making there.
Am I the only one gradually getting miffed by this Intel transition?
I mean everything was going great! Mac sales were way up. Apple is selling more Macs now then they ever have and the trend was going upwards. No one cares about the processor speeds as long as we can do quickly what we needed to do.
Even with the IBM processors OSX is a beauty to use. Tiger runs perfect on my 1 GHz G4 PowerBook with 512 megs of RAM. The only slow task is securely emptying the trash.
I mean how much power do you need? Is the next OS X version going to be so revolutionary it needs Intel processors? Or is this an effort to make all Windows applications run flawlessly in a future version of OS X?
I just don't understand. Needless to say I won't be replaceing this laptop with any Apple computer until the shakedown is over.
Am I the only one gradually getting miffed by this Intel transition?
probably not...
Quote:
I mean everything was going great! Mac sales were way up. Apple is selling more Macs now then they ever have and the trend was going upwards. No one cares about the processor speeds as long as we can do quickly what we needed to do.
If by "no one" you mean everybody who doesn't know what's going on, and no one who needs to push their equipment to the limit (ie: you won't notice a slow processor until you try and do more than it's capable of)
Quote:
Even with the IBM processors OSX is a beauty to use. Tiger runs perfect on my 1 GHz G4 PowerBook with 512 megs of RAM. The only slow task is securely emptying the trash.
"securely emptying the trash"
It'll be...um...more of a beauty then...
Quote:
I mean how much power do you need? Is the next OS X version going to be so revolutionary it needs Intel processors? Or is this an effort to make all Windows applications run flawlessly in a future version of OS X?
Doubtful, because of the OS/2 effect, but it could be an effort to woo switchers with "we already have what you use now"...who really knows...as for power, see above.
Quote:
I just don't understand. Needless to say I won't be replaceing this laptop with any Apple computer until the shakedown is over.
Nobody really does understand, although they'll tell you they do. And I too plan to wait to buy my next PB until Rev. B of the intel-macs. I was planning to wait for a G5 since the G4 is so underpowered, but now I think I'll just wait, even if a G5 makes it into a laptop.
The low powre G5 is a face save for IBM. very last minute. They just handicapped a 970 FX to get the power down. sure, it consumes watts just a little less efficienct than Centrino, but then angain, the Centrino is just as fast, clock for clock as the G5. Add to that the fact that 2.1 GHZ Centrinos are out NOW and the idea of a mobile G5 just looks terrible - especially considering that the next G4 may outperform it on average. Low Power consumation, but low power output too. bummer. I suppose it would perform marginally faster than the current G4, but my goodness, it should be much further along. anyway, at least now we have good proof that IBM was not innovating and Apple HAD TO go Intel. At least they improve year on year, even if the last year was marginal(industry wide).
I cannot wait for my Merom based PB. We will probably see Yonah based Ibooks and Minis and Merom based Imacs and PBs while Powermacs will probably get whatever killer CPU is out in two years.
In either case, I love the current PB so much, I would probably buy it with a 1.8 GHZ G5 (factory overclocked or not), but not 1.6. I just do not see how Apple could improve upon its design.
another point is that even though has these chips ready, they probably won't even be able to produce them in significant quantities. since centrinos are already faster at 2.1 Ghz compared to 1.6 (if what you say is true), and Intel already has more than enough Centrinos to meet demand, it makes absolutely no sense for apple to pick up G5s for laptops right now. especially since by the time IBM is producing these laptop chips in decent quantities apple will be beginning its transition to Intel.
Am I the only one gradually getting miffed by this Intel transition?
I mean everything was going great! Mac sales were way up. Apple is selling more Macs now then they ever have and the trend was going upwards. No one cares about the processor speeds as long as we can do quickly what we needed to do.
Even with the IBM processors OSX is a beauty to use. Tiger runs perfect on my 1 GHz G4 PowerBook with 512 megs of RAM. The only slow task is securely emptying the trash.
I mean how much power do you need? Is the next OS X version going to be so revolutionary it needs Intel processors? Or is this an effort to make all Windows applications run flawlessly in a future version of OS X?
I just don't understand. Needless to say I won't be replaceing this laptop with any Apple computer until the shakedown is over.
although these new G5 notebook-worthy chips are announced, how long will it be until they will actually be availible in significant quantities? Apple is sick of waiting for IBM and they need a partner with some real manufacturing muscle.
plus, centrinos are still faster than these clocked down G5s, and still more efficient.
Anyone named humanfellow is worthy of praise, but the question of power has been addressed countless times on these boards. For many users, increased power is irrelevant, but for those of us working in the sciences or high end multimedia, more power is always a welcome (and often necessary) sight. Let's please put this question to rest. Word processing folks can get along just fine with current specs, but scientists and visual artists, to name just a few users, always will appreciate increased speed.
Am I the only one gradually getting miffed by this Intel transition?
I mean everything was going great! Mac sales were way up. Apple is selling more Macs now then they ever have and the trend was going upwards. No one cares about the processor speeds as long as we can do quickly what we needed to do.
Even with the IBM processors OSX is a beauty to use. Tiger runs perfect on my 1 GHz G4 PowerBook with 512 megs of RAM. The only slow task is securely emptying the trash.
I mean how much power do you need? Is the next OS X version going to be so revolutionary it needs Intel processors? Or is this an effort to make all Windows applications run flawlessly in a future version of OS X?
I just don't understand. Needless to say I won't be replaceing this laptop with any Apple computer until the shakedown is over.
You raise a very valid point. For a large segment of the market the current processors satisfy their needs and faster PPCs are on the horizon. What was so dramatically special about the Intel roadmap that induced Steve to switch?
There are a number of what I call fences in computing. We have been fenced in by disk capacity, disk speed, display resolution, battery life, CPU speed, etc. We are now very close to a time when these fences will recede to the horizon. Memory is already cheap enough that there is no reason not to buy a couple of gigabytes if you want it. External hard drives are just about there as well. You can already get a 1.5Tbyte FW drive for about a thousand dollars. Desktop display prices are falling. It is not hard to imagine that inside five years all CPUs will be spectacularly faster than now.
So if in the near future all hardware will be cheap and spectacular why did Steve find it necessary to switch now rather than wait things out?
We'll just have to wait a couple of years to find out.
The 7448 is pin compatible with the old 7447A. The north/south bridges Apple use should be 200Mhz compatible already. It uses less power. IIRC there's some extra heat probes on the 7448.
But those are minor compared to a G5 upgrade which would need everything changed.
Whilst we're diverted on iMacs, lower power G5s would still be handy there. Apple placed them right below the drives in the iMac and the heat from the G5 heats up the hard drive to temperatures beyond what the drive manufacturers claim is acceptable. IMHO that could be a class action lawsuit in the making there.
I mean that it will require a firmware update. That ALMOST makes it drop in.
I brought the iMac's up because we are talking about processors, and the iMacs are doing very well right now in sales. The people buying them, as I said, don't care about which processor is in these machines. It's very simple.
Few consumers care about the processors in the machine they buy. That's the point.
Apple should play up the qualities of their machines and software, and downplay the cpu's. Make people concentrate on what's important.
I brought the iMac's up because we are talking about processors, and the iMacs are doing very well right now in sales. The people buying them, as I said, don't care about which processor is in these machines. It's very simple.
thats quite right. when selling an imac, today for example, i had to explain to several people that A) it wasnt Mhz to Mhz vs P4, that it was running on a better OS, C) it would do everything they needed effeciently and quickly. They were convinced, and i dont think if the machine was a 1.8 or even a 1.6 instead of a 2.0 that it really would have made a difference to them.
esspecially since even IF the G5 2.0Ghz isnt as good as say a P4 3.4Ghz EE, the P4 will be worthless on Windows with most people due to inability to deal with security, and ultimately letting the computer be sapped of cpu preformance because of it.
Am I the only one gradually getting miffed by this Intel transition?
I mean everything was going great! Mac sales were way up. Apple is selling more Macs now then they ever have and the trend was going upwards. No one cares about the processor speeds as long as we can do quickly what we needed to do.
Even with the IBM processors OSX is a beauty to use. Tiger runs perfect on my 1 GHz G4 PowerBook with 512 megs of RAM. The only slow task is securely emptying the trash.
I mean how much power do you need? Is the next OS X version going to be so revolutionary it needs Intel processors? Or is this an effort to make all Windows applications run flawlessly in a future version of OS X?
I just don't understand. Needless to say I won't be replaceing this laptop with any Apple computer until the shakedown is over.
I didn't think that it would happen. I'm saddened by it, but not frustrated.
There must be more good reasons why it was done than bad results from doing it. Apple might lose a billion dollars in sales from this transition. I hope it won't be more (I have too much stock for that)
This desision wasn't made quickly. No doubt it was thought through for about for a year, if not more. I would imagine that the thoughts were that the PPC was NEVER going to be problem free.
When I bought my daughters G4 450 in 1999. Jobs tried to lower the speed by 50MHz because Moto suddenly told him that they couldn't meet their commitments. Fortunatly I had ordered it too early so it didn't happen.
That machine WAS the fastest Pc in the world at the time. Really! It beat a PC by 30% in integer, and by 50% in float. Not counting Altivec. But that was the last of Apple's triumphs. It took a year to get to 500.
When I bought my Digital Audio in 2001 it was only 733! Almost two years later. It should have been at 1.5GHz.
The first PowerBook to sport an Intel processor is not expected until July 2006 at the earliest.
I can tell you that this statement is 100% wrong. Yonah is already done and is sampling at Intel (has been that wasy since March). Jobs said that they would have their first line of Intel based Macs BY the spring 06' conference. To say that it will be July at the earliest flies right in the face of all of the facts.
Bottom line is Intel already ramping up production and could launch Yonah fall of 05' but are waiting for Q1 06' because that is when they said it would launch. They gave that timeframe expecting the same problems from 130 nm to 90 nm. bottom line is 90 nm to 65 nm was been one of the easiest transitions in recent Intel history.
OEMs are going to be getting early Yonah generation centrinos (dual core and single core Pentium Ms, late beta chipsets, and the a/b/g chip minus the WiMax pretty soon). Since it takes anywhere from 2 to 6 months for companies to make products from the samples we can expect the market to be flooded with Yonah Centrino right from the launch date. They just need to make a few more tweeks with the chipsets and get the last of WiMax intigrated with their wireless chip.
It would be shocking if Apple couldnt produce a Yonah product in Q1 06'. If they couldnt that would meen they are having a problem with software or that they are just so new with Centrino they are needing a lot of outside help.
Maybe this has been discussed before in the Intel threads, but in my opinion the switch is actually more about the platform than the processor. Intel can provide Apple with both the processors and a suitable chipset, complete with WiFi (and future wireless technologies). Just as they do with the Centrino brand on the PC-side. Less development cost and less hassle with dealing with component suppliers.
As for a G5 PowerBook. Don't see it happening. That's just because of the future roadmap, I just don't see them spending the $$$s to develop it just so it could be dumped. Nothing is certain, but currently it should be by end of the year 2007, right?
Anyway it'll be interesting to see what Apple does with the laptops. I'll hang to my iBook G4 for now. It's my third Dual-USB design and I don't want a fourth one
As for a G5 PowerBook. Don't see it happening. That's just because of the future roadmap, I just don't see them spending the $$$s to develop it just so it could be dumped. Nothing is certain, but currently it should be by end of the year 2007, right?
If you watch the WWDC 2005 keynote in Quicktime, Steve Jobs says, "I think a lot of you would like a G5 in your PowerBook, and we haven't been able to deliver that to you yet."
Key word there is "yet."
Jobs continues, "But these aren't even the most important reasons. The most important reasons are that as we look ahead, though we have great products right now...and we have some *great* PowerPC products still yet to come..." and Jobs then proceeds to talk about the future of the PowerPC roadmap vs. Intel's.
So the way I parse the whole thing is that the near term is OK for the G5s, but long-term it's not as good as Intel's will be. That leaves the door open for the PowerBook G5, even it's just for a year or so.
Watch the keynote, and it's about 21 minutes in. See for yourself.
Comments
Originally posted by melgross
For you and the other guys afterward who are *hoping* that what you say is correct: forget it!
That's wishful thinking, and you know it. "By" means *possibly* late spring. The chips Apple needs won't be out till then.
Don't knock this new FX either. A 1.6 GHz model can compete with a 2.2GHz x86. A 2GHz G5 has been shown to compete with a 3GHz P4 quite well.
Actually, a 2 GHZ G5 is more like a 2 GHZ Pentium M. And the 2 GHZ Pentium M has been proven to be a match for a P4 at 3.6 GHZ. Only the 3.8 P4 is slightly faster.
A 1.6 G5 would get smoked by a Pentium M. Even the original bottom end Powermac 1.6 left much to be desired. The key to the 970 was that it could clock high. Yes, it is efficient like Athlon 64 and close to Pentium M, but not quite.
The fact is a 2.1 GHZ Pentium M our NOW (not to mention what will be available byt he time the mobile 970 is) will blow the doors off of a G5 at 1.6 and a 1.6 Centino would hold its own very well.
The G5 is a great processor, no doubt. Superior to the P4. However, it is equal to the Athlon 64, and less than the Penitum M, per clock.
That is just the way it is.
Originally posted by melgross
"Anitponent". I like that. Can I use it?
knock yourself out... ill be expecting royalties though.
Originally posted by 9secondko
Actually, a 2 GHZ G5 is more like a 2 GHZ Pentium M. And the 2 GHZ Pentium M has been proven to be a match for a P4 at 3.6 GHZ. Only the 3.8 P4 is slightly faster.
A 1.6 G5 would get smoked by a Pentium M. Even the original bottom end Powermac 1.6 left much to be desired. The key to the 970 was that it could clock high. Yes, it is efficient like Athlon 64 and close to Pentium M, but not quite.
The fact is a 2.1 GHZ Pentium M our NOW (not to mention what will be available byt he time the mobile 970 is) will blow the doors off of a G5 at 1.6 and a 1.6 Centino would hold its own very well.
The G5 is a great processor, no doubt. Superior to the P4. However, it is equal to the Athlon 64, and less than the Penitum M, per clock.
That is just the way it is.
I don't completely agree with that. The integer performance is better, as I said, but that isn't the only thing that matters.
You also have to look at what is being run on these machines. FCP and other programs rely heavily on Altivec, and despite what you might think, that gives a big advantage to these hi performence apps.
The other thing not being considered here is that not everyone measures their machine to what an x86 can do. In my industry, we measure our Macs against a new Mac, not against a PC. That's irrelevant. Here on the forums there is much posturing about this, but not as much in the actual places where we use these machines. The reason why the Powermac's sales have fallen is not because they are slower than a PC, but because they haven't risen much against last years model, giving little reason to upgrade. This really has to be understood.
In a year or more things will be different. If x68 gets much ahead of the PPC then we WILL look to it and wonder, but not when performance is only 10--20% less, if at all. there are functional matters that are important, and most of those reside in the OS. If that were not the case, then all video, graphics, photo, music, and publishing would have completely left years ago. College students and staff wouldn't be increasing the use of Macs, esp. Powerbooks.
But Apple has to make some kind of push or it will lose sales to the "Osborn Effect". I think that Apple will, if possible, come out with some really hot machines over the next 9 months or so. Again - if possible.
They don't want to lose the momentum that they have maintained over the last year: 36%, 43%, 51%, and now 79% growth in computers year over year. This is incredible!
Originally posted by mcdawson
I think that if the 1.6 G5 could run Final Cut Pro, Photoshop, etc (high end apps) say 15% faster than the current 1.67 G4, I think Apple might go for it--it certainly wouldn't hurt to do a "stop-gap" release before the Intel ones. It wouldn't be a "major" release, but it's likely that they've prepared for it (they wouldn't be surprised by this announcement) AND they DO need to keep selling PB's until the Intel's are ready, so even a modest speed bump would be better than none--waiting another 11 months (at most) for Intel w/o a speed bump along with the anticipated Intel machines would temporarily kill PB's after MW SF (Jan) (my opinion, of course). I think a 1.6 G5 might slow down the loss,, but not prevent it--but that's better than nothing.
It WOULD be a major release. You'd need a whole new motherboard and support chips for a start and almost certainly a new outer design. The G5 also has seriously slow firewire performance so in some respects, a faster G4 is desirable.
I predict, we'll see the 7448 in Powerbooks and iBooks soon and almost certainly at faster speeds than the 1.7Ghz speed Freescale are quoting to the embedded market. It's a drop in replacement - a no brainer.
That will tide us over till there's a decent Pentium M based laptop.
Originally posted by aegisdesign
It WOULD be a major release. You'd need a whole new motherboard and support chips for a start and almost certainly a new outer design. The G5 also has seriously slow firewire performance so in some respects, a faster G4 is desirable.
I predict, we'll see the 7448 in Powerbooks and iBooks soon and almost certainly at faster speeds than the 1.7Ghz speed Freescale are quoting to the embedded market. It's a drop in replacement - a no brainer.
That will tide us over till there's a decent Pentium M based laptop.
It's not entirely a drop in replacement, but it's as close as can be gotten to one.
Again, it's all about momentum.
I also don't think that most consumers buying iMacs care much about the processor speeds. They're buying them for design, the OS, and because they aren't infected.
Originally posted by melgross
It's not entirely a drop in replacement, but it's as close as can be gotten to one.
Again, it's all about momentum.
I also don't think that most consumers buying iMacs care much about the processor speeds. They're buying them for design, the OS, and because they aren't infected.
Where did iMacs come into it? ;-)
The 7448 is pin compatible with the old 7447A. The north/south bridges Apple use should be 200Mhz compatible already. It uses less power. IIRC there's some extra heat probes on the 7448.
But those are minor compared to a G5 upgrade which would need everything changed.
Whilst we're diverted on iMacs, lower power G5s would still be handy there. Apple placed them right below the drives in the iMac and the heat from the G5 heats up the hard drive to temperatures beyond what the drive manufacturers claim is acceptable. IMHO that could be a class action lawsuit in the making there.
I mean everything was going great! Mac sales were way up. Apple is selling more Macs now then they ever have and the trend was going upwards. No one cares about the processor speeds as long as we can do quickly what we needed to do.
Even with the IBM processors OSX is a beauty to use. Tiger runs perfect on my 1 GHz G4 PowerBook with 512 megs of RAM. The only slow task is securely emptying the trash.
I mean how much power do you need? Is the next OS X version going to be so revolutionary it needs Intel processors? Or is this an effort to make all Windows applications run flawlessly in a future version of OS X?
I just don't understand. Needless to say I won't be replaceing this laptop with any Apple computer until the shakedown is over.
Originally posted by humanfellow
Am I the only one gradually getting miffed by this Intel transition?
probably not...
I mean everything was going great! Mac sales were way up. Apple is selling more Macs now then they ever have and the trend was going upwards. No one cares about the processor speeds as long as we can do quickly what we needed to do.
If by "no one" you mean everybody who doesn't know what's going on, and no one who needs to push their equipment to the limit (ie: you won't notice a slow processor until you try and do more than it's capable of)
Even with the IBM processors OSX is a beauty to use. Tiger runs perfect on my 1 GHz G4 PowerBook with 512 megs of RAM. The only slow task is securely emptying the trash.
It'll be...um...more of a beauty then...
I mean how much power do you need? Is the next OS X version going to be so revolutionary it needs Intel processors? Or is this an effort to make all Windows applications run flawlessly in a future version of OS X?
Doubtful, because of the OS/2 effect, but it could be an effort to woo switchers with "we already have what you use now"...who really knows...as for power, see above.
I just don't understand. Needless to say I won't be replaceing this laptop with any Apple computer until the shakedown is over.
Nobody really does understand, although they'll tell you they do. And I too plan to wait to buy my next PB until Rev. B of the intel-macs. I was planning to wait for a G5 since the G4 is so underpowered, but now I think I'll just wait, even if a G5 makes it into a laptop.
Originally posted by 9secondko
The low powre G5 is a face save for IBM. very last minute. They just handicapped a 970 FX to get the power down. sure, it consumes watts just a little less efficienct than Centrino, but then angain, the Centrino is just as fast, clock for clock as the G5. Add to that the fact that 2.1 GHZ Centrinos are out NOW and the idea of a mobile G5 just looks terrible - especially considering that the next G4 may outperform it on average. Low Power consumation, but low power output too. bummer. I suppose it would perform marginally faster than the current G4, but my goodness, it should be much further along. anyway, at least now we have good proof that IBM was not innovating and Apple HAD TO go Intel. At least they improve year on year, even if the last year was marginal(industry wide).
I cannot wait for my Merom based PB. We will probably see Yonah based Ibooks and Minis and Merom based Imacs and PBs while Powermacs will probably get whatever killer CPU is out in two years.
In either case, I love the current PB so much, I would probably buy it with a 1.8 GHZ G5 (factory overclocked or not), but not 1.6. I just do not see how Apple could improve upon its design.
another point is that even though has these chips ready, they probably won't even be able to produce them in significant quantities. since centrinos are already faster at 2.1 Ghz compared to 1.6 (if what you say is true), and Intel already has more than enough Centrinos to meet demand, it makes absolutely no sense for apple to pick up G5s for laptops right now. especially since by the time IBM is producing these laptop chips in decent quantities apple will be beginning its transition to Intel.
Sorry, IBM, too little, too late.
Originally posted by humanfellow
Am I the only one gradually getting miffed by this Intel transition?
I mean everything was going great! Mac sales were way up. Apple is selling more Macs now then they ever have and the trend was going upwards. No one cares about the processor speeds as long as we can do quickly what we needed to do.
Even with the IBM processors OSX is a beauty to use. Tiger runs perfect on my 1 GHz G4 PowerBook with 512 megs of RAM. The only slow task is securely emptying the trash.
I mean how much power do you need? Is the next OS X version going to be so revolutionary it needs Intel processors? Or is this an effort to make all Windows applications run flawlessly in a future version of OS X?
I just don't understand. Needless to say I won't be replaceing this laptop with any Apple computer until the shakedown is over.
although these new G5 notebook-worthy chips are announced, how long will it be until they will actually be availible in significant quantities? Apple is sick of waiting for IBM and they need a partner with some real manufacturing muscle.
plus, centrinos are still faster than these clocked down G5s, and still more efficient.
originally posted by humanfellow:
I mean how much power do you need?
Anyone named humanfellow is worthy of praise, but the question of power has been addressed countless times on these boards. For many users, increased power is irrelevant, but for those of us working in the sciences or high end multimedia, more power is always a welcome (and often necessary) sight. Let's please put this question to rest. Word processing folks can get along just fine with current specs, but scientists and visual artists, to name just a few users, always will appreciate increased speed.
Originally posted by humanfellow
Am I the only one gradually getting miffed by this Intel transition?
I mean everything was going great! Mac sales were way up. Apple is selling more Macs now then they ever have and the trend was going upwards. No one cares about the processor speeds as long as we can do quickly what we needed to do.
Even with the IBM processors OSX is a beauty to use. Tiger runs perfect on my 1 GHz G4 PowerBook with 512 megs of RAM. The only slow task is securely emptying the trash.
I mean how much power do you need? Is the next OS X version going to be so revolutionary it needs Intel processors? Or is this an effort to make all Windows applications run flawlessly in a future version of OS X?
I just don't understand. Needless to say I won't be replaceing this laptop with any Apple computer until the shakedown is over.
You raise a very valid point. For a large segment of the market the current processors satisfy their needs and faster PPCs are on the horizon. What was so dramatically special about the Intel roadmap that induced Steve to switch?
There are a number of what I call fences in computing. We have been fenced in by disk capacity, disk speed, display resolution, battery life, CPU speed, etc. We are now very close to a time when these fences will recede to the horizon. Memory is already cheap enough that there is no reason not to buy a couple of gigabytes if you want it. External hard drives are just about there as well. You can already get a 1.5Tbyte FW drive for about a thousand dollars. Desktop display prices are falling. It is not hard to imagine that inside five years all CPUs will be spectacularly faster than now.
So if in the near future all hardware will be cheap and spectacular why did Steve find it necessary to switch now rather than wait things out?
We'll just have to wait a couple of years to find out.
Originally posted by aegisdesign
Where did iMacs come into it? ;-)
The 7448 is pin compatible with the old 7447A. The north/south bridges Apple use should be 200Mhz compatible already. It uses less power. IIRC there's some extra heat probes on the 7448.
But those are minor compared to a G5 upgrade which would need everything changed.
Whilst we're diverted on iMacs, lower power G5s would still be handy there. Apple placed them right below the drives in the iMac and the heat from the G5 heats up the hard drive to temperatures beyond what the drive manufacturers claim is acceptable. IMHO that could be a class action lawsuit in the making there.
I mean that it will require a firmware update. That ALMOST makes it drop in.
I brought the iMac's up because we are talking about processors, and the iMacs are doing very well right now in sales. The people buying them, as I said, don't care about which processor is in these machines. It's very simple.
Few consumers care about the processors in the machine they buy. That's the point.
Apple should play up the qualities of their machines and software, and downplay the cpu's. Make people concentrate on what's important.
Originally posted by melgross
I brought the iMac's up because we are talking about processors, and the iMacs are doing very well right now in sales. The people buying them, as I said, don't care about which processor is in these machines. It's very simple.
thats quite right. when selling an imac, today for example, i had to explain to several people that A) it wasnt Mhz to Mhz vs P4,
esspecially since even IF the G5 2.0Ghz isnt as good as say a P4 3.4Ghz EE, the P4 will be worthless on Windows with most people due to inability to deal with security, and ultimately letting the computer be sapped of cpu preformance because of it.
Originally posted by humanfellow
Am I the only one gradually getting miffed by this Intel transition?
I mean everything was going great! Mac sales were way up. Apple is selling more Macs now then they ever have and the trend was going upwards. No one cares about the processor speeds as long as we can do quickly what we needed to do.
Even with the IBM processors OSX is a beauty to use. Tiger runs perfect on my 1 GHz G4 PowerBook with 512 megs of RAM. The only slow task is securely emptying the trash.
I mean how much power do you need? Is the next OS X version going to be so revolutionary it needs Intel processors? Or is this an effort to make all Windows applications run flawlessly in a future version of OS X?
I just don't understand. Needless to say I won't be replaceing this laptop with any Apple computer until the shakedown is over.
I didn't think that it would happen. I'm saddened by it, but not frustrated.
There must be more good reasons why it was done than bad results from doing it. Apple might lose a billion dollars in sales from this transition. I hope it won't be more (I have too much stock for that
This desision wasn't made quickly. No doubt it was thought through for about for a year, if not more. I would imagine that the thoughts were that the PPC was NEVER going to be problem free.
When I bought my daughters G4 450 in 1999. Jobs tried to lower the speed by 50MHz because Moto suddenly told him that they couldn't meet their commitments. Fortunatly I had ordered it too early so it didn't happen.
That machine WAS the fastest Pc in the world at the time. Really! It beat a PC by 30% in integer, and by 50% in float. Not counting Altivec. But that was the last of Apple's triumphs. It took a year to get to 500.
When I bought my Digital Audio in 2001 it was only 733! Almost two years later. It should have been at 1.5GHz.
Is there any wonder that Apple went to x86?
Not for me.
The first PowerBook to sport an Intel processor is not expected until July 2006 at the earliest.
I can tell you that this statement is 100% wrong. Yonah is already done and is sampling at Intel (has been that wasy since March). Jobs said that they would have their first line of Intel based Macs BY the spring 06' conference. To say that it will be July at the earliest flies right in the face of all of the facts.
Bottom line is Intel already ramping up production and could launch Yonah fall of 05' but are waiting for Q1 06' because that is when they said it would launch. They gave that timeframe expecting the same problems from 130 nm to 90 nm. bottom line is 90 nm to 65 nm was been one of the easiest transitions in recent Intel history.
OEMs are going to be getting early Yonah generation centrinos (dual core and single core Pentium Ms, late beta chipsets, and the a/b/g chip minus the WiMax pretty soon). Since it takes anywhere from 2 to 6 months for companies to make products from the samples we can expect the market to be flooded with Yonah Centrino right from the launch date. They just need to make a few more tweeks with the chipsets and get the last of WiMax intigrated with their wireless chip.
It would be shocking if Apple couldnt produce a Yonah product in Q1 06'. If they couldnt that would meen they are having a problem with software or that they are just so new with Centrino they are needing a lot of outside help.
I was stoked when Steve said Apple was switching to intel.
I was even more stoked when I saw Intel's future roadmap, and integer 'performance per watt'
And cwestpha, I am assuming Apple is getting up to speed pretty quick with the help of many Intel engineers.
As for a G5 PowerBook. Don't see it happening. That's just because of the future roadmap, I just don't see them spending the $$$s to develop it just so it could be dumped. Nothing is certain, but currently it should be by end of the year 2007, right?
Anyway it'll be interesting to see what Apple does with the laptops. I'll hang to my iBook G4 for now. It's my third Dual-USB design and I don't want a fourth one
Originally posted by Nerozwei
As for a G5 PowerBook. Don't see it happening. That's just because of the future roadmap, I just don't see them spending the $$$s to develop it just so it could be dumped. Nothing is certain, but currently it should be by end of the year 2007, right?
If you watch the WWDC 2005 keynote in Quicktime, Steve Jobs says, "I think a lot of you would like a G5 in your PowerBook, and we haven't been able to deliver that to you yet."
Key word there is "yet."
Jobs continues, "But these aren't even the most important reasons. The most important reasons are that as we look ahead, though we have great products right now...and we have some *great* PowerPC products still yet to come..." and Jobs then proceeds to talk about the future of the PowerPC roadmap vs. Intel's.
So the way I parse the whole thing is that the near term is OK for the G5s, but long-term it's not as good as Intel's will be. That leaves the door open for the PowerBook G5, even it's just for a year or so.
Watch the keynote, and it's about 21 minutes in. See for yourself.