Is the G5 dead for sure?

mechengitmechengit
Posted:
in Future Apple Hardware edited January 2014
Despite of all the praise about the new Mactel from Apple, I myself would like to have a Dual-Core G5 in the iMac because of some great experience with the Quad-PowerMac. Just imagine the great disappointment in my mind when Apple launch the new Intel iMac!



So... is the G5 dead for sure? No future G5 products waiting to be launched? Silly to say, I am still waiting for a Dual-Core iMac G5.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 31
    dhagan4755dhagan4755 Posts: 2,152member
    Quote:

    is the G5 dead for sure?



    Stick a fork in the G5...it's done.
  • Reply 2 of 31
    kingofsomewherehotkingofsomewherehot Posts: 4,180member
    uh ... SJ himself said they are transitioning the ENTIRE line to intel this year.
  • Reply 3 of 31
    mechengitmechengit Posts: 133member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by KingOfSomewhereHot

    uh ... SJ himself said they are transitioning the ENTIRE line to intel this year.



    Well... he didn't say to eliminate all the PowerPC products.

    Just kidding.



    You know... April Fool's day is coming.

    Maybe Apple would launch a Dual-Core iMac G5 anyway.
  • Reply 4 of 31
    shanmugamshanmugam Posts: 1,200member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by mechengit

    Well... he didn't say to eliminate all the PowerPC products.

    Just kidding.



    You know... April Fool's day is coming.

    Maybe Apple would launch a Dual-Core iMac G5 anyway.



    you can still buy a G5 iMac, you know?

    if you need power, go for Quad PowerMac, what you are waiting for???



    what a Topic!!!
  • Reply 5 of 31
    xoolxool Posts: 2,460member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by shanmugam



    what a Topic!!! [/B]



  • Reply 6 of 31
    mechengitmechengit Posts: 133member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by shanmugam

    you can still buy a G5 iMac, you know?

    if you need power, go for Quad PowerMac, what you are waiting for???



    what a Topic!!!



    Quad-PowerMac is just too expensive.

    Besides, it is not really that urgent for me to buy a new computer. So, what I am doing right now is take my time and wait, since Apple won't be able to get rid of all their existing inventory of PowerPC products for a while.
  • Reply 7 of 31
    shanmugamshanmugam Posts: 1,200member
    Sure, you will get a price slash in PMs like the current 20" iMac G5s
  • Reply 8 of 31
    maddanmaddan Posts: 75member
    IMHO, the iMac G5s that were introduced in October were originally intended to be dual-core. Considering that the single core G5 uses 50% more power than the Core Duo, Apple probably decided it didn't want an iMac that sounded like a leaf blower.
  • Reply 9 of 31
    drboardrboar Posts: 477member
    IBM will keep the 970 for a while and perhaps Apple will have the G5 servers in extended mode for those who use the Alti-Vec for their applications. Just like those g4 towers that could boot in OS 9 that was around for long time.



    But basically G5 G6 etc is dead. IBM have far more interest in game consol cpus than desktop/laptop as of now at least.
  • Reply 10 of 31
    macroninmacronin Posts: 1,174member
    Apple is not offering the 3-year AppleCare warranty for the PowerMacs anymore, but they still offer it for everything else...



    Make what you will of it...
  • Reply 11 of 31
    dr_lhadr_lha Posts: 236member
    How odd. They still offer it for education buyers (personal and institutional), so perhaps this is a bug in the Apple store? Hard to imagine why they wouldn't sell Applecare for them, even if they were going to end of line the G5.
  • Reply 12 of 31
    andersanders Posts: 6,523member
    I shook the random generator and out came "iMac", "Dual Core" and "G5"



    I shake it again and out came "iSight", "iPod" and "Airport Express". Ready, get set, rumour AWAY!
  • Reply 13 of 31
    splinemodelsplinemodel Posts: 7,311member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by mechengit

    So... is the G5 dead for sure? No future G5 products waiting to be launched?







  • Reply 14 of 31
    spliff monkeyspliff monkey Posts: 884member
    Well if the G5 is dead what about altivec apps? I mean from what I can tell about the new intel macs from the bench tests, they perform great on sort of a "system level" (copying data, ripping music, opening windows, searching etc) but they only perform about half as well as their PPC components when it comes to altivec heavy commands like Photoshop filters. I use Photoshop everyday and I have to say that it would disappoint me greatly if the Gaussian blur took twice as long to execute. Which is what the benchmarks reflect, unless of course I read the information incorrectly? Further with adobe's announcement of no dual binaries for probably the next year and a half or so, who the F___K is going to upgrade? I'm going to rush out and buy the last gen PPC quad. End of life cycle, saves cash and guarantees compatibility with the software I already own. Typically my pro apps cost me a thousand or so dollars to upgrade. Unless some new feature is present that I really can't live without I'm not going to needlessly spend money on new software. For example I still use Photoshop 7. It does everything I need it to, hell Photoshop 5 does pretty much everything I want it to and both do it better than PS CS from what I can tell; CS seems pretty buggy and pretty slow to me. I hate the browser and hub.



    Seems more likely to me apple is hedging their bets with Intel. If IBM gives Apple the deal they want on cell the then I think we could see PPC on their workstations and Intel on the rest. Makes sense to me, especially in the light of rumors of the "politics" going on between Apple and IBM. Apple wanted something IBM wouldn't give them and I don't think it was just faster clock speeds. Apple had been dealing with that problem for years and as evidenced by the macintel's the new chips aren't "all that and a bag of chips" as the kids say these days.



    As a true "power user" I have to say I don't agree with this shift. I gave it a chance and after a few months of adjusting and after seeing the new books (lame update I can't believe that we actually lost functionality with the new books and what a flacid name; macbook, might as well call it limp d__k.



    Well I'm sure apple had a good reason for making what now appears to be a very bad decision. After all we don't know what thier plan really is, nor what Intel has up their sleeves, but for now I too have to hedge my bets and for now I'm sticking with PPC.
  • Reply 15 of 31
    pbpb Posts: 4,255member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by spliff monkey

    Well if the G5 is dead what about altivec apps?





    Apple has now something like an acceleration library that takes care of SIMD optimisations automatically (to some extend of course), according to the hardware detected. But you can bet that hand-tuned Altivec optimisations are dead.



    Quote:



    I mean from what I can tell about the new intel macs from the bench tests, they perform great on sort of a "system level" (copying data, ripping music, opening windows, searching etc) but they only perform about half as well as their PPC components when it comes to altivec heavy commands like Photoshop filters. I use Photoshop everyday and I have to say that it would disappoint me greatly if the Gaussian blur took twice as long to execute. Which is what the benchmarks reflect, unless of course I read the information incorrectly?



    I am afraid so. As of now, Photoshop runs in the new Intel Macs under Rosetta and takes its good share of performance hit due to translation. So the comparison is not fair. One has to wait the native version in order to run more meaningful tests.
  • Reply 16 of 31
    kim kap solkim kap sol Posts: 2,987member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Splinemodel









    I know this is probably a joke...but the 360 is a Xenon processor...not a G5. And the PS3 will be a Cell. These chips are architecturally very different from the G5. The only thing that is common between them is that they are PPC chips.
  • Reply 17 of 31
    splinemodelsplinemodel Posts: 7,311member
    I am guessing that Apple will try to leverage SSE3 for all it is worth, in order to make up for losing altivec. As it is, they've already sabotaged a number of their apps that used to make use of Altivec and no longer do, even on G5s, just to make the Intel Macs seem faster than the PPC macs they are replacing.



    It would be nice if SSE4, should it come to be, ends up more like Altivec. Most of the Altivec code I've ever written is pretty tight and small, and I won't mind re-writing it if there's actually a performance motivation to do so. But for now SSE3 isn't enough to warrant this, and I think that's the general consensus among folks who used to embrace altivec (and still like it).



    Quote:

    Originally posted by kim kap sol

    I know this is probably a joke...but the 360 is a Xenon processor...



    You are correct: it was a joke. But it is true that G5 Macs were used to develop the xBox 360 software before the xBox 360 platform existed. Needless to say, the G5 may be dead, but the PPC is alive and well, and in all likelihood will be around after x86 fades away.
  • Reply 18 of 31
    quagmirequagmire Posts: 558member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by kim kap sol

    I know this is probably a joke...but the 360 is a Xenon processor...not a G5. And the PS3 will be a Cell. These chips are architecturally very different from the G5. The only thing that is common between them is that they are PPC chips.





    It doesn't use a Xenon CPU. It has a PowerPC CPU. The code name for the PPC chip was Xenon. The xBox 360 has a triple core 3.2 Ghz PPC chip developed by IBM.
  • Reply 19 of 31
    dansgildansgil Posts: 62member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by quagmire

    It doesn't use a Xenon CPU. It has a PowerPC CPU. The code name for the PPC chip was Xenon. The xBox 360 has a triple core 3.2 Ghz PPC chip developed by IBM.



    What I don't understand is that if IBM could develop a triple core 3.2 Ghz G5 for the Xbox 360, why they couldn't develop it for Apple.
  • Reply 20 of 31
    quagmirequagmire Posts: 558member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by dansgil

    What I don't understand is that if IBM could develop a triple core 3.2 Ghz G5 for the Xbox 360, why they couldn't develop it for Apple.



    The chip that is in the 360 is a stripped down PPC CPU, probably not capable of doing computer kind of work. Just designed with gaming in mind. To make it capable of doing computer work, it would run at very high temps probably.
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