[Norty]

Please can someone type out a concise estimated timeline for new professional level Mac towers? I'm building a brand new graphic art lab with 22 machines scheduled to open in Jan 04 and I don't want G4 machines if the 970 machines will be available.

And, with Jobs' links to Pixar doesn't it seem likely that high end Mac render/workstations are in the works? Does Apple have something up its sleave? What happened to all those rumors

[mamamia]

Pixar just moved it's entire renderfarm operation over to blade servers running linux on intel xeon 2.8 ghz processors. see here

that really doesn't mean anything with respect to the timeline for ppc 970-based powermacs. it simply means that pixar needed new equipment now and they chose the best equipment available for them now.

it is almost assurred that 970-based powermacs will be available by january, 04. most people expect something to come down the pipe either by macworld ny (july) or seybold (september?). historically, apple updates powermacs every six months, so i would love to say they are going to be ready by july, but considering the fact that it is such new technology for apple, i think september is probably a more reasonable guess. don't forget, these machines will require a bit of a rewrite at the operating system level, (even to run in 32 bit)so os X 10.3 will probably be released along side.

i'm pretty sure that once these machines come out, we won't be dissapointed in performance anymore. if mhz for mhz a 970 is twice as fast as a g4, then a dual 1.8 ghz 970 would be the equivalent of a quad 1.8 ghz g4 rig. wow. if this comes to pass, we are talking about trippling mac performance in the next 8 months or so!

pixar won't use it for a renderfarm, if at all, until ibm transitions to a .9 micron process. this will bump the frequency, perhaps by 25%, as well as reduce the energy requirements and heat output considerably. such a move will probably occur about 6 months after production at.13 micron ramps up. (but by then, of course, we'll already be speculating about the ppc 980!)

[Superchicken]

Buy whatever you can at the time man. Yeah you might be kicking yourself... I'm quite hopeful it'll be before Jan 04... or it might be durring January next year... don't know... honestly just look at your needs and buy what you can afford that will fit those needs and don't lust after future hardware..

[Scotttheking]

Buy what you need when you need it. The machine that is "Just around the corner" isn't doing any work, the machine that is out now and on your desk is. Sometimes it sucks to buy when you know something better is coming. I know, I had to upgrade a whole office a month before a much better processor was scheduled to come out.

[docholiday]

wait till towards the end of this year, chances are the ppc970 has been announced/released by then...