[gururafiki]

Did they not want it to compete with the G5 1.6? How much faster is the dual 1.42 compared to a dual 1.25 G4? And if it's faster then a G5 1.6, by how much?

[djohnson]

Probably because they ran out of inventory and do not produce them...

[Eug Wanker]

Dunno for sure (obviously), but I suppose (in that order):

1) No OS 9 boot support
2) Pricey CPUs
3) Encroaches on G5 speeds

[Lateralus]

I don't think OS 9 bootability was part of it, Apple could have put the Dual 1.42 part onto the same FW400 OS 9 board that is shipping in the 1.25s now.

I'd imagine that it did have something to do with encroaching upon the low end G5. But mostly I think it was because at the time, Motorola wasn't churning out enough 7455Bs that would run stable at 1.42GHz to cover the entire Power Mac G4 line.

[BrunoBruin]

I'd bet price was the biggest reason. IIRC, Motorola has always charged a premium price for their fastest chip, and that probably meant the price of the 1.42GHz G4 tower would have been too close to the low-end G5. My guess is that the performance difference between the 1.25 and 1.42 parts wasn't enough to justify the cost.

I can't imagine that supply was an issue. They can't be selling THAT many G4 towers these days, and they had a dual-1.42 in the line for six months.

[Lateralus]

Originally posted by BrunoBruin:
I'd bet price was the biggest reason. IIRC, Motorola has always charged a premium price for their fastest chip, and that probably meant the price of the 1.42GHz G4 tower would have been too close to the low-end G5. My guess is that the performance difference between the 1.25 and 1.42 parts wasn't enough to justify the cost.

I can't imagine that supply was an issue. They can't be selling THAT many G4 towers these days, and they had a dual-1.42 in the line for six months.

But... During those 6 months it was only in 1 model, and the Dual 1.42 was probably the worst selling highend Power Mac in recent memory because so many people were waiting for the G5. And more reason that I think supply of the 1.42 was an issue is because of the fact that once Apple slashed the prices on the G4 line immediately after WWDC, G4 sales took off because of people who didn't want to wait the months it would take until the G5s actually started shipping, those who felt that the Dual 1.25 was a better deal than the 1.6 G5, and those who simply could not afford a G5.

[BrunoBruin]

Originally posted by PowerMacMan:
And more reason that I think supply of the 1.42 was an issue is because of the fact that once Apple slashed the prices on the G4 line immediately after WWDC, G4 sales took off because of people who didn't want to wait the months it would take until the G5s actually started shipping, those who felt that the Dual 1.25 was a better deal than the 1.6 G5, and those who simply could not afford a G5.

I agree, but if one can assume that yields improve as manufacturing is refined, certainly Moto should be running off plenty of 1.42GHz parts now, a year after introduction. Then again, this IS Moto we're talking about, and they're not exactly known for their brilliant manufacturing...

I just think that, given the architectural limitations of the motherboard, there wasn't enough of a performance difference between the 1.25 and the 1.42 to justify the additional cost. As it is, the G4 towers are still overpriced.

[Lateralus]

Yeah, this is Motorola we're talking about. They've created their own RDF around themself.

I also partly suspect that supply of the 1.42 was an issue because of the fact that G4 processor upgrade manufacturers are still now only using pprocessors rated at 1.25GHz.

But I agree, most tests don't show much of a difference between the 1.42 and the 1.25, not enough to justify paying a premium for the 1.42.

And yeah, before the G5 price drops late last year, the G4s were excellent values, especially the Dual 1.25 in comparison to the 1.6 G5. I was almost certain that Apple would follow suit by dropping the prices of the G4 models a few days after the G5 price drops, they did not.

[gururafiki]

Motorola just announced that they have their chips at 1.5ghz (took long enough ) I wonder if we will see overclocked G4's at 2ghz from OWC. I don't get why the 1.42 was barely faster. It's a large enough jump to where it would seem considerably faster.

[Lateralus]

Originally posted by gururafiki:
Motorola just announced that they have their chips at 1.5ghz (took long enough ) I wonder if we will see overclocked G4's at 2ghz from OWC. I don't get why the 1.42 was barely faster. It's a large enough jump to where it would seem considerably faster.

Technically, the 7447 (The 1.5 you mentioned) is not a new chip, it is basically a 7457 without L3 cache support. And the 7457 has been out since last year. And frankly, it doesn't seem to be clocking any better than the 7455, so I doubt you'll be seeing overclocked 7447 or 7457 based upgrades at anything higher than 1.6GHz. But then again, you might. I know for a fact that the L3 cache is the first thing to give out when overclocking a G4, so a 7457 sans the L3 (the 7447) might actually overclock a little better. Of course, FastMac/OWC (FastMac makes OWC's upgrades) will actually need to release 7447 or 7457 based upgrades before they can make an attempt at overclocking them. Same with GigaDesigns.

Thus far, the only processor upgrade manufacturer actually shipping 7457 upgrades is PowerLogix. And they are not shipping them at speeds any higher than 1.4GHz, and PowerLogix locks their upgrades so that they are not overclockable.

*Sigh*

...**** you Motorola.

[Eug Wanker]

The 7447A is a new chip (revision), although based on the older 7457/7447.

If pushed, it would clock MUCH better than the 7455. However, the point of the 7447A is low power first, and clock speed second. If you ran the 7447A at near 7455 1.42 GHz power levels, you'd probably get >> 1.5 GHz right now.

[The Placid Casual]

Originally posted by gururafiki:
Motorola just announced that they have their chips at 1.5ghz (took long enough ) I wonder if we will see overclocked G4's at 2ghz from OWC. I don't get why the 1.42 was barely faster. It's a large enough jump to where it would seem considerably faster.

I would hazard a guess that 500 mhz would be too much for a stable OC...

[yoesh]

FWIW, SmallDog had dual 1.42s (refurb) a while back. But i agree -- the premium over the 1.25 -- nearing base G5 prices -- probably made them cost prohibitive. If you consider you can get discontinued models or refurb G5s in the $1400 neighborhood now, the only reason to *not* get a G5 is if you need dual optical drives, or 4 HDs (or OS 9 bootability).

[Leonard]

Originally posted by PowerMacMan:
I don't think OS 9 bootability was part of it, Apple could have put the Dual 1.42 part onto the same FW400 OS 9 board that is shipping in the 1.25s now.

Yes, OS 9 bootability was a big part of it and still is. There are still many people buying these old G4s just to be able to run OS 9.

And why would Apple change anything on the machine. You want a machine to run MacOS 9, here you go is a tried and true machine design that we know works. Why would Apple change anything on it. It's not worth the time or money, even a little change.

[Lateralus]

Originally posted by Leonard:
Yes, OS 9 bootability was a big part of it and still is. There are still many people buying these old G4s just to be able to run OS 9.

And why would Apple change anything on the machine. You want a machine to run MacOS 9, here you go is a tried and true machine design that we know works. Why would Apple change anything on it. It's not worth the time or money, even a little change.

No no, you misunderstood me.

What prevented the final run of MDDs (The 1GHz, DP 1.25GHz and DP 1.42GHz) from booting OS 9 was the motherboard. So for the current line of G4s, Apple re-used the motherboards from the 1st line of MDD G4s from 2002. What I am saying is that Apple could have chose to use the 1.42GHz processor(s) on the same motherboard and still had OS 9 bootability, since it was the motherboard that determind OS 9 bootability.

So, OS 9 bootability was not a factor in the choice to use the 1.25GHz part over the 1.42GHz part.

[Powerbook]

Sidenotes...

- What prices will the G4s take after the G5 update?
- How long will G4s remain in Apple's channel?

Regards,
PB.

[mikerally]

PowerMacMan Wrote:

So, OS 9 bootability was not a factor in the choice to use the 1.25GHz part over the 1.42GHz part.

Actually the motherboards in the 1.25Ghz Firewire 400 Mirrored Drive Door PowerMac (that boots Mac OS 9 and X) and the 1.42Ghz Firewire 800 MDD PowerMac (that just boots X) are different.

They didn't just slap on Firewire 800 on the new motherboard, I would imagine they revised the motherboard chipset. I think for this reason alone, Apple didn't drop the 1.42Ghz daughtercard/processor onto the older motherboards.

Despite what many people think, the MDD FW400 and MDD FW800 are not the same machines. While I'm at it... I don't think they were bothered to revise Mac OS 9 to support the 1.42Ghz processors either - since that would require writing a new System Enabler - remember these machines are still being sold for their Mac OS 9 bootability.

[WizOSX]

Originally posted by Powerbook
- What prices will the G4s take after the G5 update?
- How long will G4s remain in Apple's channel?

My guesses:
1) the prices will never drop
2) Apple will continue producing them as long as they can sell a "moderate" quantity at current prices.

Why do I think this: Apple has made it clear that it really doesn't want to sell Os9 bootable machines. And Apple has also made it clear that Os9 bootability is the only reason it is coninuting to make these machines. So there is no incentive to cut price just to sell more and they obviously want to cease production ASAP. My guess would be that they will not be making G4 PowerMacs at all in 6 months. And probably not making any G4 machines at all by Christmas (except maybe an iBook). Apple wants to get on with the job of making OsX optimized for the G5/64 bit. This will necessitate some trade-offs, like making the Os less G4 friendly. This will boost sales of new machines.