Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

SEkker · Jun 10, 2004, 12:19 AM

With the sad news that the G5 chip is being a real challenge to scale, I am wondering if Apple is going to consider going duallie.

I know it would mean a modest motherboard redesign, but surely that would not be too hard?

The real question is: would you buy one knowing the G5s are still a year away?

I surprised myself by thinking I might.

What about you?

SplijinX · Jun 10, 2004, 06:05 AM

Only if I need a portable hot plate for camping haha. There is no way you can keep a dualie powered on battery power for a long time, nor keep them cool enough without burning the user (at least in aluminum casing), nor keep the laptop in its slim form factor and weight.

I could definitely envision Dell coming out with one of these monsters for gaming or what not.

The Placid Casual · Jun 10, 2004, 06:56 AM

For god's sake. There will be NO DUAL POWERBOOK.

This has been discussed to death.

0s and 1s · Jun 10, 2004, 06:03 PM

Originally posted by The Placid Casual:
For god's sake. There will be NO DUAL POWERBOOK.

I agree! That's why I'm waiting for my Powerbook G5 this summer!

[/sarcasm]

RooneyX · Jun 12, 2004, 12:26 AM

If they can get the power requirements down, why not? I read the Dothans will be dual core for laptops next year. I hope we can compete with that while maintaining the best designs.

HasanDaddy · Jun 12, 2004, 08:27 PM

I imagine a single G5 would be cooler than 2 G4's

I'd definitely buy a dualie! however, I think we'll see the
G5 PB first

hldan · Jun 13, 2004, 02:17 PM

Originally posted by The Placid Casual:
For god's sake. There will be NO DUAL POWERBOOK.

This has been discussed to death.

My Gosh, Calm Down dude, there's no reason to get so hostile. The orig. poster was just inquiring. He has a right to have hopes like everyone else on this forum.

haunebu · Jun 13, 2004, 02:23 PM

Originally posted by The Placid Casual:
For god's sake. There will be NO DUAL POWERBOOK.

This has been discussed to death.

Keiretsu · Jun 13, 2004, 02:59 PM

Originally posted by SEkker:
With the sad news that the G5 chip is being a real challenge to scale, I am wondering if Apple is going to consider going duallie.

I know it would mean a modest motherboard redesign, but surely that would not be too hard?

The real question is: would you buy one knowing the G5s are still a year away?

I surprised myself by thinking I might.

What about you?

I'd like a dual 1GHz

that would be way enough for my taste ...

madmacgames · Jun 13, 2004, 04:43 PM

Originally posted by The Placid Casual:
For god's sake. There will be NO DUAL POWERBOOK.

This has been discussed to death.

he never said there would be. He was asking a hypothetical question, if there was one, would you buy it.

also, PLEASE STOP YELLING! It is very rude and uncalled for.

KraziKid · Jun 13, 2004, 05:50 PM

Originally posted by RooneyX:
If they can get the power requirements down, why not? I read the Dothans will be dual core for laptops next year. I hope we can compete with that while maintaining the best designs.

Dual core is very different than dual processor. Dual core in one packaging inherently takes up less space, is more power efficient, and will be cooler (larger surface area in one package).

HasanDaddy · Jun 13, 2004, 10:10 PM

I agree - no need to be rude

rag on a muffin · Jun 13, 2004, 10:51 PM

to my knowlege, a dual processor winblows machine would only gain about 10% speed increase, or am i wrong.

Originally posted by hldan:
My Gosh, Calm Down dude, there's no reason to get so hostile. The orig. poster was just inquiring. He has a right to have hopes like everyone else on this forum.

if only you were there to tame the beast on every forum

hldan · Jun 14, 2004, 12:10 AM

Originally posted by rag on a muffin:
to my knowlege, a dual processor winblows machine would only gain about 10% speed increase, or am i wrong.

if only you were there to tame the beast on every forum

I wish I could, gotta have peace in the forum not war. It's not necessary to shoot down another Mac User. We are a very unique but small community.

The Placid Casual · 04:27 AM

Do you all know how many times this question has been asked/speculated upon/predicted etc on these forum over the years?

If you use the *search* feature (like the original poster arguably should have done), they would have seem an in-depth thread on this not 5 weeks ago... To go with the other 2+ pages worth of threads in which it is also brought up or mentioned...

Do we keep answering the same questions again, and again, and again when there are answers and threads already on the subject?

I am sorry if I have caused offense to the original poster, it was not my intention, but it can all be very frustrating.

The Placid Casual · Jun 14, 2004, 04:26 AM

Frumpy · Jun 14, 2004, 07:03 AM

Damn, talk about putting a damper on an innocent question. ANYWAYS, I wouldn't buy one because a dual 1.5 would be too close to what i'm using now. Wouldn't be worth the upgrade for me.

SEkker · Jun 14, 2004, 02:39 PM

[I'm not offended by any of the responses, but I do wish they'd have read my posting to appreciate the spirit if not the letter of my comments.]

I realize that the question of dualies has been discussed here at length, but I posted the question anew because of the recent announcement that the PBG5 shipments are going to be further away than ever.

I've also been doing some video work on my 1GHz PB17, and I have wished I had the extra power of a duallie.

I happen to know the numbers and despite many postings to the contrary, I do not agree that a duallie is technically difficult to achieve in our current PB form factors, even considering heat and power issues. The PB17 has plenty of space for extra cooling and even a larger battery. And energy management software could keep the second CPU in standby mode most of the time. Please don't point me to these other threads, this is not the relevant issue.

What I wanted to point out is I think Apple will not market a dual G4 PB simply because people will consider them inferior to a G5. But for a subset of the market, the power of a duallie PB would be put to good use, and could be made with CURRENT technology -- ie. without necessitating the massive mother board design changes required for the G5 PB.

And I'll politely point out that once the G5 PBs come out, the idea of a duallie will appear again in these forums. Maybe Apple will just wait to design a G5 motherboard with duallie expansion options.

Frumpy · Jun 15, 2004, 05:56 AM

REALLY?! Oh boy, I can't wait for ANOTHER forum about dual's in a PB! I hope Apple NEVER brings one to market so we can all just talk and talk and talk about these dual PB's that will NEVER happen. Woohahahaha.

urrl78 · Jun 15, 2004, 06:40 AM

I want my dualie.

SEkker · Jun 15, 2004, 03:01 PM

I remember when Apple was stunned by DayStar's dual and quad 604 machines in the clone days. I owned a dual 180 604 upgrade for my 7500, made photoshop run about as fast as a 266 Beige G3 released a year later...

driven · Jun 16, 2004, 12:11 PM

Originally posted by SplijinX:

I could definitely envision Dell coming out with one of these monsters for gaming or what not.

I don't EVER see Dell coming out with ANYTHING based on the G5.

McFarmer · Jun 16, 2004, 12:38 PM

The question is more where do you cut corners?

A) With currently a single 1.5GHz 17" PowerBook would we accept a dual 1GHz G4 17" PowerBook? (Assuming that 2 x low-power 1GHz G4s consume about the same power than a single 1.5GHz G4.)
Would we be willing to go down to 1GHz?

B) With currently a single 1.5GHz 17" PowerBook, would we accept a dual 1.5GHz G4 17"PowerBook with half the battery life (i.e. appaling)? (Assuming that 2 x 1.5GHz CPUs can be housed in a 17" PowerBook.)

C) With currently a single 1.5GHz 17" PowerBook would we accept a dual 1.7GHz G4 17" PowerBook that is 0.5" thicker? 1.5" instead of 1.0"? (Assuming that an additional battery and additional cooling circuitry would be housed in the added 0.5" case.)

D) Or is everyone waiting for a G5 PowerBook (which means at least another 8-12 months)? Which most certainly would be neither dual CPU nor dual core.

[I just picked the 17" PowerBook as it is the most likely to go dual IMHO, but similar comparisons could be made with 15" and 12" PowerBooks.]

My choice would probably be C).

tomasboudr · Jun 16, 2004, 01:34 PM

Guys you can't have the power of a dualie (for video editing and what not) and have it portable... You get one or the other. I mean they are making advances putting more and more power in laptops, but that kinda of power won;t exist in a laptop for some time and when it finally does appear in the market desktops will be even more powerful and people will want that in portable form. Its one of those nasty cycles.

SEkker · Jun 16, 2004, 02:22 PM

I realized yesterday that this entire discussion was moot, but not due to technical issues -- Apple's success with G4 laptops was one of the main reasons its desktop line plummeted in sales.

I really doubt Apple will ever release again a laptop that competes in power with desktops in a meaningful way until it sees good desktop sales.

The main mechanism in the near future Apple will use is the dual vs mono CPU distinction.

And once again, marketing and not hardware will control the Apple product portfolio.

driven · Jun 16, 2004, 03:30 PM

Originally posted by SEkker:
I realized yesterday that this entire discussion was moot, but not due to technical issues -- Apple's success with G4 laptops was one of the main reasons its desktop line plummeted in sales.

I really doubt Apple will ever release again a laptop that competes in power with desktops in a meaningful way until it sees good desktop sales.

The main mechanism in the near future Apple will use is the dual vs mono CPU distinction.

And once again, marketing and not hardware will control the Apple product portfolio.

Sekker,

That's not just Apple. Last year (2003) notebook sales exceeded desktop sales for the first time. That trend is only going to increase.

Why? For the first time in computing history you can get a notebook that's powerful enough for nearly all (normal) desktop computing tasks (without a horrific price premium), but with an added bonus: You can take it home and continue working .. you can take it to a meeting room and continue working, etc.

That's not an Apple thing, it's an industry wide trend. It will continue regardless of if Apple brings their notebooks up to speed with their desktops or not.

WORSE: If they do NOT bring their notebooks up to speed with traditional desktops(see note below) then people who would have considered the iBook/PowerBook will go to Toshiba/IBM/Dell/Whoever and get a similar machine to do their job.

Note:
When I say "traditional desktop" I mean the desktop machines that most business folk would normally use. The G5 is absolutely a high-end power-users machine. I don't see the average business person seeking THAT kind of power in their notebook, but rather something along the performance lines of a P4 2.5-3.0 Ghz, AMD 2500-2800, etc. The current line of PowerBooks fits right into this category. (That said: They are going to need some kind of boost in the next 12 months or so ... but it's not gloom and doom yet)

McFarmer · Jun 16, 2004, 06:01 PM

Originally posted by SEkker:
Apple's success with G4 laptops was one of the main reasons its desktop line plummeted in sales.

Maybe Apple should give up 'normal' desktops and split the PowerMac line in two:

- one low end tower (Cube 2 or so) for folks who already have a decent display and want to keep it, something where a new iMac doesn't make sense.

- one high end workstation with as high a spec as possible. Quad CPUs or such.

A 'one size fits all desktop' is no longer a good idea IMHO.

And I'm sure those people who would normally get an iMac might in fact have looked towards a PowerBook instead recently. Maybe that's why the iMac 2 sales aren't exactly stellar either. iMacs are priced too close to PowerBooks.
To distinguish them, iMacs should have features PowerBooks don't, like the 20" display. I don't know how well that sells, but to get better PowerBook distinction it makes sense Apple introduced it.

Lancer409 · Jun 16, 2004, 08:48 PM

i switched to apple because of the powerbook .. i remember needed a new laptop .. and considering the pb12's weight, size, power and styling, i chose it over a windows laptop. i woulda bought the powerbook 12 in a heartbeat ... if it had windows xp installed at the time .. i now come to love osx more than windows xp .. if apple made laptops that could run windows, i bet it WOULD greatly increase it's share of the laptop market, although i'm not suggesting it. the price was what made me choose apple .. sorry for not adding it to the above list. the price was the clincher. my friend is a teacher so i got it at a education discount. my friends love this laptop .. just hesitant to make the switch to osx... shrugz ...

oh yeah .. fit n finish, battery life, keyboard quality, etc etc etc.

still using my custom built pc for gaming .. the gaming selection for macs is pretty horrible .. (no offense ...) but for everything else .. i use the powerbook. loving it.