[sokukodo]

What I'm wondering: once the IBM 970 chips are in and being used presumably w/ OSX, will future upgrades to X be "backward" compatible with the existing G4s? Or will G4 owners be left out in the cold? this may stop me from buying the PM 1.42 I am considering ...

[The Placid Casual]

No way will G4 owners be left out in the cold...

I can't see the iMacs and iBooks being updated to 970's for various reasons for a good while yet...

Not even Apple can just cut loose a very large proportion of it's user base machines because of the 970... It is my guess that they will be supported for many years to come, and with faster and faster implemetations of OS X...

However I would caution you as to what to buy now... In reality we have absolutely no proof that the 970 will even be used by Apple! We are only guessing because of some strong hints with regards to Altivec, but...

I would really not buy now unless you really, really need a new machine... Do you have enything to do Mac wise that won't wait?

My guess is that June/July will see the 970 hit the market, along with Panther... Will you be fed up that you didn't wait 2 months?

Obviously as well as the new chip, the Mobo will be way more advanced than the G4's too. 8x AGP etc etc the benefits wil be stunning.

You won't have an obselesence problems should you spring for a current model, but if you can, I would wait...

Peace,

Marc

[CheesePuff]

G3's will still be supported. Don't worry about getting a Dual 1.42 GHz machine, they are very fast, and the next version of OS X (Panther) will be even better on it.

[redJag]

If they re-wrote OS X to work only on 64bit processors they would be shooting themselves in the foot, or, more appropriately, the head. The 970s will be able to run OS X as a 32bit application faster than any PPC G4/G3 anyway, why leave all the old customers out in the cold? It would be suicidal. I doubt that Panther will see any 64bit optimization, but future version will probably be able to switch depending on the processor its being run on.

[pdot]

I think once the 970 machines come out for both the pro laptop and tower, the G3 will get phased out and support for that in software may become iffy. By then, the processing speed wouldn't be enough for the newer stuff anyway so I doubt many current G3 owners will get upset over it.

[Mohammed Al-Sabah]

dunno man i hope they dont release it soon lol ill be getting my pb 17 soon would hate to see a speed bump less then at least 6 -8 months !

[power142]

I'm a Mac newbie and just bought a PowerMac dual-1.42GHz and having used Intel-based Windows and Linux boxes for years, it's definitely a breath of fresh air.

Overall, I'm very impressed with the machine -very responsive, feels like it does most daily tasks quicker than the 2.4GHz Xeons I just got accustomed to... maybe the feeling is all part of the experience?

If Apple were to release a 970-based product tomorrow, I wouldn't feel cheated as the [email protected] is quite a beast..... unless of course, the price was cheaper

I don't think the issue of compatibility really comes into it a whole lot either - it is a PowerPC970 after all, only a little more beefy than the Motorola variety.

[CheesePuff]

Originally posted by power142:

I don't think the issue of compatibility really comes into it a whole lot either - it is a PowerPC970 after all, only a little more beefy than the Motorola variety.

Only a little more beefy? Heh, the PowerPC 970 has a 900 MHz system bus, up to Dual 2.4 GHz clock rates, and more. (all I can think of for now )

[MindFad]

More like an order of magnitude of beefy beefage.

[The Placid Casual]

[Devils Advocate]

We are still, in the lack of offical announcement by either Apple or IBM, assuming the 970 will even be the chip used

[/Devils Advocate]

Peace,

Marc

[Axo1ot1]

Originally posted by Marc2211:
[Devils Advocate]

We are still, in the lack of offical announcement by either Apple or IBM, assuming the 970 will even be the chip used

[/Devils Advocate]

Peace,

Marc

A valid point, but the fact that there is an alti vec unit on the 970 suggests that apple has been in on its development from very early on seeing as how IBM never liked alti vec much in the first place.

[11011001]

So, anyone know when the P5 is coming out?

I bet it will be here before apple puts 970's in the power macs.

I have been waiting 2 years now for the G5. I was expecting it to come out when i bought my computer, I waited through a few revisions, and finally just gave up and bought it.

Very annoyed. I hate to say it, but we lag sooo far behind now, even adobe is admitting it.

[DrBoar]

It seems very unlikely that the 970 will be compatible with the G4 computers. The very different bus design seems to stop any upgrades, at least according to the boards at ArsTechnica and Appleinsider.

However, it might still be possible as there was a PowerPC601 upgrade for the IIci. But the 970 does not have a L3 cache and rely on a very fast bus for its performace. Alredy the G4 have a strong performance penalty at 800 MHz if the L3 cache is missing. For the far faster 970 the penalty is likely to get even bigger.

So for the IIci the 100 MHz 601 was of limited use compared to say a 100 Mhz 601 in a 7500. Only nubus meant no fast graphcial card, no 3D card, no IDE disk no USB no FW. Then also a slow 30 MHz bus and sound limited to 8 bit.

I think that a similar faith will be bestowed on the current powermacs within a year, and that is a good thing

My hope is for a nice price drop on the dual G4 upgrades Going from a 400 MHz to a dual 1.2 GHz is quite a boost

[Catfish_Man]

Originally posted by 11011001:
So, anyone know when the P5 is coming out?

I bet it will be here before apple puts 970's in the power macs.

I have been waiting 2 years now for the G5. I was expecting it to come out when i bought my computer, I waited through a few revisions, and finally just gave up and bought it.

Very annoyed. I hate to say it, but we lag sooo far behind now, even adobe is admitting it.

About the same time. IBM is releasing the 970 in H202, Intel's releasing "Prescott" (P5?) sometime in Q3 iirc. Of course, Apple may take ages to get the 970 in a Mac.

[Big Mac]

We know the 970 is going to be used by Apple; the chance that it won't be is basically at zero. The best evidence we have that it's coming soon is the fact that Apple delayed the WWDC while providing a flimsy pretext for doing so -- in order to provide developers copies of Panther.

It makes little sense for Apple to make such a move simply to provide developer copies of an OS they could have demoed and then mailed out later. Instead of doing precisely that, they've abruptly switched dates, which has caused many to change their travel arrangements. There should have been absolutely no reason to do that, unless there is a major announcement being held back. WWDC will be a showcase for the 970, Panther, and the implications of 64bit programming. I'm going to say that's a conservative expectation at this point -- in view of what we know.

Yes, we've been disappointed for sometime now that the 970/G5 hasn't materialized; we've languished in G4 land. We now can be reasonably certain that's about to change. And as far as the original subject of this thread, Apple will not pull G4 compatibility out from OS X for many years to come. They can't abandon the current user base if the firm has any expectation to survive. On the other hand, I'm not going to buy a G4 PM (its performance pales in comparison to the 970), and I wouldn't recommend anyone else buying one unless necessary. We're here on the eve of a very significant transition. Make no mistake, the G4 will definitely be depreciated - though not abandoned - so I wouldn't be buying now. (For 970 discussion, I highly recommend appleinsider.com.)

[The Placid Casual]

Originally posted by Big Mac:
We know the 970 is going to be used by Apple; the chance that it won't be is basically at zero. The best evidence we have that it's coming soon is the fact that Apple delayed the WWDC while providing a flimsy pretext for doing so -- in order to provide developers copies of Panther.

It makes little sense for Apple to make such a move simply to provide developer copies of an OS they could have demoed and then mailed out later. Instead of doing precisely that, they've abruptly switched dates, which has caused many to change their travel arrangements. There should have been absolutely no reason to do that, unless there is a major announcement being held back. WWDC will be a showcase for the 970, Panther, and the implications of 64bit programming. I'm going to say that's a conservative expectation at this point -- in view of what we know.

Yes, we've been disappointed for sometime now that the 970/G5 hasn't materialized; we've languished in G4 land. We now can be reasonably certain that's about to change. And as far as the original subject of this thread, Apple will not pull G4 compatibility out from OS X for many years to come. They can't abandon the current user base if the firm has any expectation to survive. On the other hand, I'm not going to buy a G4 PM (its performance pales in comparison to the 970), and I wouldn't recommend anyone else buying one unless necessary. We're here on the eve of a very significant transition. Make no mistake, the G4 will definitely be depreciated - though not abandoned - so I wouldn't be buying now. (For 970 discussion, I highly recommend appleinsider.com.)

[Devils Advocate]

I agree with you that it is very highly improbable that the 970 won't be used, bearing in mind that IBM said they added Altivec because it was a requirement of an unnamed 'customer'...

However, until an actual announcement is made by either party it is still theoretically Vapourware... You never know, they could roll out Marklar on Opterons... or perhaps Moto has a good CPU in the wings

**Please ignore this post I'm just being obtuse...**

Bring on the 970 already!!

Peace,

Marc

[DrBoar]

If we see the history of Motorola During the Macintoh years, the leading desktop CPU have been replaced every other year or so. So the fact that there was no "G5" replacing the G4 in 2001 and not even in 2002 suggest that the G4 was the last in line.

I see very little risk of Apple using a G5 CPU (from Motorola)...

This summer Prescott is out 800 mHz bus and twise the cache of the current Pentium 4. The fact that IBM intend to compete with these CPUs bode well for the work they will put into the 970 CPU, and thus for Apple if they use the 970.

When we moved from 68k to PPC it mean a huge leap in benchmarks but a far smaller step forwards in percived speed gains due to all the emulation both in OS and applications. This will not be the case this time around

[businezguy]

I agree that the 970 seems pretty inevitable. The fact is, there are no alternatives for Apple. Despite absurd rumors, they aren't going to use AMD or Intel, that would absolutely kill the company. The G5 seems to be a processor that will never materialize, and even if it did, it would be far behind anything Intel or AMD puts out on the PC end.

The fact is, the 970 seems quite capable of keeping up with Intel/AMD processors, and it is the only processor Apple could use for the future. Even with all of that said, that doesn't mean Apple is going to announce it as this upcoming developer's forum. It does seem very likely though, doesn't it?

[Shaddim]

I just feel it will take well over a year for Apple to ship any 970 based uberMacs, and another year for a portable/consumer level product (ie. iMac, Powerbook, or iBook). I love Apple stuff, don't get me wrong, I just don't see them altering their track record.

[The Placid Casual]

Originally posted by MacNStein:
I just feel it will take well over a year for Apple to ship any 970 based uberMacs, and another year for a portable/consumer level product (ie. iMac, Powerbook, or iBook). I love Apple stuff, don't get me wrong, I just don't see them altering their track record.

Well, the 970 has been sampling for ages and ages, and is actually being used in the new IBM 'blade' servers, to be shipped in the next month or so...

There are reports that Apple has had the 970 for up to a year with developers and for testing... This would seem to tie in with the production/sample times we have been told about.

June does seem to be a very distinct possibility... When tied into OS X 10.3 as well, conclusions could be drawn.

As for putting it in products... Powerbooks are no real problem, as the chip is nearly as low powered I believe as the G4...

iMacs, and iBooks... hmmm, they have at least up to the 1.4 G4s to be getting on with... do they really need updating chip wise until 2004?

If not, they could get the 970 as the 'Pro' lines get the 980 or even 990... I mean, this is IBM we're talking about here and I don't think they are at home to Mr Cockup like our Moto friends...

As far as I can see, we could just have reasons to be optimistic...

Peace,

Marc

[DrBoar]

When the IBM 970 blade servers ship, things will become frantic! I am sure that they will be tested against Intels CPUs running the same OS and the same applications. In Mac vs PC tests things become muddled with different OSes and poor ports etc. Here we will get black on white the intrinsic performance of 970 compared to Intel and AMD.

This will show the potential performance of 970 powermacs and also set the bar for how well they have to get OS X to use the 970

[bradoesch]

Originally posted by Marc2211:
As for putting it in products... Powerbooks are no real problem, as the chip is nearly as low powered I believe as the G4...

iMacs, and iBooks... hmmm, they have at least up to the 1.4 G4s to be getting on with... do they really need updating chip wise until 2004?

I think they need to get this chip in the entire line. If that's possible, heat- and price wise of course. I'd really like to see the entire product line competitive with the rest of the PC world. At least competitive, preferably a lot faster. It'd be nice to just forget about the "megahertz myth" and let unknowledgable consumers do their little thing, buy the computer that has the higher number.

[katorga]

800Mhz P4 chipsets are already announced and the usual benchmark sites are showing them roughly even with the old 533Mhz bus boxes running at equal CPU clocks (3.06Ghz). The 800Mhz bus dual channel DDR chipset gets a 2-5% advantage in some areas, but it is hard pressed to exceed the i850e dual channel RDRAM chips at least until CPU speeds hit 4Ghz this winter.

The 970 will be a barnburner if:

- IBM/Moto/Apple keep pushing the clock speeds

- The 800Mhz bus is backed by dual channel DDR

- OSX is capable of running 64/32bit apps concurrently (a la Solaris, AIX, et al.).

- And...the chips are cheap and cool enough to stuff two or more in every machine

Otherwise Intel chips will continue to dominate all of Apple's core markets via sheer clockspeed. After all, in worst case code scenarios a CPU only retires one instruction per cycle and having twice as many cycles per second is a huge advantage.

[DrBoar]

.The 970 will be a barnburner if:

- IBM/Moto/Apple keep pushing the clock speeds

Moto who? IBM/AMD/Intel are the ones racing and Apple is betting on IBM.

This is Motorolas last year on the desktop CPU race track...

[DeathMan]

and the drama continues...

which reminds me, I haven't been to as the apple turns for quite some time. I wonder how they're doing.

[DeathMan]

update: it hasn't been updated since feb. 11. 2003. doh.

[awcopus]

So Apple posted a profit last quarter, and beat street estimates. They accomplished this even though their Pro line sales are absolutely LANGUISHING. Imagine if Apple could find a way to release a genuinely impressive PowerMac this year. They wouldn't be able to keep up with demand...

...at least among those of us who are holding out for a new Mac as opposed to dipping our toes in Wintel waters.

Many pro-users have simply abandoned the Mac platform in the last year. I know of several minitragedies involving Mac-based video editors who rationalized adding a PC workstation to their mix, and now won't be coming back to Apple because they'll be comparing their current PC price-performance to Apple's new offerings and making decisions based on the bottomline. Especially in this economy.

I am a holdout among my video-editing peers, who have all added PCs and are excited about the performance they get out of Avid....I'm a diehard Apple guy and thrilled about FCP4 and DVDSP2....and here's my hope....

Apple has priced its current top-o-the-line under $3000. I believe it would be realistic for Apple to slightly upgrade the speeed of the current line-up and ADD a new high-end Mac running a dual 970 configuration. This summer OR in time for 10.3.

Then, January, 2004 <gulp> Apple spreads the love and every PowerMac has a 970 in single and dual configurations.

Sounds realistic, right? Fingers and toes crossed...I'd cross my balls if I could...C'MON APPLE!!!!!

[DeathMan]

Originally posted by awcopus:
Fingers and toes crossed...I'd cross my balls if I could...C'MON APPLE!!!!!

well put.

[power142]

Of course, all of this is all speculation, but I have it on good authority that the 970 is a virtual certainty (but everyone is saying this). This source also pointed out that the summer isn't very convenient for some of Apple's traditional markets....

[awcopus]

I think there is a virtual 2-year backlog of demand for the next-gen PowerMac. We've all been salivating over the prospect of these damn machines for SOOO long.

It won't matter when Apple releases them. If they are worthy, they will fly off the shelves on the most humid day of the summer even if we're at war with North Korea and Syria and France and the NYSE is below 7000.

[3.1416]

Originally posted by awcopus:
Sounds realistic, right?

Heck, I think that's pessimistic. I fully expect the entire Power Mac line to switch to the 970 at WWDC (although not shipping for several weeks unless IBM is way ahead of schedule). The 970 will kill the demand for G4s (which is already low), and I doubt Apple wants to maintain two radically different tower motherboards.

[coolmacdude]

I agree. Apple wouldn't be demoing the 970 at WWDC if they weren't going to release it shortly afterward. That would just be plain stupid.

[MindFad]

So people are now certain that Apple demoing the 970 at WWDC is true? Are you sure? Where's the press release ... I mean.... Well, where's your info? Apple better put 970s in the iMacs, too, like they did when the G3 came out.

[The Placid Casual]

In the absence of any hard facts, as I said above, we still know nothing except for assumptions, interpretations and rumour...

Certainly nothing about what will be shown at WWDC except 10.3...

What we need is some more of Moki's 'water cooler' info...

[3.1416]

So people are now certain that Apple demoing the 970 at WWDC is true? Are you sure?

Reasonably. Of course nothing is certain, but it fits with the reports of IBM's 970 schedule and is by far the best explanation for Apple moving WWDC back a month.

[The Placid Casual]

Originally posted by 3.1416:
So people are now certain that Apple demoing the 970 at WWDC is true? Are you sure?

Reasonably. Of course nothing is certain, but it fits with the reports of IBM's 970 schedule and is by far the best explanation for Apple moving WWDC back a month.

There could be 970 at all and:

And Apple are slaving away producing the bullet-proof screen Steve will stand behind to address the assembled crowd... it just needed a month more to be 100% of the ballsitic test results.

[MindFad]

Originally posted by Marc2211:
And Apple are slaving away producing the bullet-proof screen Steve will stand behind to address the assembled crowd... it just needed a month more to be 100% of the ballsitic test results.

That sounds about right.