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Minch_Yoda · Nov 8, 2004, 08:17 PM

what are the chances of a powermac update atleast for the bottem g5s soon?

Mafia · Nov 8, 2004, 08:55 PM

i still say not good, but others will disagree with me i'm sure.

UnixMac · Nov 8, 2004, 10:33 PM

we are at a technological

don't hold your breath.

the_glassman · Nov 9, 2004, 12:00 AM

It's going to be a while. They can't push enough of the top end chips out the door at current, don't hold your breath.

buffalolee · Nov 9, 2004, 10:01 AM

I would have to say Spring 2005. Nothing ever changes before Christmas, and if Steve Jobs announce a new PM, it usually never ships until Spring .

UnixMac · Nov 9, 2004, 10:12 AM

Well, that's just it... by the time they announce a new G5 (April or so..) and then it ships (July-ish)... it's basically 8+ months away minimum... and I am willing to be that PCIe and Dual Core are going to be what's new... not GHz... not for a while at least..

Leonard · Nov 9, 2004, 04:20 PM

No update for the PowerMac until at least February. By the way, the low-end G5 PowerMac (the single 1.8) was just introduced so what makes you think they'd update it again, so soon.

By the way, Apple seems to have no problems shipping stock G5 PowerMac from what I've heard, so it sounds like G5 chip availability isn't an issue any more. Of course scaling it up may still be a problem.

Madrag · Nov 11, 2004, 09:09 AM

That's tough, to wait 8 months more...
I just hope the current models' price drops soon!

UnixMac · Nov 11, 2004, 10:36 AM

Originally posted by Madrag:
That's tough, to wait 8 months more...
I just hope the current models' price drops soon!

Don't .. If you want fast the G5 line is very fast tight now.

Madrag · Nov 11, 2004, 01:34 PM

I know they are, I just hope their price drops

(what I meant was that I would love to see an update in the near future, but if it doesn't happen, then I would be happy with a price drop)

power142 · Nov 11, 2004, 02:19 PM

Apple isn't in the habit of dropping prices when there is still demand for the products, or even when there isn't for that matter!

They recently introduced the new low-end single processor G5, so don't expect changes to the line up anytime soon. I agree with everyone else - it's going to be at least Feb/March before a new announced product, with shipping times into April or beyond.

E's Lil Theorem · Nov 11, 2004, 05:27 PM

I don't need to upgrade, I just want to, which is why I'm waiting for that 3.0+GHz G5. I'm hoping it is at least introduced this coming January.

Big Mac · Nov 11, 2004, 08:44 PM

Originally posted by E's Lil Theorem:
I don't need to upgrade, I just want to, which is why I'm waiting for that 3.0+GHz G5. I'm hoping it is at least introduced this coming January.

It took a whole new liquid cooling system to get the 2.5 running at acceptable temperature levels. I don't think 3.0 is happening any time soon, and it will probably require another 970 revision, if not the 970's successor. And selfishly, I must always admit, I'm hoping that it takes awhile for Apple to discontinue my beautiful 2.0.

DrBoar · Nov 12, 2004, 04:24 AM

IBM are selling thin blades with two 970 CPUs with 1 MB L2 cache. These running at 2.3 GHz.

The doubling may or may not boost the performance in OS X and its applications, if it does this CPU would be a way to boost performance withouth reaching for 3 GHz.

For DOOM 3 the integraded memory controller on some Athlons boost the performance. A IMC would presumably fit the IBM970 well

UnixMac · Nov 12, 2004, 10:28 AM

Originally posted by DrBoar:
IBM are selling thin blades with two 970 CPUs with 1 MB L2 cache. These running at 2.3 GHz.

The doubling may or may not boost the performance in OS X and its applications, if it does this CPU would be a way to boost performance withouth reaching for 3 GHz.

For DOOM 3 the integraded memory controller on some Athlons boost the performance. A IMC would presumably fit the IBM970 well

wonder why this line of G5's skimped on the L2... U can see no L3 with the RAM being so fast, but how much more would another 512K cost them?

Big Mac · Nov 12, 2004, 12:47 PM

Originally posted by UnixMac:
wonder why this line of G5's skimped on the L2... U can see no L3 with the RAM being so fast, but how much more would another 512K cost them?

A lot. Anything that takes up space on the die will be expensive.

macaddict0001 · Nov 12, 2004, 02:23 PM

Originally posted by UnixMac:
wonder why this line of G5's skimped on the L2... U can see no L3 with the RAM being so fast, but how much more would another 512K cost them?

maybe 20-50 bucks per machine.

Commodus · Nov 13, 2004, 01:35 AM

I don't see Apple updating the line until February/March at the earliest. They're only just getting better stocks of G5 chips now, and the fact that dual 2.5s only (barely) started shipping at the end of August means that it would be too soon to update within the next two months.

And when the update comes, I'm not going to be so rash as to assume that the next bump will be 3 GHz if it ships before or during March. I'd say 2.8 GHz at the top-end as a more conservative estimate. On the other hand, I wouldn't be at all surprised to see PCI Express in the next revision, even if the upgrade itself is fairly modest. PCIe could be very beneficial for Apple's pro apps: the colossal improvement in GPU -> RAM bandwidth (AGP limits that to 1X, regardless of the other direction) means that more texture data from Motion, Final Cut, etc. could sit in system RAM as opposed to having to fit into the video card's RAM.

UnixMac · Nov 13, 2004, 02:23 AM

Originally posted by macaddict0001:
maybe 20-50 bucks per machine.

I would have paid $100 for it.. seems like a major boost in performance.

macaddict0001 · Nov 13, 2004, 02:38 AM

Originally posted by UnixMac:
I would have paid $100 for it.. seems like a major boost in performance.

I can tell as you have almost the fastest possible machine but the thing is it would be on all g5's and apple doesn't cater to you they cater to the majority.

jcadam · Nov 13, 2004, 07:10 AM

Originally posted by UnixMac:
Well, that's just it... by the time they announce a new G5 (April or so..) and then it ships (July-ish)... it's basically 8+ months away minimum... and I am willing to be that PCIe and Dual Core are going to be what's new... not GHz... not for a while at least..

There's no big rush to PCIe at the moment, since modern graphics cards, including the 6800, don't currently max-out the bandwidth provided by AGP 8x. Future graphics cards I am sure will, and PCIe will probably be required if you want to utilize Quartz-Extreme-Extreme in OS X 10.7.

Remember when Apple put that 66MHz PCI slot in the B&W G3 instead of an AGP slot, saying it offered speeds comparable to AGP. That was probably true at the time, given the vid cards of the day (Rage 128). However, the performance difference between a Radeon PCI (even 66MHz) and AGP card is obvious.

Of course, AGP8x->PCIe is not nearly the big performance leap that PCI->AGP was (at the time, PCI really was a bottleneck, AGP isn't really), my guess is that by the time the AGP slot in you first-gen G5 achieves ghetto/obsolete status, it would be time to get a new computer anyway....

And you're still gonna want massive amounts of fast video RAM on the card with its own dedicated uberfast interface to the GPU. Accessing main memory will never be as fast, even with PCIe.

Not sure what my point was with this post....

Oh, dual core would kick-butt. PCIe, right now, is just kinda :meh:, so I'm buying my G5 now. Hey maybe the next PM refresh will add support for DDR2 memory, but that also is kinda pointless right now.

Commodus · Nov 13, 2004, 01:55 PM

jcadam:

One thing to consider is simply that video card manufacturers are shifting the emphasis to PCIe quickly. The GeForce 6600 and 6200 cards were made for PCIe first, and pretty much every reasonably fast video card has a PCIe version right now. Apple will practically have to move to PCIe in 2005 - it's just a question of whether that's early 2005 or late 2005.

Big Mac · Nov 13, 2004, 03:16 PM

Originally posted by Commodus:
jcadam:

One thing to consider is simply that video card manufacturers are shifting the emphasis to PCIe quickly. The GeForce 6600 and 6200 cards were made for PCIe first, and pretty much every reasonably fast video card has a PCIe version right now. Apple will practically have to move to PCIe in 2005 - it's just a question of whether that's early 2005 or late 2005.

Yeah, but the point is kind of moot because the Mac video card upgrade market really sucks from an availability standpoint, does it not? It is, of course, nice to have leading edge bus technology (I prefer not to be on the bleeding edge, however), but even if Apple were to provide PCIe in the next revision there's a pretty good chance that an overwhelming majority of Mac users would never upgrade their card. Mac video card upgrades are too few and too expensive.

Commodus · Nov 13, 2004, 04:28 PM

Originally posted by Big Mac:
Yeah, but the point is kind of moot because the Mac video card upgrade market really sucks from an availability standpoint, does it not? It is, of course, nice to have leading edge bus technology (I prefer not to be on the bleeding edge, however), but even if Apple were to provide PCIe in the next revision there's a pretty good chance that an overwhelming majority of Mac users would never upgrade their card. Mac video card upgrades are too few and too expensive.

That's why you want PCIe - if you're going to buy a system and keep it for 2 or more years (on average) without upgrading, you don't want to find out that some neat new app really wants the extra bandwidth that you don't have.

power142 · Nov 13, 2004, 04:58 PM

I doubt that Nvidia or ATI will do themselves out of "upgrade" sales from users, Mac or PC, who want to upgrade their AGP card for the next couple of years... just wouldn't make business sense. Machines sitting on desks with PCIe are still rather thin on the ground - AGP has been around for years.

Those who need the latest and greatest with respect to CPU, graphics and memory speed will always pay the premium for the newest machine. For the rest of us, I seriously doubt we'll have a problem getting us a nice new AGP8x card two years from now - even if it lacks some of the features of the latest chip from Nvidia/ATI, it'll still be an advancement over the current Radeon or Geforce.