[krillbee]

I wonder why apple doesnt sell any lower grade power macs (power macs at prices which are closer to their imacs, or the mac mini even)
The lowest configured G5 currently sells for $2000. Previously they have sold power macs for cheaper, like around $1500 I recall.
I'm sure many folks wouldnt mind if they still sold G4 Power Macs new. (Ex: Apple could expand the inards of the Mac mini into a G4 Case

I dont know about most people, but I really like having a standard tower case to play around on the inside with, and it'd be nice to be able to purchase a tower without having to pay the heavy price. For now I'm building a G4 sawtooth system, and beefing it up a little, which should tie me over until the new Mactels come out (I use a PC primarily, so the low performance of the sawtooth wont bother me)

I suppose there still are plenty of used products available on the internet, through ebay, in the classifieds, etc. So hardware enthusiasts can always go that route.

Do you think the reason apple doesnt sell lower end Power Macs is because they want to encourage hardware enthusiasts to buy the latest in technology? Or maybe because they are trying to encourage a more "compact computer" revolution? Any ideas?

[WizOSX]

I think the answer is just "profit." I'm sure Apple knows approximately how many "low-end" G4 towers they could sell and how many of those buyers will still be willing to buy a tower when all they can get is a G5 at about 50-70% more. You are right, they did keep a G4 tower around until June, 2004 and sold it for $1300. I don't think it was selling all that well at the end, however.

[iMacfan]

I know what you mean, but unfortunately people like you (i.e. someone who actually wants to open the box) are few and far between. On the PC side, expandability is often touted, but few ever use it. Also, now that almost everything you need is onboard and USB2 and firewire can connect to HDs at high speeds, there isn't much need for PCI slots or internal drive bays.

David.

[Chito]

I'm sure some people would like to buy a car with a carberator and a set of points they could play around with too. But....technology moves onward and G4's aren't the latest technology. Fortunately for folks like yourself there's always places like Ebay.

[miacomet]

Apple want's you to buy their new machine.

[chris v]

People that need the expandability of a full-size tower by and large also need the speed of modern CPUs. The guts of a Mini in a big, empty box wouldn't exactly fly off the shelves.

[Chito]

good point chris v. This thread seems to be driven by the price of a new power mac. just how much can you get a refurbed G5 for these days? they're out of stock right now at the online apple store but if memory servees me it seems like they were pretty affordable. the original poster mentioned $1500, leading me to believe that was the price point he was looking for. i'll bet he could get a refurbed G5 for that when they're in stock.

[Todd Madson]

Yep. Some of the 1.8 and 2.0 G5 towers have shown up around $1600-$1800.
I also saw a dual processor 2.3 unit yesterday at the Apple Store at the Mall of
America for around $1800. It's more than he wants to spend but they'd be a
good deal.

[mduell]

Refurbs have been as low as $1300ish...
I'd love to see a single-proc dual-core G5 in a Shuttle XPC sized case (along with a full size optical, 2 hard drives, 2 PCIe slots, and 2-4 RAM slots), but I don't think Apple will do it anytime soon.

[krillbee]

Sorry if I made some confusion earlier, but I didnt mean to say that I would buy a G5 if they were $1500, but rather that I thought that it would be good for apple if they were to market a tower desktop machine in that price segment or lower than that, say between $800-$1500. I just thing that more schools and individuals would consider buying them if they were cheaper. There are only a few G5s at the college I attend.

I am content with my Sawtooth G4 for now. I dont think I'll be upgrading until the Mactels come out.

[new newton]

As for refurbs, the DP1.8 was going for $1,249, the DP2.0 rev A for $1,449, and the most recent DP2.0 for $1,549.

Prices are at a sweet spot now. Great for buyers, not so great for sellers. I just got a used DP2.0 for $1,200. My DA/933 won't fetch but a third of that if I decide to sell it. A careful shopper can get quite a deal now. G4s are dirt cheap, and G5s are finally coming down in price. They're all readily available, so why would anyone lament that Apple isn't producing them?

[iDaver]

Originally Posted by krillbee

Sorry if I made some confusion earlier, but I didnt mean to say that I would buy a G5 if they were $1500, but rather that I thought that it would be good for apple if they were to market a tower desktop machine in that price segment or lower than that, say between $800-$1500.

As do many, many others. Problem for Apple is, if they sold such a model, their high end options wouldn't sell much at all. They're forcing people to buy more than they need, and I'm one of them. Just bought a dual core 2.0 that's twice as much computer as I need but a mini just wasn't quite enough. A refurb might have been just right.

[Todd Madson]

You do realize you can still purchase refurbs and the like?
There are several sources - small dog, apple, etc.

[WizOSX]

Originally posted by new newton

My DA/933 won't fetch but a third of that if I decide to sell it. A careful shopper can get quite a deal now. G4s are dirt cheap, and G5s are finally coming down in price.

I just bought an SP 867 Quicksilver, 1gb RAM for $395 US. That would have been unthinkable 6 months ago. I've had it for 10 days and love it. It's amazing that it feels faster than my 12" Powerbook (1.33ghz, 1.25gb RAM). Just an astounding amount of computer for that price.

[gwschreyer]

I am willing to hazard a guess that Apple will be taking a new direction in the PowerMac line. All of them will trend to dual dual core processors, single dual cores will be reserved for the iMac. Single cores will end up in the mini in the shrt term.

As dual cores become the norm and are even found in a mini, the iMac will have a quad core processor, and the PowerMac will have dual quads. Product differentiation will not be so much by clock speed but by the number of CPUs.

This can go on nearly forever. Since it has become clear that running clocks much past 2 GHz starts costing inordinate amounts of DC power, increasing performance will come instead from more and more moderately clocked cores with cleaver OS routines to parcel up even single threaded applications between multiple processors.

- gws

[mduell]

Originally Posted by gwschreyer

Since it has become clear that running clocks much past 2 GHz starts costing inordinate amounts of DC power, increasing performance will come instead from more and more moderately clocked cores with cleaver OS routines to parcel up even single threaded applications between multiple processors.

WTF? How are you going to spread an inherently single threaded app among multiple cores?

[krillbee]

Originally Posted by WizOSX

I just bought an SP 867 Quicksilver, 1gb RAM for $395 US. That would have been unthinkable 6 months ago. I've had it for 10 days and love it. It's amazing that it feels faster than my 12" Powerbook (1.33ghz, 1.25gb RAM). Just an astounding amount of computer for that price.

It feels faster than your old powerbook? (not even that old) How is that possible? maybe hard drive speed difference??

And also, Couldnt you have gotten a refurbished Mac Mini for that price?

[WizOSX]

Originally posted by krillbee

It feels faster than your old powerbook? (not even that old) How is that possible? maybe hard drive speed difference?

Its definitely not the hard drive because I just replaced the HD in my PB with a new Seagate 5400rpm 120gb drive. This is a very fast drive, almost as fast as most 7200rpm ones out there.
Also not the video card, because the machine had an old Rage 128, 16mb card. I just bought an ATI 9600 card on eBay to replace it, but haven't gotten it yet.

As far as I can see, there are two reasons why the 867 matches the PB on just everything and beats it on some--first the 2mb of L3 cache! As everyone has said here many times, that's a huge speed booster. Notebooks tend to skimp on cache of all kinds. Second, general throughput. Lots of things in a noetbook are slowed down a little for space and heat reasons. I've owned lots of notebooks and desktops over the years and any desktop of the same processor speed always feels quite a bit faster.

BTW, as a quick benchmark, the Let1KWindowsBloom is 13secs on both machines. I love my PB and will keep it going as long as I can--its incredibly useful. But all notebooks always "feel" a bit slow.

Originally posted by krillbee

And also, Couldnt you have gotten a refurbished Mac Mini for that price?

Yes. A 1.25ghz Mini refurb with 256RAM is $379. And I considered it. But the reasons in favor of the used PM are:
1) Adding the RAM to get the Mini to 1gb would be about another $150.
2) The mini really is a notebook computer so it makes the came compromises.
3) As you said above, being able to "to play around on the inside" in a tower.
4) Being able to upgrade the video card. This I've found, over the years, is one of the easiest ways to extend the life of a computer.

[WizOSX]

I forgot to mention the downside of the desktop--noise. I bought a new DP 867 MDD machine about 2 years ago. It was so noisy I sold it in less than 6 months and swore I'd never buy another desktop Mac. This SP 867 Quicksilver isn't as bad as that but still quite noisy. So I'm already playing around inside to try to quiet it down.

[krillbee]

Originally Posted by WizOSX

I forgot to mention the downside of the desktop--noise. I bought a new DP 867 MDD machine about 2 years ago. It was so noisy I sold it in less than 6 months and swore I'd never buy another desktop Mac. This SP 867 Quicksilver isn't as bad as that but still quite noisy. So I'm already playing around inside to try to quiet it down.

watercooling is your answer.

[P]

Originally Posted by mduell

WTF? How are you going to spread an inherently single threaded app among multiple cores?

By rewriting the APIs and other low-level routines those programs rely on to be more threaded and to allow more threading - the Cocoa Appkit is still not threadsafe. Not trivial, by any means.

[mduell]

Originally Posted by P

By rewriting the APIs and other low-level routines those programs rely on to be more threaded and to allow more threading - the Cocoa Appkit is still not threadsafe. Not trivial, by any means.

That's not going to net you more than a handful of percent gain. If the core of the app is inherently single threaded (due to algorithm, etc), you're not going to be able to spread the load among multiple cores.

[Todd Madson]

From today's Macnn headlines:
"Apple has added more refurb Power Mac G5s to its Apple Store. The single-processor 1.8GHz G5 is $1,100, while a refurbished dual-2GHz is $1,550, and the refurb dual-2.3GHz is $2,000."

A refurbed dual 2 ghz would be a good deal for someone who wanted a dual G5
with capable power for less money at this time.

[TRRosen]

699 for a loaded mini then $1999 for a base G5 thats a $1300 gap!
What we need is a low end G5 mini tower
1.8 Ghz single core proc
ATI 9600 in a AGP slot and 2 PCI slots
media center type case
$999 base $1399 fully loaded

or

low end Pentium M
9650 onboard with 2 PCI-e slots one 8 one 4

[jamil5454]

Originally Posted by TRRosen

699 for a loaded mini then $1999 for a base G5 thats a $1300 gap!
What we need is a low end G5 mini tower
1.8 Ghz single core proc
ATI 9600 in a AGP slot and 2 PCI slots
media center type case
$999 base $1399 fully loaded

or

low end Pentium M
9650 onboard with 2 PCI-e slots one 8 one 4

Or we need a better-equipped Mini with more variety in the prices.

[Peter Bonte]

Thats the market for the inevitable DELL and Compac clones, like it or not.

[P]

Originally Posted by mduell

That's not going to net you more than a handful of percent gain. If the core of the app is inherently single threaded (due to algorithm, etc), you're not going to be able to spread the load among multiple cores.

No. But the interface stuff is usually not the heavy liftning. If that can be moved to a different CPU from the main thread in the app, it will feel more responsive to the user. In all fairness, a lot of users just want the machine to feel fast.

[gunnar]

They could do well with something double the size of the Mini. The main bottleneck is the video card which will probably always suck in the Mini form factor. You just can't fit a good one in there because of heat and space.

[BkueKanoodle]

I think the refurb market is perfectly situated for the buyer that wants expandability without paying for the bleeding edge. I just picked up a floor model DP 1.8 G5 for 1149 yesterday. My other option would have been a mac mini. I almost went with the Mini until I realized that by the time I put a faster hard drive and extra ram in it, it still would have come to about $800 and I would be limited to the on board video and the g4 instead of 2 g5 with no hopes for internal expansion

[P]

Originally Posted by gunnar

They could do well with something double the size of the Mini. The main bottleneck is the video card which will probably always suck in the Mini form factor. You just can't fit a good one in there because of heat and space.

The Cube could fit a decent video card for it's time - it was supposed to have the original Radeon, before ATi incurred the Wrath of Steve. The Radeon X800 GTO is a fanless 12-pipe board with quite good performance - a little behind a 6800 GT, but not too much. If you wanted to do it, you could, with a nifty cooling system.

[P]

Originally Posted by TRRosen

699 for a loaded mini then $1999 for a base G5 thats a $1300 gap!
What we need is a low end G5 mini tower
1.8 Ghz single core proc
ATI 9600 in a AGP slot and 2 PCI slots
media center type case
$999 base $1399 fully loaded

I agree with this setup, but maybe cut it to two PCIe-slots - one 16x and one 1x - and it would have to be an X600 since it's PCIe in my setup. Should be cheaper than AGP+2 PCI anyway.

[mduell]

Originally Posted by P

I agree with this setup, but maybe cut it to two PCIe-slots - one 16x and one 1x - and it would have to be an X600 since it's PCIe in my setup. Should be cheaper than AGP+2 PCI anyway.

One 16x and one 4x is more likely (I've seen lots of 20-lane chipsets, but no 17-lane yet).
I'd love to see a Mac like the Shuttle XPC... dualcore 2.0Ghz G5, 2 DDR2 slots, 2 HDD bays, 1 full size optical bay, 2 PCIe slots, starting at $999. Although the PowerMacs would need to go all quad first, otherwise they'd kill the sales of the low-end model (pay $1000 more for an extra 2 PCIe slots and 6 RAM slots?).

[dpaanlka]

I bought a 350mhz AGP G4 like six months ago, and upgraded it in that last six months. It now has a 2ghz processor, a Radeon 9800, and more ram and a big new fast hard drive.

It literally blows away my 1.5ghz PowerBook G4, which was stolen, and it replaces. I am surprised too, because the early AGP G4 has a much slower system bus and I'm sure other slower design aspects. When I bought the 2ghz G4 upgrade i was hoping for around the same performance of my stolen PowerBook, and was pleasantly surprised.

It murders the PowerBook in Xbench tests, in every single test except RAM speed.

[WizOSX]

Originally posted by mduell

I'd love to see a Mac like the Shuttle XPC....

So would I. I own a Shuttle XPC and it would make the perfect form factor for a Mac desktop.