[acadian]

Part II of an ongoing report. Read Part I.

Easily the hottest question in the PowerPage in-box (and via IM) is "Where is the PowerBook 5-Inch update?" Today we attempt to answer more of your questions on Apple's most-coveted (and as of yet, unannounced) new iron.

Q. Motorola's Power PC 7457 is the rumored chip that is to be used in the new Aluminum PowerBook 15-inch, can you confirm?

A. We believe this to be so based on early EVT and DVT mules, however PowerPage insiders have seen this sheep in different clothing. Whatever the chip, expect a 1.25GHz CPU in the 15.4-inch Aluminum model.

Q. Is Motorola causing the delay?

MacBidouille claims that due to Motorola's inability to produce PPC 7457s in large volumes, PowerBooks will be delayed until mid-October. While AppleInsider, also citing reliable sources, confirms that low processor supplies are the cause of the delays, but provides no time-frame for delivery. (MacRumors)
As we reported yesterday it is system integration that is slowing the new Aluminum PowerBook 15-inch release as opposed to a specific problem with the processors not arriving in large enough numbers.

A. The final assembly of the boxes were the main slow down. That caused the yields to be down on the number of machines that actually worked after leaving the assembly line. This was occurring about the same time as the SARS epidemic in Asia, so Apple did not require their employees to travel there. This also caused appreciable slow down in the production schedule.

Q. When will we see that spiffy new G5 processor in PowerBooks? Some sites suggest that G5-based PowerBooks may be deliverable in early 2004.

PowerBooks will go dual G4 first, then G5 once they figure our how to cool it, according to an internal product flowchart dated 9/5/03 obtained by the PowerPage.

Got Juice on the new PowerBooks? Spill the beans and win a PowerPage prize pack.

PowerPage

[neilw]

Dual 1 GHz 7457s would make for a very interesting PowerBook. It's certainly plausible, at least for the 17" and *maybe* the 15".

Not sure if I buy the "once we figure out how to cool it" comment, though. When the 90nm parts become available, it shouldn't be a big deal, probably in the 1.4 - 1.6 GHz range. It still seems to me that they could do it now if they were willing to clock it down far enough.

Just announce something already.

[skyman]

Originally posted by acadian:
[ PowerBooks will go dual G4 first, then G5 once they figure our how to cool it, according to an internal product flowchart dated 9/5/03 obtained by the PowerPage.

Dual G4 in a 15" Powerbook. Total BS!

[acadian]

I've always believed that a dual Powerbook was in the pipeline and if this is indeed true, I will certainly hold out on buying a new 17" if the next revision is only a single CPU G4.

[nobitacu]

Originally posted by acadian:
I've always believed that a dual Powerbook was in the pipeline and if this is indeed true, I will certainly hold out on buying a new 17" if the next revision is only a single CPU G4.

The dual G4 is so not going to happen in Powerbooks. I still don't know why some people are still thinking about how there will be. Maybe a year and a half to two years from now, but not anytime soon. It's just not possible right now, unless you really want to wait another year and a half for it.

Ming

[nobitacu]

Originally posted by neilw:
Dual 1 GHz 7457s would make for a very interesting PowerBook. It's certainly plausible, at least for the 17" and *maybe* the 15".

Not sure if I buy the "once we figure out how to cool it" comment, though. When the 90nm parts become available, it shouldn't be a big deal, probably in the 1.4 - 1.6 GHz range. It still seems to me that they could do it now if they were willing to clock it down far enough.

Just announce something already.

You're totally right, this site is posting a lot of BS news on this one. when then 90nm parts start rolling out, you WILL see a G5 in the powerbooks. I still say that before they even do a dual CPU in Powerbooks, you'll see a G5 Powerbook FIRST!

Ming

[seanyepez]

What did I say a month ago?

[crispinwilliams]

Originally posted by seanyepez:
What did I say a month ago?

If I recall correctly it was more than a month ago.. and you were predicting dual processor 17 inch powerbooks to be realeased in the second half of september.. (maybe you said sept 26).

As time has gone on - your date prediction looks pretty close - do you have any follow up info on the processors?

[Eug]

Originally posted by crispinwilliams:
If I recall correctly it was more than a month ago.. and you were predicting dual processor 17 inch powerbooks to be realeased in the second half of september.. (maybe you said sept 26).

As time has gone on - your date prediction looks pretty close - do you have any follow up info on the processors?

Here is seanyepez's thread.

He made his prediction 1.5 months ago, that the new machines would come out Sept. 27, with a dual 17".

While I don't believe this and I still predict a single 1.25 GHz G4, read my comments as to why a dual G4 laptop is technically possible, at least in a 17".

[juanpacolopez]

Originally posted by Eug:
Here is seanyepez's thread.

He made his prediction 1.5 months ago, that the new machines would come out Sept. 27, with a dual 17".

While I don't believe this and I still predict a single 1.25 GHz G4, read my comments as to why a dual G4 laptop is technically possible, at least in a 17".

I remember that thread too...

I DEFINITELY think it's possible to do a dual G4 (at least 17") machine. I doubt there's ROOM inside the chasis of a 15" to fit the damn thing, but a 17" has PLENTY of space on the inside.

Not only that, but if it's a 7457 it will use significantly less power (almost half, as I recall) which would make a dual 1Ghz w/ slightly larger battery ENTIRELY possible.

Whether or not apple would spend the time/money required to pull this off is another issue altogether. My money goes on them spending as much time/money as possible to get a G5 into a PB first... but who knows, Apple does like to shock people

[acadian]

Personally I would go for a dual G4 over a under clocked single G5. On that note, what do you think a reasonable bus speed on a G5 powerbook would be? Certainly not the 1Ghz top end on the Dual 2Ghz model.

[Podolsky]

I cast my vote with those predicting dual powererd Powerbooks. This is consistent with the plan for and engineering of OSX and just what Steve needs to salvage, and then some, the Year of the Laptop. Finally, it would be just the kind of industry leadership - first to engineer it - that has been Apple's halmark for, well, ever. I may be wrong, but I don't think there has been a two-headed laptop built by anyone yet?

[S|ntax]

yes there has been. i forgot who made it, some small pc firm a few years back. obviously it didn't do well. but apple would not be the first.

[juanpacolopez]

Originally posted by Podolsky:
I cast my vote with those predicting dual powererd Powerbooks. This is consistent with the plan for and engineering of OSX and just what Steve needs to salvage, and then some, the Year of the Laptop. Finally, it would be just the kind of industry leadership - first to engineer it - that has been Apple's halmark for, well, ever. I may be wrong, but I don't think there has been a two-headed laptop built by anyone yet?

I remember seeing a dual (MIPS) processor SPARC-ish (Solaris) "workstation laptop" a while back... as I recall it was 2x450Mhz MIPS, and it was ungodly ($10k) expensive.

Maybe I'm remembering wrong, but I could've sworn there was a dual model

Apple would definitely be the first MAINSTREAM manufacturer to do it, and if it fit inside the standard (1" thick) PB chasis that would be pretty pioneering (the solaris box I'm thinking of was like 2" I think).... not only that, but I'd imagine it would come in at under $4-5k too, which would be a "big deal".

[Riemann Zeta]

The concept of a dual processor laptop is just ridiculous. The G4 is not exactly a low-wattage chip, at a whopping .18 micron, it generates quite a bit of heat (consider the current Powerbooks and their fans). Hence, a dual processor laptop would be incredibly hot. In addition, we must consider the battery life of such a machine. Unless Apple has some sort of experimental battery that holds 2x the charge of current laptop battery, then the battery life of a dual laptop would be abysmal. Also, a dual G4 would still have the same 5 year old 167 MHz SDR bus. Compare this to the 533 - 800 MHz bus on the latest Pentium-4 and Centrino machines.

The next laptop after this update (if this update ever happens ) will be a G5.

[macxtal]

Dual G4 would be an engineering challenge, but not impossible. People think the processor draws a lot of power, but this is incorrect. The biggest draw by far on a notebook computer is the LCD screen backlight. Try turning the screen off and seeing how much longer your notebook will run on battery power. (on an externally powered monitor).

Doubly so if the extra processor is set to disable itself on battery power. I'm not completely sure where they'd find the board space on the 15", but it is very possible on the 17".

[neilw]

No point using the old .18um part as a basis for making seat-of-the-pants pronouncements about the new one.

The low-power version of the 7457 consumes roughly 8.5W at 1 GHz, less than half of the presently used G4. So, purely from a power perspective, a dual-1GHz PowerBook is doable. Space is probably a more pressing issue, though it's plausible in the 17", and would make it a truly premium product. You also have the option of shutting down one of the processors when running off battery, so you could potentially then have better battery life than even the current 17".

The 1.25 and/or 1.3 GHz parts, on the other hand, appear too hot to use in a dual. According to publicly available Motorola documentation, the 1.3 GHz 7457 uses about what the old 1 Ghz part uses, or double the new 1 Ghz part.

[juanpacolopez]

Originally posted by Riemann Zeta:
The concept of a dual processor laptop is just ridiculous. The G4 is not exactly a low-wattage chip, at a whopping .18 micron, it generates quite a bit of heat (consider the current Powerbooks and their fans). Hence, a dual processor laptop would be incredibly hot. In addition, we must consider the battery life of such a machine. Unless Apple has some sort of experimental battery that holds 2x the charge of current laptop battery, then the battery life of a dual laptop would be abysmal. Also, a dual G4 would still have the same 5 year old 167 MHz SDR bus. Compare this to the 533 - 800 MHz bus on the latest Pentium-4 and Centrino machines.

The next laptop after this update (if this update ever happens ) will be a G5.

You're right, the G4 7455 from Motorola is NOT a low-wattage chip.

The G4 7457 (widely rumored to be in the next PB's) however, IS a low-wattage chip. As I recall the 1Ghz is something like 7.5 or 8W... It is ENTIRELY feasible to slap two of those in a powerbook, as that's about HALF (little tiny bit more) the energy consumption of the current 7455 models... so you could, concievably, put 2 in the same box and only use a slightly larger amount of power than the current powerbooks.

Since they're low-wattage (and .13 micron) they also generate considerably less heat. Which means (in the 17" with it's copious free space on the inside) you could also put 2 processors in and it would still only be about as hot as the current 12" powerbook (a trade off I would WILLINGLY make for a dual laptop).

So... given a new chip and a slightly higher-output battery (very slightly for the same battery life as the current 17"); a few optimizations to OSX that would throttle one processor all the way back when it wasn't being used (to save power and heat) and you've got yourself a dual processor Powerbook I'm not saying it WILL happen, but it most definitely COULD.

EDIT: And I must say, if it DID happen (as long as they weren't $5k or something) that's about the only thing that could convince me to sell my beloved Ti at the moment I'd be the first in line!

[crispinwilliams]

Originally posted by neilw:
No point using the old .18um part as a basis for making seat-of-the-pants pronouncements about the new one.

The low-power version of the 7457 consumes roughly 8.5W at 1 GHz, less than half of the presently used G4. So, purely from a power perspective, a dual-1GHz PowerBook is doable. Space is probably a more pressing issue, though it's plausible in the 17", and would make it a truly premium product. You also have the option of shutting down one of the processors when running off battery, so you could potentially then have better battery life than even the current 17".

The 1.25 and/or 1.3 GHz parts, on the other hand, appear too hot to use in a dual. According to publicly available Motorola documentation, the 1.3 GHz 7457 uses about what the old 1 Ghz part uses, or double the new 1 Ghz part.

I am not sure that I understand the Motorola documentation.. if I try and understand it.. I find there are two versions of the 7457.. but both use 0.12 micron processing.. what is it that makes one processor use double the power of the other? They also have this low-k process.. that is meant to be worth 20 % power-saving... is the low power processor made with low-k and the other not. What limits the clock speed on the 'low-power' processor? Anyway I think that it is clear that Motorola can build a 7457 that draws less than 8W at 1 GHZ... but other than that I think we are whistling in the dark. I fully expect to get faster running processors drawing less power across the board come Tuesday.. I also hope that there is a dual 17 inch ..

[neilw]

The difference is that the low-power part runs at 1.1V, whereas the "normal" ones run at 1.3V. It is easier to run at higher speed with higher voltage, though along with that comes higher power. So, at 1.1V, Motorola can't get yield above 1 GHz, while at 1.3V they top off at 1.3GHz.

Both parts are probably the same die, just qualified differently (not 100% certain here, though.)

It's pretty much the same with the 970. If you reduce the voltage down to 1.1V, you couldn't still run it at 2 GHz, but you could run it at 1.2 GHz, at much lower power (hence assertions that the G5 is doable in a laptop, though Apple might not be ready to go in that direction).

The 1GHz low-power 7457 really looks to be a pretty nice part for a laptop. Would be fantastic in an iBook, or half a 17".

By the way, I would actually be pretty surprised if Apple unveils a dual-proc PowerBook tomorrow, it's just that I've become somewhat enamored of the concept in recent months...

[ae86_16v]

Originally posted by seanyepez:
What did I say a month ago?

Hahaha. . . we'll see.

Originally posted by macxtal:
Dual G4 would be an engineering challenge, but not impossible. People think the processor draws a lot of power, but this is incorrect. The biggest draw by far on a notebook computer is the LCD screen backlight. Try turning the screen off and seeing how much longer your notebook will run on battery power. (on an externally powered monitor).

Yeah, I with the screen dimmed past 1/2, I notice that I get considerably more battery life.

On my iBook for example, if I turn off the screen and just listen to music, I get about 5.5hrs of battery.