[Big Mac]

Apple's Intel developer boxes don't have firewire. Or are you talking about cracked, unauthorized installations?

[iomatic]

um, i cannot confirm nor deny what i said.

[madmanXwater]

I know a guy who knows a guy...... who has 10.4.3 running on a hp zd8225 laptop and the internal FireWire, USB and Bluetooth work just fine.

[iomatic]

hrm. vaios are looking pretty nice...

[mduell]

Originally Posted by pete

If I remember correctly, the first generation of PPC powerbooks were pretty damn horrible: the 5300 and 190 series. I think both had repair extension program that lasted for 5 + years to cover all the problems.

And the iBook G3s, an nth generation PPC laptop, also had a recall across all generations and models.
The first models after a major transition, as well as the first models after a major release (Rev A), may have issues but they're no worse than the later generations. I tallied it up the other day in another thread and Rev A is no worse than any other revision.

[Geordiekeith]

Having been through several Apple revisions - software and hardware, from System 6 to 7 (it was a big leap), 68k to PPC, 9.2 to Mac OS X, I am waiting for the second round of Intel Macs. The first revision may not have all the problems everyone alludes to, but Apple never gets the first models quite right... the LC, 6100-7100-8100, etc. in my own personal experience. And then there is the investment in software.....

Those who jump in for the new models will be testing for what the new line should actually be and I am selfish enough to have just bought a second-hand Powerbook 12" (1.33) to keep me going while someone else can be the guinea-pigs......

[Peter Bonte]

Games seem to run pretty well on the altivec enabled rozetta so it looks like the new intels are faster than the old G4 powerbooks even with a 30% speed hit. G4's are way to old to buy now.

G5 macs are ok for the moment but i'd wait for the mini and portables. The macintels basically use old and tested technology with newer chips and motherboard enhancements, most (if not all) of the technology Apple is going to use is already for sale now on higher priced PC's.

On the hardware front i fully trust Apple/Intel at the moment and the software can be updated afterwards. I'd say buy an Intel in january, i'm picking up a mini the first day it go's intel and frontrow.

[Westbo]

Wow... and to think it seems like yesterday we were raving about 133Mhz.

[slugslugslug]

Originally Posted by mduell

...The first models after a major transition, as well as the first models after a major release (Rev A), may have issues but they're no worse than the later generations. I tallied it up the other day in another thread and Rev A is no worse than any other revision.

Really? What thread? For a while now I've had a hunch this alleged "Rev A curse" was a result of folks seeing patterns where they're not. You know, deciding the patttern exists, then remembering the "hits" but not the "misses." But I'm far too lazy to try and dig up the relevant data. I'd certainly like to see what you came up with, though.

[ivor.plecas]

I am also one of the users that lived through all the transitions in mac history. Since I tend to be an early adopter of things my experiences about these transitions were first person, and through the years I've come to believe that ANY transition, even a minor supposedly unproblematic one, can yield problems, depending on your usage profile.
For instance, I was both a PB 5300 and PB 190 owner. The PB 190 was actually a "last revision" PB, since it still had the 68k chipset so the only transition within this model line was from trackball to trackpad and from black & white displays to colour. It was a neat machine, got things done, even passed a crash-test on german TV every other notebooks in the market failed. It simply had weaknesses that every new model of anything always has. The PB 5300 was the same as the 190 (on the outside) only with a PPC chip and a Li-Ion battery. The bad reputation of the 5300 came from the fact that these early Li-Ion batteries were so bad they tended to simply catch fire; apple solved the problem by recalling the Li-Ion batteries and replacing them with the Ni-Mh ones, which gained significantly less power. Otherwise the hardware was sweet and robust, PCMCIA, nifty little spring-loaded feet to lift it of the desktop a bit - it had the air of a James Bond suitcase.
I also had a Performa 5300 (the missing and forgotten link between the classic and the iMac) all-in-one machine at home, and it had a TV-Tuner and IR-Remote already; and this was almost 10 years ago! It worked just swell apart from stuff you had to deal with on all computers those days - bad emi shielding of the screen, loud hard-drives, things like that. Apple even already had the politics of under-featuring non-professional hardware - the performa 5300 did have a 16-bit audio output, but only an 8-bit audio input. Like that really lifted sales of the biger boxes; would a TV-pro really prefer an iMac G5 to a powerMac G5 if it had Firewire 800? Don't think so.
The transition from 68k code to PPC ("native") code was terrible at that time on the performa and other non-cutting-edge-machines. Noone really bothered to make emulation work at practicable speeds; it was just all about making it work, even if moving the mouse took ages and the framerate dropped to like 0,5 FPS. Many macsters I hung around with at that time chose this exact moment to switch to an intel, and they're still not coming back, so frustrating was this experience for them. Oh, and until MacOS 8.7 (I think) we didn't even have those nifty 3D-Buttons on the Mac, and Win95 was sooo sexy.
Apple has learned from all this, I can say that from my own experience. All those pros who left the rainbow-apple behind and went intel (Photoshop, PageMaker, all those ran much faster and more stable on much cheaper PCs in the late 90's) really hurt them, and the last obvious transition we saw, namely the switch from classic to OSX proved that they didn't just have the buyers of brand new hardware in mind but also the whole bunch of regular users who keep a Mac for it's longevity. These are the people who shell out a small fortune each, what, 5 years just because they then know they're good for the next 5. Or 6, or 7 (like me). So the whole classic emulation was really cool and simple - it had it's problems, I know, but they were significantly smaller that the ones I had with switching my iBook G3 600 from OSX 10.3.9 to 10.4.0.
So, to sum it all up - I think that no software or even hardware manufacturer has as much experience (good & bad) with transitions as apple, because noone ever had the loyal customers to go thorugh it with them. Windows is still bulked by the paradigm of downward-compatibility, intel chips haven't been developed from scratch in 25 years or so, because the speed gains compensate for the performance loss imminent in that. But we sit on really well oiled machines, AND we have Steve (pardon the cult of personality) handling the whole intel deal. He won't have macsters running around and complaining, and I'm sure they don't ever want to see a PPC-balck-market, where pro users try to squeeze the last bit of performance from their old hardware because intel sucks - just look at the cult of the cube and how upgrade-processors keep it almost right on the edge. Steve doesn't want to produce any markets he can't profit from.
My opinion, for whatever it's worth, ist that transitions are always a good thing, and that we're way past naive "oops, we didn't think of that" blunders. There's always something that annoys us pampered mac users, stuff that windows users are just too desensitized to notice. And this transition has been so long in the making that I for my part bet that the transition to OSX 10.5 (wouldn't it be time for OsX 11 with intel?) will be much more noticeable and problem-stricken than the one Apple is putting all their effort into - namely the one to intel processors.

[Peter Bonte]

Ouch, i read ivor.plecas whole post and i have to agree for as far my 8 year experience can count in. We have had problems with rev 2 and 3's as much as the first but we tend to forget those. The biggest problem is the software, was and always will be.

In contradiction to that i have to say my first rev blue/white G3 had his troubles to (PCI not working 100% like it should) but got it worked out and now my son is still using it soon to be replaced with a Mini or an iMac depending on what january brings us.

[ScottEllsworth]

The facts:

Powerbooks will be out sometime between the first of January and WWDC.

G4 powerbooks are a very stable design, and the hardware is not moving very fast - my 1.5 17" was top of the line in April of 2004, and the best Apple has now is just 10% faster.

Intel chips run very fast, compared to a PPC - 2 GHz vs 1.667 GHz, with a more advanced architecture.

The first chips off the line are going to be dual cored.

First revision hardware often has flaws. If you buy the first rev, then you get to find those flaws, while if you wait for the second rev, you do not.

Finally, the next chip for laptops from Intel is not due until the end of 2006, so if your 'wait for rev B' is actually 'wait for the speed bump', then you are going to be waiting just about a year or a year and a half.

Thus, your question really becomes two - can you wait until june, and is the much faster cpu architecture going to be worth the teething pains. For me, the answer is yes - that dual core would dominate my desktop G5 in anything but altivec. I fully intend to get an Intel powerbook within a month or so of their shipment. (Assuming that they come out in the April timeframe.)

Scott

[Al G]

"First revision hardware often has flaws. If you buy the first rev, then you get to find those flaws, while if you wait for the second rev, you do not."

Sometimes, but not always or necessarily even often. It's impossible to predict.

As as an example, look at the Rev. A Dual 2.0GHz G5 Powermac: a completely new processor and logic board in a completely new case design, with new memory (and memory controller) and a new hard drive interface. Those who bought them in 2003 used them happily with no improvements through two subsequent revisions--and actually, Rev. B and C could be considered downgrades. The only minor problems, primarily chirping power supplies, were not fixed in Rev. B or C.

[HazelGirl]

just wondering....will the new processors be 64-bit?

[peppermg]

What would our life be like as loyal Apple customers without a transition every few years? Transitions keep us on our toes, and make us buy new hardware. They are simply brilliant!

[ScottEllsworth]

The new processors are 32 bit Yonah chips. The 64 bit equivalents are due near the end of 2006 - google on mereon and conroe.

[verbo_phobia]

It's tempting to buy a new Intel laptop when they come out - to be on the cutting edge, and all that.. But on the other hand it's tempting to wait until the Intel laptops come out and snap up a 15" G4 Powerbook for a really good price.
I've been lucky so far with the Macs I've bought, only one lemon, my current G5 1.8ghz single (known freezing issue) and even this has been solved with a firmware upgrade.
I work for an authorised repair centre, so I guess if I had any issues with a new Mac I'd be in a better position than some to do something about it.

[CharlesS]

It's "yea", not "yay".

[Nuks]

Welcome to the thread. Nice input by the way!

[gentryfunk]

As a new 15" PB owner, I checked out a few benchmarks vs. Intel chips. While I could not find the most recent chip comparisons, a comparison between a G4 1ghz vs. a Pentium-M 1.3 Ghz showed that the G4 was as fast or faster on most benchmarks....now I know enough about these comparison to know that they don't tell you much, so a friend of mine and I did some informal tests opening programs, saving files, and running some Excel formulas, etc. His Sony VIAO with a Pentium-M 740 chip (1.73 Ghz) and my new 15" PB G4 1.67 Ghz ran software at almost exactly the same speed....both machines have 1 GB RAM and 80 GB hard drives....but here is the kicker....his VIAO lasts about 1:45 hrs on a charge, my new PB about 4:30 hrs doing the same basic tasks.....running a DVD, my PB ran about 3:26 Hrs.....his did not finish the same DVD.

Just my .02...

[Jawbone54]

I'm facing a horrible dilemma. I am typing this post on my 12" iBook, which I've just sold on eBay. I'm upgrading to a Powerbook, but I'm not quite sure what to do. I would just be safe and wait until January, but even if the new Powerbooks start shipping immediately, I'll have to deal with the Rev A (likely) problems. I also don't want to buy a computer that will be incompatible with new Intel-based software in 2 years. I guess I'll think about it a little bit more until January 10.

[laigle]

I do not really see the point in wondering how much faster Intel Powerbooks will be, as compared to G4 Powerbooks.

I just changed my 1.33Ghz/17" PB for the newest 1.67/17" with higher resolution.
(I initially planned to wait for Intel Powerbookds, but changed my minf when mine had to get repaired ; I then bought the new one)
I get a bigger hard drive, more polished features (better screen, better backlight for the keyboard, ...).
The big differences : battery life seems longer, and it is a lot quieter. And therefore a lot more enjoyable.

I have no speed issues about my Powerbook.
My need for speed is opening the lid and being operational in a second. I already had it with the previous Powerbook.

Having a marginally or dramatically faster Inter-powered powerbook would not be a big deal for me.

My current Powerbook has much enough power. What I like about it is its usability, including a 17" screen with a reasonable weight.
I can only hope the new Powerbooks will be even more enjoyabale to use. I just do not think the type of CPU they use will make any big difference about it

[ronjamin]

This is going to be so transparent that NO ONE is going to care but the technogeeks. And that is the beautiful simplicity of it all.

Because the bottom line is that a processor is irrelevant if it does what we want it to do. Intel, PPC, AMD, it doesnt matter in the end.

[ivor.plecas]

Whyever did I bother writing so much when you drive the point straight home like that?

[rem]

Admittedly, this is a technogeek post ...

I'm just wondering why many benchmarks show that Intel processors are faster, and there are arguments that the advantages of RISC (vs. CISC) are not really relevant in today's processors, yet PPC processors running *nix OSes still do very well among the world's fastest supercomputers.

Per this Nov '05 list out of the top five: the first, second & third top ranking systems are all PPC-based. All were built in 2005.

PPC is just one of 11 processor families found in the top 500. In the top 100, there are 47 PPC based systems!

Of course there are too many factors involved to compare processors by comparing clustered systems, but why do the most successful folks at building supercomputers, who study and hand pick each component based upon best overall performance, or optimal cost : performance ratio, choose PPC.

[iomatic]

That's exactly right: it's designed for supercomputers. Look what they have to do to cool a G5: sure, it's great and fast and whoops the Intel side now, but what do we have on the mobile side? The non-existent 7447A? The current G4s? Well, there's your answer. The PPC for laptop processing is at a dead end of sorts. There is no light at the end of the tunnel for the PowerPC in laptop computing. Motorola and IBM killed all hopes of this, and Apple's contingency was to move to Intel.

Great. As long as apps run natively, and simplicity and usability are still in tact, I'm down.

[Zyphere]

Originally Posted by rem

What would you guys think about Apple using AMD processors? AMD seems to be kicking Intel's @ss these days with their dual-core 64-bit processor (performance and cost-wise), which already works on FreeBSD's kernel.

AMD's desktop chips may be superior to Intel's but not their laptop chips.
From what I recall, their Turion isn't much better than what the Pentium M processors had to offer in terms of speed and power consumption.

On another note, I'm planning to pick up a mactel pbook sometime around June/July, but do you think it'd be worth it to wait for the Merom books to launch? Or is that a bit too far away to even tell?

[mduell]

Originally Posted by slugslugslug

Really? What thread? For a while now I've had a hunch this alleged "Rev A curse" was a result of folks seeing patterns where they're not. You know, deciding the patttern exists, then remembering the "hits" but not the "misses." But I'm far too lazy to try and dig up the relevant data. I'd certainly like to see what you came up with, though.

Here are 7 examples of bugs or recalls that affected later revisions, multiple revisions excluding the first revision, or all revisions:
Giant iBook recall covers every "snow" G3 revision.
PowerBook G3 power adapter recall does not affect Rev A.
15" PowerBook battery recall affects 2nd half of rev A and 1st half of rev B.
iBook and PowerBook battery recall does not affect Rev A of either machine.
The "G5 freezes" problem only affected Rev B.
The G5 "chirps" affected revisions A, B, and C.
The iPod battery lawsuit that Apple settled included Rev A, B, and C.

Originally Posted by gentryfunk

As a new 15" PB owner, I checked out a few benchmarks vs. Intel chips. While I could not find the most recent chip comparisons, a comparison between a G4 1ghz vs. a Pentium-M 1.3 Ghz showed that the G4 was as fast or faster on most benchmarks....now I know enough about these comparison to know that they don't tell you much, so a friend of mine and I did some informal tests opening programs, saving files, and running some Excel formulas, etc. His Sony VIAO with a Pentium-M 740 chip (1.73 Ghz) and my new 15" PB G4 1.67 Ghz ran software at almost exactly the same speed....both machines have 1 GB RAM and 80 GB hard drives....but here is the kicker....his VIAO lasts about 1:45 hrs on a charge, my new PB about 4:30 hrs doing the same basic tasks.....running a DVD, my PB ran about 3:26 Hrs.....his did not finish the same DVD.

Barefeats (a Mac oriented news and benchmarking site) disagrees:



Note that the Centrino (Pentium M) beats the G4s clock for clock by a significant margin... and of course the Pentium M clocks 600Mhz higher than the G4 and will soon sport two cores.



The Centrinos produce a higher framerate with the same graphics card as the PowerBooks.

His Vaio's shorter battery life is the result of a tradeoff made by Sony (smaller battery to lower cost and weight) not an inherent quality of the platform; my 1.86Ghz PM runs for 6 hours on a charge.

Originally Posted by rem

I'm just wondering why many benchmarks show that Intel processors are faster, and there are arguments that the advantages of RISC (vs. CISC) are not really relevant in today's processors, yet PPC processors running *nix OSes still do very well among the world's fastest supercomputers.

Per this Nov '05 list out of the top five: the first, second & third top ranking systems are all PPC-based. All were built in 2005.

PPC is just one of 11 processor families found in the top 500. In the top 100, there are 47 PPC based systems!

Of course there are too many factors involved to compare processors by comparing clustered systems, but why do the most successful folks at building supercomputers, who study and hand pick each component based upon best overall performance, or optimal cost : performance ratio, choose PPC.

That some PPC chips (note the top systems use PPC440 and POWER5, neither of which are available in consumer machines) are suitable for getting high LINPACK scores doesn't mean a lot for other PPC chips being good on the desktop. The OS that the number crunching nodes are running isn't quite a full fledged *n?x; it may not even be POSIX compliant.

Some supercomputer builders pick some PPC (mostly 440 and 970) and POWER (mostly 4 and 5) chips because they're good for the apps they run in terms of performance and power consumption. Power based systems make up less than 40% of the Top500 list in terms of performance, while x86 based systems make up 45%. But that's all meaningless since supercomptuer tasks and apps aren't desktop tasks and apps. Many of those supercomputers don't even have video cards; not so useful on the desktop, eh?

For another high-end benchmark that is totally meaningless for desktop users, look at the TPC-C results: the top 10 systems by price/performance are x86. In TPC-H the top spot for price/performance is an x86 system in most catagories (except for the 1TB catagory (where Itanium is on top) and the 10TB catagory (where there are no x86 systems and Sparc is on top)).

[Nuks]

I'm bringing back this thread to ask a pricing question.

What do you all think the prices of the intels will be? Specifically the 17" using the dual core 2.16 ghz

Info on the chips is here


Thanks

[mduell]

Originally Posted by Nuks

I'm bringing back this thread to ask a pricing question.

What do you all think the prices of the intels will be? Specifically the 17" using the dual core 2.16 ghz

$2500

[olePigeon]

PowerPC is an awesome design and a great CPU, better than Intel and AMD, in my opinion. But IBM doesn't make a mobile CPU, so there you have it. Intel has CPUs from desktops, to laptops, to embedded devices.

IBM doesn't.

[wilsonng]

Well, this news articles seems to show the promise of the switch to Intel:

http://www.macsimumnews.com/index.ph...actel_systems/

[mduell]

Originally Posted by wilsonng

Well, this news articles seems to show the promise of the switch to Intel:

http://www.macsimumnews.com/index.ph...actel_systems/

Fourohfour!

[wilsonng]

grrr...... it appears that Macsimumnews is down for maintenance right now. it should be up soon. I saw this link on the Macsurfer web site first.

[wilsonng]

Aha! I found this goggle cache

http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:F...ient=firefox-a

[cgc]

Originally Posted by ScottEllsworth

The facts:
Finally, the next chip for laptops from Intel is not due until the end of 2006, so if your 'wait for rev B' is actually 'wait for the speed bump', then you are going to be waiting just about a year or a year and a half.

Thus, your question really becomes two - can you wait until june, and is the much faster cpu architecture going to be worth the teething pains. For me, the answer is yes - that dual core would dominate my desktop G5 in anything but altivec. I fully intend to get an Intel powerbook within a month or so of their shipment. (Assuming that they come out in the April timeframe.)

Scott

If I remember correctly, the next chip (this year) from Intel will be a single-core Yonah. Meroms will be end of year...