[jarod]

Is this a joke? Really..is it? Cause after 9 months, this pathetic upgrade is really not funny!

Is the G5 production screwed? IBM having more serious problems than initially thought?

If this is the PM G5 upgrade, then MAYBE the G5 powerbook will come out in 10 years.

[Mithras]

If only there were a forum dedicated to discussing PowerMacs...

[Severed Hand of Skywalker]

You should really look here:
http://forums.macnn.com/showthread.php?p=2498002

[DeathToWindows]

Spare me your brainless assertions.

Just look at a G5 tower and/or a iMac G5 and then tell me that a G5 Powerbook is even possible with the PPC970/970fx

[Severed Hand of Skywalker]

Originally Posted by DeathToWindows

Spare me your brainless assertions.

Just look at a G5 tower and/or a iMac G5 and then tell me that a G5 Powerbook is even possible with the PPC970/970fx

It's not. So many people think they will have it by the end of the year but I say January if they are really lucky. The way IBM is moving is no better than Motorola so I wouldn't even bet on it till mid next year.

[Shaddim]

Disappointed? You betcha. I was planning on getting a new top-end PM G5, drooling over the thought of a new 3GHz (or faster) machine. Now, in light of this pitiful bump, I'm waiting. My 1.42 G4 isn't THAT old, I can live with it for another 8-9 months.

[badidea]

Yeah, that's the smallest speedbump in Apple's history - I am sticking to my 1.42GHz G4 too!

[MallyMal]

You know, I am cool with not hitting 3GHz but it would be nice if Apple/IBM would have increased the L2 caches to 1MB and changed the case to add more HDD/optical bays.

It's the least they could have done after 8-10 months.

[Severed Hand of Skywalker]

I took apart my Dual G5 2GHz last week. The heatsinks look cute and light just looking at them but when you take them out they are SO heavy and big it is not funny. Seriously, they look like light metal fins but that is just the outer "sticker" if you will. The actual thing lis like a radiator, you could run it over with a truck and it wouldn't dent. The actual G5 chip is as small as a G4 though, just a inch or 2.

no way in hell can they get this thing into a powerbook anytime soon.

[exca1ibur]

Originally Posted by MallyMal

You know, I am cool with not hitting 3GHz but it would be nice if Apple/IBM would have increased the L2 caches to 1MB and changed the case to add more HDD/optical bays.

It's the least they could have done after 8-10 months.

I agree. Be nice to include PCIe, highend video cards, updated PCI-X, more space would be kool too. Being these are technologies that could be added now as they have been available for over a year now. Best deal it to get the old 2.0 ( With ALL the ram slots it should have , at least they didn't cripple the bus though this time. )and buy your own DL DVD burner. I got one for $70 at newegg. LAst I checked they were on special for $64 for a Pioneer 109. Great drive BTW.

[deboerjo]

Really guys, it's unrealistic to have expected more than this. ALL CPU manufacturers are running into brick walls with ramping up clock speeds. You want to know how fast the next G5s will be? Look at AMD's Athlon64 product line, Apple and AMD have been leapfrogging with each other since 2003. The Athlon64 got bumped from 2.4 to 2.6 after Apple introduced the 2.5, now it's Apple's turn to hop ahead by 100MHz. Later this year AMD's releasing a 2.8 to once again leapfrog. For anybody with a perspective view of the CPU industry, 2.7GHz single-core G5s are EXACTLY what should have been expected. Now everybody's shifting focus to multicore, we'll probably see a drop in clock speeds; AMD's got a 2.4GHz dual-core planned for later this year, and I'd imagine in 6 months or more we'll start seeing dual-core G5s at 2.3 or 2.5GHz, probably at that time making the jump to DDR2 and PCIe.

Originally Posted by MallyMal

You know, I am cool with not hitting 3GHz but it would be nice if Apple/IBM would have increased the L2 caches to 1MB and changed the case to add more HDD/optical bays.

AGREED

[drHo]

i have to agree that its a bit disapointing. but ANY mac out in the last 2 years would be a nigh/day upgrade for me and lowly B&W G3 450mhz but i do have a AThlon64 system to play games with... but anyways. the g5 is on par with the athlon64 as far as speed goes. isnt the highest clocked a64 @ 2.6ghz right now? the highest g5 is at 2.7ghz and they come in dual congfiguration. i know that intel is running as high as 3.8ghz, but the athlons beat them at lower speeds. i like to compare the g5's to the a64, they seem very similar in performance (except for games, were the athlons RAPE the g5 in every posible way, must be a software thing) and i know dual cores would be nice, but come on, lets be realistic, intel JUST released their dual cores, and AMD hasnt yet, but will soon. i say next revision we BETTER see dual cores and pci express, specially PCIe, the vid cards are much cheaper!!. or apple better start looking at the x86 world for chip supply..i say amd i like how their athlons operate at lowe speed, yet are as fast or faster than what intel offers at much higher mhz. either way, my lowly g3 does fine, and i use my athlon64 system for any heavy duty computing. i will keep waiting, maybe in 6-9 months apple will match what the PC people have to offer in terms of hardware. as a side note....when is apple gonna release a fully 64-bit OS? Windows released their XP x64 Proff. yesterday...hmm....maybe that will help apple systems performance in games and such. frankly with our current hardware...the g5's should have no problem running at doom 3 at 100+ FPS.

[plamparello]

I love how Steve said (was planning) that 3 ghz PM G5's would be out by LAST summer. Little off on that one.

[discotronic]

Nobody on MacNN is ever satisified with any update

[riotge@r]

You guys with G4 machines calling this upgrade pathetic are really silly. Give me a freaking break. Even the 2Ghz Dual G5 will pounce your systems.

[riotge@r]

Originally Posted by drHo

i have to agree that its a bit disapointing. but ANY mac out in the last 2 years would be a nigh/day upgrade for me and lowly B&W G3 450mhz but i do have a AThlon64 system to play games with... but anyways. the g5 is on par with the athlon64 as far as speed goes. isnt the highest clocked a64 @ 2.6ghz right now? the highest g5 is at 2.7ghz and they come in dual congfiguration. i know that intel is running as high as 3.8ghz, but the athlons beat them at lower speeds. i like to compare the g5's to the a64, they seem very similar in performance (except for games, were the athlons RAPE the g5 in every posible way, must be a software thing) and i know dual cores would be nice, but come on, lets be realistic, intel JUST released their dual cores, and AMD hasnt yet, but will soon. i say next revision we BETTER see dual cores and pci express, specially PCIe, the vid cards are much cheaper!!. or apple better start looking at the x86 world for chip supply..i say amd i like how their athlons operate at lowe speed, yet are as fast or faster than what intel offers at much higher mhz. either way, my lowly g3 does fine, and i use my athlon64 system for any heavy duty computing. i will keep waiting, maybe in 6-9 months apple will match what the PC people have to offer in terms of hardware. as a side note....when is apple gonna release a fully 64-bit OS? Windows released their XP x64 Proff. yesterday...hmm....maybe that will help apple systems performance in games and such. frankly with our current hardware...the g5's should have no problem running at doom 3 at 100+ FPS.

doom3 at 100 + FPS on a mac? What are you smoking? Maybe at 640x480.

[Cadaver]

Hey - at least my 4 month old dual 2.5GHz machine isn't made "obsolete" (notice the quotes!) by the new machines.

Though the air-cooled 2.3GHz chips would be nice...

[Superchicken]

I want a G5...

[Hawkeye_a]

I wonder if 1.25 - 1.5 Ghz PPC G5s are possible ? lower clock speed ? less power therefore less heat ? But would Apple jump to a lower clock speed for a 'superior' processor ?

In all honesty, i think G4 is still a great processor for portables(power consumption, battery, processing power)

[Luca Rescigno]

There's no reason to use a lower-clocked G5 in portables just because it's a newer processor and therefore "better." Everything I've seen has the G4 doing just as well as the G5 at equal clock speed. So if the PowerBooks got a G5 at an equal or lower clock speed than they currently have, it's not even worthy of an upgrade.

[Zimphire]

Originally Posted by Severed Hand of Skywalker

The way IBM is moving is no better than Motorola

WrooOOong.

[Zimphire]

Originally Posted by badidea

Yeah, that's the smallest speedbump in Apple's history - I am sticking to my 1.42GHz G4 too!

Oh come on, you obviously don't remember the G4 days.

[macintologist]

LOL Zimph. 500 Mhz for 18 months. Those were the days

[BZ]

It all depends where you are coming from....

Going from a 1.5Ghz G4 stuffed into my old 2000 Sawtooth, my new Dual 2.3Ghz G5 with 3.5 GB of Ram is going to feel mighty fast.

Besides, since I usually keep my Macs for a long time, I am pretty sure this G5 is going to be able to handle anything I throw at it for another 4 years.

BZ

[MallyMal]

My thing is this, Apple/IBM apparently can't control how fast they can get to 3GHz. I'm cool with that because if they can't do it right now then they just can't do it. BUT they can control things like adding L2, adding PCIe, and add more bays. Apple has an excuse about chip speed but they have no excuse for leaving the rest of the unit to stagnate.

[joe]

Originally Posted by riotge@r

You guys with G4 machines calling this upgrade pathetic are really silly. Give me a freaking break. Even the 2Ghz Dual G5 will pounce your systems.

Us "guys with G4s" aren't fixated on clock speed alone. I've been waiting patiently for a refresh of both the motherboard and physical tower layout of the G5s since they were released. How about PCI Express, DDR2 or fasster DDR or even support for ECC, etc. And dual optical bays? This is a Tower afterall, not an iMac. Expandability is a major factor. Apple continually addressed each of those issues and more in various G4 Tower upgrades over the years. They upgraded the mobo (graphics and memory busses, etc), bays, ports, and physical layout on an almost yearly basis. While the lack of 3Ghz cpu may be easiest to harp on, the others are more important IMHO. They make these G5 Tower designs appear stagnant. Personally, I'm less disappointed by the modest speed bump than the lack of updates to the rest of the system.

And yes, I'm yet another OEM dual 1.42Ghz G4 Tower owner. Maybe we're looking for different features in our Towers. The fact that we'll be forking over $2-3K to start (sans monitor) on these things is all the more reason to expect a significant update by the 3rd refresh. But it looks like I'll be waiting yet another year before upgrading to a G5 Tower. That's assuming the G5 Towers get more than a card / drive swap next time around.

[Severed Hand of Skywalker]

I knew this was going to happen, that is why I started the thread I posted a YEAR ago predicting this.

Everyone is talking about all the vaporware IBM has of dual cores and whatnot. Thing is Steve promised 3GHZ a YEAR ago and even now all we get is 2.7GHZ.

[chibianh]

I don't remember Steve PROMISING anything... Sure, he did say the G5 will be at 3ghz within a year, but I took it as him laying out a roadmap.. but the road isn't always smooth.

I guess I just don't see what all the big fuss is about. I'm not in the market for the fastest of the fast power mac, maybe that's why. And what about the amd and intel 64 bit chips? How fast are they? I don't know about Intel, but AMD's fastest is only 2.6Ghz.. OH WAIT! GHZ Doesn't matter! right?

[ReggieX]

Originally Posted by MacNStein

Disappointed? You betcha. I was planning on getting a new top-end PM G5, drooling over the thought of a new 3GHz (or faster) machine. Now, in light of this pitiful bump, I'm waiting. My 1.42 G4 isn't THAT old, I can live with it for another 8-9 months.

My G4's older and slower than yours, and I'm buying! The top of the line is never the best price/performance most of the time anyway; you'll get better value maxing out the midrange unit.

[Don Pickett]

Originally Posted by joe

Even support for ECC, etc

ECC? ECC serves no purpose in a tower. Almost all RAM errors are caused by the thermal stress which comes from packing a lot of components into a small server package. In a well-ven tilated machine like the G5 ECC is redundant.

edit: Bus speed alone is a good enough reason to upgrade, IMO.

[The Ancient One]

I don't think releasing these machines at this time was ever in Apple's plans. Consider that they were not preannounced but are shipping right away. Based on Apple's past performance, I suspect that these machines were originally scheduled to be announced many months ago when reusing the case design and internals made more sense. When Apple realized that the next-gen chips were going to be seriously delayed, they held this upgrade to provide a more even spacing of new Power Mac announcements. Unfortunately, this makes me think that it's going to be a long, long time before the next upgrade - MacWorld 06 at the earliest to WWDC 06 at the latest. Bummer.

[rhogue islander]

Makes me glad I decided to take the plunge on a Dual 2.0 G5 in September '03.

Nineteen months now of G5 goodness.

[ReggieX]

ATTENTION




I now take back anything I said in favour of the current G5 lineup. Only the single 1.8 can get the 9600XT card, all Duals only have a plain 9600 or 9650, not XT, not even Pro. And the dropping of the 9800XT is inexcusible.



Stupid Apple. Time to find a 9800XT system pull for my new machine.

[Don Pickett]

Originally Posted by ReggieX

ATTENTION




I now take back anything I said in favour of the current G5 lineup. Only the single 1.8 can get the 9600XT card, all Duals only have a plain 9600 or 9650, not XT, not even Pro. And the dropping of the 9800XT is inexcusible.



Stupid Apple. Time to find a 9800XT system pull for my new machine.

Yes, because the only thing that that matters about machine specs is the video card.

[Severed Hand of Skywalker]

So what's this about them no longer having a built in modem?

[jamil5454]

Originally Posted by Severed Hand of Skywalker

So what's this about them no longer having a built in modem?

They no longer have a built-in modem. Well, the single 1.8 does but singles are for losers. A real man would have broadband anyway.

[CharlesS]

Originally Posted by badidea

Yeah, that's the smallest speedbump in Apple's history - I am sticking to my 1.42GHz G4 too!

Not even close. Apple has had many smaller speed bumps than 200 MHz. Which one was the smallest in their history would depend on how you are counting it. If you are going by magnitude, then I think the smallest would be the Quadra 900->950, in 1992. The machine was bumped from 25 MHz to 33 MHz, a difference of 8 MHz. However, if you are considering not only magnitude but direction as well, then the smallest speedbump would have to be -50, with the Yikes G4s.

[booboo]

I'm waiting for a mobo revision that finally sorts out the chirps from the PSU that find their way onto even FireWire audio devices.

No, I don't want to piss around with isolating ground connections and custom FireWire cable ground-lift solutions, I want the mobo to be designed with consideration for pro-audio users. The Rev B's are better than the Rev A's and the MDD's but still not good enough.

No change to the mobo's . . . . these are the same as the previous models . . . ?

So looks like I'll be waiting a while longer.

[Zimphire]

Originally Posted by Severed Hand of Skywalker

I knew this was going to happen, that is why I started the thread I posted a YEAR ago predicting this.

No you predicted them to be the next MOT. This isn't the same.

[d.fine]

The G5 has gone from 1.6GHz to 2.7GHz... why isn't this good?

I agree with others about the tower layout, and the lack of expandability.

[Severed Hand of Skywalker]

Originally Posted by jamil5454

They no longer have a built-in modem. Well, the single 1.8 does but singles are for losers. A real man would have broadband anyway.

It's called faxing.

At any rate do you have to BTO the modem or can you add it at any time?

[booboo]

Originally Posted by d.fine

The G5 has gone from 1.6GHz to 2.7GHz... why isn't this good?

I agree with others about the tower layout, and the lack of expandability.

The G5 has gone from 1.6 to 1.8GHz (with a 200MHz drop in bus speed) and from 2.0 to 2.7GHz.

No PCI Express, no new mobo revision addressing ground audio issues, no extra drive bays, and now no modem.

(I think this is all correct . . . ;-))

[Kristoff]

Originally Posted by rhogue islander

Makes me glad I decided to take the plunge on a Dual 2.0 G5 in September '03.

Nineteen months now of G5 goodness.

And that really has been my point all along in the other threads.

Buy a new computer when you need it. Use it. Enjoy it.

I love all the magazine racers here who toss around specs and fantasize about how dual cores will make their you know what bigger.

Back to work, all of you!

[P]

Originally Posted by CharlesS

Not even close. Apple has had many smaller speed bumps than 200 MHz. Which one was the smallest in their history would depend on how you are counting it. If you are going by magnitude, then I think the smallest would be the Quadra 900->950, in 1992. The machine was bumped from 25 MHz to 33 MHz, a difference of 8 MHz. However, if you are considering not only magnitude but direction as well, then the smallest speedbump would have to be -50, with the Yikes G4s.

The Quadra 800 was a 33 MHz 040 same as the 950. It was bumped to 40 MHz with the 840, a bump of 7 MHz... OK so not really, it's the same bump as the 8 MHz above, it's just a rounding error that one comes out as 7 and the other as 8.

The Lisa = Mac XL was 5 MHz that was bumped to 8 MHz for the smallest bump I know of. It's sort of cheating, though, because the name change to XL didn't come until after the 128 K was launched.

It's more interesting to compare the relative bumps. 200 MHz over 2.5 GHz is 8%, and that IS low. Anyone know a smaller bump of the top-of-the-line model?

[The Ancient One]

Originally Posted by discotronic

Nobody on MacNN is ever satisified with any update

Not since the original Power Mac G5, anyway - and it's all Steve "3GHz" Jobs' fault.

[The Ancient One]

Originally Posted by Don Pickett

Yes, because the only thing that that matters about machine specs is the video card.

Maybe not the only thing, but just maybe the most important. My dual 800 is still doing the job only because I ponied up for the geForce3 card when I got it. Gives me the luxury to wait on another Power Mac revision.

[booboo]

Originally Posted by P

Anyone know a smaller bump of the top-of-the-line model?

How about the original G4's - which were bumped -50MHz between announcement and release?!?

[booboo]

Originally Posted by Kristoff

And that really has been my point all along in the other threads.

Buy a new computer when you need it. Use it. Enjoy it.

I need a new G5.

I need one now.

I need one with a revised motherboard which doesn't have the audio ground issues.

Sorry, I don't fit your model.

[Luca Rescigno]

Yeah, um, comparing an 8 MHz bump to a 200 MHz bump is dumb. 25 MHz to 33 MHz is a whopping 32%. Other than the Sawtooth/Yikes! fiasco, where Apple didn't actually ship any 500 MHz processors before dropping the speed, and the dual 500 MHz upgrade where the processor speed stayed the same but a second processor was added (arguably a 100% speed bump), the 8% bump for the current line is the smallest relative processor bump for any Mac, ever. I'm talking high end to high end.

[Kristoff]

Originally Posted by booboo

I need a new G5.

I need one now.

I need one with a revised motherboard which doesn't have the audio ground issues.

Sorry, I don't fit your model.

How odd. My G5 doesn't have any audio issues. Sounds clear as a bell to me.