[goto11]

Ok, I'm definitely getting a G5. But I'm concerned. I don't want December to roll around and all the units get speed bumps and L3 cache and get marked down $300. My question is, how soon until the next wave of G5s come around? If it's December, I'll just wait. If they don't get upgraded for a year, I'll probably just get it in August. Opinions? Thanks!

[RevEvs]

Ill guess they'll get upped in January sometime, then again next WWDC.

revs

[RevEvs]

Oh, and some more advice - just buy it now! if u wait for them to get bumped, then you'll wait again as they'll keep getting speedbumps... buying a comp as soon as possible to when it comes out is always the best bet as it'll be the longest time until the next speedbump

revs

[eyadams]

I just wanted to echo RevEvs - the time to buy a computer is when your old one is no longer able to do the things you want or need it to do. I have a "Beige" G3 that I've upgraded several times, but now I've reached the point where putting any more money into it is just a waste.

There is always a faster computer waiting in the future. Whether or not you buy the fastest model available now shouldn't be influenced by that.

Of course, that said, I waited and ordered a G5 rather than get a dual G4 :-)

[businezguy]

Yes, the G5s will be bumped. After they are bumped, they will be bumped again. Apple actually has some leeway to upgrade the speed of their machines every 6 months with good speed bumps.

Does that mean you should wait 5 years go to a G-whatever?

If you want a G5, go for it!

[Scotttheking]

Originally posted by goto11:
Ok, I'm definitely getting a G5. But I'm concerned. I don't want December to roll around and all the units get speed bumps and L3 cache and get marked down $300. My question is, how soon until the next wave of G5s come around? If it's December, I'll just wait. If they don't get upgraded for a year, I'll probably just get it in August. Opinions? Thanks!

1) They won't get L3 cache
2) Call Apple and ask when they are releasing new machines, they are the only ones who might know, and even they might not know
3) The darn things aren't even shipping yet, why are you already thinking about what's coming after that?

[Severed Hand of Skywalker]

When there is a big change like this it is never a great idea to get the Rev A.

I am waiting for B.

[osxisfun]

If you mac makes you money and the time a g5 saves you is greater then the cost of a g5 then buying a rev A now is a great idea..(I'm buying a dual 2gig BTW)


How many years were people moaning and groaning about the speed and mhz and the sucky moto chip, I am going to buy a Dell, blah blah blah?

And now the new machines are not out yet and we already have people saying they are going to wait.

Got news for you. If you can wait for a rev B then you don't really need a g5 and the speed of the rev A will be plenty for you.

[Busemann]

Originally posted by Severed Hand of Skywalker:
When there is a big change like this it is never a great idea to get the Rev A.

I am waiting for B.

My Rev A G4 450 Mhz "AGP Graphics" (the one that was supposed to ship with 500Mhz) was undoubtedly the best Mac I have ever had. Never any major problems and still serves very well. Same can be said about the first iPod as well. In my experience, Apple has usually had very solid Rev A products.

[Severed Hand of Skywalker]

Originally posted by Busemann:
My Rev A G4 450 Mhz "AGP Graphics" (the one that was supposed to ship with 500Mhz) was undoubtedly the best Mac I have ever had. Never any major problems and still serves very well. Same can be said about the first iPod as well. In my experience, Apple has usually had very solid Rev A products.

Almost every REV A product has a ton of software bugs (some hardware) that take months to get fixed.

The Rev A iMacs had a super slow hard drive.
Rev A iPods had major battery problems that took over a year to really solve.
The Rev A v3 iPods were incredibly buggy and took over a month to Fix.

The list goes on....

[Powaqqatsi]

Originally posted by Severed Hand of Skywalker:
Almost every REV A product has a ton of software bugs (some hardware) that take months to get fixed.

The Rev A iMacs had a super slow hard drive.
Rev A iPods had major battery problems that took over a year to really solve.
The Rev A v3 iPods were incredibly buggy and took over a month to Fix.

The list goes on....

So ? His Rev A was fine. Just like my Rev. A Sawtooth 400 AGP. It had NO bugs, faults etc.

Useless comment you gave there.

[Catfish_Man]

Originally posted by Powaqqatsi:
So ? His Rev A was fine. Just like my Rev. A Sawtooth 400 AGP. It had NO bugs, faults etc.

Useless comment you gave there.

Sawtooth is rev B. Rev A was Yikes, which was fscked up. My rev A beige G3 didn't like 10.2 (although I really can't fault it otherwise. It was a great machine and served me well for 5 years before the logic board blew out and I got a windtunnel). Rev A Windtunnels (my machine now) were hella noisy... None of these (except Yikes, imo) are critical flaws, so I continue buying rev a machines, but they are flaws.

[Busemann]

Originally posted by Catfish_Man:
Sawtooth is rev B. Rev A was Yikes, which was fscked up.

Sawtooth and Yikes are both rev A. They were both announced in September 99 at Seybold. Check Apple-history.com

Point is, there is never any product lines where every unit is perfect. Someone will always be unlucky, whether its a Rev A, Rev B, etc.

[Maflynn]

I have to agree with the others, just because its a rev A does not equate that its defective. Its seems a lot of people don't hold to this idea also since the dual is a top seller on the apple site.

btw I'll probably be buying the dualie myself.

It was mentioned that the first vesion of the iPod had battery problems well the third incarnation seemed to have problems as mentioned in the peripherals forum so do people need to wait until rev J or rev K?

Generalized blanket statements almost never fit.

Mike

[BrunoBruin]

Originally posted by Maflynn:
Generalized blanket statements almost never fit.

True. I think the second-rev TiBooks (550/667) had more problems than the first, at least in the sense that they were hot and the fans ran constantly. And the MDD Power Macs were the first El Capitan variant to have real noise problems. You just never know.

[Arkham_c]

Originally posted by goto11:
Ok, I'm definitely getting a G5. But I'm concerned. I don't want December to roll around and all the units get speed bumps and L3 cache and get marked down $300. My question is, how soon until the next wave of G5s come around? If it's December, I'll just wait. If they don't get upgraded for a year, I'll probably just get it in August. Opinions? Thanks!

L3 cache won't help much on the G5. A cache is used to bridge the gap between dissimilar-speed systems. On the Powermac G4, it was needed because the system bus was so slow compared to the processor speed. With the G5, the bus can keep the CPUs saturated with data, limiting the benefit of a large cache.

[goto11]

Originally posted by osxisfun:
Got news for you. If you can wait for a rev B then you don't really need a g5 and the speed of the rev A will be plenty for you.

Oh, make no mistake. This purchase is quite frivolous. My Quicksilver 867 is serving me just fine. But my mom is using a PC which has been cobbled together out of chewing gum and sticks, so I'm giving her the 867 and getting the G5. My luck has generally been that I buy a model which gets upgraded rather soon after my purchase (just ask my Blueberry iBook which got a big bump a week after I bought it!), so I just wanted to gauge what you all thought the cycle would be on this one.

[osxisfun]

I bought a dual 867 last Nov? I believe that was a REV C of that machine. and guess what? the fan was LOUDER than a rev A. I did the fan switch and am happy with it. But the point is there are going to be bugs and defectives IN ANY REV.

there will always be people that say rev a sucks.
there will be people that had NO problems with rev A.

there are people who make money with their machines and need the extra speed and this G5 rev A is going to rock their world.

[kupan787]

Originally posted by Severed Hand of Skywalker:
Rev A iPods had major battery problems that took over a year to really solve.

Hmm.. I had a Rev A iPod, my roomate had one, and I know a few others as well. None of us had this "major battery problem". Not to say that some people didn't. But the way things work, is only those with issues complain (happy pepole rarley take the time to make a post saying everyhting is working fine), so it looks much worse than reality. I would bet that less than 10% had these "major battery isues" (maybe even less than 5%).

Everything is Rev A at some point. If no one bought a Rev A, we would never get a Rev B

[DeathMan]

Everything is Rev A at some point. If no one bought a Rev A, we would never get a Rev B

And, if the Rev As were that bad, Apple would up it QA to the point where its not a big deal for most people. Which is that state I believe we're at.

Also, I don't conside the newest ipods Rev A. They're basically the same, with some software updates. It was the software that messed up the new ipods. Software issues get fixed quickly, and I'm sure if there is anything wrong with the G5s, the problems will be on the top of the list of things to fix at Apple Engineering.

Go for the RevA, it will be a LONG time till we see a performance jump like this.

[Commodus]

Since the G5s won't be shipping until August, I have the feeling that we'll see the next G5 update in February or March (roughly 6 months from when the G5 became a shipping product). So if you've been itching to retire that G3 or G4, now's the time.

With that in mind, the plan to hit 3 GHz by mid-2004 means that Apple is probably going to have some extremely aggressive updates. I wouldn't be surprised if revision B has a 2.0/2.2/2.5 GHz range (how much of that would be dual-processor, I don't know).

Mac users are going to have to get used to something which happens all the time in x86 land: rapid obsolescence!

[Mac Zealot]

To lighten up this thread

Apparently dual 3ghz G5s are speculated to be out as early as MWSF. Shipping in February, of course

[The Ancient One]

Originally posted by Severed Hand of Skywalker:
When there is a big change like this it is never a great idea to get the Rev A.

I am waiting for B.

Based on my experience with three Rev A high-end machines, this is not bad advice at all - unless you need a new machine now.

[Orion27]

pulleeeeese, i'd be happy to put these threads in the category of "timeless, one for the ages"
This is America for Christ's sake. There is no painless way to shop for bleeding edge. The pemium will always be paid. Troll for the recondtioned boxes is the best you can hope
for. Be the perpetual student or god forbid learn about or contribute to the developement
of the platform and join ADC. Bummer,
I'm stuck with my dual 1.25 slash/ January edition. Doesn't even boot in OS9. What a fool
I was not to wait for the rebootable boot OS9
June edition. Who's f..king with whose head?
Certainly not Apple. They're amazing. At least we're not witnessing the Apple version of the Ballmar Monkey Dance. G5 G5 G5 G5 G5 G5 G5 G5 G5........