[Proudest Monkey]

MacWhispers is convinced the entire apple line up is going G5 come monday (taken with a grain of salt of course). I'm curious to know if apple has always only offered three iMac configs, i thought they had a $1599 model in there somewhere. I could be wrong.

MacWhispers Article Near the bottom, Predictions.

iMac lineup from Apple Online Store

[Centris650]

Originally posted by Proudest Monkey:
MacWhispers is convinced the entire apple line up is going G5 come monday (taken with a grain of salt of course). I'm curious to know if apple has always only offered three iMac configs, i thought they had a $1599 model in there somewhere. I could be wrong.

MacWhispers Article Near the bottom, Predictions.

iMac lineup from Apple Online Store

Well the rev A was the only iMac. Then many after that (C-D) were all the same processor the only difference was color.

October 5th 1999
iMac 350
iMac 400 DV
iMac 400 DV SE

July 19th 2000
iMac 450
iMac 500

January 7, 2002
FP 700
FP 800
etc.

(This was a quick compile of dates from everymac.com. There were others but many were new enclosures such as FlowerPower and BlueDalmation.)

It seems that other than the beginning most iMac Releases have had at least 2 versions. There could be a 970 version and then a G4 version. You never know. Personally I'm hoping for a 970 iMac release before Christmas though I'm not holding my breath.

[mathew_m]

Well if this new 'G5' is as powerful as the rumored specs are then I would think the next iMac update would include one.

It is in my opinion that Apple should really include the imac in it's pro-matrix. Leave the ibook and emac for the low end consumer realm. The iMac is Jobs' baby and it deserves the best.

[Centris650]

This has always been my take on the 970s. Release Powermacs & Powerbooks first and furious. iMacs need to come quickly after with iBooks coming not much longer after that. It's just crazy to have a dual 2 gig machine while your consumer macs are single 1 gigs AT BEST! I don't think Apple can wait till December/January to upgrade the iMacs to 970.

[Proudest Monkey]

If i could get an imac g5 for $1499, nicely equipped, i would trade up from my imac 600. If the powermacs are available right away, then the powerbooks, imacs in October then? that would miss the back to school season, but hit the christmas season.

[Centris650]

Originally posted by Proudest Monkey:
If i could get an imac g5 for $1499, nicely equipped, i would trade up from my imac 600. If the powermacs are available right away, then the powerbooks, imacs in October then? that would miss the back to school season, but hit the christmas season.

I'm wondering how fast they will be. If the specs from the apple store mess up are to be believed (1.6, 1.8 & 2x2) then the iMac has to be around 1.4-1.6. Still not a bad jump from a g4 1 gig to a g5 1.4gig. I also wonder how much ram and how much of a bus they'll have.

Questions. Questions.

[Proudest Monkey]

Originally posted by Centris650:
I'm wondering how fast they will be. If the specs from the apple store mess up are to be believed (1.6, 1.8 & 2x2) then the iMac has to be around 1.4-1.6. Still not a bad jump from a g4 1 gig to a g5 1.4gig. I also wonder how much ram and how much of a bus they'll have.

Questions. Questions.

If G5 iMacs are released, i would purchase the low end, bc i'm a student and can't afford otherwise. I would be hoping low end to be at least a G5 1.2GHz, 512MB (which i would add at least 512 to that), 60GB HD, Combo Drive, i'm not sure about bus and cache bc i don't pay that much attention to detail, but that i would pay $1499 for. 17"???? probably a 15"

[Dex13]

I'd bet the emacs go G5 before the FP's

Just assuming

[Centris650]

Originally posted by Dex13:
I'd bet the emacs go G5 before the FP's

Just assuming

yeah. Right. I'm taking that as sarcasm or some kind of strange humor. The eMacs are low consumer machines. Though maybe both the eMacs and iMacs might go G5 at the same time.

[Xaaron Swiftblade]

A g5 iMac would make me so happy. I'd love to and plan to get a g5 powermac, but that'd break my wallet so badly, not to mention needing a monitor and the space for it (dorm life sucks... in that respect) a 1.4ghz g5, 700mhz fsb (keeping with the 1/2 idea), 1gb ddr ram 17" iMac would be just incredible.

C'mon Steve, make us proud!

[Dex13]

Neither,
But I guess emacs have replaced the imacs (consumer wise), but yeah I'll change my assumption to yours, they will pobably go both G5 at the same time, just obviously different speeds

Originally posted by Centris650:
yeah. Right. I'm taking that as sarcasm or some kind of strange humor. The eMacs are low consumer machines. Though maybe both the eMacs and iMacs might go G5 at the same time.

[tungtied07]

Hi,
So is there a chance that the current iMac(17" 1ghz) will have a big or some price drop? (as on this Monday)

Thanks

[Centris650]

Originally posted by tungtied07:
Hi,
So is there a chance that the current iMac(17" 1ghz) will have a big or some price drop? (as on this Monday)

Thanks

I doubt we will see a price drop on the iMacs just yet. Though I think it's safe to say we'll see a up to a $500-$800 price drop on powermacs.

[MacNZ]

I'm not so sure that we'll see a G5 iMac straight away-- although it would be seriously cool. The thing I hope is that once they do convert the whole line we don't get some cheap neutered version of the chip for the iMac. It would be a great marketing piece for Apple to finally be competing in terms of bus speed across the board, for example.

I think the other question is what they are going to do with Gobi G3's if they totally switch from Motorola. I would imagine the iBook would use these but how about the eMac? It might be pushing it putting a G5 in these low-end systems and new IBM G3's are said to be Altivec compatible.

[nredman]

i think we will see G5 powerbooks next, then upgraded G4 imacs with maybe a special edition with a low mhz G5...then upgrade the ibooks to a G4...do you think they would upgrade ibooks from a G3 to a G5?...i think it will be awhile before ibooks are at G5 but i dont really have a clue just my 2 cents

[hunkhuang]

oh ****.. price drops?? i just got my new iMac with G4 17" last month... ggrrr.... i hate this feeling.

[ApeInTheShell]

It is unlikely you will get an iMac g5 970 before christmas. Remember how long it took
the iMac to get to G4: from 1998-2002. Now for some that may be a short time but there were a lot of revisions to go through. I think the iMac FP will get last years Power Mac model specs: 1ghz, 1.25, and 1.42ghz.
Dual processors are another story that someone in the Power Mac forums could explain.
I can also see the iBook going to either
1 ghz G3 or 600-800 mhz G4. Time will tell.

[Centris650]

Well, according to maccentral.com we won't be seeing a 970 powerbook for sometime. This could mean the G5 iMac is some distance off.

[AlanApple]

I think we will be lucky to see an iMac G5 before next summer. The iMac enclosure is simply not designed to cool those IBM processors.

[mathew_m]

They could concievably keep the design but raise the base an inch off of the ground like the cube for cooling purposes. Install a perforated bottom and a couple of fans and you might be set.

I'd like to see a pro iMac with a 19" borderless screen and one extra removable drive bay like the pismo.

[daydreamer]

Originally posted by AlanApple:
I think we will be lucky to see an iMac G5 before next summer. The iMac enclosure is simply not designed to cool those IBM processors.

I think the G4 will stick in the iMac for a while... next summer sounds very early... but it would be cool. This would turn many pple to Mac if they offered a G5 iMac at decent prices.. but that doesn't sound Apple

[Centris650]

Originally posted by mathew_m:
I'd like to see a pro iMac with a 19" borderless screen and one extra removable drive bay like the pismo.

A Prosumer machine would be really cool. That's really the kind of machine I want/need. I really don't need any PCI slots but sure could use another hard drive and if the video card could be replaced would be nice. I think the cube was a good prosumer machine slightly more expandable than an imac but less than the tower. Nice machine just overpriced.

[galarneau]

Originally posted by AlanApple:
I think we will be lucky to see an iMac G5 before next summer. The iMac enclosure is simply not designed to cool those IBM processors.

If you look at the report put out by IBM last year on the 970, it states that at 1.2 GHz, the 970 only consumes 19 watts/typical usage (no max usage given). By comparison, the current 17" iMac 1GHz machine with a PPC 7445 chip uses 15 watts/typical, and 22 watts/max.

I think with a little engineering luck, Apple could figure something out to dissipate those extra 4 watts.

Maybe the iMac G5 will have a slightly different base enclosure that will be better at dissipating heat.

I do think it will be at least January 2004 until we see an iMac G5, however. No hard evidence for this... just a hunch. I bet Apple is already messing around with the engineering, though.

[Eriamjh]

I say "NO WAY, Jose" to a iMac G5 within 1.5 years from now. I expect the iMac to start using the fastest available G4 starting the day the G5 ships. Maybe Apple will also start putting in some L2 or L3 cache too. That would really help the iMac performance-wise.

The G4 will be the consumer chip. The G5 is the pro chip. It's a lot like it was a year ago before the imac went to the G4. Apple had to cripple the iMacs to prevent them from encroaching on the same performance as the PM.

The only way the iMac would go G5 is if all PMs went to duals or better.

Plus with the size of those G5 heat sinks there is no way it will fit in a FP imac. Not unless the entire Base becomes a heat sink.

[bradoesch]

Originally posted by Eriamjh:
I say "NO WAY, Jose" to a iMac G5 within 1.5 years from now. I expect the iMac to start using the fastest available G4 starting the day the G5 ships. Maybe Apple will also start putting in some L2 or L3 cache too. That would really help the iMac performance-wise.

The G4 will be the consumer chip. The G5 is the pro chip. It's a lot like it was a year ago before the imac went to the G4. Apple had to cripple the iMacs to prevent them from encroaching on the same performance as the PM.

The only way the iMac would go G5 is if all PMs went to duals or better.

Plus with the size of those G5 heat sinks there is no way it will fit in a FP imac. Not unless the entire Base becomes a heat sink.

How about a slower G5 chip instead? The G4s are showing their age. By the time the Power Macs ship, what will the G4s be running at? How much more than 1.42 GHz?

[Paul Stephen C.]

The flagship G4 iMac 1Ghz 17" is way ahead of it's time. I reckon it will be 1.2/1.4 GHz within a year, but the pro/home differential will be G4/G5 for at least a year.

Why buy the pro range with a rather ugly, possibly noisy, tower box unless you're getting seriously better spec? I wouldn't part with my 17" flatscreen iMac unless it was for a *very* much better spec flatscreen iMac. It does everything I need it to do, very well.

The 17" widescreen iMac will remain the best home option for at least as long as the original iMac IMHO. I love it, Steve loves it, we love it...do you really want a tower under your desk apart from at work??!!

In around 2006, I may buy a 64bit 6Ghz flatscreen iMac for the same price I paid for my current iMac. 'Til then, I'll be happy, and amuse myself with doing what I want to do on my "old" computer. My Power Performa had an effective life of 7 years. If my iMac has anything like that, I'll be perfectly, and silently, happy.

[Starry Night]

Don't the G5 Towers have *9* fans inside plus major open air heat dissapation? How are you going to fit 9 fans inside the FP iMac base, much less the powerbook? If it takes 9 fans on the 1.6ghz G5, then it's still going to take quite a few fans even at a lower clock speed.

Makes one think that a G5 iMac or PB is a long ways off. They'll need major R&D to get the G5 cool enough to fit in either machine.

Apple will have to release the iIgloo refriderated base to keep the FP iMac from bursting into flames !

[Simon]

Originally posted by Starry Night:
Don't the G5 Towers have *9* fans inside plus major open air heat dissapation? How are you going to fit 9 fans inside the FP iMac base, much less the powerbook? If it takes 9 fans on the 1.6ghz G5, then it's still going to take quite a few fans even at a lower clock speed.

Guys, please stop thinking that there are 9 fans because they needed to carry away such insane amounts of heat. The main reason it has 9 is because they wanted it to be a most efficient cooling system, thus having low RPMs and thus a silent machine.

Now, the "old" MDD G4s had 4 fans as well. The iMac was almost as fast and about a trillion times more quiet.

Give the engineers time, they'll come up with something. But don't be foolish and expect the not yet shipping flagship to come to the iMac line within the next two months.

[P]

The mobo design in the new Powermacs is what's really revolutionary. I suspect that porting such a design to an iMac would be very tricky, and there is no real need for it. Raising the top speed to 1.33 GHz with DDR 333 RAM would be a reasonably cheap way to get more bang for the buck in the iMacs without encroaching on the Pro sales.

Traditionally, Apple has updated the iMacs when the focus of the new machine needed it. iMac DVs ("iMac 2" - they had a completely new mobo) gained a Firewire port because users should be able to capture video. iMac G4 (I guess this should be "iMac 3" then?) got a G4 to compress video. When Jobs decides consumers need a G5, they'll get one. This might be soon, if the G4 stays at its urrent measly bus speeds, but my guess is that a 200 MHz bus speed will satisfy Apple's need for a year yet. Should Moto get its rear in gear and get DDR working with that built-in memory controller they've been talking about, the iMac will stay G4 for something like 2-3 years, IMHO.

[slider]

I think 2-3 years is a bit long. Apple has been dragging the G4 along because they have had not other choice. We are not done playing catch-up in the speed arena, the iMac is a consumer product, but consumer have become and are becoming more and more creative with the iApps, even Apple recognizes this in their Final Cut Express product. I think we'll see Apple move the iMacs up to the 1.25 to the 1.42 G4 processors this year and perhaps anything else they can squeeze out of Moto, but in a year from now I definately see a G5 in an iMac and it will probably fall into the what ever the next Ghz mark will be in that line, 1.6Ghz or depending on where the PowerMacs are higher. Apple is just getting started and you know they are looking into speeding up their entire line to be more directly competive with it's competition. We may infact see a slight redesign in the iMac to accommodate this and boost sales. Only time will tell.

[pat++]

My guess is that iMac will not get G5 for a while. They will be updated with new Gobi IBM chips (G3 + Altivec). iMac does not need G5 at all. G3 + Altivec +200Mhz system bus + 1Mb L2 cache would be perfect.

[hunkhuang]

so do you guys think that it is still WORTH to get an iMac G4 now ?????

[Simon]

Originally posted by hunkhuang:
so do you guys think that it is still WORTH to get an iMac G4 now ?????

If you need it right now, yes.

If you can wait three months, wait. Because, they could well be upgraded (slight bump maybe) when they become six months old (average Apple update cycle) in August

The G4 will surely stick with the iMac long enough to justify getting one now.

[slider]

My Dad is finally going to replace his iMac 333 this fall. It's old and he doesn't really do that much with it, and although he says he will, I don't think he will. Anyways he wants a G5, no he does not need, but he doesn't want to buy a new computer for another 4-5 years but wants the one he does buy to keep up with the new software that comes out say in the forth year. So he is talking G5 now to kinda future proof, or rather, future prepare himself. Personally I think the iMac is perfect for him and he might get a sticker shock when he's ready to buy, but we'll see. I say in the fall, with a speed bump, get the iMac. But, what if he is right, what if Apple really starts to focus on the G5, then I would really feel bad about it, not that I think, in this case, it will happen, but you don't really know. I will end up giving him the facts and make my suggestions with a disclaimer of course. The iMac 333 was just fine for him, except it had no firewire which he could have used and of course Mac OS X is not a speed demon on this machine either. He bought it in the spring of '99. Anyways, if Apple put a low end G5 into the high end iMac, the issue would be closed, for him both in mind and reality, he would be content.

[Link]

With the use of copper heatsinks and a really good cooling the design the imac *COULD* very well hit G5 status