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Updated Power Macs at Apple.com
Gropo writes "Same old 'scary cyclops' quicksilver face. Up to 1.42 Ghz, FireWire 800, 802.11g and entry-level pricing has dropped. " With the SuperDrive and one of those massive LCD screens, you have a one highly desirable chunk of hardware.
1.42GHz!
Still a long way to 3GHz but we're getting there, revision by revision.
Still happier with my silent 600MHz iBook than a roaring G4 monster though...
#define ROSE any_other_name
For only $1999 ... Do you know what kind of PC I could build for that much money?? Then I just need the beowulf cluster..
Yeah, but can you get Firewire 800, Firewire 400, built in Gigabit, 54 MBps wireless networking, and a set of sweet applications like Apple bundles with their machines for only $1999?
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Maccentral has an excellent summary of the new Macs. To me, the most interesting part of the story isn't the incrementel improvements in the desktops, but the extremely steep price cuts surrounding Apple's flat panel displays. You can now get a 20" widescreen flat panel from Apple for $1299. That's just $300 more than Apple was charging yesterday for a 17" standard aspect model.
I'm generally "Interesting," "Insightful," and even "Funny" here. What the hell happens to me at parties?
. . . the fact that it immediately makes "last years" models much more affordable. Resellers like MacMall, Smalldog.com, & the others have great prices on these older models.
Of course, Apple may still have a problem selling these newer faster machines because they've managed to produce an OS that works fantastic on even older models like the dual 533 I'm writing this on!
It's great to see Apple leading the pack in new hardware. They are bringing 802.11g and FireWire 800 to the people just as they did with SMP (that "1.4GHz" sounds a lot more impressive next to a 3GHz P4 when you realize there are two of the suckers in there) and 1Kbase-T.
Funny, Macs used to be faster than Pentii, but crippled by their other hardware (SCSI, memory, ADB) and OS. Now they have the advantage everywhere except CPU speed, and I think they're a whole lot better off.
I see the new PowerMacs as a gift. With their power, used wisely, we might be able to save my people from the growing Shadow in the East.
Boromir, son of Faramir, King of Gondor and Minas Tirith
Why dont you be fair and report on the next model eMachines, Dell or Compaq sells at Best Buy.
Because many people like what Apple is doing, and it's generally understood that if you could buy a Power Mac for the price of a Dell, then a whole lot of people here would get one. I mean, look, you get away from all the Intel/AMD nonsense, no crazy cooling issues, dual processors, flashy UNIX out of box with commercial applications available...this is the holy grail to a lot of people.
But no one wants to pay Apple's high-end prices.
But, seriously, why did Apple even release this
True, why bother releasing new better competing products when you have new product coming out in 6 to 12 months (which we all know is nothing in computer time). People would be much more impressed with a jump from 1.25Ghz to 2Ghz vs seeing incremental steps and lowered prices along the way. Shame on them for not releasing new PowerBooks, after all it's been weeks since the previous announcment. Tying up those vast resources to bump up the processor speed and adding a few extra features, I'm sure this totally derailed any iMac or iBook efforts.
Look, I agree that they have soft spots that they have to work on, but laptops is not one of them. iMacs need to get cheaper, agreed. But they MUST continue to bump the TOTL PowerMac's to keep and hearts and minds of their high end buyers in the Mac camp. If they waited until the 970 to release ANYTHING in the PowerMac line, they'd be screwed big time.
If as some suggest that the new machines will be out in time for Summer MacWorld, then great. If not, don't be too surprised to see maybe one more bump if the new guys don't make it until the end of the year. I bet if Motorola can get them faster G4's, they'd put them out there pronto (as they did with these).
But no one wants to pay Apple's high-end prices.
...) I'll be sticking with OS X on the client side and Linux/Solaris on the server side. Blue curve is a great try at a good desktop, maybe it will take off.
Until Linux has a decent desktop (where installing an application actually integrates with the menu) and has some decent apps (Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Flash, Illustrator, Premiere,
Linux has a long way to go to match the ease of use of even windows much less comparing it to OS X. I have no problems with linux b/c I've been using it since around '95 (ah slackware). However, trying to find all the workarounds to keep things playing friendly isn't fun on higher end or newer hardware.
You do realize that AMD Athlon XP 3000+ which is coming out in a few weeks only really runs at 2.16GHz right? ;)
;)
A G4 runs at around 1.5x MHz an equivalent P4. So a 1.42GHz would probably perform about the same as a P4 2.13GHz. Also P4's can't run in SMP mode, although you can buy a Xeon for that, so a Dual G4 1.42GHz is roughly equal to a single P4 4.26GHz, currently the fastest P4 is 3.06GHz.
Now do you see why Apple is using SMP?
It still is laggy on the fastest machines.
No, it's not. I really don't know where people get this idea. I have a Mac that is, as of this morning, no longer state-of-the-art. It's got two 1 GHz G4's and a Radeon 9000 card. Is it "laggy?" No. It's faster than I am; the only time I wait on it is when I'm compiling.
I also have a 400 MHz G3 iMac, not a fast machine by anybody's reckoning. OS X is entirely useable on that machine for things like surfing and email, iCal, iChat, iTunes, iPhoto, and so on.
I think the people who still propagate the "OS X is slow" meme haven't used it in about a year.
I write in my journal
For only $1999 ... Do you know what kind of PC I could build for that much money??
Actually that is a pretty good question - Assuming your time is worth nothing, how much would it take to duplicate this on the PC side? A dual 2GHz proc (I don't go for steve's "PowerPC is twice as fast" but it IS at least a little faster than intel) with 802.11g, FireWire 800, Gigabit Ethernet, Bluetooth etc. Or assuming your time IS worth something how much to buy such a configuration from Dell.
Just curious
You can't compare clock speeds for a RISC processor to an Intel CISC processor. The clock speed only tells you how fast each instruction is executed, not how fast the CPU runs an application compared to a different architecture. A 1.42 GHz RISC processor may well be faster than a 3 GHz CISC processor in actual performance.
It wouldn't be hard to explain at all if the numbers were genuinely invalid. Apple could pull out the specmark, the MFLPs, topmark, or any of fifty other benchmarks (or all of them) and show people the numbers were invalid. For the Pentium I and the pre 3ghz Pentium IV apple had the advantage that the chips had problems with non optomized code, so you could use some alternate benchmarks. But even using non optomized code you get the following:
The G4 was equal to a Pentium 3 that is 20% faster so
800mhz g4 ~ 1ghz PIII
The first edition of the Penium IVs were very fast but terrible chips so
1.4 ghz G4 ~ 1.75 ghz PIII (if it existed) ~ 2.6 ghz PIV.
The problem was really that the 1.4 ghz G4 wasn't out to this year while the 2.6 was out last year and at a lower price. Now however at the 3+ghz range the PIV have instruction reordering of the PIII + hyperthreadng. That means it is at least as fast as the PIII and probably faster. That is a 3.0 ghz PIV would test somewhere between 2.4 ghz G4 and a 3.0 ghz G4.
So you really can compare ghz with a high degree of accuracy relative to Intel's consummer x86 line. Now if you want to play the cache game Intel can play that too since the Xeons are available for a few hundred dollars more.
Apple has a serious CPU problem. Motorolla has done horrible damage to Apple, lets stop trying to deny the problem exists. It is by far the single biggest flaw in the line.
Explain to me again how a school buying more expensive hardware that isn't generally used in the real world is going to help my kid get a better education?
The whole "generally used in the real world" argument is utter nonsense. You should teach kids computing concepts, not specific applications or systems, because by the time they graduate, the specific applications and systems they used will be obsolete anyway, but the concepts still apply. It doesn't matter if a kid learns about computers on Mac OS X, Windows XP, KDE, Gnome, Mac OS 8, or Windows 95. They'll have to adjust later anyway.
However, there are two distinct advantages of not using Windows in school: first, since the student is likely to be using Windows at home, teaching them something else at school gives them a broader base of experience than what they might otherwise have exposure to, which will make it easier to adjust to other systems in the future. Second, it shows them that there are viable alternatives to Microsoft, so if they later choose to run Windows, it will at least be a real choice.
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
This turbocharged Power Mac rips through digital video and 3D projects faster than Pentiums can say "uncle."
I'm not a big fan of Apple in many ways, but this is what just burns me. I will never, ever deal with a company that is this dishonest. Benchmark after benchmark shows that a top of the line Intel KILLS the Macintosh, and is half the price to boot. How can Apple get away with bald-faced lying to the public like this?
Can't they just sell on the merits of their hardware and software, and just stick to the truth?
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
You never run more than one app? Or are you saying that threading on the OS you'd use is screwed up? On Mac OS X, threading is done at the Mach level, and it is dynamically shifted between processors. For those situation where an app can take advantage of multiple threads, adding support to a Cocoa app can be simple call to an NSThread object. I've had single processes suck up 180% of the CPU while 40 other ones ran just fine on my box. Buying a 2x Mac is something I have not regretted, but thank you for letting me know it would be a regrettable thing to do if I ever upgrade my Linux server.
Are there applications for SMP? Sure. No question. But even most geeks who lust after SMP won't ever actually utilize it to the fullest.
The truth is that no CPU architecture that's popular is being used to the fullest. Computers are sitting idle 95+% of the time waiting for the user to do something. And the other 5-% is unlikely to be a burst that pegs usage at 100%. All those 3GHz Intel boxes aren't any faster really, they just idle faster; that's not something to brag about.
Frankly, for the price of the Dual G4 1.42 GHz I can buy more than 2 P4 3.06 GHz boxes, which is a much better solution for most cases.
Please point to a major manufacturer that offers two PCs that are similarly spec'd to the one Mac, with the addition of the high revving engine, for the same price. Note that being able to hobble parts together in your parent's basement doesn't make you a business on par with Apple.
I've used my apparently already obsolete regular firewire port exactly zero times. So Firewire 800 will let me transfer nothing how many times faster?
Whose fault is this? I use Firewire 400 on a daily basis to back up many hundreds of gigabytes of data (soon to be terrabytes if the next grant goes through). Firewire 800 would save me and those who deal with large amounts of data or video lots of time. Also, I suppose that Firewire could be used for large scale interconnectivity. See an editorial I wrote here for details.
Gigabit?. Sure. Just as soon as I plonk down another $500 for an 8 port gigabit switch to replace my $50 8 port 10/100 switch.
There are those that use gigabit networking you know. Apple is not making computers *just* for you.
Sweet Applications?
Yes.
You mean iTunes and iMovie?
Yes.
You have to upgrade to the superdrive for iDVD to work.
Yes, but I also use the Superdrive for other data as well.
They are nice applications but PC owners can get nice applications with all the money they saved and stil have some left over.
And you end up at the same price point if not more for a kludgy inelegant solution that does not run UNIX applications along with Photoshop, Office, etc...etc...etc...
You have to come up with a convincing cost/benefit analysis based on benefits they will actually use.
I along with at least a few million other folks on the planet seem to think that there is a convincing cost/benefit analysis to purchasing a Mac. For me, I was able to buy a single dual G4 and replace a Windows box, an older Mac *and* my SGI Octane with a sweet display that saves much money in terms of software licensing, hardware purchase and maintenence contracts (SGI).
Based on the actual benefit to me, Apple would have to cut the price on that $1999 model down to under $1000 w/o the superdrive or around $1200 with.
Yeah, its called the iMac or eMac which can be had for educational customers at that price. If you are not a student or faculty member somewhere, it will cost you a little more, but for the money there are almost no other machines that will match feature for feature with a Mac.
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Yeah, I know Firewire 800 is way faster than USB2, and Firewire 400 (which is what most people will be using for quite a while, since there aren't many Firewire 800 peripherals) is slightly faster in real life (USB2 is theoretically faster than Firewire 400, but the benchmarks I've seen have Firewire actually getting a little more out of things like disks), and that Firewire's isosychronous ability and latency guarentees is essential for some applications.
However, when I go down to stores like Best Buy or Circuit City I see a busload (pun intended!) of USB2 hard drives and CD and DVD readers and writers, and just the occasional Firewire drive.
For those of us who like to buy the small things locally instead of mail order, and don't live in one of the areas where there is a nearby Apple dealer...we need USB2.
You ask why a completely subjective comparison on CPU speed would be modded up?
Answer: Perception is 9/10's of reality. This holds true in the courtroom every day (as any good lawyer can tell you), just as it does when it comes down to people using their computers.
No benchmark can account for the millions of combinations of hardware/software people run on a given platform. Why do you think most of the PC benchmarking sites (Tom's hardware, etc.) typically pick a few games like Quake 3 as "standards" for comparison? They simply chose popular programs that seem to heavily tax many aspects of a system.
I have a theory, too, when it comes to long-time Mac users. They've been stuck in a basically non multitasking environment for so long, they often get an overrated perception of their newer system's overall power in OS X. (Quite simply, their eyes are opened to how much more they can get accomplished on their new computer because things put in the background really do process in the background.) They forget that over on the "Intel" side of the fence, people have been doing this (and expecting it to work that way) ever since the days of Windows '95 and NT 3.5, not to mention all the Linux and BSD users).
When you put aside any personal efficiency gains obtained simply from the OS allowing true multitasking - I think you find OSX lacking in speed compared to Linux or even Windows XP on a P4 class computer.
(Not that OS X isn't still pretty cool.... I've got it running on a Mac system at home myself. I just accept that the hardware isn't as powerful as my PC's, and use it for other reasons.)
FUD? That's a little dramatic.
Today's Celeron 1.7 is yesterday's PII 350. A PII doesn't run ME very well (heck I have a PIII 800 that doesn't run it very well) and a Celeron doesn't run XP very well.
48X CD-ROM drives were standard in 1999. Combo Drives (or at least a DVD and a CD-RW drives) are standard in 2003.
64 MB of RAM runs Win 98. 256 MB RAM does not run XP very well (especially with a Celeron 1.7).
"Free" 15" monitor!?! No thanks... you can't even find a 15" CRT in the store anymore. A 20 dollar Lexmark printer with crappy printing and an ink cartridge I have to replace after 2 months? Are they doing me a favor by throwing that in, or just trying to ditch old inventory?
I just went to Dell's site to build a 499 dollar PC! There was no more 499 dollar one, so I went with the 699 (799 - 100 dollar rebate). It ended up costing 1488. Yeah it as a PIV now... 1.8 ghz. 15" monitor (flat screen too), but no free printer. I added 512 MB of RAM to run XP. I upgraded to full operating system, XP Pro (Note: OS X only has one version). I added a Combo Drive (since that is the minimum you can get on a Power Mac). Gigabit ethernet wasn't an option. Neither was a graphics card. That could have something to do with the Intel built in video motherboard they used to save money. There is no AGP slot to upgrade that either. There is also probably only 2 PCI slots in that machine. And not likely any room to put a second harddrive.
All that and the thrill of using Windows! No thanks! I suspect that the reason the G4 is slow has more to do with the OS than the CPU. I suspect PIV's are so darn fast is because Windows is so full of security holes.
So I'd say for 1488, I'll pony up the extra 200 bucks to buy a CRT for an entry level G4 and not waste my time trying to upgrade a PC with no expansion slots, nor configure and secure Windows XP. And a single 1 ghz G4 Power Mac probably is comparable in speed (whatever that means) to a P-IV 1.8.
Like I said. I got nothing against PC boxes. I build them and enjoy doing it. The 499 dollar PC is great for a basic business machine. But these machines aren't directed at businesses. They are directed at parents buying for their kid. And I do have a problem with pawning off underpowered, unexpandable, unupgradeable machines as some great home media/game box to unsuspecting parents.