PPC 970 Powerbooks and Powermacs in Production?

Thadddius_Brinks writes "MacWispers.com is reporting here that apple is currently in production of a redesigned single processor PowerPC 970 Powermac system and a 15.4 inch Powerbook. They (MacWhispers.com) are also standing by their earlier claims about the speed of the new processor." This article consolidates many of the major rumors surrounding WWDC including the rumor of a new case for the Powermacs, but it raises the ultimate question: 17" Powerbook, or PPC 970 Powerbook?

Comments

G5 Powerbook?

[spookysuicide]

If they release a 15" g5 powerbook, what would happen to sales of their 17" g4 powerbook? I don't believe apple would have a powerbook line with their midrange model having such a radically better architecture/processor then their high end model.

Shullbit

[Graymalkin]

I would have believed 970 PowerMacs in production but definitely not 970 based Powerbooks. That goes double because there's even more rumors of 15" Powerbooks based on the G4 but all aluninumized waiting to be shipped to Apple's stores and other retailers. If you've noticed there's a dearth of 15" Powerbooks in stock anywhere that sells them.

Besides June production doesn't mean a June release or even announcement date. Apple likes to build up stocks of computers before selling them. Building and shipping computers in the same month would be a ridiculous strain on their resources. As for a June announcement, see the Osborne computer company.

WWDC isn't exactly a place Steve Jobs likes to announce hardware products, it is really the wrong venue for such announcements. MacWorld Expo is a much better place to do things like that and is only two months away. It's not really a secret Panther developer previews are going to be released at WWDC which will likely be SJ's keynote subject. MacOS and related software ought to be and typically is the subject of SJ's WWDC keynotes. Not hardware announcements.

Re:Shullbit

[gamgee5273]

Don't forget: Jobs intro'd the original bondi blue iMac at WWDC five years ago. He will do hardware at WWDC if he thinks it is cool enough to show off.

From the past...

[Nexum]

Well, from past knowledge of how Apple has done things recently, I'd say...

PPC 970 Single 1.4 Ghz shipping July.

PPC 970 Duallies shipping within 4 weeks of the single.

OSX 10.3 Late August... and I would bet my kidneys you WILL have to pay for it (~$129), but don't moan... apparently there is a LOT of new/improved stuff, and this is only the beginning as Apple have found that they can build on the code very easily *indeed* due to the quality and clenaliness of it... exactly the problem MS seems to have with Windows ATM.

Everyone seems to misunderstand MacWhispers

[Elwood P Dowd]

Everyone's immediate reaction to MacWhispers is always negative.

"Oh, I'll believe it when I see it."

Obviously. MacWhispers has given up on making release date predictions. You'll notice that they have *not* given a specific timeframe for the release of these machines. They have said that they are being built.

So, now, when WWDC makes no mention of the 970, everyone will say "See! MacWhispers are a bunch of damn fools." and no one will remember, two months from now, when these machines surface, that it fits perfectly with MacWhispers' information.

If you take them completely literally, they are a valuable source of information. They cannot divine the future, and they don't seem to be trying to do so, either.

Re:Everyone seems to misunderstand MacWhispers

[gorsh]

But using this logic, they're always going to be right - everyone knows that Apple will most likely announce a PPC970 system at some point in the future.

Predicting something that everyone knows will happen eventually is not so significant as correctly predicting *when* it will happen.

Re:Performance claims need clarification

[Lank]

I don't think the ArsTechnica report said that the implementation was supposed to be worse - just that it was more of a hack. Just because something is a hack doesn't necessarily mean it can't perform well. In fact, most hacks are done for none other than performance reasons.

Re:Performance claims need clarification

[John Harrison]

I think that the increase in the bus could really help here. If you can keep feeding data through a slow altivec unit you will might get better performance than with a fast one that is starved for data.

(Re)Stating the Obvious

[buckhead_buddy]

I think that at this point it's quite obvious _something_ is in production, but that doesn't mean the time frame you can by an updated Mac is close at hand though.

Major changes that effect developers will be announced at WWDC. It's likely that whatever new directions in CPUs, APIs, or Market segments will be announced there because developers will have to react to the news. That doesn't mean anything will be available for sale or even that we'll get the whole picture of what cases, prices, user interface changes, or iApps will be released. Not only don't developers need to know this stuff, but traditionally they've been a very conservative, non-spontaneous, purchasing crowd where such surprises would be wasted.

People keep talking about having the whole Mac product line refreshed at WWDC and nonsense like that. My guess is far more conservative. We may get a timetable to expect new PowerMacs, but we probably aren't even going to see the new machines in final plastics.

During the transition from 68000 to PowerPC, Apple bent over backwards to give developers access to emulators, test labs, and even loaned machines to big developers. But they didn't start commercially selling anything until eight or nine months after the WWDC announcements.

I don't think Apple will wait quite that long to introduce new chips if such plans are really on the horizon, but I think there will be some non-trivial lag from WWDC to new consumer-marketed debut of new hardware.

Re:I doubt the speed predictions at least.

[gsfprez]

cache performance, bus performance increases.

the real reason G4's don't perform is that they are usually waiting on data... the G4's may be fast and have great AltiVec, the whole issue of still running (essentially) PC133 memory is the bottleneck.. no matter how fast your CPU is, if you can't get it lots of data - not just the data in the L2 cache - its just gonna sit there.

the 970 systems should, by any means, at least keep the CPU(s) busy. that alone will greatly enhance the performance of the new machines when doing things like 3D rendering, video transcoding, etc.

Its like why my Powerbook rips mp3's from CD's at only 10x, while my slower desktop rips them at 14x... the desktop has a 52x CD-ROM drive and my Powerbook has a slow-as-ass Superdrive. I can't keep the machine busy because I can't get it the data. The bottleneck in that case is the CD read.

In the G4's vs. the 970's discussion, the bottleneck is the pathetic (compared to Intel mobos) G4 motherboard because the mobo's running the 970's are all around faster.

Memory bound

[benwaggoner]

Assuming you aren't memory bound. You've only got 166 Mbps TOTAL between the two processors, which well tuned AltiVec codec can saturate with a single processor, let alone two.

From past experience...

[jriskin]

Ways of knowing Apple is going to release something.

1. Supply chain starts drying up.

2. Apple allows upgrade makers to catch up.

On the supply chain i've heard conflicting rumors, but on the upgrade side both OWC and Powerlogix have now released 1.42Ghz upgrades, this matches the top of the line G4 desktops.

So there is definitely SOMETHING coming, whether it is a new 970 based machine or simply speed bumped G4's only time will tell.

Re:You're right

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple can waffle on about the Mhz myth all they want, but I don't see them REDUCING clock rates generation after generation.

Pentium 4: 3 GHz

Xeon: 2.6 GHz

Pentium M: 1.6 GHz

Itanium 2: 1 GHz

Re:Yikes

[pi42]

I think PCs do get equal attention, but since all the parts in Dell's, HP's, etc. machines are all industry standard parts manufactured by other companies, the speculation isn't about their offerings but the offerings of their suppliers.

There's a lot of speculation about AMD's chips, or new motherboard chipsets, or nVidia or ATI's new graphics cards -- probably just as much or more in total as that which surrounds Apple's products. Apple just has a lot of relative speculation surrounding it since it's the only provider for a particular platform.

Re:PPC 970 Powerbook

[tbone1]

I don't know that the 970 in the Powerbook will happen this soon. I recall a discussion on The Mac Observer about the towers being Apple's best money-makers. They have the highest margins, in terms of dollars and in percentage, of Apple's computer hardware. Tower sales have been lagging for a few years, so don't be surprised if there is a big push to sell the towers, particularly in the sense of "The 970 is available, but not in the consumer products and only in our desktop".

Also, Quark has just announced that it is shipping for OS X any day now. Lack of a native version of Quark, along with a sluggish market in publishing, has kept a lot of the tower buyers (ie print shops, etc) from upgrading. Quark is ready to ship, and publishing seems to be on its way to recovery. Those are two big pushes on the demand side.

Also, it would seem silly to have the 970 in the towers and not in the XServe, so expect them there as well; that would further reduce the supply side even further. In fact, I suspect that the 970 in the XServe might drive XServe sales higher, thus reducing the pool of 970s available for laptops.

A 970 Powerbook will be here, just don't expect it within the next couple-three months.