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Apple Marketing Hypes New PowerMacs
Wacky_Wookie was only one of many who wrote in with a mention of Apple's "leak" of specifications for a new line of PowerMacs to be dubbed "G5", apparently running the new PowerPC 970 CPUs. No offense, but anyone who thinks it was a mistake or leak doesn't understand marketing. :) Update by J : In case those linked sites get taken down too, try
MacNN.
I guess it seems that all the speculation was right on the money.
/college
And I still can't afford it...
Opinionated Law Student Strikes Again!
The reasons to have your next PC upgrade be a Mac keep increasing, and the only thing that might make the PC platform attractive are the rumors that HP will be releasing an Opteron soon. Personally I can't wait till I can have a 64-bit desktop machine with built in Gigabit.
Food not Bombs is a nice platitude but it breaks down when you notice that the Bombees are usually well fed
But you can get it from here.
Also more on the story here.
My journal has hot
I wonder how many people were thinking "Gee, I'd hate to be the guy who made that mistake!"
Well, I'd love to be that guy, as he will probably get a big promotion for generating even more interest into Apple's upcoming event.
Still #1 -- Lonely Gay Geek
You need to get out more.
No offense, but anyone who thinks it was a mistake or leak doesn't understand marketing. :) -- Michael
No offense, anyone who has half a clue is fully aware that Apple is particularly fascist and litigious regarding details of product launches leaking out. In particular, Steve Jobs simply loves the "wow" he gets from the audience by completely surprising them. In this case, few people actually expected DUAL 2Ghz PPC970 (G5) configurations available. Now, people are going to be less surprised on Monday.
Surely Michael is welcome to tell us how much he understands marketing and what products has he actually marketed, and we can see how much his credentials stack up against someone in charge of Apple and Pixar.
The new desktops will indeed be branded 'G5'.
;)
Man, I couldn't be more shocked if the next version of Windows was called 2004 or 2005. What will they think of next?
The coolest voice ever.
The was from a graphic directly from store.apple.com on the PowerMac site; not from a little teen's weblog (heh)...the credibility is high, and all of the sites that had posted the information have since removed the graphic per request from apple. macrumors, macnn, appleinsider, mac minute, etc.
the posted specs went far beyond the expectations of...anyone.
* 1.6Ghz, 1.8Ghz, or dual 2Ghz PowerPC G5 Processors
* Up to 1 Ghz processor bus (!!)
* Up to 8 GB of DDR SDRAM
* Fast Serial ATA hard drives
* AGP 8X Pro graphics options from NVIDIA or ATI
* Three PCI or PCI-X expansion slots
* Three USB 2.0 ports
* One FireWire 800, two FireWire 400 ports
* Bluetooth & Airport Extreme ready
* Optical and analog audio in and out
Quite a leap from the current dual 1.42Ghz G4 boxes, with a 166Mhz bus...
four nine eighteen twenty-7 thirty-nine forty-7 fiftyeight sixty-nine seventy-9 eighty-8 one-hundred-and-nine one-twenty
it was a mistake. Apple has always been tight lipped about new product releases, and why would they want to reduce the impact the WWDC keynote will have?? If they wanted people to know about this, they would have released the info earlier. This was a mistake made with updating the online store.
And heads will roll for the poor souls who accidently updated the store to early.
I'm sure these would be set at the "You Have To Be KIDDING me!" price point, but I'm sure these would be delicious machines to get a hold of.
Would these be CHRP (common hardware ref. platform) compliant? Or has apple abandoned that? Cuz then you could run MacOS, or Linux, or AIX all native on the same box.
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
Remember the iMac flat panel introduction? Time Canada posted the news story to their website early monday morning, according to their normal news cycle...containing the story of the iMac FP with lots of fun pictures.
I can see it now in the keynote: "As some of you MAY have already heard (insert laughter) we have....(insert product announcements)"
whooo.
adam
Expansion will be provided by three "PCI or PCI-X" slots, and - for the first time on a Mac - USB 2.0 ports, of which there are three.
To avoid any consumer confusion, Apple also stated that the USB 2.0 ports, previously called USB 1.1, were not "high speed" USB 2.0, but rather "ordinary" USB 2.0 (USB 1.1). The PCI slot will also be rebranded to PCI-X due to high customer demand for PCI-X slots. To make this clear, they also announced plans to rebrand the PCI-X slot as "PCI-X ultra high speed" and the PCI slot to "PCI high-speed". USB 2.0 ultra-mega-super-high speed expansion ports (previously called USB 2.0 high-speed) were also rumored.
"I'd rather have a full bottle in front of me than a full frontal lobotomy"
here, here and here.
I'll bite.
G5 is a marketing name and not a chip name. They can happily call the PPC 970 anything they want and G5 kind of makes sence.
The PPC 970 requires a bus speed half that of the processor speed hence the 1Ghz bus on the 2Ghz model. That would be achievable using HyperTransport.
And saying something it not real due to their use of the words one and two instead of the numeral ? Please.
Going back through my memory, I can think of a couple other very important leaks:
* ATI leaks news of updated PowerMac G4s (and summarily gets poor product placement in them afterwards, with Apple favoring Nvidia for years to come)
* Time Canada posts story of new flat-panel iMac before paper issue even hits the streets.
I'm sure there have been more, but those seem to be the most important.
This one will go down as probably the most significant leak in quite a while.
OK I can't believe the mac world is going gaga over these specs. The screenshot font, color and layout do NOT match that of anywhere else on the Apple site. Taking a look through the specs is also quite revealing
Revealing indeed, but not of what you think.
- 1.6GHz, 1.8GHz or Dual 2GHz PowerPC G5 Processors
It's not a G5, it's a PPC970, completely different beasts. Not to mention neither Motorola or IBM have 2GHz chips in their roadmap until 2005. Bzzzt One point impossible
G5 = branding. And IBM have 2.5 GHz chips in their roadmap for 2004 (in the new blades) so 2 GHz in 2003 isn't that odd.
- Up to 1GHz processor bus
1GHz bus? gimme a break. Intel hasn't yet reached this. Two points impossible
Read the specs of the PPC 970, freely available all over the internet. The bus runs at 1/2 the processor speed, hence 2 GHz is 1GHz bus. Even the 1.8 GHz chips, which are definitely announced by IBM for other products, have 900 MHz buses.
- Up to 8GB of DDR SDRAM
This one is acceptable
- Fast Serial ATA hard drives
This is also possible
- AGP 8X Pro graphics options from NVIDIA or ATI
Almost believable, but for the moment Apple are phasing out the use of NVIDIA cards in their machines. I highly doubt they'll be used. Half a point impossible
They're not "phasing out" anything; at the time they introduced the latest powermacs, ATI simply had better cards available.
- Three USB 2.0 ports
The rest of Apples site would say "3 USB Ports" not "Three". Also, Apple have a long standing habit of using Firewire instead of USB 2.0. I take this as one point impossible
The current MDD powermacs already have USB 2.0. That the next models should also have it is not surprising in the least.
- One FireWire 800, two FireWire 400 ports
Once again use of the verbal "One" instead of the numeric. Only one FW800 port? Why would Apple stick with FireWire 400 anyway? I mark this impossible
Because FW800 is not backwards compatible. The connector is physically different. They have to stick with 400 for now.
- Bluetooth & AirPort Extreme ready
Likely
- Optical and analog audio in and out
Bad grammar, but optical audio in a graphics machine? I'm sorry but this sounds like wishful thinking. One more point impossible.
This one does puzzle me slightly, but Apple don't consider their machines "graphics machines". Macs are all-purpose. It's no fault of Apple if they are pigeonholed by others as "only for graphics". Also, even if they were "graphics machines," video editing kind of requires sound...
In total, that's 4 and a half impossible features out of ten. If you're waiting on this machine, you'll be waiting a LONG time
I make that 0 impossible features, and one odd one. Come Monday, you will be feeling very silly.
No offense, but anyone who thinks it was a mistake or leak doesn't understand marketing. :)
Oooh, now thanks to Michael, I understand those devious marketdroids. Silly me, I thought the halloween document was a real leak, or at least a fake, but now I understand why Microsoft's image and sales have sky-rocketed since its release : it's because their marketing department released it on purpose !
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
- Three USB 2.0 ports
The rest of Apples site would say "3 USB Ports" not "Three". Also, Apple have a long standing habit of using Firewire instead of USB 2.0. I take this as one point impossible
Yeah, except the current G4s have USB 2.0 hardware onboard, Apple just restricted it to USB 1.1 operation.
- One FireWire 800, two FireWire 400 ports
Once again use of the verbal "One" instead of the numeric. Only one FW800 port? Why would Apple stick with FireWire 400 anyway? I mark this impossible
Oh, yeah? That's what's shipping in the current G4: 2 FW400, and 1 FW800. Since 800 is rather new, people will be more likely to need more 400 ports for their existing devices-- plus it would be dumb to make someone have to 'waste' an 800 port on a 400 device. For now, 2 of the older standard makes sense.
- Bluetooth & AirPort Extreme ready
Likely
Again, thank you, Captain Obvious-- since this is how current G4s are shipping.
~Philly
> ...but optical audio in a graphics machine? I'm sorry
> Also, Apple have a long standing habit of using Firewire
> instead of USB 2.0. I take this as one point impossible.
>
Didn't I read that the USB port on recent Macs _is_ an USB 2.0 port, and that only the driver was missing?
>
> Bad grammar..
>
Careful where you pont that thing, son. You might shoot your own self.
>
>
> but this sounds like wishful thinking.
>
The Macs will do whatever you want: calling them a "graphics machine" only shows that _your_ vision is limited. I mean, they're not the front-end console for a drum-scanner or a Cray, fer chrissakes. Think the old "digital hub" idea, and imagine one of these Bad Larrys plugged right into your home stereo.
G3, G4, and G5 are Apple names, not Motorola names. Apple will probably call the 970 a G5.
Otherwise, with those specs, it's about time. When it does come out, it will at least give Intel/AMD a run for the money (remember, the 64 bit stuff will be out by then), instead of eating their dust.
G4/G5 is a branding thing, or at the very least a processor family classification. The G4's are PPC74**'s, such as the 7450 in my PB. Apple would go with the term "G5" if only from a branding perspective.
Don't take this as truth, but I have read that the processor:bus ratio for the 970 is 2:1, making the bus speed on the 2Ghz 1Ghz. This is in line with the graphic.
Apple still uses NVIDIA as their low-end graphics card on the PM, and on one of the current PB (the 17" I think). Not impossible in the least
In regards to the "three" vs. "3" comment, look at this graphic:
Current PM Specs Graphic
It uses both the numeral and spelled out number. Some of the uses look like they were done to preserve spacing or lengthen a short sentence.
Apple has a long standing habit of using USB 1.1 as well as Firewire. Apple has always stated that both have their uses. People have been clamoring for USB 2.0 for a while now and there is no reason for Apple to not include it.
FW400 and FW800 use different connectors. FW400 is for legacy devices and those that do not need to run at the new specs speed
Remember the Mac is also used in numbers in the video and audio fields. Both of these would benefit strongly from the use of optical audio.
All this being said, these still could not be the true specs but they are not outside the realm of possibility as you claim. We'll have to wait until Monday to find out for sure.
No, according to the USB forum I think you'll find that they restricted it to UBS 2.0 (Full Speed)
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
geez, and the pentium iii wasn't much of an upgrade over the pentium II, right? it could be just a name used for marketing. maybe they want to avoid a situation where a ppc970 seems as awkward a mouthful to say as "Pentium II celeron".
I will concede to you on the 2ghz.. that was a suprise to me as well.
i guess you were pretty incredulous when the Athlon came out with a double data rate bus before Intel. Intel does not corner the market on chip innovation: Hypertransport, for example, is pretty much something that Intel has nothing to do with either.
guess you missed the bulletin that USB 2.0 chipsets are on new powermacs right now...
becuase fw400 and 800 use different plugs? becuase there are mostly FW400 perhipherals available? i could think of all sorts of reasons. the 17" cafeteria tray powerbook has only one FW800...
yeah it's whishful thinking. but hell, if the Creative Labs Audigy can have a SPDIF input and output, why not a mac? What kind of moron does audio on a mac? oh Skywalker Sound and Aphex Twin. i mean, have you ever heard of Protools?
maybe it's going to be a big hoax and we'll all look like dupes. but saying that these things are "impossible" makes me think you've been reading too much PC propaganda.
Jobs:
You.. You are FIRED...
and YOU! You are SOOO FIRED!
and you... you too are very VERY FIRED!
Guy:
But.. I wasn't even HERE yesterday!
Jobs:
I don't care! You are FIRED!
"To make a mistake is only human; to persist in a mistake is idiotic." Cicero
check out these pictures
;)
and download some music or something while you are there!
earth2willi.com
Now, you can still think it's a fake (it's quite possible, I don't know), but your arguments sound quite unconvincing to me.
Donate free food here
:)
a lot of G4's shipped with just. plain. awful sound cards. this is welcome news.
It's not a G5, it's a PPC970, completely different beasts.
Newsflash, kiddo: neither Motorola nor IBM sell a CPU called the "G4". "G4" was a "marchitechture" term coined by Apple in the spirit of Motorola's internal "G3" codename for the PPC750. The chip inside any "PowerMac G4" is some flavor of a Motorola PowerPC 7400, no matter what Apple calls it.
You can pretty much bet the farm that Apple will call every varient of the PPC970 they ship a "PowerPC G5".
1GHz bus? gimme a break. Intel hasn't yet reached this. Two points impossible.
Ahem. ("1ghz" is probably apple marketing-speak, but it's always been known that the PPC970 will have a stupidly fast FSB -- Intel isn't the only company that can innovate in this field, eh?)
Almost believable, but for the moment Apple are phasing out the use of NVIDIA cards in their machines.
Simply and 100% wrong. Apple has been doing pretty much exactly the same thing for the last three years on this front: providing whichever of the two offered them the best OEM pricing as the default configuration, and offering the other as a build-to-order option. They will continue to do this.
Also, Apple have a long standing habit of using Firewire instead of USB 2.0
Here, you may be correct, but there are two issues that may force them to start shipping "USB 2.0" connectors: first, the USB consortium has recently declared that all USB ports are "USB 2.0" (yes, this is weird and stupid), and secondly it's actually getting a bit difficult to source USB controllers that only support the 1.0/1.1 specs.
Once again use of the verbal "One" instead of the numeric. Only one FW800 port? Why would Apple stick with FireWire 400 anyway? I mark this impossible
FW400 and FW800 use different connectors, and there are not yet many FW800 products on the market. This is called "covering your bets" and "not pissing off your customers". BTW, 1x FW800 and 2x FW400 is also the configuration on the 17" AlBook, so they've already shipped one machine in exactly this "impossible" configuration.
optical audio in a graphics machine? I'm sorry but this sounds like wishful thinking.
No, it sounds like you have no idea what you're talking about. Do you have any idea how many macs are used in audio production? Are you aware that Apple sells their own high-end audio composition program? The only surprise about a PowerMac with optical TOSlink is that they didn't do it years ago.
News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters? Like hell.
Although I agree that some of the wording is not consistant with Apple's regular product descriptions, the specs are not at all impossible. If you've been keeping up with the news behind the G5, you'll know a few things. First, the G5 is the PPC970. The "G" product name has a shit-load of product recognition. Like the Pentiums. How close is a Pentium4 to a Pentium3? Not very much. Also, about the system bus, they are using Hyper-Transport which does allow for a 1GHz system bus. I've seen system design specs that indicate a doulbe (or possibly even quad) pumped, bidirectional bus (500MHz out / 500MHz in). About the FireWire 800/400 issues: it's all about cost and bandwidth. Anything more than 1 FireWire 800 port is so unnecessary, it's rediculous. Name anything that can use all that bandwidth, let alone the system bus! All that bandwidth room requires computing power which requires more circuits which, in turn, requires more money. FireWire 400 is fast enough for anything right now. Also, about USB 2.0, look at the number of products out now which requires USB 2.0. Apple would be stupid not to build in support for it. One more thing: AGP 8x is necessary now for graphics.
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A relevant picture can still be found on an Akamai Mirror (taken from an write-up here
After all the whining out there about wether this is a hoax, marketing hype or a simple mistake let's not forget that if this is true it truly is insanely great news.
Two 970's at 2 GHz with bus bandwith! Earlier (leaked) numbers of tests put the 970 at between 1.5 and 2.5 times as fast as a pentium 4. That makes these machines the equivalent of a 6-10 GHz machine. Now of course, we'll have to wait and see and two procs are not doubly as efficient as one but great news this would be nonetheless.
Oh yeah.
Er, I've heard some dumb excuses from MIS managers for not allowing Macs on the corporate LAN before, but...viruses? VIRUSES?
I can only imagine what they meant was "That machine doesn't have enough viruses on it."
News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters? Like hell.
I bet Jobs shit his pants.
Kevin Fox
Apple are using the new kit internally, in the web site department. And it's just too damn fast!
SCO employee? Check out the bounty
And anyone who thinks these specs would be deliberately leaked three days before a "Stevenote" doesn't understand Apple.
It's not a G5, it's a PPC970, completely different beasts. Not to mention neither Motorola or IBM have 2GHz chips in their roadmap until 2005. Bzzzt One point impossible
Bzzt. Wrong.
G3 and G4 are both Apple marketing terms, not CPU specifications from IBM or Moto.
IBM was expecting low yields of the 2ghz chip but it was always on the roadmap for this year... or have you not been paying attention?
I'm writing this on a Powerbook G4, not a Powerbook 7450 (PPC 7450 is Motos term for the cpu running this beastie).
1GHz bus? gimme a break. Intel hasn't yet reached this. Two points impossible
Bzzt. Wrong. One word for you:
Hypertransport.org
The FSB runs at half the clockspeed of the CPU. A dual 2ghz 970 would have FSB of 1ghz.
The rest of Apples site would say "3 USB Ports" not "Three". Also, Apple have a long standing habit of using Firewire instead of USB 2.0. I take this as one point impossible
The current G4s ship with USB 2.0 chipsets. Firewire and USB2 are NOT in competition. THey have different applications. If you don't belive me, then I ask you to point to a USB2 uncompressed SDI interface? Oh. YOu can't? Shit.
Once again use of the verbal "One" instead of the numeric. Only one FW800 port? Why would Apple stick with FireWire 400 anyway? I mark this impossible
My dual 1.4ghz G4 has a FW800 port and two FW400s. FW800 is a different physical interface than FW400. I'm sure the chipset is also slightlly more expensive.
Bad grammar, but optical audio in a graphics machine? I'm sorry but this sounds like wishful thinking. One more point impossible.
Marketing has always made a habit of playing with grammar.
Macs are not just graphics machine. In fact, the dual 1.4ghz mentioned above is primarily an audio workstation. It has digital audio out already on board.
Optical in/out is a surprise, but not unlikely - it has its advantages.
This is accurate. Like it or not. Apple is back in town where it belongs - on the top.
Wow let's take this one point at a time...
It's not a G5, it's a PPC970, completely different beasts. Not to mention neither Motorola or IBM have 2GHz chips in their roadmap until 2005. Bzzzt One point impossible
Errr... From a marketing perspective G5 is better then 970, it's also consistant with how Apple have named PPC processors in the past, so Bzzzt minnus one for you Plus one for Apple.
1GHz bus? gimme a break. Intel hasn't yet reached this. Two points impossible
Wow! I don't know where to begin with this one. If you really understood anything you were talking about you would know two things: 1. The 970 bus speed runs 1/2 the speed of the processor, so for a 2Ghz Processor, 1 Ghz sounds about right. 2. WTF does Intel have to do with anything? Apple has worked with AMD on the Hypertrasport BUS which should (and apparently does) toast Intel (And Intel has been slower then most with BUS speed lately anyway, even little VIA who have a fraction of the budget of Intel/AMD/ or Apple
The rest of Apples site would say "3 USB Ports" not "Three". Also, Apple have a long standing habit of using Firewire instead of USB 2.0. I take this as one point impossible
Apple was first with USB, and many many many Apple peripherals use USB (i.e. Keyboard and Mouse to name a few important ones). The cost of USB 1.1 vs 2.0 is about nothing so it's a no brainer to use USB 2.0. Also Since you seem to have grammatical issues the image (see below) "three" is grammatically correct "3" isn't.
Almost believable, but for the moment Apple are phasing out the use of NVIDIA cards in their machines. I highly doubt they'll be used. Half a point impossible
Apple isn't phasing out Nvidia, Have you read the specs for the newest Powerbooks? They use Nvidia instead of tradtional ATI. Apple has offered choice in desktop G4 systems for awhile. (It's Microsoft who are phasing out Nvidia in the next XBox)
Once again use of the verbal "One" instead of the numeric. Only one FW800 port? Why would Apple stick with FireWire 400 anyway? I mark this impossible
You and your verbal numbers... get a life. I don't know where you are coming from on this one. The Apple spes are perfectly logical and similar to the latest 17" PowerBooks
Bad grammar, but optical audio in a graphics machine? I'm sorry but this sounds like wishful thinking. One more point impossible
In a graphics machine? Well they are great at graphics, so I'll give you that, but have you ever heard of Digidesign ProTools? How about Apple's own Logic? How about the fact Apple has an entire segment devoted to Music right off there home page (and only part of it it the music store and iPod)? Apple is doing Music big time, and at a very high professional level, optical audio is an unexpected, but very logical addition to the G5
Hmm... there go your 4 1/2 half impossible points (or whatever? heck this is almost desperate... are you the person from Apple who accidently posted this in the first place and this is a lame attempt to counteract the damage before Steve fires your ass?)
--- Nothing To See Here ---
The official announcement is planned for Monday, so this is a tiny leak as far as the time scale goes. G4s are reliably rumoured to be in short supply, and Mac dealers alledgedly have back rooms full of boxes marked 'Do not open till June 23 or we'll cut your goolies off' or like that.
Now, can someone please write a bot that trots out both sides of the Mac religionist argument so that those of us who simply find Apple's activities interesting can ignore one post instead of dozens? Thenkyew.
Be the guy in the audience to get a camera trown at you by wearing the G5-specs T-shirts !
"I tend to think of OS X as Linux with QA and Taste", James Gosling, creator of Java
I seriously doubt this was a "strategic leak" to use the phrase from the Ginger book excerpt. When the image started hitting the web (MacRumors, Ars forums, MacMinute, iChat) Apple quickly took the entire Apple Store down in the U.S. and Canada and perhaps elsewhere. That's an expensive way to steal your own thunder - surely if they wanted to leak this information the could have found a cheaper way to do it. And this leak certainly diminishes the imact of the Monday keynote broadcast. I bet Steve Jobs popped a vein or two when he heard about it...
No offense, but anyone who thinks it was a mistake or leak doesn't understand marketing.
And whomever would write something like that about an internal Apple leak doesn't understand Steve Jobs.
I'm sure heads rolled on this one...especially if they're to be officially announced on Monday at WWDC (which is likely).
Well, ok, maybe in the bigger consumer arean but I've done some pro studio audio and up until the past few years, if you wanted high end quality audio, you did it on a Mac. ProTools et.al, all debuted on the Mac. In fact, my friends studio - of which over the years we tried converting to Windoze multitrack - went back to a Mac and churned out better sounding projects.
There are many uses in non-consumer audio for optical i/o. I mean, shit, my cheap little Shuttle Spacewalker has a coinnector card for optical audio. For them to include it now is obviously smart since we know they're also targeting more musicians (specifically dj's) now as well as graphics people.
Frankly, this guys 'impossible' post is a lot of bullshit for many reasons listed above and throughout.
I now must find a way to ditch my PB G4 1ghz. G5, here I come! *drools*
"There are motherboards with optical audio in and out built in, and you can buy PCI sound cards with optical audio built in for less than $50. I bought a Gamesourround Fortissimo II more than a year ago for less than $40, and it's got optical in and out."
:P
Unfortunately, this is true. I spent $500 on an audio card two years ago just because it had decent Optical on it...Last year, I bought an MAudio 2496 for my editing machine for a little over $100 -- not Optical, but coax digital, but it could handle 5.1 Dolby.
At this point, it would be moronic NOT to offer some sort of digital connection -- especially on a Mac -- then again I'm a little biased because EVERYONE I know with a Mac is a professional musician or attaining to be one
The rumors were a few months ago that Apple was going to release a Machine with 5 Outputs for Surround...I wonder if the Optical on this is going to encode Dolby Digital as well and keep this rumor true.
clif
Some of your analysis is negated by looking at Apple's marjeting house style a bit more closely.
The rest of Apples site would say "3 USB Ports" not "Three". Also, Apple have a long standing habit of using Firewire instead of USB 2.0. I take this as one point impossible
Apple uses words for numbers less then 10 all over the place. This is generally considered good style in old-fashioned publishing circles (that is, those who believe they exist to create something that people will read, rather than something that fills the space between the ads).
For example, from the first Apple page I bothered to examine (http://www.apple.com/powermac/specs.html)
"Four 3.5-inch hard drive expansion bays"
"Four DIMM slots"
"One AGP 4X slot with graphics card installed"
and so on.
Off the style subject, as Apple now ships USB 2.0-capable iPods, it's not hard to believe USB 2.0 PowerMacs.
optical audio in a graphics machine?
Macs are widely used in professional audio circles. Go hang out in any Mac IRC channel - wall-to-wall musos.
While I'd love to believe that Apple is soon coming out with 970 based machines, these two items in particular are the Joe Slashdot wet-dream wishlist items. Apple will go with the same drives you can get in an Xserve today, and I'd be pretty surprised if the jumped on board PCI-X. The fact is, someone not related to Apple just sat at their keyboard, and tried to make a spec which seemed believable yet got all the Joe Slashdot Apple fanboys hot-and-bothered.
Furthermore, as I'm sure has been mentioned before, this is absolutely not how Apple's marketing engine works. They keep the upcoming hardware stricktly under wraps to discourage the wait-until-the-next-machine-comes-out mentality. They are a profitable company, and they'd like to keep it that way. The way for them to do this is to entice you to buy a machine today.
Yes, I'm still a junky. Are you still a bitch?
FireWire 400. Why stick with this? Good question. I think I agree with you here since the 800 ports would be backwards compatible with any 400 device. 1 point impossible
Actually, I can see why they'd want to keep 400s. The 800 connector is different from the standard 400 cable, and even with the availability of adapters to convert from 400->800, it's still easier for them to simply include 400s on the computer so people who buy it can plug their devices in as soon as they assemble the computer, rather than having to go out and buy a special cable just to use their cameras, etc.
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Apple machines have held a performance lead over MS PCs at various times in the past. The new dual 2Ghz machine seems to have a reasonable chance of being one of the fastest desktop machines available - although Apple probably won't be able to hold that lead when the Athlon 64 vs Intel battle hots up again.
I can't wait to grab one of these new Apples - good work Apple & IBM, I say!
That was classic intercourse!
If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
I suspect someone hacked the site.
I will be absolutely delighted to eat my words if I'm proven wrong. But I'm not gonna set myself up for a fall by expecting machines with these specs.
When all you have is an axe, everything looks like a grindstone.
At least - not yet. I just don't have a reason too.
Specs look great. The only thing that might change my mind is a port of these 4 very, very important productivity applications:
Half-Life 2 - used to train new employees in how to survive a natural accident.
Doom III - used to train marines how to survive an unnatural accident.
Deus Ex II - used to inform people on the use of nanotechnology.
Thief III - a history lesson on how Victorian England might have evolved if magic was real and steam-driven robots worked.
Obviously, these very important production apps would require the power that the P970 can bring. (Oh, I'm sure they'd run on my current G4 867/Geforce 4 MX, but who wants to take a chance?)
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
The main reason that I'll be waiting for is the ability to be able to put together a pretty good system for $600. I love MacOS, but until they go after the low end, there are a lot of us who will keep dual-booting linux (or BSD) and windows. No troll or flame here, but isn't it about time that Apple offered a Mac for less than $1000 that isn't completely ancient (ie, no 600 MHz iMac please). Why do they still completely forsake the low end?
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
The screenshot font, color and layout do NOT match that of anywhere else on the Apple site
Sorry bob. I was on the Apple web site last night and caught this before even it appeared on the rumor sites. I even have a screen snapshot of the entire window.
This is genuine material. The entire page spoke of the current G4 line, but the small quick spec list next to a G4 machine photo actually listed the new G5 specs.
Now, is it a genuine mistake? I would tend to believe so, as Jobs is really pissy about keeping his secret punches for the keynote.
Mind you, his big secret may be the new 15.4 inch rumored laptop. There was even talk of a dual G5 17" laptop, but I give little credence to that.
My speculation: The 'optical audio' that this ad touts is an implementation of Yamaha's mLAN, a joint project between Apple and Yamaha begun in 1999.
mLAN essentially allows the transfer of all audio-related signals - be they MIDI, audio, whatever - over 1 firewire cable.
yamaha press release, mlan, 2000 [opens in new window]
Now, why would Apple release a G5-based PPC with a dedicated mLAN port? I think Apple's hiring of Doug Wyatt - the guy who invented MIDI Timecode at Opcode - as well as Apple's aquisition of eMagic - in addition to their collaboration with Yamaha on the mLAN spec - would give Apple every incentive to put an 'mLAN' port on the back of their computer, even if it is only another firewire port.
Keep in mind that OSX has MIDI capability built-in - unlike any other OS. ALso, with the addition of a simple mLAN port, Apple can now state that their PPC is music-production ready right out of the box.
Doug Wyatt hired by apple
eMagic Corporate info
a beowulf cluster of these?"
We are sorry to inform you that the creation of a "beowulf cluster" does not conform to Steve's reality distortion field and we request all topics concerning beowulf clustering to cease and desist.
Thank you,
Apple Legal
I like big butts and I cannot lie.
You're looking at PCI-X 2.0, which will run at 266/533MHz (and higher) when it's released. The PCI-X 1.0 spec (66/133MHz) is not as insanely fast as 2.0 or Express, but it has the slight advantage of being already in use.
For $2400 I got an AMD system that completely trounced the highest end Mac in every single way.
"... Except, for some reason, I couldn't get Final Cut Pro to run very well. I'm not sure why."
No offense, but anyone who thinks it was a mistake or leak doesn't understand marketing.
No offense, Michael, but you pretty clearly don't understand marketing. There's no way this was intentional.
Why? Let's assume you have a big event coming up, with one big piece of news everyone is waiting for (in this case, G5s) and lots of other, smaller items that you want to talk about (Panther, whatever other goodies they have hidden). Remember, that big piece of news is the lure to get everyone watching the rest of the show.
So why on Earth would you spill the beans beforehand on your big item, so that some people would have gotten the info they wanted and will now not tune in to see the rest of it?
It's also media suicide! If the mainstream press reports today "Apple is announcing G5s," then they won't have the same level of "big news" to report on Monday, and reports of all the other stuff Apple desperately wants people to know about (like the goodies of Panther and their carefully-worded spin on the advantages of 64-bit-ness) won't get the same headline "punch" because the big cat's out of the bag. And Apple is a past master at manipulating the press, so they would never consciously make that kind of mistake.
Lastly, if they were going to deliberately leak it, why would they leak only specs (which geeks care about) and not something like a spec-free marketing piece written about the G5 which would get people quoting their words on its goodness, but still keep prospective buyers tuned in for the details? Again, not a smart move.
In sum, this was pretty clearly an actual goof by a (newly unemployed) Apple web tech. I trust the Slashdot staff to know their s**t about a variety of things ... but oh dear God is marketing NOT one of them.
"95% of all Slashdot
No question it's a complete forgery. I mean, seriously, no floppy drive?! Windows hasn't yet reached this. Impossible!
Okay, so the only real questions left are:
1) What do they look like?
and the performance-relevant one:
2) Is it dual-channel DDR, or did Apple pull an Apple and make it single-channel? This is critical, as they do NOT want these things bandwidth-starved like Macs have traditionally been.
The hope meter is waaaaay up today, though.
Dell has 2 WUXGA (1920x1200) notebooks now, and HP has announced another. This is the minimum resolution I will consider when upgrading my laptop (IBM R30). Apple has the well respected WUXGA desktop display, I hope they don't wait too long to catch up in the notebook market as I am a potential switch customer.
Supposedly OS X 10.3 is going to allow even better resolution scaling, so there should be no problems with fonts being to small.
Dara
One more example of how real life follows early 80s Satuday morning Sid and Marty Kroft shows.
http://www.2khappyware.com/ibox/
Could someone please explain why this could not have been the work of a hacker? I have heard the argument that Apple's website is "too complicated" and "too secure" but I haven't seen any details to back that up. My question may be a bit naive but how hard could it really be for someone to change a few lines of text?
None to be found anywhere.
Certainly no links to be found about Mac CAD.
What a shame.
NetInfo connection failed for server 127.0.0.1/local
The PPC 970 bus is not HyperTransport (based on released information from IBM). It can however be easily interfaced to HT via a bridge chip. I do believe that the memory bus will not be HT but more direct, the rest will utilize HT as needed... we shall see.
The show will be broadcasted at:
http://www.apple.com/quicktime/qtv/wwdc03/
>> Had I been going to bed earlier every night? Have I been sleeping later? Has Tyler been in charge longer and l
That will not be a live broadcast.
Apple will run a loop of the broadcast starting a few hours after the live presention is over.
As below, so above and beyond, I imagine drawn beyond the lines of reason. Push the envelope. Watch it bend.
Umm, have you seen the specs on a PPC970 kiddo?
The PPC970 wit its Power4 core, clocked at 1.6GHz completely trashes a 3GHz P4. Faster bus, faster integer, and completely outclasses the P4 for FPU and SIMD.
And it looks like Apple's going to ship a dual 2.0 GHz. This ain't your grandma's G4 (In fact, at the same clock, it looks like the PPC970 has a 1.5x or more advantage for integer and 2-2.5x advantage for FPU/SIMD over the G4, and the G4 is, clock-for-clock, the fastest CPU currently in the desktop and laptop market, it's only real disadvantages are low clock speed and the slow system bus, both of which are problems the PPC970 doesn't have).
Remember that Athlon is only clocked a couple of hundred MHz faster than the 970, and isn't nearly as fast, clock-for-clock.
"You've got an invalid haircut" -Warren Zevon - Life'll Kill Ya
Well if you're going to quote Spaceballs and expect to get modded funny,for God Sakes man don't botch the quote!!
it's "They've gone to plaid!"
"I didn't come here to tell you how this is going to end. I came here to tell you how it's going to begin"
Everyone seems to be focused on the specs, but for me the most important piece of text in the misbegotten graphic from the Apple Store kimono opening was the headline that preceded them:
"The world's fastest personal computer." Now, as David Letterman likes to say, that's something.
Apple hasn't been able to claim anything like that, with anything like a straight face, in a long, long time. The implication is that there will be a convincing display of this CPU prowess, and not just Jon Rubenstein talking about the length of his pipe, either. And I would bet it will involve something other than just Photoshop.
The speed perception issue has been holding Apple and OS X back - if the developers and then the tech are convinced this hobble has been removed from the camel's back legs, it will be a huge deal.
Love - the delusion that one woman differs from another. [H.L. Mencken]
Has anyone considered that the reason they leaked this might be that the real suprise is comming in the form of new powerbooks?
See what happens when you use graphic files to display text?
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
What is a"site" ? No, "sites" don't do that. However, overworked, stressed frazzled code monkeys who are trying to build and test a site in advance of a major product announcement in 3 days can easily put an image in the wrong folder.
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
Just to get the jump on the Mac-bashers, here's the new list of allowed Mac complaints:
1. Stupid slow screens are a bottleneck. They don't refresh fast enough to keep up with the system. What were those morons at Apple thinking?
2. STILL no liquid helium cooling system?? Come on Apple, this isn't 1997!
3. Big deal. By 2008 you'll be able to get a comparable Dell box for half the price.
4. No floppy, no sale.
5. Still doesn't support my Chinese Xiondiangdong BKPDX-145 scanner.
6. Apple is dying.
7. I actually liked the Spinning Beach Ball of Death. I miss it.
8. It's so fast that I now have time to do other things. Then I discovered I don't have anything else to do.
Hate to break it to you, but for real engineers, those don't count...
n igraphics
Try finding any of the following that will run on the Mac:
ProE
Solidworks
SolidEdge
Ideas
Inventor
U
Catia
Mechanical Desktop
Alibre
Gentlemen, you guys are gonna love Linux PPC. Warm up those checkbooks for new PowerMacs. The day of x86 liberation has arrived. ;-)
Yellow Dog will probably be the first of the PPC distros to support the new 64-bit processors. You can run 32-bit until then. Mandrake 9.1 PPC is also very good, and there are others.
8Gb of RAM. What fun.
This is my post. There are many others like it. If you don't like what you read here, go try one of the others.
The PPC970 wit its Power4 core, clocked at 1.6GHz completely trashes a 3GHz P4.
I just realized that the new Power Macs would be the RS-6000 wannabe workstation for people who couldn't afford the real deal.
Both the Apple and IBM machines now have 64-bit Power 4-derived CPUs, gigabytes of RAM, decent graphics, etc. The IBM machine will certainly stand out as the workstation that overdosed on steroids, and the new Power Mac will be better suited to those who value moderation in all things.
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
>6. Apple is dying
That should be:
6. Beleaguered Apple is Dying.
No Apple Criticism is complete without it!
Integrate Keynote and LaTeX
Hm. You might be right about the quote. I was thinking of _Matrix Reloaded_, not the original, the part just before Burly Brawl. Wish I had a link. In any case, your assertion that my mistake (such as it may be) has something to do with my mouth is juvenile.
blog
To clear the confusion, PCI-X has been shipping since the i840 / i850 chipsets, and is prevalent in the e750x Xeon chipsets. (my e7505 Dual Xeon box has more PCI-X slots than standard 33Mhz / 32bit slots)
/2.2 spec.
It is merely an extension of the PCI 2.1
PCI Express is a completely different spec, with backwards compatibility as a bolt-on option. After adoption, expect to see your old PCI 2.1 / 2.2 slots disappear and have only PCI Express slots available.
PCI express was just demo'd and referenced at Intel Developer Forum this spring, and Intel isn't expected to have it on their own boards until the Xeon "Twin Castle" chipset ships in '04. As it is an open standard, expect Apple, AMD, IBM, SiS, and VIA to follow suit in about the same time frame.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
After this leak, I expect that there might be an opening at Apple... ;-)
bzzt! price/performance/productivity discussions are enless, but some of your facts are wrong.
Jun 1988: Mac OS 6.0
Oct 1990: Mac OS 6.0.7
May 1991: Mac OS 7.0
Oct 1991: Windows 3.0
Apr 1992: Windows 3.1
Aug 1992: Mac OS 7.1
June 1994: Mac OS 7.5
Aug 1995: Windows 95
Mac OS 6.x and Windows 3.1 never went head to head as shipping operating systems - Mac OS 7.0 was released nearly 6 months before even Win 3.0 . Win 95 didn't make an appearance for four and a half years after System 7.0.
*if* these machines are true, i would expect them to roughly follow the current prices. maybe the top of the line custom workhorse will jump up to a higher bracket, but in general i bet they start at the same place. i don't know about all the components, but what i have read about the PPC970 chips is that they actually cost a lot less than the G4s (as well as use less power and consume less energy). If the last statement is true, it makes you wonder how loing the G4s will be around for anything but upgrades to existing machines (seems the 970 will not work with current motherbopards).
macs *usually* fall into a pricing structure and somewhat stay the same after updates. it's not like these (if they are real) will be stacked on top of the current machine's prices and start at $4,000..... the G4 some poor citizen buys today will be dropped in price by hundreds of dollars monday if these show up. sometimes they sort of shift up and down a step according to conditions of the market. For example, for a long time there has been an emac/imac right at or around $999. I guess this pricing method is what caused their price protection deal where if you buy a machine and the price officially drops in 2 or 4 weeks (depends on who you ask?) they will refund the change.
... but would SCO sue for infringement? -1; Offtopic :)
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
Um, Itanium systems have a maximum clock rate that's slower than what this 'leak' puts as the PPC speed. Itanium systems are quite a bit more expensive than the PPC 970 systems likely to come out of Apple.
Oh, you want to compare 32bit P4s to 64bit 970s? Why, because you're really in the market for a 32 bit processor and need to distort everything into a P4=center of the universe worldview. Grow up. Something new is coming. It will likely run rings around Itanium. It *may* run rings around the P4s for stock 32bit applications and will very likely beat it when comparing code that's similarly optimized for the two chips.
Let's see it unveiled and let's see the benchmarks then let the chip wars begin again!
For all you people who complain that macs cost too much, it's because they use quality parts, not the cheapest thing from malaysia they could find. My friend recently bought a Dell Inspirion 4100, and the screen on it, while having a large resolution, is terrible. If you go even slightly out of center with it, the colors go all wacky. But my iBook's screen is much better, even though it's 4 years older. Quality parts people, quality parts.
- Sherman
Hard to answer, it depends on what you are doing.
For integer performance the PPC 970 should be around 1.3-1.5x clock for clock against a P4. For floating point it should be around 1.4-1.6x clock for clock against a P4. For SIMD (vector calculations) it could well into 2+x clock for clock (don't have solid numbers for this). This is based on SPECint2000 & SPECfp2000 published/estimated numbers and assume linear scaling with clock speed, neither of which is true in general.
In other words a PPC 970 @ 2GHz aligns approx. with a P4 @ 3GHz for int and floating point and a P4 @ 4+GHz for SIMD.
Also the PPC 970 can move a little more data over its FSB then a P4 can at the moment (assuming the PPC 970 @ 2GHz is true). P4s @ 3GHz can move around 6.4GB/s and PPC 970 @ 2GHz can move around 7.1GB/s (for the later I am accounting for overhead, not sure if the P4 numbers are doing the same).
Anyway we will have to see how things do once they get out into the real world. At the least the new PowerMacs should be on par with P4 based systems.
Nope not PCI Express but most likely the existing PCI-X standard (133MHz/64bit).
Very unlikely. Most likely he will show off 64 bit support, PPC 970 optimizations, HyperTransport support, evolutionary extensions to the audio sub-system, evolutionary (possibly revolutionary) extensions to Quartz 2D / QuartzExtreme, and a few new things that we havn't really thought of, etc.
You beat me to it.
There may be some hope though with WWDC next week. I heard rumblings that science and engineering (CAD/CAE) developers may be targeted because of their UNIX heritage. I know that last year I was told that Apple was targeting biotech first, and that they would evaluate where to go next. I made noise with a few managers at Apple, that in the companies that I had worked, engineering charted the course for the rest of the IT policies to follow. Most of this was because of the intensive hardware and software demands of running high-end CAD software.
One of those listed (Pro/E) has released a Linux version in cooperation with HP. With Apple's new machines and the fact that they have the largest installed base of UNIX (don't care what the Open Group says), there may be a few ISV's which may be persuaded to port to OS X.
I know that in the shops that I've worked in and or managed, the high-end stuff (Pro/E, I-deas, etc.) just doesn't work well enough on Windows to be valuable. The midrange stuff (Solidworks, SolidEdge, Mechanical Desktop) only exists on Windows, and can't touch the high-end stuff for utility. Apple could woo the high-end over, and open a can of whoop ass on Microsoft on the CAD front.
We'll have to just wait and see.
-- Len
"No offense, but anyone who thinks it was a mistake or leak doesn't understand marketing. :)"
No offense, but anyone who thinks this is marketing doesn't understand Steve Jobs. I'm sure someone got fired over this.
MoRe... LaTeR... -=PJK=-
I just specced out a Dell comparable in performance to the $999 eMac with the Combodrive(DVD/CDRW) The eMac won by over $100.
Food not Bombs is a nice platitude but it breaks down when you notice that the Bombees are usually well fed
My Mac, on the other hand...well, it's for annoyances like making a living. ;-)
You think they're passionate now?
Pfft. Kids today. Why when I was young, the Amiganauts would strap explosives to their bodies and blow themselves up in front of Bill Gates! Now *that* was a flame war!
Clear, Dark Skies
http://www.macfreak.org/cgi/forums/topic.cgi?forum =16&topic=2285
"The specs are fake. It's an employee from another company that Apple works with that uploaded the pic as a joke. He uploaded the pic trought the Akamai Network... Sources at cupertino confirmed this...
This is all translated from a dutch mac site I read often.. "
This was taken from Macnn
I just hope the Specs are real.
If we wanted a reality distortion field, we'd go to GU4DEC. If you want see a bunch of people practicing BS that keeps microsoft's dominance afloat, you couldn't find a better place than GU4DEC.
The whole "we're getting there" crap gets really tiresome after seeing the same usability problems creep up again and again for year after year after year. But what should we expect from a bunch of command-line nerds who think that they can do desktop stuff.
Clearly, this is the type of thinking that keeps Microsoft in the top spot, keeps IE dominating the web in the face of superior free alternatives
Or perhaps the free alternatives are crap, and the desktop linux developers have way too many apologists running around artificially inflating the quality of those alternatives. And when the true quality of those apps is brought into question by a non-geek who has trouble doing something, those linux developers start screaming "quit whining about what you're getting for free". If I had to pick the number one thing that was really keeping microsoft dominant on the desktop, I would have to say it would have to be Free Software's obvious non-commitment to usability.
The freedom to get your work done easily and with a minimum of fuss is the most valuable and sacred freedom an end-user can have, and currently the "Free" software developer community does not recognize the existence of this freedom. The GPL is a programmer's idea of freedom, not an end user's. "Join us all and share the software. You'll be free -- once you read the fine manual".
What's the reason for such staunch pro-apple/pro-mac beliefs?
Apple put a GUI on their machines while the PC's forced people to use confusing command-line crap like DOS.
Apple was the first company to put trackballs in their laptops while other laptop makers forced users to clip a trackball onto the side of laptop every damn time they turned the thing on. Apple also created the first laptop that actually had a generous portion of real-estate behind the keyboard where a user could rest their hands. It was only later that the other vendors starting aping this feature.
Apple was the first computer maker to truly embrace the more usable usb and firewire back when other computer makers stayed in their happy, crappy comfort zones of serial and parallel connectors. If Apple didn't force the USB/Firewire migration issue with the perhipheral harware companies in 1997 with the iMac, it would have taken several more years for the "alternative vendors" to even begin that migration themselves.
Apple was the first company to truly make an easy, usable, and integrated alternative to illegally swapping mp3's on Kazaa. It will probably hit some snag and will be replaced by something better, but the point is that Apple had the wherewithall to do it.
The poing is that Apple has the balls to make the computing experience better for everyone while other vendors like Gateway, Dell, and Compaq choose to sit on their ass and do nothing. I agree that liking a company just because they make pretty cases is ridiculous; it is the attention and care paid to the user experience which truly builds loyaltly.
Yes, the code for Cocoa and Quartz is closed. It would be nice if it were open, but given the shennanigans that are GNOME, KDE, and the X-Windows system, the current batch of Free Software developers have shown that they could never be trusted with it. Leave them with the code for Cocoa for five minutes, and they'd immediately start to make things inconsistent and unusable.
Ideally, I'd like to see those mac values transplated into efforts to make open and viable alternatives to microsoft. If we could just find a way to remove the current batch of linux developers and replace them with competant mac developers, then an open desktop would truly be in business.
Ergonomica Auctorita Illico!
For all the snarling and growling and derision about Apple, the sheer amount of posts on the topic of new Apple hardware says perhaps more about the interest in Apple's hard- and software than any poll ever could.
As the other reply to your poster noted, the maximum addressable physical memory on a machine with 32-bit virtual addresses can be >4GB, and is, in fact, >4GB on several processors, including the PowerPC's he mentioned, as well as Pentium Pro and later x86's from Intel (and probably some 32-bit x86's from AMD as well).
Only 4GB of it can be accessed at any time, however, as linear virtual addresses are 32 bits. If you're trying to use more than 4GB of physical memory, you have to map it in and out of that 4GB window. (The segmentation hardware on x86's doesn't help, as it translates 48-bit segmented addresses into 32-bit linear virtual addresses; you'd have to mark segments that don't fit into that address space "not present", and map the pages of those segments into and out of the 4GB window in response to "segment not present" faults.)
That could be done directly by privileged code, and could be done with system calls such as mmap in non-privileged code.
Of course, Apple don't publish G4 SPEC figures do they. I wonder why?
Possibly because on the off-chance that the G5 kicks the
crap out of whatever Intel throws at it, the number of Intel
fanbois shitting bricks while simultaneously flailing for
some other statistic to prove their chipset is better might
throw the Earth off its axis?
It could happen....
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine...