New PowerMac G5s: Up to 2.5Ghz, Liquid Cooled

no_demons writes "Apple have just announced the new, completely dual-processor PowerMac G5 lineup. The models all sport an 8x SuperDrive, whilst new the dual-2.5GHz model also features an 'innovative liquid cooled heat sink,' available in July."

Comments

Nothing left for Modders

[puregen1us]

Already liquid cooled, and in a cool aluminium case, enough case fans for a hovercraft. What is left to do?

Re:Nothing left for Modders

[Geek_3.3]

Are you kidding??? No cold cathode lights? LED lit case fans?? Still in a conventional (albeit very chic) case design?? 'liquid cooling?' I spit at liquid cooling! LN2 all the way!

Lemee see a round plexiglass SPHERE case w/ enough LED's and cold cathode lights to light up a small-to-medium sized city and enough cooling power to shatter the T1000, and THEN we can talk about 'nothing left for modders' to do... ;-)

Re:Nothing left for Modders

[Gleng]

Could always slap a Type-R sticker on the side of it.

Re:Nothing left for Modders

[iphayd]

Neon lights, and cutting out the Apple and putting a window in.

Yeah, neon lights make your computer go 20% faster.

Re:Nothing left for Modders

[Gotung]

I disagree. This is what I did to mine: http://www.buckeyemonkey.com/images/dualblue2.jpg

Re:Nothing left for Modders

[squiggleslash]

Well, you could do what this guy did*...

(* Well, ok, I've linked to page two for a reason, flip to page one after you've finished your heart attack)

Re:Nothing left for Modders

[dasmegabyte]

Well, it's apparently pretty quiet. There's something for modders to work on -- they prefer their machines to sound like a VTOL aircraft landing on a swedish death metal band.

Re:Nothing left for Modders

[AKAImBatman]

Already liquid cooled, and in a cool aluminium case, enough case fans for a hovercraft. What is left to do?

May I ask a serious question? Why mod it in the first place? I can understand that it's fun to make cases fit a "theme" (i.e. If I've got a bunch of racing memorabilia, I might want my case to have flames and exhaust pipes), but outside of that, what's the point? It's just a box. You might as well mod your dishwasher with a plexiglass window in front, and neon lights that catch the water sprays while it's running.

Beyond that, a computer is a machine that you usually don't want to be visible. You see the screen, you see the mouse, and you see the keyboard. Put the mobo in a closet or a hole in the wall for all I care. The only thing I need it for is to insert a CDROM drive or plug in a USB device.

(Insert comment about Real Unix Geeks keeping their machines in climate controlled rooms.) ;-)

Re:Nothing left for Modders

[troc]

they prefer their machines to sound like a VTOL aircraft landing on a swedish death metal band.

Please tell me you have videos! We need more swedish-death-metal-band-being-crushed-by-VTOL-air craft stories here on slashdot.

I'll settle for Roxette being crushed by a moderately loud cat if that's the best you can find.

Troc

PS I think I may have wandered offtopic.

Re:Nothing left for Modders

[tbone1]

Already liquid cooled, and in a cool aluminium case, enough case fans for a hovercraft. What is left to do?

Uh, use the thing?

Re:Nothing left for Modders

[Jeff DeMaagd]

A good deal of modders seem to be the computer equivalent of ricers. They generally make a decent looking car uglier while not making the overall system any better.

I think we're better off if the ricers, er.. modders stay away from these systems.

Re:Nothing left for Modders

[AKnightCowboy]

I was going to suggest a spoiler, but after looking at the case I notice it already has 2. That keeps it from floating away and gives the G5 better traction for those hard core photoshop sessions.

Re:Nothing left for Modders

[fitten]

That'll even make it faster! The other thing they could do is put purposefully loud and angry bee sounding fans in the case, to get the full ricer effect. And a big ass wing on the top of the case.

Re:Nothing left for Modders

[Seehund]

Modding is (usually, I'm sad to say) not about getting "better", but about getting "flashier" (at least in some 1337 g4m3r teenagers' eyes).

Make the RF-shielding case useless, it looks so much flashier with a frigging HOLE in the side. Fans with LEDs inside aren't more quiet nor do they push more air, they're flashier. UV-lighting inside your case doesn't push more data across the buses, it's there to be flashy. A fan grille in the shape of a biohazard sign doesn't obstruct airflow any less than a normal grille, but it's flashier. The graphics card with a stupid dragon / monster / anime babe printed on its fan casing is more expensive than a more normal looking computer component, but it's flashy (if you lie on the floor looking up, so you can see it when it's installed and turned upside down).

Though personally I think it all looks more ridiculous and stereotypical than "flashy".

Re:Nothing left for Modders

[isecore_JMK]

I had a heart-attack when I first saw this back in January or whenever...

it turned out to be fake though. The guy _didn't_ kill a Mac, he just bought an empty G5 housing and faked the article to scare the crap out of people. He later confessed to his alleged sins, and it turned out everything was a hoax.

Apparently he got a lot of hatemail :)

Re:Nothing left for Modders

[rk2z]

Not to sound like a troll, but modding my dishwasher sounds like a pretty cool idea. Too bad my landlord would kill me :-( That would be sweet to see what's going on when I clean my dishes. Modding is all about being different and having fun when you do it. Since it doesn't hurt anyone, what's the problem? I say if it's fun to do go for it.

Re:Nothing left for Modders

[RevAaron]

I'd rather not have my CPU's superconduct, thanks.

Pussy. Go back to using your Amiga or something.

Re:Nothing left for Modders

[Anonymous Coward]

but even the new box is slow compared to my quad FX-51 box

And your box is a tortoise compared to my eight-way 68040 box, each running at a spritely 25MHz (that's about 10x the speed of a 2.5GHz G5, 10x2.5=25.) I'm running OpenBSD which is well known for its SMP support, thanks to it not being bound by all the rules of the GPL.

So I suggest you throw that piece of crap out the window and use a real computer.

Bastards

[numbski]

I promised my wife I wouldn't upgrade from my 800mHz 17" iMac overclocked to 900 with dual display to a G5 until they came out with a Dual 3Ghz, and I would get the 23" HD Studio display with it.

Now I have to wait another year.

Bastards. :P

Clock speed

[barcodez]

I thought is was widely accepted that clock speed means nothing. Would a G5 2.5 GHz be comparable to and Intel check with the same clock speed or a AMD 2400+?

The dual thing is pretty cool for a pre-build box though...

Re:Clock speed

[ThogScully]

The clock speed is useless to compare different architectures or even different processor lines made by the same manufacturer. So, A G5 running at 2.5GHz can't be compared to an Athlon running at 2.5GHz on clock speed alone, for example.

But between two otherwise identical G5 chips, it can be assumed the 2.5GHz one will go faster than a 2GHz one. It's essentially the same chip, just running faster.
-N

Re:Clock speed

[nine-times]

Clock speed doesn't mean "nothing", it's just not the sole- or even the most meaningful- measurement of over-all system speed. People have mearely noticed that, with all the bottle-necks in a system, merely bumping up clock-speeds without improving the over-all architecture gives deminishing returns.

What a G5 2.5 Ghz would be equivalent to in terms of Intel or AMD depends on what you're doing and how you benchmark. It really doesn't matter too much, though, unless you're trying to start a Mac vs. PC flame war. It's like comparing Apples and Oranges.

Re:Clock speed

[nuggetman]

Or Apples to Intels

*ducks*

Re:Clock speed

[supersnail]

SPEC.ORG doesnt have any recent PowerPC benchmarks, but looking at historical bechmarks (Specint95 on 500Mhz processors) PowerPC has about a 20% higher score than a pentium of the same Mhz.

I would guess this advantage has increased as PowerPC pipelining and paralellism have improved dramatically since then.

So a 2.5 GHz PowerPC should be able to crunch numbers better than a 3 GHz Intel.

The chip also has the advantage of not being constained by the 8080 architecture.

Re:Clock speed

[Fulcrum of Evil]

So, A G5 running at 2.5GHz can't be compared to an Athlon running at 2.5GHz on clock speed alone, for example.

However, if you look at Apple's rigged demo (the photoshop test), there's almost a factor of two difference. It's probably not quite that extreme for the rest of the system, but it looks like G5s are faster than the AMD64, clock for clock. Or, they could be the same speed, but the pshop filter is multithreaded.

Re:Clock speed

[EccentricAnomaly]

For my applications un-optimised code on a 2 Ghz G5 runs about the same as on a 3 Ghz Pentium and a 2.4 Ghz Xenon, if I optimise the G5 code with xlf and shark I get my 2 Ghz G5 to run twices as fast as the Pentium or Xenon... but I don't have the intel compiler for the P4 or Xenon so that's not a fari comparison.

Anyway I expect this new G5 to greatly outperform a P4.

Re:Clock speed

[cosmo7]

That Xenon is one noble processor.

Re:Clock speed

[Bedouin X]

Uh yeah, notice that they are comparing a Dual G5 to an FX53 which can only run as a single CPU. They could at least go grab a BOXX dual Opteron system to maintain a shred of credibility.

cool

[aixou]

That's great that new G5s are out, but am I the only one a little underwhelmed by the increase in proc speed? (Especially considering the "3Ghz in a year" when they were first announced).

Anyway, sorry to be looking at the glass half-empty. :)

Re:cool

[cowscows]

I'm mostly disappointed that they still haven't announced new monitors. I don't want a sleek aluminum G5 sitting next to one of those dated looking plastic cinema displays, with a three inch border around the screen. New displays!

Re:cool

[RebelWebmaster]

Well, IBM was the first to go on record as saying that 90nm was considerably more difficult to implement than they first expected. There's a lot of current leak going on, meaning wasted power, which leads to increased heat (see Intel's Prescott as a very good example). Supposedly AMD's having some 90nm issues as well now.

I guess those issues would explain why Apple had to switch to liquid cooling for this round of systems.

Re:cool

[russellh]

You gotta love the press quotes on Apple's G5 page, like: "it's the fastest Mac I've ever used in my entire life". yeah, that SE/30 was a screamer, but this G5 toasts it, no contest.

Liquid Cooling is, uh, cool

[neccoant]

I think the 2.5 model, with the whiz-bang cooling and new chips, is the first next-gen G5, whereas the lower models are designed to clear out old supplies. November will see the real "bump" to 2.5/2.7/3.0 all-liquid series.

Here's a theory: The 2.5 is slated to start shipping in July, so maybe Apple is getting around the new-model-launch-delays bear? Will they announce and ship the "missing" 2.7 and 3.0 portions of the range in September, when they would have shipped anyway, even if they were announced today? "Clearing out the old machines and releasing the typical low-end 'shipping today' portion of the new model range, and keeping mum on the parts we would normally delay two months."

That said, they are still impressive machines, save for the GPU. Also, to the first poster, the top end chips are 2.5Ghz, not 1.5...

Re:Liquid Cooling is, uh, cool

[nine-times]

they are still impressive machines, save for the GPU

I know, the GPU's in these things suck. The Radeon 9800XT is a toy, just because it was released more than a month ago. Why didn't Apple pack these things with some unreleased card from ATI or Nvidia that would run 5X as fast, huh?

Liquid Cooling

[swordboy]

I like the idea of liquid cooling but I also like simple systems. There's too much complexity here. So...

I've often pondered creating a sealed aluminum case with integrated heatsink. Stick the components in and fill it with dielectric oil in order to create a huge, passive heat sink (like a big transformer or whatever). Thoughts? I almost got around to this but stopped after submerging an old hard drive in some dielectric - if you seal the breating hole, it works fine (I believe the hole is there to relieve pressure differentials caused by changes in altitude so it should be fine in a stationary location).

Provided that the dielectric has good enough heat transfer, this should work, no?

Re:Liquid Cooling

[Zog The Undeniable]

It's been done...and more. One guy dumped all the components of his PC in a polystyrene tub full of liquid paraffin, which is pretty much what you're suggesting. However, he also stuck the evaporator of a fridge in there and got the paraffin down to stupidly low temperatures. The disadvantages: it looked crap and it smelt bad.

Re:Liquid Cooling

[TheGavster]

Actually the breathing hole in the hard drive is critical to maintaining the cushion of air that the drive heads use to float the couple of microns over the platter surface that they need. If you plug the hole, you've got a good chance of having a hard drive crash in the most literal sense of the phrase when the heads dig into the platters on boot.

Re:Liquid Cooling

[mgoff]

Actually the breathing hole in the hard drive is critical to maintaining the cushion of air that the drive heads use to float the couple of microns over the platter surface that they need.

Reference? I don't know of any hard drive where this is the case. The only purpose of the breather hole is for pressure equalization. The heads fly due to the aerodynamics of their physical design-- just like an airplane wing.

Re:Liquid Cooling

[dex22]

Reference? I don't know of any hard drive where this is the case. The only purpose of the breather hole is for pressure equalization. The heads fly due to the aerodynamics of their physical design-- just like an airplane wing.

Ummm, no. The heads are stationary relative to the airflow. They move across the platter or are stationary. They are not shaped to be aerodynamic, and actually cause a lot of air turbulence when they move.

What makes the head float over the platter is laminar flow. This is the tendency of air to stick to the platter. This creates a molecules thick layer of fast-moving air that generally spirals out from the center of the platter to the outside, turning in the direction of the platter's rotation. As this flow is faster than the surrounding air, it draws the head closer to the platter. As the head gets very close, the laminar flow slows, until equilibrium is reached and the head floats stably.

The primary reason why most hard drives cannot be used above 10,000ft is because air pressure gets low enough for tolerance limits to be reached.

The primary purpose of the vent hole is to allow the drive to equalize pressure. Variations of pressure cause the case to flex, which can affect the head alignment against the platters.

Hope this helps...

Re:Liquid Cooling

[Moofie]

The notion that you're looking for is "boundary layer", not laminar flow. Laminar flow is the opposite of turbulent flow, and you won't find it inside a hard drive.

Consider a coordinate system fixed to an airplane wing. Immediately at the surface of the wing, the airflow is stationary with respect to the wing skin. As you move farther away from the skin, the air moves faster and faster wrt the wing skin. If you consider the coordinate system fixed to the ground, the air far from the wing is more or less stationary (ignoring wind and the like) and the air close to the wing is moving at the speed of the aircraft.

So, the heads are not stationary relative to the airflow. The air is moving more or less at the speed of the platters (in a spiral like pattern as you described). The heads fly through this (pretty high speed) airflow.

The rest of your post is pretty well spot on.

Attention to detail...

[WIAKywbfatw]

From the Apple link:

Each of the four thermal zones is equipped with its own dedicated, low-speed fans. Apple engineered the nine fans to spin at very low speeds for minimum acoustic output. Using 21 different sensors, Mac OS X constantly monitors component temperatures in each zone, dynamically adjusting individual fan speeds to the appropriate levels for the quietest possible operation. As a result, the Power Mac G5 runs two times quieter than the previous Power Mac G4 enclosure.

Nine fans and 21 sensors, generating half as many decibels. Now I'm not an Apple fan-boy but that's the level of attention to detail that seperates Apple from Dell, etc.

Re:Attention to detail...

[cowscows]

That's not attention to detail, that's just a different methodology. Not going the cheapest way possible. For attention to detail, notice the lack of cables all over the place inside the computer, or how the little capacitors and other components on the boards are colored to match the internal design. It may be silly in some ways, but when designers care enough to try and make the inside of a computer beautiful, I find that kind of comforting.

Re:Attention to detail...

[Plutor]

> > ...the Power Mac G5 runs two times quieter...
> ...half as many decibels...

Noise level (bels, often referred to in tenths of bels, or decibels) is a logarithmic measurement, similar to the Richter scale. The number of bels for a given ratio of power levels is calculated by taking the logarithm, to the base 10, of the ratio.

b = log10(P1/P2)
b = log10(1/2)
b ~ -0.3010299956

So this is actually a reduction of just over three decibels. Doesn't sound like much, but it really is twice as quiet. Gives you more respect for the 20db case fans, eh?

Re:Attention to detail...

[frinkster]

Perhaps, but it requires a talented and dedicated engineer to produce this kind of work.

I'm willing to appear superficial to get some good, quality engineering on my desktop.

Re:Attention to detail...

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

It is attention to detail. The sound computers generate these days is oftern overlooked by most makers. "Attention to detail" isn't just limited to asthetics you know.

Re:Attention to detail...

[dasmegabyte]

True. I've found that engineers who don't care about how things look on the outside generally don't care too much about how they work on the inside either. Meaning no features that aren't in the spec, no effort expended to fix designs that sound good but won't work in the real world. So we get things like the flimsy door covering the ports on the front of a Dell precision desktop (ports which are impossible to see and useless if you put the tower on the ground, like everybody I work with)...

Apple's design is more than simply "superficial." It's thorough. When I was looking for laptops, I found plenty of really nice machines with big, fast, hot processors that only got a little more than an hour of battery life. And I found machines with nice, big 17" screens that had super high resolutions, but were only viewable from a tiny angle. And any machine that had similar features and speed were close to two inches thick and weighted upwards of 15 pounds.

I only found one that was even close to the footprint of my 15" with similar specs, and it was the Apex Ferrari. Now, since I'm not going to buy a gaudy red laptop with a ferrari logo on it, I only had the one choice :).

Re:Attention to detail...

[teeker]

Well, here at work, we have a handful of Dell desktop machines and we were also the first on our block to get the dual 2Ghz G5. I can tell you for certain that the Mac is WAY quieter than these particular Dells (YMMV of course).

It's not so much that the Mac is amazingly quiet for having 9 fans, it's amazingly quiet for having any fans. They could definitely get away with 2 fans, but they'd have to run faster so they'd be louder.

The liquid cooling thing is all part of it...you know the kind of fans you're typically running on a new Intel/AMD chip? Well if you liquid cooled them like this Mac, you could probably get away with a much quieter setup. Again, I'm sure they could air-cool them, but they'd be loud like your typical PC.

Re:Attention to detail...

[fyonn]

Am I the only one that would rather have a dedicated controller to handle the fans as opposed to during it in software?

assuming that the new g5's work the way the current ones do in this regard (and I'm sure they do). the software overrides the hardware. if there is no software to control the speed, then it defaults to full blast.

if you install linux on a g5 then the fans all run at full because the linux people haven't decoded the fan controllers yet (or hadn't last I looked). and even with osx on it, when you turn it on, the fans blow at full for a short while until bios/osx gets loaded and takes control and brings the speed down.

so if osx crashes so hard that even low level drivers like that die, then the machine should still not overheat.

dave

Re:Attention to detail...

[Wesley Felter]

Linux has had G5 fan control for several months; it works OK in our testing.

Re:Attention to detail...

[Malor]

That's only partially right. You are confusing the energy being generated with the perceived loudness of a sound, which is quite different.

Your figures are correct for actual power output. However, a sound 10db higher, 10 times as much energy, is perceived as being only twice as loud. Each 10db increase doubles the sound volume, but increases the energy required by 10 times. That's why a really loud stereo takes so much power; to make a sound 4 times louder, it takes 100 times as much energy. 8 times as loud requires a THOUSAND times as much energy.

The reverse is true.... to cut the apparent loudness of your case fans by half, engineers have to drop the amount of generated noise by 10 times. One fourth as loud is 1/100th the original energy. So it really does give you an appreciation for a case that is 20db quieter than another.

So Apple's actual claims could be either 'energy' or 'loudness'. They say it is 'two times quieter', which I perceive as typical marketspeak bafflegab. It's hard to interpret. If the correct interpretation is 'half as loud', then the G5 is at -10db and is generating 1/10th as much sound energy. If it is 'half as much energy', then it's about 3db as you state, and would be perceived as slightly quieter.

Judging from how hard they're pushing this feature, I'm suspicious it's the former... people would be angry if their $3K computer didn't really sound half as loud.

Graphics cards...

[radicalskeptic]

The dual 1.8 and dual 2.0 GHz machines come with an "NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 Ultra" graphics card. Isn't that card pretty low-end (or midrange at best)? Is it just me, or should a 2,000+ dollar machine come with a decent graphics card?

Of course, the whole point of a tower is that you can replace the card, but when you're already paying 2,500 USD, should you have to?

Re:Graphics cards...

[entrox]

Why do you need a 3D graphics monster for Logic? Or Photoshop? If you want to play games, you can also order the G5 with a Radeon 9800 XT built in.

Re:Graphics cards...

[iphayd]

Just to let you know, you can upgrade this in the build to order options.

Think of it this way, the target market (A graphics professional- Photoshop, Quark, Illustrator, InDesign) has no need for 3D acceleration. The NVidea card in the G5s have plenty enough power for Quartz Extreme, so they put them in.

Now, if you are someone who would use a higher end graphics card, by all means- switch it out in the BTO.

I do wish they would include the bluetooth module in all machines.

Is that lower CPU off?

[m_chan]

I doubt that the art guys checked with the science guys before illustrating the CPU cooling design, unless that lower CPU is either A)Off or B) Magical.

new Display too

[patrickoehlinger]

There may come new Displays (20, 23 and 30 inch with the known aluminum brushed metal look) to the WWDC, as reportet here.
Think Secret writes they may even come with DVI port.

Where's Steve?

[blackmonday]

I'm surprised that the 2 new offerings from Apple were simply put out on the web without any Steve Jobs fanfare. I like it when Steve shows it first, he allows into his RDF. I guess overall it's not the update I was hoping for, the video card should have been upped as well.

I think it's pretty safe to say we're gonna have an all new iMac at WWDC. It's the other upgrade everyone's been waiting for. Aluminum iMac? We'll see.

Re:Where's Steve?

[chia_monkey]

I like it when Jobs does his old "oh, and one more thing..." also. I think the WWDC will have something bigger than new G5s though. I'm guessing it will be bigger than a new iMac. With the release of AirPort Express and such, the low-fanfare announcement of the new G5s, but more importantly the setup of an entirely new division dedicated to the iPod, I'm guessing we'll see a new consumer product. You gotta love the rumors that fly around the Apple camp. I'm taking stabs at what the next unveiling will be also...but it sure is fun. New consumer product...hmmmm...

Cooling similar to Shuttle ICE?

[epexegesis]

Difficult to tell from the article, but the liquid cooling system looks similar to that found in Shuttle XPCs The article says that OS X can vary the flow of the liquid though. Very nice though, looks like they have thought about noise, which is good.

Re:Not Much Here

[Paulrothrock]

1) IBM is having trouble getting the G5s built in big enough numbers. It doesn't help that the first XServe G5s are going to Virginia Tech. It sucks they're not up to 3GHz, but it's probably not Apple's fault.
2) Fast video cards are nice, but if I want a gaming machine I'll get a PS2.
3) Yes, only 256MB of RAM on the 1.8GHz. You need more, buy it from somewhere else. Apple overprices their RAM

The real development here is the liquid cooling. It's a big step forward, because this means that they might be able to put faster processors into the Powerbooks, and they'll be ready for 3GHz and faster processors once IBM overcomes the Voodoo Curse.

I'm a little disappointed, but since I have to save for a wedding, I'm kind of glad they're waiting to release the dual 3GHz. It will be easier to convince my future wife that we need it when we aren't dropping $5000 next week for a payment.

Re:What a cool machine!

[Slowtreme]

Macs run Windows XP a hell of a lot faster than a PC can run Mac OS X.

logarithmic scale

[Gothmolly]

Its only 3 dB less. Remember that funky math that we said we'd never use? 2x the noise = +3dB. You can get more difference than this by simply switching your ghetto case fan for a good one. Unless of course Apple MEANT 1/2 the dB, which is a meaningless number w/o a reference: 1/2 the dB of a 6dB source is 3dB, or half the volume. 1/2 the dB of a 50 dB source is more significant.

So before we all drop to our knees on this one, lets consider the physics.

Re:logarithmic scale

[Shawn Parr]

Actually half or double the sound pressure is +/- 6dB.

Double or half the power is +/- 3dB.

One thing about Apple liquid cooling...

[daveschroeder]

...and multiple fans: Apple does it because they want to keep the machine as quiet as possible while still as cool as possible (as opposed to being forced to do it, lest the processor become hotter than the surface of the Sun).

(They don't do it because the PowerPC 970 family is "so hot", either; the PowerPC 970, and the 970FX even moreso, run much cooler, and require less power, than even the newest generation PowerPC 74xx (G4) family processors: )

Also, new PowerPC 970FX information from IBM is now available.

Re:Liquid Cooling And MORE...

[Zzootnik]

Actually, the one I saw the guy built a custom styrofoam cooler/case, put in all his goodies except the power supply, then filled it up with some odd and expensive 3m non-conductive liquid...actually I think he used mineral oil first, but that turned out pretty gooey... Then put in a pump and started pumping liquid from the bottom to the top where it dropped over a coolant radiator.

Yeah- that's a long way to go to attempt overclocking, but it was pretty neat.

IIRC, it ended up overheating anyway because the liquid got less viscous (more??--more solid) the colder it got, and created isolated thermal heat nodes around the hot components. Would've been cool to see on an infrared scope...

Don't care about apple...

[sinner0423]

...as much as I care about the liquid cooling part. I remember liquid cooling my crappy little celeron, thinking it would never go mainstream because of my belief at the time that water + electricity = bad.

Now, we've got liquid cooled technology backed by Apple. It's pretty sweet, considering you either have to buy a specially designed freon pumping case, or a $500 video card to reap the benefits of this kind of cooling.. Now all you've gotta do is buy a $3000 Mac.

Sarcasm aside, I think this shows that soon, the PC's on the shelves will mostly all be using some sort of heat pipe / water cooling technology.

I'm not a Mac fanboy, don't own one, but this really goes to show that Apple can and does set standards for personal computing. With major backing like this, it's only a matter of time before it trickles down to where everyone can be using it for a relatively cheap price. Way to go, Apple.

Re:Don't care about apple...

[supertsaar]

Please don't use the words
"Trickle Down"
In a post about liquid cooling...

:)

Re:PLEASE TELL ME I'M WRONG!

[wisebabo]

thanks but I need internal drives because I take my machines on set. I've already got some Kingston 8-drive bay SCSI arrays, they are large, extremely heavy and very loud.

Re:Not Much Here

[foidulus]

Meh, if you were a REAL GEEK you would settle for a drive-through wedding(while messing with your powerbook) and put off honeymoon activities until you got an FP on your new G5!

Re:liquid cooled

[ePhil_One]

liquid equals water?

More precisesly, Water is a subset of liquid.

Gasoline and alcohol are also liquids, but will have a distictly different effect on you when consumed...

Re:PLEASE TELL ME I'M WRONG!

[stang7423]

Lets see...

Adding more Drives....hmmm

Well there is the firewire route, last time I checked fw800 could handle full DV...

then there is the fiber channel BTO option with an Xraid, I think 2Gb/s of drive bandwidth will do just fine too.

If you want to go oldschool you could also add one of those newfangled SCSI U320 cards which would also do a pretty good job with DV as well.

So I guess the answer to your question is a resonding yes. Since you do (very) high end work then you should be using a very high end storage system like one of the above. If you are a professional and need high bandwidth you shouldn't be relying on apples software raid anyway. But thats just my two cents.

Re:I don't understand.

[Short Circuit]

Everyone's waving the "Innovative" flag about their product design.

I suppose what's really innovative about it is that this is the first time I've ever heard of a major manufacturer shipping systems liquid-cooled.

You forgot ONE thing

[WormholeFiend]

Frickin "LA-ZER" Beams.

Re:You forgot one thing

[kmo]

What, am I the only redneck who owns a mac?

No, but all the other rednecks who own macs, own Mac TRUCKS.

Re:Majik Ovarcl0xoring Juice

[System.out.println()]

It's just to keep it quiet.

It's a common misconception that Apple *needed* the elaborate cooling mechanism they designed for the G5. They didn't design it to keep the chips cool, they designed it to keep the chips cool quietly. The G5, I'm told, actually runs cooler than the high-end P4 chips. It runs hotter than the G4 for sure, but it's not like there's a miniature fusion reactor in your tower or anything.

Re:PLEASE TELL ME I'M WRONG!

[Lumpy]

Then simply stick to doing what the rest of us are doing.

internal drives in the computer are system drives.

leave the stack of external fiberchannel/scsi drives as the media drives in the raid array.

works great for AVID when dealing with HD or digitalcinema.

and I prefer that those 15Krpm drives be external... we have had to RMA 2 of them already this year for failures/ excessive noise from 2 different AVID suites here in the office.

External media drives are the only way to go.

Re:Not Much Here

[corporatemutantninja]

No kidding. I was counting on that "3 Ghz by summer '04" promise, and Steve blew it. I have now lost all faith in him for delivering cool technology, or for hitting release dates. "Three strikes and you're out" may be fine for drug dealers, but technology CEOs should be held to a stricter standard. I don't care if he gets a major OS release out every year, or if he invents a whole new product category every other year. I mean, a professional CEO like Bill Gates promises Longhorn and...

Oh, wait a second.

Ok, forget Bill. But look at open source guys: THOSE people know how to hit release dates. At least I think they do because it seems like every other day Slashdot is announcing availability of version 4.31.57.111 of some software package I've never heard of. Or are those really secret IP addresses for some conspiracy to which I haven't been invited?

Re:Liquid Cooling And MORE...

[Smallpond]

That would be Fluorinert. Not a bad idea. NASA had a fluorinert-filled heatsink inside a mylar bag that I used once. Geez. Its still here. I need to clean out my desk more often.

Re:Why PCI-X?

[Silverlancer]

PCI-X is twice as fast as PCI and is a replacement for PCI. PCI-E is a replacement for AGP and is twice as fast as AGP 8x. PCI-Express boards will have multiple PCI-X slots for sound cards, network cards, etc, and one PCI-E slot for the graphics card.

LOOK at the INTERNAL design

[goombah99]

I think I was more blown away with the side bar showing the internal design. Now I understand why the mac G5 is slightly bigger than a PC case and why macs dont have multiple front panel drive bays. there are clear front to back air channells. so air can trully be swept through in one pass. just look at that crammed pc case : it looks as useful as a square suace pan would be on you stove. the cpu fan vents in to a poorly stirred airmass. you cant even put output fans or input fans in logical places since all of the back is taken up with power supply and PXI car slots and the front is covered with drive bays. There are endless nooks and heaps of wire. and most of the air lives in a blob above the motherboard never in contact with it.

in contrast the mac case has layers of flowing air no thicker that what is probably the thermal diffusion length. Air flows over the top and bottom of the hotest items and does so in one pass. Its beautiful. and mac planned this out from the beginning for expandability.

besides I like the cheese grater.

Re:LOOK at the INTERNAL design

[the quick brown fox]

Those big air channels don't come without a cost. There is only one external drive bay and two hard drive bays, and three PCI slots.

A PC case of similar size has maybe four external drive bays and five hard drive bays, and five PCI slots plus an AGP slot.

A PC case with similar expandability, like the Antec Aria, is much smaller. (Though the Aria doesn't have two CPUs and can't hold 8 sticks of memory.)

While the insides of most PC cases may not look neat and tidy, it's child's play to buy or build a quiet, powerful PC that never overheats no matter what the load. So while PC cases may not (in general) have air channels, I'd say they work as well as they need to (though Intel apparently disagrees, since the BTX form factor is coming and is supposed to be designed for airflow).

I don't think you could reasonably expect a mainstream manufacturer to give up the expandability for an academic increase in cooling efficiency, although Shuttle has clearly demonstrated that at least some people are willing to give up expandibility for a slick form factor.

The G5's are beautiful though; I wouldn't mind owning one.

Re:LOOK at the INTERNAL design

[vkulkarn]

Some of the revisions of the old CRT based iMacs were convection cooled. They had no fans at all. The problem with doing that with a mini-tower case is that people tend to put things on top of a mini-tower... which would block the airflow... They got away with it on the iMac because its hard to put stuff on top of its curved top.

Re:Not Much Here

[Gsus411]

The anemic RAM included is a good thing. Apple charges far too much for RAM. It's much cheaper to buy your RAM separately instead of upping the RAM on the config you order.

Re:Not Much Here

[TheCrazyFinn]

Steve promise 3.0GHz 10 months ago. He's still got 2 months to deliver a product announcement. And they wouldn't have to ship until september.

Apple always has a big announcement in late July. The 3GHz could be it. It could also be the new iMacs though (As Apple has stopped producing the current model as of this week).

Re:Graphics cards...are important

[GoRK]

Well, actually most all of it is done in 2D with OpenGL.

GL does have a couple 2D Drawing modes, GL_ORTHO, for instance, and cards hardware accelerate them. How do you think games draw their pretty little GUI's and menus and whatnot?

Interestingly enough, nobody's ever developed a really good benchmark for cards that can accurately compare card performances drawing to ortho's. Maybe 3DMark should include a test like this. I imagine that raw fill rate has the biggest impact here, but who knows what kind of crazy optimizations card manufacturers might have in there to help/hurt the 2D OpenGL performance in favor of the 3D.

Re: Stock Liquid cooling?

[RebelWebmaster]

IBM went on record as saying that they underestimated the difficulties of switching to 90nm. There's a lot of current leakage issues with the process that lead to increased heat output from wasted energy.

Room temp water cooling for processor #2

[amichalo]

I'm no hardware engineer, but looking at this artist rendering (akamai.net is an image host for all Apple.com images) of Apple's liquid cooling system, I think the processors are getting different cooling.

It would appear that the liquid passes over processor #1, then #2, then back to the heat sink to be diffused by the fan blowing over it. This would say to me that processor #2 is getting at best room temp water cooling, while proc #1 is getting cold water cooling.

Here's my reasoning: If the heat sink with the fan blowing over it can cool the water 2X degrees, then when it is leaving the cooling system it is at Room Temp (RT) - X degrees. It passes over both processors and returns to the cooling system at RT+X degrees, where it is cooled by 2X and leaves the system at RT-X, headed for the hot processors again, follow?

So here's the meat of it: both processors together heat the water up by 2X (see above). That means each processor heats the water by X, so when the cool water leaves, it is at temp RT-X, passes over the heat sink and it raised to (RT-X)+X=RT which then passes over the second processor and cools it to RT+X where it returns.

So the second processor is getting room temp water cooling while the first is getting RT-X cooling. What effect will this have on the system?

Re:Room temp water cooling for processor #2

[Rufus211]

I'm sorry, but you have no idea what you're talking about. Radiators by all laws of physics can only cool down anything going through them to (almost) room temperature. Now the equations you want are that if the radiator can bring the water within 2C of room temperature with one CPU pumping out heat, then with two CPUs it will bring the water about withing 4C. You are correct thout that the second CPU will (obviously) be warmer than the first one.

Apples just does the right thing

[Lispy]

I must say that I am impressed. I am really not a big apple fan but the company seems to do just the right thing again and again. Starting with USB on the iMac back in 1998 they made a lot of cutting edge decisions wich came into mainstream just because Apple made them successful (WiFi, Firewire, MP3 players, legal musicdownloads, their stereo-wifi-hubbie-thing, TFTs, DVD-Burners) and so on).

Watercooling has been around for some time but no majorplayer implemented it. I bet that two years from now this could well be standard at Dells, HPs and so on...

No, it is.

[TamMan2000]

Did you look at the page?

The schematic clearly shows a closed circuit of pump driven fluid flowing past the CPUs getting heated and then flowing into a heat exchanger (takes the place of a holding tank, and is actually superior too one) with a fan blowing on it. This is exactly like a smaller version of the cooling system in a car. There is no phase change.

A heat pipe is completly different, it is a phase change driven system, and does not involve pumping, or traditional heat exchangers.

Re:No, it is.

[gl4ss]

pardon me, but where on that picture is a pump?
is the RADIANT GRILLE or the CPU's the "PUMP"?

the text doesn't say there is a pump either, *The dual 2.5GHz Power Mac G5 features an innovative liquid cooling system that's more efficient than a traditional heat sink. This system provides a continuous flow of thermally conductive fluid that transfers heat from the processors as they work harder. The heated fluid then flows through a radiant grille, where air passing over cooling fins returns the fluid to its original temperature.*

all this implies that it is, in effect, a heatpipe without a pump driving the system. the diagram implies it as well.

It makes more sense to not have a pump anyways, besides, if they did use a pump this wouldn't be that innovative at all(because this is exactly where a heatpipe cooler could/would rock).

Re:No, it is.

[TamMan2000]

Heat pipes are passive. How does that jive with this:

Mac OS X dynamically adjusts the flow of the fluid...

To control the flow of the fluid you would need a pump. You could put a valve in it, but that makes no sence, because a heat pipe adjusts it's own flow, passively, based on the heat load.

I don't disagree that a heat pipe would rock for this, but it is not what is in the Mac.

Re:Evolutionary, Not Revolutionary

[The Mutant]

"...I would bet that 99% of us can't name one product from the HP lineup, but can name..."

Well I certainly can - HP sells iPods!

Re:Wow!

[Anonymous Coward]

if only he used a realdoll.

a computer is a machine that you usually don't wan

[vasqzr]

Macs are something you want seen. They're always used as movie props, and very pleasing to the eye. You might not want your beige box PC in plain view, runing your decor, but an iMac might be nice touch to a room.

It depends where you live

[TheHonestTruth]

I live in Boston and I know a lot of people that have macs, and not just designers. I have mac users in my classes and I have engineer friends that use macs at home. I know lawyers that use them and IT guys that support them in the design department. I would say my mac exposure is abnormally high, but it really comes down to who you know.

As for the Apple coverage on /., well I think that is attributable to Apple getting it right (tm). Specifically, you have Unix with a GUI you don't have to dick around with to get working. They have achieved the holy grail of Unix+Usability and that is very attractive to, at least IMO, the people that care about computers, e.g., slashdotters. *shrug*

-truth

Apple is Cool About Upgrading My Order

[Brackney]

I was a little upset when I spotted the upgrades early this morning because I just ordered a G5 1.8x2 the day before last. Imagine my delight when I got an email this morning from them offering to let me change my order. So now I'm getting a G5 2x2 for a hundred bucks less. Booyah!

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Looking like OSX isn't the point.

The user experience is what Macs are all about. Running OSX, not just looking like it, and having a wonderfully engineered case.

A PC running any OS it is capable of is like a bitching Camaro kicking ass in the straight-away.

A Mac is like a BMW z4 taking on a winding road.

You either get it or you don't.

Soon, and without ADC

[pjcreath]

Think Secret is reporting that new displays are due soon. The new displays apparently will be DVI only -- no more ADC. (The 30" display requires 150W, which ADC couldn't handle.)

What puzzles me is the GPUs currently in these new G5s -- they seem to be dual-head ADC+DVI. That's not terribly useful once ADC goes the way of the dodo. If you're in the market for the new displays, it might be worth holding off on the G5 a few weeks, in order to get a DVI+DVI video card.

The New Powermac G5

[filmsmith]

Now with more Speed Holes!(TM)

fs

You forgot one thing

[Scott Richter]

Already liquid cooled, and in a cool aluminium case, enough case fans for a hovercraft. What is left to do?

Mudflaps. With the nekkid ladies on 'em.

What, am I the only redneck who owns a mac?

Re:Liquid Cooling And MORE...

[Twirlip of the Mists]

That would be Fluorinert. Not a bad idea.

All the good parts of the Cray T90 were immersed in a big tank of Fluorinert.

it's also workload per cycle

[johnpaul191]

Clock speed doesn't mean "nothing", it's just not the sole- or even the most meaningful- measurement of over-all system speed. People have mearely noticed that, with all the bottle-necks in a system, merely bumping up clock-speeds without improving the over-all architecture gives deminishing returns

well it's also the chip's design. the Apple (and IBM/Moto) designs (and AMD to some extent) "do more work" per clock cycle. that's part of the reason some are better for some processes (though software is key too). think of it like a racecar vs a truck. a racecar revs really fast and flies, but carries one passenger. a truck revs lower but can tow a house. if you had a relay race of the two that had to transport 300 people across a distance the truck could win since it could haul everyone in one or two trips. it's the same way the G5 (or G4) tries to "do more" with every clock cycle compared to Intel just trying to go really really fast.

it really comes down to attacking the same problem from different methods.

G5's GPUs are sub-par

[frankie]

GPU's in these things suck. The Radeon 9800XT is a toy

Don't be an ass. Yes, the 9800XT is fast, but:

1. It's Build-To-Order only
2. It takes up an extra slot

Apple's top-end stock GPU, the 9600XT, is mid-range at this point. The other G5s still use the FX5200, which SUCKS HAIRY GOAT these days and does not belong in Apple's officially designated "Pro" machines.

Perceived loudness is not linear!

[The Tessellator]

It is likely that Apple's designers were referring to half "the perceived" noise which is accepted to equal 10DB (in fact I think the G5's were about 10-12Db quieter than the G4's)

Doubling the acoustic energy (in watts) does in result in a 3db measured change in SPL, but that is a barely noticeably change in the (human) perceived volume level. Our ears are not linear devices, that is the reason that differences in loudness (sound pressure level) are represented logarithmically. 1 DB is considered to be so small a change as to be imperceptible (in nearly all cases) even though it represents a significant change in absolute acoustic energy (in watts).

This points out why it is so difficult to keep things quiet, (and why this was a significant change) you must reduce the acoustic energy tenfold in order to halve the perceived loudness.

for a quick definition of sound pressure level http://arts.ucsc.edu/EMS/Music/tech_background/TE- 06/teces_06.html

Re:Nothing left for Modders but ASS?

[f64]

althought impressive with the blue light thingy, i'm more interested in how you are going to incorporate the ass variable into a mac.

or is that a diccerent project altogether?

i'm thinking of course of this picture: http://www.buckeyemonkey.com/images/ass.jpg

Re:Who cares?

[Calibax]

Did that include the cost of the OS and equivalents of all the other software goodies in the Apple package? Or all the nickel and dime extras you need for a PC that come with a Mac. And I can't be too surprised when you compare a single processor system with a dual processor system and then declare the single processor to be less expensive. And when you say the single processor system is faster you may be technically correct, but I wonder if it will do more work; which is what really matters imho.

The myth that Apple is more expensive is just not true, as anyone who has done a serious comparison of features will tell you.

I happen to have three Athlon 64 systems and two G5 systems. I spend time on all of them as a mercenery for hire, but I believe that I'm most productive for my non-professional work on the Mac, which is where I put all my personal stuff.

Re:Who cares?

[Paladin128]

Ok... here goes... the cheapest dual Opteron system I can build, based on the 1.8ghz Opteron 244:

Mobo: MSI K8T Master2-FAR $220
CPU1: AMD Opteron 244, Retail $330
CPU1: AMD Opteron 244, Retail $330
DIMM1: 128MB ECC Registered DIMM $ 60
DIMM1: 128MB ECC Registered DIMM $ 60
HDA1: WD800JD 7200RPM 80GB SATA $ 75
VID: GeForceFX 5200 $ 55
DVD: 8X DVD+/-RW $ 90
CASE: Lian-Li PC-V1000 $200
PWR: Antec TRUE430 $ 70
MISC: keyboard, mouse, fans, etc.$ 50
=====
total $1540

So you're talking about a system that's about $1540 pre-shipping (which would probably run close to $100). And that's with the cheapest motherboard and RAM money can buy.

The dual 1.8ghz machine with otherwise similar specs from Apple is $1999. So you're paying a premium for quality system design and support, and software.

Big deal - upgrade incrementally!

[daviddennis]

If you want the machine, buy it and upgrade incrementally. There's no law that says that the second you buy your machine you have to load it up with memory and disk.

My dual 2ghz G5 performs great with the stock 512mb RAM. I've upgraded it to 3.5gb, and there is a difference (mainly in switching applications), but the system with its stock RAM configuration is perfectly usable.

My 160gb system disk lasted about 8 months before I had to buy a new 250gb to fit the empty slot. I would have gained nothing by buying the 250g disk with the system.

Apple makes fantastic computers, and I'm a fanatical Apple loyalist -- but you'll get everything cheaper if you go to Fry's(*) or shop on the net for components like memory and disk. Memory upgrades are universally about triple the going rate if you get them from Apple, and Apple's brilliant case design makes them easy to install.

Always upgrade incrementally. It will let you spread the financial pain and you'll enjoy getting the performance boost treats spread over time.

Hope that helps.

D

(*) If you're not in California, you may have never heard of Fry's. It's a huge retail store, designed by scions of a prominent supermarket family, that works basically like a supermarket for computer gear. If it exists, and it has to do with computers or salty snacks, it's probably hiding somewhere in Fry's, waiting patiently for you to discover it.

Re:Who cares?

[Paladin128]

The myth that Apple is more expensive is just not true, as anyone who has done a serious comparison of features will tell you.

Sorry, but it used to be true. The G5's are the first systems Apple offered that are a reasonable deal compared to PC's. Honestly, I'd like to see a $1000 machine based on a 1.6ghz G5. Then Apple would really turn some heads.

And Apple monitors, while excellent, are still too pricey. They need a $400 17" DVI-D only model or something.

Look at the iMacs... a 1ghz G4 with a 15" LCD for $1300? I could get a MUCH faster Athlon64 system for that with more RAM and disk space, plus it would be upgradable.

Yeah, you're paying for the software and the "experience", but frankly, most people don't care enough to plunk down the extra cash, and they still have to pay another $200 (or more) for MS Office when cheaper PC's come with it for free.

Re:Who cares?

[wavedeform]

To that you'd have to add the cost of your time to assemble it and install software. I don't know about you, but my consulting rate is high enough that the Mac is already cheaper when assembly time is factored in.

You wouldn't get a warranty with the Opteron system, not that you get a great one with the Apple, but it's better than nothing.

OS X is definitely worth something, although if you're coming from a Linux POV you might think that OS's should be free. I'm willing to pay for some ease of use and elegance.

For my money, the Mac is a better deal, and arguably cheaper.

Apple LCD promo ends soon?

[johnpaul191]

the rumor sites picked up on the LCD promo ending 2 days before WWDC (end of June) so they guessed Displays and PowerMacs maybe at the same time....
they also noted the fine print of the promo listed display by part number, so if a metallic 23inch came out sooner, it would not qualify for the discount per say.

though looking at the Apple site now i am only seeing a $500 off 23inch LCD with G5 purchase.... so i dont know if i am missing it of only the 23inch is on sale.

Re:Not Much Here

[TTop]

Tom Boger, Apple's Director of Power Mac Product Marketing:
"All-in-all, no we are not getting to 3GHz anytime soon"

yes, It is!

[Viceice]

Excuse me, but it IS a heat pipe and it's NOT pump driven.

FYI, I did RTFA and see this:

This system provides a continuous flow of thermally conductive fluid that transfers heat from the processors as they work harder. The heated fluid then flows through a radiant grille, where air passing over cooling fins returns the fluid to its original temperature.

That is clearly how a heat pipe works.

Furthermore, in relation to your question to another poster:

Mac OS X dynamically adjusts the flow of the fluid...

To control the flow of the fluid you would need a pump. You could put a valve in it, but that makes no sence, because a heat pipe adjusts it's own flow, passively, based on the heat load.

They did do it without a pump. And it's still a heat pipe. Heres how:

Mac OS X dynamically adjusts the flow of the fluid and the speed of the fans based on temperature.

By adjusting the speed of the fan that blows air through the radiant grille, they can control the cooling efficiency of the radiant grille.

So with the dynamically changed airflow, which in turn changes the temperature, the result will be a change in the pressure in the area covered by radiant grille within the closed system. This will cause a change in the speed at which the fluid flows.

Hence, Mac OS X dynamically adjusts the flow of the fluid

Read it properly next time and apply some common sense... Oh wait, this is Slashdot..

Re:Who cares?

[dcarey]

Honestly, I'd like to see a $1000 machine based on a 1.6ghz G5. Then Apple would really turn some heads.

The g5 iMacs are on schedule to be released in 2 weeks at the WWDC. Is this what you're asking for?

You know that being said, I'm not sure if I ever care if Apple's prices are cheapened or not. I mean, think of it in this analogy - I love BMWs, always have. I am making a crazy attempt to save for one which will or will not ever come to fruition. But do I want BMW to come out with a $16,000 car (mini coopers do not count) that skimps on some of the quality? No, that, my friend, is not a BMW.

Part of the price included in Apple's products is research and development for its sleek designs. I would not have it any other way.

Yeah, you're paying for the software and the "experience", but frankly, most people don't care enough to plunk down the extra cash,

I do, and have since 1993. There are many that feel the same. It's just a matter of preference, there is no "correct" computer purchase.

Re:Who cares?

[MaestroRC]

You wouldn't get a warranty with the Opteron system, not that you get a great one with the Apple, but it's better than nothing.

Apple has by far the best warranty experience that I have ever encountered. All systems come with 90 days phone support ("I can't get OSX to do this" or "my machine is doing this") and a full year of hardware support, over the phone ("shit broke"). I have a Powerbook G4 I bought in August of last year, and the 2 times I had to call support on it (once for the screen, it was a known manufacturing issue with the 15"s at the time, the other to fix the casing that wasn't reassembled properly, just a bit loose was all, nothing major) I was on the phone for a total of less than 10 minutes, calling during "peak" times, and was on hold for less than 30 seconds before I was talking to a Mac Genious (Apple's tech people, not someone just reading off of a screen prompt). When I got off the phone, a box was on it's way to me and arrived the next day to send it in for repair, and I got the machine back a day and a half later. No computer company that I know of, except for business-grade support can match that. And Apple's AppleCare warranty, which extends phone support and hardware warranty to 3 years, is only ~$250, which is cheaper than about any level of support that anyone else offers, and for a hell of a lot better service

Re:Who cares?

[jdbo]

you left out firewire 400/800 card and modem (don't believe that these are on the mobo).

does this support digitial audio i/o?

how is WiFI supported? (can it use a card, or does it have to take up a PCI slot?)

how much to add software equivalent to the following:
iLife (includes iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, iDVD and GarageBand),
Art Directors Toolkit, EarthLink TotalAccess 2004, GraphicConverter, OmniGraffle, OmniOutliner, QuickBooks for Mac New User Edition, Zinio Reader, Mail, iChat AV, Safari, Sherlock, Address Book, QuickTime, iSync, iCal, DVD Player, Classic environment, Xcode Developer Tools

esp: iMovie, iDVD, GarageBand, QuickBooks

also, if you're using windows that cost should be added in

also, there's the warrantee and online service with the G5.

finally, you left out shipping costs (unless you can get those prices locally)

this narrows the gap somewhat.

Re:Nothing left for Modders but ASS?

[skinfitz]

Yeah - SURE it is. How do you explain the dual G5 with the blue light in the background then?

Re:Not Much Here

[Paulrothrock]

Steve was probably misinformed by IBM. They made claims of their miraculous fabrication plant that hasn't lived up to expectations. They can't make enough processors, and the errors in their new process makes the ones that get out the door expensive. Once it spools up, prices will drop and speeds will increase.

I use my Mac for actual work. I'm waiting for the PS3 to buy a console, and I've even put an Ethernet port next to my cable jack for it. Until then, I'm happy to play WarCraft III and UT2K4 in my spare time. They run wonderfully on my Powerbook. Through college I didn't have any trouble finding games to waste lots and lots of my time.

I would rather buy third party RAM than have Apple's profit margin cut. It's that 30% that allows them to put so much into hardware development. Sure, a $1600 G5 would be nice, but if it hurts development and bundled software (iLife is worth a whole lot more than $400), I will be patient.

I'm sure you could pick up a refurb, but that would involve extra effort, and you don't want to actually have to look for products, you just want them to be available.