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New Mac System Specs
xyankee writes " Think Secret appears to be dishing more of the dirt that Apple loves to hate so much, this time dropping details on updated Power Mac G5, iMac G5, and eMac systems soon to be released. Looks like speed bumps all around: Power Macs get to 2.7GHz, iMacs to 2GHz, and eMacs to 1.42GHz. Video cards and SuperDrives are also upgraded."
Nice to see the iMac getting a more decent video card. (Yes, I know it probably 'sux0rs for gam3z' but honestly, a mediocre gaming card these days will slay practically any other reasonable computing task. It makes me laugh when you see the gamers dis something like, say, a nVidia 5200. That card sucks rocks! but it will also do realtime previews in Motion on uncompressed DV. That used to take some heavy hardware. Just sayin'.)
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
THere's nothing that says they can't publish the information. They only can't refuse to reveal their sources who may have violated NDA contracts.
If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
No it wouldn't. There's little to no benefits from 64-bit computing on a portable. The G5 was built for machines that can draw a fair amount of wattage. A G5 PowerBook would be hotter, larger, and more power hungry than a machine based on Freescale's 8641 series, a branch off the G4 family.
The only limiting factor of the G4 today is the memory bus, which Freescale has to keep compatible with the ancient 60x bus because of their other clients (like Cisco). The 8641 is a G4 with a totally rebuilt memory controller onboard and RapidIO, an alternative to HyperTransport.
You'd be happier with an 8641-based PowerBook than a 970-based PowerBook. Trust me.
I do think Apple will _call_ the 8641-based laptops 'G5's though, they'll say it has to do with the 'generation of the technology, not a specific type of CPU'.
"Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
The judge did not tell them they couldn't publish the information. The judge can't tell them that. They never signed an NDA with Apple, and every once in awhile, the first ammendment actually means something in this country.
Actually, the UTSA does restrict the freedom of speech and has been upheld as constitutional thus far. As have slander, liable, copyright, trademark, military secrets, etc. laws. Apple has just never sought an injunction, although one would almost certainly be awarded. I think it is because Apple does not actually mind rumors sites. It does however, mind employees breaking their NDA's
It's got to be good for Apple's marketing that their MHz ratings are properly competing with modern PCs nowadays. The whole "MHz myth" argument always sounded a bit weak, even though I knew intellectually that it was a fair point.
Power Mac G5s
Dual-2GHz: 160GB
Dual-2.3GHz, Dual-2.7GHz: 250GB
iMac G5s
1.8GHz: 160GB
2.0 GHz: 160GB or 250GB
eMacs
Combo Drive: 80GB
SuperDrive: 160GB
If I am not mistaken, these are all with one single hard drive.
Imho, it seems like a generally better practice to have, say, two separate 100GB hard drives than one 200GB one - even if it's more expensive.
Granted, I'm a non-Mac person so I'm not very familiar with the ins-and-outs of MacOS file management. But for Windows/Linux I like having actual separate hard drives, not just partitions. One smallish drive for OSes (or 2+, one for each), one massive drive for multimedia (^_^), and another drive for all the other stuff, like work/school/programming or whathaveyou. Or, depending, maybe just partitions on one drive for all that data (only so many slots).
But anyhow, my main point, isn't there a reliability issue with having only one (relatively) massive harddrive? Wouldn't you be better off having multiple, smaller harddrives? Or would you just backup all your data on separate, external mediums anyways?
I'm interested to know what Mac users think.
The reason we're not seeing a Mac mini G5 or a PowerBook G5 is because the G5 chip has some severe thermal issues. You could have either, but in both cases you'd need a massive fan to keep the chip cool. The iMac is about the limit of how tightly you can cram a G5 into a case without worrying about the thing overheating and turning your machine into a desktop hibachi.
You're really not gaining much with 64-bit quite yet. Even with Tiger, the Cocoa and Carbon libraries are still 32-bit, meaning that unless you have someone writing a 64-bit backend that interfaces with the 32-bit UI, most apps won't take advantage of the extra address space. In fact, for some applications, 64-bit addressing actually slows things down - why allocate a pointer that's 64-bits wide unless you need to do so?
get an Athlon64, FX, Xeon, or Opteron inside a Cappuccino PC and have all the components (video, sound, firewire, usb, superdrive, bluetooth, wireless, memory, hard drive) to fit and work nicely, in an under-$1000 price range, and with no heat issues, and then we'll talk.
otherwise, buy a powermac G5 for $1499 or an older G5 on ebay for about $1000.
I mean, i've got the 3 slots, and I consider myself a power user, but they remain empty because all the ports I need are already on the computer, or it's cheaper/easier for me to simply buy an external device. I've got 2 FW enclosures and an external nice soundcard on FW.
I know it's not just me, either, since the last Windows computer I put together only used PCI slots for a FW card and a fancy soundcard. If anything, the video push going on will get FW on PC mainboards more steadily, and, well, most people don't need fancy soundcards either. I know shopping around there was always the "I need 6 PCI slots" crowd, but I would've been perfectly happy with just 2.
It's almost like, the sooner PCI is sidelined, the sooner mainboards will come with better equipment installed and the sooner external devices with essentially more functionality will become common. But now I'm dreaming...
Have you not been following the case? Ciarelli actively solicits Apple employees to break their confidentiality agreements by offering them a promise of anonymity. He then publishes the information they leak to him.
He's breaking the law six ways from Sunday. This has never been in dispute.
Knowingly revealing (and soliciting, no less) trade secrets is in fact illegal and not protected as 1st amendment speech.
*** For a better tommorow, change your life today ***
the best thing about this has to be the default amount of RAM. currently the iMac's only come with 256. And Apple is damn'd expensive with upgrading this (yes, I know you can buy 3rd party and install it yourself). Think Secret is reporting that the entire iMac line will start with 512... i can only hope it is one dimm
If you look at it statistically, you have better MTBF on a single drive, than you do on two...
for example, 1 drive = 500,000 hrs mtbf
1/500,000 + 1/500,000 = 2/500,000 or 1/250,000
so two drives give your a MTBF or 250,000 hrs for your drive subsystem.
Also given, MTBF is more useful for calculating the amount of failures that you will see over a large population of drives as opposed to your single machine experience.
Using things such as RAID does not put a dent in your drive MTBF, but it does make a huge difference in your data preservation!