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New Mac System Specs

Posted by Zonk on from the they-know-how-to-bring-the-shiny dept.

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."

120 of 650 comments (clear)

  1. Slow learners? by TripMaster+Monkey · · Score: 5, Interesting


    If my memory serves, a judge passed a ruling on this a little while ago. Shouldn't they be at least slowing down a bit while this is resolved? And if not, why didn't someone give some sort of cease-and desist order?

    (Disclaimer: IANAL, and watching them on TV gives me a headache.)

    --
    ____

    ~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey

    1. Re:Slow learners? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I pretty much believe that Think Secret is deservedly screwed, but I also think it would be silly (at this point) to "slow down" as they have assserted from the beginning that they're not doing anything wrong.

    2. Re:Slow learners? by amliebsch · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.
    3. Re:Slow learners? by Omnifarious · · Score: 3, Informative

      From what I understand, the judge forced Thinksecret to become an informant. 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.

      --
      Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
    4. Re:Slow learners? by 99BottlesOfBeerInMyF · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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

    5. Re:Slow learners? by amliebsch · · Score: 4, Informative
      Actually, the UTSA does restrict the freedom of speech and has been upheld as constitutional thus far.

      Er...the UTSA is not a law. It is a model statute. It only applies where and to the extent to which it has been adopted. It also usually requires that the publisher know that the source of information is violating the law by disclosing it, essentially making the publisher a party to a crime.

      --
      If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
    6. Re:Slow learners? by As+Seen+On+TV · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Actually, there is. In California, which is the controlling jurisdiction, it's against the law to knowingly publish trade secrets. Unannounced product details are definitely trade secrets.

      Not to mention the fact that Nick Ciarelli is apparently still actively engaged in tortious interference.

    7. Re:Slow learners? by 99BottlesOfBeerInMyF · · Score: 2, Insightful

      It also usually requires that the publisher know that the source of information is violating the law by disclosing it, essentially making the publisher a party to a crime.

      Has anyone suggested otherwise in this case? Actually I believe the wording is slightly more open, and includes cases where the publisher should know what they are publishing is a trade secret. In any case, a mac rumors site run by a ivy leaguer almost certainly knows that what they are publishing is a trade secret.

    8. Re:Slow learners? by As+Seen+On+TV · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

    9. Re:Slow learners? by wtmcgee · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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 ***
    10. Re:Slow learners? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny
      Shame on you and your parents for having had the coitus...

      A comma might have really helped in there.

    11. Re:Slow learners? by MoneyT · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The judge actualy specifically said the rumor sites could continue to speculate and publish rumors, but that they had to turn over their sources in the cases in question. Apple still has to plug the leaks on their own, the sites just can't protect the leak.

      --
      T Money
      World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
    12. Re:Slow learners? by grimharvest · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Now why would trade secrets be protected so extensively when journalists are free to publish governments secrets (Daniel Ellsberg) and then of course you have some dipshit like Nixon trying to discredit him. Once a secret's out, it's out. Tough shit.

    13. Re:Slow learners? by As+Seen+On+TV · · Score: 3, Informative

      No, that's what his own lawyer says as well. Ciarelli's position since the beginning has been that YES, he did indeed break the law, but that he should be exempt because California has a (stupidly misguided) "shield law" that gives certain special classes of people certain protections.

      I was actually kinda hoping that this case would inspire either the court or the legislature to get rid of that absurdly unconstitutional law, but it doesn't look like that will happen. Instead, the judge just declared that whether the "shield law" is constitutional or not, Ciarelli isn't protected by it.

      So the facts of the case are not in dispute.

  2. No word yet... by daveschroeder · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ...on whether these use the already-known-to-exist IBM PowerPC 970MP, a dual core version of the G5. This could mean that we'd have >2.5GHz dual-dual core Power Mac systems.

    Further, an update to Apple's CHUD tools (subsequently pulled) had clear references to quad processor capability, as well as references to the 970MP, and the single core 970GX.

    What could essentially be called "quad G5" systems (including Xserves) are just a matter of time. And with dual >1GHz frontside busses and PC3200 DDR RAM (8GB max in Power Mac, 16GB max (also ECC) in Xserve), these machines are nothing to sneeze at.

    What will be interesting to see is when the Power Macs will have PCI-X and Blu-Ray. From the most current round of rumors, it looks like that's still another upgrade away...

    1. Re:No word yet... by hunterx11 · · Score: 4, Informative

      PowerMacs already have PCI-X. You're thinking of PCI-E. Though I really think somebody out there must be a numbskull when we have PCI Extended and PCI Express.

      --
      English is easier said than done.
    2. Re:No word yet... by zhiwenchong · · Score: 5, Funny

      Boy this reminds me of DOS days:

      XMS - eXtended Memory Specification
      EMS - Expanded Memory Specification - uses page frames

      Confused the heck out of most non-techies....

      And then we had:
      USB 2.0 Full-speed (12 Mbps)
      USB 2.0 Hi-speed (480 Mbps)

      And:

      Victorinox - Original Swiss Army Knife
      Wenger - Genuine Swiss Army Knife

    3. Re:No word yet... by FuturePastNow · · Score: 4, Informative

      PCI-X is really designed for servers: RAID cards, gigabit ethernet, fibre channel, things like that. It's just an extension of the original PCI, to wring more life out of it until PCIe was ready, so it's unlikely that more uses will be found for it.

      PCI-express is, on paper, good for everything. The x16 slots are for video cards, the x8 slots for RAID and gigabit, the x1 slots are for everything else, from new ports to sound cards to whatever. Or they will be, anyway; I've yet to see a PCIe device other than a video card.

      People stick all kinds of things in slots (there's a joke there, somewhere). With more stuff being integrated into computers, it's become sort of a power user thing, though, which is why only the Powermac on the Mac side has the slots.

      --
      Give a man fire, and you warm him for the night. Set a man on fire, and you warm him for the rest of his life.
    4. Re:No word yet... by doggkruse · · Score: 5, Informative

      Tiger is supposed to include this feature:

      Fine Grain Locking (SMP scalability)
      Enjoy improved performance and scalability.

      see http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/unix/

    5. Re:No word yet... by EggyToast · · Score: 4, Insightful
      Yeah, obviously there'll be more stuff coming out when it's more widely available on a major platform (the PowerMac is a small subset of even the Mac community). But I totally agree with you that PCI slots are becoming more and more a power-user only interface. Casual users like external stuff so they don't need to muck about on the internals, plenty of ports are getting stuck on the mainboard or have connectors to the outside world included, and there's less that people really need PCI for.

      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...

    6. Re:No word yet... by algae · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Actually, the 1x PCI-E should be plenty for gigabit ethernet, especially since it's a point-to-point instead of shared bus; there'll be no contention with other high-bandwidth devices.

      I'd imagine 4 or 8x would be pretty nice for a multiple (quad?) Gig-E card though :D

      --
      Causation can cause correlation
    7. Re:No word yet... by xutopia · · Score: 2, Interesting

      seems as though Victorinox is the first but that Wenger later became the people who produced the knives used by the army. Victorinox is the "original" right?

    8. Re:No word yet... by EggyToast · · Score: 2, Interesting

      There's lots of options nowadays that only use the external "breakout box" and connect using something like Firewire. There are pros and cons of both forms, but they're a good example of how PCI is a limited format, not for bandwidth but for size. You can't stick a lot of stuff on just a PCI card, and by forcing things onto a breakout box or dongle card, why not simply use a standardized high-bandwidth external protocol like Firewire?

    9. Re:No word yet... by Tumbleweed · · Score: 3, Interesting

      What will be interesting to see is when the Power Macs will have PCI-X and Blu-Ray.

      I think someone else has already correction your confusion about PCI-X and PCIe, so I'll comment on the Blu-Ray thingy. Sony has been making noises about helping avoid the format war between Blu-Ray and HD-DVD, so I think Apple would be making a _huge_ mistake going with Blu-Ray just as Sony's about to cave. Let's hope they're not that dumb, and that they simply use NEC's dual layer DVD+-RW drives.

    10. Re:No word yet... by MoonBuggy · · Score: 3, Interesting

      New Power Macs (don't know when it started, but I got my current machine mid March this year) have dual layer burners included, but not functional.

      Apple calls it a "PIONEER DVD-RW DVR-117D" which is referred to almost nowhere, but on the physical drive it has another model number (I forget what) which is a dual layer drive. Many people have speculated that since Tiger supports dual layer burning from the Finder but Panther does not, the drives will automagically open themselves into dual layer mode when it's installed, or from a firmware update shortly afterwards. I guess I'm gonna find out when my copy arrives.

    11. Re:No word yet... by wirelessbuzzers · · Score: 2, Informative

      I know, don't feed the trolls...

      First, Apple didn't "steal" Darwin. It was based on BSD-licensed open source and they use it legally, and furthermore they maintain it as open source (which they are not required to do, but it costs them nothing so they do it anyway). The BSD community benefits from Apple's work in Darwin in several places, which doesn't hurt Apple because they don't compete with BSD.

      Second, the best part of OS X is not the UNIX part. The kernel is stable and fast enough, and the BSD base system is OK, but really, Linux and Solaris are better for UNIXy things. What Apple wrote by themselves (and bought from NeXT, which was owned by their co-founder) was a GUI that is much better than any other GUI in any operating system, and a development environment to match it. This was never open source, and Apple did not "steal" it.

      Finally, Mach and Darwin do not have fine-grained locking, and thus they suck on SMP. That's why Apple is adding fined-grain locking to Tiger, so their kernel synch isn't so monolithic. They're not stealing this either, they're writing it themselves, and it's possible that the BSD community will benefit from this, too (not sure how much it will only affect Mach stuff).

      Apple has stolen plenty of designs (cough Watson cough), but this is not one of them.

      --
      I hereby place the above post in the public domain.
    12. Re:No word yet... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      And:

      Jessica Simpson
      Ashley Simpson

    13. Re:No word yet... by javaxman · · Score: 2, Interesting
      . Sony has been making noises about helping avoid the format war between Blu-Ray and HD-DVD, so I think Apple would be making a _huge_ mistake going with Blu-Ray just as Sony's about to cave.

      #1 - Sony's not about to cave.

      #2 - Apple's already backing Blu-Ray. Check out the list of companies. They aren't alone.

      Sony is sure to put Blu-ray drives in their PS3. They're equally as likely to release a bunch of movies in this format. They may have some olive branch to offer the HD-DVD association, but they're not saying they're stopping BD-DVD to create a single standard. Here's the story you may be talking about. From what miniscule information is there, it may just be that they're doing either (a) a PR move to make it look like they tried, or (b) offering up their tech with some modifications, pricing, or other tricky business. Either way, it's a pretty safe bet that Blu-ray is going to end up in PS3's at the very least, and it may just be Sony saying "we think we've already won, how about you save face by playing nice with us, we'll call Blu-ray HD-DVD if you like".

      In any event, it'll be well over a year before Apple has the option of putting a Blu-ray disk reader in a machine, let alone a writer, so they simply will use dual-layer DVD+-RW drives for some time.

  3. Smaller portable needs. by BWJones · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I am still waiting for a subnotebook from Apple. My 12in Powerbook is nice, but what I would really like is a subnotebook, perhaps even an Newton replacement. I've made an argument for Apple's reentry into the "PDA" market here. If such a device could be made, I am sure it would have huge sales. The market is moving towards smaller devices that are even more portable and there are folks that are clamoring for it. Mark Cuban also makes a compelling argument for smaller portable devices here.

    Don't get me wrong....Apple needs to keep its Pro level line on top of things. In fact, I will likely be ordering a new G5 to replace my dual 2.0 G5 if they are in fact announced, but as the numbers are showing after Apple's financial conference yesterday, portables are where the market is at.

    --
    Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
    1. Re:Smaller portable needs. by Renaud · · Score: 3, Funny

      In fact, I will likely be ordering a new G5 to replace my dual 2.0 G5 if they are in fact announced,

      Wow, I'm curious to know what kind of needs you have that would justify this...
      Sheer gear lust ?

    2. Re:Smaller portable needs. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      Girls ofcourse ...

    3. Re:Smaller portable needs. by BWJones · · Score: 3, Informative

      Wow, I'm curious to know what kind of needs you have that would justify this...

      Scientific computing would be the answer. When decisions are made that depend on calculations, the sooner those calculations can be completed, the better. I am not yet at the point where I need my own cluster, but when calculations start to eat up hours per day or even whole days, you start to think about these things.

      We are starting a project however, that will likely need a small cluster. I am thinking 5-10 Xserves would cut it for image analysis and dataset construction.

      Sheer gear lust ?

      Well, hellyeaa. It's Apple Computer we are talking about.

      --
      Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
    4. Re:Smaller portable needs. by daviddennis · · Score: 3, Informative

      Apple Motion and Apple Final Cut Pro always can use more hardware thrown at them. I'm working on a long form project where quad processors would really help annoying multiple hour rendering times on FCP.

      The real-time rendering really helps with most things, but it still doesn't work for layering video at different sizes, exactly what I'm doing :-(.

      (I know the original poster made a reply already, but I wanted to point out that he's far from the only person who can use serious power).

      D

    5. Re:Smaller portable needs. by burns210 · · Score: 3, Informative

      "I am not yet at the point where I need my own cluster, but when calculations start to eat up hours per day or even whole days, you start to think about these things."

      You may know this already but with Xgrid being built into OS X proper, buying a second Powermac could be used as a ad hoc 2-node cluster. If money isn't a problem, getting 2 of the new Powermacs, one as your workstation and both serving as grid nodes with Xgrid may be your best bet.

    6. Re:Smaller portable needs. by McGiraf · · Score: 3, Funny

      The next "Newton" will probably be a souped up iPod with a large screen. ( do not tell anybody where you got that from)

    7. Re:Smaller portable needs. by As+Seen+On+TV · · Score: 2, Insightful

      If such a device could be made, I am sure it would have huge sales.

      Well, that's kind of the thing, isn't it? On the one hand, we have people like yourself saying "I'm sure it will sell!" On the other hand, we have extremely highly paid experts in market research telling us that a product like that will never sell.

      The fact that you want it doesn't mean it'll be a successful product.

    8. Re:Smaller portable needs. by Johnny+Mozzarella · · Score: 4, Informative
      Check out these sales figures for the second quarter: Keynote Presentation

      In spite of the recent trackpad isses, PowerBooks are selling like iPods(yes, hot cakes have been replaced by iPods).

    9. Re:Smaller portable needs. by UWC · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Every time I'm in CompUSA I have to take a few minutes to marvel at the tiny Sony subnotebook (I guess it's branded as a Vaio of some sort). No optical drive, of course, because it's maybe half an inch thick when closed, but a surprisingly nice screen (I forget if it's 800x600, 1024x768, or something in between with a different aspect ratio), full size keyboard that extends to all edges, and a 1GHz Pentium M. The pointing device is a Thinkpad style nub because there's no room for a touchpad (even the mouse buttons are curved a little around the edge of the case in the half inch beyond the space bar). It can't weigh much more than 1 pound. I fear I might have bought one by now if it was $1000 instead of $3000. I'm still paying off a bulky $2800 desktop replacement from a couple years ago... though I've bought a Mac mini (and the obligatory 512MB RAM and putty knife... and a new LCD...) in the interim and am enjoying it.

      --
      Honor Among Slackers. A veri
    10. Re:Smaller portable needs. by Digital+Pizza · · Score: 5, Funny
      I spend so much time using my 12 inch in bed, often holding it up above my head.

      Braggart.

      --
      We apologize for the inconvenience.
    11. Re:Smaller portable needs. by As+Seen+On+TV · · Score: 2, Funny

      Three totally non-binding committments to buy a product with imaginary specifications at an impossible price point from anonymous Internet users? Let me get marketing on the phone immediately!

    12. Re:Smaller portable needs. by sakusha · · Score: 2, Interesting

      You apparently haven't read the rumors on the next releases of FCP and Motion. They are rumored to support XGrid rendering, so you can slave together whole render farms of Macs for additional processing power.

    13. Re:Smaller portable needs. by elemental23 · · Score: 2, Funny

      Hey, it worked in the late '90s!

      --
      I like my women like my coffee... pale and bitter.
    14. Re:Smaller portable needs. by NivenHuH · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Or.. for the time being, use this:

      http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/xgrid/

      --
      Just when you make it idiotproof, some idiot builds a better idiot.
  4. Heh, speed bumps... by wolfemi1 · · Score: 4, Funny
    "Looks like speed bumps all around"

    You mean, like, to keep them all from going too fast?

  5. Cool! by jargoone · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I decided a couple weeks ago that I wanted to Switch(tm). Tiger release gets announced, I'm good there. Now I have another reason I have to wait for! It's all good though, the Dual 1.8 is the one I want, and I expect the refurb prices to drop like a rock once the new ones come out. Anyone know if this will be the case?

    1. Re:Cool! by brainnolo · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Price will drop but not as substantially as you may think, usually there aren't big price drops on Apple's hardware (you can see that even on the second-hand market they retain much of their value).

  6. No mac mini update by LiENUS · · Score: 2, Informative

    Too bad there is no speedup for the Mac mini yet, I'd love to see a Mac mini with a base G5. However it does look like they may begin putting dual core processors out in this update.

    1. Re:No mac mini update by toddestan · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Too bad there is no speedup for the Mac mini yet, I'd love to see a Mac mini with a base G5. However it does look like they may begin putting dual core processors out in this update.

      My guess is that you would not be able to get a G5 into a mini without it sounding like one of those SFF PC's with an Intel Prescott in it. The G5 is just too hot.

      A dual core G4 Mini would be interesting though.

    2. Re:No mac mini update by Bronz · · Score: 2, Insightful

      A G5 Mac Mini doesn't make any sense. Apple is still loosely applying themselves to the Good/Better/Best lineup. The Mac Mini is good. Putting a G5 in it would make it better, but then there would be no good. It would only serve to confuse customers -- a confusion that a lot of people simple accept on the Wintel side of things. I am saddened when I see a non-technical couple shopping for a laptop at Best Buy as they are presented with dozens of choices that -- in their eyes -- are only seperated by price.

      People have traditionally held that Apple hardware is expensive, and it was hard to argue against that for a while, but it is also well built and carries a unique (if not pleasurable) user experience. Don't under-estimate the soothing nature of walking into an Apple store and being presented only with Good/Better/Best. To that end, there always has to be a "good" option. Hence no Mac Mini G5.

    3. Re:No mac mini update by chasingporsches · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

  7. emac? by smittyoneeach · · Score: 4, Funny

    just an 's' shy of immaculate...

    --
    Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
    1. Re:emac? by SmokeHalo · · Score: 2, Funny

      Wouldn't that be emaculate?

      --
      I'm not good in groups. It's difficult to work in a group when you're omnipotent. - Q
    2. Re:emac? by ch-chuck · · Score: 3, Funny

      and in their ongoing efforts to please everyone, I hear they're coming out with a 'vimac'

      --
      try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
    3. Re:emac? by MonoSynth · · Score: 2, Funny

      Maybe it helps if you buy two of them?

    4. Re:emac? by John_Booty · · Score: 3, Funny

      Wouldn't that be emaculate?

      No, he's talking about the text editor, emacs. So the word you want is emasculate, at least for vi users.

      --

      OtakuBooty.com: Smart, funny, sexy nerds.
  8. This'll be my first mac by m_dob · · Score: 2, Interesting

    My XP laptop's dying, and I've been looking for a new computer. Had ThinkSecret not put this rumor out, I may have gone for another windows machine. Now it'll be a mac for sure.

  9. They've ditched the plumbing/new iMac video by thatguywhoiam · · Score: 5, Insightful
    ... on the old dual 2.5 G5. Thats a good thing I think. As impressive as the system was, there's something (irrational) in my mind that just gets nervous about things like that. I'm worried that the... juice... will leak out onto the mobo.

    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.
    1. Re:They've ditched the plumbing/new iMac video by cyberwiz01 · · Score: 3, Informative
      ... on the old dual 2.5 G5. Thats a good thing I think. As impressive as the system was, there's something (irrational) in my mind that just gets nervous about things like that. I'm worried that the... juice... will leak out onto the mobo.

      I don't understand why people are so paranoid about water-cooling.As long as the hoses are clamped well and the user doesnt do anything stupid like waving sharp objects near the tubing, there should not be any problems. Apple uses a special mixture that is non corrosive and kills algae so there's no need to worry about that. Besides a good quality pump can last just as long as a fan 90 there are no reliability issues either. People need to stop being so paranoid about water cooling.

    2. Re:They've ditched the plumbing/new iMac video by As+Seen+On+TV · · Score: 2, Informative

      Neither. It's filled Delphi 151 Heat Transfer Fluid which is mostly propylene glycol.

    3. Re:They've ditched the plumbing/new iMac video by thatguywhoiam · · Score: 2, Insightful
      I don't understand why people are so paranoid about water-cooling.As long as the hoses are clamped well...

      Well, I did say it was an irrational fear. :)

      More to the point, there's something a little hackish about needing liquid cooling for a desktop CPU. Its neat that they pulled it off, esp. in a production-line unit, but it was pretty obvious that this was the only way they were even going to get halfway to the promised '3Ghz by year end' (which still hasn't happened. Shades of Moto.) I would prefer (and in fact went with) a slightly slower part that didn't require elaborate cooling that I need to pay for.. dual 1.8 in my case. Just a personal opinion.

      --
      If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
    4. Re:They've ditched the plumbing/new iMac video by noewun · · Score: 3, Funny
      Ah.. so this means no drinkey?

      Well, you can drink it once. . .

      --
      I am a believer of momentum and curves.
    5. Re:They've ditched the plumbing/new iMac video by mrklin · · Score: 2, Informative
      People need to stop being so paranoid about water cooling.

      According to Appleinsider.com, Delphi's estimated MTBF (meantime between failure) for these liquid cooling CPU units is only 2 to 2.5 years. This is a primary driver for Apple to wanting to move to cooler PowerPC chips so that they can avoid having liquid coolers and avoiding having to fix these water-cooling unit en masse starting in 2006.

  10. Midplane by akira69 · · Score: 5, Informative

    So, do you think they fixed the midplane capacitor issue? I've had to replace one already, and the replacement didn't work... I'm still trying to get my 20" iMac working again. Any insight on this? I really hope they redesigned the board!

  11. new ibooks too... by remove+office · · Score: 4, Informative

    new ibooks are also expected to be shipping around the same time, if not a few days later.

  12. No Mac mini upgrade? by OlivierB · · Score: 5, Funny

    Looks like all the systems are beefing up the Video Cards to support the latest and the best from Tiger (i.e. at least 64Mb and programmable GPU required to support core image).

    As much as I like my Mac mini, I am torn apart wishing they would either#:
    a) upgrade their video cars to something like an ATI 9600 with 64 Mb of Ram
    b) don't change anything so I won't feel the *URGE* to upgrade to a Higher Spec Mac Mini.

    ARgg, Apple has embraced drug dealer like methods; I am now hooked and I won't be able to quench my thirst until something else hits my desk!

    --
    Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity
    1. Re:No Mac mini upgrade? by John_Booty · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Also, the amount of heat generated by an ATI 9600 would be considerably higher than that of the GPU that ships with the Mac Mini at the moment.

      I don't know the exact thermals involved, but I'm not sure an appropriately-clocked 9600 would necessarily put out too much heat. I have a fanless 9600 in my Shuttle that produces very little heat.

      Going from a 9200 to an equivalently-clocked 9600 (or a higher clocked 9600 on a smaller die process?) would give you more performance in the form of a wider data path and more advanced GPU programmability. /speculation

      --

      OtakuBooty.com: Smart, funny, sexy nerds.
  13. eMacs? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    But that is a totally different operating system! Oh, wait ...

  14. the video editor in me is twitching and dreaming by J+Barnes · · Score: 3, Funny


    iDrool.

    --
    :::: the insomniac's digest
  15. YES!! by commodoresloat · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Bring back the eMate plastic clamshell casing, stick a G4 in it, and sell it for $350. I love the eMate, but I can't figure out any way to get the information I type on it into my Mac. So it collects dust these days.... The form factor is perfect. Sure, they can make it white instead of ugly dark green (personally I like the green), but if Apple comes out with something of that form factor at a reasonable price, I will buy 2 of them!!

    1. Re:YES!! by himself · · Score: 2, Funny

      >
      > Bring back the eMate plastic clamshell casing, stick a G4 in it, and sell it for $350.
      >
      *teenybopper squeal* Oh please oh please oh please!!

      (Whoops, gotta go get a dry chair from the conference room. Be right back...)

  16. Re:Power Book? by PaxTech · · Score: 2, Interesting
    I'd settle for a dual G4 Powerbook. My old Powerbook went off lease a few months ago and now I'm waiting to buy a new one until either a G5 or a dual G4 comes out.

    And waiting..

    And waiting..

    --
    All movements for social change begin as missions, evolve into businesses, and end up as rackets.
  17. document tracing technologies by Fox_1 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Two eMac models, code-named Q86J
    I remember reading about different techniques to track leaks of top secret documents from the CIA, one method was to use synonyms of different words in each copy of the document and see if the leaks used the same synonyms in their materials. While I doubt the code-name is an example of this, I wonder in Apple's quest to track it's leaks what kind of internal tracking/security features it's using for documents about new products.

    --
    The rock, the vulture, and the chain
    1. Re:document tracing technologies by jcuffe · · Score: 5, Informative

      The canary trap IIRC. Tom Clancy made a big deal about that with his main character throughout most of his novels. Apparently the way it works was to make many different copies of the documents, using a program to vary the punctuation and word choice. It's a remarkably elegant solution, and if Apple isn't doing this now, I don't know what the hell their problem is.

    2. Re:document tracing technologies by BitGeek · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I've been in exactly this situation. I used to work for Compaq. I knew the product by one code name, my boss used a different one when talking to her boss. Her boss used a third when talking to his boss, and the board knew it by yet a fourth code name. Each variation of the product had its own code name as well. Furthermore, the hardware people and the software people on this product used different sets of code names- so when talking to my peers I had to use another term for it than when talking to my boss.

      Granted, I pretty quickly learned all five code names because its damn hard to use two different names and keep straight which name to use with which person.

      But this was in the early 90s. That QJ86 looks like an identifier that narrows the leak to a group... or it could be that the leaker made it up to avoid being discovered, and that's just a redherring and Apple has no product with a code name like that.

      --
      Yeah, and you guys panned the ipod too: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23/ 1816257
  18. Micro ATX G5, BYOKDM by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The exclusion of keyboard, display and mouse makes the Mac Mini a great value, and the forced repurchase of KD&M makes the iMac a bad value. Customers accept it with laptops for the sake of compactness, but not desktops. Apple should bring out a Micro ATX desktop with the same specs of the iMac G5, but it should be as easy to open and swap the components as a Shuttle PC, and let you BYOKDM. Apple could probably sell it for $900, making it a great machine to go between the Mac Mini and Power Mac.

    1. Re:Micro ATX G5, BYOKDM by WombatControl · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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?

    2. Re:Micro ATX G5, BYOKDM by Vlastyn · · Score: 2, Informative

      I'd also add here that the G5 in the iMac barely works as is; if you notice on these systems, they are set to "Automatic" Processor performance, which according to my benchmarks runs at about half the speed it's capable of. When you change it to the maximum setting, the fans spin up and it gets much hotter inside- I'm talking about 65C+ HD temperature and 75C CPU, while mostly idle.

      This is also the reason for the noise/fan complaints; because the case is so small, Apple was forced to use small fans running at a high RPM to cool the system, thus creating an annoying buzzy model airplane noise. Drives a lot of people crazy. Then again, many users don't even notice, so it goes both ways.

  19. Need an excuse by Bender0x7D1 · · Score: 2, Funny

    so I can tell my wife we -need- to get a new iMac (clutter is bad)...

    --
    Reading code is like reading the dictionary - you have to read half of it before you can go back and understand it.
  20. iMac G5 by NEOtaku17 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Good day fot iMac G5 buyers. They have finally put in a graphics card that can play modern games(Radeon 9600 with 128MB of video RAM)

    --
    Creative Demolition
  21. Re:But what about the PowerBooks!? by argent · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Because a G5 powerbook is "the mother of all thermal challenges" (direct quote from Apple).

    You don't want a G5 powerbook. You want a dual-G4 powerbook. the new Freescale dual-G4 chip breaks the G4 166 MHz system bus bottleneck, *and* gives you dual-core as well. It would breeze past any underclocked G5 Apple could fit in a laptop the size of a Powerbook.

  22. Re:Pfft, why? by slimak · · Score: 4, Informative

    You do realize that you can run Linux on Apple hardware, right? In fact i think that Linus Torvalds (you may have heard of him) does this.

  23. Huh? by commodoresloat · · Score: 4, Interesting

    You would have bought windows again if not for a tiny processor speed bump on the macs? Of course, once you turn on your new Mac you'll see the real reason to switch.... OS X, not sheer processor speed.

  24. Re:Pfft, why? by ttys00 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Linux runs on many architectures. You can run Linux on Apple hardware if you want - after all, Linus does.

  25. Re:Still waiting... by MarcQuadra · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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
  26. Re:Pfft, why? by EEPS · · Score: 2, Informative

    If I were to buy a laptop, it would not be an Apple Computer, cause I can't see why I should have one that would only run MacOS, when I am more into Linux. But I gotta admit they do look good, but question is; ain't they going to be a bit heavy?

    Um, if you are so into linux, you should know that you can run linux on a mac, and quite well. Even Linus torvalds himself uses a mac now. http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/03/09/ 1314250&tid=181&tid=106

  27. Re:Still waiting... by Dan+Ost · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I'd rather have a dual core G4 in a laptop than a single core G5. Top speed
    isn't as important to me as smooth operation.

    --

    *sigh* back to work...
  28. This is good by darien · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:This is good by HoserHead · · Score: 2, Insightful
      It's not just a "fair point," it's completely true. The clock rate of a processor means NOTHING with regard to speed comparisons. Absolutely nothing.

      The only time you can compare clock rate is when you're comparing two processors of the same architecture. That means Pentium 4 vs Pentium 4, PowerPC 970 vs PowerPC 970. Everything else is completely and utterly meaningless.

      (I've speculated that I could probably spec out a (super, super, superscalar) processor that ran at 10 MHz that outperformed the latest 3 GHz processors. That's probably wrong--I'd be killed by branch misprediction--but the point remains.)

  29. hard drive conundrum by Zapraki · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Checking out these specs, one thing I noticed were the hard drives:

    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.

    1. Re:hard drive conundrum by kilfarsnar · · Score: 3, Interesting

      As a general rule, I use at least two drives. I have three in my G4 PowerMac at the moment. What I love about multiple drives on the Mac is that you can install a system on more than one and boot to it if one drive fails. Yes, this can be done on a PC, but not without fussing with the boot.ini file and the like, IIRC. On a Mac it is quite easy to boot into a different system; either through the control panel, or by having it search available drives for bootable systems!

      --
      "What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
  30. New Mac iBook by Kiriwas · · Score: 3, Informative

    I've had my new Mac iBook (my first Apple purchase) for a little over a month now. My old compaq (750 MHz) laptop died finally from the compaq white screen of death and I needed a replacement. I'm still at University so money is tight; I wanted the PowerMac but the iMac was much more in my range (1300). The one thing I've noticed about it is that you never really notice lag from the processor... BUT... if you don't have like a gig of ram, you can get a lot of lag while multitasking (think all 4 Office apps, firefox, X11 and a couple terminals). Fortunately, adding ram is easier than I thought, and aftermarket ram for them is pretty cheap. Overall, I will probably be saving up for a new G5 desktop whenever I can afford it. I'm hooked!

  31. Re:Macs for everyone. by Imazalil · · Score: 3, Funny

    Yes, please attach some chrome, neon strobes, and some super loud fans, I want my computer to feel just like my chainsaw! I am a real man! hear me (and my computer) roar!

  32. Re:iMac + KVM ? by As+Seen+On+TV · · Score: 2, Informative

    No.

    (Why beat around the bush?)

  33. And still a worthless video card.. by LordJezo · · Score: 2

    256MB DDR SDRAM ATI Radeon 9650 video card??? Give me a break. It's supposed to be a high end system.

    1. Re:And still a worthless video card.. by otis+wildflower · · Score: 2, Informative

      Absolutely.

      When did nVidia go and piss Apple off?

      I guess the wait will continue for the PCI express (SLI-able) Macs. The sad irony is that the Mac market stands to gain more from the bidirectional nature of PCIe (just imagine integrated GPU acceleration within the coreimage and corevideo libs for rendering effects for stuff like film/tv CGI, photoshop, etc..) than Windows boxes, and yet they persist with AGP (and crap AGP cards at that!).

      When oh when will Apple go PCIe with 2 (or more!) x16 slots?

  34. Re:But what about the PowerBooks!? by ArbitraryConstant · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The new Freescale chips aren't out yet, and except for thermal issues they're going to take as much of a redesign as G5s would. Probably more because they don't have any chipsets for them. I seriously doubt Apple is prepared to put that much work into redesigning PowerBooks when IBM will probably have a low-power G5 within the same timeframe. Particularly since much of the power saving work with a laptop chip would be shared with the dual-core chip we know they're going to release.

    The question in my mind is whether or not they're going to put the new G4 chips in the other lines. And the answer to that is probably 'no' as well, IMO. Once they have a G5 suitable for laptops, Apple will be able to fit it into all the other lines, and they'll have a PowerPC 980/G6 by that time (end of 2006 or so) to maintain the separation between the lines.

    Another consideration is that Apple is going to want to move to an all 64-bit lineup as soon as possible, so they can start EOLing the 32-bit stuff. The new Freescale chips will not be 64-bit (at first).

    --
    I rarely criticize things I don't care about.
  35. Re:iMac + KVM ? by Sixtus · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Best thing you can do is this:

    http://www.microsoft.com/mac/otherproducts/otherpr oducts.aspx?pid=remotedesktopclient

    Works well, including sound, and you can put your noisy dell some place else (assuming fast ethernet, maybe link them via firewire, fastest port on the mac, cheap addon for the pc).

  36. Re:Whats the big deal?? by Sandor+at+the+Zoo · · Score: 3, Funny
    my emacs runs at 1.66 Mhz on a 4 year old athlon

    Wow, emacs drags a 4-year-old athlon down to 1.66 Mhz? My TRS-80 Model I ran faster than that.

    Now I know why I use vi, when I'm not using BBEdit.

    For the humor impaired: :-)

  37. best thing about this.... RAM by tyler083 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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

    1. Re:best thing about this.... RAM by javaxman · · Score: 2, Informative
      Think Secret is reporting that the entire iMac line will start with 512... i can only hope it is one dimm

      If this is true, it's the best business decision at Apple since the iPod. I sincerely hope it's true, and if it is, I won't care how they do it. Making a G5 look slow due to disk swapping is just pathetic, and they can't be saving that much money by going with 256MB anymore. Two 256MB would be fine with me, though it probably won't be how they do it. I mean, what's the price difference between one 256MB stick and two 512MB sticks, even at retail?

      They probably want to throw down 512MB default configuration machines at this point anyway, since everyone has been giving them a hard time about the 256MB configuration. Just check out any Mac mini review you care to find, or any other Apple hardware review- they almost all say "256MB is not really enough" at some point.

  38. Re:Buy a powermac now, upgrade in 2 weeks? by Blitzenn · · Score: 3, Funny

    " If I buy a powermac now... ...Then I check slashdot. Great. Just frigging great. "

    In two weeks I hear Apple will be announcing an even newer model. It will be called the "Big Mac". In a deviation from past policy, Apple will allow customization to occur at order time with the additions of special S.A.U.C.E. (Simple And Usable Custom Enhancements) and even P.I.C.(k)L(e).S. (Peculiarly Integrated Custom Louvers and Shades). You might meet your deadline as these new machines will be available from Apple's new franchise stores and their drive-thru windows (uh, I mean the glass kind).

  39. Re:Buy a powermac now, upgrade in 2 weeks? by bombadillo · · Score: 5, Funny

    "And the project is due in a week and a half.

    What to do, what to do.... Argh...

    For starters you could quit pratting around reading \. and start the project.

  40. Re:Power Book? by TheRaven64 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I would personally prefer a dual-core G4. If they are going to put a G5 in, then it is not going to be a particularly fast one, and a 1.5GHz MPC8641D is likely to be far faster than a 2GHz G5 for everything I do that is CPU intensive - particularly since it sports a 667MHz on-die memory controller, eliminating the bottleneck in current G4s.

    --
    I am TheRaven on Soylent News
  41. 2 drives halves your MTBF by micron · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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!

    1. Re:2 drives halves your MTBF by Jahz · · Score: 3, Informative

      Just to perfectly clear for everyone, a hard drive's tested Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF) MEANS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING IN REALITY!!

      For the end user, purchasing a hard drive with an MTBF of 500,000 hours indicates that you have a 50% chance of disk drive failure in under 500k hours, and a 50% chance of drive failure after 500k hours. In other words, if a hard drive sells 1,000 units, and half of the drives die in an hour, while the other half last 1 million hours, the MBTF is 500,000 hours. Useful, eh?

      Also its worth noting that manufacturers test the MBTF by putting a few dozen (or more) drives into a giant over and stressing them to the max. They will fail in a reletively short time. That time is averaged and modified to "reflect" real world usage. It is useful only for drive manufacturers (for risk management estimates etc...)

      --
      There are 10 types of people in the world. Those who understand binary and those who do not.
  42. Re:I'm happy by TheRaven64 · · Score: 2, Interesting
    For about the same price, you could get a Mac Mini and a 20" screen. For what you are doing, it would be fast enough (my PowerBook is only a 1.5GHz G4, and it only really struggles with some video editing tasks and large compiles). If you find you need something faster, you can either wait until the Minis get a speed bump[1], or upgrade to a PowerMac, without having to replace the screen.

    [1]I suspect that Apple will want to go dual-core as soon as possible. The iBook and eMac are likely to be the only single processor machines, with the PowerBook and Minis getting dual-core G4s, and the iMac and PowerMac getting dual-core G5s (with the PowerMac getting 2 of them - hence the focus on fine-grained locking in the Tiger kernel).

    --
    I am TheRaven on Soylent News
  43. Re:iMac + KVM ? by TheRaven64 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    My advice, if you can afford the iMac, would be to go for the Mac Mini (with at least 512MB of RAM) and a 20" Cinema Display (we've got a 20" and a 23" one here. The screens are both stunning, but the 23" one's enclosure looks quite fat and ugly to my eyes), and see how you like OS X. If you like it, and decide the Mini isn't powerful enough (it's almost as fast as the top-of-the-line PowerBooks, so you might be surprised), then consider replacing it with a PowerMac G5 some time down the road (or a dual-core Mac Mini, if such a thing appears). If you decide you don't like OS X, then the Mini is small and quiet enough to be an always-on server somewhere, and you've got yourself a nice monitor for the Dell.

    --
    I am TheRaven on Soylent News
  44. Re:Pfft, why? by zpok · · Score: 2, Informative

    Nope, not heavy, actually among the lighter portables you'll find. Also without the hopeless add-ons most windows portables have. It's either integrated or for sale by a third party supplier. And in case you haven't read it already, Linus is currently using Linux on a G5, no reason why you shouldn't...

    --
    I think, therefore I am...I think.
  45. Re:Macs for everyone. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    "... I hope Apple releases a product for heterosexual men...."

    Do you have a issues with your own sexual orientation? Apple's products are for hetersexual men. The only ones that take issue with it as being "gay" are the closet cases who don't want to be reminded of what they are.

  46. Re:But what about the PowerBooks!? by TheRaven64 · · Score: 3, Interesting
    The MPC8641D is from FreeScal's System on Chip (SoC) range, and includes more or less everything except GPU (PCIe controller, memory controller, GigE controller) on die. Designing a logic board for it is going to be significantly less of a challenge than designing the existing logic boards - and they've had six months since FreeScale announced the chip to be working on it.

    Apple are in no hurry to move to 64-bit. Unlike x86, PowerPC was designed as a 32/64-bit ISA from the start, and so 64-bit code has no benefit at all unless you are addressing more than 4GB of RAM, or doing 64-bit integer arithmetic. In fact, it gives you a performance penalty - pointers are larger, thus taking up more cache space, and load / stores take longer. On x86-64, this is offset by making the architecture marginally less GPR-starved in 64-bit mode. Note that Carbon and Cocoa are still 32-bit, for exactly this reason - Apple don't want people complaining that their G5 is slower than a G4.

    IBM have been launching a low-power G5 Real Soon Now(TM) since before the G5 was released, so don't hold your breath on that one. A dual-core G4 would out-perform a single-core G5 (remember the dual 1.42GHz G4 Vs 1.6GHz G5 benchmarks? The dual 1.8GHz G5 was only slightly faster, and that's with the low FSB speed of the current G4s), and performance per watt is what counts in a laptop. If IBM can produce something that will beat a 1.5GHz MPC8641D at 15W, I would be very surprised - we're talking at least a 2.5GHz G5 here, and the current ones are around 45W.

    --
    I am TheRaven on Soylent News
  47. Dual cores all the way by Enrique1218 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I am in the market for a new market for a new Macintosh. However, since I am poor, I would like Apple to put dual cores or dual processors in every damn system they make. Don't hold back. Just think of it, dual processor eMac. See Dell top that!!! Have mercy on me please, I can't afford a PowerMac in this economy!!! Rant done, I crawl back to my shanty.

    --
    You don't have to be smart to use a Mac, you just have to be smart enough to buy one
  48. Tiger has OpenGL 1.5 by Colol · · Score: 2

    The Tiger specs at Apple.com state full OpenGL 1.5 support as a feature, so this is not an issue.

  49. An argument against an Apple subnotebook by amichalo · · Score: 2, Insightful

    (DISCLAIMER: I am an Apple user at home and would love an Apple 'treo-type' device for myself)

    Apple recognizes that their three audiences are:
    (1) Video/graphics pros,
    (2) education,
    (3) and home users.
    (Yeah there are others and all those segments are growing with the exception of gamers but lets focus on the main ones.)

    Apple only has so many R&D dollars, even with $7B in the bank. They have to focus on what their audience wants and will pay for.

    So what does the demand look like?
    (1) Video/graphics pros are using PowerBooks in the field. They need access to a large 17" screen for editing so a sub-notebook really doesn't appeal.
    (2) Education has no need for this. My highschool made headlines back when they piloted a program to equip all incoming freshmen with Palm Pilots. The program was not a success, more of a distraction.
    (3) Home users just don't need this type of device any more than they need a Treo today.

    The real market for sub-notebooks is the business world where the Blackberry and Treo dominate the market. Apple would have a major hurdle to get corporate IT to support a third (and this time "Apple" - tisk tisk) device.

    All that said, I return to my disclaimer that I would personally really love an Apple sub-notebook with celular and Wi-fi that I could use as an iPod for music, share photos, and use Ink Well to interface to PDA functions with. But 'iDoubt' the market is full of folks like me.

    --
    I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
  50. They both make knives for the Swiss Army ... by balamw · · Score: 4, Informative
    They have both made knives for the Swiss Army since the late 19th century. This describes what I recall as the case.

    The Compromise of 1908

    The company from which Wenger emerged had been a supplier to the Swiss Army as early as 1893, and its competitor, Victorinox, since 1890. Wenger is in the French-speaking Jura region, and its competitor is in the German-speaking canton of Schwyz. To avoid friction between the two cantons, the Swiss government decided in 1908 to use each supplier for half of its requirements. So while Victorinox can lay claim to be the "original", Wenger can state that its Swiss Army Knives are the "genuine". In any case, both have been manufacturing Swiss Army Knives for over 100 years and both must meet identical specifications laid down by the army.

    B
    1. Re:They both make knives for the Swiss Army ... by Steve+Cowan · · Score: 2, Funny

      both have been manufacturing Swiss Army Knives for over 100 years and both must meet identical specifications laid down by the army.

      Just what kind of army specifies that they need a corkscrew?

  51. Re:Apple regaining strength by Secret+Agent+99 · · Score: 2, Informative

    When oh when will Apple innovate again?

    Among the many things you're not getting, this is a key one. When Apple innovated with Newton, they were first to market and made a shitload of mistakes for the benefit of the latecomers.

    They avoided that with the iPod by not being first but instead taking an existing idea with niche appeal and perfecting it for the mass market. Oh, how terribly stupid of them!

    Of course, naysayers will look on one strategy and mock the mistakes; and then they'll look at the other and mock the "lack of innovation." Who gives a shit? Would you rather be first and a big fat failure, or second and most successful?

    As for "3% of the desktop" representing "death", why not look at it as four million CPUs sold annually? That's a viable platform, whether you like it or not. (If it's so irrelevant, why do you even care?)

    Oh, and look. Roughly 30% growth in CPU sales versus the year-earlier quarter. Gee, how does that compare to the industry?

    It's not about "all hailing Apple's great success", it's about letting go of the idiotic idea that a small percentage share of a gargantuan market is a sign of impending doom. While we're at it, how about letting go of the equally idiotic idea that a company that scores a success outside its core market has somehow done a bad or irrelevant thing.

    Mmmmmkay?

  52. Re:But what about the PowerBooks!? by argent · · Score: 2, Informative

    Pentium 4s are now around 95% RISC

    No they're not. RISC is an architecture design model, not an implementation tool. A P4 is a CISC processor implemented as two or three separate processors pipelined together: there's the first stage that rewrites the CISC code as RISC code, then there's a vertical microcode processor that resembles RISC only in so far as early RISC processors were modelled on vertical microcode machines (the IBM 801 could be said to have been both), then there's the FPU and some post-instruction fixup and the hardware that manages the whole mess.

    But having a RISC-like core to do the heavy lifting doesn't make it RISC, any more than having a VLIW-like horizontal microcode core makes the AMD processor VLIW. It's better to say that the P4 is a hardware emulator for the x86 instruction set with a RISC-like processor as part of the emulation. It's not RISC, though, any more than running a software Playstation emulator on a Windows box makes the MIPS RISC processor being emulated into a CISC.

  53. Meaningfullness of MTBF by micron · · Score: 2, Informative

    You are not entirely correct here.

    I will agree that for the average user, MTBF does not mean a whole lot. No single drive is going to last 100+ years!

    There are some of us that run server farms of 20,000 drives or more. When you calculate the MTBF across the farm, and then compare how many drives you fail in a week, the numbers are pretty close.

    This factors in for how many techs I am going to need to keep up with drive replacements.

    So saying that MTBF has absolutely nothing to do with reality is in itself, a myth.

  54. Re:Apple regaining strength by Alioth · · Score: 2, Insightful

    3% might sound small. Indeed, it would be small if the market for computers was a few dozen a year. But it's not. 3% of a colossal market is still an enormous amount of revenue. Witness how Apple's market cap has now overtaken Sun's.

    --
    Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
  55. Oh Puh-lease! This is NOT news... by GrahamCox · · Score: 2, Insightful

    This is a warmed over RUMOUR. It's not NEWS. For fuck's sake, let's not let Slashdot become just another Mac rumours site - god knows there's enough of them already. This isn't even original, I read this a couple of days ago elsewhere. These are not specs, they're speculations.

    Look, I'm a Mac guy, I occasionally look at the rumour sites like everyone else, but I come to Slashdot because it's not full of one-sided Mac fanboyism. Sure, there's a hell of a lot of ignorance spouted, but at least there are different perspectives on things, and I like that. If I want to read rumours, I'll go to the rumour sites. If I want to read actual released specs of newly announced Macs, I'll go to Apple.com when they are officially released. Neither of these are Slashdot's role. This is a bad article, pointlessly posted, and it just a waste of space. Please, let's restrain ourselves - stop posting every damn tidbit about Macs just because they are flavour of the month at the moment. Keep focused, dammit! The worthwhile articles ar srtaing to get drowned in teh noise, and that doesn't serve anyone's interests.