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Apple Updates Power Mac Line

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the but-i-want-it-now dept.

Phreck writes "Apple has announced an upgrade to its Power Mac line today. The new Power Macs all feature dual G5 processors, 512 MB RAM, and dual-layer 16x SuperDrives. On the low end is the dual 2.0GHz with 160GB HD and ATI Radeon 9600. The mid-range includes dual 2.3GHz processors with 250GB HD and ATI Radeon 9600. The top-end system has dual 2.7GHz processors with 250GB HD and ATI Radeon 9650. The processors are not the dual-core variety as has been rumored for weeks now."

14 of 686 comments (clear)

  1. Not a very large update... by Thijs+van+As · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Just a small speed bump. And no dual core G5 yet unfortunally.

    1. Re:Not a very large update... by As+Seen+On+TV · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Is anybody still wondering why the rumor mill is so damaging to Apple? This is a solid upgrade: faster CPUs, dual-layer 16X Superdrives, higher base RAM, same prices. But what does everybody say? "They're not dual core."

      Guys, the dual-core CPUs are a myth. They exist only as prototypes. Apple has never even so much as implied that we plan to use them for anything, ever. Being disappointed when a product we never announced fails to materialize is, frankly, pretty bizarre.

      (Incidentally, I don't know how wide-spread it was, but the dual-layer Superdrives were referred to by at least a few people internally as "Superduperdrives." I thought that was pretty funny.)

    2. Re:Not a very large update... by jest3r · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Apple seems to be slacking on their PowerMac product line. This is their most expensive product, supposedly high-end .. they are charging premium 2005 dollar for 2003 hardware.

      - The Radeon 9600 was released in 2003 .. Where is the X800??
      - Apple actually launched Dual 2.0Ghz G5's in 2003 (todays speedbump still includes this product)
      - The case is still gigantic (2003 size), and still only sports 1 external drive bay
      - Still only 3 PCI slots (2 if your using the Nvidia Video card)
      - Only 512MB Ram for a workstation?

      If you spend $2000 - $3000 for a workstation you should at least get specifications to match.

      Actually $3000 gets you 6 Mac Minis ... cluster those together and you've got more juice than the PowerMac.

    3. Re:Not a very large update... by cyngus · · Score: 5, Insightful

      - The Radeon 9600 was released in 2003 .. Where is the X800??

      My guess is that Apple couldn't secure enough supply from ATI to include it. Rather than risk huge shipping delays (like with the GeForce Ultra DDL) they left it to you to upgrade if you want it.

      - Apple actually launched Dual 2.0Ghz G5's in 2003 (todays speedbump still includes this product)

      Let remind you that no one has really moved their processor performance much in the last two years, until just recently with dual core designs.

      - The case is still gigantic (2003 size), and still only sports 1 external drive bay

      As to size, I have one and its just fine by me. It sits on the floor, it could be four feet tall for all I care. So, one external drive bay, with an optical drive that supports reading and writing just about every format under the sun. Why would I want another? To duplicate disks? I can rip a disk and burn it so fast that this is really a moot point.

      - Still only 3 PCI slots (2 if your using the Nvidia Video card)

      And what would most people use more slots for? Nothing. So much is included on the motherboard these days that six slots really doesn't make sense for the vast majority. If you need more, you'll probably get a PCI expansion chasis and stop whinning.

      - Only 512MB Ram for a workstation?

      Fine by me, I never buy RAM from the box makers. It can be had much more cheaply (particularly vs Apple RAM) from elsewhere.

      Since most creative apps won't support clustering, no, six mac minis are not as fast.

    4. Re:Not a very large update... by As+Seen+On+TV · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Actually, one thing I think is even more damaging to Apple than the "rumor mill" is the perceived stagnation of the PowerMac lineup.

      We refresh our product lines roughly once every nine months. We've been doing it that way for years now. Why is this a surprise?

      To an outsider (like a consumer in the market for a machine), what has changed in the G5 in nearly two years since its introduction?

      Hopefully nothing. "Power Macintosh G5" is a brand item for us. We don't want to release a product and then suddenly drop it. Instead, we want to release a product and maintain it for several years, building brand recognition.

      I guess we're just running up against a difference in business philosophies here. Companies like Dell (just to pick a well-known example) have vast product lines with hundreds of products. We sell about a dozen, and frankly that's a lot for us. Our approach goes like this: At any point in time, somebody can go into an Apple store (or online) and say, "I want a Power Mac G5." (Or iMac, or Mac mini, or whatever product.) From there, the customer will be given a few choices about how much they want to spend -- small, medium or large, basically. At that point, they walk out with a product that gives them good value and a good experience for the money they spent.

      I understand that there are people out there who wish we did it another way. I understand that there are people out there who basically wish we just sold parts from a catalogue. But that's not our business model. Arguments of the form "But I'd buy one if so-n-so" don't really touch anybody here, because that's just not the way we want to do things. Other companies already to things that way. That's fine for them. We do things our way.

      what they may fail to do is to entice any current G5 owners to upgrade to a newer model

      According to market research, Mac owners buy a new computer about once every five years on average. We're a long way from expecting our Power Mac G5 owners to want to trade up.

      Bottom line: We don't just roll out whole new products willy-nilly. Part of what we sell our customers is stability. One of the things you know when you buy a Mac -- most of the time -- is that the thing you buy isn't going to be just totally lame next month. The products we ship subsequently are going to be incremental improvements, not complete new things. That means that you can feel comfortable when you buy a Mac that your purchase isn't going to totally lose all its value in ninety days. It's one way we've engendered brand loyalty. Haven't you noticed that used Macs retain their value way better than used PCs? There's a reason for that.

    5. Re:Not a very large update... by Golias · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You're not an astroturfer if you tell people you work for the company.

      An "astroturfer" is an employee or executive who is paid by the company to pretend he's just an ordinary schmuck who just happens to be really, really impressed with the company or their products, creating the artificial impression of strong grassroots support, hence: astroturf (meaning, fake grass.)

      The word was coined when Microsoft was caught doing exactly that on various newsgroups back in the 90s.

      This guy is either an Apple employee who is being very straight up about who he works for and what his bias and perspective is, or else he's a loser troll who gets off on pretending he's an Apple employee so people will consider his opinion on Apple stories to carry more weight.

      Based on the nature of the things he's commented on in the past, my suspicion is that he's probably an Apple guy, though perhaps not nearly as close to the development teams as he likes to imply. His answers to people's questions seem to be rather long on design opinion, and rather short on technical details... and more than a little snippy at times.

      --

      Information wants to be anthropomorphized.

    6. Re:Not a very large update... by Golias · · Score: 5, Funny

      ...he's probably an Apple guy, though perhaps not nearly as close to the development teams as he likes to imply. His answers to people's questions seem to be rather long on design opinion, and rather short on technical details... and more than a little snippy at times.

      Oh... Wait... It's so obvious, I'm surprised I didn't spot it sooner.

      Mister Jobs, is that you?

      --

      Information wants to be anthropomorphized.

  2. Re:Still costs 6 times what a dual opteron costs by weg · · Score: 5, Funny

    I've heard Apple will come up with a new one button keyboard, soon. Because it's so much easier to use.

    --
    Georg
  3. Re:Fuck - er no sh*t sherlock? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Perhaps you should start visiting the rumor sites. this powermac update was not a surprise

    MacRumors.com

    MacRumors' Buyer's Guide also keeps track of time since last release and a summary of recent rumors, and a buy or not-buy recommendation.

  4. A word to the wise... by artemis67 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Never buy a computer when it's TODAY.

    Always wait until it's TOMORROW, because something better may come out.

  5. Re:how does it compare? by am46n · · Score: 5, Informative

    Put simply, dual core means that both CPUs are on the same piece of silicon. They can share a unified cache, access it faster, and resolve deadlocks & invalidates etc much faster.
    A dual core processor will also run cooler than two single cores, and the reduced number of external interconnects means that the whole thing can be clocked faster.

    Since you are using up to twice the wafer size, you need to have a high yield rate of you're going to keep costs down: Yield decreases in proportion to wafer area.

    It's worth reading up on System On Chip design - see how you can put the graphics controller, DSP, and USB controller on the same wafer. Furber's ARM SoC book is slightly dated but nevertheless a good read.

    Relative to the latest AMD etc depends on the code you're running. PowerPC has a lot of registers, can do much more complicated floating point arithmetic, and has a fused multiply-add instruction (good for FFTs) but in pure integer throughput the latest AMD etc will probably triumph.

  6. Re:how does it compare? by jaoswald · · Score: 5, Informative

    Dual core being "more efficient" depends very much on the task being considered.

    For any sufficiently large task, the bottleneck is the path to main memory. For a given level of package & bus limitations, dual-core must use an amount of bandwidth to main memory to feed two processing units rather than one.

    For tasks that fit in on-chip cache, of course, the bottleneck is processing, and dual-core can be a huge improvement, especially where the synchronization overhead would have to go off-chip in the case of dual processors, as you mention.

  7. Re:They also dropped Cinema Display prices... by angrist · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The price drop is nice, but I still want a 17" Cinema Display.

    I'd have thought that with the Mini being hailed as the "most affodable mac ever" SOMEONE at apple would have come up with the idea of selling a monitor that didn't cost as much as the mini. A 17" at around $300-400 would seem to fit into the current line nicely, hell they could even use the same panel as in the iMac.

  8. Apple has a different perspective... by nokiator · · Score: 5, Interesting
    This PowerMac revision is obviously not a major upgrade and Apple treated it as such. Apple's home page, is mostly full of Tiger stuff and the new PowerMac intro is just a small image on the lower left corner.

    Lot of people are complaining about the "just 200MHz" speed bump for the high end model. 8% may not be that much of a speed bump, but neither Intel or AMD has been able to pull off dramatic clock frequency jumps lately. Clock speed stagnation seem to be a general problem in the processor design industry.

    As for the dual cores, obviously AMD and Intel have much more incentive. The entire PC world is built around a standard form factors: ATX motherboards and ATX cases. Intel's efforts to move to a new form factor (BTX) has been quite unsuccessful so far. It is very hard to put two "hot" processors on an ATX motherboard in an ATX case. PC market is also driven by cut throat price pressure and low margins. There is a huge price difference between the prices of single processor motherboards and dual processor motherboards. Given the stagnation in the clock frequency, the only practical way for Intel and AMD to drive the mainstream PC to higher performance is the SMP model through dual-core chips. This way, all of the rest of the system components (motherboard, chipset, case, cooling system) can stay the same.

    Apple does not have this constraint. Apple has been manufacturing mainstream multiprocessor desktops for manty years. Overall, it may actually be more cost effective for Apple to ship multiprocessor system. It may be a lot cheaper for IBM to manufacture two instances of a small die like the PPC970 FX (less than 60mm2) than a larger dual core die. As for Apple, having the source of the heat distributed accross two chips makes thermal management somewhat easier than dealing with one extremely hot dual core chip.

    I am sure Apple will eventually move to dual core PPC970MP chips, potentially later this year, but this will most likely be in the context of being able to offer quad systems (two dual-core processors) for higher performance.

    As for the choice of the base graphics card, the 9600 or 9650 is a perfectly reasonable choice. The primary driving force behind high end graphics cards in the PC world are 3D games. PowerMac G5 is obviously not the best 3D game platform. Most people buy PowerMacs to use in professional applications. Many pro applications do not require super-duper 3D performance. For those who are planning to do serious 3D work, the 6800 Ultra upgrade is the reasonable choice. There is no reason to burden all customers with an expensive (and potentially loud) graphics card.