What / When is the next Power Mac after the current 2 x 2.5 GHz model?

[MNTS]

Does anyone have an idea as to what the next high end desktop Mac will be after the current 2 processor 2.5 GHz model, and when it will be announced?

[Luca]

I'm sure at least someone has an idea, but it's probably wrong.

[murbot]

Dual 2.8, available sometime in the first quarter on 2005.

Ouch, those kind of hurt coming out of your ass. Last time I pull one of those out.

[Quagmire]

It will rather be the 970GX or the 970MP. Most likely is the 970GX hitting close to old Jobs promise of 3 Ghz. If they do use the 970MP, I would still think apple would still have the dual setup and we would have a quad there. Price lowering back to $1799 or stays the same.

[Luca]

Okay, I'll speculate, even though there is really no basis in reality.

I think that IBM may be having major problems getting past 2.5 GHz. They might hit 2.5 more reliably, but I wonder if they will be able to make 3.0 GHz. In the time that has passed between SJ's declaration of 3.0 GHz by summer '04, back in summer '03, the processor market seems to have shifted quite a lot. In the last few years, the Pentium 4 has been king, rocketing past AMD, Motorola, and IBM. MHz was everything, and the P4 had more than anyone else. Now we have Intel saying that the P4 is End Of Life, and they're going to focus on the Pentium M (based on the Pentium III, and running at 1.4-2.0 GHz). We've got AMD staying at 2.4 GHz with their Athlon 64, and Apple/IBM are at 2.5 GHz. Will adding an extra 500 MHz really matter? I don't think so. There are a lot of things that can be done to help the G5 that do not involve pouring on more MHz the way Intel did in 2001-2003.

There has been a ton of new technology released in the last year. PCI Express is replacing AGP for graphics cards, SATA and now even SATA II are becoming the norm, dual-link DVI is in, 16x DVD burning and dual-layer DVD burning are commonplace while new DVD technologies are already taking hold... there's just a ton of stuff going on. And even though the chip makers all seem to be stuck on MHz, they're still improving their processors by working on other ways of increasing speed. Intel and AMD now offer 1 MB of full-CPU-speed L2 cache on their higher end chips, and Intel even has desktop variants of the Pentium M with 2 MB of cache! They're expensive, but their performance is far higher than the Pentium 4 at equal clock speed.

I would like to see (not saying it's likely) a new set of PowerMacs that really refines the lineup and gives them all a lot of nice, new technology. More customization would also be welcome - there's no need to simplify it when anyone spending $2000+ for a computer should know what they're getting into. I'd like to see a PowerMac line with PCI Express, more diverse graphics options (Radeon X800XT w/ ADC, GeForce 6800GT and/or Ultra, maybe even some SLI options), space for four hard drives, SATA II drives with native command queueing, 1 MB of L2 cache per processor... all that nice new stuff. If the PowerMacs got all that, they wouldn't even need to bump the MHz for it to be a nice upgrade.

[wizard69]

If I really knew the answer to that I'd would not be able to answer your question. Much the same for anybody else.

Since I have no legal restraints on me to take a wild ass geuss here goes:

The new machine will be available for delivery in late Feburary or early March, the announcement being made in Janurary of course. The machines will come in three speed grades of 2.5 GH, 3GHz and 3.5GHz with either the MP or GX variant of the 970. The machines will sport a new North bridge that fully supports PCI-Express as a graphics port replacement. There will still be a lower speed Hypertransport port out of the north bridge to a south bridge to support old hardware. Apple will configure each machine with a reasonable amount of RAM considering the asking price for the machines. Lastly the base models will have a GPU with a reasonable amount of memory and contemporary perfromance.

Now if you believe any of this I do have a good deal on a bridge for you. Especially the part about Apple shipping the machines with enough memory to make them usefull.

I really don't know what you expect to here from us that hasn't already been addressed form several angles in this forum. There is R&D going on with respect to the 970. What that is exactly can not be addressed by most of the people posting here. If any of the GX or MP rumors are true it will be a very good thing when the are finally installed in a Mac. When the will happen is an open question.

Dave


Does anyone have an idea as to what the next high end desktop Mac will be after the current 2 processor 2.5 GHz model, and when it will be announced?

[defaultmike]

Luca is right. The new technologies available to increase "speed" without increasing mhtz are probably the way to go. Having that said. I think Apple is going to release a 3.0GHz PM and it will have 1MB of L2 Cache. Perhaps some PCI-Express slots, but I'm still not sold on that. Dual Layer burning will be supported, as well as DDR2