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Desktops (Apple) Businesses Apple Hardware

Apple Previewing New Power Mac? 377

Posted by timothy from the looks-pretty-similar dept.
dunric writes "CNET.com reports that Apple Computer may be previewing a new Power Mac, complete with dual G5 processors and a more advanced memory configuration." The "previewing" isn't intentional, though -- the report is based on service and repair documents distributed last month and reported on AppleInsider.com. AppleInsider has taken down at least one image from their report, but have added an artist's rendering.
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Apple Previewing New Power Mac? More

Apple Previewing New Power Mac?

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  • previewing (Score:5, Insightful)

    by name773 ( 696972 ) on Sunday June 06, 2004 @05:35PM (#9352591)
    why wouldn't apple want the previewing?
    to me, it seems like good advertising... for free, and you know how companies like free adverts

    • Re:previewing (Score:5, Insightful)

      by iotaborg ( 167569 ) <exa@soft h o m e . net> on Sunday June 06, 2004 @05:44PM (#9352631) Homepage
      Simple, because it would mean everyone will know that Apple is going to refresh the PowerMac lines real soon. Then people will tend to want to wait for the next model rather than buy the current, which isn't really what Apple wants.

      • Re:previewing (Score:5, Insightful)

        by NoData ( 9132 ) <<moc.oohay> <ta> <_ataDoN_>> on Sunday June 06, 2004 @05:54PM (#9352688)
        Also, companies like to time new releases with liquidation of current stock. They know few people are gonna buy the old model once they hear about the new one coming out (as you point out), but the real bitch is that it leaves them with a surplus of old stock they can't move and then have to eat a loss discounting it. This is why sometimes new products are ready to go months before a company wants to officially announce them. When you have tiny margin and a small market share like Apple, this is a big problem. (Apple also has kinda crappy inventory control, which exacerbates this problem. They routinely come up in short-supply after a new product launch, or overstocked near the end of a product cycle).

        • Re:previewing (Score:5, Interesting)

          by Have Blue ( 616 ) on Sunday June 06, 2004 @06:37PM (#9352892) Homepage
          This is also why rumor sites tend to keep careful track of promotions and discounts from Apple, believing they are efforts to clear out inventories of older models in preparation for a new product launch.

        • inventory control? (Score:5, Insightful)

          by johnpaul191 ( 240105 ) on Sunday June 06, 2004 @08:07PM (#9353296) Homepage
          generally Apple get's very good points from analysts when they see how small Apple's inventory is... hrm i can't think of the term but generally Apple does not have more than a few weeks of products in limbo. they have an issue with iPod minis and that's the hard drive manufacturer. while it isn't great to have demand outpace supply, it's better than having mountians of devices nobody will buy. some companies live by that motto..... Minui Coopers, Harley Davidsons and Triumph motorcycles for example. they take it to an extreme (somepared to Apple), but they know every vehicle they make will be sold right off. that's a nice place to be.
          the delay on the new powermacs has def been processors. it's possible there are other components, but Apple and IBM admitted there were issues at the IBM chipmaking plant that caused problems for supplies getting to Apple. it was the chip that is in the current Xserves and rumored to have been in the G5 tower revision. now the speculation is that the G5 tower may hop right up to the next chip revision alltogether.

    • Re:previewing (Score:5, Funny)

      by jwthompson2 ( 749521 ) * on Sunday June 06, 2004 @05:49PM (#9352662) Homepage
      Spoils keynotes...

  • Old News (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Apple Insider [appleinsider.com], Mac Rumors [macrumors.com] and a bunch of other sites have been reporting this for at least a week.

  • Big heatsink (Score:5, Informative)

    by Fiz Ocelot ( 642698 ) <baelzharon@gmailQUOTE.com minus punct> on Sunday June 06, 2004 @05:37PM (#9352599)
    There seems to be either a huge heatsink or some kind of cover over it in this image Here [wankie.net] looks cool.

    • Re:Big heatsink (Score:5, Interesting)

      by SuperBanana ( 662181 ) on Sunday June 06, 2004 @07:05PM (#9353031)
      There seems to be either a huge heatsink or some kind of cover over it in this image

      It doesn't have fins, so it's not a heatsink. Apple's long-stated goal with the thermal design of the G5 was to compartmentalize heat sources; the extension of the box(which appears to be one piece of formed metal) seems purely to help compartmentalize the CPU area more. Wouldn't it be interesting if this was done because the heatsinks are taller? Taller but thinner heatsinks would let you put(ahem) more CPUs into that space. I honestly can't say I think they bumped processor speeds; wasn't IBM at a brick wall in that regard with the G5? Seems like we'd be more likely to see a quad box, although for 90% of even high end users, 4 processors wouldn't be terribly useful.

      What is also interesting is that the motherboard has shrunk by a few inches, hence the longer connecting cable in one set of photos; it's a few inches back from the front of the case instead of nearly abutting it.

    • Re:Big heatsink (Score:5, Funny)

      by Genady ( 27988 ) <gary.rogersNO@SPAMmac.com> on Sunday June 06, 2004 @09:20PM (#9353606)
      That's no heat sink. It's a spacestation.

  • G5 Espresso Machine (Score:5, Funny)

    by thedogcow ( 694111 ) on Sunday June 06, 2004 @05:42PM (#9352625)
    Check this link out from Appleinsider [appleinsider.com] under the user name "windowsblowsass". I thought that was humorous.

    • Re:G5 Espresso Machine (Score:5, Interesting)

      by JamieF ( 16832 ) on Sunday June 06, 2004 @08:40PM (#9353452) Homepage
      Here's a link that spares you the need to scoll past a bunch of ridiculous speculation:

      http://forums.appleinsider.com/showthread.php?s=&t hreadid=42736#post627583 [appleinsider.com]

      Also, in the process of looking at the source to figure out how to make the above URL, I found these comments in the HTML starting at line 45:

      "DO NOT CHANGE THIS AGAIN
      THERE NEEDS TO BE A WAY FOR MEMBERS TO RETURN TO THE CONTENT"
      (some HTML code removed here)
      "DO NOT EDIT ABOVE THIS LINE
      GO FUCK YOURSELF - The Management"

      Nice. It's always good to see design arguments that have escalated into profane insults embedded in one's publicly visible HTML source. The least they could do would be to use the scripting language's comment syntax so those little love notes wouldn't be visible to anybody looking at the source code...

  • Missing picture (Score:5, Informative)

    by polyp2000 ( 444682 ) on Sunday June 06, 2004 @05:42PM (#9352627) Homepage Journal
    This may be the picture you are looking for...
    New G5 Picture [blackapology.com]

    nick ...

  • Isn't this predictable (Score:5, Insightful)

    by agent dero ( 680753 ) on Sunday June 06, 2004 @05:44PM (#9352634) Homepage
    With WWDC coming up, isn't it somewhat obvious that apple is preparing a new PowerMac? Most likely a new revision of most of there stuff.

    I mean, they are coming out with 10.4 at the WWDC, why not new hardware to run it on?

    • Correction... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by WiseWeasel ( 92224 ) on Sunday June 06, 2004 @06:41PM (#9352920)
      They're PREVIEWING MacOS 10.4 Tiger, not releasing it, supposedly. Also, their G5s are seriously due for an update, after almost a year (if you don't count the change to the 1.8 GHz model). This would have happened sooner if IBM could produce the 90 nm chips faster, but c'est la vie...

  • Anything is better... (Score:4, Funny)

    by erockett ( 784008 ) on Sunday June 06, 2004 @05:46PM (#9352649) Homepage Journal
    I'll take any Mac that runs at 1GHz or more (...not saying that 2 or 3GHz wouldn't be nice...). The family computer is shared by 4 people and runs at 800MHz. I want to get my own computer, so I can fill it up with my junk instead of everyone else's.
    • Just get a firewire harddrive enclosure and a hard drive. Firewire hard drives a pretty close to the same speed as internal ones and you can boot of it without a problem.

  • Hey (Score:5, Informative)

    by Ikn ( 712788 ) * <rsmith29@alumni.nd . e du> on Sunday June 06, 2004 @05:55PM (#9352689) Homepage
    Go to Wired [wired.com] and check out their Cult of Mac blog, and I think get have some pics/more info on this.

  • What I found most interesting (Score:5, Informative)

    by foidulus ( 743482 ) * on Sunday June 06, 2004 @05:57PM (#9352698)
    Is that the rumor is that the next "generation" of the G5 will be all duals. This definitely puts a kink in my plans to buy a dual 1.8, esp. since Apple tends to keep the same prices but bumps up the specs when they make new releases(and doesn't sell the old stuff anymore), and since I am a student, it seems the best deal is to buy off apple themselves(through the $99 student developer program you can get 1 hardware purchase at about 20% off, more than pays for itself even against the normal student discount)
    • At Apple's online store, under the Special Deals section(scroll down at store.apple.com [apple.com] and its on the left hand side) they often sell old stuff. I just bought a Powerbook through that. I'd post a direct link but Apple's store is session-based.
    • I was thinking the same thing as you, until I noticed one thing. If you're using one of the base models, it IS cheaper, but to upgrade the specs it's more expensive as a developer, so if you're going to be adding HDs, RAM or a Superdrive, compare the two before you compare. Might not be worth the $99 for the discount... just a friendly hint.
      • I was thinking the same thing as you, until I noticed one thing. If you're using one of the base models, it IS cheaper, but to upgrade the specs it's more expensive as a developer, so if you're going to be adding HDs, RAM or a Superdrive, compare the two before you compare. Might not be worth the $99 for the discount... just a friendly hint.
        That is what this [pricewatch.com] is for ;)

  • Flashback (Score:5, Informative)

    by douthat ( 568842 ) on Sunday June 06, 2004 @06:13PM (#9352768)
    June 23, 2003

    visit http://www.apple.com/quicktime/qtv/wwdc03/ and fast forward to 1:51:50

    "We're at 2GHz today. IBM and Apple are today announcing that within 12 months that we'll be at 3GHz. 3GHz processor clock. That's up 50% within 12 months. And so, believe me, this architecture has legs."

    Some people dispute what Jobs meant when he said that. At best, it could mean new 3GHz G5 PowerMacs by late June. Or at worst, it could mean that IBM will release a 3GHz G5 Processor by August 2004, since the G5 PowerMac was slated to ship in August of 2003.

  • Apple Rules (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 06, 2004 @06:18PM (#9352793)
    Who the hell can say that Apple is not THE SHIT?

    - Cocoa
    - Quartz
    - Stylish industrial design.
    - Best tech support in the business. They treat you WELL!

    I go to the library with my puny little iBook and chicks come talk to me. OVER a freaking computer!!!

    You can run all kinds of free software thru Fink.
    You can run Windows thru Virtual PC (Dog slow, but it works).

    They include X11, Developer tools, all kinds of pretty things....

    WHAT MORE CAN YOU WANT?????

    Can't wait until they put Gianpaolo to good use and get rid of HFS+, though. Case preservation can kiss my ass.

    I'm 28, been using computers since 5. Apple is THE SHIT!!!
    I had forgot about the fun in computing until I got my first Apple in 2001.

    There are a lot of old dogs, who have been through a lot of shit, and they all say that, for example, a Powerbook is what computers should have been all along.
    Damn right.

    BTW... screw Political Correctness. You all post shit on slashdot like you were waiting a table. You CAN make a valid point and still say the word FUCK. It's OK.

    I like this quote by Lenny Bruce (don't know who the hell he is, but anyhow):

    'Take away the right to say "fuck" and you take away the right to say "fuck the government.'

    Take care! Oh, and get a Mac. You'll see what I'm talking about.

    P.S. - It rules when a HOT chick you just hooked up with complains about the breathing led on your sleeping Mac.

    Yes, it is possible to write some serious code and still pull ass.
    Wasn't Feynman the biggest nerd ever, and still able to pull ass?
    Feminists hated the bitch, and he was fucking with quantum physics.
    How can you not admire a dude like that, who goes to Brasil to learn how to play the bongos :)

    Some idiot writes 10 lines of PERL and thinks it's OK to have no game. Pathetic.

    What's the point of being able to mess (as in write/modify -- not compile) a kernel if you can't walk up to a HOT girl and say:

    "Hi! I'm XYZ. You have a beatiful smile. Can I buy you a drink/Hold this for you/Open the fucking door/Give you flowers/whatever the fuck?"

    Women are humans. Humans.

    Sorry about the offtopicness but half of the blogs I read, from people who write better code than me, are depressing because those dudes can't get laid.

    "When I go to a conference, I relate to those people, but how do I talk to girls?"

    Geek guides for dating.... WHAT THE HELL!!!!!!

    There is NO guide for dating.

    Be the fucking man. Be assertive. Be strong. Just fucking do it.
    Insecure? Go test your fucking limits: skydive, pump iron, pick a fight... do something fucking manly... and you get women.

    That's it. I'm sick of this post. Take care.

  • Here's what's significant... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sfgoth ( 102423 ) on Sunday June 06, 2004 @06:49PM (#9352955) Homepage Journal
    The significance here is that the new motherboard is smaller.

    Because Apple doesn't have to create motherboards that fit some standard size and fastener layout, they're free to adjust their designs as parts change, which makes them free to adjust the external design of the machine as the motherboard shrinks.

    They also have a strong desire to be able to reuse a motherboard design across multiple products.

    In other words, the smaller that G5 motherboard gets, the closer we are to seeing it in a consumer iMac, or even a PowerBook.

    Innovation doesn't just grow on trees, and Apple's proprietary designs give them the flexibility needed to produce unique computers.

    By contrast, there have been around, what, five? standard PC motherboard sizes since the 386. Commodity parts are great for end user prices, but commodity means "same", and it shows in the final product.
    • Actually,there are a wide variety of keyboards for the PC, many designs, types etc...
      "Innovation doesn't just grow on trees, and Apple's proprietary designs give them the flexibility needed to produce unique computers."

      now, thats crap. You telling my they couldn't created a keyboard like this for the PC? of cours they could. What it does is makes it easier to shove it down the customers throat. Of course, you can use other keyboards with the MAC.
    • So I guess those tiny dual Opteron [iwill.net] systems were just a figment of our collective imagination?

      Get off it, Apple certianly is a company that can claim many innovations but the MOTHERBOARD isn't one of them. They don't even build them (Foxconn does) and have very little to say in their design. Most of it is simply dictated by what they want on it. You want 8 memory slots and 64-bit PCI slots? Ok, that is going to take a certian amount of traces and a certian amount of space to do.

      Apple doesn't need any innov

  • Don't knock our enthusiasm for new design pictures (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Tibor the Hun ( 143056 ) on Sunday June 06, 2004 @07:39PM (#9353161)
    Apple's design goes beyond aesthetics. For example, the new keyboard's don't have a "scroll lock" or "num lock" keyes. The reason for this is not just so that they can eliminate a few keys, but because they're not needed.
    If I have a full size number keypad, why would I want to switch it off and on? (and for those 12 of you that actually use the diagonal arrows instead of arrows, I don't really care to hear the explanation)
    And WTF is "scroll lock" again?

  • Now that they've got a bunch of extra space... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Artifex ( 18308 ) on Sunday June 06, 2004 @07:42PM (#9353175) Journal
    Is it too early to start talking about a case redesign from Apple?
    I'd love to see a small box instead of a tower. Worked great for Sun's "pizza box" and "lunch box" server models, and those are even stackable.

    If they really can't design something that size that would be heat efficient with the (expected) speed bump, they could still use that smaller board with slower speed CPUS that use the new die. Surely they've already figured the temperature issue out with their work on the XServes, though?

    If Apple doesn't do it, I'll bet someone else will.
    • I'd love to see a small box instead of a tower. Worked great for Sun's "pizza box" and "lunch box" server models, and those are even stackable.

      It sounds like your want a mini XServe on your desk.

      Hate to say it, but I seriously doubt that'll happen. It wouldn't work well with any of the current Apple monitors - namely, LCD's - unless they made it shallow as well. (And isn't the main reason of having a pizza box form factor to put the monitor on top of it?)

      And what does making it stackable do for home users? Absolutely nothing - if someone has more than one Mac in their home, it won't be in the same place.

      The eMac works out better than the pizzabox-plus-monitor setup, anyway. There wouldn't be any place for such a computer.

  • Oh crap! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Slur ( 61510 ) on Monday June 07, 2004 @03:35AM (#9354706) Homepage Journal
    I just ordered a Dual 2GHz G5 last week!
    This always happens....

  • FUD vs HSD (Score:3, Insightful)

    by gbulmash ( 688770 ) * <semi_famous@yah o o . c om> on Monday June 07, 2004 @04:10AM (#9354761) Homepage Journal
    If Microsoft's marketing strategy is FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt), I'd say Mac's is HSD (Hope, Speculation, and Disappointment). Their new top-of-the-line product revisions are so few and far between that the perceived speed gap almost always falls in x86's favor.

    The last time Apple announced a top-end speed bump was when they announced the G5, a year ago. Since then, AMD and Intel have announced a plethora of new chips. The average (not always on schedule, but usually) is 3-4 months between top-end speed bumps for the x86/Wintel crowd. There's a constant perception that they're making the fastest faster and they keep inertia from setting in with the regular bumps. Look at how much delaying Prescott and going with the EE chip hurt Intel vs. AMD.

    For all Apple tries to claim "FAST", their speed bumps come at a snail's pace. And then, when they announce it, it's still 4-6 weeks (or more) until the first ships to consumers. On top of that, because it's so far between bumps, you're dealing with huge pent-up demand by the time they finally announce a bump. It ensures the newest hot Apple processor will be so backordered, you'll wait another 6-8 weeks for it.

    By the time it's on your desk, whatever was the hot new Pentium when you ordered your hot new Apple will already be a generation old. Plus you'll have to show a LOT of patience, waiting 12-14 weeks for your new Mac, when Dell can get you the best Pentium possible in 12-14 days.

    Forget about pricing and relative tech merits, Microsoft vs. the world, whatever. If Apple wants to compete with Wintel, IMO, Apple needs to update their top-of-the-line hardware more often, announce it closer to the ship date, and get it out the door in a reasonable time.

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