Apple Moves to All Dual-Processor Power Mac Lineup

Jason Siegel writes "Apple will no longer be selling single-processor Power Mac computers, according to GeekInformed. The company has officially dropped 1.8 GHz G5s from their lineup to pave the way for exclusively dual-processor Power Macs. The systems will range from dual 2 to 2.7 GHz G5s. This is the first significant announcement since the Worldwide Developers Conference declaration that Apple will transition away from PowerPC to Intel chips."

Re:Hasn't it been this way for a while?

[flamingnight]

Nope. There was a single 1.8 that was (IIRC) available, then unavailable, then available again.

Re:Why such a focus on power?

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Why would Apple be so focused on only selling uberpowerful models? Not to ruffle any feathers, but isn't the primary audience Apple's trying to grab onto right now the average user?

The powermacs are their professional towers. imacs and mac minis are aimed at non-power users.

Re:Why upgrade now?

[Princeofcups]

Me, in about a half hour. I'm picking up a dual 2.7GHz and 23" display at the Apple Store.

1 - I'll be able to resell it for 50%+ of the cost.

2 - I can keep the monitor when I get a new Intel system.

3 - Although many apps will be fat by the rollout of the new machines, many will only work on the PPC.

I figure an upgrade to Intel in about three years. I see no hurry to rush onto the bleeding edge of new technology.

jfs

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Hasn't it been this way for a while?

[GROOFY]

That was in the online store. The 1.8 GHZ has been available at Apple retail stores pretty consistently.

Re:Why upgrade now?

[clarkcox3]

You don't understand what Universal Binaries are. They are simply a renaming of the old Next "fat" binaries. That is, they contain *completely native* code for two or more platforms. This is completely separate from Rosetta, and has nothing to do with emulation in any form. Please get your facts straight.

They'll stay PowerPC for a while.

[GFLPraxis]

According to CNET, the transition will begin with the low end in 2006.

My assumption is that small form factor systems like the Mac Mini, and the laptops that are stuck with G4's, will go with Pentium M processors.

After all, Apple said they are going with Intel for performance per watt, and the only current Intel processor that gets that is the Pentium M.

The PowerMacs will stay with PowerPC processors for a while and will probably be the last to switch, because you don't really care about the performance per watt on a watercooled monster like the PowerMac unless you're an overclocker ;)

Uhhh, so buy one and plug it in.

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft Intellimice work right out of the box. OS X support two button mice natively.

Re:Still dual processor when they go Intel?

[Skirwan]

...rumors that the keynote announcing the Intel deal, which included a demo on a PowerMac, was in fact powered by a quad-Pentium powered box.

The 'about' window was trying to say that it was a Pentium 4, not there were four Pentiums. The formatting may have been a bit confusing for some folks.

Re:Still dual processor when they go Intel?

[Ath]

Yes, but they specifically said "Intel"... not "x86"... "Intel".

No, they said Intel on the IA32 platform. That is x86. Phil Shindler said it and explicitly used the example of whether Apple would do anything to prevent people from running Windows on Apple machines. He said no, but that it would not be permitted to run OS X on non-Apple hardware.

For once and all, Apple is moving to Intel chips using the x86 architecture. Want to know which ones? They said to look at Intel's roadmap for mid 2006 to see the likely chips they will use.

Re:G5 vs P4 ?

[Anonymous Coward]

What do you want to do? The G5 will be excellent at some things. The P4 at others.

Completely OT. But my work computer is a 1.7 GHz Centrino and my home computer is a 3.2 GHz Pentium 4. As you would guess, the 3.2 is much faster at almost everything. Yet the Centrino actually encodes MP3s slightly faster. The difference is negligible, but it does exist and is repeatable. On other benchmarks, the P4 is 10 to 50% faster.

I would suspect the G5 and P4 compare similarly.

MOD PARENT DOWN - IS ON CRACK

[coopex]

From here: 2-way SPEC systems

SPECint_rate2000
2200 Opteron 68.1 64.2
2200 PowerPC 970 21.5 20.2
SPECfp_rate2000
2200 Opteron 69.1 63.9
2200 PowerPC 970 20 19.2

I see, if by smoke, you mean have 1/3 the performance of an Opteron. And for Pentium M, SPECint2000, since they don't make dual PMs
2000 Pentium M 1541 1528
2200 PowerPC 970 1040 986
SPECfp2000
2000 Pentium M 1088 1087
PowerPC 970 not on chart or not tested.

From the data, its clear that the G5 sucks ass, and that the superior performance of the x86 is the reason behind Apple finally switching. I can't wait for the day that the Apple uses Intel, so I don't have to hear any more morons that know nothing about processors or performance, and are so obsessed with Apple produced they'd buy a freakin iProduct [gizmodo.com]

A summary of what processor to buy: Raw throughput, POWER5, poor man POWER5, Opteron, shiny case, G5.

Update!

[mholve]

The latest version supports SMP Macs.

Re:Apple Reducing Choice

[mrchaotica]

Do you realize that the only important differences between the discontinued single-processor PowerMac and the iMac G5 are that the iMac is faster, has a screen, and costs less? No one in their right mind would pick that PowerMac over the iMac anyway, so it was redundant.

Re:Depends if they are idiots or not

[SteeldrivingJon]

1. You can use the commandline tool 'lipo' to glue an Intel binary segment compiled with gcc 4 onto a PPC segment that will run on 10.3.x.

This would also be a method to support ppc64. Compile with an older SDK/compiler combo, and hand-lipo the ppc64 binary segment into the executable.

2. Universal binaries are *not* twice as big. Interfaces, documentation, and other accessory files are not duplicated. Those often take up as much space, or more, than the binary. (Especially apps which include localized interfaces and documentation for multiple languages.)

(Admittedly, command-line executables would be twice as large, because they tend not to have all the extra material found in a typical GUI application.)

In practice, it wasn't a big problem back in the NeXT days, when applications were quad-fat, not just dual-fat, and fast internet connections were rare.

Re:Why upgrade now?

[RapidDemon]

Intel's processors have EMT64 instructions, including the processor in the apple development machine. The Pentium M line does not, but it is projected to in late 2006 or early 2007 I believe. This is insignificant because apple will likely use the Pentium D line in its desktops.