New Mac System Specs 650
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."
Slow learners? (Score:5, Interesting)
If my memory serves, a judge passed a ruling on this a little while ago [slashdot.org]. 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.)
Re:Slow learners? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Slow learners? (Score:5, Interesting)
Not to mention the fact that Nick Ciarelli is apparently still actively engaged in tortious interference.
Re:Slow learners? (Score:4, Insightful)
He's breaking the law six ways from Sunday. This has never been in dispute.
Re:Slow learners? (Score:4, Informative)
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.
Re:Slow learners? (Score:4, 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.
Re:Slow learners? (Score:4, 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
Re:Slow learners? (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:Slow learners? (Score:3, 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.
Re:Slow learners? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Slow learners? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Slow learners? (Score:3, Funny)
A comma might have really helped in there.
No word yet... (Score:5, Interesting)
Further, an update to Apple's CHUD tools [apple.com] (subsequently pulled) had clear references to quad processor capability [blogspot.com], as well as references to the 970MP [macrumors.com], and the single core 970GX [macrumors.com].
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...
Re:No word yet... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:No word yet... (Score:5, Funny)
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
Re:No word yet... (Score:3, Interesting)
They both make knives for the Swiss Army ... (Score:5, Informative)
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.
BRe:No word yet... (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:No word yet... (Score:5, Insightful)
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...
Re:No word yet... (Score:3, Interesting)
I'd imagine 4 or 8x would be pretty nice for a multiple (quad?) Gig-E card though
Re:No word yet... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:No word yet... (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:No word yet... (Score:3, Interesting)
#1 - Sony's not about to cave.
#2 - Apple's already backing Blu-Ray. Check out the list of companies. [blu-raydisc.com] 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
Re:No word yet... (Score:5, Informative)
Fine Grain Locking (SMP scalability)
Enjoy improved performance and scalability.
see http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/unix/ [apple.com]
Smaller portable needs. (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re:Smaller portable needs. (Score:3, Funny)
Wow, I'm curious to know what kind of needs you have that would justify this...
Sheer gear lust ?
Re:Smaller portable needs. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Smaller portable needs. (Score:4, Informative)
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.
Re:Smaller portable needs. (Score:4, Informative)
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.
Re:Smaller portable needs. (Score:4, Informative)
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
Re:Smaller portable needs. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Smaller portable needs. (Score:3, Insightful)
http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/xgrid/ [apple.com]
YES!! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:YES!! (Score:3, 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...)
Re:Smaller portable needs. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Smaller portable needs. (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:Smaller portable needs. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Smaller portable needs. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Smaller portable needs. (Score:5, Informative)
In spite of the recent trackpad isses, PowerBooks are selling like iPods(yes, hot cakes have been replaced by iPods).
An argument against an Apple subnotebook (Score:3, Insightful)
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
Re:Smaller portable needs. (Score:5, Funny)
Braggart.
Re:Smaller portable needs. (Score:3, Interesting)
Heh, speed bumps... (Score:5, Funny)
You mean, like, to keep them all from going too fast?
Cool! (Score:4, Interesting)
emac? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:emac? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:emac? (Score:4, Funny)
No, he's talking about the text editor, emacs. So the word you want is emasculate, at least for vi users.
Re:emac? (Score:3, Funny)
They've ditched the plumbing/new iMac video (Score:5, Insightful)
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'.)
Re:They've ditched the plumbing/new iMac video (Score:3, Informative)
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
Re:They've ditched the plumbing/new iMac video (Score:3, Insightful)
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 (a
Re:They've ditched the plumbing/new iMac video (Score:3, Informative)
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.
Re:They've ditched the plumbing/new iMac video (Score:3, Informative)
Re:They've ditched the plumbing/new iMac video (Score:4, Funny)
Well, you can drink it once. . .
Midplane (Score:5, Informative)
new ibooks too... (Score:4, Informative)
No Mac mini upgrade? (Score:5, Funny)
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!
Re:No Mac mini upgrade? (Score:3, Insightful)
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 pa
the video editor in me is twitching and dreaming (Score:3, Funny)
iDrool.
document tracing technologies (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:document tracing technologies (Score:5, Informative)
Re:document tracing technologies (Score:3, Interesting)
Micro ATX G5, BYOKDM (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Micro ATX G5, BYOKDM (Score:5, 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?
iMac G5 (Score:4, Informative)
This is good (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This is good (Score:3, Insightful)
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 G
hard drive conundrum (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
2 drives halves your MTBF (Score:5, Insightful)
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!
Re:2 drives halves your MTBF (Score:3, Informative)
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?
Meaningfullness of MTBF (Score:3, Informative)
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 itsel
Re:hard drive conundrum (Score:3, Interesting)
New Mac iBook (Score:4, Informative)
best thing about this.... RAM (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:best thing about this.... RAM (Score:3, Informative)
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
Dual cores all the way (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Power Book? (Score:3, Interesting)
And waiting..
And waiting..
Re:Power Book? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:But what about the PowerBooks!? (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:But what about the PowerBooks!? (Score:3, Insightful)
The question in my mind i
Re:But what about the PowerBooks!? (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
Re:But what about the PowerBooks!? (Score:3, Informative)
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-inst
Re:Pfft, why? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Pfft, why? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Pfft, why? (Score:3, Informative)
Huh? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Still waiting... (Score:5, Insightful)
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'.
Re:Still waiting... (Score:4, Interesting)
isn't as important to me as smooth operation.
Re:No mac mini update (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:No mac mini update (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:No mac mini update (Score:4, Insightful)
otherwise, buy a powermac G5 for $1499 or an older G5 on ebay for about $1000.
Re:Macs for everyone. (Score:3, Funny)
Re:iMac + KVM ? (Score:3, Informative)
(Why beat around the bush?)
Re:iMac + KVM ? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Whats the big deal?? (Score:4, Funny)
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: :-)
Re:Buy a powermac now, upgrade in 2 weeks? (Score:4, Funny)
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).
Re:Buy a powermac now, upgrade in 2 weeks? (Score:5, Funny)
What to do, what to do.... Argh...
For starters you could quit pratting around reading \. and start the project.
Re:I'm happy (Score:3, Interesting)
[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
Tiger has OpenGL 1.5 (Score:3)