Apple Imac G5

[Jarrod]

I can't say I agree. With the exception of the laptops, the increase in performance won't be worth the "revision A" machines. The desktops are fast enough for pretty much everything.

Also, you're going to be emulating programs for a couple of years; and that's slow. Slower than having a native Mac.

 

[Digital M@]

Thanks for all of the advice.

I have built my own PCs for years, but never messed or have even seen the inside of a mac. I will look into the RAM memory from a third party vendor, but unless the savings is significant, I will probably get it from apple.

Any advantage for me driving out to an Apple store vs buying it directly via the net?

 

[DM_Matt]

To clarify here a bit, Apple is moving the Mac to Intel processors over the next year or two. They've formally announced this and all that. They haven't announced what will be moving to Intel and at what time, though at least for a while there were rumors that the first Intel-powered Macs would be launched in January (those rumors have since died down). Since Apple's going to be using Intel's Yonah (dual-core Pentium M, launches in January), Conroe ("Pentium 5", the Pentium M-based successor to the Pentium 4, supposedly launches in the second half of 2006), and Merom (the notebook version of Conroe, 2H '06) CPUs in the Intel-based Macs, not the current Pentium 4-derived desktop chips, January's the earliest Intel-based Macs could launch.

Since the Mac Mini and the iBook are the Macs with the most serious problems with underpowered CPUs, and because the low-power Yonah chip is a better fit for them than the more powerful iMacs, PowerBooks, and PowerMacs, speculation is that they'll get the Intel treatment first.

Died down? I'd say its the opposite. its crossed from the Mac rumor community to the stock analyst community. These folks bet people's money on these things.

RE the Yonah, if there can be Yonah iBooks, they will have to release PowerBooks as well or consolidate the lines. Yonah is expensive and very powerful. ArsTechnica showed it giving the fastest desktop processors around a run for their money. The PowerBook has been stagnant for the past couple years and is extremely weak. If they can even figure out how to get Yonah into an iBook and make a profit, they will have an iBook that slaughters the PowerBook speedwise, especially since the main bundles apps (mail, safari, itunes, etc) will be native from the outset and many companies will have updated versions soon after release since the conversions don't appear to be that difficult in many cases. Finally, recent developer builds have shown that the emulator has been upgraded from the virtual G3 it was announced as to a virtual G4 with full AltiVec support.

The iMac and PowerMac lines will be updated last because the G5 is still a competitive chip. The G4 is not, and so it is in far more need of replacement. Also, the PowerMac lines may need more and more obscure native software for maximal performance on heavy-duty video tasks, but realistically, most PowerBook users are not too different from iBook users.

 

[Jarrod]

And their emulation software is an impressive technical feat. Though, amusingly, emulating a processor is a lot simpler than emulating an OS... but that's because hardware is (in general) more likely to follow the specifications than software.

Store vs. online... the advantage of the store would be giving it a test run. Also, if you're looking at Apple keyboard&mice getting to try it out... some people love them, some people hate 'em. If it's a drive, I wouldn't sweat it.

Memory... it's a budget thing. Take a look at the instructions for upgrading and see what the price difference is.

 

[drothgery]

Died down? I'd say its the opposite. its crossed from the Mac rumor community to the stock analyst community. These folks bet people's money on these things.

Eh. The technical rumor/reporting/review sites I read tend to be saying that it's not going to happen in January now.

RE the Yonah, if there can be Yonah iBooks, they will have to release PowerBooks as well or consolidate the lines. Yonah is expensive and very powerful.

It seems unlikely that dual-core Yonahs will be much more expensive than the "Dothan" Pentium Ms they're intended to replace. And if Apple wants to cut costs, there's a single-core variant of Yonah (probably destined to replace the Celeron M in PC-land).

In many respects, Yonah compares favorably to current dual-core desktop CPUs from AMD and Intel, but it lags badly in media encoding (which Apple cares a lot about -- as does Intel; that's one of the big reasons why they've never pushed Pentium M on the desktop), and it's not a 64-bit capable chip.

 

[DM_Matt]

Eh. The technical rumor/reporting/review sites I read tend to be saying that it's not going to happen in January now.



It seems unlikely that dual-core Yonahs will be much more expensive than the "Dothan" Pentium Ms they're intended to replace. And if Apple wants to cut costs, there's a single-core variant of Yonah (probably destined to replace the Celeron M in PC-land).

In many respects, Yonah compares favorably to current dual-core desktop CPUs from AMD and Intel, but it lags badly in media encoding (which Apple cares a lot about -- as does Intel; that's one of the big reasons why they've never pushed Pentium M on the desktop), and it's not a 64-bit capable chip.

Which sites are those?

RE: price, it is not much more expensive than Intel's current offerings, but right now Apple is paying two digits for the G4s, so its a HUGE price increase for Apple.

Also, the Single-Core Yonah's wont be out till April. Apple might prefer Consumer then Pro, but Intel is shipping its chips in the opposite order Thus, if there are any January Yonahs, there will be January PowerBook Yonahs or a consolidated line (There are also two dumb options: Apple lets the iBook Yonah's cannibailize the PowerBook line, or Apple releases iBook Yonahs that are somehow crippled in another respect to drive PowerBook purchases, like killing FireWire in favor of USB2 only or sometihng like that.).

 

[RC Hagy]

If you are looking for the iMac get one now. The quirks for the new design have been ironed out ( as far as such things ever go) and a good 4+ years will be had with it... at which time all Macs will have been moved over to Intel and the bugs worked out at that point.

As to RAM... I use Crucial and installing has been no biggy.


RCH