Apple on G5 PowerBook: Not so fast

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skipped on the G4.

"While the Mac community seems very much hungry for it, I would rationalize it as your typical cautious lust for greater bang for the buck, as many are looking to replace their G3-based systems," Holland said.

The savior of the G5 in a PowerBook could be a new chip manufacturing technique being used by IBM, whose chip group is expected to introduce a low-power PowerPC 970 later this year, Krewell said.

One procedure involves a new twist on strained silicon, a manufacturing technique that boosts performance by speeding up the transistors, the tiny on-off switches inside the chips. That can lead to better chip performance and lower power consumption.

Halfway there?
Krewell said he expects IBM is actively trying to put strained silicon into production as fast as it can in order to get the 970 into a notebook. "It might be reasonable that they could get something by midyear," he said. "I think it's going to be a challenge to get that part into the 40-watt rage. Even at that (range) it's going to be hard to fit into the Apple aesthetics--weight power and battery life. That's what's keeping the G5 out of the PowerBooks right now."

In some respects Apple is already about halfway down the road to a G5 PowerBook, as it was able to fit the chip into its 2-inch think iMac G5. However, Apple executives cautioned that the next inch will be a tough one in terms of chassis engineering. The iMac G5, which came out last August, is still twice as thick as the 17-inch PowerBook, Greg Joswiak, Apple's vice president of hardware marketing noted at the time.

"The challenges of cooling a G5 in a PowerBook design are significantly greater," he said.

Thus, while it's widely believed Apple could come out with a G5 PowerBook sometime later this year, some think it might take longer. Michael Gartenberg, an analyst for Jupiter Research, said he would be surprised to see G5 portables in 2005.

"A G5 PowerBook is going to happen, but not as soon as a lot of people would like," Gartenberg said. "Apple is concerned about preserving the entire mobile experience, as opposed to just putting a G5 in a box and sticking a handle on it."

"At the end of the day," Gartenberg said, "Apple is much more focused on driving a complete user experience, rather than coming up with a stopgap solution."

[phasam]

Speaks Volumes on Apple Quality

I bought a Dell Inspiron 5150 and I have to blow out the heatsink every 2-3 weeks (collects dust) or the processor overheats (throttles). Check out Dell's own user forums and you find I'm not the only one. No wonder Apple followers are so loyal. They take good care of their own.

[Filip Remplakowski]

Thank you

It's not every day you get to read a good comment about Apple
computers in a PC dominated world, so I just wanted to thank
you. As for your Dell I hope they can help you sort out your
problem. I've been there (used to use wintel solutions up till I
switched 3 years ago) so I know the hassle of dealing with this
kind of technical issue. If you end up getting fed up i'd
recommend going to an Apple Store for a consultation, no need
to purchase, just find out what all the fuss is about.

Thanks Again

[Bill Dautrive]

The dust problem is your, not Dells

You have too much dust in your house and the fans are sucking it up. It happens to any machine with fans. Dust is an insulator, you get dust in the heat sink and all the processor fan does then is cool the dust.

I am not saying your house is dirty, as the dust particles are often quite small, but to blame Dell for it is very spurious.

[Buzz_Friendly]

Nonsense! Same problem with Powerbooks

http://www.appletechs.com/archives/00000077.html

Dell forums you site speaks of fan problems not much on dust. Appls Powerbooks overheat, catch of fire etc etc as well. It a problem that can happen with many electronics. This certainly isn't a Dell vs Apple quality issue.

[karolski8]

Something is wrong here

Let's see, 100W at 1.3 V that's about 77 Amps. I have 100A jumper leads and they are about 1/2" in diameter. I haven't seen anything like this in a notebook.

Karl

[Llib Setag]

64 Bit Chip/64 Bit OS Wintel laptop equal option?

Show me the money CNET.
Where's there a major computer company that offers a consumer
laptop with a 64 Bit chip & 64 Bit OS that is only 1 inch thick &
4.6 lbs to 6.9 lbs equal to the PowerBook?

OSX Panther is a modern 32Bit OS & OSX Tiger is a 64 Bit OS that
is only months away (WAY ahead of MS shorthorn).
IBM/Apple G5 64 Bit chips have been in production & available
for a consumer level desktop computer for years now...

With all of the money that the Wintel monopoly has, why are
they still behind a small company such as Apple?

Citizen Gates preaches about "the visionary future of 64 Bit
computing" to the masses, yet fails to deliver a full featured 64
Bit OS for the consumer's desktop computers. Future Vision?

64 Bit Chips on desktop consumer computers are here TODAY &
have been for years for the Mac + UNIX computer users of
TODAY.
OSX Tiger 64 BIT OS is just a few months away & history will
once again be made by Apple & IBM over the Wintel cash cows.

If anybody can solve this problem & with a technically powerful
& elegantly design form factor, it is definately IBM & Apple.

Why don't you hold the WintelDell Cartel as accountable for this
problem in their clunky chunky legacy laptops as you are trying
to do here with IBM & Apple CNET?

[Pascoli]

There already is a 64-bit version of windows

just not availlable to consumers yet. What kind of windows do you think that itanium runs on, a 32-bit windows?

Moo

You say 'cash cow' like it's a bad thing ;)

[Buzz_Friendly]

hogwash!

How many 64 Bit X86-64 laptops do you want? Acer, HP, ASUS etc etc. So you are flat wrong the hardware.
You can quibble all day weather or not Windows has a 64 bit version it does and it works (it may not be YOUR choice but it is a CHOICE like it or not). You could argue it is not consumer well I can tell you first hand that it will run any consumer application that you can run on Windows 9x to XP. Is it costly sure but that should not be a concern form the Appplites around the world you can't get within $500 of the price of a x86-64 laptop vs an Apple ANYWHERE (unless its stolen)
Then you could run a 64 bit version of Linux on one of these laptops that is not only free BUT lowers the laptop price again over one loaded with XP.
Don?t let evangelical beliefs in a platform be your excuse for blinders.

What about Linux?

There are flavours of this OS in 64bits or have you not noticed?

[LinuxRules]

Can You Say Transmeta?

IBM needs to partner up with Transmeta. Not only to save
Transmeta ass but get hold of the technology and bring the
Efficeon TM8800 to Linux computers, finally.

The real reason people want a G5 powerbook?

I find it ver hard to believe that Mac die-hards are waiting for the G5 powerbook because they skipped the G4 ... that would mean that they haven't upgraded their powerbook since early 2001. And laptops just don't last that long (as the gaffa tape on my (well-used) G4 Tibook can attest). The G3 or 3400 powerbooks are just far too slow to be running anything approaching current software.

Whatever, the real reason that _I_ am eager to upgrade to a G5 powerbook is because it will just seem so rediculous to be able to hold a 64 bit RISC unix workstation under my arm... but then that won't surprise those who know me :)

Now back to your usual news.com.com.com program...

MPC7448?

What I really don't understand is why they haven't integrated the
MPC7448. This is a 90nm pin-compatible G4 with 1MBL2 and a
200MHz bus interface. It burns 10W at 1.4GHz. Go figure!?!

[Jonathan]

People are bitching about the PowerBooks...

Because they aren't keeping up with the rest of the industry. Simpe fact: The first generation Pentium M blew the doors off of the G4 back in '03. (look at www.barefeats.com search for Pentium M) The second generation Pentium M (Dothan) made even a bigger jump forward. So far this year Intel is pushing forward a new chipset that not only has a 533Mhz FSB but DDR2 and PCI Express support.

What has been done to the PowerBook architecture over the last two years? Answer: Jack freaking squat. Speedbumps that hardly do anything to overall performance, a new GPU here and there, lowering prices. Basically everything other then moving the platform forward. Think putting racting stripes, new headlights, mag wheels on last years car and calling it faster then ever.

What pisses me off most about this is the fact that apparently no one in Apple even thought about the PowerBooks while they and IBM were working their tails off on the G5. Or if they did they didn?t do jack about it. Did it occur to anyone to have concurrent development on a mobile CPU while they were working on the G5 or is Apple and IBM incapable of such a task? (So much for being niche player not mattering or so some Mac fans keep telling us.)

Right now a 64-bit CPU is pretty much useless on a laptop. Unless you are planning on loading up multiple GB of ran on the thing its not going to do you jack squat worth of good. People aren?t clamoring for a G5. People are clamoring for a faster PowerBook that is at least in some way shape or form comparable to the Pentium M.

The G4 PowerBook was great 2 years ago. It officered a good balance of performance and battery life. As soon as Intel dropped the Pentium M bombshell on the world the game changed. And that is the game Apple has to play against. As I said before they don?t need to be first across the finish line but for god sake at least place a close second. Right now they are dragging themselves across the finish line with their lips.

I couldn't find your refrences

I did a search for Pentium M on www.barefeats.com and came up
with nothing. I also looked on the system benchmark pages and
searched for Pentium M and also found nothing.

Please post a link

thanks

[Below Meigh]

Now now...

I won't disagree with your feedback. Afterall, I'm using a T21 thinkpad and its quite fast enough for my needs. But before this little notebook, I had a G4 titanium. Yes, the one with the bad hinges and Powerbook lettering that transferred to the lid. And the keys the left marks on the screen. And the heat that went through a blanket to my thighs while sitting in a plane.
But Apple is about COOL. Apple did have the first 3.5" floppy while PCs were at 5.25". And the powerbook is not a workstation-class machine (though I know a few folks that edit DV and create animation on them) yet you could use it as such.
The Centrino and Pentium M (mobile) were designed SPECIFICALLY for mobile use. The G4 is a completely different beast and profitable (its still going...try that with P3).
My only gripe is that I can get a 15" notebook with IEEE1394, USB2.0, 802.11g, DVD-CDRW, 512M, 60GBhd for under $1K. Apple's 15" Powerbook is double that (ok, so you get bluetooth and backlit keyboard).
I'll pay 30% more for 5% more features. Only because I know Apple products. But I won't pay 100% more ...that's ridiculous.

[Filip Remplakowski]

???

Dropped what bombshell they knew what we had known for a
while... MHz doesn't matter and thats why no one bought the
first ones, because the processor "speed" as so low

[Philips]

AMD64 Notebooks?

HP's Pavilions zv5470+ have AMD's Athlon 64 CPUs.

Add Linux - Gentoo or recent Fedora - and you got complete 64bit OS.

Try it. You will love it.

[Philips]

Linux anyone?

People run Linux on PPC especially on old Apple notebooks.

I have had troubles finding help to install YDL on my G4 iBook 14", since most of users are using OldWorld - G3 - systems.

Go figure.

Linux? Ummm. No.

Linux has ZERO support for any multimedia content. DVD authoring? No. Adobe products? No. High Def video encoding? No. Multimedia integration? No.

The best linux can even offer is Open Office. And what's that photoshop rip-off? Gimp? Not a giant step forward, especially with its nasty UI.

Linux is not a comparable OS to OS X. It may be more stable than Windows, but its hardly something most people want to get involved with. Don't get me wrong, Linux is alright, but until it gets native support for all teh applications, or very good counter-parts of them, I, nor will most people, get into it.

Hey Apple, is G4 fast or slow?

At the Apple Store I've been told a number of times by salespersons that the new iMacs are great because they now have the faster G5 as compared to the previous generation which had the "slow" G4. They have told me that the G4 doesn't have great performance for certain applications.

But when talking about the PowerBooks, the G4 is billed as a "fast" processor (see their add on their website). So what gives? Is it fast or slow? I held back from seriously considering the purchase of a PowerBook because of the impression I was given about the G4 by their own salespersons.

I think they really need to develope a mobile version of the G5 as soon as possible.

[CitizenX]

The G4 is plenty fast enough

Perhaps people should be writing articles about not buying
WinTel machines until longhorn comes out. There will
always be "another new thing" just around the corner.

[Thomas, David]

Much About Nothing

Let me see ... hmmm COLSA uses the G5 to power a 24 tflop
supercluster, and Virginia Tech did the same thing to build a
10+ tflop supercluster. Thats really fast for all you rabbits out
there.

But wait! Lo and Behold, I just want to do my work. Whether it
be a graphics artist, musician, engineer .... unless I need to do
real time thermodynamic modeling, or real time movie editing
with in-motion graphical layers, 3-D modeling that is as fast a
30fps ... naaah, i don't do that stuff.

Look the bottom line is what do YOU want to do and BUY
ACCORDINGLY! THE G4 CHIP IS FINE!

[cutekangaroo]

You misunderstood

The G3 is slower than the G4, The G4 is slower than the G5, The
G5 is slower than the G6.....

Doh! Everything is/was fast/slow.

[Dibbs]

if all you wanna do is have some fun

yeah dude the G4 is plenty fast for all sorts of things. heck, video editors make movies and tv shows with these suckers. to me, that qualifies them as fast.

you should buy a computer based on your needs though. so if you need more computing power than is required of software like pro tools, final cut pro, various avid programs, and some random scientific stuff, then maybe you should hold out for a G5 powerbook. otherwise, the current lineup holds on pretty well.

Wanted: Innovation in Apple Powerbook G5 Engineering

Two words: battery and heat. Those are the problem areas of having a G5 processor in a Powerbook. If Apple put a little more effort as they do in their industrial designs into their engineering, perhaps the Powerbook G5 won't just be a fantasy. For example, IBM Thinkpads now have a "radiator"-type setup to dissipate heat quicker. As a result, not as many hot laps and/or heat derived "meltdowns." Come on Apple, beauty without brains is just a fad.