PowerMac is now dead

[iamaboringperson]

Of course, we all know it was going to happen...

See http://www.apple.com

[bloodline]

Wow! The Mac Pro is the most mighty beast I've ever seen... Steve finally gets his Super computer :-)

Other News, ATI to be killed off... and replaced with the AMD brand :-)

[Bennymee]

A nice machine for a pro-price.

[Agafaster]

do they still sell macs with PPCs in anymore, or have they all gone ?

-edit-
apparently they still sell the Quad G5 and G5 Xserve. at least here in the UK.

[Bennymee]

@Agadaster

In the Apple store on the left, there still are PowerMac G5 and XServe G5 listed.

[Lando]

Rather underwhelmed.  Apple's notebooks were still stuck on G4, so the 3-4x speed increase from G4 to Core Duo was enough to prompt Powerbook and iBook owners to upgrade.

But for Quad G5 owners, I don't think a 1.3x speed increase in apps like Final Cut Pro (which is what most of these towers are used for) is going to be enough to prompt people to abandon their 'old', working G5's for a new Mac Pro.  In fact this is the first time I think Apple have released a new generation of machines which were actually slower than the previous generation - the tests over at barefeats (http://www.barefeats.com/macvpc.html) showing even the dual 2.5Ghz G5 out-performing the dual 3.4Ghz Xeon in 4 out of 6 tests.

[KThunder]

those tests were  done over a year ago is there anything newer.
pure cpu tests are interesting but i think full system tests (cpu, memory, video, and os) are better. the next page in those tests show the g5 being put down soundly in hardware/os. i say hardware/os because the cpus video and os were really being tested the barefeats guys even state that when they say that the big reason for the difference was opengl (mac) being so much slower than dirextx (pc) although i also find it interesting that the amd chips edged out the intel ones, using the same api

[bloodline]

Lando wrote:
Rather underwhelmed.  Apple's notebooks were still stuck on G4, so the 3-4x speed increase from G4 to Core Duo was enough to prompt Powerbook and iBook owners to upgrade.

But for Quad G5 owners, I don't think a 1.3x speed increase in apps like Final Cut Pro (which is what most of these towers are used for) is going to be enough to prompt people to abandon their 'old', working G5's for a new Mac Pro.  In fact this is the first time I think Apple have released a new generation of machines which were actually slower than the previous generation - the tests over at barefeats (http://www.barefeats.com/macvpc.html) showing even the dual 2.5Ghz G5 out-performing the dual 3.4Ghz Xeon in 4 out of 6 tests.

The 3.4Ghz Xeon was a Netburst chip... nasty hot low IPC waste of silicon.

The new Mac Pro is powered by a Woodcrest Core 2 Duo chip (2 of them!)... and uses FB-DIMM memory! It's a vastly superior system in every way.

Don't forget my 2Ghz Core Duo MacBook Pro is able to outperform a 2xG5 2Ghz PowerMac (both with 2Gig of RAM), when running Logic Pro 7.2... The Mac Pro is the machine I've been waiting for!

[Tigger]

Lando wrote:

But for Quad G5 owners, I don't think a 1.3x speed increase in apps like Final Cut Pro (which is what most of these towers are used for) is going to be enough to prompt people to abandon their 'old', working G5's for a new Mac Pro.  In fact this is the first time I think Apple have released a new generation of machines which were actually slower than the previous generation

First of all its 1.4x faster then the fastest of the Quad G5s out there running Final Cut Pro, and most of the G5 workstations out there aren't quad, and they definitely arent quad 2.5Ghz.  (a system just 9 months old), anyone with a slower quad or a non quad mac is going to see 3,4 or 6X faster performance, they are going to sell alot of these machines.  And Final Cut is really one of the pieces of software with the worst gain, with modo they are 1.8x at logic pro they are 1.8x.  Both programs with alot of power users that will love the new speed.
     -Tig

[Tigger]

Agafaster wrote:
do they still sell macs with PPCs in anymore, or have they all gone ?

-edit-
apparently they still sell the Quad G5 and G5 Xserve. at least here in the UK.

They are cleaning out stock, as I posted last month, the PPC lines for the mac have completed manufacture.
    -Tig

[bloodline]

Notice that MacOS X will be getting public screens (Spaces in mAc SpEaK) a la AmigaOS in version 10.5 it only took 20 years :-)


http://www.apple.com/macosx/leopard/spaces.html

[KThunder]

apple has basicly become an alternative os pc manufacturer, and thats not a bad thing. they have a strong and commited following. and enough style to make it all work. other pc alternate os manufacturers were missing that special something or other and so far have fallen. os2 beos etc.
mac os is now based on bsd unix isnt it? ive never liked apple but i wish them well.

[irishmike]

They said that the whole line would be Intel based by 2007.  If you buy a PPC based Mac today, it will still be supported until the warranty is ran out and having just bought my MINI (October last year), they still support it as well.

I suppose in another 3 years I will get another machine, but in the meanwhile, I see no problem.

Yes, they are going to stop manufacturing PPC based Macs this year, but the ones they sell will still be supported up to three years from now to fulfill AppleCare Warranty contracts.

My thinking, go ahead and buy the PPC based models and enjoy the savings :-)

Of note, Adobe (Photoshop) has not made a Universal Binary yet to my knowledge :-)

[Tigger]

irishmike wrote:
They said that the whole line would be Intel based by 2007.  

As of yesterday the entire line is Intel.

Yes, they are going to stop manufacturing PPC based Macs this year,

Actually they stopped making them in July.

Of note, Adobe (Photoshop) has not made a Universal Binary yet to my knowledge :-)

The new releases of everything (Including Photoshop) will be universal binary, adobe has decided to add this feature to next releases, which is what they did with OS X support a few years ago.
    -Tig

[bloodline]

KThunder wrote:
apple has basicly become an alternative os pc manufacturer, and thats not a bad thing.

Haven't they always been that? Once the PC became defacto standard in the mind 90's... everyone else became "alternative os pc manufacturers"... I know what you are saying... but my point is that nothing has really changed. :-)

they have a strong and commited following.

Yeah, they've got the crazy freaks, like us Amigans :-) But apple also have a huge range of MacOS only software that is of exceptional quality! And keeps people like me with the platform. See my avatar :-D

and enough style to make it all work.

Yeah, their stuff does look good!

other pc alternate os manufacturers were missing that special something or other and so far have fallen. os2 beos etc.

The others just lack the software library... Linux scraps by because of it's good software support (but they lack the "Linux only" quality software). The AmigaOSoids really need some new quality, software.

mac os is now based on bsd unix isnt it? ive never liked apple but i wish them well.

A bit of BSD Unix, a bit of Mach 3.0 a bit of MacOS classic and NeXT Step... some other stuff all mushed into one OS :-)

Quite an interesting system.