Whoops! Somebody’s head rolled down Infinite Loop early today (unless this was an intentional leak or elaborate joke) because Apple.com briefly posted specifications of upcoming Power Macintosh “G5” models. Just the text specs for the “G5” were briefly online – no images. According to MacNN and other outlets, the Apple Store went offline at 12:05 am and was back online as of 12:25 am. Most probably that’s how long it took Steve to unleash a 55 gallon drum of whoopass on the poor fool. You can see a screenshot of the Apple.com “G5” text here snapped by MacNN.
The specifications read:
– 1.6GHz, 1.8GHz, or Dual 2GHz PowerPC G5 processors
– Up to 1GHz processor bus
– Up to 8GB of DDR SDRAM
– Fast Serial ATA hard drives
– AGP 8X Pro graphics options from NVIDIA or ATI
– Three PCI or PCI-X expansion slots
– Three USB 2.0 ports
– One FireWire 800, two FireWire 400 ports
– Bluetooth & AirPort Extreme ready
– Optical and analog in and out
This raises expectations that Apple will indeed debut new Power Macintosh G5 computers at next week’s World Wide Developers’ Conference.
Was it a mistake or a purposeful realignment of expectations by Apple? Perhaps to quell some of the more outlandish rumors currently floating around the “Mac Web” while fueling other, more realistic rumors along with ratcheting up the excitement level even more? This could be a master stroke by Apple Marketing or some poor web guy is a former Apple employee with Steve’s shoe print etched forevermore upon his arse.
Or dare we question whether the site was hacked?
MacDailyNews: Thank you for the screenshots you’ve emailed us and continue to email to us. We have enough now, thanks. Please stop sending them.
Dual 2’s!!!!!!!!!!!!! HOLY JESUS!!!!
The one part that makes no sense to me is the las line.
“-Optical and analog in and out”
While it is possible the “Optical” part implies either FireWire over fiber optics or Fibre Channel over fiber optics, which are possible to do, I sincerely doubt Apple is putting fiber optics connections on their standard desktop machines.
If the “Optical” part refers to DVD and/or CD players/writers this is certainly a strange way to state it. Apple usually refers to these as “Combo Drive” or “SuperDrive” etc. rather than as “optical in and out”
TIME TO BUST OPEN MY PIGGY BANK!!
Optical probably refers to lightpipe connection used for ADAT (8 channels of 24 bit 48khz or 4 channels of 24 bit 96 khz) and has nothing to do with optical drives.
Optical in and out refers to audio…. optical S/pdif or something along those lines so there will be digital i/o for audio as well as analog.
This will mean some smaller projects could be done without buying an additional audio interface. Similar to putting a dual head video card to satisfy the graphics minded, this will help make a mac seem like an audio centered system to those who need digital i/o…
Why not all three dual processors? My guess is that the dp 1.42s didnt sell as well as projected, because peepz were buying the cheaper dp machines and spending the difference on other options…
Woo hoo! I might have to put my fortune on ebay to score one of those dual 2.0s!
Optical has noting to do with optical drives as mentioned above. It is for audio, so that analog audio in and out we all know, and optical might not be ADAT but SPDIF in and out. This is for the audio people! This thing looks good. I was waiting for this to jump on the Mac platform. Can’t wait till Monday.
I think this was most likely a marketing ploy used by Apple to get more buzz for the upcoming WWDC next Monday.
How come all the dumb analysts somehow forgot that these are new 64-bit chips we are talking about?
Does Apple really use .png files on its site? Great file formate but IE doesn’t really support them. They may have been hacked.
The .png is a result of MacNN’s screenshot of the Apple.com site. They probably compressed it for the web and used the .png format.
Do I have to comment on every article? I wish Apple would explain why their 2’s are better than PC’s 3’s. I overheard two customers who were looking at an Apple in Compusa; The one said to his friend: ‘ I dont understand why Apple is so far behind, they were making computers first so they should be ahead.’ There is that perception in the mind of the consumer that 3 is faster, bigger, better than 2 no matter how many words of explanation come with the 2. And you know I havent seen that explanation in a while which makes me wonder whether it still applies to the higher speed G4 chips and to the G5 chips; in other words Im not sure that these chips arent suffering from a sort of processor speed inflation. You know Steve jobs is the guy that said a few years back that the public doesnt really want faster computers–this was back when processors speeds were rapidly approaching 300– that may be true ultimatelty but in the short run power sells. I want a machine that will let me down load Ghandi and edit it into a comedy; ( and I was going to say where I can donwload ‘across the universe’ and see Lennon’s mind as he sings it but sheesh. )
Natalie:
“Analysts say new PowerPC 970 only 2GHz ‘won’t erase gigahertz gap'”
Read the “MacDailyNews Take” at the bottom.
I wonder why Apple doesn’t use an arbitrary naming scheme like Amd (where 2200 or whatever isn’t really related to clockspeed) instead of having the ghz thing? It might help sales.
So a 970 1.4 ghz will be a G5 3000 or some such.
Does the image of the new case look like a G5 CUBE to anyone else?
Natalie:
So using your reasoning, the forthcoming Itanium processors (clocked at 900MHz) should beat the crap out of the G5, because 900 is much bigger than 2, right?
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I am actually kind of disappointed that the G5 specs turned up online. Though I’m as anxious as anyone to see what’s in store from Apple on Monday – all the fast and furious rumors before a big Apple event is half the fun. A slip-up like this kind of takes the fun out of it now.
It’s like when Time Canada showed the iMac.
But many are still really enthralled by what the enclosure is going to look like.
Plenty of mystery still left!
REAL Picture of the G5!!!!
Hey Frank:
“-Optical and analog in and out”
This will be for digital AUDIO, dude.
Have a look on any current audio gear. My Harmon Kardon AV Receiver has a bunch of optical toslink connectors on it.
I haven’t seen a DVD/CD connection that uses optical for the data path. There are toslink optical connections for digital audio on some, I don’t know if the superdrive has it.
If it were networking, it would be called ‘Fibre’ That’s cool stuff, but the Fibre switches cost a bundle.
Yo.
Optical Audio S/PDIF (Sony Phillips InterFace) is a Lightpipe Audio Transfer medium….nothing new for us audio pro’s, but a nice add-on for consumer/prosumer markets. It keeps the signal path all digital.
Actually the optical link has been around in consumer equipment for years. I’ve got an old PC soundcard here with one on it. And an old ES Sony amp that must be pushing 10 years has them too. It’s not a new feature, but it is a good one regardless of your Pro or Consumer stance.
The issue is awareness, not availability.
Yo.
BRING ON THE TECHNOLOGY!!!!
I CAN’T WAIT!!!!!