The analysts are weighing in on the expected incusion of PowerPC 970 CPUs in Apple’s upcoming Power Macintosh G5 line. Some analysts’ takes on Power Mac G5 are breathtaking. Breathtakingly stupid:
“Although it’s a new processor, I’d expect to see less brandishing around the processor and more around the features and packages that the systems come in,” Gartner analyst Martin Reynolds told NewsFactor Network. “I expect to see more about the Mac than I do about the processors.”
“The challenge that Apple has had is that they’ve occasionally pulled past Intel on pure speed — I think those days are behind us now,” Reynolds told NewsFactor. “I don’t think we’ll see them crowing about raw performance; instead, they’re more likely to stick with Apple’s core values where they have a real advantage in terms of usability.”
Although these specifications enable the Macintosh to be on par with leading-edge Windows boxes, Reynolds told NewsFactor that “this won’t affect their market; they’re really a niche player now.”
“In light of Intel’s upcoming launch of its Pentium 4 with hyperthreading, IDC analyst Alan Promisel noted, Apple might benefit by moving its architecture to the Pentium side. ‘And Apple has been looking at it,’ he told NewsFactor,” full article here.
“I think it is a big morale booster for the Mac user base to see a brand-new next-generation platform,” IDC analyst Roger Kay told CNET News.com. “It gives them confidence that there are still some legs to the Mac platform.” If you’ve just eaten, wait a bit before tackling this one. Full mess here.
MacDailyNews Take: We’re speechless – except to say that if you know anything about the 970’s performance, the personal computer world is in for quite a surprise come Monday.
of course its breathtaking. its apple. what else is new
who the hell is martin reynolds. he needs to lay off the booze
“I expect to see more about the Mac than I do about the processors.”
–Martin Reynolds
There’s nothing stupid about the above statement. The heart of the machine is the processor, but there are many other engineering feats there too.
The G5 is ALL about the processor. That’s what we’ve been waiting all this time for – that and fscking Quark. All Hell is about to break loose and these analysts are all asleep at the wheel.
Juat read the IDC Roger Kay thing. He’s an ‘analyst’? Look at the mess with the ghz thing and the 64 bit stuff. Gwad.
If the rumored benchmarks of the 970 are only partially true, a single processor should compete easily with the P4 3x whatever, and the duals should crush them especially in graphics tasks. Not to mention the speed increases due to the more than probable big revamp of the motherboards.
If the rumored specs are true the 970s and the projected 980s are FAST. If Apple fails to communicate this later when the machines are out, its going to be a failure in Marketing and PR not the chips.
Apple always seems to advertise ‘highbrow style’ instead of going down and dirty infomercial style. Apple ‘s idea I guess it that consumers are ‘intelligent’ enough to ‘get it’ but looking at the article i think even some ‘analysts’ AREN’T intelligent enough to get it.
Don’t blame him too much. The mass majority of people are stuck in a paradigm this is not only inaccurate now (“Apple is a niche player” and “Apple should go Intel”), but in three days will be in the same category as “the Earth is flat.” Even in the face of raw facts, some people will hold on to their worldviews. Give them a little time…eventually people’s ideas about Macs will catch up with reality. And in the meantime, the Mac-faithful will get to enjoy The World’s Fastest Personal Computer.
Processor means little in the overall scheme of things. We need faster HD’s and bus speeds. The biggest choke point is the internet connection which is what most people use their computers for.
But Madison Avenue and Intel have done a good job of convincing the ignorant public that MHZ matters.
It’s like politicians. Tell them what they want to hear even if it means nothing.
Chuck
Pure Falsehoods and misunderstandings.
These ‘analysts’ love printing this kind of tripe because they know Mac users will react – or because they’re truly uninformed about Windows alternatives. Anyone with a grain of common sense knows better. Whomever suggests an Intel move for Mac OS X is a good thing needs to lay off the crack… and do their homework. As Windows users often forget, Apple is not an OS company the same way M$ is. M$ is not a hardware company the same way Apple is. Making direct comparisons between M$ and Apple (as these analysts often do) is not good journalism.
These analysts are pathetic, totally, as they seem dishonest instead of upfront about their ‘hidden’ desire for the MacOS.
In this article it says: “… IDC analyst Alan Promisel noted, Apple might benefit by moving its architecture to the Pentium side. ‘And Apple has been looking at it,’ he told NewsFactor…”
And in the pevious MDN article it says: “..with Apple’s real future stemming from porting its operating system to Intel-based chips. Bear Stearns’ [Andrew] Neff, among others, has called on Apple to make such a move…”
So bashing Apple, while in truth they want the Mac Experience, badly. And for as cheap as possible, by keeping their current hardware. The want for MacOS is an understandable desire naturally (like wanting it cheaply), but like people in love they are blind to reality. Apple is a hardware company first and foremost, there they make their profits, not with OSX and applications. Apple reaches their unique computing experience by controlling the whole scope of hardware and OS, and many applications, enabling them to let their customers have a BMW-level exprience.
Same applies to all those who complain on Apple about ‘price’, making the weird argument that they should be able to have a BMW for about nothing, “because there second hand Chevy did cost only a tenth, and they both are cars and drive”. Realitycheck: if you want a BMW, you have to pay the accompanying bill. There are reasons why it’s more expensive.
Great news that our BMW’s now turn into Porsche’s, BTW!
I totally agree with MDN: “breathakingly stupid” all these guys/girls.
When Apple says market share is not a matter of concern since its products were not targeted at the mass market, what do people expect?
It’s funny how these analysts never ran their mouth during the 90s when Macs were outperforming PCs without much effort. Today’s PCs take alot of effort to outperform Macs, especially with the requirement of double the clockspeed/bandwidth!
The new processor won’t be enough. Apple is a niche player. Apple needs to switch to Intel to survive. Steve Jobs is mercurial. The Apple music store is a disappointment. Errrr… Falafel tastes like crap.
LOOK AT ME! I’M AN ANALYST! I’M AN ANALYST!
I always love the comment about “3.2 GHz is more than 2 GHz”… it reminds me of Nigel Tufnel of Spinal Tap (“But, 11 is more than 10.”)
lol, these ANALysts are really telling us is that they can actually count.
Even before I owned a mac, I knew why it was better than a similarly outfitted PC. I’m a tech support/network admin, and knowing how computers work and how important it is for developers to know everything about what they develop for – inspired my mac purchase. These analysts are merely reporters not good enough to be Ted Koppel, so they found a niche where people believe what they say despite the gray factfinding.
Computers all have bottlenecks, points in the computing process where a fast cpu has to wait for slower memory which has to wait for slower hard drive performance etc. Additionally, a processor able to make the same computation in less cycles, is that much faster, but only if these other bottlenecks are resolved as best as possible. This is why a Rambus P4 is a great PC, and why a 2mb Level 3 Backside Cache is the most important spec on the current g4s. The processor can only work on whats given to it, slower bus speeds and slower harddrives keep systems from reaching their full potential.
Now, the g5, with 90% efficiency in multiprocessing and having a 64 bit path that can relatively handle twice as much info in 32bit format. So, the 2.0ghz G5, is like a sp g5 running at 3.8ghz. Add hypertransport tech on the motherboard, and 200mhz system bus double pumped into ddr400. A better graphics card than average (8xagp) and a stabler os. And killer design.
Most PC users wont upgrade their machine. Yet the upgradability factors into what analysts think. Most PC users buy the same 2 or 3 dozen apps, yet the number of software titles for PC factors into what analysts think. Its like AOL, people use it because everyone else does and none of them know how else to do it…
This should take a lot of doubt away: http://www.applelust.com/oped/amc/archives/amc030613.shtml and this: http://www.macbidouille.com/niouzcontenu.php?date=2003-05-05
Hyperthreading is already out???
The P4 is a fine CPU, I have written about it for Intel.
What is at question here, and what I am excited about, is what a reinvigorated Apple powermac line will mean. Lets face it, the G4 stirred the pot quite a bit a few years back. I hope the G5 will do the same.
If the price isn’t too crazy, I will buy one.
For a change the guts of an Apple will be as sexy as the shell.
Sorry, I meant to point our how stupid the analysts are for not knowing that the HT enabled P4s are already available. Its all anyone in the PC world could talk about a few months back. Hard to miss.
http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/business/6131212.htm
This is a good article.
Apple has mailing developer lists that have lots of hints about what is coming. Rumor sites should read these.
I know a major part of the announcement based on being on the mailing lists. The specs last night confirmed it. I for one will be very happy to see 5.1 audio and a really good audio (direct sound-like) engine in the new OS.
Gaming will benefit – as will iTunes users that want to hear their music through a really good D/A converter.
AC3 output is gonna be great.
I’m really hoping on Monday Steve will do a PC vs Mac showdown with the top PC’s and the top PowerMac doing a multitude of things against each other.
I’m certain after reading about the incredible performance of the 970, this will shut the ‘so called analysts’ up for good. It was’nt that long ago they were saying Apple were dead? Hello! steve’s about to pee on your bonfire!
WANT TO KNOW WHAT IS REALLY FUNNY?
THIS WAS AN INTENTIONAL LEAK OF INFO FROM APPLE. THE 970 PM IS NOT GOING TO BE THE HIGHLIGHT OF THE SHOW! SOMETHING BETTER IS GOING TO BE UNVEILED.
I THINK THE RECENT RUMOURS ABOUT WHAT PIXAR USES TO MAKE FILMS HAS GOT SOMETHING TO DO WITH IT. EITHER A CLUSTER TYPE SOLUTION USING 970 XSCALES OR SOME SGI/SUN/INTERGRAPH KILLING ULTRA HIGH END MACHINES OVER AND ABOVE THE 970 PM.
THINK ABOUT IT.
ALL CAPS BECAUSE NOW I AM EXCITED.
If the rumors are true, then I’m excited. My boss and I recently did a cost comparison of Mac v x86 hardware (he uses Mac, I use x86) and Mac did better than I expected (I’d still buy an x86 based machine.).
At the end of it all, he looked at me and said, “You’re disappoionted, aren’t you.”
My reply stunned him for a bit, and then he smile. “Hell no,” I said, “That thing will still run Linux!”
I can’t wait to see what one of the new G5’s might do with a real OS under the hood ;-]
OK, I’m a Mac user through and through, and some of what they say is right. The Mac is a niche player and will be for a long time to come. The G5’s first battle isn’t to gain market share. It’s to stop the obvious bleeding. The best thing about the “leaked” G5 specs is that if they’re true Apple didn’t just stick a G5 in a case with old components and call it done, like they did with the G4s, that made us all turn our heads and cough. They actually put some decent components in that G5 spec. Finally people will think the Mac desktops are actually current. Then they need to get developers to stop dropping the Mac. Then the Mac desktop prices have to drop. Then the fanatics among us can start thinking about expanding market share. But, make no mistake. No matter how fantastic Monday’s announcement is, the rest of the world will go,”Whatever” and go back to work on their Wintel drones. Most of them will not pull out their credit cards for this processor. Because most Wintel drones do not buy the fastest PC either. This is about overall parity, not about the top end alone.