[Ti] New G4 PowerBooks

[Chris Olson]

On Dec 7, 2004, at 8:30 PM, Tom Warner wrote:

> I don't see your point about the single G5. If a single G4 was 
> 'better', why would Apple have bothered with the cooling hassles and 
> delays of the G5 iMac?

Marketing.  The higher the "G number", the better it must be, right?  
At least that's the way consumers look at it.  It's something new.  New 
stuff sells.  Status quo gets dismal sales.

Not that the G5 isn't a good processor, and not that the iMac G5 isn't 
a good consumer computer.  The G5's scalability shows much more 
potential than the G4.  But at the same time there's absolutely no 
reason (other than marketing) at this point for Apple to have a single 
cpu PowerMac G5 when the dual cpu 1.42 GHz PowerMac G4 is actually a 
faster machine.  Add to that the G4 chips from Freescale are more 
readily available (and cheaper) than G5 chips.  IBM is still having 
yield problems with the PowerPC 970 fab.

I'd like to see Freescale Semiconductor step up R&D on the G4 line of 
chips because it's a *very* efficient, stable, workhorse processor.  
Motorola has just been lackluster in development of it.  Otherwise, it 
makes the perfect PowerBook cpu over the G5.  There's limitations to 
notebook computers in the first place with heat and size.  A 64-bit cpu 
in a notebook is like swatting flies with a screen door.  It's not 
practical with current technology because of the limitations of the 
amount battery capacity to feed electricity to more than 2 GB of RAM.  
How many here have the full compliment (2 GB) of RAM in their 
PowerBooks?  I'll bet not very many.  And this the one big, main 
advantage with a 64-bit processor - the amount of RAM it can address.  
Otherwise, 64-bit software will run slower than 32-bit because you're 
pushing larger memory addresses around with it.  *Unless* you can take 
advantage of the increased memory addressing capacity of the 64-bit 
cpu.  I'd bet 95% of consumers don't own the software to *use* the full 
capabilities of the G5 processor.  If you work with Motion, Final Cut, 
DVD Studio Pro, Logic, et al, as your *primary* applications, then 
you're a G5 customer.
--
Chris