In My Experience... | Worst Kept Secret Ever. (1235)

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Worst Kept Secret Ever.
[ Posted by Dan on June 20, 2003 | 8 Comments ]

The rampant speculation that Apple is about to release new hardware based on the IBM PowerPC 970 (aka the G5) processor has been confirmed, sort of. Yesterday, one of the graphic images that Apple uses in the product pages got mixed up, and the file that shows the specs for the G5 was put out on Apple.com.

Stevie Boy Blue has been a pretty notorious secret keeper, and lawsuits have been the result of leaked secrets before. This time though, pretty much everyone knew the G5's were coming. IBM said they were, and rumors leaked Apple's manufacturer that large quantities of processors were in hand and machines were being made. Others have seen the pallette coming into various apple store with notes not to open them until the announcements happens.

It's pretty hysterical that the actual details were leaked by Apple. Who ever made the mistake is going to get ripped a new asshole. My thanks got out to him/her though, because it makes the buying decision easier to make (ie, don't buy a G4 and wait a week and buy a G5). Here's what was leaked...

1.6GHz, 1.8GHz, or Dual 2GHz PowerPC G5 Processors
Up to 1 GHz processor bus
Up to 8GB of DDR SDRAM
Fast Serial ATA hard drives
AGP 8x Pro3 PCI or PCI-X expansion slots
One FW800, two FW400 ports
Bluetooth & Airport Extreme ready
Optical and analog audio in and out

The max amount of RAM seems pretty huge to me, but the real story is that the 1.6's and 1.8's are single processor units. My guess is that the dual proc 2.0 ghz's are going to be in the $3k range, and the low end will be around $1800, but that's just a guess. At any rate, I think it's a mistake to buy a single processor unit these days. Because...

The PowerPC 970, on the other hand, is designed from the ground up with multi processing in mind--IBM intends to see the 970 used in 4-way or higher desktop SMP systems.

I'm dreaming of ultra fast DV to MPEG conversions, and iMovie transitions previews and rendering. /drool

One thing not mentioned here is the 3 USB 2.0 points seen elsewhere. Hopefully, they're "real" 2.0 and not just renamed 1.1 ports (see recent SlashDot posts.) Apple wouldn't do this to us... would they? (Check out their other products. They list the current G4 as having 4 USB ports, the iMac having 5 ports, because they include the keyboard ports in the total.) I sure hope this is an oversight, and that there's more than one port on the machine itself. Has to be an oversight.

You know we'll see more dual options as supply increases. Dual 2 Ghz 1 Ghz FSB and PCI Express with 8 GB RAM: The dream FPC box!

And yes.. the guy who posted the image, assuming it was not intentional, will be shaved, sterilized and destroyed by Steve.

Apple has to deliver on ALL of this, otherwise people will be so disappointed, especially with the Mac/PC gap widening (again). As much as I want this machines to have at least these specs, I *really* wanna see the new chassis!

-Posted by Quinn MacDonald on June 20, 2003 01:18 PM

Yeah, good point, the actual box that machine is in is still a secret. heheheh.

-Posted by Dan on June 20, 2003 01:22 PM

To sell a super computer as the G5, You can't make a breaking news like that. You have to wake up the computer community first to catch all the attention. That's what Apple did. The rumours are, most of the times, cheaper, faster, and stronger than good ad campaign.

Now, Apple is sure that more journalists will look at the show than ever and it's more fun to think we're clever than Steve Jobs as we're so used to Apple's secret policy...

The real rumour is: "Is this the marketing department or Steve himself that told the web design department to post the supposed secret image for one hour?"

-Posted by La Shampoo on June 20, 2003 01:33 PM

Ah, a conspiracy theory! I like it.

-Posted by Dan on June 20, 2003 01:39 PM

argh the day i started reading this blog. i've always had a soft spot for apple, but never have "made the leap" to get one...i'm closer, the more i check this stuff out. should i start by selling my ipaq and getting an ipod? i only use it for music anyway.

-Posted by jon on June 20, 2003 02:09 PM

The answer is of course, yes. but keep this in mind, Apple gear is pricey, even if it's more competative than it used to be. If it's avialable to you, try to buy Apple gear with educational discounts.

I used to prefer Macintosh to other OS's for the simple reasont hat it was easy on the eyes, made sense to me, and didn't annoy me like windows. I gained experience, learned some Linux, and hoped for a better Mac OS someday. It's here in the form of a BSD based OS that can run Photoshop and scp side by side.

-Posted by Dan on June 20, 2003 02:15 PM

and it's up and live and all that good stuff... I like the case, too....

-Posted by JC on June 23, 2003 03:54 PM

My friend... today was a great day.
:)

-Posted by Quinn MacDonald on June 23, 2003 08:40 PM

Comment posting has been turned off because I don't have enough time and will to deal with the constant comment spamming. I'm very sorry and will fix this sometime soon (soon = before 2004 ends).