Los datos sobre el nuevo G4 van afinándose

En la pagina de Macbuyersguide.com dan todo tipo de detalles sobre cómo va a ser el modelo.

Por si acaso desapareciera, lo copio a continuación para vuestro conocimiento. Especialmente preocupante (por lo directo de la fuente) es la mención a los no-G5 de Motorola.Cada vez parece más claro que los G4 se presentarán al mismo tiempo que Jaguar sale a la venta.

Habrá que esperar y ver. Seguiremos informando.

Rumor sites reveal the first glimpse of Apple’s first DDR-based Desktop G4

Pro Mac: Apple’s G4 Desktop

by Graeme Bennett (Posted July 22, 2002; updated July 26, 2002)

Introduction

You can always tell when a rumor site has stumbled across the truth: Apple’s lawyers swoop into action with a cease-and-desist note that tells clue-hunters they’re on the right track. This is exactly what happened on July 22, when the French site MacBidouille posted images purporting to be of a new «Pro Mac» tower, complete with a radically new enclosure design and a new DDR-based mainboard. Soon thereafter, another Apple Legal request led to the removal of similar images hosted on MacRumors and, apparently eWEEK, which mirrored the MacBidouille images with a link from a story posted on July 25. This link was removed on July 26. 

What We Know

The new Mac’s mainboard appears to be of a similar design to the one previously seen in an eBay auction item that showed up briefly on May 2.

You may notice, upon a close examination of the the photo (where a prototype mainboard is shown sans CPUs), that the slots are oriented differently than those of the standard G4 desktop models with the «drop-down side panel.»

As Apple has already delivered a Mac model based on double data rate memory and a large 2MB cache, we can expect the new Pro Mac to offer performance (and, possibly, a lopsided memory architecture) similar to that of the Xserve.

Specifications

Although details on this unannounced product are still sketchy, details of a prototype code-named «P58» reported on MacRumors.com are as follows:

–  4x512MB DDR RAM, new motherboard

– the heatsink is a very large aluminum straight finned squared design. about 6″ x 7″ x 6″ approx and weighs about 7 lbs; it is attached to the MLB by 3 screws, but not like Xserve; 2 screws are on countersunk standoffs that go through the MPU, and one that attaches to the back panel on a ridge above the modem port. The MPU itself is held down only by the weight of the heatsink, and a ‘flex’ bar, that is a plastic bar with 2 metal springloaded clips that allow it to flex freely.

– BlueTooth will NOT be included, it will be as is now, a USB add-on

– it is a slim power supply, originally identical to the XServe’s with two fans ‘attached’ to the end of it (as you may see in photographs, if you can find a site flaunting Apple’s legal pressure). The final product is 2 inches longer with the 2 fans built in (3 fans in power supply total)

– has a slide-on back cover which pulls off to access the IDE and power cables

– The Hard Drives: The two vertically mounted drives under the power supply have a pop-off holder with a plastic hook; there is 1 screw which is there for the sole purpose of keeping it from falling out during shipping, as the instructions will attest to in the final product. The 2 horizontally mounted drives, under the optical drives, have a slide out design with 3 mushrooms to catch on like a rail on top, it slides in and has a plastic latch.

– The «mystery port» that was on early designs of the motherboard was a mini-VGA video port (like on the P80 iMac, iBook & PowerBook), and is not in the final product because it was only needed for testing the units sans-video card.

Case

– The case is a silvery colour like the P57, has a white & silver speaker, and a hole handle with a larger ring in the side door.

– the door mechanism has been totally redesigned, instead of plastic hooks, it is all metal. Only the round hole handle is plastic, which actuates metal u-shaped hooks which slide in and catch; very smooth, no more slamming closed; and nearly impossible to break open with lock, metal on metal.

– the modem stays the same but in new location.

– the 4 decorative holes in the front are for show, but also allow air intake for the ‘turbine’ fan sitting in front of the heatsink (with door closed), the turbine fan speeds up and slows down depending on temperature. An extra fan in the door ventilates the MLB and dual CD drives (vents galore).

– The metal area on the front panel is glossed aluminum, and as you can see in the photos has mylar covering it causing the haze, it is NOT brushed aluminum nor has it ever been.

– front mounted headphone jack

-bays for two optical drives

Processor(s)

– Thermal grease will be used on the CPUs instead of black thermal pads.

– There will be single and dual processor CPU options, most likely based on the 7470 Power PC chip, as opposed to the lenendary G5, which some sources suggest may never be released. Indeed, in an attempt to get to the bottom of the story behind these persistent rumors, Mac Buyer’s Guide spoke to Motorola Canada president Frank Maw in on July 25, 2002. The way he explained things, G5 processors aren’t even on the company’s radar screen any more. In fact, he doesn’t even mention the company’s desktop processor business in his corporate presentations and told us there is «no timeline» for future non-embedded PowerPC family processor releases. He maintains that he’s not aware of any timeline and says it’s «not a big focus» for the company at this point. And so it goes…. 

The Pro Mac is expected to ship in Aug. 2002.

What We Don’t Know

There’s no word yet on what graphics card(s) the Pro Macs might include, but we wouldn’t be surprised to see ATI’s new RADEON 9700 in some of the high-end models, with the RADEON 9000 (or ATI’s previously announced «standard» card, the ATI RADEON 7500) in lower-priced models. There’s also a pretty good chance the much-rumored NVIDIA NV30, due in August, could make an appearance. 

For Further Reading

The ebay auction page listing an alleged prototype motherboard was removed shortly after the item was posted. According to the seller, Apple never intended the item to be sold and requested the removal of the page. xlr8yourmac.com has further details and analysis on its May 2 news page. See our OS X 10.2 report for more details on the operating system this machine is optimized to run.

Comments?

See also:

MacRumors

MacBidoulle

© Copyright 2002 Bennett Arts Ltd.

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