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This is an appropriate season for baseball analogies, and I’ve been trying to decide whether Apple’s fanfareless upgrade of their professional Power Mac towers this week qualifies as a double or triple base hit. After some serious pondering, I’ve decided that a double comes closest to the mark, not least because of the topical emphasis on dual processors

The revamped Power Macs are a solid two-bagger, but Apple didn’t have enough power behind its bat at this time to send one into the bleachers for a game-winning homer, and we are left to hope that more muscular talent is being developed by the Motorola and IBM farm teams, or rumors of some major interleague trades in the offing may have to become reality, with the popular, but light hitting of late, Power PC sent back to the minors. Of course, there’s also another rumor that a real PPC phenom named Power 4 is being developed by IBM for desktop duty.

Apple chose not to mess with the basic Power Mac tower form factor that dates back more than three and a half years to the blue & white Yosemite G3s. I’ve never been terribly smitten with the design’s looks, but this latest iteration, to my eyes, is the most attractive version yet. I especially like the “Buick-style” portholes on the front cover.

And from a functional standpoint, I can’t think of a better desktop tower case design than this one, with its fold-out access to the innards. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

The big disappointment for many will be that the fastest clock speed available is still an underwhelming 1.25 gigahertz, albeit with dual processors running at that speed. Dual 1 GHz and dual 867 MHz machines are also available. Apple says the new PowerMacs’ processor speed gets an additional boost with an advanced cache memory architecture that provides ultrafast, dedicated memory with massively enhanced throughput. all three new Power Mac G4s get an even faster level of memory called L3 cache. The L3 cache boosts processor function by providing fast access to data and application code at speeds of up to 4 gigabytes per second. The dual 1.25GHz model use 2MB of high speed, DDR-SRAM running at up to 500MHz on each of its chips, while the dual 867MHz and 1GHz models offer up 1MB DDR-SDRAM on each of their chips.

The 1.25 GHz and 1 GHz machines also have a 167 MHz System bus (the lower end unit remains at 133 MHz), and the Power Mac motherboard architecture is now based on Apple’s X-Serve rack-mounted server technology Apple introduced earlier this year, with support for up to 2GB of Double Data Rate (DDR) memory at up to 333 MHz. Double Data Rate synchronous dynamic random access memory, also known as DDR-SDRAM main memory. DDR-SDRAM allows the system to read and write data to and from memory on both the rising and falling edge of each clock cycle. This provides twice the throughput of single data rate SDRAM, which reads and writes only on the rising edge of the clock cycle. The resulting throughput between main memory and the system controller is 2.7GBps, more than double the throughput from the previous dual 1GHz Power Mac G4.

However, with the Pentium scheduled to hit three gigahertz by year-end, you have to wonder if the problem is that Motorola isn’t really trying with G4 development, or is it that there is some fundamental technical obstacle holding the PC/Altivec chip back?

Bare Feats' Rob Art Morgan, who has recently been testing high-end PCs against Apple’s X-Serve machines, makes the following observations:

Then Rob tested the new DDR 1GHz Power Mac against the OLD SDRAM Dual 1GHz Power Mac (and the Xserve Dual 1GHz).

Rob's conclusion?

"To my surprise and chagrin, the new DDR Power Mac has no apparent performance advantage over the old SDRAM Power Mac running at the same clock speed.

The 25% faster system bus seems of no help, either. Depressing. Scandalous!"

He presents a theory as to why.

You can check it out at:
http://www.barefeats.com/pmddr.html

Rob adds:

For more, including the test results, visit:
http://www.barefeats.com/xserve2.html
http://www.barefeats.com/pentium4.html

As noted above, the whole Power Mac tower lineup, starting at $1,699, is now dual processor equipped, which is sort of cool, I guess, and apparently the Unix underpinnings of Mac OS X are particularly well equipped to take advantage of dual processing, but the operative question remains: would Apple be fooling around with dual processors if a Power PC CPU with competitive clock speed performance were available? I’m doubtful that they would. Consequently, the dual processor setup has to be regarded to some degree as a proverbial fig leaf attempting to cover the G4’s disappointing clock speed.

I’m not making these observations as a megahertz maniac. I’m sure that any of the new Power Mac towers would be more than adequate to blow
me away with their performance. My own fastest Mac right now is a 500 MHz G3 PowerBook, and I still find a 233 MHz G3 machine quite acceptable for most of the stuff I do with computers. But I’m not a gamer, and I don’t do any video or high-end graphics work.

From a marketing perspective, Apple has an increasing perception problem, that has to be part of the reason for a 26% year-over-year falloff in Power Mac sales in the last quarter.

Yes, dual processor Power Macs shine running all the Altivec-optimized Adobe Photoshop, and yes, a large proportion of professional Power Mac customers are serious Photoshop users, but for folks that aren’t, the Power Mac’s performance is not nearly as compelling.

Of course, there is more to the new Power Macs then a 25% speed bump in the high-end model. Available are Nvidia’s GeForce4 MX graphics card or the industry’s first ATI Radeon 9000 Pro graphics card, each with 32 and 64 MB of DDR memory respectively. You also get the benefit of built-in Gigabit Ethernet, a 56K modem, an AirPort Card slot, two 400Mbps FireWire ports and four USB ports (two on the computer, two on the keyboard). There are also four full- length 64-bit, 33MHz PCI slots with 215MB per second throughput, which, along with the Gigabit Ethernet, are integrated directly into the main system controller, reducing latencies and providing superior I/O performance, plus a 4x AGP slot for graphics.

The new Power Mac G4s also features dual ATA interfaces, one Ultra ATA/100 and one Ultra ATA/66 (but still no ATA-133 controllers), and you can put two drives on each interface for a total of four internal hard drives. (Or add a SCSI PCI card and mix and match for a total of four drives)

Another welcome new -- or restored -- wrinkle with the new Power Macs is the return of analog sound-in and sound-out ports, in a continued reversal, begun last spring with the Ivory G4 PowerBook and the eMac, of Apple’s ill-considered policy apparently aimed at forcing everyone to convert to USB digital audio -- a revolution that lot of users weren’t willing to accept, and that the technology was not capable of supporting. It was utterly idiotic to sell computers supposedly targeting the audio-visual market, with no analog audio in/out support. The new in/out jacks are capable of a signal to noise ratio of 100dB, but multichannel sound will still require a third party card.

All Power Mac G4 models now include one ADC and one DVI port allowing users to drive two Apple flat-panel displays simultaneously. The Power Mac G4 enclosure now includes four internal drive bays, each capable of hosting up to a 120GB ATA/100 drive, for a total of nearly a half a terabyte of internal storage; and two optical drive bays which can each hold a CD-RW, Combo or SuperDrive for burning DVDs and CDs. On the downside, internal Zip drives are no longer available on the new Power Mac G4's.

None of this of course will be enough to impress the high-end PC hotrodders, but they weren’t going to switch anyway, were they? Less raw hardware-specification obsessed PC users and Apple’s core constituency of pro users, especially in the graphics and publishing fields, will likely look on the new Power Macs more favorably,.

Whatever, the new batting lineup will keep Apple in the playoffs this year, but it won’t have the slugging power to take it to the World Series, alas.

(See appendix at the end of this article for available configurations and prices.)

Apple’s consumer desktop models weren’t forgotten in this midsummer Power Mac “enhancement,” has Cupertino likes to call it, but the adjustments on the lower end of the range were minor, the 17 in. flat Panel iMac having been rolled out less than a month ago at MacWorld Expo.

The the flat-panel iMac CD-RW and Combo DVD-ROM/CD-RW models get $100 price reductions, to $1,299 and $1,499 respectively, which drops them back to their introductory prices last winter.

The base, $1,099, 700 MHz eMac gets a standard Combo DVD-ROM/CD-RW drive, and a new 800 MHz SuperDrive model is available at $1,499 -- the only computer under $1,500 with DVD burning capability.

Both iMac and eMac continue to offer 700 MHz and 800 MHz PowerPC G4 processors. More power would have been welcome on the consumer end, but with the entry-level professional Power Mac still at 867 MHz, albeit with dual processors, the consumer models are pretty much stuck at 800 MHz for marketing reasons.

While the old CRT G3 iMac remains available at $799, Apple really needs to work on getting an eMac model under the magic $1,000 threshold.

The dual 867 MHz Power Mac G4, for a suggested retail price of $1,699 (US), includes:
• 256K on-chip level 2 cache and 1MB of DDR SRAM backside level 3 cache per processor;
• 256MB of DDR SDRAM;
• NVIDIA GeForce4 MX with 32MB DDR SDRAM in 4x AGP slot;
• 60GB Ultra ATA/100 7200 rpm hard disk drive; and
• Combo DVD-ROM/CR-RW optical drive.

The dual 1 GHz Power Mac G4, for a suggested retail price of $2,499, includes:
• 256K on-chip level 2 cache and 1MB of DDR SRAM backside level 3 cache per processor;
• 256MB of DDR DRAM memory;
• ATI Radeon 9000 Pro graphics card with 64MB DDR SDRAM in 4x AGP slot;
• 80GB Ultra ATA/100 7200 rpm hard disk drive; and
• SuperDrive DVD-R/CD-RW optical drive.

The dual 1.25 GHz Power Mac G4, for a suggested retail price of $3,299, includes:
• 256K on-chip level 2 cache and 2MB of DDR SRAM backside level 3 cache per processor;
• 512MB of DDR SDRAM memory;
• ATI Radeon 9000 Pro graphics card with 64MB DDR SDRAM in 4x AGP slot;
• 120GB Ultra ATA/100 7200 rpm hard disk drive; and
• SuperDrive DVD-R/CD-RW optical drive.

The 17-inch widescreen flat-panel iMac, for a suggested retail price of $1,999, includes:
• an 800 MHz PowerPC G4 processor with Velocity Engine;
• SuperDrive DVD-R/CD-RW optical drive;
• NVIDIA GeForce4 MX with 32MB video memory;
• 256MB of system memory;
• 80GB Ultra ATA hard drive; and
• Apple Pro Speakers.

The 15-inch flat screen iMac, for a suggested retail price of $1,799, includes:
• 800 MHz PowerPC G4 processor with Velocity Engine;
• SuperDrive DVD-R/CD-RW optical drive;
• NVIDIA GeForce2 MX with 32MB video memory;
• 256MB of system memory;
• 60GB Ultra ATA hard drive; and
• Apple Pro Speakers.

The 15-inch flat screen iMac, for a suggested retail price of $1,499, includes:
• 700 MHz PowerPC G4 processor with Velocity Engine;
• Combo DVD-ROM/CD-RW optical drive;
• NVIDIA GeForce2 MX with 32MB video memory;
• 256MB of system memory; and
• 40GB Ultra ATA hard drive.

The 15-inch flat screen iMac, for a suggested retail price of $1,299, includes:
• 700 MHz PowerPC G4 processor with Velocity Engine;
• CD-RW optical drive;
• NVIDIA GeForce2 MX with 32MB video memory;
• 128MB of system memory; and
• 40GB Ultra ATA hard drive.

The 17-inch flat CRT eMac, for a suggested retail price of $1,499 includes:
• 800 MHz PowerPC G4 processor;
• SuperDrive DVD-R/CD-RW optical drive;
• NVIDIA GeForce2 MX with 32MB video memory;
• 256MB of system memory; and
• 60GB ATA Hard Drive.

The 17-inch flat CRT eMac, for a suggested retail price of $1,099 includes:
• 700 MHz PowerPC G4 processor;
• Combo DVD-ROM/CD-RW optical drive;
• NVIDIA GeForce2 MX with 32MB video memory;
• 128MB of system memory; and
• 40GB ATA Hard Drive.

Build-to-order options and accessories include additional memory, Apple Pro Speakers, AirPort Base Station and AirPort Card and the AppleCare Protection Plan.

Charles W. Moore

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