DealZone - If You Are Keeping
Score, Stocks Of 667 MHz G4 Power Macs Are Dwindling. Availability
Of Other Tower Machines Mixed - Where To Find This Week's Best
Deals On G4 Towers.
7-13-01 - This page is no longer updated on a weekly basis.
Check out our latest
Buyers' Guide for the new Power Macs introduced July
2001.
Stock of all G4 towers is dwindling, with the exception
of MacMall, which it is going in the opposite direction,
increasing stock of both the low-end PowerMacs. MacMall
in fact, has whopping 1,000+ of the 466 MHz machines, and
over 500 of the single processor 533MHz Power Macs. Apple,
who always knows best has no G4 towers in stock
Best deals this week continue to come from ClubMac (big
cash rebate), MacZone (Virtual PC bundle) and Outpost (Office
2001 bundle). If you have more specialized needs check out
MacConnection which has the widest variety of bundling options.
The Outpost is now bundling Office
2001 as an option with the two 733MHz models and the
orphaned 667MHz model. This is a great deal if you need
Office 2001 which normally retails for around $350
Remember that OS X is now bundled with every new Mac.
To give you some idea of what these bundling deals would
cost you, if you bought them separately, we offer you the
following guidance:
512 MB costs $116, 256 MB of RAM cost
$68, and 128 MB of RAM $28, at Memory
to Go
See below
for reviews and other information on the Power Macs
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below. Though this adds no cost to your purchase price it
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are to California... your mileage may vary!
As is usual before most Macworld Expos, the rumors
were flying about new announcements. While there was talk
of faster processors, it was generally agreed that the speed
bump would be moderate thanks to Motorola's inability to produce
faster processors in quantity.
The new Power Mac line, running as fast as 733 MHz took just
about everyone by surprise. The new lineup consists of the
following: G4/466, G4/533, G4/667, G4/733. While Jobs made
no mention of the fact, the two fastest machines make use
of a new G4 processor from Motorola, the MPC7450.
The new G4, commonly known as the G4+, sports a number of
improvements. One of the key new features is the addition
of a 256K on die cache running at full processor speed. This
is in addition to the regular 1 MB backside cache. Interestingly,
the backside cache runs at a slower 3:1 ratio as opposed to
the standard 2:1 ratio. It will be interesting to see how
this plays out in terms of performance. The G4/667 and G4/733
are both due out next month although Jobs' stated that availability
on the 733 would be tight.
While chip speed is an obvious (and welcome) improvement,
there are a number of other improvements under the hood. Responding
to complaints that began with the Blue & White "Yosemite"
G3, Apple has added another PCI slot, bringing the total to
4. The AGP slot has been bumped from 2x to 4x. Apple has also
exorcised ATI graphics cards from all of the new G4 Power
Macs save the low-end G4/466 which still has the RAGE 128
card. The remaining three now make use of nVIDIA's
GeForce2 MX, an option long sought after by gamers. ATI's
Radeon
card is a build to order option at the Apple store. All 4
machines are able to burn CDs thanks to the inclusion of a
CD-RW drive. The G4/733 breaks new ground by offering a "Super
Drive." The Super Drive is capable of burning both CD's
and DVD's. The G4/733 comes with Apple's new iDVD
software which, like iMovie,
takes a complicated process and lays it out in a way that
the average user can manage. For more information on the new
G4's, visit MacSpeedZone's Power
Mac G4 Information Page. Below, we outline the key specs
of the new G4's as well as the previous generation they replace.
As usual, we have scoured the web to find the best
prices and bundles for you.
As is usual before most Macworld Expos, the