MacBidouille: 970 PowerMacs coming soon?


MacBidouille (French) reports that PowerMacs based on IBM's PPC 970 are already rolling off production lines at Apple's Taiwanese OEM, Foxcon. Here's the Google translation:

"A well informed source, [tells] us that the first PPC 970 Single processor with 1,4 GHz left the production lines of Hon Hai precision [Foxconn]. It is an excellent news because they will be available good earlier than envisaged at the beginning. The Mono processor will be in stock and at the end of May, whereas the top-of-the-range one arrives mid-June, right before the WWDC.

"Only flat. These machines will be provided with Mac OS X 10.2 not optimized 64 Bits. For any purchase of such a machine, Mac OS X 10.3 will be offered to its exit in September. Under these conditions, has less than APPLE is not opposed to it, we will reveal the benchmarks machine at the latest on May 15. [ MàJ ] US APPLE proposes an exceptional rebate of 30 percent with its employees on G4 Pro. It is in theory sign of end of lifetime of the machines. Note that the iMac 17-inch form also part of the promo."

As with all rumors, one should take the above information with a large grain of salt.

Editor's note: Mmm, mmm... sounds very tasty to me whether we're talking about the discounts or upcoming 64-bit goodness.

On that point, however, we must emphasize that Panther (10.3) - anticipated to include 64-bit support - isn't expected to ship until September. So, on this point, we must temper anticipation of immediate, stunning advances in performance.

Whatever the case, sooner (assuming the bugs are out) can't be soon enough.