Sources comment on Power Mac, Power Book updates

The first two months of 2004 have now come and gone without product announcements to Apple's professional line of desktops and laptops. While the company may not have planned a revision to its PowerBook line by early March, an unidentified hold-up has reportedly delayed the release of revised Power Mac G5 models, which were previously anticipated for a January introduction.

According to some of AppleInsider's most reliable sources, updates to the Power Mac G5 family may not see the light of day until the end of March, at the earliest. Meanwhile, the same informants claim that new PowerBook models, currently under development, will arrive no earlier than late April.

Sources were unable to reveal whether the new PowerBooks would sport a G4 or G5 processor, and failed to provide any clues pertaining to the apparent Power Mac G5 delays. However, successive reports from independent sources have cited supplies of graphics cards as one of the possible culprits.

Continuing its working relationship ATI Technologies, Apple has reportedly decided to use Macintosh versions of the the Radeon 9800XT and 9600XT graphics cards in the second generation Power Mac G5 models. Development of the graphics cards, which have yet to be announced on the Macintosh platform, have recently hit some speed bumps, sources said. Delivery of the cards from ATI to Apple has reportedly been pushed back to late March or early April, corroborating rumors of further delays for Power Mac revisions.

In 2002, Apple burnt themselves financially when they announced dual Power Mac G4 models with nVidia GeForce 4 Ti graphics cards, but were unable to ship the machines with the new chip. Instead, the company delivered orders with a slower nVidia card and later ate the cost when providing the GeForce 4 Ti cards to early purchasers, free of charge.

Previous rumors have suggested an all-dual processor lineup for the new Power Mac G5s, which will reportedly be accompanied by long overdue revisions to the Cinema display product line. The second generation Power Mac G5s may also accompany up to a terabyte of hard disk space, according to one report.