When will we see a G5 Notebook? floods the forums and newsgroups of Apple fanatics all over the country. When is not the question. The true question is how...
When will we see a G5 Notebook? floods the forums and newsgroups of Apple fanatics all over the country. When is not the question. The true question is how. If the release of the desktop G5 is a show of how Apple will make the G5 not just another chip, the Powerbook G5 WILL blow us away. Apple explained at WWDC/03, that they did not want to just stick a G5 chip into the old Powermac shell. Even if they could, they would not. That much power should not be constrained to slow ram, or slow system bus. So they redesigned the Powermac from the ground up, well they did leave the handles. Other than that, the Powermac G5, was an entirely new computer.
For most people, it seems as if they are saying, If Apple can keep it cool, give me a G5, NOW! This is definitely not the case. Apple has to put a whammy into this. I looked back in history using an application called Mactracker by Lan Page, and saw the Powermac G4 was released in August 1999, and then the Powerbook G4 was released in January 2001. That is one year and five months. Wow, so, judging by the G5 release in July/ 03; we should expect a G5 Powerbook, by November of 2004. Not bad. In an interview with Apples Chief Engineer, Jon Rubinstein, Apples chief engineer; he stated that we should expect a Powerbook G5 before the end of 2004. So that sets us right at the same time frame between the G4 Powermac and the G4 Powerbook. I will not put money on it, but am expecting a release date for the new Powerbook at WWDC 2004.
Designing the Powerbook for one of the hottest chips should be easy, right? Well the job will be easier with the help of a startup called Cooligy. Cooligy is the hard work of Stanford Universitys mechanical engineering department. The founders of this company are Professors Ken Goodson, Tom Kenny, and Juan Santiago. This company puts some new methods of cooling processors. They have worked closely with the major chip manufacturers, Apple, IBM, AMD, and Intel; and have already helped setup prototypes for each company. The technology is very cool, to be an understatement. It works using water-cooling technology. Cooligy is much different, though. The fuel pump is located on the heat sink itself. Water sits within the coil of the heat sink, and the hot water is transferred to a radiator on the heat sink, then cold water is transferred back onto the chip.
The difference between Cooligy and typical liquid cooling technologies is Cooligy is very efficient; efficient enough to be installed into a laptop. Other forms of liquid cooling use a lot of power, and has bulky water tubes and large radiators. These systems can barely fit into a desktop. Todays cooling can handle 250 W/Cm2. Cooligy can handle 1,000 W/Cm2. I dont know what that means, but a bigger number is a plus. I believe it is 1,000 Watts per Cm squared. I am still confused though.
I am not here to talk about rumors, and speculations, but I can assure you: the Powerbook G5 will blow us out of the water. And with water-cooling, it might. I will leave you to speculate the connections, Hard drive speeds and plastics used in the Powerbook G5, but cooling will be the major issue. I would rather wait and get a great quality Powerbook, than one of todays PowerBooks. with some ice packs and a G5 stuck in it. But that is I.