Dual Core PowerMac G5 Updates?

ThinkSecret reports that Apple will be upgrading the PowerMac G5 line in the near future -- possibly as early as the end of this month.

The high end Mac configuration last saw minor updates in April 2005 with the high end PowerMac only being bumped up 200MHz (2.5GHz -> 2.7GHz).

According to the rumor site, the new PowerMac revisions are expected to utilize the 970MP Dual Core PowerPC processor. The existence of a dual core variant of the PowerPC 970 (G5) has been long rumored/speculated, but was finally officially announced by IBM in July 2005. This was after Apple's historic announcement that they would be migrating to Intel processors in the future.

Still, many expect that Apple will utilize the Dual Core 970MP processor in upcoming PowerMac revisions before moving to Intel. The dual core version of the PowerPC 970 is reported to have up to a 50-80% performance improvement over the single core version.

Indeed, analysts had predicted that Dual Core PowerMac G5s might arrive at Apple Expo Paris which kicks off next week on September 20th 2005. The most recent announcement that there will be no Keynote Speech at Apple Expo Paris dashed the hope of many enthusiasts that there would be any product releases during the show. ThinkSecret, however, appears to believe that PowerMac updates are coming soon. Of note, they don't expect PowerBook releases for some time -- possibly as late as MacWorld Expo San Francisco in January of 2006.