"Enough with all this blather about geeks clustering Macs to put sequins on jeans, or whatever!" we hear you shout. "Where the heck are those new Power Macs we were expecting yesterday?" To which we can only respond, what you mean we, Kemo Sabe? The rumor mill has been pretty consistent with the whole "no Stevenote Power Macs" thing since Think Secret reported it two weeks ago. Someone needs to start paying more attention in class.

No worries, though; speed-bumped Power Macs aren't that far off. You may recall that the big hold-up with notching up the clock speeds in the G5 was the need for IBM to move the 130-nanometer chips to a new 90-nanometer process, which would allow lower power draws and higher frequencies. Reports from all over indicated that IBM was on track to make the switch by the end of 2003, and now we have concrete proof that the change did in fact happen. According to MacRumors, if you drop by Apple's new Xserve G5 page and download the Technical Overview PDF, you'll find a couple of references to "G5 processors using 90-nanometer process technology." Indeed, that's probably the only way Apple could possibly have wedged two G5s into a 1U rack-mount enclosure without strapping an inconveniently large chest freezer to its rear.

So thanks to the wonders of 90-nanometer technology, Apple has lower-power 2.0 GHz G5s shipping in its Xserves-- or will next month, anyway. From there it's not much of a stretch to infer that the company can also get its mitts on G5s running at higher clock speeds (say, 2.4 or even 2.6 GHz) while sucking down no more power than the 130-nanometer 2.0 GHz chips currently occupying its roomier and better-cooling Power Macs. Everything else is just details, but if you're looking for specifics, for its part, Mac OS Rumors expects 2.4 GHz if the new models ship in less than a month, or possibly 2.6 GHz systems if they don't surface until later in February. AppleInsider is projecting new Power Macs "on or after January 20th." And our UPS man says it'll happen on January 32nd, but what do you want from a guy who's still wearing those brown shorts in 8-degree weather?

If you're not one to put much stock in dates from rumor sites, more power to you; just keep reminding yourself that Steve promised publicly that the G5 would hit 3 GHz sometime this summer. Even if, by virtue of some bizarre gardening accident, the Power Mac isn't updated at all until then, hey, summer isn't that far off, right?

Of course, that's what our shorts-wearing UPS guy always says...