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I would have to agree on that. The powerMac G5 towers are build to last, they have room for expandsion and a very soild machine all together. I do some highend printing and Also work in a Design house where we use the lastest PowerMacs and you can feel the raw power of these mac's.
Posted 77 months ago.
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Glad you said that! I'm itching for the new tower to arrive, due mid to late this week.
Posted 77 months ago.
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I would also have ordered the G5. I even ordered a PowerBook G4 with the knowledge that x86-based "PowerBook" is around the corner (nope...I didn't that that it will be THAT early).
Anyway, I quite happy with my PBG4 and my PMG5. Buying a PPC-based Mac isn't waste of money. The plattform will be supported for years and it has currently the way better software.
As a developer I would love to have a x86-Mac for testing, but I'll wait for x86-mini I guess.
Posted 77 months ago.
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My greatest complaint with the iMacs is that they don't have DVI output, or official support for screen spanning.
My 1.8ghz G5 is plenty fast for most of my tasks, and it has no trouble driving a pair of dell 2405 FPWs.
Despite the terrible name, the new macbook pro looks like a big win over the old g4 machines.
Posted 77 months ago.
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New intel iMacs are reported to have screen spanning instead of mirroring plus DVI-out
Posted 77 months ago.
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Yep, MatzeLoCal is right - the new iMacs hav DVI out and support extended desktop out of the box.
Posted 77 months ago.
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I think you're fine. my lame take on the two.
Posted 77 months ago.
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pappalicious [deleted] says:
i still dont think it's fair to compare an iMac to a Powermac.. they both do the same thing, but the price of each should dictate it's position in the sceme of things.
Posted 77 months ago.
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Pappalicious - tell that to the Apple rep! Think they're a bit over exuberant, and over-pushy about selling the new Intel iMacs!
Posted 77 months ago.
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Tychay - great piece on your blog - thanks for the link.
Posted 77 months ago.
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Here is a video of the iMac G5 and the iMac Duo Core starting simultaneously. The Intel Mac boots much much faster, it's incredible.
BTW: I ordered a iMac 20-inch Inte a couple of days ago, should be arriving today :)
Posted 77 months ago.
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The only thing that worries me is that, in his keynote, Steve Jobs never said how long they would ship apps that were native in both x86 and Power architectures. My money is on not very long. You will not be able to run x86 programs on your G5. Jobs even noted that Rosetta would only be supported until all the new apps were native in x86. Will 10.5 be native on PowerPC? 10.6?
That said, the PowerMac was the right choice for you, Blue. If you're using it for pro-level graphics work, you'll find the iMac's screen, hard drive, and lack of expansion quite limiting. Even if Apple never releases another app on Power, you will have all the apps you need for the next 2-3 years right now anyways.
Originally posted 77 months ago.
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Apocaplops edited this topic 77 months ago.
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I saw video of both of them booting up, with equal amounts of RAM...the intel one took like 10 seconds litterally. The PPC one about 1 minute...I guess that dual core makes a huge difference
Posted 77 months ago.
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hmm. has anyone tried the leaked version of X that is supposed to run on any x86 chip, but with a really fast chip?
what do you think of it as an x86 OS?
Posted 77 months ago.
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How is boot speed important for day-to-day tasks? Really?
Posted 77 months ago.
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It's not just the dual core affecting boot speeds, but the change in firmware as well. And it's a particularly bad indication of the useful speed of the machine.
Posted 77 months ago.
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Im sure boot speed can some how relate in compairing the machines overal speed comparison...
Posted 77 months ago.
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Not really. And how often do we need to boot our Macs anyways? Like matt said, it's more likely relating to firmware changes. My iMac has gotten faster at booting with every new OS, but it surely hasn't gotten any faster itself.
Posted 77 months ago.
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Ars Technica just did a review of the new iMac, and did some benchmarks against the G5 Powermac.
Read it here.
Posted 77 months ago.
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Jobs said at the Keynote that alot of the software companies have not updated their software for the new processor yet. He mentioned that for the avid user running programs like Photoshop or any other graphics intensive program is fine, but for the pro that uses the program all day it may not be stable. The only program that had its update were Quark.
Just like when OSX came out, to run any OS9 software you had to run it virtually. This is the same with the new processor. He showed some examples in Photoshop with speed using an action and it did run without a problem, but he also mentioned that it shouldn't be used for the pro.
Posted 77 months ago.
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Here is a speed test of the MacBook Pro. They compare it to the 2x2Ghz G5. Since the MacBook has a similar setup (CPU, GPU) as the iMac dual-core, I think the numbers are relevant.
Posted 77 months ago.
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Funny that Quark took forever to release an OS X version, but is one of the first Universal apps. Guess the learned their lesson?
Posted 77 months ago.
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It isn't exactly like other transitions.
OS9->OSX still ran natively, the issue was that a lot of libraries were not thread safe and thus software (pre-Carbonized) had to run in a virtual machine.
If anything this transition is closer to 68k->PPC, where you have emulated, native and "fat" binaries (except now they are Rosetta translated, ??, and "universal" binaries).
However there are some really important differences to consider.
1) Translation in Rosetta is greatly improved from emulation in the PPC transition. Basically Rosetta is a "just-in time" compiler. This means that it isn't emulated so much as "compiled and cached" into x86. This is much faster and also alleviates some issues like endian.
2) Much software out there is Universal-Ready out of the box. This is because the primary development platform is unchanged and free (XCode). In those days the development platform moved from say ThinkC or MPW to CodeWarrior and none of those were free.
3) Coders today do not optimize as much in machine specific code as they used to.
4) Apple itself was running Mac OS X on x86 long before it was running in PPC, it was called NeXTSTeP, back then. They always maintained that, most of their effort has been in slowly migrating Carbon apps like iTunes.
Because of these, only large apps like Photoshop or Office which have a lot of legacy code or are written in older development environments will slow the transition.
As for Jobs saying that Pro's shouldn't adopt it, what choice does he have? Intel PowerMac's won't be out until Q3. If I am a pro who uses Final Cut Pro or Aperture as my main program, what should stop me from migrating to Intel when the Universal Binaries of those apps are available in March? As far as I can see, the only thing stopping me is the lack of an Intel PowerMac comparable to a quad-core G5.
Posted 77 months ago.
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The new Intel iMac has DVI out and supports spanning up to 1920*1200 digital and even higher resolutions for analog. I'm pretty sold on the new intel switch Apps are just going to get faster too. Now the big choice iMac or MacBook Pro?
Posted 77 months ago.
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pappalicious [deleted] says:
i went the iMac.. hopefully they start shipping to Australia sooner rather than later!
Posted 77 months ago.
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Here's an interesting article on wheither or not to make the switch to a new Intel powered Mac...
www.wired.com/news/technology/0,70086-0.html?tw=wn_story_...
I personally just bought a new Intel iMac, and I'm lovin every minute of it! My only problem is that Flash doesn't work on it (it originally did, but then I tried to upgrade Flash... which broke all Flash movies now. Help!)
Posted 77 months ago.
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"I saw video of both of them booting up, with equal amounts of RAM...the intel one took like 10 seconds litterally. The PPC one about 1 minute...I guess that dual core makes a huge difference "
That video was faked. The old imac is faster than my macmini, and my macmini doesn't take that long to startup. They hobbled it be doing a hard shutdown. That forces the mac to perform a system/disk check on startup "slowing" it down.
Posted 77 months ago.
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Hahaha... Okay... This is a question i've been answering at least 20 times a day since January 10th this year....
The people here who are saying that the PMG5s are a better buy than an iMac Core Duo, you're right. Kinda'. When you look at the tech specs of the intel-based iMac vs a 2Ghz Dual-Core PowerMac G5, you'd be wasting your money by going with the Powermac unless you already owned a 20" Cinema display. Why? Here's the breakdown:
Frontside Bus on a 2ghz PMG5 - 1Ghz.
Frontside bus on an Intel iMac - 667Mhz
Memory speed on the dual 2gig - 533mhz
Memory speed on the intel imac - 667mhz
the 20" iMac can be upgraded to 256mb VRAM with a new Radeon x1600 card, whereas the dual 2gig starts at a Geforce 6600 128mb. Note, the ram on the vid card on the intel imac is faster than the ram on the Geforce 6600 LE, 6600, and 7800GT.
Now. when you look at all this info, yeah, sure... The Powermac still beats it. But by how much overall? I mean, c'mon... about 333mhz faster FSB, which is really about 166mhz per core. Either way, your memory's not gonna' go faster than 533mhz. Yes, the video card options DEFINITELY can stomp what the X1600 can do even with the full 256mb of GDDR3 memory onboard, but you're NOT going to do it with a 6600 with the stock 128MB, and probably not gain enough performance by upgrading that to 256mb to make the pricejump worth it. The only PM cards that can outright knock down the X1600 in performance are maybe the 7800GT and the Quadro (but at $1650 for that upgrade, it'd better!).
What's the price difference between an Intel iMac FULLY LOADED (including 500mb SATA drive) versus a "comparable" dual 2 gig WITH 20" Cinema Display? Just about ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS. C'mon. a dual 2gig put up against a sub-$2000 iMac is a ridiculous comparison.
Now... when you start looking up the Powermac line is where it becomes worth it again. the Dual 2.3 has an FSB of 1.15ghz (a more significant improvement for sure over the 667mhz of the iMac, remember, these numbers for the Frontside bus has to be divided in half, since there's only one FSB per processor, and each processor has two cores). And the Quad 2.5ghz has an fsb of 1.25ghz PER PROCESSOR... so there's two FSBs, and each one is shared by two cores. That's 625Mhz per CORE, as opposed to 333.5Mhz per core on the iMac Intel. When you're looking at shelling out $4000 for a pimped out Quad, then of COURSE it's worth it.
So basically, the jist of this longwinded rant is this: If you're getting a bottom of the barrel Dual Powermac, you're probably better off buying a 20" Intel-based iMac. Or hell, even a 1.83Ghz MacBook Pro. Which, by the way, has the same 667mhz Frontside bus, as well as the 667mhz memory, and the 256mb X1600 vid card. The previous Powerbooks (yes, even the brand spankin' new 15" and 17") only have a 167mhz frontside bus. That right there contributes to the machines being "4 Times as fast!!" as the websites proclaim.
Oh... and just fyi... that video that was linked above, of the two imacs starting up simultaneously... That WAS filmed in an Apple Call Center. Which of course, I found rather hilarious. :D
Posted 77 months ago.
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At the end of the day, all that really matters is whether it does what you want it to, reliably and at a reasonable speed.
However fast a computer (or indeed, anything else) is, there will always come a point where you find yourself wishing it was that little bit quicker.
Originally posted 77 months ago.
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My Melting Brain edited this topic 77 months ago.
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Trinity-of-One wrote:
At the end of the day, all that really matters is whether it does what you want it to, reliably and at a reasonable speed.
And how much you're willing to shell out for it. :D
Posted 77 months ago.
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I've had my 20" Core Duo for about a week and a half now and I can easily say it is the best computer I have ever owned. Small physical imprint on my desk, yet the fastest most powerful machine I've ever owned.
Posted 77 months ago.
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I had a demo of the new dual core at BETT in London a couple of weeks ago - awesome!!! I'm hoping to get my hands on an intel-based powerbook the moment they're available. Just as exciting for me, though, was the demo of both iLife 06 and iWork 06 - the next generation of Garageband, along with the additional iWeb app, and the new version of Keynote (I do a lot of presentations using this great program) are both already on order!
Posted 77 months ago.
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I just upgraded my RAM to 2 Gigs in the iMac Core Duo (20in) and it absolutely flies! brilliant!
Posted 77 months ago.
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Go Marco!
Posted 77 months ago.
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