“It’s clear from two weeks of testing that Apple’s new Power Mac G5 dual 2-GHz machine is the fastest thing the company has ever produced. And while you can debate benchmarks until eternity, it certainly appears poised to meet or beat anything now out on the Windows side.” Read the review at ComputerWorld. In the meantime, according to sources, Apple plans to offer new iBooks soon.
Apple’s Dual 2-GHz G5 by the Numbers
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It simply states that the dual G5 is faster than a G4 and a Powerbook. For US $4128 (as tested) anyone would be entitled to expect a very fast machine.
Computer World qualifies the dual G5 performance of stellar. According to their own benchmarks, it doesn’t really outperform the G4 and the Powerbook by a very wide margin. From a buyer’s point of view, the question is : is it necessary to shell out money for the newest kid on the block when last year products are still great ?
Apple Insider has another interesting news : 3Dlabs is negociating with Apple in order to make their graphics cards Mac OS X compatible. How come this never happened before ? I would have found it natural for professional designers (and Mac users) to have access to the power of OpenGL cards like the Wildcat or the Quadro4.
I saw one of these G5 towers at CompUSA. Nice looking machine. Whisper-quiet. Wish I’d asked to take a look inside. They had it hooked up to a Cinema display.
How open about hardware specs is Apple these days? That is to say, how difficult is it for the PPC Linux folks to get things working on the newest Apple machines?
Finally, alas, if only OSX had a supported C++ API, I’d be tempted to switch… Very tempted.
I would like to see this benchmarked against an Opteron/Athlon64 with the *same* setup. (no I’m not interested in 1.4ghz vs. 3.2ghz as in all the Intel “benchmarks”)
Jozan wrote:
“I would like to see this benchmarked against an Opteron/Athlon64 with the *same* setup. (no I’m not interested in 1.4ghz vs. 3.2ghz as in all the Intel “benchmarks”)”
I recommend buying an Opteron/Athlon64 and a G5 with the same setup and testing them side-by-side. You might also direct your request to ComputerWorld magazine, who report that they have hired a consultant to test the G5.
Regards,
Mark
Here are some application benchmarks that include the dual G5. For a lengthy discussion of each, head over to Ars Technica’s battlefront forum… I believe each has its own thread.
http://www.geocities.com/sw_perf/PSBench.html
http://www.geocities.com/sw_perf/Lightwave.html
http://www.media-motion.tv/aebenchmarks.html
http://www.geocities.com/sw_perf/CINEbench_2003.html
As you can see, the G5 is certainly competitive with the fastest x86 offerings…. better at some things, worse at others. I personally find this pretty amazing for such a new chip; I think the situation will only improve as developers further optimize for the G5. The promise of 3Ghz systems within a year (recently reiterated once again by Steve Jobs, who is usually very secretive about future products) is exciting as well.
I think the situation will be the same for the Opteron, which unfortunately just doesn’t seem to be in enough hands to be tested thoroughly yet. I expect it to take some time to fully realize its potential as well.
” Finally, alas, if only OSX had a supported C++ API, I’d be tempted to switch… Very tempted.”
I am baffled by comments like this. Objective C/C++ takes a day to learn and can be freely mixed with C and C++ code. Moreover, I think anyone who has done any significant amount of work in both languages will agree that Objective C is much better than C++ for GUIs, which is all you have to use Objective C for in OS X. Use C++ for the back end, use Apple’s free Interface Builder to design the interface, and all you have to do is write a little Objective C to wire the two together.
I know I would never hire a developer who refused to learn new languages and APIs. Most of the good developers I know enjoy learning new things. Every language you learn opens your eyes a little wider to other ways of approaching a problem, and as a consequence your overall design and coding skills usually end up improving, even if you never get a chance to use the new language.
Most logical people are going to try and write cross-platform apps on Mac and that counts out Interface Builder with Objective-C. If you don’t care about cross-platform, you might as well write for an OS with a marketshare(windows).
At least with c++ you have qt and wxwindows.
It’s crazy to write code for just Mac unless you’ve fallen for the Steve Jobs reality distortion field.
Looks like computerworld didn’t like the deeplinking or something.
At least on the software end.
And it’s probably my fault for being a slackass. 
All of my Apple and Macromedia applications installed fine, but After Effects had to be patched to deal with two gigs of RAM, and Classic is…. uh…. special. To put it mildly. This wouldn’t be much of a problem for me if I didn’t need Photoshop 5 in order to my job at all (we do a special type of titling in After Effects, and don’t have a 5.5 license… 6 changes the way the type tool functions, to say nothing of 7… and neither is useable for what we do AT ALL.)… basically, I’ve had to remove PS5’s SMP abilities, and I have to tread lightly with my viewer switching, as switching between view modes in fullscreen capacity has been the thing that’s completely frozen up Aqua several times. 
That aside, this thing HAULS ASS.
Just wish the Classic environment was a bit more featureful, and I really hope I can find a workaround for the dipstick problems I’m having with Photoshop (my only Classic application).
The hardware is unbelievable. After doing everything I could to stress test the machine- the sorts of activities that would have my previous workstation, a G4 733, pooping its pants…. the processors are running at 42 degrees celcius.
The benchmarks listed are:
1. Machine and app startup times. Irrelevant, unless you just have to turn off the box every 15 minutes.
2. Way too small test image and irrelevant filters or filter settings.
3. Extremely simple rendering and movie editing tasks.
The guy who wrote the review recommends the machine “for anyone who will be using it for serious processing work”, yet did not manage to run any more or less seriuos test.
Verdict: useless, unless you work as a Mac rebooter
wonder how it does vs a dual p4 setup?
There is no SMP capable P4 out there. You’ll have to use Xeons if you want a dual machine.
Are those program launch times for real. That is really slow compared to Slackware and my Athlon XP 2100+.
This is definitely not a flame. I was really thinking about a Mac but these program launch times are just too slow for me.
On a G4 —> Safari takes 5 secs to launch the first time. Now that is long for just a web browser.
So i can only imagine how the other apps open up.
Maybe the G5 is much better ( read as faster ) but its also more expensive and not in my budget.
Interesting…
Rumours I’ve heard were that ‘Gobi’ wouldn’t be ready ’til December, so Christmas sales seem possible.
The article rumours:
Bluetooth, USB2.0, Airport Extreme with, possibly, DDR333 RAM
The first three would bring the range up to speed with the rest of the Mac family.
As far as the DDR goes, historically Motorola G4s have, alledgedly, had problems in taking advantage of this memory architecture. With the 750GX being an IBM chip this might’nt be the case. Might take is that SDRAM is becoming harder to source.
So, how does this compare with the 12″ PowerBook?
Powerbook: Altivec, better graphics, ‘dual display’.
iBook: Less power –> more battery life, cooler, cheaper.
In its price range and @ 1.1ghz, in compact size might compare well against low-end centrinos costing hundreds more.
For cross platform Cocoa, there’s gnustep as was mentioned here a few days ago.
And Apple’s gcc is supposed to support objectiveC++, a hybrid.
Finally, it has Java bindings. Write business logic to be cross-platform; implement a native GUI if you wish.
Anyway don’t Qt and Wx have bindings for the Mac?
Finally, alas, if only OSX had a supported C++ API, I’d be tempted to switch… Very tempted.
Perhaps something like, oh… Carbon?
http://developer.apple.com/carbon/
There is no question that IBM makes a nice processor. So Apple has the fastest PC now. in a few month that will change where once again they will lag behind PC’s due to the slow processor release schedule. Truth is most of the power of the IBM and AMD processors comes from loads of L1 and L2 cache. Intel traditionally has kept cache to a minimum and still their processors perform at the top. Of course they have started playing the cache game with the P4 Extreme. Any test results out for that processor yet?
Slackware launches Photoshop and Safari? I didn’t know that!
I understand that speed may be important. But choosing a system over an other because you win 1 or 2 seconds when you launch your browser?
I would like to see this benchmarked against an Opteron/Athlon64 with the *same* setup. (no I’m not interested in 1.4ghz vs. 3.2ghz as in all the Intel “benchmarks”)
Why would you try to compare like clock speeds ? They are meaningless comparisons across different platforms.
Unless there is some compelling feature of a particular platform (like, say, OS X) the only really fair equality to strive for is that of cost.
Apple was up here in Montreal recently (this past week) with a G5 on demo, along with Adobe and their new Creative Suite package, and other companies doing some 20+ city tour. A design seminar my gf went to, and that I tagged along with for the morning show.
The Apple guy was demo’ing the G5’s capabilities. I am a Linux guy myself, and my GF uses All three at home and at school (yes, all three, Debian, Mac’s, and Windows XP). Anyways, the demo’s I saw were simply amazing. Opening some 20 50MB+ TIFF’s in Photoshop very quickly, while opening many other applications. Then rendering pictures in real time with some renders that would normally be very slow (according to my girlfriend) on any other pc she has used.
Anyways, the point is, the machine is really, really nice. It’s obvious that Apple seriously takes into consideration ease of use, and making their pc something to be proud of. Hell, even the packaging the pc comes in is something special and to be admired.
For everyone comparing benchmarks, I am sorry that I don’t have numbers to back up anything I say. However, from what I have seen with benchmarks, you can find a benchmark to support anything.
The new G5’s are simply wonderful machines. nuff said.
For a little over $4000 USD, what kind of monster Intel/AMD PC could one get or build that is on par or surpass the dual 2-GHz G5?
Any expert PC builder out there?
Just curious.
“There are no dual P4..”
Who said Apple’s competition is P4 *only*? There are loads of dual Athlons for a long time, and of course, there are dual Opterons for month. Apart from that, the new SMP capable Pentium Extreme is a relabled Xeon, which they couldn’t benchmark right now, of course, for obvious reasons…
I like the G5, I wnt to WWDC to se it and while impressive here are the reasons I wouldnt buy one:
1. Expensive –I have found that Macs cost a lot more than the average PC and I cant justify to myself the cost of a new Mac vs a PC
2. Work — I work in a industry mostly dominated by x86 platforms, Linux and Windows. To buy a Mac to me seems useless and pointless, no I am not saying the Mac is useless and pointless, but what I am saying is i work with SuSE/UnitedLinux at work. Why am I going to buy a new mac for home?
3. Quality — Although the Mac is a great machine I dont like Apples because of their support and I have found that the life of the Mac is a lot lower than that of the PC. All the Macs I had in 1999 are pretty much dead, the PC’s are still alive and kicking.
4. Choice — I dont like being tied into one company. If I get pissed off with HP and Sony, I can go with IBM or Gateway, if SuSE pisses me off I can go with Red Hat, Slackware, Xandros or anyone I wish. With Apple I cannot bring my Apps with me, and the knowledge I have aquired for the mac doesnt help me at all. When I went from NeXT Step to Linux in 95, there was a huge learning curve for me but there will always be a learning curve no matter which platform you choose, the question is How much? But yes, I love the one button mouse Apple has, if I could get it to work under Linux I would be happy
I will always buy yesterdays macs, Speed and performance are not a big issue and the performance margin between the G4 and the G5 are so slight who is going to shell out 4 grand in this economy for a few seconds. If you are a multimedia or poweruser kind of person who must have the latest and greatest no matter the cost then I see that as a big selling point, but for mother, brother, sister or lover who just use a computer to check e-mail, play the occasional game or go online to do research papers and homework I dont forsee a huge migration to the G5. The G5 is great, the Mac is great, i have my g4s and I love them. But Im pretty much locked into x86 for my career. As the old saying goes ” no one was ever fired for buying IBM “
I’ll give it ago, but $5500 Australian Dollars 😉 just to make it a little more exciting 😉
1 x Lian-Li PC39A Silver anodized aluminium miditower case 300WÂ
$568 = $568
2 x AMD Opteron 242 Socket 940 32/64bit (Servers) Retail Box & Fan
965 = $1930
1 x MSI K8T-Master2-FAR DDR333/USB2/GBL/1394/SATA(RAID) – Dual Opter $570 = $570
1 x 3DLabs Wildcat VP870 w/ 128MB $847 = $847
1 x Apacer 512MB PC2100 CAS 2.5 ECC Registered DDR **Dual CPUs only**Â $332 = $332
1 x Western Digital 120GB JD 7200RPM 8MB SATA150 HDD $253 = $253
1 x ASUS DRW0402P ATAPI DVD-R/RW IDE Internal Kit $445
1 x SOU Creative Sound Blaster Audigy2 Platinum EX 6.1Sound Card PCI $556 = $556
But unfortunately, that doesn’t take into account the operating system. Assuming that the person is looking for a x86-64 UNIX workstation, then yes, this would be good value, however, if you are an artist and want to run “mainstream applications”, you will need to throw on another $700 for the full retail version of Windows XP Professional.
I would LOVE an iBook with DVD-R.
the battery life and the ability to burn my movies to DVD.
It’s all about the software my friends, can you run
Mac OS X on your p4 EE or athlon 64? No?? Well then
let’s not argue about which is faster, I buy an
apple for the software and to waste my money. You
buy that other stuff because it’s affordable. Who
cares who’s right, neither are going away anytime
soon. G5’s running mac os x are just cool.
you will need to throw on another $700 for the full retail version of Windows XP Professional.
Australian dollars?
madmax wrote:
“This is definitely not a flame. I was really thinking about a Mac but these program launch times are just too slow for me.”
In the Mac world, applications that are open are 100% ready to do their work. In the Windows world, it is more common to load and show the interface while the rest of the application continues to load in the background. With the latter choice, the application is less responsive during the period it is still loading. One reason for the former choice is that many users of Mac applications script a lot of their workflow and, in such circumstances, it is better to have the application in a single defined state before it signals that it’s ready to be used. I think the practice is more variable on the *nix side of things, but I don’t know for sure.
Regards,
Mark Wilson
Why would anyone buy a memory upgrade from Apple? They charge 3 times the street price for the exact same memory.
Buying a Dual G5 with the stock 512 MB ram and adding 2 GB Ram bought from someone like crucial will result in a machine with 2.5 GB RAM for under $3400…
Now go and compare it to your dual Opteron / Xeon / whatever…
And don’t forget to include the ultra quiet and cool looking case, not to mention the software thrown in by Apple…
As someone else said, you still can’t get Mac OSX on anything else other than Apple, so there really is no choice
Screw it,,,,,im getting one~
“you will need to throw on another $700 for the full retail version of Windows XP Professional.”
Australian dollars?
Yes. That is Australian Dollars including GST. If you can source the OEM version, you may save around $300 Australian Dollars.
Right now, the 2 GHz DP G5 is the only one of the G5’s that gives you the real value for your money. And, even if you get RAM somewhere else, it does cost a pretty penny. I wonder what kind of configurations and prices Apple will have when they make the first G5 upgrades? Perhaps they’ll be some DP configurations that are less expensive (I hope:-)
Finally, alas, if only OSX had a supported C++ API, I’d be tempted to switch… Very tempted.
What’s wrong with Objective C++?
….MUST sell car
I agree. I’d like to see benchmarks like compiling Qt for Mac. This took hours on my powerbook 12″. Would be nice to see how the other Macs fare. I know not everyone does this, but its something that people who program for the OS X are probably going to like, and its pretty real world.
What’s wrong with Objective C++?
Can you point me towards some cross platform Objective C++ implementations? (Not trolling, if you have more info, I’d be interested- always learning new languages).
Last month Virginia Tech built a supercomputer using these dual cpu machines from Apple. Their goal was to get into the top 10 of the top500.org supercomputer list. Anyone have an update on this project?
Pete wrote:
|
| For cross platform Cocoa, there’s gnustep as was mentioned here a few
| days ago.
The point is, although learning the obj-C syntax may take only a weekend, to use it effectively on OSX, you need to learn your way around the foundation classes which takes a considerably larger time investment.
Further, as someone mentioned on another thread here, besides the new syntax and foundation classes, obj-C has different idioms (message passing?) to learn as well.
I’m used to C++. I’ve got domain knowledge in areas other than programming and have to dole out personal time to those areas as well.
|
| And Apple’s gcc is supposed to support objectiveC++, a hybrid.
|
Plus rajan wrote:
|
| What’s wrong with Objective C++?
|
I’m still not sure what “obj-C++” is, but I suspect that you still need to use the foundation classes to provide a GUI.
|
| Anyway don’t Qt and Wx have bindings for the Mac?
|
Probably only for X on top of OSX’s display server. (?)
Chis wrote:
|
| Perhaps something like, oh… Carbon?
|
Carbon is C, not C++.
If Apple provided a nice OO C++ API (perhaps a neat wrapper around Carbon) I bet they would pick up a lot a new unix dev types who don’t know about obj-C/obj-C++/NextStep and who aren’t interested in it.
I think Metrowerks may have, at one time, provided something called PowerPlant (or something like that),.. perhaps that was C++, dunno.
I am happily running MacOS X 10.2.8 in 576Mb of RAM and browsing in Safari exclusively (so happy finding that debug menu).
1) Am I bothered that I don’t have the latest, greatest system? Nope!
2) Does it frustrate me terribly that window resizing is HORRIBLY sluggish (relative to what I’m used to in MacOS 8.6 or a Windows box of similar speed)? Nope!
3) Am I tremendously bothered that my applicated take a few bounces to load instead of a second or two? Nope!
It’s all in how you perceive function. I am happier, having MacOS X 10.2.8 on my G3 B&W/350, running a little slower than it could be, than I ever would be having Windows 98SE running on an AMD Athlon XP 2000+ setup with a GeForce 3 4x AGP card and 128Mb of RAM. Why?
Because I had that awesomely fast Athlon XP 2000+ setup and I sold it to buy this G3 B&W/350!
Do I regret it, even for an instant? NEVER!
With exception to the Power Mac 5200/75, running MacOS 7.5.5 (which was decent on the desktop, but an absolute worthless dead dog, going online, even with out cable modem service!), I would sooner own a significantly slower Mac than own a faster PC.
Because it’s *not* a PC! It *doesn’t* run Windows! Microsoft *doesn’t* tell me what to do! Intel *doesn’t* make a faster/better chip for it!
Sure, I can’t game with the PC big boys, or resize my windows really smoothly or fast, but I tell you…
I can browse the Internet just about as fast as my old PC (thank you, Safari!!!) and I have graphics ability that can handle the few games I have tried.
Most people compare PC -> Mac. No. You must compare PC’s to PC’s and Macs to Macs. My G3 B&W/350 is light years faster than the 5200/75 I had a while ago (even running MacOS X). Therefore, it’s better and I like it more.
Now, if I were doing business applications that REQUIRED power? Yes, I might consider the differences between a PC and a Mac. What get’s the job(s) does fastest, wins.
But, for me, the only consideration is FUN factor! Is Windows 98SE/XP fun to use? No. Is MacOS X 10.2.8 fun to use? OOOH, YEAH!!!!
Jobs knew and knows what he’s doing…
There is functionality and then there is fun factor… if you don’t care about ENJOYING your computer, then a boring OS is fine. Blaze multi- GHz circles around me… I don’t care! I’d rather spend 5 minutes ENJOYING my OS than 5 years just USING my OS.
No more PC for me… ’cause I’m back with Mac! (yes, that was an intentional rhyme)
Luposian
I would never, ever judge any computer, whether it be Mac, PC, anything, by testing a showroom floor model.
you are a total troll.
Nein, he’s no troll, he’s just disappointed. Marketing clout from Apple is just… that.
Don’t believe the hype, get back to work.
Noone reading German computer magazines here?!? In c’t issue 20 of 2003 (2 weeks old) there is a huge comparison of the G5 to P4, Xeon, Athlon 64, A64FX51, Opteron. They tried to replicate the G5 specs with their other systems, so it’s ATI9600 everywhere, 512 MB RAM, the same Pioneer 106 SATA 160 GB etc.
Can’t quote all the results here, would take me days. Just a couple:
1. Photoshop 7 (special c’t macro that I don’t really know anything about, except some plugin is already G5-optimized), seconds:
2xG5 2GHz: 278
1xG5 1.8GHz: 454
1xG4 1GHz: 796
2xOpteron 2GHz: 275
2xXeon 3.06GHz: 287
Athlon64FX51 2GHz: 337
Opteron 2GHz: 366
Athlon64 2GHz: 668
AthlonXP 3200+: 431
P4 3,2GHz: 362
2. CineBench 2003, OpenGL-Shading, score (higher is better):
2xG5 2GHz: 1295
1xG5 1.8GHz: 1014
1xG4 1GHz: 163
2xOpteron 2GHz: 2643
2xXeon 3.06GHz: 2256
Athlon64FX51 2.2GHz: 3360
Opteron 2GHz: 3190
Athlon64 3200+: 3181
AthlonXP 3200+: 2641
P4 3,2GHz: 2643
Obviously for x86 dual processor doesn’t make any sense here; the same is true for the Mathematica 5 benchmark (not quoted here).
There are a few more anomalities c’t notes:
– the 2xG5 2GHz is 4 (!) times as fast as the single G5 1.8GHz at re-encoding a DVD with DVD2OneX.
Prices (Euro, German market)
2xG5 2GHz: 3210
1xG5 1.8GHz: 2560
1xG4 1GHz: ./.
2xOpteron 2GHz: 3700 (sum of parts; made by c’t)
2xXeon 3.06GHz: 3100 (sum of parts; made by c’t)
3970 (Dell Precision 450)
Athlon64FX51 2.2GHz: ./.
Opteron 2GHz: 2180 (sum of parts; made by c’t)
Athlon64 3200+: 1950 (sum of parts; made by c’t)
AthlonXP 3200+: 1760
P4 3,2GHz: 2070 (Dell Dimension 8300)
Philotech
PondoSinatra wrote:
>
> I can’t believe what I experienced today.
>
Sounds like there was some problem with the system. G5’s aren’t that slow. Try a correctly configured one. Then, when Panther comes out, try *that* and it’ll be even faster.
Jay wrote:
>
> I would never, ever judge any computer, whether it be Mac,
> PC, anything, by testing a showroom floor model.
>
Hmm… well, I think you *can* judge the computer by what you see at the store, just keep in mind that 100 goofballs before you may have: fiddled with various system prefs, fooled with the Terminal, started then maybe somehow crashed various apps, yanked and jiggled various wires behind the system, and so on.
PondoSinatra wrote:
“I went in a local computer store that had a G5, granted it was only the 1.8 version. But I started up a few apps and lo and behold it was BRUTALLY SLOW. Just brutal. Two spinning beach balls showing that two different apps essentially hung after starting. I opened up another app from the dock and it took 6 bounces before it appeared. Again, just BRUTAL. I can’t believe what I experienced today.”
I can’t believe it either. What computer store in what city in what country? Which apps? What does essentially hung after starting mean? What state was the machine in before you started playing with it? Was it running CineBench in the background?
Regards,
Mark Wilson
johnG wrote:
“The point is, although learning the obj-C syntax may take only a weekend, to use it effectively on OSX, you need to learn your way around the foundation classes which takes a considerably larger time investment.”
It’s really not that hard (especially with Interface Builder). I encourage you to check it out (a few days effort should give a sufficient indication of whether you thinks its worth pursuing). You can also use C++ code in Apple programs.
“Anyway don’t Qt and Wx have bindings for the Mac?
Probably only for X on top of OSX’s display server. (?)”
Qt is native on Windows, X11, Mac OS X and embedded Linux. See:
http://www.trolltech.com/products/qt/index.html
Regards,
Mark Wilson
JohnG said – “Hmm… well, I think you *can* judge the computer by what you see at the store, just keep in mind that 100 goofballs before you may have: fiddled with various system prefs, fooled with the Terminal, started then maybe somehow crashed various apps, yanked and jiggled various wires behind the system, and so on.”
LOL John – that’s exactly why I don’t judge showroom systems. You’re absolutely right.
just keep in mind that 100 goofballs before you may have: fiddled with various system prefs, fooled with the Terminal, started then maybe somehow crashed various apps, yanked and jiggled various wires behind the system, and so on.”
So what’s the difference between that and an “average” user?
what does that mean?
if you mean how is that diffrent than fron a user at home, well, a home user would not goof around with settings potentialy breaking the computer…and if he/she did, they would know it was there fault.
In this day and age, does it really make sense to spend big bucks on any PC when in few years your stuff could either be outdated or outright obsolete? For those of with 32 bit, how long before we are REQUIRED to have 64 bit or be left in the dust with the Commodore 64? And how long after that before we are required to have a 128 bit?
This is the history of computing. 8 bit, 16 bit, 32 bit…and talk about prices – what did the original Mac cost – $4000-$5000?? And that was in 1984 dollars. In 1994, to get a really nice PC set up from Compaq or HP with a modem, decent speakers, a good 15″ display, etc., it would have cost you $3000. Computing is getting cheaper and cheaper, even Apple. I’m looking forward to the 64 bit era very much.
I know many of you are students and many may not have large incomes or/and have families. But that’s what’s so great about computing today – it is affordable. Nobody has to buy a G5 Mac or souped up PC. It used to be that buying a computer was a huge investment that few could afford. Now, things are radically different for the benefit of all.
Quicktime took 6 bounces to appear, and the other app was just System Preferences, and the other was the contents of the hard drive. They would open but I couldn’t do anything with them, whenever I moved the pointer over them I just got the spinning beach ball. While this was a showroom computer it was password protected, I had to ask a salesperson to ‘unlock’ it for me. Plus they likely have not had it long (stores just starting to get them).
I agree that who knows what was done to it, but the whole experience was a huge letdown for me.
Oh ya, nice of OSNews to yank my comment…..
“I can’t believe it either. What computer store in what city in what country? Which apps? What does essentially hung after starting mean? What state was the machine in before you started playing with it? Was it running CineBench in the background?”
well, yes, no one needs a 4 grand computer, just like no one needs a 2GHz machine.
all you need is say a 1GHz eMac with a combo drive. good performance, good features, good included apps.
Quicktime took 6 bounces to appear, and the other app was just System Preferences, and the other was the contents of the hard drive. They would open but I couldn’t do anything with them, whenever I moved the pointer over them I just got the spinning beach ball. While this was a showroom computer it was password protected, I had to ask a salesperson to ‘unlock’ it for me. Plus they likely have not had it long (stores just starting to get them).
Not to be a smart-ass, but how on gods green earth did you get the Quicktime icon to bounce 6 times? I am running an eMac w/ 512MB RAM, and Quicktime only bounces once and instantly appears (Quicktime Pro 6.3), Corel Painter takes one bouce but around 5-7 seconds for the splash screen to appear, Roxio, again, one bouce and appears instantly. The only application on this machine that takes a while is Corel Draw/Rave 2/Trace/Photo-Paint, which are already known complaints with Corel products, both on Windows and Mac.
I agree that who knows what was done to it, but the whole experience was a huge letdown for me.
Well, if you are going to judge a compute on how fast an application loads, why not forget buying a PC all together and get a PDA, the applications load instantly!
Oh ya, nice of OSNews to yank my comment…..
“I can’t believe it either. What computer store in what city in what country? Which apps? What does essentially hung after starting mean? What state was the machine in before you started playing with it? Was it running CineBench in the background?”
Don’t concerned. Ever since this “Report abuse” button started, every Tom, Dick and Harry who has a gripe with the author is being clicker happy. Funny, when valid concerns like yours are raised, they’re moderated down, yet when walterbyrd does his daily anti-SUN, anti-HP, anti-SCO tirade, nothing happens.
Btw, if I don’t like a comment, I’ll either flame, ignore or make a mature reply. I certainly don’t need to press “Report abuse” when I disagree with someone.
Mark W. replied to me:
It’s really not that hard (especially with Interface Builder). I encourage you to check it out (a few days effort should give a sufficient indication of whether you thinks its worth pursuing). You can also use C++ code in Apple programs.
Argh… Stop it Mark. You’re making it difficult for me to not drop my current project and fiddle with OSX!
Anon wrote:
In this day and age, does it really make sense to spend big bucks on any PC when in few years your stuff could either be outdated or outright obsolete?
I think that’s a very good question.
I went to school for physics, and I previously (after recently being let go in a layoff) worked for a company making litho tools, so I think I’m qualified to say, “computers are pretty darn fast”.
Currently, cutting-edge litho tools are pushed to the max wrt to small feature sizes. There doesn’t seem to be a way to push current tools any further (well, maybe “immersion” might help a little, but not much). The next thing on the horizon might be something called EUV (extreme UV) but it’s currently more fantasy than anything else.
Besides that, the *majority* of customers just don’t need more speed (like they used to in the 90’s), and it’s the customer majority that drives semiconductor companies to create faster and faster chips.
Here’s an interesting article:
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20011115.html
Personally, I don’t think the G5 will be outdated in a few years. These aren’t the 80’s or 90’s anymore. General-use computers have become fast enough for the masses and that’s as fast as they need to be.
(Of course, you might argue that Windows and OSX will just get more featureful/bloated and require faster hardware — but the thing is, GNU/Linux has come along to be the fly in that particular ointment.)
“Personally, I don’t think the G5 will be outdated in a few years. These aren’t the 80’s or 90’s anymore. General-use computers have become fast enough for the masses and that’s as fast as they need to be.
(Of course, you might argue that Windows and OSX will just get more featureful/bloated and require faster hardware — but the thing is, GNU/Linux has come along to be the fly in that particular ointment.)”
I don’t know how one can ever make such a statement after 20 years of personal computing. It’s like 64 kb RAM are enough, or There will be no need for more than one or a few more computers in the world.
Of course the OS and applications will get more features that require more processing power. And that’s not just Win and MacOS, but Linux as well. Except that Linux will be a little slower and adapting new tech and new features. Look ever since Linux has decent GUIs like Gnome and KDE it eats even more ressources than WinXP.
BTW addendum to my posting with all the benchmark results: C’t did a lot more testing, especially SPEC CPU2000. MacG5 with gxx 3.3, WinXP with version 7 of the IBM Fortran/C compiler and gcc 3.2.2 for Linux. On all processors Linux is 15-20% slower. G5/2Ghz is by far the slowest with all tests, but they did only single CPU testing (must be because of the SPEC tests).
Philotech
|If Apple provided a nice OO C++ API (perhaps a neat wrapper
|around Carbon) I bet they would pick up a lot a new unix dev
|types who don’t know about obj-C/obj-C++/NextStep and who
|aren’t interested in it.
There’s an on-going project to provide a C++ wrapper around Carbon. Read The Nitrogen Manifesto: http://nitric.sourceforge.net/The%20Nitrogen%20Manifesto.pd…
|I think Metrowerks may have, at one time, provided
|something called PowerPlant (or something like that),..
|perhaps that was C++, dunno.
Metrowerks still provide PowerPlant and it is indeed C++. Obviously you have to shell out for CodeWarrior if you want to use it…
I intend to find out the last macs i worked on were the old 7500 types running Mac OS 7.5.1 I didn’t care much for those systems I always thought Macs were just dumbed down PC’s. Now since OSX i have been thinking about getting a Modern Mac to check it out just for grins. So i finally did it bought an older G4 powerbook on ebay. I am not a convert yet Wintel and Unix are my mainstay but who Knows.
>what did the original Mac cost – $4000-$5000??
$2500
6 bounce quicktime? man i have 8 apps running and one is _running_ (CD ripping) on an iBook and quicktime is up in 3.
you are full of it.
“all you need is say a 1GHz eMac with a combo drive. good performance, good features, good included apps…”
How much is this going to cost? Because looking at the Apple store or Fry’s, a computer with a combo drive can’t be had for under a $1000. I could maybe squeeze a grand out of my budget for a computer IF I had a damn good reason.
I have to assume most Mac users are just plain wealthy, because I can’t see spending that type of money just because “Macs rule!” or “Macs are Phat!” Frankly I don’t understand how some of you are so casual about dropping the money.. I would need something concrete so I can justify it to myself later when I’m sweating the bills…
> “Personally, I don’t think the G5 will be outdated in a
> few years. These aren’t the 80’s or 90’s anymore.
> [snip]
I don’t know how one can ever make such a statement after 20 years of personal computing. It’s like 64 kb RAM are enough, or There will be no need for more than one or a few more computers in the world.
Because we have a much better perspective now (on personal computing) than we did 20 years ago.
And because Moore’s law doesn’t just happen — it takes loads of dough to keep it going. Are the majority of customers still clamoring for faster computers? Will they provide enough revenue for the *enormous* R&D it would take to bring the next generation of litho tools to market (if it’s even possible to build them at all)?
geese….I have a house with 2 kids(one with a chronic medical problem), I go to school and don’t work, the wife is a nurse.
I am not in debt to anything more than my house and my car (we payed off one) and I can afford having a custom built PC that cost me about 1200 bucks, a Laptop that cost me about 1800 bucks, and a Mac that cost me nothing, but I am planing on getting a PB in about a year and a half when my laptop warranty goes out. after that I plan on getting an eMac with a super drive (well, that depends on the features I pick for the PB) so I can make DVDs of my home movies from my MiniDV camcorder . I could also make nice slide shows with my 2MP camera.
I buy computers that cost AT LEAST $1200, I don’t spend more than 2 grand though unless I am buying a laptop (and that is rare that I get such a high end laptop)
it is about fiscal responsibility. if you want something, you save for it. it is that simple. you can also finance it with a Bank rather than a credit card, then you are actually paying for the damn thing…this goes for any expensive device or object. the only stuff I finance through the store is furniture (you usually end up with good deals and get about 2 years no interest to pay it off..nice if you are responsible in saving)
I plan on getting a 15 in PB with a super drive..I will pay for half and finance the rest at 9.9% (I can get that from apple because I have a credit score of 800 something
financial responsibility is the way to freedom people.
“Are those program launch times for real. That is really slow compared to Slackware and my Athlon XP 2100+.”
I don’t know where they got that from. Safari pops open on my dual G5 as it did my dual G4
Alright the G5 is at least comparable to any X86 out there and at a professional price point that is realistic.
I just purchased a G5 1.6 at my work, and I can tell you even the 1.6 is a workhorse that has been very stable. Is it as fast a P4 or Athlon, I would have to say overall yes. When you start really rendering 100s of meg photoshop and illustrator files PCs( mac and x86) all but the real high end ones choke. And no white box will solve that and then you have stability issues which in turn means money and VALUBLE time. I feed 3 presses and a foiler. Tell them that the cool white box i built which was 1/2 the price but when I goto RIP a illustrator file with multple high res links wont RIP becuase I wanted to save a few hundred on the computer.
APPLE, DELL, GATEWAY all charge more becuase they supply a warrenty and stand behind there product, this means the cost of the computers is more. But for a business where time is everything it is well worth the cost.
Thanks I will now go back to drinking my rum and coke 🙂