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hi gang,

there is an issue i would like to get off my chest in regards to waiting for revision b hardware and revision b powermac g5's.

i have read numerous times on this board, that people are waiting for revisions b g5's for two reasons: 1. they want as many of the bugs worked out of the revisions a's as possible. 2. they want increased speed pumps.

on reason number 1. if the revisions b g5 get's rid of the agp slot for it's graphics card and adds hypertransport 2 etc... how is this not a whole new computer and not a revision a g5 of the pcx graphics card model....

the reason i say this is the mdd g4 was supposed to be the last generation of the g4 but look at the power supply problems it had.

i had a 933 quicksilver and it did not look like the inside of a dual 1.25 mdd.

my point is the revision b is not a revision b if fundemental changes are made to the computer. it's revision b if known problems are addressed and released with those issues resolved.

on reason number 2. waiting for speed bumps. my argument is the speed bump from the g4 to the g5 was significant. the speed bump from dual 2 to a dual 2.5 is not. although a nice speed bump but not worth waiting for 9 months if you need the computer.

...if you need the computer...

nothing wrong with waiting for the next generation of computer but if you are using either of above arguments for a new g5 then you don't need it now but want it now.

so get a g5 because i can't even begin to tell you how it's improved my productivity for batch processing images as well as rendering and encoding video.

thanks for letting me vent.

chung lee

[osxisfun]

agreed.

I owned a 3rd gen G4 and guess what i had to change?

Hint: the power supply...

[jcadam]

I agree also. The First round of MDDs were a RevA machine, for the simple fact that it used a COMPLETELY new motherboard, among other things.

Now, the B&W G3s had issues with the onboard IDE controller (I won't elaborate, everyone knows what I'm talking about). The RevB B&W fixed this. Owners of RevA B&Ws had to add a PCI controller card to get around the issue (or never upgrade their hard drive). The interesting part was that Apple never announced that they were putting out a 'rev b' B&W G3, they just started shipping them when the revAs went out of stock

[CIA]

I suspect the "b" G5's will just be speed bumps, maybe minor graphics card changes.
Apple could use the "G6" moniker when they do a major motherboard change. Recently it seems like they only bump the generation number when they change case designs though.
Multi-core CPU's and hypertransport graphics in a G6?

[osxisfun]

Is the a G "Real time Finding Nemo rendering engine" 6 in the palm of your hand or are you just happy to see me...

[DrBoar]

Without getting into what changes is needed to entail a rev b or not.

I think what to look for is the feature "balanced generations", they wil age far better than unbalanced generations.
1. Nubus PPC, unbalanced with good CPUs but weak FSB and other features.
2. PCI PPC. Nice balance, very useful all the way up to OS 9 with plenty of upgrade option.
3. Beige G3. Unbalanced with slow bus rellative to the CPU and weak graphics no USB and FW
4. B&W G3. Nice balance CPU, GPU and FSB as well as USB and FW. To bad that neither ATI nor NVIDIA have Mac versions of any of their good PCI gaming cards.

The 8100/110 a rev C top of the line computer was way inferior to the budget 7200/90, so to conclude some are good and some are not that good regardless of letter of revision

[Catfish_Man]

Originally posted by DrBoar:
Without getting into what changes is needed to entail a rev b or not.

I think what to look for is the feature "balanced generations", they wil age far better than unbalanced generations.
1. Nubus PPC, unbalanced with good CPUs but weak FSB and other features.
2. PCI PPC. Nice balance, very useful all the way up to OS 9 with plenty of upgrade option.
3. Beige G3. Unbalanced with slow bus rellative to the CPU and weak graphics no USB and FW
4. B&W G3. Nice balance CPU, GPU and FSB as well as USB and FW. To bad that neither ATI nor NVIDIA have Mac versions of any of their good PCI gaming cards.

The 8100/110 a rev C top of the line computer was way inferior to the budget 7200/90, so to conclude some are good and some are not that good regardless of letter of revision

A good example of a balanced machine imo is the dual 533 G4

[djohnson]

I think a good balanced machines is the dual 2ghz G5 Bus is 1/2 of CPU speed. Nice fast everything else. Now soon I will get one... yes I will....

[olePigeon]

Originally posted by Catfish_Man:
A good example of a balanced machine imo is the dual 533 G4

I rank that one up there with the 9600/350 as one of my alltime favorite Macs.

[QuadG5Man]

That's my baby (the dual 533 with 1.25 ram)

Been awesome since I bought it way back when. Still renders video very nicely and Panther runs fast. Put a 'superdrive' in it years ago for burnning dvd's. I had foresight to not buy the 733 G4 (top of the line at the time). 533 still nice machine.


new g5's soon?? A dual 2.4 midrange would be like the 533 machine IMO: Bang for the buck.

Keatman

[olePigeon]

Ever notice the mid-range duals are always the best bang?

Dual 533, Dual 866, Dual 1.8.

[Lateralus]

Originally posted by olePigeon:
Ever notice the mid-range duals are always the best bang?

Dual 533, Dual 866, Dual 1.8.

Dual 867, actually. And it wasn't the mid-range machine, it was the low end one from the first MDD lineup. The mid-range machine from that line was the Dual 1GHz.

And yes, the Dual 533 belongs to the elite group of all time best Macs, along with the 9600/350.

[Eriamjh]

I guess the real issue is what makes a computer a "rev b"?

Any major architecture change means it is still a "rev a". A speed bump is truly a "rev b" (except it's "rev a" for that processor ).

Another thing to be aware of are continuous improvements made. A model purchased 6 months into production is likely to have less issues (from manufacturing, not inherent design flaws) than one made the first week. There are always exceptions (drunk line worker, etc.).

I think the G5 is a winner. If you want a second optical bay, then keep waiting, but you may never get your wish. If you wait forever, you will never get a computer to be disappointed about!