[chrisutley]

What's up with all the crying over these new Macs today? Apple releases the G5 and it wasn't 10-minutes before people were posting threads about the next update. Never-mind that the G5 release was preceded by months no years of crying about the allegedly lowly G4.

I cannot prove what I'm about to say here, but I am positive beyond the shadow of a doubt it is true. Nothing you can say would convince me otherwise. The overwhelming majority (probably 95%) of the regular complainers on this subject do not need the power they complain about not having.

I compile code, edit video, and manipulate huge images all on my lowly 1GHz G4 PowerBook. I do these things for a living, and my PowerBook is perfectly capable of doing them fast enough for me to remain more than competitive. I'm positive most of the whiners spend their time web browsing, sending email, and applying Shape Shifter themes. I doubt they have any idea what putting a Mac through its' paces is really all about, I mean seriously crunching data to the point where you get up and walk away from your machine while it grinds over mountains of data.

Most of you are not qualified to complain about the perceived lack of power in these machines. You wouldn't know how to make your existing machines break a sweat, much less put a dual 2.5GHz G5 into overdrive.

If this seems like flame-bait, it isn't. It's my honest impression of certain people that frequent this forum, filling it with ridiculous complaints about the Mac lineup at any given time.

[Squozen]

Fair comment, but a dual 2.5Ghz G5 costs A$5400 ($1000 more than the adjusted US price), forgive me if I expected something more for the money Apple Australia are asking.

[Link]

Putting a mac through it's paces means running various distributed clients at night, servers 24/7, running photoshop + dreamweaver + a handful of text editors + one or more web browsers + VPC + a set of chat apps + maybe even a game...

It's more RAM intensive than anything else to be honest.

I'd say plenty of people are in the same situation... many can use as much machine as they can get their hands on. There's no such thing as a speed limit to how fast computers can be used at like cars, so buying a 4ghz computer is always good while buying a car that can go 200mph even when you live in a place that has 60mph speed limits is just plain frivolous.

So that leads me to saying that yes, people do need the fastest mac they can get their hands on, and that even if they can't afford it NOW, when they can, they'll want as much of a machine as they can get for their money.

This also includes the fact many people are whining because Apple is YET AGAIN letting the g5 fall behind (read: hardly competetive) with the cheaper x86 market. There are boards JUST coming out with PCI express, Dual channel DDR (or DDR2), dual AND quad athlon64 2.4 setups (where the 2.5ghz g5 will probably only match up an athlon64 2.4), and Radeon X800/Geforce 6800 video cards.

It's almost absurd that apple thinks they'll be able to sell a machine for $1999 that has a mere 256mb ram. If they're planning to sell bare-bones machines at least they should sell the damn things at a fair price.

Admittedly Apple doesn't compete in the price market, but they did jump into the arena making a point that the G5 would lead the 64bit desktop wave.. something it stopped doing about 3 months after it came out, and what looks like will not be happening "for the forseeable future."

Perhaps one of the things that disgusts me most is that almost 3 years ago I went and got a top end G4. While just about any value PC can now match my machine with ease, apple still sells ibooks, emacs, and even a powerbook that would be barely, if faster at all.

Hey, maybe you don't need (OR WANT) a dual 3ghz powermac. That's fine with me, and I admit that if IBM can't provide apple 3ghz processors, then obviously apple can't provide us with them.. but that doesn't give them reasoning to sell a $2000 machine with a $20 video card.

[eddiecatflap]

..maybe people want to ensure that their investment is as long term safe as possible , hence 3ghz is overkill now , but in 2-3 years it may be the minimum config for running os-x 10.6/7 ?

..thinking different is ok , but thinking ahead is grater


..by the same token , where's the new pci technology ??

[effgee]

Originally posted by Link:
... almost 3 years ago I went and got a top end G4. While just about any value PC can now match my machine with ease, apple still sells ibooks, emacs, and even a powerbook that would be barely, if faster at all.

... but that doesn't give them reasoning to sell a $2000 machine with a $20 video card.

[The Placid Casual]

Yep, seems like flame bait.

But I agree wholeheartedly...

[chrisutley]

Hey, I understand the argument of buying a machine you can grow into, that makes sense. Does that mean all these complainers need 2.5GHz machines in order to have room to grow, most certainly not. They could probably get by with a 1.25GHz G4 machine, assuming they had plenty of RAM and a good video card.

[memory-minus]

Originally posted by eddiecatflap:
..maybe people want to ensure that their investment is as long term safe as possible , hence 3ghz is overkill now , but in 2-3 years it may be the minimum config for running os-x 10.6/7?

Doubtful, considering each subsequent release of OS X has run faster on the same hardware.

[osxisfun]

Preach on brother...

Those that complain about CPU speed the most. Generally need it the least...

[Maflynn]

Originally posted by Link:

Perhaps one of the things that disgusts me most is that almost 3 years ago I went and got a top end G4. While just about any value PC can now match my machine with ease, apple still sells ibooks, emacs, and even a powerbook that would be barely, if faster at all.

You can actually make that exact same argument with a PC, A three year old PC will barely keep up with a brand new bargain PC. While the price difference between a bargain PC and the Mac is large. The delta is much smaller when you go with the high end stuff. Of course the PCs will still come out cheap do to economy of scale.

Secondly, its not apple that is causing the G5 to fall behind, its ibm. Apple doesn't produce the CPUs, infact if they could get there hands on a 5GHz g5 they would slap that baby in so fast it would make your head spin. I'm not sure why IBM has had issues but I think it has to do with yields and a new fabrication plant.

[action]

the minimum requirement for motion is a dual 2 gig g5.

i don't know what type of video you do but i produce fashion videos for clothes designers to use in their showrooms and a 1 ghz is not adequate. not even close.

if you are saving, exporting, renderig filters in fcp your computer will lock up and you have to wait for that process to finish.

on my dual g5 i can work in photoshop to work on graphics that i will use in dvd studio pro. the g5 makes me more productive then a 1ghz g4. i worked on a dual 1.25 g4 and i must say it was rather functional. the g5 spead up the process however while my 933 quicksilver was a dog.

if it wasn't for video or 3d rendering i think a 1 ghz mac is very functional.

it depends on what you are doing but in my experience a dual 1.25 would be the bare minimum for any type of video work.

chung lee

ps. another benefit of having fasters machines is that i drives down the price of older machines. you can get a refurb dual 2 gig for $2000. i think that is a steal.

if a 3ghz machine comes out in a few more months the dual 2 gig will be even less etc...

let the updates keep coming the faster the better!!!

[effgee]

Originally posted by Maflynn:
You can actually make that exact same argument with a PC, ...

Methinks what Link meant is that Apple is selling new machines today that are barely faster than his three year old G4 while even low-cost PC's are considerably faster than his machine. Meaning that during the same time period speed increases in the PC world have by far outpaced any progress (or lack thereof) made by Motorola/Apple/IBM.

[Eug Wanker]

Originally posted by action:
the minimum requirement for motion is a dual 2 gig g5.

Minimum System Requirements for Motion

Macintosh computer with 867MHz or faster PowerPC G4 or G5 processor

Now, I wouldn't want to run Motion with anything less than a dual G5 1.8 either, but if anything the video card is more important that the CPU here.

[Will McGoonigle]

We still need better graphics cards if we want developers to port. Not just on the G5s but across the line. I badly want Half Life 2 and Doom III without having to pay for a 3 grand machine. And don't give me that console line. We all prefer to sit at the desk with a TFT screen, high res, keyboard and mouse play.

[Luca Rescigno]

I'm not at all disappointed with the clock speed. That's the part that concerns me the least. It's the other stuff that is frustrating - like the crappy graphics cards, low standard RAM, mediocre internal expandability, high bottom-line price, unfairly limited low-end configuration, and so on. And their clock speed is fine; it's faster than any other 64 bit chip available.

[rogerkylin]

I suppose I'm one of the 5% that can use as fast as possible as we do a lot of number-crunching... pretty much 24/7. But what we really need is a larger memory bandwidth, as that kills us for larger memory jobs....

[action]

eug,

thanks for the correction on motion. i should have been more clear. i agree about the graphics card i got the bto 9800 pro on my g5 and i love it.

i am a little disappointed with livetype however. makeing a simple 20 character title page with action fonts seems to take unusually long. about a minute to render. i hope that is not indicative of motion's performance.

regardless, if you are a professional then it is imperative the computers get faster. i have recently been on pc's and i don't know what the specs were but rendering and operations with after affects seemed much snappier, quicker, etc...

i bet it was combination of things like software optimization etc...

but i spent almost $4500 on my g5 with bto gpu, 4 gigs of memory etc... and in after affects it did not seem faster. however, pure speed isn't everything and osx is worth the premium.


chung lee

[hldan]

Originally posted by Luca Rescigno:
I'm not at all disappointed with the clock speed. That's the part that concerns me the least. It's the other stuff that is frustrating - like the crappy graphics cards, low standard RAM, mediocre internal expandability, high bottom-line price, unfairly limited low-end configuration, and so on. And their clock speed is fine; it's faster than any other 64 bit chip available.

I've heard this B 4. What's wrong with the graphics cards in the Macs? What do the PC's have that's so much better than the Macs. ATI just released new upscale cards for the PowerMacs. I haven't seen anything in the PC notebooks or desktops that was so much better than what the Mac has.
Now I completely agree about the idea of having to pay a premiun price to get a desktop from Apple especially since the iMac is not really upgradable but I have never noticed Apple giving crappy cards. In fact, Apple began using better cards than all other PC manufactureres before it was important to use high end graphics in a desktop. Cut Apple some slack .

[effgee]

Originally posted by hldan:
... but I have never noticed Apple giving crappy cards. In fact, Apple began using better cards than all other PC manufactureres before it was important to use high end graphics in a desktop. Cut Apple some slack.

Nobody should be cutting Apple any slack - this is business, no more, no less. Apple wants our money (rightfully so) and we want a decent product in return (rightfully so).

And no matter how you turn it - an nVidia 5200 GPU in a $ 2,000.00 desktop machine is not a better and/or a high-end video card by any stretch of the imagination.

On top of that, that dual 1,8 box comes with 256MB of RAM and an 80GB HD - come on, you can't even run OS X decently with that amount of RAM.

Don't get me wrong - each one of the G5's are fine machines but Jobs was being an idiot promising 3GHz clock speed by the end of this summer without being 100% sure he could deliver on his promise - and now he/Apple deservedly have to take the heat for that.

[Lateralus]

Originally posted by hldan:
I've heard this B 4. What's wrong with the graphics cards in the Macs? What do the PC's have that's so much better than the Macs. ATI just released new upscale cards for the PowerMacs. I haven't seen anything in the PC notebooks or desktops that was so much better than what the Mac has.

You're kidding... right?

[drissa]

Agreed. Such little RAM and modest components is ridiculous.

And on the original thread - what about digital audio users? Plug-ins and soft synths are so greedy and when you push your machine in this context, it's not a matter of waiting a few more seconds for something to render - if it can't happen in real time, you're simply prevented from working.

[chrisford]

Hello all -

I do wonder if we're all mistaking speed for productivity. I'd agree with the original poster: how many of us sit and watch a progress bar anymore? When I was using an LC 475, that was the most common GUI element. Now I use a dual 450 G4 (a slooow machine, compared with the new G5s) I might find OsX a little sluggish (sometimes) and I might wish for a little more speed. But my final conclusion is that it does the job I want it to do.

The megahertz myth is just that - a myth. I'd be the first to agree - 3gHz sounds more meaty than 2.5gHz. But will you really notice it? Will it slow down your productivity to a noticeable degree? I'm not sure...

c

[effgee]

Originally posted by chrisford:
... The megahertz myth is just that - a myth. I'd be the first to agree - 3gHz sounds more meaty than 2.5gHz. But will you really notice it? Will it slow down your productivity to a noticeable degree? I'm not sure...

Well maybe I am one of those who do use every single MHz they can get - yes it does make a difference in productivity for me.

But above all this is about receiving appropriate value for your money. And for Pete's sake - when I dump $2,000.00 into a what Apple calls a "superior tool for the creative class" then I at the very least expect it to have a faster GPU than an iMac and enough RAM to run the OS without it splattering VM swap files all over my HD.

[xe0]

Originally posted by osxisfun:
Preach on brother...
Those that complain about CPU speed the most. Generally need it the least...

second that

[philzilla]

Originally posted by Link:
Putting a mac through it's paces means running various distributed clients at night, servers 24/7, running photoshop + dreamweaver + a handful of text editors + one or more web browsers + VPC + a set of chat apps + maybe even a game...

you really haven't understood a word of the original post, have you?
a couple of minor applications, some chat and maybe a game? that's driving it hard, in your opinion? come back when you've got a clue.

i totally agree with every word of chrisutley's original post. it's bang on the button.

[chris v]

Sometimes I kinda miss the days when the Curves palette equaled lunch, or a gaussian blur equaled a coffee break.

I have a set of actions I run to make spot seps out of RGB files, that used to take 10-15 minutes on my G4 450. Now, my dual gig runs through them before I'm hardly out of the chair. I have no idea what I'd do with dual 3 GHZ.

CV

[Link]

Just because it runs on a g4 doesn't mean it's not going to be painful. OS X was designed to do multiple things with ease, generally, say resizing a REALLY BIG™ image or rendering video taxes my g4 box in a way that browsers and stuff like to LAAAAAAAAAG

[Cadaver]

My DP 2.0 has horsepower to spare; its RAM that is the limiting factor for me.

[osxisfun]

so in 8 months my $2999 dual 2gig g5 can be bought at retail for $2499...

not too shabby. only $500 dip.

I definitely will be waiting for the next gen (.9 3 gig at least) before upgrading...

[djohnson]

Originally posted by osxisfun:
...I definitely will be waiting for the next gen (.9 3 gig at least) before upgrading...

Must be nice to upgrade that often...

[osxisfun]

hard work. and 70 hr weeks. that, and i do rob a 7-11 every few months.. OOops. i said the loud part quiet and the quiet part loud.

[Commodus]

The only real issue with the video cards is the highest-end card.

The upgrade from the FX 5200 to the 9600 XT is a relatively trivial expense when you're already paying $2000, so I don't think that's a problem. And since neither nVidia nor ATI has a truly improved bottom-end AGP card, there's not much incentive to use something else.

And the 9600 XT itself is pretty much dead-on for a mid-range card. The FX 5700 Ultra isn't faster, and even the PCI Express boards in the class aren't worth it (they're really just PCIe versions of the same AGP cards).

But where it really counts - that $300 US upgrade (or $350 if you go straight from the FX 5200) - is where I think Apple has an issue. If you're going for an all-out performance machine, you don't want to know that at best you'll be using previous-generation (if still reasonably quick) technology. There should be an X800 Pro in there, no question!

In fact, I'm concerned enough about the video situation that I'll ask people to e-mail sjobs@apple.com and let Jobs know that Apple should at least consider replacing the 9800 XT with the X800 Pro at the company's earliest convenience.

[Luca Rescigno]

X800 on the high end really is a MUST if you're spending that much to upgrade. It's nice that they have the 9800XT now, but it should be perhaps a $200 upgrade, not a $300. Especially if they're not shipping for a couple months anyway.

FX5200 on the low end is really sucky for such an expensive machine. I find it ridiculous that they supply it as standard equipment with both lower end machines, while allowing a mere $50 to upgrade from one of the crappiest low-end cards out there to a very solid mid-range card. At least they don't charge $100 or $150 to move to the 9600XT...