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Link · Feb 14, 2005, 02:35 AM

When I was on IRC earlier I was talking about how the g5, while such a great machine, lacks dual bays, like the MDD had, which I think is a nasty step down in a way... can't have a drive that's *MADE* for importing and a drive that burns everything you could want

That lead me to saying "You know, I'd seriously love the g5, even if it was 2" or 3" taller/longer if it had dual optical bays" -- top that off, quad HD bays?

Yeah.. seriously, it could make everyone happy, and they could always keep the smaller machines for people who don't want the big one. I don't really care about size, and I doubt many people would mind a 20" tall tower as long as they weren't trying to cram it under a japanese buffet table

So watcha think?

Eug Wanker · Feb 14, 2005, 07:21 AM

Would you buy a bigger g5 tower if it had dual drive bays?

No, I would not, for dual optical drives. I would like to see 3 hard drive bays though, but I don't want to see the Power Mac get any bigger. If anything I think it should get smaller AND get an extra hard drive bay.

BTW, if it was a couple of inches taller, it would be too tall to fit under many desks.

Big Mac · Feb 14, 2005, 08:26 AM

My G5 is too tall to fit under my cabinet; it ended up on the side. So extra inches would not matter to me. But there are much more important concerns other than the internal capacity of the G5. It is not as if one or even a small band of users has the ability to influence Apple's choices in this regard. Either future G5s will have greater internal capacity (a good bet, considering the evolution of the G4), or they will remain much the same.

jasonsRX7 · Feb 14, 2005, 08:50 AM

I'd much rather have another internal hd bay or two, than a 5.25 bay.

Captain Egotist · Feb 14, 2005, 09:49 AM

G5 ... bigger?

How. It's already barely big enough to squeeze between a normal door frame. Sure, if it was bigger that'd be cool for some people, but others would have to knock down walls just to install it.

Lateralus · Feb 14, 2005, 10:35 AM

Originally posted by Captain Egotist:
G5 ... bigger?

How. It's already barely big enough to squeeze between a normal door frame. Sure, if it was bigger that'd be cool for some people, but others would have to knock down walls just to install it.

You must not have been around during the reign of machines like the 9500, 9600 and PowerTower Pro.

Link · Feb 14, 2005, 04:48 PM

lol, not fit through a door frame? Couldn't you carry it the way most people carry their computers? (by a handle?).

Superchicken · Feb 14, 2005, 06:13 PM

I kinda like the current specs on the G5... call me crazy. I think HDs have gotten so big you really don't need much space for lots of them... though to be honest you should be able to fit more stuff into the G5.

MORT A POTTY · Feb 14, 2005, 06:46 PM

the G5s need to get smaller. I really loved the size of the G4 towers... they were great. the G5s absolutely dwarf them. they need to find a way to squeeze everything in tighter instead of making the case bigger. do more with less. you know they can do it... look at the iMac G5! they could at least come out with a single processor mini-tower.

Cadaver · Feb 14, 2005, 06:50 PM

I also think they're too big as they are. I understand their size is related to the amount of cooling necessary + the desire to keep them quiet, but hopefully as PPC970 manufacturing gets better and the chips get cooler, a smaller case will be in the works for a future revision.

Big Mac · 07:10 PM

Originally posted by MORT A POTTY:
the G5s need to get smaller. I really loved the size of the G4 towers... they were great. the G5s absolutely dwarf them. they need to find a way to squeeze everything in tighter instead of making the case bigger. do more with less. you know they can do it... look at the iMac G5! they could at least come out with a single processor mini-tower.

The G4s were also notoriously noisy. If you pack the components more tightly, you increase the heat of said components, making cooling them individually more difficult if not impossible. And if you cannot cool the individual component zones (as in the G5), you have to resort to larger fans to cool the whole machine (as in the G4). Realizing that many users disliked G4 noise output, the Power Mac designers did what they had to do to keep fan noise as low as possible. These are known as design tradeoffs. Apple designs the Mac; the company knows what it is doing. Few of us are in any position to legitimately second guess the choices Apple made. As an owner, I think the current G5 is terrific, but even if I had a beef about limited internal expandability, I would not ignore the objective facts of the situation.

MORT A POTTY · Feb 14, 2005, 08:32 PM

Originally posted by Big Mac:
The G4s were also notoriously noisy. If you pack the components more tightly, you increase the heat of said components, making cooling them individually more difficult if not impossible. And if you cannot cool the individual component zones (as in the G5), you have to resort to larger fans to cool the whole machine (as in the G4). Realizing that many users disliked G4 noise output, the Power Mac designers did what they had to do to keep fan noise as low as possible. These are known as design tradeoffs. Apple designs the Mac; the company knows what it is doing. Few of us are in any position to legitimately second guess the choices Apple made. As an owner, I think the current G5 is terrific, but even if I had a beef about limited internal expandability, I would not ignore the objective facts of the situation.

yeah, the iMac G5 is so loud

they could have a smaller single processor line, but they don't and that is a fact you cannot dispute.

jamil5454 · Feb 14, 2005, 09:45 PM

More R&D and manufacturing costs.

chris v · Feb 14, 2005, 10:04 PM

I don't care as much about 2 optical drives as I do other things, like PCI slots, RAM slots (no complaints there!) and hard drive bays.

It's very rare that I want to duplicate a disk, and the two or three times a year I need to, saving a disk image is not a biggie.

So, no.

Eug Wanker · Feb 14, 2005, 10:11 PM

3 drives would make for a great editing setup. 1 boot drive, and a RAID0 scratch disk.

drmcnutt · Feb 15, 2005, 01:56 AM

Originally posted by Big Mac:
The G4s were also notoriously noisy. If you pack the components more tightly, you increase the heat of said components, making cooling them individually more difficult if not impossible. And if you cannot cool the individual component zones (as in the G5), you have to resort to larger fans to cool the whole machine (as in the G4). Realizing that many users disliked G4 noise output, the Power Mac designers did what they had to do to keep fan noise as low as possible. These are known as design tradeoffs. Apple designs the Mac; the company knows what it is doing. Few of us are in any position to legitimately second guess the choices Apple made. As an owner, I think the current G5 is terrific, but even if I had a beef about limited internal expandability, I would not ignore the objective facts of the situation.

Huh?

So Apple committed to a flawed G4 noisy design for years even though they knew it was noisy? Come on! The dual systems were known to be excessively noisy and Apple even helped fix those cases.

G5 is a different chip that required the bulk of a small refrigerator to cool. Apple kept the fan noise down by adding more fans? I'm surprised they couldn't make it smaller with the addition of liquid cooling (and the iMac's compact design) but then they are committed to their superior sense of design no matter what the consumer wants aren't they?

Your facts are a little dubious given the facts.

eddiecatflap · Feb 15, 2005, 02:39 AM

i just want pci-express so it will be future proofed for the next 3-4 years

pci and pci-x are dead end technology

Mac Write · Feb 15, 2005, 03:11 AM

I won't even consider a G5 until 4 HD bays. It's not about how much HD space I have, but about load balancing. One Raptor drive for Boot and Apps, the next one for scratch, then one for Audio and another for video scratch. Now that's performance.

tooki · Feb 15, 2005, 08:06 AM

Originally posted by Lateralus:
You must not have been around during the reign of machines like the 9500, 9600 and PowerTower Pro.

The Power Mac G5 is substantially larger than the 9600, which was the biggest one hitherto. (The G5 is nearly three inches taller than the 9600, and an inch and a half deeper. It is about an inch narrower, though!)

tooki

MORT A POTTY · Feb 16, 2005, 01:43 AM

Originally posted by eddiecatflap:
i just want pci-express so it will be future proofed for the next 3-4 years

pci and pci-x are dead end technology

actually, I'd love to keep around two PCI slots because I'll migrate some PCI cards to my next computer if at all possible... but PCI-E is definitely the way forward. PCI-X was dead-end technology before it was even out.

Link · Feb 16, 2005, 05:00 AM

The 9600 was not the largest mac tower to be produced, there was a bigger one -- however not as big as the g5.

I'd guess you'd see something like this as far as PCI-X and all..

Dual PCI-e for some sorta SLI-like setup
2 PCI-E x4 slots for new cards
2 PCI-X slots for old fashioned cards.

crooner · Feb 17, 2005, 12:18 AM

Setting aside the obvious R&D costs, space limitations and cooling issues, I would love to see a G5 that:

Has dual 3Ghz CPUs
Has five PCI-X or Extreme slots
Room for four internal drives

As for space for a second optical drive, not really a priority, but I�d sure take it if it was offered.

I realize that most of this is, save for the 3Ghz CPUs, a pipe dream but man, oh man, do I wish they could give us more PCI slots! Seriously big deal.

tooki · Feb 17, 2005, 08:27 AM

Originally posted by Link:
The 9600 was not the largest mac tower to be produced, there was a bigger one -- however not as big as the g5.

Sorry, my brain was thinking "Power Mac series". Indeed, the Quadra 900/950 was even larger than a 9600, and mind-bogglingly heavy. (The Workgroup Server 95 and 9150 models also used this case.) The G5's case is a *hair* smaller, but 3 pounds heavier.

tooki

Link · Feb 17, 2005, 11:36 AM

The 9150 did, it's actually a PPC based one too (didn't notice that) -- them suckers are

Dimensions: 18.6" H x 8.9" W x 20.6" D

According to applegeeks, the G5 is

Dimensions: 20.1" H x 8.1" W x 18.7" D

yeah I guess you're right, it actually is smaller, then again if you don't count the handles it's even shorter.

I wonder if the handles take up more space than the g4's did (height wise) -- it'd seem like it.. either way, I don't think there's any tables a current g5 fits under a larger one wouldn't..

Oh well, I'm not much up for extremely huge cases either, but I thought it'd be funny

MORT A POTTY · Feb 17, 2005, 01:24 PM

Originally posted by Link:
The 9150 did, it's actually a PPC based one too (didn't notice that) -- them suckers are

Dimensions: 18.6" H x 8.9" W x 20.6" D

According to applegeeks, the G5 is

Dimensions: 20.1" H x 8.1" W x 18.7" D

yeah I guess you're right, it actually is smaller, then again if you don't count the handles it's even shorter.

I wonder if the handles take up more space than the g4's did (height wise) -- it'd seem like it.. either way, I don't think there's any tables a current g5 fits under a larger one wouldn't..

Oh well, I'm not much up for extremely huge cases either, but I thought it'd be funny

the G5 handles take slightly more space than the G4s but mainly because the G4s have a flattened bottom that actually cuts down on a bit of the height of the lower handles... the top ones are about the same though.