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dwd3885 · Jan 21, 2006, 04:35 PM

So I've been messing around with the new iMac Core Duo 2ghz that I got this morning. I have the 512mb RAM in it and it seems a bit choppy. But any system will experience that with just 512MB RAM.

I got myself an experimental copy of Handbrake for the intel macs and ripped Once Upon a Time in Mexico from DVD into the ipod video format. This process took 38 minutes. Not sure how long it takes G5s/Dual Core G5s, but this is really good IMO. Averaging 60fps.

Front Row is awesome. I've never used it before but it is so smooth and is just a really cool program. I didn't know you can even use the remote to put the mac to sleep and wake up. That is a nice feature when I want to listen to music while going to bed or watch a movie. Then you can use it to operate normal stuff in Quicktime and what not.

I then wanting to see how iTunes works and I converterd 14 songs at 54.3mb to mp3 160kbps (high quality) and it took 2min 04sec. I did this while Handbrake was still encoding. So that skews both tests, but I really wanted to see the Dual Core in action.

With Handbrake still encoding, I imported 1100 photos of 1.53gb into iPhoto. This process took 6min 05sec. Remeber, while encoding with Handbrake still.

If there is anything I need to do to improve those tests, LMK. Anything you'd like to test? LMK and I'll do it when I get home tonight around 10:30CT.

icruise · Jan 21, 2006, 04:55 PM

I imagine you were using MPEG4 in handbrake to get that fps. Did you try h.264 format as well?

hldan · Jan 21, 2006, 09:51 PM

Originally Posted by dwd3885

So I've been messing around with the new iMac Core Duo 2ghz that I got this morning. I have the 512mb RAM in it and it seems a bit choppy. But any system will experience that with just 512MB RAM.

I got myself an experimental copy of Handbrake for the intel macs and ripped Once Upon a Time in Mexico from DVD into the ipod video format. This process took 38 minutes. Not sure how long it takes G5s/Dual Core G5s, but this is really good IMO. Averaging 60fps.

Front Row is awesome. I've never used it before but it is so smooth and is just a really cool program. I didn't know you can even use the remote to put the mac to sleep and wake up. That is a nice feature when I want to listen to music while going to bed or watch a movie. Then you can use it to operate normal stuff in Quicktime and what not.

I then wanting to see how iTunes works and I converterd 14 songs at 54.3mb to mp3 160kbps (high quality) and it took 2min 04sec. I did this while Handbrake was still encoding. So that skews both tests, but I really wanted to see the Dual Core in action.

With Handbrake still encoding, I imported 1100 photos of 1.53gb into iPhoto. This process took 6min 05sec. Remeber, while encoding with Handbrake still.

If there is anything I need to do to improve those tests, LMK. Anything you'd like to test? LMK and I'll do it when I get home tonight around 10:30CT.

If you get results that good then just add another gig of ram and you will be good to go. As far as those tests improving you are doing things that really don't improve by adding more ram such as encoding but the choppiness will disappear with more ram. You need more ram anyway regardless. Ram Ram and more Ram!

harrisjamieh · Jan 22, 2006, 04:34 AM

I didn't know you can even use the remote to put the mac to sleep and wake up.

I knew you could wake it up, but how do you put it to sleep?

jjlannoo · Jan 22, 2006, 06:12 PM

Originally Posted by harrisjamieh

I knew you could wake it up, but how do you put it to sleep?

Hold down play/pause till you see this

dwd3885 · Jan 22, 2006, 06:38 PM

It's AWESOME!!

harrisjamieh · Jan 23, 2006, 12:43 AM

Cool! Thanks

michaelb · Jan 23, 2006, 02:47 AM

Until I played with Front Row on a real iMac, I never understood why Apple had used Infrared instead of Bluetooth for the remote. Then it hit me: with Bluetooth the computer has to be on, whereas with infrared it's like a VCR - the computer can be in standby mode.

The funny thing is that I'd never seen that mentioned in any writeup, only "Apple is stupid, they should have used Bluetooth, IR is obsolete." Goes to show, Apple does sometimes know what they are doing.

Simon · Jan 23, 2006, 03:36 AM

I don't understand what you mean. BT mice and keyboards wake up my sleeping Macs just fine. A remote could do the same.

To my understanding, Apple went with IR over BT because a) it's cheap and b) it uses less batteries and c) it allows them to use the same remote for Macs and iPods.

isao bered · Jan 23, 2006, 04:49 AM

i've been messing around with mine for several days now (20", 2gb ram) and am quite happy with its performance. i was/am mostly concerned with the emulation of my graphics and photo aps (and corresponding plug-ins), as well as peripheral performance.

so far i've not experienced a single glitch which i can attribute to emulation (nothing that hadn't happened on my g4 emac). i've run a couple of basic test runs on my epson 2200 and the driver seems to work just the same. i've not yet tried my hp 970 cse, but that will come in a day or so. nor have i tried my n1240u scanner. i'll post back when i've tried those out.

just for general information: acd (deneba), dxo (optics pro), and alien skin (various plug-ins) have all responded with the expected no guarantee of performance under rosetta and indefinite plans of optimizing for intel processor macs. they all responded quickly and courteously (especially alien skin - they, uhm, rawk ;-) even if it wasn't an answer i'd hoped for.

so continued initial impressions are that this transition is going to be significantly less troublesome than the move from 9 to x.

be well.

laeth

chadseld · Jan 23, 2006, 02:24 PM

I'm super impressed with mine (17"). The speed of intel native applications is very similar to my 2x2.5GHz G5 Tower. The speed of rosetta applications is very similar to a 1.25GHz PowerBook G4.

Rosetta works so well I tend to forget I'm working on an intel mac. For example, I needed the Subversion version control software so I went to the web and downloaded and installed the UNIX binaries. They worked flawlessly. It wasn't until afterwards that it dawned on me that they were compiled for the PowerPC.

I may never buy a PowerMac tower again. Now that the iMac supports dual-display and comes with speed like this.

LagunaSol · Jan 24, 2006, 01:50 PM

Originally Posted by chadseld

I may never buy a PowerMac tower again. Now that the iMac supports dual-display and comes with speed like this.

Shhh, don't say that too loudly, Apple will notice and will cripple the iMacs again...