[cejones]

Seeing the amazing improvements of the iMac and Powerbooks with the Intel CoreDuo chips, why would anyone want to spend $2000 or more on a G5 powermac at this time?

If you wait a few more months, the new revision of the Powermac with Intel will be available for the same price and probably 2-3 times the CPU power.

It was great to see Steve Jobs tout the great improvements for the new Intel enabled macs, but he also has shown how crappy the G5 processor is and convinced me to wait for the next update...

[Jerome]

Let's wait for real-world tests, not Steve's...
And some people actually need computers to work, no computer, no work. These people buy whatever is available at the moment.

[shunt]

I don't understand threads like this....

[hotani]

Because they're not going to be $2000 for long. As soon as the new ones arrive i'd expect the current models to go for cheap. That would be my reason for getting one.

[jcadam]

It's liable to be a year or more before every pro-level-app is intel-native. Until then a Quad-G5 is a great machine for getting actual work done.

[Lateralus]

Originally Posted by cejones

Seeing the amazing improvements of the iMac and Powerbooks with the Intel CoreDuo chips, why would anyone want to spend $2000 or more on a G5 powermac at this time?

If you wait a few more months, the new revision of the Powermac with Intel will be available for the same price and probably 2-3 times the CPU power.

It was great to see Steve Jobs tout the great improvements for the new Intel enabled macs, but he also has shown how crappy the G5 processor is and convinced me to wait for the next update...

Claiming to be two to three times faster than the G4 (which is under heavy scrutiny) in some areas of performance is one thing. Being that much faster than the G5 is quite another.

Nothing Intel has planned for the immediate future is even on-par with the G5, let alone appreciably faster. The chances of the G5 getting outperformed by any chip three to one within the next 3 years is pretty much zero.

Feel free to take Apple's marketing hype with a grain of salt and do your own research on the performance level of CPUs.

[Zubir]

Also, keep in mind that the whole "2-3x faster" thing is in comparison to G5 iMacs, which have one processor, as opposed to the dual core in the new iMac. You don't have to be a genius to see that 2 processors are going to be faster than 1, especially in OS X, where most of the OS has at least limited multithread code.

[Luca Rescigno]

Also, the old G5 iMac has a frontside bus running at 1/3 the processor speed, not 1/2 of it like in the Power Mac G5s. The G5 really like having lots of FSB so reducing the speed probably also reduces the performance significantly. Also, there are a lot of pro apps that aren't available for Intel Macs yet. And like many people have already mentioned, the benchmarks Apple is using to get "4x faster" and other related crap are rather skewed in Intel's favor.

The Core Duo is a good chip, for the PowerBook. It's a modernization of the G4 that powered it before, and it gives a good deal more performance without generating excessive heat. It's even (arguably) an improvement for the iMac, since the old iMac G5 used a single-core processor and the new Intel chip has two cores. But it's not meant for Power Mac desktops.

[Don Pickett]

Because I never buy the first generation of any technology: let someone else bug test it for me. Given that, I need a machine which will last me the approximately two years it will take before the second generation Intel-powered Power Macs are released. As my G5 isn't even a year old, I should be fine until I buy one of the Intel-powered puppies.

[Todd Madson]

If you look at the Ars Technica review of the new CoreDuo iMacs the dual CPU
Powermacs still outperform them handily. I needed a machine last June, I could
not have waited until now. My current box is still faster than the fastest new iMac
and certainly is more expandable. It won't always be the case as technology
moves on and improves and the new iMacs will be a good deal for some people.
But not for me. Some of my apps are PowerPC only and I have two apps I use
that are still classic-only - THAT is why I went with a dual G5 tower.

[power142]

Indeed... it's going to be later this year before Intel has anything for Apple to replace the Power Mac, and even then, a quad G5 is going to take some following. Let us not forget the heritage of the G5. I have had my G5 for 1.5 years and I have seen nothing on Intel's side that is significantly faster for my purposes... AMD is a different story, but Apple won't be using AMD chips and Intel has some catch up still to play when it comes to high-end workstation chips.

The Core Duo looks like a great chip for thermally challenged environments, but rumor has it even Intel doesn't intend to clock it significantly higher than 2.3GHz for a while.

[mduell]

Originally Posted by Luca Rescigno

Also, the old G5 iMac has a frontside bus running at 1/3 the processor speed, not 1/2 of it like in the Power Mac G5s. The G5 really like having lots of FSB so reducing the speed probably also reduces the performance significantly.

Do you have any comparative benchmarks to back this claim?
Nothing personal, but I've seen a number of people assert this without any benchmarks to back it.

Originally Posted by Lateralus

Claiming to be two to three times faster than the G4 (which is under heavy scrutiny) in some areas of performance is one thing. Being that much faster than the G5 is quite another.

Nothing Intel has planned for the immediate future is even on-par with the G5, let alone appreciably faster. The chances of the G5 getting outperformed by any chip three to one within the next 3 years is pretty much zero.

Beating the G5 running the fastest platform available and beating the G5 running OSX are two different things. The newer/faster/better compilers for the G5 aren't available for OSX, so it's not meaningful to compare benchmarks using them (a certain PPC970MP SPEC score comes to mind).

For systems with effectively unlimited cooling, the G5 (and to an extent the P4) works great. But for systems with limited cooling capacity (all of Apple's except the PowerMac and xServe), you need more power efficient chips. To get PPC970MP at 31W, you'd need to clock it around 1.5Ghz, and that's not going to work for Apple or their customers.

I asked in another thread, but perhaps you didn't see it: Keeping in mind the thermal and power limitations, what is a better chip than Core Duo for laptops and thin desktops?

[Lateralus]

Are you saying a 970MP at 1.5GHz/31W would not have been a stellar notebook solution for Apple?

I'm not contesting the fact that the Core Duo is a great notebook chip. I'm contesting dumping the entire PPC processor architecture because of it when the planned 8641D offers everything Core Duo does and then some.

That said, this isn't a notebook thread. Saying that the G5 is a better processor for higher end computing than the Core Duo is not something that is debatable.

[chris v]

Even if New processor = 2X raw speed, for most people, software emulation = 1/2 speed, so there's no real boost. (Note I said "if". No hard facts-- just a postulate.) Getting a system tuned for the software you currently own makes the most sense. Software is often more expensive than the computers used to run it, and even if an app might be ported to a universal binary in the newest version, who can afford to buy a Power Mac and 3 or 4 major apps at the same time?

[mduell]

Originally Posted by Lateralus

Are you saying a 970MP at 1.5GHz/31W would not have been a stellar notebook solution for Apple?

Yes; where's the upgrade path?

Originally Posted by Lateralus

I'm not contesting the fact that the Core Duo is a great notebook chip. I'm contesting dumping the entire PPC processor architecture because of it when the planned 8641D offers everything Core Duo does and then some.

I poked around Freescale's website, but I couldn't find when 8641D will be shipping in volume and what the power budget is. I know you're a huge G4 fan, perhaps you know?

Getting back to the topic, I can see buying a PowerMac today if you need internal expansion. Can't put two disk drives, a full size optical, 4 PCIe cards, 8 RAM DIMMs, etc in an iMac. Also a quad delivers the performance today, instead of waiting for Universal Binaries.

[dwd3885]

Originally Posted by Todd Madson

If you look at the Ars Technica review of the new CoreDuo iMacs the dual CPU
Powermacs still outperform them handily. I needed a machine last June, I could
not have waited until now. My current box is still faster than the fastest new iMac
and certainly is more expandable. It won't always be the case as technology
moves on and improves and the new iMacs will be a good deal for some people.
But not for me. Some of my apps are PowerPC only and I have two apps I use
that are still classic-only - THAT is why I went with a dual G5 tower.

obviosuly the 2.5ghz dual powermac will outperform the 1.83 dual intel!! But what about a 2ghz dual intel and a 2ghz Dual PowerMac? That would probably be much, much closer. And how but some fair specs, like 512 RAM on each, instead of 4.5 on the PM!!

My bet is the intel iMac 2ghz is the way to go over the 2ghz dual G5

[madmanXwater]

I'm in exactly this situation. I'm ready to buy a new Mac for home but will only make my decision based on real-world tests that I perform myself. I use Logic Pro and Final Cut Studio for most of my work so I take actual projects and load them onto different Macs and see what kind of CPU hit and overhead each model can produce. I'll also run timed compression tests using QuickTime and Compressor. I've been using a PowerBook G4 1.33 as my baseline system and done the same tests on a 2Ghz iMac G5, a Dual 2Ghz PowerMac G5 and my new Quad G5 at the office. I'll have to wait to see how the new Intel iMac/MacBook Pro perform until UB versions of Logic and FCS are released.

As you might expect, the same large Logic Pro project that maxed out the PowerBook and had to be cut in half to even open ran at around 85% load on the iMac G5. But that was the full project, so I estimate around a 200-250% increase with the iMac G5 based on track/plugins count. The same file on the Dual 2Ghz G5 ran at only 48% load which is around a 90% increase in power, very nice. The Quad ran the project at only 24% load which is fantastic! A 100% increase over the Dual 2Ghz G5. So as I stand today, the Quad is King and the Dual 2Ghz G5 is the best performance/value and the Mac I was planning to buy.

The Intel Macs have thrown a curve at me with talk of a 2-3 times performance increase on the iMac and 4-5 times on the MacBook Pro. My issue: If the iMac does perform 2-3 times faster with Logic and FCS UBs when released, then that could make the iMac faster than the Dual 2Ghz G5 for my use. Then what will that do to the next PowerMacs I ask? Will the Quad be the "entry level" power for the next generation of PowerMacs (MacMacs)? Sounds tempting to me.

I've heard all the arguments, "wait until the Intel PowerMacs come out", "buy what you need today and use it" but it doesn't make it any simpler. I could buy the Dual 2Ghz G5 and have lots of power for my current needs (wants), but man that would suck if a few month later I could have had a Quad or better for the same price! It's the same old game. I've decided that the PowerMac is the way to go for me, not the iMac, as I want the expandibility and flexibility that a full tower offers. It's just do I buy the Dual 2Ghz now, or wait to see what happens, but it could be the end of the year before we see the new PowerMacs. What to do?

Mike

[power142]

Originally Posted by madmanXwater

As you might expect, the same large Logic Pro project that maxed out the PowerBook and had to be cut in half to even open ran at around 85% load on the iMac G5. But that was the full project, so I estimate around a 200-250% increase with the iMac G5 based on track/plugins count. The same file on the Dual 2Ghz G5 ran at only 48% load which is around a 90% increase in power, very nice. The Quad ran the project at only 24% load which is fantastic! A 100% increase over the Dual 2Ghz G5. So as I stand today, the Quad is King and the Dual 2Ghz G5 is the best performance/value and the Mac I was planning to buy.

Quick question: is Logic Pro multi-threaded? The loadings you mention sounds suspiciously like full load on a single core/processor, the 85% on the iMac being much less than 100% because of system load that the other machines have an extra processor to handle transparently.

No doubt about it, a quad G5 is a phenomenal machine in many respects, and I don't expect it will be outperformed substantially for a good while... unless Intel is really going to blow the doors off with their new desktop chips, and Apple is going to do some real optimization (note: gcc for Intel produces much more optimized code than it ever did for PowerPC)

[madmanXwater]

I'm no programmer so I don't know for sure, but it looks like it is muti-threaded to me or at least something in the app knows to how to take advantage of the extra power available. There is a huge difference in running Logic Pro on the different Macs I've tested. You can see it by the number of tracks and plugins you can load and by the idle time % in the Activity Monitor. Even though the iMac G5 (it is a 2.1 Ghz iSight model) could play the project at 85% load, the whole system struggled at that point. The interface was slow and you could really feel the hit. The Dual 2Ghz G5 feels very snappy and has no problem running Mail, Safari and Photoshop at the same time the project was playing while still feeling fine. The Quad is a dream! It didn't break a sweat and if you minimized the project while playing, you would have no idea anything was going on. I've loaded it up with four user accounts each compressing a 5.5Gb file at the same time running 90% load and it still feels great, what a great Mac!

Mike

[jamil5454]

I just sold my PowerMac, and consequentially, someone bought it.

[madmanXwater]

Thanks for the news, but is there a point you're trying to make?

[michaelb]

Anyone doubting the masculinity of a Power Mac G5 should head on over to Ars Technica's first review of an iMac Core Duo:
http://arstechnica.com/reviews/hardw...ac-coreduo.ars

In each test, INCLUDING those few where Universal Binaries were available, the dual 2.5GHz G5 hands the Core Duo its ass on a plate. For example, want to encode a movie to H.264 iPod format using QuickTime? The G5 could do almost two of them in the time it takes the Core Duo to do one, and outperforms the Core Duo on AAC encoding too.

The Core Duo is a decent upgrade for the IMac, no doubt about that (though the 2-3x is a fanciful exaggeration), but let's not forget that while the iMac has moved from a 533MHz FSB to and impressive 667MHz, the dual Power Mac G5 has had 1.25GHz to play with. And Altivec optimizations have always let the G4/G5 perform higher than its native performance would suggest, and much of Apple's own software is heavily optimized for it.

A Power Mac G5, especially a Quad, will be the performance king in real world tasks for a while longer yet.

[michaelb]

Edit: dupes Todd's post.

[wuzup101]

I know this is going to sound kinda harsh... but why do you think they would be putting core duo's in powermac work stations? I'm not an expert, and I don't claim to be, but it would seem more reasonable to think that the G5 duals and quads are going to be replaced by something like the Intel Xeon 7041/7030... or something from the 5000 sequence Xenon...

I don't know... 3ghz dual core/2x2mb L2/800mhz FSB... put 2 of those in a tower together with a few gigs of ram and you'd probably have yourself a pretty solid powermac. I highly doubt that they would ever put a mobile chip in a powermac... so it's silly to compare the current G5 with the new core duo. It's a godsend to powerbook users... lord knows we'd still be stuck with a 1.9ghz G4 in 5 years time.

[Maflynn]

Originally Posted by Lateralus

Nothing Intel has planned for the immediate future is even on-par with the G5, let alone appreciably faster. The chances of the G5 getting outperformed by any chip three to one within the next 3 years is pretty much zero.

I dunno, it seems that intel has cpus out now that best the G5. I don't have empirical evidence but antidotal evidence. People I know who have used both say that the G5 in some things (not all) is a little slower.

If intel doesn't have a cpu that are faster then the G5 now or in the future why did Jobs make the very risky jump to the intel platform?

As much as I like my G5 and think the technology is great, clearly IBM has not lived up to the promises of faster cooler CPUs, i.e., where's the 3 GHz that was promised when the G5 was first released?

Mike

[rhashem]

Originally Posted by Lateralus

:Nothing Intel has planned for the immediate future is even on-par with the G5, let alone appreciably faster.

Bullshit. Having tested my G5 (2.3GHz 970MP) against my Athlon64 (2.2GHz X2), I can definitely say the G5 is the slower machine. In integer code, I'd peg the G5's performance at about the level of a 1.8 GHz Opteron. That means the 2.0 GHz Core Duo will outperform the G5 by a good margin on a lot of real code. If Merom even achieves parity with the Opteron in FPU performance, it'll beat the G5 on most non-Altivec codes.

Look, I'd love it if the G5 really were as fast as you claim. But its just not true, not in general. The CPU is hard to optimize for, and GCC doesn't optimize well for it. It's integer performance is lackluster, and its FPU performance is hindered by the high-latency memory controllers Apple pairs it with. It's a good chip for a very specific class of problems (mostly FPU, simple integer component, working set fits in cache, streaming memory access instead of random memory access), but that's a really specific niche for what is supposedly a general purpose processor.

[dwd3885]

Originally Posted by michaelb

Anyone doubting the masculinity of a Power Mac G5 should head on over to Ars Technica's first review of an iMac Core Duo:
http://arstechnica.com/reviews/hardw...ac-coreduo.ars

In each test, INCLUDING those few where Universal Binaries were available, the dual 2.5GHz G5 hands the Core Duo its ass on a plate. For example, want to encode a movie to H.264 iPod format using QuickTime? The G5 could do almost two of them in the time it takes the Core Duo to do one, and outperforms the Core Duo on AAC encoding too.

obviously! put up a 2.5 anything vs. 1.83 anything and the 2.5 will win! I don't see how that means the iMac 2ghz Duo is not as good as the 2ghz Dual G5. Obviously a 2499 machine will perform better than a 1699 machine.

It is only logical!!

[rhashem]

Originally Posted by Lateralus

Are you saying a 970MP at 1.5GHz/31W would not have been a stellar notebook solution for Apple?

It would have been a terrible notebook chip. A notebook spends most of its time running integer code. A 1.5 GHz G5 would be the equivalent of a 1.2 GHz Core Duo, a chip so slow that it isn't even in Intel's lineup.

[rhashem]

Originally Posted by michaelb

In each test, INCLUDING those few where Universal Binaries were available, the dual 2.5GHz G5 hands the Core Duo its ass on a plate.

The Ars review is completely meaningless. The Rosetta benchmarks are useless, because of the memory disparity between the configurations (512MB in the iMac, 4.5GB on the G5). Rosetta is a JIT. Photoshop and Cinebench like lots of memory, not to mention the fact that OS X itself is marginal on a 512MB machine (I know, I've tried running my PowerMac on 512MB --- it wasn't pretty). Any performance benchmarking in that config, especially comparing it to a 4.5GB machine, is unrealistic.

The XBench results are clearly suspect. Look at the UI result. It was much lower on the iMac Core Duo, even though the reviewer mentioned that the Intel Mac felt snappier than the G5 iMac. Which is it then? XBench on Intel is clearly broken. Look at the xbench website --- they say a Mac Mini 1.5GHz is faster than the 3.8GHz Apple Intel Developer Kit machines. Meanwhile, developers say that those machines felt as fast as their dual 2GHz G5's. Which is it?

The only decent result in the bunch are the two encoding benchmarks. The dual G5 wins the video encoding benchmark by a significant margin, but wins the audio encoding benchmark by a very slim margin. I can make guesses as to why, but I'd bet that iTunes's audio encoder is more well-optimized for x86 than Quicktime's video encoder. The video numbers could easily get closer to the audio numbers as OS X x86 becomes more mature/optimized.

[rhashem]

Originally Posted by Maflynn

As much as I like my G5 and think the technology is great, clearly IBM has not lived up to the promises of faster cooler CPUs, i.e., where's the 3 GHz that was promised when the G5 was first released?

I think people often underestimate the true relevance of the missed 3 GHz goal. The G5 hit a wall precisely because of not being able to hit 3 GHz. The G5 was *designed* as a high-frequency chip. It trades off integer performance per-clock in order to be able to hit very high clockspeeds. When IBM hit the manufacturing wall with clockspeed, the real net performance of the CPU suffered. It's similar to the problem Intel had with the Prescott. Prescott was supposed to be a 5GHz+ chip. If Intel hadn't hit a manufacturing limit, Prescott would have been very impressive performance-wise --- its lower efficiency would have been overcome by its high clockspeed.

Understanding this situation explains a lot about why Jobs went to x86. The future of IBM's POWER line lies down the path that Prescott took. Both POWER6 and Cell are very high-clockspeed (4GHz+) designs with relatively poor integer performance and low per-clock performance. Meanwhile, Apple's needs have changed. In the desktop/workstation market, the FPU/vector performance of the CPU has become less important as GPUs have evolved into specialized vector coprocessors. With things like CoreImage/CoreVideo (and whatever evolutions of that Apple can create), AltiVec becomes much less important. What Apple needed going forward was chips with high integer performance and high performance per-clock. Such chips could do the housekeeping of keeping the GPU fed with data, while running at a low-enough clockspeed to keep power usage under control. For these reasons, desktop/workstation versions of the POWER6/Cell are dead-ends for Apple. Meanwhile, chips like Merom/Conroe fit the bill very nicely.

[madmanXwater]

wuzup101,

I agree as I think most will. It is very unlikely that we will see Core Duo chips in the next PowerMacs. It’s natural for many of us to try to make a comparison of what’s new to what we are familiar with. I personally run both Mac and PC systems in a relatively demanding environment, audio and video. I’ve experienced surprising performance on both platforms, both good and bad, and as much as the hardware has become the “debate”, we can’t forget the importance of the software.

You’ve heard this before, but specs are one thing and real world performance is another. Also, the results of these early benchmarks are highly questionable in my mind for two reasons. First, I haven’t heard any discussion on how optimized Universal Binaries are. Look at how slow OSX was when it first came out. Today the latest Tiger release runs circles around earlier version on the same hardware. Why? Better optimization of code, drivers and just better written software. Is this the same kind of thing (to some degree) that we can expect from Intel conversions of current PPC software? A perfect current example of this is Sorenson’s Squeeze application. Under my tests, our 2.1Ghz iMac G5 is faster than our Dual 2Ghz G5 at compressing Flash Video content! That’s crazy, but the software is poorly written in my opinion and doesn’t take advantage of multiple cores or CPUs. It’s only 10% faster on our Quad for example.

Second, the specific way benchmarks are done is always very diverse and not always applicable to the way someone uses their own system. For example: ARSTechinica’s results though interesting were performed on systems with huge differences in RAM and on systems with different speed drives. Ripping a CD in iTunes for example is highly dependant on the optical drive performance. And again, how optimized is Xbench for the Intel technology? I’m not sure.

This is why I like to do my own tests using the software I use and under the situations and loads that I work in. I’ve seen people sit down at my PowerBook and open Safari and say, “what are you talking about? This system seems plenty fast enough for me!” Again, the same Logic Pro project that can’t even open (play) on the PowerBook brings the iMac G5 to 85% CPU load, the Dual 2Ghz G5 to 48% and the Quad G5 to under 20% load. So I’m forced to hold my judgment until I can open the same project on Mac Intel hardware and see how it handles my work.

Sorry for the long post, but the bottom line for me is that I like the G5 and the P4 given the correct situation. I like to read about fast hardware as much as the next person, but I much prefer to see and feel what it can do in my own hands.

Mike

[wuzup101]

madmanXwater,

Completely agree with everything you said. It all comes down to real world performance. I didn't mean to be comming off as a G5 hater in any way, it's a great chip, and if I had $3k to spend you can bet I'd have a new quad sitting in my apartment. I guess the only thing we can hope for is a smooth and speedy transition. Hopefully all the major software companies will be releasing new versions of their gear by the time the new powermacs come out. I was leaning towards getting a MacBook Pro; however, depending on the difference in power, I might just keep my current powerbook as it's plenty fast for my mobile needs (taking notes, listening to music, watching DVDs, etc... I'd probably be much better off spending the money on a powerhouse desktop for the programming/math/science analysis stuff that I'll likely be doing at home.

On another note, I do agree it's a shame that apple had to ditch the power line; however, I think it's best for everyone. You can't continue to keep up a company if all you do is release little tiny speed bumps every once in a while. Eventually you need a steady supplier, and that intel is. I was never a big fan of their desktop processors (always was an AMD fan). But there new core duo is exactly what the apple laptop needs. Here's to hoping we won't have to use emulation for long

[Todd Madson]

(shrug). I used both the 1.83 and 2.0 ghz core duo iMacs yesterday at
the local Apple store. If you had tossed it back in time a few months
and not looked at the system profiler, you never would have known that
it was not a powerpc chip inside the box.

I will say that they "felt slower" than my big box at home which is
admittedly not what most people use for a computer and is much
more of a power hog than some people are willing to accept.

The 2.1 ghz G5 iMac sitting next to the 1.83 ghz version did feel
faster than the core duo although the 2.0 ghz CoreDuo iMac felt
subjectively about the same.

I ran Xbench on both the new machines and e-mailed the results to
my home e-mail account. Anyone want them? "Feel" and benchmarks
can be misleading though.

My comments on it in the iMac forum at this site was that it should be
good enough for most anyone - nobody is going to complain about poor
user interface response or poor performance.

I would like to do a real meaningful test on one of these new machines -
my dual G5 has had a few very large audio projects that I was able to
achieve 80 tracks (I could do more but how self-indulgent am I supposed
to be?) in stereo with multiple reverbs, delays, compressors, virtual
synthesizers that would have been flat-out impossible on the G4/400
I was using before.

Would I be able to achieve that with the CoreDuo machine? I don't know.

My "pro" audio app is cubase which has the checkmark for multiple processors
selected. The "performance" meter barely hits 10% on a project that would
make my old machine sieze up at 100+ percent.

I've done projects in Garageband for fun because it's a nice writing tool to bang
out something quickly - so far as I'm aware it may not be multiple CPU aware.

Once I see a CoreDuo machine hooked to a MIDI keyboard at the Apple store
I'll whip something up and see what I can do to stress it. Either that or I could
try and create as many tracks as possible with existing loops to see what happens.

Admittedly, some of the specs on the CoreDuo machine looked good. But it's
not a PowerMac replacement as yet.

And as far as comparing my machine to my 2.2 ghz Athlon machine? Pitiful.
My Athlon box has a gigabyte of ram, multiple drives, decent video but the
math performance doesn't compare. Even overclocked it's not nearly as
high performing as the G5. This is a Athlon 2400 XP overclocked to 2.2 ghz.

I will try a test on the G5 by disabling a CPU and comparing the results to
the Athlon see where they pass/fail but it's really apples and oranges anyway.

[power142]

The key point is that the Core Duo (or Solo for that matter) is not a processor that was designed to go into larger desktop boxes - it was designed to squeeze the maximum performance out of a low thermal output design. By the looks of things, it does that very well in the new iMac, with reports of almost silent usage from a (effectively) a dual processor machine - this is an achievement in such a tightly packed box. It'll probably work out great in a Mac mini too.

In machines such as the Power Mac and it's Intel-based replacement, thermal output is less of a concern because it can be loaded with large fans and liquid cooling kits to keep it under control. Intel could do a lot worse than taking a leaf of out the book of the Pentium-M/Core Solo/Duo in producing lower clocked chips that don't generate quite so much heat as their current 3+GHz monsters, but on the other hand, what we want from a workstation chip is different. For certain, I can tolerate another machine as quiet as my G5, so that shouldn't be a major challenge to either Apple or Intel.
Matching the performance shouldn't be too difficult either. Intel hasn't really changed their Netbust (P4) architecture in a while because they decided it was going in the wrong direction, so unless anyone here has any further details about Conroe/Merom, then anything else is all speculation and all we have is Steve's words about performance per Watt.

Going off in a slight tangent (as I've also stated this in a previous thread), one of my machines has an Athlon 64 dual core chip clocked at 2.2GHz and with some of the applications I use, it does beat the G5. Usually not by a huge amount, but since the G5 is my desktop machine and I don't always want it occupied with long jobs, it is nice to be able to farm jobs out to something of comparable performance. However, there are also tasks at which the G5 is faster. Performance of these very different architectures really does vary widely depending on the specific tasks that you ask of them.

[Don Pickett]

Originally Posted by rhashem

I think people often underestimate the true relevance of the missed 3 GHz goal. The G5 hit a wall precisely because of not being able to hit 3 GHz. The G5 was *designed* as a high-frequency chip. It trades off integer performance per-clock in order to be able to hit very high clockspeeds. When IBM hit the manufacturing wall with clockspeed, the real net performance of the CPU suffered. It's similar to the problem Intel had with the Prescott. Prescott was supposed to be a 5GHz+ chip. If Intel hadn't hit a manufacturing limit, Prescott would have been very impressive performance-wise --- its lower efficiency would have been overcome by its high clockspeed.

Understanding this situation explains a lot about why Jobs went to x86. The future of IBM's POWER line lies down the path that Prescott took. Both POWER6 and Cell are very high-clockspeed (4GHz+) designs with relatively poor integer performance and low per-clock performance. Meanwhile, Apple's needs have changed. In the desktop/workstation market, the FPU/vector performance of the CPU has become less important as GPUs have evolved into specialized vector coprocessors. With things like CoreImage/CoreVideo (and whatever evolutions of that Apple can create), AltiVec becomes much less important. What Apple needed going forward was chips with high integer performance and high performance per-clock. Such chips could do the housekeeping of keeping the GPU fed with data, while running at a low-enough clockspeed to keep power usage under control. For these reasons, desktop/workstation versions of the POWER6/Cell are dead-ends for Apple. Meanwhile, chips like Merom/Conroe fit the bill very nicely.

Great post, made even more interesting by the reports of IBM having trouble delivering enough processors for the X Box 360.

[Chinasaur]

Because G5's own at Dnet OGR. Pure and simple.

AND. They are NOT Intel.

AND, prices aren't going any higher on them.

[zoetrope]

Becuase I need native performance out of Photoshop, Illustrator, etc.... I imagine there are a few other customers who need native performance from their pro apps as well, and don't have the luxury of waiting an entire year to upgrade. Benchmarks are like opinion polls, you can manipulate them any way you want as justification for marketing and political hype. I like 'teh Steve' and all, but when it comes to his claims for CPU performance, I tend to ignore. He's very good at marketing.

And if you don't believe the others who are cutting through this hype of 2x performance increases of the CoreDuo over the G5, I suggest you read Walt Mossberg's review of the Intel iMac. Walt has a decidely pro Steve/Mac prejudice, and he doesn't even see that much of a difference between the two chips in terms of performance.

Originally Posted by Walt Mossberg

The new model was actually a little faster at a few of the tasks we tried, but nothing like the two to three times as fast that Apple claims. A mainstream user who didn't know what was under the hood couldn't tell the difference between them, even after using them for hours. It appears that the faster chip roughly balances out the translation effect.

Edit: Correct spelling mistakes

[power142]

This is also a because many of the people that the iMac is targeted at wouldn't think of running multiple processor-intensive applications at once, they just want a nice, neat computer. If one core can keep up with a ~2GHz G5 chip, then it's no surprise that there's essentially no noticeable speed-up.

This is typically not the demographic Apple is looking to please with a PowerMac.

[Todd Madson]

You basically have a dual core chip in what amounts to be a consumer
machine.

For many people using the universal apps it will work for 90% of those
people just fine.

For instance, my father-in-law really wants an iMac G5 badly. He's
not yet aware of the x86 iMacs but if he didn't have a bunch of classic
legacy apps he would probably do just fine with the new iMac.

Honestly, he'd get better performance using native apps on the new
machine in some areas. But the G5 would be a better fit for him
considering the big pile of legacy apps he uses.

For those who are on the verge of being in need of a pro machine but
are still technically consumer there's definetely some overlap, moreso
with this new machine - who would have expected a dual core iMac?

But if you need the I/O and high frequencies and big storage and lots
of ram you have to pay the freight.

Definetely what the CoreDuo is about apparently is more performance
per clock at the same frequency.

I'd like to see a 2.0 dualcore PowerMac versus a 2.0 CoreDuo iMac
to see what kind of variation would be there.

I'm a little surprised that some people are finding the original 2.0
dual cpu (not dual core) G5 PowerMacs are being outperformed by
a newer machine with a slower bus but I'm sure the fast video
card and memory system is part of the picture, the new dual
core cpu another part.

[localnet]

This is a reply to the original post that started this thread. I am bored sitting in a truck stop in Kentucky, and I just cannot help myself but to say something. I have a new PowerMac 2.3ghz Dual sitting next to a new Gateway / Intel Pentium 2.8ghz D (Dual) processor. Both have better then 2gb of memory and sata 7200 rpm hard drives with PCI Express video cards w/256mb. Oh, they are not in my truck, they are at home. I am typing this on an HP laptop watching the trucks go by.

I do nothing eloborate, other then business applications and the usual home stuff. The Mac is faster in all areas that I can tell. Converting video in QTPro is faster on the Mac. MS Office is faster on the Mac. iTunes, is faster on the Mac. Even email loads faster on the Mac. And yes, they share the same internet connection. But, the Gateway with XP Pro does boot faster, but not by much.

Oh, why did I not wait for a new PowerMac with an intel inside? Because I didn't want to wait, and the G5 is pretty much proven. I have been wanting a PowerMac for awhile now, and I took some time off over christmas, had a few to many beers, and now own a PowerMac 2.3ghz Dual with a couple of 20" Cinema Displays. Go figure? Though, I wish I would have gotten the 2.5 quad, if for nothing more then the bragging rites. I will probably never push the 2.3ghz to its full potential anyways. Still happy, just wish I were home.

Just my .02.

Mike

[madmanXwater]

I think it's funny these days to use the words "consumer" and "Pro" machine as all the new Macs are so powerful and capable. I mean compaired to the iMac with a dual core 2Ghz CPU, 667Mhz bus, 512Mb ram, 8x superdrive and a 250Gb HD does that mean that a PowerMac G4 450 Digital Audio is a toy?? lol!

I remember when my Quadra 840AV was the "Pro" machine, and that was 40Mhz!! I used to do audio editing, Photoshop, Quark and all kinds of pro work on that. It's funny how our standards have changed.

All in good fun,

Mike

[Mister Elf]

Well, if anyone needs pure PCIe expansion (no guarantees that the new PMs will have it), quad processors, and the ability to run pro apps right now, a G5 would be a good buy, no?

[localnet]

Originally Posted by madmanXwater

I think it's funny these days to use the words "consumer" and "Pro" machine as all the new Macs are so powerful and capable. I mean compaired to the iMac with a dual core 2Ghz CPU, 667Mhz bus, 512Mb ram, 8x superdrive and a 250Gb HD does that mean that a PowerMac G4 450 Digital Audio is a toy?? lol!

I remember when my Quadra 840AV was the "Pro" machine, and that was 40Mhz!! I used to do audio editing, Photoshop, Quark and all kinds of pro work on that. It's funny how our standards have changed.

All in good fun,

Mike

I know what you mean. I have an iMac 800 (the cool one) that got the job done, a little slooooooooow compared to my new G5 PM, but it worked. I need to get that thing repaired, I think the hard drive took a dump. I really like that computer, it looked pretty cool in the dining room. A conversation piece to say the least.

Mike

[jamil5454]

Originally Posted by madmanXwater

Thanks for the news, but is there a point you're trying to make?

Nope.

[mduell]

Originally Posted by Mister Elf

Well, if anyone needs pure PCIe expansion (no guarantees that the new PMs will have it)

I'm sure the Intel Pro Desktop Macs will have PCIe... maybe even 2 16x slots and 2 8x slots on a 40 lane chipset (with SLI support?).

[Todd Madson]

Someone up there posted about the pro/non-pro designation and I realized
that any pro worth their salt would have killed for the new iMac 5 years ago.

You could not have bought that performance for any price five years ago.

The dual towers are still frightening and the quad terrifying.

I can say that my machine performs so well on Seti @ Home it's frightening.
Even my old G4 is doing stupidly well for a six year old computer.

That's one benchmark.

[joe40]

The title of this thread is
Why would anyone buy a new Powermac G5?
Not "will the intel core duo be a good chip for the new Pro Tower Macs"
You have to respect peoples buying decisions - whether it's -
I needed it now can't wait
I still need classic support
I have lots (read $$$) of software that is PowerPC optimized
I don't want to buy the first rev of any platform
The existing Power Towers are proven and very powerful, etc.

Now back to the question that everyone seems to be (mistakenly) arguing about
"will the intel core duo be a good chip for the new Pro Tower Macs"
It will not happen. Period. Have you looked at intel's roadmap?
Although they are playing catch up to AMD - there is some amazing Pro Tower Mac capable silicon coming out from intel later this year. Those will have a great chance at giving the PPC G5 a run for it's money for all of the technical reasons stated here. Hopefully by then the software will be ready and it should be a venerable platform.

[Mister Elf]

Originally Posted by mduell

I'm sure the Intel Pro Desktop Macs will have PCIe... maybe even 2 16x slots and 2 8x slots on a 40 lane chipset (with SLI support?).

Most likely, however, we all know Apple does some strange stuff sometimes.

[swampfoot77]

I bought a quad G5 at Xmas after looking at the performance stats on the apple web site. I now notice retrospectively that they make no claims of better performance for logic pro.

Yes, the app may be optimised for a duo but without multi-threading does having the second chip on the quad make any difference at all ?

It may even run slower !

Maybe I should have waited, Logic pro 7.3 for intel macs is launched in Feb !

[madmanXwater]

I'm not sure what all this talk about the Quad not running Logic Pro faster than the Dual G5s is all about. I also got a Quad just before Christmas to replace a Dual 2Ghz G5 and it runs fantastic on the Quad! The same project that was using 50% total CPU on the Dual is only using 25% on the Quad. This is measured by looking at the Activity Monitor while the project is playing. I have 75% Idle process and that's a lot of overhead. So am I missing something about how the Quad handles Logic Pro?

Mike