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You are here: MacNN Forums > Hardware - Troubleshooting and Discussion > Mac Desktops > Now or Later on G5 sale.

Now or Later on G5 sale.
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Maflynn
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Mar 4, 2006, 07:34 PM
 
Since I cannot post this type of request in the marketplace forum, I hope this doesn't get locked here.

I'm toying with the idea of selling my G5 now rather then later and once the Mactel desktop is released I'd buy that. I know, I've posted a number of threads cautioning against rev a. machines but the speed increases I'm hearing about on the MBP is tempting enough that I'm toying with the idea.

I believe I'll get the most out of my G5 if I sell it now before the Mactel is released. In its place I'd use my PB which should suffice for a few months.

Ok first off, hows the logic of selling it now rather when the PM replacement is released.

Second, what type of price range will my G5 fetch.

Here's the specs
Rev B. Dual G5 2.0,
Memory 2.5 gig
Hard drive - stock
Video Card ATI X800xt
Display (old syle) 20 inch cinema display.


Mike
     
mduell
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Mar 4, 2006, 08:35 PM
 
Originally Posted by Maflynn
I've posted a number of threads cautioning against rev a. machines
Why? Do you have any evidence that there are more bugs in Rev A machines and those bugs go away in the next revision?
     
jamil5454
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Mar 4, 2006, 08:55 PM
 
I did a similar thing. I sold my G5 tower (Rev. C 2.0) on eBay in mid January right after Macworld, hoping to use the cash for a MacBook. Except I don't have another Mac to use in the interim.

Well, the MacBook still isn't out and luckily I'm a knowledgable PC user so I don't get too much spyware and such. But as each day passes I'm missing my G5 more and more
     
volcano
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Mar 4, 2006, 10:01 PM
 
I'm going through the same thing (although with my iBook, not Power Mac)

I've decided to sell my iBook (latest revision - 1.33GHz G4, 12" model) so I can get the best price possible on this machine before the new MacBooks (hopefully) premiere in April. In fact, I'm selling it to a local buyer tomorrow and reformatting the hard-drive as we speak.

I'm hoping to get a 13.3" MacBook Pro, to be honest. The iBook-series machines are nice, but I need some power in my portable (which is something I didn't realize at first).

Luckily, I still have my Rev. B 2GHz 20" iMac G5 to tie me over until then. I had considered selling the iMac first, but this thing still screams in terms of performance when compared to my iBook. Then, later on (probably next year), I'll sell the iMac and get a new Intel one - but I'll have my laptop to tie me over until it arrives and I'll already have a step in the door in terms of Intel and the Universal applications.

Do you have another computer (or rather, another Mac) to tie you over until a new PowerMac is released?
     
Yose
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Mar 5, 2006, 01:47 AM
 
I wonder if the resale value for your Mac won't be better after the switch to intel processors in the powermac than now. In a year or two there might be people who need a PPC machine with some punch. And if there aren't? Well, it would still make a great fileserver.
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Maflynn  (op)
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Mar 5, 2006, 12:23 PM
 
I think the market will drive the price down, more so if the intel desktop is considerably faster and based upon what people have posted for the MBP and its speed increases.

I usually don't like to be on the bleeding edge so I wait until rev b machines, but if I can get a sizeable increase in performance.


So far nobody has mentioned what type of price range would he fair - any ideas?

Mike
     
mikochu
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Mar 5, 2006, 04:22 PM
 
I'm content with my DC 2.3ghz. Although, I may invest in a Mac Mini Core Solo and pop some 2.xghz Core Duo in there later after summer.

If I were you, I'd continue using my G5... The Core Duos aren't that much faster, although they use less wattage. I hope they release some uber cpu for the Power Macs...
Michael Reyes | www.mikochu.com | Power Mac G5 DC 2.3ghz, 2.5gb RAM, 320/250gb HD, Dual Sceptre 20" LCDs | MacBook Pro 2.0ghz, 2gb RAM, 80gb HD, 15.2" LCD, booq Vyper M2 sleeve, OGIO No Drag | iPhone 3G 16gb | iPod 60gb (5g), iPod2Car in the car | iPod 20gb (4g) in an iHome in the bathroom :)
     
zoetrope
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Mar 5, 2006, 04:38 PM
 
Originally Posted by Maflynn
I know, I've posted a number of threads cautioning against rev a. machines but the speed increases I'm hearing about on the MBP is tempting enough that I'm toying with the idea.
The reason you're hearing about those significant speed increases is because of a G4 --> Intel Dual Core switch. The G5 is an excellent chip my Dual 2.7GHz is plenty fast for anything I throw at it. The other thing to keep in mind is if you're using any Adobe products extensively, you will see a performance drop until they release their universal binary versions of CSx apps. Check out the Macworld benchmarks on the new Mac Mini, even the low end G4 Mac Mini beats the new Intel top end Mac Mini (and iMac) with regard to Photoshop performance.

If you don't need to use any Adobe products, and you really think you're going to see a significant increase in performance (not just Jobsian hyperbole but real improvements) then you might think about selling now.
-- Power Mac G5 Dual 2.7GHz | 2.5GB RAM | 2x250GB HDs | 16x SuperDrive | 20" ACD
-- PowerBook G4 12" 1.33GHz | 1.25GB RAM | 80GB HD | 4x SuperDrive
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mountainash
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Mar 26, 2006, 10:39 AM
 
Originally Posted by mduell
Why? Do you have any evidence that there are more bugs in Rev A machines and those bugs go away in the next revision?
Some anecdotal evidence:

Rev 1 Beige G3s with the ROM/IDE issue, and VRM problems.
Rev A B&W G3s with IDE issue
Rev A (or at least earlier) MDD and fan noise

The 7450 G4s in Digital Audios were more prone to problems, I believe that the actual CPU had bugs.
The cooling problems on some G5s (fixed with a firmware patch)

And in other ways:
Early Wallstreets with the crappy screen and no level 1 cache on the entry level model
The Yikes! Power Mac G4 with ZIF, PCI Graphics, and slow memory.
the x100 Power Macintoshes, with Nubus, slow bus and that silly case on the 6100
The Mac Minis that shipped with 256Mb of RAM, so little they were next to useless.

Rev A iMac needed some patching of firmware.
Mac OS 8.5 updated to 8.5.1 in weeks, and a similar story with OS 9

And these are just Mac examples. Anyone involved with early adopter technologies, or designing products will tell you that the initial release of a new design will always show up some bugs not seen in testing.

But then there is the Snow iBook G3 which had so many problems for its whole life...
Power Mac G4 Digital Audio 533MHz 1.5GiB RAM, 2x 80Gb ATA HDDs, 320Gb SATA HDD, Radeon 9650 256MiB, Airport Extreme compatible PCI card, Zip 250, Pioneer 110, Firewire DVD burner, 21" CRT, Harmon Kardon Apple Pro Speakers, OS X 10.4.6
Powerbook Pismo G3 400MHz, 768MiB RAM, 80Gb HDD, AirPort Extreme PC Card, Bluetooth 1.1, DVD-ROM, OS X 10.4.6, Ubuntu 5.10, MacOS 9.2.2
To buy: RAM for Pismo, CPU upgrades
     
production_coordinator
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Mar 26, 2006, 03:48 PM
 
Originally Posted by zoetrope
The reason you're hearing about those significant speed increases is because of a G4 --> Intel Dual Core switch. The G5 is an excellent chip my Dual 2.7GHz is plenty fast for anything I throw at it. The other thing to keep in mind is if you're using any Adobe products extensively, you will see a performance drop until they release their universal binary versions of CSx apps. Check out the Macworld benchmarks on the new Mac Mini, even the low end G4 Mac Mini beats the new Intel top end Mac Mini (and iMac) with regard to Photoshop performance.
It's critically important to remember that the Intel chip in the iMac, Mac mini and MacBook are all designed as portable CPUs (chips you would find in a laptop!). Yet these same chips are beating dual G5 systems in a number of benchmarks (and the OS and Universal Binary applications are far from "optimized"... that will only come in time).

While I don't agree with the "just keep waiting" people...

Fast forward 6 months to this fall... (most likely when the "MacTower Pro" is released). If the system has the Intel Conrow processor (which everything points to), it should absolutely destroy the current G5 with regards to raw speed (I wouldn't be surprised if we saw a real world 25% - 50% speed increase)

Now, fast forward another three to six months, and you will see a native version of MS Office, CS3 and QuarkXPress. Those three would round out my transition to Intel for the most part.

You are going to see VERY quickly that Games and high end applications are going to recommend Intel chips for their applications. I'm already seeing it for games...

In my humble opinion, the best part of the Intel transition is that we will actually have a range of good processors in our middle and lower end systems and not the 2+ year old stuff apple has been passing along. I also believe it opens up sub notebooks and portable devices running the OS.
     
mduell
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Mar 26, 2006, 11:30 PM
 
Originally Posted by ShazamItsDavish2
Some anecdotal evidence:

<snip>

And these are just Mac examples. Anyone involved with early adopter technologies, or designing products will tell you that the initial release of a new design will always show up some bugs not seen in testing.

But then there is the Snow iBook G3 which had so many problems for its whole life...
I wouldn't call MDD or 7450 a Rev A, but that's probably just nitpicking. Anyway...
There was the Snow G3 iBook disaster (all revisions).
And PowerBook G3 power adapter recall (does not effect Rev A).
And the 15" PowerBook battery recall that effected 2nd half of rev A and 1st half of rev B.
And another iBook/PowerBook battery recall (does not effect Rev A).
And the "G5 freezes" problem that only effected Rev B.
And the G5 "chirps" that effected revisions A, B, and C.
And the iPod battery lawsuit that Apple settled included Rev A, B, and C.

You can call Rev A bad or good, but the later revisions aren't any better.
     
mountainash
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Mar 27, 2006, 07:30 AM
 
Originally Posted by mduell
I wouldn't call MDD or 7450 a Rev A, but that's probably just nitpicking. Anyway...

<SNIP>

You can call Rev A bad or good, but the later revisions aren't any better.
I guess the point that could be made is that new designs need time to settle. Yes, you can have problems later on, but in the cases you mention they are generally either due to new components used during a production run (batteries and adaptors) or have been present since the beginning.

Unless you like the bleeding edge and all the excitement it entails, I would wait until things settle down. The closest comparison is the move to PPC. And although the x100 series had their charm they were nowhere near as good as the later PCI Power Macs. This analogy does have many weaknesses, for one the whole PPC platform was new whereas the Intel platform is well established.

I imagine that the problems with MacIntels will be more software (and maybe firmware) related, since that is the component that is undergoing the biggest (novel) change.
Power Mac G4 Digital Audio 533MHz 1.5GiB RAM, 2x 80Gb ATA HDDs, 320Gb SATA HDD, Radeon 9650 256MiB, Airport Extreme compatible PCI card, Zip 250, Pioneer 110, Firewire DVD burner, 21" CRT, Harmon Kardon Apple Pro Speakers, OS X 10.4.6
Powerbook Pismo G3 400MHz, 768MiB RAM, 80Gb HDD, AirPort Extreme PC Card, Bluetooth 1.1, DVD-ROM, OS X 10.4.6, Ubuntu 5.10, MacOS 9.2.2
To buy: RAM for Pismo, CPU upgrades
     
rhashem
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Mar 28, 2006, 07:48 PM
 
Judging by how well iMac G5 prices are holding up on eBay, I honestly wouldn't be surprised to see you get a good deal on your PowerMac even past the release of the new Mac towers. Honestly, you're probably not going to see the prices on PowerMacs dive until you get UB versions of workstation apps in 2007. I'm considering when to sell my DC 2.3*, and that's the conclusion I've come to, anyway.

*) Why sell a perfectly good DC 2.3? I just bought an 2.0 GHz iMac Core Duo for my mother, and it is definitely faster than this machine. Even simple stuff like resizing a Safari window opened to a complex website is smooth on the iMac, while it visibly stutters on the G5. As far as I'm concerned, good riddence to the G5 and its crappy integer performance!
     
Big Mac
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Mar 28, 2006, 08:13 PM
 
It's too bad your G5 stutters in Safari - perhaps you've got a software problem or defective hardware worth looking into there. I mean, we know you're an Intel fanatic; there's no need to make up fairy tales about the Mac you supposedly own.
( Last edited by Big Mac; Mar 28, 2006 at 08:27 PM. )

"The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground." TJ
     
rhashem
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Mar 28, 2006, 08:50 PM
 
Originally Posted by Big Mac
It's too bad your G5 stutters in Safari - perhaps you've got a software problem or defective hardware worth looking into there. I mean, we know you're an Intel fanatic; there's no need to make up fairy tales about the Mac you supposedly own.
Yes, my Mac is fictional. I wish the hit to my bank account was fictional too

In any case, my configuration is fine. The G5 is just not great at running integer code. Here's a test. Open up a long Slashdot discussion. Resize your Safari window slowly back and forth. This will involve a lot of text reflow, which is a complicated integer/data structure access task. By watching the window frame, which is synchronized at the redraw rate of the content window, you can get an idea of how fast the content window is redrawing. On my DC 2.3, I'd guess the resize was happening at around five fps. On the 2.0 GHz iMac, the redraw rate is probably twice that, to the point where the resize is visibly smooth (not perfectly, but close).

Of course, why believe me? My machine is completely fictional, remember! It's not like my remarks are entirely consistent with what other people have reported...
     
Maflynn  (op)
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Mar 28, 2006, 08:57 PM
 
Well I've decided to keep my G5, it is in fact only 2 years old (June 2004 model) and I have the ATI X800XT and 2.5 gig of ram, its a pretty stoked system. I'm sure it will cost me over 2k, its pretty touch to justify spending 2500 every other year. Of course with me saying this, I haven't seen what apple will do and I'll probably change my tune, but I'm content with my G5 and it does eveything I need it to do.

Regards and thanks for all of your opinions
Mike
     
Big Mac
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Mar 29, 2006, 05:17 AM
 
Originally Posted by rhashem
Here's a test. Open up a long Slashdot discussion. Resize your Safari window slowly back and forth. This will involve a lot of text reflow, which is a complicated integer/data structure access task. By watching the window frame, which is synchronized at the redraw rate of the content window, you can get an idea of how fast the content window is redrawing.
Define how many comments you're talking about when you refer to a long Slashdot discussion and I'll run your unscientific test. I do know that right now I have been resizing this 825 comment Slashdot page (which is incidentally a story about why Windows is slow and which has comments about how fast OS X is in comparison, of all things) and resizing is totally fluid in Camino on my DP 2.0.

And btw, that page of unscientific "feelmarks" does not do particularly much to help your case about the inherent superiority of Intel chips. In fact, he comments that a number of things are slower on his Mactel, especially when he bothers to time the results. And the only thing he claims is subjectively much faster is the loading of web pages. Perhaps Safari's layout engine is more optimized for Intel chips, or maybe it's just wishful thinking on the part of new owners. But whatever the case may be, it's really a ridiculous leap of logic to claim processor superiority over something as light and inconsequential (from a benchmark perspective) as page loading.
( Last edited by Big Mac; Mar 29, 2006 at 06:30 AM. )

"The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground." TJ
     
rhashem
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Mar 29, 2006, 02:26 PM
 
Originally Posted by Big Mac
Define how many comments you're talking about when you refer to a long Slashdot discussion and I'll run your unscientific test. I do know that right now I have been resizing this 825 comment Slashdot page (which is incidentally a story about why Windows is slow and which has comments about how fast OS X is in comparison, of all things) and resizing is totally fluid in Camino on my DP 2.0.

And btw, that page of unscientific "feelmarks" does not do particularly much to help your case about the inherent superiority of Intel chips. In fact, he comments that a number of things are slower on his Mactel, especially when he bothers to time the results. And the only thing he claims is subjectively much faster is the loading of web pages. Perhaps Safari's layout engine is more optimized for Intel chips, or maybe it's just wishful thinking on the part of new owners. But whatever the case may be, it's really a ridiculous leap of logic to claim processor superiority over something as light and inconsequential (from a benchmark perspective) as page loading.
You have to set your comment settings to "nested", that increases the amount of text on the page by an order of magnitude. Even on Camino, the resulting page does not resize "totally fluid[ly]". Just looking at the text, you can see its redrawing at only several FPS.

As for "feelmarks" --- UI speed is a function of the integer performance of a CPU, and are definitely relevant. Indeed, programs like Safari, which are based on platform-independent backends (ie. KHTML), are precisely the sorts of benchmarks that are relevant at this point. With something like Quicktime, there is no way to tell whether any performance differences are due to processor speed or years of PPC optimization. It leads to things like the PPC chips winning on some Quicktime encodings, while losing quite badly on things like Handbrake's x264 encoding. With Safari, on the other hand, you've got the source, and you know its not particularly tweeked for any processor, so you have a better idea of the validity of the results.

This guy has more detailed benchmarks, showing the new iMac CDs keeping up with the DC 2.3, a machine very much out of its league (cost-wise). At the same time, he echos the same thing everybody else has with regards to the GUI speed of the new x86 machines: "Core Duo iMac is the first Mac I've ever used, where resizing windows is almost perfect..."

As for "inherent superiority", I considered that matter closed when the SPEC benchmarks came out. My intent was not to suggest inherent superiority, but rather to point out that the inherent superiority is really something you can feel when you use the machine, and anybody trading up their PPC PowerMacs to the x86 ones when they come out will not be dissapointed.
     
Big Mac
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Mar 30, 2006, 03:56 AM
 
Originally Posted by rhashem
You have to set your comment settings to "nested", that increases the amount of text on the page by an order of magnitude. Even on Camino, the resulting page does not resize "totally fluid[ly]". Just looking at the text, you can see its redrawing at only several FPS.
Sorry, rhashem, but either your G5 is busted or you're full of it. I am again resizing that page in Camino - 865 nested comments - and it's smooth. Totally smooth. Out of curiosity, what graphics card do you have in your G5?

You're really losing your credibility on this subject, rhashem, at least with me. But please be sure to let me know if I can take that G5 off your hands - I'm sure it will perform for me.
( Last edited by Big Mac; Mar 30, 2006 at 04:03 AM. )

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rhashem
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Mar 30, 2006, 02:01 PM
 
Originally Posted by Big Mac
Sorry, rhashem, but either your G5 is busted or you're full of it. I am again resizing that page in Camino - 865 nested comments - and it's smooth. Totally smooth. Out of curiosity, what graphics card do you have in your G5?
My G5 is fine. Your idea of smooth is obviously not the same as mine. Sit down at a Windows machine and try the same thing with Internet Explorer. *That's* smooth. Even on the iMac, Safari isn't at IE levels of smoothness, but its close. Safari on the G5 is substantially jerkier.

My G5 has a the stock 6600 graphics card. In this particular case, the GPU should not be the bottleneck, since the data rate of even a large window should eat up well under 50 megapixels/second.

Has it occurred to you that maybe you've just gotten used to OS X's resizing behavior? Have you even used one of the new Intel Macs? When almost every review points out how snappy the UI is on these machines, has it occurred to you that maybe there is something to that?
     
Big Mac
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Mar 30, 2006, 04:55 PM
 
You have now altered your claim substantially, yet you're attempting to cover up the fact that you have been proven wrong. You told me the redraw would only be a few frames per second, which is completely false. Now you're saying instead that I have gotten used to OS X's redraw behavior, which is a ridiculous argument to make. You should have just admitted you were mistaken about G5 performance in this regard; at least that way you could have salvaged some of your credibility.

"The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground." TJ
     
rhashem
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Mar 30, 2006, 08:16 PM
 
Originally Posted by Big Mac
You have now altered your claim substantially, yet you're attempting to cover up the fact that you have been proven wrong. You told me the redraw would only be a few frames per second, which is completely false.
I didn't say "few", I said "several". Since I used the 5 fps figure in my original post, I assumed it was clear what "several" was referring to. It occurred to me that you can exactly quantify the resize rate of the window using Quartz Debug's frame meter. On a machine with nothing else running, open up the aforementioned Slashdot page in Safari and resize the window vigorously between 1400x900 and 1000x700. Doing this causes Quartz Debug's frame meter to hovor right around 5-6 fps on my machine, confirming my eyeball estimation. Resizing smoothly causes the framerate to go up to around 8 fps, while resizing randomly can get you as low as 3 fps.

Now you're saying instead that I have gotten used to OS X's redraw behavior, which is a ridiculous argument to make. You should have just admitted you were mistaken about G5 performance in this regard; at least that way you could have salvaged some of your credibility.
The fact that OS X resizes slowly is really not in question. Reviewers have been complaining about it forever. As for my credibility, I'd point out that I've written window synchronization code before, which is why I was willing to trust my eyeball guess of the frame rate. After staring at various window synchronization techniques long enough (in particular, simplistic window frame rate limiting), you get a good idea of what a 5-fps resize looks like. You're free to ignore me, of course, but before you do so, I recommend sitting down at an Intel Mac and seeing for yourself.
     
Big Mac
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Mar 31, 2006, 01:12 AM
 
Originally Posted by rhashem
On a machine with nothing else running, open up the aforementioned Slashdot page in Safari and resize the window vigorously between 1400x900 and 1000x700. Doing this causes Quartz Debug's frame meter to hovor right around 5-6 fps on my machine, confirming my eyeball estimation. Resizing smoothly causes the framerate to go up to around 8 fps, while resizing randomly can get you as low as 3 fps.
Resizing the /. page vigorously (fast mouse movement) on my DP 2.0 in Camino causes Quartz Debug's meter to hover at an average of 9 fps; it goes as high as 11 fps. Resizing at a more moderate pace makes the meter report between 11 and 13 fps. Your assertion has been officially debunked. And please, don't try to change the topic again if you bother to reply.
( Last edited by Big Mac; Mar 31, 2006 at 03:50 AM. )

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rhashem
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Mar 31, 2006, 12:48 PM
 
Originally Posted by Big Mac
Resizing the /. page vigorously (fast mouse movement) on my DP 2.0 in Camino causes Quartz Debug's meter to hover at an average of 9 fps; it goes as high as 11 fps. Resizing at a more moderate pace makes the meter report between 11 and 13 fps. Your assertion has been officially debunked. And please, don't try to change the topic again if you bother to reply.
Could you try to make sense please? How can you "debunk" my claim, which regards Safari on my machine, by testing Camino on your machine? Did you even try to match the parameters of my test (specifically, the window sizes in pixels)? Different ways of resizing will get you different frame rates, but my point isn't that Safari on the G5 always resizes at 5 fps (which you seem to have fixated on), but rather that Safari on the iMac resizes faster when the windows are resized the same way. 5 fps is what I get when I do the test on my machine, but you may very well get something different.

Ultimately, have you sat down at an Intel Mac yet and tried the thing for yourself? You're accusing me of lying about my results, even though almost every Intel iMac review comments on how fast the UI is on the new machines! It's not like I'm claiming this radical new idea. Heck, there is even an entire thread on ArsTechnica titled Why is the OS X UI so much faster on Intel than on PowerPC?
( Last edited by rhashem; Mar 31, 2006 at 12:59 PM. )
     
Big Mac
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Apr 12, 2006, 09:34 PM
 
Originally Posted by rhashem
Ultimately, have you sat down at an Intel Mac yet and tried the thing for yourself?
Yes, I now have. A couple of days ago I used an iMac CD 2.0. First of all, as opposed to the claims people have made about page loading and browsing, I found it to be no faster than my G5. I then tried the resizing test and found no appreciable difference in either perceived speed or processor utilization between the two machines in Safari. Again I'm sorry, but you're wrong.

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Ilgaz
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Apr 15, 2006, 05:53 AM
 
If it means anything, I rebate this PPC G5 1600 to Apple Turkey (Istanbul) for 900 Euros and upgrade to either dual G5 or quad G5.
     
cgc
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Apr 16, 2006, 05:57 PM
 
Does anyone really think the new Intel MacTowers are truely "Rev A" machines? Isn't Intel collaborating with Apple to design them?

Anyways, I personally would not sell my G5 unless it couldn't do something I needed to get done. Heck, I'm still runnin fine on my 400MHz Sawtooth G4 (upgraded to 1GHz) and I do a LOT of Photoshop work. I would suggest waiting for the fall or winter (e.g. Conroe and Merom).
     
Ilgaz
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Apr 16, 2006, 08:25 PM
 
I love the G5 performance and way it works with my setup of programs so I feel "pushed" to get rebate offer and upgrade to a higher G5. I am afraid Apple may pull PowerPC line until I "decide" and I have to buy second hand. Can sound stupid,perhaps stupid but weird things going on

I won't buy an Intel to be correct. Had enough intels for years
     
kmarketing
Mac Enthusiast
Join Date: Mar 2004
Status: Offline
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Apr 18, 2006, 11:05 AM
 
Hi,

I actually sold mine a couple of days ago. I bought it for about $800 and sold it for $1500. Just looking at the prices of them on ebay really got me into selling it. Then I see what you can get for a few hundred more for either a macbook pro or dual core powermac just said to me that it may be time. I definitely miss the g5. I bought an used but pristine 12" 1.5 powerbook for $650 to keep me occupied, and may look into an imac or mac mini to power my 20" ACD for a little while just to see what may be out there.

I'm sure that most of you do major things with your g5 that will make you keep it. But unfortunately the g5 was just overkill for me.

Good luck with your decisions!
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Todd Madson
Mac Elite
Join Date: Apr 2000
Location: Minneapolis, MN USA
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Apr 18, 2006, 01:01 PM
 
Bad integer performance on G5?
I have to disagree.

My Seti @ Home performance has a measured integer speed of 23574.34
million ops/sec which is far in excess of any Intel/AMD box I happen to
have on my farm and indeed faster than any machine on my 11 member
team leading the machine to peak at 105th in the world at one point.

See: http://stats.kwsn.net/host.php?hosti...53099&proj=all for a comparison of the machines on my farm.

The is also in comparison with my buddy who has two Intel Pentium 4
multithreaded machines, an Athlon 64 dualcore processor machine, a
Mac Mini, a Pentium M machine and a 1.8 ghz AMD powered Linux box.

See:
http://stats.kwsn.net/host.php?hosti...84990&proj=all
For his machines.

So while it may not be as fast as a minicomputer perhaps it definetely slays
the "Average Joe's PC" by a number of bits.

Interestingly, I've used the CoreDuo iMac and MacBookPro machines at the
Apple store and find numerous areas where the user interface is slower than
that of the 2.5 G5 I'm running.

Now, this isn't to say I'll reject a Conroe machine when it comes out but the
G5 is plenty fast and jerkiness is absent and the performance smooth.

If you want to talk jerky and slow performance, I've got a G4/400 with a
Radeon 8500 card that I can show you (although it still performs respectably
as a Seti machine believe it or not).
     
jfghjk
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Join Date: Apr 2001
Location: DC
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Apr 19, 2006, 02:43 PM
 
When the G5 was announced, I immediately sold my dual 1.25 G4 for $1650. When the G5 became available, the going rate for my G4 was around $900.

Sell now.
     
Todd Madson
Mac Elite
Join Date: Apr 2000
Location: Minneapolis, MN USA
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Apr 20, 2006, 12:36 PM
 
Preceding poster is correct: if you want the greatest value from your G5, sell now.

If you need your G5 and can't afford to be without it, keep it and sell it later.
     
Lateralus
Moderator Emeritus
Join Date: Sep 2001
Location: Arizona
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Apr 20, 2006, 12:41 PM
 
Originally Posted by jfghjk
When the G5 was announced, I immediately sold my dual 1.25 G4 for $1650. When the G5 became available, the going rate for my G4 was around $900.

Sell now.
I find that hard to believe. Dual 1.25GHz G4s still crack $1,000 regaularly on eBay and the Dual 1.42s still go for as high as $1,300. If anything, I've been astonished at how well the MDD G4s have been holding their values.
I like chicken
I like liver
Meow Mix, Meow Mix
Please de-liv-er
     
Ilgaz
Registered User
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Istanbul
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Apr 24, 2006, 07:07 PM
 
I went into rebate (not in USA) and got my quad g5 2500. As I said before, this is result of Mactel switch by Apple. I was afraid I can't find anything when I finally surely decide.

Result is something can't be expressed by words. This is some serious monster.
     
   
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