[cocoa_coder]

I called an applestore and put the 20" on reserve. Now I have a POWERBOOK 1.5ghz and I am doing some stuff that uses the gpu (opengl programming). I cope quite well on my powerbook but I was looking for a decent machine for my home office as well. I was considering the powermac g5 dual 1.8 as I already have the 22" original cinema display.
Does anyone think I should get the dual g5 vs the imac? I like the fact that i can put a new grfx card in the g5 duallie, but I guess I can cope by using my pb most of the time anyway. I'm not sure how often id be using it for graphics dev. I may just keep gpu dev on my laptop and do general purpose stuff on the imac g5. Anyway I welcome your thoughts. I can always resell it a few weeks later and get a dual g5 anyway.

[chrisutley]

I was in the same exact boat as you, same equipment, same first gen 20" ACD, everything pretty much the same.

Here's the big question you need to answer to get good advice.... How do you use your Mac? What kind of work and applications do you spend most of your time on?

I do lots of web programming using PHP and mySQL. I could probably get by with an iMac G3 for that stuff. However, I also like to dabble with iApps, and have an amateur photography habit where I shoot RAW files on my Nikon D70 and suck them into Photoshop and other apps for editing. For me the iMac with 1GB of RAM is PLENTY of power. Would it be nice to have that extra boost of the second processor now and then, you bet. However, more than 90% of the time I wouldn't be stressing the iMac hard enough to tell any significant difference.

From a financial standpoint, it's nice being able to sell the ACD and apply it to this iMac. I more or less end up spending $1100 out of pocket for this new setup, which is really cool by the way. Or I could have spent $2100 out of pocket for the Power Mac. After using both machines and evaluating my needs, the iMac was a no-brainer. This is a consumer machine with plenty of power for many a pro out there.

Whichever machine you select, I think you'll be very pleased. You can't go wrong really, unless your needs far exceed the few specific limitations of the iMac.

[PEHowland]

Originally posted by cocoa_coder:
I called an applestore and put the 20" on reserve. Now I have a POWERBOOK 1.5ghz and I am doing some stuff that uses the gpu (opengl programming). I cope quite well on my powerbook but I was looking for a decent machine for my home office as well. I was considering the powermac g5 dual 1.8 as I already have the 22" original cinema display.
Does anyone think I should get the dual g5 vs the imac? I like the fact that i can put a new grfx card in the g5 duallie, but I guess I can cope by using my pb most of the time anyway. I'm not sure how often id be using it for graphics dev. I may just keep gpu dev on my laptop and do general purpose stuff on the imac g5. Anyway I welcome your thoughts. I can always resell it a few weeks later and get a dual g5 anyway.

Let's not get this GPU "issue" out of proportion. The iMac does have a perfectly capable GPU which is "DirectX 9" compatible (not of direct relevance to the Mac, I know, but indicative of the features it offers). It will be absolutely suitable for OpenGl programming and supports all the feaures, in hardware, of the faster cards. It will just run some of them more slowly. I think it would be a perfect machine to develop on. I don't think you have to view this as a case of "just coping with the PB" - I suspect you'll find the iMac a fine alternative.

The dual G5 is for serious number crunching. You have to ask yourself do you need to spend the extra $1500 or more for that number crunching capability? Or is your OpenGL application really very intensive so that the graphics card is the limiting factor? If the answer to either of these questions is yes, then you may benefit from the Dual G5, otherwise the iMac would seem ideal.

Of course, if money, office-space and appearances are of no importance to you, then just get the dual G5. It really depends what your constraints are.

[cocoa_coder]

Well I bought the 20" imac g5. I have ran Tiger preview on it. (relax i'm a developer who obtained the copy legally.) I tried it with core image and video via Quartz Composer). It seemed to work. It was a bit herky jerky but I think thats due to tiger's drivers not being fully optimized yet. Look for my review in the morning.

[chrisutley]

Originally posted by cocoa_coder:
Well I bought the 20" imac g5. I have ran Tiger preview on it. (relax i'm a developer who obtained the copy legally.) I tried it with core image and video via Quartz Composer). It seemed to work. It was a bit herky jerky but I think thats due to tiger's drivers not being fully optimized yet. Look for my review in the morning.

Did you have the processor performance set to "Highest" in the Energy Saver control panel? How much RAM did you load that bad boy up with?

How can we measure what you were doing to tax the machine, yielding a "herky jerky" response? I mean were you doing the equivalent of 3D rendering, playing Halo with all the options on, or something else?

[cocoa_coder]

After upping memory to 1gb It was a whole lot smoother sailing. Graphics are fluid. The Tiger Dashboard feature does indeed ripple but it does it very slowly. I'm certain it will be fixed in future updates.