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You are here: MacNN Forums > Hardware - Troubleshooting and Discussion > Mac Desktops > Dual Dual-core "quad" Power Mac G5 features

Dual Dual-core "quad" Power Mac G5 features (Page 4)
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OreoCookie
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Nov 6, 2005, 08:42 PM
 
Originally Posted by mduell
Are you sure Apple's new chipset for the PowerMacs doesn't support NCQ?
15kRPM drives are great if you need blistering seek performance, but for most of us the cost just doesn't make sense. For the price of a single 147GB 15kRPM drive you can get 8 250GB 7.2kRPM drives or 5 74GB 10kRPM drives.
… and 5 10k SATA drives in a RAID5 config beat a 15k drive in terms of data transfer rate any time. The seek time is not always the relevant quantity to look at.

Even a RAID of 7.2k drives have a higher transfer rate.
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mduell
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Nov 6, 2005, 09:55 PM
 
Originally Posted by OreoCookie
… and 5 10k SATA drives in a RAID5 config beat a 15k drive in terms of data transfer rate any time. The seek time is not always the relevant quantity to look at.

Even a RAID of 7.2k drives have a higher transfer rate.
I don't know about RAID5 (the write performance is usually only that of a single drive), but certainly RAID0 (or RAID0+1 with 8 7.2kRPM drives).
Unless seeking is very very important, the cost and/or throughput trade off just isn't worth it.
     
chaseb85
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Nov 10, 2005, 02:37 AM
 
Placed my order today for the quad. got 4 GB of extra RAM ready to put into it. also got the airport/bluetooth upgrade. I've been limping along using Logic Pro 7 and ProTools on a 17" Powerbook 1.5 Ghz.

I've been waiting a long time to not have to budget my processor speed to prevent overload problems.

I had a 2.7 Ghz G5 for about 2 weeks and it was amazing. It was about 10 times faster while working in Logic Pro, my headroom for processing was extremely higher and with the RAM upgrade everything was of course accessing much faster. But luckily I had bought it just within the grace period and was able to return it for the exchange of the Quad. Can't wait to see FOUR audio processor meters on my Logic system performance window.

Any other users here doing music or post production audio work?
-PowerMac G5 2.5Ghz Quad 4.5 GB DDR2 RAM
     
OreoCookie
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Nov 10, 2005, 03:53 AM
 
Originally Posted by mduell
I don't know about RAID5 (the write performance is usually only that of a single drive), but certainly RAID0 (or RAID0+1 with 8 7.2kRPM drives).
Unless seeking is very very important, the cost and/or throughput trade off just isn't worth it.
You're right, random writes are slower than one single drive even due to the overhead. I stand corrected
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it.
     
MattiMattMatt
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Nov 10, 2005, 11:01 AM
 
Originally Posted by chaseb85
Any other users here doing music or post production audio work?
Me. My quad is on order.

As the Apple rep explained, since logic and the quads are both made by Apple, you figure Apple'l make them play nice together.

Should be great.

-MattiMattMatt
     
KeyLimePi
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Nov 10, 2005, 12:01 PM
 
I noticed from the Photoshop Benchmark thread that one member has already received his Quad. Anyone else?
     
nayr x
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Nov 10, 2005, 05:46 PM
 
I ordered my Quad on the 2nd. Rather than order online, I decided to call Apple Sales. The sales guy guaranteed me It would be here before the end of the month, possibly as early as thanksgiving (which is when i NEED it.) My ship-by date says Dec 2. I'm hoping this is just because that is 1 month from my order date, and that the sales guy wasn't just blowing smoke when he guranteed me a november delivery. I was so confident In what he was telling me, I didnt even upgrade the shipping from the standard ground. I am stressed as hell not knowing when the machine will get here... I have a deadline in mid-december to deliver a rather large HD video project on DVD... I called the rep back and left him a voicemail to get back to me, but he hasn't resonded in 3 days. I talked to another rep and she was less confident about a november delivery, and upgraded my shipping to next business day for free because it was "their mistake to assure dilevery"

so when youze guyzez' Quads start shipping, dont be shy about posting..... I just want to know that these machines are actually on the way and not horribly backordered....

where are the smilies for
:sword hanging over head:
:all eggs in one basket:
: psychadellic freakout:
?
( Last edited by nayr x; Nov 10, 2005 at 07:20 PM. )

(Perpetuating detached, existentialist ennui since 2001)
     
bentoon
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Nov 11, 2005, 12:37 AM
 
So have we all been following the Dual Dual Benchmarks thread?:
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=160813
Seems like there is no clear result yet other than "faster (but not on 3d - open GL)"
     
koukuubokan
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Nov 26, 2005, 04:06 AM
 
Originally Posted by nayr x
I ordered my Quad on the 2nd. Rather than order online, I decided to call Apple Sales. The sales guy guaranteed me It would be here before the end of the month, possibly as early as thanksgiving (which is when i NEED it.) My ship-by date says Dec 2. ?
I ordered my quad on 10/23. The original ship date was 11/23. It actually shipped 11/18. I chose standard shipping. It was delivered today, 11/25, but trackimg said that it was on the truck for delivery yesterday. But for Thanksgiving I would have had it a day earlier.

My old machine is a gray G4 and I don't know about previous G5's. THIS box is quiet, quieter than the external drive on my G4.

=Richard
     
bernardb
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Nov 26, 2005, 11:05 AM
 
I have my Quad now for a week. It is much quieter than my "old" Dual 2.0 G5 it replaces. The fans rev up once during startup and then barely if at all after that. I have 7 Gig of DDR2 and (2) 250 GB SATA, and of course, the Nvidia FX 4500 inside.

I have been doing benchmarks and this Quad is 2.5 to 3.5 times faster than my previous computer. It is also comparable in rendering benchmarks (Maya 7 Unlimited) with the Dual Dual-core Opteron 270 and 275 series. The Opteron 280 edges me out by a few seconds, probably due to the extreme optimization of code for the Windows platform.

In a Photoshop test, my old computer took 58 seconds, the Quad does it in 19 seconds. "Real world" performance increase is definately noticeble!

I love this Mac!

(Quad2.5, 7GB DDR2, FX 4500, 10.4.3, Apple 30 Inch HD Display)
     
chris v
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Nov 26, 2005, 11:34 AM
 
Originally Posted by chaseb85
Placed my order today for the quad. got 4 GB of extra RAM ready to put into it. also got the airport/bluetooth upgrade. I've been limping along using Logic Pro 7 and ProTools on a 17" Powerbook 1.5 Ghz.

I've been waiting a long time to not have to budget my processor speed to prevent overload problems.

I had a 2.7 Ghz G5 for about 2 weeks and it was amazing. It was about 10 times faster while working in Logic Pro, my headroom for processing was extremely higher and with the RAM upgrade everything was of course accessing much faster. But luckily I had bought it just within the grace period and was able to return it for the exchange of the Quad. Can't wait to see FOUR audio processor meters on my Logic system performance window.

Any other users here doing music or post production audio work?
That thing is gonna be just sick fast with Logic. I went from running Logic 6.4 on a G4 dual 1.0 to a G5 dual 2.0 and saw over 4x performance increase with the processor, and almost double the performance in disk read/write. Most of what I do is straight audio, usually between 15 & 25 tracks. I use seperate effects busses for the 'verbs, and often have 4 or 5 Space designers going on them, as well as EQ & compression on all the tracks. Pobably 20 or 30 other assorted plugs going at any time, and lots of automation. It rarely cracks 30% on the ol' CPU meter.

Here's your assignment: when you get that machine, add a different aiff file to each audio track, plug a Space Designer in line on each one, and keep going until you run out of CPU. I bet you'll hit at least 50.

When a true genius appears in the world you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him. -- Jonathan Swift.
     
chaseb85
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Nov 26, 2005, 09:41 PM
 
Yes I'm sure I'll will be doing that test. I had a Dual 2.7 G5 for about 2 weeks and I was loving it with Logic...I was even still using Logic Pro 7.0 and it was an incredible difference compared to my 1.5Ghz Powerbook 17".

Now i'll have the Quad running Logic Pro 7.1, which is written to optimize multiple processors, unlike 7.0 (at least that's what an apple rep told me). So that, combine with the 4.5 GB's of RAM, I hope to be able to do full scores for film without having to work with bouncing MIDI tracks to audio. It will be nice to be able to have full flexibility with the sample instruments until the mix is actually done. No more sub mixing and locking in tempos too early anymore.

I'm also really glad to hear the this machine is QUIET!. I was worried that it would be the opposite.

Also, I'm not sure if anyone here has one of these, but i would highly recommend the Gateway 21" Widescreen display. It looks great with full HD resolution and has alot more features than the apple displays. And it'ts much cheaper also.

Can't wait to get working on Logic with a larger display and some actual POWER. I got pretty crippled with the powerbook.
It will be here on Monday and will mark the end of a 6 week strech with NO computer at all. I'm sure the wait will be worth it tho.
-PowerMac G5 2.5Ghz Quad 4.5 GB DDR2 RAM
     
mduell
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Nov 27, 2005, 01:31 AM
 
Originally Posted by chaseb85
Also, I'm not sure if anyone here has one of these, but i would highly recommend the Gateway 21" Widescreen display. It looks great with full HD resolution and has alot more features than the apple displays. And it'ts much cheaper also.
When Gateway calls their 21" HD it doesn't mean the same thing as what Apple means when they call their 23" HD.
Gateway's 21" is only 1680x1050, the same resolution as the Apple (and Dell) 20". This supports the lower HD standard, 720p, but not the higher HD standard that the Apple 23" (and Dell 24") support, 1080p.
It's disingenuous to call the Gateway 21" 'full HD' and to compare it to Apple's (or Dell's) HD displays.
     
chris v
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Nov 27, 2005, 03:43 PM
 
Originally Posted by chaseb85

Also, I'm not sure if anyone here has one of these, but i would highly recommend the Gateway 21" Widescreen display. It looks great with full HD resolution and has alot more features than the apple displays. And it'ts much cheaper also.
I've gone to using two displays with Logic. I keep the Arrange window open on one and the Channel Mixer on the other. Logic has too many windows, even with two displays.

When a true genius appears in the world you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him. -- Jonathan Swift.
     
chaseb85
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Nov 28, 2005, 04:25 PM
 
Originally Posted by mduell
When Gateway calls their 21" HD it doesn't mean the same thing as what Apple means when they call their 23" HD.
Gateway's 21" is only 1680x1050, the same resolution as the Apple (and Dell) 20". This supports the lower HD standard, 720p, but not the higher HD standard that the Apple 23" (and Dell 24") support, 1080p.
It's disingenuous to call the Gateway 21" 'full HD' and to compare it to Apple's (or Dell's) HD displays.
Oh I understand, I wasn't aware that this monitor didn't support 1080p, my bad. Regardless, it's still a beautiful monitor and the definition on it will be plenty high enough for the work i'll be doing in audio. On the other hand, if I were working with video or photo's, I can definately see why I would want it to be 1080p. But for now, I would rather use the money I saved to get some more plugins for Logic.

I just got my Quad about 2 hours ago, but I'm still loading software, so haven't seen the huge difference in power yet, but I'm sure i will soon. This is going to be a great change from working on a 17" powerbook.

BTW...I found it curious that the FedEx guy didn't even wait for me to sign anything for the Quad, he just rang the doorbell and left the box on my front porch. I thought it was awefully weird of them to leave such an obviously expensive package outside for anyone to see/steal. Luckily I was home, but he was gone before I even opened the door!?
-PowerMac G5 2.5Ghz Quad 4.5 GB DDR2 RAM
     
Todd Madson
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Nov 28, 2005, 05:17 PM
 
My guess is you'll be able to do possibly more than 50 tracks as
described above as my own dual 2.5 I did 80 tracks (40 stereo)
with processing on each and it wasn't even breathing hard.

This is in GarageBand. I haven't tried maxing things out in
Cubase yet but I've been rather busy lately. Please keep
us posted on how you do with the quad with Logic Pro and
tons of tracks.
     
chaseb85
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Nov 29, 2005, 10:43 PM
 
Just curious...does anyone know if Logic should display 4 audio CPU meters on it's pc activity monitor. I noticed that when i was on a powerbook, it only showed 1 and when i had a DP G5 it showed 2 processor meters. Now with the Quad, I still only get 2 meters...but they are considerably more powerful than the DP G5 meters.

My guess is that logic is only programmed to recognize "Processors" and not Cores, therefore with the Quad, it technically sees 2 processors but it really monitoring the power of 2 cores on each meter. Maybe it would show 4 activity bars if it had 4 single core processors.

Is anyone running logic with a new G5 Dual Core Single Processor? Do you only have 1 CPU meter?
-PowerMac G5 2.5Ghz Quad 4.5 GB DDR2 RAM
     
mduell
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Nov 30, 2005, 01:03 AM
 
Originally Posted by chaseb85
Just curious...does anyone know if Logic should display 4 audio CPU meters on it's pc activity monitor. I noticed that when i was on a powerbook, it only showed 1 and when i had a DP G5 it showed 2 processor meters. Now with the Quad, I still only get 2 meters...but they are considerably more powerful than the DP G5 meters.

My guess is that logic is only programmed to recognize "Processors" and not Cores, therefore with the Quad, it technically sees 2 processors but it really monitoring the power of 2 cores on each meter. Maybe it would show 4 activity bars if it had 4 single core processors.

Is anyone running logic with a new G5 Dual Core Single Processor? Do you only have 1 CPU meter?
Logic can't tell the difference between a core in a single core chip and a core in a dualcore chip. That sort of detail is abstracted away by the OS. Logic is written to run multiple threads to take use of all processors, but when they wrote it 2 was the maximum available so they only included that many CPU monitors.
     
P
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Nov 30, 2005, 02:36 PM
 
Originally Posted by mduell
Logic can't tell the difference between a core in a single core chip and a core in a dualcore chip. That sort of detail is abstracted away by the OS. Logic is written to run multiple threads to take use of all processors, but when they wrote it 2 was the maximum available so they only included that many CPU monitors.
In most cases you are correct, but IBM has actually added features to the Power5-line to distinguish between "fake" cores (SMT, what Intel calls Hyperthreading), multiple cores on the same die or separate dies. I don't know if the dualcore 970 supports this (best guess is no, since it came with the SMT addition in Power5) or if Apple uses it.
     
mduell
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Nov 30, 2005, 02:56 PM
 
Originally Posted by P
In most cases you are correct, but IBM has actually added features to the Power5-line to distinguish between "fake" cores (SMT, what Intel calls Hyperthreading), multiple cores on the same die or separate dies. I don't know if the dualcore 970 supports this (best guess is no, since it came with the SMT addition in Power5) or if Apple uses it.
Even on other platforms with multiple cores (P4, K8, G5) and/or multiple threads (P4) without this feature, a program could ask the OS and/or BIOS what the CPU model is, what features it supports, and what features are enabled. The vast majority of program have no need to do this, and won't. Detecting dual cores could matter for programs whose performance depends on shared cache, but those are a small minority.

To restate my earlier post: Logic could tell the difference between a DP and DC PowerMac, but my best guess is that it does not. The OS presents two cores to the app the same way it would present two processors; the app could do some additional work to find out what the actual configuration is.
( Last edited by mduell; Nov 30, 2005 at 03:04 PM. )
     
 
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