[little a]

hello all,

as a PC user i find Mac models a bit difficult to compare, both with each other and with PCs. i'm looking at getting a used Power Mac but don't really have the frame of comparison to make an educated purchase. basically, i'm interested in two computing tasks: 1) very light video editing 2) ripping CDs.

i'm looking at two different Power Mac models:

a) G4 733 mhz, 512 RAM, 60 GB HD

b) G4 dual 533 mhz, 512 RAM, 30 GB

basically i'm looking for a point of comparison (say ripping speed for music CDs using itunes) one similar systems. i know speed will vary according to how much stuff is on the HD, etc. but at the moment i have no way of knowing how this compares to similarly priced PCs, or how the dual processors stack up against the single CPU set-up for Macs.

also, i'm interested in the 'upgradeability' of these sort of units 1) can the drives be upgraded? 30HD is not much space 2) is it possible to run dual HDs on these? 3) is burning DVDs too much for these systems?

i know that's a lot of questions- i'd appreciate any help with this, thanks!

a

[Chito]

Welcome to the forums. First take into consideration that the 500 dual was introduced 6 years ago, the 733 was rolled out 4 1/2 years ago. That said please don't try to compare either of these machines to a newer wintel machine....it just isn't a reliable comparison. A "similarly priced PC will probably only be a year or two old. Mac's hold their resale value much better than most pc's.
Ripping speed in iTunes will also depend on the optical drive speed, either machine will rip and burn cd's at a fairly good speed, can't give you actual times.
Duals are better than single processors depending on wether or not the software being used is optimized for it. The dual has a 100mHz bus while the 733 has a 133.
Drives are upgradeable with ATA drives up to if I remember correctly 137 GB. Drives over that size are limited due to the ATA 66 bus. Extra drives can be added to each, there are cables already inside.
Either machine will burn DVD's with the addition of a super drive. That said I used to have a 933 that took hours to render and burn a 120 minute dvd. I've got a dual 2.0 G5 now that takes less than 40 minutes to burn a dvd of the same size.
One thing you didn't mention was how much are you planning to spend on either of these machines? You didn't mention if a display will be part of your spending or not. You might want to seriousley consider a G5 iMac. Not nearly as upgradeable but drives can be added via firewire and it'll beat the pants off of either of those machines.
You'll get much better answers than these I'm sure....there are some pretty knowledgeable folks here. Take a look at http://www.apple-history.com/ for all the tecnical info on Macs.

[Lateralus]

Originally Posted by Chito

First take into consideration that the 500 dual was introduced 6 years ago, the 733 was rolled out 4 1/2 years ago... The dual has a 100mHz bus while the 733 has a 133...
Drives are upgradeable with ATA drives up to if I remember correctly 137 GB. Drives over that size are limited due to the ATA 66 bus. Extra drives can be added to each, there are cables already inside.

The Dual 533 was a member of the same family as the 733/1MB L3. Both have a 133MHz bus and were released five years ago at MacWorld San Francisco.

If this is a 733 QuickSilver, then it was released in Summer of '01. And the Dual 533 would beat either of them. So if the price is comparable, get the Dual.

And the hard drive capacity is limited by the adressing capability of the hard drive controller, not the bus itself.

[Chito]

see? i told you you'd get better answers.

[mduell]

Originally Posted by little a

also, i'm interested in the 'upgradeability' of these sort of units 1) can the drives be upgraded? 30HD is not much space 2) is it possible to run dual HDs on these? 3) is burning DVDs too much for these systems?

1) Yes, up to 128GB (137 billion bytes) each.
2) Yes, you can have up to 4 hard drives.
3) Encoding a Video DVD will take forever+a day, but you can put a DVD burner in the machine and burn DVDs.

[little a]

thanks for the detailed posts (to everyone)

these are on sale (with one with a 17" CRT monitor, the other with an LCD screen) for $395. does that sound fair for these set ups?

i guess i should clarify that i'm mostly interested in ripping CDs and mundane tasks like web surfing and word processing and am only going to use whatever machine i get for video editing on the rarest occassion. it would be nice though to be able to copy DVDs.

a

[little a]

Originally Posted by Lateralus

The Dual 533 was a member of the same family as the 733/1MB L3. Both have a 133MHz bus and were released five years ago at MacWorld San Francisco.

If this is a 733 QuickSilver, then it was released in Summer of '01. And the Dual 533 would beat either of them. So if the price is comparable, get the Dual.

And the hard drive capacity is limited by the adressing capability of the hard drive controller, not the bus itself.

can you clarify a bit as to how one can tell the difference between the sawtooth, yikes, and quicksilver models? do these distinctions also go for the 533? TIA

a

[Lateralus]

Yikes!:

Four PCI slots, one dedicated to video, no AGP. Socketed ZIF CPU interface. The Yikes! is essentially a G3 in a G4 colored case. They're solid machines, but I'd avoid them if you're looking for some longevity.

Sawtooth:

The first 'real' G4. Three PCI slots, one AGP 2x slot. 100MHz bus and four RAM slots for a 2GB max.

Gigabit Ethernet:

Essentially the same as the Sawtooth, except for the addition of a Gigabit Ethernet (10/100/1000) ethernet port, AirPort wireless capability and ADC display ability. The Gigabit Ethernet motherboard was also the first board to officially support dual processors, which is something you may want to keep in mind if you intend on buying a processor upgrade.

Digital Audio:

The Digital Audio added a fourth PCI slot, upped the AGP speed from 2x to 4x, and upped the bus from 100MHz to 133MHz. Three RAM slots for a 1.5GB max.

QuickSilver:

The only thing that differentiated the QuickSilver from the Digital Audio was the case.

[Westfoto]

For what it is worth I have a G4 dual 533 with 1.5 GB ram with two HD's in it. With a 3 drive raid connected to it via a FW800 PCI card.

This machine works it's tail off. It is now my server, serving the raid to the G5 and the TiBook.

[little a]

Originally Posted by Westfoto

For what it is worth I have a G4 dual 533 with 1.5 GB ram with two HD's in it. With a 3 drive raid connected to it via a FW800 PCI card.

This machine works it's tail off. It is now my server, serving the raid to the G5 and the TiBook.

wow, that's exactly what i'd end up with if i maxed out ram on the one i'm looking at. any idea on my itunes question?

a

[spork]

As quoted from mduell : 3) Encoding a Video DVD will take forever+a day
Come on, actually forever +.5 day.

I have said dual 533 DA, as seen in sig and use it with final cut pro and DVD Studio pro to make DVD's from photos and videos. Encoding in DVDSP actually about 2-6 hours depending on quantity/size of material, but I usually put it to work and go home for the evening and find it done in the morning. I installed an LG DVD+-R/RAM and narry a hiccup since then. Thanks to patchburn for that.
3 hard drives for a total of 200gb and this could be stretched much farther with 3 120gb or 80gbdrives.
Besides that, nothing but good things to say about this machine, my 4th mac (all OSX) and first tower. Originally paid about 550 a couple of years ago and have mildly upgraded over time so cost benefit seems pretty high. the last stage would be a cpu upgrade in the 1.3-1.6 dual range for improved DVD creation, photoshop work, etc,etc.
Web surfing and word processing on this tower is a breeze, even with 6-10 programs going at the same time.
Hope that helps.

[foo2]

Originally Posted by little a

thanks for the detailed posts (to everyone)

these are on sale (with one with a 17" CRT monitor, the other with an LCD screen) for $395. does that sound fair for these set ups?

i guess i should clarify that i'm mostly interested in ripping CDs and mundane tasks like web surfing and word processing and am only going to use whatever machine i get for video editing on the rarest occassion. it would be nice though to be able to copy DVDs.

a

A G4/1.42 eMac is $550 or so at my local CompUSA (as of two weeks ago - good luck finding them now, but it's worth checking) - you might check there for that model, as it will be far faster than the machines you've mentioned, with better graphics card, fully legal and up to date OS and utilities, and so forth - plus a warranty.

[Gibsonsg]

As for ripping speeds in iTunes, I have a 1 GHz G4 eMac at work, and a 1.9 GHz G5 iMac at home. iTunes will rip MP3's from audio CD's at anywhere from 10x to 13x speed on either machine. For comparison, my old 350 MHz G3 iMac will rip CD's at usually no faster than 3X, but that's ripping to an external USB 1 hard drive. Internally on the G3, I don't know. The internal drives on the old G3 iMacs are too small to bother storing MP3s.

[foo2]

Originally Posted by Gibsonsg

As for ripping speeds in iTunes, I have a 1 GHz G4 eMac at work, and a 1.9 GHz G5 iMac at home. iTunes will rip MP3's from audio CD's at anywhere from 10x to 13x speed on either machine. For comparison, my old 350 MHz G3 iMac will rip CD's at usually no faster than 3X, but that's ripping to an external USB 1 hard drive. Internally on the G3, I don't know. The internal drives on the old G3 iMacs are too small to bother storing MP3s.

A test of MP3-ripping on both might be to copy the CD audio data to the hard drive, then rip that directly. 10-13x speed sounds like a CDROM-based limitation more than anything else.