[JustinD]

Eesh. Check out Barefeat's tests for Motion:

http://www.barefeats.com/motion.html


Completely dependent on the video card. The 9700 Mobility knocks 20 seconds off the render preview times compared to the GeFX 5200!

And don't give me that 'get a pro machine' crap, some people that would love to buy and use Motion can't afford a PowerMac G5. Sure Motion will run, but they could have made it all the more better by putting a LAPTOP video card as a BTO OPTION in the damn thing.

[george68]

Pretty freakin' pathetic that laptop graphics cards are better than what's in the current iMac. Pretty sad.

- Rob

[PEHowland]

Astonishing as it may seem, I have no interest in gaming on Mac. If I was interested in gaming, I'd buy a PC. Who'd buy a Mac for gaming? I couldn't give a flying f*ck about the graphics card in the iMac. There's more to life than fragging monsters on a screen. Get over it, or buy Wintel. There's plenty of choice out there.

[Mike Pither]

Originally posted by klinux:
Au contrare, I think they are as close to facts as you can get here. Gaming is a lot of $$$, possibly more than the pro segment. it's simply wrong for Apple to put such a low end card into a medium end syste,.

They might be close (or not) to facts but they are are not facts, they are opinions. Unless you work high-up in Apple, know their product costs, marketing/sales /and business models and engineering problems I don't see how you can claim for example that point 5 is a fact.

[Simon]

Originally posted by Mike Pither:
Unless you work high-up in Apple, know their product costs, marketing/sales /and business models and engineering problems I don't see how you can claim for example that point 5 is a fact.

No, the entire reasoning for this was given: Since Apple gave away logic board commonality in the first place (we see this even if we don't work for them) offering a GPU BTO upgrade introduces virtually no increased cost.

If you really, really want to give Apple the benefit of the doubt in this question you would have to argue that the 5200 was the fastest GPU to fit the cooling specs of the machine. This is highly debatable, but presently it can't be ruled out. Point 5 is pretty much a fact however.

[thunderous_funker]

Originally posted by PEHowland:
Astonishing as it may seem, I have no interest in gaming on Mac. If I was interested in gaming, I'd buy a PC. Who'd buy a Mac for gaming? I couldn't give a flying f*ck about the graphics card in the iMac. There's more to life than fragging monsters on a screen. Get over it, or buy Wintel. There's plenty of choice out there.

Ever heard of Quartz Extreme? CoreImage? CoreVideo?

Games is not the only place where GPU performance makes a very big difference for your computer.

I wouldn't be surprised at all if some of the "150+ New Feature" in Tiger don't work very well on machines with slow GPUs.

Bottom line: Computers get outdated ridiculously fast as it is, rolling out a new product with a video card that is already behind (how much behind depends on what you intend to use it for, but it is already an old card) current technology isn't exactly a smart move--especially for an expensive new product.

In fact, I'd rather have a G4 with a great GPU than a G5 with an outdated GPU. The reason I did't buy the LAST iMac was because it didn't have an upgradable GPU.

I recommend we make a list of all the people dissing the "gamer market" as unimportant so we can make sure they never, ever, ever post anything complaining about Apple's lagging market share again.

[Mike Pither]

Originally posted by Simon:
No, the entire reasoning for this was given: Since Apple gave away logic board commonality in the first place (we see this even if we don't work for them) offering a GPU BTO upgrade introduces virtually no increased cost.

If you really, really want to give Apple the benefit of the doubt in this question you would have to argue that the 5200 was the fastest GPU to fit the cooling specs of the machine. This is highly debatable, but presently it can't be ruled out. Point 5 is pretty much a fact however.

My point here was that no one here knows -

What would the extra volumes be and how much of it would be cannibalizing existing iMac (or other mac product) volumes

How much Apple would have to pay to get a better card with developed drivers versus the extra revenue that they would get

How much the extra inventory financing costs would be

How much extra Apple would have to pay the company that builds the iMac for them for extra production complexity.

The extra costs for additional order management complexity.

What the extra costs would be for testing and development of the option both from the point of view of the hardware and current software and for the additional testing of future OS and applications updates.

The extra costs for maintaining more complex technical documentation.

These and many other questions would need to be answered before saying outright that the option would make Apple more money. I am not saying that it would not be nice if Apple made this option available I was really just objecting to a rather blatant use of the word FACT for something is not a FACT, there are many things that we simply don't know here including the actual reason why Apple have chosen not to offer this option. Some people here suggest it is simply because Apple is a stupid company, they may be but it is also possible that they know something we don't.

[Mike Pither]

Originally posted by thunderous_funker:
Ever heard of Quartz Extreme? CoreImage? CoreVideo?

I wouldn't be surprised at all if some of the "150+ New Feature" in Tiger don't work very well on machines with slow GPUs.
.

I hope not, I still use my old iMac DVSE with it's 8mb video card and OSX 10.3.5 I was also looking forward to updating it to Tiger.

Every OSX update so far has made it run better

[P]

A few points here:

* I don't think Apple thought a lot about the GPU. They wanted a low-end model and they got one. That's what they've always put in the iMac, and that's what they'll do for Rev B. A different low-end by then, but low-end all the same. That they chose nVidia was likely due to the Hypertransport motherboard. Anyway, the option was Radeon 9200, and that's even worse.

* The core GPU in the 5200 is as capable as the 5800. The Ultra version is even clocked high enough. It's the memory interface that's crippled (no compression of the z-buffer, etc.) and the FSAA is not optimized (but still better than Geforce4 Ti - not that it says much). Saying that it's a Geforce2 is not really fair. The Geforce4 MX was a essentially a Geforce2, but not this one.

* No way is Apple launching a machine now that can't take full advantage of Tiger. They're not suicidal.

The point is that even if the iMac had a Radeon 9600, a lot of people would wish for a 9800 (not me, I'd be happy, but a number of forum members). If it had a 9800, people would wonder over the 16:10 screen which the games can't make full use of. If it were 4:3, they'd talk about LCD response times.

IMO, Apple should launch a gamer edition iMac with a 17" 16 ms 4:3 LCD, a Radeon 9800 XT (or a X800, if they can't get their hands on any) to test the waters. Hey, make a deal with Sony and throw in a PS2 emulator if possible. If it sells, make more. If it doesn't sell, don't make more. Simple as that - it's worth the gamble.

[thunderous_funker]

Originally posted by Mike Pither:
I hope not, I still use my old iMac DVSE with it's 8mb video card and OSX 10.3.5 I was also looking forward to updating it to Tiger.

Every OSX update so far has made it run better

I'm saying that some of the GUI stylings probably won't work, not that it won't run at all.

Genie effects or the Cube effect in Fast User Switching--those kinds of things

[i am yujin]

Ahh this brings back the Mac gaming video..

So funny yet so true..

http://webdev.o1.com/rvb/movies/switch/RvB_switch.mov

[PEHowland]

Originally posted by thunderous_funker:
Ever heard of Quartz Extreme? CoreImage? CoreVideo?

Games is not the only place where GPU performance makes a very big difference for your computer.

I wouldn't be surprised at all if some of the "150+ New Feature" in Tiger don't work very well on machines with slow GPUs.

Scare mongering nonsense. The 5200 will be perfectly adequate for those applications you cite - and I would be very surprised if this changed with Tiger. Come on - there are plenty of Mac's out there with 5200 cards - show me some reputable benchmarks or reports that the card can't cope Quartz Extreme and I might be interested. Incidentally, Core Image and Core Video are nothing more than programming API's - both of which the 5200 fully supports in hardware. They're Apple's equivalent of DirectX. So, the more relevant question is which consumer-orientated applications that use functions in these API's, other than games, will be hampered by the 5200. I suspect very few.

[jamesa]

Originally posted by PEHowland:
Scare mongering nonsense. The 5200 will be perfectly adequate for those applications you cite - and I would be very surprised if this changed with Tiger. Come on - there are plenty of Mac's out there with 5200 cards - show me some reputable benchmarks or reports that the card can't cope Quartz Extreme and I might be interested. Incidentally, Core Image and Core Video are nothing more than programming API's - both of which the 5200 fully supports in hardware. They're Apple's equivalent of DirectX. So, the more relevant question is which consumer-orientated applications that use functions in these API's, other than games, will be hampered by the 5200. I suspect very few.

well correct me if I'm wrong, but the time Apple announced Panther, they were still shipping machines that wouldn't meet the specs for Quartz Extreme. They have a history of doing this, and are not afraid to screw customers over!

-- james

[PEHowland]

Originally posted by jamesa:
well correct me if I'm wrong, but the time Apple announced Panther, they were still shipping machines that wouldn't meet the specs for Quartz Extreme. They have a history of doing this, and are not afraid to screw customers over!
-- james

Look, the 5200 may not be the world's greatest gaming graphics card, but it still a pretty respectable 3D graphics card and will certainly be able to handle any kind of flashy effects I can imagine any UI within the next 3-4 years might throw at it. If Quartz Extreme starts looking like Doom 3 in terms of visual effects, I think it would be time to move to a different operating system. So far all I have seen here is wild, uninformed speculation based on unsubstantiated what ifs.

Look, no-one is arguing that an iMac is a gamer's machine (other than perhaps Apple's over-enthusiastic marketing department). If you want to game, buy a PC, XBox or PS/2. Mac's are a shitty choice if you want to game. If you want high-end video rendering, get a PowerMac - you'll need the dual CPU's as well as the chance to use a better specified graphics card. But frankly, for anything else, the graphics card in the iMac will be perfectly adequate for normal usage for the lifetime of the machine.

It really is a non-issue.

[iBorg]

Originally posted by PEHowland:
.....the graphics card in the iMac will be perfectly adequate for normal usage for the lifetime of the machine.

It really is a non-issue.

Bull.

You don't know that, and neither does anyone else, outside of Apple's engineers, and they aren't likely to tell! Apple has crippled the video capability of this iMac before it's even out of the chute, all because they chose this outdated, POS GPU!

Enough about "gaming" on the iMac! "Link" and "Eug Wanker" and others well-versed in Apple OS have expressed plenty of reservations in these fora about this GPU being able to efficently handle the basics of Tiger (Mac OS 10.4), set to debut in early 2005. The concern isn't whether it'll "run" on the iMac G5 - it's whether it'll run efficently and be able to utilize the full OS in an acceptable manner (e.g. CoreVideo, etc.).

$1900 for a 20" iMac (plus tax and options) is simply too high a price to risk being unable to run Tiger decently in less than a year, IMHO, and in the opinion of many others here. And I'm simply not willing to spend $4-5k to get a G5 tower + monitor, simply to get a decent graphics card!



iBorg

[jamesa]

Originally posted by PEHowland:
Look, the 5200 may not be the world's greatest gaming graphics card, but it still a pretty respectable 3D graphics card and will certainly be able to handle any kind of flashy effects I can imagine any UI within the next 3-4 years might throw at it. If Quartz Extreme starts looking like Doom 3 in terms of visual effects, I think it would be time to move to a different operating system. So far all I have seen here is wild, uninformed speculation based on unsubstantiated what ifs.

Not what ifs, not uninformed - but links to sites demonstrating (eg the bare feats link) and prior history (Panther, quartz extreme, and the iBook chipsets that were shipping up to, and maybe after Panther's release that did not support Quartz Extreme). Apple have a history of f***ing people over when it comes to GPUs.

Look, no-one is arguing that an iMac is a gamer's machine (other than perhaps Apple's over-enthusiastic marketing department).

So Apple is claiming they have a gaming machine! All we're doing is calling them up on their bs!

If you want to game, buy a PC, XBox or PS/2. Mac's are a shitty choice if you want to game. If you want high-end video rendering, get a PowerMac - you'll need the dual CPU's as well as the chance to use a better specified graphics card. But frankly, for anything else, the graphics card in the iMac will be perfectly adequate for normal usage for the lifetime of the machine.

No. Wrong. A GPU of this age is not going to be perfectly adequate for virtually any 3D task you throw at it.

Let me help you out; from the Barefeats link above:
There's more. Notice the ORANGE and BLACK bars in the RAM PREVIEW graph. We tested a "Rev B" G5/2.0GHz MP Power Mac that comes standard with the GeForceFX 5200 (64MB VRAM). It took 74 seconds to do the RAM PREVIEW render. The same model of Power Mac with a 9800 Pro SE (256MB) took only 29 seconds. Think of it. Just by upgrading the graphics card, we gained 155% in RAM PREVIEW render speed!

A similar advantage is achieved by upgrading the G5/1.6GHz MP Power Mac from a GeForceFX 5200 to a Radeon 9800 Pro Retail edition graphics card.

155%. Not just twice as fast... twice as fast and a half. Plus a little bit more.

The CPU is no longer the only important component in a system. More is slipping onto the GPU. And the GPU in the iMac sucks.

-- james

[pliny]

I don't see what the big deal is to make the gpu BTO.

It's doable. The only reason that I think is legit as far as Apple goes, is to protect Powermac sales. And no, the "But I don't play games and I only want to [fill in the blank] I LOVE this gpu!!argument is not a good one. If it works for you great, ifnot, then pay a bit more and get a different gpu.

We're not even talking swappable, just BTO; this is a glaring omission. The rest of the system looks pretty decent though, I'm still wondering aobut how the heck someone is going to be able to swap out the LCD, which to me is a great idea.

[iREZ]

Jeez just let the sales speak for themselves will ya. If you gamers are such a big portion of the iMac buying crowd Apple should notice a hit on their sales and cater to you then and only then. As for now, just quit complaining on how your beautiful-wet-dream-machine-fantasy didn't come true this time around and don't buy it. I don't see a point in complaining/or trying to convert non gamers into believing all this hype about how important the GPU is. Yes it's important, yes Tiger is going to need specific GPU's to take advantage of Corel Image, and YES THE NEW IMAC FITS INTO THE LIST OF COMPATIBLE GPU'S. Have you ever thought that Apple is trying to keep their other client's (ie. the GPU makers) happy as well. All Mac comps are ATI with exception to the 12" PB, PowerMac's that are being upgraded by the ton, and now the iMac. If Jobs put in an ATI 9800 in the iMac whose to say that Nvidia will keep making stuff for Apple (ie. the 6800 that drives the 30"). Sometimes you gotta realize that not everybody is happy when a new product is released, and I'm sure Jobs would rather sacrafice the gamers market rather then screwup his relationship with Nvidia, seeing how they are already having trouble with the 6800. I for one would like to see a better GPU in the iMac, but I'm not so absurd as to say the iMac is crippled by it. Apple isn't pushing games, it's pushing the iLife suite on people and for what it's worth Macs will never be gaming machines no matter how much you want them to be. This G5 should ring up a ton sales nonetheless.

[jcadam]

Originally posted by iREZ:
Jeez just let the sales speak for themselves will ya. If you gamers are such a big portion of the iMac buying crowd Apple should notice a hit on their sales and cater to you then and only then. As for now, just quit complaining on how your beautiful-wet-dream-machine-fantasy didn't come true this time around and don't buy it. I don't see a point in complaining/or trying to convert non gamers into believing all this hype about how important the GPU is. Yes it's important, yes Tiger is going to need specific GPU's to take advantage of Corel Image, and YES THE NEW IMAC FITS INTO THE LIST OF COMPATIBLE GPU'S. Have you ever thought that Apple is trying to keep their other client's (ie. the GPU makers) happy as well. All Mac comps are ATI with exception to the 12" PB, PowerMac's that are being upgraded by the ton, and now the iMac. If Jobs put in an ATI 9800 in the iMac whose to say that Nvidia will keep making stuff for Apple (ie. the 6800 that drives the 30"). Sometimes you gotta realize that not everybody is happy when a new product is released, and I'm sure Jobs would rather sacrafice the gamers market rather then screwup his relationship with Nvidia, seeing how they are already having trouble with the 6800. I for one would like to see a better GPU in the iMac, but I'm not so absurd as to say the iMac is crippled by it. Apple isn't pushing games, it's pushing the iLife suite on people and for what it's worth Macs will never be gaming machines no matter how much you want them to be. This G5 should ring up a ton sales nonetheless.

Nvidia has other GPUs in their lineup that are between the FX 5200 and the 6800. Like, the 5300, 5500, 5700, etc. I would have suggested the 5500. AT LEAST.

[JustinD]

Hehehe want to get more PO'd? The Education model iMac has a different video card.



Talk about getting screwed on the middle and high end. If they're making 2 different LoBos already, they should have just made a third one available as BTO. Something's definitely rotten in the state of Apple! Methinks they were just keeping an eye on the cost and absolutely nothing else.

They're completely eliminating one of their own markets: people that want to run their pro apps but can't afford a PowerMac. (mainly talking Motion, which is 95% dependent on the GPU).

Boooo!

[PEHowland]

Originally posted by jamesa:

No. Wrong. A GPU of this age is not going to be perfectly adequate for virtually any 3D task you throw at it.

Let me help you out; from the Barefeats link above:
[i]There's more. Notice the ORANGE and BLACK bars in the RAM PREVIEW graph. We tested a "Rev B" G5/2.0GHz MP Power Mac that comes standard with the GeForceFX 5200 (64MB VRAM). It took 74 seconds to do the RAM PREVIEW render. The same model of Power Mac with a 9800 Pro SE (256MB) took only 29 seconds. Think of it. Just by upgrading the graphics card, we gained 155% in RAM PREVIEW render speed!

[/B]

Pointless example. These tests are for Motion, a professional video rendering application. Motion is not aimed at the home user. You want to use Motion, buy a Powermac. Motion does not represent a consumer application and is not representative of the applications a typical iMac user will be running.

[JustinD]

Originally posted by PEHowland:
Pointless example. These tests are for Motion, a professional video rendering application. Motion is not aimed at the home user. You want to use Motion, buy a Powermac. Motion does not represent a consumer application and is not representative of the applications a typical iMac user will be running.

Pointless point. What about those that can't afford a PowerMac + display + Motion, but can afford an iMac + Motion? The point is, Apple put a crap, bottom-of-the-barrel (by their own Motion specs and prelim specs for Core Tiger technologies) in a computer that is noti a bottom-of-the-barrel computer - that's the eMac, not the iMac.

At $2000 for the 20" model, they should have put a better video card anyway, regardless of the 'intended' use. The G5 is certainly a 'pro-level' chip, and so is the 20" display (by your logic, what consumer really needs a 20" LCD display?) A basic answer is: it's nice to have it there if you need it. It would also be nice to have the graphics power already there too if you need it.

Besides, it's a fact that the FX 5200 Ultra is a completely budget card. Perfect for the eMac, but an embarrassment for the iMac. Every review of the card I've read defines it as a budget card. NVDIA tags it as a budget card. Why put a budget card (and the 64MB version no less!) in a computer that is anything but a budget computer?

There should be no argument as to what "applications a typical iMac user" will be using. The fact is, the GPU is already ridiculously old before the machines have even shipped!

[iBorg]

Originally posted by iREZ:
Have you ever thought that Apple is trying to keep their other client's (ie. the GPU makers) happy as well. ... and I'm sure Jobs would rather sacrafice the gamers market rather then screwup his relationship with Nvidia, seeing how they are already having trouble with the 6800.

LOL - are you nuts? You're talking about Apple, i.e. Steve Jobs, who doesn't give a rat's a** about sucking up to the graphics card makers! Remember the Apple keynote 1-2 years ago in which ATI fuxored and leaked news about their new card premiering in a new Mac? Jobs pulled the cards and replaced them with NVidia, just to "teach 'em a lesson!" No, the video crippling of the iMac G5 had nothing to do with "keeping the GPU makers happy!" LOL

I for one would like to see a better GPU in the iMac, but I'm not so absurd as to say the iMac is crippled by it. Apple isn't pushing games, it's pushing the iLife suite on people and for what it's worth Macs will never be gaming machines no matter how much you want them to be.

*Sigh.....*

Will you "Apple Apologists�" drop the obsession with your "gamer complainers defense"?!?!? This isn't about games!!! Read some of the other posts - it's about crippling the video capability for OS 10.4, CoreVideo, Motion, video editing, and many other non-game apps that we want to use on a brand-new $1900 iMac!



iBorg

[Link]

When you morons who are sitting here ranting and raving about how the video card doesn't matter, nobody needs it, etc etc etc go and end up buying another imac in 2 years because the video capability sucks so badly, just remember I told you so.

The other day a person asked me if the new imac g5 would be more future proof than their 5 year old imac was, because it had a rage pro chip.

My answer? Oh yeah that thing's gonna be just as crappy in 5 years. Muwahhahaa.

[thunderous_funker]

Originally posted by JustinD:
Pointless point. What about those that can't afford a PowerMac + display + Motion, but can afford an iMac + Motion? The point is, Apple put a crap, bottom-of-the-barrel (by their own Motion specs and prelim specs for Core Tiger technologies) in a computer that is noti a bottom-of-the-barrel computer - that's the eMac, not the iMac.

At $2000 for the 20" model, they should have put a better video card anyway, regardless of the 'intended' use. The G5 is certainly a 'pro-level' chip, and so is the 20" display (by your logic, what consumer really needs a 20" LCD display?) A basic answer is: it's nice to have it there if you need it. It would also be nice to have the graphics power already there too if you need it.

Besides, it's a fact that the FX 5200 Ultra is a completely budget card. Perfect for the eMac, but an embarrassment for the iMac. Every review of the card I've read defines it as a budget card. NVDIA tags it as a budget card. Why put a budget card (and the 64MB version no less!) in a computer that is anything but a budget computer?

There should be no argument as to what "applications a typical iMac user" will be using. The fact is, the GPU is already ridiculously old before the machines have even shipped!

The iMac is is really a kludge in the product lineup, IMO. I'm not sure if it really is aimed a legit market segment other than people who will pay a premium price for style.

Will it really run iLife that much better than an eMac? Or any of the notebooks? The preliminary facts suggest it might not run pro apps like Motion very well. That makes it kind of a hobbled G5. Why bother putting in the G5 if you're going to cripple it?

My only guess is that until the G5 PowerBook comes out, people will buy an iPodMac simply because its the only G5 they can afford. But as soon as you can buy a PowerBook G5, why on earth would anyone buy the iPodMac?

[iREZ]

Originally posted by iBorg
LOL - are you nuts? You're talking about Apple, i.e. Steve Jobs, who doesn't give a rat's a** about sucking up to the graphics card makers! Remember the Apple keynote 1-2 years ago in which ATI fuxored and leaked news about their new card premiering in a new Mac? Jobs pulled the cards and replaced them with NVidia, just to "teach 'em a lesson!" No, the video crippling of the iMac G5 had nothing to do with "keeping the GPU makers happy!" LOL

Exactly, what kind of buisness ethics is that, flip flopping between two companies. Nvidia has done nothing wrong for Jobs to not use their stuff, thats the difference you dunce.

[DaBeav]

Will it really run iLife that much better than an eMac? Or any of the notebooks? The preliminary facts suggest it might not run pro apps like Motion very well. That makes it kind of a hobbled G5. Why bother putting in the G5 if you're going to cripple it?

With a much improved system architecture? Yeah, it will. It will stomp all over an eMac. You can bet that in the not-too-distant future, iLife apps and other apps such as Final Cut Express will be optimized for the G5. Not to mention Tiger, which will be 64-bit.

It's rather like the distinction in the AMD64 product line. The Athlon64 doesn't quite have all of the bells and whistles that the FX and Opterons do. However in everyday computing, the performance is roughly the same, not really noticeable. Most average users wouldn't even begin to tax a G5 tower. The iMac should run most consumer apps without breaking a sweat.

Pros who are serious about running FCP/DVDSP/Motion/Shake/Maya on a daily basis for mission critical work are more than likely going to spend the extra ducats for a G5 tower.

My only guess is that until the G5 PowerBook comes out, people will buy an iPodMac simply because its the only G5 they can afford. But as soon as you can buy a PowerBook G5, why on earth would anyone buy the iPodMac?

Because the PowerBook G5 will cost considerably more. The 17" iMac with SuperDrive is $1499. The 17" PowerBook is $2799. We'll see if they can keep their current price points once they manage to fit the G5 into a notebook.

[thunderous_funker]

Originally posted by DaBeav:
With a much improved system architecture? Yeah, it will. It will stomp all over an eMac. You can bet that in the not-too-distant future, iLife apps and other apps such as Final Cut Express will be optimized for the G5. Not to mention Tiger, which will be 64-bit.

It's rather like the distinction in the AMD64 product line. The Athlon64 doesn't quite have all of the bells and whistles that the FX and Opterons do. However in everyday computing, the performance is roughly the same, not really noticeable. Most average users wouldn't even begin to tax a G5 tower. The iMac should run most consumer apps without breaking a sweat.

Pros who are serious about running FCP/DVDSP/Motion/Shake/Maya on a daily basis for mission critical work are more than likely going to spend the extra ducats for a G5 tower.

If there is lots of room for hardware optimization in iLife, I sincerely hope they push more to the GPU than rely on the CPU.
I hope they don't make iLife really G5 needy or it will suck for the millions of Apple customers who don't have a G5--like the people who bought notebooks in the Year of the Notebook. That way a G4 with a really beefy GPU probably also run iLife incredibly well.

But, you may be right.

It seems to me that putting in a G5 but crippling the bus and GPU is kind of like trying to make a blanket longer by cutting off one end and sewing it on the other.

Yeah, the iPodMac is finally an affordable G5, but I'm not sure the trade-offs (no upgrades, old GPU, crippled bus, slower optical, etc) completely offset the price difference. For the entry level iMac maybe, but that 20" iMac is not very price competitive, IMO.

[george68]

Originally posted by PEHowland:
Pointless example. These tests are for Motion, a professional video rendering application. Motion is not aimed at the home user. You want to use Motion, buy a Powermac. Motion does not represent a consumer application and is not representative of the applications a typical iMac user will be running.

By THAT rational, a modern 3d game is UNARGUEABLY aimed at the consumer market.... yet the iMac is incapable of playing these games at the LCD's full resolution with any decent framerates......

You just own3d yourself.

- Rob

[klinux]

Originally posted by PEHowland:
the 5200 [is] still a pretty respectable 3D graphics card

No it is not. You apparently have not read all the previous posts by people more informed with GPUs than you. 5200 U is low-end card.

Originally posted by PEHowland:
will certainly be able to handle any kind of flashy effects I can imagine any UI within the next 3-4 years might throw at it.

Ah, famous last words. What makes you think a low end card can do what will happen in 3-4 years? The GPU released in an iMac 4 years ago was a ATI RAGE 128 Pro with 8MB of RAM. Can it handle all all the flashy effects available today?

[iBorg]

Originally posted by iREZ:
Exactly, what kind of buisness ethics is that, flip flopping between two companies. Nvidia has done nothing wrong for Jobs to not use their stuff, thats the difference you dunce.

It's called keeping the competitors vying for your business! There's no shortage of video cards to buy - it's NVidia and ATI that have to pander to Apple, not vice-versa, moron!



iBorg

[Don Pickett]

Originally posted by iBorg:
Read some of the other posts - it's about crippling the video capability for OS 10.4, CoreVideo, Motion, video editing, and many other non-game apps that we want to use on a brand-new $1900 iMac!

I've read the posts, and I've read the claims, and I can't find any proof for these claims.

I'm on a 2x1.8Ghz G5 with the stock GEForce fx 5200 with 64MB and it runs pretty fast and decent

http://www.uemforums.com/2pop/ubbthr...84&type=thread

For those who are wondering, the iMac G5 is fully compatible with Motion. You can install up to 2GB of Ram (recommended) and the Nvidia 5200 Ultra card is definitely qualified in its 8x AGP slot. Though not dual processor, they still ship with either a 1.6GHz or 1.8GHz G5, 64 bit ready, processor, which is good news for FCX, Motion, DVD SP 3, and yes, even FCP. Even better news for the upcoming release of Apple's new OS Tiger. With 17" and 20" wide screen displays there is lots of room to spread out. Wow. I suspect these machines are going to have a fairly long life.

http://www.emotiondv.com/perl/yabb/Y...num=1093283216

So, I'm finding these comments, and comments say that Motion runs better with a better card (duh!) but nothing which backs up the claims made on these forums. If someone has a link showing a reviewer citing the 5200's performance as making Motion unusable, can they please post it.

[scottiB]

Originally posted by jamesa:
well correct me if I'm wrong, but the time Apple announced Panther, they were still shipping machines that wouldn't meet the specs for Quartz Extreme. They have a history of doing this, and are not afraid to screw customers over!

-- james

It only matters what's shipping when the OS ships. If it's the most important thing to run Tiger, then buy a new Mac in July, 2005--when Tiger's shipped.

Honestly, I have a DP800 with a GF3 card that was $3800 three years ago. Without spending upwards of $700 in upgrades I can't even load Motion.

Why is Motion even being discussed? It's a red herring.

by JustinD
They're completely eliminating one of their own markets: people that want to run their pro apps but can't afford a PowerMac. (mainly talking Motion, which is 95% dependent on the GPU).

Refurb G5 1.6 from Small Dog: $1475
Refurb Lacie 22" CRT monitor: $385

Total: $1860 for more pixels, greater RAM capacity, another HD bay, FW800, better color fidelity, and video card upgradability--if he/she chooses. If Motion matters, truly matters, then no self respecting pro (or desire to be pro) would consider an iMac anyway.

While I'm sure barefeats' tests are valid, they do not factor overall performance of Motion. The first test, rendering to DV, is solely CPU dependent as can be seen by the degrading performance based on CPU speeds and configuration.

The second, rendering to RAM with a specific effect that uses pixel shading, can't be deduced as overall performance because not all Motion effects use pixel shading. It's like all those Photoshop tests using Gaussian blur: it's great that it's done so fast, but how many times to you use it?

The third, playback without rendering has more to do with the amount of video memory (at least double in the ATi cards) than speed of the GPU. Interestingly, the 1.6 with the 5200 beats the 2x2.0 G5.

I'm not saying the new iMac sucks for gaming. I'm sure it does (I'm not a gamer); however, to start using Motion as more ammo is spurious reasoning--and unvalidly piling on.

[Simon]

Originally posted by JustinD:
The Education model iMac has a different video card.
...
Talk about getting screwed on the middle and high end. If they're making 2 different LoBos already, they should have just made a third one available as BTO. Something's definitely rotten in the state of Apple! Methinks they were just keeping an eye on the cost and absolutely nothing else.

JustinD, thank you for mentioning it (again). And judging by the pics I've seen of the opened 17" and 20" iMac cases, the 20" has a larger board than the 17" which means...

...

tada, Apple is manufacturing 3 (in words: THREE) different boards for the new iMac. <insert ohhhs and ahhhhs here>

This, ladies and gents, is the issue. Apple gave up on cost saving through board commonality in the first place! Apple is already doing BTO.

I don't know how bone-headed you have to be to then try to argue Apple out of the mess. They just simply chose to not offer a BTO GPU upgrade. They rather feed us off with a low-end GPU in a upper middle class computer. It's that pure and simple. So Apple chose to sell a lot less iMacs than they could have.

When we come back here in a couple of months and debate why iMac G5 sales weren't as high as they were anticipated to be (they'll certainly be good compared to the slumpy sales of the iMac G4, but honestly, that's not really hard, is it?) you can read this post along with all the others and you'll have your answer. So, dear appologists, please do us all a favor and stop kissing Steve's rear. Every single sale that Apple is not making on these iMacs (I've counted about a dozen mentioned here in this forum alone) due to their stupid decision will be one to prove our point.

[macgfx]

NVIDIA DOES NOT MAKE VIDEO CARDS FOR THE MAC.

Apple buys chips some 3rd party makes the cards. Apple writes the fCode for the cards FirmWare and the Drivers. NVida does supply source code and tech docs for Apple as they do for All the PC card makers.

Apple does not give a Sh!t if NV ATI or any other supplier is happy. Apple is the Customer.

We all know why the iMac has bad video cards, it takes away from TOWER sales. Apple does not ignor GAMES. Anyone remember UT2K3 an OS X 10.2.x UpDate was made so the game would run better. Apple has the best OpenGL implymentation you can get. Now that's not to say DX9 is not smoking it, but that's another matter.

I could understand in the old CRT iMac's the LOWEND GPU's Lack of VRAM, but the Lamp G4's and the G5 iMac? This is a TECH-SIN, these Mac will Look great for years. The CPU's will be smoking for some time to come. Just like ALL the iMac's before the GPU/VRAM will fail to hack it in 1 year.

Back in '97-'98 Apple was in trouble and needed to cut cost anyway they could. Now however they could afford to not sell afew $1800 towers. Sure they may lose $500 in one sale. but that cash would come back. They have so many cash cows now. iPod, iSight, Mac OS X, All the best Pro Apps, iLife, ITMS, AirPort at-all, the list goes on and on.

So, why did Apple make this foolish choice, GREED and the Fact that some people won't know any better until it's too late. Shame on Apple and Shame on those who Blindly defend
greedy/foolish moves. Sure the iMac G5 meets some peoples needs/wants as is,BUT for $50 bucks more it could have been more like 90% of needs 75% of wants. Lots of Tower owners would buy iMac's and Towers if the iMac had Radeon 9600XT 128MB.

This will be my last RANT on this as I'm moving on to a Refurb G5 Tower

[Simon]

macgfx, good point.

People here need to recall that the original iMac was a entry-level low cost computer. It was spec'ed to be cheap. That's what the eMac is taking care of nowadays.

The 20" iMac G5 is upper middle class in terms of CPU power and in terms of price. People ready to pay $2000 for this piece of hardware should have at least the option to upgrade the low-end component (5200U) to something that better matches the rest of the excellent picture. The least Apple needs today is a crowd of Mac freaks with loads of cash in the bank holding out for the next revision of a product.

[Link]

Originally posted by macgfx:
This will be my last RANT on this as I'm moving on to a Refurb G5 Tower

You will not be sorry! G5 towers can hold a max of 16gb ram (ok, not really useful but hey), have a nice hard drive bus, and can take any video card that'll fit AGP 8x, so you're set for at least a few years

Admittedly I can't run motion on my g4, which is kinda funny because with a good video card this thing would take those imacs and wipe the floor with them (well maybe not the 1.8 but still)... not bad for a 3 year old machine ^_^

[iBorg]

Originally posted by scottiB:
It only matters what's shipping when the OS ships. If it's the most important thing to run Tiger, then buy a new Mac in July, 2005--when Tiger's shipped.

Horse hockey.

This might be argueable if Apple wasn't bragging up how great 10.4 is going to be at every opportunity right now, at every trade show and even on their website! To intentionally cripple the video on this machine, when an easy remedy exists at the buyer's expense (BTO) can only be due to greed and/or stupidity. (I'm voting greed - "make 'em buy that big-ass expensive tower, even if they only need the video card!!!")



iBorg

[JustinD]

Hehehe, just thought of something. There's already what, 3 blowers in the iMac? Ergo, arguments that they couldn't put a higher-end card in the iMac are totally bogus. They put three blowers, what is one more on-chip fan or an additional blower, or changing one of the blower's paths? I mean, they're already using three different LoBos, so having a fourth with slightly modified airflow couldn't have been a dealbreaker...

Blah.

[DaBeav]

Originally posted by thunderous_funker:
If there is lots of room for hardware optimization in iLife, I sincerely hope they push more to the GPU than rely on the CPU.
I hope they don't make iLife really G5 needy or it will suck for the millions of Apple customers who don't have a G5--like the people who bought notebooks in the Year of the Notebook. That way a G4 with a really beefy GPU probably also run iLife incredibly well.

But, you may be right.

It seems to me that putting in a G5 but crippling the bus and GPU is kind of like trying to make a blanket longer by cutting off one end and sewing it on the other.

Yeah, the iPodMac is finally an affordable G5, but I'm not sure the trade-offs (no upgrades, old GPU, crippled bus, slower optical, etc) completely offset the price difference. For the entry level iMac maybe, but that 20" iMac is not very price competitive, IMO.

Actually, optimizing for the G5 could be as simple as recompiling with the latest version of XCode. Optimized plug-ins for Photoshop and updates to FCP and other pro apps were available very shortly after the G5 shipped. Since both support "Velocity Engine" (or AltiVec, take your pick), it shouldn't be too difficult. I would agree that it will be some time before we see 64-bit versions of the iApps.

The slower bus won't be an issue for most users. It's still much much faster than the old iMac and the current eMac. The slower optical is a trade-off from using a slot-loading notebook drive instead of a full-sized 5.25" tray-loader. But I think the burn speeds are fast enough for all but the most demanding user. After a while, you hit a point of diminishing returns. Does it really make that much difference that one drive burns a CD in 5 minutes but the other only does it in 4? To most consumers, unlikely.

The only real Achille's Heel is that damn video card and no way to upgrade it?

[Eug Wanker]

Originally posted by DaBeav:
The slower optical is a trade-off from using a slot-loading notebook drive instead of a full-sized 5.25" tray-loader.

I'm guessing the rev. B will do 8X.

Apple seems to like using Matsushita slot-load drives, and an 8X slot-load is coming. Matshita already has the tray-load laptop optical drive capable of 8X DVD-R burning, and the slot-load versions usually come soon after the tray-load versions (if not at the same time).

But I think the burn speeds are fast enough for all but the most demanding user. After a while, you hit a point of diminishing returns. Does it really make that much difference that one drive burns a CD in 5 minutes but the other only does it in 4? To most consumers, unlikely.

Yeah but with a 4X, it takes 15 minutes to burn a DVD-R. An 8X would drop it down to 8 minutes, which I think is a significant difference.

And 8X media is finally starting to drop to more affordable levels.

[thunderous_funker]

Originally posted by DaBeav:
The only real Achille's Heel is that damn video card and no way to upgrade it?

I guess you could say that. I'm not really talking aout weaknesses, though, just about value.

This is something i've been opining about considerably in the "iMac lost popularity with public" thread.

For me(and I think lots of other users) and AIO has less value because it is essentially a disposable computer. The product needs to offer value in other ways in order to offset the fact that when it becomes out dated, you have to replace the whole thing.

Its not that $1299 is a bad price for a G5 with a 17" LCD. It isn't. That's a good deal, IMO. Its just a lot of money for a computer I can never upgrade.

Of course, I realize that catering to users like me who are penny pinchers and only replace parts when they need to might not be a profitable venture for Apple. But I still wish they made a non-AIO mid-range desktop machine.

[loren s]

Ok forget the games for a second... What about tiger? And Photoshop and 3D design and Motion? They can all run on this computer now but having a Better card or the power to swap the card would be stellar..

And what of audio cards ? They promote Garage band so much but we should be able then to swap the audio card to.
Ya get an tower bla. A tower is just to much at this point in cost compared to power of what the imac can do now and if it could just swap the cards... Plus the imac is simple and fool proof and comes with a huge moniter! Moniters are so expensive now, this is a beyond great deal and design for Pros of all kinds, if only the cards were swapable.

I love my imac g4 but dam it if I have to sell it just to get a more powerful machine, when all I want to do is upgrade it a bit.

[thunderous_funker]

Originally posted by loren s:
I love my imac g4 but dam it if I have to sell it just to get a more powerful machine, when all I want to do is upgrade it a bit.

Bingo!

I already bought a nice monitor. I don't need an AIO machine and I don't need a Dual PowerMac.

The most expensive part of an iMac is the monitor. Too bad you can't keep it when your video card won't play any new games.

[DaBeav]

Originally posted by Eug Wanker:
Yeah but with a 4X, it takes 15 minutes to burn a DVD-R. An 8X would drop it down to 8 minutes, which I think is a significant difference.

And 8X media is finally starting to drop to more affordable levels.

For DVD burning definitely. I was referring more to burning CDs, something that will probably be a lot more common. Even then, how many users will be burning enough DVDs to really care? It certainly wouldn't be a deal breaker for me, but YMMV.

Right now I believe it's a limitation of the slot-loading drive. Once faster drives are available, I'm sure they'll be in future versions.

Which brings me to the next point. Always remember to skip the Rev/A of any Apple product. Personally, I'd wait for some benchmarks and to see if any design or production flaws crop up before I plunk my money down...

[Eug Wanker]

Originally posted by DaBeav:
For DVD burning definitely. I was referring more to burning CDs, something that will probably be a lot more common. Even then, how many users will be burning enough DVDs to really care?

Raises hand. DVD is my primary data backup medium.

It certainly wouldn't be a deal breaker for me, but YMMV.

Me neither. 8X is desired, but I can deal with 4X. I just can't deal with the crappy GPU.

[loren s]

Tiger will run fine. It will not show all of the great 3d effects that are planned in tiger but it will run fine. Now those effects and the built in Photohop like filters Core Image, that will suffer. Just like Motion needing such a fat card core image and all of the apps that will use it ( like iphoto and others) will just not flow as it should.

Gaw, I wish apple could listen to customers and the customers that they lost because of this. The iMac is a consumer devise. The consumers that do not care to update don't have to, but the ones that want to rip the back off should be given the option to swap. I mean shesh ! Why would they build it like that and even advertise it like that. What are they thinking ?

What is the complaint email to send to apple letters ? Might as well waist my breath there to

[iBorg]

Originally posted by loren s:
Tiger will run fine. It will not show all of the great 3d effects that are planned in tiger but it will run fine. Now those effects and the built in Photohop like filters Core Image, that will suffer. Just like Motion needing such a fat card core image and all of the apps that will use it ( like iphoto and others) will just not flow as it should.

What you're saying, is just what Eug Wanker and others have opined: Tiger will "run," but not "fine." Shoot, my old G3 500 MHz iMac will probably "run Tiger" - but who's going to want to use it, slow and crippled?



iBorg

[loren s]

Originally posted by iBorg:
What you're saying, is just what Eug Wanker and others have opined: Tiger will "run," but not "fine." Shoot, my old G3 500 MHz iMac will probably "run Tiger" - but who's going to want to use it, slow and crippled?



iBorg

And what makes you think it is any slower than Panther? If anything it will be faster, as the inddexing will speed everything up. Just without the new swooshy eyecandy.

But still gpu cards grrrrrrrrrr

[iBorg]

Originally posted by loren s:
And what makes you think it is any slower than Panther? If anything it will be faster, as the inddexing will speed everything up. Just without the new swooshy eyecandy.

No one has suggested that 10.4 will be slower than 10.3 on the new iMac, but Tiger's speed relative to Panther isn't the point. (I would hope to God that this newly released $1900 computer won't be slower on their highly-touted, widely-advertised OS 10.4 set to release a few months after the G5 iMac really begins to ship in quantity! It damned well better be faster and more capable, on a G5, or why release it?)

The point is that Apple's intentional video crippling of the G5 iMac will limit efficient utilization of the full Tiger OS, and it may be a problem with more than what you call "swooshy eyecandy." There's a difference between being able to minimally "run" an OS (e.g. minimal requirements to avoid crash), and being able to "run well."

This intentional crippling of a $1900 G5 iMac is no secret, it's avoidable with a BTO option, and it's a shame that Apple does this to its loyal (but ever-shrinking) user base .....



iBorg