Welcome to the MacNN Forums.

ctishue23 · Jan 19, 2006, 12:33 PM

Alright I want to switch back to a mac desktop. I've always been a mac laptop user, but I went off course and went back to a pc desktop a couple years ago (from a dual 500 G4) because too many games were swaying me. Well nowadays all I play is World of Warcraft for games. Anything else I use my PC for, well I'd rather have a mac for anything else... I have a 23" HP LCD that I love so I'd like to get a powermac to use it with.

Here are my concerns:

1) Would a dual core 2.0 or 2.3 with a 7800GT be better than a dual 2.7 with an x800? I have only seen benchmarks of the quad with the 7800gt.

2) I want to run WoW at 1920x1200 with everything cranked

3) How is the noise of the new dual cores vs. the "old" dual 2.7?

Thanks for any advice in advance!

rhashem · Jan 19, 2006, 01:18 PM

Originally Posted by ctishue23

1) Would a dual core 2.0 or 2.3 with a 7800GT be better than a dual 2.7 with an x800? I have only seen benchmarks of the quad with the 7800gt.

2) I want to run WoW at 1920x1200 with everything cranked

3) How is the noise of the new dual cores vs. the "old" dual 2.7?

Thanks for any advice in advance!

1) A dual 2.3 with a 7800GT would probably be better. If your goal is to run WoW at 1920x1200 with maximum graphics options, then your going to be GPU limited and not CPU limited, and the 7800GT is a much faster GPU than the x800xt. The quad versus the dual won't make much difference for OpenGL benchmarks, since neither the game nor the driver are heavily multi-threaded.

2) WoW at 1920x1200 on a Mac might be pushing it. If the game is anything like Doom III, you'll see *much* slower results on the Mac than on the equivalent PC.

3) The new dual cores are quieter, since they don't have to push air through a radiator and run much cooler (relatively) to begin with.

ctishue23 · Jan 19, 2006, 01:46 PM

Well Barefeats 1920x1200 Doom 3 benchmarks shows the quad 2.5 with 7800GT running at 51fps, vs. the dual 2.7 with x800 xt at 33fps. If 2.5 vs. 2.3 and quad vs. dual core isn't gonna make much difference, I think WoW should theoretically run higher than 51fps at 1920x1200 since it is much less graphically intense.

Should have studied the benchmarks better. Guess I go with the dual core w/ 7800GT.

Todd Madson · Jan 19, 2006, 05:45 PM

The faster video on the dual cores (PCI Express) is an advantage here if faster
video framerates are your desire.

The fastest AGP card on the "pre-Dualcore G5" line is the ATI Radeon X850XT
and that was only available as a BTO order from Apple, the best cost effective
consumer upgrade is an ATI Radeon X800XT.

The pool of available cards on the dual core side has been limited until just
recently.

Although, I've been beta testing the new version of X-Plane (8.30, now up to
release candidate 2) and sometimes it's down to the coding - the latest beta
is INCREDIBLE because they were able to increase the framerates exponentially
(up to 85% according to the developer). I've been able to run my G5 DP 2.5
with Radeon 9600 XT at close to 100 FPS in certain situations where it was
pushing 30-40 fps before. With everything maxed out 100% I was still getting
50-60 fps.

I couldn't believe it. On the dual core system it should be even better.
In fact I'd like to try that app out on a quad with a 30" screen.

mduell · Jan 19, 2006, 06:50 PM

Since you like to play games, I'd go with the dual core. The 7800GT is faster than X850XT or 6800U and I doubt we'll ever see faster AGP cards available for Macs.

Mister Elf · Jan 19, 2006, 09:40 PM

The dual core, IMHO. PCIe expansion, plus the fact that the DC 2.3 ties or, in some cases, defeats the dual 2.5 in speed tests.

Todd Madson · Jan 20, 2006, 05:18 PM

Mainly due to the drive - the 250 gig drive in the DC 2.3 trumps the slightly slower
150 gig drive in the DP 2.5.

krisneph · Jan 21, 2006, 04:34 PM

Well since the 2.7 went on sale i'm even thingking of selling my DC 2.0 for a faster dual 2.7 do you guys think it's worth it. I've had my DC G5 for about a month and a half. I just think the dual 2.7 is a great deal. It's too bad I couldn't get similar deal when I got my brand new DC 2.0 G5. Since then I've upgraded to 2.5 gigs of RAM it's fast but I'm sure the dual 2.7 is a lot faster.

Podolsky · Jan 21, 2006, 05:36 PM

I bought the refurbed 2.7 two weeks ago and returned it 5 days later. In the five days, I loved it, really loved. It was quite and fast and sweet. Came with more ram and bigger hard drive than advertised. I matched it to a new 23" Apple Cinema....but, and it is a big but, when I did the math on what I paid and what is going to be coming out very soon, I opted to return it and wait a few months. We are about the witness the most dramatic upgrade to the entire Macintosh line ever experienced and I want to buy into the MacIntel rather than back to the 2.7 which is based on 2003 technology. What did it for me was seeing how fast Apple will make this migration. I really thought it would be a lot longer.

Mister Elf · Jan 21, 2006, 07:30 PM

Originally Posted by Todd Madson

Mainly due to the drive - the 250 gig drive in the DC 2.3 trumps the slightly slower
150 gig drive in the DP 2.5.

They're the same, 7200 RPM with 8MB of cache...drive density doesn't make that much difference. I think it has more to do with the fact that the two cores communicate more directly than the two chips on the DP 2.5 did.

Al G · Jan 23, 2006, 05:28 PM

I missed the >DC< part of the DC 2.3 (reading it as "DP") and thought they were talking about the older Dual 2.3 vs the Dual 2.5. The reason I thought that is because in Barefeats tests, the Dual 2.3 also ties and sometimes bests the Dual 2.5. And the reason is what Todd said: the drive shipped with the 2.5 is significantly slower. Yes, they're all 7200RPM but not all 7200RPM drives perform the same.

When you look at the CPU tests alone, the 2.5 is faster.