“When Apple’s Steve Jobs introduced the Apple Power Mac G5 this summer as the fastest personal computer any company had built to date, we took it with a grain of salt. After all, Apple had made that boast in the past, and those claims did not tend to hold up when independent third parties (such as ourselves) ran tests on current, real-world applications (not the synthetic benchmark tests Apple cited),” Troy Dreier reports for PC Magazine.
“Well, we’ll take that salt with a side of fries. After testing a loaded ($4,349 direct, after we opted for more RAM and upgraded graphics) dual 2.0-GHz Power Mac G5 on a range of high-end content creation applications and comparing the results with a similarly configured (and priced) Dell Precision 650 Workstation running dual 3.2-GHz Xeon processors, we see that indeed the G5 is generally as fast as the best Intel-based workstations currently available,” Dreier reports.
“Unfortunately, the G5 also ships with the standard unremarkable keyboard and one-button mouse, which look and feel more out of date with each main system update,” Dreier opines.
“Apple has succeeded in boosting its Power Mac line, taking Apple users into high-performance computing. And by outperforming top-specked Windows machines on some tests, Apple has proved that megahertz isn’t everything. The new flagship Mac will more than satisfy power-hungry graphics, video, and business users and may even win Apple some users from the Windows/Intel camp,” Dreier writes.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: PC Mag had to resort to comparing the Power Mac G5 to a workstation class Dell with twin Xeon processors. No Pentium need apply. As usual, they forget to mention the benefits of Mac OS X vs. Windows. For some unknown reason, they give the Power Mac G5 just 4 stars out of 5. Wonder why?
By the way, I’m seeing BIG improvements in multi-threading performance using Panther on my 12″ PowerBook. For example, running a few bit torrents with 20-40 nodes each used to bog down the system in 10.2, but leaves the system feeling pretty snappy in 10.3… This obviously bodes quite well for dual CPU Macs, if you understand the connection between multithreading and multi-processor computing.
“Why do people constantly carp on insignificant things like the mouse? Geez, who the hell cares!!! There are plenty of third party vendors out there with 2-5 mouse buttons. ” – because none of them look as good as a version Apple could do? because some of us don’t want to buy Billy Boys’ products? Because the medium we are using is ripe for “moans”? All of the above for me. I wanted a 2-button mouse not a wireless one, and after paying �2k+ for a pr machine I shouldn’t be sat staring at a white mouse that betrays Apple’s usual ethos of having well designed products – just how does an ex-eMac mouse suit a G5?
I know, they should put a track ball at each bottom corner of the keyboard so it slides easily. Then we could have a 104 button mouse to satisfy everyone. Call it the iSkateBoard or just iSkate because you could use it at your favorite skate park.
As the Apple Turns wrote the best defense of Apple’s one-button mouse choice that I’ve read yet. Everybody should be required to read it before they express an opinion on the matter.
Frankly, who freakin’ cares. You want more buttons, buy a new mouse.
This test is skewed in favor of the mac. There were 17 bold numbers for the PC versus 10 bold numbers for the Mac. Hold on the Fries. Why not use Adobe Premiere since its offered on BOTH platforms rather something that was proprietary (For testing and balance reasons) I know most would use FCP on a Mac. But this test is not a good one. They should have use a Dual Athlon or Opteron make it 64 bit for 64 bit NOT 64 bit against 32 bit. I just dont find that to be balanced at all. It’s a given that a 64 bit has more muscle than a 32 bit. However one can argue that the applications were still 32 bit. Thats true and that may be a fair assumption. However, just to be “equal” The numbers should match for fair assumptions and a fair game. I want to see how a G5 runs up against a Opteron in full 64 bit mode with 64 bit apps. That is the test that will pump my adredaline and get me curious about the results. It’s not who wins….it the numbers that will be interesting from both processors.
“The only reason i can understand they would give the G5 a 4/5 stars is because of the price, included software (compared to windoz), and the one button mouse of death. :-D”
Idiots!
You can pick up the Logitech 3-button mouse with scroll wheel for $25 and no drivers are required for ALL button and scroll functions to work perfectly with Mac OS X.
Stop whining and do a little research! You just come off looking like a moron!
“And the dual G5, like any other dual, only runs 1% of your software 1.5 faster. Hardly worth the top $$$ Apple wants you to throw away on that chunky silver ashtray. Save your money, don’t believe the hype!!”
You win the TROLL of the DAY award for this load of horse shit!
Congratulations! Now STFU and go back to DOOM III you Wintel geek!
“…which means that the 2ghz Opteron is faster than the dual G5…”
What’s up with the weird AMD geeks? Who frickin’ cares? Go talk about that crap on your own forum and leave us to our obsessive one button mouse discussions. Any comparison between an x86 chip and a 64-bit RISC chip is foolhardy anyway. They are completely different, children! Don’t make me break out the plethora of links to technical explanations that you will never bother to read – much less understand.
Bottom line, we’re talking productivity computing here, Bozo, not your hyped up AMD-powered Gameboy. This is the Mac world.
Geez I’m sick of these mentally deficient trolls.
I wan’t Apple to design an optical two-button scrolling-mouse because I know if they did, it would be the best two-button scrolling-mouse out there! I mean come on! It’s about time Apple had a “pro” mouse.
I use an MS scrolling-mouse right now. It’s OK, but the right-click menu is not consistent. Cut and paste should always be the first couple of menu items. I guess since the wheel is also a button, it’s actually a three-button mouse. I set the wheel button to “hide all” apps in the finder. This has a confusing effect for “beginner” users who accidentally click the wheel while scrolling. It works great for me though!
I was surprised how silent a dual 2GHz PowerMac is, even going through a heavy number crunching load maxing out its CPUs for hours. From my past exposure to Xeon-based machines, it’s a fair bet that the dual-Xeon Dell would have been something you definitely don’t want to be in the same room with…
I prefer the one button mouse myself….my 2 daughters both under 5 prefer it too.