“Ask any Mac expert which system they would sell their grandmother for and they will have the answer out before you can say ’64-bit processing’ – and it has been my great pleasure to have that very system for a test drive. Apple’s top-shelf Mac, the Power Mac G5, is some seriously impressive hardware,” Chris Oaten writes for The Advertiser.
Oaten writes, “The review machine’s specs were: dual-2.7GHz G5 processors with a 1.35GHz front-side bus per processor, 2.5GB PC3200 DDR 400 RAM (512MB RAM is standard, expandable to 8GB), 250GB HD, 512K L2 cache per processor, 16x SuperDrive (DVD+R DL -comdual-layer, DVDR/CD-RW), three PCI-X slots, and ATI Radeon 9650 video card with 256MB DDR video memory. Drool.”
“This G5 is the ultimate Mac on offer from Apple now. It is pricey, sure, especially so when you start adding in the BTO options, but its performance is top-notch and Tiger (OS 10.4) is absolutely rock-solid. It is hard to imagine any professional user of graphics and video applications being less than satisfied with the dual-2.7GHz G5,” Oaten writes.
Full article here.
>Beeblebrox wrote: Also, look at the innards of the Dell. What a load of steaming dog poopy.
Your post would’ve been more compelling without this blurb. Nice effort running the numbers.
—
>Jamie wrote: Anyone can measurebate…it doesn’t prove a thing.
There was a call to measure the machines performing the same task. The DigitalVideoEditing.com article did just that.
Other than to discredit without adding anything useful, perhaps you can add a link to your own objective tests.
—
>zupchuck wrote: I’d rather have the platform I can depend on (even if a little bit slower) than the hot-rod that’s down half the time.
I’d rather have both.
I’ve owned XP boxes that were rock-solid stable. My Canopus DV RexRT station would go maybe 5 or more months without a crash – and that was with a lot of pushing (Color Correction, Region Filter, Blur Filter, multiple title layers, PiP, and such).
My main editor now is a PM FCP box, and it crashes quite often, especially LiveType. Avid XpressDV for Mac would crash if you so much as looked at it funny. Patches and such lessened the crashes, but it is still multiples more than my Rex box.
You said you’d opt for a dependable platform over a hot-rod that’s down half the time. Well, if that were the case for me, I would’ve switched back to my XP-based Rex box.
But I like FCP very much despite the PM not being a hot-rod – so I’ll stick with it.
That’s just my experience.
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”grin” style=”border:0;” />
>Beeblebrox wrote: Also, look at the innards of the Dell. What a load of steaming dog poopy.
Your post would’ve been more compelling without this blurb. Nice effort running the numbers.
—
>Jamie wrote: Anyone can measurebate…it doesn’t prove a thing.
There was a call to measure the machines performing the same task. The DigitalVideoEditing.com article did just that.
Other than to discredit without adding anything useful, perhaps you can add a link to your own objective tests.
—
>zupchuck wrote: I’d rather have the platform I can depend on (even if a little bit slower) than the hot-rod that’s down half the time.
I’d rather have both.
I’ve owned XP boxes that were rock-solid stable. My Canopus DV RexRT station would go maybe 5 or more months without a crash – and that was with a lot of pushing (Color Correction, Region Filter, Blur Filter, multiple title layers, PiP, and such).
My main editor now is a PM FCP box, and it crashes quite often, especially LiveType. Avid XpressDV for Mac would crash if you so much as looked at it funny. Patches and such lessened the crashes, but it is still multiples more than my Rex box.
You said you’d opt for a dependable platform over a hot-rod that’s down half the time. Well, if that were the case for me, I would’ve switched back to my XP-based Rex box.
But I like FCP very much despite the PM not being a hot-rod – so I’ll stick with it.
That’s just my experience.
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”grin” style=”border:0;” />
>Beeblebrox wrote: Also, look at the innards of the Dell. What a load of steaming dog poopy.
Your post would’ve been more compelling without this blurb. Nice effort running the numbers.
—
>Jamie wrote: Anyone can measurebate…it doesn’t prove a thing.
There was a call to measure the machines performing the same task. The DigitalVideoEditing.com article did just that.
Other than to discredit without adding anything useful, perhaps you can add a link to your own objective tests.
—
>zupchuck wrote: I’d rather have the platform I can depend on (even if a little bit slower) than the hot-rod that’s down half the time.
I’d rather have both.
I’ve owned XP boxes that were rock-solid stable. My Canopus DV RexRT station would go maybe 5 or more months without a crash – and that was with a lot of pushing (Color Correction, Region Filter, Blur Filter, multiple title layers, PiP, and such).
My main editor now is a PM FCP box, and it crashes quite often, especially LiveType. Avid XpressDV for Mac would crash if you so much as looked at it funny. Patches and such lessened the crashes, but it is still multiples more than my Rex box.
You said you’d opt for a dependable platform over a hot-rod that’s down half the time. Well, if that were the case for me, I would’ve switched back to my XP-based Rex box.
But I like FCP very much despite the PM not being a hot-rod – so I’ll stick with it.
That’s just my experience.
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”grin” style=”border:0;” />
Mac & PC Guy, I appreciate seeing people provide links to back up their arguments, but the one you provided only compared the Mac vs the Dell using Cinebench and Adobe AfterEffects.
Both programs were developed on PCs and then ported to Macs – you are aware of this, right?
I mean, if you basically run Cinebench and AfterEffects all day, then they are ideal tests to compare the two computers with — provided you don’t ever connect the Dell online, or you’d better have a firewall and antivirus running, and watch those critical updates like a hawk.
Mac & PC Guy –
here is an interesting article that demonstrates how poorly AfterEffects runs compared to FCP on a dual CPU Mac:
http://www.creativemac.com/2003/03_mar/editorials/smack105030326.htm
The article is a bit old, but unless Adobe has totally rewritten their app to be fundamentally better at multithreading (yeah right), I’m sure it still applies.