Comments on Rob's Dual G5 review [Archive]

simX

10-12-2003, 05:02 PM

I was simply ASTOUNDED at that "Ten in ten on ten" ( ;) ) movie. I mean, SHEESH! That even includes things like iMovie and iPhoto! My "lowly" 800 MHz G4 iMac could NEVER pull off such a feat. That seriously is one kick-ass machine. Thanks for the review.

One minor error that I did notice in the review, though, is that in the "Rob's Benchmarks" section, the G4 733 actually wins over the G5 in iCab launch time, just by 0.1 second, though you say the G5 has the best result in the test. Not like anyone should ever want to use iCab over Safari, anyway. :p

The other thing is that TextEdit doesn't really exist on Mac OS 9 -- perhaps you were speaking of SimpleText?

griffman

10-12-2003, 05:07 PM

Good catch on the highlighting error ... and regarding SimpleText/TextEdit -- yes, but I didn't have room for both in the label :).

-rob.

yubbie2

10-12-2003, 08:10 PM

Nice review! Next time I come across $3000 lying in the street I'll know for *sure* what to spend it on :-)

You might have even convinced me to try out Keynote and Jedi Knight - clearly both are impressive apps and produce some nice images.

[Just a quick note - on your conclusions page, in the bottom navigation bar, "Photoshop Elements" and "Games" seem to be joined at the hip]

TDuncklee

10-12-2003, 09:48 PM

I put a Radeon 7000 dual video card in the G5 2.0 for additional displays (I have more than two). Everything was great for a few minutes then I noticed iTunes stutter. Turns out the Radeon 7000 and even older Radeon cards cause the AGP card to overheat for some reason. The odd result is iTunes stutter so bad I can't listen to it.

I'm anxious to hear from anyone that is successfully using any PCI video card in the G5 2.0

Unregistered

10-12-2003, 11:36 PM

My xBench and speedrun scores under 10.3 are quite a bit higher. slightly over 200 for xBench, and over 1100 for speedrun.

chiccorosso

10-13-2003, 04:26 AM

I'd like to hear something more about stability anc compatibility with various software.

Applal

10-13-2003, 06:59 AM

thanx for the great review! I found the benchmark programs you used to be helpful in assessing my own 'puter, an MDD dual 1 gig. Unfortunately, I can't afford to sell what I've got to get what I want (a Dual G5) keep up the great work!

griffman

10-13-2003, 07:32 AM

For the suite of programs I run, the only issue I've run into is a couple of graphical glitches in Tiger Woods. I haven't tried stuff like Retrospect or DiskWarrior yet, though. I haven't heard much about anyone else having issues, outside of VirtualPC and its need to be reworked for the G5.

Regarding stability, it's been just as stable (which is to say rock solid) as my G4, excluding the two KPs I had right after adding the new RAM. Once I swapped the RAM, that was the end of the stability issues.

-rob.

chiccorosso

10-13-2003, 07:43 AM

so, as far I can see from reading usenet on Internet it seems there aren't serious system incompatibilities, although the platform is totally new.

On the G4 Launch there were lots of problems.

thank you for your reply and for the review.

sjmills

10-13-2003, 09:05 AM

Any developers out there who will be getting a dual 2GHz G5 will appreciate this report. Our product (MultiAd Creator) is around 700k lines of code. Doing a full build of the debug target on my dual 800MHz G4 with CodeWarrior 8 takes almost 39 minutes. The G5 takes 14 minutes. It's severly cut into my leisure time. ;) It also *screams* through SETI@home data units in only a few hours instead of several. Another thing that impressed me was the smoothness of Ghost Recon and Unreal Tournament 2003. The first thing I did was set them to 1280x1024, 32bit, and all the audio and video options to Highest. Even the most complex maps deliver a very high frame rate with no stutters or lags what so ever.

Timo

10-13-2003, 09:23 AM

excellent review, thanks a lot

friedmaj

10-13-2003, 09:27 AM

The PE 2.0 startup is a little deceptive, in that the icon stops bouncing long before the app is actually ready to do anything. I tried starting it on a dual 2 GHz G5 in my local Apple store, and it still took about 5 seconds to finish starting up. Hardly a scientific test, but it would have been cool if it came up instantly...

griffman

10-13-2003, 09:51 AM

I guess I'm a bit confused by that statement -- I show six seconds to get it running ready to use (after first launch of the day), and I just checked it again. Six seconds after I double click it, I can have a new document open, or it will be ready to edit the image I dropped on it (depending on how big that image is, of course -- load time for the image can be a factor, too).

Are you saying the machine you tested wasn't done loading Elements in six seconds?

-rob.

friedmaj

10-13-2003, 10:08 AM

No, I was referring to the movie of ten apps loading at once - because the PE splash screen is covered, one might think that it was done more quickly than it really was.

But it still beats the heck out of 11-12 secs on my 17" iMac.

Unregistered

10-13-2003, 10:23 AM

i would like to thank you for taking the time to write this review.
I found it one of the most informative review on the web.
the bad thing is i want a G5 now ;)
Christophe.

Unregistered

10-13-2003, 10:35 AM

I'm happy to know that THPS 4 runes fine with the dual 2 GHz and radeon 9800 pro. Because it stutteres and lags from time to time with sual 1 GHz and Radeon 9000. Well let's see my dualie should ship on or before 16th.

griffman

10-13-2003, 10:51 AM

"No, I was referring to the movie of ten apps loading at once - because the PE splash screen is covered, one might think that it was done more quickly than it really was."

Ah, now I understand. If you look closely at the movie, Elements (and one other app) are actually already running and are not part of the 10 that launch. They just happened to be running already, so I skipped over them with the mouse to launch the others.

-rob.

ruiner13

10-13-2003, 11:34 AM

Rob,

Unfortunately I have to work on a PC at work, and using IE6 to go to the review puts me in an endless javascript loop and I have to force quit IE to recover. It is complaining about some mouseover image not being defined. Please fix this, I'd love to read your review.

-Marc

Lectrick

10-13-2003, 11:35 AM

I just got a Powerbook 15" 1.25GHz and it rips CD's at 16x also. I think the limiting factor at that point is the speed of the CD-ROM drive. I'm sure that if you tried converting an AIFF file with that monster that it would eat it for breakfast.

imageworx

10-13-2003, 11:53 AM

the following considerations:

Apple wants us to buy these computers. They know we want more slots and bays, but likely have done studies and found that we are the minority. Need more slots, get another G5, network it and terminal in or remote access the other as needed.

I'd ask why aren't there PCI-X graphics cards yet?
(seems nVidia and ATI were waiting...I have a SuperMicro XEON server MB that uses PCI-X slots. It would have been nice to use a PCI-X video card and make it into a powerful game machine...)

Or why not another AGP-Pro slot?
(likely expensive to engineer this in and something not the "casual" designer would opt for)

Does the G5 come with extra SATA cables for the other SATA bay(s)?
(you know, I read about being about to add 2 more SATA drives, but is there two connectors there?)

Personally, with Firewire800 being quite fast, and prices for FW400 drives dropping, an external drive can follow the machine upgrade path. Put an internal (2nd) unit in and that is fine with technically-inclined users. But realistically, most EDU customers, end-users will just need one drive. (I know, I wish it had two bays. You'd think Apple would be a little flexible. Alas, I put my 2nd drive in a LaCie aluminum case)
But maybe, keeping the powersupply needs down (less slots, less drives) would mean a cooler unit?

Thank you for taking the time and creating the review. Its appreciated! :)

(I hope to own one, but decided to wait. Money is an issue....)

Ian Halstead

10-13-2003, 12:15 PM

I quote:

<<This report was created on the Dual G5 using a combination of tools. The HTML pages were created with the 30-day trial version of Dreamweaver MX. I'm sure I probably munged up the HTML/CSS while editing the templates, so place all blame for such errors squarely on my shoulders. Dreamweaver, which ran quite slowly on my G4/733, had no such issues on the G5. About the only thing I noticed is that there's some sort of scrolling glitch that causes the cursor to suddenly jumps to the bottom of a page for no apparent reason. I may very well invest in Dreamweaver for the G5, though I wish the code worked a bit better on slower hardware.>>

I suggest you look at Freeway www.softpress.com. I threw Dreamweaver in the bin, literally, when I started using this great application.

JohnnyO

10-13-2003, 01:24 PM

Very nice review!

To help fill in the gaps between your single processor G4 and your dual processor G5, you might be interested in checking out these benchmarks from a year ago comparing a single processor G4/400 and a dual processor G4/1G.

Only a few of the tests overlap, but I think you'll get a good idea of where things fit.

http://home.comcast.net/~oshcfii/Mac_Benchmarks/

John

griffman

10-13-2003, 01:36 PM

Javascript errors: I'll try to look at this tonight, but it's straight Dreamweaver code (JS is not one of my strengths). If I can't fix it, I'll just remove the JS bits

Additionally, it loads and works fine on IE 6 on my WinXP box at work, though it does throw an error that I just told it to ignore when it asked me.

iTunes ripping: Yes, the CD is the limiting factor. I was using the benchmark, though, to compare the two machines. The problem with copying to hard drive and then ripping is that it's going to take longer than just ripping straight from the CD -- since the CD is the bottleneck, it takes just as long to copy the songs to the hard drive, and then you still have to rip them (albeit at much greater speeds). So, yes, for a pure CPU test, copying to the drive first is best ... but for my benchmarks, I used the method that resulted in the least total amount of time. Make sense?

-rob.

Cobalt

10-13-2003, 02:30 PM

Rob, I'm curious whether or not you hear the beeping noise and/or the audio problems that have been reported on MacFixit? It's hard to tell from their reports how commonplace the problems are.

Thanks for the review!

moodymonster

10-13-2003, 02:36 PM

I can't believe the speed of that thing lauching the apps, I can just see imovie in the background coming up in a split second - that on its own is impressive, but the whole lot, wow!

One of the most useful reviews of it I've seen btw, cheers

rgbrock1

10-13-2003, 02:48 PM

An excellent review of the G5 Rob. Kudos to you for taking the time to share your experience with us mere mortals. I don't think any editor for one of the mainstream rags could have done any better.
A round of applause for Rob.

griffman

10-13-2003, 02:54 PM

"Rob, I'm curious whether or not you hear the beeping noise and/or the audio problems that have been reported on MacFixit? It's hard to tell from their reports how commonplace the problems are."

When I had the machine in the living room (generally a very quiet room, and I was sitting about 18" from the machine), I could occasionally hear a faint, high-pitched whine when I did some things -- it seemed to be related mainly to resizing windows or doing other such GUI-related tasks. Now that it's back in the office, though, I can't hear a thing -- but the office is a lot louder in general, I sit about three feet away from the box, and I usually have iTunes playing.

As a general comment, I'd say that yes, my unit makes some noise at times, and in a quiet environment, they were audible but never annoying (to me). My wife also never heard anything, so the sound doesn't carry very far (she was usually about six feet away on the other chair). Placed in a typical office with typical noises, you may or may not be able to hear noises, depending on the background noise level. I know I'd never hear it at work, with the constant hum of the A/C unit in the background...

-rob.

Craig R. Arko

10-13-2003, 03:22 PM

Rob: looking forward to the Panther results, so we can get a fair cross comparison between 10.2.8 and 10.3.0.

Also, we'll need to add a little metal 'X' icon here for 10.3 in with the subject smilies to complement the blue (10.1) and the brown striped (10.2) ones now. :D

macmath

10-13-2003, 03:29 PM

Originally posted by Craig R. Arko
Also, we'll need to add a little metal 'X' icon here for 10.3 in with the subject smilies to complement the blue (10.1) and the brown striped (10.2) ones now. :D
Inconsequential, but I'd like a black (slightly furry or velvet in appearance) X. :-)

...I loved the review Rob! The nicest read I've had in awhile. Makes me think (with the new OS, the new Speed, the iPod & the MusicStore, the nice press, and the Windows viruses) that the Mac is going nowhere but up. Let's hear it for market share.

Anders Thorssell

10-13-2003, 05:17 PM

Great review and an interesting read. Thanx!!

Unregistered

10-13-2003, 05:28 PM

"I may very well invest in Dreamweaver for the G5"

Save yourself the trouble. I'm a designer who's used Macromedia products for years on both PC and Mac - specifically Flash and Dreamweaver. This spring I made the mistake of buying Studio MX, and Flash and Dreamweaver have become the most hated pieces of software in my life. It's become clear that Macromedia considers it's Mac customer red-headed stepchildren, and their software reflects that.

Flash for OS X is now a thoroughly bug-ridden junk heap, and I could fill a book a list of all its shortcomings, inconsistencies, and maddening, unbelievable UI 'quirks' (for instance, the debugger has bugs that render unusable 50% of the time).

Dreamweaver for OS X is slightly better, but it's still a dog when it comes to performance, has a few real nuisances in the UI, and now contains a single bug (macromedia calls it a 'known issue') that pretty much paralyzes any mac user trying to work with other windows developers: They've crippled file names down to 29 characters. You can not name, rename, move, copy, upload or download a file with more than 29 characters in the filename. This was bad enough in OS 9 when we were limited to 32, but it's simply inexcusable in OS X to finally have 256 character filenames...except in Dreamweaver.

One possible explanation that I saw on a message board (certainly not a reliable source, but the comment makes sense) is that their Windows apps are developed in house, and their Mac apps are shipped over to India. The end products certainly give that claim some legs.

Things may have changes with MX 2004, but I still strongly suggest that you look for alternatives before committing yourself to that company. They're clearly not committed to you, or us, or Apple, or the Mac.

frogman

10-13-2003, 05:29 PM

you cant really benchmark anything yet. all of your tests were on 32 bit processes. When you get panther a 64 bit operating system. and optimized software then the speed will skyrocket.

griffman

10-13-2003, 05:56 PM

I certainly can benchmark a 32-bit app -- given that I just did a whole bunch of them this weekend :).

The benchmarks may not be utilizing the full power of the OS due to the lack of 64bit support, but it's still valid benchmark data -- especially since I'll have to use it this way until such future changes are made :).

Edit: Panther's not really a 64bit OS; it's a 32bit OS with some tweaks for the G5, at least as I understand it...

-rob.

Unregistered

10-13-2003, 10:58 PM

Just like to point out a minor error in the review.

The 2 banks of RAM are not 1 for each CPU. The RAM system is dual-channel, and operates best when you have matched pairs of RAM in the two different banks.

Can't have incorrect technical details floating around the web now, can we! :)

Unregistered

10-14-2003, 12:25 AM

First I want to thank you for running the most useful OS hints site ever. Having said that, I want to add my personal opinion about the G5. All the "pros" are in the article so I will concentrate on the "cons". I won't be able to talk the die hard fanatics out of mortgaging their houses to buy whatever silly gadget Apple wants them to buy (I am thinking iPod right now), but if you are a mature business man, wise about budget spending, then you should hold off on buying two or more G5s for one simple reason, the G5 is just a "prototype". If you need more reasons then I am probably wasting my time but here is more.
Xeon PCs are still cheaper and faster than the G5s in the "real world" that is why Pixar uses them (yes, Steve Job's company), otherwise everyone would have a G5 on order and Apple stock would be worth $80 a share right now. Also, I have been burnt by Apple surprise price drops too many times. Buy the G5 now for $2,000 and tomorrow you may see the same model advertised for $1,200. It makes you feel like a complete idiot. I don't think I am alone in that experience, am I?
There is so many reasons not to buy the fastest G5s, I don't have the time to write them here, I add only a few more you do the math, and thanks for all the fish.
Cons:
1) It only accepts serial drives rendering all your former ATA drives obsolete. (use them through Firewire? The popularity of Firewire drives are a mystery, I mean, after all the money spent buying the fastest computer in the world??)
2)Same with most boards, upgrades and accessories, obsolete, meaning, you must buy new ones.
3)Doesn’t run OS 9, a system that is shockingly much faster than OS X...and still runs useful software.
4)OS X needs work.
5)You can upgrade your old G4 to a dual 1.2Ghz for $900. And stop sweating when you see the G5 prices.

griffman

10-14-2003, 07:59 AM

I find this comment interesting:

"Xeon PCs are still cheaper and faster than the G5s in the 'real world'"

I just priced a Dual Xeon with: 3.06ghz 512mb cache / 512mb RAM (DDR266, not DDR400 as it's not listed) / serial ATA 120gb (no 160gb available). The final tally came out to $4,152. Pricing the exact same thing on the Apple Store (basically the stock high-end model but I added the 9800 Pro), I came out at $3,299. Can you please point me to a site where I can "in the real world" build a Dual Xeon that's any cheaper than that, when you match the RAM, hard drive type and size, cache, and video card?

And why doesn't Pixar have any? Well, the machine is brand spankin' new ... and recent rumors have basically stated that something's up with Pixar/Apple, and it may be tied to the recent rumors of their "grid" computing technology. I think you may yet see a farm of G5s at Pixar, especially given the success of the cluster at Virginia Tech.

And as for your numbered opinions, here's my thoughts on each one:

#1: I agree, though progress comes with a cost, and FW800 makes a speedy hard drive if you wish to do it. Apple has always pushed technology before the PC makers -- think back to SCSI, USB, FireWire, etc. All were stock on the Mac usually before they were even options on the PC. In the overall scheme of things, hard drives (even Serial ATA hard drives) are cheap. Even cheaper, I just read about a third-party that has come up with an apparently usable SATA/IDE bridge.

#2: I agree; people with large investements in PCI boards should do their homework before upgrading. Others who don't have any PCI boards need not worry about it.

#3: I completely disagree because, for my needs, OS 9 no longer has any compelling features - no MySQL, no Perl, no built-in web server, no multi-user support, no UNIX software, no column-view Finder, no true multi-tasking, no memory protection, no dual processor support, no built-in PDF creator, no easy remote access solutions, etc. I could go on, but from my chair, there's no option to use OS 9 as it doesn't do anything I need it to do at this point. I liked it for what it was when I used it, but now, with so much more power available in OS X, I really dislike booting into OS 9 (as I did recently for the first time in a couple of years to update a Macworld article).

#4: What kinds of work does OS X need?

#5: Yes you can, but then you'll have a machine that's got a slow video card, slow system bus, slow RAM, and a slow hard drive running faster CPUs. If you need a faster machine that still runs OS 9 and doesn't obsolete your old PCI cards, you'd be better off spending the extra $600 to buy the mid-range Dual 1.25ghz G4. Then at least you get a new motherboard, RAM, and hard drives to go with the faster CPUs.

Thanks for the feedback, and differences of opinion are always welcome, even if I disagree with your perspective :).

-rob.

Unregistered

10-14-2003, 09:43 AM

Just wait for Panther, this thing *screams* speed. My B&W w/ 400MHz G4 zooms past the G4 in the benchmarks in UI tests... with stock 128GL card.

I think you need to chain the G5 to the desk, otherwise it'll fly away with Panther :D

Enkerli

10-14-2003, 03:08 PM

Nice review. Really informal, like talking with a friend who's just bought a machine. This also means a few quirks of form (language, presentation) but it even makes reading this review more original.
So, thanks for that!

About OS9, well, it's just that I was troubleshooting my gf's 7300 while reading the review and there's something to be said about old hardware, apart from nostalgia. I mean, I also *need* OSX for everything I do but it's true that an old machine performs ok for simple tasks. Goes with the comment about OSX being made for future-is-now machines. If all you need is to type short texts in a text editor, any old machine will do. But the power of a new machine really is in the things you can do.

smills

10-14-2003, 07:46 PM

whatever silly gadget Apple wants them to buy (I am thinking iPod right now)Why is the iPod silly? It's the best portable mp3 player out there for those who want one.
the G5 is just a "prototype"If everybody waited for the next version of any product to come out, all companies would be out of business. Having run my G5 for the past week or more, I can tell you it is no prototype. It's rock solid.

#1 A mystery? Why? They're available in a wide range of sizes (capacity and physical) and they're easy to use. What's so wrong about that?
#2 Yeah, that happens every few years. It's nothing new. You should see the pile of SCSI devices and cables in my basement.
#3 Who cares. The sooner OS9 is dead the better we'll all be.
#4 Not much, and it's still TONS better than OS9 or Windoze.
#5 Like somebody else already said, you're still stuck with a slow bus and everything else, not to mention it's noisey.

Further, go tell the Virginia Tech they were wrong for buying 1100 G5's for their Terascale Cluster.

Unregistered

10-14-2003, 09:25 PM

Just another data point. I just ran the quake3 timedemo on the dual 2Ghz/Radeon 9800 G5. it came back with 300 fps. Yes, that's not a typo. 300 fps. Just for reference my 800mhz G4 with GeForce 4MX can only muster 67 fps...

This thing is fast.

Just FYI

Unregistered

10-15-2003, 01:06 AM

I knew there would be some skeptics on this particular board who would feel a little uncomfortable with my opinion. But like I said before, my posting is not directed at Apple fanatics...I love you all, and I think you look just adorable siting outside that new Apple store, listening to your white iPod and hoping to get a free Apple T-shirt. I also suggest you avoid reading the following article. The rest of you may notice the date it was printed, isn't it about the same time as the first G5 were been produced? Remember as you read that Steve Jobs is the founder and CEO of Pixar.

"Pixar Builds Massive Renderfarm

Emeryville, Santa Clara And San Diego, CA, February 13, 2003. Pixar Animation Studios, the Academy Award-winning creator of "Toy Story" and Monsters, Inc.," today announced that it is working with Intel Corporation and RackSaver to create one of the most powerful computer installations ever used for digital animation.
Pixar's new RenderFarm, used to create the digital images for each frame of animation in its movies, will consist of 1024 Intel Xeon processors inside of eight new RackSaver BladeRack supercomputing clusters running Pixar's own RenderMan software.
The RenderFarm features two terabytes of memory and 60 terabytes of disk space. Each Intel Xeon processor at 2.8 GHz is about five times faster than the older RISC-based processors in Pixar's outgoing RenderFarm. Pixar is using the system for its film, "The Incredibles," scheduled for a 2004 release.
Each BladeRack contains 66 dual-processor servers in an innovative arrangement that provides excellent cooling for very dense clusters. Pixar worked closely with RackSaver and Intel on the design of the systems, which are built around the tailored Intel SE7500WV2 server board. Pixar also utilized the assistance of Intel Solution Services and the sophistication of Intel compilers and performance tuning tools to boost the performance of their RenderMan software by 50 percent on the Intel-based systems.
--Computer Graphics World"

So, if you want to sing praises to the G5, please, sing your songs to Steve Jobs 'cause when Stevie starts buying G5s, so will I.
:-)

_D.C.

http://cgw.pennnet.com/Articles/Article_Display.cfm?Section=OnlineArticles&SubSection=Display&PUBLICATION_ID=18&ARTICLE_ID=168408

Craig R. Arko

10-15-2003, 03:56 AM

Congratulations; you've managed to prove the G5 wasn't an option on Feb. 13th, 2003. But maybe Pixlet was incorporated into Panther just because they liked the name. :D

And we think you're just adorable too, in a paternal sort of way.

JayBee

10-15-2003, 04:59 AM

Cheers for the review Rob - informative and fun as ever!

This site continues to amaze me in terms of quality of content and depth of insight - where the hell do you find the time?!

Mind you, I guess with a G5 you _make_ the time, right? ;)

Just a couple of words on the G5 vs. Xeon speed issue, which I think has pretty much been addressed. At the end of the day, the G5 runs OS X, the Xeon doesn't. OS X may "need work", but then again what OS doesn't? If, by implication, we are assuming that Windows or Linux _doesn't_ need work, then I think we're all fooling ourselves a little :D

Like you, Rob, OS X is now essential for my work as a web developer. I simply could not compete without an OS X rig. Its combination of a robust, industrial dev framework (including easily installed, industry standard extensions) with a beautiful and intuitive user interface and a wealth of excellent, cheap, easy-to-use and "Mac only" productivity apps (as well as all the other standards like Photoshop, Fireworks, Word etc) mean that there's only one OS out there that can handle everything I throw at it.

I'm holding off upgrading till they get a G5 in a laptop, but not for any philosophical or ideological reasons - I reckon it will just take me that long to save for a new machine! Getting married next year means that I have zero gadget budget... 'cept for maybe an iPod. You know, for backup?

;)

griffman

10-15-2003, 07:49 AM

"The rest of you may notice the date it was printed, isn't it about the same time as the first G5 were been produced?"

No. Not even close, near as I can tell from a bit of Googling.

Sept 2002: Apple, IBM Team on 64-Bit Processor for Macintosh (http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,4149,547326,00.asp) -- "Some observers say GPUL, which shares technology with IBM's server-focused Power4 chip, will double Mac performance, but they warn that the chip probably won't reach Apple systems for more than a year at the earliest." How right they were!

Oct 2002: Some details (http://www-3.ibm.com/chips/techlib/techlib.nsf/techdocs/A1387A29AC1C2AE087256C5200611780) of the PPC970 are made public at the Microprocessor Forum (http://www.mdronline.com/mpf/).

June 2003: Apple and IBM Introduce the PowerPC G5 Processor (http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2003/jun/23pmg5.html)

July 2003: IBM Fab Idled by Blackout (http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,4149,1221877,00.asp) -- "... However, the facility also serves as a foundry for IBM's PowerPC G5 chip, used by Apple's Power Mac G5, which is ramping production in anticipation of a scheduled launch this month. "

So it would seem that production of the G5 started sometime in the June or July time frame, not February. And if you're Pixar and you have a need to finish a movie for a 2004 release (which means it's probably headed to final edit sometime around the end of this year, depending on the release date), then you buy what's available -- and that'd be the Xeon.

Now if you look at the 17 terraflops for $5.2mil at the University of Virginia, and the new Pixlet codec in Panther, I think it's pretty obvious where the next step is for Pixar ... but only time will tell. Why'd they ship to U Virginia before Pixar? Because U Viriginia carries much more prestige, being an independent university and not a "related company" as Pixar would be viewed.

-rob.

yellow

10-15-2003, 07:57 AM

Originally posted by griffman
Why'd they ship to U Virginia before Pixar? Because U Viriginia carries much more prestige, being an independent university and not a "related company" as Pixar would be viewed. In addition, IMO, Apple is reaffirming their allegiance to the educational market, a market which has helped support them and has been slipping away little by little to the WinTel world.

Craig R. Arko

10-15-2003, 12:09 PM

Speaking of V. Tech, preliminary results (http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,60821,00.html) sound promising. We won't know for sure until Nov. 17th. but Terascale might just make #2 on the Top 500 (http://www.top500.org/).

So now, with Rob's, we just need 1099 more. :D

nkuvu

10-15-2003, 12:32 PM

So now, with Rob's, we just need 1099 more. :D
You are more than welcome to store them at my house...

yellow

10-15-2003, 12:34 PM

Originally posted by nkuvu
You are more than welcome to store them at my house... Wow, what a benevolent gesture! :D

griffeymac

10-15-2003, 01:02 PM

Thanks for the review, Rob. Now I'm even more anxious for mine to arrive (the dual 23" flat panels showed up yesterday, but I custom configured the G5 itself so I don't expect it for a few weeks... :( ).

G.--

Craig R. Arko

10-15-2003, 01:08 PM

So, nkuvu, you're going to pick up the electric bill then? And handle the coolant? ;)

Maybe we'll just have to settle for a macosxhints Xgrid co-operative.

nkuvu

10-15-2003, 01:28 PM

I'll (literally) pick up the electric bill, and pass it on to someone else... ;)

griffman

10-19-2003, 10:35 AM

I updated the review today to fix a few typos, correct a couple of technical mistakes, and add more info about: iTunes ripping speed without the limitation of the CD drive
Cinbench 2003 test results with their new G5 Beta version of benchmark
Additional commentary in a few sectionsLook for the sections of orange text; that's the new/changed stuff. Not a ton of new material, but some of it's interesting reading.

-rob.

Unregistered

10-20-2003, 07:25 AM

OS X "was designed for the machines of the future" - I'm spooked out because I said word-for-word the same thing to some colleagues of mine about 2 years back. lol :)

Unregistered

10-20-2003, 09:46 PM

Wanna demostrate the G5 is faster than a Xeon?
Here is your chance.
If you have a copy of Maya for Mac (not the Personal Edition) then you may test your G5 against the fastest dual Xeons at this link:

http://www.highend3d.com/tests/maya/testcenter/database.3d?page=0&sortby=

This is a very respectful website. Once you arrive there, click on the right menu "test center" download their Maya project and test your super duper G5. So far all current G4 show incredibly embarrassing rendering speeds (no surprise there), they appear almost at the bottom of the benchmark and I can testify that this is 100% accurate since I conducted the test on my own G4 and it matches their results to the millisecond. But now some of you may change all that 'cause now you have the fastest personal computer in the world (aha!). In fact, the G5 should be near the top of the list matching the current record of 39 sec by a dual 2Ghz Xeon. I will check the site in a few weeks to see your results...I hope. :-)

D.C.

barrikady

10-29-2003, 05:25 PM

Rob, A very nice review...thank you.

I wanted to print the review so I could read it on paper. However, the layout makes that difficult. any suggestions?

Barrikady
Berkeley, California

Unregistered

11-18-2003, 10:14 AM

This is my last posting here, I saw the ad on MacWorld and not surprisingly demostrates what I have been saying all along.

On MacWorld Magazine December issue, now on print, the G5 failed to outperform every test against a bunch of PCs.

Based on MacWorld tests, the fastest DUAL 2Ghz G5 is barely as fast as a SINGLE Pentium CPU, available for less than $1200 at any store. Quite embarrasing really.

To underline the reality, it is almost 2004 and Steve Jobs still isn't building a G5 cluster for Pixar despite the fact he can get them for free. Why, the man is not even willing to build a fake cluster just to boost Apple's claims of speed. That says a lot.

Also, in recent news from Europe. Apple has been slapped in the face for broadcasting misleading TV ads and forbidden from doing so, the "fastest personal computer" ad is no longer on the air.

I am a Mac user and I would still buy a G5 in the future for my personal use but never at the current price. I'd rather donate that money to the victims of Hiroshima. :-)

D.C.

Craig R. Arko

11-18-2003, 09:35 PM

What is this world coming to? Here's (http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,1383036,00.asp) PC Magazine's 2003 Award for Technical Excellence in the Personal Computer category.

Winner: the PowerMac G5.

Quote: "The G5 performed significantly better than any previous Mac—and equaled or bettered the performance of Intel-platform machines—on our all-important graphics and content creation tests."

At this rate Dvorak is going to start carrying a purse; er, an iBook. And Gates and Ballmer will try to be (http://www.tabletpctalk.com/pictures/comdex2003billg2.shtml) Morpheus and Neo. ;)

So much for the old 'proof by magazine article' theory, eh?