Who wants a 1.6Ghz processor?
i'm sure everybody does. Who needs a 1.6GHz processor, not many people unless you use it for professional reasons. So why in the hell are people complaining that since there is no new G5 at 1.6GHz they're going to go buy an AMD/intel system? Do you really need your e-mail to be that fast? Do you really care if Word opens in 4 bounces or 2 bounces?
people need to shut their fvcking face with all of their complaining about apple.
Do i want a 1.6GHz G5 processor with 2GB of ram, a 160Gb hard drive, Geforce4 and a 17" lcd display? Damn straight i do. Do i need it, hell no. I'm satisfied with my B&W G3 at 400Mhz. And it does every single thing i want it to. But dont get me wrong, if i could have things happen 5 times as fast for a reasonable price, I'd jump all over it.
people need to shut their fvcking face with all of their complaining about apple.
Do i want a 1.6GHz G5 processor with 2GB of ram, a 160Gb hard drive, Geforce4 and a 17" lcd display? Damn straight i do. Do i need it, hell no. I'm satisfied with my B&W G3 at 400Mhz. And it does every single thing i want it to. But dont get me wrong, if i could have things happen 5 times as fast for a reasonable price, I'd jump all over it.
Comments
If you're working in FCP, Photoshop, or Cinema 4D all day, you obviously need something faster than a 400 MHz G3.
Don't assume that because you do nothing to tax your processor all day, that no one else must either!
Some people do need all the speed they can get. Look at Leonis here, he's been told by his new employer to upgrade his dual 500 to something faster. Because for the WORK he will be doing, he NEEDS something faster.
[edit - took out the inflammatory remarks.. I failed to notice the words "not many people unless you use it for professional reasons" in the original post. Sorry.]
[ 01-08-2002: Message edited by: murbot ]</p>
I agree with Dartblazer that 90% of people whining about speed, don't really NEED the speed for anything they're doing with their computer. They just want it so they can brag to their buddies, or at least so they'll have a good response when some Windows dude asks them "So what kinda processor you got in that thing?"
And I agree with Murbot than many people do real-world work with their machines, which would allow them to really see the benefit of a faster machine. For those people, each additional boost in clock speed (and other factors like bus speed, hard drive speed, ram speed) mean that their work takes less time.
I actually fall into that category myself, but I still think most of the people who bitch about processor speed don't do anything more than Internet Explorer plus Mail plus iTunes plus chat client.
I've been sitting here on my G4 400, rendering a radiosity image. It has taken 4 Hours.
On a Mac dual 800 it would have taken 1.5hrs
On a P4 2.2 it would take 1hr
On a single XP2000+ It would have taken <1hr
On a dual XP2000MP (due shortly) it would be about 35 minutes.
Now suppose I price a job for the amount of time it takes. Suppose my competitors do the same. I am charging x8 my competitor. I don't have a valid business.
I am in the same line as Leonis. I feel his pain. Macs are not an option. This makes me very sad. Fortunately I have until after MWNY02 to make a decision
But why should we pay top dollar for pieces of crap and computers that are slower than the competition. Your arguement doesn't make sense.
also, speeds need to increase for the sheer viability of the platform. i know we all like to talk about mhz myth and so on. but in reality, the Gx series of chips NEED to get faster for the whole of the mac community, even if you don't need to use it yourself. every designer/retoucher/artist/musician we lose to x86 because of a perceived (and now real) speed difference is a huge blow to the mac community at large.
plus, every time we're let down by the processor speeds of the pro units, someone trots out this argument. "95% of you only use it for email and websurfing." well, as a mac supporter in a wintel world, you should understand just how important that 5% is.
and I composed a "quick" scene, then LOADED it with volumetric clouds and all sorts of perspective stuffis, Its taken over 6 hours to render(I've been doing it in sessions about 2 hours a day, but I've been slacking)
on my DVSE g3 500 iMac, then the photoshopping post work took hours, but that was mostly cause I was maxing out on lighting and burn tools, but at any rate it took about 10-20 seconds to process the various filters I was testing stuff with and experimenting with, that time really adds up
the g4 with all its "PS filters in 1 second"stuff. thats awesome! If I had that the other day, then I oculd have been done with PS in probably an hour at most, and I could have been done with the whole picture in probably 3 hours or so
do I want an awesome g5 HELL YES!
do I NEED it? HELL YES!, I use more than just bryce, I use a bunch of applications that DESTROY my iMac I multitask like no other in OS 9! I ususally have about 6 apps open at once, sometimes rendering images in eh backround, its sickening
The same one took a few hours on my G3/400.
Computers will be fast enough when 3D-rendering will be done in realtime.
How much speed to you really need to browse the net or check email? How about word processing? Do any of these things require a 1 GHz processor?
How much speed do you need to listen to music or watch movies? How about burning CDs or editing a movie? Do these require an 800 MHz processor?
How much speed do you need for games before it stops mattering? Do you really need a 128 MB graphics card and a 1.6 GHz processor to play Unreal Tournament well?
How much speed do you need to edit a picture in Photoshop? Do you need 2 GHz to do this well?
Let's face it. We are at a point where computing technology has outpaced the speed at which developers write their apps. I have a computer which is now two years old. By computing standards, it's outdated, it's obsolete, and I should be considering a new purchase. But I'm not.
I can go out and buy any game, or any program for that matter, and it will run without a problem.
I can run any app out for the Mac right now, and it will run fine on my machine- it has a G3/500.
So this brings me to my next question: At what point does speed not matter? At what point will the screen on a new G4 look vastly different than on my G3? Sure it's faster, but do you really need the ability to open a document less than a second before me? Do you really need that extra power boost to finish that Photoshop filter a minute before me? Do you really need that extra power to browse the web 'faster' than me? Do you really need those extra FPS to make a difference in what you're seeing from what I'm seeing?
At what point now, does a new machine make a difference, and I mean a REAL difference? Whenever I've upgraded to a new system in the past, it was with a MAJOR increase in speed. It was definitely noticeable to me.
I went from an Apple ][ to a Performa. Compeltely different machines, yet you knew the difference in Power. Then it was from a Performa to a PowerBook 1400. An amazing machine, it could run circles around the old Performa! Then it was to an original iMac. The iMac was probably one of the best machines I ever owned. It served me well until it's 2 MB of graphics memory caught up to it fast.
Then I got my PowerBook. The difference I saw immediately was that net browsing seemed faster, I could run any program out there, and I realized how poor my iMac's graphics were.
Then my brother got his dual processor G4/500. The difference was barely noticeable compared to the other drastic upgrades. I could run all of the same games as him without issue, I could run all of the same programs as him without issue.
The same is true today. Developers haven't written a program that would run that much better on his machine vs. mine. Altivec is nice, but I can still do what his machine can, it just takes me a little longer (and that's only occassionally).
So when do you think speed stops being a real issue? When do you think the difference between 'Good' and 'Best' becomes unnoticeable? Maybe they don't, but when I use my PowerBook, after two years, I have no good reason to upgrade my machine. I know professionals who rely on saving minutes or seconds on Photoshop or Maya need the extra power, but for every day use, when does the actual need for speed stop, and the need for 'bragging rights' begin?
How about this. Everyone uses Java in some form or another. Java always needs more speed. Not only do Windows boxes have faster JVMs but the hardware is faster too. That's a real kick to the crotch. Apple said X would be the platform for Java. It is, the shitty platform for Java.
Also it's not only about what we do now but what we could do. If you have some cutting edge app that needs CPU power you're not going to be doing the development on a PowerMac. Too slow and not getting faster anytime soon.
I don't need speed. Which is why I bought an iMac so long ago. But the platform needs speed to remain viable.
The writing is on the wall people. Macs are slow and cost way too much.
do I NEED it? HELL YES!, I use more than just bryce, I use a bunch of applications that DESTROY my iMac I multitask like no other in OS 9! I ususally have about 6 apps open at once, sometimes rendering images in eh backround, its sickening<hr></blockquote>
Wow, with some of the things people are doing with their Macs, I'd love to see some of their work! :eek:
Anyone care to share a little with us?
Just because you can say "Oh yeah? I just spent six months rendering a file in Bryce!" doesn't mean that what I said wasn't true. It just means you're in the 10% of people who actually have a valid reason to cry about speed.
Jeez, I myself want a faster Powermac! I get tired of waiting for digital audio plugins to run faster (not that I'm waiting for anything like HOURS on each process). So I'm not trying to say there's never any reason to complain about machines not being fast enough. I'm just saying that most of those whining the loudest are in that 90%.
That doesn't make sense.
Processors perform faster than programmers write? I would have to agree with you there
Processors perform faster than applications require? That's not true at all.
[quote]I can run any app out for the Mac right now, and it will run fine on my machine- it has a G3/500.<hr></blockquote>
Maya for OSX would run like candy, eh?
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There will be a point of diminished returns, I am sure, but it certainly isn't a 867mhz G4. Like was said above, until 3D rendering is done in real time we are not there. Not only that, until infinite 3D renderings are done in real time with lifelike looks all while performing other tasks we are not even close to there yet.
The whole "you don't need it" argument is weak, it's based on a premise that wanting Mail.App to open in 1 bounce instead of 4 is frivolous, that wanting to perform non-professional tasks with the most possible speed is not a worthy cause.
I've noticed the difference using The Most Advanced Operating System in the World on a G3/500 and a DP G4/450, and the difference is great.
<strong>i'm sure everybody does. Who needs a 1.6GHz processor, not many people unless you use it for professional reasons. So why in the hell are people complaining that since there is no new G5 at 1.6GHz they're going to go buy an AMD/intel system? Do you really need your e-mail to be that fast? Do you really care if Word opens in 4 bounces or 2 bounces?
people need to shut their fvcking face with all of their complaining about apple.
Do i want a 1.6GHz G5 processor with 2GB of ram, a 160Gb hard drive, Geforce4 and a 17" lcd display? Damn straight i do. Do i need it, hell no. I'm satisfied with my B&W G3 at 400Mhz. And it does every single thing i want it to. But dont get me wrong, if i could have things happen 5 times as fast for a reasonable price, I'd jump all over it.</strong><hr></blockquote>
My last VCD in Toast 5 took about 18-20 hours (unattended) time to encode MPEG-1 stream on a 400 Mhz G3.
I THINK I can safely say that amount of time is not trivial.
Go buy a $45,000 BMW Z3 roadster. Do you need the technology, horsepower, lust factor ?
Of course not, but damn, needed or not you just paid for it !
I'll let you know when I get it.
Seriously, though, there is a free version of Maya available next month according to <a href="http://osx.macnn.com/"; target="_blank">http://osx.macnn.com/</a>; .
[quote]Processors perform faster than applications require? That's not true at all.<hr></blockquote>
I would have to say that for the majority of applications that regular users actually need to work with (IE, Netscape, Mail, Word, etc.), the applications stop being noticeably better once you get to certain point. Of course major applications that rely on processor power are the exception, but I didn't know we had so many people around on the boards that used these apps. (I'd really like to see some of these creations.
Generally, you get the same type of speed/performance on these types of applications.
<strong>Who needs a 1.6GHz processor, not many people unless you use it for professional reasons.</strong><hr></blockquote>
You're right, usually 1.6 GHz are needed for professional use only. BUT: The PowerMacs are pro machines, so they should have the horsepower for professional use (1.6 GHz or even more), shouldn't they?
[quote]Do you really need that extra power boost to finish that Photoshop filter a minute before me?<hr></blockquote>
sure you can edit photos generally fast. but sometimes we work with 300 meg files, tell me that it's fast enough for those applications. it's not, it takes seconds to turn a layer on and off on a dual 800. take one minute for your average image, then multiply it by 30 or so for professionals that have to create huge images at high res, suddenly you're talking about half an hour while on the clock that makes a difference.
try running media cleaner on fullscreen video with compression, downrezing, etc. our edit facility was doing this for the benefit of us (the agency) and our client. it took about 20 minutes per 30 second spot. until that's real time or faster, it's not fast enough.
everyone always asks the same questions. "who needs more than 1 megabyte of ram?" "i can't forsee a time when we'll need anything more than 100 mhz." the truth is this: the tasks that we use our computers for will become more complex as processing speed increases. look at the development of photoshop. when i first started using ps we were in the quadra stage and the program was as complex as the machine could handle and photoshop worked great. but we didn't have a concept that there could be LAYERS and MULTIPLE UNDO'S and ACTIONS! but all those things exist now because the computers that run photoshop got faster and the software engineers took advantage of it.
and as the gap in speed between macs and pc's increase, we run the risk of essentially being left behind in capabilities.
a g3/200 is fast enough to do web browsing and emailing. but it's not fast enough to do imovie reasonably. should apple never have thought ahead to write imovie because MOST people don't need their computers to do more than email and browse?
[quote]When does the speed of a computer stop mattering? <hr></blockquote>
not for a long time i'm afraid. when does voice recognition reach 99% accuracy? when can we ray trace render in real time? when can we compress an imovie for the web in real time? when can we edit images in the hundreds of megs (which is the norm for print) in real time? when can we have artificial intelligence? when can we have an uncompressed video editing in real time (maybe fcp3)? when do games become photorealistic? when can i not have a spinning cursor in the preferences panel of my titanium 667 with mac os x 10.1.2?
i'm not saying i'm going to switch platforms or anything along those lines. but the difference is starting to become distressing because it's bad for the macintosh and bad for mac users. and all mac users should realize that. complaining about the tower speeds shouldn't be just the ranting and raving of the 10%. we should all want the macs to maintain parity with pc's in speed. we need it.
[ 01-08-2002: Message edited by: admactanium ]</p>
<strong>(I'd really like to see some of these creations.
fran, <a href="http://members.aol.com/jeffynee/BFD.html"; target="_blank">here's</a> an image that i did for an ad for my portfolio a few years ago. it may not seem that amazing. but the image of the rubik's cube was completely PAINTED in photoshop. it's not a retouch, the whole images was created digitally. my computer was very slow at that time.
[ 01-08-2002: Message edited by: admactanium ]</p>