I'm getting my first Mac ever, but I have a few questions.
I was thinking about getting something like this:
PowerMac with 1 x G5 1.8, 1GBRam and a Radeon 9600.
But i have a few questions. I'm extremely uncertain of how the G5 actually performs, AFAIK its performance has been greatly exagerated. How does a single G5 1.8 perform(For example, does anybody know how long it would take to encode a 2 hour mpeg-2 movie to XViD?)?
And eventhough I'm not really going to play games on it, but as I understand it OSX uses the GPU's to accellerate it's window manager. I really don't want the GUI to feel sloppy/slow, would it feel ligthingfast|fast|slow on a 9600?
And how about GFX card upgrades, would i be able to buy any given Nvidia 6800 AGP card and upgrade it when they drop in price?
PowerMac with 1 x G5 1.8, 1GBRam and a Radeon 9600.
But i have a few questions. I'm extremely uncertain of how the G5 actually performs, AFAIK its performance has been greatly exagerated. How does a single G5 1.8 perform(For example, does anybody know how long it would take to encode a 2 hour mpeg-2 movie to XViD?)?
And eventhough I'm not really going to play games on it, but as I understand it OSX uses the GPU's to accellerate it's window manager. I really don't want the GUI to feel sloppy/slow, would it feel ligthingfast|fast|slow on a 9600?
And how about GFX card upgrades, would i be able to buy any given Nvidia 6800 AGP card and upgrade it when they drop in price?
Comments
Originally posted by dmouritsendk
I was thinking about getting something like this:
PowerMac with 1 x G5 1.8, 1GBRam and a Radeon 9600.
But i have a few questions. I'm extremely uncertain of how the G5 actually performs, AFAIK its performance has been greatly exagerated. How does a single G5 1.8 perform(For example, does anybody know how long it would take to encode a 2 hour mpeg-2 movie to XViD?)?
And eventhough I'm not really going to play games on it, but as I understand it OSX uses the GPU's to accellerate it's window manager. I really don't want the GUI to feel sloppy/slow, would it feel ligthingfast|fast|slow on a 9600?
And how about GFX card upgrades, would i be able to buy any given Nvidia 6800 AGP card and upgrade it when they drop in price?
I can't comment on how long the encoding would take. I would say that your suggested setup would in no way feel slow - the guy I sit next to at work uses the 20" imac which has a slower graphics card in and he only has 512mb of RAM and it feels very snappy to me. I have the same set up as you're looking at with the exception that I have the dual 1.8. It doesn't really feel much faster than the iMac except in photoshop etc, but it does remain more responsive overall than the single processor machine when multi tasking. The extra power of the 9600 over the stock 5200 is definitely worth the price - most games run great on it, and unless you're really bothered by ridiculously high frame rates in 3D games or using a program like motion, I think the 9600 is the sweetspot in price performance.
I guess your impressions would depend on your current machine, but I think you would be impressed with the overall speed and stability. We have all sorts of the latest and greatest Intel/AMD workstations in at our office for testing 3D CAD on. The guys who do the testing have used my PowerMac and the iMac on occasions and have always been impressed with the systems. ymmv of course.
Video encoding is basically the only demanding thing that I do . Beyond that I love using my mac mini even if its a very entry line machine. It's very quick at doing all my day to day needs and research and a nice refreshing feel over using windows.
I have no experience with the G5, but Bare Feats has a page comparing the G5 1.8 vs other models.
Great link, thanks a lot 8)
I personally would not advise buying a mac to do any mpeg 4 ASP or AVC encoding from my own personal experience. I do my xvid and x264 encoding on an amd64 and use a mac mini for daily use and while I'm encoding. You really do miss applications like avisynth and virtualdub for encoding like that. framserving a 96 minute movie with avisynth into virtualdub that was a hard telecined hybrid clip with a final output resolution of 640 x 336 i would encode at 35 fps on my amd64 3200+. The bigger point really isn't so much speed as it is the free and widely documented avisynth and the quality encodes that can be gained with it.
I'm not really buying the Mac to do XViD encoding, the reason I asked about XViD encoding was just to have something I could compare against my current computer.
I can't comment on how long the encoding would take. I would say that your suggested setup would in no way feel slow - the guy I sit next to at work uses the 20" imac which has a slower graphics card in and he only has 512mb of RAM and it feels very snappy to me. I have the same set up as you're looking at with the exception that I have the dual 1.8. It doesn't really feel much faster than the iMac except in photoshop etc, but it does remain more responsive overall than the single processor machine when multi tasking. The extra power of the 9600 over the stock 5200 is definitely worth the price - most games run great on it, and unless you're really bothered by ridiculously high frame rates in 3D games or using a program like motion, I think the 9600 is the sweetspot in price performance.
I guess your impressions would depend on your current machine, but I think you would be impressed with the overall speed and stability. We have all sorts of the latest and greatest Intel/AMD workstations in at our office for testing 3D CAD on. The guys who do the testing have used my PowerMac and the iMac on occasions and have always been impressed with the systems. ymmv of course.
Thanks a lot for the input, especially your notes about the overall feel of the dual cpu vs. single cpu systems are helpfull. I really don't think multitasking performance will be a big issue for me, since when i multitask it will primarily be multiple CLIs and some text editors (I primarily use my computer for development, Maple/MATLAB and writing rapports in latex)
http://people.ee.ethz.ch/~naegelic/index.php
as i said thats the only real demanding thing I do which takes any amount of time to really have to sit and wait on. I've actually been impressed by the mac mini personally. It was just going to be the secondary computer for when I encode but now I use it as my main and encode only on the other box
Based off waht you have said, I think you will be really impressed no matter which route you go.
Originally posted by dmouritsendk
Great link, thanks a lot 8)
I'm not really buying the Mac to do XViD encoding, the reason I asked about XViD encoding was just to have something I could compare against my current computer.
Thanks a lot for the input, especially your notes about the overall feel of the dual cpu vs. single cpu systems are helpfull. I really don't think multitasking performance will be a big issue for me, since when i multitask it will primarily be multiple CLIs and some text editors (I primarily use my computer for development, Maple/MATLAB and writing rapports in latex)
Have you considered the iMac by the way? if you don't have a spare screen going, or only a small one, the 20" iMac is a fantastic machine, and great value for money considering the quality of the screen. Obviously if you already have a screen then it's not cost effective versus the powermac. I can't say i do too much video encoding, but I'd bet that a G5 of any description would do a very good job compared to a mini - even if it wasn't quite up there with the AMD - just guessing here though. The mini's a great computer, but video encoding certainly isn't its target application. The G5 will make a massive difference with the extra bus speed and overall architecture.
Originally posted by BLeST
Definately it would be better than a mini at encoding. I never bought this machine with that intention although for fun I did give it a try and was getting around 12fps with DivX. But quality wasn't the same as being framserved.. so take it for what it is worth that my little standby turned main mac mini could encode the same source at 12fps
glad you're liking your new computer - going to pick one up for home use once OS X 10.4 comes out.
Originally posted by mortigi tempo
Have you considered the iMac by the way? if you don't have a spare screen going, or only a small one, the 20" iMac is a fantastic machine, and great value for money considering the quality of the screen. Obviously if you already have a screen then it's not cost effective versus the powermac. I can't say i do too much video encoding, but I'd bet that a G5 of any description would do a very good job compared to a mini - even if it wasn't quite up there with the AMD - just guessing here though. The mini's a great computer, but video encoding certainly isn't its target application. The G5 will make a massive difference with the extra bus speed and overall architecture.
I bought a 21" Hitachi CRT less than one year ago, I love the screen on the iMac but I might as well use the Hitachi i have already (going to KVM' it)
Originally posted by dmouritsendk
I bought a 21" Hitachi CRT less than one year ago, I love the screen on the iMac but I might as well use the Hitachi i have already (going to KVM' it)
The powermac sounds like a great choice then - hope you enjoy your new machine!
Originally posted by BLeST
Definately it would be better than a mini at encoding. I never bought this machine with that intention although for fun I did give it a try and was getting around 12fps with DivX. But quality wasn't the same as being frameserved.. so take it for what it is worth that my little standby turned main mac mini could encode the same source at 12fps
If it's of any use as a performance comparison, converting am MPEG2 file to an XviD file at the sizes you specified, on my G5 1.8 dual I got 34 fps. I'm guessing the codec isn't dual processor aware, so this should be similar to the single processor machine - don't think the lower bus speed should make too much difference.