Reasons NOT to buy a G5?

I'll tell you why I am not buying a G5. Recommended prices in Russia are: $2549 for 1.6GHz, $3079 for 1.8GHz, <drumroll> $3849 for 2x2GHz. That's $550, $680 and $850 over US prices, accordingly. I don't have the budget.

Im waiting for the next revision, having a Pantherless G5 just doesnt make sense. 10.2s finder drives me crazy its slow, buggy and just plain crap. Having a faster machine would just make it crash faster. I want Apple to release a legacy code free OS for us Unix users. I find myself killing the finder at least twice a day and starting up Afterstep due to its inconsistencies. I dont mind the price to much as I like Apples design a lot, and Im willing to pay for the look. JUST KILL THAT CLASSIC, 0S9, LEGACY GARBAGE! It's 2003......

I think this is the better argument to not buy a G5.

Then when rev. C comes out, you may as well wait for rev. D because that will be better.

In fact, I am considering selling my G5 and just wait for rev. D when it ships with 10.4 Lynx.

Well, I could then wait for the G6 and 10.5.

Hmm......

Nothing will stop me from getting a G5 if I really wanted one. But here are some minor obstacles (in order of importance):

1. Price
2. Size
3. Lack of internal expandibility
4. Unable to use VPC

1. Price no comment.
2. Size when G5 on 90nm arrives, Apple may choose to make towers of various sizes.
3. Lack of internal expandibility depends on your needs only.
4. Unable to use VPC will be fixed soon, of which I am 99% sure.

It's clear that Apple didn't want to announce the G5 when they did, and that the leaked specs fiasco forced their hand.

As a result, Apple has done everything to rush the G5 to market, and I suspect that there will be a number of issues that'll need to be ironed out.

This isn't an Apple only problem. I've seen a lot of motherboards from big name manufacturers where they've been manually patched, but I suspect that Apple hasn't been able to spend as much time as they would have liked to triple checking everything.

The only reason I would have for thinking twice about the G5 is SJ's comment that the G5's architecture was specifically designed from the ground up to support multiple processors. But 2/3 of the current range is based on single processor machines. That doesn't make sense to me.

I would be very disappointed if I bought a single processor machine and Apple announced another all-dual line up six months later.

If VPC and Classic booting is important, then hold off on a G5 purchase. When VPC (or something else) is available for the G5 and your OS 9 needs are no more then G5 is the answer. Price also factors in especially with the low end being one buck short of 2 grand.

I'm not buying one because our wonderful US politicians are giving incentives to companies to bring in foreign programmers, even though there are American workers that have been unemployed for 6 months or more. While I'm lucky to have a job, I haven't gotten a raise in two years and my living expenses have now exceeded my pay.

Excuse me? Everything was pointing to the release, including the fact that reps from IBM were there for conference sessions. Do you think Apple threw together that whole presentation, including the demos from third-party developers like Luxology and Wolfram, and the displays of Power Macs in the exhibition hall, over the weekend? What do you think Steve was planning to talk about for two hours?

I agree that the first generation of any computer is more likely to have problems, but I don't think the G5 was "rushed to market" any more than any other Apple product.

I'm a bit worried that the bug fix will wipe out any speed advantage that VPC running on a G5 might have otherwise had over VPC running on a G4. VPC got a big performance boost in version 4 when it started taking advantage of the G3/G4 "pseudo little-endian mode" (let's call it PLEM for short). Any fix for the G5's lack of PLEM (the only G5 backward compatibility flaw I've heard about) will mean sacrificing that earlier performance boost.

Still, this isn't stopping me from getting a G5. My dual has been on order since the day after the WWDC announcement. I figure I'll have my G5 on eBay in around a year anyway when the dual 3.0-GHz systems come out. It would be especially nice if IBM can add PLEM back into a later G5 or G6 by that time. VPC is probably the only major piece of software that cares about PLEM (not much use for it anywhere else but emulating x86!), but maybe VPC will be considered important enough to merit the necessary chip redesign effort.

(Of course, one has to wonder if future versions of VPC will still support PLEM. Microsoft might, I imagine, simply junk support for PLEM altogether, playing to the lowest-common denominater, rather than taking on the extra burden of supporting and testing two different x86 emulation cores. It could turn out the VPC 7.0 will run slower on current G4 systems than 6.0 does!)

As BrunoBruin has pointed out, that argument doesn't hold water. The G5 announcement was clearly a well-planned event, not a last-minute contigency. I think Apple announced the G5 when it did simply because there was a growing desperate need to demonstrate that the Mac platform was going somewhere -- that it wasn't going to stagnate along with the G4.

Some people will complain if you pre-announce a product and don't ship right away. Others will complain that they need to know how to plan for future purchases and software development, so they need to know what's coming as soon as possible, even if shipping isn't imminent. You can't make everyone happy either way. Personally, as much as I hate waiting for my G5, I think Apple made the right decision and struck the best balance that they could at the time.

nice rant...now what are your qualifications & what do you do ?

If you want to avoid installing a new OS real soon, wait for Panther. Otherwise, most reasons for not buying would still apply a year from now. No matter when you buy, you can bet on speed bumps, new features and maybe price cuts coming within a year.

How much pain is your present system causing you? For me, the pain level was getting too high. I bought my G5 last week and took it home with me.

The best reason not to buy a G5 is if someone is giving you one as a gift.

Nice try but its a well known fact that American companies are outsourcing development to third world countries to save a buck. The jobs that are here are getting taken by H1B Visa holders on a special program set in place by our wonderfun government.

it was a genuine question...

i was a H1B myself. I bust my ass to be where i'm at
& now as a citizen(soon to be) should i turn around & start
moaning too ?

we are #1 in the world beacuse we lead in ingenuity
& technical innovation & we should keep that going.
If you are in IT you need to keep up...after isnt thats
why people get into computing ? to learn ?

fwiw ive worked with a lot of people from different countries & am constantly amazed at their brilliance & willingness to give so much back to this country.
i'm glad they are here & if they make america their permanent home like I have then its all the better for us here.

my 2c

pete

I'm not buying for one reason and one reason only, I don't have the funds for it just yet.

Dual 2Gig with a 23" display + RAM. Lota $$$. But that's what I want. Nothing can touch that.

I'll have to do research to be sure, but if the version of OS X which supports the G5 has X11 1.0, I thought I read somewhere that MATLAB does not run on the latest X11 (i.e., post-Public Beta 3).

Officially, MATLAB is not supported with X11, and Mathworks recommends removing X11 and using the OroborOSX included on the MATLAB installation disk, so perhaps this is not a concern.

I haven't run MATLAB with OroborOSX in so long, that I forgot what the difference is.

Well, yes. You should start moaning. You have no future. I'm one of about 20 people left of a bustling 150 person IT shop. My friends and colleages have all left Tampa looking for work in Atlanta, Dallas, and Detroit. But these jobs are drying up too. Companies can outsource their work to places like India and Pakistan, where the developers accept 1/3 the salary (and can live on it). I was upset not to get a raise this year until I called my previous employer and found out that the developers still there have taken a 7% pay cut and given up all of their hollidays to stay employed. They're doing another 30% layoff by the end of the year. It frustrates me further to see companies offering 80K+ exclusively to people with H1B visas, rather than looking at qualifications. I can be the greatest developer in the world and I'm not elligeable for the position because someone's greasing the politicians. I consider it to be the ultimate qualification just to still be employed. People ask me how I do it and I tell them a little skill and a little luck.

Meanwhile, I agree that we have to be ingenious. Unfortunately, ingenious doesn't work when nobody even pays attention to the work you do. I'm starting my own company because I believe my software has merit. But it takes time, money, and tremendous risk. Long term, if things stay this way, I will get out of this industry.

One last thing to add: Developers are begging to work on the current technologies. Employers don't want that right now. They're scaling back their new developments, so they want monkeys to sit and keep guard over their old powerbuilder, cobol, c, and c++ programs. So if developers want to keep current they have to work on the side. They sure as heck cannot afford to go back to school to pick up the new skills and companies are not paying for it.

sorry about this ongoing rant fellas...offtopic i know...
but im compelled to answer.

juke..take a good look at the people who make 80-100k+
all the guys i worked with were either graduates of IIT &/or had masters or phds from princeton or mit or caltech
they deserved every penny...they were truely creative.

you may be the greatest coder on this planet..however
you still havent answered my original question.
what kind of work do you do

learning doesnt cost an arm & a leg. you can easily teach
yourself new technologies.all it takes is a strong desire to learn.

if you want to continue this conversation then lets start
another thread. I dont want us to ruin someone elses topic.

MAXX you'll learn when eventually you cost too much compared to the next round of immigrants. Not knockin' you or anything

Juke: You have the right idea, Get the hell out of the employee world and get self employed ASAP. The wqay Bush and co. is killing employment in the US only the self-employed will survive ( exagerated somewhat..but true)

Oh God! Not another it's Bush's fault post! Get over it. You have to take control of your own life and stop blaming other people for your probs! The world is shrinking, and we can't errect barriers for trade and labor.

By the way, if you are self-employed, you should be glad that Bush & co. is at the helm. You won't find a better friend to the small business person. Good luck!

I haven't, until now, heard of H1B visas and i i know nothing of the US IT workplace. However, I believe I know somewhat of the ways of Global Corparativism. Outsourcing and cheap immigrant labour are less to blame for any lack of employment in the circumstances you describe - rather it is the eternal embrace of maximum profit-minimum cost, at any cost, of giant compaines that is to blame.


I don't know who else you think could be greasing the politicians...

The main reason I'm not buying is because I promised the wife that the Dual 1G Quicksilver would last a minimum of three years. 18 months left to go!

Plus, I'm waiting for the Dual 3G G5 just like I waited until Apple could hit the 1Ghz barrier, which took FOREVER!

maxmax,
i am a US citizen, 4th generation or longer. I have worked in Silicon Valley during the 80's, 90's. I have worked with many brilliant engineers and business people, mostly from Asia or India, some from Europe. I believe the net effect has been very positive and glad to have you living here and congrats on becoming a citizen.

it is very difficult and troubling at the rate of 'offshoring" and this is a trend that is going to be difficult to compete with based on cost of living here versus someplace like India for example where its a lot less. manufacturing is gone and IT is going. right now, its lower level IT but its moving up the scale. on a macro level, certain third world places are moving up while we are struggling to keep where we are but lots of downward pressure. there is no need now to hire H1-B people. This was a need derived out of the the 1995-2001 era but that is over. So, there is frustration, not at you mind you (see above), but by this double whammy of hiring H1-B in a down economy for a percieved lower cost cutting effort while oursourcing for the same reason. its very difficult but as i said i have worked with many people from all over the world in university and in the industry, made many friends.

good luck on getting your US citizenship!!

The main reason I'd be reluctant to buy a G5 is PCI Express given that it promises to completely replace several existing technologies for expansion. It should appear early next year so if you're willing to wait 3 - 6 months I'd say that'd be a good reason.

The real question is if Apple revises the towers early next year will they add PCI express then or will they wait until closer to the middle of the year.

I'm self employed because I see the economic train wreck about to happen to the portion of the middle class dependent on paychecks. I know many other people who see the writing on the wall too. But the reality is that most people will never be self employed...wait till those Boomers retire...it's not going to be pretty.

I agree the economy will take a bad hit.
I am against outsourcing to anywhere. The h1b program is being cut down which seems reasonable but heres the
most short sighted thing that is happening.
people keep saying throw the h1's out...i say no
in fact naturalize them immediately
heres a few facts people may not be aware of
as a h1b a person
1.pays all the state & federal taxes just like a citizen
2.pays medicare & social security even though they are not
entitled to paticipate in those programs
3.may not be eligible for unemployment even though they
contribute a significant amt to the economy

look instead of pulling crap like giving drivers licenses
& citizenships to illegals why not ddo the same for those
who are legally here for so many years.
you throw out or force out our brainpower & they will
go elsewhere with all the knowhow

we lead because we have the knowhow, we lose our technical
edge & we are toast as a leading nation.

what happens when nations refuse to buy from us or sell
to us beacuse they dont like our policies.how long do you think we would last going it alone.

You might consider buying the essentials (G5, display) now, and adding on RAM later. Plus, 3rd party RAM is cheaper.

As for a reason to NOT buy a G5...it doesn't instantly make you rich and famous, or at least not the former of the two.

Right now, I'm the "first kid on my block" to have a G5, and throngs of people wait outside my room, waiting to be admitted...

You're scaring me. This is all things I know to be true but I'm worried I won't be financially stable enough to be self employed in time for the eminent financial collapse.

The stories are everywhere. Companies are cutting employees because they have an excuse to do so. They've found ways to increase productivity and cut work-force, thats great! I'm all for getting rid of the dead weight. But when THOUSANDS of companies do it at the same time under the guise of "staying profitable", it becomes a major problem. Many of the companies doing the cutting are making more profit than ever. Whats more, these same companies are producing MORE goods than they were before the recession. (Think DEFLATION, the worst disaster any economy can suffer)... Now Add to this the fact that manufacturing is offshored, and now ANY INTELLECTUAL PRODUCT can be simply offshored.

Ironically, its because of the internet and all the wonderful technology that our IT industry has created... Remember bragging to your boss, two years ago, that you can just work from home now, thanks to the internet? Who knew back then that it meant corporations would just cut us and replace us with a foreign worker at less than 1/3 the pay.

Also, why go to College if all it does is teach you how to produce INTELECTUAL PRODUCTS??? Plumbers now make more than Engineers and IT people (unless of course your on the coveted H1B visa).

Here's the million dollar question: These companies make products that sell primarily to developed nations. Who's going to buy all these products if we're all out of work? CEOs and execs are cutting off the nose despite the face!!!! They're either completely retarded or completely motivated by greed if they can't see that! If every company does this (and it sure appears that they all are), they will also have to lower the cost of their goods in order to sell them to the people that are employed (remember, they are making 1/3rd the money!!!)....

We're screwed. I'm moving to Japan... They refuse to buy foreign goods in Japan.

juke....

you keep harping on the H1b issue
i havent recieved a raise since 2000 either & im not blaming anyone else
for it & i live in san diego which is really expensive.
curiously even in this economy i still get calls daily
from recruiters willing to hire.
good engineers will always be in demand. the only ones i hear complaining are those that jumped into computing on the dot com bandwagon & are stuck doing web or vb stuff.

i also asked what your skillsets were & you mentioned what you
would like to do instead of giving specifics on stuff you have done.
umm ranting about what you can do & what you have done ist likely
to win you another job. theres still a lot of jobs there you just need to look harder & be more positive

feel free to move to japan by all means.the cost of living will kill you
if you have a grouse against india then try to work there or even better try to get admitted to IIT.

trolling & moaning about this issue isnt gonna help you

regards,
pete

Interesting to note your comment about companies making huge profits but still cut back on operating expenses. They must!!! Wall Street would not allow it otherwise. The investment bankers and their analysts now look at quarterly figures with a magnifying glass like they did annual reports a decade ago. So you have Wall Street pushing short term, which pushes senior management to be short terms, which pushes the companies to be short term, and so on and so forth. We are in a fundamental structural problem here, no simple solution.

Just like all this trash talk in Congress about how the Chinese currency is over-valued and hence has stolen jobs from the US manufacturing sector. Who is kidding whom? How many Americans are doing the low cost cheap labor jobs thats first moved to Mexico and then to Asia, principally China nowadays. Making the notebook computer is a job that has gone to Asia for a decade now.
So Bush demands China up its currency vlaue by 35%- fine, that would be notebooks, PBs included would go up in price in the US- TOO THE US CONSUMER by at least 25%. Are those jobs coming back to the US? No. But everything you buy in Walmart will go up at least 10 to 20% in price. Is that what congress wants? How politicians also forgo long term strategic view for short term gains- like the election next year.

So you have Wall Street seeking short term, Corporate CEOs seeking short term and politicians seeking short term............... where does it all go?

Exactly. It used to be that a CEO had a long term interest in the company. But now the CEO has become such a valuable position that we trade them like superstars. So now the investors and decision makers don't have a vested interest in the long term viability of the company...

The current mindset is that a company serves only its owners (ie investors). Employees are only a commodity to serve that purpose. What we all must realize is that the primary purpose of a company must be, for the health of the economy, to serve its employees (including its owners of course). Until this mindset changes, were in deep sh*t.

Oh, do I smell a hijacked thread here.

Ok... well what was the question, Reasons I would NOT buy a G5? Because I don't need one? Currently I'm running a Dual 533MHz Digital Audio. Soon I will be purchasing a slew of upgrades; WD Raptor, Radeon 9800, and most likely a CPU upgrade. Promised myself back when I purchased this rig that it would last until something truly compelling came around. Other then the FSB and quietness of the G5 I don't see it offering me anything spectacular. Could care less about bitness, how it looks, how many ports it has.

But the upgrades I'm purchasing now can be transfers to a G5 if the need arises. Just about everything except the G4 upgrade card. On future revs I'd like to see more PCI ports, a bit more with internal space. Hopefully when they shrink the process they might give a little in that area.

I have nothing against a person taking advantage of what offers are available to them. So I certainly don't mean this as an attack on you, Pete. Welcome to the country and I hope you don't learn to despise it like we do I'm harping on H1b because I wasn't eligeable for a better position in my company because I wasn't on an H1b visa. It just adds insult to injury since theres not lots of companies hiring and LOTS of people looking.

I moved here in 2001. Since moving I haven't been able to prove my value as an engineer because the entire IT structure is in such a state of turmoil that nobody cares that I'm a good engineer. I'm not complaining for my sake. Like I said, I have a job.

You keep trying to turn this around. Its human nature to try and say the people loosing their jobs must somehow deserve it. That way you feel safe in your position. Its worrysome to think that you could be out of work through no fault of your own, I know... But I remember doing the same sort of justifying when manufacturing went overseas. "American auto workers are lazy. They're stupid. They want too much money." Funny how we justify buying the cheaper foreign goods when we stand to benefit. But now I see the CEOs saying the same thing about American developers. Makes me realize that maybe the UAW really did have a point back in the 80's and 90's... My buddy is an accountant and he says the same problem is beginning to affect him. Companies are shipping their accounting departments overseas to save money. So all American accountants are lazy too?