G5 1.6 & 1.8 unimpressive performance

garypgaryp
Posted:
in Current Mac Hardware edited January 2014
I just wandered into CompUSA here in San Rafael, CA to check out the new G5. They had a 1.6 & a 1.8 set up for people to play with. I just did one simple test: On both machines I fired up the CPU Monitor, opened a finder window & grabbed the resize tab in the lower right corner, doing a continuous resize for 10 seconds or so. In each case, that simple action pegged the meter at 100%. Lame. On the 1.8 machine I fired up the Apple System Profiler. Spinning beachball and the app took more than 30 seconds to produce its window. Uh huh. So this is the killer G5. Glad I decided to wait. So now the excuse is we are waiting for Panther? Apple seems to live from one excuse to the next. Obviously, they were stretching the hype to the max. These machines should have been duals across the line, for the price they are asking. I would be willing to bet the MWSF lineup will be all duals, and those who jumped at these overpriced new G5s will be feelling pretty silly. I'll buy a dual 2 GHz G5 next spring, when it is the bottom of the line for $1799
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 35
    kickahakickaha Posts: 8,760member
    ASP polls for all hardware busses, with timeouts. It also scans the entire hard drive for applications, frameworks, etc. It takes a few seconds that have nothing to do with the CPU. Sorry you thought this was a good test.



    Did you try actually doing anything *useful* on them, or did you just perform useless motions that you're never going to replicate in real life?
  • Reply 2 of 35
    lucaluca Posts: 3,833member
    ALL machines use 100% of the CPU to resize windows. Especially if there are no background tasks, why not use 100%? It makes it smoother.



    I can sometimes launch Apple System Profiler really quickly, and sometimes it takes forever. I think it depends on whether it's been launched recently or something.



    Neither one of your tests has anything to do with real-world performance. I'd also like to know what your standard of comparison was - if, say, it took 100% CPU to do a particular task on the 1.6 or 1.8 that only took 40% of the CPU on the dual 2.0, then you'd have a point.
  • Reply 3 of 35
    qaziiqazii Posts: 305member
    Apple System Profiler responds instantly for me, for both main tab and devices and volumes. 1.8 stock + 1 gig extra ram.
  • Reply 4 of 35
    bigcbigc Posts: 1,224member
    my DP 1GHz uses %50 of each processor when resizing windows, why wouldn't it use all it could...
  • Reply 5 of 35
    voxappsvoxapps Posts: 236member
    So I guess the lesson here is that if your primary use of a computer is endlessly resizing finder windows and running System Profiler, you can save your money and buy something else.



    Didn't you try any "real" applications, like, say, changing your desktop picture or reconfiguring the display from thousands to millions of colors, or modifying the system beep? You know, stuff that power users spend most of their time doing?



  • Reply 6 of 35
    garypgaryp Posts: 150member
    Glad to know these aren't real tests of the G5's performance. Also, could be the systems at CompUSA are already screwed up from people banging on them.
  • Reply 7 of 35
    kickahakickaha Posts: 8,760member
    The latter I'd totally believe. :P



    Ah, the good old days of walking into a lab of //e's, quickly typing in '10 POKE (RND(32000), RND(255)) 20 GOTO 10 RUN' and walking away while the thing had fits...
  • Reply 8 of 35
    krassykrassy Posts: 595member
    just for your information - the G5 1.6 was tested in a logic audio performance comparison to the older G4. the results are really impressive. the G5 has 2-3 times the performance of a dual 1GHz.



    http://www.mac-pro-audio.de/email-bi...erG5-test.html



    as the report is in german, is anyone of you able to translate it? (i'm too lazy )
  • Reply 9 of 35
    leonisleonis Posts: 3,427member
    The G5 shines only if the app is tuned for it....
  • Reply 10 of 35
    krassykrassy Posts: 595member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Leonis

    The G5 shines only if the app is tuned for it....



    so - where's the problem?
  • Reply 11 of 35
    musicaltonemusicaltone Posts: 189member
    The reason Apple System Profiler takes time to launch is because it gathers info about the whole system first - hence the prominetnly displayed "Gathering" message when you open it ..... once gatehred, the next time you launch it the display is instantaneous.
  • Reply 12 of 35
    mark_wilkinsmark_wilkins Posts: 154member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by qazII

    Apple System Profiler responds instantly for me, for both main tab and devices and volumes. 1.8 stock + 1 gig extra ram.



    That's because you keep opening it to remind yourself that you're on A NEW G5!!!!



    -- Mark
  • Reply 13 of 35
    heaven or las vegasheaven or las vegas Posts: 138member
    This guy I know who is a PC user... he walks into CompUSA and notices the new G5. (Its a stock 1.6 GHz with 256 MB memory). He launches 4 applications at once. Apparently they took a while to load - sustained icon bounces. His conclusion - the new G5's are slow. Genius. Everyone seems to expect the G5 machines to be 1000x faster than their PC. Right.
  • Reply 14 of 35
    giantgiant Posts: 6,041member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Krassy

    just for your information - the G5 1.6 was tested in a logic audio performance comparison to the older G4. the results are really impressive. the G5 has 2-3 times the performance of a dual 1GHz.



    http://www.mac-pro-audio.de/email-bi...erG5-test.html



    as the report is in german, is anyone of you able to translate it? (i'm too lazy )



    Yeah, these logic tests that are coming out look really great. 52 PV's is really amazing, and that's on the low-end 1.6. It's going to be really interesting to see the number on a 2 Ghz (or 3Gz next summer!)
  • Reply 15 of 35
    amorphamorph Posts: 7,112member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by heaven or las vegas

    This guy I know who is a PC user... he walks into CompUSA and notices the new G5. (Its a stock 1.6 GHz with 256 MB memory).



    Apple isn't helping the perception by stocking the machines with 256MB RAM. All that CPU power and all that system bandwidth aren't worth much if you're swapping.
  • Reply 16 of 35
    chris vchris v Posts: 460member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by giant

    Yeah, these logic tests that are coming out look really great. 52 PV's is really amazing, and that's on the low-end 1.6. It's going to be really interesting to see the number on a 2 Ghz (or 3Gz next summer!)



    People are going to get sick of pasting Platinum Verbs into channels long before they hit the limit with the Dual 2.0 machines.



    I'm not gonna say "Who needs 80 reverbs?" because someone out there will want to do it, but good lord!



    CV
  • Reply 17 of 35
    slackulaslackula Posts: 262member
    Amorph: Amen to that! Can't believe the relatively small amount of RAM that Apple puts into its machines. Especially on the units for which RAM is very cheap, why not put a quick 1 Gig in? The machines would run a lot fatster and might help to dispel the "megahertz myth" that PC useds seem to care so much about. But I digress....
  • Reply 18 of 35
    ibrowseibrowse Posts: 1,749member
    I'm sure that a lot of the problem is that the G5s at CompUSA are only there with 256 MB RAM. If Apple wants people to walk up and be like "Wow, this really is the world's fastest personal computer" they should at last ship it with enough RAM for any computer to do stuff at a decent speed.
  • Reply 19 of 35
    algolalgol Posts: 833member
    My university has a 1.8Ghz G5 in the Book Store, they sell macs there, and I played around with it. The guy even took the side panel off for me to look inside. Beautiful beyond belief.



    These are the tests I did:



    Word opened in one bounce



    System profiler open and profiled the system in about 2 senconds



    iTunes Window resizing was smooth unlike on my G4 1Ghz.
  • Reply 20 of 35
    mrsparklemrsparkle Posts: 120member
    I don't see it on the page anymore, but I swear Apple's G5 page said that those speed tests were done on machines with 2GBs of RAM. The impression I get from reading a lot of these sites is that the G5 works better with tons of RAM.
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