Apple G5 review by PC Magazine
Don't know if people have seen this yet:
PC Magazine review
In a nutshell, here's what they said:
After testing a loaded ($4,349 direct, after we opted for more RAM and upgraded graphics) dual 2.0-GHz Power Mac G5 on a range of high-end content creation applications and comparing the results with a similarly configured (and priced) Dell Precision 650 Workstation running dual 3.06-GHz Xeon processors, we see that indeed the G5 is generally as fast as the best Intel-based workstations currently available.
PC Magazine review
In a nutshell, here's what they said:
After testing a loaded ($4,349 direct, after we opted for more RAM and upgraded graphics) dual 2.0-GHz Power Mac G5 on a range of high-end content creation applications and comparing the results with a similarly configured (and priced) Dell Precision 650 Workstation running dual 3.06-GHz Xeon processors, we see that indeed the G5 is generally as fast as the best Intel-based workstations currently available.
Comments
We all know on the Arse benches that the dual G5 swept away all comers. And I bet the dual G5 is much cheaper than the dual Xeon the PC mag was bleating about. No mention of iapps, how superior 'X' is and they came across rather frigid about the G5 case.
Personally, I just met the G5 in person today. The low end G5 model. All I can say is that I was blown away by the case. It is awesome. A work of art. (The Apple sales person was mewing about it not being to his taste...well, his loss.) I think it's the best thing Apple have done by a country mile and that includes the new Powerbooks, nice though they are.
In use? I'd agree with folks who say that the G5 1.6 less than blows them away. It's prob' got performance on par with a 2.4 gig Pentium. The problem with that is that the 'low end' G5 is a full grand more than that PC performance that is being given away at prices circa £500!
On the other hand, I'd agree with Mac users saying you could hardly complain about a 'low end' PowerMac that more than bests/hold's its own with previous G4 'high end' towers...for a much, much cheaper price...and in a far, far sexier case. But G4 power was out of date and over priced, which it still is. Powerbooks excluded.
I tried the system out. 1000 dip 9 by 6 inch image. 200 size Photoshop brush. Definitely delayed in trying to keep up with cursor. Hmmm. Tried 300 dpi. Still delay. Hmmm. Tried filters. Hmmm. Definitely comparable to a dual G4 of any variety that I'd tried out previously. Perhaps more responsive. A little more bite. But with talk of a dual 2 gig G5 being raved about? I guess I was 'hurmmm'. Not blown away...but not bad for a 'low end' machine. But I'm not sure if this reflects four years of progress over a G4's debut.
Loading up apps? 1 or 1 and a half bounces. Pretty responsive. Less so when I loaded up 9 apps at once (PS, Final Cut, Illustrator, iDVD, iMovie etc...Logic already open...didn't want to close the project and annoy the Apple sales folks...) Pretty impressive, really. Better than my wife's iBook and the G4s I've met at loading stuff.
I suspected going into the store that if the G5 on display was the low end model that I was going to be a little anti-climaxed by it...aside from the awesome case which I couldn't stop touching and watching...
I came away with the distinct feeling that the G5 is late. Which it is if we're honest. The G5 line up could have done with being with us about a year ago and it would have been awesome. I'm getting the distinctly uncomfortably feeling that it's all catch up. A fine catch up. But a catch up all the same. That isn't to say I won't be bowled over when I test a dual 2 gigger. But the sales guy said that it won't be in until mid October and that's a stock machine! Heh.
The real star? The case.
I felt the case deserved a 3 gig 970 processor!
The 1.6 came across as 'too light weight' for such an awesome case.
Very heavy machine. Very tall. Impressive stature. I'm not my half inch glass table will be able to stand it's weight? Advice?)
One more point about the case. The mesh. I thought, from screenshots that it would be as thin as cheese grater as in some shots you can see inside from the front, through the speed holes... I thought that this was a little disappointing. But in the flesh the 'foil' affect is much thicker and sturdier. I love the little blue light. The ports on front I wasn't sure about...but they look cool. The aluminium finish is nothing short of astounding! Right down to the logo. Even the back of the machine looks fine!
Noise? What noise..? I put my ear to the machine in a relatively calm store and I couldn't hear a thing. Impressive. Very impressive.
Rationally, I think there's more to come from Adobe. Their apps seem to have got slower and slower! PS 7 is a slug on 'X'. That might not be the case on a dual 2 gig. But I've the distinct impression that PS7 isn't optimised, the OS didn't feel optimised for the new processor and there was no 'zip'.
Given Panther, Rev B G5, PS8 and optimised Apps then I'm sure things will fly.
It seems to be a case of the planets slowly moving into alignment on this one.
I don't want to sound too hard, but nothing less than a dual 2 gig will impress me. And it seems more than likely to wait until pigs have finished feeding at the trough before I get one. And by that time? Rev B can't be far away. I think I'm gonna need a 2.5 gigger! Ala dual!
In heart and head mode.
Lemon Bon Bon
"While previous Power Macs had a latch for easy access to the internal components, the G5 is lockable to prevent unwanted intrusion."
My G3 is lockable, so what are they talking about?
However the important point is that they say the dual is a good computer for high end users.
- The Mac is (finally!) competitive on a performance basis. Win a few benchmarks, lose a few benchmarks, the fact is the raw performance is similar.
- Performance is only going to improve. Between Panther, application optimization and new compilers, the only way is up!
- The Mac is cheaper! Yup, I didn't believe it either. I priced out the Precision 650, dual 3.06 Xeon, 2GB DDR RAM, 160GB DASD and a "comparable" video card and it came to ~$4700.
and most importantly...
- The Mac runs OS X. I have both PCs and Macs at home. My primary machine is a MDD G4 Single 1.25 -- which by all benchmarking accounts is a far slower machine than at least a couple of my PCs. I hardly turn on the PCs anymore, however, because OS X is so superior to Win XP, I find the OVERALL performance (user experience, file system operations as well as applications) far better.
My $0.02,
-John
First of all, I completely understand that PC Magazine would be skeptical of Apple's claims after they said that the G4 was so much faster when it really only did better in Altivec-enabled Photoshop filters. I think it's more caution than bitterness. Once burned, twice shy, you know?
They obviously like it at least a little bit because they say that "The physical appearance of the G5 is just as impressive as its performance numbers..." They also say of the iApps, "Machines also come with the standard?and excellent?iLife bundle..." See? They like the iApps! They also seem to really like the case and cooling system, and they comment on how quiet the machine is.
So why so hostile about the review? They really liked it.
the G5 also ships with the standard unremarkable keyboard and one-button mouse, which look and feel more out of date with each main system update
cuz you know what? the standard dell mouse and keyboard.. there just so... so... remarkable!
mmmm, Mechanical, I love cleaning mouse balls.
I am a Dell Entry keyboard, i usually break after a couple of months, oh and I have no extra usb ports.
At these larger image sizes, although the Wintel test times were quite good, both the G4 and G5 computers proved more adept at distort functions like wave and pinch. Moreover, on the Windows system, loading the controls often took a minute or more. If these times are added back to the actual test times, both Macintosh computers would have clearly outperformed the Windows-based computer.
so the g5 did win the over all photoshop test?
edit: oops just read your post again Powerdoc
On the other hand, Dell's entry level keyboard and mouse are really cruddy, but you can BTO a better keyboard (including a wireless one), and you can BTO a better mouse or no mouse if you want.
At these larger image sizes, although the Wintel test times were quite good, both the G4 and G5 computers proved more adept at distort functions like wave and pinch. Moreover, on the Windows system, loading the controls often took a minute or more. If these times are added back to the actual test times, BOTH Macintosh computers would have clearly outperformed the Windows-based computer.
If you read this carefully they say that the Dual G4 1.4Ghz kicks the dual 3Ghz Xeons arse in real world photoshop performance. So if you're sat at a desk everyday you're going to be far more productive using the G4 than the Dual Xeon! You fancy waiting a "minute or more" for the filter controls to appear on a PC?
The fact is there's still a whole load of performance enhancements coming with Panther that will further push the G5s ahead. That's funny...where did all the trolls go??
The fact is there's still a whole load of performance enhancements coming with Panther that will further push the G5s ahead. That's funny...where did all the trolls go??
The real roll of the dice is gonna be Panther. Whisphers of 20%-50% performance improvements in OS X on G3/G4s...and who knows what with the G5. I don't get the impression that the G5 is really flying yet.
September is fast approaching 'over' status. That leaves 3 months for a San Fran' rev B announcement?
Maybe alongside a final candidate status of the IBM compiler.
Add Panther, Rev B, App optimisations and the IBM compiler (should Apple go with it...but given the 'five generation' deal with IBM, it would make sense that IBM would share its compiler expertise on their own chips...) and you have some impressive speed gains.
It seems obvious that the G5s are only half cooked at the moment...
...simmer...bring to boil.
Lemon Bon Bon
Originally posted by Luca Rescigno
Apple's keyboard and mouse aren't throwaway items the moment you take them out of the box. Well, maybe the mouse is if you want two buttons, but at least it's made well and has a nice optical sensor.
The question is when is the Power Mac G5 order page going to let you choose the BT wireless KB and mouse? Right now you have to buy the wireless AND pay extra if you want wireless...why not just be able to choose from that page directly? Obviously if I want wireless, I don't also want the wired version </rant>
Oh wait a minute. You're right, that is freaking stupid.
Sorry bro, seems I have a bad case of zealotitus.
(but you KNOW someone was going to come in here, say that, and actually mean it)
I'm sure such an option will surface once these things start shipping, or at least, I hope it does.
Originally posted by Lemon Bon Bon
The real roll of the dice is gonna be Panther. Whisphers of 20%-50% performance improvements in OS X on G3/G4s...and who knows what with the G5. I don't get the impression that the G5 is really flying yet.
September is fast approaching 'over' status. That leaves 3 months for a San Fran' rev B announcement?
Maybe alongside a final candidate status of the IBM compiler.
Add Panther, Rev B, App optimisations and the IBM compiler (should Apple go with it...but given the 'five generation' deal with IBM, it would make sense that IBM would share its compiler expertise on their own chips...) and you have some impressive speed gains.
It seems obvious that the G5s are only half cooked at the moment...
...simmer...bring to boil.
Lemon Bon Bon
I see panther to be more like 20%...where did you hear 50?!
Originally posted by DHagan4755
The question is when is the Power Mac G5 order page going to let you choose the BT wireless KB and mouse? Right now you have to buy the wireless AND pay extra if you want wireless...why not just be able to choose from that page directly? Obviously if I want wireless, I don't also want the wired version </rant>
cuz there not out yet, not till Panth...I mean october
Originally posted by ryukyu
Don't know if people have seen this yet:
PC Magazine review
In a nutshell, here's what they said:
After testing a loaded ($4,349 direct, after we opted for more RAM
Yeah - $1050 more at Apple Store prices for the additional 1.5 GB.
Crucial is charging me $281.97 plus tax for 1.5 GB of G5 RAM, shipped.
That alone makes the G5 almost $800 less expensive than they quote.
Apple sets itself up for these magazine reviews to show their PowerMac overpriced when the reviewers order the RAM with the computer.
I wonder if Dell charges these kind of prices for additional memory.
If you buy the 1GB sticks for the Dell, it costs $5,800+ versus $4,300 for the G5. That's a fair comparison. The Dell is 33% more expensive.
I emailed the Director of the PCMag Labs asking why they didn't just state this in the article or if there was something else I missed. He replied that he did not know, but did forward his reply and my original email to the staff who did the review/tests.
They could have easily used third-party RAM for each, or the expensive RAM for each, but it appears they chose to fib so that the Dell didn't look so bad in value.
BTW, at those price/performance ratios, three G5s would equal the performance of four Dell 650s.
Those three G5s would cost about $13,000. THe four Dells would cost about $23,000.
I'd say $10,000 of up front savings is a good thing, wouldn't you?
For instance:
Convert Word document
G5: 84.37
Xeon: 95.48
G4: 102.05
Convert nine images
G5: 107.17
Xeon: 192.29
G4: 146.88
Total
G5: 191.54
Xeon: 287.77
G4: 248.93
Overall, the dual 1.42 GHz G4 is 13.5 % faster than the dual 3GHz Xeon machine.
The same is true for the sorenson squeeze test:
Encoding
G5: 322.28
Xeon: 524.08
G4: 431.76
The G4 is 17.5 % [faster] than the Xeon, and only 25.4% slower than the G5.
The G4 does, however get hammered in the Photoshop test (80% slower), and in the lightwave test (35% slower).
It is however interesting that the G4 does beat the Xeon in real world photoshop tests, since there are no one-minute delay to get up the controls.
Moreover, on the Windows system, loading the controls often took a minute or more. If these times are added back to the actual test times, both Macintosh computers would have clearly outperformed the Windows-based computer.
Seems that the G4 isn't really as bad as we all thought is was...
On another note, the overall score (though im not sure just how applicable this is for these tests) for the three systems are:
G5: 1206.44
Xeon: 1480.38 (+22.7%)
G4: 1712.77 (+42.0%)
.:BoeManE:.
Originally posted by BoeManE
I am amazed at how well the dual G4's compete with the dual Xeon's. The G4's architecture is at least a year older than that of the Xeon's. But still it manages to accually outperform the xeons on some tasks!
You'll find the tasks where the G4 wins out are mainly the altivec enabled tasks.
Its a good feeling after a long time......
Originally posted by Telomar
You'll find the tasks where the G4 wins out are mainly the altivec enabled tasks.
And you will find that on such tasks, the G5 beats the G4 to death. Thus, the G5 beats the P4 to death on anything that is altivec optimized.