Not only are the video cards not competitive, but frankly, I still find the whole package lacking. The video cards alone should be upgraded to something like an 8600 at the low end and an (admittedly unannounced) X800 for the 2.5. By dropping ADC, this means that they should finally be able to use the same video cards as PCs and only require new drivers, lowering the cost and time to market.
2 hard drive slots and only 1 external optical bay is pretty weak. It was a bad idea in the beginning, and it still is now. I have a feeling this is so that people will go buy xServes instead, but then they should have made the xServe quieter for those who want one near their desk.
Superdrive 8x might be fine for the low end, but dual layer is going to be the new standard and should be offered for the 2.5.
If they are going to move to liquid cooling, they should liquid cool everything and make the case smaller.
Overall, the new Powermacs are a moderate upgrade that should have happened several months ago. I'd consider buying one, but with the caveats above, it is a tougher decision than it should be.
In regards to graphics memory bandwidth the GeForce FX 5950 beats the Quadro FX 3000. Yet the Quadro FX 4000 beats the 5950, while the latest GeForce 6800 beats the Quadro FX 4000.
But it would be reasonable to assume that the 5xxx series gaming cards are the same technology as the Quadro FX 3000 series. And the 6xxx series the same as the Quadro FX 4000.
With ATI their 9xxx series is technically similar to their FireGL cards. The 9800 256MB likely equivalent to the FireGL X2.
Quote:
I think the only hardware difference is that it's designed to last longer and be more stable.
Plus some ROM or Flash ROM content that identifies the card as being a pro card.
An interesting side note on the new nVidia GeForce 6800:
While looking through the documentation the online tech specs lists compatibility only with Windows and Linux.
Interesting that when G4s had L3 cache added, it was considered a last ditch effort to get out some more speed, while with intel, it's an amazing feat of engineering that has added noticable performance.
I don't recall anyone claiming Intel adding L3 cache as an amazing engineering feat. The L3 cache is found in the P4EE line which are essentially modified Xeons. Intel has had L3 caches for years in Xeons, long before Apple ever did.
2 hard drive slots and only 1 external optical bay is pretty weak. It was a bad idea in the beginning, and it still is now. I have a feeling this is so that people will go buy xServes instead, but then they should have made the xServe quieter for those who want one near their desk.
Why tell my why having two optical bays and more than 2 HD bays is such a big deal. No it's not because Apple wants people to buy xserves or xRAIDs. Those aren't you only options and Apple is not trying to drive anyone anywhere buy limiting the amount of bays.
Quote:
Superdrive 8x might be fine for the low end, but dual layer is going to be the new standard and should be offered for the 2.5.
It's hard to find 8x media, DL media is even harder. Apple just can't hop onto newegg and order the latest drive people. Efficiency demands that Apple deal with suppliers who can deliver product in the numbers they require. In this situation you want to avoid anything that will cause a potential supply problems. Remember in the past some models of Macs were delayed for weeks just because of a graphics card.
Quote:
Overall, the new Powermacs are a moderate upgrade that should have happened several months ago. I'd consider buying one, but with the caveats above, it is a tougher decision than it should be.
That's just it they "were" supposed to ship months ago when DL wasn't shipping and PCI Express wasn't ready.
Mac users have to wake up from this fantasy. For $3000 you're not going to get the top of the line processor with a $500 graphics card. Alienware won't sell you a DP system with a X800 for $3k. $3k is the starting point and if need more video power..buy it.
As for dual layer how many consumers really need 8.5GB DVDs? How many are creating 90-120 minute video?? Apple will move to DL but considering that a DL disc take as much as 40 minuts to burn and the disc prices are $6 a disc I can't see the appeal when there is dual sided 9.4GB media for much less.
Sounds case of someone wanting a product for bragging rights but not really looking at the real world "costs" involved.
The extra costs added due to the new cooling system for the 2.5, it seems pretty clear why hard drives or graphics weren't upgraded. I had no idea it was so ellaborate.
The 2.5GHz isn't out yet, and dual layers aren't so expensive so as not to be included as standard equipment at the high end. 2 optical bays can be nice for duplicating discs, or accessing media on one drive while writing to another. There are numerous times I need video samples from one or more discs. Two external drives is not too much. As for internal drives, what is the point of such a large tower with only space for two drives? I'd give up card slots for more drives any day, and a lot of people who work with media would. I can cram 800MB in there at most, and a lot of time I have older drives I just want to directly transplant into my new machine. There are expensive aftermarket mounting kits, but more bays would be better.
An X800 might be a bit extreme I concede, but Apple does need to drop the whole proprietary video card thing and let people get some decent video card power. In some ways this is more important than getting to 3.0GHz.
Well I disagree that Apple is a photoshop king. #1 being that Adobe recommends PC's instead of Mac's now for all photoshop work.
Photoshop is turning into a retarded benchmark for computers. It's at the point where features like Exposé speed up your workflow more than increases to processor speed.
Not only are the video cards not competitive, but frankly, I still find the whole package lacking. The video cards alone should be upgraded to something like an 8600 at the low end and an (admittedly unannounced) X800 for the 2.5. By dropping ADC, this means that they should finally be able to use the same video cards as PCs and only require new drivers, lowering the cost and time to market.
8600XT should be the base card in all of the towers, but I don't mind the 9800XT (or in the future the X800) being a build to order. A lot of people don't need the top of the line card, so why make them pay the extra $350 for it?
Quote:
2 hard drive slots and only 1 external optical bay is pretty weak. It was a bad idea in the beginning, and it still is now. I have a feeling this is so that people will go buy xServes instead, but then they should have made the xServe quieter for those who want one near their desk.
I agree, they did not put enough expansion bays in the tower. A tower case should have at least three accessible drives, and 4 internal drive bays.
Quote:
Superdrive 8x might be fine for the low end, but dual layer is going to be the new standard and should be offered for the 2.5.
"Going to be" are the key words here. Right now the 8x Superdrive is better for most users (but a dual layer drive would make a good BTO addition).
Quote:
If they are going to move to liquid cooling, they should liquid cool everything and make the case smaller.
Huh? Two things:
1) If anything liquid cooling takes up more room not less, and what else besides the processors would you want liquid cooled?
2) Weren't you just asking for more drive bays? You can't have more bays without having a larger case -- why would you be asking for a smaller one?
Quote:
Overall, the new Powermacs are a moderate upgrade that should have happened several months ago. I'd consider buying one, but with the caveats above, it is a tougher decision than it should be.
I can understand that. The current tower is far from the one I want -- I prefer the expandability of the Powermac 9600/9600 cases. We started losing the expandability with the "El-Capitan" case design, and the G5 design is just pathetic when it comes to accessible and internal expansion bays. Of course I don't think that Apple will address the shortcomings of it current case design anytime soon, so you might not want to wait,
Well I disagree that Apple is a photoshop king. #1 being that Adobe recommends PC's instead of Mac's now for all photoshop work.
Adobe recommended the Mac for years, but that all ended so I just don't buy that one.
Adobe put out that recommendation prior to the G5 release and also at a point of increasing political tension surrounding Apples increasing push into Adobe's Video market. Also the Adobe recommendations were posted as part of a joint hardware software marketing partnership.
A tutorial book by an Adobe employee came out that had a lot of negative things to say regarding the Mac platform's performance. Again that was prior to the G5 and 10.3. Adobe also came out and said that that employees opinion wasn't an official Adobe opinion.
My primary Photoshop/Illustrator/Design platform has been Windows for the last three years via Dell ala XP. It has been hell. The main pisser is how large file saving brings the system to a standstill in the multitasking department (not to mention the HD and CDRW dyeing 2x). I won't bitch on (I do that enough at work throughout the day working on this set up), but the 2Ghz G5 that's coming next week is going to be a sight for sore eyes!
Regarding the H2O cooling, from what I understand the cooling surface area is much smaller on the 970fx and although the 90nm chips are cooler and use less energy the smaller cooling surface poses new challenges from traditional heat-sink cooling perspective exacerbated by the desire for quite operation.
Photoshop is turning into a retarded benchmark for computers. It's at the point where features like Exposé speed up your workflow more than increases to processor speed.
Yup, the big picture is important to remember, but very hard to compare across platforms. With the large crop of Apple-only apps its also hard to compare FCP to Adobe on the PC side. They should have a comparison of a Mac and and a PC with the best software for the task at ahand and a project to complete. Thats the real test, but people will argue the details until forever. They already do with the simple comparisons.
nd dual layers aren't so expensive so as not to be included as standard equipment at the high end.
I'm not sure it's necessarily about expense. Availability probably take precedent. I don't know of any manufacturer shipping DL drives in volume.
As for Adobe. Their performance is average. That's a lazy company if I've ever seen one. I think their bundles are nice and Photoshop is of course the stalwart but I miss the days when there was competition. I miss Macromedia pushing Xres and Live Picture coming at Adobe. Well Apples giving them hell in video, it'll be interesting to see where Apple positions Motion in the future.
I hope Apple adds more drive bays in a future redesign. However I'm not sure Apple wants people running RAIDS internally. They seem to be very leery of adding heat producting devices. El Capitan in the end must have gave them fits because they are definitely gunshy about adding bays to the new cases.
I'm not sure it's necessarily about expense. Availability probably take precedent. I don't know of any manufacturer shipping DL drives in volume.
I hope Apple adds more drive bays in a future redesign. However I'm not sure Apple wants people running RAIDS internally. They seem to be very leery of adding heat producting devices. El Capitan in the end must have gave them fits because they are definitely gunshy about adding bays to the new cases.
1. should be a BTO option either way. Apple is very shy of offering BTO options. Just standard stuff. Considering they only have one drive bay they should at least offer a wide assortment of drives for it. I'd also like to see them support RW and +R, +RW
Comments
2 hard drive slots and only 1 external optical bay is pretty weak. It was a bad idea in the beginning, and it still is now. I have a feeling this is so that people will go buy xServes instead, but then they should have made the xServe quieter for those who want one near their desk.
Superdrive 8x might be fine for the low end, but dual layer is going to be the new standard and should be offered for the 2.5.
If they are going to move to liquid cooling, they should liquid cool everything and make the case smaller.
Overall, the new Powermacs are a moderate upgrade that should have happened several months ago. I'd consider buying one, but with the caveats above, it is a tougher decision than it should be.
Originally posted by mattyj
Interesting as isn't the Quadro 3000 a FX5900?
In regards to graphics memory bandwidth the GeForce FX 5950 beats the Quadro FX 3000. Yet the Quadro FX 4000 beats the 5950, while the latest GeForce 6800 beats the Quadro FX 4000.
But it would be reasonable to assume that the 5xxx series gaming cards are the same technology as the Quadro FX 3000 series. And the 6xxx series the same as the Quadro FX 4000.
With ATI their 9xxx series is technically similar to their FireGL cards. The 9800 256MB likely equivalent to the FireGL X2.
I think the only hardware difference is that it's designed to last longer and be more stable.
Plus some ROM or Flash ROM content that identifies the card as being a pro card.
An interesting side note on the new nVidia GeForce 6800:
While looking through the documentation the online tech specs lists compatibility only with Windows and Linux.
But if you download the GeForce 6800 Product Overview it explicitly says "Macintosh OS, including OS X".
Nice to learn it's coming soon.
Originally posted by onlooker
#1 being that Adobe recommends PC's instead of Mac's now for all photoshop work.
I think Garageband, Soundtrack, Final Cut, and the big one, Motion, pretty much made that change in Adobe's "thinking."
Originally posted by mattyj
Interesting that when G4s had L3 cache added, it was considered a last ditch effort to get out some more speed, while with intel, it's an amazing feat of engineering that has added noticable performance.
I don't recall anyone claiming Intel adding L3 cache as an amazing engineering feat. The L3 cache is found in the P4EE line which are essentially modified Xeons. Intel has had L3 caches for years in Xeons, long before Apple ever did.
2 hard drive slots and only 1 external optical bay is pretty weak. It was a bad idea in the beginning, and it still is now. I have a feeling this is so that people will go buy xServes instead, but then they should have made the xServe quieter for those who want one near their desk.
Why tell my why having two optical bays and more than 2 HD bays is such a big deal. No it's not because Apple wants people to buy xserves or xRAIDs. Those aren't you only options and Apple is not trying to drive anyone anywhere buy limiting the amount of bays.
Superdrive 8x might be fine for the low end, but dual layer is going to be the new standard and should be offered for the 2.5.
It's hard to find 8x media, DL media is even harder. Apple just can't hop onto newegg and order the latest drive people. Efficiency demands that Apple deal with suppliers who can deliver product in the numbers they require. In this situation you want to avoid anything that will cause a potential supply problems. Remember in the past some models of Macs were delayed for weeks just because of a graphics card.
Overall, the new Powermacs are a moderate upgrade that should have happened several months ago. I'd consider buying one, but with the caveats above, it is a tougher decision than it should be.
That's just it they "were" supposed to ship months ago when DL wasn't shipping and PCI Express wasn't ready.
Mac users have to wake up from this fantasy. For $3000 you're not going to get the top of the line processor with a $500 graphics card. Alienware won't sell you a DP system with a X800 for $3k. $3k is the starting point and if need more video power..buy it.
As for dual layer how many consumers really need 8.5GB DVDs? How many are creating 90-120 minute video?? Apple will move to DL but considering that a DL disc take as much as 40 minuts to burn and the disc prices are $6 a disc I can't see the appeal when there is dual sided 9.4GB media for much less.
Sounds case of someone wanting a product for bragging rights but not really looking at the real world "costs" involved.
An X800 might be a bit extreme I concede, but Apple does need to drop the whole proprietary video card thing and let people get some decent video card power. In some ways this is more important than getting to 3.0GHz.
Originally posted by onlooker
Well I disagree that Apple is a photoshop king. #1 being that Adobe recommends PC's instead of Mac's now for all photoshop work.
Photoshop is turning into a retarded benchmark for computers. It's at the point where features like Exposé speed up your workflow more than increases to processor speed.
Originally posted by TKN
Not only are the video cards not competitive, but frankly, I still find the whole package lacking. The video cards alone should be upgraded to something like an 8600 at the low end and an (admittedly unannounced) X800 for the 2.5. By dropping ADC, this means that they should finally be able to use the same video cards as PCs and only require new drivers, lowering the cost and time to market.
8600XT should be the base card in all of the towers, but I don't mind the 9800XT (or in the future the X800) being a build to order. A lot of people don't need the top of the line card, so why make them pay the extra $350 for it?
2 hard drive slots and only 1 external optical bay is pretty weak. It was a bad idea in the beginning, and it still is now. I have a feeling this is so that people will go buy xServes instead, but then they should have made the xServe quieter for those who want one near their desk.
I agree, they did not put enough expansion bays in the tower. A tower case should have at least three accessible drives, and 4 internal drive bays.
Superdrive 8x might be fine for the low end, but dual layer is going to be the new standard and should be offered for the 2.5.
"Going to be" are the key words here. Right now the 8x Superdrive is better for most users (but a dual layer drive would make a good BTO addition).
If they are going to move to liquid cooling, they should liquid cool everything and make the case smaller.
Huh? Two things:
1) If anything liquid cooling takes up more room not less, and what else besides the processors would you want liquid cooled?
2) Weren't you just asking for more drive bays? You can't have more bays without having a larger case -- why would you be asking for a smaller one?
Overall, the new Powermacs are a moderate upgrade that should have happened several months ago. I'd consider buying one, but with the caveats above, it is a tougher decision than it should be.
I can understand that. The current tower is far from the one I want -- I prefer the expandability of the Powermac 9600/9600 cases. We started losing the expandability with the "El-Capitan" case design, and the G5 design is just pathetic when it comes to accessible and internal expansion bays. Of course I don't think that Apple will address the shortcomings of it current case design anytime soon, so you might not want to wait,
Originally posted by onlooker
Well I disagree that Apple is a photoshop king. #1 being that Adobe recommends PC's instead of Mac's now for all photoshop work.
Adobe recommended the Mac for years, but that all ended so I just don't buy that one.
Adobe put out that recommendation prior to the G5 release and also at a point of increasing political tension surrounding Apples increasing push into Adobe's Video market. Also the Adobe recommendations were posted as part of a joint hardware software marketing partnership.
A tutorial book by an Adobe employee came out that had a lot of negative things to say regarding the Mac platform's performance. Again that was prior to the G5 and 10.3. Adobe also came out and said that that employees opinion wasn't an official Adobe opinion.
My primary Photoshop/Illustrator/Design platform has been Windows for the last three years via Dell ala XP. It has been hell. The main pisser is how large file saving brings the system to a standstill in the multitasking department (not to mention the HD and CDRW dyeing 2x). I won't bitch on (I do that enough at work throughout the day working on this set up), but the 2Ghz G5 that's coming next week is going to be a sight for sore eyes!
Regarding the H2O cooling, from what I understand the cooling surface area is much smaller on the 970fx and although the 90nm chips are cooler and use less energy the smaller cooling surface poses new challenges from traditional heat-sink cooling perspective exacerbated by the desire for quite operation.
Originally posted by the cool gut
Photoshop is turning into a retarded benchmark for computers. It's at the point where features like Exposé speed up your workflow more than increases to processor speed.
Yup, the big picture is important to remember, but very hard to compare across platforms. With the large crop of Apple-only apps its also hard to compare FCP to Adobe on the PC side. They should have a comparison of a Mac and and a PC with the best software for the task at ahand and a project to complete. Thats the real test, but people will argue the details until forever. They already do with the simple comparisons.
nd dual layers aren't so expensive so as not to be included as standard equipment at the high end.
I'm not sure it's necessarily about expense. Availability probably take precedent. I don't know of any manufacturer shipping DL drives in volume.
As for Adobe. Their performance is average. That's a lazy company if I've ever seen one. I think their bundles are nice and Photoshop is of course the stalwart but I miss the days when there was competition. I miss Macromedia pushing Xres and Live Picture coming at Adobe. Well Apples giving them hell in video, it'll be interesting to see where Apple positions Motion in the future.
I hope Apple adds more drive bays in a future redesign. However I'm not sure Apple wants people running RAIDS internally. They seem to be very leery of adding heat producting devices. El Capitan in the end must have gave them fits because they are definitely gunshy about adding bays to the new cases.
Originally posted by hmurchison
I'm not sure it's necessarily about expense. Availability probably take precedent. I don't know of any manufacturer shipping DL drives in volume.
I hope Apple adds more drive bays in a future redesign. However I'm not sure Apple wants people running RAIDS internally. They seem to be very leery of adding heat producting devices. El Capitan in the end must have gave them fits because they are definitely gunshy about adding bays to the new cases.
1. should be a BTO option either way. Apple is very shy of offering BTO options. Just standard stuff. Considering they only have one drive bay they should at least offer a wide assortment of drives for it. I'd also like to see them support RW and +R, +RW
2. good point.
Originally posted by applenut
I'd also like to see them support RW and +R, +RW
That's supported as a part of Panther, as I recall.
Originally posted by Placebo
That's supported as a part of Panther, as I recall.
+ isn't.....RW isn't supported in iDVD at least...not sure about elsewhere