My impressions of the New 867 MHz dual
Hi folks,
last friday, I was able to play for almost two entire hours on the new dual 867 MHz in some Montreal store. I'm now convinced, I'll buy this baby this week. Here are my impressions. Sorry for my bad English, and I'm typing this very fast, 'cause I do't have much time.
First, it's all about the dual 867 MHz G4 with default configuration. 256 MB of ram only, ComboDrive, GF4MX video card. Take note : there was two 17" LCD screens hooked to the same card, with 32 MB of video ram, and Jaguar had only 256 MB of memory.
The machine is a lot better looking than I believed. You MUST see it in real, not on photos or on the net. I believed the new front plate was terribly ugly when I saw it on the net. But really, this case is beautifull. Only sad point : the silver plate on the front collect fingerprints very easily. Don't touch it !
I don't know if it was because of Jaguar optimisations, or because the machine is pretty fast, but OS X appeared to be totally smooth, at first. No lags, no jerkiness, etc, until I put the machine on its knees (see below).
The Finder was very fast on both LCD screens. I ran 4 QT movies, that I stretched to a big size. Those movies were running in loop, forward and backward. I launched almost all applications that I've found on the HD (about 16 apps). Both screens were completelly covered with windows.
Guess what ? The machine was running fine ! It was pretty fast, despite all the windows.
I was watching the 2 CPUs with the CPU monitor app. Both CPU were constantly running at about the same rate. I was NEVER able to use them fully at 100%. Both processors were running at max 90 % or less, despite the heavy load of apps and processes runing and despite 4 QT movies running in loop. But, because of two 17" screens on a 32 MB card and because of only 256 MB RAM, the computer were slowing down. Windows became jerky while I resized them. The computer was on its knees.
Yes, the computer is very loud. Well, at first, it was very quiet, but after an hour or so, the fans on the power supply started. Damn! I heard them in a noisy store, with music in the background and lots of people talking everywhere. It was clear that noise came from the power supply, because I oppened the case to see inside.
Well, that's all for the moment. Despite the noise, I'll buy the 867 MHz. It's a very good machine.
last friday, I was able to play for almost two entire hours on the new dual 867 MHz in some Montreal store. I'm now convinced, I'll buy this baby this week. Here are my impressions. Sorry for my bad English, and I'm typing this very fast, 'cause I do't have much time.
First, it's all about the dual 867 MHz G4 with default configuration. 256 MB of ram only, ComboDrive, GF4MX video card. Take note : there was two 17" LCD screens hooked to the same card, with 32 MB of video ram, and Jaguar had only 256 MB of memory.
The machine is a lot better looking than I believed. You MUST see it in real, not on photos or on the net. I believed the new front plate was terribly ugly when I saw it on the net. But really, this case is beautifull. Only sad point : the silver plate on the front collect fingerprints very easily. Don't touch it !
I don't know if it was because of Jaguar optimisations, or because the machine is pretty fast, but OS X appeared to be totally smooth, at first. No lags, no jerkiness, etc, until I put the machine on its knees (see below).
The Finder was very fast on both LCD screens. I ran 4 QT movies, that I stretched to a big size. Those movies were running in loop, forward and backward. I launched almost all applications that I've found on the HD (about 16 apps). Both screens were completelly covered with windows.
Guess what ? The machine was running fine ! It was pretty fast, despite all the windows.
I was watching the 2 CPUs with the CPU monitor app. Both CPU were constantly running at about the same rate. I was NEVER able to use them fully at 100%. Both processors were running at max 90 % or less, despite the heavy load of apps and processes runing and despite 4 QT movies running in loop. But, because of two 17" screens on a 32 MB card and because of only 256 MB RAM, the computer were slowing down. Windows became jerky while I resized them. The computer was on its knees.
Yes, the computer is very loud. Well, at first, it was very quiet, but after an hour or so, the fans on the power supply started. Damn! I heard them in a noisy store, with music in the background and lots of people talking everywhere. It was clear that noise came from the power supply, because I oppened the case to see inside.
Well, that's all for the moment. Despite the noise, I'll buy the 867 MHz. It's a very good machine.
Comments
I look like an imbecile or some 5 year old retard !
<strong>Hi folks,
last friday, I was able to play for almost two entire hours on the new dual 867 MHz in some Montreal store. I'm now convinced, I'll buy this baby this week. Here are my impressions. Sorry for my bad English, and I'm typing this very fast, 'cause I do't have much time.
First, it's all about the dual 867 MHz G4 with default configuration. 256 MB of ram only, ComboDrive, GF4MX video card. Take note : there was two 17" LCD screens hooked to the same card, with 32 MB of video ram, and Jaguar had only 256 MB of memory.
The machine is a lot better looking than I believed. You MUST see it in real, not on photos or on the net. I believed the new front plate was terribly ugly when I saw it on the net. But really, this case is beautifull. Only sad point : the silver plate on the front collect fingerprints very easily. Don't touch it !
I don't know if it was because of Jaguar optimisations, or because the machine is pretty fast, but OS X appeared to be totally smooth, at first. No lags, no jerkiness, etc, until I put the machine on its knees (see below).
The Finder was very fast on both LCD screens. I ran 4 QT movies, that I stretched to a big size. Those movies were running in loop, forward and backward. I launched almost all applications that I've found on the HD (about 16 apps). Both screens were completelly covered with windows.
Guess what ? The machine was running fine ! It was pretty fast, despite all the windows.
I was watching the 2 CPUs with the CPU monitor app. Both CPU were constantly running at about the same rate. I was NEVER able to use them fully at 100%. Both processors were running at max 90 % or less, despite the heavy load of apps and processes runing and despite 4 QT movies running in loop. But, because of two 17" screens on a 32 MB card and because of only 256 MB RAM, the computer were slowing down. Windows became jerky while I resized them. The computer was on its knees.
Yes, the computer is very loud. Well, at first, it was very quiet, but after an hour or so, the fans on the power supply started. Damn! I heard them in a noisy store, with music in the background and lots of people talking everywhere. It was clear that noise came from the power supply, because I oppened the case to see inside.
Well, that's all for the moment. Despite the noise, I'll buy the 867 MHz. It's a very good machine.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Well, thats good news. I just dropped $2770.35 CDN for one but I'm not too sure when I'll be actually getting it. Ahh, the wait begins.
The reason it was getting slow (I'm guessing) would be the fact that you have 4 movies being read off the harddrive and with 16 applications open: There would be some mad virtal memory paging at work.
Anyways, the way you discribe it to "being on its knees" is nothing. Up until 1998 I was using a LC475 (25Mhz) with 36MB of RAM running OS 8.1 (which was insanely stupid for me to do) and doing Photoshopping on it with Photoshop 4. Now that was bringing a system to its knees.
There is a post in the 'which dual did you buy?' thread saying that RTCW works well with all the settings on and stock RAM n' graphics.
I think this system should do well for my web design and light photoshop work.
I got it late last week and have been playing with it when I get time.
The first thing I did was add more RAM to it. What sold me in the store (I was sitting on the fence since they didn't seem to be any faster than the old models) was launching 6 or 7 apps at the same time on 256MB of RAM.
10 seconds.
WOW.
The 867 is a really great value since it replaces the old 800Mhz simgle CPU for practically the same price. I reallly like this machine and I've had a ton of Macs over the years.
P.S. Jaguar ROCKS on this system. Go and get one, you'll be happy, Never mind the noise.
Are you using the dual 867 MHz at home ? If so, how do you describe the noise it makes ?
The big fan in the middle of the case has come on twice, both times when I did a hard restart and lasted on ly maybe 3 seconds. That is LOUD.
Otherwise that fan has never gone full-blast during normal use. I don't push the machine very hard but I suspect it would come on if you live in a non-airconditioned office and were rendering something complicated...
Anyways, as I was paying for my new iPod at the counter the fan came on in the 867. I was a good 20 feet away from it in a busy store and man, was it loud. It's hard to say what it was equivalent to--definately quieter than a vacuum cleaner, but no by a whole lot...
I may cancel my order, just because of this !
DAMN YOU Apple !
[ 08-30-2002: Message edited by: Kali ]</p>
Quieting a case down probably isn't that hard. I bet you could stuff some sound deadening material between the the plastic panels and the steel inner case to good effect, but you'll have to be very careful not to plug up any holes. Now that I think of it, if you can get the plastic off the case you can use 15 bucks worth of an appropriate sound deadening spray. Put the plastic back on, and no one should be able to tell. Or you can put it under the desk.
Somehow I just don't believe that Apple would make a computer that sounds like a Hoover. Any PM owners care to chime in?
<a href="http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/systems/g4_mirrored_drive_doors/noise_reduction/g4_ddr_noise_reduction.html"; target="_blank">www.xlr8yourmac.com</a>
It looks like it could kick your ass. 2 17" ASDs and the iSub make the computer look sensational.
It is "wicked fast".
It is loud as hell. I put it on my desk because it looks great (and my desk is HUGE), but after I get tired of looking at it, it'll have to go somewhere else. I keep my house at 73 degrees whenever I'm home, so heat shouldn't be an issue. It is the loudest mac I've ever owned, even louder than my 9600/350. I have a 12" honeywell fan I keep aimed in my direction that I bought from Wal-Mart. If I put that fan up to my face on "high" I can still hear the G4 over it when it's 2 feet away. Not very scientific, but if you are used to a convection cooled mac (like the iMac or even the cube) you won't be able to bear it. No way. Now, if you are coming from a New World power mac, then it only seems twice as loud.
The loud ass fans bother me, as I have to turn the mac's speakers up to 50% of their loudness to drown it out. I guess having 4 hard drives makes the PS work a little harder
Enough about the loudness.....let's talk Jaguar.
On this machine it kicks ass. I played with it for a few hours and was hooked. I've launched Photoshop 5.5 in classic mode and run filters, and everything seems to work, at least as fast as it did on my G4/400 (the CPU this replaced) I'll get PS7 later. When I got 10.1 I thought: "Man this is cool, but I need to get work done, so I'll boot back to 9" I now feel as if we finally have a REAL finished OS that is stable and usable. iChat is buggy as hell with file transfers with AIM users, which sucks, because that's what I use AIM for.
This goes to sleep FAST. and wakes up even faster. This helps you when you need a break from all the racket.
So there you have it. I don't buy computers to be quiet. I buy them to get work done. It's loud, to be sure. But I'm not the least bit dissatisfied with the purchase. This thing ripped a 4 minute MP3 in 20 seconds. It hauls ass. It's almost exactly what I've always wanted.
G4 dual 867
512mB ram
200 gigs
Superdrive
Radeon 9000
(2) 17" ASDs (one with ADC/DVI adapter)
iSub, Pro Speakers
WOHOOO!