The Powers that be....

TheConflict · May 31, 2005

Okay, so I need answers to two very important questions. B4 I begin, I feel I must explain myself. I will be entering college next year, and I am very interested in digital media (film, web design, photography, etc.) and I'm going to buy a new Power Mac. The two questions I have have to do with the Power Mac.

1) On the verge of WWDC, I'm going to wait till it's over to order a new one. But, should I wait even longer for an Apple Expo later in the year or something? How much does anyone know out there about the additions of the new power pc chips with dual cores? How long before they come out?

2) Secondly, the two computers I'm debating getting are the Power Mac G5 Dual 2 ghz, or the Dual 2.3 ghz.

Each would have the following-
256 mb nVidia card
1 gig ram
400 gig hd
etc.

The 2.3 is about $500 more roughly- which is the better choice. How much difference does 0.3 ghz make?

Thanks anyone who answers, and yes, I realize that that's more than two questions... more like two large questions with a bunch of little ones....

FFTT · May 31, 2005

I'd hang in there 6 more days to see what is,
or is not announced at WWDC.

If nothing is announced regarding PowerMacs or the long awaited dual core XStation models, then we're probably not going to see anything till January 2006.

I waited 10 months and finally broke down a few weeks ago and purchased this Rev B 2.0 dual G5 when the prices dropped to $1699 education.

The Rev B 2004 2.0 dual G5 is still available through most Apple Resellers
and may still be available through your school store.
The Rev B uses the Pro motherboard allowing full 8BG RAM and has the 100MHz PCI-X GPU slots.

The newer 2005 Rev C 2.0 G5's use the previous pro-sumer dual 1.8 motherboard limiting your RAM to 4 GB and uses 33MHz PCI GPU.

If you can afford the new 2005 2.3 GHz G5, that's the sweet spot in the new towers, but the money you save getting a 2004 Rev B 2.0 would leave you plenty for 3rd party upgrades or a display and still allow for full expansion.

DeSnousa · May 31, 2005

This thread should help;

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/126680/

Plus heres a bench mark

http://www.macworld.com/news/2005/05/09/g5benchmarks/index.php

If you can afford more ram do so. for that course you would like 2gb.

Also wait untill wwdc its close and worth the wait, just in case.

TheConflict · Jun 1, 2005

FFTT said:
The newer 2005 Rev C 2.0 G5's use the previous pro-sumer dual 1.8 motherboard limiting your RAM to 4 GB and uses 33MHz PCI GPU.

Sorry for asking, but what exactly does the 33MHz PCI GPU do? I take it it's a Graphics Processor, but why in the world does the computer you purchased have one that's 100 MHz? How much of a difference is that?

Thanks for all the info though.

FFTT · Jun 1, 2005

The 8X AGP graphics card slots on the Rev B are PCI-X @ 100Mhz

while the Rev C still uses the regular PCI slots @ 33MHz.

The PCI-X slots better support high end graphics cards.

Many of us were hoping that Apple would upgrade the graphics
bus to 16X PCI-Express, but that hasn't happened yet and would require a completely new motherboard.

TheConflict · Jun 1, 2005

One additional question-

FFTT, you said that the Rev B model 2.0 ghz has a 100mhz PCI-X GPU, whereas the Rev C has only a 33 mhz, PCI (not X) GPU. What about the new dual 2.3 ghz? Does that have a 100 mhz PCI-X GPU? Thanks for the help.

homerjward · Jun 1, 2005

FFTT said:
The 8X AGP graphics card slots on the Rev B are PCI-X @ 100Mhz

while the Rev C still uses the regular PCI slots @ 33MHz.

The PCI-X slots better support high end graphics cards.

Many of us were hoping that Apple would upgrade the graphics
bus to 16X PCI-Express, but that hasn't happened yet and would require a completely new motherboard.

ack! ack! ack! no!

apple said:
Dual 2.3GHz and dual 2.7GHz systems:
One open full-length 133MHz, 64-bit PCI-X slot and two open full-length 100MHz, 64-bit PCI-X slots

apple said:
AGP 8X Pro graphics slot supporting up to 2-GBps data throughput, with one of the following graphics cards installed:

the agp slots and the pci-x slots are *completely separate* the graphics will be entirely the same. pci-e x16 is comparable to agp 8x; it's pci-e x4 and pci-e x1 that are similar to pci-x.

FFTT · Jun 1, 2005

Yes, the new 2.3 G5 dually also has the faster 100MHz PCI-X expansion slots.

Obviously if you can afford the 2.3, go for it, but if you want a great machine at a bargain, try to find a Rev B 2.0. rather than the newer Rev C 2.0.

TheConflict · Jun 3, 2005

Thanks a lot, but I have yet another question. How much of a difference is there between the ATI Radeon 9600 (128 mb) and the 9650 (256 mb)? I lied up on top of this thread- didn't mean to.... but I'm not going to be pay $450 dollars for the nVidia card. Also, if I buy, say a gig of ram, does it pay to buy two 512's or should I just get one 1 gig?

andiwm2003 · Jun 3, 2005

TheConflict said:
Thanks a lot, but I have yet another question. How much of a difference is there between the ATI Radeon 9600 (128 mb) and the 9650 (256 mb)? I lied up on top of this thread- didn't mean to.... but I'm not going to be pay $450 dollars for the nVidia card. Also, if I buy, say a gig of ram, does it pay to buy two 512's or should I just get one 1 gig?

check out http://www.barefeats.com/imacg52.html. scroll all the way down, there is a list of all ati card specs. the 9650 seem to be a lot faster than the 9600. it's more close to the 9600xt.

andi

FFTT · Jun 3, 2005

Thanks for clearing that up homerJward.

It's easy to get all that stuff mixed up.

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The Powers that be....

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