which g5?

[andyjamesnelson]

i,m really stuck, i simply cannot decide which g5 to buy..

1st i need to be able to buy one of the new laptops whenever they finally get released, so i,m not sure if it is worth spending loads of cash on a g5 desktop. i have a feeling that apple are going to release the 1st 64bit laptop and they need to do it soon if they are to stay ahead in the market. plus no updates on the g4 pbooks for ages? why the hell not? i think they have somthing up there sleeves.

2nd i have a g4 733 quicksilver right now and the only thing it does to slowly is video processing. audio applications like reason run super fine within existing computers. the only other audio app i would like to run would be logic 6, but i dont have the cash :(, still my computer feels to slow when running final cut and whilst dvd ripping and encoding.

so would be the performance boosts feel like if i only got the 1.4 g5? is it better to get the 1.4 instead of the 1.8 and spend the difference on ram? i.e. does a 1.4 perform much better then i 1.8 if the 1.4 has like 2gigs of ram in it, when the 1.8 has only 512mb? you see if i buy the 1.8 i wont have anymore cash for ram!

how much difference does the frontside bus make? is 100mhz much difference? do i really need pci x slots? how much difference does the speed of the ram make? i.e between ddr333 and drr400.
why does only the 2gig g5 say : 512K L2 cache/processor when the other models only say 512K L2 cache?

you see i have alot of questions that need answering before i buy my new g5:) please help me if you can, thanks andy.

[edesignuk]

Originally posted by andyjamesnelson
so would be the performance boosts feel like if i only got the 1.4 g5?

There is no 1.4GHz G5.
Originally posted by andyjamesnelson
why does only the 2gig g5 say : 512K L2 cache/processor when the other models only say 512K L2 cache?

cache/processor means cache per processor.

[OutThere]

The lowest end G5 is 1.6 Ghz. Just FYI. :)

[andyjamesnelson]

yeah sorry about going on about the 1.4 ..my mistake..:) still that makes the difference even smaller between these two models, so come on please help me answer some of me questions. :)

[CubeHacker]

If you can only afford the 1.6ghz G5, my suggestion would be to skip it. Its performance is turning out to be less than stellar, especially compared to a Dual processor G4, which is cheaper.

Either get the Dual 2ghz G5 now, or wait for some cheaper dual G5's in the future. The singles really aren't worth the price.

[andyjamesnelson]

what do you mean the performance is not turning out to be that great and there not worth it??? has apple lied to us? surely they are great computer arent they?... knowing when to buy a computer is one of the hardest tasks know to man. is there any online reveiws of the models yet? if so please leave a link!.

[CubeHacker]

Benchmarks are slowly starting to be released for the G5. What we've seen so far is subpar performance in the single G5's.

Some Xbench scores can be viewed here for comparison.
http://ladd.dyndns.org/xbench/

Dual G4's are easily beating the single G5's. Of course, thats to be expected. Will the G5 be faster than your Quicksilver 733? Yes, about double the speed. The real question is, is only double the speed worth the $2,000 it costs. Thats up to you.

I would personally wait for the release of a cheaper Dual G5 system.

[andyjamesnelson]

so how much of an advancement is the g5 chip? if dual g4 are faster.. and are these benchmarks really abit **** at the moment because the OS isnt really ready to take full advantage of the hardware?

[CubeHacker]

OS 10.2.7 that is released with the G5's is already optimized for the G5, so it has nothing to do with the lack of performance.

[andyjamesnelson]

so what is so great about the g5 chips if they arent alot faster the the g4's?

[CubeHacker]

What makes them great is that they have a future. Motorola is unable to push the G4 any faster. IBM and its PPC970 have only just begun. 3.0ghz is expected in a year, while the G4 has been stuck at 1.2 ghz for a year. The problem is that a single processor G5 is not going to be able to beat a Dual 1.25ghz G4. The G5's need a dual to look attractive in terms of price/performance.

[andyjamesnelson]

so if a 3gig version is expected in under a year! its seems that waitting 6 months for more updates is a real consideration. still one has to buy a computer at some point.. there will allways be a faster processor in the future.. but is now a really bad time to buy?

[CubeHacker]

Now is a great time to buy! I'm simply saying that the Dual 2ghz G5 gives the best price/performance ratio.

[crazzyeddie]

I would say for you, with video editing. Definetly get the dual 2ghz. Video editing sees HUGE benefits from the Dual Processors.

[andyjamesnelson]

still the dual model is really expensive, and i would be pushing myself out of being able to get a laptop as well. this i really need. so i think i,m gonna wait and see what happens with the laptops before i buy, you never know by that time there could have been some intresting changes. ..:)