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CaptainCaveMann

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Oct 5, 2004
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Is this true? I heard one of the magazines did a test and the imac g5 wasnt even that much faster than a g4. If this is so then wouldnt everyone be better off buying a mini?
 
CaptainCaveMann said:
Is this true? I heard one of the magazines did a test and the imac g5 wasnt even that much faster than a g4. If this is so then wouldnt everyone be better off buying a mini?

It depends on the task, really. When comparing the iMac G5 and G4 there isn't much that the G4 even comes close in speed wise. I suggest that you take a look at barefeats.com's benchmarks, here's one to start with http://www.barefeats.com/imacg5.html. They're a pretty reliable source.

The mini seems to perform very well in "day to day" type of work, and some iLife applications compared to the iMac G5's, but they do relatively poorly in graphics applications (9200 GPU with 32mb VRAM) and also have even more limited upgradability that the iMac (one DIMM slot, the HD bay is 2.5", etc). Barefeat has some good benchmarks on that as well.
 
CaptainCaveMann said:
Is this true? I heard one of the magazines did a test and the imac g5 wasnt even that much faster than a g4. If this is so then wouldnt everyone be better off buying a mini?


when i saw on barefeats that the g5 imac was only between 0% and 30% faster than my 1.5 GHz G4 PB i decided to wait for revision b.

i was surprised that the 4x faster FSB had almost no impact. the 30% speed increase can be explaind mostly by the g5 clockspeed.

let's see what the next revision can do.

andi
 
I guess it depends on what you do with the computer

Not all things are able to fully take advantage of the G5 proccessor so they just use the extra speed boast instead, once that is addressed then the G5 should do better
 
CaptainCaveMann said:
Is this true? I heard one of the magazines did a test and the imac g5 wasnt even that much faster than a g4. If this is so then wouldnt everyone be better off buying a mini?

This statement is logically fallacious, but I can't remember the name of the fallacy and too lazy to look it up. :D

It is true that in some circumstances the G5 iMac shows little performance improvement over certain G4 systems, but on the whole it is a faster computer and as more software becomes optomized for the G5 the difference will continue to increase in the G5s favor. The Mac mini is slower than an iMac G5 in every way. The G4 they were referring to was doubtless another G4 (MDD Powermac or Powerbook)
 
I'm sure if you maxed the G5 with RAM, it might show a bigger spread in performance. But, it really depends on what you're using it for.
 
APPLE MAC G5 + PANTHER = NICE BUT, YOU KNOW.

Put it another way.......

Mercedes dealership

SALESMAN
"This, Sir, is the new S type which had twice the power of the last model"

INTRESTED BUYER
"Wow"

SALESMAN
"Of course the petrol you need isn't avaible for another year"

INTRESTED BUYER
"OK, see you then!"

Which is why i've put off buying a Mac untill Tiger is released.
 
combatcolin said:
APPLE MAC G5 + PANTHER = NICE BUT, YOU KNOW.

Put it another way.......

Mercedes dealership

SALESMAN
"This, Sir, is the new S type which had twice the power of the last model"

INTRESTED BUYER
"Wow"

SALESMAN
"Of course the petrol you need isn't avaible for another year"

INTRESTED BUYER
"OK, see you then!"

Which is why i've put off buying a Mac untill Tiger is released.
If you are referring to Tiger.... it isn't going to be overwelmingly fast... Way faster then Panther (for 64bit) but if you want a G5 now... i'd get it. But with that said... If you want an iMac - i would get one now. Those things are mighty fast. I am sure if Captaincavemann actually tested one of the iMac's, he would have no qualms either about speed...

kyle
 
combatcolin said:
APPLE MAC G5 + PANTHER = NICE BUT, YOU KNOW.

Put it another way.......

Mercedes dealership

SALESMAN
"This, Sir, is the new S type which had twice the power of the last model"

INTRESTED BUYER
"Wow"

SALESMAN
"Of course the petrol you need isn't avaible for another year"

INTRESTED BUYER
"OK, see you then!"

Which is why i've put off buying a Mac untill Tiger is released.


Panther isn't going to do much better utilizing the G5.
 
I think I have read that the G5 does a lot better with Garageband. Its my understanding that that the mini/ibooks struggle mightily with Garageband. As someone who will never buy anyother desktop, this is probably the reason I dont already have a g4 book of some kind. :(
 
rosalindavenue said:
I think I have read that the G5 does a lot better with Garageband. Its my understanding that that the mini/ibooks struggle mightily with Garageband. As someone who will never buy anyother desktop, this is probably the reason I dont already have a g4 book of some kind. :(
My Powerbook (1ghz and 1.25 gigs of ram) really runs it well. I have about 8 and 9 tracks at a time running. No lag. RAM is Panther's greatest friend. if you get a 1.67 powerbook with max ram - you will run it no problems.

kyle
 
As I undeerstand the iMacs dont take advantage of the CORE Graphics deal and the video cards are shiot relatively speaking, and not upgradable-
 
donniedarko said:
As I undeerstand the iMacs dont take advantage of the CORE Graphics deal and the video cards are shiot relatively speaking, and not upgradable-
Yes they do? i am like 99% sure that the fx5200 pro works with core video. And your graphics chip is non upgradable too..

kyle
 
jackieonasses said:
Yes they do? i am like 99% sure that the fx5200 pro works with core video. And your graphics chip is non upgradable too..

kyle
Yep, the FX5200 that comes in the iMac G5 does/will work with Core Image. (Or Core Video, whatever it's called.) I remember checking a while back when Apple had the list up, and it was on there.
 
The iMac G5 should take advantage of all of the CORE features in Tiger. The graphics card can't be upgraded and I'm sure people know that.
 
jackieonasses said:
If you are referring to Tiger.... it isn't going to be overwelmingly fast... Way faster then Panther (for 64bit) but if you want a G5 now... i'd get it. But with that said... If you want an iMac - i would get one now. Those things are mighty fast. I am sure if Captaincavemann actually tested one of the iMac's, he would have no qualms either about speed...

kyle

I've decided to out off buying a G5 Mac untill mid 2006, by then the 4th gen G5 will be out :)

Bought some extra RAM and a decent sound for my PC, a Lacie triple inteface 500GB :eek: , for future compbatibility and am looking at the tasty 24"Dell monitor that has everyone so excited about.

That should keep my old 2000XP 64MB 8500 going a bit longer.

Of course i still have my original iMac, gets us now and then :)
 
Lord Blackadder said:
This statement is logically fallacious, but I can't remember the name of the fallacy and too lazy to look it up. :D

It is true that in some circumstances the G5 iMac shows little performance improvement over certain G4 systems, but on the whole it is a faster computer and as more software becomes optomized for the G5 the difference will continue to increase in the G5s favor. The Mac mini is slower than an iMac G5 in every way. The G4 they were referring to was doubtless another G4 (MDD Powermac or Powerbook)
Funny you should say that when the mac mini actually has the exact same fsb as the powerbook and the 1.42 model is actually faster than last years 1.33 powerbook. The mac mini is basically a powerbook with an ibook video card.
 
CaptainCaveMann said:
The mac mini is basically a powerbook with an ibook video card.

Which is why it is slower than an iMac G5...

The G5 iMac's GeForce 5200 may be regularly crapped on in these forums (with good reason) but it is clearly superior to the mini's Radeon 9200. Barefeats tests have the 1.8 GHz Mac G5 beating a 1.5GHz Powerbook G4 in all non-game tests. A few tests were somewhat close, but others were not. The Powerbook, by the way had the Radeon 9700M.

The only G4 computers that are faster than the iMac G5 are MDD Powermac G4s, with their faster hard drives, dual CPUs and (if they have the 9700) better video cards.

There's no way the Mini outperforms the iMac except in the bang for the buck competition, where it does rather well. ;) I'm not trying to deprecate the mini, but anybody who claims that the iMac G5 does not outperform G4 iMacs/minis/Apple laptops on a regular basis is not giving the iMac G5 a fair shake.
 
Littleodie914 said:
Yep, the FX5200 that comes in the iMac G5 does/will work with Core Image. (Or Core Video, whatever it's called.) I remember checking a while back when Apple had the list up, and it was on there.

Yes, the FX5200 has the pixel-level programming required to support CoreImage. Unfortunately, while it does support CoreImage, it is a slow GPU and therefore supports it poorly.
 
CaptainCaveMann said:
The mac mini is basically a powerbook with an ibook video card.

And without a display, keyboard, trackpad, battery, or standard airport or bluetooth. Guess that's why it costs 1/3 as much, eh? :rolleyes:
 
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