G5 much faster than MacBook? ( riddle )

[gnasher729]

~11.5 GB From DV. Went to H.264 which ended in a file ~7 GB

Max.

If you have High Definition DV, then 7 GB H.264 is ridiculously large.
If you have "normal" DV, then 7 HB H.264 is utterly, completely, unspeakably ridiculously large.

Try a bitrate of 500 KBit / second and check if you can see any difference. If not, then try 300 KBit / second.

 

[7on]

Ok, thanks. That's relevant too, as the rest of the machine will have to support the transfer of the data before and after it gets processed by the CPU. In that case, 11.5 Gb is already quite bulky, your HDD is slow (5400rpm) and not so big either, like a 120Gb or something?

Mmm, not that it matters, but did you really end up with a 7Gb H264 file in the end? For the web?

From the DV file, it looks like he's dealing with about 52mintues of footage. You might be able to get that under 700MB if you use Divx and a "Fit to CD" option.

 

[wilburdl]

So let me get this straight...

I have the 2.7 Dual G5 2GB ram. Are you saying the Macbook Pro books are as fast and possibly faster??? If so I can't wait till CS3 comes out because I'll be saving for one. I'm a photographer and being able to shoot tethered to a fast laptop on location would be a huge plus.

 

[Arnaud]

From the DV file, it looks like he's dealing with about 52mintues of footage. You might be able to get that under 700MB if you use Divx and a "Fit to CD" option.

That was also my impression, considering it'd be the same with mp4, but my experience is limited in the domain. And it also depends on the resolution and bitrate.

 

[maxvamp]

I have the 2.7 Dual G5 2GB ram. Are you saying the Macbook Pro books are as fast and possibly faster??? If so I can't wait till CS3 comes out because I'll be saving for one. I'm a photographer and being able to shoot tethered to a fast laptop on location would be a huge plus.

I seriously doubt it, but without seeing what optimizations are put into CS3, who knows which will be faster.

Most of the Vector code from Adobe appears to be home grown.

Max.

 

[topgunn]

He didn't talk to those Poodles, did he? I have been trying to find out what they said...

Max

Three dogs met at a street corner, two poodles and a mutt.

The first poodle, obviously just out from her grooming says to the other two dogs, "My name is Mimi, M-I-M-I" in her snootiest poodle voice.

The second poodle, looking just as well groomed and snooty as the first said, "My name is Fifi, F-I-F-I".

They turn to the mutt, who straightens up and says, "Well, my name is Fido, P-H-Y-D-E-A-U-X", turns around, and walks off.

 

[maxvamp]

Good One

Max.

 

[Superlat]

my casual test

I went into an apple store and compared a MBP 2.16 with a Quad G5.
Basically I did some rough crunching of an 4-minute HD format movie in FCP.
Same transitions, same length, etc. The Quad rendered the transitions
about 33% faster, but there was negligible difference on exporting
a QT movie with Cinepak compression. Some expert can tell me why,
but the Quad rendered faster, but didnt do much better
on the exporting, which for me, is one of the most time-consuming demands.
Print to video I couldnt test. The Quad may be great, but its potential isnt being used, and prob isnt that much better than a dual 2.3 which I also tested. Its also on its way to being obsolete (ok, a long road, sensitive types).

I actually would've been happy to see the Intel dual be a dog,
but it wasnt, and for a laptop, the power was plenty impressive.
Of course, there seem to be quality control issues with the first MBPs.

The next MBP line should be ripping and with less heat hopefully.
When does Woodnut come out? How long is Jobs gonna make people wait for
a quad Intel? i hope he pays the slaves enough so that the computers dont
burn up. The advantage of mac over intel was supposed to be durability.
I'm a waitin......

 

[FireArse]

The Quad may be great, but its potential isnt being used

I really honestly think this is a big deal. If IBM were able to supply PPC chips that were cool enough to stick into laptops and Mini cases, PPC optimization would still have been high on the agenda for Apple.

However, with Intel taking over, I wonder if any PPC optimization-related projects were canned in Supertino. Hence not using the Quad's full potential.

F

 

[dollystereo]

5000 USD vs 1000USD = 5 times faster!!!
4 processors over 2
2.5GHZ vs 2.0GHZ
1.25GHZ fsb vs .667 GHZ fsb
It quite fast anyeway the MB

 

[Arnaud]

5000 USD vs 1000USD = 5 times faster!!!
4 processors over 2
2.5GHZ vs 2.0GHZ
1.25GHZ fsb vs .667 GHZ fsb
It quite fast anyeway the MB

I'm sure Apple is glad that the design of the current Intel models (iMac, MB, MBP) does not allow them to beat the Quad G5. This way, they can always say "here is our cool stuff Intel), but if you really want power, you should get these expensive beasts Quad)".

Imagine the other way around: "Yeah, this MB, designed for students, can process everything twice faster than the quads, and the Imac and MBP actually put the results sky-high. But no, we have no machine with a proper professional graphic card, or proper architecture for heavy music/video/science workload, so you can wait another 6 months, or buy this expensive snail. Hey, wait, where are you going ?".

Of course, there is little Apple could have done to push the results of the Intel line higher, but well. I guess they had to wait for Woodcrest and developments from Adobe, but still wanted to sell (expensive) quads meanwhile.

Mmm, does that what I wrote make any sense ?

 

[GFLPraxis]

Actually, you're wrong. All intel macs are faster than G5 except Quad for now.

Clock for clock, the Core Duo processors are only a little faster than a G5.

A dual 2.5 G5 will thrash the sub-2 GHz Core Duos in most of the Intel Macs and proably beat the 2 GHz high end iMac. A Quad absolutely smashes a MacBook.


Now Conroe on the other hand will be going all the way up to dual 2.9 GHz. Good bye G5 as performance king of Apple's lineup. Woodcrest goes to dual 3 GHz and can be used in a quad config- I expect to see a Quad with Woodcrest at WWDC.

As far as I recall, Conroe (desktop Core 2 Duo) is clock for clock 20% faster than Yonah (current Core Duos, designed for notebooks), 64-bit, and cheaper (a 2.1 GHz Conroe costs $70 less than a 1.83 GHz Yonah).

That's why I'm desperately waiting for WWDC before purchasing my iMac

 

[dollystereo]

The G5 is rock solid, far better than core duo, or even core duo 2. Just the Xeon could be something to fear of.
My 2.3GHZ G5 is a beast, my MPB doesnt even compare to the amount of ram and speed.

 

[abrooks]

When does Woodnut come out?

I hope that was intentional, I nearly wet myself

 

[MovieCutter]

The G5 is rock solid, far better than core duo, or even core duo 2. Just the Xeon could be something to fear of.
My 2.3GHZ G5 is a beast, my MPB doesnt even compare to the amount of ram and speed.

I'll beg to differ on this one. As a video editor who does HD, I HAD a Quad with 6 GB RAM, etc, etc. When I got my 2.16 MBP, The speed difference was negligible in 90% of tasks. And when the Quad beat the MBP (mostly in Motion's particle intensive tasks), it wasn't by so much that it warranted keeping a $5000+ machine around. The Quad G5 is in for a world of hurt when August 7th rolls around.

 

[Arnaud]

I'll beg to differ on this one. As a video editor who does HD, I HAD a Quad with 6 GB RAM, etc, etc. When I got my 2.16 MBP, The speed difference was negligible in 90% of tasks. And when the Quad beat the MBP (mostly in Motion's particle intensive tasks), it wasn't by so much that it warranted keeping a $5000+ machine around. The Quad G5 is in for a world of hurt when August 7th rolls around.

Don't worry, when MacPro w/ Woodcrest is released, there will still be some people to say that their G5 is better than a Woodcrest.

I mean, I would fall into denial too if I had put $5000 in an obsolete machine...

 

[MovieCutter]

Don't worry, when MacPro w/ Woodcrest is released, there will still be some people to say that their G5 is better than a Woodcrest.

I mean, I would fall into denial too if I had put $5000 in an obsolete machine...

Exactly. I sold that Quad a couple months ago and haven't missed it very much at all. I knew I wouldn't be able to get nearly what I paid for it once they were updated to Intel machines. Instead, I turned a profit when I sold it. Now that money is being held aside for a top of the line Mac Pro...

 

[Arnaud]

Exactly. I sold that Quad a couple months ago and haven't missed it very much at all. I knew I wouldn't be able to get nearly what I paid for it once they were updated to Intel machines. Instead, I turned a profit when I sold it. Now that money is being held aside for a top of the line Mac Pro...

I think that was wise.

However, I feel the time-gap left by Apple between the introduction of the Intel line and the first (still-to-come) professional machine must have left lots of professionals in dire straits.

The quads have specs (beyond the CPU) which make them necessary to pros, but it must be painful for a pro to buy one or more new machines labelled "soon-to-be-obsolete".
(I'm not saying the Quads will be useless on the day after the introduction of new pro machines, just that their days will be counted, for example with the development of G5 software).

I really don't know about the investment issues of hardware for (video/edition) professionals - like, do you buy machines for 1, 2, 3 years...- , and whether delaying new purchases by 6-9 months can really be detrimental to you ? Especially if the competition uses PC solutions, i.e. a wider offer of machines ?

 

[maxvamp]

I think that was wise.

However, I feel the time-gap left by Apple between the introduction of the Intel line and the first (still-to-come) professional machine must have left lots of professionals in dire straits.

The quads have specs (beyond the CPU) which make them necessary to pros, but it must be painful for a pro to buy one or more new machines labelled "soon-to-be-obsolete".
(I'm not saying the Quads will be useless on the day after the introduction of new pro machines, just that their days will be counted, for example with the development of G5 software).

I really don't know about the investment issues of hardware for (video/edition) professionals - like, do you buy machines for 1, 2, 3 years...- , and whether delaying new purchases by 6-9 months can really be detrimental to you ? Especially if the competition uses PC solutions, i.e. a wider offer of machines ?

All machines become obsolete in 6 months. Apple machines sometimes get the luxury of getting a year of life before the obsolescence creep comes along. If you always want the fastest, just keep selling those Pro Macs every 6 months. Better yet, just wait, a faster one **always** will be out in a few months.


As far as testing...

I did some more compression, and I was able to get 1/2 D1 quality down to 80MB. Looked nice too. I actually went so far as to optimize for dial up, and while I have not done this since REAL was a real competitor, I have to say, I was really impressed with the quality. I guess I should wander away from DV every once in a while. Speeds can no longer be relevant as last night, I moved my projects to the internal Raptor, and things got a bit faster.


I like the Pro Mac, and I am currently far more productive than I have been in the past.


Max.

 

[Silentwave]

Clock for clock, the Core Duo processors are only a little faster than a G5.

A dual 2.5 G5 will thrash the sub-2 GHz Core Duos in most of the Intel Macs and proably beat the 2 GHz high end iMac. A Quad absolutely smashes a MacBook.


Now Conroe on the other hand will be going all the way up to dual 2.9 GHz. Good bye G5 as performance king of Apple's lineup. Woodcrest goes to dual 3 GHz and can be used in a quad config- I expect to see a Quad with Woodcrest at WWDC.

As far as I recall, Conroe (desktop Core 2 Duo) is clock for clock 20% faster than Yonah (current Core Duos, designed for notebooks), 64-bit, and cheaper (a 2.1 GHz Conroe costs $70 less than a 1.83 GHz Yonah).

That's why I'm desperately waiting for WWDC before purchasing my iMac

Don't forget, Yonah and Sossaman (core duo/xeon LV) are using the pentium M architecture while Core 2 Merom, Conroe, and Woodcrest Xeon use the intel core microarchitecture, which is by all means better... part of the reason it is 20% better per clock but is also better in other areas such as power consumption.

 

[Arnaud]

All machines become obsolete in 6 months. Apple machines sometimes get the luxury of getting a year of life before the obsolescence creep comes along. If you always want the fastest, just keep selling those Pro Macs every 6 months. Better yet, just wait, a faster one **always** will be out in a few months.

Yeah, of course, this is the reason you should, actually, never buy another machine, there will always be a better one soon enough...

But what you mean is obsolete machines, i.e. something going out of the catalog for a new model with a faster clock speed, when I mean obsolete obsolete machines, i.e. an "old" line (PPC) which is threateaned by a complete new line (Intel), with foreseeable discontinuation of products for the previous line.

Intel chips mean that development of software for the G5 will be discontinued some day, as well as the G3/G4/G5 meant the same for PPC etc...
On the other hand, the last revision of the (Intel) iMac will be slow compared to the future (Intel) venues, but there will be no discontinuation of (Intel compiled) products for some time.
(I know it's "Universal binaries", but this will also disappear when the market is mostly Intel. I guess you folks remember the "fat" applications of the PPC/G3 era, and the fact they disappeared later on.)

 

[Arnaud]

Oh well, potatoes, potah-toes...

 

[maxvamp]

Yeah, of course, this is the reason you should, actually, never buy another machine, there will always be a better one soon enough...

But what you mean is obsolete machines, i.e. something going out of the catalog for a new model with a faster clock speed, when I mean obsolete obsolete machines, i.e. an "old" line (PPC) which is threateaned by a complete new line (Intel), with foreseeable discontinuation of products for the previous line.

Intel chips mean that development of software for the G5 will be discontinued some day, as well as the G3/G4/G5 meant the same for PPC etc...
On the other hand, the last revision of the (Intel) iMac will be slow compared to the future (Intel) venues, but there will be no discontinuation of (Intel compiled) products for some time.
(I know it's "Universal binaries", but this will also disappear when the market is mostly Intel. I guess you folks remember the "fat" applications of the PPC/G3 era, and the fact they disappeared later on.)

Fair enough, but to a lesser extent, I could make the same argument within the Intel Line. Would a Pentium with only MMX technologies be considered obsolete? How about a chip with only SSE2 but not three? If in a year, Intel introduced SSE4, would all of today's machines qualify for obsolete?

I know where you are coming from, but in reality, to call the current PPC machines obsolete is just semantics. Truth is, by the time the Quad G5 becomes obsolete due to lack of development, none of the Intel procs around today are going to run the Intel only apps developed in that time frame either ( most likely due to speed, or lack of a 'new' chip feature ).

Max.

 

[ChrisA]

I think the reason all boils down the size the the computer case. The Quad G5 is inside a nice big case with plenty of airflow and some big fans. The MP is inside a little case with very little cooling ability. The MP will slow the CPU if the temperature is above some theshold and the G5 with it's better cooling system never gets hot.

Next I wonder if Quicktime uses the GPU. On the G5 some of the ork, like color space transformations might be done on the graphic card.

People are saying the MP has a slower disk. Yes, slower but not enough to matter. If the G5 can read and write all the data in 15 minutes the MP would take only about 50% longer, not 4 or 5 times longer. In any case video trascoding is not bound by disk speed.

 

[eXan]

The core duo is THE BEST processor you can get right now (desktop or laptop) until conroe comes out. The core duo spanks everything.

Really? Care to give me a link to the benchmark where it beats high-end PowerMac?