I am lusting for a new dual 2 or 2.5 gig G5 Mac, and hope you can offer some answers. I do mostly Photoshop work, some graphic design with Xpress (soon to include Indesign), illustration with Adobe Illustrator and 3D work with Maxon Cinema 4DXL. I am also finally making the transition to OSX, and will be upgrading many applications, possibly a new inkjet printer, and need to budget funds for these as well. I've read many threads in these forums, and there is a lot of info to sift through. I'm hoping a few brave souls will address my questions, to condense the answers into on location.
1. Video cards: I don't do any gaming on my Mac, but wonder if I should spring for one of the better video cards from Apple, or add it later. Do the better video cards improve performance of screen redraws? I've heard that the Quarzt display is very computure intensive, and want to know if any cards assist this. I'm guessing that the midrange video cards are improved for gamers, while the high end cards help 3D and video artists. My 3D work is very minimal at the moment, and I'd rather put the $ into more RAM, hard drives, and OSX software upgrades.
2. Dual 2 or 2.5 gig: The Photoshop benchmarks I've seen between these two machines don't seem to be dramatic, so I wonder if the additional cost for the faster frontside bus, ATI Radeon 9600 XT and 128MB DDR video memory in dual 2.5 is worth it over the NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 Ultra and 64MB DDR video memory in the dual 2 gig G5. Any thoughts on how the dual 2.5 might better suit me, or if the dual 2 gig is fine for Photoshop work? Is the 2.5 worth the extra $500?
3. SCSI versus SATA/IDE drives: As I often work on large files, I'm concerned about disk drive performance. How do the SATA drives compare to SCSI for performance, noise levels and reliability? Are most Photoshop users getting good results with SATA drives, or do they prefer fast SCSI drives?
4. Legacy equipment: I have a DAT tape drive and scanner that will require me to add a SCSI card. Both are fairly slow devices, so I won't need a fast SCSI card. If I buy a fast, dual channel SCSI card and use one side for a SCSI drive, can I use the other channel for the DAT and scanner, without effecting performance of the SCSI drive?
5. Although there are always new "better" machines coming over time, I'm anxious to get a new Mac and get familiar with OSX, instead of holding out for a few months to see if Apple updates the PowerMac line. I usually have more free time to set up hardware and learn software in the winter months, so this is a good time for me to make this purchase. However, if there is a good chance that Apple will announce new PowerMacs by March, and start shipping shortly thereafter, I may be compelled to wait.
thanks for your time,
Dave
1. Video cards: I don't do any gaming on my Mac, but wonder if I should spring for one of the better video cards from Apple, or add it later. Do the better video cards improve performance of screen redraws? I've heard that the Quarzt display is very computure intensive, and want to know if any cards assist this. I'm guessing that the midrange video cards are improved for gamers, while the high end cards help 3D and video artists. My 3D work is very minimal at the moment, and I'd rather put the $ into more RAM, hard drives, and OSX software upgrades.
2. Dual 2 or 2.5 gig: The Photoshop benchmarks I've seen between these two machines don't seem to be dramatic, so I wonder if the additional cost for the faster frontside bus, ATI Radeon 9600 XT and 128MB DDR video memory in dual 2.5 is worth it over the NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 Ultra and 64MB DDR video memory in the dual 2 gig G5. Any thoughts on how the dual 2.5 might better suit me, or if the dual 2 gig is fine for Photoshop work? Is the 2.5 worth the extra $500?
3. SCSI versus SATA/IDE drives: As I often work on large files, I'm concerned about disk drive performance. How do the SATA drives compare to SCSI for performance, noise levels and reliability? Are most Photoshop users getting good results with SATA drives, or do they prefer fast SCSI drives?
4. Legacy equipment: I have a DAT tape drive and scanner that will require me to add a SCSI card. Both are fairly slow devices, so I won't need a fast SCSI card. If I buy a fast, dual channel SCSI card and use one side for a SCSI drive, can I use the other channel for the DAT and scanner, without effecting performance of the SCSI drive?
5. Although there are always new "better" machines coming over time, I'm anxious to get a new Mac and get familiar with OSX, instead of holding out for a few months to see if Apple updates the PowerMac line. I usually have more free time to set up hardware and learn software in the winter months, so this is a good time for me to make this purchase. However, if there is a good chance that Apple will announce new PowerMacs by March, and start shipping shortly thereafter, I may be compelled to wait.
thanks for your time,
Dave
