Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

iTunes ripping speed for iMac G5?

tateusmaximus

tateusmaximus

macrumors member
Original poster
Sep 9, 2004
42
0
sydney
hey there peoples.

just wondering what each of your are getting when ripping a cd with i tunes?
particularly interested in the new iMac but would love other speeds of CURRENT macs.

i am looking at getting either a powerbook or imac g5 and want to see how much slower they will be to my pcs. currently i get:

25x on my AMD 3000+
31x on my P4

aac encoder@128
 
tateusmaximus said:
hey there peoples.

just wondering what each of your are getting when ripping a cd with i tunes?
particularly interested in the new iMac but would love other speeds of CURRENT macs.

i am looking at getting either a powerbook or imac g5 and want to see how much slower they will be to my pcs. currently i get:

25x on my AMD 3000+
31x on my P4

aac encoder@128
Click to expand...

Powerbook G4 1.33ghz 16-20x
Powermac G4 400 mhz 4-5x

mp3@192k
 
Remember to go into System Preferences -> Energy Saver -> Advanced

Then turn your settings to max.
 
On my iMac G4 (1.25 GHz, 512 MB RAM, 80 GB HD, Mac OS X 10.3.5), using the AAC encoder at 128 kbps:
Minimum: 7.0
Average: 10.0
Peak: 14.0

On my PowerSpec PC (3.2 GHz P4, 1.0 GB RAM, 200 GB HD, Win XP SP2), using the AAC encoder at 128 kbps:
Minimum: 20.0
Average: 42.0
Peak: 50.0
 
I was getting around this on my new iMac G5 (512 MB Ram, Processor Performace set to highest) using the AAC encoder at 128 kbps:

Minimum: 8.0
Average: 12.0 - 14.0
Peak: 18.0 - 20.0

I can do a nore detailed test later when I get home.
 
slughead said:
Remember to go into System Preferences -> Energy Saver -> Advanced

Then turn your settings to max.
Click to expand...
Not sure if you were directing you comments to me (with a Pismo that only records at around 3x), but my settings *are* on max. It's due mainly to the 400mhz G3, I believe iTunes is Altivec-enabled.

--D
 
slu said:
I was getting around this on my new iMac G5 (512 MB Ram, Processor Performace set to highest) using the AAC encoder at 128 kbps:

Minimum: 8.0
Average: 12.0 - 14.0
Peak: 18.0 - 20.0

I can do a nore detailed test later when I get home.
Click to expand...

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "I was getting around this on my new iMac G5" but if those are your speeds on the iMac you mentioned, that's somewhat disappointing. I would expect the speeds to be much higher than an iMac G4.

Maybe with twice the RAM (2x512MB) you would see even better performance? Since importing is a processor/RAM intensive task.

Also, I hope everyone who did these tests turned off the "play songs from the CD while importing" setting. That would reduce performance.
 
coconn06 said:
I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "I was getting around this on my new iMac G5" but if those are your speeds on the iMac you mentioned, that's somewhat disappointing. I would expect the speeds to be much higher than an iMac G4.

Maybe with twice the RAM (2x512MB) you would see even better performance? Since importing is a processor/RAM intensive task.

Also, I hope everyone who did these tests turned off the "play songs from the CD while importing" setting. That would reduce performance.
Click to expand...
I don't like the setting "play songs while importing" anyway - I turn it off regardless of its impact on performance because it annoys me.
 
This is not the best way to compare performance between a Mac and PC, because ripping speed depends a lot on the performance of the optical drive as well. The best way to compare speeds by using encoding would be to first rip the CD to the HDD into an uncompressed format such as WAV or AIFF, and then from the HDD encode to AAC and see what speeds you get.
 
Jigglelicious said:
This is not the best way to compare performance between a Mac and PC, because ripping speed depends a lot on the performance of the optical drive as well. The best way to compare speeds by using encoding would be to first rip the CD to the HDD into an uncompressed format such as WAV or AIFF, and then from the HDD encode to AAC and see what speeds you get.
Click to expand...
My tests were done using WAV/AIFF files already on the HDD, Jigglelicious.
 
coconn06 said:
I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "I was getting around this on my new iMac G5" but if those are your speeds on the iMac you mentioned, that's somewhat disappointing. I would expect the speeds to be much higher than an iMac G4.

Maybe with twice the RAM (2x512MB) you would see even better performance? Since importing is a processor/RAM intensive task.

Also, I hope everyone who did these tests turned off the "play songs from the CD while importing" setting. That would reduce performance.
Click to expand...

I don't know what to tell you. I am new the the Mac world and I didn't pay real close attention, but it did seem to rip between 12.0 and 18.0 consistantly. I did have play songs while importing turned off, but I was playing other songs on the HDD. Also, it seems to me that the quality of the CD matters. Some of my older, more beat up CDs took longer and I am ripping my older CDs first. I am leaving work now, so I will do a better test and post in a couple hours.
 
You have to rememer that the optical drive in the iMac G5 is a vertically oriented slot loading drive, and therefore is much slower than most desktop drives. It can only read CDs at 24x, and most Windows PC Desktops have CD drives that are over 50x.
 
Jigglelicious said:
This is not the best way to compare performance between a Mac and PC, because ripping speed depends a lot on the performance of the optical drive as well. The best way to compare speeds by using encoding would be to first rip the CD to the HDD into an uncompressed format such as WAV or AIFF, and then from the HDD encode to AAC and see what speeds you get.
Click to expand...


Elan0204 said:
You have to rememer that the optical drive in the iMac G5 is a vertically oriented slot loading drive, and therefore is much slower than most desktop drives. It can only read CDs at 24x, and most Windows PC Desktops have CD drives that are over 50x.
Click to expand...


both very good points. thanks for all the infor peoples. seems that its not too much of a downgrade in terms of speed. i think ill have to get one.

CANT WAIT TILL I GET MY iMAC!!

although it beats the heck out of me why apple is still stuck on 24x read/write when 52x has been out for PCs for ages! i never get any errors at 52x so i imagine that is not the limiting factor. any ideas?
 
tateusmaximus said:
both very good points. thanks for all the infor peoples. seems that its not too much of a downgrade in terms of speed. i think ill have to get one.

CANT WAIT TILL I GET MY iMAC!!

although it beats the heck out of me why apple is still stuck on 24x read/write when 52x has been out for PCs for ages! i never get any errors at 52x so i imagine that is not the limiting factor. any ideas?
Click to expand...
i belive it is cause of the superdrive. that is the way pioneer makes it. now the imac has a good excuse due to the placement of the drive (vertical)
 
tateusmaximus said:
although it beats the heck out of me why apple is still stuck on 24x read/write when 52x has been out for PCs for ages! i never get any errors at 52x so i imagine that is not the limiting factor. any ideas?
Click to expand...

It's because the drive is slot loading instead of being a regualr full sized drive. Slot load drives are slower. Also, the SuperDrive burns CDs slower than the Combo Drive. I guess that is just a compromise that had to be made to make a DVD-R slot loading. Here are the specs for the combo and superdrives:

Combo drive (DVD-ROM/CD-RW): reads DVDs at up to 8x speed, writes CD-R discs at up to 24x speed, writes CD-RW discs at up to 16x speed, reads CDs at up to 24x speed

SuperDrive (DVD-R/CD-RW): writes DVD-R discs at up to 4x speed, reads DVDs at up to 8x speed, writes CD-R discs at up to 16x speed, writes CD-RW discs at up to 8x speed, reads CDs at up to 24x speed
Click to expand...
 
tateusmaximus said:
although it beats the heck out of me why apple is still stuck on 24x read/write when 52x has been out for PCs for ages! i never get any errors at 52x so i imagine that is not the limiting factor. any ideas?
Click to expand...

Have you seen how thin the new new iMacs are?? The drive used in them is a very thin drive. For the size of the drive it's the best speed that you can get at the moment
 
Get an external FW case for your 52x CD-ROM. Dunno dow fast that is in mbps (400 on the FW) but I suppose that you can at least get 48x if not the full 52.
 
7on said:
Get an external FW case for your 52x CD-ROM. Dunno dow fast that is in mbps (400 on the FW) but I suppose that you can at least get 48x if not the full 52.
Click to expand...

i think FW is enough for a ~300x drive... a 1x cdrom peaks at around 150kb/s.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back