MBP vs Power Mac G5

[octoberdeath]

Ok here is my delima:
I do all sorts of media production on my G5 and its wonderful. But I would love it if I could take my work with me. I have heard that the new MacBook Pro with 2Gb of RAM is as fast or faster when doing video work with Final Cut Studio; and I know its comparable, I've heard, when using Photoshop CS 2. What I want to know is if this is true or not? Should I sell my G5 and get a Macbook Pro? I want to have both but I figured if the MBP was as fast or faster I could sell the G5 get the MBP and then when HD DVD burners come to the PowerMac line I lay some money down for one then! But I have also heard that in August that the MBP is going to get a speed boost to dualcore duo (which I guess means "quad") processors. So what in the world should I do?

 

[Malfoy]

If that is a single 2ghz PMG5 then I'd seriously consider switching up to a MBP. I considered switching, but I do ALOT of things at once, that plus I want multiple screens(picking up another 30 in the next 6 months) has cemented my decision not to part with my Quad but have them compliment each other. There is another guy on this board, MovieCutter I think, who sold his Quad for a MBP 17 in. So different strokes for different folks depending on how much you are trying to get done.

 

[octoberdeath]

If that is a single 2ghz PMG5 then I'd seriously consider switching up to a MBP. I considered switching, but I do ALOT of things at once, that plus I want multiple screens(picking up another 30 in the next 6 months) has cemented my decision not to part with my Quad but have them compliment each other. There is another guy on this board, MovieCutter I think, who sold his Quad for a MBP 17 in. So different strokes for different folks depending on how much you are trying to get done.

Well its the Duel Power Mac G5 at 2GHz... with only a gig of RAM if that makes any difference. I would surely lose on the graphics card side since I have ATI Radeon 9650 with 256MB of VRAM and would be down grading to the ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 with a 128MB of VRAM... but instead of adding RAM to my G5 I would add it to the MBP so I would be toped out. I guess that would help. I guess I should message MovieCutter and ask him what he thought about the transition.

 

[Eric5h5]

I would surely lose on the graphics card side since I have ATI Radeon 9650 with 256MB of VRAM and would be down grading to the ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 with a 128MB of VRAM...

Are you kidding? The X1600 smokes the 9650, even the mobility version. In no way is that a downgrade; quite the opposite. The 9650 is basically just a 9600, which is years old. The X1600 is fairly new and two or three generations more advanced.

If you're going to keep the Power Mac, you should probably get more memory and maybe upgrade that low-end graphics card if you're doing anything 3D-intensive. It's definitely better for Photoshop at the moment, since Photoshop isn't universal and won't be for quite some time, so on an Intel Mac it has to run relatively slowly under Rosetta, plus Rosetta needs massive amounts of RAM (like, at least 2GB or more with something big like Photoshop) to avoid slowing down even more.

--Eric

 

[Texas04]

I would just wait for a new Powermac thats intel... if you can... but if you really want portablity, im using a 2.0 GHZ MBP and its great. Im actually in the process of editing a short movie, a Wedding and a Graduation (well the Graduation and Wedding are done) on my MBP. Works great, though I only have like 3 - 2 GB of Room left on it . I havent moved everything to the external . But it is my main editor.

 

[eXan]

If that is a single 2ghz PMG5

Man, there's no SP 2 GHz Power Mac...

and I know its comparable, I've heard, when using Photoshop CS 2

No way. Intel machines are compareble in PS only with singles G4s

 

[combatcolin]

The G5 is a desktop computer with a server memory capacity.

In other words, buy more RAM - lots of it!

 

[mikemodena]

I think you should stick with the PowerMac but up it to 4 Gigs of RAM, and it will be much faster than the MBP.

 

[FF_productions]

I doubt that MBP will get that big of a speed bump by august, they'd have to bump the MacBook's up as well and change the lineup of everything.
I'd get a MBP, it's going to be faster than any other portable running Final Cut Studio, but all adobe products run under Rosetta if you are getting a Intel-based machine. A PPC PowerMac G5 could run both of these apps at a native speed and maybe even faster but you want PORTABILITY.

 

[MovieCutter]

Honestly, I cut a full-length documentary the other day on my 17" MBP hooked up to my 30" ACD and I forgot I was on a portable. It never missed a beat, lower 3rds in Motion, titles in LiveType, rendering in FCP...very smooth. I sold my Quad because when the Intel towers come out...I won't be able to get squat for it.

 

[eXan]

Honestly, I cut a full-length documentary the other day on my 17" MBP hooked up to my 30" ACD and I forgot I was on a portable. It never missed a beat, lower 3rds in Motion, titles in LiveType, rendering in FCP...very smooth. I sold my Quad because when the Intel towers come out...I won't be able to get squat for it.

Yes, thos MBPs are fast machines. But not unless you're using non-UB apps like Photoshop

 

[combatcolin]

Honestly, I cut a full-length documentary the other day on my 17" MBP hooked up to my 30" ACD and I forgot I was on a portable. It never missed a beat, lower 3rds in Motion, titles in LiveType, rendering in FCP...very smooth. I sold my Quad because when the Intel towers come out...I won't be able to get squat for it.

Good call, sell while the price is good.

Come August September the price of used G5's will fall.

 

[octoberdeath]

well i have decided that what i should do is sell my G5. once i hit my 100th post i'm going to see if someone will give me what i want for it so i don't have to go the ebay route. do any of you need a 2 GHz G5?

 

[risc]

sell my G5

I sold my Power Mac G5 today and have a MacBook Pro 15" 2.0 GHz, 2 GB RAM, 7200 RPM 100 GB HDD CTO on order I can't wait for it to turn up. It took a while but 95% of the software I use is universal time to go back to a notebook... can't wait!

 

[octoberdeath]

I sold my Power Mac G5 today and have a MacBook Pro 15" 2.0 GHz, 2 GB RAM, 7200 RPM 100 GB HDD CTO on order I can't wait for it to turn up. It took a while but 95% of the software I use is universal time to go back to a notebook... can't wait!

where did you sell your G5? did you sell in on these boards here? how much, if you don't mind me asking, did you get for it? what were the specs?

 

[3dit3r]

Honestly, I cut a full-length documentary the other day on my 17" MBP hooked up to my 30" ACD and I forgot I was on a portable. It never missed a beat, lower 3rds in Motion, titles in LiveType, rendering in FCP...very smooth. I sold my Quad because when the Intel towers come out...I won't be able to get squat for it.

Wow. You must be fast. Docs usually take at least 6 months to cut; and that's the PBS 56:30 cut. Feature length docs can take longer. Didn't the 17" just come out?!

While it can be done, I wouldn't want to cut a doc on a MBP for the entire project. How are you able to handle an NTSC monitor? What about separate FW buses? Then there's a mixer and scopes too. I'd be curious to know what your set-up was.

 

[risc]

where did you sell your G5? did you sell in on these boards here? how much, if you don't mind me asking, did you get for it? what were the specs?

I sold it to a friend at work. It's a Power Mac G5 Dual 1.8 GHz, 256 MB NVIDIA 6800 Ultra, 2 GB RAM, 74 GB WD Raptor system drive, 320 GB WD3200JD data drive. I sold it for AUD$4000 which was more than enough to cover the cost of the upgraded MacBook Pro. I can't wait for the notebook to turn up I'm looking forward to clearing out the space this Power Mac is taking up.

 

[octoberdeath]

I sold it to a friend at work. It's a Power Mac G5 Dual 1.8 GHz, 256 MB NVIDIA 6800 Ultra, 2 GB RAM, 74 GB WD Raptor system drive, 320 GB WD3200JD data drive. I sold it for AUD$4000 which was more than enough to cover the cost of the upgraded MacBook Pro. I can't wait for the notebook to turn up I'm looking forward to clearing out the space this Power Mac is taking up.

dang did you sell your monitor with it too? i have what i think is a fairly nice system... i really want to sell it and get the MBP!! so if you guys hear of anyone wanting a Dual 2GHz G5 tell them to message me!

 

[MovieCutter]

Wow. You must be fast. Docs usually take at least 6 months to cut; and that's the PBS 56:30 cut. Feature length docs can take longer. Didn't the 17" just come out?!

While it can be done, I wouldn't want to cut a doc on a MBP for the entire project. How are you able to handle an NTSC monitor? What about separate FW buses? Then there's a mixer and scopes too. I'd be curious to know what your set-up was.

Hold on there tiger, this was just an hour long doc for my senior "thesis" for college. Took me a week to cut together, but it's still in the rough stages...I have scripting to rework. I cut it on a 17" MBP with a Wiebetech ComboGB 160GB notebook drive bus-powered via FW800. You don't need all the bells and whistles. It's the story that matters. When I cut docs for broadcast, I cut on a Quad at the suite with all the fixins (scopes, NTSC, etc.). FW800 is more than enough to hand my external scratch discs (all 8 of them, 4TB in total) for DVCAM and DV. NTSC monitor is fed from the camera through FW, don't need scopes. But keep in mind, not everything needs to be cut on that gear. I've cut docs for broadcast in the past on a Powerbook and they passed QC and everything. So I guess it depends on what you need to meet spec.

 

[MovieCutter]

double post

 

[octoberdeath]

Hold on there tiger, this was just an hour long doc for my senior "thesis" for college. Took me a week to cut together, but it's still in the rough stages...I have scripting to rework. I cut it on a 17" MBP with a Wiebetech ComboGB 160GB notebook drive bus-powered via FW800. You don't need all the bells and whistles. It's the story that matters. When I cut docs for broadcast, I cut on a Quad at the suite with all the fixins (scopes, NTSC, etc.). FW800 is more than enough to hand my external scratch discs (all 8 of them, 4TB in total) for DVCAM and DV. NTSC monitor is fed from the camera through FW, don't need scopes. But keep in mind, not everything needs to be cut on that gear. I've cut docs for broadcast in the past on a Powerbook and they passed QC and everything. So I guess it depends on what you need to meet spec.

Cutter, so what would be the difference between editing on your Quad compared to the MBP? I haven't gotten to my classes that discuss broadcasting yet.. so what are "scopes"? why would you need to be able to use a NTSC monitor? couldn't you just use an adapter going from your DVI connection on your laptop?

 

[LethalWolfe]

Cutter, so what would be the difference between editing on your Quad compared to the MBP? I haven't gotten to my classes that discuss broadcasting yet.. so what are "scopes"? why would you need to be able to use a NTSC monitor? couldn't you just use an adapter going from your DVI connection on your laptop?

The Quad would still beat a MBP, but the if the MBP is a sign of things to come the new intel-based towers should be jaw dropping.

"Scopes" are your waveform monitor and vectroscope. You use them to make sure the luma and chroma fall w/in broadcast specs.

You need to be able to use an NTSC monitor because computer monitors and TVs (NTSC monitors) display images differently. So something that looks great on your computer could look like crap on a TV and vice versa.


Lethal

 

[MovieCutter]

The only program I've noticed that the Quad is REALLY fast in is After Effects. Aside from that, it's an efficient machine instead of a jaw-droppingly fast machine. FCP, Motion, and DVD Studio only really see 2 procs at a time. But what I mean by efficient is that I can be encoding a project in Compressor while working in Motion or Final Cut at full speed, thus compressing timelines and making more money/saving time. After Effects sees 4. So while I saw some performance gain in Motion, most of my work is done in FCP, where the performance gain of the Quad over the MBP is less noticeable. Remember though folks, the reason I sold the Quad was so I can actually get close to what I paid for it before the Mac Pro towers come out. I fully intend on rejoining the ranks of Pro tower-dom when they are released. The MBP is definitely a suitable editing replacement for mobile work, motion graphics, DVD Authoring, but nothing beats the sweet ungodly speed of a Power Mac, errrr...I mean Mac Pro.