New iMac G5 Announced

[macidiot]

I hate to break up the onslaught of graphics card messages, BUT..... does anyone know if the 20" LCD display panel in the G5 iMac is exactly the same as the one in Apple's new standalone 20" LCD Displays (ie: same manufacturer, same specs...) ??

Thank you ... now please continue with the the graphics card war ... who's winning anyways? Maybe you guys could continue the war in a Doom 3 deathmatch ... oh wait ... can't on the new iMac right?

I posted it somewhere in this thread(probably a couple hundred pages ago), but I was curious too, since I bought one of the 20" acd's.

Anyway, from what I can tell, it might be the same, but if it is, the iMac is completely de-tuned. It has lower viewing angle, contrast, brightness. I haven't been able to find out anywhere what the response time is for the iMac panel. My guess is that its slower. But in the specs listed it is clearly lower than the acd. About the only thing that is the same spec-wise, is the resolution.

 

[iMeowbot]

This is what the dvorak guy was talking about. I found this on another forum.

There were lots of claims that the iLamp would tip over too.

 

[Cannibal]

optical drive...

i'm looking for thoughts on the optical drive. i'd be lying if i said that the opical drive isn't making me a wee bit nervous...

-Cannibal-

 

[macidiot]

I don't really see numbers out there for other games yet, but lets pick on Halo. The portable GeForce 5200 gets:

800x600 - 32.1 FPS
1024x768 - 34.2 FPS
1280x1024 - not tested

The iMac G5 is 189% faster (FPS) than the previous generation on Halo

This gives us:
800x600 - 60.67 FPS
1024x768 - 64.64 FPS

Or, if Apple meant that the performance has been boosted by a full 189% above the previous:
800x600 - 92.77 FPS
1024x768 - 98.83 FPS

I find the second case less likely, but I suppose it's still possible. In any case, the human eye perceives 24 FPS, with most of the extra frames in computer simulation going to smoothing, not actual motion. Either of the results above are well above the point we can easily distinguish. What was your point again?

Interesting post, but I'm wondering what the performance will be in the native resolution of 1680x1050. Does the game even support that resolution? I don't play FPS myself, but they are a good benchmarking tool and good for 3d performance testing. Thing is, all games(mostly because of consoles) are going 3d. I ask because lcd's are far better in native resolution...and what computer was that portable 5200 in?

 

[iProbot]

"new design?"

I walk along a store every day, where they sell the "new iMac" for over a month already It's called the Loewe Mimo 15!

 

[one3]

I posted it somewhere in this thread(probably a couple hundred pages ago), but I was curious too, since I bought one of the 20" acd's.

Anyway, from what I can tell, it might be the same, but if it is, the iMac is completely de-tuned. It has lower viewing angle, contrast, brightness. I haven't been able to find out anywhere what the response time is for the iMac panel. My guess is that its slower. But in the specs listed it is clearly lower than the acd. About the only thing that is the same spec-wise, is the resolution.

I did some more digging around and you are right... it's not the same specs:

20" Standalone Display:
Viewing Angle: 170° horizontal; 170° vertical
Brightness:250 cd/m2
Contrast ratio: 400:1
Response time: 16 ms
Pixel pitch: 0.258 mm

20" iMac G5 Display:
Viewing Angle: 170° horizontal; 170° vertical
Brightness:230 cd/m2
Contrast ratio: 350:1
Response time: ??
Pixel pitch: ??

I'd love to find out the response time and pixel pitch of the iMac G5.. those are very key to knowing how good the screen is....

 

[kugino]

i'm looking for thoughts on the optical drive. i'd be lying if i said that the opical drive isn't making me a wee bit nervous...

-Cannibal-

i think thatwendigo is right on this...as laptop slotloading superdrives lag behind in terms of performance, it looks like you'll have to wait for great-performance drives to become available. until then, it looks like firewire might be your best bet for top performance, but it won't work in iDVD and there's that little problem of extra clutter...

 

[thatwendigo]

Interesting post, but I'm wondering what the performance will be in the native resolution of 1680x1050. Does the game even support that resolution? I don't play FPS myself, but they are a good benchmarking tool and good for 3d performance testing. Thing is, all games(mostly because of consoles) are going 3d. I ask because lcd's are far better in native resolution...and what computer was that portable 5200 in?

Actually, I did that post right as I was waking up and read the chart wrong. Those were the specs for the PowerBook 1.25ghz with an AGP 4x 9600 Mobile.

Appropriate numbers follow:

PowerBook 12" 1.0ghz, 256MB RAM, 4200RPM ATA/100, with GeForce 5200 Go 32MB on 4x AGP

800x600 - 19.9
1024x768 - 22.2

Adjusted (189% performance)

800x600 - 37.61 FPS
1024x768 - 41.96 FPS

Ajusted (189% over previous)

800x600 - 57.51 FPS
1024x768 - 64.16 FPS


This actually makes sense, if you think about it. The RAM and subsystems are a lot faster, fed over double the previous bandwidth (AGP 4x to AGP 8x), from a processor that really shines on throughput. It could very well be that the graphics card was being choked before.

 

[Savage Henry]

I wish the stock market would make it's mind up. After Tuesday's lift and return to opening level, I notice the close yesterday was as much as $35.99. So despite the plenty o'naysayers in the analyst community, it seems like some some heavy money has been invested.

Well, I'm interested anyway....

 

[aafuss1]

Yes, they DO!:
from http://www.apple.com/imac/graphics.html :

They talk about games and they compare it to something else that SUCKED.

JUST LOOK AT THE PICTURE! They use PERCENTAGES instead of FPS!!

And let me state again: Yes, it WILL RUN Motion and Doom3, it'll just run them so slowly they'll be unusable!

This isn't just about hardcore gamers, this is about ALL people who play games. As in ANYONE who plays ANY games that were made past 2003.

Yes, SOME new games will run, but MOST will run crappily.

Even now, RTS games are switching to 3D! My bro had a 5200 Ultra with 128mb for his PC and it ran perimeter like absolute crap!

This is not a mid range card! This is an entry level card! Hardcore gamers buy the top card, moderate-occasional gamers buy mid-range cards, and grandmothers buy cards like the 128mb 5200FX!

Saying "Only hardcore gamers need something better" is an amazing show of fanboyism. Even people who just play the occasional game of UT04 or MOH/AA would want something better than this.. way better.

Saying "oh it'll do most things" is a crock! The G4 iMac ran "most things" it just ran them "terribly." Why upgrade at all? G3s will run games like civ3 fine, OMG we don't need a G5! stop the presses!

Why do we need a G5? why do we need 2GB max RAM? OMG it's amazing! some people, when they buy new computers, want NEW components in them! holy obsolescence batman! The 5200 is what? a year and a half old? and it was a mid-range card back then!

I have a Jetway FX5200 128MB in my pc and runs FS2004 and Far Cry (MS's Mac games third-party publisher hould port that ) amazingling brilliant with 512MB-twice as a much of RAM: 512MB

 

[aafuss1]

I am assuming the G5 in iMac is a 970FX and the U3-Lite chipset?

 

[vannote]

Firstly who mentioned servers? My point is very much about the right tool for the job. And for your information, SOLARIS and Sun's JAVA Desktop ARE UNIX.

Are you a systems admin?

No I didn't think so.

Hey why dont you convince your company to buy some iMacs to run your back end servers?

Please

Of course "SOLARIS and Sun's JAVA Desktop" ARE UNIX, Did I mention Sun JAVA Desktop? Thats an even bigger joke. Yes, Sun OS+Solaris Clients are also present in the fold.

In addition, the right Tool for the job, according to YOU was Windows for network infrastructure. Do you really think that just because you see a "Windows" box on a desk that it is authenticating against a Windows Domain Controller (A Server)? Get a clue!

No, I am not a "systems admin", I am a "systems programmer" which is evidently far beyond your understanding.

Hey why dont you convince your company to buy some iMacs to run your back end servers?

Hmm, What? Buy iMacs to "run" our servers?

That sentence didn't even make sense. They have a mix of Sun OS, Linux, BSD, and OS X Server (OS X Server on xServe boxes in case you missed that part of my initial reply) running quite happily together with little to no effort.

Are you a systems admin?

No, I didn't think so.

LOL

Regards

 

[Geetar]

Apparently you have poor reading comprehension skills. Photoshop and Logic are poor examples to use when discussing the ability of the 5200. That was my point. What part of that don't you understand? If you read the post properly then you wouldn't be throwing around baseless insults. Apparently you merely saw the word Logic and decided to cast aspersions without noting the context.

Now who's comprehension skills are lacking? My point was -once again, for the hard of comprehension- that the COMPUTER is fine. That's what this is all about. The card- an admittedly limiting factor of the computer- will not, I suspect, stand in the way of sales of the _computer_ to the great degree that you think it will.

Oh, and those who game on the Mac are somehow wiser than those of us whose professional use of the platform isn't held to ransom by the GPU?

 

[zelmo]

Holy crap people, chill out and take some valium before the web community unanimously agrees to change the word 'for'ums to 'against'ums. What drives you people to throw your egos out there just to get it smashed to bits and why must you ego 'bit smashing' people be so mean? Everyone has an opinion. Just let them have it and freaking move on with your life. Ok everyone, do it with me now. Take a deep breath...Now let it out slow and relaaaaax. There, don't you feel better now dammit!

Well said, my friend. Don't like the graphics card, or the fact that it is not upgradeable? Here's great news - the law does not require you to buy an iMac. Of course, there's no law against whining, bickering, or arguing about it, either...
Well, there's always rev b, eh? Add a better GPU, base 512 memory, and a FW 800 port. What else?

 

[dekator]

Yeah that's the bottom line. No upgrade option... I think the card does just fine in almost every catagory except games (I still have a PC that has a TNT 2 card in it for that matter)... Hopefully we will see the option to upgrade, but maybe not.

We won't see it because, according to Tom Boger, Apples Director of Worldwide Product Marketing, the graphic chip is welded directly onto the mainboard...

I think the whole graphic card thing is a pitty... No matter how the exact specs for Doom or Motion are, the Nvidia 5200 FX Ultra is 1,5 years old. Now, if I buy the new iMac, I would like to use for about 5 years. Demand for graphic power will increase everywhere. Now, the iMac G5 has a fine modern processor, and a 600 Mhz system bus isn't really bad. So, Tom Boger would say about the graphic card: "We give people a ton of value in other ways." Right. But that, if anything, is even more reason to give the iMac a more decent graphic card, especially as it is not upgradeable. What's the big idea ? To incapacitate an otherwise great product ? I'm afraid Apple's wasting great potential here... Gee, you don't sell a nice BMW with a light machine to weak to get you through the night, no do you ?

 

[zelmo]

Do you think someone will be able to engineer some sort of port replicating hub for the new iMac? I mean, it would be slick if you had a single device that plugged into all of the connections on the back of the computer at once, so you could thread a single, albeit thick-ish, 6-foot cable from the iMac that ended in a hub. That way, you could plug in whatever you wanted to plug in, without having cables dangling. You could put the hub end wherever you wanted, to minimize desktop cable clutter. Crazy?

 

[daveg5]

I did some more digging around and you are right... it's not the same specs:

20" Standalone Display:
Viewing Angle: 170° horizontal; 170° vertical
Brightness:250 cd/m2
Contrast ratio: 400:1
Response time: 16 ms
Pixel pitch: 0.258 mm

20" iMac G5 Display:
Viewing Angle: 170° horizontal; 170° vertical
Brightness:230 cd/m2
Contrast ratio: 350:1
Response time: ??
Pixel pitch: ??

I'd love to find out the response time and pixel pitch of the iMac G5.. those are very key to knowing how good the screen is....

what are the old 20 inch stats,? is the 17" really that bad or a misprint. it seems worst than the 17" off brand models, A 15.2 powerbook display is even better i thiink. oh well.

 

[spencecb]

I'll be ordering my iMac next week! I'm so excited, as I am without a fully functioning computer right now...last Friday I spilled Sprite all over my 15" PowerBook that was only 5 months old. Its a bit fried, and I see this as an awesome opportunity to upgrade to a G5...we all have to admit that the G4 is an aging processor, and I am ready for a truly modern processor. So, cheers to the new iMac!!

 

[daveg5]

Do you think someone will be able to engineer some sort of port replicating hub for the new iMac? I mean, it would be slick if you had a single device that plugged into all of the connections on the back of the computer at once, so you could thread a single, albeit thick-ish, 6-foot cable from the iMac that ended in a hub. That way, you could plug in whatever you wanted to plug in, without having cables dangling. You could put the hub end wherever you wanted, to minimize desktop cable clutter. Crazy?

That is just what i was thinking, along with a matching media box that would give the imac, video in and out, tivo style function. I was really hoping for dvi in so i could use an ibox and or another computer with the imacs screen, that would be awesome in the future.
Maybe dr.bott, griffins, Eye tv and others are thinking about that.
What I really would like is a BT media controller simialr to the coutour designs media shuttle, to control all the ilfe and other apps and no wires and matching white, and a BT multi-button scrolling mouse matching also

 

[daveg5]

I am assuming the G5 in iMac is a 970FX and the U3-Lite chipset?

does anyone now for sure if these are 970fx or 970, and what is the response time on the displays. 25ms or 40ms.
thanks

 

[daveg5]

IMAC Cool - But not for me, I will definitely send my friends for one that do word, and surf.

I need a tower with (listen in apple):

MORE PCI SLOTS!

TWO OPTICAL DRIVE BAYS

BETTER HARD DRIVE EXPANSION (without buying product mods)

You Know... A PRO MACHINE

I can hear the responses, dude the hard drives can get boxed and added through firewire, and so can DVD-r, and why would you need more than three PCI slots?

Because of ProAudio Cards...

NOW here's the rub, IF they had made a headless IMAC mini tower with pci slots, I MIGHT have gone for it for the short run use...

The IMAC doesn't cut it (FOR ME)

My hope is that they make a quad 970mp monster with a larger case, 2 optical drives and 4 dare I say 5 PCI slots...

I'll still bite on the 970mp, and firewire the extras.. (if needed) I guess that when your spending $3000+ or more on the cutting edge computer - you'd get the extra optical, PCI and hard drive slots... my 2¢

just what i want a 9600 powermqac G5.
2AGP both with independant buss, 4pciexpress each with an independent buss, 12 memory slots, 4 drive bays independent sata busses, 2 optical drive bays, just like the old 9600, plus 4 usb2, 4firewire 400, 4 firewire 800, all with independent busses.. and tri or quad 2.5-3.0 processors. Logic would scream. along with motu 24/192 or pro tools hd 192 pci sound cards much more bandwidth than firewire or usb 2.0.
Pipe dream would cost $6000, but be worth it big time for studios.
A better way might be to expand the way two computers with Logic on both can be linked and power doubled, add another slave computer and more power and so on. Just like the universities do with there own programs.

 

[-hh]

RAM

...Could someone explain RAM options. On the BTO options on Applestore online the iMac is listed with 256MB of RAM to upgrade to 1GB 1DIMM costs +£350.01 (.01?) but to upgrade to 2GB 2DIMM's costs +£750. Isn't that 1GB DIMM @ £350.01 + another 1GB DIMM @ £350.01 = £700.02

Who gets the other £49.98? And what's with the pennies?

In theory, you can argue that that cost is the trade-in value of the 256M DIMM, plus there additional labor cost of having to have an assembly line worker click in two DIMM's instead of just one.

However, this £50 (US$89) for a $28 RAM chip (Pricewatch, not Crucial)k, plus $5 for installation labor (2 minutes at $150/hour), plus $5 for additional order tracking costs (2 minutes at $150/hour) sums to $35, which means an extra $54 in pure profit.


Insfoar as the crazy pennies, that's simply insanity...it shouldn't have been £700.02 - - it should have been £699.97


-hh

 

[daveg5]

I'll be ordering my iMac next week! I'm so excited, as I am without a fully functioning computer right now...last Friday I spilled Sprite all over my 15" PowerBook that was only 5 months old. Its a bit fried, and I see this as an awesome opportunity to upgrade to a G5...we all have to admit that the G4 is an aging processor, and I am ready for a truly modern processor. So, cheers to the new iMac!!

that powerbook benches close to the same as the imac g5 and is much more expandable. firewire 800, dual display, pc card slot, svideo, dvi out, etc., 2GB ram also, of course some things would be faster with the G5, was the powerbook 128MB video card?

 

[-hh]

just what i want a 9600 powermqac G5.
2AGP both with independant buss, 4pciexpress each with an independent buss, 12 memory slots, 4 drive bays independent sata busses, 2 optical drive bays, just like the old 9600, plus 4 usb2, 4firewire 400, 4 firewire 800, all with independent busses...

Most of what you claim you want, you can do right now with externals.

The biggest thing I see in your list is that you want PCi-express ... is this because you've also not found many PCI-X cards to expand a G5?


(Does anyone know of a website that has a simple, straightforward list of G5 PCI-X compatible cards?)


-hh

 

[~Shard~]

Obviously I meant "some" games, I think anyone could make that distinction.

Not necessarily in the absolute tone you've displayed in many of your posts...

Mainly because most mac users have no idea what the heck farcry is, and nobody seems to care about UT04.

Really? Wow, interesting statement, I'm sure a lot of people would have something to say about this....

You say Ah yes, let's use the extreme example of Doom3 to make our point. Then you turn around and say Just because the 5200 can't handle your precious Doom3.. woops you did it again!

"Woops you did it again"?!? Okay Britney Spears, whatever... Anyway, you missed my point - I was indicating that YOU were using the extreme example of Doom3 to make your point, and then I commented on why that was flawed.

Here is a list of some Mac-released games from 2002/2003 that will have problems with a 64mb 5200 (ie, they'll run like crap):
...

Thatwendigo already commented on this superbly, I need not repeat him...

That list doesn't even include the AMAZING and innovative games released in 2004 that WONT run on a G5 iMac:

Ah, here we go again - won't even run on a Mac. And the best part is, the first game you mention is UT2004, which will actually run on a G4 iMac, let alone the G5 iMac, 212% faster nonetheless according to Apple's site.

Perhaps Thatwendigo said it best when summarizing your post:
WAAAAAH, I WANT GAMES! (edited for brevity)

Well, I'm outta here - gotta catch my flight to Vienna, and then I'll be backpacking through Eastern Europe for 5 weeks. See you all later!