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New iMac not meeting expectations...yet

YoYo--

How ironic to read your post! I am about to order a 20" 2G iMac, and am changing from a 15" 1.5 G Powerbook.

With respect to speed, I saw a noticeable increase in speed on the Powerbook in going from 512 to 1Gb of RAM, and I plan on getting two 1Gb sticks for the iMac from the start. Certainly in my in-store comparisons the iMac feels quite a bit faster than the Powerbook.

So I can only echo the suggestions above--if you do a lot of video editing and rendering, max the iMac with 2Gb of RAM. If you don't see a marked improvement, have your iMac checked out.

Best,

Bob

PS--And Congratulations on your two week old! The greatest joy. . .
 
mad jew said:
Have you turned the processor up the the Highest settings from the System Preferences? Also, the RAM should help, if only for running the system better. :)
Click to expand...

I opened system preferences to check this, but I can't figure out where to adjust the processor speed. Can someone help?

Also, I'm looking at this report testing the rumor of matched pairs of RAM being better than mismatched sets: http://www.barefeats.com/imacg5d.html When I look at this, it appears that the imac g5 would get nearly the same speed performance with dual 256 mb chips as it would with dual 1gb chips. Am I reading that right?? Doesn't make sense to me.

One last thing . . . can anyone point me to a good set of directions online about how to add the memory to my iMac G5?

Thanks!
 
imacgirl said:
I opened system preferences to check this, but I can't figure out where to adjust the processor speed. Can someone help?
Click to expand...


Go to System Preference, Energy Saver and then click on the Options tab up the top. Down the bottom, there should be a small menu from where you can change it from Automatic (default) to Highest.


imacgirl said:
Also, I'm looking at this report testing the rumor of matched pairs of RAM being better than mismatched sets: http://www.barefeats.com/imacg5d.html When I look at this, it appears that the imac g5 would get nearly the same speed performance with dual 256 mb chips as it would with dual 1gb chips. Am I reading that right?? Doesn't make sense to me.
Click to expand...


There's a difference between having fast RAM and having enough actual RAM. So, sure, having twin 256MB chips may get you faster RAM, but it will not necessarily make your computer faster because it is still essentially only 512MB total. The added benefits of getting matched pairs is only small but the benefits of getting a large actual mass of RAM (1GB plus) is much much more.

The more stuff you can store in the RAM the better and for this you are after quantity, not actual RAM speed. The purpose of RAM is to keep the computer from accessing the hard drive, which is much slower than accessing RAM. The speed difference between the hard drive and mismatched RAM is much greater than the speed difference between mismatched RAM and matched RAM. Hopefully that makes sense. :)

Nevertheless, Apple has a page about the benefits of using matched RAM.


imacgirl said:
One last thing . . . can anyone point me to a good set of directions online about how to add the memory to my iMac G5?
Click to expand...


From Apple's own Support Site: 17 inch iMac and then the 20 inch iMac.
 
evil_santa said:
I am a bit confused to what you mean by this, video runs at a constant speed, in terms of playing and editing video my G4 733 isn't much different to my G5 d2.7. The video still runs at 25/30fps. When it comes to rendering video/motion/shake the G5 wipe the floor with the G4.

I would suggest getting as much ram as you can squeeze into the imac, using an external FW drive for the media & getting rid of any 'background' apps you might have installed. Also don't install any antivirus. This will bring any video system to its knees.
Click to expand...


how long have you been using shake? would a 1.8 dual G5 work for just learning shake...learning the tools.
 
mad jew said:
There's a difference between having fast RAM and having enough actual RAM. So, sure, having twin 256MB chips may get you faster RAM, but it will not necessarily make your computer faster because it is still essentially only 512MB total. The added benefits of getting matched pairs is only small but the benefits of getting a large actual mass of RAM (1GB plus) is much much more.

The more stuff you can store in the RAM the better and for this you are after quantity, not actual RAM speed. The purpose of RAM is to keep the computer from accessing the hard drive, which is much slower than accessing RAM. The speed difference between the hard drive and mismatched RAM is much greater than the speed difference between mismatched RAM and matched RAM. Hopefully that makes sense. :)

Nevertheless, Apple has a page about the benefits of using matched RAM.

From Apple's own Support Site: 17 inch iMac and then the 20 inch iMac.
Click to expand...

That makes perfect sense. Nice explanation. I just ordered 2 GB of memory. Hopefully that and the increased processor speed will take care of the spinning beach ball of doom. Thanks!
 
Yoyomac,

Can I ask, what was the rationale behind getting the iMac in the first place? Why not a Powermac with two processors? If the main reason to upgrade is for video, aren't the Powermac's the way to go? Sure the iMac has a sceen, but two cheap CRT's can do the job just fine...

max
 
Max Miles said:
Yoyomac,

Can I ask, what was the rationale behind getting the iMac in the first place? Why not a Powermac with two processors? If the main reason to upgrade is for video, aren't the Powermac's the way to go? Sure the iMac has a sceen, but two cheap CRT's can do the job just fine...

max
Click to expand...

I love they way they look! ;)
 
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