New Powermac or imac

[noelmac75]

Hi there

Iam looking to purchase a new mac in the next couple of weeks, but still can choose either the powermac with 17" display or imac, both look beautiful, I already own a G4 450mhz whicjh i bought in 99, so its been 4 years since an upgrade, I havent tried out the new duals, but i seen the 17"imac on display, I'll need it for doing photoshop/quark/games/internet etc.. as iam a grphic designer, Iam also close to a tight budget £2000 is my maximum. Which one do u think i should get? What would the differences be between each one be?

Comments welcomed

 

[CaVoLo]

Re: New Powermac or imac

Originally posted by noelmac75
Hi there

Iam looking to purchase a new mac in the next couple of weeks, but still can choose either the powermac with 17" display or imac, both look beautiful, I already own a G4 450mhz whicjh i bought in 99, so its been 4 years since an upgrade, I havent tried out the new duals, but i seen the 17"imac on display, I'll need it for doing photoshop/quark/games/internet etc.. as iam a grphic designer, Iam also close to a tight budget £2000 is my maximum. Which one do u think i should get? What would the differences be between each one be?

Comments welcomed

If i were using the computer for graphic design i would get a powermac only because it is more expandable and it is faster (DDR RAM)...the imacs might be getting this update in the next few days though...if this imacs get ddr ram and 1 ghz processor with price drops that would be really hard to resist and i might go with that...ONLY if it got a video card upgrade though...cuz the 32mb isnt cutting it any more

hope this helps

 

[ddtlm]

noelmac75:

Which one do u think i should get?

Watever you do don't get an iMac until they are updated.

For $800 you could get a nice upgrade for your current machine. Perhaps to a 1.2ghz single G4 with 2mb L3, I'm sure that would be faster than the iMac or PMac in many things. Take some of that left over cash and buy a Radeon 9000 for OSX smoothness, add some RAM, perhaps even get a nice CRT. I would like to point out that a new iMac does not have a faster memory system than your current 450 does.

CaVoLo:

i would get a powermac only because it is more expandable and it is faster (DDR RAM)

As far as I know the supposed speed advantage of Apple's DDR RAM setup has never been proven. In fact the only benchmakrs that I've seen of the DDR333-using, 1.0ghz G4, 1mb L3, 17" PB vs the older SDR133-using, 1.0ghz G4, 1mb L3, 15" PB showed that DDR was not helping.

 

[Dont Hurt Me]

Saw your post, I would say the powermac is your ticket. Sure you could use the imac but i would wait to see where apple takes that platform.If they come out with a screamer it could suite you fine but if all we get are some little speed bumps i would stick to the powermac.Hey they just lowered the entry price on the powermacs and they lowered the display prices. Anyways you can hardley go wrong with anymac in my opionion!Being a gamer myself and playing a little with photographs you can never have enough POWER!--As far as that ddr comment and question i think though the cpu doesnt get a real advantage with it the system controller allows the ddr to be used with ethernet,pci,agp,firewire etc so this allows fast exchanges without involving the cpu. And yes i have read some test where this has been benchmarked to show improvements!Mac addict ran some test between old quicksilver 1 gig and newer 1 gig MDD and there where improvements in photoshop benchmarks using the newer U2 system contoller chip.Sure you could upgrade your machine but your stuck with the bus and architecture!

 

[ddtlm]

Dont Hurt Me:

Lets examine these benchmarks of the new 17" PB vs the fastest 15" PB, which are the only benchmarks I am aware of that compare them:

http://www.barefeats.com/pb17.html

There are 5 graphs. The SDR PB wins 2 narrowly, the DDR PB wins one even more narrowly, and the DDR PB wins 2 by a large margin (these are OpenGL and memory). However lets examine things more carefully.

First lets throw out the OpenGL test because it probably measures the speed of the graphics chips more than the CPU/memory system.

For the memory test, notice that the 17" PB not only has DDR RAM, but 333mhz DDR RAM and a 166mhz FSB. The old 15" PB has only PC133 and a 133mhz FSB. (Both laptops have the same clockspeed and L3 cache.) It is therefore no wonder that the new one can get a higher memory speed, since the FSB is clocked 25% higher. But does this higher peak memory speed mean anything for performance? Judging by the 3 tests that were close, I have to say that no, it does not. Not even DDR-333 and a 166mhz FSB can beat PC133 and a 133mhz FSB in general usage.

So, how do you think that your DDR-266 and 133mhz FSB will do? I bet that it would loose to a conventional PC-133 setup on most or all tests. I also bet that a PC100 setup wouldn't compare too badly, given extra L3 cache like an upgrade would have.

 

[AssassinOfGates]

Powermac so you can upgrade the graphics accelerator to keep up w/ games

 

[eyeluvmyimac]

regarding the whole ddr issue

I was just speaking with one of the genius bar employees at my local apple store about this issue. I know him pretty well because he comes into my work a lot, therefore i trust him with my computer issues.

He said that with the old architecture, DDR was never able to get to its potential, however, since the upgrades and redesigns the DDR IS in fact used at its full potential.

 

[ddtlm]

eyeluvmyimac:

I was just speaking with one of the genius bar employees at my local apple store about this issue. ... He said that with the old architecture, DDR was never able to get to its potential, however, since the upgrades and redesigns the DDR IS in fact used at its full potential.

He is wrong.

 

[Dont Hurt Me]

Originally posted by ddtlm
Dont Hurt Me:

Lets examine these benchmarks of the new 17" PB vs the fastest 15" PB, which are the only benchmarks I am aware of that compare them:

http://www.barefeats.com/pb17.html

There are 5 graphs. The SDR PB wins 2 narrowly, the DDR PB wins one even more narrowly, and the DDR PB wins 2 by a large margin (these are OpenGL and memory). However lets examine things more carefully.

First lets throw out the OpenGL test because it probably measures the speed of the graphics chips more than the CPU/memory system.

For the memory test, notice that the 17" PB not only has DDR RAM, but 333mhz DDR RAM and a 166mhz FSB. The old 15" PB has only PC133 and a 133mhz FSB. (Both laptops have the same clockspeed and L3 cache.) It is therefore no wonder that the new one can get a higher memory speed, since the FSB is clocked 25% higher. But does this higher peak memory speed mean anything for performance? Judging by the 3 tests that were close, I have to say that no, it does not. Not even DDR-333 and a 166mhz FSB can beat PC133 and a 133mhz FSB in general usage.

So, how do you think that your DDR-266 and 133mhz FSB will do? I bet that it would loose to a conventional PC-133 setup on most or all tests. I also bet that a PC100 setup wouldn't compare too badly, given extra L3 cache like an upgrade would have.

ddtim is correct ddr is not being used to its full potential because of the slow frontside bus on the current g4s. this is a fact.ddtim i found your post interesting though i must admit i follow the imacs and powermacs more closely since iam not a portable user.I had read a review between the new (what was new mdd 1 giggers vs the quicksilver 1 giggers and they saw no improvement in some gaming benchmarks. i would say cpu intensive. On the otherhand i read in macaddicts Nov issue of a test using photoshop where blurrs/rotates and rgb to cmyk where faster on the average say 5-10 percent. But also this was comparing 1 machine with ata 66 vs one with ata100. So when you look at the whole machine it was slightly faster. Interesting to note that the pb17 has a 166 bus yet the new powermac 1 gig only has a 133?any comments?