I had ordered a dual 2.0, but I just changed it to the 1.8. Speedwise, the dual would be faster, I am sure of that. However, for every day tasks such as word, email, surfing the web, etc... Will there be much of a difference? I figured the biggest difference would be in the final cut, imovie, etc... Since I only use those apps 15% of the time, I figured I was better off saving the 600. Did I mess up or was this a good move?
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Question about G5, did I mess up?
- Thread starter nospleen
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Re: Question about G5, did I mess up?
just my opinion, but i think the dual 2 ghz machines are overkill unless you are doing serious prodfessional level work. The G5's period might be overkill considering an iMac will do everything you want there. Depends on your futute upgrade plans though of course. I think you'll be OK. is 600 bucks worth your email program opengin 1/5 of a second quicker?
just my opinion, but i think the dual 2 ghz machines are overkill unless you are doing serious prodfessional level work. The G5's period might be overkill considering an iMac will do everything you want there. Depends on your futute upgrade plans though of course. I think you'll be OK. is 600 bucks worth your email program opengin 1/5 of a second quicker?
Good move.
I'd say for what you are doing, you made the smart move. Everyday tasks will run great on that, along with iMovie and Final Cut. But since you only use iMovie 15% of the time, I say you made a good decision.
I'd say for what you are doing, you made the smart move. Everyday tasks will run great on that, along with iMovie and Final Cut. But since you only use iMovie 15% of the time, I say you made a good decision.
I also think you made a wise decision, but I think you'd do well to buy a healthy dose of RAM with some of that money you saved. 
yeah single processor is fine if you aren't going to be rendering lots of heavy duty stuff. you'll still be very impressed with the machine. and i second the ram suggestion. through a gig of ram in there, but don't buy it from apple when you can get practically the same thing from a third party.
I ordered the mac from www.generalcybernetics.com/apple Doug was very helpful and gave me a great deal! He even through in 2x256mb of ram, so I will have 1 gig total. Anyone interested, please check with Doug, he will hook you up! (Just tell him I sent you)
-Brandon
you have to ask yourself what i do with the machine and how fast does it do the job?? for example my machine does everything i need except its a lil slow in hard core gaming, well i now have a 1.467 g4 coming my way. My geforce3 is so happy i cant even tell you. maybe ill get another year or two from my mac.
Or you could buy the dual 2.0 and leave all those extra CPU cycles for the macrumors folding team. They'd probably love you for it!
I'm on a dual machine, and I wouldn't go back for any reason.
Plus, I feel that some people are a little over-optimistic when it comes to real world performance of the G5. Ever had the spinning beach ball making you wait for 3 seconds when all you want is pulling down a menu? OK, with the G5, it'll only be a 1.5 secs wait.
Some sentences are just never coined, like "beautiful as an airport" (courtesy of D. Adams). "My computer is waaay to fast." is one of these phrases.
Plus, I feel that some people are a little over-optimistic when it comes to real world performance of the G5. Ever had the spinning beach ball making you wait for 3 seconds when all you want is pulling down a menu? OK, with the G5, it'll only be a 1.5 secs wait.
Some sentences are just never coined, like "beautiful as an airport" (courtesy of D. Adams). "My computer is waaay to fast." is one of these phrases.
"Excuse me, Doug. Hello, NoSpleen referred me to you. Yes, NoSpleen."
Or I could just say Brandon.
And you said that you use resource sucking apps 15% of the time. This means that you'll be impatiently waiting on your computer 15% of the time you spend on it. That's a lot of time. I think. Imagine waiting for 2-3 minutes for something to finish up? This will happen to you for years. You could just splurge and get the dual 2.0GHz and not upgrade for a long long time.....maybe 4 years or so. For me, a 1.8GHz G5 would be perfect, but for someone who uses FCP and iMovie on a semi-regular basis, you may regret getting a 1.8GHz G5.
Originally posted by Abstract
"Excuse me, Doug. Hello, NoSpleen referred me to you. Yes, NoSpleen."
Or I could just say Brandon.
And you said that you use resource sucking apps 15% of the time. This means that you'll be impatiently waiting on your computer 15% of the time you spend on it. That's a lot of time. I think. Imagine waiting for 2-3 minutes for something to finish up? This will happen to you for years. You could just splurge and get the dual 2.0GHz and not upgrade for a long long time.....maybe 4 years or so. For me, a 1.8GHz G5 would be perfect, but for someone who uses FCP and iMovie on a semi-regular basis, you may regret getting a 1.8GHz G5.
I think these last few comments are going to cost me 600 bucks.
Sorry not been rude or anything but this just makes me laugh my head off i am one of the poor sods stuck with the old I Mac g3s its running osx 10.2 its got 128sdram its got an old video card sounds not too bad and it cant render for its life but i can tell you this much its the best 500 AUD Ive ever spent it still beats my pc to bits ... I recomend that you go with what you think is right for you for me this was a cheap and as powerful as i could afford . plus as a dad myself your gona need that 600 trust me....
Nappys alone can cost the earth in more ways than one..
So you made the right choice ....
did i mention ive only got 1 gig left on my hard drive aghhhhh! and it was 6 gig ahhhhhhhhggggggg
Nappys alone can cost the earth in more ways than one..
So you made the right choice ....
did i mention ive only got 1 gig left on my hard drive aghhhhh! and it was 6 gig ahhhhhhhhggggggg
1.8 is fast enough
I, too, ordered a DP 2GHz PowerMac, but changed my order to a SP 1.8GHz PowerMac G5. I thought about it, and found that $600 is a lot of money to spend on this processing power that I will never really use. It won't speed the GUI noticeably, and is really only good for number-crunching tasks, like DVD authoring or LightWave renderings. I plan to author DVDs very infrequently, and so 1.8GHz is more than fast enough. I chose that over the 1.6GHz because of the PCI-X slots, faster RAM, and speed bump.
My (upgraded) PowerMac G4 800MHz with L3 cache runs everything I need it to run very well. I run Office on it, I e-mail with it, sometimes I use it as a webserver. I filled it with 1GB of RAM, and it runs nicely. I expect this new machine to run even better, which is more than I need. As I speak, I have iChat, Safari, iTunes (playing), Mail, Watson, Apache 2, Word, and PowerPoint open, and my system is running well. It never crashes, and the speed is probably equivalent to a 1.5GHz PC (I have one in the basement). I've had my machine for 3 years, and want an upgrade. I waited until now to upgrade to 64-bit, so it would last me the longest. Plus, I'm going to college in two months and could use that $600 for a laptop.
-Jim
The first really expensive computer I've bought.
I, too, ordered a DP 2GHz PowerMac, but changed my order to a SP 1.8GHz PowerMac G5. I thought about it, and found that $600 is a lot of money to spend on this processing power that I will never really use. It won't speed the GUI noticeably, and is really only good for number-crunching tasks, like DVD authoring or LightWave renderings. I plan to author DVDs very infrequently, and so 1.8GHz is more than fast enough. I chose that over the 1.6GHz because of the PCI-X slots, faster RAM, and speed bump.
My (upgraded) PowerMac G4 800MHz with L3 cache runs everything I need it to run very well. I run Office on it, I e-mail with it, sometimes I use it as a webserver. I filled it with 1GB of RAM, and it runs nicely. I expect this new machine to run even better, which is more than I need. As I speak, I have iChat, Safari, iTunes (playing), Mail, Watson, Apache 2, Word, and PowerPoint open, and my system is running well. It never crashes, and the speed is probably equivalent to a 1.5GHz PC (I have one in the basement). I've had my machine for 3 years, and want an upgrade. I waited until now to upgrade to 64-bit, so it would last me the longest. Plus, I'm going to college in two months and could use that $600 for a laptop.
-Jim
The first really expensive computer I've bought.
I am already a dad too, I have a daughter. Kids can be expensive, but well worth every penny!
I would much rather keep the 600 dollars for other things. But, I am trying to think of the big picture. I do not want to waste 2,400 to save 600. But, I really believe the 1.8 will be all I need. I just do not want to be dissapointed and wish I had spent the extra cash. I just wish they were out now and I could play, errrh, I mean try them both out. I imagine once the apps are 64bit, it will really fly.
As long as the 1.8 is faster then my old dual 1.42 than I will be happy.
Re: 1.8 is fast enough
A dual most certainly will speed up the GUI. Not only will it be a little faster at everything, it will be noticeably faster when you're say opening iPhoto while ripping that CD in iTunes. Or watching a DVD while opening VPC. Etc, when you do two, the power of duals shine thru. Since X's multitasking, I don't know many who do one thing and wait to do another.
$600 may seem a bit much now, but that $600 could potentially add at 2 years to the usability life of your computer. Once you go dual you never go back.
A dual most certainly will speed up the GUI. Not only will it be a little faster at everything, it will be noticeably faster when you're say opening iPhoto while ripping that CD in iTunes. Or watching a DVD while opening VPC. Etc, when you do two, the power of duals shine thru. Since X's multitasking, I don't know many who do one thing and wait to do another.
$600 may seem a bit much now, but that $600 could potentially add at 2 years to the usability life of your computer. Once you go dual you never go back.
And to think I would be extremely happy with a new 1Ghz G4 eMac for $999! Yeah I know laugh at it because in the new G5 world it appears a POS. (The world where even email and internet surfers think they need 2Ghz duals.) I bet somewhere someplace somehow there will be someone that buys a 2Ghz dual G5 and connect to the net with 56K dial-up. At least I could win a benchmark with my iMac DV 400. Surfing the net on my Cable connection while the G5 is on dial up. LOL.
Ok, anyhow seriously, the single 1.6 or 1.8 would be more then enough for some iMovie, some Photoshop, etc. Heck that new $999 eMac would do fine doing a consumer program like iMovie.
Ok, anyhow seriously, the single 1.6 or 1.8 would be more then enough for some iMovie, some Photoshop, etc. Heck that new $999 eMac would do fine doing a consumer program like iMovie.