Mac hardware advice needed, thanks

[greekdish]

Well, if its in the budget, a single processor G5 would be much better.....get as much RAM and the fastest video card possible because that is most important in 3d, in my opinion....the rendering can always be left overnight, although a G5 should be fast, but that is yet to be seen. Once they are shipping, hopefully we will see benchmarks to back up Apple's claims, or at least very close. My advice at this point is G5 all the way due to the internal architecture improvements. :thumbsup:

[Srek]

Hi,
currently the Open GL speed on Macs isn't very good. Which graphics card you use does not make a real difference (unless it's an old ATI Rage, then you don't have any Open GL support).
Hopefully the Open GL support of the G5 is better.
For now i would wait until the first G5s are shipped and see how they compare to current G4s.
Cheers
Srek

[imashination]

With a 450 mac, its not worth updating anything to be brutally honest. with such a slow CPU, anything else will be wasted.

Nor would I buy a mac now, not with the G5 in a few weeks.

A video card on your mac would be a massive waste too, don't.

The bottom line is your mac is over the hill, on a jet plane and in another continent.

[kiwi]

Panther will have much better Open GL support,and we are getting the really good graphics cards as well,or at least the Quadros.The quadro development for Macs will be an ongoing thing as well as Nvidia are recruiting people to write Apple drivers for them.



If you can afford a G5 would be a good idea and bump your card to a 9800 if you can manage it.The G5 is shipping with Smeagol before the final build of Panther is released,and Panther is meant to be on target for Sept.The dual G5s however will arrive after the singles :)



Stu.

[kromekat]

Wait for G5 if you can afford it! - the leap will be significant, even if it isn't exactly as big a leap as Apple states.

But, the dual 1.25 will be significantly faster than your dual 450, not just because the processors are faster, but because the whole architecture has moved on 3 or 4 iterations, faster RAM, faster buss, better graphics card etc - certainly not less than twice as fast in rendering I'll fancy.

I have a G4 1Ghz latest gen, and a 400Mhz first gen G4. The 400 still gets use as a second render box, and does a fine job for most background/overnight tasks, so if you can, do hang on to your old one too.

[kiwi]

Originally posted by kromekat
Wait for G5 if you can afford it! - the leap will be significant, even if it isn't exactly as big a leap as Apple states.
oo.



Dont be so sure Kromekat :) ,word is Pixar are impressed enough to be switching to OSX :)



Stu.

[AdamT]

Originally posted by kiwi
Dont be so sure Kromekat :) ,word is Pixar are impressed enough to be switching to OSX :)



Stu.
And Pixar is owned by whom?

[kiwi]

Yes Jobs is the president :) ,but they dont use Macs in the render farm,they use dual xeons I believe.


I dont want to get into a Mac versus PC thing as I have a lot of friends who use PCs who I have a lot of repsect for.



Stu.

[Ibox]

I dont want to get into a Mac versus PC thing as I have a lot of friends who use PCs who I have a lot of repsect for.

very very wise words here... way to lead by terrific example... koudos dude :thumbsup: :applause:

[AdamT]

Originally posted by kiwi
Yes Jobs is the president :) ,but they dont use Macs in the render farm,they use dual xeons I believe.

I dont want to get into a Mac versus PC thing as I have a lot of friends who use PCs who I have a lot of repsect for.

Stu.
Oh sure, Mr. High Road. ;)

[kromekat]

Originally posted by kiwi
Dont be so sure Kromekat :) ,word is Pixar are impressed enough to be switching to OSX :)

Well yeah, I am obviously hoping that the G5 will be all they say it is, and the benchmarks with Cinema I have seen are true, but even as a fan and buyer of Apple Macs, I have to admit that they get a bit carried away with their statements of what they have and are about to release! - the first 64bit personal computer for a start! - er.. no! :rolleyes:

And, as Adam pointed out, as mch as Pixar is it's own successful entity, Jobs is the man that runs both companies!
However, I don't think Pixar would really invest so much in crossing renderman over to Mac if they didn't feel lke it was a justified or plausible move.

[kromekat]

Originally posted by kiwi
I dont want to get into a Mac versus PC thing as I have a lot of friends who use PCs who I have a lot of repsect for.


No, I wouln't reccomend that in here, no matter how right something may or may not be, opinions on what the best, nicest, fastest etc could lead to blood loss! ;D

[kiwi]

I agree - The line the worlds faster personal computer or whatever it was,was pretty lame as well.

Saw somewhere the other day that there have been 60,000 G5 2ghz pre sold since release.


Adam pull your head in.



Stu.

[kromekat]

Well as excited as I am about them, I think I may wait for second gen before I take the plunge!:thumbsup:

[flyingP]

Originally posted by kromekat
Well as excited as I am about them, I think I may wait for second gen before I take the plunge!:thumbsup:

May just do the same there myself.

[kromekat]

...it's going to be hard to resist though... must....resist......must :drool:

[flyingP]

Originally posted by kromekat
...it's going to be hard to resist though... must....resist......must :drool:

Yeah my fingers are itching too.

[kiwi]

I couldnt resist :) ,mine arrives in late Sept.And I am hoping Nvidia or Apple will have written the Quadro drivers by then as well.The only thing I am kind of hesitant about is the dust those 9 fans are going to suck in :rolleyes:



Some mention also of a 30 LCD in the works as well.....ya a 30 oooh baby come to poppa :thumbsup:



I just hope ram has come down a bit before it lands.



Stu.

[flyingP]

Originally posted by kiwi
I couldnt resist :) ,mine arrives in late Sept.And I am hoping Nvidia or Apple will have written the Quadro drivers by then as well.The only thing I am kind of hesitant about is the dust those 9 fans are going to suck in
Stu.

Heh heh, got a shock the last time I opened the side of machine as well. Just hope they're at least quiet this time.

[JIII]

I have heard its about as silent as could be. But thats just what I have heard might be completly off base.

[mimo8]

doesn´t steven say on his homepage that they are shipping from august?
isn´t it allready august?
and there are for sure some geeks arround that can´t resist the itching under their nails ...

so where are the first c4d - g5 benchmarks ....

another question:
where do I find the "command"-settings
so that I can save my selfmade keyboard-shortcuts
cheers
and some cold beers

[ysd]

thanks a lot everybody for your replies. This forum really is great for quality advice.


I think that allthough most of you would opt for a G5, even single processor, I'll probably go for the 'reasonable choice' the dual G4 1250. They are sold now at bargain prices in some shops in Brussels and like kromekat said the performance increase for me would be significant.

My problem with the G5 is that I only would be able to afford the lower priced models which are single CPU only. And it would frustrate me knowing that I'm working on an OS and general system that's specifically designed for multiprocessing. But still, I'm not totally sure, the G5 really is an attractive piece of equipment. The apple marketing has done their job well again i guess.

Anyway, thanks again and cheers

[brammelo]

ysd: brussels? Wallon / Vlaming?

Cheers,
BaRa

[kromekat]

ysd: Better still, if you do wnat one of the current crop, pre G5, what about the dual 1.42Ghz?

Unless you are in a hurry, I would still hold on for official benchmarks to compare the G5 with G4, as even a single processor in the new line might be better than a dual in the previous.

[AdamT]

Keep in mind that the G5 single may be as fast or faster than the dual 1.25 at rendering. But that's not the end of the story. Dual cpus do not help you for things like Mocca and Thinking Particles. For those purposes the G5 will provide much better performance. It would be silly to buy a dual cpu system just for the sake of having 2 processors if the single G5 outperforms it. You're getting ready to invest a non-trivial sum of money. It would also be silly not to wait another 3-4 weeks and see what the G5 really has to offer.

[kiwi]

The 1.6 and 1.8 G5 are to pricey for what they are really I feel.If you could possibly hang out until rev B on the G5 it should drop quite a bit in price.



I found a G4 versus G5 comparison.The guy at bare feats has done his share of hammering G4s as well and telling it how it is.

http://www.barefeats.com/g5sum.html



Stu.

[kiwi]

Oh ya I forgot the advantages of a G5 single or dual etc,over the G4 is that you have a serial ATA drive,which I think is about the same as 10,000k scsi I believe.Then theres AGP Pro which "finally" allows Macs users to get nice cards when the drivers are released.They also have top notch sound connectors etc for audio people {dont know enough about sound to comment on that}.


If you however need a machine soon then I believe the single G5s arrive soon,they were pre ordered though,the G5 duals {pre ordered} arrive in Sept and before,so your machine could take a month to arrive.



Stu.

[pupii]

my machine dual 1.25 g4, radeon 9700.
cinebench2003 hardver OGL shading: cca 900
same videocard in the PC: 2x, 2.5x faster:thumbsdow

You wait the G5

pupi

[JIII]

lol nicely put pupi

but if a G4 is cheap enough I would bite for it.

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