Mac G5 all it's cracked up to be?


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Yes it is.

mojo1701 said:
I wanna know.

I've bought and set-up four G5s so far (I'm the Mac guy for an ad agency). Two 1.8s, one 1.6, and one 2.0 Dual that I just got yesterday (finally!). The dual 2 is obviously the biggest jump over older models, but the 1.6 and 1.8 are great upgrades if you have anything less than a dual 1 ghz G4 now. If you have a high-end dual G4, then the single processor G5s aren't going to be a huge step-up for you. You should either spend the cash for the dual 2 gig, or wait for the next rev of the G5s.

The G5s are quiet, fast, superbly designed, and the future of the Mac platform.

Highly recommended.
 

mojo1701 said:
I wanna know.
Based on what I've read, the answer can be summed up in two sentences.

1) The G5 Macs are far faster than any previous Macs.

2) Apple's PC vs. Mac benchmarks are still works of fiction.
 

Thanks to the both of you for the info. I'm not a Mac user. This would obviously be more than enough to run a professional-like video editing suite. That's why I'm asking. But how much does it run for?

As a side question: What are the recommended Video Editing programs for Mac? Do you know?
 

From my mac-using friends, I hear that iMovie, or whatever the Apple-made software is called, is really good stuff. And Macs have always been pricey...hope you've been saving.
 


mojo1701 said:
This would obviously be more than enough to run a professional-like video editing suite. That's why I'm asking. But how much does it run for?

As a side question: What are the recommended Video Editing programs for Mac? Do you know?

This seems awfully OT for the ENWorld boards, but here goes:

There are two commonly-used video editing programs for the Mac.

iMovie, which comes for free with all Macs, is aimed strictly at consumer-level editing. I.E. clean-up those home movies, then make a DVD and send it to your family and friends.

Final Cut Pro is the professional program. It is amazingly powerful, and once you get over the initial learning curve, very easy to use. Many independent filmmakers are now using FCP to edit their films, and even Hollywood directors like Steven Soderburgh have used it for film. FCP costs $999, but comes with lots of power, and several additional programs - Soundtrack for composing music, LiveType for doing advanced titles, Cinema Tools for working with 24P video, and Compressor for doing batch encoding for the web or DVD.

There is now a stripped-down version of Final Cut available, called Final Cut Express which costs $299 but does not include the extra programs, and lacks advanced features like color correction and compositing.

So depending on what you are doing, there are three different solutions available:

http://www.apple.com/imovie/
http://www.apple.com/finalcutexpress/
http://www.apple.com/finalcutpro/

And finally, the reason to get the Mac for this stuff, is that the entire system is fully integrated. Apple makes the hardware, the system software, and the applications. So you are going to have fewer computer "issues" and more time to get your work done.

Your friendly neighborhood Mac guy…

Drengy
 


OK, then, thanks for the input from all of you, esp. for the info in Final Cut. I don't think that I'll be getting the Pro edition (Tuition rates in Ontario because of the tories... I'm not gonna get into Ontario politics...), but the Express seems all right.

And I've always been a PC guy. How much of a contrast is there in usage? (i.e. easy or hard to get used to because I'm already used to the other one?)
 

Drengy said:
First of all, let's not start a religious war here. But I do want to point out that PC Magazine just published an article which shows that the G5 can easily keep-up with the fastest Dual Xeon workstation. Read it here:

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,1274138,00.asp
I'm not trying to start a religious war.

I don't doubt that certain applications, especially if they've been better optimized for PPC/AltiVec than for x86/SSE2, perform better on a dual 2 GHz G5 than on a dual 3.06 GHz Xeon (though in many cases a dual Opteron will beat the G5 when the Xeon doesn't, and sometimes a single 3.2 GHz P4 comes out ahead of all comers because sometimes there's no substitute for GHz). However, the PC numbers in several benchmarks Apple was promoting at the G5 launch were utterly ridiculous.
 

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