What are the advantages of the Dual 2.5 GHz
 

Does FCP actually use both processors simultaniously? I am trying to figure out what to get. I want something that is fast. That I can do multiple layers of video and audio with no delay in seeing what the fianal product will look like. The best analogy I have heard talks about manipulation of video clips like words in a wordprocessor. Needs to handle XL2's 16:9 and 24p without any delays. Am I dreaming yet? But that's what I need. Estemated cost right now is around 5k for the G5 w/ dual 2.5 GHz and FCP Production Suite. That is however w/o monitors, speakers and any other cool stuff. Oppinions please and thankyou.

If it's within your budget, definitely get the Dual processor! You can never go wrong with that choice. You would be best served by installing an internal RAID as well. That will speed things up a great deal. And get as much RAM as you can afford.

Yes FCP uses both processors, as do a number of other programs, as well as the OS.

I've heard concerns raised regarding the stability of the dual 2.5's over the dual 2.0's because the cooling process. Is there going to be a noticeable difference in running dual 2.5's to dual 2.0's? It seems like the dual 2.0's are the way to go but I'd be interested to hear otherwise and why.

The benchmarks I've seen comparing the Dual 2.5 vs Dual 2.0 show the Dual 2.5 around 25% faster so if you think 25% is a decent amount then that answers your question.
I haven't heard of the problems with heat in the Dual 2.5's causing stability issues so I can't comment on that. I like to buy the best I can afford (or maybe just a little higher) so that it has a longer productive life. If you buy the Dual 2.0Ghz, you are already starting off 1 generation behind. Of course having said that, the Dual 2.0Ghz is by no means a slouch itself.

How much will the Ram Cost?

What about the monitors I will need?

I am thinking about the produciton suite. http://www.apple.com/productionsuite/

How difficult is it to do chroma key effects, composits and layering?

For instance. A shot of a building that's backlit by the late stages of the setting sun. The building is totally black but outlined with a dark red and orange glow. You can see a window or two with lights on but for the most part, the whole bottom of the screen is black. Then if you were to take a shot of a face lit ever so slightly, almost ghost like. Could you put it over the dark area and make it look like that person is standing outside of the building? Lurking in the shadows.

C

Regarding speed, Rob Morgan at barefeats.com said that you pay for the additonal speed just once. The time reduction is a perpetual savings. You'll also notice that a faster machine is generally more responsive and easier to work with.

I have a dual 2.5 GHz and haven't regretted the purchase yet. The 23" Cinema Display had a rebate at the time so that's part of the package, too. The system is stable and reliable enough to help produce a one-hour fishing show almost every week.

As for heat, that's the reason for the liquid cooling. And, yes, it does generate a considerable amount of heat. The vents in the back put out air that's quite warm.

Regarding RAM, check out Other World Computing. Haven't had any problems with RAM bought from there. There's also matched pairs available at a good price.

The production suite is a great deal. If you don't already have Final Cut pro, then get it. If you bought each program seperately the cost would be a heck of a lot higher.

Dean - the reasoning I've heard against the dual 2.5 is that since it does create a substantial amount of heat over the dual 2.0 that the processors will have a shorter production life as a greater heat level will break down parts faster. Now, if this means dying after 4 years compared to 6 years, then that's negligeable but if it's ~2 years compared to 6 years, that'd be something else (applecare worth it?).

Also, I was considering when the current g5's might go "out of date" and the only reason why they'd show age would be our next hump for video standards which is uncompressed HD and HDV. Can anyone share experiences with uncompressed HDV or HD (or even 24p uncompressed SD) editing on the dual 2.5? Does it handle the demand with grace or is there more to be desired? Is this going to be more of an issue in upgrading harddrive speeds over processor? Other than that, I guess a boost in performance on the future g5's would be more geared for motion graphics, rendering etc.

The heat is significant, but the wattage of the G5s are still less than top of the line Pentiums. The water cooling was added to keep the machine quiet... You shouldn't see anything breaking down in 2 years. But even so, I would get the extended apple care to cover you for 3 years instead of 1. I would second the idea of a RAID to back up your data, or at least some system to backup your data overnight.

There are people out there right now editing uncompressed HD on computers much less powerful than a Dual 2.5Ghz G5 so I am doubting HDV would be a problem.

So then future bumps in processor will be more for heavy rendering meaning motion graphics or encoding vid files, but otherwise shouldn't be a huge "upgrade" to wait for.

<<<-- Originally posted by Rhett Allen : The benchmarks I've seen comparing the Dual 2.5 vs Dual 2.0 show the Dual 2.5 around 25% faster -->>>

Just reading the MacWorld review from December 2004. Going by the speedmark tests, the dual 1.8 gets a 194, the dual 2.0 gets a 212 and the dual 2.5 clocks in at 237. Results of the other tests vary somewhat, as they always do.

According to these numbers the 2.5 is only 12% faster than the 2.0, and it's 22% faster than the dual 1.8. So as usual, you pay a pretty big premium to get that last ounce of performance. Of course there are other advantages to the 2.5, like a faster graphics card. The 1.8 has slower PCI slots and only 4 RAM slots too.

http://www.macworld.com/2004/09/revi...ndg5/index.php

Also, if you buy RAM from Apple, I just called their local store. 2GB RAM using 4-512MB chips is $525. 2GB using 2-1GB chips is $725.

I guess it depends what review you look at. I was going by a barefeats benchmark using After Effects. It was a difference of like 293 seconds for the 2.5 .vs 386 seconds for the 2.0 BUT... there are a few different comparisons over there and some of them lists the results differently. They claim 14%-24% difference in one test but in another, the figures show a much bigger gap. I guess the real question is, are you willing to pay for the privilege of going marginally faster? It's true, the extra speed costs more and not always proportionally.

I think Apple RAM is the worst deal going. You can buy Crucial RAM for less money and get a LIFETIME warranty whereas Apple RAM only carries a one year warranty and costs almost twice as much in some cases.

Here are the related benchmarks I referred to, the second one includes Opteron and Xeons as well.
benchmark 1
benchmark 2

Will Crucial RAM work as well on the Mac?

I have a dual 2.0 Ghz and the Crucial RAM was recomended to me as being very reliable. I have 2Gb of Crucial memory and haven't had any problems in over a year. YMMV...

can you mix pairs of 512 megs RAM with 1 gig stick pairs in one tower G5 or do they all need to be the same amount?

The techs at Decklink said the G5 prefers all matched pairs of RAM.

I have RAM that are sold as matched pairs at Other World Computing. Good prices and I've never had a problem with my dual 2.5 GHz G5.

Getting back to the original question: "What are the advantages of the Dual 2.5 GHz".... well I should be able to answer that soon. I just got home from the Apple Store with a brand new one and a copy of Motion! :-)

Boyd, what's it replacing?
Maybe you can throw up results of a quickie test or benchmark for those interested, using FCP or LiveType, since that is what we're all using. There aren't many benchmarks using those, especially under real world conditions.

so, am I the only one without a G5 now? Maybe I'll have to get one soon and retire my G4 to server use. (put her out to pasture so to say)

Heh... will the last G4 user please shut out the lights when they leave? ;-)

I am happy to do some benchmarks, but they'll have to be with FCP 3, no LiveType. I bought the standalone version of Motion instead of upgrading to the FCP HD bundle. Just doesn't make sense to buy that until after NAB, but I have several upcoming projects that can really benefit from Motion, so that can't wait. Unfortunately it won't run on my G4 due to the graphics card issue (which is why I decided to pull the trigger on the G5). My old machine is a single G4/1.25ghz with 1.25 GB RAM.

However benchmarking some renders in FCP 3 should be a good measure of the difference in raw CPU power. The other software I use which really pounds on the CPU is Strata 3d Pro 3.9 and [b]Bryce 5[/i]. For my own purposes I will benchmark these, but there are probably few others using them. However that's what really drove me to get the 2.5ghz model; I have projects that take 3 hours to render one second (30 frames) in those apps.

Now for the "un-fun" part though, moving everything to the new machine and configuring it with all the right preference files, then finding out all the new bugs, downloading the updates, banging my head against the wall.... Ugh, I hate doing all that! :-)

Nice - isn't it so hard to talk about new technology or possible purchases and actually restrain yourself making them? I have that problem, it seems I'm good at making reasons that I "need" something and these boards have provided the push to buy things like expensive cameras etc. in the past (no regrets though ;) ). Can't wait to hear your thoughts and read some test results....

Hah!... yeah, this is all your fault! ;-)

Right now waiting while ~70GB of data transfers over firewire from the G4 to the G5 so I haven't gotten past the first few setup screens. Anybody have any tips or gotcha's regarding how well Panther's firewire transfer of files and apps from an old machine works?

First impressions (these have been covered elsewhere, but they don't hit home until you make the switch I guess):

1. This thing is huge and seems heavier than it needs to be... the removable side door must weigh as much as my Powerbook!

2. In spite of the size, the expansion capability is disappointing. I could have a total of 4 internal hard drives on my G4, only room for 2 on the G5. That's something I really didn't consider... it seems that my old ATA 100 internal drives (the manual says they must be serial ATA) aren't going to work on the G5, so now I have to figure out the best way to deal with that. Maybe just keep the old G4 as a HD chassis for the existing 3 drives? If I boot it in FW mode could I wipe the system drive and access all 3 via firewire on the G5?

3. Dean: according to the manual the G5 doesn't just prefer matched pairs of RAM, it's a requirement.

You could use the Gigabit ethernet connection to network the two machines and still have great speed for your "file server". Also, if you want to stick more drives in the G5 you can use the G5Jam by WiebeTech. Here is a review of it on Barefeats.

It's kind of a double edged sword. It sucks that you have to use SATA drives now but at the same time, it's really nice that they are installed by default.

As far as the matched pairs for RAM, I know you have to install it in pairs but I believe you can still mix sizes. Otherwise it would be in "quads". So if you have 2x512's, I believe you "can" install 2x1024's as well. I don't know for certain so I'd double check with Apple on that one.

Yes, you could have two 512's and two 1024's, but they have to be installed in pairs. There are two rows of 4 slots each. The memory config on each slot pair has to mirror like this:

DDDD
CCCC
BBBB
AAAA
===
AAAA
BBBB
CCCC
DDDD

Slots AAAA have the factory 256's in them. I put 512's in BBBB and CCCC, taking me up to 2.5 GB. I could expand to 4.5 GB by adding 1024's in slots DDDD.

Boyd,

I am extremely curious to hear more about your newest toy as I am planning on aquiring one ASAP while trying to lower my cost AMAP.
I will be getting the FCP production suite because I need to do everything in24p and like what I have seen about motion. BTW do any of you have any input about motions pros & cons?

I have looked at the Crucial RAM online and am pretty certain that is the way to go. I can get 2G (2 x 1G Chips) for about $400 from Crucial vs. $800 from apple.

As an alternative, I can get 2 x 512 and take up two slots for 1 gig for about $140 from Crucial vs. $300 from apple. What's up with that Mr. Jobs?

So with the student discount on the G5 w/dual 2.5GHz processors That's $2700 plus $500 on the FCP production suite. Add 2Gs of Ram and that brings us up to $3600.

Now there is still the matter of the monitor. For a 20inch Apple is charging about $900. That brings me up to about $4600. Probably before tax. So I guess you know what my next question is. Where should I get the monitor? There has to be something that is good out there that will cost at least a little less.

Thanks and have fun with you new toy.

Damnit, I can't use my old ATA internal drives? I have a 250 gig Maxtor DV dedicated drive running in my pc that I was going to wipe clean and reformat for use in a G5....... Perhaps buying a FW 800 enclosure?

Boyd - thanks for the chart of matching memory sticks, very helpful.

Cleveland - the Apple monitors are very very nice however a bit pricey. I'm running a 19inch sony HS94p with 12 ms response time (faster than the nicest Apple screens) and it's one bright monitor with very good (not excellent) color representation. The only time I can sort of tell that it's an LCD is with extended Photoshop use with gradients, it still looks amazing just shows a little bit of LCD with that....... Anyways, mine was ~$550 after rebates and it was both DVI and RGB input so you can have two machines in it and switch with a button on the front of the screen which is an excellent feature. Check the reviews of the monitor over on Cnet Asia and Cnet Australia (no idea why the US site never reviewed this monitor) and this Sony garnishes the first reccomendation rating from cnet on any LCD monitor.

Apple charges a lot for its RAM because people don't think or know to install it themsevles. (RAM by the way is pretty easy to install, the apple website has excellent documentation for doing this.) They basically charge that much because there are many people who will pay that much.

Dell does something similar, in which their base systems are a pretty good deal. People think they're getting a deal when they buy a Dell. Most people end up buying lots of upgrades, which are quite overpriced. And so Dell manages to make a good profit, which they wouldn't if everyone just bought the base system.


LCDs: If you live in the US, you can try American hot deals sites like fatwallet.com, gotapex.com, etc. Searching the forums is probably the way to look.

Well I'm still installing stuff, but so far so good. The installer did a pretty thorough job of moving all my old files and apps with some small exceptions. Actually it surprised me that most of my apps worked immediately without asking for original disks or serial numbers.

The one exception was FCP 3 which was cranky, saying I had to reinstall from the original disks. That didn't help either. Turns out that deleting the system ID file fixed the problem. But I jumped through a bunch of hoops and had to download the update from Apple, etc. Anyway, just a quick run of the software shows that it is much faster with more RT effects. I'm sure newer versions of FCP will be even better.

My only other quick test was some 3d rendering. I will do actual timings in the next few days, but subjectively it was really flying - probably 3x the speed of my G4. Other things are surprisingly the same, such as most of the Finder operations for example. This is probably a testament to Apple that OSX is so responsive on older machines.

As far as monitors, I'm still using my (6 year old??) Apple 21" Trinitron Studio Monitor. This thing is a monster but really a nice screen at 1600x1200 resolution. It also has builtin color calibration which measures the voltage on each of the "guns." The Cinema Displays are nice, but I don't need to spend any more right now. I have 3 other LCD screens of varying shapes and sizes if needed (Sony 17" widescreen 1280x768, Samsung 15" 1024x768 and Samsung 22" 1280x720 which I use as an external monitor for video editing). Personally, I have been happy enough just using the single 21" screen on my main computer and my desk(s) are really very full already.

BTW, I was looking at the 30" screen at the store. It is certainly impressive, but it feels maybe a little too big. Funny, I never thought I'd have that impression of a screen. I guess I could learn to love it if I had to though ;-) Just too pricey to seriously consider though.

I'm just finishing the Motion install right now, so I can't offer a lot of insights there. But I just returned from a meeting with several other lighting and video designers and they were talking about how impressed they were with it. One of them fired it up on his 133mhz powerbook and did a little demo which was enough to convince me that it was just what I needed for a couple projects. It can do stuff in near realtime that would take me a lot of building and rendering in a 3d program. I think it will save me a ton of time....

If I get a non-apple monitor, I have heard that you have to have an interface or something to make it work on the MAC. I have also heard that you don't need it. Very much like the case of getting a new router. The instructions tell you that you have to put thier stupid spyware crap onto your computer for it to work. Total lie! You plug it in and it works. No problem! Any suggestions?

My Sony 19 inch LCD works perfectly with my mac mini without doing anything special, it's just plug and play.

Look at the MacWorld review (link in my post on the first page of this thread). They mention a couple 3rd party monitors that didn't work right via the DVI connection. I don't think they had any problems with VGA connections, and apple includes an adaptor.

Funny about the router. The one I've had for over two years mysteriously started causing my cable connection to slow to a crawl. I got a new Linksys (now Cisco) 4 port ethernet router for $60 at Best Buy and was dreading the setup. But much to my amazement the factory settings out of the box were perfect and I didn't have to do anything. I've gotten several of these Linksys' before and IIRC they did need some tweaking. But not this time :-)

Now regarding Motion, I just spent a few minutes playing. It will take awhile to really dig through all the features, but right away I was creating multi layer realtime particle effects that looked terrific. Very impressive, I can see why people are excited by this program.

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1205042&Tab=11&NoMapp=0

Just found a nice little deal on the net. If you scroll down, you can read some reviews.

I'm sure it isn't as good as something I'd pay $500 for and may not last as long but for that price I could replace it in a few years with one of the now $500 ones that is on sale for half price because they need to make room for newer models.

Cleve - do what you think man, but that monitor worries me. I like to try things out first like from Best Buy etc. and if they don't work out you can always take them back. If they do work out, you could still take it back and find a better deal on an internet vendor. The first 19inch LCD I bought was an LG which I was moderately happy with but then had a chance to see the HS94P Sony and ended up taking back the LG to best buy and traded out for the Sony. Couldn't be happier, but again, it's your call obviously.

Not to bring this post even further off topic, but just to let you know Cleveland - TigerDirect has a very bad reputation for not honoring the rebates - do a google search on it.

I agree with Bryan on the LCD issue too. If you are going to make the LCD leap - save yourself the trouble and get a brand that is known for making good LCD's.

Dell, Samsung, Sony, and Apple are all very respected in this regard.

A few quick benchmarks
 

For what it's worth, I tried three different things between my two machines:

G4/1.25ghz single processor with 1.25GB RAM
G5/2.5ghz dual processor with 2.5GB RAM

---------------
FCP 3 render: I took a 30 second clip, duplicated it, placed one copy above the other and set transparency to 50% then rendered. Used the same 7200 RPM external 300GB disk on both machines. AFAIK, FCP 3 is not multi processor aware, so this should be like comparing a G5 clocked twice as fast as a G4:

G4 - 1:46
G5 - 0:46 (2.3x faster)

---------------
Strata 3d Pro 3.9 render: took a large 47MB 3d model with lots of geometry, multiple light sources and haze effect and rendered with raytracing at 1024x675. This program is multi-processor aware. Both machines used the same external drive as above.

G4 - 8:54
G5 - 2:46 (3.2x faster)

---------------

Bryce 5 render: a 400K Bryce landscape with cloudy skies and moon at 1120x620. Not sure whether Bryce if MP aware. For this test I used each machine's internal boot drive:

G4 - 0:44
G5 - 0:19 (2.3x faster)

---------------

My guess is that Bryce isn't MP aware - interesting that this clocked in with the same speed increase as the FCP test. So nothing really earth shaking here, but it does look like I can save some serious time rendering animations (imagine 30 frames per second with render times of 9 minutes per frame on the G4). I also would expect to see more improvement with a newer version of FCP (assuming it doesn't suffer too much from the bloatware syndrome :-)

"3. Dean: according to the manual the G5 doesn't just prefer matched pairs of RAM, it's a requirement."

Boyd...

I think that beyond matched pairs, I got the impression that it all works better if ALL the RAM is matched. Maybe not. But I had 'em all match anyhow.

I didn't read the manual but just went ahead and installed the additional RAM. Worked fine. But when I heard of the possible conflict, I pulled the other RAM and just ran two pairs of matched RAM for a total of 4 GB.

Gave the other RAM to an old friend who could really make good use of the upgrade. He's a firefighter (he used to be a fellow news photographer) so maybe someday he'll repay the favor by putting out a fire at my house or saving my mom's life someday.

The interior of the 2.5 dual G5 is very cramped. Forget about installing additional hard drives or anything more than a few PCI cards. A significant portion of the interior space is taken up by the cooling system.

I looked up Crucial RAM and here is what I found.

http://www.crucial.com/store/listparts.asp?Mfr%2BProductline=Apple%2B+Power+Mac&mfr=Apple&cat=RAM&model=Power+Mac+G5+%28Dual+2.5G Hz+DDR%29&submit=Go

The page is a direct link to what RAM will work with the G5 w/dual 2.5s. There are a few diffences in parameters but my thought is that the very top one on the list will work fine.

If you click on some of the different parameter tabs, you are taken to another page that explains what they are. The only one I didn't understand is what the difference between unbuffered and registered means. Also, if your system can not handle both types at the same time, which type comes with the G5? That would make a huge difference if I accidently got the one it did not already have.

Boyd,

If you could look at that for me I would be more than happy to return the favor sometime. Just go to the link and click on the word unbuffered. You'll see it next to every chip listed.

BTW how do you like Motion?

Cleve, did you click on the link provided where it says UNBUFFERED? Or perhaps you can try the Crucial Dictionary?
You don't need Registered memory. The page at Crucial tells you exactly what you need.
Basically it puts a buffer on the RAM itself to store information from the rest of the system. You have it on the mainboard so you don't need it, the easiest way to tell is LOOK at your RAM, if you see the horizontal blocks, you have Registered Memory, if not, you don't. The other way to tell is, Registered memory is "taller" looking, and the third way is to just read the directions at Crucial and buy what they tell you to, they aren't going to sell you something incompatible with your system. Their reputation is outstanding. I have 2GB in my Powerbook from them and couldn't be happier.

Boyd, nice benchmarks. I've never stopped to really watch how long it takes to do something. I like to take a break every now and again so I don't mind the render times but that's some pretty serious improvements. If I buy a new G5 that means I'm gonna have to work more often! Damn, foiled again! Of course, I've had some Maya projects that took several weeks to render and that's no fun, but that's why I have several machines now.
It'll be interesting to see how it effects your work habits with all that speed now and no long breaks to render.

Regarding RAM, here's what the manual says (page 47):

DIMMs must be installed in equal-sized pairs and fit these specifications:

400 MHz PC 3200 DIMMs
2.5 V
184-pin module
Maximum number of memory devices on DDR SDRAM: 16
Nonparity
No error-correcting codes (NECC)
Unbuffered (registered or buffered DDR-SDRAM cannot be used)

It also says they must conform to the JEDEC specification. It doesn't say anything about needing to use the same size DIMMs in all the slots. I haven't seen this before, but maybe you're on to something? Unless you go the BTO route from the Apple store, your machine will already have two 256MB DIMMs installed - I don't know any firefighters, so I'm keeping mine ;-)

So far so good with eight 512's plus the original two 256's for a total of 2.5GB...

<<<-- Originally posted by Dean Sensui : The interior of the 2.5 dual G5 is very cramped. Forget about installing additional hard drives -->>>

I think you meant "forget about installing more than one additional hard drive," right? I just popped a 250GB SATA Maxtor DiamondMax Plus drive into the second internal bay. It's tight in there, but extremely easy to add a second drive; it took no more than 5 minutes and only requires a small phillips head screwdriver.

They have a clever drive mounting system using special domed plastic screws - there is no drive carrier. Screw these into the drive and just push it straight in. Then pop the two cables onto the connectors and flip the lever to lock the drive in place. All things considered, it's MUCH easier than adding drives to the G4 which involves pressing levers, pushing, sliding, aligning metal cages, screwing the drives into holders, dropping the screws inside the machine, scraping your knuckles, etc.

I just wish they provided a couple more bays on the G5. The thing is such a monster already, why not make it an inch taller and give us a little ROOM? :-)

<-----So far so good with eight 512's plus the original two 256's for a total of 2.5GB...

Boyd - you mean four 512's right? ;)