I own a dual G5 and it is an amazing machine. I bought mine for just upwards of $150 plus $50 for a terabyte hard disk from a surplus. I'd say go for it over a mac pro. The only upside of the mac pro is that it is an Intel mac. Sent from a computer running either the SPARC, Itanium, or PowerPC architecture.
On Mon, Jul 26, 2010 at 4:52 PM, Eric Herbert <goo...@hillcotechnology.com>wrote: > > On Jul 26, 2010, at 9:16 AM, JoeTaxpayer wrote: > >> > > > > It sure does. Much appreciated. > > I have a wife who actually tells me that we spend on her and our > > daughter, but I don't buy much for myself. I am green-lighted to go > > full Mac Pro $3K machine, but really wonder what I'll see. I suppose I > > should track down an owner who is encoding a DVD to TiVo, and discuss > > with him. If the software to do this particular task is not written to > > fully use multicore, it seems that I'd see little improvement over > > what you suggested the G5 would give me. Not an Intel discussion/ > > issue, but one of the application itself properly using all cores. I > > have 4 of these puppies (the G4 MDD) and offload the encoding to one > > with no monitor remotely. If the G5 at 2.5GHz /64 bit gives me the > > improvement, I'm not sure how much more a 3GHz machine would, > > depending how the SW runs. > > > > BTW - that link? Beautiful - it really gave me the comparison I was > > looking for. Again, thanks. > > I'm not sure about encoding a DVD to TiVo, but I have done a lot of > encoding of uncompressed MOV files to H.264 streaming files. To give an > example, with my old Dual 1 Ghz Quicksilver 2002, it would take about 20 > minutes to compress a 20 minute clip. Roughly a 1:1 compression time. My > Dual 2 Ghz G5 will do the same movie in anywhere from 7-10 minutes. My 13" > MBP with a 2.26 Ghz Core2Duo will compress the same movie in anywhere from > 5-7 minutes. I haven't compressed a DVD on my Macs in a long time, I > usually dedicate the desktop PeeCee to do that since it usually sits idle > anyway. > > Modern software is explicitly written to take advantage of the Intel > platform, so you definitely do get a tremendous boost in performance. I > haven't had the joy of using a MacPro personally (still too rich for my > blood), but with the speeds I've experienced with my MBP and my iMac at > work, I've been relatively impressed. I do wish Apple had stuck with PPC > since it was one of the things that made them unique in the computer world. > Nowadays I view them as a PeeCee with the privilege of running OSX. > > The thing to consider is the cost of what you're looking at. A Dual G5 can > be had for around the $500 mark. A MacPro can be had for about 6x that with > roughly twice the performance of the G5 (or more depending on how many cores > it has). It really all depends on what you're looking to spend, how much of > a hurry you're in, and what you really want to do with the machine. > > Regarding the link, I know it's old news, but I like reports with numbers, > comparisons, and relatively complete testing of various aspects of the > machines. I never go by synthetic benchmarks, I like to find reports of > people's real-world experience with the hardware in question (hence why I > give times of compression of videos I've actually compressed!). > > Hopefully again the above info is helpful. > > -- > You received this message because you are a member of G-Group, a group for > those using G3, G4, and G5 desktop Macs - with a particular focus on Power > Macs. > The list FAQ is at http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-list.shtml and our > netiquette guide is at http://www.lowendmac.com/lists/netiquette.shtml > To post to this group, send email to g3-5-list@googlegroups.com > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/g3-5-list > -- You received this message because you are a member of G-Group, a group for those using G3, G4, and G5 desktop Macs - with a particular focus on Power Macs. The list FAQ is at http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-list.shtml and our netiquette guide is at http://www.lowendmac.com/lists/netiquette.shtml To post to this group, send email to g3-5-list@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/g3-5-list
