Watch, and laugh and laugh and laugh, then taunt mac users

Meest · Post by **Meest** » 2004-10-07 03:59am

One thing I never understood is the bias that Mac's are better at graphics etc. Final cut pro is a mid level program at best and doesn't compare to the high end programs available to Windows and Linux. For the price Mac has no advantages to a professional graphics user at all, can build a better workstation for the same price Windows or Linux based.

Crayz9000 · Post by **Crayz9000** » 2004-10-07 04:10am

The main part about the Mac being good for graphics started back in the 1990s when Macs were the only computers around that supported thousands of colors (in a time when the IBM PC clones typically only supported 256 colors at best).

Their advantage has fallen off somewhat, but as a hardware platform they're still good for multimedia work.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2004-10-07 09:12am

Meest wrote:One thing I never understood is the bias that Mac's are better at graphics etc. Final cut pro is a mid level program at best and doesn't compare to the high end programs available to Windows and Linux. For the price Mac has no advantages to a professional graphics user at all, can build a better workstation for the same price Windows or Linux based.

There are no high-end DNLEs for Linux, so mentioning that is disingenious. Avid is available for both Mac and Windows if you need something high-end.

Apple's color-calibration software (ColorSync) sometimes works better than Microsoft's software and many people prefer the workflow on a Mac vs. that of a PC.

Praxis · Post by **Praxis** » 2004-10-07 11:35am

Meest wrote:One thing I never understood is the bias that Mac's are better at graphics etc. Final cut pro is a mid level program at best and doesn't compare to the high end programs available to Windows and Linux. For the price Mac has no advantages to a professional graphics user at all, can build a better workstation for the same price Windows or Linux based.

Eh? Final Cut Pro HD or Final Cut Pro 4? MIDLEVEL? Dude, people are defecting off Adobe Premiere in DROVES to Final Cut Pro 4. Maybe the first one wasn't so good, but Pro 4 and Pro HD are some of the most powerful video edittors in existance. Not to mention Logic 7 (one of the best music editors around), Quark XPress (major publishing program), and protected memory...seriously, when my Mac had 256 MB RAM it actually felt faster in Photoshop than my 2.5 GHz PC with 512 MB.

Plus there's Motion and DVD Studio Pro.

Not to mention that the Mac has most of the same programs as well. Premiere, all the Macromedia and Adobe products, Strata3D, Maya, Lightwave...
And those G5's are very, very nice for 3d rendering. Amazing performance. Whuppies Athlon 64 and Pentium 4 systems by a mile

Additionally, Apple's monitors are generally calibrated to have nearly perfect color (for an LCD) with Macs. You'll notice that when you use a non-Apple CRT or LCD with the Mac, it always looks a bit different, but with the Apple monitors it always looks the same.

Oh, and in addition, Photoshop takes a lot less screen space due to the design. It was originally made for Mac, after all. They had to add in a background, a bunch of junk at the top, etc, for the Windows version.

Now, they're technically not "way better" for graphics work like they were in the 90's, but...they still have several advantages.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2004-10-07 12:11pm

Praxis wrote:Eh? Final Cut Pro HD or Final Cut Pro 4? MIDLEVEL? Dude, people are defecting off Adobe Premiere in DROVES to Final Cut Pro 4. Maybe the first one wasn't so good, but Pro 4 and Pro HD are some of the most powerful video edittors in existance.

FCP is midlevel.

Not to mention Logic 7 (one of the best music editors around), Quark XPress (major publishing program), and protected memory...seriously, when my Mac had 256 MB RAM it actually felt faster in Photoshop than my 2.5 GHz PC with 512 MB.

Quark XPress is getting trashed by Adobe InDesign and both are available on Windows and Mac. If your Mac @ 256MB feels faster than your PC @ 512MB, something is very wrong.

Plus there's Motion and DVD Studio Pro.

Motion is definately midlevel (Shake is high-end). Not sure about DVDSP.

And those G5's are very, very nice for 3d rendering. Amazing performance. Whuppies Athlon 64 and Pentium 4 systems by a mile

The G5 does not whup the A64 or P4.

Oh, and in addition, Photoshop takes a lot less screen space due to the design. It was originally made for Mac, after all. They had to add in a background, a bunch of junk at the top, etc, for the Windows version.

The amount of extra space used up on Photoshop for PC (ignoring the background) is trivial.

Praxis · Post by **Praxis** » 2004-10-07 01:58pm

phongn wrote:
Praxis wrote:Eh? Final Cut Pro HD or Final Cut Pro 4? MIDLEVEL? Dude, people are defecting off Adobe Premiere in DROVES to Final Cut Pro 4. Maybe the first one wasn't so good, but Pro 4 and Pro HD are some of the most powerful video edittors in existance.
FCP is midlevel.

FCE is midlevel. FCP HD is pro.

To quote:
"Apple’s Emmy award-winning Final Cut Pro is the most flexible and scalable video editor in the industry. With support for everything from OfflineRT and DV to HD and Film, Final Cut Pro gives editors the powerful editing, effects, and compositing tools they need to work in a professional production environment."

Now, everyone exaggurates their product a little (Microsoft claims Windows is stable and user friendly!), but this doesn't sound midlevel to me.

Not to mention Logic 7 (one of the best music editors around), Quark XPress (major publishing program), and protected memory...seriously, when my Mac had 256 MB RAM it actually felt faster in Photoshop than my 2.5 GHz PC with 512 MB.
Quark XPress is getting trashed by Adobe InDesign and both are available on Windows and Mac. If your Mac @ 256MB feels faster than your PC @ 512MB, something is very wrong.

Only in multitasking and Photoshop. If I launch Photoshop in Windows, everything else locks up (the windows turn white) while it loads. In the Mac, I can still switch programs and surf while it loads up or runs. In other programs, you can feel the RAM starvation though.

And those G5's are very, very nice for 3d rendering. Amazing performance. Whuppies Athlon 64 and Pentium 4 systems by a mile
The G5 does not whup the A64 or P4.

Yes, it does. Easily.
http://barefeats.com/pentium4.html
While it doesn't yet have the latest P4's benchmarked (the latest listed is the 3), the dual 2.5 beats the 3 by SO MUCH in the benchmarked programs (nearly 2x), it should still be able to beat the 3.6 (which often gets less performance than the 3.4 P4). Even the dual 2 G5 easily crushes the 3 GHz Pentium 4. Even in one of the non-MP tests, the 2 GHz G5 just *barely* beats the 3 GHz P4.

no, the competition for the PowerMac is the dual Opterons and Xeons, not normal desktops. But the PM's start at $1999, and even less for schools and companies, so it's a very good deal for a dual processor system.

Oh, and in addition, Photoshop takes a lot less screen space due to the design. It was originally made for Mac, after all. They had to add in a background, a bunch of junk at the top, etc, for the Windows version.
The amount of extra space used up on Photoshop for PC (ignoring the background) is trivial.

[/quote]

Okay, admittedly, it's trivial, excluding the background, since it's only a few dozen pixels, but the background is another thing. I like the ability to click and drag things into PS without having to minimize it.

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2004-10-07 03:42pm

Meest wrote:One thing I never understood is the bias that Mac's are better at graphics etc. Final cut pro is a mid level program at best and doesn't compare to the high end programs available to Windows and Linux. For the price Mac has no advantages to a professional graphics user at all, can build a better workstation for the same price Windows or Linux based.

Some of it is from inertia; some is for workflow reasons. Back in the mid-1990's, Macs were better for graphics work. Windows 95 wasn't exactly a desktop publisher's dream, and neither was DOS/Windows 3.11.

Now though, the big advantages of the Mac for desktop publishing come from a few different things, one being the ColorSync engine. It's been very finely-tuned over the years, and you can do some excellent monitor calibration with it. The other is Apple's displays. As far as I know, the Apple Cinema display is the only LCD that has been certified for what's known as "Direct to Print" by DTP houses, meaning that you can take its output to a printer with no correction required. But that information is a little old; things may have changed since I heard it about a year and a half ago or so.

Another big one is, yes, Photoshop. A lot of common workflow tasks run faster on G4s and G5s because of AltiVec; it's simply the best mainstream SIMD implementation out there. You can get performance increases of up to 16x in certain operations.

For video work, the answer is pretty simple. One vendor, one source for support. Apple can ship you a PowerMac G5 loaded with Final Cut Pro, and it just works. I know a lot of PC fanbois like to brag about how they could construct an über-1337 box for half the cost that runs bajillions of times faster than a dual G5, but video editors don't give a shit. They don't want to deal with putting together a system from scratch, worrying about drivers, BIOS setup, whether their digital camcorder will work properly with their FireWire card or whatever. They want something to work out of the box, and Apple gives that to them. Apple's systems give them enough advantages from an ease-of-use and support standpoint that an Athlon64 or Pentium 4 being 10% faster on some benchmarks doesn't make a difference. Reliability comes secondary to raw processing power in areas like video editing, and Apple's systems are extremely reliable. If there are ever problems, hardware or software, you can call Apple up and get support for both.

So basically, the old reasons for Apple being better for DTP and video editing are essentially gone. But Apple has created new reasons to keep their boxes where they are by offering the complete solution.

The Kernel · Post by **The Kernel** » 2004-10-07 03:57pm

Praxis wrote: Yes, it does. Easily.
http://barefeats.com/pentium4.html
While it doesn't yet have the latest P4's benchmarked (the latest listed is the 3), the dual 2.5 beats the 3 by SO MUCH in the benchmarked programs (nearly 2x), it should still be able to beat the 3.6 (which often gets less performance than the 3.4 P4). Even the dual 2 G5 easily crushes the 3 GHz Pentium 4. Even in one of the non-MP tests, the 2 GHz G5 just *barely* beats the 3 GHz P4.

LOL! That's your idea of "beat it easily"? Bryce, After Effects, Photoshop and Cinebench? There is no explanation of the process used in these tests (highly suspect as Photoshop CS runs much better than the Athlon 64 is almost every other benchmark using the program) and you are talking about on battery of four whole tests which we have no exact details about.

Furthermore, this site compares to some extremely old hardware. Opteron 2.0Ghz, Pentium 4 3.0 Ghz, all far short of current top of the line (probably is platforms as well) so its a useless comparison.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2004-10-07 05:06pm

Praxis wrote:FCE is midlevel. FCP HD is pro.

I'm sorry, you have no idea what you're talking about. FCP is definately midlevel. Is it powerful and usable for broadcast content? Certainly. Is it "high-end?" Absolutely not. When it can do what high-end Avid boxes can, then it's not mid-level.

Only in multitasking and Photoshop. If I launch Photoshop in Windows, everything else locks up (the windows turn white) while it loads. In the Mac, I can still switch programs and surf while it loads up or runs. In other programs, you can feel the RAM starvation though.

Windows' multitasking is just fine, and Photoshop CS on my puny 650MHz P3M laptop doesn't lock up Windows.

Yes, it does. Easily.
http://barefeats.com/pentium4.html

Barefeats is not a reliable source of cross-platform benchmarks. For that matter, they even lacked a basic understanding on why the DDR G4 machines did not show an appreciable performance gain over their SDR G4 counterparts.

While it doesn't yet have the latest P4's benchmarked (the latest listed is the 3), the dual 2.5 beats the 3 by SO MUCH in the benchmarked programs (nearly 2x), it should still be able to beat the 3.6 (which often gets less performance than the 3.4 P4). Even the dual 2 G5 easily crushes the 3 GHz Pentium 4. Even in one of the non-MP tests, the 2 GHz G5 just *barely* beats the 3 GHz P4.

The benchmarks on that site tell so little that it hardly matters. Furthermore, you wrote: And those G5's are very, very nice for 3d rendering. Amazing performance. Whuppies Athlon 64 and Pentium 4 systems by a mile, yet your cite does not show things like Maya or Lightwave at all (nevermind other things like Renderman). Is the PPC970 a fine CPU? Yes. Does it "whuppies" comparable x86 offerings? No.

no, the competition for the PowerMac is the dual Opterons and Xeons, not normal desktops. But the PM's start at $1999, and even less for schools and companies, so it's a very good deal for a dual processor system.

No, the competition for the PowerMac includes single-processor designs. Furthermore, the dual-processor buzzword is meaningless, it is the performance in what you need to do that matters.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2004-10-07 05:08pm

Durandal wrote:For video work, the answer is pretty simple. One vendor, one source for support. Apple can ship you a PowerMac G5 loaded with Final Cut Pro, and it just works. I know a lot of PC fanbois like to brag about how they could construct an über-1337 box for half the cost that runs bajillions of times faster than a dual G5, but video editors don't give a shit. They don't want to deal with putting together a system from scratch, worrying about drivers, BIOS setup, whether their digital camcorder will work properly with their FireWire card or whatever. They want something to work out of the box, and Apple gives that to them. Apple's systems give them enough advantages from an ease-of-use and support standpoint that an Athlon64 or Pentium 4 being 10% faster on some benchmarks doesn't make a difference. Reliability comes secondary to raw processing power in areas like video editing, and Apple's systems are extremely reliable. If there are ever problems, hardware or software, you can call Apple up and get support for both.

To be fair, you can get turnkey Avid solutions for Windows that will "just work" as well. Also, the PowerMac G5 has a severe disadvantage in the amount of space it can hold internally, though external SCSI RAID arrays can mitigate that (on either platform).

Meest · Post by **Meest** » 2004-10-07 06:17pm

Final Cut pro is indeed mid-level, they don't compare to Flame/Inferno/Smoke and other high end setups. As for the comparisions, yeah a dual G5 can match a single P4 or amd64, but look at tests done not optimized for MAC and can see Opterons and Xeons come out on top. And there are Linux based, well compatible editing systems just as good as FCP, SGI systems run on Linux and Discreet Smoke does too. http://forum.cubase.net/forum/Forum5/HTML/009443.html

2x G5 2GHz = 15.7
2x AMD a4800 Opteron 246 2GHz = 28.1
2x AMD MP2600+ = 10.4
1x AMD XP2800+ = 9.07
1x Dell, P4 3.0 = 12.7
1x Intel, P4 3.0 = 13.6
2x Dell, 3.06 Xeon = 18.0
2x HP rx5670, Itanium2 1.5 = 42.6
2x HP rx5670, Itanium2 1000 = 24.2

Just one example but plenty more on that link compared to apple official numbers.

As to the comment about video editors not wanting to make a machine, well maybe wedding video editors might just grab a Mac, but anyone spending more than 5k, especially working in film get companies to make a workstation for them so its not so different than ordering a Mac. Again Mac doesn't have the performance advantage, and doesn't have bang for the buck appeal, I just don't see how other than desktop computing they are appealing.

The Kernel · Post by **The Kernel** » 2004-10-07 08:22pm

Damn, those Itanium numbers are impressive. What's it going to take before everyone wises up that IA-64 is a perfect successor to x86?

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2004-10-07 08:27pm

A lot of documentaries are edited on FCP as well, and it does have HD and film support (with an add-on package). For the money it is quite a capable program -- just not at the top end where Avid rules the roost.

Flame and Inferno aren't DNLEs, though. They really should be compared to Apple's Shake (which is one of the top-end compositing programs.

Furthermore, when it comes to video editing raw CPU performance isn't as important as I/O performance. There, SGI's custom designs tend to win out (yay for crossbar switches!) but everyone else is catching up.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2004-10-07 08:29pm

The Kernel wrote:Damn, those Itanium numbers are impressive. What's it going to take before everyone wises up that IA-64 is a perfect successor to x86?

When IA64 prices come down, IA32 emulation speed goes up and IA64 compilers mature.

However, AMD64 is currently wreaking havoc on all of Intel's best-laid plans for the IA64 transition so we might not see Itanium except in high-performance computing.

Praxis · Post by **Praxis** » 2004-10-07 08:31pm

Meest wrote:Final Cut pro is indeed mid-level, they don't compare to Flame/Inferno/Smoke and other high end setups. As for the comparisions, yeah a dual G5 can match a single P4 or amd64, but look at tests done not optimized for MAC and can see Opterons and Xeons come out on top. And there are Linux based, well compatible editing systems just as good as FCP, SGI systems run on Linux and Discreet Smoke does too. http://forum.cubase.net/forum/Forum5/HTML/009443.html

2x G5 2GHz = 15.7
2x AMD a4800 Opteron 246 2GHz = 28.1
2x AMD MP2600+ = 10.4
1x AMD XP2800+ = 9.07
1x Dell, P4 3.0 = 12.7
1x Intel, P4 3.0 = 13.6
2x Dell, 3.06 Xeon = 18.0
2x HP rx5670, Itanium2 1.5 = 42.6
2x HP rx5670, Itanium2 1000 = 24.2

Just one example but plenty more on that link compared to apple official numbers.

As to the comment about video editors not wanting to make a machine, well maybe wedding video editors might just grab a Mac, but anyone spending more than 5k, especially working in film get companies to make a workstation for them so its not so different than ordering a Mac. Again Mac doesn't have the performance advantage, and doesn't have bang for the buck appeal, I just don't see how other than desktop computing they are appealing.

Still fits my statement. I said that it crushes the P4 and A64. I didn't say anything about dual Opterons or dual Xeons.

Oh, the guy who claimed i was wrong because it wasn't the latest P4: Fine. Ignore the dual 2.5 in that test. Use the dual 2, which was out at the same time as the 3 GHz P4. It STILL crushes the P4. And btw, dual 2 -> dual 2.5 is a greater increase than 3 to 3.6.

The Kernel · Post by **The Kernel** » 2004-10-07 08:40pm

Praxis wrote: Still fits my statement. I said that it crushes the P4 and A64. I didn't say anything about dual Opterons or dual Xeons.

Perhaps you should considering they are in the same price range (~$3k) and the Opteron/Xeons come much better equipped.

Oh, the guy who claimed i was wrong because it wasn't the latest P4: Fine. Ignore the dual 2.5 in that test. Use the dual 2, which was out at the same time as the 3 GHz P4. It STILL crushes the P4. And btw, dual 2 -> dual 2.5 is a greater increase than 3 to 3.6.

You still aren't getting this are you? The small battery of tests used play to some of the G5's biggest strengths (FP, SIMD) while ignoring a greater breath of tests. Furthermore, none of these tests are in the relm of 3D rendering which is what you originally claimed.

In any case, dual G5's running at 2.5 Ghz are going to be faster most of the time then single processor P4/A64's, but that is irrelevent seeing as how the G5 Apples are workstations (both in price and function) and can easily be replicated on the PC side. Do you really want me to show you what a compareably priced Dual Opteron workstation would look like?

Praxis · Post by **Praxis** » 2004-10-07 08:40pm

The benchmarks on that site tell so little that it hardly matters. Furthermore, you wrote: And those G5's are very, very nice for 3d rendering. Amazing performance. Whuppies Athlon 64 and Pentium 4 systems by a mile, yet your cite does not show things like Maya or Lightwave at all (nevermind other things like Renderman). Is the PPC970 a fine CPU? Yes. Does it "whuppies" comparable x86 offerings? No.

It whoops the comparable single processor x86 offerings. The pricings on the dual G5's are actually pretty dang good for dual processor systems, though more pricey than single processor systems.

You want Lightwave and Maya? Fine:
http://www.geocities.com/sw_perf/
Whammo. In Photoshop, Dual 2 GHz G5 beats the dual 2 GHz Opteron by a single point- close enough that I call it a tie. And it smashes the P4 and A64. The benchmarks for Maya don't really work, since the benchmark was single threaded. Lightwave, the G5 falls just behind the Opteron and Xeon and smashes the single processor systems. CINEbench, the 2 GHz G5 ties the 3.4 P4 (which came out just before the 2.5 G5, explaining the loss, since no 2.5 was tested), loses to the dual Opteron and dual Xeon, and beats the single Opteron and single A64. Mathmatica is single threaded, and the single 2 GHz G5 tied the 3 GHz Pentium 4 (2 points below).

There you go. With the exception of the 3.4 GHz P4 in one test, barely, the dual 2 GHz G5 smashes the P4 and A64 in every multithreaded test. The dual 2.5 should easily take the 3.4 and 3.6 P4's. The dual Opterons and Xeons outperform the G5 in over half the test, and they've gone up in speed as much as the G5, so as I said, THOSE are the real competitors to the G5.

Praxis · Post by **Praxis** » 2004-10-07 08:43pm

The Kernel wrote:
Praxis wrote: Still fits my statement. I said that it crushes the P4 and A64. I didn't say anything about dual Opterons or dual Xeons.
Perhaps you should considering they are in the same price range (~$3k) and the Opteron/Xeons come much better equipped.

Oh, the guy who claimed i was wrong because it wasn't the latest P4: Fine. Ignore the dual 2.5 in that test. Use the dual 2, which was out at the same time as the 3 GHz P4. It STILL crushes the P4. And btw, dual 2 -> dual 2.5 is a greater increase than 3 to 3.6.
You still aren't getting this are you? The small battery of tests used play to some of the G5's biggest strengths (FP, SIMD) while ignoring a greater breath of tests. Furthermore, none of these tests are in the relm of 3D rendering which is what you originally claimed.

In any case, dual G5's running at 2.5 Ghz are going to be faster most of the time then single processor P4/A64's, but that is irrelevent seeing as how the G5 Apples are workstations (both in price and function) and can easily be replicated on the PC side. Do you really want me to show you what a compareably priced Dual Opteron workstation would look like?

Actually, the dual G5's start at $1999, $1799 to schools, and $1599 to developers. The prices are a bit between desktop and workstation, and so is the performance. And no, I didn't get what you mean about those tests. I get it now. Sorry- but check the other benchmarks in the above post.

And again- my point is that the G5 stomps on the P4. Xeons and Opterons might be equivilant or a little faster, but it still fits my initial statement.

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2004-10-07 08:45pm

Meest wrote:As to the comment about video editors not wanting to make a machine, well maybe wedding video editors might just grab a Mac, but anyone spending more than 5k, especially working in film get companies to make a workstation for them so its not so different than ordering a Mac. Again Mac doesn't have the performance advantage, and doesn't have bang for the buck appeal, I just don't see how other than desktop computing they are appealing.

Bullshit. PowerMacs aren't used at the high end of video editing, but neither are desktop Windows boxes. You have dedicated machines, like Avids, for that kind of stuff. But I've been to video editing studios, and there are PowerMacs all over the place. They're mainly used for making draft cuts, because a PowerMac G5 plus FCP is an excellent combination for that kind of work. Very fast for the money, easy to set up and maintain and comes with the software to do anything you want.

Just a little anecdote. My uncle is an online editor for the Oprah Show, and he's won two Emmys for his work. For his side jobs, he uses a PowerMac G4 with Final Cut Pro. It's a cheap setup, and according to him, FCP is the most capable piece of editing software out there available for $1000.

The Kernel · Post by **The Kernel** » 2004-10-07 08:48pm

Praxis wrote: It whoops the comparable single processor x86 offerings. The pricings on the dual G5's are actually pretty dang good for dual processor systems, though more pricey than single processor systems.

Irrelevent. For the price of a G5 tower you could get a compareable dual Opteron/Xeon. If you continue to disput this, I will be forced to provide evidence of this and laugh in your face while doing so.

You want Lightwave and Maya? Fine:
http://www.geocities.com/sw_perf/
Whammo. In Photoshop, Dual 2 GHz G5 beats the dual 2 GHz Opteron by a single point- close enough that I call it a tie. And it smashes the P4 and A64.

Photoshop is not a 3D rendering application.

The benchmarks for Maya don't really work, since the benchmark was single threaded. Lightwave, the G5 falls just behind the Opteron and Xeon and smashes the single processor systems.

Just behind? Obviously we have a different definition of "just behind". Furthermore you continue to discount dual systems as if the Apple is so much cheaper then PC dual workstation (which it is not)

In CINEbench, the 2 GHz G5 ties the 3.4 P4 (which came out just before the 2.5 G5, explaining the loss, since no 2.5 was tested), loses to the dual Opteron and dual Xeon, and beats the single Opteron and single A64. Mathmatica is single threaded, and the single 2 GHz G5 tied the 3 GHz Pentium 4 (2 points below).

Which are not conclusive wins for either side. Are you trying to make my argument for me?

There you go. With the exception of the 3.4 GHz P4 in one test, barely, the dual 2 GHz G5 smashes the P4 and A64 in every multithreaded test. The dual 2.5 should easily take the 3.4 and 3.6 P4's. The dual Opterons and Xeons outperform the G5 in over half the test, and they've gone up in speed as much as the G5, so as I said, THOSE are the real competitors to the G5.

Exactly, the dual Opterons/Xeon ARE the G5's real competitors in price and in function. Are you trying to suggest that it is some giant feat that a dual processor G5 workstation can outperform a single proc P4/A64?

The Kernel · Post by **The Kernel** » 2004-10-07 08:50pm

Durandal wrote: Bullshit. PowerMacs aren't used at the high end of video editing, but neither are desktop Windows boxes. You have dedicated machines, like Avids, for that kind of stuff. But I've been to video editing studios, and there are PowerMacs all over the place. They're mainly used for making draft cuts, because a PowerMac G5 plus FCP is an excellent combination for that kind of work. Very fast for the money, easy to set up and maintain and comes with the software to do anything you want.

Just a little anecdote. My uncle is an online editor for the Oprah Show, and he's won two Emmys for his work. For his side jobs, he uses a PowerMac G4 with Final Cut Pro. It's a cheap setup, and according to him, FCP is the most capable piece of editing software out there available for $1000.

Rendering houses probably would use more G5 systems if Apple would offer a quad processor box along with a high speed interconnect for them. I think most of them are getting a little sick of SGI having a stranglehold on the memory intensive rendering apps as they are about the only company to offer a truly stellar ccNUMA architecture.

Praxis · Post by **Praxis** » 2004-10-07 08:53pm

20 points out of 300 is "just behind".

As for the rest...perhaps dual processor systems have gone down in price. Last time I checked the prices, it cost a lot for a decent dual Xeon system. The motherboard with no other components was $700 for the cheapest I could possibly find anywhere, and the processors were also pretty dang expensive. It's been a while since I checked. If they have gone down since then, well, then I'd have to concede the point on prices.

The Kernel · Post by **The Kernel** » 2004-10-07 08:56pm

Praxis wrote: Actually, the dual G5's start at $1999, $1799 to schools, and $1599 to developers. The prices are a bit between desktop and workstation, and so is the performance. And no, I didn't get what you mean about those tests. I get it now. Sorry- but check the other benchmarks in the above post.

Yeah, they start at $2k with 255MB of Ram and a GeForceFX 5200. You call that a workstation? If you want to price me a Mac that you think could beat an equally priced PC you are welcome to try, but you will fail.

And again- my point is that the G5 stomps on the P4. Xeons and Opterons might be equivilant or a little faster, but it still fits my initial statement.

Your point is that the DUAL G5 stomps on the SINGLE PROCESSOR P4/A64 which is the most bullshit comparison I've ever heard. OF COURSE IT DOES. So what?

The Kernel · Post by **The Kernel** » 2004-10-07 08:57pm

Praxis wrote:20 points out of 300 is "just behind".

As for the rest...perhaps dual processor systems have gone down in price. Last time I checked the prices, it cost a lot for a decent dual Xeon system. The motherboard with no other components was $700 for the cheapest I could possibly find anywhere, and the processors were also pretty dang expensive. It's been a while since I checked. If they have gone down since then, well, then I'd have to concede the point on prices.

You are mistaken. Price an Apple you want to compete with a PC and I will match it component for component at the same price and it will still outperform the G5 on most fronts.

Praxis · Post by **Praxis** » 2004-10-07 09:42pm

The Kernel wrote:
Praxis wrote: Actually, the dual G5's start at $1999, $1799 to schools, and $1599 to developers. The prices are a bit between desktop and workstation, and so is the performance. And no, I didn't get what you mean about those tests. I get it now. Sorry- but check the other benchmarks in the above post.
Yeah, they start at $2k with 255MB of Ram and a GeForceFX 5200. You call that a workstation? If you want to price me a Mac that you think could beat an equally priced PC you are welcome to try, but you will fail.

And again- my point is that the G5 stomps on the P4. Xeons and Opterons might be equivilant or a little faster, but it still fits my initial statement.
Your point is that the DUAL G5 stomps on the SINGLE PROCESSOR P4/A64 which is the most bullshit comparison I've ever heard. OF COURSE IT DOES. So what?

Well, I *thought* most DP PC's started at around $3000- that's how it was last time I shopped, though that was a while back. Guess I was wrong.

Anyway:

You are mistaken. Price an Apple you want to compete with a PC and I will match it component for component at the same price and it will still outperform the G5 on most fronts.

I'll give it a shot. I'll probably lose, now that you've pointed out how out of date my knowledge of dual processor prices are.

Take this:
Dual 1.8GHz PowerPC G5
• 256MB DDR400 SDRAM (PC3200) - 2x128
• 160GB Serial ATA - 7200rpm
• ATI Radeon 9600 XT w/128MB DDR SDRAM
• 56k V.92 internal modem
• 8x SuperDrive (DVD-R/CD-RW)
• Apple Keyboard & Apple Mouse - U.S. English
• Mac OS X - U.S. English

Subtotal $2,149.00

And throw in a 512 stick for $70. Total price:
$2,230 normally, $2,030 for students and schools, $1,830 for developers.

$200 discount off Final Cut Express, additionally, if needed.