G4 DP 1Gig Review (I got one)

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mindbend

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So, since I'm a greedy selfish bastard mixed with the fact that I've been waiting for a DP 1 gig like everyone else for quite some time, multiplied by a stellar fourth quarter, means that I could wait no longer. A two hour drive to Woodfield Mall outside of Chicago netted me a DP1gig and a cinema display to boot. Shhh, don't tell my wife.

Here's a very rough first take for anyone who cares. FWIW, I was previously running an original G4 450 tower with a Radeon as its main monitor card.

Misc observations:

1. Superdrive is way faster than I would have thought. It is faster at installing apps than my G4 DVD drive.
2. Everything is faster, gee surprise surprise.
3. Finder is finally pretty damned smooth. Still has about 10% to go, but I'm no longer complaining about window resizing.
4. Apps launch major fast. Even big hog apps like Illustrator open in a couple of seconds.
5. This machine is what OS X wants to run on. Everything is a dream*.
6. Haven't had a chance yet to test speed to our Win2K server using Gigabit. Should I expect speed increase if Server stays the same?
7. OS X and Classic boot noticeably faster, I don't have specific times, but it's twice as fast as what I'm used to.
8. System prefs takes three bounces! This cracks me up. Other big fat apps open in under a second and System prefs of all things takes three bounces. Not that three bounces is an eternity, it's just funny. Rumor has it that 10.2 will take care of all that nonsense
9. I installed Suitcase 10, dragged in a buttload of fonts, then decided I didn't like how they were organized, so I deleted them all, dragged them in again in a different order and they were instantly recataloged. I mean instantly. Ususally this takes a few moments. Is this an advantage of those big caches?
10. Final Cut Pro 3 with realtime effects. Holy freaking crap! RT motion, dissolves, overlays, titles. This is big. This is real big for me. This box will pay for itself in two months. Productivity just went up ten fold. This is really, really impressive stuff. And it's only the beginning. Rendering in general way faster. FCP3 with a cinne display makes me want to weep. I wish this for all of you.
11. Internal drive (80gig) doesn't even make anything resembling a sound. The fan is audible, but acceptable. Man, I wish they could kill the fans on these things. Haven't run file copy speed tests, but it's as fast as you'd expect.
12. This isn't CPU related, but I just have to mention what an experiecne it is to use a cinema display. It's a whole different interface. I've been using two monitors for years, but it doesn't even compare to one cinnie. I'm still getting used to the color differences, can't beat a CRT for that and the subtle color shifts, but overall, wow. People talk about blurring when editing video, etc. I have no idea what they're talking about. This thing is sharp. Haven't played any games on it, that'll be interesting.
13. GeForce4--Have no idea of its benefits yet other than to say the Finder is very smooth, though I assume the CPU helps that too, don't know. I'll try Giants soon, and it better be freaking glass at full res. The 450 could barely play it at low res.
14. Summary-First days are always a mixed blessing. It's better than anything I've used, but than again, so has every computer I've ever bought. A year or two from now, it'll just be OK. For now, though, bliss. I highly reommend it.
15. * Painter 7 runs like crap in X. Haven't tried it in 9 yet. I see almost no speed increase in X over the G4 450. I assume this is poor code in the app. Let's see a 7.1.
 
of corse it is faster after all it is a 1Gig machine!!!!!!!
im happy for you!!!
but most of us cant afford a new machine!!!!
hell looks like im stuck with my g4 400 apg singel!
and of corse os x is faster! on your machine.
but what about us??????
the people that wont to run os x and like it
for us it is slow as hell and will prob stay that way!!!!!
i dont think it will get much faster for the mac lovers out there that cant afford new macs!!!!!
so what does mr jobs do puts out a slow os!!!
and then comes out with super fast machines!!!!!
wo what a way to make the os look faster!!!!!!!
im sorry for all the rambling BUT WHAT ABOUT US ME JOBS???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
 
I completely agree. This is a clear reminder that Apple is first and foremost a hardware company. OS X is designed to sell new hardware. Its requirements are hefty, but the benefits are great. I was resistant to make the plunge due to this belief and knowing that my trusty old G4 450 spent two years being a perfectly good workhorse under OS 9. OS X comes along and now I've got to drop a ton of money just to get back to where I was. That is frustrating indeed. The payoff, of course, is a gorgeous OS that now runs smoothly, renders fast and all the rest. Have patience, it will be worth it. These new boxes as you well know, will only get cheaper and cheaper and better and better. OS X runs great on one now, just imagine what the future holds.
 
Apple has done a better job with OS X than MSFT did with NT. I've been using the NT line since 3.51. Back when it came out it required a top of the line machine and it was still slow. (similar to 10.0.4) The only thing that fixed the problem was faster hardware.

Apple on the other hand, has decided to optimize the code and get it to run on hardware that isn't fresh from the factory. It runs, it could be faster, but it's certainly usable. Another speed tweak and they've given us all we can expect. Your (to whoever is reading this) next machine will be better at running a modern OS.

On ther other hand, msft was working with much weaker hardware so maybe we should cut them a break for requiring the latest and greatest. Nah.

As for your DP 1000, I'm glad it runs so nicely. In three years we'll all have machines that fast. I can't wait.

Vanguard
 
Welcome to the Cinema Display club ;)

It's a new style of working, it can't be compared to multi-monitor solutions...you just feel "free". It sounds stupid, but I don't know how to explain it. You have to experience it.

Oh, and the bottom-mounted Dock makes really fun on a Cinema Display!
 
:( You guys are making me so jealous with my measly 15" Apple Studio Display and 450 MHz single-processor cube. *** simX pats his cube.

Maybe Apple will be nice and allow all cube owners to upgrade to the latest-and-greatest for no charge for 10 years since the cube was such a flop. *** simX dreams some more.
 
Originally posted by simX
:( You guys are making me so jealous with my measly 15" Apple Studio Display and 450 MHz single-processor cube. *** simX pats his cube.

Maybe Apple will be nice and allow all cube owners to upgrade to the latest-and-greatest for no charge for 10 years since the cube was such a flop. *** simX dreams some more.
Click to expand...

Well, I also have a Cube with a 17'' Apple Studio Display ;)

But SimX, you have a life! And you maybe have money! I don't have that ;)
 
My TiBook wishes it were a dual ghz :)

Maybe at the beginning of the next school year if I work hard enough over the summer again :D
 
Mindbend:

Since you went "all-out" with a dual 1 GHz G4 and Cinema Display, why didn't you get the SCSI Ultra160 option? I think for the extra cash, it would be worth it. I purchased an IBM 18GB Ultra SCSI at 7200 RPM (aftermarket) and in real-life, it's almost 2X faster than the IBM 12GB UltraATA at 5400 RPM that came stock on my machine. I think if one is going to spend THOUSANDS on a machine like you just purchased, what's another few hundred for REALLY SMASHING performance?

I hope you will not be disappointed with your purchase when the G5's come out this year, and they will come out this year. I too have thought about getting a dual 1 GHz G4, but I will patiently wait for THE BIG DADDY. And if I have to, I'll go into serious debt to get one, don't care, I WILL HAVE ONE.

And one more thing for the people with G4 450MHz machines. You have nothing to complain about. Look at MY specs at the bottom of this post. You at least have G4's with AltiVec, I have nothing!
 
Chem_geek

Good points. Here was my position. I passed on SCSI because my workgroup files are served externally, so internal SCSI provides no benefit there. The internal drives I use are for DV video, which again get only minimal benefits from SCSI since the ATAs handle DV perfectly.

Indeed, I will miss the speed when opening those fat Photoshop files, but I'm gonna RAID up a couple of ATAs and see what I can get.

Also, keep in mind, this purchase was one of those snowball avalanche sort of things that got out of control. I had to draw the line somewhere.

As for the upcoming G5. That's a reality I'm anticipating. My plan will be to sell the DP 1 gig and buy the G5. Simple. I'll have made up the difference in increased efficiency in the meantime. Will it sting? Oh yeah, like a nice wasp in the neck, but once the sharpness of the stinger fades, there's that warm tingly sensation. Waiting for the G5 seemed like the pragamatic option, perhaps the smart option, but dammit, sometimes you just can't help yourself.

I've come to accept it as part of the game. You have to pay to play. I have found that my old strategy of buying the cheapest I could get away with crippled my options and opportunities. Paying for the most I could possibly stand ended up opening up worlds of opportunity, inspiring me in the process and just making it a more enjoyable computing experience. This is what the Mac experience is all about for me and presumably milions of diehards like you all. Splurge a little, you deserve it.
 
Mindbend, raid ata will be slower then no raid at all unless you write to the disk most of the time. it will actually slow down read speed so opening stuff may be slower. cus it writes to two disks same time it's faster, but reading takes twice as long cus there's 2 drives.
Jan or Feb 2002 issue of Maximum PC did a huge review on speed and raid was one. They said raid slows down read and speeds up write.
 
Mindbend, put Virtual PC 5 on os x and let us know how it runs on the dual 1ghz.
try it in os 9 too if you can, VPC4 or 5.
if you want a copy i may be able to give you VPC4. a cdr copy that is. since that's all I got. but i would only be giving it to you for you to benchmark it and let me know how fast it seems.

Also persoanlly i have a dual G4/450 and will not buy another G4. I don't like the idea of buying a second mac in the same processor family so I'm waiting for dual G5/1.6ghz or something.
 
I'm posting this from a Dual 1GHz with a studio display from the Apple Store in Tysons Corner. Good god this thing flies. Makes my 500MHz icebook feel like crap. iTunes launched in less than a bounce, and it was the first time it was EVER run (it had the agreement popup). System Preferences also launches in a bounce. Much faster than I thought it would be. Now to decide, a new iMac or a new Powermac...
 
buggs

thanx for the heads up, that is disappointing. I raided them up today and got a sustained 30.5 meg per second write rate (one big file, not lots of little ones, I'll try that later) , but I didn't think to do a read test. Depending on the numbers, I may just leave it. Either way is still probably faster than what I've been used to the last two years.

As for VPC, I think I've got that Beta demo thing or whatever that was. If it's not expired, I'll run that. Give me a few days. I've never run VPC before, so I'm sure there'll be some issues. Plus, now that I think of it, what the heck am I going to run on it? I have no PC software, nor do I need it. I guess I could get some just to see.
 
Just a few updates with DP1 gig:

1. RAID-ed two 25 gig ATAs, got 30.5 write sustained on a 100 MHZ bus card. buggs points out that read speed may suffer.
2. Realized that the old 512 chip RAM I put in was 100, not 133, so it didn't register. I would have thought X would have pointed that out. I swapped in 2x256, back to 1 gig.
3. Loaded some games, Giants and Myth II. Both smooth as hell with all options on. I could see a purist pointing out slight hiccupping now and then, but you'd be hard pressed to complain. Will try Quake and others sometime.
4. Games on cinema display are good and bad. Cool to have big view and wide screen, but the slight blurring for the fast FPS games isn't as good as a CRT. Oh well. Still plenty playable. Giants fares well cuz it's not as fast paced and cramped as Unreal. Myth fares well too, but I still kind of prefer the sharpness of motion on the CRT.
5. PROBLEM!-- All of a sudden the machine will simply not shut down properly. The shutdown operation acts as a restart, I have to pull the plug! Any ideas?
6. Did a render test in FCP3 (see 2-pop.com - General discussion forum for details). Bottom line, DP 1 gig is 19% faster at rendering than a DP 800, which makes perfect sense since the machine is 20% faster in terms of MHZ. I assume other renders will be similar. FCP3 timeline scrubbing, even with effects is really fast. I scrubbed a 25 pixel gaussian blur and thought it was rendered for a moment. Wow. I can't wait to see what Photoshop 7 can do on this thing.
7. Explorer still sucks donkey. What is wrong with this program?! For crying out loud, get with the program. Or as an option, remove the live update and show an outline of the window, then update. Sheesh.
8. Entourage window resize as sucky as Explorer. Surprise, surprise
9. Photoshop in classic launches kind of slow, didn't count, but I thought it would have been faster.
10. Prelaunched apps reopen crazy fast. Any have a script or know any easy way for a non-programmer like me to launch every major app I have at startup, then quit them so they're cached or whatever makes them launch fast?
11. iTunes visualizes very smoothly. Didn't bother to do FPS, I'll get that later.
12. Toast 5.1 didn't finish my first CD burn off the superdrive. Said some dumb thing about couldn't finish header file or some crap I can't remember. This better be a fluke. Wonder if I have to have specially rated media? I get mine from cdrecordable.com, rated for what, 12X?

more to follow for anyone who cares
 
mindbend, for raid and checking read speeds, I'm not sure what a good way is. i have no clue, but if you can see the maximum pc mag for Jan or Feb 2002, it would say what they did. i forget, but i do have the magazine. and i got it cus it's all about speed.

for VPC, if you have the 5 trial, just set it up and you'll have to of course have V4 installed in os 9 already. but just open it in os x and see how it runs. no need for software other then windows itself.
 
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