Mac G5 & Photoshop – lotsa questions…

EG
Posted By
Eric Gill
Jul 23, 2003
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443
Replies
9
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Closed
"pix" <*.pacific.net.au> wrote in
news:k0vTa.1165$:

All right – who’s got a Mac G5

Developers and early adopter sites, all under an non-disclose agreement. You’ll need to wait a bit for them to ship.

<snip>

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RH
Randy Hills
Jul 23, 2003
pix wrote:

All right – who’s got a Mac G5 and how is it going (say compared to a PC).
Looking at buying one to replace my PII 350 running photoshop (if a leeetle bit slowly 🙂 Seriously impressed by the fact that it is running a Unix O/S – I’m also running a Linux box (P120) as a gateway/printer server/firewall/network thingy, so you could say I am a Unix/Linux fan (over windoze no contest)…

How does it compare in *price* to the fastest PC (I understand a Dell twin processor 3.4 GHz)

Do a lot of PS work, not 3D stuff. Looking also at some serious sound/jukebox capabilities.

Upgrade path? Is there one?

Looking closely at screens as well – any recommendations to go with the Mac? Is LCD there yet? I have a Mitubishi screen which has served me well – is it worth it to stay with Mitsubishi?

Comments?

cheers…pix
If PS7 is the only program you want a G5 for, save your money, and buy a dual G4. Front Bus is still faster than a Dell.

EG
Eric Gill
Jul 23, 2003
Randy Hills wrote in news:vht9fqofb2lqf6
@corp.supernews.com:

If PS7 is the only program you want a G5 for, save your money, and buy a dual G4. Front Bus is still faster than a Dell.

Who, exactly, makes a G4 with an FSB faster than 800 mhz?
R
Roberto
Jul 23, 2003
pix wrote:
All right – who’s got a Mac G5 and how is it going (say compared to a PC).

Looking at buying one to replace my PII 350 running photoshop (if a leeetle bit slowly 🙂 Seriously impressed by the fact that it is running a Unix O/S – I’m also running a Linux box (P120) as a gateway/printer server/firewall/network thingy, so you could say I am a Unix/Linux fan (over windoze no contest)…

How does it compare in *price* to the fastest PC (I understand a Dell twin processor 3.4 GHz)

Do a lot of PS work, not 3D stuff. Looking also at some serious sound/jukebox capabilities.

Upgrade path? Is there one?

Looking closely at screens as well – any recommendations to go with the Mac? Is LCD there yet? I have a Mitubishi screen which has served me well – is it worth it to stay with Mitsubishi?

Comments?

cheers…pix

The first thing is to find out if Photoshop will overall run faster on the G5. Apple has a long history of selective presentation of Photoshop tests. For the G5 they only tested 45 Photoshop functions with only a few of those being actual filters. The demo with the 600 Meg Photoshop file was also not informative since it was not specified what the RAM configuration of each machine was. For example was the G5 equipped with 8 Gig of RAM while the Xeon used 1 Gig? That would certainly explain the initial stall on the Windows machine.
TE
Tom Elliott
Jul 23, 2003
The ram thing is one of many reasons I always ask the demonstrator the configuration of the box they are doing the demo on. No matter what the operating system is.
This is a wild assumption on my part but if you tune the box for best performance – ram, front side bus speed, hard drives, video cards…well you get the point….no matter what the OS is, the performance will be nanoseconds apart.
There! that should total upset both camps – Apple – PC . Yours,
The rabble rouser,
Tom
For example was the G5 equipped with 8 Gig of RAM while the Xeon used 1 Gig?
H
Hecate
Jul 23, 2003
On Wed, 23 Jul 2003 22:14:44 +1000, "pix" <*.pacific.net.au> wrote:

All right – who’s got a Mac G5 and how is it going (say compared to a PC).
Reviewers for one. I’ve seen a review which says that it’s pretty quick. However pretty quick in this case means some nanoseconds faster than a current PC. OTOH, in a few months time you’ll be able to buy a PC with a 64 bit Athlon in it. In fact you can buy one now which has a pair of slow Opteron (Athlon 64 bit chips) in and it’s almost as fast as the G5. But if you really want a Mac…

One other thing, at least over here in the UK – you could buy two PCs for the price of a G5. 🙂



Hecate
(Fried computers a specialty)
P
pix
Jul 24, 2003
Looka likw I’ll have to ask this question in a month or two… 🙁

Looks like the concensus is that a well tuned PC will equal a Mac at least for PS, and for the money, or bang for your buck, the PC may still be the way to go…

Pity – I *really* like Unix…

cheers…pix

"Hecate" wrote in message
On Wed, 23 Jul 2003 22:14:44 +1000, "pix" <*.pacific.net.au> wrote:

All right – who’s got a Mac G5 and how is it going (say compared to a
PC).
Reviewers for one. I’ve seen a review which says that it’s pretty quick. However pretty quick in this case means some nanoseconds faster than a current PC. OTOH, in a few months time you’ll be able to buy a PC with a 64 bit Athlon in it. In fact you can buy one now which has a pair of slow Opteron (Athlon 64 bit chips) in and it’s almost as fast as the G5. But if you really want a Mac…

One other thing, at least over here in the UK – you could buy two PCs for the price of a G5. 🙂



Hecate
(Fried computers a specialty)
MP
Marc Pawliger
Jul 24, 2003
Overall, the G5 will run Photoshop faster than previous generation systems. This is more due to the faster busses in the G5 system architecture than to the faster CPU. The great majority of Photoshop’s processing algorithms are bus-bound – limited in speed by the ability of the system to transfer data around between memory and the CPU, and not CPU-bound – limited by the speed of the processor. So a faster bus will do more good, in general, than a faster CPU, all other things being equal.

Now with the faster G5 bus, some functions in Photoshop became CPU bound to some extent, and the headroom other functions had to grow as faster busses came along is now less. Work is bring done to ensure there will still be more room to grow if and when future systems get faster busses and CPUs.

Also, realize one of the most common optimizations for any new processor or system architecture is to speed up the more commonly used Photoshop utility functions that do things like copy ranges of data, copy rectangles of pixels, etc. All those will also be sped up and overall make all functions faster. There are also some functions that are amenable to being sped up on the new systems due to the new CPU, and those are also being worked on to be faster.

–marc
H
Hecate
Jul 25, 2003
On Thu, 24 Jul 2003 12:31:29 +1000, "pix" <*.pacific.net.au> wrote:

Looka likw I’ll have to ask this question in a month or two… 🙁
Looks like the concensus is that a well tuned PC will equal a Mac at least for PS, and for the money, or bang for your buck, the PC may still be the way to go…

Pity – I *really* like Unix…

cheers…pix
So use a Linux box which doesn’t have the overheads of Mac or PC, such as a graphical interface that works properly, but will allow you to cut your bonds to Adobe and use the free Gimp as well. An $800 box would do everything you need… 😉



Hecate
(Fried computers a specialty)
P
pix
Jul 25, 2003
I am thinking of just that… as well as having a PC along side to cover all bets… <g>

cheers…pix

"Hecate" wrote in message
On Thu, 24 Jul 2003 12:31:29 +1000, "pix" <*.pacific.net.au> wrote:

Looka likw I’ll have to ask this question in a month or two… 🙁
Looks like the concensus is that a well tuned PC will equal a Mac at
least
for PS, and for the money, or bang for your buck, the PC may still be the way to go…

Pity – I *really* like Unix…

cheers…pix
So use a Linux box which doesn’t have the overheads of Mac or PC, such as a graphical interface that works properly, but will allow you to cut your bonds to Adobe and use the free Gimp as well. An $800 box would do everything you need… 😉



Hecate
(Fried computers a specialty)

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