thoughts on Mac G5 2008

[Kazrog]

Apple needs to come out with a lower priced tower machine. Something with Core 2 Quads rather than Xeons, plenty of expansion room, etc. They could easily sell these at a $1400 or so price point and make a killing in the pro market. There's absolutely no reason they need to be using Xeons, it's pointless and just makes the machines cost more artificially. Intel Core 2 chips are EXACTLY the same as Xeons in terms of actual processing power.

 

[slashvanyoung]

That screen was the last thing that stayed in the memory buffer of the graphics card...

Those G4s were under regular maintenance, kept clean and in an air-conditioned room. On that very machine, IIRC, some capacitors died (basically exploded) causing harm to other parts (RAM was fucked, CPU ok - or the other way round, it's been quite a while). Well, that's something I've seen much more often on PCs, but shit happens. Sometimes twice...

I've never been lucky with those G4s. Had issues with monitors and keyboards, too.

 

[LydonB]

Apple needs to come out with a lower priced tower machine. Something with Core 2 Quads rather than Xeons, plenty of expansion room, etc. They could easily sell these at a $1400 or so price point and make a killing in the pro market. There's absolutely no reason they need to be using Xeons, it's pointless and just makes the machines cost more artificially. Intel Core 2 chips are EXACTLY the same as Xeons in terms of actual processing power.

Basically like an iMac but a tower version or something?

I would totally go for one of those if they were made.

 

[Transputer]

The Mid Tower Mac - makes a great deal of sense to most - but not Apple. Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 Kentsfield quad core is a killer processor, new architecture out 17th Nov Core i7 will move the game on again, but I doubt a quad core tower will figure in Apple's plans. iMac is laptop parts - not going there myself.

The Xeons, FB Dimms (slow) could be binned but Apple likes a streamlined approach - those parts are needed for the xserve and get into the mac pro line because.. well not certain why really.

With the alarming erosion of the Macbook - unless you want to rock the usb audio solutions - I'm hoping a similar scenario doesn't unfold on the mac pro - it's damn expensive enough as it is. In the UK to get a firewire laptop from Apple it's £1399 - Macbook Pro, the old macbook with the firewire is £720 - over here it went up £20 on the day the new macbook was introduced, and is fast disappearing. Crazy money - thats £1000 more than a new laptop my mate bought the other day his was £390, Core 2, 2GB ram etc etc - with a working firewire port for his Digi 003 and external firewire hard drive !!

Anyway best to 'em all

 

[Kazrog]

I myself will not be supporting Apple's hardware offerings for the forseeable future. I'm interested to see how Apple vs. Psystar stacks up, could be an interesting and precedent-setting case.

Mac OS X is by far the best OS out there; Apple needs to open it up to third party hardware without the kind of price fixing they pulled in the mid-to-late 90s with the (long defunct) Mac clones from Motorola and Power Computing.

 

[::XeS::]

Apple needs to come out with a lower priced tower machine. Something with Core 2 Quads rather than Xeons, plenty of expansion room, etc. They could easily sell these at a $1400 or so price point and make a killing in the pro market. There's absolutely no reason they need to be using Xeons, it's pointless and just makes the machines cost more artificially. Intel Core 2 chips are EXACTLY the same as Xeons in terms of actual processing power.

I think exactly the same. Apple frequently pass from "nothing" to "too much"...
Mac Pro is a wonderful machine but it's very very very expensive.
An "intermediate" tower between iMac and Macpro would be awesome..

 

[Kazrog]

I think exactly the same. Apple frequently pass from "nothing" to "too much"...
Mac Pro is a wonderful machine but it's very very very expensive.
An "intermediate" tower between iMac and Macpro would be awesome..

Sadly, I don't think it's going to happen as long as Steve Jobs is in charge. I very much hope they get somebody in charge who makes some big changes. Here's what I think they need to do:

• Make the mid-range tower machines I just described
• Put firewire 400 back on all machines for the next 5 years at least
• Be open and transparent with customers and the world about what they are doing, especially when there are problems (they have a history of trying to pretend these don't exist.)
• Continue to make "lifestyle devices" and "fashion electronics," since they sell, but expand the pro and mid-pro market and differentiate it further.
• Open up the iPhone and iPod Touch even further - give users access to files and folders, allow applications to become more powerful.
• Stop dumbing things down for n00bs, and attempting to fix things that aren't broken. Across all product lines, hardware and software.

Here's some facts about Steve Jobs:

• He hates buttons
• He hates PCI cards
• He hates the idea that computers should look or feel any different than consumer electronics devices such as DVD players
• He hates geeks like JBroll and I, because we remind him of Woz, since we like expandability and configurability.

Hopefully, he resigns soon. I think he's done some great things and he was the right person for Apple from 1998-2008, but he is going to kill them from now on.

 

[Metaltastic]

Great points dude - but what's Woz?

 

[slashvanyoung]

The plane flying, football club owning Apple co-founder nerd type of guy... if I'm not mistaken.

 

[Shredfiend]

I was a Mac guy up until 2000 because of the line of work I was in. I've used PCs for the last 8. Now I'm back in the market for a new comp. I was considering a new Mac and Logic 8 with a Duet. But the more I thought about it the more I think I'm going o stay with the PC.

The current Macs don't interest me. mini's lack needed features . Not interested in a Lap top. Don't want an Imac-all in one just means when it's time to upgrade I'll be buying a monior for the second time. Mac Pro is way to expensive.

I can buy a blazing PC for a fraction of a Mac Pro. In fact I could probably by a PC and my next 2 upgrades for the price of one Mac Pro....plus ram is way cheaper. The computer is only going to be for recording anyways.

 

[Sloan]

Great points dude - but what's Woz?

Steve Wozniak, dawg!!
Co-founder of Apple Computers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Wozniak


sometimes i forget how much of a nerd i am. then i look at a picture of steve wozniak and other nerds and realize that i used to look just like that in high school. hawaiian style shirts, glasses, goofy as fuck. damn.

 

[Metaltastic]

Hahahahaha, don't worry dude, in that picture down a bit on the page, Joey Slotnick looks WAY worse

 

[Baron of Norsworthy]

I was thinking about pulling the trigger on one until I saw apples latest sales plot!!

Apple released the new mac pro the other month and they added a the new intel processor but decided to change the foundation model from 8 core to 4 and a price increase to go with it from about 1700 pounds to 1899!!!!!!!!

 

[Lasse Lammert]

I'm using a G5 PPC 2x2GHz...dunno from 2005 or something.
never having any problems running Cubase or Pro Tools.
a 2008 model should definitely be fine

 

[Baron of Norsworthy]

I'm using a G5 PPC 2x2GHz...dunno from 2005 or something.
never having any problems running Cubase or Pro Tools.
a 2008 model should definitely be fine

If do not already know osx 10.5 is the last os for PPC.

 

[Lasse Lammert]

If do not already know osx 10.5 is the last os for PPC.

yep, just upgraded to 10.5 a week ago (and tbh I actually prefer 10.4.11 over it).
will probably buy a new (used) mac in the next 12 month.....gotta recouperate from the PT HD and apogee AD-16x purchase first

I'll use the current machine for editing, office-work etc then

 

[Loren Littlejohn]

I'm actually content with my machine as well (quad G5 2.5).

Although I highly doubt I won't go mac pro soon though. As soon as I get a project large enough to justify it, it will happen.

 

[spioraid]

Anybody check out reports for Snow Leopard? 64 bit processing...XGRID capability....co-processing with dual cores....

CS5 is gonna get encoded for 64 bit processing. I can only imagine ProTools and Logic at those rates.

 

[Loren Littlejohn]

It really would be nice is everyone caught up to the 64 bit thing. I hear sonar is fast as shit in a 64 bit environment.