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What Mac To Buy?, I am wondering if a quad intel is necessary or whether a dual g5 can c |
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Sat 22 Sep 2007, 11:57
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We have 8 dual G5s and 7 MacPros running in various studios with 2 G5 quads running FCP / Photoshop in a separate area.
The dual G5s have been awesomely reliable with the exception of one early model (with PCI-X) which is sluggish. By adding RAM we've been able to keep up with increasing demands of software and users, so we have no real plans to update any time soon. The only real annoyance with these machines is the restriction to 2 internal drive bays and the comparative lack of ports when compared with newer models. This has meant that we've had to look at external storage for sample libraries etc.
The MacPros were a nightmare to begin with, as we use ProTools in all studios and the initial Intel releases from Digidesign were horribly buggy. The more recent versions (and CS updates for version 7.1) have addressed this and we now appear to have some smooth machines with an endless supply of power. The four drive bays enable us to keep everything local and they run so quietly that we have no qualms about leaving them in the studio.
One issue you have to consider tho' is the cost of RAM for the MacPro. We bought ours loaded with 4Gb each, which added hundreds to the initial cost, whereas additional RAM for the G5s is easy to come by, at very reasonable prices.
The G5 quads are absolutely hopeless with large audio projects (fine for simple editing within Soundtrack Pro tho'), but killer for video editing and encoding. We've also installed Logic Nodes on these machines as they're often idle.
One other quick thought, our 3 newest MPs have 1.5TB of non-System Hard Disk space which we formatted as a RAID array so we didn't confuse some of our simpler students. Whilst this works fine in general operation, I've found that the system takes much longer to wake from sleep than our other set-ups.
So I guess I'd probably recommend getting a 2nd hand dual G5 with as much RAM as you can afford and a decent amount of external storage. I've heard really good things about using eSATA drives with a PCIe adaptor for the Mac but haven't tried this... and the FireWire option works fine anyway.
Best of luck!
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Posts in this topic
JonRaven What Mac To Buy? Sun 16 Sep 2007, 20:05 lepetitmartien Thanks Jim, more mac pro input than I've heard... Sun 23 Sep 2007, 03:28![|](style_images/en/to_down_pipe.gif) JonRaven Yes this is a grreat posting reply Jim. Thanks so... Sun 23 Sep 2007, 06:55 Mac Daddy Jim Hoyland,
I knew there was a reason I liked yo... Sun 23 Sep 2007, 14:56![|](style_images/en/to_down_pipe.gif) JonRaven ok so now that I know i want a dual g5 2.5 machine... Sun 23 Sep 2007, 19:59 lepetitmartien errhhhhhh
Maybe some reading over the G5 family w... Mon 24 Sep 2007, 04:28 Mac Daddy lepetitmartien.... "errhhhhhh. Maybe some rea... Mon 24 Sep 2007, 08:31 JonRaven in that case... merci Mon 24 Sep 2007, 14:17 lepetitmartien I point the solution to cover the basics and more,... Tue 25 Sep 2007, 02:56 JonRaven tres' bien, merci
I look very forward to hear... Tue 25 Sep 2007, 03:04 lepetitmartien Well, no Leopard, no iPhone, no keynote, not very ... Tue 25 Sep 2007, 22:57 mishmashmole I have seen referrals to this thread when people a... Wed 26 Sep 2007, 12:57 mortalengines Go ahead and upgrade to Live 6. I did and I have... Thu 27 Sep 2007, 04:55 mishmashmole Wow, it's nice to know someone out there has t... Thu 27 Sep 2007, 09:36 lepetitmartien Ttt G5 are either mono, MP or dual cores, with the... Wed 10 Oct 2007, 23:58![|](style_images/en/to_down_pipe.gif) JonRaven thank you so very much for your collective help.
... Thu 11 Oct 2007, 00:07 Mac Daddy [thank you so very much for your collective help.
... Thu 11 Oct 2007, 13:54 lepetitmartien Yeah cool deal you got! the most important is ... Fri 12 Oct 2007, 14:18 JonRaven Yeah i feel i got an amazing deal as well. And it... Sat 13 Oct 2007, 11:30 hahaworld Hello, everyone!
HaHaWorld here. I'm the ... Fri 26 Oct 2007, 22:25 lepetitmartien 512 MB of RAM is a laugh, OS X to start being aliv... Fri 26 Oct 2007, 23:25 rcross73 And actually, your dual-core 2.66 Intel machine? ... Sat 27 Oct 2007, 15:16 hahaworld Thanks for the good words, friends! I'm pi... Sat 27 Oct 2007, 15:41 Mac Daddy hahaworld,
Bravo! Hurray! Yippeeeee! ... Sun 28 Oct 2007, 13:58
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