Questions Before Buying A New G5 Dual 2.7 Options

[bluetone78]

Hello all,
My G4 iMac just isn't cutting it anymore, so I need an upgrade. I was think about getting the G5 dual 2.7, but I had a bunch of questions first:

1. What's this I hear about an Intel Mac? When are they coming out? Are they going to be better than the dual G5's that are available now? Should I wait to buy untilt hey come out?

2. Obviously I'm gong to need more RAM - I've read good things about Corsair (in this forum, elsewhere). I also read talk of buying in "bundles"? what does that mean? How do I buy ram in bundles?

3. I'd like to have a seperate interal drive to put my samples, audio files, etc. Is there a good reason (performance wise) to get the dual 400GB drives factory installed from apple? If not, can anyone recommend a decent brand for this application?

4. Apple LCD displays vs other Brands?


Thanks so much,
Charles

[drutwo]

well, from what i have read, the intel macs will start showing up in early 2006. apple will first start shipping laptops with x86 processors, and by summer will begin converting their desktops. the switch to x86 architechture will require either a recompiling or a rewriting of all the apps you use (depending on what language the code for that app is written in). so, if you have a pretty well established set of digital audio software, a G5 will run it all beautifully. get one. most likely the intel boxes will be a little finicky and have software compatibility issues for the first 6 to 10 months. this means that the switch won't be as viable for those with a bunch of money invested in software until towards end of 2006 or maybe 2007 when intel releases it's completely new design for the 64-bit dual-core processor they're working on. those machines should cook, but they won't be around for a while. If you have the money now, a G5 would be amazing.

I am not the guy to ask about RAM though, if you don't get the answers you want here, also check out www.macaddict.com/forums/ they have some rediculously knowledgable people as well.

i hope that helps.

[coldharbour]

1.  What's this I hear about an Intel Mac?  When are they coming out? Are they going to be better than the dual G5's that are available now?  Should I wait to buy untilt hey come out?

No reason to wait. x86 PowerMacs won't be out any time soon and as you're upgrading from a G4 iMac to G5 Dual 2.7 PowerMac you'll be making a huge leap that'll most probably keep you happy for a long time over the transition.

2.  Obviously I'm gong to need more RAM - I've read good things about Corsair (in this forum, elsewhere).  I also read talk of buying in "bundles"?  what does that mean?  How do I buy ram in bundles?

Corsair is good, Kingston is good and so are many other brands. I prefer Kingston for their quality, lifetime guarrantee and cheap price. Some retailers sell bundled RAM, it means that when you buy your machine from them they'll include some extra RAM "bundled" for special price or maybe even free.

3.  I'd like to have a seperate interal drive to put my samples, audio files, etc.  Is there a good reason (performance wise) to get the dual 400GB drives factory installed from apple?  If not, can anyone recommend a decent brand for this application?

Apple doesn't manufacture the hard drives included in the machines, so there's no special speed or other advantage. As you probably know, Apple's prices for RAM, hard drives etc. aren't the cheapest and installing new drives in a PowerMac is dead easy - so you'll probably save quite an amount of cash if you buy the drives separately from some other place.

I've never had any hard disk problems and I've never been too brand-specific about them (currently Maxtor, IBM and Western Digital), but probably someone else on this forum has more specific opinions about this matter.

You might also consider an external FireWire drive, it comes in very handy if you need to transfer your samples or be on the move for some other reason. FW is fast enough for all your audio purposes and you can also use it for booting & possible troubleshooting.

[vsmith1]

1) The rumour machine has it that the first Apple machines to get Intel-based designs will be a) Mac Mini b) iBook and c) PowerBook. Therefore if you are after a Power Mac G5 then go ahead. Also, the software will take a while to get the Universal Binary format, and it would be a frustrating time if you got a Mactel machine and had to wait or run slowly your chosen software.

2) The G5's have been rather picky about the extra RAM. I'd agree with the other postings and stay with known names.

3) The internal HDD are SATA in the G5, and any manufacturer will be OK with the standard SATA drives. If you want to go for RAID0 then a hardware approach is best.

4) Apple LCDs screens are excellent but several people have posted on the Macintouch site that the Dell screens are better and cheaper. Check out the website.

[bluetone78]

Wow guys, thanks for all the info!

I've been hearing good things about the Dell screens too. And it seems to me that if I can get a Dell 30" for roughly the same price as an Apple 23", then it makes pretty good sense. I'm assuming that the DVI-D connection on the Dell screen is the same (or at least compatible with) the DVI out on the G5.

Regarding the new intel Macs, I was a bit leery of such a big change, so it's good to know that the existing G5's are going to be able to carry me through the next couple of years.

I wanted the extra HD so that I could keep all my audio files, samples, etc. seperate from program files. This RAID 0 thing is new to me, as of this posting. I did some web-searching on it, and I'd say my understanding of RAID 0 is murky at best. It uses two drives in conjunction, using double the HD space to speed up HD access? Sounds like a bit of a balancing act to me...

[coldharbour]

This RAID 0 thing is new to me, as of this posting.  I did some web-searching on it, and I'd say my understanding of RAID 0 is murky at best.  It uses two drives in conjunction, using double the HD space to speed up HD access?  Sounds like a bit of a balancing act to me...

There's really no need for RAID 0 in audio production unless you're working on some really big projects, the normal speed is totally adequate even for the more demanding scenarios. What you might want to do is to dedicate one HD for samples and one HD for other audio, this way you can easily maximize the audio streaming speed as both HDs can fully utilize their dedicated data buses.

This post has been edited by coldharbour: Tue 12 Jul 2005, 18:20

[bluetone78]

ah - good idea. perhaps I'll put the samples on the same drive as all the program files, and leave the other drive for all my own audio.

[edge100]

This RAID 0 thing is new to me, as of this posting.  I did some web-searching on it, and I'd say my understanding of RAID 0 is murky at best.  It uses two drives in conjunction, using double the HD space to speed up HD access?  Sounds like a bit of a balancing act to me...

There's really no need for RAID 0 in audio production unless you're working on some really big projects, the normal speed is totally adequate even for the more demanding scenarios. What you might want to do is to dedicate one HD for samples and one HD for other audio, this way you can easily maximize the audio streaming speed as both HDs can fully utilize their dedicated data buses.

Sound on Sound did a test of RAID 0 with Logic a year or so ago and found that in many cases, RAID 0 is SLOWER in this particular instance. They were able to get much higher track counts using the drives separately rather than as a RAID 0 array.

I would seriously doubt that music production will benefit much from RAID 0. Use one drive for storing samples and one drive for all your audio files, and you'll be fine. In fact, I use a single Firewrire drive for samples and audio (plus some additional downloads, etc) and I've had no issues. Just dont use the system drive. That'll definitely tie you down.

Mike

[vsmith1]

I wasn't suggesting to use RAID0, except that hardware RAID is much much better than software RAID.

RAID has a number of levels that use different techniques to either improve performance or more usually resilience. It is more often used on servers where a large number of users are sharing a service delivered by the server. In Level 0, the data is striped across two hard disks; Level 1 the data is written to disks. Yes in RAID1 you buy two 160GB drives and only effectively have 160GB of space, but if one drive fails then the data is preserved on the other. If you want more then search on wikipedia.

Vince

[dixiechicken]

Another possibility for lcd-screens to your G5 would the 19 inch screens from LG Electronics: http://www.lge.com/index.do

Thet are perfectly acceptable and fairly cheap too.
We have several at my work.

Cheers: Dixiechicken