Quad G5 PowerMacs, Powerbooks enhanced, Apple Options

[lepetitmartien]

So and as they are the things, to use one pci card is very dangerous.

Could you elaborate?

[beyaRecords]

yeah - looks cool -4 procs... but steve is confident about everything, isnt he? isnt that his/apple's thing

Yeah...Mr Jobs was very confident, when the Dual G5 came out, that in terms of audio applications, you would cbe able to run a million and one tracks with unlimited plugins and the machine would not even break out into a sweat! The realaity of this in the real world though is the complete opposite. As for him being coinfident about these new Dual dualcore G5s well what else would you expect, he has to sell them! But he forgets that he let us into a little secret about moving away from IBM to Intel, so so much for confidence in that department!

In regards to whether Lynx would be devloping a pci-e version of their cards, David A Hoatson of Lynx said and I quote:

I will tell you that I think it was a really dumb move for Apple to not put any PCI or PCI/X slots on the new G5.  Since there are no PCIe audio cards (or any other type of card, except for maybe a RAID controller) available, what can anyone use that computer for?  I'm sure it will run Photoshop really nicely (which is all Apple cares about).

And in a further reply on the same post said:

Well, an audio card is a real-time device.  Meaning it only produces a data rate at the sample rate, bit-depth and number of channels currently selected.  Since even the AES16 at 16 channels in and out (32 channels) times 32-bits times 192kHz is way under the bandwidth of PCI, why would one need to do more?  Of course if you run multiple cards in a single system, that will use up more bus bandwidth.

4 cards (that is 128 channels) at 192kHz is 98MB/second and will probably saturate the current PCI bus.  Of course you still need to process that data and send it to/from a hard disk.  I doubt any current PC would be able to keep up with that even if the bus speed were higher.  (OK, I know, HiDef SDI video is pretty high bandwidth too...)

The full post can be found here: http://www.lynxstudio.com/forum/forum_post...p?TID=702&TPN=1

Beya

[lepetitmartien]

Right now all the cards in PCIe save for the ones annouced because of Apple move are all save one graphic/video/3D cards or network/RAID cards.

Until wednesday, the normal use of PCIe was to install high end graphic cards in a PC… So one slot.

We know that PCIe will last longer than PCIx, and certainly as long as PCI, but a move of such brutality is way beyond the normal course of a kind and respectful manufacturer.

And, as I said, it cost us $ € £ in the end for absolutely no necessary use

As a user, I crave for the power of any of those G5, but as a conscious shopper I don't see the point of PCIe save for niche markets even more niche than us. Photoshop, Final Cut Pro or Logic Users (even Word users will like the power, sure, but save network admins and video/3D moguls, nobody needs faster cards/slots. but sure have cards now good for the bin.

[beyaRecords]

lepetitmartien,
as you have correctly mentioned, the pci-e dual dualcore G5 will be of no use to any proaudio user unless you have money to throw away by purchasing a pci-e --> to pci craddle which I have seen selling for almost half the price of the Quad G5!!

IMHO thew Quad G5 is at least 6 months too late and with pci-e only interface leaves it viable only for those in the graphics/games/keeping-up-with-the-joneses arena!

Beya

[lepetitmartien]

And the Protools|HD guys…

Mind, I have a PCI 324 MOTU, I've still to upgrade it to the 424 mk2 for my G5 in PCIx, and they change the slots again? What if I buy another G5 in six months? sigh

[Jsegura]

Could you elaborate? 

Is dangerous for my pocket. What will happen with Powercore, UAD, RME, MOTU....etc?

This post has been edited by Jsegura: Mon 24 Oct 2005, 16:42

[lepetitmartien]

That's the problem, we don't know. As we don't know if they were like Digidesign close enough to be in the confidence early and are soon to release the cards.