Apple Power Mac G5 Quad - Fastest Desk Top Computer!

PC-Magazine | 12/22/2005 | By Joel Santo Domingo

[Swordmaker]

PC-Magazine says the G5 Quadis the fastest desk top computer. They report it got the highest score they have ever seen on the CPU-stressing CineBench rendering test: 1,104 compared to the Pentium EE840 overclocked to 3.6 GHz's 667, and the Athlon 64 4800+ overclocked to 2.7 GHz 775.

This is a PC centric magazine making these claims. Interesting.

We cannot post PC-Mag articles so here is the link to their article for those interested:

PC Mag review of G5 Quad's speed

[beaver fever]

"For most people, the money would be better spent on reading and typing lessons over upgrading. I know several people with top of the line systems who type with one finger."

You are saying something very relevent.

I learned photoshop from an Iranian who ran the program without ever using a mouse. All keystrokes and he was blistering fast.

I also worked with a magazine publisher where the graphic nerd sat four feet away from me. I'd post a text file to him and he had it formated in a PDF ten seconds after I dropped it into a shared folder.

His big dream was to own a G4 because every other machine was too slow for him.

He typed so fast you couldn't hear the spaces between his key strokes.

It's a good thing my talent was writing because if production speed was part of my job description I would have been fired.

[xcamel]

Cinebench 2003 Benchmarks
(Render in minutes:seconds, where lower results are better. All other results Use Cinebench relativistic values, where higher is better.)

	Apple G5 Quad (4 x 2.5 GHz G5)	Apple G5 Dual (2 x 2.0 GHz G5)	Dell Precision Workstation 470 (2 x 3.6 GHz Xeon)	Alienware MJ-12 7550a Workstation (4 x 2.21 GHz Opteron 275)	HP xw9300 (4 x 2.4 GHz Opteron 280)
Render Time	23.2 sec.	53.6 sec.	39.2 sec.	26.0 sec.	19.7 sec.
CPU Score	1049 CB-CPU	491 CB-CPU	672 CB-CPU	1014 CB-CPU	1335 CB-CPU
OpenGL Hardware	2532 CB-GFX	1534 CB-GFX
OpenGL Software	1139 CB-GFX	825 CB-GFX
C4D Shading	354 CB-GFX	278 CB-GFX

[Mr. Thorne]

Exactamundo.

Just upgraded our visual department: 3 of these beauties, with 30" cinema displays, but we kept the base hard drive and wrangled with our rep at the store for them to match Apple's 'free 2 gigs o' ram' offer.

That monitor is GORGEOUS. I mean the color, the resolution, ay caramba. I'm in Graphic Design Heaven...

[Mr. Thorne]

I'm not quite that fast, but I do drive my supervisor batty when she asks a 'how to' question; she's big on the mouse/menu route, I'm big on keyboard shortcuts and scripts.

She asks a question, and I execute promptly, but then spend a couple minutes trying to remember where to find the commands in the pulldown menu.

[Hoplite]

Trust, but verify.

= )

[xcamel]

dual/dual 280's still beat the nuts off G5's in real world use where the application is truly cross-platform.

POVRay
Visual Effects Society
HighEnd3d.com - Site dedicated to high end 3D software. Lots of Maya scripts.
Alias / Wavefront - 2-D and 3-D graphics for film, video, games development, industrial design, automotive design and visualizations markets. Maya software.
Areteis.com: Arete Entertainment, Inc - Digital NatureTools plug-ins
The following are plug-ins for Maya v3.0 available on Linux:
Psunami
Psyclone
P_Liquid
RenderWorld
Maya Gallery and Tutorials
PhoenixTools.com: Yellow CD - Package of tools for Maya on Linux
Dhima.com: DH Institute of Media Arts - Visual Effects and Multimedia Training School - Maya training courses (Santa Monica CA)
Softimage
Xsi 2.0: Their flagship 3D modeler, animator and rederer.
Toonz: 2-D cell animation to create cartoons. Supports DDR to render directly to a video device.
Global Information Group: GIG 3-D - GIG3DGO solid modeler + renderer - (Try for free.)
Kaydara: Filmbox - Generate and produce digital content for film, TV, games, and the Web. Also broadcast systems. - Huge suite of animation, motion capture, modeling and simulation tools for Linux.
MainActor - Commercial video editor for Linux
SideFx: Houdini - 3D animation. Also Houdini Select for animators.
Silicon Grail - works with GIMP. Composting and image manipulation system for feature film resolutions.
SteamboatSoftware.com - JIG: Photorealistic Hair Renderer, Cartoon and Line Renderer, and Volumetric Renderer for Procedural Gases and Particles
PCI Geiomatics: GeoGateway - geographical data image viewing tool. Handles 80 data formats.
Paul Nolan Software: Photogenics - Paint program with airbrush, chalk, watercolors, effects, 90+ filters
Side Effects Software: Houdini - 3-D modeling and animation.
N.A. Software: CAESAR - Synthetic Aperature Radar imagery
Research Systems: IDL - cross platform, access, analysis and visualization. Drag and drop GUI app builder.
3D Pipeline: Tree FX - tree and flora simulation
2D3: Automated Matchmoving Software - Match 3D and 2D, camera tracking.
Eyetronics: Liquid Faces - 3-D scanning and digitizing.
EyeOn: Digital Fusion - 3D Graphics and effects software.
Silicon Grail: RAYZ - 2D composositor. Clip editing, morphing, warping, annotate images, color correction, ...
NothingReal.com - Composting systems for high resolution effects. (Used by the big time pros)
Shake: Compositing, filters, transformations, color correction, ...
Ultimatte.com - blue and green screen compositing, screen correction, grain killer/filter, ... Plug-in for "Shake" from Nothing Real.
Marlin Studios - Land and sky textures, background images (CD sets)
Exluna.com
EntropyR - Quality, production-tested Linux rendering system. Compatible with RenderMan shading language.
BMRT - Ray tracer distributed free of charge! BMRT has been used in the production of several feature films, including Swordfish, A Bug's Life, Stuart Little, The Cell, Hollow Man, and Woman on Top.
Okino: NuGraf, PolyTrans - Photo-Realistic Rendering and 3D Model, Scene, CAD and Animation Translation/Viewing

[Swordmaker]

That HP xw9300 configured to as close as HP's online store can get to the Quad G5 referred to in the article above - HP xw9300 with 6G RAM (2G less RAM), only 474GB HD Capacity (less than half the 1TByte harddrive space of the reference Quad G5) - retails for $8817. Oh, and that is with a special $3400 "Discount from HP!" Also, no software except what comes with it except Windows® XP Professional x64 Edition.

The G5 with 8 G RAM, 1TByte of HD space, OSX.4 (Tiger), and a suite of productivity software retails for $7023, $1794 less than the HP Workstation.

ZONES offers the 250 Dual Dual HP xw9300 with 8 GBytes RAM, a paltry 146 GB of HD, a DVD-ROM (!?), PCI Express x16 - NVIDIA Quadro FX 1400 - 128 MB (Pathetic), no monitor, with Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS 3 for AMD64 with its suite of open source productivity software at a "discounted" price of $9477... almost $2500 more than the G5 BEFORE adding an upgraded Graphics card, a DVD/CDRW Drive, etc., and no where near the specs of the Apple Quad G5 at $7023.

If you read the rest of the article you cut and pasted the Cinebench 2003 benchmarks from, you would find that even the "fastest" PC did not beat the G5 in all the tests... on a couple of the "cross platform" tests the Quad G5 "smoked" the HP xw9300 Dual 280 including one where the Quad did in 13:07 minutes a task that took the HP 35:01 minutes to do.

In addition, on one of the benchmark tasks that could be done on both platforms with Adobe After Effects where the G5 was slightly slower than the HP at 6:38 (minutes:seconds), a G5 optimized application (Motion 2) that does the same task, accomplished it in a blazing 47 seconds, only 12% of the time! THAT is a truly impressive productivity bump.

[Swordmaker]

dual/dual 280's still beat the nuts off G5's in real world use where the application is truly cross-platform.

Nice list of plug ins... but what does it prove, xcamel? That they are available? So? Where are the comparisons.

[xcamel]

It proves that benchmarks, like politics, prove only what you want to hear. The HP is merely an off the shelf, comerically built machine, of similarly quality.

BTW.. that was no list of "plug ins" [sic]. Do your research. At least 2 are $25K for the license, and in use in thousands of studios and research labs around the world. Macs are macs, Jobs still lives on hype and california cocaine. Then there's the real world.

[Swordmaker]

BTW.. that was no list of "plug ins" [sic].

Your list included the line:
"The following are plug-ins for Maya v3.0 available on Linux:

which was then followed by 90% of your list.

Perhaps you should try some formatting that might differentiate the plug-ins from the super-expensive applications. I certainly did not look up even one of them to "do my research," I merely accepted your statement as written.

The point was that merely listing applications (or plug-ins for applicaitons) proves NOTHING. There are no comparisons or benchmarks. I could post a list of similar applications and plug-ins three or four times as long for the Mac... also without benchmarks or comparisons... and prove only that I can make lists.

The point of this thread was made by a PC centric publication... by no stretch are they Mac apologists. It is THEY who characterized the G5 as the fastest desk top computer. Apparently they had not seen the vaunted HP xw9300 Workstation in that configuration and its impressive Cinebench results.

You also said: "The HP is merely an off the shelf, comerically built machine, of similarly quality.

Actually, to get the one listed in the article requires a "special order" configuration from HP... and their website configuration software will not allow you to order it with the features needed to come even close to the specs of the G5... I tried. You would have to call or write HP to order it that way. I would hardly call that "off the shelf." On the other hand, the Apple, as listed, is also a "built-to-order" computer but it can be built-to-order on their website.

Macs are macs, Jobs still lives on hype and california cocaine.

I suggest you avoid the hyperbole unless you can prove your libelous statement.

[xcamel]

Mac users are so predictable, much like rabid liberals. One world, their world.

As an aside, I run/own/control:
4 quad ppx-970FX IBM e-servers (citrix/metaframe/metafile servers)
4 dual Opreron systems (Linux cluster frame processing)
8 HP quad xeon 3.6 Vmware servers (Master network controllers)
2 dual xeon linux mail/web servers
4 dual Opteron linux production/transaction servers
1 Athlon 64 mail reprocessor/redirector
12 G4 visualization workstations
65 P4 HT design/visualization stations
dozens of other Intel/amd/ppc standalones on the network

Running: Linux, Win advanced server, OSX, AIX, Citrix, Metaframe, Vmware, SQL, AC3D, 3D Studio MAX, 20/20, ACAD, AccuRender, and some proprietary vertical market design solutions.

And... california cocaine is well known as the stratospheric high from Shallow Alto pumping the latest benchmarks

After 25 years, even I get tired of the "my chip is bigger than your chip" crap.

Real computing power is doing what you need to do, and getting it done in a time period that your clients will pay you more than the other guy.

And yes, I really was doing the first TRS-80 model II business system installs back in 1980. My how time flies.

[Swordmaker]

Mac users are so predictable, much like rabid liberals. One world, their world.

Again, a PC user spreads insults. Again, I will point out that the source of the claim is PC Magazine... hardly a Mac propaganda rag.

[lawnguy]

So how would the G-5 compare with the new I-Mac that I saw all over the place over Christmas?

Just curious, I'm about ready to jump back into the Mac world, after several years away.

[freedumb2003]

Is this going to turn into one of those ID/Creationism vs. evolution threads?

Or Civil War North v. South threads?

Or COBOL v. FORTRAN?

[goldstategop]

If you're a beginner, get a Mac Mini - for most of the every day things you need and want to do, it'll be fine. Buy a third party external hard drive and you can even use it as a TiVO type recorder. Of course if you hanker for photo editing or handling music demos, then only the best will do. - the Apple Power Mac G5. But I suspect most people coming to Apple will either end up getting a Mac Mini or I-Mac desktop. Either one will serve you well for years and there's no need to wonder what's in store with Microsoft Windows Vista - that is if it does arrive in the stores by next fall.

(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie. Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")

[Swordmaker]

Or COBOL v. FORTRAN?

No, just a dogs v. cats threads...

[freedumb2003]

No, just a dogs v. cats threads...

So long as it is civil and unemotional ;)

[Swordmaker]

So how would the G-5 compare with the new I-Mac that I saw all over the place over Christmas?

The new iMacs are single processor, single core G5s... fast, but not anywhere near as fast as these top of the line workstations.

I would estmate the iMac G5 is about 20-25% as fast as the Quad G5.

[guest0001]

The article results are flawed, like most hardware comparisons. The Quad has a total of 4 cores (two dual core processors). The x86 based computers tested are only dual core. According to the article "Cinebench is a multi-threaded app..." So more cores, more threads, higher score. For this article to be fair, the x86 computers should have been fitted with two dual core processors. I have spent a lot of time looking into PowerPC, Intel, and AMD processors. Intel and AMD lead the processor market thus pushing it forward; they have the faster processors. PowerPC simply does make "faster than Intel/AMD" cutting edge processors, they will always be behind. Now, with Apple moving to Intel, there is all the proof you would need. What Mac users look forward to in a new PowerPC processor release, Intel and AMD users have had for awhile.

[Swordmaker]

PowerPC simply does make "faster than Intel/AMD" cutting edge processors, they will always be behind.

It depends on what you want to do. The PowerPCs are very fast with floating point operations... faster than the others... but slower on integer functions.

At the time this article was written, the Apple G5 Quad was the only commercially available Dual dual on the market... ergo, it was, by definition "ahead" of the available PCs. The article was written by PC Magazine in recognition of this fact.