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To G5 Quad on not to G5 Quad? That is the question…
I have a need for a new edit machine capable of HD Uncompressed10 bit rendering and encoding. I have two G5 Dual FCP 5.0 edit suites and I am getting an MCR installed. However, I don’t have an available Capture/Logging station to drive the MCR when I have both edit suites booked.
If I get a G5 Guad 4 now I’ll save on downtime in one of my HD edit suites caused by sluggish renders/encodes. That cumulative save in down time adds up over time and essentially pays for the machine. I would bump down the G5 Dual currently in my edit bay to the edit/Log station.Is it worth biding my time for 6 months for the guys at Mac to put out a desktop PC with the intel chips? Will they release a Quad intel processor at the same time as the desktop?
Any thoughts on the matter would be appreciated!!!
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15 Replies
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1 problem: the new machines have PCIe – so any cards you buy for it will have to be PCIe compliant, and any old cards you have just won’t work in it (we have all these fibre cards, blackmagic cards, etc…)
We’ve decided to wait to see what happens instead up upgrading to any of the new G5’s. Chances are the intel boxes will be faster, but they’ll also have bugs and problems with universal binaries and all that jazz. FCP 5 is stable on the current G5 platform – and that’s worth a lot right there.
Heck, you got the money, no reason not to buy a Quad.
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For what its worth, we purchased the G5 Quad, and the time it has saved us in rendering both FCP and AE is amazing. Compressor, burning DVD’s, and just about everything is amazingly fast. Well worth the money. Hope this helps.
Tim
Tim
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Don’t know if you want to go through the growing pains of switching to Intel apps, but I bought a Quad to “wait it out”! My rule number 1 is NEVER purchase rev 1 of any hardware or software.
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Mr Video: So that means, by your rules, you shouldn’t have bought the quad. Dual dual core processors and PCIe is brand new to the mac. It’s okay, I violate all the rules I set up for myself as well.
Aaron: Questions like these come up at least once a week. If you can afford to and NEED to buy now, buy now. If you can afford to or perhaps want to wait for the latest greatest hardware, wait. It’s very simple really. I have no experience with the Quad, but I’m sure it’s a bad ass machine. I don’t know what apps you use, but it’s quite possible that programs like After Effects/Photoshop will not be ready for Intel primetime for a little while. On the other hand, you will have to buy all new capture and host bus cards for the quad, seeing that it is PCIe and all, as it has been mentioned in this thread and others.
Good luck in your decisions.
Jeremy
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G5 Dual 2Ghz <> 4GB RAM <> FCP 5.04 <> Kona 2
ATTO 42XS <> Huge Systems 4105 Fibre
OS 10.4.2 <> QT 7.0.3 -
[aaron] “Is it worth biding my time for 6 months for the guys at Mac to put out a desktop PC with the intel chips? Will they release a Quad intel processor at the same time as the desktop?”
If you need the machines now, then no, it’s not worth biding your time. In 6 months the machines should have paid for themselves so you’re out nothing, but getting faster performance.
Will they release a Quad Intel out of the gate? The only people who know that answer are sitting very high up in Apple and Intel and we’re not going to find out anytime soon. Perhaps if we’re lucky, Apple will give us some hints, or maybe even show off some sort of “workstation of the near future” at NAB in April. It’s never happened before, but then again, Motion was sprung on us two years ago from nowhere.
Personally, I don’t want the last of the IBM chips, I’m going to keep running my Dual 2.0’s until the Intels come out and then make a full changeover at that time. I have a lot of confidence in the first generation Intel workstations.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.comDirector, “The Rough Cut”
https://www.theroughcutmovie.comNow Posting “Good Eats” in HD for the Food Network
“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
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[MrVideo] “My rule number 1 is NEVER purchase rev 1 of any hardware or software.”
Um, you just did. The Quad machines are the first generation Dual Core processor and PCIe machines. Untried and Untested in the real world until the day they were released.
Me, I’m going with the first generation Intel workstation.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.comDirector, “The Rough Cut”
https://www.theroughcutmovie.comNow Posting “Good Eats” in HD for the Food Network
“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters
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[aaron] “Is it worth biding my time for 6 months for the guys at Mac to put out a desktop PC with the intel chips? Will they release a Quad intel processor at the same time as the desktop?”
What makes you think they’ll be released in 6 months? The only word from Apple was that Powermacs would go Intel sometime in ’07. To be fair, the iMac & “MacBook” came out 6 months ahead of schedule, so who knows? It could be 6 months, or 8, or 12, or 3.
Arnie
https://www.arniepix.com -
SJ mentioned at his Macworld presentation that they are planning to move the ENTIRE product line to Intel this year (by the end of ’06).
-gl
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If I’d have gone to Macworld (or at least downloaded the podcast), I’d have known that!
Arnie
https://www.arniepix.com -
My question is, how much money are you losing by waiting 6 months and having workflow issues? Do you think your workflow will be impacted negatively by not having the third machine?
Honestly, I doubt the first gen. of Intel workstations will be so much faster as to make the quad obsolete. It will have a lot of useful cycles left in it for awhile.
-gl
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