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Review: 2.7GHz Mac, 3.6GHz PC "just about the same"

updated 08:30 am EDT, Wed May 25, 2005

Power Mac G5 review

A Digital Video Editing review compares Apple's to a dual Xeon 3.6GHz computer from Dell. The review concludes that the Power Mac is only slightly slower than the fastest PC available, and costs less, too. "You get speed that�s statistically just about the same as a PC, Bluetooth connectivity, FireWire 800 on the motherboard , and then there�s that striking industrial design and cachet that only goes with owning a Mac." To conclude, the reviewer writes, "I�d say that even though the Mac is still slower than the fastest PC in our benchmarks, for professional content creation it would be hard for me to pass it up." The Power Mac G5 receives a 9.5 rating. The article also looks as the 23-inch Cinema HD display. "The monitor has performed flawlessly and receives my highest recommendation, 10 out of 10 stars."

by MacNN Staff

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macimmortal
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Aug 2001

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05/25, 08:43am | report spam | close Reply |
OK...I'll admit it

I've often commented that the reviewer at Digital Video Editing was biased and unfair. After reading this review, I have to eat my words. I'm starting to believe that he legitimately wants Apple to get their computers up to the same level of performance as PCs. Nice review.

ibugv4
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Joined: Jun 2003

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05/25, 08:54am | report spam | close Reply |
why they gotta pick on

why does everyone pick on the rodent? It's not useless, it's one of the few Macintosh characteristics that they haven't changed yet. Besides, contol and option clicking make up for the lack of buttons in most cases. I confess, I had to email him that most of my users have the one button mouse, and many like it that way!

cmoney
Mac Enthusiast

Joined: Sep 2000

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05/25, 09:13am | report spam | close Reply |
Imagine 3 GHz

Imagine if Jobs' prediction was right and we got dual 3GHz PowerMacs LAST YEAR. That could've killed the PC competition back then. Too bad it hasn't even come to pass yet. But it's nice to see DVE turn out results like that.

denim
Mac Elite

Joined: Jun 2000

0

05/25, 09:15am | report spam | close Reply |
Mouse

I reached that point of not bothering to unpack the mouse years ago. It's ridiculous that all of us have to purchase this useless thing because a few people are brain-damaged enough to prefer it.

dennis
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Joined: Aug 2001

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05/25, 09:23am | report spam | close Reply |
real-world speed

If the raw computing power is roughly the same or slightly slower for the Mac, I would imagine real-world working conditions (dealing with the OS, trouble-shooting, etc.) would make the Power Mac significantly more productive, especially when it comes to getting the system up and running in the first place.

williamdrover
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Joined: Jan 2005

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05/25, 09:29am | report spam | close Reply |
RAM

They should've tested the MAC with 8gigs of RAM, probably would have made a difference. Can the peecee's even support that much RAM?

sagaces
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Joined: Dec 2003

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05/25, 09:33am | report spam | close Reply |
Mouse

I've been using Macs since I bought my 128K Mac in 1984 and I've tried a number of different multi-button mice but always come back to that good ol' single button number, and I would be hard put to call myself brain-damaged. If someone prefers other than the Apple buttonless (I prefer that term to single button as there hasn't been a button per-se in years) that's fine, but if other than the buttonless is to accompany the Mac, how many buttons and/or gizmos should it have -- two buttons, three buttons, five buttons, with or without scrolling device, ad nauseum. I've posted before that it was back in the eighties that some company, name long lost to me, decided the ideal mouse would have a separate button for each of the principal spreadsheet functions. This monstrosity had something like a dozen and using it, I assume, was approaching sliding a keyboard around. Needless to say the thing was a complete flop.

Gee4orce
Professional Poster

Joined: Dec 2000

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05/25, 09:36am | report spam | close Reply |
After Effects

That comparison test was performed with Adobe After Effects and Cinibench. What I'd really like to see is a real-work productivity test using Apple's Final Cut Studio versus the PC equivalent. I'm sure the Mac would race ahead on that test.

testudo
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Joined: Aug 2001

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05/25, 09:43am | report spam | close Reply |
Re: mice

I have to agree. A mouse is useless if it doesn't have at least six buttons on it, can track in 3 dimensions, and has the ability to move where I want it to move to, not necessarily where I move it to. I think its ridiculous that Apple refuses to see this, and keeps foisting on us users lousy single button mice when we all know that more is better. Six is the minimum that I know that anyone uses. Most have 20-buttons or more. In fact, mine has 64, so that I'm able to do all my typing right from my mouse.

And what I can't believe is all you people whining about the mouse, and how you never use them anymore, and you're not whining over the incredibly compact and lame keyboard apple ships with its computers (which is why I switched to the 64-button mouse, by the way). No real programmability. No real extended keys. All design, little substance!

In fact, its getting so bad I don't even bother unwrapping the power cords that come with macs. I mean, do you see these things? Only three prongs! And NO buttons? WTF is this all about, anyway?

�lbaum
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Joined: Apr 2005

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05/25, 09:49am | report spam | close Reply |
Re: mice

testudo: good one!

ibugv4
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Joined: Jun 2003

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05/25, 09:51am | report spam | close Reply |
re: mice

The keyboard (latest edition) is my favorite of all of apple's designs... if only it wasn't white and showed every single speck of dust and grime. I use a Kensington SlimType at home, and forfeited my USB ports in the keyboard because Media keys for iTunes were more important than USB connectivity. I do use a TRACKBALL at home and at work, I was never a mouse fan... but I admit that I LIKE the one button mouse, and that most folks don't use the extra buttons even if they get a more comfortable mouse to use. Just because a few of you consider the rest of the population, that has no issues with the stock configuration, brain-dead... i think it's more a case of your ego is trying to match that of Steve Jobs, except you are infact not Steve Jobs. So shuddup :P

bauhaus
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Joined: Sep 2003

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05/25, 09:58am | report spam | close Reply |
RE: RAM

Most dual Xeons support 32GB of RAM. 32bit Windows uses the same concept of Physical Address Extension that current versions of Mac OS X use to allow 48bit addressing of RAM (and has done so for years), so the max RAM in a x86 system can go higher than 32GB and is just restricted by slot count and memory controllers. Dual Xeons usually have 8 slots which handle 4GB each. I don't think I've ever seen a current dual Xeon motherboard that can't handle at least 12GB of RAM.

64bit addressing of memory is in 64bit Windows and future versions of Mac OS X will have 64bit addressing.

cognashene
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Joined: Jan 2005

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05/25, 11:24am | report spam | close Reply |
Price?

So after reading the article I thought, well, what's the price of the Dell? So I went to the Dell website and built a computer up with the 3.6 Xeon and added the same specs as the Mac. The total came in over $8000!? (without monitor) Am I missing something? Did I add this up wrong? Is the PC double the price of the Mac for basically the same performance?

aptenergy
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Joined: Jun 2004

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05/25, 11:25am | report spam | close Reply |
not this again

Sigh... assuming a one-button mouse forces program designers to make the program as easy to use as possible, to draw out all the essential functions and place them with easy access since you don't have to right click for anything. Despite how nerdy you think you are, there are tons of people that don't know the true difference between the right and left mouse buttons. And it's amazing how many badly designed Windows programs make the most essential functions difficult to access.

Take Ad-Aware for example. This is pretty much a must-have if you're on a PC. Now what you usually want to do is update your definitions and do a scan. All the other stuff is peripheral. Yet the web update is a little icon on the top right that you have to hover over to see the tooltip (it's not immediately apparent what the globe does) and the "Scan now" button on the left has the same shape as the other buttons (and isn't listed first). And when you finally scan and find stuff to delete, 99% of the time you're going to just remove everything. Yet the items aren't even checked to begin with, and you have to ... wait for it... right-click to find "Select All Objects" - which is one of like 10-20 contextual menu options.

True, these are all minor things because as long as you can read you can get around. But that's the difference between Apple UI design (expose all user functions, simplify common tasks, use drag and drop wherever possible) and Windows UI design (whatever is flashy and looks cool, since every program looks vastly different from the rest). Take a look at the main screen of Ad-Aware, at the top buttons. They're distorted rectangles that don't make them any easier to click on.

Finally, why do they include the one button mouse? First, its ergonomic design makes it easier to use. It's great for older people who have trouble using your six pound Logitech MX1000 ("but it uses a laser!", you scream) and kids, who have no idea what all of the 64 buttons do.

Second, if you do use it, it proves to you how much you can do with a one button mouse in a system designed to be as easy to use as possible. I use a one button mouse on a Mac at work and a two button w/ scroll wheel at home and... yes, I do miss the scroll wheel, but honestly there's little to no difference in the end.

eldarkus
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Joined: Feb 2004

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05/25, 11:26am | report spam | close Reply |
re: mouse

What a lame post Testudo...didnt know you could jump off the Grand f'ing Canyon of Sarcasm with no chute. =P so why not get rid of the cmd & option buttons for more simplicity? maybe move to those half-keyboards for Palm Pilots.

A 2 button mouse should have been shipping years ago. This is not a complex device by any means. no more so, than pushing 2 buttons to get a VCR to record.

southtdi
Dedicated MacNNer

Joined: Aug 2003

0

05/25, 12:20pm | report spam | close Reply |
My thought is.....

All we really want Apple to do in having a two-button mouse is give us the option to decide for ourselves. Yes, I can go buy a multi-button mouse elsewhere but I would like the option of knowning if I wanted to buy one I can have the same athestics as the one buttom mouse that Apple ships. I have no problem with what a persons preferrence is, I just feel that it has come time to at least give the end-user to ability to deicde for themselves.

The biggest point is there are alot of people that just prefer teh single-buttom mouse. To the same token there are many that would prefer a multi-button one. If they offered the multi-button mouse i can be sure that they would sell plenty and make good money on it. To me adding it just makes good business sense to know you can sell something and make a profit.

williamdrover
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Joined: Jan 2005

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05/25, 01:24pm | report spam | close Reply |
Two-button Mouse

I can't play World of Warcraft with a one-button mouse as well as with my teo-button mouse. This is usually the case for all games. It's faster to use a two-button mouse than accessing those same commands by holding option and clicking. A one-button mouse is the only thing I dislike about my MAC... other than the fact that my 4-month-old Imac G5's power supply exploded (as is this case with a lot of other people's) and it has been in the repair shop for over 3 weeks now. THAT is f*** king annoying.

testudo
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Aug 2001

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05/25, 01:25pm | report spam | close Reply |
Re: mouse

so why not get rid of the cmd & option buttons for more simplicity? maybe move to those half-keyboards for Palm Pilots. Because I need MORE buttons, not LESS! RTFP!

A 2 button mouse should have been shipping years ago. This is not a complex device by any means. no more so, than pushing 2 buttons to get a VCR to record.

Well, first off, no one does two-button recording anymore. Second, that was neither the easiest nor obvious of design choices. "OK, so now, to record, I click both the record button AND the play button? But I don't want to play, I just want to record. OK, let me get both hands in here and press them at the same time"

In fact, it has all the ergonomic and multi-hand problems that you all bemoan of a two button mouse. You really need to work on your examples.

Oh, and you all know you can buy a mac with a two-button mouse now, right. Right there on the apple store, there's scores of two, three, four button mice, trackballs, etc. And most of the PC people I know who mock the mac for not having two-button mice never use the mice that came with their PCs. They almost always go out and buy themselves a third-party mouse with more gadgets here, or better feel, or whatever.

And even if Apple came out with a two button mouse, the mac users who do the whining would then still be whining, but now its because its not a three button mouse (X apps tend to make use of three buttons!), or it has no scroll wheel (hey, you guys wanted two buttons, you didn't say anything about a scroll wheel), it lacks broswer buttons for forward/back, it lacks extra programmable buttons, the programmable buttons aren't programmable by application, it gives me carpal tunnel, it makes my palm sweat, etc.

Oh, and you're all whining over a $20 mouse, and you're not whining that Apple doesn't offer potential customers more choice on systems (how about a cheap G5 system without a monitor? how about using a non-lame video card in your consumer products?) or technology (by the time they get to PCI-Express, it'll already be outdated on the PC). No, your whining over something you can change, and change cheaply. Man, you people have no clue.

globewriter
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Joined: Apr 2005

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05/25, 01:52pm | report spam | close Reply |
Never mind the mouse

I have a multibuottoned and scolll wheel equipped mouse and went back to the apple one button mouse simply because it causes less wrist stress...I can say this emphatically..all that lateral clicking is murder on your wrists ( I used my Mac about 18 hours a day). It also looks better but that is another issue and subject to taste. Apple's keyboard, on the other, is bebeath contempt. Despite the lovely wrapping and shiny lucite it is a pain to work with. I haven;t used it on any of the last thee Macs I have bought. The keys have too much travel, feel squishy and make typing an exercise in frustration. Apple should run out to MacAlly ( no affiliation to me) and start stocking the Icekey as the standard keyboard on all Macs. Beautiful layout, virtually no travel, nice scissor action keys and all the media keys included ( including one key that does absolutely nothing ). It also looks nice ( though not, perhaps, as nice as the apple version) and only costs a few bucks.

Really, like a previous poster said, the problem is not the mouse ( which is a matter of preference) but the keyboard which is dreadful and hasn't been improved since the late 1990s.

eldarkus
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Feb 2004

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05/25, 03:58pm | report spam | close Reply |
re: mouse

in reading all the posts, sounds like you're the only one whining, testudo... =)

ecrelin
Junior Member

Joined: Oct 2000

0

05/25, 03:59pm | report spam | close Reply |
system supports it�

it should be available. even though the majority of windoids may not even know how it works if you want people to switch you should at least try to make them comfortable. but lets forget the windoids� to service a zealot infested customer base with the likes of testudo and myself they need to provide both. i am a firm believer of the two button mouse, like my scrollwheel and think one buttoners are trolls, whew� now I'm feelin' better ;) now don't even get me started on keyboards� hee hee

ender
Junior Member

Joined: Mar 1999

0

05/25, 04:58pm | report spam | close Reply |
Re: After Effects

I've been looking for that for a long time. A "total system" review. Take the best Mac hardware & software combo and pit it against the best Windows combo, even if that means using differnt software. As long as you can do similar tasks (editing, compressing, rendering, etc) in both applications, you should be able to make the comparison. It's a pretty safe bet that Affter Effects is far more optimized on Windows than it is for the G5.

So let's see a comparison based on the task being performed, not the software being used to perform it. Tell me what is the best *complete system* to do my work.

klinux
Senior User

Joined: Jul 2002

0

05/25, 07:30pm | report spam | close Reply |
Admit

"I've often commented that the reviewer at Digital Video Editing was biased and unfair. After reading this review, I have to eat my words."

You gotta eat (and admit) more than that. Too many times I see whines of editor/journalist/analyst are unfair blah blah when the news is less than 100% positive. Of course when it's positive, then out comes the "great article!"

There is nothing wrong with admitting that you are an Apple fan - afterall that is why we are all here. However, to pretend that you are somehow neutral and objective and then accuse others of bias and unfair immediately shoots down your own credibility as well.

osxman
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Joined: Apr 2003

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05/25, 07:42pm | report spam | close Reply |
Biased benchmarks?

It looks like the PCs had HD RAIDS installed. Their HD speed was about 130MB/s read/write whereas the Mac had only one HD at only about half the speed of the PCs. This must surely have an impact on the benchmark results?

JEB
Junior Member

Joined: May 2001

0

05/26, 01:53am | report spam | close Reply |
re: testudo / edlarkus

Both of you are trying to do your jobs, I'll agree you're sensitive, hard-workers with the REAL passion; then again, my mouse ROCKS with the added 3GB of ram. You might try that and see if it solves your puzzles

How about offering it some ice cream?

resuna
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Jan 2005

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05/26, 02:39pm | report spam | close Reply |
What mouse?

My Mac didn't come with a mouse at all.

Though I have to admit I was a little wary when I plugged my Microsoft Optical mouse into my Mac mini. If there had been an explosion caused by the mutual annihilation of antiparticles I wouldn't have been completely surprised.

resuna
Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Jan 2005

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05/26, 02:44pm | report spam | close Reply |
OS X and 2 buttons

I have to say that Apple's 2-button mouse support is much better than Windows. I wish they'd get rid of or let me turn off the legacy one-button support completely, so (for example) I don't get manus popping up if I'm a little slow starting to drag a dock icon.

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Review: 2.7GHz Mac, 3.6GHz PC "just about the same"

updated 08:30 am EDT, Wed May 25, 2005

Power Mac G5 review

OK...I'll admit it

why they gotta pick on

Imagine 3 GHz

Mouse

real-world speed

RAM

Mouse

After Effects

Re: mice

Re: mice

re: mice

RE: RAM

Price?

not this again

re: mouse

My thought is.....

Two-button Mouse

Re: mouse

Never mind the mouse

re: mouse

system supports it�

Re: After Effects

Admit

Biased benchmarks?

re: testudo / edlarkus

What mouse?

OS X and 2 buttons

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Review: 2.7GHz Mac, 3.6GHz PC "just about the same"

updated 08:30 am EDT, Wed May 25, 2005

Power Mac G5 review

Related Articles

Recent Articles

OK...I'll admit it

why they gotta pick on

Imagine 3 GHz

Mouse

real-world speed

RAM

Mouse

After Effects

Re: mice

Re: mice

re: mice

RE: RAM

Price?

not this again

re: mouse

My thought is.....

Two-button Mouse

Re: mouse

Never mind the mouse

re: mouse

system supports it�

Re: After Effects

Admit

Biased benchmarks?

re: testudo / edlarkus

What mouse?

OS X and 2 buttons

Login Here

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