Round two: Apples October 19th Event

[BFG]

My god, thats the top end workstation graphics card!!!

Quadro FX 4500   

Memory Size                           512MB
Memory Interface                     256-bit
Graphics Memory Bandwidth       33.6GB/sec.
Graphics Bus                         PCI Express


The NVIDIA Quadro®  set a new bar for workstation graphics, shattering the limits of performance, programmability, precision, and quality for professional CAD, DCC, and scientific applications. The NVIDIA Quadro ultra-high end GPUs feature a revolutionary new architecture with 2x the geometry and fill rate, 5x the hardware pixel read-back performance and 1.25x the memory bandwidth of previous generation workstation graphics, and support up to 512MB ultra-fast GDDR3 memory. Implementation of rotated-grid FSAA introduces far greater sophistication in the multi-sampling pattern, significantly increasing color accuracy and the visual quality of edges and lines without compromising performance.

holy crap, a quick seach and this card is currently for sale for aproximatly $2479.00

[Civrock]

lol, it'll probably be available as BTO-option, boosting the price to over $5000.

Btw, Aperture will be available from November for $479.

Apple Stores are back online.


Update: You can add the Quadro FX4500 for 1650$, lol.

[BFG]

they're sure taking their time updating the rest of the site...

[theweakspot]

any announcement on GhR3  

[Civrock]

Since when does Apple announce games, eh? Stupid mexican.


On-Topic: Upgrading the RAM to 16GB as BTO-option is $11900. w00t, Monster-Macs! Recent high-end 512mb graphics card... 16GB RAM...

On a more serious note, I'm sure that Macs will be compatible to all kinds of PC hardware (and maybe Software also) once we have Intel-Macs. Graphics cards etc... maybe only slight driver updates, which would be easy because of x86, but we won't need special versions anymore with long delays after the PC versions got released. Can't wait, Macs are gonna pwn!

[Ethion]

GhR3 is probably gonna be more of a X360 title, although we might see it on a computer soon, although it's been delayed to next year

A Swedish company is developing it ^^ (not DICE)

[Civrock]

GhR3 is probably gonna be more of a X360 title, although we might see it on a computer soon, although it's been delayed to next year

A Swedish company is developing it ^^ (not DICE)

Not by much, though, it was announced for the end of this year for PC but has now been delayed to February 2006 for all platforms (including XBox 360 and PC).


http://www.apple.com/powermac/
http://www.apple.com/aperture/
http://www.apple.com/powerbook/

[*DAMN Mauti]

Finally the PowerMac comes with quite decent graphics card. Btw did you notice that on some news coverage pages it was mentioned that 4 new graphic cards are available. However they aren't on the PowerMac site, but you can find a NVidia 7800 on the Aperture site(but the 6600 is left out - some bugs!???):

One of the following graphics cards:
ATI Radeon X800 XT Mac Edition
ATI Radeon 9800 XT or 9800 Pro
NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra DDL or 6800 GT DDL
NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT <- !!!!
NVIDIA Quadro FX 4500

[theweakspot]

omg, i was kidding about the GhR3, thing!

The new line of macs looks so so sexy cant wait for intel based macs... a land where mac users are no longer second class citizens.

[BFG]

You mean you guys are still going to wait for Intel macs?   No way baby can i wait that long - Im still on a DP 1Ghz G4... moving to a single 2.7Ghz G5 would be a big jump, but im going to send myself into orbit and get the daddy!

ps, i don't expect the first Gen. of intel macs to be awesome, maybe by the second year etc when intel really ramp the processors up - but you still have to have the application support from the big boys ready... anway what are we missing here - we have everything we could want!

[Civrock]

Finally the PowerMac comes with quite decent graphics card. Btw did you notice that on some news coverage pages it was mentioned that 4 new graphic cards are available. However they aren't on the PowerMac site, but you can find a NVidia 7800 on the Aperture site(but the 6600 is left out - some bugs!???):

One of the following graphics cards:
ATI Radeon X800 XT Mac Edition
ATI Radeon 9800 XT or 9800 Pro
NVIDIA GeForce 6800 Ultra DDL or 6800 GT DDL
NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT <- !!!!
NVIDIA Quadro FX 4500

Yeah, the 7800 GT doesn't appear in the Apple Stores as BTO option yet. Only the 6600 LE and the Quadro FX4500 for the 2Ghz modell, the 6600 and the Quadro FX4500 for the 2.3Ghz and the 2.5Ghz modells.
It's probably not all updated and synchronized yet. Should be fixed by tomorrow.

[BTs_GhostSniper]

I guess it's time I upgraded my Single-1.8GHz G5 to the Quad Setup.  I'm also on the phone with Apple to see if they'll take back my 17" PowerBook in exchange for the new one with the better display.

[BFG]

Specifications

1GB 533 DDR2 Non ECC SDRAM - 2x512MB
500GB Serial ATA - 7200rpm
NVIDIA GeForce 6600 256MB SDRAM
Apple Keyboard & Mighty Mouse
Mac OS X
• One FireWire 800 port
• Two FireWire 400 ports
• Three USB 2.0 ports

£2500 (including VAT)

And suddenly im having serious doubts as to whether i should do this... long long did we reckon before the intel powermacs came out?

heh, it would cost an additional £1,150 for the Quadro FX card lol, Thats more than a iMac!


---

lol i just maxed everything out

Specifications

16GB 533 DDR2 ECC SDRAM - 8x2GB
2x500GB Serial ATA - 7200rpm
Apple Cinema HD Display (30" flat panel)
Apple Cinema HD Display (30" LCD)
QUADRO FX 4500 512MB SDRAM
Fibre Channel PCI Express Card (w/SFP-SFP cable)
AirPort Extreme + Bluetooth
Apple Keyboard & Mighty Mouse
Mac OS X
• One FireWire 800 port
• Two FireWire 400 ports
• Three USB 2.0 ports

Total: £16,436.01
£2,447.92 of that total is just the VAT 


-- Btw, GS if you really do get one of these things i want a full in-depth analysis

[Civrock]

You mean you guys are still going to wait for Intel macs?   No way baby can i wait that long - Im still on a DP 1Ghz G4... moving to a single 2.7Ghz G5 would be a big jump, but im going to send myself into orbit and get the daddy!

Well, I have a Dual 2.3Ghz G5 with 3.75GB RAM and ATi X800XT... so I don't really have a need to spend this much money for a new Mac yet. The next Mac I'll buy is an Intel-Mac, if the 1st generation already, depends on what it offers and how the overall hardware/software situation by that time is. We'll see, but it'll be a 2nd gen Intel-Mac for sure at the latest for me.

[*DAMN Mauti]

BFG the Quadro isn't meant for gaming - the normal 7800 is almost as good in gaming as the quadro is. I guess the quadro pays off in 3D modelling if at all.

http://www.apple.com/powermac/graphics.html

[Civrock]

Yep, the Quadro FX4500 isn't MUCH better as some benchmark pictures on the Apple website show, but it's mainly the features it offers you pay so much more for (like "stereo-in-a-window"). The 7800 GT is only about $380 as retail graphics card, compared to the $1650+ of the Quadro.

[BFG]

yeah there is no way id go buy the quadro - and gaming isn't the priority here - its Rendering in Apple Motion / AfterEffects - and rendering/playback in FCP   .. gaming comes after those.

I just want to make sure that four years down the line this computer is still going to do what i need it to without apple screwing things around and really pushing people to move to intel macs... and then again i don't want to spend this amount of money on somthing that is going to be shot to pieces by a first gen intel.  (although really what can they add to this that is going to make a really huge difference, this thing has 4 bloody processing units!!)

[Civrock]

Alright... thanks to Ethion who found first pics and benchmarks to the today released Dual-Core Powermacs (unfortunately not the Quad-Core, but it's not available yet) and pics of the new 17" PowerBook.

http://www.civic-mac.de/stuff/New%20Power%20Macintosh%20G5%202.3%20DualCore.pdf (Xbench 2.1 Benchmark Results for: Dual-Core 2.3Ghz G5, Dual-Core 2.0Ghz G5 and the old Dual 2.5Ghz G5)

http://www.civic-mac.de/stuff/New%20Powerbook%20G4%2017%22.pdf (Pictures of the new 17" PowerBook)

I was curious and just made a benchmark of my Dual 2.3Ghz G5 (3.75GB RAM, ATi X800XT, etc) with Xbench 2.1. Properly after a reboot, of course, and I'm including the results to the benchmarks from the first PDF file:

CPU Test:
2.3 Dualcore: 114,32
2.0 Dualcore: 101,55
2.5 Dual: 122,25
2.3 Dual: 113.87

Thread test:
2.3 Dualcore: 113,74
2.0 Dualcore: 96,91
2.5 Dual: 125,90
2.3 Dual: 116.08

Memory test:
2.3 Dualcore: 121,99
2.0 Dualcore: 110,32
2.5 Dual: 103,73
2.3 Dual: 101.39

Quartz graphics:
2.3 Dualcore: 126,64
2.0 Dualcore: 107,07
2.5 Dual: 125,76
2.3 Dual: 121.97

Open GL:
2.3 Dualcore: 135,38
2.0 Dualcore: 113,27
2.5 Dual: 125,63
2.3 Dual: 142.20

User Interface:
2.3 Dualcore: 121,58
2.0 Dualcore: 118,98
2.5 Dual: 99,94
2.3 Dual: 103.25

Disk Test:
2.3 Dualcore: 66,0
2.0 Dualcore: -
2.5 Dual: 69,3
2.3 Dual: 54.19

TOTAL:
2.3 Dualcore: 108,7
2.0 Dualcore: 102.5
2.5 Dual: 105,9
2.3 Dual: 99.11

Note: The Dual-Core G5 2.0Ghz uses the Nvidia GeForce 6600 LE (128MB) and the Dual-Core with 2.3Ghz uses the 6600 (256MB). Also, both only have the standard 512MB RAM. I guess that the Dual 2.5 uses an ATi Radeon 9650 with 256MB RAM and 512MB RAM also.

[Civrock]

yeah there is no way id go buy the quadro - and gaming isn't the priority here - its Rendering in Apple Motion / AfterEffects - and rendering/playback in FCP   .. gaming comes after those.

 

[BFG]

And for Anyone who rather likes the English language

As you can see the 2.3 GHz Dual Core machine is marginally faster than a water-cooled 2.5GHz Dual G5 with a souped-up graphics card. The largest difference is in memory performance, not in the actual processors according to our tests with Xbench. We want to point out that this testing method isn't completely failsafe but should mostly be seen as a hint of the new machine's performance.

Conclusion
The Power Macintosh G5 is better than ever and this is likely the last major update that we will see before the transition to Intel- processors. Apple has polished the details and the new processors gives some extra power. Because the exterior is largely exchanged this feels more like a "speedbump" even if the processor-switch is more significant than that.

Performance-wise, one Dual Core processor doesn't make for a large difference compared to two old G5 processors. We predict that the new Quad 2.5GHz Powermac will make for a performance increase of 70% or more.