Buying a Mac

O

onmoris

New member
This is a question for those who have worked on both PC's and MACs. I am currently using a 2.0 ghz PC with 1 gig RAM. I work with Cubase and use a LOT of VST's and plug-ins. I am considering purchasing a G5 power mac. Should I expect to see a huge difference in computing power? My biggest setback right now is that the number of plugs and VST's I use eats up a ton of computing speed, and "exporting" audio files or converting VST midis into .wav's is extremely time consuming. Will a decent mac help me with those issues?

thanks
 
I'm a recent convert to PC (only due to lack of funds) and haven't used a G5 yet, but my family has a G4 running at a mere 533MHz and it blows the crappy Compaq that I got (700MHz) out of the water. So I'm thinking the G5 will be able to kick the crap out of the PC I have right now (Athlon 3000+)

Either way, you're going to want a lot of RAM, which is essential to plug-ins. The 1 GB that you have should be fine.

Basically, if you have the cash, definately go for it, you won't regret it.
 
onmoris, have you ever used a Mac before?

It's funny how IronFlippy says he's never used a G5 before, but he's recommending one. Fallen for marketing, have we?

"2.0ghz PC with 1 gig RAM versus G5 power mac"
If you were seriously concerned with processing power, there are a ton of things you should consider. For instance, when noting the PC; the type of CPU, bus speed, RAM speed. If you've got a 2.0ghz Celeron that runs at 400mhz FSB, a new 2.0ghz Power Mac G5 would have a FSB of 1ghz... which you can tell is theoretically two and a half times faster. I'm just saying you're being too broad. Likely because you don't know all the details, and that's understandable.

But I'm sick and tired of this whole "Macs are SUPPOSED to be better" gimmick. I'm just going to start telling people to buy it anyway, so the stock will go up. *ch-ching!*
 
noodles,
do you have advice? or are you just going to spout? if we all knew the answers already, there wouldn't be a need for this forum. but enough about me...what's the best way to *get* the details so i can make an informed decision? i don't know all the details of my PC, i got it 3 years ago.

in my control panel it says exactly this:
Intel
Pentium 4 CPU 2.0 Ghz
1.99 Ghz, 1.0 GB RAM

and 2 hard drives, one's a 60 gig and the other's 160 gig. i'm not sure what else i can tell you...
 
onmoris.
i'm a computer engineer.
your not really comparing apples to apples - or should i say pc's.
for example a dual amd opteron PC some folks are reporting 160 tracks or so.
people are reporting also huge track counts with amd 64's.
if your going to compare a dual mac g5 ...it should be compared to a dual amd opteron or xeon. a single processor mac should be compared to an amd 64. (search the back threads on this bbs for teachers posts on his great amd 64 performance and others).
i would recommend if your puffing out you go run tests if you want to stay pc on amd 64 and dual opterons.
an amd 64 upgrade will prolly be around the 500 buck point.
depends how you bargain. or maybe less.
AND DO TESTS ON PLUG IN ?TRACK COUNTS before buying.
do the same tests on a g5 and make your decisions based on real performance tests. THIS IS THE ONLY WAY.
 
These type of questions always bring out the age old debates. To answer your original question- yes a decent Mac will help with those issues.
 
macmoondoggie said:
These type of questions always bring out the age old debates. To answer your original question- yes a decent Mac will help with those issues.
Click to expand...
As will slapping in a new processor, for approximately $2,000 less.
 
onmoris said:
My biggest setback right now is that the number of plugs and VST's I use eats up a ton of computing speed, and "exporting" audio files or converting VST midis into .wav's is extremely time consuming. Will a decent mac help me with those issues?
Click to expand...

I run Digital Performer on a Dual 2.5 G5, and have found exporting audio files to my desktop to be a simple process that requires only a few seconds of my time. What I love about the G5 the most is the simplicity of OSX, managing files and folders, and the expandability options of the tower itself, 3 PCI-X slots for UAD-1 and Powercore cards, etc. Instead of being completely bias towards Mac, I will say this: there are both PC's and Mac's out there that will get the job done for you with the software your working with. You just need to do research on the specs of different systems to find what suits you best.
 
IMO....

since you already have everything you need (computer, software, os etc...) and all you need is more speed/power, you should invest your money ina new motherboard / cpu for your pc. insted of buying a whole new computer (an overpriced one at that... here come the flames) focus your money on a powerful cpu and a mobo that can support it. for example check out AMD's San Andreas or Venice core chips, they are new and will be out soon if they aren't already. As manning suggested, a dual opteron by AMD would rival a mac as well (perhaps better but i'm in no position to predict).

If you are feeling really adventurous, when you got yoru new amd 64 bit cpu, you could try microsofts XP 64 bit version for more performance.

to get more opinions about what the latest and greatest cpu's for PC's and macs are, head to www.anandtech.com

lots of geeks there.
 
elevate said:
As will slapping in a new processor, for approximately $2,000 less.
Click to expand...
I simply answered his original question as it was prefaced by the fact that he was already considering buying a Mac. Not trying to talk him into anything. Use what you will and be happy. :)
 
Don't buy a MAC for speed - a fast AMD64 system will eat it for breakfast and cost you 2/3rds of what the MAC would have set you back.

Buy it if you like the interface.
 
onmoris said:
This is a question for those who have worked on both PC's and MACs. I am currently using a 2.0 ghz PC with 1 gig RAM. I work with Cubase and use a LOT of VST's and plug-ins. I am considering purchasing a G5 power mac. Should I expect to see a huge difference in computing power? My biggest setback right now is that the number of plugs and VST's I use eats up a ton of computing speed, and "exporting" audio files or converting VST midis into .wav's is extremely time consuming. Will a decent mac help me with those issues?

thanks
Click to expand...


Good luck finding an answer. :rolleyes:
 
onmoris said:
This is a question for those who have worked on both PC's and MACs. I am currently using a 2.0 ghz PC with 1 gig RAM. I work with Cubase and use a LOT of VST's and plug-ins. I am considering purchasing a G5 power mac. Should I expect to see a huge difference in computing power? My biggest setback right now is that the number of plugs and VST's I use eats up a ton of computing speed, and "exporting" audio files or converting VST midis into .wav's is extremely time consuming. Will a decent mac help me with those issues?

thanks
Click to expand...

If one of your big concerns is using plugs and dealing with CPU then why not buy a dedicated DSP unit to run plugs?

Also, can't youi "freeze" tracks in Cubase and help free up some CPU?
 
minofifa said:
If you are feeling really adventurous, when you got yoru new amd 64 bit cpu, you could try microsofts XP 64 bit version for more performance.
Click to expand...

That's not going to do any good if the recording software isn't optimized for a 64-bit environment.

onmoris, is it a brand name PC or was it custom built? I think exporting would be faster on a G5, but you could put up a good fight with a well-built PC. Also, what kind of sound card or interface are you using? It may or may not be compatible with Mac.
 
mac 1G processer=pc 2G processer (approx)

a stock g5 is gonna murder most other non-custom built computers on the market.
 
that may be true but its also misleading. most of the computers out there are "grandma's email computer" that obviously don't compare to a mac g5. then agan the g5 is about 5 x as much money. compare the g5 to an AMD system of equal price (i.e. a dual opteron) and things become more level. I won't carry on becuase i really don't know enough about both of them, but there are many at AT who swear by the opteron system. AMD has a new dual core coming out as well which will be a contender.

as you can probably tell, i'm biased toward AMD, i have one and i'll stick by them. I just think they offer more value than a mac cpu solution.
 
everyone hates these 'debates', but for some reason they still keep popping up..

If you spend £1500 on a G5 you will have a beauty, if you spend £1500 on a Pc you will also have a beauty, you can get more or less exactly the same for the price you will be paying. Its all down to the OS and what your used to.

If you have the money to, but whatever your familiar with.
 
noodles,
my PC was custom built. i am using an MBOX setup right now but will most likely upgrade to have more I/O in the next year or so. my sense from *this* thread is that switching to MAC would certainly make my home studio setup a lot more powerful and run smoother...

i have about 2K to spend so i think i might go with it.

any disagreements?
 
You should try to maximize the pc you have now. There are a few things you can do to improve your performance.

Make sure you are not running any non-audio and non-essential applications as they require memory that won't be available to Cubase. There are backround applications(like find fast) that could start doing disk scans in the middle of a session.

Check out your Close program dialog box(Ctl-Alt-Del) to find out what's running. End task on what you don't need, there's nothing there that you can hurt and they'll all return when you reboot.

Make sure you have a multi-client driver that allows different applications shared access to your soundcard.

Use a seperate hard drive ONLY for the audio preferably on a different E-ide or SCSI port from your system disk. You should defrag after every session too.

Hard drives spin at speeds between 5400 rpm - 15000 rpm. The faster the better. Check out the minimal access time or track to track seek time which is how much time it takes the head to move from one cylinder to another. A small seek time is better (8-9 millisecs is good, a smaller number is better).

Also check out the sustained data transfer rate. The peak data transfer rate don't mean much.

If your E-IDE hard drive uses DMA or Ultra DMA technology make sure to enable this in your system configuration to improve it's performance.

You can change some settings on your video diplay to improve your performance. If your using a fast gaming card or a video adapter with TV inputs trash them. There's less chance of a problem with an AGP card.

Remove the screen saver option and just turn your screen off when you don't need it. Reduce your graphic acceleration gradually to see if things improve, if not fully reenable it. Reduce the color display to 16 or even 8 bit and reduce the colors to 256(big drag if you play video games, paint or view photos.)
Remove all the wallpaper images from your desktop.

If all that don't work then get a freakin mac :eek: :D

What I've learned to do is to some sub mixes on large projects and that seems to work real well. G/L
 
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