Powerful Mac G4?

Kjv1993

Kjv1993

Busking a Subway Near You
Hello, I am currently getting a studio together and for varous reasons I have decided to go mac. I am usually a PC guy, so I know little about macs. Basicly I have about 400$ twards the Mac and saw some decent ones on eBay with specs around:

dual core 1.5 GHZ CPU
2 GB Ram
HD dosnt matter cause Ill use an external

At first Ill be using garage band but eventually will be using protools. Will these specs be enough to record and use midi through protools and garage band?
 
I think it will be powerfull enough, but what you'll need to worry about is if your software will run on it.


Also there are some dual G5 machines on ebay for under $400.
 
I've been using a 1.25 Dually G4 with 2gb memory and it does fine with older software--Tracktion 2, Reason 2, etc. Basically any software that's as old as the computer runs fine, which could be a plus if you can find the software.

The main drawback with the G4's is the 2gb memory limit--I'm sure mine would run a lot better with 4gb, but everything I've read said this isn't possible.

If you can find a G5 for a good price, you'd at least be able to use more RAM even though it's a dead end platform, too (somebody needs to clue the delusional CList sellers about that:rolleyes:).
 
G5's are a waste of money. They run very hot which means the fans are on all the time and are EXTREMELY noisy - not what you want for a DAW.

The $599 Mac Mini has more horsepower than any G5 ever did.

A used CoreDuo Mini can be found for $350-400.
 
Ive decided to look more twards the G5 now, and it would be in a seperate room from my recording and mixing room, so noise isnt a problem.
But will a decent 2.0 ghz with 4 gigs+ of ram be able to run Protools?
 
I copied this from the ProTools website. This is the system requirements for ProTools8.


Platform: Digidesign-qualified computers running Windows Vista (32-bit), Windows XP SP2, or Mac OS X 10.5.5 or higher (PowerPC- or Intel-based Mac)
Hardware/Software: Pro Tools|HD® or Digidesign® ICON system
System Memory: 1 GB RAM minimum, 2 GB or more recommended for best performance
Available USB port for iLok USB Smart Key (plus, Internet access and a free iLok.com account for authorization)
 
dastrick said:
I copied this from the ProTools website. This is the system requirements for ProTools8.


Platform: Digidesign-qualified computers running Windows Vista (32-bit), Windows XP SP2, or Mac OS X 10.5.5 or higher (PowerPC- or Intel-based Mac)
Hardware/Software: Pro Tools|HD® or Digidesign® ICON system
System Memory: 1 GB RAM minimum, 2 GB or more recommended for best performance
Available USB port for iLok USB Smart Key (plus, Internet access and a free iLok.com account for authorization)
Click to expand...

http://www.digidesign.com/index.cfm?navid=54&itemid=39673

September 10, 2009

The newly released Pro Tools 8.0.1 software will be the last version of Pro Tools to support PowerPC-based Macintosh computers. Future versions of Pro Tools software will no longer be compatible with PowerPC-based Macintosh machines. However, Pro Tools 8.0.1 will continue to be made available in its current form to Avid customers who are still using PowerPC Macs for the foreseeable future. Additionally, product and support documentation will continue to be maintained on the Pro Tools Support site at www.digidesign.com/support.

The company will continue to monitor the performance of 8.0.1 after its release and may offer CS software updates if necessary.​

Like I said, waste of money...
 
brzilian said:
G5's are a waste of money. They run very hot which means the fans are on all the time and are EXTREMELY noisy - not what you want for a DAW.

The $599 Mac Mini has more horsepower than any G5 ever did.
Click to expand...

There are good reasons to buy an Intel-based Mac---fan noise (mostly the graphics cards, really), support, age---but it's disingenuous to suggest that the G5 can't keep up in terms of performance. In fact, the reverse is actually true if you're talking about audio.

For end user stuff, yeah, the Intel chips are a lot faster. And for laptops, where you couldn't get anything above a G4 before, again, it's a no-brainer. Not for audio. The quad G5 was king until relatively recently, and is still a damn good audio workstation.

The problem with your statement is that most audio computation consists of floating point math. Intel floating point performance is abysmal when compared with the G5. The floating point performance of a quad 2.5 GHz G5 is almost as fast as the current EIGHT core Mac Pro. Adjusted for clock speed, they're about the same. That means that for every one G5 core, you need two Intel Core 2 cores at a similar clock speed to get the same floating point performance.

Put another way, in terms of floating point performance, only the single-core G5s are slower than the $599 Mac Mini, and even then, not by much....

I'm not saying I'd buy a used G5 over a new Mac. The number of companies dropping support makes that a bit problematic. However, you shouldn't be so quick to rule it out as a possibility.
 
Would you buy an Amiga???

Non-intel Macs are antiques and a lot of software - including current OS's- will NOT run on them.

You're painting yourself into a very narrow corner.
 
dgatwood said:
The problem with your statement is that most audio computation consists of floating point math. Intel floating point performance is abysmal when compared with the G5. The floating point performance of a quad 2.5 GHz G5 is almost as fast as the current EIGHT core Mac Pro. Adjusted for clock speed, they're about the same. That means that for every one G5 core, you need two Intel Core 2 cores at a similar clock speed to get the same floating point performance.
Click to expand...

I'd like to see a head to head from DAWBench or someone. In terms of track and plugin count, I'm betting on the quad intel
 
dgatwood said:
There are good reasons to buy an Intel-based Mac---fan noise (mostly the graphics cards, really), support, age---but it's disingenuous to suggest that the G5 can't keep up in terms of performance. In fact, the reverse is actually true if you're talking about audio.

For end user stuff, yeah, the Intel chips are a lot faster. And for laptops, where you couldn't get anything above a G4 before, again, it's a no-brainer. Not for audio. The quad G5 was king until relatively recently, and is still a damn good audio workstation.

The problem with your statement is that most audio computation consists of floating point math. Intel floating point performance is abysmal when compared with the G5. The floating point performance of a quad 2.5 GHz G5 is almost as fast as the current EIGHT core Mac Pro. Adjusted for clock speed, they're about the same. That means that for every one G5 core, you need two Intel Core 2 cores at a similar clock speed to get the same floating point performance.

Put another way, in terms of floating point performance, only the single-core G5s are slower than the $599 Mac Mini, and even then, not by much....

I'm not saying I'd buy a used G5 over a new Mac. The number of companies dropping support makes that a bit problematic. However, you shouldn't be so quick to rule it out as a possibility.
Click to expand...

I'd bet money that a current $599 Mini with Snow Leopard will run circles around ANY Quad G5 once DAW apps start making use of OpenCL (which will be sooner than later):

http://www.apple.com/macosx/technology/#opencl

So, again, I stand by my statement - buying a G5 Mac in 2009 is a waste of money
 
So then what do you suggest i buy for my budget that will be useable for at least 4 years of protools?
 
brzilian said:
I'd bet money that a current $599 Mini with Snow Leopard will run circles around ANY Quad G5 once DAW apps start making use of OpenCL (which will be sooner than later):

http://www.apple.com/macosx/technology/#opencl
Click to expand...

OpenCL is a cool technology in principle. In practice, the GPUs currently on the market just aren't well suited ti OpenCL, and the compiler technology behind it is still in its infancy. If you want the GPU to outperform the CPU, you basically have to hand optimize separate kernels for each brand of GPU. This will no doubt improve as the compiler technology improves and as the GPUs start to approach each other in terms of the way they do things, of course.

In short, I'd bet good money that you won't see OpenCL support in audio plug-ins for several years. My guess is they'll be rolling out support in significant numbers by about the time 10.8 comes out, or perhaps 10.9.
 
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pipelineaudio said:
I'd like to see a head to head from DAWBench or someone. In terms of track and plugin count, I'm betting on the quad intel
Click to expand...

I'd probably go into cardiac arrest from shock if you were right, particularly given that you're talking about a 5400 laptop HD compared with a 7200 RPM desktop HD, both of which are SATA. That alone puts the Mini at a rather serious disadvantage in terms of the seek performance. The continuous performance of the two drives is almost identical, but the burst performance of the G5's drive is about twice as fast.
 
brzilian said:
http://www.digidesign.com/index.cfm?navid=54&itemid=39673

September 10, 2009

The newly released Pro Tools 8.0.1 software will be the last version of Pro Tools to support PowerPC-based Macintosh computers. Future versions of Pro Tools software will no longer be compatible with PowerPC-based Macintosh machines. However, Pro Tools 8.0.1 will continue to be made available in its current form to Avid customers who are still using PowerPC Macs for the foreseeable future. Additionally, product and support documentation will continue to be maintained on the Pro Tools Support site at www.digidesign.com/support.

The company will continue to monitor the performance of 8.0.1 after its release and may offer CS software updates if necessary.​

Like I said, waste of money...
Click to expand...

Is that for the actual protools that cost thousands of sollars or protools M powered cause im going to be getting m powered.
 
dgatwood said:
I'd probably go into cardiac arrest from shock if you were right, particularly given that you're talking about a 5400 laptop HD compared with a 7200 RPM desktop HD, both of which are SATA. That alone puts the Mini at a rather serious disadvantage in terms of the seek performance. The continuous performance of the two drives is almost identical, but the burst performance of the G5's drive is about twice as fast.
Click to expand...

...cause its so hard to swap out HDs???:confused:
 
ok so since the G5 is out of the picture since the new Mac OS wont even be able to run on it, should I get a mac mini? Would one (used) for 400$ have enough power to run protools for at least another 4-5 years? What specs should I look for? Thanks alot BTW
 
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