05-12-2006, 04:28 PM

I wanted to say a "thank you" to everyone in these forums who took the time to reply to my numerous posts over the past week or so. The information you provided was invaluable. Based on your inputs, yesterday I spent two hours or so at the local Apple store, test driving a Power Mac. I was VERY impressed, and was assisted for nearly the whole time by one of the most knowledgeable sales people I have ever met - this man was a living breathing advertizement for Apple. Mac OS-X just blows me away, and the speed and smoothness of it on the Power Mac were the clincher.

Today I have ordered a shiny new 2.3 GHz dual core Power Mac G5, upgraded to 2.0 GB of RAM. After a lifetime spent on Microsoft operating systems, I am finally going to experience computing the way it was meant to be!

Thanks all. A Happy New Mac Convert.

05-15-2006, 10:35 PM

That sales guy sounds like me...and you sound like one of my recent customers. Haha, anyway...good decision.

05-16-2006, 02:42 AM

Well Congratulations, that is a mighty fine new Mac you just ordered!

Enjoy it and Welcome to the World of Mac

05-16-2006, 09:36 AM

Congrats on your system purchase.

05-16-2006, 05:23 PM

hope you ordered it from the super nice/knowledgable sales man? (unless they don't make commision, then guess it does not matter)

05-18-2006, 10:54 PM

Thanks all. My new Power Mac G5 arrived yesterday. I am posting this article using it, via Safari! Very, very nice machine. Steep learning curve (I have been a Windows and Linux user for a long, long time), but I am getting there! As you all know, these are beautiful machines. I am very impressed... well, with everthing except that Mighty Mouse... I call it the "Mighty Awful" mouse. Went out and got one of those new Logitech wireless Keyboard and Mouse for Mac sets. Very nice, and compliments this new machine marvellously. I would recommend to one and all. Thanks again for all the insights.

05-19-2006, 05:48 PM

congrat on your new computer. That is exact same setup I want to buy this summer.

What kind of pc did you have before the powermac, and how is the performace between the two? Does you powermac seem alot faster than a Pentium 4 3.0 w/ 512 mb of RAM?

btw when are the intel powermacs going to come? What will the g5's drop in price to?

05-19-2006, 06:19 PM

The PM line will go Intel before the end of 2006, that is all we know. There will likely not be a drop in price for the G5 PMs from Apple, they will just disappear from the website one day. You may be able to get a good deal from resellers though...

05-19-2006, 07:02 PM

Before this new machine, I had a custom built single core 3.0 GHz Pentium IV HT with 1 GB of RAM, so this sounds similar to what you have. Relative performance is a mixed bag.

Where it really counts to me, Photoshop and iTunes, performance on this new Mac is anywhere from 1.6x to 2.0x times better. Some things though are nearly the same. For example, Firefox and Thunderbird load in almost the same amount of time on the new machine that they did on my old one. On the other hand, Safari and Mail load like a snap.

I think it all comes down to what I read about code optimization. I hear that to get the real umph out of the G5, the code needs to be optimized in some way. Two famous examples are Photoshop and iTunes. These are apparently heavily optimized for the PPC. Most relative performance reports you look at will show huge gains over Intel for Photoshop, but equal or slower performance in other things. It all depends on the software package.

It was in Photoshop and iTunes that I really found myself wanting more performance, and that is what was feeding my itch for a faster machine... that and the desire to move to Apple. Getting a Power Mac G5 hit all the right buttons and gave me the speed I was looking for.

Final analysis - depends on what you are doing with the machine. Let that be your guide.

05-19-2006, 07:20 PM

can I ask what was the name of the mouse and keyboard u bought?!!

05-19-2006, 09:01 PM

thanks for the help, one last question what made you get the 2.3 over the 2.0?

05-19-2006, 09:06 PM

Or even a Quad?

05-20-2006, 12:32 PM

Wizzkid, the keyboard and mouse were a single set from Logitech, and as I understand it, a really recent (within a few months) market offer. I saw it reviewed in a current issue of Mac Creative. The box is named "Logitech Cordless Desktop S530 Laser for Mac", subtitled "Ultra Flat Cordless Keyboard, Cordless Laser Mouse, Designed for Mac". After using it for a day or two now, I am even more enthusiastic about it. The keyboard has all sorts of special function keys off on each side, like things to start iTunes, iPhoto, Safari and Mail, and of course, all the expected Mac keys, including the magic one that opens/closes the superdrive. The mouse if fabulous. This may be the best mouse I have ever used to date. It has an excellent and very nice feel to it, multiple buttons, a very nice feel to the wheel (and side to side scrolling with it as well) and overall a satisfyingly "solid" feel to it. Very, very nice. I am impressed.

mr_g5, why the 2.3 vs. the 2.0 or the Quad? A combination of the desire for as much performance as I could afford, balanced by ...what I could afford! The 2.3, by definition should be at least 15% faster than the 2.0, and I could afford it, so I went with the higher performance 2.3. As well, it was the 2.3 that I spent about 2 hours testing driving at the Apple store, so I knew EXACTLY what I was geting, performance wise. The 2.0 would have been a bit of unknown entity. Finally, the quads? I would have loved to get one of those, but they were just too rich for my blood. One other consideration was that with two of the PPC dual core chips in them, they would generate a lot more heat internally than the 2.0 and 2.3s, which only have one of the dual core chips. I figured that more heat would make the fans run harder, making the machine noisier, and I am a real fan of silent computing. So that was going through my mind too. I could have S-T-R-E-T-C-H-E-D financially and got the quad, but the thought process about heat and fan noise gave me enough pause to decide to stay with just the dual core ...and of course I like having the extra money still in my back pocket!!

05-20-2006, 01:00 PM

Congrats on the purchase!