New G5 Intel Duo

adiemask · Mar 7, 2006

I have just made the swith from Windows to OSX and purchased a G5 intel duo. I was expecting the machine to fly but I am a little dissapointed.....

I am running office for mac and photoshop cs2 but I am not experiencing the speed I was anticipating. I am running the Mac straight from the box with no tweaks, am I missing something, is there anything that I should be doing to experience the promised and anticpated speed?

Please help, I am becoming a little dissapointed!

Thanks

Adiemask

Macman · Mar 7, 2006

the reason these apps are running slowly is that they are not using universal binaries yet, so they run using a ppc emulation called rosetta, and they perform quite slow, these apps specifically I mean. adobe isn't going with universal binaries until CS3 some time in 2007. this is the main cause for your slow performance, if you use an app that implements universal binaries, that machine will fly.
running apps via rosetta is equivalent to running an app in classic(os 9) on a mac running os x.

kaidomac · Mar 7, 2006

Nope, you're not missing anything. Office and Adobe Photoshop are currently not Universal, so they are not running at top speed. If you don't understand what that means, read this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_binary

In a nutshell, older programs (prior to the release of the Intel Macs) were compiled (programmed) for the G4/G5 line of processors. Now that there are Intel chips in Macs, those programs must be recompiled to run on G4/G5/Intel chips. However, in order to make the new Macs compatible with older programs, Apple integrated a piece of software called Rosetta which runs in the background and translates most older programs into a format that the Intel chip can understand. This translation means that you have a performance loss in many programs such as Office and Photoshop CS. You will not enjoy the full performance of a program until you get the recompiled version for the Intel chips. These are labeled as "Universal", "Universal Binary", or "UB", which means that they can run on both old and new Macs at top speed. Office and Photoshop CS are currently not available in Universal formats. Adobe has said they will be releasing a Universal copy of their programs in 2007; I haven't heard a timetable from Micrsoft, but they have committed to providing a Universal version of Office and other apps in the future.

Also, just a FYI: G5 is the previous-generation processor; the Intel Core Duo is the current generation. A "G5 intel duo" doesn't exist

I assume you're talking about an iMac Core Duo.

adiemask · Mar 7, 2006

kaidomac said:
Nope, you're not missing anything. Office and Adobe Photoshop are currently not Universal, so they are not running at top speed. If you don't understand what that means, read this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_binary

In a nutshell, older programs (prior to the release of the Intel Macs) were compiled (programmed) for the G4/G5 line of processors. Now that there are Intel chips in Macs, those programs must be recompiled to run on G4/G5/Intel chips. However, in order to make the new Macs compatible with older programs, Apple integrated a piece of software called Rosetta which runs in the background and translates most older programs into a format that the Intel chip can understand. This translation means that you have a performance loss in many programs such as Office and Photoshop CS. You will not enjoy the full performance of a program until you get the recompiled version for the Intel chips. These are labeled as "Universal", "Universal Binary", or "UB", which means that they can run on both old and new Macs at top speed. Office and Photoshop CS are currently not available in Universal formats. Adobe has said they will be releasing a Universal copy of their programs in 2007; I haven't heard a timetable from Micrsoft, but they have committed to providing a Universal version of Office and other apps in the future.

Also, just a FYI: G5 is the previous-generation processor; the Intel Core Duo is the current generation. A "G5 intel duo" doesn't exist I assume you're talking about an iMac Core Duo.

OK I understand, is there a word processor that is compiled to take advantage and is compatible with office that I can use?

mcsenerd · Mar 7, 2006

How fast does a word processor really need to be?

inflexion · Mar 7, 2006

if you must run a native word processor iWork will surfice your needs

Macman · Mar 7, 2006

I second pages that comes with iwork, there's also textedit that comes with os x, not as powerful as word, but fairly good, I believe that the neo office project is now using universal binaries. here: http://porting.openoffice.org/mac/ooo-osx_downloads.html

PowerBookG4 · Mar 7, 2006

Also, nobody has mentioned this, if you are only running on 512 of ram.. your system will not be as fast as it could be if you added more ram, this is because tiger is actually a huge memory hog.

Meyvn · Mar 7, 2006

For the record, G5 is not the name of the iMac. It's the processor that was in the old ones. So you just have an iMac, not a G5.

xstep · Mar 8, 2006

Macman said:
running apps via rosetta is equivalent to running an app in classic(os 9) on a mac running os x.

Not true. The OS 9 apps run natively under OS X. Apps running in Rosetta are having their executable code converted from PPC to Intel machine language. That is a very expensive process.

Macman · Mar 8, 2006

not so much. while os 9(classic mode) ran natively, the apps required the os 9 emulation to run, unless you think you can run an os 9 app in os x without a classic support installation.

Meyvn · Mar 8, 2006

Having used both Rosetta and the Classic environment personally, I think that Rosetta is definitely a noticeably slower process. However, it's still much, much faster than any other processor emulation technology I've ever used (most notably, VirtualPC).

applepissue · Mar 8, 2006

Yes i noticed that using mac, The memory just got gobbled up.
I dont even run Anti virus or anything other then the stock Apple App.s and CS2 and Word. ( iwill wait for all the universal Apps before i start installing everything)

It shocked my how much memory a Mac uses. I think 1Gig would be the minimum and by the looks of it i will be upgrading RAM.

I know if you have modern PC with 1Gig Ram it has no memory problems (unless you are doing professional work)

I am just using my Imac as a Consumer Computer, 1Gig Ram for should be fine for this but the way this mac gobbles up memory i think 1 Gig is not enough.

Why do they gobble so much?

Tiranis · Mar 8, 2006

Once again because CS2 and Word are not universal. Rosetta requires a lot of RAM to store all the code already translated and as such the requirements for non-Universal apps are higher (the ram usually almost doubles).

Other than that Macs have much better memory management than Windows, at least in my experience.

Macman · Mar 8, 2006

true, rosetta is smoother than other emulations, but the amount of ram required makes it more cumbersome.

Macman · Mar 8, 2006

also, to the OP, The osx86project has a very useful page on their wiki that has a list of many programs that have been ported to run natively on Intel Macs.
here:http://wiki.osx86project.org/wiki/index.php/X86_software#Multimedia

adiemask · Mar 8, 2006

will adding ram significantly improove the speed (I am using 512mb at the moment)

Macman · Mar 8, 2006

adiemask said:
will adding ram significantly improove the speed (I am using 512mb at the moment)

definitely. I recommend OWC , its really the best, another good site is Crucial.com

Macman · Mar 8, 2006

also, don't forget that widgets are hogs on system resources, so having many open will slow things down.

adiemask · Mar 9, 2006

Just to report back; I installed another 512mb of Ram last night and first impressions are that it 'now flies'. My concerns have diminished

New G5 Intel Duo

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