Dual 1.8 G5 vs Single...

O

orionmg

Guest
Hello everyone,

I have a question about single vs dual processor G5s. I will be purchasing a G5 system in the coming month and have narrowed down my decision to either a Single or Dual 1.8 GHz machine. My question is this... I plan to be working primarily in Final Cut Express and I am wondering if having two processors will give me a significant advantage in terms of performance and speed. I'm trying to figure out where my money would be best spent. Given the fact that I will be doing mostly video editing, would I benefit substantially from having 2 processors? Or should I just get a single 1.8 and put more money towards increasing my RAM and maybe getting a higher speed hard drive?

I appreciate any assistance and advice those of you with more experience in this area can provide.

Thanks in advance for your help!

- Mike
 
OP
W

Wapa18

Guest
orionmg said:
Hello everyone,

I have a question about single vs dual processor G5s. I will be purchasing a G5 system in the coming month and have narrowed down my decision to either a Single or Dual 1.8 GHz machine. My question is this... I plan to be working primarily in Final Cut Express and I am wondering if having two processors will give me a significant advantage in terms of performance and speed. I'm trying to figure out where my money would be best spent. Given the fact that I will be doing mostly video editing, would I benefit substantially from having 2 processors? Or should I just get a single 1.8 and put more money towards increasing my RAM and maybe getting a higher speed hard drive?

I appreciate any assistance and advice those of you with more experience in this area can provide.

Thanks in advance for your help!

- Mike



personally, if i were you i'd get the dual processor configuration. you can always get more ram later if you find you need it, but in terms of rendering video, the extra processor will really boost the performance. especially considering the fact that final cut express is now optimized for the G5 and Panther. as for the hard drive, i don't really know how much faster of a drive you could really find, seeing as how all G5's come with serial ATA drives, and they all run at 7200 rpm. if what you're workin with is video, dual processor is the way to go.
 
OP
O

orionmg

Guest
Wapa18 said:
personally, if i were you i'd get the dual processor configuration. you can always get more ram later if you find you need it, but in terms of rendering video, the extra processor will really boost the performance. especially considering the fact that final cut express is now optimized for the G5 and Panther. as for the hard drive, i don't really know how much faster of a drive you could really find, seeing as how all G5's come with serial ATA drives, and they all run at 7200 rpm. if what you're workin with is video, dual processor is the way to go.

Hey there,
Thanks for the reply. So let me see if I am understanding you correctly... you are saying that the operating system and the video editing software are designed to take advantage of having two processors and therefore the workload involved in video processing (like rendering a transition or filter) would be divided among the two G5s. So it's like having two people do a job to get it done in half the time it would take one person, right?

That makes sense. I appreciate the advice!
Thanks very much!

Anybody else have an opinion on this? Don't get me wrong, I appreciate Wapa18's prompt and very informative reply but I'd like to get as many opnions as possible since this is a big purchase for me and I want to make sure I spend my money as wisely as I can.

Thanks again,

- Mike
 
OP
W

Wapa18

Guest
orionmg said:
Hey there,
Thanks for the reply. So let me see if I am understanding you correctly... you are saying that the operating system and the video editing software are designed to take advantage of having two processors and therefore the workload involved in video processing (like rendering a transition or filter) would be divided among the two G5s. So it's like having two people do a job to get it done in half the time it would take one person, right?

That makes sense. I appreciate the advice!
Thanks very much!

- Mike


basically yeah, that's how it works. dual processors macs are very efficient at dividing the work between the two. this is true for my dual processor G4, and it's even more true for the G5 because the G5's system architecture is a LOT faster than the G4. hope that helps your decision.
 
OP
O

orionmg

Guest
Wapa18 said:
basically yeah, that's how it works. dual processors macs are very efficient at dividing the work between the two. this is true for my dual processor G4, and it's even more true for the G5 because the G5's system architecture is a LOT faster than the G4. hope that helps your decision.

Yes, I am definitely leaning back towards the Dual system. Again, I appreciate your advice. I am coming from the PC world (don't all throw tomatoes at me at once!) and a lot of times the dual processor systems really didn't make much difference unless you were doing certain types of tasks. I have always wanted to work with video and PCs just could not get the job done. Then a buddy of mine got a 1.6 G5 since he was having trouble trying to edit video on his PC and once we started working on his Mac we never wanted to go back! Everything I have read agrees with what you have said about Mac architecture truly working efficiently with the OS to yeild excellent performance. And I love the idea of there being Unix under the hood. After years of using Windows I am fed up with Microsoft's unstable operating systems and can't wait to get my Mac!

Thanks,
Mike
 
Joined
Jul 22, 2003
Messages
6,999
Reaction score
187
Points
63
Location
Hamilton College
Your Mac's Specs
20" iMac C2D 2.16ghz, 13" MacBook 2.0ghz, 60gb iPod vid, 1gb nano
I agree with going to the Dual Processor.

the dual processors with panther and Final Cut both being optimized will show a defnite performance boost over the single processor

Dont worry about being from windows a majority of the members on this site (myself included) are switchers
 
OP
O

orionmg

Guest
Wapa18 said:
yep i'm a switcher too. oh, and congrats on the decision to switch!

Thanks everyone, I think I'm pretty convinced I should shoot for the dual procs.

To tell you the truth I've used both Mac and PC for most of my life but primarily PCs because that's what was always in the offices I worked in and that's all I had ever owned. What attracted me to switch now was the fact that the new OS was UNIX based. With the stability of UNIX and the superior user interface that Macinotsh always had, I think the latest generation Apple machines are quite nearly the perfect computer. And when my buddy and I fought with his 1.2 GHz AMD processor based Windows machine trying to edit video and produce a DVD that was the last straw. He went out and got his G5 and it was smooth sailing from then on. I knew I had to have one of my own after that!

I could go on about the day I decided to swtich after seeing what these new Macs could do but that would belong in another area of this forum.

Thanks again for the advice everyone!
 

Shop Amazon


Shop for your Apple, Mac, iPhone and other computer products on Amazon.
We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon and affiliated sites.
Top