G5 Imac?, How will it cope? Options

[bloodychoir]

Does anyone have any idea how the new imac might measure up speed and track capacity wise, using say Logic Express? Would it be a good or a bad decision to buy a g5 imac loaded up to the gills with ram and a 1.8, or a powermac g5? That's considering the fact you then have to buy display etc. with the PM.

[Shredhed]

$0.02:

I have a 3.5 year-old 733 MHz G4 tower w/768 MB RAM, and two 7200 RPM ATA drives.

This was a nicely loaded pro machine when new, and used for two years as a corporate software development box. For the last year and a half it's been my DAW at home.

It can handle 8 concurrent audio and/or software instruments tracks in GarageBand (which is a pig - elegant, productive, and functional, but a pig). I've done 12 audio tracks with Cubase SX, including a number of VST effects and instruments like GrooveAgent. Oh, there's a midrange 20" Dell (don't ask) CRT attached to it too.

The new top-of-the-line G5 iMac represents an order of magnitude better performance than that G4 at a comparitively much lower price (in real dollars vs 2001). Not only does it have far more horsepower, but it comes with a kick-ass 20" widescreen LCD - and wide-aspect is a good thing if you're working with anything (like audio...) in a timeline view.

Now, I could stick a ~1.5 GHz G4 CPU upgrade, new vid card, and faster disks in the G4, but it still wouldn't be anywhere near as powerful as these new iMacs.

I understand the theoretical appeal of the upgradeable towers, but the reality is that a new 20" G5 iMac brings a hell of a lot of power to the table, at a reasonable price, regardless of nitpicking over issues like FSB speed, nVidia vs. ATI, all that stuff.