1. the G5 is alot faster.... i don't think it's wrong to say at least twice as fast.... I only compared my 1.5 PB to a 2.5 G5 but i was amazed....

2. noone said a 1.67 G4 would be as fast as a 3.2 intel.... and if they did you're a bit naïve to believe it.... just as the new pro is not 4 times faster than a powerbook

G5 2.5 is twice as fast than your Powerbook 1.5? The old 2.5 dual? (cause the new 2.5 is Quad, right?)

I have heard a lot of people say that Macs are double the speed specified by them compared to the PC clock speed. I don't know if they said it here on this board particularly or not. My friend who's a recording engineer told me that. Of course, Apple store guys tell you that too. I believe the new Macbook should at least be twice as fast.

speed is often relative, and can have effect on several things, i don't own one, but i have heard from several people who running quads and dual 2.5s, yes both that the quad is only really faster in the amount of apps you can run at the same time, and trackcount instances of plugs, but no difference whatsover in startup, launching apps, or loading copying files etc. (finder actions)

but i have similar experiences... i guess it depends which sort of "speed" you are looking for, or what is important to be handled well... for YOU!!!

one small example: usb 2.0 480mbs firefire 400mbs, what a joke in real prax...

OK - I use both so am qualified to answer.

I have recorded up to 10 tracks concurrently on my Powerbook G4 1G/1G using Cubase and the Edirol FA101 (on a firewire 400bus), quite happilly. After 10 mins plus, occasionally you'd get a single-track couple-of-sample disk skip when recording to the internal drive, so I started recording to an external firewire disc on the 800 bus....problem solved.

I can quite happily play back 16-24 track mixes on this system using Waves plugins, maybe 20-30 and 2-3 reverbs, the only time it would get a little hairy is when adding mix bus stereo effects on top.

I run a dual G5 in the studio, the 2G with 2G of RAM I believe and the only time I ever had response problems was with a 72-track mix, running most instruments in groups of 5 with 2-3 plugs on, so figure 30-40 plugins including 3 reverbs, and mastering effects. And all I got then was some slow onscreen response, the audio is steady.

Thats recording to internal serial ATA drives. I use TechTool Pro to maintain the system and always record to a seperate drive from my OS.

My opinion is that the lower rank G5s are more than a match for professional audio. If you are running more than 40-50 plugs on a 24-channel mix you should consider improving your outboard anyway.....

I don't use software synths, samplers or anything like that, its just straight audio. I use the Fireface 800 for capture via Sebs, Millennias and the TMP8.

It sounds like if you are running Reason et al you might have different requirements. I hope this gives you some statistics.

jeemy wrote:

My opinion is that the lower rank G5s are more than a match for professional audio. If you are running more than 40-50 plugs on a 24-channel mix you should consider improving your outboard anyway.....

:D :D :D

jeemy wrote:

It sounds like if you are running Reason et al you might have different requirements. I hope this gives you some statistics.

reason3 is a rediculous CPU hog for what it delivers... a piece of crap. you need a trillion mhz comp to make it doing simple things.