Dual 2Gig G5 early results

[Paul Goodrich]

Hi all,
I just got my 2 Gig Dual G5 in on Tuesday. Haven't had much a chance to play with it yet. But I will get some benchmarks up at the NYC Lightwave site as soon as I can (next week I'm hoping) I'll post a link when it's done.

Now the info that I care about (as well as most Mac users) is not how it compares to some PC model but how it compares to my present day Mac.

So, Open GL is much better. Modeler is much quicker and I can move and rotate 70,000 poly models smoothly, where my G4-933 would bog and have a delayed response. Now you CAN order this model with the NVidia card from the Apple store. However, that's the only way you can do it, otherwise you get the ATI. Now I haven't seen the ATI bug on this but will also try to test for that next week as well. Layout is quick and on the refresh rate on my reference scene (the Hummer scene). It runs about 4 times faster than my G4 does.

In rendering I've found it to be 4 to 5 times faster than my G4

Raytrace benchmark
G4_933 4m56s
G5_2x2G 63s

Almost 5 times faster.

A friend with a 3.4 GHz PC got 87s on his
computer. Now these are early and I'll try and do the benchmark scenes and list the settings I used as well next week
Paul Goodrich

[mbaldwin]

go Paul, go!


looking forward to receiving a shipped date on my rig...sigh...waiting.

[toby]

What "NYC Lightwave site"? I can't find it - post a link! Post your marks to blanos.com also - sounds great btw, can't wait to replace my dual 450

[Johnny]

Originally posted by Paul Goodrich
Now you CAN order this model with the NVidia card from the Apple store. However, that's the only way you can do it, otherwise you get the ATI.

Just how did you get them to give you the NVidia card?? Did you buy from the physical Apple Store, or the one where you order on the phone?

I tried in my nicest, most persuasive voice to get them to give me the nvidia option and was told "there is no way we can do that, sir."

I fear I'm in for a whole lotta excess stomach acid with that 9800...

Johnny

[toby]

Somewhere I read about a "performance" setting, I think it's in the energy saving control panel/preferences, crank it up! Let us know how it goes, we're on the edge of our seats

[Paul Goodrich]

www.nyclightwave.com

It's the NYC Lightwave users group website. We host the meetings at my studio.
Paul Goodrich

[Paul Goodrich]

Johnny,
I ordered it on the phone direct from Apple. They were fine with it, Even lowered the price somewhat. I would image you can't get it at any store (including the Apple Store) or other mail order.
When Apple delayed my shipment (because of "educational" orders.) I took the advice of my school's computer store (being a teacher at SVA here in NYC myself) and canceled my order with Apple and came in to the store on last Tuesday after teaching my class to tell him to order me one. He pointed at a stack of three in the store and I said "I'll take that one". By the I time left (1/2 hour later) there was only one left.
Paul Goodrich

[Johnny]

Originally posted by Paul Goodrich
Johnny,
I ordered it on the phone direct from Apple. They were fine with it...I took the advice of my school's computer store (being a teacher at SVA here in NYC myself) and canceled my order with Apple and came in to the store on last Tuesday after teaching my class to tell him to order me one.

Huh...do you suppose they did that to sort of make up for the fact that you got bumped by educ. orders?

Hate to keep bringing it up, but the Apple folks on the phone made it sound like there was no way on earth to do it...

(I know that there IS a way on earth..just a matter of asking the right person with the right question..)

J

[Beamtracer]

In case you haven't noticed, there's another thread going about "throttling" a G5 processor...
http://vbulletin.newtek.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=10681
It's worth knowing before doing the benchmark tests.

[Darth Mole]

At first glance that looks to be a predictable speed for the raytrace scene. I get 158.5 with a DP800 (2mins 38.5). So the G5 is exactly 2.5 times faster - which is precisely as you'd expect given an increase from 1.6GHZ TO 4.0GHZ.

So, good, but not outstanding.

I've given up on getting 2Ghz G5 any time soon. I guess it'll turn up when it turns up, and not a moment sooner (despite what the UK Applestore people said).

[Johnny]

Originally posted by Darth Mole
At first glance that looks to be a predictable speed for the raytrace scene. I get 158.5 with a DP800 (2mins 38.5). So the G5 is exactly 2.5 times faster - which is precisely as you'd expect given an increase from 1.6GHZ TO 4.0GHZ.

huh..wonder why your results are less dramatic than Paul's; there have been threads here discussing that LW doesn't seem to gain much benefit from DP Macs over single-processor Macs...

[DaveW]

huh..wonder why your results are less dramatic than Paul's; there have been threads here discussing that LW doesn't seem to gain much benefit from DP Macs over single-processor Macs...

LW definately sees a speed increase from multiple processors on a Mac. You just have to set the threads to more than 1 in the render options.

[Johnny]

Originally posted by DaveW


LW definately sees a speed increase from multiple processors on a Mac. You just have to set the threads to more than 1 in the render options. [/B]

OK...then, Paul's Dual 800, which isn't really that much less in Mhz than a 933, is about 1/5 as fast as his Dual G5, yet Darth is reporting that the G5 is only 2.5 times faster than his single 933...

I know that these aren't really scientific bench marks..maybe there's something missing? RAM..different test file?

J

[js33]

You have it backwards Johnny. Darth has a DP800 and Paul has a Single 933 and the Dual G5. So Paul is saying his Dual G5 is 4 to 5 times faster than his Single 933 and Darth is saying the DPG5 is 2.5 times faster than his DP800 which sounds about right.

Cheers,
JS

[Johnny]

whoops...yeah..right..

sorry!

J

[Beamtracer]

Originally posted by DaveW
LW definately sees a speed increase from multiple processors on a Mac. You just have to set the threads to more than 1 in the render options. [/B]For some Lightwave functions a dual processor machine is faster, other Lightwave functions it isn't. It's especially the case with plug-ins that aren't multithreaded.

Also, even if the application was completely multithreaded, a dual 2GHz machine doesn't equal a single 4GHz machine. It's never 2x as there's always some overhead involved in dual processing.

[mlinde]

Originally posted by Beamtracer
For some Lightwave functions a dual processor machine is faster, other Lightwave functions it isn't. It's especially the case with plug-ins that aren't multithreaded.

Also, even if the application was completely multithreaded, a dual 2GHz machine doesn't equal a single 4GHz machine. It's never 2x as there's always some overhead involved in dual processing.

If I remember my UNIX core information, the overhead mentioned is very low in a UNIX box compared to other systems. It has something to do with how the kernel accesses the processors and manages them. OS X is capable of doling out tasks to each processor independently, so a dual processor machine may respond snappier than a single processor because of this. Theoretically (but of course it depends on the application and how it deals with the system) every application gains from this dual-processor management, at least slightly. Applications or tasks that can access multiple processing threads directly will benefit more than others that can't.

[toby]

unfortunately that didn't seem to increase our dp speeds going from OS9 to OSX -

[Johnny]

True...X is more capable, but 9 DEFINITELY feels (and is) faster..

but, based on reports in this thread, can we reasonably conclude that the G5 is what we hoped?

Not enough information?

J

[toby]

Before I knew about the G5 I was considering a dual 2.4ghz pc, but the G5 is more than 4 times faster than my dual 450, very similar to a dual 3ghz xeon - it's more than fast enough for me.

What kind of timeline can we expect for a 2.5 or 3ghz G5?

[Jimzip]

Well. Given the time it usually takes for Apple to release another system, I'm guessing late first quarter next year. Pure speculation on my part though.
I bought a dual 1.25 GHz G4 at the end of last year. By March this year (or was it earlier? Whatever, it was a few months), there was the dual 1.4 GHz.
It shoudn't be long. I guess my next upgrade will be the G6... >Sigh<


Jimzip :D

[toby]

I guess my next upgrade will be the G6... >Sigh<

ooohhh, I feel for ya.

but if you sell it now you won't lose as much :D

[Johnny]

..or you could just keep it, get the Dual 2, and end up with a nice mini render farm, eh?

[foghat]

well I have just jumped back to the mac side, just received today :) my g5 1.6 with 512 ram. Solid and what a beaut!!!

Will post render test results later tonight. Will post compared to a 2.2 P4.

Hoping LW plays better than it did on my G4 733.

[Johnny]

do you have plans to boost that RAM?

J

[wizlon]

Some more benches.

Looks good.

http://macrumors.com/

'The normalized score for the PowerMac G5 2.0GHz comes to 547, which gives it the highest (best) score out of all the other computers in the list, beating out a dual 3GHz Xeon (overclocked).'

[foghat]

Well here are the first test results using the tracer radiosity scene.

P4 10.38 using 1gb RDDram
G5 14.1 using 512 DDR

Modeller is definitely more responsive than my G4, but high poly subpatched models do bog down. Any ideas on video card adjustments...heck I dont even know where to look.

Does having less ram in the G5 skew the result?

[luka]

is that in seconds because I had a look at Blanos.com and the fastest time for the tracer radiosity scene was a P4Xeon 2800 with a score of 201sec:confused:

[foghat]

no those are min/sec times.