I went to brunch in Palo Alto this morning with Rushabh & co. Of course, since I was all the way over in Palo Alto, I had to walk over to the Apple store and drool over a new iMac G5. And let's get one thing straight -- this machine is quite drool-worthy. I mean, it is amazing how Apple has been able to cram so much computer in such a tiny space. Well, I guess next to a laptop it isn't so amazing -- but they are using a desktop processor, desktop RAM, and a desktop HD (3.5") for pete's sake. The action on the screen pivot is quite smooth, and the 20" model is much heavier than I expected. I ran several apps, and tried to flex the CPU. The machine was generating some heat out of the vent in the back, but it didn't seem to be too bad.
One odd thing is that I could also feel heat coming out the front of the machine, through the display. My gut tells me that one of the assumptions made in the design of this machine is that the CPU isn't going to be running at 100% for extended periods of time. I wonder would happen if someone were to run SETI@home on an iMac G5 for an extended period of time. It could shorten the life of the machine, and like that whole IBM 75GXP HD fiasco, it might not be covered by the warranty because the consumer is "using the product in a way for which it wasn't designed". Or, maybe not. I'm just speculating here.
One real that did disappoint me, however, is that the demo iMac that Apple had setup in the store had 512Mb of RAM. Apple only ships the iMac with 256Mb of RAM, which is a little low for MacOS X. I think that one of the reasons why the iMac was so snappy was because of the extra RAM. I haven't use 10.3 on a machine with less than 512Mb, but I bet the performance is pretty terrible, especially in something like Photoshop. I think it is quite misleading of Apple to feature more memory in the demo machines than what they ship -- it makes it much harder to evaluate the true performance of what a customer is actually going to take home. And without going into the "About this Mac" screen (or System Profiler), there is no way to know how much RAM the machine has in it. The cards next to the computer talked about the stock configurations that it ships with, not how it is actually configured in the store.
Shame on you, Apple.
(But of course, I still really want one...)
-Andy.
Posted by andyr at October 11, 2004 12:49 AMApple seems to frequently skimp on RAM. Which in some ways is OK-- they're probably not expecting typical customers to run Photoshop at all. Also, it's cheaper to get RAM elsewhere, so who would really want to buy a fully loaded machine directly from Apple anyway? The less RAM I can get, the better, in my opinion.
With one exception, though.. the standard dual G5 system has a card with 64MB of video RAM, which is pretty shiesty in my opinion, especially if you want to run with multiple monitors as many G5 owners would... I think the lack of video ram is the most obvious bottleneck on a stock dual-G5 system.
Posted by: carl at October 11, 2004 8:27 AMI regularly push my machines to the max 24/7 with distributed processes and other intensive stuff I do. If using the processor counts as "unintended use" I call bullshit on the warrantee.
However, if I'm using it at a flotation device and expecting to do some java development afterwards, I can see Apple or whoever not replacing parts.