My future Mac

I first heard rumors of the PowerMac G5 Quad many months ago. Long before Apple announced it would transition to Intel. Most of the rumor sites were calling a dual-dual. Two dual-core processors.

My current desktop machine is in near total disuse. A 400MHz G4 machine, it was a screamer when I bought it back in 2000. At least compared to my previous Power Macintosh 8500/120. It got me started with early versions of Final Cut Pro, and even today can run Tiger. I occassionally use it on the net, but only very occassionally. Mostly I use my Powerbook, which is much faster than the old desktop. But even it cannot run some of the software I want to use. It won't load Motion, a powerful motion graphics package that's part of the Final Cut Studio I already own. And it won't run Apple's upcoming Aperture, which looks like a tool I can really use for my photography. Furthermore, my Powerbook, as well as the old G4, can only hold 1 GB of RAM. Ha. Only. My first Mac could only hold 1 MB. So it's clearly time for a new Mac.

The Quad sounded like an ideal machine from the get-go. Even before we knew for sure it would happen, just the thought of having four processing cores to crunch through the data for video editing and compositing sounded great. I edit now on my Powerbook, but rendering is slow. And I'm now shooting in HDV, which makes higher demands on the processor. My Powerbook can edit it, but can't play it back full screen cleanly. Any G5 would be better. But I want the ultimate in performance. I also want much more memory. I want to play around with music composition. While I can do that with my current equipment, massive memory allows one to use more virtual instruments. For the unitiated, music apps like Logic Pro contain virtual instruments; synthesizers and samplers in software that can rival and sometimes surpass real synths.

Now that the Quad has been announced and is apparently shipping, we know that it uses faster memory, has a faster bus, uses faster video cards, and all sorts of impressive things like that.

Here's how mine will be configured:

2.5GHz Quad-core PowerPC G5 (the base machine)

8GB of RAM. Could have had 16GB, but the 2GB memory modules are extremely expensive. Going to 16GB would have added $8,000 to the price. Yow.

Two 500GB Serial ATA drives. One should always have video on a separate drive from the OS and applications. This will give me plenty of room.

NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT Graphics card. Adds $350 to the price, but for that you get substantial improvements that will be immediately useful for video editing and motion graphics. Tests show its nearly as good as the top-of-the-line Quadro FX 4500, which would add another $1,300 to the price with very little additional benefit. It's good for gaming, too. I generally don't play graphically-intensive games, but you never know.

I couldn't be more excited about the new machine. The only downside is the waiting. Apple's web store indicates that mine will ship by December 30th. I hope its much sooner. A rumored delay in the GeForce 7800 may be part of the waiting. It wasn't listed as an option on the web store when the Quad first was available to be ordered, although it was touted in the announcements made by Apple. It was added to the store about a week later. It will be worth the wait.

So why am I not waiting for Intel-powered machines? It's the belief of many Apple observers, including myself, that the PowerMac line will be the last to make the transition. That could be as late as 2007. I simply don't want to wait that long, not when there are things I want to be doing that can't be done with my current machines.

Man, do I want this Mac!