G5 Quad report

[TomWaltz]

Since a few people asked about them, I figured I would post my experience with it.

I had been using a Dual 2.0 GHz G5 machine with 1.5 GB of RAM. It's a solid machine, and I cannot complain about it, but for some of the rendering an animation work I do it's a bit slow.

The last major animation I ran was 1440 frames at 1240x600 resolution and averaged about 3 1/4 minutes per frame using Lightworks (I was rendering each frame to JPG for several reasons, and it made a great comparison).

Running the same animation on the Quad 2.5 GHz G5 with 2.5 GB of RAM averaged about 1 minute per frame. HUGE improvement. Checking the Activity Monitor, all 4 processors were engaged (more on that later).

The other thing to note is the 3D window performance. Using OpenGL, the 3D window runs almost exclusively off the video card. The 256 MB NVidia GeForce 6600 is a beast of a video card, and the 3D window ran extremely quickly. It still looks like an old Atari video game, but at least it ran quickly 😉

Section generation was a slight improvement. It's only using one processor, so it was a simple 2.0 to 2.5 GHz comparison, but it was noticeably faster.

I got to thinking about the information of Lightworks being a 3-step process of rebuilding the AC model, converting to LW, then LW processing, with only the last process running multiple processors. As a little experiment, I started a second Archicad session and started it rendering frames as well.

Watching the Activity Monitor with one session, it ran 1 processor for a while, then the other 3 engaged, returned to just 1, then engaged all 4, and cycled like this with each frame. With two sessions, two processors ran heavily at all times, and the LW phase seemed to load balance with whatever else was going on. After two hours, I found that I had about a 20% improvement in number of frames completed over just one process running (295 frames over 250).

I would say if you do a lot of rendering and animation in Archicad, the Quad G5 will be well worth the money. If you are using Archicad for production CDs, the Dual 2.3 processor will be $700 cheaper and almost as fast as the Quad. (don''t forget to add extra RAM to the stock machines!)

I must add that the Apple 23" Cinema screen is the most beautiful monitor I have ever used, and is THE way to work in Archicad!

[Aussie John]

Rick wrote:
btw.. I have delt with "noise" a lot, due to tinnitus. I have a fountain for background noise which also pleasantly helps drown any computer noise. Much nicer than headphones:)

thats too bad and can sympathise due my own hearing damage due to playing music.

[Rick Thompson]

Aussie wrote:

Rick wrote:
btw.. I have delt with "noise" a lot, due to tinnitus. I have a fountain for background noise which also pleasantly helps drown any computer noise. Much nicer than headphones:)

thats too bad and can sympathise due my own hearing damage due to playing music.

John, for what it might be worth, last year I got a pair of ResoundAir hearing aids http://www.resoundair.com/micro/index.htm , which had a major impact on my life.. especially in regards to music. They are remarkable, and they don't block the natural sound, just augment it. The audiologist plugs them into their computer and they have around 20 bands they can raise to adjust matching your hearing loss. I have no sensation of having them on in any way (but I have long hair to hide them). I wish I had known about them earlier, especially before the last major upgrade to my stereo... I could have saved thousands as I can hear so much better.. and I though my hearing was fine:)))

[Aussie John]

thanks Rick- they look good but luckily my hearing is not too bad and cn put it off for a while yet (my father has aids in both ears and was never subjected to loud noise as far as I know)

[Dwight]

That's the steel guitar for you.