Speed of the intel Xeon

[Anonymous]

I am curious what others have felt about the speed of working on the Xeon processors. My dual 2.7 G5 is in the shop so I have been working on a borrowed 2 x 2.66 Dual-core Intel Xeon with 1 GB of RAM. In general I am not overly impressed, but figure a lot of the slowness is due to the difference in RAM (3.5 GB versus 1 GB). After hearing the hype at how fast they are I find I am continually waiting on certain aspects. Just wanted to get other opinions from those who have been using a relatively fast G5 and new the Xeon processors. I have been considering getting a Mac Book Pro and abandoning my desktop unit, but I question if this is a good move. If I get a Mac Book Pro, is it possible to sync it with my desktop to keep all files up to date on both computers? Any thoughts on this concept? Thanks for your advice and comments.

[Anonymous]

Mike - I have been doing the MacBookPro laptop thing for the last about eight months with good results. I upgraded the memory in the 17" MBP to 2 GB and resolved a heat issue and all is well. I sync with the server at work and with an external HD at home to keep everything up to date. No problems so far. I even gave my 21" sync master monitor to my son-in-law as I felt it was not as needed as when using my 15" G4 laptop. The graphics are beautiful and I even have win XP working through Parallels. Good for checking ACAD files natively. It's light and the performance on AC 10US is very good.

Lew Bishop, Architect
MBP 2.16 17"/2GB/256vid
AC10US 1010

[__archiben]

Mike wrote:
In general I am not overly impressed, but figure a lot of the slowness is due to the difference in RAM (3.5 GB versus 1 GB). After hearing the hype at how fast they are I find I am continually waiting on certain aspects. Just wanted to get other opinions from those who have been using a relatively fast G5 and new the Xeon processors.

that's strange - i've found them noticeably quicker immediately.

If I get a Mac Book Pro, is it possible to sync it with my desktop to keep all files up to date on both computers?

absolutely. there are a variety of different solutions that can accomplish this - from full-on OSX server to relatively simple finder folder-action scripts that sync certain folders/files when the two are connected.

and with a dotmac subscription you can automatically sync all of your 'personal' settings like bookmarks, contacts, mail settings, keychains, etc . . .

i've been using a MBP since june last year - it's been great, (although it's in the shop for a new PMU at the moment ) . . .

~/archiben

[Aussie John]

Probably silly question but are you using the intel version of the software?

[Anonymous]

Aussie wrote:
Probably silly question but are you using the intel version of the software?

Yes. I honestly think it is a RAM issue and I notice it more when waking from sleep, or switching to an application that has been lying dormant. I can't say Archicad itself is any slower, but I also can't say that it is faster. I wasn't on the fastest G5 ever produced, but it is a dual processor 2.7 Ghz. I did port everything from my G5 hard drive over to the new machine at system setup, but that was the only reasonable way for me to keep working in this temporary mode. I just heard my G5 has been fixed so I pick it up tomorrow. I guess it has just made me question a desktop upgrade at this time, and the text issue on the intel version is enough to keep me away. I hope Graphisoft fixes this bug with a patch in the very near future.

[Brad Elliott]

Check your processes to see if you have an application that is taking extra processor or memory. Especially dashboard programs. I added a couple that I thought would be handy and one of them wanted to use about 50% of my processor even when it was idle. It slowed the transitions down.

Another delay could be if you are running a lot of non universal binary software like photoshop etc. I switched to an iMac and saw quite a pop so you should definetly see one. Having said that you are going from fast to faster so it won't be as obvious.