Anand is using an dual Apple G5

[adamp2p]

I thought you guys might like this, be it that Anand has always been PC: Here is his blog: http://www.anandtech.com/weblog/index.html

Now I know I said I didn't want to start the Mac-experience blog until after I got back from NY...but my flight was just delayed by 2.5 hours and I was bored beyond belief. So I found free wireless in a cyber-cafe at RDU and started typing away. There's going to be very little structure to these blogs, but I will have a full (structured) article at the end of the period so if you don't like the style of these things just wait until then.

I actually ordered a Powermac G5 2000 before I made the pull-the-trigger post; the system arrived on Friday. I didn't go for a Powerbook simply because they are entirely too heavy for my tastes. Up until my latest notebook I was using a ~3lbs Thinkpad X31, and now I'm at 1.7lbs with the Sony X505 - even the 12" Powerbook felt like a dense brick to me. At the same time, this machine was to replace my main work computer - what I write all the articles on, manage emails with, etc... so a desktop made more sense. I agree that the PowerBooks are nicely made machines, but I've been a thin-and-light advocate for quite a while now and I'm not interested in lugging something that heavy around. Some are, I'm not.

You can find the full specs of the G5 2000 here; basically it's got dual 64-bit G5 CPUs running at 2GHz (the North Bridge uses a point-to-point bus so each chip gets their own 1GHz 64-bit FSB connection), 512MB of CAS3 DDR400 memory (2 x 256MB - it's a dual channel memory controller) and a 160GB SATA hard drive. The system ships with a Radeon 9600 by default, I may give ATI a call and see if they can send over a Mac version of the Radeon 9800 Pro once I get into the gaming tests. The damage on Apple's top of the line system? $2999. Luckily, with a student discount it's down to $2699. But there's no getting around the fact that this is one expensive system.

In the usual Apple style, the fit and finish of the packaging is superb - but for a ~$3K computer these days you'd expect that. I didn't bother with the default mouse; I've used it before, yes it only has one button, yes I can use the same Microsoft Optical Mouse I used on my old desktop with no problems (and all the buttons will work). The one-button argument against Macs isn't something I'm going to get into; it's entirely an avoidable issue now. Steve Jobs is particularly passionate about keeping the one-button mouse so I wouldn't expect that to change anytime soon (remind me to share the story about the famous game developer who challenged Jobs on the mouse issue). My solution to the problem: just don't use the mouse. I don't anticipate any power users would be able to function with only one button, and there's no way a hardcore gamer would touch it. The Apple optical mouse itself isn't all that great either, I prefer the Logitec and Microsoft solutions byfar.

I was already running dual Cinema displays on my desktop, so I was finally able to strip off one of the ADC to DVI converters and go native with the G5 system. ADC is Apple's digital video interface standard that essentially combines all the signaling for video, USB and power in one cable. There's no plugging your monitor into a wall, just a single cable that runs to the system. Unfortunately for Apple, not all monitors are ADC and in order to support the vast majority of "PC" displays all new video cards come with one ADC and one DVI port. An ADC-to-DVI converter is about $100, so dual cinema display users are penalized a bit. I haven't hooked up the second display just yet, I'm taking it one step at a time.

The system is fairly quiet; the fans are variable speed and there are times when they will spin up and start making a decent amount of noise. If you factor in the "loud" mode, the system isn't as quiet as a Dell - but a good percentage of the time it is silent.

I approached this project with an open mind, and I think that's absolutely key to being able to fairly evaluate the Mac platform. I've read up a lot on the OS and the hardware over the past several days so I knew a bit of what to expect.

The first thing I noticed as soon as I was dropped into the OS was how extremely slow the mouse speed and keyboard repetition rates were set to - those were the very first things I changed. The dock at the bottom of the screen (think of it like Apple's taskbar equivalent, but it's a little different) had icons that were way too big - making them smaller wasn't difficult at all. My only other complaint was that the desktop icons are entirely too big for my tastes; I haven't found a way to get around that yet. After speeding up the mouse, the system was much less frustrating to use - now I could start having some fun. You have to keep in mind that these things aren't configured for power users by default, they are configured for someone who has never used a computer - and you don't normally see those folks flinging their mouse around at lightning speeds. All the mouse/keyboard speed options are pretty much at their maximum values on my machine now, whereas they were much closer to defaults on my PC. Not a complaint, just different and interesting. Scroll speed using the mouse wheel is still entirely too slow; that's a complaint, and as far as I can tell there's no way to speed it up without resorting to third party software/drivers.

Getting used to the OS and the way it works wasn't too difficult; the first thing I noticed and tried to exploit as much as possible is that OS X is very keyboard-shortcut friendly. Maybe it's because I started using PCs in the DOS days but I've always been a keyboard shortcut fanatic; you wouldn't think it, but Mac OS X is very pleasing for someone who likes to use the keyboard to be fast. I'll talk more about what I think about the way the OS manages applications later, but for now I'm going to focus on multitasking.

When I'm writing an article, it's very easy to have anywhere from 20 - 40 windows open at any given time; as you can guess, managing them becomes a pain. The one feature that truly piqued my interest about OS X was Expos?. You can read about it at Apple's site but basically using a single hotkey (woowoo keyboard shortcuts) all the visible windows on your screen will automatically miniaturize themselves and tile themselves across the screen. You can then pick the window you want using the mouse and clicking on it will restore all windows to their original locations (and sizes) but with your selected window on top. There are a number of videos of Expos? in action, if you're a heavy multitasker I strongly suggest checking them out.

I got a little too addicted to Expos? at first as I used it in situations where the OS X equivalent of ALT-TAB (Apple + Tab) would've sufficed. I've since controlled my Expos? addiction, but the true test will be what happens when I've got those 20 - 40 windows open and running at the same time.

The OS does some heavy caching which also means that the 512MB of memory that the system came with was not going to cut it. At first I thought that I would be able to survive with only 512MB until I got Photoshop, Office, Dreamweaver and a bunch of other memory hogs installed - but without any of those applications running, I was already on the verge of swapping. So it's my first hours of ownership and I've already cracked open the case and I'm tinkering around with it.

The inside of the G5 is like a freshly cleaned room; Dell does a great job of keeping cables and clutter out of the case, but Apple does a much better job. The dual G5 motherboards feature a total of 8 DIMM slots; as I mentioned before, they have to be populated in pairs because the chipset supports a 128-bit wide DDR memory interface. I just happened to have 4GB of memory laying around, so I quickly populated all 8 slots with OCZ PC3500 modules. Unfortunately, the system didn't agree with them and wouldn't POST. No beep codes, no errors on the screen, just a blinking power light on the case and on my Cinema display - I would've appreciated a bit more information as to what was going on. I suspect it has issues with memory whose SPD returns a CAS2 latency, as it would POST if I had the original CAS3 DIMMs in there but it wouldn't recognize the additional modules. I happened to have some older Corsair sticks laying around, so I threw two more 256MB modules in to bring the total memory capacity up to 1GB. If that configuration proves to be stable, I will work on adding more.

The OS had no problems at all using the additional memory; within a couple of hours of usage and I'm already up to 800MB memory utilization. What can I say, I'm a heavy multitasker.

This brings me to the most fundamental difference between the way OS X and Windows works - in Windows, most applications are confined to a window, closing that window closes the application. In OS X, applications are not confined to a window, and closing the window of an application does not close the program. In Windows, if you close all MS Word document windows you've closed the actual program. In OS X, you can close all the document windows but unless you actually quit the Word application, it's still running. There are pros and cons to doing things this way; it reduces "startup" time of your applications, but with so many applications always open in the background it eats up a good amount of memory. I put "startup" time in quotes because if you fail to actually exit the program, your startup time isn't really startup time - it's just the time required to spawn a new document window since the actual program is still running. I do much prefer this method of leaving all of your programs running with one caveat: the system must be entirely stable while doing it. I have yet to truly tax the G5 yet; I've heard good and bad things about the stability of the OS - we'll see how things work out over time.

So far my experiences have been positive; I've been able to get up and running with very little effort. Being a DOS/Windows user all my life, getting accustomed to using a Mac hasn't been a difficult task at all. There are a few tweaks that you'll have to make to be happy with the setup (mainly mouse speed and dock icon size in my situation) but it's quite easy to switch. My laptop is still a Windows XP machine so going between the two OSes hasn't been an issue either.

The next several posts will be about individual experiences with the OS and applications, so stay tuned for them. I'm going to try to update the "Macdates" blog at least a couple of times a week. If you just want to see those posts you can link directly to the Anand's Macdates URL at the top of the right column. As you can probably guess, the Macdates have blue headers while my normal blog posts have orange headers.

[Chad]

Good read. Thanks for posting

[macman87]

nice :)

[adamp2p]

Continued:

It's time for multimonitor  - Tuesday, Feb 10, 2004 12:16 PM

It didn't take me long to grow frustrated with the lack of a second display, although what is worth mentioning is that I was able to last longer without a second display under OS X than I would under XP. I attribute this mostly to features like Expos? that help manage the clutter, whereas under XP we've only got the taskbar and ALT + TAB. I'll talk about this more in a second.

Adding a second monitor is basically one of the easiest hardware upgrades you can do and believe it or not, it is even easier under OS X. I plugged in the second Cinema Display using the DVI port on the Radeon 9600. By the time I got back up to my desk the OS had already enabled the monitor, extended my desktop and set the resolution to the LCD's native resolution. There are not many options to tinker with with multimonitor setups under OS X, everything just works. Applications remember where you leave windows if you just move them there and close them, and the apps I've been using seem to be well aware of the setup.

There is a performance hit when multimonitor is enabled (much like the hit in XP), especially when using Expos?. Expos? already dips in performance when you have more than a few windows open, moving to a multimonitor setup does further impact performance with Expos?. Luckily even when you've got a bunch of windows open Expos? doesn't really slow down, instead you get dropped frames in the Expos? animation. The choppyness does get a little annoying but the functionality isn't really reduced which is very important.

Expos? retains its functionality while multimonitor is enabled, instead of mixing all the windows you basically get the equivalent of two Expos? functions running - one on each monitor. Expos?'s functionality with multimonitors does make sense, it's exactly how you'd expect it to work.

I have yet to try gaming with a multimonitor setup, and I have high hopes as it is a pain to deal with under XP. I'll post about my experiences with gaming once I actually get a game installed on the:)achine :)

I'm getting better and better about using keyboard shortcuts in OS X. When I get back to the office today I'm going to try installing LaunchBar thanks to many of your suggestions. I'm at the point now where there are certain tasks that I can accomplish quicker under OS X than I could under XP because of the combination of Expos? and a plethora of keyboard shortcuts. I'm not more productive yet as there is still a lot of getting used to that's necessary but I definitely see the potential.

Switching between my Mac and PC machines continues to be a non-issue, all of the shortcuts and things I find myself doing under OS X remain on my Mac - I don't try to do them on my PCs. As I use the Mac more I may find myself trying to use Expos? and similar things under XP, but so far I thankfully don't have those issues.

I would like to close with some thoughts on the whole Mac vs. PC debate. The responses I've received to this experiment have been overwhelmingly positive from Mac readers; the help you all have provided is much appreciated and very valuable. At the same time, I appreciate the number of PC readers that are approaching this with an open mind and are honestly interested in the possibility of a die-hard PC user migrating to a Mac. Both camps have their "zealots" but for the most part, we are all here because we're nuts about hardware, software and computers in general. I would look at this experiment much like we look at different chipsets, CPUs, video cards or any sort of normal comparison between two pieces of hardware; approach it with an open mind and you'll end up with the best overall choice at the end.

I've got more Macdates coming down the pipe; I've finally got Photoshop, Office and Dreamweaver installed so now I should be able to do everything I used to do on a daily basis on my PC. More on that later...

[isus]

i like the first post about how even a 12" pbook is too heavy for him... considering the 12" pbook has an optical drive, a bigger hard drive, more expandability, a bigger screen, etc... i can understand the role of the sub-notebook, but you can't really say it's too heavy. just compare a 15" pbook's features and weight to a 15" dell. to get near the same weight as the pbook, most people just drop the optical drive...

also consider the price... it's $3500. i can buy a 17" pbook with some extra ram or a heavily souped up 12 or 15 for that much. and people say apple is expensive :rofl:

[Chad]

That's his perrogative. Some care about price, some about performance, and some about size/weight. Obviously those who don't care about weight don't do much for traveling or porting around the notebook. 5lbs may not seem like much, but when you carry it around everywhere, it starts to feel heavy.

[threetonesun]

yeah, IMO anything over a 14' laptop is an oxymoron. Interesting article though.

[isus]

That's his perrogative. Some care about price, some about performance, and some about size/weight. Obviously those who don't care about weight don't do much for traveling or porting around the notebook. 5lbs may not seem like much, but when you carry it around everywhere, it starts to feel heavy.

i completely understand that, but in my point of view, noone can make a comparison of weights when you look at a notebook vs. a sub-notebook.

[Elliott]

yeah, IMO anything over a 14' laptop is an oxymoron. Interesting article though.

Actually, my 15" PowerBook felt very light (but that probably is because I wear a backpack instead of using a briefcase).

Anyway, glad to hear this guy is having a sweet time with OS X.

[the evn show]

I think his point was: "if I'm going to have a portable computer it has to be less than 2 lbs. I looked at the powerbooks but ultimately I just can't justify the weight to save money or have extra features."

I look forward to reading the real article. It's about time we have some switch the way a 'geek' would switch (reading, looking at differences as something other than flaws, etc). The "I tried OS X and I hate it because it wasn't windows" reviews sometimes get tedious.

[giga Veteran]

Nice read. Thanks for posting. :)

[Chad]

i completely understand that, but in my point of view, noone can make a comparison of weights when you look at a notebook vs. a sub-notebook.

Of course you can. That's why the subnotebook market exists. If I'm buying a notebook computer, it's not to run the latest mutlimedia editing apps. It's for portability. There is a large difference between a 2lb and a 5lb computer. Just carry them around for a few hours on your shoulder. You'll notice.

[adamp2p]

I thought you guys would appreciate this. It is really a step in the right direction to have someone who is probably the most respected Windows hardware guru testing and using a Macintosh.

Anand is great; he is objective and honest, and personally, I trust him.

Watch what happens when Anand releases the final article which raves about OSX. PC zealots will begin to have an open mind, which, for some of them, is a first.

I am not saying that Anand is a religious leader. But a lot of PC freaks see him that way.

[isus]

Of course you can. That's why the subnotebook market exists. If I'm buying a notebook computer, it's not to run the latest mutlimedia editing apps. It's for portability. There is a large difference between a 2lb and a 5lb computer. Just carry them around for a few hours on your shoulder. You'll notice.

:ninja: i am buying a powerbook so that i can watch dvd's on an airplane. i am buying a powerbook so that i can burn a dvd of a movie i have made. i am buying a powerbook because it can handle many more serious applications.

a 10" screen compared to 15" is a big difference.

there is no dvd-burner, although you could buy an external one, that is even more to carry around.

and the little thing is limited to 512mb... i can upgrade the pbook to 2gb for photoshop and etc.

no you cannot compare a subnotebook to a notebook. otherwise they would both be called notebooks.

[threetonesun]

:ninja: i am buying a powerbook so that i can watch dvd's on an airplane. i am buying a powerbook so that i can burn a dvd of a movie i have made. i am buying a powerbook because it can handle many more serious applications.

a 10" screen compared to 15" is a big difference.

there is no dvd-burner, although you could buy an external one, that is even more to carry around.

and the little thing is limited to 512mb... i can upgrade the pbook to 2gb for photoshop and etc.

no you cannot compare a subnotebook to a notebook. otherwise they would both be called notebooks.

Here's my problem with large notebooks. 1. they're incredibly cumbersome for what they offer, and bigger they get the bigger the footprint is. Some now are larger than airplane trays, and even your lap. 2. A large screen is really annoying to everyone around you, especially when your watching movies with a lot of scene changes, or you're in a dark room 3. you're never far enough away from the screen to need a large screen 4. most advanced uses of a computer require extra peripherals which just add to its size, speakers for movies or games, mice or pens for PS, etc.

But, that's my opinion, I know 17'' notebooks look cool, but I'd rather have something that's useful + portable, not a home theatre system that takes up my whole backpack.

[theyarecomingforyou]

i am buying a powerbook so that i can burn a dvd of a movie i have made.

Hmmm... is it really necessary to do that on a laptop? Surely that sort of thing is just best left to a desktop? Also, laptops should become smaller and lighter - before we used to be limited by technology and had to be big; now we're increasing the screen size and having 17" laptops? Smaller = Better. Most of the time running demanding tasks is just unnecessary; laptops are convenient for typing, working on projects, watching DVD's, working on/viewing websites, etc - not for being a DVD movie production studio or developing the next Disney blockbuster... :pinch: That's just my opinion - there's obviously a very good market for it, otherwise they wouldn't be selling so well.

[isus]

well, i'm buying the notebook as a desktop replacement. i am not going to have enough room in college with all my junk to have a tower or 2 and a nice display and etc... besides, if i am in a class, and need to burn a cd quickly... i wouldn't have it with the little sony thing.

[threetonesun]

well, i'm buying the notebook as a desktop replacement. i am not going to have enough room in college with all my junk to have a tower or 2 and a nice display and etc... besides, if i am in a class, and need to burn a cd quickly... i wouldn't have it with the little sony thing.

Fair enough, notebooks at school are a given. I only got a desktop because I couldn't afford a laptop that could serve me well enough for games/music and stuff.

[NeoMayhem]

I saw some kid at school today pull out his new 17'' PB G4, and when he left school he get in his new escalade, stupid rich kids... Or stupid kids with rich parents...

I couldn't afford a laptop that could serve me well enough for games/music and stuff.

You can play music on a 75mhz Pentium laptop....

[threetonesun]

You can play music on a 75mhz Pentium laptop....

Yeah, I had a 133 for all of high school, but now that I have 30 GBs of music, I had a hard time fitting that on the old 1.5gb hard drive.

[Fusion]

well, i'm buying the notebook as a desktop replacement. i am not going to have enough room in college with all my junk to have a tower or 2 and a nice display and etc... besides, if i am in a class, and need to burn a cd quickly... i wouldn't have it with the little sony thing.

In your case you cannot compare a subnotebook with a notebook because you loose all the functionality you need. However, in Anand's world, he can compare them because he is not looking to buy a notebook for a desktop replacement, he is looking for the most portable, lightest "notebook" around, whether that be a subnotebook or not.

Since Apple does not offer 'subnotebooks' he simply looked at the lightest, smallest thing they had to offer and found it to be too heavy for his needs. Superfula was right on. If Apple offered a subnotebook I am sure that is where he would draw his comparison. The extra 'features' of Apple's smallest offering do not make up for its weight compared to what he already has.

This thread was not about what you needed or could use, it was about Anand and obviously he doen't need to burn cds in class.

A little offtopic, who is this Anand character and why is he considered "a god of the pc world?"

[OrangeSoul]

that article is a piece of crap!

[macster]

that article is a piece of crap!

And may we know why pls? :rolleyes:

[OrangeSoul]

i dunno im just in the mood to eat apples

[Chad]

well, i'm buying the notebook as a desktop replacement.  i am not going to have enough room in college with all my junk to have a tower or 2 and a nice display and etc...  besides, if i am in a class, and need to burn a cd quickly...  i wouldn't have it with the little sony thing.

Ding ding ding ding. We have a winner Johnny!! :rolleyes:

Of course you can compare subnotebooks with notebooks. How else do you think people can decide which one to choose? Saying you can't compare them is like saying you can't compare beef to pork. Quite rediculous don't you think? Both have their positives and negatives.

Edited February 11, 2004 by superfula