G5-100 plugins at 25% CPU

[muspro]

Did anyone catch the keynote when the head of Emagic said the G5 would run 100 eight band parametric EQ's using only 25% CPU power.

Can anyone put that into perspective with current G4 models or PC's?

Does that mean the G5 might run 32 tracks of audio with 5 plugs on each track (total of 160) plus 16 auxes without any problem? Anyone want to speculate?

Thanks

[Park Seward]

From the Apple web site:
http://www.apple.com/powermac/performance/

"The dual 2GHz Power Mac G5 with Logic Platnum 6.1 can play 115 tracks, compared with a maximum of 35 tracks on the Dell Dimension 8300 and 81 tracks on the Dell Precision 650 each with Cubase SX 1.051. More impressively, the 1.6GHz single-processor Power Mac G5 played 50 percent more tracks than the 3GHz Pentium 4-based system.

Music and audio maestro
The Power Mac G5 supports more audio tracks with real-time effects and more software instruments than any previous desktop system in history, giving audio pros a wealth of creative resources in a native environment. And the built-in optical S/PDIF connects to other audio equipment for pristine sound quality — without those pesky ground loops.

The didn't say anything about Pro Tools.

[Gabriel Roth]

the head of Emagic said the G5 would run 100 eight band parametric EQ's using only 25% CPU power.
Can anyone put that into perspective with current G4 models or PC's?

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">sure. it's much faster.

maybe someone's posted this info already, but there's a pdf on Apple's site that shows all the G5's test results. they loaded up tracks with equivalent plugins and came up with the following:

Dual 2GHz G5 -- 115 tracks
1. 8GHz G5 -- 59 tracks
1. 6GHz G5 -- 52 tracks

Dual 3.06GHz Dell Precision 650 -- 81 tracks
3GHz Dell Dimension 8300 -- 35 tracks

the thing is, these tests are a little screwy, because they compared Logic for Mac against Cubase for Windows. it's not clear, but it's possible that the version of Logic they used had been optimized for 64-bit processing, which would obviously make the comparison completely unfair. I doubt that's the case -- but it's still possible that Logic/Cubase is an apples/oranges comparison. so i don't know how literally to take these resuls.

but i do think we can draw the following tentative conclusions:

-- Apple is back in the game with PCs as far as performance goes.
-- a top-of-the-line G5 (or even, perhaps, a slower G5) will put Pro Tools LE users in a position to max out all the 32 tracks we're allowed, with a realistic number of plugins.

More trouble for digi's business model, I think. When I opted for Pro Tools over Logic etc., I discounted the 24-track limit, because I knew my system (400MHz Sawtooth G4) wouldn't get much more than that anyway. But if I were starting out now, I'd be inclined toward software that didn't put artificial limits on my track usage.

Apple, of course, knows this very well. I would guess that the execs at digi are considering making some pretty dramatic changes at this point.

by the way, you can download that pdf by clicking here.

[ear2ear]

Originally posted by Gabriel Roth:

-- Apple is back in the game with PCs as far as performance goes.
-- a top-of-the-line G5 (or even, perhaps, a slower G5) will put Pro Tools LE users in a position to max out all the 32 tracks we're allowed, with a realistic number of plugins.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">So here's the next dilemma (albeit, a great one):
If I'm buying a new Powermac dedicated to Pro-Tools, what incentive do I have to even look beyond the entry model? It seems crazy to think about it, but is the 1.6 enough!?!?

I had previously decided that the next mac I'd buy would have to be a dual since OS X is optimized for it (sort of a personal benchmark I guess), but I'm having a hard time justifying needing that much power.

Why is life so bloody hard? [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[ear2ear]

I'm crossing my fingers for initial compatability and patiently waiting to see an onslaught of test results come August/September.

[img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[H E A D W E R K ' N]

>> If I'm buying a new Powermac dedicated to
>> Pro-Tools, what incentive do I have to even
>> look beyond the entry model? It seems crazy
>> to think about it, but is the 1.6 enough!?!?

An 8Gb RAM limit rather than 4Gb. Superdooper high speed PCI-X for whenever Digi pumps out a 64-in/64-out Digi001v2. Dual processors will be even more efficient in the G5 thanks to the non-shared busses, it's really like having a 4GHz system. Bragging rights. The ability to run incredibly powerful soft synths and samplers. The ability to surf the web while your 128 track masterpiece bounces to disk on a few stray cpu cycles.

Oh, and value too. The US$2999 G5/2GHz is pretty darn good value. The 1.6GHz at US$1999 isn't so hot. A thousand extra bones buys a lot more ponies, and regardless of that fact that everyone says 'I don't need that kind of power' in due time they'll come to depend on it and then whinge that it's still too slow. ;-)