Ahhhhhhhh. ~i~

[JackAxe]

First I replaced my bad 1Gig chip. And Secondly, I figured out what proccess was hoggin up almost one entire CPU and killed it and now this...

Behold, a Ray Tracing Hardware card for the G5.
http://www.artvps.com/news.ihtml?page=article&pressid=69

http://www.tenlinks.com/NEWS/PR/art_vps/011105_macwld.htm

I hope it supports all of Renderman, since the stand alone version does not support network rendering, so this card would be great. :D Of course at 3k, I'm taking donations. :eek:

<]=)

[SamuraiCatJB]

oh baby baby! That's almost worth buying a mac... almost. ;) :p


you could always walk the street selling yourself... :)

[JackAxe]

I do that now. :D *kidding* If all my work were centered around 3D rendering, I would buy one of these the day they come out. I would rather invest in this then an XServer later this year though, if it's as fast as they're promising. :) But I can hold off for a few since Renderman plug-in for Maya is 1k, so I have some learning to do first.

<]=)

[SamuraiCatJB]

definately learn renderman. I need to also. :)

[JackAxe]

It's shaders are purdy. :)

I recall when I was younger, that a card specifically designed to open and save JPEGs cost about 3k. Woooooooo. And I remember hearing that it only took about 10 seconds to do so. This was back in the Quadro 950 days. It was recomended for that game The JourneyMan project. (http://www.adventurecollective.com/reviews/journeymanproject.htm) . :)

<]=)

[seraphim_9:11]

And in other news - I'm currently debating b/w and Alienware and a MAC -

Yeah yeah - i know the stories of AW :rolleyes:

but the fact that I can upgrade the VIDEO card is tempting ... the old problem still remains ... the OS - MAC seems to be better ahnds down IMPO ... but then again I could switch to LINUX (UBUNTU-LINUX) seems to be promising ... though I will need to dig deeper ...

What sayest thou poeples ???

[neogin]

no comments for those whose religious are mac haha

[SamuraiCatJB]

And in other news - I'm currently debating b/w and Alienware and a MAC -

Yeah yeah - i know the stories of AW :rolleyes:

but the fact that I can upgrade the VIDEO card is tempting ... the old problem still remains ... the OS - MAC seems to be better ahnds down IMPO ... but then again I could switch to LINUX (UBUNTU-LINUX) seems to be promising ... though I will need to dig deeper ...

What sayest thou poeples ???

I usually try to stay out of the mac PC wars. I do have my opinion, but it is less quality as quantity. Alienware you will pay a fortune for the name. The advantage is you will get a tested machine benchmarked for top performance. The advantage with Apple is generally you get premium design and designed to work together. A PC is designed to operate with anything, so looses some in "general purpose".

Anyhow... I normall tell people to start a list. I hate lists myself, but I do it with big purchases to make sure I really do know what I think I do. Write a list of what you will use it for, not what you like about either machine. Write it on a computer, and order it by preference. The top one being most important, etc. Then compare the machines to your list.

If you only want the advanced graphics card for the alienware, don't. You can get the 6800 Ultra in dual digital format for the Apple Mac. It is actually higher end than the PC version, though only by a smidgen. It can rasterize a larger picture without loss of performance to the PC. That was so it would work with the Apple display. Jack could give you more info on who would carry that graphics card, or what model comes with it. So if the graphics card on the alienware is its only leverage, that is perception not real. Macs can now support the best 3D graphics on the market (nVidia -- okay, I am biased there).

[JackAxe]

NVidia, the best, that's not biased. :)

Don't forget Boxx, see I'm not biased;
http://www.boxxtech.com/asp/default.asp

Here's a couple of things to consider when working on your list. Then you can show it to us in all of it's glory, so you can here further ramblings from us peeps; :)

What app(s) you plan on using.

Wether or not 64-bit is important for your applications.

What hardware will be easier to purchase in your place of living?

And here's one very big thing to consider on the Apple front. :cool: Sam has seen this several times now, but it will be very important for 3D apps and hardware. This new ray tracing card even takes advantage of it. :)
http://www.apple.com/macosx/tiger/coreimage.html

And some more Appleganda;
http://www.apple.com/macosx/tiger/technology.html

<]=)

[SamuraiCatJB]

and what hardware will be easier to maintain in your area... do you have a mac expert to lean on for advice? :) Think upgrades, think future. :) Do you expect to get hooked on flight sims and call the range for my software? :D (okay, export control would probably ruin that)... Don't just think now, think future. :)

[SamuraiCatJB]

hey, when is the market going to go 128bit and 256bit? :D I am itching to get access to 12 googlebytes of memory and storage. :D

[seraphim_9:11]

well support is not a concern here - it doesnt exist for either AW or Mac - I actually could get someone to lean on for the Mac though the AW wont give me s/w issues. The other alternative is to get a lower end model - actually no - I'm tired of those ...:mad:

I remember Jack saying that the Dual Core powerbooks are due out soon - can I upgrade the graphics card on that ? :confused: - mobility is a factor for me and it also seems to be my handicap - I usually end up using it a lot for games and development work - not neccessarily graphics, I'm still testing the waters there, but a lot of other RAM hungry apps - mostly codes in VB/VC and the likes ...

I really dont want to be stuck with a lower end machine and miss out on the good stuff that comes by ...

[SamuraiCatJB]

ahhhh.... laptop needs.... that makes a big difference.... No laptop is really truly upgradeable outside of disk and memory and even that is questionable. Some will say "upgradeable graphics" but the mobile graphics standards change with almost every generation... so get what you need up front, don't count on an upgrade on a laptop/notebook.

[JackAxe]

Exactly, but I do hope that they can work out a standard.

I can say being an onwer of the "Powerbook," (aaaaaahhhh) that even after 2 years it's still just as usefull and still has the power I need for the projects I do on site. But I would like a faster disk drive when opening huge files. But that is an option. :) Apple's OS updates have actually made it faster and with Tiger I'm guaranteed even more gains in peformance since all graphics wil bel GPU accelerated at that time.

My friend(Used to program full time.) switched from Linux/Windows to a 12" Powerbooke just under 2 years ago. He absolutely loves it and just converted most of the department he manages now over to Mac. He moved over because of the Unix thing and hasn't looked back. :) He uses BBEdit for all scripting and programing needs.

Dual core is still promising, but the G5 might be a reality this year. There will be at least 2 more upgrades from Apples this year, so at least one of those will hopefully be new Powerbooks and iBooks.

<]=)

[seraphim_9:11]

I know - actually Doom 3 apparantely has a video setting that only works if you have a 500meg video card :confused: :rolleyes: ... The real handicap that I found with notebooks is the fact that they cant be upgraded ... :( ... I wish they could come up with a more flexible way to make them ... AW's promise for the upgrade involves changing the video card itself - so it seemed a little better - the powerbooks that I saw were too expensive (almost $3000 - though Jack could correct me ) whereas the AW was $2400 ... another factor .. :( .. but then again, I gotta live with Windows :(

This reminds me of something I read about this guy waiting for a great deal to appear in the markets - somebody told him to stop waiting for the apes to take over the planet :D

[JackAxe]

The 17" Powerbooks are 3K. A 15" can be had for 2k. :) They're grade "A" components and only an inch thick. The AWs, are a tad bit larger, ok a few inches more. :) Just something to consider, if you'll be carying it everywhere.

500 Megs, :eek: Freak the only cards that have that much Ram are the workstation cards which will cost about 2k. I heard that there's actually a limit in the video texture size a card can actually address. Even though they have hundreds of megs now, even a 90 meg texture isn't possible without splitting it up and then displaying it in tiles. (I probably stated that completely wrong.)

I was playing Doom3 on my PC, It ran good at 1024x768 on my 128m card. The game was fun, but I stopped playing it. :)

Fortunately notebook video cards aren't as far behind the desktops now days. So even a low-end portable will offer good video card. My friend's new 17" whale PC was only $1500 and it came with a 9700. :)

<]=)

[seraphim_9:11]

Now where did you see the 15" that was 2k - I was looking at the 15" and it came to about 3k that too with the basic specs :( .. just that I opted for the 128MB card. The one with the 64MB card was cheaper.

And the Area 51-m 5500 costs lesser and is only 1.6" thick...

Now that does not mean that I am biased towards the AW ... but I seem to find myself with counter-arguements for everything which is very frustrating ..:mad: :(

[JackAxe]

Just go to Apple's on-line store. The base 15" with a 9700 is $2k, where as the one with a few more bells and whistles is $2.5k. It's $100 more for a 128 upgrade for the video card. :)

It's not a good idea to buy notebook memory from Apple, since it is the same as a PCs. Doing so really brings up the price.

For games I would definately go with the Alienware, but for practically everything else a Powerbook.
<]=)