G4 or G5?

[bannerj]

This is the question....it is killing me.

I am running an 8 tk 1/2 in Otari 5050. And the Metric Halo 2882. I mostly track just small indie bands and singer songwriters. I haven't mixed anything for final print since I've only been doing this for two years. I want to get busy learning to do mixes. I really want to get into a UAD studio and then eventually the altiverb. I've been running DP 4 in my ibook. Now I need to make the jump into a tower. I've been thinking about a G5 this whole time, but started thinking that that would be insanely unecessary.

I have roughly $1800 saved and a few projects on the horizon. Should I stick it out, keep saving and buy the G5? or should I screw that and just use a G4. My assumption is that anything I need to do in the next five years can easily be done well with just the G4.

Sorry if you hate these kinds of questions. I just need to bounce this question off of somebody to see if there are issues I am not considering.

thanks

[logancircle]

You can totally use a G4. I run 32 tracks of 24/44.1 on a single (not dual) 1Ghz Powermac G4. As you prob know, you've got to find one with decent bus speed and put some RAM in there.

[Brandon Schexnayder]

Anyone happen to know of a reliable place to find G4s these days though? This being because I have recently found myself in the same position as BannerJ and almost feel like it is just worth spending the extra money on a G5 because I am scared of getting scammed on eBay or some other not-so friendly place.

[joel hamilton]

I have found amazing deals on older macs at

macresq.com

They totally rock. They have been nothing but cool about everything I have ever gotten from there as well.

[AnalogElectric]

My vote is for a G5 as long as it's a G5 made after April of 2005 (I believe that's the date they changed to the more stable uProc).

Although, I know plenty of people with a G4 tower and they're completely happy. The only reason I say "get a G5" is you'll get more milage out of it. Plus, they're incredibly quiet and robust. Then all you need is a 30 inch Apple Cinema Display

Going from an iBook to a tower makes a huge difference. I'd hate to have you feel buyers remorse if you purchase a G5 instead of a G4. If you do get a G4 make sure you load it up with lots of RAM and blah blah blah... pretty much what "logancircle" said. Put some numbers together on what it would cost to uber-ize a G4 as opposed to buying a stock G5. I put an extra 2 Gigs of RAM in my G5 after I bought it and it was really freakin' expensive, but that's about all I put in to it other than an external Hard Drive to improve CPU speed.

Everything including the G5 dual 2GHz, an extra 2 Gigs of RAM, external 250Gig LaCie Firewire HD, and the 20 inch Apple Cinema Display cost me around $4000... yup, big bucks, but I couldn't be happier.

As opposed to my friend that bought a G4 on eBay for around $300. He already had a monitor from his G3 and all he did was max out his RAM. I THINK the G4 he got has a 450MHz uProc, or somewhere around there... I know it was over 400 and under 500. The Hard Drive has 80Gigs of storage but he bought an external for the same reasons I bought mine plus he needed the extra storage. Really the only frustrating thing about his G4, to me, is how much slower it is from my G5 but that's obvious. When he's doing audio work I didn't notice much latency issues but he doesn't work with more than 4 live tracks or more than 8 to 10 mix tracks.

I went to the G5 because I'm recording between 10 to 20 tracks live and mixing up to 40+ tracks. I need as much headroom as I can get.

-- Adam Lazlo

[space_ryerson]

My only suggestion is to avoid the 1.8 ghz g5 if you can. There are a lot of problems with that model. Apple is supposed to address many of them with the 10.4.3 update. I'll find out if that's the case when my 1.8 g5 comes back from apple (motherboard failure). Also, in my office, we have 10 dual 2ghz g5's. So far 3 of them have had to have the superdrive (sony, not pioneer) replaced in under 3 months of use.

[bannerj]

a friend really thinks that I should wait and save up for the G5. Here is one of my biggest reasons why I might go ahead with the g4.

I am only getting hired to track right now and I want to eventually get work mixing. I have been doing several mixes with what I have on DP4. I don't have any other native plugs because my ibook really can't handle more than five or six at a time anyway..........no sense buying plugs that my machine can't handle. So if I go G4 I might be kicking myself in four or five years because I have to upgrade to another computer sooner than later. I might end up spending more money on computers in the long run.

BUT

It will take me another five months to save enough to get a G5 and a UAD card. I could learn a ton in those five months by getting busy with practice mixes now. THis could lead to mixing work sooner than later.

So the money that I end up spening on more computer in the long haul is part of the investment of getting me on a learning curve that could make more money in the long haul. AND if I find that I still can't get work mixing...then I am not out the money for the G5 and I can use the money I saved to buy microphones (which is what I would rather spend money on in the first place).

Maybe I just wrote this all out for my own good so that I can see it clearly. I would love some thoughts however.

[logancircle]

So is a G5/1.6GHz Single Processor tons faster than a Dual 1GHz G4? I'm not sure where all the power is coming from.

[JES]

Depends on your tracks and plugins, but you can go a long way on a dual g4. That said, computers are never a bargain. They depreciate quickly, are obsoleteded by their manufacturrers (and software developers) often well before their useful lives are over, and you wind up having to re-invest in them every few years no matter what you will do. At least that's the theory. I have a dual 2.5 g5 setup, and have yet to approach its maximum capacity. But I don't use softsynths. Yet.

I've got the money to do it so I subscribe to the theory that says save up enough money to buy the next-to-the-top of the line mac, wait for the new models to come out, and buy the new next-to-the-top of the line unit (which was a day or two before the top of the line unit).

The dual g4 could be fine for you, but the thing is you don't want to get in the trap of buying now and then in two years waking up and discovering your main tool isn't good enough to use anymore. So you have to evaluate your mixing capabilities and also your frequency of use. If you're doing it every dya, you'll get better a lot faster than a weekend warrior.

HTH,
--JES

[jayro_rockola]

If you look hard enough, you can get a good deal on an awesome g4. I have a similar setup and purchased a dual 1.25 gig g4 with lots of extras for $1200. I have never gotten close to running out of power with tons of tracks and intensive plugins. If you're just going to be recording indie bands and not using soft synths or a ridiculous amount of plug ins, a higher end G4 should work great

[TeReKeTe]

couple things worth mentioning:

#1, if you want to get a UAD card down the line, the new dualcore G5's don't support the regular PCI architecture. Apple's kept an older model of the G5 in the lineup, but it ain't exactly a deal. advantage, G4.

#2, and it just blows me away everyday-- the dual g4's are LOUD. like, 50db when you're working on a hot day loud. it's actaully distracting enough that i find myself using headphones to doublecheck eq decisions. you can mod 'em w/ other fans apparently, and i may have to do that down the line, but damn!

I work in cubase and have a 2882+DSP and have never had a problem at all w/ track counts, plugs, etc. and yes, making an ADAT loop in the back of the 2882 and using it's DSP to process stems and do things like parallel drum bus compression is pretty incredible, not to mention that you can print 4 stereo mixes back into your DAW AT ONCE (thanks gearslutz)... that box is waaaaaay more powerful than any computer you put upstream/downstream of it.

[thearnicasync]

I've kind of been where you're at lately, and after all the himming and hawing I'm sticking with my little powerbook 1.33. I had comuter fever, and then looked at system performance in PT LE (18 tracks/a couple plugs) and it wasn't anywhere near a third capacity. The G5's are quiet...probably the biggest selling point for me. Keep in mind, that's no softsynths or reverb plugs. Those get nasty quick.

[UXB]

I too have been through this thoroughly. There were some important points brought up re. UAD card being incompatible with the new bus architecture. One may consider the latest batch of G5's to be transitional machines, and if a G4 can get you through a year, it may be best to wait (speculatively speaking). You can get a newer G4 tower to really scream with some tweaking.

I'm sure there are going to be more audio and hwr solutions for pci express, but who knows how long it will take, and once that's sorted out if the next gen x86 machines will be better? It's a bit of a gamble on the new boxes.

Best,
H

[JES]

Good point. Same thing happened with Apple went to OSX. Took a couple years for shit to settled down again. I went from 9.2.2 to 10.2.6 and skipped everything inbetween. I suspect it's the same deal with what's going to happen next.

--JES

[gregc]

I may have a dual G4 for sale. . .

I just PM'd you, if you're interested.