The first thing I notice when having he machines side by side is the HD on the G5 seems to be louder than the G4 .. it’s not a bad noise .. it’s more of a SCSI HD type of sound .. quite pleasant actually,, especially i your an old timer like me who always loved SCSI drives 😀
The G4 is faster to boot ?, but the G5 is quicker to shutdown .. hehe
Some o the little things I noticed was things like extracting a large (15mb) file with stuffit,, it was over 2x faster on the G5, I will let the bench tests below speak for themselves.
I am no professional tester, I just setup the machines on a identical boot, with no programs running in the background.
Cinebench Results: (http://www.cinebench.com/)
CINEBENCH 2003 v1
****************************************************Tester : Null
Processor : NullMind – G4
MHz : 2 x 1.42Ghz
Number of CPUs : 2
Operating System : 10.3.7Graphics Card : Ti4600 128MB
Resolution : 1680*1050
Color Depth : Millions****************************************************
Rendering (Single CPU): 132 CB-CPU
Rendering (Multiple CPU): 237 CB-CPUMultiprocessor Speedup: 1.80
Shading (CINEMA 4D) : 166 CB-GFX
Shading (OpenGL Software Lighting) : 459 CB-GFX
Shading (OpenGL Hardware Lighting) : 895 CB-GFXOpenGL Speedup: 5.40
****************************************************
CINEBENCH 2003 v1
****************************************************Tester : Null
Processor : NullMind – G5
MHz : 2 x 2.5Ghz
Number of CPUs : 2
Operating System : 10.3.7Graphics Card : Radeon 9600 128MB
Resolution : 1680*1050
Color Depth : Millions****************************************************
Rendering (Single CPU): 355 CB-CPU
Rendering (Multiple CPU): 580 CB-CPUMultiprocessor Speedup: 1.63
Shading (CINEMA 4D) : 341 CB-GFX
Shading (OpenGL Software Lighting) : 923 CB-GFX
Shading (OpenGL Hardware Lighting) : 1568 CB-GFXOpenGL Speedup: 4.59
****************************************************
On next page I tested XBENCH .. some tests do show the Ti4600 is a superios card to the 9600 .. I will redo the tests once I get a better card, I also noticed some discrepancies (like FSB speed) on XBENCH that made me wonder if it’s at all optimized to run on the G5.
Next Page (XBENCH)
I agree about the superiority of the G4 design. I made the same upgrade (except my G5 is a 1.8 Dualie) and really miss the G4’s striking exterior. In my opinion, the MDD is the best looking Powermac of all time. I, however, do not miss the noise the the MDD put out. It was like having a 737 on my desk! Anyhow, congrats on the beautiful new machine.
Indeed the MDD and Imac G4 are my all time favorite designs as well.
As for noise, the G5 in standard usage is indeed as quiet as a wisper, but when I set lightwave too render a complicatted scene .. those extra fans kick in and it can get a little noisy also, but since it’s only when its in High Gear .. I dont mind 🙂