Thinking of Moving from iMac G5 to iMac Core Duo

[DTphonehome]

Hey All,
I've been having intermittent issues with my iMac G5 Rev A, mostly related to fan noise. It's absolutely unbearable. I can't study if it's on! So lately, I've been thinking of selling the iMac G5 and moving to the iMac Core Duo, but have some questions. If anyone can help me out with all or some of these, thanks!

I heard that the Rev C and Core Due iMacs are MUCH quieter than the Rev A and B iMac G5s. True?

Is the Core Duo iMac a whole new Rev A, or would it be considered iMac Rev D? I made the mistake of jumping on the Rev A iMac, and I don't want to do that again!

What becomes of my external backup drive, which mirrors my HD every night? Will I be able to use that to repopulate my Applications folder and documents? Or do apps have to be reinstalled? Will my desktop look as it did, or do I have to rebuild it from scratch? Can I use the transition assistant that comes with new Macs?

Is there anything that WON'T run on the Intel iMac (besides pro apps)?

Any help is appreciated!!

--DT

 

[williamw]

My Rev C is amazingly quiet, i am on it right now and i cant hear it at all, The only time i hear it lightly is when it is rendering or something.

 

[ChrisA]

Is the Core Duo iMac a whole new Rev A, or would it be considered iMac Rev D? I made the mistake of jumping on the Rev A iMac, and I don't want to do that again!

No natter what the fine prince says this is a brand new machine. Only the LCD pannel and the tw drives are lcarried over from the old G5 iMac. But it loks to be a solid machine, no reports of meltdowns or fires yet.

What becomes of my external backup drive, which mirrors my HD every night? Will I be able to use that to repopulate my Applications folder and documents? Or do apps have to be reinstalled? Will my desktop look as it did, or do I have to rebuild it from scratch?

Your backup drive wil work identically on the new Intel mac., simply plug it in.
One exception is that if you boot of the external drive that can't work on the new mac

Is there anything that WON'T run on the Intel iMac (besides pro apps)?

Beter to ask what WILL run on it, so far OSX and iLife run native, Photoshop and Office run under Rosteta. I culd not get the people in the apple store to show me anything else so I assume there was nothing for them to show.

Why not take your external drive to the Apple store and see first hand what hapens?

I'm waiting until Final Cut Express and Photoshop available as a universel binary before I buy my next Apple computer. I don't want a machine that can't run that software in native mode. I figure "mid 2006"

 

[DTphonehome]

My Rev C is amazingly quiet, i am on it right now and i cant hear it at all, The only time i hear it lightly is when it is rendering or something.

Good to know! Did you have any experience with the Rev A or B (non-iSight) iMacs?

 

[DTphonehome]

No natter what the fine prince says this is a brand new machine. Only the LCD pannel and the tw drives are lcarried over from the old G5 iMac. But it loks to be a solid machine, no reports of meltdowns or fires yet.

...

Why not take your external drive to the Apple store and see first hand what hapens?

Thanks for the advice! I think I will take my drive and try it out, as you suggested. I know that the drive itself will work fine, I was more concerned with the data residing on it. If it would move over to the Intel with no problem.

I don't use a tremendous amount of software besides for iLife, but I was under the assumption that Rosetta will handle pretty much anything. I know it won't be native, but I think that the extra oomph of the Core Duo should offest any real performance hit, especially since these programs shouldn't be that taxing. Looking at my dock, the only non-Apple software I use all the time are Photoshop Elements, Palm Desktop, MS Office, and assorted utilities.

As for this being a whole new model, I'm not afraid of something drastic happening, I'm just concerned little bugs like my fan noise issue will pop up. On the other hand, it took to Rev C to get that bug licked, so I could be in for a long wait if I expect it to be perfect.

 

[budugu]

Good to know! Did you have any experience with the Rev A or B (non-iSight) iMacs?

I had Rev A briefly (4 hours) before i sent it back. Rev B is a huge improvement. I have been using it over past 4 months now. It is a little noisy but not as much as rev A. The fans run in full speed when using Virtual PC and all. My advice is hang on to the Rev A till they can port atleast few applications other than ilife to intel Imac. Rev B of intel imacs should be some time this year. Since 64 bit core duos are atleast a year away (intel pushed them back) i bet the rev B of imac will be the actual desktop mother board taking Desktop RAM etc. That way this imac intel version is not bad. And has good reviews even. If you can keep both or if all your applications are ported go ahead and get the new imac. If can afford it keep both of them untill they can port most of the stuff to intel.

 

[nospleen]

I have owned three imac G5's in the past. I even had the newest isight edition. The isight edition was the quietest of the bunch, but still loud when doing intensive rendering. My new intel duo core is quiet as can be, even after hours of rendering. I am very happy with it and it is very snappy. I say go for the intel...

 

[theBB]

Some apps under rosetta

I don't use a tremendous amount of software besides for iLife, but I was under the assumption that Rosetta will handle pretty much anything. I know it won't be native, but I think that the extra oomph of the Core Duo should offest any real performance hit, especially since these programs shouldn't be that taxing. Looking at my dock, the only non-Apple software I use all the time are Photoshop Elements, Palm Desktop, MS Office, and assorted utilities.

Well, so far I am impressed with Rosetta, it is almost seemless. However, speed is another issue. e.g. Safari starts almost instantenously if run natively, but takes a few noticeable seconds before its first window appears if I launch it with Rosetta.

I have started my 30-day trial with MS Office and I started Power Point, which took a while before it started (again a matter of seconds, not much different than my old XP laptop performance, but much slower than iLife apps.) I opened a pps file and picked View -> Slideshow. It crashed; this must be what they call the spinning beachball of death... :| It was bad; "Force Quit" did not even bring up a window. I had to use Terminal to do a "ps" to get the process id and then "kill" office. That took care of the immediate issue, but then Apple->Logout or Apple->shutdown stopped responding at all. I could only "sleep" it. So much for Mac OSX being so stable, just ask Microsoft to erase years of hard work. Anyways, the nice people over at "macosxhints" told me how to shut down using "sudo shutdown" but I don't know what I would do if I was not an admin user at the time. Too new of computer to pull the actual plug... I have not used Office ever since, but I'll give it another try this weekend after upgrading to 10.4.5.

Stuff that does not run on Rosetta: if it relies on Java, such as NeoOffice, it will not work. Funny you mentioned Photoshop Elements. I have version 1.0, which I was quite happy with on my XP laptop, but Mac version on the same CD is apparently a Classic app, so I cannot run it on my Intel iMac. That sucks. I hope GIMP will give me the same functionality without spending $100 for a new version of PS Elements. flip4mac does not run on 10.4.4. The new upgrade is supposed to help, but I have not tried it yet. Another weekend project... In any case, a few posts here did not inspire confidence even with 10.4.5.

VLC worked under Rosetta if I play files, although the picture is bit choppy with an mpeg2 file that I tried it with. If I play a VCD, it crashes. The intel beta of VLC is slightly better, but it still crashes with VCDs. Maybe they'll fix it by this weekend.

One more thing, PPC versions of Safari plug-ins do not work unless you launch Safari with Rosetta as well, but this is not a big deal for me.

I hope this rundown clarifies things for you.

 

[nospleen]

Dumb question, but how do you launch Safari with rosetta?

 

[theBB]

Dumb question, but how do you launch Safari with rosetta?

In "Get Info" window there is a checkbox that says "Launch with Rosetta". I actually copied Safari into a personal folder, renamed it Safari_rosetta.app and checked that box. It uses the same preferences, bookmarks etc. as it is looking for the same .plist files, but it lets me use PPC plug-ins.

Actually this simple .app business is incredible for me after 5 years of Windows.

 

[nospleen]

In "Get Info" window there is a checkbox that says "Launch with Rosetta". I actually copied Safari into a personal folder, renamed it Safari_rosetta.app and checked that box. It uses the same preferences, bookmarks etc. as it is looking for the same .plist files, but it lets me use PPC plug-ins.

Actually this simple .app business is incredible for me after 5 years of Windows.

Thanks! Like a nerd, I was going, open with....

 

[powerbook911]

I've been completely satisfied with my Core Duo machine. No complaints whatsoever. I do want to say is 1GB is the minimum you should put in these machine.

 

[DTphonehome]

Well, so far I am impressed with Rosetta, it is almost seemless. However, speed is another issue. e.g. Safari starts almost instantenously if run natively, but takes a few noticeable seconds before its first window appears if I launch it with Rosetta.

...
I hope this rundown clarifies things for you.

Wow, thanks for that very informative post. I'm using PS Elements 3.0, so I shouldn't have the same problem you did. I am concerned with the flip4mac issue, as well as the powerpoint problem. I use PP quite a bit, I'm afraid, and mostly for viewing slideshows. Have you heard that this is a regular problem, or is your situation a unique occurance? I'm (still) using Office X...do you think that will make a differrence?

I suppose I'll have to do a little more research before I take the plunge. I suppose this is to be expected though; we're only a month into the big transition.

 

[DTphonehome]

I've been completely satisfied with my Core Duo machine. No complaints whatsoever. I do want to say is 1GB is the minimum you should put in these machine.

I plan to take it up to 2 GB. I'm using 1.5 now on my Rev A, and it's time to bump it up a notch.

 

[theBB]

I am concerned with the flip4mac issue, as well as the powerpoint problem. I use PP quite a bit, I'm afraid, and mostly for viewing slideshows. Have you heard that this is a regular problem, or is your situation a unique occurance? I'm (still) using Office X...do you think that will make a differrence?

flip4mac seems to be a matter of time before the company comes up with an intel version, although it's been a while since they said "soon". PP, I don't know, never heard anyone posting such a problem, but MS is not known for reliable programs. PP freezes everytime my XP machine wakes up from hibernation. Maybe, PP will crash every now and then, but it will work most of the time, like everything else MS does. Who knows?

I am risk averse when it comes to computers, so normally I would not buy one before intel stuff is 6 months into use. However, I was in need of a new computer and intel seemed a good way of future proofing in return for the lack of some programs at first.

BTW, I do hear my intel Mac, since your issue is with noise. It is not exactly a discernable fan noise and it is not loud at all. It sounds like a background wuush due to whatever mechanical stuff is running (hard disk, fans etc.) I usually notice the difference when I put it to sleep. "Ah! my room is so quiet now, this feels much nicer" type of feeling.