Drool - New iMacs

[Doug Dolde]

http://www.apple.com/imac/

[Ted Harris]

It looks like a new add but a quick glance didn't show me any difference from what has been advertised for the past several months. What did I miss?

BTW, I just ordered a new MacPro 2.66Ghz machine and 4Gigs of additional RAM so it will start out with 5 Gigs of RAM (my big objection to the iMacs is their RAM limitation and it pained me to have to spend the $$ for the Pro). I'll get it up and running tomorrow or Thursday and will see how it performs with some some real heavy duty Photoshop work right away.

[Walter Calahan]

iLife'08 and iWorks'08 look fantastic.

Let's see if they introduce new monitors to connect with the tower models.

[Doug Dolde]

Well a Mac Pro is surely the better machine but these new iMacs now will take 4gb ram, have a Core 2 Duo (2.8 Ghz max) and up to 1TB hard drive. Plus a 20" or 24" monitor. Not too shabby.

[Rory_5244]

Live it up guys. I'm still slumming it with a PB G4 running Aperture and CS3. Lots of spinning beach-balls.

[Kirk Gittings]

Sorry to be so sober. I used a Mac Pro Quad core with 8GB of ram while in Chicago. It was definitely fast, the fastest computer I had ever used BUT it was not amazingly faster than my 2.33 3gig Macbook pro or my high end PC desktop (which is lean and setup just to run PS). Everything ran faster but it was definitely not a HOLY COW, I"VE JUST SEEN THE FACE OF GOD moment (like going from dialup to cable).

[Ken Lee]

Everything ran faster but it was definitely not a HOLY COW, I"VE JUST SEEN THE FACE OF GOD moment (like going from dialup to cable).

That has been my experience when visiting the Apple store.

Perhaps there are some other limitations that are not dependent on number crunching - like I/O: moving the information to and from disk, and within the CPU.

[Doug Dolde]

:eek: Seeing the Face of God is much more incredible than going from dialup to cable

[Frank Petronio]

Yeah, first off she's an angry black woman.

[Marko]

Everything ran faster but it was definitely not a HOLY COW, I"VE JUST SEEN THE FACE OF GOD moment (like going from dialup to cable).

That has been my experience when visiting the Apple store.

Perhaps there are some other limitations that are not dependent on number crunching - like I/O: moving the information to and from disk, and within the CPU.

Also, the faster the computers get, the more the law of diminishing returns applies. It's all in the percentages and it is all relative to the previous model we've had.

Effects of a jump from 8-bit processing to 16-bit and then to 32-bit were incredible in every instance. Going from 500 MHz to 1 GHz represents doubling the speed, a 100% jump. Going from 2.0 GHz to 2.6 GHz is only 30% increase and given that all of them are now dual CPUs, chances are the changes you do see will be marginal, unless you're into video or really heavy data-crunching.

Speaking of applications, another aspect is human reaction speed - an application needs to be slow enough that we can register the difference. The faster our computers are, the smaller the difference.

[J_Tardiff]

It looks like a new add but a quick glance didn't show me any difference from what has been advertised for the past several months. What did I miss?

BTW, I just ordered a new MacPro 2.66Ghz machine and 4Gigs of additional RAM so it will start out with 5 Gigs of RAM (my big objection to the iMacs is their RAM limitation and it pained me to have to spend the $$ for the Pro). I'll get it up and running tomorrow or Thursday and will see how it performs with some some real heavy duty Photoshop work right away.


We have a similar config here at work to deal with some of our electron micrographs and it is an absolute joy -- and it runs CS3 beautifully.

Great machines.

JT

[Roger Hein]

Live it up guys. I'm still slumming it with a PB G4 running Aperture and CS3. Lots of spinning beach-balls.

Same with my 'mini'. Working with a single 500mb file is a full day affair.

[Ken Lee]

Live it up guys. I'm still slumming it with a PB G4 running Aperture and CS3. Lots of spinning beach-balls.

I have the same gear, and I have a few suggestions that might help - if not you, then perhaps someone else:

1) The Powerbook allows up to 2 GB RAM. Get the 2GB.

2) Don't give Photoshop all the available RAM. Give it up to 70%. That leaves enough for the OS to breathe. Otherwise, you wait on the OS itself (some of those beach-balls). See Preferences > Performance.

3) There is a very nice widget called DashQuit (http://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/status/dashquit.html), which allows you to instantly turn off all the widgets that you run - and they all come back instantly when you want them. This is much better than manually killing all the widgets and then starting them all back up. All the settings are saved, so you don't have to configure them again (like setting your location in a weather widget, etc.)

4) Use another drive for a swap disk. It can be anything, including a Thumb drive or two. Without a separate swap disk, you are using the same disk to run the app and park the temporary files, which causes an I/O bottleneck.

5) Most important: downsize your image appropriately, before performing adjustments. Do as many adjustments as possible in Layers, so that you can perform them on another copy later if you need. It's better to do that - and stay in 16-bit mode during editing - than the other way around.

For example, my 4x5 images, 16-bit RGB @ 2500 ppi, take up 715 MB. That's a real strain to load, never mind adjust. (They are RGB even though they are monochrome - because I tone them). Downsizing them to 12x15 at 360 dpi, they shrink to 133 MB, which is well within the capacity of this setup. Having been scanned at such high res, and subsequently adjusted in 16-bit mode, they look superb, and are a breeze to edit.

[Rory_5244]

Thank you, Ken! I've actually just moved up from 1.5GB RAM to 2GB 2 weeks ago to see if it would help, and it certainly did! I will use your downsizing tip, and have a look at 'Dashquit'. By 'swapdisk', I presume you mean what Adobe calls a 'scratch disk', right? I had planned to have a separate scratch disk as per Photoshop guru recommendations, but I saw that Adobe recommended using my main drive as a scratch disk for CS3 (contained in their CS3 instruction pdf). So I got confused and didn't try a separate drive.

[Marko]

Rory,

There is a subtle distinction between "swap disk" and "scratch disk" in this context. Normally, that would mean the same thing - an application moving the data it holds in RAM over to disk in order to free up RAM for more data. That would be any application, including the operating system, and each application would reserve its own section on disk for this purpose. The difference is that diffrent manufacturers are using different terminology - swap disk, page disk, virtual memory, etc. Adobe happens to be using the term "scratch disk".

The more continious the disk space available, the better the performance of each operation. But if there are several applications, the foremost being the OS itself, writing - swapping - memory to disk, the more fragmented it gets and the slower it becomes. That is why it is so beneficial to reserve a physically separate drive to Photoshop, so it can manage all the space on it and thus get maximum performance without having to jostle for it with other apps.

Try it - get the largest drive you can afford and if you see no improvement, you will end up with lots of storage which you can use for regular backups. Which is something else that everybody should be doing but few bother. :)

[Rory_5244]

Thank you very much Marko. I'll try it with a 250GB drive I have sitting around here then.

[Ken Lee]

Just remember that after you tell Photoshop about any additional scratch disk, you need to restart Photoshop. Otherwise, you won't see any difference.

Photoshop allows you to see the size of the scratch disk on the Info Palette, if you set the option on the tab correctly via Palette Options. In the attached image, the scratch disk is currently using 272.6 MB, and there is 1.07 MB or RAM available for Photoshop.

As you make adjustments to the file, you will see that the scratch disk continues to grow.

[JavaDuke]

I'm wondering if there's a room for the second hard drive in iMacs? If not, then the only option for the separate scratch disk is FW/USB - and I'm not sure if external drive is any good for Photoshop scratch disk. Any opinion?
Also what do you guys think about those glossy screens?
I'm asking because I really need a new computer for my photo works and I'm looking for a "budget" solution. Can't afford MacPro + 24" monitor yet so I'm thinking about iMac.

[Marko]

I'm wondering if there's a room for the second hard drive in iMacs? If not, then the only option for the separate scratch disk is FW/USB - and I'm not sure if external drive is any good for Photoshop scratch disk. Any opinion?
Also what do you guys think about those glossy screens?
I'm asking because I really need a new computer for my photo works and I'm looking for a "budget" solution. Can't afford MacPro + 24" monitor yet so I'm thinking about iMac.

An iMac will certainly do. It will just not do quite as fast nor quite as comfortably as the MacPro.

But on the other hand, an iMac you can afford will do much better than a MacPro that you can't. :)

Similarly, external FW drive would normally be slower than an internal SATA one, but since iMacs do not have a secondary disk slot, an external FW scratch disk will provide much better performance than no scratch drive at all. If you go that route, you need to pay attention to quit PS before you shut down the system or dismount the drive in order to allow it to properly close and clean up its scratch files.

[Paul H]

An external FW )or USB2) disk works fine as a scratch disk on a laptop, and does make a big difference.

On the Powerbook G4 (2GB memory) I have an external disk connected via Firewire 800.

You could even get yourself a 4/8GB USB2 memory stick, and define that as the first of the scratch disks, then the external FW drive as the second scratch disk.

[Hugh Sakols]

I've been contemplating an upgrade from my 1.25 ghz g4 tower. However, at the moment I'm using a Sun 23in monitor that works beautifully. How easy are the imac monitors to calabrate using a color vision sensor?

[Henry Ambrose]

My 24" iMac (previous version) was no problem using ColorEyes and the DT91 puck.
Its a -really- nice computer.

[jetcode]

Sorry to be so sober. I used a Mac Pro Quad core with 8GB of ram while in Chicago. It was definitely fast, the fastest computer I had ever used BUT it was not amazingly faster than my 2.33 3gig Macbook pro or my high end PC desktop (which is lean and setup just to run PS). Everything ran faster but it was definitely not a HOLY COW, I"VE JUST SEEN THE FACE OF GOD moment (like going from dialup to cable).

multi-core processors have to share the front side bus and software capable of distributing the process load, the drives and memory still dominate throughput

[Ken Lee]

"multi-core processors have to share the front side bus and software capable of distributing the process load, the drives and memory still dominate throughput"

Could you please clarify?

Performance is limited by use of a multi-core processor ?

Performance is limited by sharing a front side bus ?

Performance us limited by slow throughput, which is constrained by drives and memory ?

[jetcode]

"multi-core processors have to share the front side bus and software capable of distributing the process load, the drives and memory still dominate throughput"

Could you please clarify?

Performance is limited by use of a multi-core processor ?

Performance is limited by sharing a front side bus ?

Performance us limited by slow throughput, which is constrained by drives and memory ?

The greatest throughput issue is typically disk access, if a process is CPU intensive then memory access is critical, a multi-core processor shares all system resources on one bus, the OS and application software must efficiently distribute processes amongst the different cores while maintaining some form of synchronization. The result is that more horsepower doesn't necessarily mean higher throughput. The best case for multi-core processors is when application software like CS2 can take advantage of a dual core technology. In most cases however the real benefit to a multi-core technology occurs when many applications are executing simultaneously though still limited to sharing the front side bus.

[Roger Hein]

It looks like a new add but a quick glance didn't show me any difference from what has been advertised for the past several months. What did I miss?

BTW, I just ordered a new MacPro 2.66Ghz machine and 4Gigs of additional RAM so it will start out with 5 Gigs of RAM (my big objection to the iMacs is their RAM limitation and it pained me to have to spend the $$ for the Pro). I'll get it up and running tomorrow or Thursday and will see how it performs with some some real heavy duty Photoshop work right away.

Hey Ted,

Was wondering if you got a chance to 'play' with your new toy? I was all set to buy the new iMac but am having trouble getting use to the 'glossy' glass front.

Roger...

[Jeremy Moore]

i'm not having any problems with the glossy screen on the new iMacs. if you're worried about the screens, they also have a couple of refurbished iMacs from the last generation at the Apple Store.

[Ken Lee]

The trick with glossy screens is to control what you have behind you. Since the iMac is a desktop, you'll have to sit where there is not a window or lamp behind you. Depending on your work area, this may or may not present a problem.

[paulr]

The greatest throughput issue is typically disk access, if a process is CPU intensive then memory access is critical, a multi-core processor shares all system resources on one bus, the OS and application software must efficiently distribute processes amongst the different cores while maintaining some form of synchronization. The result is that more horsepower doesn't necessarily mean higher throughput. The best case for multi-core processors is when application software like CS2 can take advantage of a dual core technology. In most cases however the real benefit to a multi-core technology occurs when many applications are executing simultaneously though still limited to sharing the front side bus.

If you open up Activity Monitor, and switch the display at the bottom to view processor usage, you can get some idea of how efficiently the system runs different photoshop operations.

I did this at work on an intel mac pro with 4 cores, while working on a big file. Some operations zoom all the processors to nearly 100% (which is what you want to see). Others don't rev them up to much more than 30 or 40% (which shows that there's a bottleneck somewhere else ... either the bus to memory or the disks).

One bit of good news is that PS seems really well multithreaded. I was expecting to see one of the cores working much harder than the others, but they seemed to share the load almost perfectly no matter what I tried.

[Roger Hein]

Jeremy, Ken - thanks for the added comments. I took another look at the iMac, ran some basic PS tests through it vs a stock 2.66ghz MacPro, and was impressed how well the iMac performed. Bit the bullet and ordered one - hopefully will get it sometime this week.

[Ken Lee]

Apple has also quietly upgraded their Mac Mini line. Still limited to 2GB of RAM, but if you already have a monitor (perhaps not glossy) and a keyboard, you get a nice machine at an even more affordable price point.

I got a 4GB thumb drive for $39.00 - and it now serves as my PS scratch disk. As long as I don't work on huge files, my Powerbook G4 is still good enough.

[Paul H]

Apple has also quietly upgraded their Mac Mini line. Still limited to 2GB of RAM, but if you already have a monitor (perhaps not glossy) and a keyboard, you get a nice machine at an even more affordable price point.

I got a 4GB thumb drive for $39.00 - and it now serves as my PS scratch disk. As long as I don't work on huge files, my Powerbook G4 is still good enough.

Actually, according to this (http://www.123macmini.com/news/story/729.html) you can run 3GB on your Mac Mini. That and a 4GB thumb drive should make quite a decent little PS machine

[Scott Kathe]

OK I hate to do this but I think I have to do it. The new iMacs look great on paper and in advertisements but I went and checked out one of the 20" iMacs in person the other day. It looks like a great computer for photoshop if your budget doesn't allow for a Mac Pro but the 20" screen was terrible compared to the previous model. I was comparing the two side by side in a brightly lit store so that may be part of the problem. If you could compensate for the glossy screen by controlling your environment there were two other issues I have. First of all the shadows seemed blocked up and secondly the vertical viewing angle seemed to change the colors quite a bit. The previous 20" screen was much better as far as I could tell. This is just my opinion and it only applies to the 20" iMac. I wasn't able to check out the 24" model since they didn't have one and I couldn't afford one of them anyway. I placed an order for a 20" refurbed older model and can't wait to get it and be done with my old PC. My PC has served me well but it is maxed out with 1 GB of RAM. I actually like XP Pro but I am not at all impressed with what I am hearing about Vista. Time for a change:)

[jetcode]

Apple has also quietly upgraded their Mac Mini line. Still limited to 2GB of RAM, but if you already have a monitor (perhaps not glossy) and a keyboard, you get a nice machine at an even more affordable price point.

I got a 4GB thumb drive for $39.00 - and it now serves as my PS scratch disk. As long as I don't work on huge files, my Powerbook G4 is still good enough.

Ken,

Have you done side by side comparisons between the thumb drive and a hard drive? The reason I ask is because I understand the internals of the thumb drive and well the hard drive too and they are both much slower then RAM memory.

basically you have a USB 2.0 communication layer, a thumb drive processor, and thumb drive flash memory managed by the thumb drive processor. A lot of data transport layers and flash takes 1-10 milliseconds to program a page (sector). The hard drive is limited by spindle speed and disk access. It would be interesting to run a specific CS2 process against both to see if there is any significant advantage to either.

Joe

[Jeremy Moore]

no problems with blocked up shadows on my new 20" iMac, but it's in a room setup to stop ALL reflections on the glossy screen. then again, maybe i'm just not as discerning and/or skilled/experience enough to tell a difference.

[Ken Lee]

Have you done side by side comparisons between the thumb drive and a hard drive?

No I haven't.

But I'm only an intermittent user, with a limited budget. I'm hoping to get another year out of my Powerbook G4, and perhaps Apple will reveal a dramatic improvement (like an entirely solid-state machine with no disk at all).

My laptop hard drive is pretty well filled up, so I figure that it's best to have 1 drive for each function: 1 to hold the photo files (an external USB drive), one for scratch disk (a thumb drive), one for the program itself (the hard drive), and RAM.

[Doug Dolde]

I just had my real life look at a new iMac in an Apple Store. They simply must be seen to be appreciated. A real work of industrial design art.

Also I bought one of the new Apple keyboards. If you using the older Mac keyboard, run don't walk and get one. Absolutely the best $49 I ever spent. The old ones are a real kludge, complete with squeaky keys and poor action. The new ones are a radical flat design with great action and no squeaks. It also seems much easier to type on without hitting the wrong key. I'm typing on it right now.