Then on January 28th there were suddenly new G4 towers announced, with 800, 933 or Dual 1000 G4 CPU's, using a new generation of the G4 chip from Motorola, the MPC7455.

So 10 days after its introduction and before any of the earlier introduced iMac G4's had been delivered in Canada, a Dual G4/1000 awaited me from Discount Mac in Richmond BC http://www.dmac.bc.ca so that xlr8yourmac readers could get a thorough look at Apple's most powerful computer.

Being that Mike has already reviewed the ATI7500 and the GeForce 4MX in the G4/1000, I will concentrate on the other aspects of the Dual G4/1000 as well as the software running on the fastest Mac ever.

Index:

The Dual 1000 Arrives

Hardware


• Dual 1000MHz G4 "Apollo" CPUs
• 512MB PC133 Memory
• 80GB Hard Disk
• Pioneer DVR-104 SuperDrive
• Nvidia GeForce4 MX Dual Monitor Graphics Card

Software


• OS X 10.1.2
• iDVD 2.0.3
• iPhoto 1.0
• Final Cut Pro 3.0 on OS X

Benchmarks
Conclusion

The Dual 1000 Arrives
Each day since the new Dual G4/1000 was introduced, I would answer my phone hoping it was the call saying that it had arrived, and finally it did.

As promised all new Macs shipped with OS X as the default operating system, running OS X 10.1.2, Build 5P63 on my sample. OS 9.2.2 is also installed for Classic and to allow booting into OS 9.

The case appears to be identical to the previous generation of QuickSilver machines, and has the rubber isolated fan for the CPU heatsink. The heatsink is very large, and aptly has a sticker warning that it gets hot. While I didn't measure a temperature, you would not want to leave your finger on the heatsink for too long.

While I did not remove the CPU heatsink to peek underneath, Motorola rates the 7455 as consuming a maximum of 23W at 1 GHz, so it does require good cooling to keep things stable. Although some people have complained about fan noise, I would have to say that speed without stability would not suit Apple's most powerful computer users, and in a typical office you would not hear anything in the way of noise from the G4/1000 fans, SuperDrive or hard drive. In comparison, the G4/1000 was far quieter than my 8500 with its rather noisy SCSI drives and power supply fan. If you want a quieter machine, then the iMac is likely a better choice for you.

The PowerMac towers are still the easiest computer to access the innards, and still offer reasonable expansion even without an empty front accessible drive bay. With 4 empty PCI slots, a total of 3 RAM slots and 3 empty 3.5" drive bays, most people will have room to tackle any project.

As far as inputs/outputs, wouldn't it be nice to have more accessible connections? Sure there is 1 USB plug on the keyboard, but some USB devices will only function if plugged directly to the 1 empty USB connection on the rear of the tower. Apple has apparently seen this as a problem, and added a 3rd USB jack on the 2002 iMac, but again on the rear of the machine.

Hardware

Dual 1000MHz G4 "Apollo" CPUs
The code name Apollo chips are officially launched in the Dual G4/1000 systems, as the MPC7455 from Motorola. Facts that pointed to the new chip were released as far back as June of 1999 from IBM, where there was talk of:

• SOI (Silicon On Insulator) - This technology allows lower capacitance inside the CPU, and therefore faster switching at lower power levels. This helps the 7455 maintain reasonable power levels while running at 1GHz without overheating, thus pushing the G4 series to higher clock speeds in the future. This technology will allow the G4 series to push to higher clock speeds in the future. While SOI was officially announced in 1998, it took 20 years of research and development at IBM to bring a product to market. Even AMD's processor roadmap shows they plan to use SOI in their higher performance CPUs mid 2002. For more info on the announcement of SOI from IBM, see xlr8yourmac.com's June 17th, 1999 news page. SOI is likely to play a significant role in the gains achieved in later G4 (or beyond) processors.
  
  
• 1 GHz clock speeds - Yes we now finally have a GHz class Mac out there, and it is a dual CPU.
  
  
• 0.18-micron process on 6 layered metal - The current MPC7455 inside the Dual G4/1000 has these two features.

During the 2000 Microprocessor Forum, additional details emerged:

• DDR L3 Cache access - Inside the Dual G4/1000, each CPU has 2MB of DDR (Double Data Rate) L3 cache that runs at a 500MHz clock speed, for a throughput of 4 GB/s. [Note: All the L3 cache equipped G4s have DDR cache - including the first Digital Audio G4/733, although the Quicksilver models have twice the L3 cache size per CPU.-Mike]
  
  
• High performance vs. power consumption - With the SOI, copper wiring and the 0.18-micron process, the 7455 currently runs at up to 1GHz and is rated at 23 Watts per CPU maximum. Compare that to AMD's latest Athlon XP 2000+ (which runs at a 1667MHz clock speed despite its name) that also uses a 0.18-micron copper process, but not SOI, and it consumes up to 70 Watts. This is why so many Athlon PC users are concerned about cooling.

  Comparing the 7455 to the previous 7450, they look very similar. They have the same pinouts and the block diagram of each is identical. The differences in addition to SOI and DDR L3 cache are:
  
  

• The 7455 is fully SMP compatible - SMP or Symmetric MultiProcessing is why OS X is so good at taking advantage of tasks on both CPUs. But we all know that there have been dual CPU Macs for a few years so I am unclear as to what this means to Mac users. It might be that this chip supports large groups of CPUs like 4 or more, or that it is better optimized for SMP than prior CPUs.
  
  
• L2 cache locking instructions - This feature allows the 7455 to lock chunks of data into the 256KB internal high-speed cache, so it does not leak out into the slower L3 cache or main memory for optimal performance. I wonder what/when software will take advantage of this feature.

Cousin to the 7455 is the 7445 that is designed for low power devices like laptops, and does not support the use of an L3 cache. It is great to have Apple's top of the line machine not only reach the GigaHertz barrier, but with dual CPUs and the power of OS X behind it.

512MB PC133 Memory
As shipped from Apple, the machine came with 512MB of CL3 RAM, to which Discount Mac added 512MB more bringing it up to a Gig of RAM. Although CL2 memory is faster, I left the stock memory in as that is likely what most people will be using, and yes there are some small benefits in benchmarks when CL2 RAM is used, so performance enthusiasts will likely have some CL3 RAM that they want to sell cheap.

80GB Hard Disk
The hard drive installed in my unit was a 80GB Seagate Barracuda model ST380021A, a 7200 RPM drive with only two platters, a 2MB cache buffer and a Ultra ATA/100 interface. The motherboard however is still Ultra ATA66, but a single EIDE drive is unlikely to exceed the capacity of even the Ultra ATA66 bus.

This drive is very quiet; in fact you would have a hard time hearing it operating at all. It has what Seagate refers to as "SoftSonic Fluid Dynamic Bearing", which helps the drive achieve its quiet operation as well as high capacity and spin rates.

In use, the drives speed was as impressive as its low noise. Thank you Apple for placing a good drive inside the machine, as opposed to a lower performance drive.

Pioneer DVR-104 SuperDrive
Next is the built-in Apple SuperDrive, which uses the newest incarnation of the Pioneer DVD-R/RW, CD-R/RW mechanism, the DVR-104 rev. 212. [The DVR-104 model has a faster CDRW write speed (8x vs 4x) than the DVR-103/DVR-A03 first model "superdrive". I believe it also has a higher DVD ROM read speed.-Mike.] Inside the Dual G4/1000 the Pioneer drive made little noise playing or burning discs, and the burn of a DVD-R from iDVD produced a full 60muintes of video with no faults on playback.

Because the SuperDrive is able to burn to DVD-R media at a 2x rate, the actual burn time for a full DVD would be about 30 minutes.

The tray mechanism is far smoother operating than the Lite-On drive in a G4/533 that I have used, and the eject key on the keyboard operates near instantly in both OS 9 as OS X, unlike the large delay in machines prior to the QuickSilvers. Apple has listened to customers who wondered how to open and close the CD tray in the QuickSilver machines, as there is no eject button on the front panel anymore. All new keyboards ship with a sticker on the top right of the keyboard saying to press and hold the eject key to open the tray. [Note - It still takes a relatively long time to mount a CD disc. I only mention this since some superdrive owners have asked if this was normal. Even on a dual 1GHz, I see 10+ seconds to mount an inserted CD on the desktop.-Mike]

Nvidia GeForce4 MX Dual Monitor Graphics Card
The standard video card that comes in the Dual G4/1000 is the GeForce4 MX, which Apple System Profiler reports as a NV-17 rev. 162. This has caused some people to scratch their head wondering why the GeForce4 MX code name is a lower number than the previous GeForce3. First lets list out the code names of the various Nvidia models:

Not surprisingly, as Mike found out in his review of video cards in the Dual G4/1000 (see www.xlr8yourmac.com/Graphics/Radeon7500_vs_geforce4mx/), the Geforce4 MX is faster than the GeForce2 MX, but slower than the GeForce3. The GeForce4 MX is a reasonably priced graphics card with 64MB of DDR video RAM and solid performance on 2 monitors simultaneously.

For those that want or need the fastest 3D graphics should wait for the BTO option of the GeForce4 Ti in March. But many pro users will like the benefit of having support for 2 monitors without using up another PCI slot, which is offered by the included AGP GeForce4 MX card. One of the monitor connections is a standard 15 pin VGA port, and the other is an Apple ADC connector that integrates digital video, USB and power for the lineup of Apple flat panels monitors.

As I currently only own a 17" CRT monitor, I can only comment on using 1 monitor with this card, but the Mac has had support for multiple monitors since the first color Mac II in 1987, unlike our PC friends. On my CRT, I had no problems with resolution switching, and the image on screen at 1024x768 was sharper and cleaner than I have seen when connected to my trusty old 8500.

Software

OS X 10.1.2
When I had the Dual G4/1000 for review, 10.1.2 was the latest version, and it was shipped installed on the drive. My comments will refer to that version but you likely know that Apple has just released 10.1.3 this past week. People that I have spoken with say the update has given them a performance boost, and did not cause them any problems. In fact for all those who have been awaiting the release of Photoshop 7.0, it requires OS X 10.1.3 or OS 9.1.

The following is a list of quirks with OS X 10.1.2 that I found while using the Dual G4/1000:

• Attempting to eject a CD via the keyboard eject key while an item from the disc was in use, resulted in nothing happening. No warning is shown, and the machine appears to just ignore your repeated pressing of the eject key. But when you attempt to drag the CD to the trash, a dialog box states that it can't be removed because it is in use.
  
  
• While starting up FCP 3, I occasionally experienced "The Application Final Cut Pro has unexpectedly quit. The system and other applications have not been affected." message. Attempting to start the app a second time would result in the same error, but on the third attempt FCP would start up and run fine.

I bring this up as a point of how lucky we are to have OS X, as in OS 9 such an error would likely corrupt memory in RAM, perhaps lockup the entire machine and force a reboot or risk another crash in another application altogether. Yes, protected memory is a Good Thing, and now the days of manually assigning memory to apps is gone as well in OS X. Instead, your other applications are usually not even affected and no reboot is required to continue working, when using OS X native applications such as FCP 3.0

Some OS X general observations:

The volume/mute keys all respond immediately, not after a pause like older models, and there is a semitransparent sound icon that is superimposed on the display while you adjust the volume, very nice.

iDVD 2.0.3
In using the most current version of iDVD, 2.0.3 Apple has added many of the features that people wished for in the 1.0 version if iDVD. I encountered one repeatable bug in version 2.0.3, when attempting to cut and paste a slideshow folder or Movie between menu screens, there soon followed an unexpected quit of iDVD. Luckily I saved often as I work, so I did not lose any data.

However, version 2.0.3 does have welcome features like the ability to set a preference to turn off the superimposed Apple logo, the ability to customize the built-in themes and free positioning of your buttons and folders. The free positioning of buttons can however allow you to place your items too close together. The overlays encompass the area of the button as well as the width of the text below, so be cautious of staggering long lines of text. This doesn't affect the operation of the final DVD, but it is better to have the buttons spaced further apart.

The MPEG-2 encoding of iDVD2 is able to use up to 190% of the CPU power, over 100% meaning it is using both CPUs, while leaving room to surf the net and listen to iTunes while you are creating your masterpiece. And, it does the MPEG-2 encoding in the background, so you can continue building your project without stopping to render.

As it was my first time using iDVD, I wanted to ensure that the still images I wrote to my one DVD-R would be the correct resolution so that the images fit properly on screen and maintain the proper ratio of width and height. Well I created a test image at 640x480 with large circles in the center and small circles in the corners, to confirm that after making a DVD they would still be circular not oval shaped.

I can confirm with certainty that you do want to use 640x480 and NOT 720x480 as I have seen posted on certain places on the net. My 720x480 test slide was definitely no longer circular, as iDVD had to squeeze the image to conform to NTSC pixel ratio of 0.9:1 vs. a computer display's 1:1 pixel ratio. Luckily for Mac users, iDVD handles the necessary image compensation, so that your DVD will come out correctly when played back on a TV with 640x480 images, thank you Apple! I say that as I came across a manual for a large scale DVD duplicator, and they stated that you had to pre-distort all the still images you sent to them so they would come out correctly on the final DVD. With iDVD, Apple has taken care of what a mass duplicator could not even do for you, and iDVD does it all silently in the background so we can just make the disc and get on with our work, exactly what is meant by Ôease of use' by Mac users.

Another aspect of iDVD is what to do with those cool QuickTime movies you made years ago before anyone could think of burning a DVD at home, but they are compressed with Sorenson or say the On2 VP3 codec. Looking to other postings on the net, some thought it best to play the file out to a DV camcorder and bring it back into iMovie where it would now be a QuickTime DV stream file. Another suggestion was to open the non-DV QuickTime file in QuickTime player and then export the file to a DV Stream type with an audio sampling rate of 48kHz.

On my DVD project I decided to try the export to DV Stream as well as just dragging and dropping the On2 VP3 compressed 320x240 movie that I had made last year into iDVD 2.0.3 directly and let it handle the conversion to the MPEG-2 format. I can say that without question the smoothness in frame rate and clarity of the picture was far superior when you just let iDVD convert the source QuickTime movie into MPEG-2. Converting to a DV Stream before adding it to iDVD just adds another compression/decompression step, and only degrades the final MPEG-2 on the DVD.

Again Apple makes it simple, if QuickTime can play it, then iDVD will make the best possible copy of your video when creating your DVD, without you needing to worry about compression formats, frame rates or even resolutions; my 320x240 videos looked surprisingly good full screen when played off the final DVD.

I also was able to use a Digital 8 camcorder to tape some outdoor footage, and capture it in native DV in Final Cut Pro 3.0. After editing, color correction and transitions were added in FCP, I exported the result as a QuickTime DV Stream with 48kHx audio sampling rate and imported the video file into iDVD.

The quality of the camcorder sourced DV video transferred to the DVD is excellent viewed from the final DVD. My total project time in iDVD was 59m08s, just under the 60-minute mark before iDVD would be forced to use more video compression. iDVD 2.0.3 will support up to 90 minutes of video but at a lower data rate and therefore lesser quality if you exceed 60 minutes of material.

Video recorded at 16:9 widescreen mode on a camcorder captured flawlessly into FCP when set to accept 16:9 video. iDVD happily made video on the final DVD that had the black bars top and bottom of the picture as intended.

The data rate on DVDs less than 60 minutes varied from about 6-7.5MB/S as reported by Sony DVD players. Perhaps others out there that have made a DVD over the 60 minute mark can post what data rate a Sony DVD player shows for their disc. Another improvement in the latest version is that you are warned when you exceed the 60 minute mark. Before it re-compresses your data at a lower data rate you get a dialog box asking if you wish to continue at the lower data rate.

The project I created contained several QuickTime movies, DV footage and multiple slide shows; the total time from clicking burn to having a finished DVD was 1 hour. During the first half hour, iDVD prepared the menus, buttons and other elements required to make a playable DVD disc. The last half hour was the actual burning of the DVD data to the disc at 2x the DVD data rate, meaning the computer was feeding the SuperDrive drive at a sustained 22.16MB/s during the write process. The current SuperDrive drive has a 2MB buffer and the ability to continue a recording even if a buffer underrun occurs.

Viewing the resulting disc on a reference grade broadcast monitor and a waveform monitor, the only visible distortions where those caused by the DVD player itself.

You can certainly make great looking presentations, slideshows or movies with iDVD, and it was fun and easy to use, taking care of the many details of making a DVD behind the scenes.

iPhoto 1.0
Then there is iPhoto 1.0, which has built upon the powerful yet simple theme of what iTunes is for audio, and applied it to images. But with the power of OS X and its Quartz graphics engine, iPhoto even in its 1.0 version has an even better user interface and a number of useful goodies.

As an example, the export command allows you to:

• Export a single image or group of images to a folder, all at a custom resolution of your choice.
  
  
• Export images to a web page hosted on Apple's free iTools website. If you already have your iTools account info setup in OS X, it takes 1 click to make a web page with your pictures.
  
  
• Export images to a slideshow contained in a QuickTime movie, and you can specify the image duration and size.

I tried a Canon PowerShot S20 and a Pentax EI-200 in my testing, and both were recognized as the correct model and downloading images to iPhoto worked without a hitch.

I am very impressed with what iPhoto 1.0 can do and look forward to it evolving to become even more useful, as more people move to digital imaging will find iPhoto an essential part of their digital lifestyle.

Final Cut Pro 3.0 on OS X
Running under OS X, along with the SuperDrive FCP makes the Mac a very powerful video editing system. With a number of the most commonly used effects rendered real-time you can get more work done with less time wasted waiting. With the Dual G4/1000 running the show, there are not many things you need to wait for in FCP 3.0.

At first glance FCP 3.0 appears very similar to version 1.0, but like the improvements made from 1.0 to 2.0 and later, there is many changes hidden behind the highly functional interface. Features like advanced compositing of layers, real-time effects and color correction with useful waveform and vectorscope displays to confirm that the video you work with is properly calibrated.

While working with Final Cut Pro 3.0 running under OS X, the Dual G4/1000 will be the system to have. I have been reading an excellent book by Lisa Brenneis, Final Cut Pro for Macintosh so I would have a better understanding of the way FCP works. As an owner of an older version of Premiere, I can see why Pro editors like FCP, as once you get into it, it is a very powerful and efficient tool. Once you learn a few of the keyboard shortcuts, you can work quickly, and with the G4/1000 running the show, the system responds quickly to your creative whims.

Some people have complained that FCP 3.0 does not support as many DV cameras as version 2, but I was able to use a 2 year old Sony Digital 8 camcorder without incident. Even material recorded at 16:9 transferred correctly with the easy to understand presets in FCP 3.0. I suspect that is just that Apple has yet to fully test all of the possible camcorders that are out there, so the list should be taken to state which camcorders are known to work in FCP 3.0.

I captured some footage from a friends wedding, shot indoors at a restaurant both before and after sunset. While the footage before sunset appeared to have a natural color balance, the indoor lighting after dark resulted in an overly yellow/red color cast, which FCP was able to remove. After processing in the color corrector, the only way to tell the day and night footage apart is to see the view out a window. I was very impressed at the amount of control the color corrector offers, and even with an amateur like me it was possible to get natural looking results.

From what I learned about FCP 3.0, it is reason enough for a member of "the other 95%" to get a Mac and unleash their creativity.

Benchmark Tests
Others have already run the standard Mac benchmarks on a Dual G4/1000 before I even had received a sample, so check out Mike's pages:
www.xlr8yourmac.com/systems/dual_1ghz_performance_test.html
and
www.xlr8yourmac.com/Graphics/Radeon7500_vs_geforce4mx/index.html

Conclusion
After using real applications on such a responsive machine, it is easy to see why so many creative professionals rely on Macs. The Dual G4/1000 continues the tradition of powerful pro computers with the ease of use that Apple is famous for, and speeds it up a notch.

Shipped booting into OS X will get more people into the OS X fold and give developers more incentive to move to the latest OS. One only has to look at the range of USB peripherals that came out with the sales success of the original iMac to see that OS X support will benefit from this move.

With the new generation of G4 CPU, the CD and DVD burning SuperDrive, a fast and quiet hard drive and in March even faster graphics cards available, the Mac platform has a new leader. When running OS X applications like Final Cut Pro 3.0, it was hard to not feel like the guy in the Maxell ad, sitting on a chair holding the armrests as the wind rushes through your hair.
-David Linder
February 24, 2002

(Here's a photo of the Dual 1GHz G4 Motherboard-Mike)