Quote -  If it's CPU.. then, are you saying Mac G5, 1.8GZh users, should not expect to do any complicated posing anymore?  I guess that's true, **i gotta move up to a new Intel mac. 
**
in 2 years i'll be able to get a new comp

Given you're a guy on a budget, your devotion to Apple seems irrational to me.

Let's pick a target price of $800. What can you get for that, say at Best Buy?

From Apple, the only option is the iMac Mini for $799.99.

From PC vendors, there are tons of choices, but let's look at the ASUS Essentio for $779.99 (you save $20).

**CPU: iMac = Intel Core 2 Duo 2 Ghz, ASUS = Intel Core 2 Quad 2.5 Ghz
L2 Cache: iMac = 3 MB, ASUS = 4 MB
Bus speed: iMac = 1066 MHz, ASUS = 1333 MHz
**
These are your #1 factors in rendering speed, and the ASUS beats the snot out of the iMac. With 4 newer generation cores instead of 2 older ones, and 25% faster on top of that, more cache, and a higher bus speed, you'd easily see a render go 2X faster, and I bet it would actually go 3 to 5 times faster in some situations. That's 5 minute render versus a 25 minute render. I watch a 5 minute render and stop it if I don't like what I see. A 25 minute render, I go away and come back to find I screwed up, and have to wait another half hour to see if I got it right. With renders going 2 to 5X faster, you learn a lot more every day and are a lot less frustrated.

RAM: iMac = 2 GB DDR3, ASUS = 8 GB DDR3

Are you kidding me? 8 GB versus 2 GB is insane! Think about this: Load your base OS and support applications, along with Poser with an empty scene, and you've already used 1 GB of RAM. That leaves 1 GB for scene content (polygons) and rendering on the iMac, versus 7 GB on the ASUS. That's right, you get to play with 7 times as many polygons on the ASUS before it croaks and starts swapping. That's the difference between 10 figures and 70 figures. You want a crowd? Forget that on the Apple - it ain't gonna happen.

Disk: iMac = 320 GB SATA at 5400 rpm, ASUS = 750 GB SATA at 7200 rpm

You need space for content on your disk. Your base used no matter what is 100 GB. For your content, that leaves you with 220 GB versus 650 GB. That's 3 times as much available disk space. Plus, the 5400 rpm drive on the Apple is a slow piece of crap compared to the 7200 rpm disk on the ASUS. So stuff will load 2 to 5 times faster on the ASUS. Do you want to wait 30 seconds or 6 seconds to load a modern high-poly figure with a crapload of morphs?

**GPU: iMac = NVIDIA GeForce 9400M, ASUS  = NVIDIA GeForce GT220
VRAM: iMac = 256 MB DDR3 SDRAM, ASUS = 1024 MB GDDR3
**
This is another blowout victory for the ASUS. The GT220 is bottom of the barrel in PC land, but it still kicks the 9400M in the peanuts. With a faster clock speed, twice as many shader processors, and faster memory that is FOUR TIMES BIGGER, there just is no comparison. You want to pose lots of stuff, or see them in preview with high quality texture rendering or real-time shader preview? Then there simply is no comparison. Not even close.

There are other things we could compare and see the ASUS win, but they're not helpful to 3D. Things like more USB ports, media card readers, etc. The only feature I can find on the iMac equals or exceeds the ASUS is built-in Bluetooth support.

So in summary, the ASUS is 2 to 5 times faster at rendering, holds 7 times more content in a scene, holds 3 times the content on disk, loads that content 2 to 5 times faster, and let's you interact with that content 5 times more smoothly.

These are not little factors, like 25 to 30%, they are 300%, 500%, 700% factors.

If you love your Mac software, then keep the one you have now plugged in, but run your 3D stuff on a PC. Or, be insane. Whichever you prefer.

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Renderosity forum reply notifications are wonky. If I read a follow-up in a thread, but I don't myself reply, then notifications no longer happen AT ALL on that thread. So if I seem to be ignoring a question, that's why. (Updated September 23, 2019)