Hi all...
I bought a dual 2.7 Ghz G5 in April and have been using it daily ever since. Don't get me wrong, it feels speedy and all, but I can't help feeling theres something holding it back. I've experienced a number of annoying stalls whilst using programs such as Photoshop and even iTunes that I feel really shouldn't be happening on a computer of this calibre. For example, when clicking "open" in the file menu in Photoshop I always get a 5-10 second pause before the open window appears, sometimes this delay is even longer. It's so frustrating! I wondered whether it was my mac checking all drives (I have a single 400GB internal harddrive and an external firewire drive) before letting Photoshop have access, but it does just the same with the firewire drive disconnected. Anyways. what I want to know or discuss really, is what I can do, realistically, to achieve the maximum speed for my mac in general use (not necessarily Photoshop).
To put you in the picture, these are the tech specs:
- Dual 2.7 GHZ G5 processors
- 2GB Ram (I consider that sufficient for the moment)
- 400GB Internal drive (Hitachi)
- Radeon 9650 (This card seems to suck quite bad really!)
I've read on Barefeats / other sources that the X800 XT is the best card for my G5 in terms of cost / performance ratio... there's no point in getting the X850 cos its the same card but overclocked...or so I'm told. Can anyone recommend where to purchase this, considering I live in the UK? (Is macsales.com any good?)
Whats the best solution for internal harddrive? Should I get another 400 GB harddrive and setup some kind of raid system? (if so how?! any good sites to find info on how to do this using apple software?) Or would I be better off using one more expensive harddrive and another as a scratch disk? (For Photoshop use that is!)
If anyone has previous experience of getting the best out of their G5 I'd appreciate it!
Thanx.
I bought a dual 2.7 Ghz G5 in April and have been using it daily ever since. Don't get me wrong, it feels speedy and all, but I can't help feeling theres something holding it back. I've experienced a number of annoying stalls whilst using programs such as Photoshop and even iTunes that I feel really shouldn't be happening on a computer of this calibre. For example, when clicking "open" in the file menu in Photoshop I always get a 5-10 second pause before the open window appears, sometimes this delay is even longer. It's so frustrating! I wondered whether it was my mac checking all drives (I have a single 400GB internal harddrive and an external firewire drive) before letting Photoshop have access, but it does just the same with the firewire drive disconnected. Anyways. what I want to know or discuss really, is what I can do, realistically, to achieve the maximum speed for my mac in general use (not necessarily Photoshop).
To put you in the picture, these are the tech specs:
- Dual 2.7 GHZ G5 processors
- 2GB Ram (I consider that sufficient for the moment)
- 400GB Internal drive (Hitachi)
- Radeon 9650 (This card seems to suck quite bad really!)
I've read on Barefeats / other sources that the X800 XT is the best card for my G5 in terms of cost / performance ratio... there's no point in getting the X850 cos its the same card but overclocked...or so I'm told. Can anyone recommend where to purchase this, considering I live in the UK? (Is macsales.com any good?)
Whats the best solution for internal harddrive? Should I get another 400 GB harddrive and setup some kind of raid system? (if so how?! any good sites to find info on how to do this using apple software?) Or would I be better off using one more expensive harddrive and another as a scratch disk? (For Photoshop use that is!)
If anyone has previous experience of getting the best out of their G5 I'd appreciate it!
Thanx.
