Looking to buy a G5 to replace Athlon 3200

You might benefit from looking at something like apple-history.com to see what the progression of PowerMac G5 specs was over the course of the product lifecycle. The dual core processors were the last hurrah, essentially... at that time, the PMG5 came with either one or two dual core processors, so that it had up to four G5 cores.

It's probably best to look at benchmarks on specific apps to understand how a PMG5 will compare to your Athlon. But that will require some digging.

My rough memory is that an Athlon XP 3200 is supposed to be roughly as fast as a P4/3.2, right? I think the G5 is roughly at parity or slightly faster than a P4 of the same clock speed, but slower than the Pentium-M/D type processors per clock speed. Meaning that most of the multi-processor PMG5s will be faster than that computer when they're adequately configured.

But then also, if you only have 1 GB of RAM for apps like that, I think that's probably a strong limiting factor... you're probably going to want more on a PMG5 or Mac Pro.

You may want to end up getting one of these for your PMG5: http://www.g5drivebracket.com/

The other things to be aware of are that you should make sure your audio card has Mac support, and also be aware that generally, many PC video cards work on Macs (so, e.g., if you're stripping your Athlon, you may be able to take the video card too), but require a firmware flash before they'll work.

I'd say replace your 3200+ with a 4800+ dual core and add a gig or so of ram, and continue to save for the Mac Pro.

Newegg has a 4400+ dual core right now for 178 bucks. Do that and add a couple gigs of ram and you will far better off than you are now especially for video work.

Link to chip

Amber said:

I don't want to invest any more money into this PC. I hate it.

Click to expand...

Well I'd ask people here what they think about a new Mini vs an older G5, (wait to see what they announce at Mac World)....
If they do something like put a nice dual core in the Mini it might be worth a look.

madyaks said:

Well I'd ask people here what they think about a new Mini vs an older G5, (wait to see what they announce at Mac World)....
If they do something like put a nice dual core in the Mini it might be worth a look.

Click to expand...

Well, it seems like her usage profile makes a Mini a big stretch. First, the Dual Core or Quad Core G5s are going to blow the Mini out of the water in terms of speed in a wide variety of things. But that aside, second, the G5 actually has room in it for all those hard drives. Third, the G5 can handle PCI audio hardware, whereas the Mini is limited to external modules. Fourth, a lot of people who are recording off of Macs use more than one monitor, so that they can keep a mixer or a multitrack view on one monitor at a big size while doing manipulations on the other... the Mini isn't suited for that, either....