Will standard ram work in G5

[i_wolf]

Hi guys,
Im considering purchasing a G5 dual 2GHz. Currently i have a Xeon dual 2.8 on 533fsb. I need more speed and i believe that panther coupled withe the new g5 will leave it in the dust for hard core number crunching.... i actually expect the g5 to anialate the p5 when released also but thats another story. Any way i digress.
The point is that i have 2 512 meg sticks of OCZ enhanced latency 3500 sticks... rated to about DDR 450MHZ.

What i would liek to know is if i order my mac with 512 megs standard. Will i be able to pop out one of the sticks in the xeon and put it in the g5????
Is this possible at all or does the G5 need buffered EEC ram?????

Kind Regards,
i_Wolf

[Sun Baked]

...The RAM expansion slots accept 184-pin DDR SDRAM DIMMs that are 2.5 volt, unbuffered, 8-byte, nonparity, and DDR400-compliant (PC3200) or DDR333-compliant (PC2700)...

...DIMMs with any of the following features are not supported in the Power Mac G5 computer: registers or buffers, PLLs, ECC, parity, or EDO RAM... And the SPD EEPROM must be enabled and programmed.

[Wes]

Originally posted by i_wolf
Hi guys,
Im considering purchasing a G5 dual 2GHz. Currently i have a Xeon dual 2.8 on 533fsb. I need more speed and i believe that panther coupled withe the new g5 will leave it in the dust for hard core number crunching.... i actually expect the g5 to anialate the p5 when released also but thats another story. Any way i digress.
The point is that i have 2 512 meg sticks of OCZ enhanced latency 3500 sticks... rated to about DDR 450MHZ.

What i would liek to know is if i order my mac with 512 megs standard. Will i be able to pop out one of the sticks in the xeon and put it in the g5????
Is this possible at all or does the G5 need buffered EEC ram?????

Kind Regards,
i_Wolf

Well you won't be able to add 1 stick, when you order 512 megs, Apple will give you 256 megs per processor. So you will need to add 2 sticks of 512.

Atleast, that's how I think it works.

[FuzzyBallz]

1st of all, you'll just be degrading your G5's performance by mix matching RAM of different speed. And no, G5 doesn't use ECC RAM. You can pick up a stick of 512MB PC3200 (Crucial) for around $90 or cheaper, depending on brand.

[szark]

Originally posted by Wes
Well you won't be able to add 1 stick, when you order 512 megs, Apple will give you 256 megs per processor. So you will need to add 2 sticks of 512.

Atleast, that's how I think it works.

Yes, all G5 memory must be added in pairs of DIMMs.

[i_wolf]

When you say that i would be hampering performance ... what exactly do you mean.. can you explain to the ignorant please! (me)
I would have thought that since the ram i have exceeds the DDR specification in the powermac that it would just throtle to the same speeds as the rest of the ram in it.
Will i hamper the speed if i use generic crucial ram or is it best to just stick to the apple stuff cause it looks kinda expensive in my opinion.
Thanks for the info so far much appreciated
Kind Regards,
i_wolf

[manitoubalck]

Ok, you use Xeons, and want to upgrade to a 64-bit machine, you seem to want to use as many parts as possible from your current machine in your new machine in order to reduce costs. (Not a bad idea.) Since you own EEC REG Memory why not go to a 2-way AMD Opteron System, they require EEC RAM and, use the same operating system you are on, and you can use all the programs you currently own. Thus reducing costs even more, since you would only need buy, the components you required (Processor/Motherboard/case) not a whole new system, as a G5 would require you to do.

Also never forget that parts for PC's are always cheaper and easier to find than the same parts for an apple.

[manitoubalck]

Originally posted by Wes
Well you won't be able to add 1 stick, when you order 512 megs, Apple will give you 256 megs per processor. So you will need to add 2 sticks of 512.

At least, that's how I think it works.

Yes apple will give you 2 sticks of RAM, but it's not one per processor it's one per channel. Only the AMD Opterons and other ultra high-end chips have individual processor RAM. The G5's RAM is still communal. The G5 RAM is Dual Channel DDR400 thus making up the 800MHZ or 6.4GB/s transfere rate.

Check out this thread to raed more 'G5 memory: DualChannel or not'

[Wes]

Why else would they do it? It seems to me like it is dual channel, Crucial think it is too:

[i_wolf]

well mainly the reason i want to go apple is .....
1) I believe that the G5 is faster and more advanced than the opteron. Especially now that panther is out and proper benchmarks can be run..... Also more and more apps are going to be optimized for panther and the G5 so G5 owners should benefit from an extra speed boost over x86 windows world.
2) I do not want to use windows except for games.
3) I have a thesis and final year project to complete in computer science and i thought that programming on a mac and optimizing for the g5 would differentiate my project from some of the others... it wouldn't be usual.
4) There is a great ADC community for students.
5) I want something that will last for a couple of years.

Now i saw those pc world bench's and i think they are rubbish. Why?? well obviously they weren't using an opimized OS.... they ran non SMP mac apps, they tested in emulation classic mode... i.e. premier which was running in classic (which means since classic is not multi threaded... one cpu was emulating os9 and running premier on it which in itself is not optimized for g5.) The only bench i thought was fair (and i know some of you guys are going to laff at this one) but the photo shop. My reasons being... both opteron and G5 had some optimizations for this bench... altivec G5 and sse2 opteron and the G5 still beat the opteron handily. This bench wasn't even run on panther. I reckon that the gap will widen more as more and more apps are more optimized for the g5 and compiler support develops.

Thats pretty much why im interested in the G5.
However, i am equally interest why you would choose the opteron over the g5..... could you elaborate or any more suggestions? Do you reckon that the G5 is waste of money in terms of processing power purchased???

[i_wolf]

So is there anybody else that thinks im crazy considering the G5. Do my reasons make sense to any of you guys.....??? To me it seams like a great buy and a good idea.. but i would like more opinions.