Upgrade Graphic Card or G5?

Which is better will depend entirely on what you do with the machine. Which you've not told us.

I'd be tempted to sell it and try for a dual 2.3 or better model.

Beaniecheese said:

I use my G5 for Photoshop, Illu and Indesign mostly for freelance work in CS3.

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Graphics card will do nothing for these, faster CPU will

Beaniecheese said:

Will the CPU help with fps in WoW?

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Somewhat, although a better GPU would probably help there. But then I was careful with my selected quote not to include WoW. My suggestion was based on the majority of uses listed...

Beaniecheese said:

Does the GPU not help render images faster, which would help with Photoshop?.

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The GPU only renders the image for applications using an API that uses the card (basically meaning OpenGL on OSX). Photoshop does not so a faster GPU does nothing for it (well ignoring the very small number of GPU accelerated functions added to CS4).

Beaniecheese said:

Am I correct in thinking that the 2.7Ghz is quickest with single apps and the Quad is quicker when multitasking?

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Depends on the application. Aperture for example is multi-threaded so can spread itself across multiple CPUs/cores. On my MBP for example it can happily sit with both CPU cores maxed on it's own. Photoshop on the other hand is less good and this (some filters are multi-threaded, others are not).

Yes. ALthough they will not be taking up as much processor time, they still take a sizable chunk of the processor cycles - depends on how many you have open.

If you have lots of apps, then the Quad will be somewhat faster, as each application can be run to maximize the use of all the cores.

Wait a second !!!

Beaniecheese said:

I'm glad I started the thread, thank you so much for your time and knowledge.

I won't bother with the GPU, I'll look at getting the G5 Power Mac 2.5 or 2.7Ghz Dual or even the 2.5Ghz Quad.

Am I correct in thinking that the 2.7Ghz is quickest with single apps and the Quad is quicker when multitasking?

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Hmmm.... if you know the G5's as well as I do, belive me there is only one machine you really want to consider: That is the G5 Dual Core, late model with 2,3 Gig and PCI-E graphic bus. This is the fastest model with air cooling, but with the dual core and the PCI-E bus and faster memory bus.

The models you mentioned above are the early AGP models that have horrible graphic card options. On top of that they are the ones with the liquid cooling from Delphy. At all costs stay away from them unless you want to loose the machines because of cooling leaks!

Out of my experience with upgrading past and current macs, I felt the 10K Raptor start up drive did the most speedup for me..

Good luck with your nice G5 project !!

I'm running a time bomb right now (2.5 quad), but I like it. I haven't played any games on it - in fact, I don't want to put games on it as I would not get any work done.

I personally do not know what would be better - my 2.5 quad with a 7800GT or a 2.7 with higher-end AGP card... WoW, I assume, is a single-threaded process more then anything....

The 2,5 Quad also runs on a dry heat sink and uses the faster bus and memory. So that definetely is the cream pie of G5s. It beats the 2,7 water cooled in single thread apps because of the higher memory band width. It naturally beats it in multi thread enabled apps anyway.

gugucom said:

The 2,5 Quad also runs on a dry heat sink and uses the faster bus and memory. So that definetely is the cream pie of G5s. It beats the 2,7 water cooled in single thread apps because of the higher memory band width. It naturally beats it in multi thread enabled apps anyway.

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I could have SWORE that my G5 quad was liquid-cooled. Late 2005 Quad G5... If this is the case, I'll finally stop feeling guilty about leaving it on while rendering.

Dr.Pants said:

I could have SWORE that my G5 quad was liquid-cooled. Late 2005 Quad G5... If this is the case, I'll finally stop feeling guilty about leaving it on while rendering.

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You swear correctly. Both the first dual processor 2.5 and 2.7 PCI-X and the later dual processor dual core 2.5 (quad) PCIe G5s are liquid cooled. Basically anything 2.3 or below is not, anything above, is. This is why I bought a DP 2.3 myself.

Apologies all round. I used to own a dual core and may have read somewhere that the quad used the same heat sink. I have now conducted a google search and come across reports of quad owners who lost their machines due to coolant leaks. Dr.Pants is right. I should have be less assertive. A bit egg on the face.

No problem, we all do it from time-to-time. Personally, I was holding out on hope for a moment.

However, a project I want to do is replace the water-cooling system with an air-based system. I haven't found a guide to crack open the huge heatsink, but I would like to look at it... If sockets for IBM processors are like that of Intel and AMD ones, there should be a standard for attaching a heatsink. And I know that the quad 2.5 Powerstation (Linux machine) is air cooled - potentially, it could be a simple upgrade. Potentially, the heatsink connections are proprietary, thus not-so-much-fun.

But it works. I'm not going to fool around with the heatsinks until there is a problem or I get a MacPro. If there was a guide on their replacement on the internet somewhere *sigh*

Beaniecheese said:

So if I can't get my hands on a quad, the next best would be the DC 2.3Ghz or the DP 2.7Ghz?

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The DC 2,3 should make you happier considering the reliability. Performance wise the 2,7 DP should be slightly ahead.

Save up and by a Mac Mini Core 2 Duo 9400M..

It'll run circles around G5s, dual or otherwise..