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To Buy Or Not To Buy

cmvsm

cmvsm

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Hello everyone!

Wanted to get your thoughts on something. I'm biting at the bit to buy a G5 dual 2.0 but did not want to buy too early as their "cycle" is about to come around with some new updates. Does anyone have any insights as to what "updates" Apple is going to come out with anytime soon on the G5 line and is it worth it to wait? I would hate to miss out on anything, especially a memory/video upgrade or price break. Any thoughts would be appreciated.
 
Re: April to July delivery for 2nd gen G5

The CPU is a question mark, it all depends on IBM and what is "ready" at MWSF.

The things people are waiting for are PCI-Express video and DDR2 memory, but those may wait until the current board goes through a full product cycle.

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Traditionally we wouldn't expect Apple to make a major change for at least 18 months from the last speed bump, because they revised the Northbridge chip (which holds the AGP, DDR, and HT controllers.)

Of course Apple could swap in PCI-Express/PCI-X 2.0 Tunnel at any time for the current HT PCI-X Bridge/Tunnel. Since these are 3rd party chips.

On the XServe side, Apple is using Broadcom ethernet controllers, so we may be getting close to 10-Gig ethernet there.

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If you need it now, it's a good idea to buy now -- otherwise you could be waiting til next summer for a machine announced at MWSF -- if it goes as badly as the last two G5 releases.
 
I say go for it, even if they come out with a faster system you would still be able to do everything you want on your current mac.
 
I guess it depends on how long you can stand to wait. Educated guesses point to the next updates being 2 months away.

There's a refurbed last rev G5 2.0 for $1999 on the applestore right now. I think that that model came with the Radeon 9600 as well (it was the top of the line PM, and $2999, before the 2.5). That's something to think about.
 
JasonL said:
I guess it depends on how long you can stand to wait. Educated guesses point to the next updates being 2 months away.

There's a refurbed last rev G5 2.0 for $1999 on the applestore right now. I think that that model came with the Radeon 9600 as well (it was the top of the line PM, and $2999, before the 2.5). That's something to think about.
Click to expand...


Thanks for the advice. Actually, there is an Apple store right by me and they have an old revision dual 2.0 for the same price as the refurb at $2,000. Are there any issues with the previous revision? I think he said that it has the slower Superdrive at 4X instead of 8X. I think he also said that it does have the ATI 64MB card in it instead of the FX5200. Is this a good deal in anyone's opinion versus buying a refurb or versus the $2299 (educational price) current version?
 
The comment about the SuperDrive is accurate; the new one is 8x, the last rev PM is 4x. My PB is only 2x 🙁 How much that matters to you depends on how often you are going to use it.

So, I'd say it is a great deal. For $300 less than the edu price you are getting pretty much the same system but with a slightly better GPU, but a slower SuperDrive. For that price diffference you could buy some cool stuff. I also qualify for the edu discount and I'd save my $300 and go with the refurb.
 
JasonL said:
The comment about the SuperDrive is accurate; the new one is 8x, the last rev PM is 4x. My PB is only 2x 🙁 How much that matters to you depends on how often you are going to use it.

So, I'd say it is a great deal. For $300 less than the edu price you are getting pretty much the same system but with a slightly better GPU, but a slower SuperDrive. For that price diffference you could buy some cool stuff. I also qualify for the edu discount and I'd save my $300 and go with the refurb.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the advice. The dual 2Gig at the Apple store is a return and not a refurb which I'm sure is better. What did you mean by the old system having a better GPU? Just curious because I might get it tomorrow.
 
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