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Tower G5 single core, to dualcore

arjen92

arjen92

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Sep 9, 2008
1,066
0
Below sea level
He,

someone I know wants to buy a used Mac pro G5. It has a speed of 1,8 Ghz. I think he's going to use it for music. (logic pro, adium). But he said he was going to use FCS as well.

His question was if he could replace the G5 singlecore chip, with a G5 dualcore chip. And if that's possible, could somebody give me extra info about compatibility and such. For example, will it just boot without problems when you replaced it, or do you need to do extra things (drivers, reinstalling the os and such).

The G5 will be used in the near future for HD video editing.

Also, I know the new intel mac pro have graphic cards from nvidia and ati. But what graphic cards do the G5 towers have? are they good?

Thanks for the help.
 
A

Andrew Henry

macrumors 6502a
Mar 4, 2008
776
0
arjen92 said:
He,

someone I know wants to buy a used Mac pro G5. It has a speed of 1,8 Ghz. I think he's going to use it for music. (logic pro, adium). But he said he was going to use FCS as well.

His question was if he could replace the G5 singlecore chip, with a G5 dualcore chip. And if that's possible, could somebody give me extra info about compatibility and such. For example, will it just boot without problems when you replaced it, or do you need to do extra things (drivers, reinstalling the os and such).

The G5 will be used in the near future for HD video editing.

Also, I know the new intel mac pro have graphic cards from nvidia and ati. But what graphic cards do the G5 towers have? are they good?

Thanks for the help.
Click to expand...

Why even bother with the G5? It's nearing it's EOL very quickly, why not take that money and invest in a Mac Mini and such, it'd be faster than the G5 and be more future proof than the G5 is.
 
S

smadder

macrumors member
Apr 28, 2006
67
0
I went through this attempt as well. I couldn't find anything but stories of failure and/or I couldn't find anyone selling JUST the processor for me to even try on a swap. The only thing close was finding someone who found a used G5 mainboard that had a dual core chip and swapped it out. Outside of that, nothing. I ended up adding a SCSI card, an accompanying faster HD and maxing the RAM. I cannot for the life of me remember what the video card was specifically, but it was ATI - sorry. I used it for Logic and Pro Tools and was happy for a while until the software versions demanded more oomph.

arjen92 said:
He,

someone I know wants to buy a used Mac pro G5. It has a speed of 1,8 Ghz. I think he's going to use it for music. (logic pro, adium). But he said he was going to use FCS as well.

His question was if he could replace the G5 singlecore chip, with a G5 dualcore chip. And if that's possible, could somebody give me extra info about compatibility and such. For example, will it just boot without problems when you replaced it, or do you need to do extra things (drivers, reinstalling the os and such).

The G5 will be used in the near future for HD video editing.

Also, I know the new intel mac pro have graphic cards from nvidia and ati. But what graphic cards do the G5 towers have? are they good?

Thanks for the help.
Click to expand...
 
thejadedmonkey

thejadedmonkey

macrumors G3
May 28, 2005
9,180
3,330
Pennsylvania
Unless you're paying less then $350, it's not a good deal. The Mini's are more future proof then the single core G5, plus I recall that the single CPU G5 had major issues back in the day (more so then the rest of the Power Mac G5 line).

EDIT: To answer your question, I'm also pretty sure (but not 100%, my memory might be playing tricks) that the single core G5 doesn't have a slot for a secont CPU, so you would have to swap out the motherboard and cooling system as well (which is prone to leaks).

If you can't tell, I really think what you're trying to do is a bad idea.
 
California

California

macrumors 68040
Aug 21, 2004
3,885
90
No leaks on the 1.8 G5s

Or the 2.0 G5s

Or the 2.3 G5s

Or the 1.6 G5... because they are fan cooled. Also with maxed ram and good video card, they are a cheap alternative now for Mac Pro would be buyers.

Leopard is great on my G5s.
 
A

Andrew Henry

macrumors 6502a
Mar 4, 2008
776
0
thejadedmonkey said:
Unless you're paying less then $350, it's not a good deal. The Mini's are more future proof then the single core G5, plus I recall that the single CPU G5 had major issues back in the day (more so then the rest of the Power Mac G5 line)..
Click to expand...

I tried that, but he's dead set on upgrading an obsolete processor to another obsolete processor! :rolleyes:
 
Hrududu

Hrududu

macrumors 68020
Jul 25, 2008
2,299
627
Central US
I don't think a dual core processor would be compatible with the old motherboard. G5's were very picky about which components could be used. Even the power supply must be the exact right model or it won't work. I don't think taking a processor from a late 2005 G5 and dropping it into a 2003 G5 is going to work.
 
OrangeSVTguy

OrangeSVTguy

macrumors 601
Sep 16, 2007
4,127
69
Northeastern Ohio
The single processor G5s had 2 sockets but the one unused socket isn't even present so you can't install another CPU in there.

You can find dual 1.8ghz G5s for pretty cheap. Shop around as you can find those for <$300.
 
Dr.Pants

Dr.Pants

macrumors 65816
Jan 8, 2009
1,181
2
There are three different processors mixed up in the G5s, and I don't know all the models... Bt there was the 970, the 970GX,and the 970FX. The FX was dual-core, and used in the late 2005 models - the GX was in the 2.7 DP model. I am 99% sure that they are all (including various speeds of processor!) non-interchangeable due to each mobo needing different settings for a stable clock speed :(

Also, if your friend is doing HD video editing, he would be wise to do it "offline" just so his G5 doesn't choke. When he/she is done cutting, they can replace the clips (Onlining) and then render...
 
gugucom

gugucom

macrumors 68020
May 21, 2009
2,136
2
Munich, Germany
Dr.Pants said:
There are three different processors mixed up in the G5s, and I don't know all the models... Bt there was the 970, the 970GX,and the 970FX. The FX was dual-core, and used in the late 2005 models - the GX was in the 2.7 DP model. ...
Click to expand...

That isn't quite right. There was a PPC970 with 110 nm. Then they had a die shrink with the PPC970FX to 90 nm which was not compatible with the logic boards used before June 2004. Finally they introduced the PPC970MP in late 2005 also with 90 nm but with dual cores and PCIe bus.

The question was whether the 970MP dual core chip would run in a June 2004 second generation or a 2003 first generation Power Mac G5. The answer to that is definitely NO. The 970MP cannot run in an older logic board due to different chip set, memory design and bus specification.
 
arjen92

arjen92

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Sep 9, 2008
1,066
0
Below sea level
Thank you guys very much for your support. After the first post I came to realize that a mac mini would indeed be better. So I asked the person how much he would pay for the G5. He said he would have to pay 300 euro's. With the G5 comes 3 Gb RAM.

So I think it's a good choice.

I also thought about doing HD offline, and render the stuff overnight. (for the poster above check this thread: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/708357/)

Again thank you for the help.
 
Dr.Pants

Dr.Pants

macrumors 65816
Jan 8, 2009
1,181
2
To the OP: Sorry about getting my processors wrong. I would consider getting a scratch drive as well for your media storage just to keep things organized and at maximum throughput.
 
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