Buying & Using a iMac G5 in 2013

gavinstubbs09 · Feb 17, 2013

I was looking (and bought) a Parts & Repair G5 iSight. Will be at my doorstep hopefully by next week. I sold a G4 iMac I had for just under a week and had some change for this. From what the buyer said, it will power on but no video or audio. I would be guessing Ram (my MacBook's done this) that would need to either be reseated & cleaned, or replaced. I hope it isn't much to get it working. I don't want to throw down $100 for a new motherboard or another $150 for a LCD.

So, my question is would it be a great daily driver for things like Facebook, Yahoo, YouTube, etc of the like. I've never owned a G5, so it is new to me.

smoking monkey · Feb 18, 2013

Is this an advert?

You fix macs but don't know if it's good enough to use for photoshop or other general uses?

I'm confused...

gavinstubbs09 · Feb 18, 2013

What I mean is I'd like to know ahead of time. I've never owned a G5 before and I finally started digging into the PPC era. I was wondering if anyone who has owned one knows what comparisons would be to something like the iMac G4.

azreal677 · Feb 18, 2013

gavinstubbs09 said:
So, my question is would it be a great daily driver for things like Facebook, Yahoo, YouTube, etc of the like. I've never owned a G5, so it is new to me.

Well I've got a 2006 Core2Duo, which is about a year newer than the G5 you're looking at I think. Facebook just about chugs away, but YouTube is no hope. It's just no use for flash anymore

UltraInstinct · Feb 18, 2013

My 2005 iMac G5 runs like a dream, general web surfing, youtube is perfectly fine, can still run firefox with itunes in the background and also runs office 2008 and photoshop perfectly too.

jaxhunter · Feb 18, 2013

You should be prepared to find blown capaictors on that machine's logic board. That is an issue those machines had. Unfortunately the logic board for that will be a lot more than $100 (the last time I looked they were about $600-$800).

As far as the web is concerned you will not find stock support for Adobe Flash. Adobe discontinued Flash for PowerPC several years ago. There are places you can find work-arounds to get Flash working but it may be quite the chore.

You might be better off biting the bullet and getting an Intel-based Mac that is 2008 or newer. Sticking with the older Macs may seem like a cheap way to go but it may end up being a lot more costly in the long run.

gavinstubbs09 · Feb 18, 2013

I am bummed Apple killed PPC so quickly, and from the looks of it it's got life left. My sister keeps using my custom built 6 core AMD (which soon I will sell and hopefully buy a 2008 8-Core Pro) so I wanted something that could still work for a year or so.

So, with that in mind, how well does Minecraft work on the G5? From what I know the iSight models have a 128MB card.

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jaxhunter said:
You should be prepared to find blown capaictors on that machine's logic board. That is an issue those machines had. Unfortunately the logic board for that will be a lot more than $100 (the last time I looked they were about $600-$800).

As far as the web is concerned you will not find stock support for Adobe Flash. Adobe discontinued Flash for PowerPC several years ago. There are places you can find work-arounds to get Flash working but it may be quite the chore.

You might be better off biting the bullet and getting an Intel-based Mac that is 2008 or newer. Sticking with the older Macs may seem like a cheap way to go but it may end up being a lot more costly in the long run.

I was looking at kits for it earlier, and I hope to god it won't need new parts. Maybe it'll just turn into my $65 desk attraction.

AlbertEinstein · Feb 18, 2013

It's quite interesting seeing people bying PowerPC Macs before doing any research on them.

Let me summarize PowerPC: The internet is too heavy for it, the latest OS is 6 years old and unsupported, the application support is at an end and the only thing keeping the G's alive is the user base (which is terribly small as it is).

Sadly, most of it is thanks to bad optimization, and it's just getting worse. You would be better off with an early Intel machine.

And no, Minecraft won't work well. :apple:

Lil Chillbil · Feb 18, 2013

AlbertEinstein said:
It's quite interesting seeing people bying PowerPC Macs before doing any research on them.

Let me summarize PowerPC: The internet is too heavy for it, the latest OS is 6 years old and unsupported, the application support is at an end and the only thing keeping the G's alive is the user base (which is terribly small as it is).

Sadly, most of it is thanks to bad optimization, and it's just getting worse. You would be better off with an early Intel machine.

And no, Minecraft won't work well.

I completely agree with einstein here, although there are people on this forum namely powerpcfanforver who may have something to say on the minecraft topic. He edits video on a 800mhz powerbook g4 and also runs minecraft. Basically he Denys any claim you can throw at him that powerpc is dieing and frankly I am very impressed with what you can still accomplish with these aged machines

Twimfy · Feb 18, 2013

I used a 1GHZ G4 as an iTunes/Movie machine for sometime and loved it.

Had to let it go due to a lack of space but will definitely consider picking up another some time.

gavinstubbs09 · Feb 18, 2013

AlbertEinstein said:
It's quite interesting seeing people bying PowerPC Macs before doing any research on them.

Let me summarize PowerPC: The internet is too heavy for it, the latest OS is 6 years old and unsupported, the application support is at an end and the only thing keeping the G's alive is the user base (which is terribly small as it is).

Sadly, most of it is thanks to bad optimization, and it's just getting worse. You would be better off with an early Intel machine.

And no, Minecraft won't work well.

I did some research, but I personally think it's better to ask instead of looking at a forum post from like 2009 when PPC was still somewhat supported.

With all that in mind, I'd love to use it (if all works as hoped) as either a iTunes jukebox or even a Skype machine (since Skype & Windows 8 =

). If it works good enough I might just give it to my sister and tell her to have fun.

AlbertEinstein · Feb 19, 2013

gavinstubbs09 said:
I did some research, but I personally think it's better to ask instead of looking at a forum post from like 2009 when PPC was still somewhat supported.

With all that in mind, I'd love to use it (if all works as hoped) as either a iTunes jukebox or even a Skype machine (since Skype & Windows 8 = ). If it works good enough I might just give it to my sister and tell her to have fun.

I'm sorry if i wasn't being clear, but when i was talking about research i wasn't refering to old threads. You are very welcome to drop by the PowerPC sub-forum for future investments.

But the most important part is that you do something fun with it. :apple:

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