This is crazy!

The two machines were released within a year of each other and the G5 has a higher clock speed. Seems like the site is unaware of the obsolescence of PowerPC.

Not a crazy price at all for retail, particularly if the DC G5 is in good cosmetic condition. The DC 2.3GHz is the fastest air cooled Mac there is.

There is still the odd bit of demand for G5s from the music trade. There was a documentary on Jeff Lynne on the TV recently and in his studio at home was a G5 running Pro Tools with an Acrylic Cinema Display attached. If it isn't broken...

The real story is how cheap the Mac Pro is considering that it can still run Yosemite with a bit of tinkering.

redheeler said:

The two machines were released within a year of each other and the G5 has a higher clock speed. Seems like the site is unaware of the obsolescence of PowerPC.

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true...in my part of the world, there are HUMANs who don't realise the difference and they tend to get pissed of when they are told that their G5 is not the same as the Pro, and that it can't fetch a price of USD350.00!

Part of me is tempted to order a 2006 Mac Pro for $199. The G5 doesn't tempt me so much at that price.

At the same time, however, if I'm going to spend that much, I'd almost rather spend the $550 to get an 8-core 2008 model...

By the way, I'll add that I was in my aunt's print shop the other day for a visit. They primarily do offset printing, but also have branched out and do sign/banner work and other large format, one off work.

In any case, I looked over at the graphic designer's desk and spotted an acrylic Cinema display. Sure enough, sitting under the desk was a G5 tower.

bunnspecial said:

By the way, I'll add that I was in my aunt's print shop the other day for a visit. They primarily do offset printing, but also have branched out and do sign/banner work and other large format, one off work.

In any case, I looked over at the graphic designer's desk and spotted an acrylic Cinema display. Sure enough, sitting under the desk was a G5 tower.

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Not surprised. Businesses often have the oldest hardware because upgrading en masse costs so much unless absolutely necessary. I used to pass a basement graphics workshop on my way to work in London a couple of years ago. They were still running OS9 on B&Ws and Graphites long after everyone had moved to Mac Pros.

weckart said:

There is still the odd bit of demand for G5s from the music trade. There was a documentary on Jeff Lynne on the TV recently and in his studio at home was a G5 running Pro Tools with an Acrylic Cinema Display attached. If it isn't broken...

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I sold my maxed out G5 to a music producer for a fair price, he sounded pretty happy to get it!

The ram for the first generation Mac Pro's is a little pricey, at least if you buy it new from a quality vender like OWC. This one only has 2GB so add the cost of more ram to that $199. I'm not saying it isn't a decent price, but just not as cheap as it looks.

archtopshop said:

The ram for the first generation Mac Pro's is a little pricey, at least if you buy it new from a quality vender like OWC. This one only has 2GB so add the cost of more ram to that $199. I'm not saying it isn't a decent price, but just not as cheap as it looks.

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Other than being registered ECC, is there anything special about it?

I was given 4x1gb of DDR2 a little while back that I've never used, but was told it was brand new and was ordered for a server that ended up dieing before it was installed. I also picked up a half dozen or so rack mount servers a while back...I'm using two of them and have plans for a third, but am keeping the other three for parts. I think these are all DDR-2, and of course are registered ECC.

As per OWC, the 2006s have 8 slots, so with 8 1gb sticks(which I'm sure I could come up with) I'd have a decent amount of ram.

Like I said, though, I'd rather spend the money for a 2008, since it does officially support Yosemite(or Mavericks, which I prefer for the time being).

bunnspecial said:

Other than being registered ECC, is there anything special about it?

I was given 4x1gb of DDR2 a little while back that I've never used, but was told it was brand new and was ordered for a server that ended up dieing before it was installed. I also picked up a half dozen or so rack mount servers a while back...I'm using two of them and have plans for a third, but am keeping the other three for parts. I think these are all DDR-2, and of course are registered ECC.

As per OWC, the 2006s have 8 slots, so with 8 1gb sticks(which I'm sure I could come up with) I'd have a decent amount of ram.

Like I said, though, I'd rather spend the money for a 2008, since it does officially support Yosemite(or Mavericks, which I prefer for the time being).

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Do the sticks have heatsinks on them? In researching RAM for my Mac Pro 1,1, I found out that folks who put RAM in that didn't have heatsinks ran into a lot of trouble. My Mac Pro has 6GB inside, though two of the RAM sticks I bought on eBay with heatsinks don't show up in System Profiler. It's not that big a deal as I have more than enough RAM for what I do and I don't have the inclination to max this thing out.

robertdsc said:

Do the sticks have heatsinks on them? In researching RAM for my Mac Pro 1,1, I found out that folks who put RAM in that didn't have heatsinks ran into a lot of trouble. My Mac Pro has 6GB inside, though two of the RAM sticks I bought on eBay with heatsinks don't show up in System Profiler. It's not that big a deal as I have more than enough RAM for what I do and I don't have the inclination to max this thing out.

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Yes, all the registered DDR2 I have has heat sinks.

It sounds like I'd be good to go if I bought one.

From my experience at least with newer versions of OS X, 4gb is workable but I prefer having 8gb or so just for some "breathing room."

I have to really push my Macbook Pro with 8gb to get a page out. I bought it with 4gb, and it would page out often enough(under 10.7) to make me want to upgrade it, although admittedly it never was a huge problem. Not too long ago, I put the original 4gb back in it before a trip to the genius bar, and for the day or so I was running it with that, I could tell a difference under 10.9. It wasn't a huge difference but enough to be noticeable.

It get page outs all the time on my Macbook running 10.10 with 4gb of RAM. I'd upgrade it, but unfortunately 4gb DDR2 sticks get into the neighborhood where they actually start costing real money(it would cost me more to up the ram to 8gb in that computer than I paid for the whole thing).

bunnspecial said:

Other than being registered ECC, is there anything special about it?

I was given 4x1gb of DDR2 a little while back that I've never used, but was told it was brand new and was ordered for a server that ended up dieing before it was installed. I also picked up a half dozen or so rack mount servers a while back...I'm using two of them and have plans for a third, but am keeping the other three for parts. I think these are all DDR-2, and of course are registered ECC.

As per OWC, the 2006s have 8 slots, so with 8 1gb sticks(which I'm sure I could come up with) I'd have a decent amount of ram.

Like I said, though, I'd rather spend the money for a 2008, since it does officially support Yosemite(or Mavericks, which I prefer for the time being).

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Everymac.com states they originally shipped with "667 MHz DDR2 ECC "fully-buffered" FB-DIMM memory (with a heatsink design that is a bit different from generic FB-DIMMs." Other than the heatsink, and the higher prices, I don't know if there's anything else different about them.

I was looking at one of these older Mac Pros a short time ago on my local Craigslist. A company had a number of them for sale ranging from $300 to $450US. The only difference between them was the amount of ram--2GB to 16GB.

I did a little research, and found an article where the author mentioned the ram for these particular models was more expensive, and should be considered when purchasing one. OWC's prices seemed to verify this statement. In the end, I dropped the whole idea and have kept using my MDD's and Imac G5's.

$199 seems like a reasonable price compared to prices I see them go for on eBay and CL. If your ram does work, then you've got plenty.

I agree with you, though, that a 2008 model would be better because of the option to upgrade to a newer OS version. Of course, they cost more.

I imagine there'd be Hackintoshers out there who'd be prepared to pay $199 just for the brand new case...