Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

filete01

macrumors newbie
Original poster
So I bought the 20" iMac with a basic config. (256MB RAM, 160GB,..) last week and I'm pretty happy with it yet I feel it's going to be not enough in the future, maybe a year or two from now or so as I intend to learn video editing and such. I didn't get more memory cos 2 grand already is a lot for me to pay.
Do you guys recommend switching it for the PowerMac G5, the base model?
if so, can I plug in a regular 19' crt monitor into it or will I need an adapter?

thank for your input...
 
if the monitor has a vga conector (a trapazoid sp? with 3 rows of 5 pins each) you'll need an adapter to use the dvi port on a g5. the adapter im pretty sure is included with your purchase. if you buy the base model g5 the only diference is 2 processors and a faster fsb. well, and greater expansion obviously... if you do get into video editing down the road you can always add more memory and/or a faster hard drive but that would be where the g5 might take the lead because you can add a better gfx card if you use motion or similar. i would recommend staying with the imac and just adding memory down the line because the resale will probably be higher than that of the g5 because of the built-in monitor
 
filete01 said:
I didn't get more memory cos 2 grand already is a lot for me to pay.

$2000 is a lot, but 256MB of RAM with OS X is nearly unusable. You can get 1GB (2x512MB) of RAM for under $200, and the difference you will see would be immeasurable.

I just hope the lack of RAM is not what's making you want to move to a PowerMac (PowerMac would be similarly crippled with that much RAM!)
 
If you already have a monitor and care more about power than looks, you'd absolutely be better off with the low-end PowerMac G5, unquestionably.

It's much, much faster with the dual processors and 900 MHz bus (compared to 600 in the iMac), plus you can upgrade the video card later if you so desire.

The powermac does come with a DVI-to-VGA adapter.

-vga4life
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.