Mac-Mini 2.0ghz vs. Powermac G5 2.5ghz x2

[edward-k]

Our old powermac died recently (G5 2.5ghz x2), the cost to repair was quoted at 850$, which is roughly the same price as a new Mac-Mini 2.0ghz. Just wondering how the performance of new mini compares to the 4 year old powermac? A new powermac is out of the question right now. Thanks in advance for any help. Ed

 

[kornyboy]

Wirelessly posted (iPhone: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/420.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0 Mobile/4A102 Safari/419.3)

Your 4 year old powermac will still out perform the Mac Mini across the board. I have the same powermac and it blows the socks off my wife's 2 GHz MacBook. The only major benefit of the Mini is that you would be moving over to the intel platform and you will have Tech support for a new machine.

 

[Father Jack]

IMO the Intel Mini would be best ....

If what I have read is correct, Snow Leopard will not support PPC (of course I could be wrong, according to my wife I quite often am .. )

 

[saulinpa]

Interesting that Mactracker shows the 2.0ghz Mini to be slightly faster than the original dual G5 2.5 (June 2004) but significantly slower than the late 2005 version..

 

[Lord Zedd]

The G5 will eat the Mini alive in the graphics and expandability departments.

 

[gehrbox]

Our old powermac died recently (G5 2.5ghz x2), the cost to repair was quoted at 850$, which is roughly the same price as a new Mac-Mini 2.0ghz. Just wondering how the performance of new mini compares to the 4 year old powermac? A new powermac is out of the question right now. Thanks in advance for any help. Ed

The real question you should be asking is "Do I need a PowerMac to do what I do on a computer?"

I have a 1.83Ghz C2D Mac Mini and a 24" 3.06Ghz iMac. For checking email, browsing the web, editing home video, retouching personal photo's, recording movies from EyeTV and streaming them to my AppleTV the Mac Mini was perfect.

I bought the iMac because I wanted a 24" iMac and I intend to do substantially more complicated video work.

 

[err404]

If the performance is comparable (even if the G5 is a bit faster) I'd recommend the Mini due to the intel architecture being more future proof. There are already a handful of apps that are not compatible with PPC and this trend will continue to make using a PPC more painful with each passing year.

At the end of the day, if you upgrade the G5, you will be looking for a new machine sooner then you would if you get a Mini.

But the Mini isn't the only option. Alternately you could pay a bit more and bump up to an iMac for a more powerful machine.