Mac Mini C2D vs. PowerMac G5 Dual 2.0

[sebaz]

I'm kicking around the idea of switching my Rev. A PowerMac G5 Dual 2.0 for a Mac Mini Core 2 Duo 2 Ghz with 2 Gigs of RAM.

I'm wondering if I would take a big performance hit with the switch to this machine when compared to my current workstation (most likely not, but hey I ask anyways). I am looking for something with a small footprint that's quite and basically is not a furnace with computing features inside that sucks power like a maniac. It's worth mention that I am on a budget as well(Macs here in Argentina are expensive as hell).

As it is right now, if I do a feature to feature comparison, I would be getting DL DVD burning, Airport, and Bluetooth, something that my PowerMac G5 is lacking.

Its worth noting that the PowerMac has 1 Gig of RAM, the stock Radeon 9600 with 64 MB of RAM, but does have a 250 Gig HD.

I regurlarly use Photoshop CS3 (working mostly with A3 sized files @ 300/600 DPI), Illustrator, in Design, Dreamweaver, some Flash. Of course the run of the mill, Web browsing/email checking along with IMing and iTunes activities.

So what you guys think? You think a trade of my ol' faithful PowerMac from 2003/2004 to a top of the line mac mini would be a good idea?

 

[SuperCompu2]

If you're willing to part with RAM expandability and graphics card upgrades, huge hard drive space and easily replicable optical drives, sure. It'd be a great replacement in that case.

I don't imagine you use classic so switching off the PowerPC line shouldnt be a worry for you

 

[jamesi]

the C2D mac mini will blow away your powermac G5. barefeats has some benchmarks proving that. i would definitely sell the G5 and pick up a new mini especially since you only have 1 gig of ram and an aging 9600 invested in your current rig

 

[sebaz]

Hey thanks guys for the replies. As a strictly OSX user I won't be missing Classic anytime soon. The only issue that I could see biting me its the integrated GMA vid. card, then again I'm doing 2D work most of the time.

Hows Leopard's eye candy with a GMA 950?

 

[andrewag]

I have a PowerMAc G5 2GHz DP and a first gen black Macbook (core duo 2Ghz) and the difference between the two isn't really that mind blowing. The MacBook is faster at video encoding and all that, but really, I don't notice too much of difference compute wise between the two.

Leopard eye candy is fine on the MacBook but i do remember trying out Farcry on it and it couldn't do it. Had problems playing roller coaster tycoon (latest) as in slow down. Both games were through Windows.