Would you buy a G5 now?

[FFTT]

Several of the earlier G5's did have a major noise issues do to a defective PSU
provided by a third party component supplier.

I lucked out buying one of the last Rev "B" DP 2.0's and it's been a flawless workhorse.
One of my friends purchased a G5 2.0 six weeks earlier and paid $600.00 more
and had the PSU issue, so I don't want to mislead anyone that G5's are completely trouble free.

The only crap I've had to deal with was a glitchy stock 160 GB Maxtor HD.

Since I installed my Seagate 250 GB SATA, I haven't had one single hardware issue.

The least troublesome G5 overall has been the last dual core PPC 2.3 GHz PCI-e model.

The 2.3 GHz chips are Apple's workhorse server chips.

The 2.5's and 2.7's required extra liquid cooling because they run HOT!

This is why I recommend the air cooled models.

 

[vohdoun]

The 2.5's and 2.7's required extra liquid cooling because they run HOT!

This is why I recommend the air cooled models.

To be honest I've never seen all the fuss people talk about with the G5, putting it under heavy load. It gets no hotter than my AthlonXP 50 - 65c under load which the G5 hits 60 - 65 as well there abouts.
Don't get me wrong though I've seen my 2.7 hit 71 - 75c during the summer, but heck even some Intel chips run that.
The way people make things out about it as if its going to melt through the chassis!

Does the air cooled 2.3 ramp up and down the fans as loud too like the liquid ones?

 

[FFTT]

My G5 runs dead quiet which is important in the limited space of my project studio.

The only time I've ever heard the fans ramp up was running the hardware test CD.
Otherwise, it doesn't happen.

 

[technicolor]

go with the G5 and get a MacPro later on when the Rev B is released so that all bugs etc are gone and you can get an awesome computer.

Care to explain what bugs the Mac Pro Rev As have?

 

[zero2dash]

now i'm really confused. i found a dual 2.0 g5, GeF 5200 64mb, with 3 gb of ram for 1k. not sure if i'm going in the wrong direction? i just need to multi-task and run cs2. my poor, aging, & trustworthy quicksilver is getting tired.

You better buy that before they realize they're seriously undercutting that price and raise it a good $500.

Seriously - if you are running a Quicksilver right now and you want to upgrade and that dual G5 is $1,000 then you'd be foolish not to buy it. Ideally you'd be better off with something more recent (ie Intel) but for only $1000 and considering you're getting 3gigs of ram included in that price? You better buy that baby

MacPros are great. The FB-DIMM RAM they use? Not so much. (Very pricey.)

 

[FFTT]

That machine sold in a stock configuration for $2299 (edu)
The price dropped to $1699.00 (edu) at closeout, but I got the $100.00
promotional rebate at the time so mine cost $1599.00
RAM for this machine is running about $135.00 per GB at the moment.

If you can buy that machine in proper working condition for $1000.00
you've done quite well.

Toss the Maxtor 160GB HD as soon as you can and add a matched pair of Seagate 250 GB SATA's for about $220.00

Never look back

 

[Warbrain]

Would I buy a G5 at this point? Of course. The G5 is still one of the best computers out there. I would take it over a Mac Pro at the moment because all of my apps are still PPC.

 

[zero2dash]

Toss the Maxtor 160GB HD as soon as you can and add a matched pair of Seagate 250 GB SATA's for about $220.00

You can get bigger for cheaper.
I recently purchased a 320g Seagata SATA II drive with perpendicular recording from NewEgg for $94 and they're still selling them at that price. Obviously with the G5 running a SATA I (150meg) rate, you can still use these drives because you can switch them from a SATA I or SATA II rate (my mobo only supports the SATA I rate as well).

$94, 16 meg cache - excellent excellent drive.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16822148140

God Maxtors are $#!t. Worst hard drive I've ever owned in the 15 years of computer ownership I've had.

 

[leekohler]

Let me put this out there for you- I bought the last rev dual 2.0 G5 (to replace my aging G4 similar to yours) on the advice of my IT guy at work. Yes, I too work a lot with CS2 and the thing has been amazing- sliced my freelance workload by more than half. Now, I realize that the PPCs will be worthless in a few years- however, I'm going to keep my G5 as a server once I get a Mac Pro. It should serve me well in that capacity for many years. If you look at it that way, you may really be able to justify buying the G5. They are powerhouses and I have no regrets regarding my purchase.

 

[dogbone]

just wondering. i'm a graphic designer who primarily uses adobe cs2. i have an old dual 800 g4 quicksilver as my workstation which is bogging me down. i'm interested in buying a mac pro (more future proof), but have found a used dual 2.5 g5 for about $1500. what would you do? thanks.

I've only skimmed the thread so I hope I don't repeat too much stuff. But my thought is if you are using Adobe apps for graphic design why would you even want to upgrade to CS3? In the real world CS3 is only CS1.5

With 4GB of RAM I'd go for the dual 2.5 G5 and skip CS3. When CS4 is out you can upgrade to intel then.

 

[asencif]

Let me put this out there for you- I bought the last rev dual 2.0 G5 (to replace my aging G4 similar to yours) on the advice of my IT guy at work. Yes, I too work a lot with CS2 and the thing has been amazing- sliced my freelance workload by more than half. Now, I realize that the PPCs will be worthless in a few years- however, I'm going to keep my G5 as a server once I get a Mac Pro. It should serve me well in that capacity for many years. If you look at it that way, you may really be able to justify buying the G5. They are powerhouses and I have no regrets regarding my purchase.

I agree with this post. Although, I have bought a Mac Pro, purchasing a G5 for the right price is something I plan to do down the road or if a deal I can't pass up presents itself. For you using it now for CS2 work help greatly in productivity then you can get the MP later and set it up as server.

I would get one now to make it into a very strong server. With a PCI-X/E SATA card I can put like 6 HD in that thing and RAID them out. Tons of storage and gigabit ethernet to serve your network.

 

[QCassidy352]

Just make sure it's the 8 DIMM PCI-X model, 512 MB, SuperDrive, GForce 5200, 160 HD
Model number should say VPN M9455LL/A

There were 4 G5 generations (see below), and every one managed to have a dual 2.0 model. The first 2 were almost identical, the 3rd was the low-end model of that generation and was crippled in a number of ways, and the last was dual core.

IMO if you can get an "A," "B," or especially "D" for $1000 with 3 GB of RAM you should be all over that. The dual 2.5 for $1500 is not nearly as good a deal, and I would pass on that one.

Rev. A:
8 RAM slots, PCI-X, Radeon 9600 standard

Rev. B:
8 RAM slots, PCI-X, Geforce 5200 ultra standard

Rev. C:
4 RAM slots, PCI, Radeon 9600 standard

Rev. D:
8 RAM slots, PCI-e, GeForce 6600 LE standard, dual core

 

[ibookhelp]

all in.

well, today i took the plunge & picked up that rev b for 1k. i never realized how refined they actually are. now i get it, this thing is sweet. kind of makes my quicksilver look like a kiddie toy (no disrespect). i guess the proof will be in the pudding. i've swapped my pci cards and am doing a clean install. what's the deal with the maxtor 160? is it not worth keeping? regardless, i'm stoked.

one man's trash....

 

[zero2dash]

well, today i took the plunge & picked up that rev b for 1k. i never realized how refined they actually are. now i get it, this thing is sweet. kind of makes my quicksilver look like a kiddie toy (no disrespect). i guess the proof will be in the pudding. i've swapped my pci cards and am doing a clean install. what's the deal with the maxtor 160? is it not worth keeping? regardless, i'm stoked.

one man's trash....

Congrats
Maxtor drives (in my experience and from what I gather is the "general consensus") are 100% trash. I've never had more problems with hard drives than the several Maxtors that I've either owned or had to attempt to recover data from because they failed. I hate Maxtor drives and IMO they are gutter trash. If I were you, I'd buy another hard drive immediately, transfer everything onto the new drive, and sell the Maxtor to whomever will buy it.

Seagate recently purchased Maxtor so no one knows whether future Maxtor drives will be good or not. I've bought both Seagate and Samsung HDs and never had problems with either, and I also hear that Western Digital is dependable as well. As for the others - Hitachi (who now owns IBM's Deskstar HD division) are supposedly good but pricier than everyone else.

 

[trueheart78]

well, today i took the plunge & picked up that rev b for 1k. i never realized how refined they actually are. now i get it, this thing is sweet. kind of makes my quicksilver look like a kiddie toy (no disrespect). i guess the proof will be in the pudding. i've swapped my pci cards and am doing a clean install. what's the deal with the maxtor 160? is it not worth keeping? regardless, i'm stoked.

one man's trash....

Congratulations. You should be set for some time, with someone finding some treasure in your soon-to-be trash

 

[PowerMike G5]

Care to explain what bugs the Mac Pro Rev As have?

I have yet to have a single issue with my Mac Pro ...

I'd buy a G5 if you need to do some work that can pay itself off ... you can probably find one for a good price these days ...

 

[FFTT]

I think it's funny how some think a top of the line machine like the 2.0 Rev "B"
will be useless.

As long as the software you're running now gets the job done, it's not going to suddenly stop working, unless you upgrade too far.

Pro Applications are for professional users and just about anything you need is available in PPC Applications.
Adobe Applications are going to perform just fine on this new system.

The current Universal Binary Applications work fine too, so you're G5 will cover your needs for quite some time.

 

[SMM]

I still use my G5 2.0 x 2 for editing, video capture and Citrix/VB programming. I use my G5 Quad for the same, plus rendering, LiveType, DVDSP, etc. I use my new 2.66 PM for all of the above and extra horsepower with QMaster/Compressor. Basically, I find all machines very capable and some a bit more so because of the added processing power. The G5 is a fine machine and is not dated, even though there are faster machines out there.