Questions about PowerMac G5

[MacintoshMaster]

Hi there,
I have just bought of ebay a powermac g5 dp 1.8Ghz 4GB ram for £180. I am using this for DAW. Before I was using a iMac G3 but was a little slow. I have looked all over the internet but can't find the measurements of the fans in the PMG5. Please could someone tell me! Also, what are PCI-X? Will normal PCI cards fit?

It does not come with an OS and I have leopard and tiger CD's. Which would run better/faster? The programs I will be mainly using are garageband and Logic Pro 8!

If I buy a SATA III or SATA III will it work?

 

[mabaker]

Leopard all the way. Just give it 2 GB of RAM.

 

[reddrag0n]

The fans in a powermac G5 are as follows.

PSU has 2 - 60mm fans blowing into it.

The front intake fans are either 1 or 2 80mm x 25mm fans (depending on model)

rear fans are 2 - 92mm fans (2005 G5 are 2 - 92mm x 25mm)

PCI fan is a 80mm fan

hard drive bay is an 80mm fan and a side turbine fan that draws air from the back of the logicboard.

As for PCI/PCI-X, yes, regular 32 bit and 64 bit cards will fit.
Reason why thay call it PCI-x is because the slots can handle 100 & 133MHz clocked pci cards.

 

[h0ser81]

Nope, SATA 3 drives will only work if it's capable of being jumpered down to SATA 2 speeds.

SATA 2 drives should work with no problems. I'd just look for a SATA 2 drive.

 

[MAC MAN JW]

I say OS X Leopard to. i run it on my G5 dual 1.8 with 2GB RAM and it is super fast!

 

[Hellhammer]

Nope, SATA 3 drives will only work if it's capable of being jumpered down to SATA 2 speeds.

SATA 2 drives should work with no problems. I'd just look for a SATA 2 drive.

SATA 6Gb/s is backwards compatible and will work with any SATA revision, even 1.5Gb/s.

 

[reddrag0n]

The fans in a powermac G5 are as follows.

PSU has 2 - 60mm fans blowing into it.

The front intake fans are either 1 or 2 80mm x 25mm fans (depending on model)

rear fans are 2 - 92mm fans (2005 G5 are 2 - 92mm x 25mm)

PCI fan is a 80mm fan

hard drive bay is an 80mm fan and a side turbine fan that draws air from the back of the logicboard.

As for PCI/PCI-X, yes, regular 32 bit and 64 bit cards will fit.
Reason why thay call it PCI-x is because the slots can handle 100 & 133MHz clocked pci cards.

I took another look at the fans for the G5. The front intake fans aren't 80 mm, they are 92mm fans, just like the ones for the rears.

Looking at a set now and they are 92mm Delta triblade fans.

 

[Jethryn Freyman]

Also, what are PCI-X? Will normal PCI cards fit?

Faster than normal PCI. Normal PCI cards won't fit.

It does not come with an OS and I have leopard and tiger CD's. Which would run better/faster?

Leopard 100%. Better than Tiger and every way. On a fast G5 you may even get a slight performance boost. It's only really with slower G4s that going to Leopard from Tiger would cut away performance much.

If I buy a SATA III or SATA III will it work?

From what I've read, SATA III is NOT backward compatible with the original SATA I, unless you can set the jumpers correctly on the drive.

 

[csiguy]

Faster than normal PCI. Normal PCI cards won't fit.

PCI-X is backward compatible with PCI 2.0.

However, installing PCI cards into a PCI-X backplane can have issues (related to channels, voltages, and bus speeds which is another topic), the PM PCI-X is a mixture (1x133 2x100).
If there are no additional PCI/PCI-X cards installed the issues are usually minimal.
Of course the card must be supported under OSX as well.

It would be best to ask about the specific card before just plugging it in.

Also see: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/976639/

From what I've read, SATA III is NOT backward compatible with the original SATA I, unless you can set the jumpers correctly on the drive.

Your source was not accurate.

Many SATA II and SATA III drives will correctly run on a SATA (I) interface.
Some drives include a jumper for compatibility (proper device detection), other drives will simply not work (typically due to large formatted size or command/speed issues).
It is best to check the exact make and model to see if other Mac users are successfully using it.