A Power Mac G5 to replace Mac mini C2D

[macnerd93]

Hey all

Okay so I'm considering selling one of my Mac minis (I have 3) this one is early 2006 1.5Ghz Core Solo Mac mini, with an 80GB HD 1GB RAM. My parents are currently using it in the home office and its an okay machine, but I think its seen them by. So what Im thinking about doing is giving them my bedroom theatre mac mini which has 2GB RAM, 1.83Ghz C2D, 160GB HD to replace the dated core solo and replace my mac mini for me with a Power Mac G5 of some sort.

What I wanted to know was how is web based Flash content playback i.e Youtube BBC iPlayer etc on the G5. I have tried flash on my 3 G4 based macs of which my only my maxed out 1.42Ghz eMac was only able to adequately play a youtube video a 240p in Safari, although it did work much better in the Camino browser mind.

I wasn't considering anything less than a Dual 2Ghz. I was hoping to try and find a Quad 2.5Ghz just so it has more grunt.

For people who say "ahh don't bother just buy another second hand mac mini" I don't want to, I would prefer getting a Power Mac G5 if I'm honest regardless if there is a tad loss of performance. Although I am expecting a 2.5Ghz Quad would be a lot faster than a 1.83Ghz C2D in terms of benchmarks Because the GMA 950 graphics are a major let down for the older generations of mini.

thanks a lot

PS if people who have G5's and or someone could show me a performance video of how a G5 acts with flash play back with youtube, BBC Iplayer, iTV Player etc it would be greatly appreciated.

Ryan

 

[bigeasy_uk]

Hi Ryan,
I know you don't want to hear this but please hear me out!
I was in the exact opposite boat as you are in now. I had a dual 2ghz G5 tower with 6gb ram, I was using it to watch tv in my bedroom (iplayer, itvplayer, tvcatchup, 4od, etc).
It was working fine until they all upgraded to use the latest version of flash, which is no longer supported on the PowerPC platform.
I've bought a 2.4ghz mini to replace the G5 and I'm more than happy with it, it's quieter, runs cooler, takes up less space and uses less power. I wouldn't switch back now even if adobe decided to support the PPC again.
If you simply must have a tower get an old Mac Pro or a more modern mini or build a hackintosh inside a old G5 case. You'll be much happier in the long run.

 

[skinniezinho]

Hi Ryan,
I know you don't want to hear this but please hear me out!
I was in the exact opposite boat as you are in now. I had a dual 2ghz G5 tower with 6gb ram, I was using it to watch tv in my bedroom (iplayer, itvplayer, tvcatchup, 4od, etc).
It was working fine until they all upgraded to use the latest version of flash, which is no longer supported on the PowerPC platform.
I've bought a 2.4ghz mini to replace the G5 and I'm more than happy with it, it's quieter, runs cooler, takes up less space and uses less power. I wouldn't switch back now even if adobe decided to support the PPC again.
If you simply must have a tower get an old Mac Pro or a more modern mini or build a hackintosh inside a old G5 case. You'll be much happier in the long run.

have you tried that "latest flash hack" on that g5?how does it go?
There is a link on the FAQ on my sig...or just search here on the forum.

 

[chrismacguy]

Hey all

Okay so I'm considering selling one of my Mac minis (I have 3) this one is early 2006 1.5Ghz Core Solo Mac mini, with an 80GB HD 1GB RAM. My parents are currently using it in the home office and its an okay machine, but I think its seen them by. So what Im thinking about doing is giving them my bedroom theatre mac mini which has 2GB RAM, 1.83Ghz C2D, 160GB HD to replace the dated core solo and replace my mac mini for me with a Power Mac G5 of some sort.

What I wanted to know was how is web based Flash content playback i.e Youtube BBC iPlayer etc on the G5. I have tried flash on my 3 G4 based macs of which my only my maxed out 1.42Ghz eMac was only able to adequately play a youtube video a 240p in Safari, although it did work much better in the Camino browser mind.

I wasn't considering anything less than a Dual 2Ghz. I was hoping to try and find a Quad 2.5Ghz just so it has more grunt.

For people who say "ahh don't bother just buy another second hand mac mini" I don't want to, I would prefer getting a Power Mac G5 if I'm honest regardless if there is a tad loss of performance. Although I am expecting a 2.5Ghz Quad would be a lot faster than a 1.83Ghz C2D in terms of benchmarks Because the GMA 950 graphics are a major let down for the older generations of mini.

thanks a lot

PS if people who have G5's and or someone could show me a performance video of how a G5 acts with flash play back with youtube, BBC Iplayer, iTV Player etc it would be greatly appreciated.

Ryan

There is a "hack" (someones modified flash 10.1 to report back as 11.1) to force most newer flash content to work on PowerPC, however I would say hunt around for a Quad 2.66 Mac Pro instead of a Quad G5. I've seen Mac Pros go for £500 with some hunting, which makes them much better value than the Quad G5, especially as the G5s water cooling is highly likely to leak Green Gunk everywhere. (This is why I no longer have my Dual 2.5 G5 I had back in the day - it had the infamous green leak, which led to me getting it repaired by Apple and selling it and switching back to the PC for a few years).

If you are set on a G5, the fastest one I would get is a Dual 2.3 G5, as these were the fastest ones to be air-cooled, which isn't susceptible to coolant leaks.

 

[Nameci]

I have the dual core 2.3GHz PM G5, maxed RAM to 16GB. I have no problem playing flash based videos. I have been watching hulu at 480p and I cannot even hear the cpu fans rev up.

See my sig.

 

[bigeasy_uk]

have you tried that "latest flash hack" on that g5?how does it go?
There is a link on the FAQ on my sig...or just search here on the forum.

I sold the G5 and bought the mini before the hack was released so I can't say, but eventually they will start to use features available in the newer versions of flash and the hack won't work anymore.

I have the dual core 2.3GHz PM G5, maxed RAM to 16GB. I have no problem playing flash based videos. I have been watching hulu at 480p and I cannot even hear the cpu fans rev up.

See my sig.

Flash worked fine on my G5 too, the dual G5 was more than powerful enough to run flash videos at 720 and 1080, it just stopped being compatable.

 

[skinniezinho]

I sold the G5 and bought the mini before the hack was released so I can't say, but eventually they will start to use features available in the newer versions of flash and the hack won't work anymore.



Flash worked fine on my G5 too, the dual G5 was more than powerful enough to run flash videos at 720 and 1080, it just stopped being compatable.

Just read the hack...it is the latest flash version available for intel but hacked to run on powerpcs, so it now should be ok =)

 

[burnout8488]

The Dual Core PowerMacs and the Quad should be able to do flash based content without a hiccup.

My Quad was an absolute monster, it ate up 1080p YouTube without breaking a sweat. Seriously impressive.

My old Dual Processor 2.0 was a dog when it came to high def YouTube, though. Stick with the DC/2.5Quad in your searches for a usable computer today.

 

[Liquinn]

I'm interested in buying a used PPC PowerMac G5

Is it worth it now?

 

[bigeasy_uk]

Just read the hack...it is the latest flash version available for intel but hacked to run on powerpcs, so it now should be ok =)

Excellent, I'll keep that in mind. I don't really keep up with PPC stuff these days as I've moved to all intel, the last I heard of the flash on PPC hack it was the old version with a modified version identifier so it appeared as 11.10 (I think) to web sites.

 

[burnout8488]

The hack doesn't mean Flash is going to run good on older Macs though. It'll just allow the videos to (kind of) work.

 

[stroked]

Just read the hack...it is the latest flash version available for intel but hacked to run on powerpcs, so it now should be ok =)

It isn't the latest version for intel. It is still 10.1, but makes it appear that you are running 11.1.

 

[thekev]

thanks a lot

PS if people who have G5's and or someone could show me a performance video of how a G5 acts with flash play back with youtube, BBC Iplayer, iTV Player etc it would be greatly appreciated.

Ryan

The G5s are some of the least reliable computers ever designed by Apple. The blame is not all on IBM here. Apple implemented these things with leaky radiators and other design flaws. At the time the Apple store touted it as a really great system and stated that a leak would not short out the system. We've seen how that turned out . Apple actually did try in some ways to make the mac pros as appealing as possible right when they debuted, but it took quite a while to see full native software support. Rosetta wasn't a bad solution, but emulation isn't necessarily a great idea for important things.

Oh yeah, a newer mini would probably be a better replacement for the old mini.

 

[rx7dude]

My G5 is a 1.8 SP. It ran 480P ok but that's it. I have not used it in a while so I can't comment on the new flash issues.
Have a look at some 1st gen Mac Pros. They seem to be really dropping in price. Prior to Xmas I've saw a few in the $550 to $700 range on CL.

 

[GermanyChris]

Hey all

Okay so I'm considering selling one of my Mac minis (I have 3) this one is early 2006 1.5Ghz Core Solo Mac mini, with an 80GB HD 1GB RAM. My parents are currently using it in the home office and its an okay machine, but I think its seen them by. So what Im thinking about doing is giving them my bedroom theatre mac mini which has 2GB RAM, 1.83Ghz C2D, 160GB HD to replace the dated core solo and replace my mac mini for me with a Power Mac G5 of some sort.

What I wanted to know was how is web based Flash content playback i.e Youtube BBC iPlayer etc on the G5. I have tried flash on my 3 G4 based macs of which my only my maxed out 1.42Ghz eMac was only able to adequately play a youtube video a 240p in Safari, although it did work much better in the Camino browser mind.

I wasn't considering anything less than a Dual 2Ghz. I was hoping to try and find a Quad 2.5Ghz just so it has more grunt.

For people who say "ahh don't bother just buy another second hand mac mini" I don't want to, I would prefer getting a Power Mac G5 if I'm honest regardless if there is a tad loss of performance. Although I am expecting a 2.5Ghz Quad would be a lot faster than a 1.83Ghz C2D in terms of benchmarks Because the GMA 950 graphics are a major let down for the older generations of mini.

thanks a lot

PS if people who have G5's and or someone could show me a performance video of how a G5 acts with flash play back with youtube, BBC Iplayer, iTV Player etc it would be greatly appreciated.

Ryan

I just brought home a 2.0 dual processor and am currently watching amazon streaming which is flash based without any issues..I just played my facebook games without problems. I cannot watch netflix though, it requires Intel for some reason. A mac mini is probably faster, uses less electricity but it's just not a pretty