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About to buy a Dual 2.7..what to look out for?

O

ocbo41

macrumors regular
Original poster
Sep 8, 2007
244
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I am in the market for a new workstation, I just sold my macbook pro on ebay and am looking at purchasing a Dual 2.7 powermac. Is there any models to look out for that have problems? Are these ones watercooled? Is it worth it to spend an extra $400-500 on a used mac quad?

I was going to wait till nov. to buy a Mac-Pro 3ghz but I really dont need the speed and having a powermac would do just fine for now. (Finishing up school and freelancing in design/ photo retouching in jan-feb)
 
well I would prefer buy an intel, however price is the issue. I also have CS2 and am running it in rosetta on the MBP. Buying CS3 and a 2.66 mac pro isn't do-able right now, I could upgrade to cs3 in jan or so maybe. The main reason for going on the cheap is I just had brain surgery last month and can only work a few days a week for a while...so moneys tight.
 
I wouldn't touch one of those water cooled Power Macs with a bargepole... Nothing against the Power PC. Just real cautious about all the things that could go wrong with the plumbing. I just kept working on a 1.42GH Mac Mini doing freelance design and Illustrator work until the Mac Pros rolled out and a few weeks didn't show any major issues with the thing.

Frankly, a MacBook Pro sounds like it would be perfectly suited to your needs...
 
Wow scary article!

Would This model be watercooled? I believe its a pre 2005 model as it only supports 8gb ram...wasn't sure when they made the switch to watercooling.
 
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adamzx3 said:
well I would prefer buy an intel, however price is the issue. I also have CS2 and am running it in rosetta on the MBP. Buying CS3 and a 2.66 mac pro isn't do-able right now, I could upgrade to cs3 in jan or so maybe. The main reason for going on the cheap is I just had brain surgery last month and can only work a few days a week for a while...so moneys tight.
Click to expand...

I found the CS2 suite ran respectibly on my Mac Pro. Just so long as you get the memory up to 2Gb or more. It also ran on my Mac Book with the same memory configuration.
 
adamzx3 said:
Wow scary article!

Would This model be watercooled? I believe its a pre 2005 model as it only supports 8gb ram...wasn't sure when they made the switch to watercooling.
Click to expand...

Yes, that model is liquid cooled!
 
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MacsAttack said:
Frankly, a MacBook Pro sounds like it would be perfectly suited to your needs...
Click to expand...

Yes thats what I thought as well when I bought it last year...I am having problems with it heating up to much when using aperture or cs2 for 10hrs a day...not the most stable. My buddy's MBP 2.3 doesnt heat up as much, I have the first gen 2.0ghz and will peg 82c with a cooler pad.
 
adamzx3 said:
The main reason for going on the cheap is I just had brain surgery last month and can only work a few days a week for a while...so moneys tight.
Click to expand...

Whoa! you're going to be fine, I hope? (Brain surgery sounds very serious!)
I wish you strength in your recovery, adamzx3.

The DP 2.7 is liquid cooled so make sure you don't find any traces of leaks.

Maybe getting a Dual Core 2.3 is a better choice?
This one has PCIe grfx opposed to the 2.7's AGP, faster RAM, and no liquid cooling.
If these Macs are about the same price, I would go for the DC 2.3, not the DP 2.7. It would seem the DC 2.3 has much more life left in it, and it's easier to update the grfx.
 
Hmmm do you know if there all liquid cooled and which 2.5ghz are not liquid cooled ?? I would hate to spend $1500 for floating mess :)
 
MacsRgr8 said:
Whoa! you're going to be fine, I hope? (Brain surgery sounds very serious!)
I wish you strength in your recovery, adamzx3.
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Thanks guys for the fast replys I cant hardly keep up replying :)

Thanks MacsRgr8 I will be fine, I had a brain aneurism in my brain stem but they caught it in time with an MRI scanner...I went to the Cleveland clinic and they have a neuro surgeon that does coil immobilizations all the time so they could go through my femoral artery. The normal procedure is "clipping" and I guess there like a 85-90% fatality rate for just the surgery...lucky my operation had like very low risk, under 5% for my age. Which reminds me he said odds of getting an aneurism at 22 are so high I would have better odds of get struck by lightning twice in my life lol!

MacsAttcak, I was running 2GB of ram...huge improvement but cs2 really struggled with big 35 megapixel photos...even with 16mp images (both with several layers) not bad for a laptop but it gets frustrating :)
 
hmmm maybe I shoulda did this research before I sold my MBP :eek:

I'm afraid the 2.3 will be to slow and not enough of a value....the 2.7 would kinda of be middle of the road. I wish the new mac pro's would come out!!

Would you think that the watercooled models would have leaked by now if they where to have problems?

Now I dont know what to do....at least I have a PC box to work on in the meantime.
 
I sold my Dual 2.7 on ebay and purchased a mac pro. I got over 1800 for it. They are very expensive for what they are.

If you keep an eye out, there are decent deals here and there for refurb and slightly used mac pros. You are getting a lot more machine for $2200 for a new macpro 2.66 than 1600-1800 for a 2.7 G5.
 
I can get a brand new PowerMac 2.66 for $2299 with student discount and woulndt mind waiting for saving up some money but cant wait untill nov/dec for a refresh.

Here is a pretty dandy deal, Dual 2.7 5GB ram and a 250gig drive with warrenty till 05/08...$1580 I was watching it slip out of my hands!
Ebay Link

Edit**
How hard is it to get apple to cover any water damage for the machine if something happened under applecare? I have read posts that they wont cover it or have a hard time.
 
If it has AppleCare, it may not matter as much if it leaks. Later, you can sell it for an upgrade to MacPro and maybe not lose too much money out of that transaction?

Is there a well documented high failure rate on Apple's watercooled machines or is this just the fear of the unknown? I don't know how it is at the moment, but banks used to buy IBM mainframe servers that were liquid cooled for a long time. It is not a very recent or short lived technology. Of course, I don't know how well Apple implemented it.

Oh, good luck with your recovery... Watch out for the lightnings. :)
 
theBB said:
If it has AppleCare, it may not matter as much if it leaks. Later, you can sell it for an upgrade to MacPro and maybe not lose too much money out of that transaction?

Is there a well documented high failure rate on Apple's watercooled machines or is this just the fear of the unknown? I don't know how it is at the moment, but banks used to buy IBM mainframe servers that were liquid cooled for a long time. It is not a very recent or short lived technology. Of course, I don't know how well Apple implemented it.
Click to expand...
Watercooling failure appears to have been happening more often recently. I just had a 2.7 GHz PowerMac G5 suffer a cooling leak. For some bizarre reason it was purchased without AppleCare. (Before my time.)
 
Out of curiosity, how fast was this MBP. You might end up downgrading yourself depending on stats. A PM G5 isn't a wise buy right now, although I understand the lack of $$$$. I say you tough it out and get a MP when you can afford it.
 
I run a Dual 2GH G5 with 4GB of RAM all day at work, and I can tell you it's still pretty snappy with large PSD files. I use CS3 and work on files averaging over 300MB (with layers) most of the time without much lag. I work in prepress and spend my days in Photoshop and Illustrator, and our G5s are still running fast enough that they won't upgrade us yet.

I assume you meant you work on 35MB, not 35 mega pixel files. A 35 mega pixel file would be just over 100MB. Even so, 100MB files would be a snap on that setup, not to mention your "little" 16MB files.

It worries me that you were having issues with those file sizes on a MacBook with 2GB of RAM. I would guess running CS2 through Rosetta would have something to do with that, I've heard Rosetta is a RAM hog.

You're 22, are you not in school? You do know about the huge discount you get for Adobe's software if you are taking any classes? You can get the whole CS3 Design Package Standard for about $400 though journeyed.com - or any of the other (legitimate) school resellers. I'm going to sign up for a winter semester class to get the CS3 deal, when I get my new iMac next month.
 
iToaster said:
Out of curiosity, how fast was this MBP. You might end up downgrading yourself depending on stats. A PM G5 isn't a wise buy right now, although I understand the lack of $$$$. I say you tough it out and get a MP when you can afford it.
Click to expand...

Its a 2.0ghz , 2GB ram, 80GB harddrive. I think a 2.3 would be a downgrade...a 2.7 with 4-5 gigs should be a quite a bit faster, especially with CS2.

If I could get a Mac-Pro know I would scrape some cash together and save an extra $700...but I can't wait until the end of nov. or jan. I have to build up my portfolio. And I dont think 2300 is a good deal for the old hardware.

No easy way to go :)
 
Retouch Artists Bechmarks

Macbook Pro 2.0- 2GB-100GB 5400rpm-CS2 - 3m41s

PPC 2x2.7 - 6.5GB - 2x400GB 7200rpm - CS2 - 53.43s

Now the MBP has to run it in rosetta so its not quite fair but thats what I have and cant cough up the money for the CS3 Suite.
 
RickDeckard said:
I assume you meant you work on 35MB, not 35 mega pixel files. A 35 mega pixel file would be just over 100MB. Even so, 100MB files would be a snap on that setup, not to mention your "little" 16MB files.
Click to expand...

nope, megapixels although now that I checked it was 31 mp not 35...they where from a Hassey digital back...big tiffs :) the raw files are only like 25-30mb though, they must be compressed. The new hassey H3DII is 39mp! Though normally my retpuched psd files dont exceed 250-300mb with layers.

Thanks for the info Rick :) good to hear it runs great in a production environment. I will be working prepress for a while, probably a local label company and freelance on the side and see where it goes

I did take advantage of the educational discount with CS2, and if I have the money will do the same with cs3 before I graduate (dec. 07), a good deal indeed, especially since adobe lets you legally use the educational version for making profit.

Yea rosetta really make it slow down, take a look at the benchmarks I just posted, my MBP ran 10sec quicker than that one...still painfull lol.
 
Can You Wait A Month?

RichP said:
I sold my Dual 2.7 on ebay and purchased a mac pro. I got over 1800 for it. They are very expensive for what they are.

If you keep an eye out, there are decent deals here and there for refurb and slightly used mac pros. You are getting a lot more machine for $2200 for a new macpro 2.66 than 1600-1800 for a 2.7 G5.
Click to expand...
I think buying a refurbished 2.66 MP for $2199 is what you should do IF you feel you must buy now.

I have a Quad G5 - water cooled - and it is half as fast as the 2.66 Mac Pro when it comes to crushing video with Handbrake. If you go for the CS3 Master Collection, some of it won't run on G5's. I advise you against getting any G5 and stick to Intel Core 2 Duo Macs.

Keep in mind that in a month there may be a 2.5GHz 8 Core Mac Pro for $1999. This is not a good time to buy anything because of Leopard and because the next Mac Pros are going to be wicked faster Harpertowns.
 
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