About to purchase G5, how reliable are they?

[Joshuarocks]

Less than 50% the performance, not that hard to figure out.

Single threaded performance is almost the same (2.3 vs. 2.5), the Quad shows its performance in multithreaded apps, though.
However, even though you might not necessarily run applications that can fully utilise all 4 available cores, I believe that the Quad will do better even in everyday tasks.

The jump from 2 to 4 cores is definitely noticeable as most people run a lot of apps simultaneously and the 2 additional cores distribute the load.
A single G5 core gets loaded pretty quick (web browses can easily max out a core, which doesn't leave much room for additional tasks).

I see your point, though. The LCS is kind of a deal breaker if you're not too tech savvy and can't replace the pumps/hoses.

You see.. herein lies the problem.. If I would have held on to my Quad G5, I would never have been able to afford the Mac Pro.. looking now at what I currently use my mac pro for I am starting to wonder if I really needed to have it in the first place.

I only got it because I wanted a nice Intel Machine for my modern stuff(handbrake, dvd encoding, dvd ripping, burning two dvds/cd's simultaneously).. And most of my everyday stuff I do is done on my PB G4 1.67 which I acquired almost brand new from someone.

I guess its a tough decision for me to consider getting back the G5 Quad and also having the 2010 Mac Pro, since I will never utilize the full potential of that machine.. video editing doesn't interest me, yet there has to be some way I can get real benefit out of the 6-core machine.. It originally was a 2009 mac pro w3580 3.33 quad-core, but then I had to have the latest and greatest, so for 300 dollars got the 2010 backplane board and processor board.

Then in December, got the 6-core processor for like 700 dollars.. Now looking back I am sort of at a tough decision.

I really didn't want to sell off my MDD and G5 Quad, but realizing 3 years ago at the time that I would never have been able to afford an intel mac, other than the mac mini, I wanted something with expandability as those are the type of machines I am used to. I don't foresee getting the 2012 mac pro when it comes out since I have no use for such power..

Thunderbolt won't help me with time machine or cloning using carbon copy cloner, so its a waste for me.

Sorry if I went off topic a little, just trying to decide if I wanted to get a Quad G5 myself once again or not.

 

[MacHamster68]

geekbench score for the 2.3 dual core is 2082
geekbench score for the 2.5 quad is 3304

and you can get a quad , but you need to make one thing absolute sure , that it does not come with the delphi pumps , apple did change the supplier basically right at the end before discontinuing the G5 , the later ones are i think from panasonic , but that needs confirmation and those are much more reliable , still did not help them ,despite apple still sold quiet a few to its victims aeh customers who believed apple a couple month earlier, as apple told everybody how superior the G5 is and then going intel

 

[Joshuarocks]

geekbench score for the 2.3 dual core is 2082
geekbench score for the 2.5 quad is 3304

and you can get a quad , but you need to make one thing absolute sure , that it does not come with the delphi pumps , apple did change the supplier basically right at the end before discontinuing the G5 , the later ones are i think from panasonic , but that needs confirmation and those are much more reliable , still did not help them ,despite apple still sold quiet a few to its victims aeh customers who believed apple a couple month earlier, as apple told everybody how superior the G5 is and then going intel

Ok, I saw plenty of them on ebay.. in all shapes and sizes(conditions), how do I ask this question to a potential seller? the most I would pay for a G5 Quad, considering I have a PB G4 1.67, 2010 Mac Pro, Pismo G4, and Gateway P-6860fx would be around 4-600 dollars.. no more, no less..

Then I would need an adapter to get the LED cinema display to work with the DVI.

 

[VanneDC]

I had a quad for yonks, never had a drama with the LCS. and i had the delphi unit.

 

[Joshuarocks]

I had a quad for yonks, never had a drama with the LCS. and i had the delphi unit.

As did I.. and if I had a lot of money in my bank at the time I would NOT have traded up the G5 for the mac pro.. I would have gotten a 2006 for 1500.00 and then traded it up for a higher mac pro.. but instead, dummy me.. decided to complete my journey to Intel by getting rid of my G4 MDD and G5 Quad - stupid mistake on my part..

Only 3 years later to yearn for another G5 Quad.. mine was unique in that it was one of the LAST ones made in 2006 and its LCS was very reliable.. never a problem.. I am now taking my chances getting another one, only hoping its LCS won't die on me.

 

[300D]

Why not buy a new mac mini for a few hundred more?

Because any G5 will sodomize a Mini in graphics performance.

How is the Mac mini not expandable?

By definition of its design. The only piece of hardware than can be changed by the user is the amount of ram.

The dual core processor alone is worth the extra $. What can you expand on a G4 or G5 that you can't expand on a mini?

Hard drives, video card, optical drive, add-on cards, more than 8GB ram and the ability to connect more than one display.

You even have the possibility to flash Nvidia 7800 cards (the most powerful you can get for the G5)

That is false information. The X1900 is over 25% faster in every category.

 

[Yotsuba]

Because any G5 will sodomize a Mini in graphics performance.

As an owner of a Power Mac G5, that statement makes me proud to own one of these beasts.

Power Mac G5. Sodomizing Mac minis since 2005.

 

[iVeBeenDrinkin']

As an owner of a Power Mac G5, that statement makes me proud to own one of these beasts.

Power Mac G5. Sodomizing Mac minis since 2005.

Yikes

 

[VanneDC]

To be honest, I do miss the quad. Mine was silent and I loved the fx4500 quadro in it. It did hanbrake upthere with the best of them. That said though, I don't have room for lots of Boxen and the 2.3 dual pm I have ATM ( boxed up) won't be out for a while as I am way to buisy with work and stuff ATM.

But the quad is no comparison to the 2.8 octo I have now. And it plays a heap of games. The gtx285 is also much, much faster than the quadro.
I can't really imagine you selling your Mac pro and grabbing a quad. If you do I would recon you will be getting another Mac pro shortly after that.

As that's what I did....lol

I started with dual 1.8pm, then dual 2.0 pm then Mac pro (early 2006) sold all three and bought a quad pm. Then picked up a very cheap 2.3pm. And then last Christmas sold the Mac pro and the quad and bought the Mac pro 3,1. I've never looked back as this box hauls. And it's a lot cheaper on power than the quad was.

Don't get me wrong, I loved my quad, but it got kinda sour when blizzard refused to let me play their new releases on my more than capable quad ppc pm.

I am not a real fan of geekbench, as its a synthetic benchmark. All I know is my quad was a very, very nice piece of kit. And immense had any dramas with it. The only reason I updated wasn't because it was slow ( it sure as crap wasn't that) but only cos certain applications were no longer supported in ppc.

Yeah love the quad g5!

 

[hansolo669]

hey op can we get some resposes here? (unless i missed them )

now going to a ppc forum to ask about buying advice for a ppc mac is like going to the apple store and asking if they sell macs.

if you want a g5 and you think a g5 would be worth it, and you are prepared to handle the issues that could and can arise with a older machine, then you should go and buy it; not hang around here.
that being said if you are thinking an intel mac might be the way to go then go that way! dont worry what people here think (we are all nostaglists). if the opions of some strangers on a forum matter so much to you, you better check your prioritys

now in my humble opinion, if the op wants to be with the latest tech he should definatly get the intel mac, however if you want a good relable and powerfull computer based on ppc, then i would look at getting/makeing a maxed out dual proccesor fw800 mdd g4. put a sata card in, put a ssd in along with a bunch of mechanical hdd's dual disk drives and 2gb of ram(i think thats the max) and youve got yourself a powerfull computer. just my two cents though.

 

[Transporteur]

That is false information. The X1900 is over 25% faster in every category.

Oh right. I forgot that the x1900 existed for the G5 as well. It is indeed quite a bit faster.

 

[VanneDC]

That was the PCie x1900 (cut down version of the x1900xt available for the intel mac pro) as it only had 256mb ram.. iam not too sure how much further it was cut down, iam thinking it also had less pipelines than the MP version.

 

[JoeG4]

Lol random thought:

Used Mac Pros aren't the most reliable things in the world either, sadly.

 

[Joshuarocks]

Lol random thought:

Used Mac Pros aren't the most reliable things in the world either, sadly.

Elaborate on that.. My 2006 was a used mac pro though didn't keep it too long, once I found out about the EFI 32/64 thingy because at the time I wanted to run windows 7 64-bit on it. Then once I sold the 2006, I then jumped up to the 3.00 ghz Harpertown 3,1 mac pro. I sold that for 1950.00 to a private individual in July 2010.. and then finally got the 2009 4,1 mac pro refurb from Apple.. at the time it was 2349.00 - 1950.00 = 400 bucks for a 2009 refurb..

As if THAT wasn't enough.. then in September and October made the jump and for 300.00 bought the 2010 backplane board and processor board - my transition to a 2010 westmere was complete.. In December, I got rid of the w3580 for the w3680 at 700.00 dollars in late Dec-early Jan 2011..

And now I am at odds about further expanding this thing as I now realize that the 6-core monster I have and all I did to get the "latest and greatest" is now at a stand still. I don't do video editing at all, nor do I have a desire to do so. What I use my mac pro for is easily done day in and day out on my PB G4, but just a little bit faster(everyday tasks).

And last night just placed an order for 500.00 a G5 Quad - I miss this mac so much that I had to have it.. for 500.00 I got 250/500GB hard drives w/it, 8GB PC2-4200 memory, video card is Geforce 6800(not LE)..

Now I need to figure out how to get the 24 inch LED Cinema display to work with it.

 

[Joshuarocks]

Compared to Geforce 6600 256MB and 7800 GS?

That was the PCie x1900 (cut down version of the x1900xt available for the intel mac pro) as it only had 256mb ram.. iam not too sure how much further it was cut down, iam thinking it also had less pipelines than the MP version.

How is the x1900 better than those two? I am not looking for the best video card for a G5 Quad.. as I was pretty satisfied with the geforce 6800 256MB video card. Is the x1900 just as powerful, or is it similar to the Radeon 1900 XT from 2006 mac pro?

 

[vohdoun]

There you have it...I use both Intel and PPC.. Don't knock PPC, its still a good machine for BASICS, and yes with the right codecs and HTML5, its now possible to view up to 720p on the G4 1.67 and even G5. 1080p is not possible though..

Am I reading that right? Your G5 can't view 1080? it plays fluid on my Dual 2.7. YouTube or Quicktime.

I have a Octo Mac Pro that I barely use and a hex core AMD, there's just something really special to my G5 that I've been using everyday since 2005. I keep it maintained, dust free (air dusters) monthly, also recently gave it a new Pioneer DVD-RW with labelflash. I may get another hard drive for it some day. Plenty of space as it is anyway. Western Digital blue 1TB and 500GB Samsung.

Though I really need to open the G5 cover and check to see what make the pump is.

 

[MacHamster68]

when i had the iMac G5 1.8 with only 64mb vram and the compared to the PowerMac's slower bus speed and less ram 2gb , it was perfectly capable for 720p , and 1080p had been watchable , ok some slight frame drops here and there.
i have no doubt that at least the dual processor or dual core models of the G5 PowerMac, if a GPU with at least 128mb vram is fitted alongside some ram ,then they should be able to play 1080p without much trouble

under tiger and with TenFourFox browser my dual core 2.3 G5 had no problem with playing all the 1080p youtube videos, until i decided to restore it to its former glory from the outside , so at the moment it cant play anything as taken apart

 

[Joshuarocks]

Am I reading that right? Your G5 can't view 1080? it plays fluid on my Dual 2.7. YouTube or Quicktime.

I have a Octo Mac Pro that I barely use and a hex core AMD, there's just something really special to my G5 that I've been using everyday since 2005. I keep it maintained, dust free (air dusters) monthly, also recently gave it a new Pioneer DVD-RW with labelflash. I may get another hard drive for it some day. Plenty of space as it is anyway. Western Digital blue 1TB and 500GB Samsung.

Though I really need to open the G5 cover and check to see what make the pump is.

Most likely you might have the Delphi pump.. I never had the Panasonic when I had my G5 Quad 2.5 years ago, but then again from what I heard and also read on xlr8yourmac.com, very very few G5 Quads had problems with the LCS and leaks, compared to the dual 2.5 and 2.7 models.

 

[300D]

That was the PCie x1900 (cut down version of the x1900xt available for the intel mac pro) as it only had 256mb ram.. iam not too sure how much further it was cut down, iam thinking it also had less pipelines than the MP version.

No. The X1900gto only had less ram.

as I was pretty satisfied with the geforce 6800 256MB video card.

The 6800 is one of the slowest video cards available.
Read here: http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu_list.php
Out of 943 cards, the 6800 is #311 and the X1900 is #116.

Don't feel bad though, the Rage 128 Ultra in my dual 450mhz PowerMac G4 is #933 on that list...

Am I reading that right? Your G5 can't view 1080? it plays fluid on my Dual 2.7. YouTube or Quicktime.

That is correct. Any G5 under the 2.5Ghz models struggles to play 1080p. In Quicktime format its fine, but MKV or FLV its unwatchable.

 

[666sheep]

@300D: your conclusion about X1900GT is based on PC world scores. In Mac OS performance is more driver and app dependent. Most of barefeats benches (gaming) are pointing that 7800 is faster than X1900GT, esp. in higher resolutions. 7800GTX 512MB (flashed) has 8 pipes more and twice RAM than X1900GT (24 vs 16).
http://www.barefeats.com/quad15.html
http://www.barefeats.com/mutant4.html

 

[n8mac]

Sorry for the delay in getting back, and thanks for all the replies.

Regarding the money, I have to be frugal now as I haven't been able to work for over a year due to sickness (and BTW no I don't have an iPad 2 ) So money is the deciding factor here. I know that spending a little more for a mini is more bang for the buck, but I just don't have it.

Regarding getting a new Intel mini, I know they are worth it, but it is unfortunately out of my range ATM. Plus I have no desire to use Windows and I currently have a library of PPC apps and even a few classic apps as noted. Any thing even twice the speed of my G4 will make me happy. And the benchmarks are saying that the dual G5s are about 3x speed. I'm sure the quads are nice but I don't multitask much outside of iTunes, and can't think of any apps I would use that would even recognize more than 2 cores.

Regarding the G4 dual suggestions, I thought that they would be only marginally faster because they are hampered by slow bus/ram speeds and use (natively) slow IDE drives. And I like to get the next generation Mac when upgrading (my previous mac was an iMac G3). Also I think I will eventually outgrow 2GB of ram so the G5 seems to fit the bill there.

My needs are relatively light, my main concern is keeping up with the internet stuff, and some more HD storage. Plus I am a bit of a strategy gamer and see that the G5 would allow me to play Age of Empires III, Civ 4, Sim City 4. I would also like Xplane, but not sure which version would be best suited, 8 or 9?

So it looks like I will go with what I thought and get an early dual G5 (but not the dual 2.0) with an ADC port to bring along my monitor. And I won't worry about bringing over any parts from the G4 as I will probably wipe the drive and give it to a friend in need of a comp.

n8

 

[vohdoun]

Most likely you might have the Delphi pump.. I never had the Panasonic when I had my G5 Quad 2.5 years ago, but then again from what I heard and also read on xlr8yourmac.com, very very few G5 Quads had problems with the LCS and leaks, compared to the dual 2.5 and 2.7 models.

Right you are. It is a Delphi. The plastic pin is a real pain to get out. So far so good everything is nice and dry. The hoses still appear to look good. There was only a very slight dust covering on them. Probably from all the months I use to take it outside and blast it with the air cans. Gave it a good thorough blast to get rid of whatever dust bunnies that was left behind the plastic radiator protector and nuke and crannies. It's knocked 5c off the temperatures. 50c idle, 54c during web browsing and hardly any whirring now. It was only mild whirring recently.

 

[300D]

@300D: your conclusion about X1900GT is based on PC world scores.

No difference. Same hardware, only the firmware is changed.

Most of barefeats benches (gaming) are pointing that 7800 is faster than X1900GT, esp. in higher resolutions. 7800GTX 512MB (flashed) has 8 pipes more and twice RAM than X1900GT (24 vs 16).

Too bad its still slower, I've tried it and the X1900 is better in every category.

and can't think of any apps I would use that would even recognize more than 2 cores.

FYI, EVERY application run in OSX natively takes advantage of multi-cpus.
Even on a G4, OSX will make every attempt to load the CPUs evenly no matter the application. There are only a few very rare instances where the work can't be split up, and most of them are limited to photoshop's outdated tools.

 

[JoeG4]

If you're having trouble pulling the pin out, try squising the edge with a pair of pliers and then just push down on it with a screwdriver lol.

 

[n8mac]

FYI, EVERY application run in OSX natively takes advantage of multi-cpus.
Even on a G4, OSX will make every attempt to load the CPUs evenly no matter the application. There are only a few very rare instances where the work can't be split up, and most of them are limited to photoshop's outdated tools.

Nope, the app has to be specifically multi-threaded to see more than 1 core, it doesn't matter what OS X does. All OS X does is allow apps to do this and sends different threads to different cores. But if the app can't see more than 1 core all its data will only go to 1 core.