But to pay $1300 is totally unacceptable from a company that has a large part of their gross profits from media related fields.
$1300 is nothing for what you're paying for. The G5 logic board is a highly specialized, extremely dense PCB with a whole lot of custom components on a high-grade PCB. I've dealt with Unix workstations where the cost of a replacement logic board was five digits. Considering the specialty of the G5 (being based off the Power4 processors from IBM), it's a miracle that logic board isn't worth $2K or more.
You might be able to grab one for as cheap as $1K. I haven't seen them cheaper then that though.
Expecting a computer that lasts forever, especially one like the G5 which has an extremely large amount of power moving through it (and therefore a lot of stress), is just not reasonable. No amount of money is going to change the laws of physics.
That is precisely why I sold my Quad G5 2.5 (also a late 2005 model) as soon as the Mac Pro 2006 models hit store shelves.
The Quad G5 was a great system, but they were flawed from the get-go. I knew something was wonky right off the bat when I unboxed the machine- Apple was using C19 power connectors on the back, rather then the standard C13 connector the current (Intel) systems use. What's the difference? The C19 handles up to 20A of continuos current at 120VAC. The C13 only does 15A.
For a personal computer, why on earth would you need 20A of current?... Mostly for the processor and 1kW power supply.
Internally, the G5 processor PCB's even have heavy-gauge dedicated 12V lines running up from the PSU. That's right- they suck up so much power, that you can't reliably pipe that sort of current through a PCB trace. That's above and beyond the *massive* bus bars that power the logic board.
Each 12V line feeds the DC-DC converters on the processor PCB itself, which equally have massive heatsinks hanging off heatpipes. I don't know what the heat dissipation was for the DC converters... But the processors were close to 120W a piece.
That's 240W for the entire "processor block"- plus the heat coming off the voltage regs. Compared to a semi-modern day Mac Pro 2006, which throws off ~130W for both processors, plus whatever the FBDIMM's are pumping out.
The Quad I had, was more then happy to constantly peg my 1500VA UPS at 90-100% capacity (enough for the APC to complain about overload conditions). Judging by the C19 power connector and that insanely thick power cord, I'm not surprised. My 2006 Mac Pro, in comparison, tops the UPS out at maybe 30% with all 4 cores working and the X1900 taxed to the max.
"G5's are known to be spotty at best" - was this when they first came out or years after the fact? I'd say the latter. Were there any other choices for media based professionals such as myself during the G5 heyday? pcs were never an option.
Before, during, after. As I said above, the G5 was a nifty experiment. Apple took an insanely overpowered processor, the IBM Power4, modified it, stuck it in a custom chassis, and threw a moderately silent cooling system on it. That's the same bloody chip they stuck in the AS/400's and RS/6K's. The later Power series are used in IBM's zSeries mainframes. Not your average "personal computer" technology, IMHO.
I'm surprised the Quads survived as long as they have. Alas, the experiment is over, and Apple has moved onto more stable technology that's slightly less volatile and requires less component customization, dissipating less heat and requiring less power to operate.
The heyday has long since past. Your choices now are very simple. Repair your Quad for $1300. Spend a little bit more and you can safeguard yourself for another 4 to 5 years of reliable operation with a new Mac Pro. Or contact the magical
sjobs@apple.com address, be nice, and see if they'll do anything for you.
Sitting around on this forum acting like you agree with everything then rebutting it all with additional arguments it all isn't going to fix your system.
-SC
