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Can someone recommend the G5 1.8 Dual?

mannyrm

mannyrm

macrumors member
Original poster
Jul 5, 2009
65
0
Pennsylvania
Hi everyone....


I'm about to push "Buy now" on a used Power Mac G5 Dual1.8ghz with 2.5GB RAM.


I'd like to ask, has anyone edited (Home video) HD videos on these units?
I dont make documentaries or musical videos or complicated things.

I just want to edit family videos and with my ex 400mhz G4 (sold) it was a impossible. I even sold recently a dual 800mhz quicksilver since it was so painful to edit that my eyes would bleed.

Can they handle it?

I'm without a Mac right now and the auction is going to end pretty soon. I really need your input.

Thx.
 
I have a dual-core powermac G5, dual core 2.3 GHz, so a bit faster. It edits video just fine, but you have to be aware that some software now is intel-only. I have final cut studio version 1, which works on Mac OS Tiger (I have done lots of video editing with it on my powermac) but not Leopard. If you are looking at final cut studio for video editing, you'll want version 2 (version 3 requires Intel macs). My machine is still very useful and quite fast, but the software availability issue is something to be aware of. Also, powermacs are big and use a bit of electricity compared to e.g. a mac mini, which I have at work.

So - yes, it can do lots of things for you including video editing, but verify first that video software on it works just fine, including everything you might want to do.
 
I recently upgraded from a Powermac G5 with 2GB of memory and the 1.6Ghz processor to a Mac Mini 2.0Ghz early 2009 model. The Mac Mini is so much faster than the G5, it's not even worth going into. The $600 Mac Mini would outperform that dual G5 by several times easily.

I bought mine with 1GB of memory and a 120GB HDD and upgraded both. It now has 4GB of memory and a 320GB drive, and I couldn't be happier. Do yourself a favor and save up for a mini instead.
 
I used to have a Dual 1.8 G5, passed it on to my parents several years ago. It's a great piece of hardware, with none of the woes that came with the liquid-cooled G5s--but it really doesn't make any sense to be buying a PowerPC machine now, unless you've got your heart set on the form factor. A used/refurb current generation Mac Mini will blow it out of the water for everything except internal storage options (dual 3.5in SATA bays allow for some much faster configurations than the single 2.5in SATA drive inside of the Mini.) Think dual 10k RPM drives in RAID or similar...but short of that advantage, which isn't as big as it sounds, there's no reason to be buying a G5 anymore.
 
Well thx all for the helpful answers.

Eventually I spoke to the seller and we agreed to let it go for $150

I have at home now and I'm getting a ATI 9800xt radeon.

At this price I feel it went well. For my second computer this seems more than enough.

Thanks again.

This post can be closed.
 
mannyrm said:
....
I just want to edit family videos and with my ex 400mhz G4 (sold) it was a impossible. I even sold recently a dual 800mhz quicksilver since it was so painful to edit that my eyes would bleed.

Can they handle it?

I'm without a Mac right now and the auction is going to end pretty soon. I really need your input.

Thx.
Click to expand...

The problem is that with a G5 you will need to hunt down old copies of Final Cut. Newer software really needs newer hardware.

You be best to find a used Intel dual core Mini. Buy a large/fast Firewire disk for the mini and you'll be OK for small scale video editing

The fact that the G5 sells for $400 should tell you something -- that it's no longer useful for much.


If yu do happen to have a G5 tower the best use for it is to wipe the disk and instal BSD Unix or Linux and make a very powerful and low cost server.
 
kellen said:
For 150 thats great.
Click to expand...

Well, yes and no, I still need the video card, which Im waiting for it to be shipped by a forum member (gimmieslack12).

The whole thing came up to with video card, G5, wireless mouse and shipping
$270

Still cheap.

I do have OS X leopard, iLife 09, iWork 09.

I really dont need anything else as far as I know. prehaps Final Cut is a bit overkill for what I plan to use it for. So I'm no that pessimistic with my purchase.
 
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