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Great Article - Power Mac G5

Great to see that there are people out there still that appreciate Apple's designs of their computers more than 10 years after they were originally released. :)
 
First comment I see begins with "The Power Mac G5 was a lousy design." There's always that one guy that sucks at processing other people's points, and they are prone to grace comment boxes. I really should stop looking at them...
 
Every time I surplus out an early to mid 2000s Windows box, my initial though is "The G5 was a terrible design."

After all, I just love taking out a dozen screw to get a cover off or looking for flimsy hidden latches that almost always need a pair of pliers to move. Plus, when I get in them, I love hunting for the screws to do things like remove hard drives or having to unplug a half dozen cables just to reach the RAM.

It really makes me realize that the G5 with a single, sturdy latch to open the side and all the important stuff right in front of you really was a poorly conceived, half baked design....
 
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bunnspecial said:
Every time I surplus out an early to mid 2000s Windows box, my initial though is "The G5 was a terrible design."

After all, I just love taking out a dozen screw to get a cover off or looking for flimsy hidden latches that almost always need a pair of pliers to move. Plus, when I get in them, I love hunting for the screws to do things like remove hard drives or having to unplug a half dozen cables just to reach the RAM.

It really makes me realize that the G5 with a single, sturdy latch to open the side and all the important stuff right in front of you really was a poorly conceived, half baked design....
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I think I detect just a hint of sarcasm in this post, then again maybe it's just me. ;)
 
Starfighter said:
First comment I see begins with "The Power Mac G5 was a lousy design." There's always that one guy that sucks at processing other people's points, and they are prone to grace comment boxes. I really should stop looking at them...
Click to expand...

Eh, I see where he's coming from. The G5 had a great design, but it was crippled by the nature of the G5 itself. It was massive compared to its PowerMac predecessor yet had less space for hard drives, and you had to get through a lot more components to upgrade or make repairs, even if those repairs were easy at that point.

The Mac Pro drastically improved on the PowerMac G5's design, and it's the one I think deserves the plaudits for being the pinnacle of Apple's tower design (especially the 4,1 and later models.) With that said it's certainly true the G5 was still head-and-shoulders above most of its peers of the time.
 
I love the powermac designs the best. G5 is no exception. Granted I miss opening the door and the entire board being on the door. But all the top tier macs (power macs, mac pro) were always designed to make accessibility easy. While apple seems to get farther and farther away from allowing us any access to our machines. Its always good to look back and see that when they did, for the ones they intended us to access. They made it simple.
 
fuchsdh said:
Eh, I see where he's coming from. The G5 had a great design, but it was crippled by the nature of the G5 itself. It was massive compared to its PowerMac predecessor yet had less space for hard drives, and you had to get through a lot more components to upgrade or make repairs, even if those repairs were easy at that point.
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True, it's not as easy to access stuff as the "oven door" on a G4, but upgrades are still pretty darn straight forward.

Memory just requires pulling the fan-it's two additional steps over adding RAM to a G4(and can be done faster than getting the cover off most PCs of the time). The HDDs and expansion slots are all there-in fact HDDs are easier than in a G4 since you can just slide them in rather than pulling the cages like in every other G4 model. The ODD is easier too, since, again it just slides out rather than messing with unscrewing the cages like on a G4.

To me, the MP is sort of a 6 of one, half a dozen of the other comparison. On the earlier ones, you had to pull the riser cards to add RAM while on the later ones you have to pull the processor board. Neither is a big deal, but to me it's about the same amount of effort as the G5.

I will concede that it's nice that the MP can hold more HDDs, but I can put a drive in a G5 in about the same amount of time it takes me to mount one on an MP sled. So, to me it's a wash. Granted ODDs aren't a big deal any more, but I find the ODD cage in the MP a pain to deal with.
 
I understand and agree with most of these points, but it's not lousy design. That's an absurd statement on his part, even if we can understand where he comes from.
 
The G5 is a nice design asthetically. 90 cooling fans isn't exactly efficient and 2 HD bays and 1 optical is a little odd. I always thought the Mac Pro didn't look nearly as pretty on the inside. It's funny how the Mac Pro weighs so much less than the PowerMac.

I can't get over the ridiculousness of this authors bizzare quote:
To draw a clumsy and unromantic analogy, it’s the difference between the first flush of lust and wonderment that attracts you to your partner, and how, over the months and years together, you discover that in a thousand tiny ways they’re far more beguiling and complex and glorious than you ever realized when you met.
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