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help me pimp my powermac

T

thumb

macrumors 6502
Original poster
greetings all,

the university where i teach is switching from mac to pc for all office support 🙁

the good news is, they are practically giving me my "old" mac desktop to bring home with me.

It is a G5 powermac 1.8 Ghz Dual core with something like a 160GB harddrive and 1.5 GB Ram.

I am looking to turn it into a photo and video powerhouse at home (at work, it just ran email, safari, and Word basically - which was of course massive overkill). Other than maxing the RAM out to 4 GB (that is all it can take), what photo and video specific upgrades if any should I mak? I already have a 250GB firewire drive and a tiPowerbook at home. Does anyone if something like this could even be used as a simple server for a small website?

Thanks
 
thumb said:
greetings all,

the university where i teach is switching from mac to pc for all office support 🙁

the good news is, they are practically giving me my "old" mac desktop to bring home with me.

It is a G5 powermac 1.8 Ghz Dual core with something like a 160GB harddrive and 1.5 GB Ram.

I am looking to turn it into a photo and video powerhouse at home (at work, it just ran email, safari, and Word basically - which was of course massive overkill). Other than maxing the RAM out to 4 GB (that is all it can take), what photo and video specific upgrades if any should I mak? I already have a 250GB firewire drive and a tiPowerbook at home. Does anyone if something like this could even be used as a simple server for a small website?

Thanks
Click to expand...

Yes you can use it as server, that would be a good idea.

Where can i get some hardware? 🙂
 
Video card springs to mind. Not sure what the aftermarket options are these days, but my ATI X800 is a champ. Damn fast card!
 
great, thanks for the help.

I think I will put in a second hard drive, maybe 500GB and a new video card XT800 and probably move the ram up to 2GB.

That should do it for now.

As to running it as a server, can anyone point me to a tutorial for that. I searched here, but there is way too much diffused info to be of much use.

thanks
 
any suggestions on which hard drive and where to get them?

I am thinking of one 250-300GB or so. using original for OS and apps, all media on other.

cheers,
 
thumb said:
any suggestions on which hard drive and where to get them?

I am thinking of one 250-300GB or so. using original for OS and apps, all media on other.

cheers,
Click to expand...

newegg.com usually has the best prices on computer parts like hard drives, though I would check http://techbargains.com/ too, since they'll catch limited time deals that you might otherwise miss.
 
You can always go to PepBoys for some pink/purple paint, fuzzy dice, neon lights and curb feelers.

---

As for using it as a simple Server, should be easy to do -- but you will likely run into a 10 user limit roadblock, since Apple crippled the standard OS's server features to make OS X Server more attractive.

Of course I haven't followed what they have done to the Mac OS X webserver features since OS X 10.1 -- limiting most OS X routines to 10 users, probably made it rather limiting if the capability is still there.
 
vohdoun said:
Speaking of... what card was supplied in your beast? 🙂
Click to expand...


i am not sure, what ever was most basic when the first 2-cores came out. but I can check in the morning.
 
Nar1117 said:
I have an awesome idea.

Ditch this one.

Wait 5 months.

Then buy a Mac Pro.
Click to expand...

while that does seem like an excellent idea, my tech lust is already way over budget. should be getting a nikon d200, some nice glass, and the MBP.b this summer/fall 🙂

oh yeah, and some fuzzy pink dice.
 
In respect to your hard drive, if you are really into making a "Powerhouse," get a big hard drive with great RPMs. For your RAM, get the fastest you can. As for video, there is a slew of cards out there that can fit your needs. That being said, you current card might be fine.
 
thumb said:
i am not sure, what ever was most basic when the first 2-cores came out. but I can check in the morning.
Click to expand...

If yours is a 1.8 it's a dual-processor, not a dual-core. The Dual cores are 2.0, 2.3 and Quad 2.5.

You need an AGP graphics card, I think the XT800, 6800GT and 6800DDL were the top line cards for the AGP PowerMacs. You also need to make sure you get the Mac versions of those cards as the regular PC ones won't work.
 
There used to be an article on welian.co.uk called "pimp your G5." Doesn't seem to be there anymore.

Get a Raptor 10K HDD, and use the stock drive or get a really big one for the secondary. Lots of RAM. New Video Card.
 
Chundles said:
If yours is a 1.8 it's a dual-processor, not a dual-core. The Dual cores are 2.0, 2.3 and Quad 2.5.

You need an AGP graphics card, I think the XT800, 6800GT and 6800DDL were the top line cards for the AGP PowerMacs. You also need to make sure you get the Mac versions of those cards as the regular PC ones won't work.
Click to expand...

right you are, my bad. it is a dual processor 1.8.

I must have dual cores on the brain.

As to the 10000rpm raptors, are they better to use as primary startup disk with OS and apps, or as Video and Imaging dedicated scratch disks for their speed?
 
If you really want to do video editing, consider Nvidia's Quadro line. They will render vids much faster and run more reliably than consumer cards.

As far as sound cards, M-audio makes some Mac-compatible stuff. If you go that route, get one that is compatible with their version of Protools. it's a simpler version of the sound editing software most studios use.
 
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