How hard is to sell a G5 ??

[iluvmacs99]

I would also add, just from my personal experience as someone interested in PPC - which I don't use for work or anything, I just find them cool - the G5 is probably one of my least favourite PPCs. I don't know why, maybe because it has the same design as a Mac Pro, so with that you get a machine that looks the same as the G5 but also does a lot of modern stuff really well. Whereas the G4s, like the G5, are also useless at what most people use computers for, but at least they have a proper retro look, which might explain why they often fetch more?

The problem with the G5 I think is that, you can not boot directly from OS9 and that's important for a lot of people who depend on OS9 to run their specialised OS9 printers and media systems that run on software that are no longer available on OSX and Win. When I spoke to one of the largest law firm in Canada which is still running a few G4 towers and iBooks across all their Canadian branches, they found it cheaper to just buy a bunch of overpriced G4s and stock em. When they die, they just yank out another G4 tower or laptop rather than convert the whole old database over. The messy privacy laws we have here in Canada and the money needed to be spent to convert all the printing and digital storage systems is so not cost effective and besides, they are storing people's info that would soon pass away in 10 years time; well maybe sooner now due to COVID and once their older clients gone to heaven, then they can remove these archaic machines as old as their clients. I get similar stories from all other businesses that it's cheaper to just buy an overpriced G4 than a G5 unless it's a G5 Quad, so that's why the G4 still holds its value. The local used Mac store here still stock G4 towers goes to show their need and popularity. If the G5 can run native OS9 including the Quad and also take SCSI cards like the Adaptec 2496, then their value would probably be more than the G4. Sadly, it's not the case with the G5.

 

[iluvmacs99]

The Revenue Canada website is one of the most picky. Even modern Safari is problematic with it, so I use Chrome for Revenue Canada. Firefox Legacy 67 (supported on Lion 10.7) also works though IIRC.

Ten Four Fox is no longer good enough as you say, and it's slow as hell too.

Yeah, and that's the site most Canadians use to apply for CERB.

 

[djjeff]

I agree with everything you say and I acknowledge your background on the matter. All I was saying was that 'unusable' was a generality. It may apply to most people, as you said, but not to everyone. It has to be qualified.

I would hope that it doesn't need to be qualified as specific / enthusiast use cases should be implied.

 

[AshleyPomeroy]

It's fine and really quite common, as long as its packed properly! I saw a dual 1.25 MDD for £35 + £12 shipping just yesterday though I think it's gone now.

It was the same machine - from what I remember the vendor was a studio getting rid of a bunch of early-2000s Pro Tools equipment. I spent a good five minutes gazing at it, making a series of mental calculations. Could I take a day off work? Could I have it delivered to the local Post Office, and somehow carry it home? Could I use my Brompton as a trolley? Could I buy some Apple Mac Pro wheels and use them to wheel it home?

I have also spent long minutes gazing at this auction for a bunch of XServes:

3x Apple XSERVE Computers / Servers, 2x G4, 1x G5, with HDD's, All seem to work. | eBay

Three older examples of Apples XServe line of servers. The basic specs of each machine is as follows:-. I am including with the lot an Apple Training Series book on using OS X 10.5 Server, plus a printout of the basic XServe User Guide.

www.ebay.co.uk

What the heck would I do with a bunch of XServes? And yet they're so beautiful. So beautiful.

 

[eyoungren]

I would hope that it doesn't need to be qualified as specific / enthusiast use cases should be implied.

It's been my experience on forums that if I assume anything or take anything for granted that someone will come along and roast me on a spit for making that assumption.

Alternatively I have been roasted on that same split for implying things in my own statements that apparently no one implies, but must state specifically.

I am damned if I do and damned if I do not. I will be called out for making generalities and called out as being too damn specific. Either way, I can't win.

 

[q64ceo]

Bad time to be selling vintage computers

The economy has contracted due to COVID

 

[r6mile]

It was the same machine - from what I remember the vendor was a studio getting rid of a bunch of early-2000s Pro Tools equipment. I spent a good five minutes gazing at it, making a series of mental calculations. Could I take a day off work? Could I have it delivered to the local Post Office, and somehow carry it home? Could I use my Brompton as a trolley? Could I buy some Apple Mac Pro wheels and use them to wheel it home?

I have also spent long minutes gazing at this auction for a bunch of XServes:

3x Apple XSERVE Computers / Servers, 2x G4, 1x G5, with HDD's, All seem to work. | eBay

Three older examples of Apples XServe line of servers. The basic specs of each machine is as follows:-. I am including with the lot an Apple Training Series book on using OS X 10.5 Server, plus a printout of the basic XServe User Guide.

www.ebay.co.uk

What the heck would I do with a bunch of XServes? And yet they're so beautiful. So beautiful.

I picked up three Xserves with dead PSUs yesterday (one G4 and two G5s), if you are interested... Sitting in my garage atm!

 

[djjeff]

It's been my experience on forums that if I assume anything or take anything for granted that someone will come along and roast me on a spit for making that assumption.

I call those people pedants. It's been my experience people who engage in pedanticism lack a coherent rebuttal to what someone has said and therefore nitpicks how a message is being conveyed instead of the spirit in what is being said. For a lot of discussions it's right up there with pointing our spelling or grammar errors. One shouldn't have to surround themselves with "legalese" in order to have a discussion. For example many posts, such as this one, are my opinion. I shouldn't have to qualify this post with "IMO" as it should be implied as much.

 

[EugW]

People sell the Intel quad Mac Pros for CAD$150-200, and they're actually still usable in 2020. The G5 Macs are totally unusable these days, so even at $100 they're not very attractive. They're basically collectors' items, but ones that are commonplace so they don't command a premium price.

I'd list it at $75 but you can consider an offer if it is less than that.

If you were in Toronto, I might have considered paying $50 for it, just to display it on my wall (if the machine was aesthetically intact and not so damaged), but not to actually use it.

Thanks to @MrVitalic, I decided to check the local pricing again here in Toronto.

Low and behold... A new listing had popped up for $100...

So, I picked up that 2007 Mac Pro 2,1 with 3.0 GHz 8-core Xeon. It wasn't displaying video properly, but I removed the great big Quadro FX 4500 and put in my old 7300 GT, and now it works fine.

Granted, this was an as-is type of sale, but still, it goes to show you that $100 is tough sell for a G5 unless it's in very nice condition for a collector.

 

[1042686]

@RhianB I could pick up any G3, G4, or G5 machine and say the same thing. Even the old Pentium IIIs and 4s of their day can't compete with the joy of use any given PowerPC system may offer to its user. I think they are definitely similar to the Silicon Graphics machines in this regard.

I wonder what exactly it is that gives them all such a unique, irresistible charm? It's as if it were the difference between driving a vintage muscle car and a modern commuter SUV.

Yanno man, I think deep down you need to be nerdy and curious - the same things that drive engineering and sciences in general. It makes all of these machines, their hardware & software super unique to us and as such valuable individually.

Collecting, tinkering, building improvements (be it hardware solutions like dosdude or lightbulb wizard or software like your Own browser tools or Eriks tweaks or The numerous linux Distro efforts etc.) & talking about it on here is a layman example of this IMO. Not too different really from degreed scientists in a lab hypothesizing, testing In a lab & publishing results.

There can be other drivers like asthetic design And nostalgia sure, but I think fundamentally it’s about being curious enough about why things work the way they do that drives us and that’s why you can say that about all your era machines & be honest about it.

 

[MrVitalic]

Thx guys for your reply, very interesting! I’m late to reply, I was quite busy this weekend. I’v lowered the price to 60$... Lets see how it goes.

Regarding G5, I absolutely understand you have to be the right type of person to enjoy it. I repeating myself: Using a G5 (pci-x based) was the cheapest way for me to dip my toes into a protools hd system. The cost is the reason my quad dont get usage. The pcie based hd card still fetch almost 500$ a piece because they can be used in macpro, and you can use more than one ( 2 currently in my system). And you can use specialized plugins with such system.

Its very limited compared to my macpro, and buying plugins is hard ( avid still sell them, same for mcdsp and dmg audio)

What I like now about using an old G5 is instead of using 100% pirated music software on my macpro, I now have a dedicated machine and I’m up to about 75% legit soft. I’l keep pushing to be 100% legit. I dont have all the latest toys but its enough for me. If I were a better musician I could make damn good song with it.

So I’l push the machine until it is unusable for my needs, then look for an upgrade (going back on the macpro with my legit license, under 10.6 or 10.7).

My macpro is barely used. Its on 1 or 2 times a month to pay my bill.

 

[weckart]

Bad time to be selling vintage computers. The economy has contracted due to COVID

It depends. I haven't seen a price dip on the usual suspects, rather a price hike. The G5 isn't particularly rare and the novelty of retrofitting a PC into the G5 case wore off years ago, so the popularity of a big lump like the G5 goes up and down. It seems to be at a low at the moment, probably not helped by the pandemic's effect on mobility.

Meanwhile, the price of the Thinkpads I picked up for a few pounds each a few years ago has skyrocketed. Who knew?

 

[MrVitalic]

It depends. I haven't seen a price dip on the usual suspects, rather a price hike. The G5 isn't particularly rare and the novelty of retrofitting a PC into the G5 case wore off years ago, so the popularity of a big lump like the G5 goes up and down. It seems to be at a low at the moment, probably not helped by the pandemic's effect on mobility.

Meanwhile, the price of the Thinkpads I picked up for a few pounds each a few years ago has skyrocketed. Who knew?

I have an old compaq armada laptop from 1997, maybe I’m sitting on a gold mine

Beside the usage I get out of G5 I still find them fascinating. When all the liquid cooled one are dead, and all the 1.8ghz are scraped for metal, the ones still alive will worth something for collector.

 

[r6mile]

It depends. I haven't seen a price dip on the usual suspects, rather a price hike. The G5 isn't particularly rare and the novelty of retrofitting a PC into the G5 case wore off years ago, so the popularity of a big lump like the G5 goes up and down. It seems to be at a low at the moment, probably not helped by the pandemic's effect on mobility.

Meanwhile, the price of the Thinkpads I picked up for a few pounds each a few years ago has skyrocketed. Who knew?

In the UK, I have noticed that at the beginning of the pandemic (March, April) prices for G4s and the like were quite high on eBay. They now seem to have dropped again, maybe as many people have gone back to the office and with other things to do at the weekend than tinker with old computers?

 

[Macbookprodude]

Since I have retired my G5 Quad which is in great condition, it is now sitting in the box while I decide what to do with it. Tried running Phenix and Ubuntu - still getting black screen trying to install those distros of linux. At best, I have given up and just want the machine gone. Maybe 9 years ago it was still good, but now its completly USELESS.

 

[B S Magnet]

It's unusable for the average person partially because it doesn't have proper web browser support. Yes you can web browse, but IMO, it's horrible. There are some back ports of more modern browsers, but most of them suck. The best back ports of modern browsers only work on Intel Macs.

A G5 can be used for very specific purposes (including your example editing some PDFs), but IMO it's a waste of money to buy one of these to do real work in 2020 when you can get a perfectly functional Intel Mac for less than CAD$200 (US$150) with modern browser and other software support.

That's why people don't want to pay CAD$100 for a G5 Mac, even if it's a Power Mac quad. Even if you can edit your simple MPEG or even h.264 videos with legacy software, it's rather annoying not being able to access all your banking and tax info online.

P.S. I have thirteen Macs in this house from the G4 and up, so I believe I speak from experience.

I mean, to this very day, every day, I use my DP2.0 G5 as a file server and, when on that side of the work desk, as a Remote Desktop admin — in addition to sound engineering-related work.

And if that DC2.3 were in my town (Toronto), I’d seriously consider it for CAD$75, mostly cos it would improve the times when I do still run into a processing bottleneck or, far less often, hitting limits before vm swapping kicks in) with the 8GB my box has. Downside: I’d have to find a PCIe replacement for the internal PCI-X SATA card I use to manage two of my RAID1 volumes.

 

[B S Magnet]

Thanks to @MrVitalic, I decided to check the local pricing again here in Toronto.

Low and behold... A new listing had popped up for $100...

So, I picked up that 2007 Mac Pro 2,1 with 3.0 GHz 8-core Xeon. It wasn't displaying video properly, but I removed the great big Quadro FX 4500 and put in my old 7300 GT, and now it works fine.

View attachment 944879

Granted, this was an as-is type of sale, but still, it goes to show you that $100 is tough sell for a G5 unless it's in very nice condition for a collector.

When it comes to a tower, I treat having it as a long-term commitment.

What has kept me from grabbing a Mac Pro is the prices (with my budget) not being worth consideration unless what’s being sold is at least a MacPro4,1, which may be firmware-bumped up to a MacPro5,1 — which then opens possibilities for processor upgrades and letting it run newer Mac OS X/macOS builds and enabling me to keep using and expanding on it for a long time to come.

To this day, that commitment hasn’t been taken, because the right Mac Pro hasn’t surfaced locally yet.

 

[EugW]

When it comes to a tower, I treat having it as a long-term commitment.

What has kept me from grabbing a Mac Pro is the prices (with my budget) not being worth consideration unless what’s being sold is at least a MacPro4,1, which may be firmware-bumped up to a MacPro5,1 — which then opens possibilities for processor upgrades and letting it run newer Mac OS X/macOS builds and enabling me to keep using and expanding on it for a long time to come.

To this day, that commitment hasn’t been taken, because the right Mac Pro hasn’t surfaced locally yet.

I’d love to get a MacPro4,1/5,1 but they usually go for at least CAD$600 here.

Plus, in order to bring it to Mojave or later, you will likely have to spend another couple of hundred to get a decent GPU.

At this point I won’t bother since I already have a 2017 iMac anyway. I’ll wait until the trash can becomes cheap and I’ll add one to the collection just because I want one.

However, if there is an uber cheap 4,1/5,1 that shows up along the way, maybe I’ll get one of those too.

As for your other post, you mentioned you’d get a G5 for $75. That’s fine but the thing is though, for most people, a MacPro1,1 at $200 is a much, much, much better deal than a G5 at $75. I’m not saying a MP1,1 is appropriate for everyone, but I am saying the G5 is appropriate for far, far fewer people.

I’d consider getting a G5 for $50-$75 too, but not because I’d ever actually use it. It would just be for my collection because it looks nice inside.

 

[djjeff]

I’d love to get a MacPro4,1/5,1 but they usually go for at least CAD$600 here.

Plus, in order to bring it to Mojave or later, you will likely have to spend another couple of hundred to get a decent GPU.

At this point I won’t bother since I already have a 2017 iMac anyway. I’ll wait until the trash can becomes cheap and I’ll add one to the collection just because I want one.

However, if there is an uber cheap 4,1/5,1 that shows up along the way, maybe I’ll get one of those too.

As for your other post, you mentioned you’d get a G5 for $75. That’s fine but the thing is though, for most people, a MacPro1,1 at $200 is a much, much, much better deal than a G5 at $75. I’m not saying a MP1,1 is appropriate for everyone, but I am saying the G5 is appropriate for far, far fewer people.

I’d consider getting a G5 for $50-$75 too, but not because I’d ever actually use it. It would just be for my collection because it looks nice inside.

What price point and configuration are you looking for? Maybe we can keep an eye out for you (though I am in North America and it appears you're in Canada so not sure if we can be of assistance).

 

[EugW]

What price point and configuration are you looking for? Maybe we can keep an eye out for you (though I am in North America and it appears you're in Canada so not sure if we can be of assistance).

Thanks but as mentioned I already have an iMac as my primary machine. Dual 27" screens in fact, with full HEVC and HDR decode support in hardware. It's a 2017 27" Core i5, and I'm using my 2010 27" Core i7 as the secondary monitor.

My MacPro1,1 (flashed to 2,1 with dual 2.33 GHz quad-core Xeons on the way) and MacPro2,1 (with stock dual 3.0 GHz quad-core Xeons) are just cheap secondary machines for fiddling with, surfing, email, and Netflix. I'm not going to pay CAD$800 for that (Mac Pro + new GPU). I've paid around US$225 total for both of them combined, including all the upgrades.

What I am saying though is for a mainstream user on a very strict budget, this MacPro2,1 can work OK. It does all of the above just fine, with OS support up to OS X 10.11 El Capitan. That means it gets modern browser support, and just as importantly, it is fast enough to use those modern browsers with modern websites. The G5, not so much, so even if they could get one for $75, there wouldn't be much point because they can't do that as mainstream users would expect. The G5 is really just for collectors and very niche users. And I would buy a good condition G5 for $75... just because I collect these things, not because I'd actually plan on using it.

If I were very broke and needed a primary machine that runs a version of macOS even more modern than 10.11 El Capitan, I might buy a MacPro3,1 or if I were only moderately broke, I'd buy a MacPro4,1/5,1. Or perhaps just get a 2012 iMac. In contrast, if I were very broke, I wouldn't buy a G5 at any price. Well, certainly not $100 anyway. I'd take it if it was free though.

 

[djjeff]

What I am saying though is for a mainstream user on a very strict budget, this MacPro2,1 can work OK. It does all of the above just fine, with OS support up to OS X 10.11 El Capitan. That means it gets modern browser support, and just as importantly, it is fast enough to use those modern browsers with modern websites. The G5, not so much, so even if they could get one for $75, there wouldn't be much point because they can't do that as mainstream users would expect. The G5 is really just for collectors and very niche users. And I would buy a good condition G5 for $75... just because I collect these things, not because I'd actually plan on using it.

You will get absolutely no argument from me on this. When one of the groups most prominent enthusiasts moved to a Mac Pro as their daily driver you know a G5 is a hard sell to someone who is a non-enthusiast or someone with special requirements.

 

[B S Magnet]

I’d love to get a MacPro4,1/5,1 but they usually go for at least CAD$600 here.

Plus, in order to bring it to Mojave or later, you will likely have to spend another couple of hundred to get a decent GPU.

Yeah no I’m in no rush to buy a Mac Pro 4,1, and I have no urgent plans to move over to anything like Mojave or Catalina or Big Sur any day soon.

 

[EugW]

Yeah no I’m in no rush to buy a Mac Pro 4,1, and I have no urgent plans to move over to anything like Mojave or Catalina or Big Sur any day soon.

I hear ya, but I'll have to say, Big Sur is awesome.

It turns macOS all the way up to 11!

 

[B S Magnet]

I hear ya, but I'll have to say, Big Sur is awesome.

It turns macOS all the way up to 11!

Yeah, I’m really not on board with that.

 

[Macbookprodude]

If anyone wants a G5 Quad, I am open to any pricing you want.