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How reliable are dual CORE PowerMac G5's ?

C

cube

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Original poster
May 10, 2004
17,011
4,973
I am thinking of buying a PCI Express Power Mac G5 to run PPC apps.
It seems I should not buy a quad because of leaking.
Are the dual core reliable?

Thanks
 
No, the 2005 2,3 and 2,0 GHz PPC970MC with one socket had air cooled heat sinks.

The 2004 DP PPC970FX machines with 2,7 GHz and 2,3 GHz were also liquide cooled.

So in total there were 3 liquide cooled models.

The 2005 2,3 GHz is certainly more reliable than the Quad. It may also be a bit better in terms of CPU burn out than the 2004 model which did this a lot. The experts are not of a uniform opinion why so many 2004 CPUs fail. Personally I think it is the way the CPU is clamped between the PCB and the heat sink. It is mechanically not a very sound design and there is no thermo sensor on the sink. I do not know if the PPC970MC is clamped identical to the PPC970FX, but I assume it is. So CPU failures should also be an issue.
 
So, you're saying the dual core is not reliable and I should buy a 2003 1.8GHz dual processor (and forget about PCI Express) ?

Doesn't that have an audio interference problem?

And it seems there was a noise problem that was not fixed until the dual core.
 
cube said:
So, you're saying the dual core is not reliable and I should buy a 2003 1.8GHz dual processor (and forget about PCI Express) ?
Click to expand...

NO.

The dual core is reliable (as what I inferred from Gugucom's post) but the quads are not. This coming from me who has a Quad in his sig :rolleyes:
 
I see quite a bit of dual core power supply failures at macintouch.
 
What 2005 2.3GHz? The dual processor or the dual core?
 
The 2.3 dual core power supply looks very bad in the 2006 macintouch survey.
The best machine was the 2.3 dual processor at the time.
 
I don't know from where you got the idea that there was a liquid-cooled 2.3
 
I may have had a memory lapse there. I thought both the 2,3 and the 2,7 from 2004 were liquid cooled. I have checked back with the spec and it looks like you are right.

That would explain the reliability records. But performance wise it will also be a bit behind, due to slower FSB and memory.
 
It also has half the L2.

But the dual core power supply looks really bad, both from the old survey and from the ongoing user reports.
 
gugucom said:
I may have had a memory lapse there. I thought both the 2,3 and the 2,7 from 2004 were liquid cooled. I have checked back with the spec and it looks like you are right.
Click to expand...

Only 2.5GHz and 2.7GHz models were liquid cooled. 1.6, 1.8, 2.0 and 2.3 of all generations are all air cooled.

The "macintouch survey" (and every other internet poll asking about problems) are very unreliable sources of information. People come to forums to report problems exponentially more frequently than people that have no problems. I've got 3 years of 24/7 operation on my G5 with no issues at all.

The late 2005 2.3GHz G5 is the best PPC computer Apple ever made, thats the main reason I bought one. Liquid cooling was the only thing keeping the Quad from being the best.
 
300D said:
Only 2.5GHz and 2.7GHz models were liquid cooled. 1.6, 1.8, 2.0 and 2.3 of all generations are all air cooled.

The "macintouch survey" (and every other internet poll asking about problems) are very unreliable sources of information. People come to forums to report problems exponentially more frequently than people that have no problems. I've got 3 years of 24/7 operation on my G5 with no issues at all.

The late 2005 2.3GHz G5 is the best PPC computer Apple ever made, thats the main reason I bought one. Liquid cooling was the only thing keeping the Quad from being the best.
Click to expand...

I've owned a dual core 2.0ghz 2.3ghz and a Quad. But the Quad spoiled me and I sold my beloved 2.3. the 2.0 dual core PM is also a great machine for editing. Each one of these machines is quiet, fast and easily upgradable to 16gigs of ram.

I also really like the fact that these final revision Powermac G5's have built in antennas for airport and bluetooth, unlike their earlier G5s. The ram is also much cheaper.
 
I agree completely. As I said though, the liquid cooling was more risk than I was willing to take with my primary machine.

If somebody were to adapt the dual CPU air cooling to work reliably with the quad, I wouldn't hesitate getting one.
 
The 2.0 / 2.3 dual cores are good and stable. I had a 2.0DC and it was a nice rig for sure, plenty fast for web surfing. Sold mine off because I need to do some stuff for work which requires an intel mac (vmware / SL).

Anyways, I sold mine for 500 bucks, you could probably find one the same price.
 
300D said:
Only 2.5GHz and 2.7GHz models were liquid cooled. 1.6, 1.8, 2.0 and 2.3 of all generations are all air cooled.

The "macintouch survey" (and every other internet poll asking about problems) are very unreliable sources of information. People come to forums to report problems exponentially more frequently than people that have no problems. I've got 3 years of 24/7 operation on my G5 with no issues at all.

The late 2005 2.3GHz G5 is the best PPC computer Apple ever made, thats the main reason I bought one. Liquid cooling was the only thing keeping the Quad from being the best.
Click to expand...

When you see the massive difference in reliability of the power supply compared to the other G5's that were part of the survey, you know something is actually going on.

It does not help either that Apple had a power supply replacement program for the dual cores.
 
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