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iMac G5 or PowerMac G5
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I have had good experiences ordering memory from this place
http://omnitechnologies.biz/
I could be wrong but I believe they will ship international for 25$.
http://omnitechnologies.biz/
I could be wrong but I believe they will ship international for 25$.
Platform said:Thanks
Wold be nice to have the software and I do study history.
Have not played nanosaur
iLife 04 comes pre-intalled on these not 05($20 ugrade)
And iWork does no come pre-installed on any machines as far as know
But does anyone know about the noise level of the machines
You are correct on iWork, it doesn't come with any Macs. You SHOULD get a iLife '04 installed on any new Mac, but have included in the box a free disc to upgrade to iLive '05.
As far as noise, it's kind of hard to say. While the iMac is PROBABLY quieter overall, it is also right in front of your face, where the PM is going to be tucked away under a desk or somewhere further from your ears... so the iMac may be quieter when measured from a fixed distance, but could have a louder PERCIEVED volume since it's right in front of you all the time.
Rob
After having owned three imacs over the past 5 years I can speak with certainty that I would never buy them again. I now use a PowerMac and had I used one from the beggining I probably would have gone through just one over the past 4-5 years instead of going through three imacs. I now use a Dual 2.5Ghz G5 and this will last me 4-5 years for sure maybe even longer and in the meantime I get far superior performance over the imac G5 and have no desire for better. I know that had I purchased a top of the line 20" imac I would probably be itching for faster or better within 18 months or so and I probably would not keep the computer for longer than 2-3 years max. So either way I would spend about the same amount of money over 5-6 years except with the PowerMac I have greater speed and options for both today and tommorow.
mrgreen4242 said:
Thank you
I saw on apples web site that the up-to-date upgrade for iLife 05 is $19.95, but does it come in every new box that is shipped now just that you have to pay online to be able to use the programs on the disc
Platform said:Would also like the Dual 2.5Ghz but don't have that kind of money
You are saying that the PM is better because of the expandibility or
The software that comes with the PM is that any good
I'm speaking solely from a Hardware perspective. The software is exactly the same minus the Encyclopedia and a couple of Games. I would not have played Anyway and my 2003 Encyclopedia is still fucntional so I use that. The software bundle differences are negligible as the PowerMac comes with some software like Quickbooks 6, OmniGraffle, and Omniweb which are not included with the imac.
If you really want an imac though I suggest you wait another 3-6 months as the next revision should be much better.
platform, I would suggest being careful where you buy your memory from. Shopping by price alone is probably not a good idea. Make sure that the company you buy from is reputable and will be there if you ever have any problems. Often times you get what you pay for in terms of service. If you by chance get a bad stick you may be SOL when you try and return it to them. With that being said, I have no experience with the company you mentioned above, so I cannot say whether they are reputable or not. I'm Just trying to let you know from experience that doing a little research on the company you buy from rather than shopping soley by price can save you a lot of frustration down the road.
Little Endian said:
Well some people are like that. There are people who have DP 2.5ghz machine now and when the 3ghz comes out they are going to want that, too. And lots of them will get it. On the other hand, there are people with the original flat screen iMacs still, and use them every day for what they need, who don't have any strong urge to update.
Something else to think about with "over buying" to future proof yourself...
A new 2.5ghz DP machine is $3000. Tack on $750 for display (that's a low estimate based on a Dell 20" widescreen), which could easily go up to $2000 if you went Apple brand stuff. But we will stick at $3750. Bump it up to $4000 for some more RAM and some software.
Ok, so that machine, as you state, probably good for 5 years, with some small updates here and there (more RAM, HDs, GPU, OS, etc).
On the other side of that is the 20" iMac. Perfectly capable for what you want to do with it now. $1900 + 250 for some RAM and software at time of purchase (same as we added for the PM). $2150 total, good for 2-3 years. For the sake of argument, lets aim low and say you want to upgrade in 2 years.
Apples price structure generally keeps products at the same cost, but they get faster and more feature full. So in 2 years it's safe to say that there will be a a $2000 machine that will do what you want without to much issue. Even if you just buy that machine outright you will still be at the cost of having just the PM, but if you don't need two computers you can always sell the old one. In two years a 20" iMac, in my guess, will still fetch $1200, but we will aim low again, and say you sell it for $1000.
So you're new iMac and it's 2 year lifespan cost you $1000. You're up to $3000 total for 4 years of usable machine. Still $1000 less than the PM. You pay a price to get the cutting edge equipment now, but if upgrade frequently to the current "midrange" you can save a lot fo money, as long as you are not conerned about having the latest and greatest.
That said, the PM still tempts me, too. I like to game a little bit, so upgrable video cards are definately tempting. I can always add external HDs for just a little more than an internal one (160gbs of storage is $100 vs. $130 for internal/external... not a HUGE deal, and you get the added portability). 2gbs of RAM is probably all I will need, before my next upgrade comes along anyways.
Also, as my only reason for wanting to upgrade the GPU is gaming, I can build a capable, and suprisingly small (not mini of course, but microATX is not bad sizewise) PC, complete with KVM, for about $100 more than a high end video card for a PM would cost.
Sorry I went so long on this... btw, crucial, from all accounts is a good place to get Mac memory. You can buy Crucial brand RAM from newegg.com for less than at Crucial, but I am not sure about their international shipping policies.
Rob
mrgreen4242 said:
All very Good points and they are all true for the most part. What you fail to calculate though is that the PowerMac compared to the imac would still be at least twice as fast in almost all aspects in the meantime before one upgrades to a new imac. In some cases the PowerMac would be as much as 5-6 times faster than todays top of the line imac especially when doing tasks that rely heavily on the Video card. I also would not be to surprised if the imac of 2-3 years from now is still slower than a dual 2.5Ghz PowerMac so really over the next 4-5 years one would have a slower machine despite going through two imacs in comparison to one PowerMac.
Let's look at 2 years ago:
In Jan. 2003 the top of the line PowerMac was the Dual 1.42Ghz G4 for $2699+$999 for the 17" ACD= $3699 Today this Machine in stock configuration with monitor would still be worth about $1800
In early 2003 the top of the line imac was the 1Ghz G4 17" for $1799
today it is valued at about $800-$1000 and since it's two years later one spends another $1899 for the 20" imac of today that equals about $3000 spent.
The Dual 1.42Ghz G4 is still a keeper as it still outperforms the 1.8Ghz imac in many tasks especially when taking MP aware Apps and Multitasking situations. Faster video card options that can clobber a 5200Ultra, Easy Raid Options, Faster Optical Drive options, PCI expansion etc.
So basically with the imac 1Ghz option one would have saved $1000 but would have had a much slower machine for the first 2 years and even the next two years would still be slower or at least somewhat equal with a replacement imac G5 in comparison to one PowerMac
As For me I would much rather have Internal Drive bay options as external defeats the purpose of All in one and a drive Connected via SATA is still faster than external FW solutions and better for RAID applications it's cheaper too, though not much. What is alot cheaper is the optical Drive upgradability because Slot load 8X DVD-R drives cost about $175 right now however a standard size 16X DVD-R costs only $65. In my case I also use PCI as I do Audio and need to use a PCI card as Mbox just does not cut it for me anymore. I also have a TV-Tuner PCI card which is much cheaper than TV options for imac. I also in the hear and now can easily find use for 1.5GB of ram and at least I still have lots and lots of room for more which I will need. Maxing out RAM is cheaper in the Power Mac as you can use smaller Cheaper modules to get to your memory needs. Lastly I need a fast Video Card as I also Love my games and I do fiddle with Motion as well and the GPU will only become more important with Tiger and the Geforce 5200Ultra is just a joke for games not to mention motion and it allready is the bare minimum for Tiger.
My Dual 2.5GHz G5 with 1.5GB of RAM, Geforce 6800GT and 20" ACD only cost me $3800 tax and shipping inlcuded as well as Crucial Ram Uprade. I got it with the Developer discount while a 20" imac with RAM upped to 1.5GB would have costed me about $2100 tax included with Developer Discount. In my case it made sense to get the Power Mac as it really is 2-4 times faster in all scenarios and with Gaming it is litterally 4-5 times faster in most games and I can play Games not even worth playing on an imac. So I spent less than twice as much but I get a machine that is really about 3 times faster overall and is much more future proof than the 1.8Ghz G5 imac.
Platform said:Ok thanks but what about the SP 1.8
You can find the SP 1.8 for as low as $1299 refurbished and can get a 20" ACD for $899 EDU pricing or Refurb pricing and or you could buy a much cheaper LCD frome someone else like the $700 Dell 2005FPW or even get a 19" display for under $500. You could get a a single 1.8Ghz G5 with a Display for well under $2000 which would be about as much as an imac 20"
Even the SP 1.8 would be a much better ivestment than imac as you get twice the memory capacity and you can expand it for less. If you buy the original SP 1.8 it also comes with a faster FSB, 4X memory capacity 8GB max and a Radeon 9600 which is faster than the Geforce 5200 Ultra used in the imacs. The newer SP 1.8 has the advantage of a faster Superdrive as well. Remember Graphics cards make a huge difference in performance depeding on what you are doing and today's top of the line cards can litteraly offer 6X the performance in real world situations over the 5200Ultra. With PowerMac at least you have the option of adding a much better video card.
Another Option worth exploring is gettin a Dual 1.8 which can be had for $1699 Refurb, $1799EDU, or as low as $1500 Developer Discount. Even at $1799 and with an $899 20"ACD it would be only $2700 or less than $1000 more over top of line imac. If you cut the cost of the display and settle for a cheaper one you can get a nice Dual 1.8 rig for only about $500 more than imac G5 20"
In case you don't or can't qualify for EDU or DEV pricing there is always Apple Refurbished which is like new as it still comes with 1 year warranty and one can still add Applecare if desired.
Platform said:How does the SP 1.8 PM compare to the Rev D PB's 15" and 17"
Search it on the net for yourself. From memory only, the high end 17" PowerBook scored a 142 or so benchmark, the high end iMac is close to about 160 I think, so the SP 1.8 PM should not be much different than a high end iMac.
Brian