Is moving from a G5 DP1.8 to Mac mini an upgrade?

[irfanh]

My circa 2004 Power Mac G5 1.8 DP is getting long in the tooth especially when transcoding video and running photoshop on larger pictures. Plus the PPC architecture does not let me run parallels (I need some windows for work).

I have been waiting for this product cycle to start before upgrading. I initially though of moving to the latest MacPro, a logical evolution in the same line of hardware. But even the base model is really expensive. Then I looked at the iMac but I already have a dual display setup. Then I happened to look at the Mac mini, which I always viewed as underpowered entry level box and started to think, "Is the move from a G5 DP to the current Mac Mini possible?" The more I am thinking about it, it may be possible. I do not use any additional internal storage on the Power Mac and the video card on the Mac mini is probably better than my current G5 anyways. I do not plan on using RAID. The new Mac mini has a fast processor, a vastly improved front side bus and a better video card. This machine would be used for advanced amateur desktop use. iPhoto, iMovie, Photoshop, handbrake, Visualhub are some of the larger apps I would use. It would also share movies to the Apple TVs in the home.

Can anyone think of why I should not move to the Mac mini base model, add aftermarket RAM and upgrade the hard drive to a 7200rpm drive? The money saved would easily go towards updating my G4 powerbook.

Any thought swould be helpful. Thanks

 

[OldMike]

My circa 2004 Power Mac G5 1.8 DP is getting long in the tooth especially when transcoding video and running photoshop on larger pictures. Plus the PPC architecture does not let me run parallels (I need some windows for work).

I have been waiting for this product cycle to start before upgrading. I initially though of moving to the latest MacPro, a logical evolution in the same line of hardware. But even the base model is really expensive. Then I looked at the iMac but I already have a dual display setup. Then I happened to look at the Mac mini, which I always viewed as underpowered entry level box and started to think, "Is the move from a G5 DP to the current Mac Mini possible?" The more I am thinking about it, it may be possible. I do not use any additional internal storage on the Power Mac and the video card on the Mac mini is probably better than my current G5 anyways. I do not plan on using RAID. The new Mac mini has a fast processor, a vastly improved front side bus and a better video card. This machine would be used for advanced amateur desktop use. iPhoto, iMovie, Photoshop, handbrake, Visualhub are some of the larger apps I would use. It would also share movies to the Apple TVs in the home.

Can anyone think of why I should not move to the Mac mini base model, add aftermarket RAM and upgrade the hard drive to a 7200rpm drive? The money saved would easily go towards updating my G4 powerbook.

Any thought swould be helpful. Thanks

Here is something that I found recently comparing a dual G5 to a iMac Core 2 Duo 2.0 GHZ:

iMac 20" 2.0GHz Intel Core 2 Duo - MA876LL/A
vs.
Power Mac G5/2.5 GHz Dual - M9457LL/A

Requested by Stephen

-----------------------------------------------------------------
Hi Stephen,

Your comparison follows below ...

Johnny AppleSpeed
_____________________________

In performance the iMac 20 " 2.0GHz Core 2 Duo is ....

Processor Single ... 1% slower
Processor Multiple ... 1% faster
Graphics Card ... 123% faster
Hard Drive Multi-File ... 55% faster
Hard Drive Single -File ... 35% faster

Photoshop Filter Suite ... 3% faster

http://macspeedzone.com/html/pc/08/1_6a.shtml

I would love to find some better benchmarks comparing Macs (I think I found a good site a long time ago - but just cannot find it anymore).

In any case, I really believe that the Core 2 Duo Mac Mini, even at only 2.0GHZ, would outperform a G5 1.8 DP pretty easily.

 

[Consultant]

Depends on what you do. If you have a RAID in PowerMac then certain things with raid will be faster.

However, if you have to ask, Mini will be faster for what you do.

 

[djc6]

Here is a link to a similar discussion with some rudimentary benchmark comparisons:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/661988/