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Is PowerPC Better Than Old Intel Macs?

AmazingHenry

AmazingHenry

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jul 6, 2015
1,285
534
Central Michigan
So, I have a PowerMac G5 that I'm currently using as a main Mac. I was thinking about moving to my late 2006 iMac with a Core 2 Duo 1.83GHz. It has a broken screen, but I can connect it to one of my ACDs. But is it really the right thing to do? Firefox will soon be discontinuing support for 10.6 and 10.7, and 10.7 is the max my iMac can run. After Firefox drops support, there will be no web browsers left for the early Intel Macs. But on PowerPC, we have TenFourFox. Should I stick with my PowerMac or move to my Intel iMac?
 
I have 2 of those iMacs. You can upgrade the C2D to a faster one, and using MacPostFactor, they can run Mountain Lion. Only downside is if you have a GMA950 iMac, which is literal crap. My 24in late 06 has a Nvidia 7300GT, but the smaller screen sizes from 06 use either GMA950 or Radeon X1600. My early 06 17in has a Radeon X1600, which is heads over heels better than the GMA950.
 
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Gamer9430 said:
I have 2 of those iMacs. You can upgrade the C2D to a faster one, and using MacPostFactor, they can run Mountain Lion. Only downside is if you have a GMA950 iMac, which is literal crap. My 24in late 06 has a Nvidia 7300GT, but the smaller screen sizes from 06 use either GMA950 or Radeon X1600. My early 06 17in has a Radeon X1600, which is heads over heels better than the GMA950.
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I have the GMA950 one, 1.83GHz 17 inch. It was the absolute slowest, smallest, and most cheap late 2006 model. I am not happy with Lion's performance, and I'm sure Mountain Lion would be way worse. Snow Leopard seems to be the best OS for it. In real-world tests, my iMac seems about the same speed as my PowerMac.
 
You can install even El Capitan on a late 06 imac, minus graphics acceleration but can be improved upon with kexts.
My g5 quad runs smoother than my late 06 imac in most cases.
 
cw48494 said:
You can install even El Capitan on a late 06 imac, minus graphics acceleration but can be improved upon with kexts.
My g5 quad runs smoother than my late 06 imac in most cases.
Click to expand...
I don't think El Capitan would be a good idea, considering how slow Lion is already.
 
I think it depends on the purpose you set them to.

The Mac I am currently typing this on is a 2006 MBP. Snow Leopard max. As far as I am concerned, Snow Leopard is the final evolution of Leopard. My MBP is a Core Solo so will never go past Snow Leopard and it is insufficient to run anything past Adobe CS6. Office 2011 is also the best I can do on this machine.

Still a lot of power and capability for the type of work I do at home - yet nothing compared to what my MBP can do at work.

But does that make my MBP better than my PowerBook? Faster maybe, but better for the purpose I put my PB to, no.

I'm not even dragging my Quicksilver into this which is my main machine for design.

In any case, if the loss of Firefox bothers you then run TenFourFox on an SL Mac under Rosetta (use the G3 build).
 
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I depends on what you most do. Years ago, I too had a G5 DP 2.0 and moved to a iMac 17" C2D 1.83 - as I was doing freelance design at the time, I soon went back to the G5 as overall it performed better for that task.
However, the iMac beat it hands down for video conversion and playback plus compatibility with other devices.
Why not just try it out for a few days doing what you normally do?
 
Dronecatcher said:
I depends on what you most do. Years ago, I too had a G5 DP 2.0 and moved to a iMac 17" C2D 1.83 - as I was doing freelance design at the time, I soon went back to the G5 as overall it performed better for that task.
However, the iMac beat it hands down for video conversion and playback plus compatibility with other devices.
Why not just try it out for a few days doing what you normally do?
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Good idea, I'll try it out and see what's better.
 
I've run ML on a 2008 MB that maxed out at Lion and it actually ran better on ML, you also get iMessage and FT support.
 
I bought a 2007 2.0GHZ imac with ATI HD2400 gfx. and 4GB ram. Only paid £189 including shipping with year warranty.
It's a refurb unit from a specialist.

I upgraded to el cap and runs really well.
It's no power house but when I upgrade it to 6GB ram should fix the beachballs every now and again.

It uses 3.85GB of the 4GB available according the hardware monitor.

I do have and actually like powerPC.

I have an old ibook 14"
Just has too old a flash for me to use for some things but it is quite fast considering it's age.
Has 10.5 but runs bit faster on 10.4.

also recently bought a 17" MBP of 2007 vintage which is also running el capitan and quite nippy unit.
 
elf69 said:
I bought a 2007 2.0GHZ imac with ATI HD2400 gfx. and 4GB ram. Only paid £189 including shipping with year warranty.
It's a refurb unit from a specialist.

I upgraded to el cap and runs really well.
It's no power house but when I upgrade it to 6GB ram should fix the beachballs every now and again.

It uses 3.85GB of the 4GB available according the hardware monitor.

I do have and actually like powerPC.

I have an old ibook 14"
Just has too old a flash for me to use for some things but it is quite fast considering it's age.
Has 10.5 but runs bit faster on 10.4.

also recently bought a 17" MBP of 2007 vintage which is also running el capitan and quite nippy unit.
Click to expand...
My iMac has only 2GB of RAM, and I'm pretty sure El Capitan would run pretty slow. I've installed Snow Leopard on my iMac and the software updates are installing now. I'm typing this on my iBook G4.
 
I have ibook G4 14"

My imac has 4GB but will take 6GB.

el cap runs ok on my 2GHz and 4GB ram on 250GB HDD, no SSD just yet.
As per my signature most my units have el capitan.
 
HFTaylor12 said:
My iMac has only 2GB of RAM, and I'm pretty sure El Capitan would run pretty slow. I've installed Snow Leopard on my iMac and the software updates are installing now. I'm typing this on my iBook G4.
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If you have a white iMac it will be slow because most of the graphics options for the Polyurethane iMacs are not supported in El Cap, and therefore lacking graphics acceleration.
 
MacCubed said:
I've run ML on a 2008 MB that maxed out at Lion and it actually ran better on ML, you also get iMessage and FT support.
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I was about to say this as I was reading the thread. We had a 2007 iMac 2.4 GHz that ran Lion horribly, but Mountain Lion actually sped it up a lot, plus iMessage and FaceTime support (among other things) is really nice. Wouldn't hurt to give it a go and see.
 
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Slix said:
I was about to say this as I was reading the thread. We had a 2007 iMac 2.4 GHz that ran Lion horribly, but Mountain Lion actually sped it up a lot, plus iMessage and FaceTime support (among other things) is really nice. Wouldn't hurt to give it a go and see.
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I definitely think that most of the unsupported Macs in ML would have been just fine running it... I kinda wonder why Apple didn't choose to add them to the list, more people buying newer Macs? Who knows lol
 
a good ppc is better than a bad intel. a good intel is better than a bad ppc. a good intel is better than a good ppc. but really now, i thought we settled this years ago.
 
ya id try the iMac you could always get a use 2006 mac pro 1,1 duel duel core eons off eBay i bought mine for $180 love it its my main machine and i have a core i5 2014 mac mini right next to it not hooked up with a ogpu upgrade u could run el capitan and b great.
 
jdasikainen said:
ya id try the iMac you could always get a use 2006 mac pro 1,1 duel duel core eons off eBay i bought mine for $180 love it its my main machine and i have a core i5 2014 mac mini right next to it not hooked up with a ogpu upgrade u could run el capitan and b great.
Click to expand...

You can find them as low as $50 on ebay, I saw one for $79 earlier. I bought mine for $100 with free shipping.
 
I've been trying my Intel iMac (typing on it now) for a few days and I haven't noticed a big difference in performance compared to my PowerMac. I'll try out Mountain Lion on the iMac, as many of you are saying it sped it up.
 
May want to upgrade the RAM if you choose on upgrading the os. Me, having another monitor sitting in front of my all-in-one would drive me nuts.

You could always get a replacement panel off the interweb and take the opportunity to upgrade the drive with an inexpensive Intel sata2 ssd. Upgrade the ram and the processor. Maybe it's just me; but that sounds like fun. While you are doing all that you would have the trusty old ppc to use
 
HFTaylor12 said:
I've been trying my Intel iMac (typing on it now) for a few days and I haven't noticed a big difference in performance compared to my PowerMac. I'll try out Mountain Lion on the iMac, as many of you are saying it sped it up.
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Last year I've bought a bunch of white c2duo iMacs for my work mainly to be used for RemoteDesktop with a Win2008Server. They all run Lion with Office08, Safari, FireFox, email as my most used progs beside the RDP-function.
Web, YouTube and video run seamless too just out of the box and I very like the good audio-performance.
Standby is on low power-consumption and I guess both on full workload and stand-by the power-consumption of the iMac's is far below the PowerMac's.
I would run the iMac as my main machine on low-power costs and fire-up the G5 on demand for any special tasks using ScreenSharing and also the additional monitor to control the G5 via iMac.
It's a pity, your iMacs screen is broken - I'd even go for a "new" white iMac for that purpose, cause I like it's design ...
As for my white iMacs and my demands at work I'm pretty content with the overall performance of Lion.
But I'd also like to know, how to install any OS X beyond Lion, since the white iMacs suffer from that limiting 32-bit EFI-Rom.
 
HFTaylor12 said:
I've been trying my Intel iMac (typing on it now) for a few days and I haven't noticed a big difference in performance compared to my PowerMac. I'll try out Mountain Lion on the iMac, as many of you are saying it sped it up.
Click to expand...
Web browsing on the intel Macs is a thousand times better than on PPCs, even when a G5 is running TFF. The latest versions of Chrome and Firefox will last a long time on ML, so you don't have to worry. I would put the iMac in a cabinet and connect the ACD from there, just my thoughts
 
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