Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Keeping a G5 alive.

J

jihad the movie

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jun 18, 2003
136
0
Smugtown, NY
I have the Rev A. Dual 1.8 G5 with 8 DIMM slots, and I am interested in keeping this machine for as long as I possibly can. I know the new Intel Minis are faster, but I already have a considerable amount of hardware invested in my G5, and I would like to hold onto it until it no longer suits my needs. (I had my previous mac for 8 years) My needs really haven't changed much since I purchased it back in 2004, so I do not need to consider 10.6, CS4, or anything else to that effect.

My current specs are as follows:

Dual 1.8
5gb Ram (all slots filled)
160GB HD (stock)
750GB HD (second bay)
eSATA II card



What I would really like to do is make my G5 a bit snappier in day to day tasks. Would upgrading the boot HD to a 10,000 or 15,000 RPM drive make a significant change in performance? Would a higher RPM drive saturate the SATA bandwidth? 10.5 really took a toll on my system's performance, so I would really like to take back some of the ground I lost with the upgrade.


Thanks in advance.
 
Did you ever consider selling it and buying a Mac Mini? It will cost you less to have an increase in speed this way.
 
geoffreak said:
Did you ever consider selling it and buying a Mac Mini? It will cost you less to have an increase in speed this way.
Click to expand...


Yes, I did, but I have a considerable amount of hardware (multiple external eSATA drives, etc) invested in my G5 that would be incompatible with the Mini. The cost to migrate or replace the additional hardware would be substantial. I'm looking to hold onto my G5 for a couple more years until I can afford a Mac Pro.
 
for more performance you really should look at selling that and buying a mini, and before snow leopard arrives, since that will drive prices down for a G5 ;)
 
Yes, though it would be hard - a 3.5-2.5 adapter may cut the mustard in this case, but one would have to look at it pretty carefully.

I'd go for the 10k-15k drive myself...
 
That processor is going to hold you down, you really should upgrade your GPU but your options are limited, and you can't run Snow Leopard...

Sell it and get a mini, or try for a refurbished Mac Pro.
 
Now, ...

... for mild increase you should:

a) Get a Intel SSD drive and keep the 160GB as external backup. You can forward the SSD in any new system, if necessary.

b) If not yet done: Keep the system/applications on one drive (SSD), and data on another one (separate it, too, into work and entertainement like video/music). Don´t mix those, but keep them always separated. This is always recommended.

c) Check your graphiccard and upgrade it to the maximum possible with your machine.

d) Depending on your workload and RAM consumption you might want to bump up the RAM to 8GB

For good and better increases in performance, you need to jump to an Intel system, there is no way around it. Limit your budget. I would say US$ 300,- would be the absolute maximum.
 
1) Do you need Leopard? If not, go back to Tiger.

2) Get an SSD

3) Go Intel. Seriously. This obsession with keeping computers for as long as possible doesn't work. That philosophy works with everything else you purchase except food and computers.
 
Icy Box makes a 25$ enclosure which brings the 2,5" geometry up to 3,5". The SSD is then fit to go into your G5 slot. SSD will probably set you back 400$ for an Intel 160 GB. Is it worth it? Speed is like hell that is guranteed.
 
Why would you separate work/play documents? They're never used at the same time. They should be stored together, if you aim for speed.

Anybody who buys the 2.5-3.5" adapter tray for a SSD is a sucker.

"Then, I added some fins to lower wind resistance. And this racing stripe here I feel is pretty sharp."
 
Check out this site to increase the performance of your G5.

http://macperformanceguide.com/index.html

I think in this economy, using what we have already invested considerable amounts of money into is worth keeping if it does what you need it to do. I know that for me, CS4 plays just as well on my dual 2.0 G5 for moderate use, using Tiger as CS2. Sure, getting a new system would be faster - how much faster to warrant spending $1,400 (all in for hardware upgrades and sales tax/ Apple care), plus software upgrades for the Intel chip? Maybe spending $500 for an SSD drive and maxing out the Ram is all you need for the performance that would make you happy. Two new hard drives, one as a Photoshop scratch disk would also work wonders.

Mike
 
giffut said:
... for mild increase you should:

a) Get a Intel SSD drive and keep the 160GB as external backup. You can forward the SSD in any new system, if necessary.

b) If not yet done: Keep the system/applications on one drive (SSD), and data on another one (separate it, too, into work and entertainement like video/music). Don´t mix those, but keep them always separated. This is always recommended.

c) Check your graphiccard and upgrade it to the maximum possible with your machine.

d) Depending on your workload and RAM consumption you might want to bump up the RAM to 8GB

For good and better increases in performance, you need to jump to an Intel system, there is no way around it. Limit your budget. I would say US$ 300,- would be the absolute maximum.
Click to expand...


Thanks giffut, at least you can understand what the point of my post is. New computers are expensive for those of us on a budget, and since I purchased my MacBook last year, I'm not ready to buy a second new machine just yet.

Yeah, I was looking to spend exactly that, $300, to increase the performance of my G5. I was thinking I could get a decent sized 10,000rpm drive, and then put the rest towards a better video card.

As it is right now, I have 5 HDs connected to my G5, one for the system, another for just music, and the rest for photos and video. I've kept all my media separate from day one, but it seems the system side of things has slowed down a bit with upgrades to 10.5 and applications like iTunes and iPhoto. I mainly use my G5 as an archive for my media, and use my 2.4ghz MacBook as my workhorse. Ultimate performance from my desktop isn't an issue here, but improved responsiveness is exactly what I am looking for; especially because I do not plan on updating to 10.6, or newer versions of Adobe CS. Plus, it gives me a little extra time to save up for the Mac Pro I intend on buying in a couple years.

Thanks.
 
300D said:
Do you own a computer? If the answer is yes, then it can use an SSD. It made a world of difference in my G5 and G4 machines.
Click to expand...

Yes, I do own a computer. Check my signature. I don't appreciate the tone either. My post simply indicated can you mount one properly. Any joe schmoe can throw a ssd in a tower. :rolleyes:
 
Keep an eye on craigslist too. In the last year I've bought two G5 units each with an x800xt card and each machine was under $300.
 
I ...

... don´t know all of your HDs age and speed, but this might make a difference. Try to keep heavy workloads (huge pictures, raw video footage - you name it) on fast HDs, stuff like MP3 and DIVX/H.264 videos on the slower ones. You could use the AJA disk test (http://www.aja.com/ajashare/AJA_System_Test_v601.zip) and XBench´s HD test (http://www.xbench.com/Xbench_1.3.dmg) to figure out what your drives are capable to transfer.

The system drive should be the fastest of them all - you already plan this - just because of spotlight indexing and OSX RAM caching running in the background. Fast access times are a giving significant and felt speed increases, not necessarily fast transfer times like with RAID 0.

If you can´t get an Intel SSD or a Seagate Velociraptor HD, which both are still crushing your budget with other things waiting for upgrade, too, I would recommend to get a fast SATA HD like the Seagate Black Caviar 640GB or a Samsung 1TB SATA drives (both with 32MB caching and 72000rpm, that´s important). Those drives are faster than the old Western Digital Raptor 10000rpm series and much cheaper than the new ones, so you get the benefit of more drive space, very good speeds (transfer and seek/access times) and less money to spend - and don´t forget the warranty with new drives.

As to separating system/data workloads: Not only does it speed up, when you use dedicated harddrives for those, but it also is giving you a minimal increase in redundancy (one drive crash will not take several layers of your installation with you). Just never ever forget to back the critical stuff to external (best: bootable) HDs, too. For those tasks you can use older, slower HDs perfectly.

For graphics you are bound to AGP, right? In that case either grab, if possible, a cheap ATI 9800 Radeon Pro or x800 Pro or bite the concrete and flash your own NVIDIA AGP 7800GS (it´s tricky, but doable by margin the fastest possible upgrade for any AGP Mac; the forum is your friend: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/273597/)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back