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Love my new powermac G5!!!!
- Thread starter simplymuzik3
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I can definitely use the power for music and renderings...but my main concern is that 10.6 will not support PowerPC (or so I hear). I typically like to keep Logic Pro up to date. But i'm thinking i should try and sell the G5 while it's still worth a few hundred.
selling my G5
Selling my dual-core 2.3Ghz G5 on eBay tomorrow. My 2.4Ghz unibody MacBook is faster in every aspect, especially Lightroom and Photoshop. (with one exception --- HDD, had 2x 10k WD Raptors in RAID-0 with the G5)
Keeping the raptors though, for a Mac Pro purchase in the distance future (late summer). For now, the tiny MB connected to my 30" cinema display will have to hold me over
(oh miss the FireWire also, but a minor annoyance that will go away after a Mac Pro purchase, luckily all my external enclosures were both USB2 and FW400 and/or FW800)
Selling my dual-core 2.3Ghz G5 on eBay tomorrow. My 2.4Ghz unibody MacBook is faster in every aspect, especially Lightroom and Photoshop. (with one exception --- HDD, had 2x 10k WD Raptors in RAID-0 with the G5)
Keeping the raptors though, for a Mac Pro purchase in the distance future (late summer). For now, the tiny MB connected to my 30" cinema display will have to hold me over
(oh miss the FireWire also, but a minor annoyance that will go away after a Mac Pro purchase, luckily all my external enclosures were both USB2 and FW400 and/or FW800)
Im going to be fine keeping my g5 with leopard. Im mainly using it for the iphone sdk(xcode, interface builder), and it runs very smooth. I can still develop iphone apps with leopard, so Im perfectly happy with my g5, even if its not supported by snow leopard
I love my Dual 2.0 G5. But i will be upgrading to a new MacPro in a month or two (sooner if I can swing it financially).
My G5 is a very solid performer for most of my professional design needs (CS4 mainly), but I'm doing much more illustration these days, and my primary illustration application, Painter X, chokes my G5 with some of the larger files, multiple layers, and brush-strokes. It can't seem to keep up with me, and it's very stifling to have to wait 30 seconds for a brush-stroke to render (kinda kills the creativity, if you know what I mean). I'm sure a more powerful processor(s) will alleviate that problem.
I'll probably hold on to the G5 for a few months afterwards, then it'll probably go up on the auction block (or to a relative, if they want it).
My G5 is a very solid performer for most of my professional design needs (CS4 mainly), but I'm doing much more illustration these days, and my primary illustration application, Painter X, chokes my G5 with some of the larger files, multiple layers, and brush-strokes. It can't seem to keep up with me, and it's very stifling to have to wait 30 seconds for a brush-stroke to render (kinda kills the creativity, if you know what I mean). I'm sure a more powerful processor(s) will alleviate that problem.
I'll probably hold on to the G5 for a few months afterwards, then it'll probably go up on the auction block (or to a relative, if they want it).
How is the performance of CS4 on your G5 compared to what you were getting with CS2? What size of Photoshop/Illustrator files are you dealing with?
I have 6GB of ram and the 256 ati XT800 card. Would this be enough to cope with CS4 on my dual 2.0 G5? My thought I might take advantage of my upgrade eligibility while I still can - if the performance is the same as CS2.
Mike
Just make sure that under energy settings in system preferences that you have CPU performance set to Highest over Automatic. This will help boost your Power Mac G5's performance Toronto Mike.
P.S.- Glad that you are liking your RAM California.
WOW I can tell a huge difference. I bought my G5 last year used and I love it. Planning on upgrading to a new Mac Pro whenever snow leopard comes out though.
It's been a while since I had CS2, so I can't say for sure. I don't recall Photoshop being any faster, and Illustrator still drags at times when I have a large, complicated file. InDesign seems pretty snappy in CS4, however.
I've 5.5GB RAM and never really had anything choke. My advice: if you think you'd like the new features in CS4, get it, but I don't think there would be much noticeable boost in performance between the two on your G5.
It's a free opinion, and worth precisely what you paid for it, so take that into account as well.
Good Luck!
I'm going to keep my G5 around as a storage mule on my Gigabit Ethernet based LAN.
I picked up a Sonnet Jive and SATA card for cheap, so it now can take five (5) HD's internally. OS X supports RAID, so a RAID 1 is in line.
YMMV if you want to pick up a copy of OS X Server 10.4 (Tiger) for $50 or so, and play around with more 'Server-y' things. Do keep in mind that its easy to dual-boot.
Granted, some people will point out that its going to be consuming some electricity to keep it running, but its also cheap insurance to keep it around in case the primary machine has some sort of problem.
-hh
Thanks Sigmadog for your thoughts.
There are a few features that would be great to have from CS4 that I know I would appreciate over the years. It's not a must have - especially not at the expense of the performance I'm enjoying already with CS2. I've managed to cobble together a few third party programs that do some of the stuff in CS4 - like Autopano Pro's panoramic stiching software.
All in all, I ask out of curiosity. Thanks.
Mike
There are a few features that would be great to have from CS4 that I know I would appreciate over the years. It's not a must have - especially not at the expense of the performance I'm enjoying already with CS2. I've managed to cobble together a few third party programs that do some of the stuff in CS4 - like Autopano Pro's panoramic stiching software.
All in all, I ask out of curiosity. Thanks.
Mike
Your X800 card isn't going to make Photoshop any faster. However, CS4 ought to run just fine on the G5 - at least, CS3 runs fine here.
I've worked with billboards (6000x2000px) just fine. Having lots of RAM and a fast scratch disk helps (four volume software RAID0).
Thanks for the words of encouragement. Looking at your set-up, we both have similar specs so your success with CS3 is comforting. The best thing to do would be downloading the trial version and see for myself. I know that the ATI xt800 is not one of the supported cards for the new graphic features of CS4. In other forums people have mentioned the possible workarounds if problems are encountered; you still don't get the graphic features, but the rest would work fine - so they say.
I currently use my second internal hard drive as a dedicated scratch disk. Do you find the four volume software raid makes a noticeable difference? I cannot imagine my files getting over 300-500 mg at the very most for poster size images. Should I even consider a raid set up? The learning curve of dealing with such a concept seems intimidating.
Thanks for your reply.
Mike
I found it increased my computer's time in the horse-spinning benchmark to be faster than otherwise similar systems. I can run some of the more recent benchmarks for you with/without the array.
Real world? depends on how much Photoshop uses the cache. Made a difference for me on large images.
If you don't have an eSATA card, then I wouldn't bother - your dedicated disk is fine (though, perhaps only use a small partition at the start). If you do have the ability to have more than two disks in/on your G5, all you have to do is add a small partition to each - I used a 8-9 GB on each of four disks, and then create a striped RAID set of these in Disk Utility. You then tell Photoshop to use it.
FYI You're going to have to juggle your data around to add partitions to non-empty disks, but SuperDuper! or Carbon Copy Cloner (or even ditto, IIRC) make this painless.
Oh, and one small caveat that got me a few weeks ago - if you're going to swap disks (destroying your scratch array), set Photoshop to not use it before it fails to find it, or it'll hang on launch. CS4 may be better in this regard.
Real world? depends on how much Photoshop uses the cache. Made a difference for me on large images.
If you don't have an eSATA card, then I wouldn't bother - your dedicated disk is fine (though, perhaps only use a small partition at the start). If you do have the ability to have more than two disks in/on your G5, all you have to do is add a small partition to each - I used a 8-9 GB on each of four disks, and then create a striped RAID set of these in Disk Utility. You then tell Photoshop to use it.
FYI You're going to have to juggle your data around to add partitions to non-empty disks, but SuperDuper! or Carbon Copy Cloner (or even ditto, IIRC) make this painless.
Oh, and one small caveat that got me a few weeks ago - if you're going to swap disks (destroying your scratch array), set Photoshop to not use it before it fails to find it, or it'll hang on launch. CS4 may be better in this regard.
Thanks for the ideas NoNameBrand.
For now, with the maximum size of files I am using, I'll stay with the second internal Sata drive as my scratch disk since I am pleased with my performance. However, I'll keep your suggestions on file so if I go bigger on a consistent basis, and need to squeeze out more performance I'll give it a shot.
I notice that you are using four disks. I was thinking in the future of getting a double external Hd enclosure. Would linking this to a eSata card give me comparable results to what you are achieving, or is it necessary to go with a 4x HD enclousre to be worth doing? Is is possible with such a system to get dual usage from the same external HD by seperating the drives into two partitions; each drive partitioned into 1x Raid, and 1x normal back up.
Or does the usage of a Raid system make this impossible to seperate and partition on the one hard drive? To do what you are proposing, will I have to have two completely different external hard drive systems: one for Raid, and one for external back-up?
Would an internal Raptor drive be an easier solution to a Raid system for increasing the scratch disk speed?
Mike
For now, with the maximum size of files I am using, I'll stay with the second internal Sata drive as my scratch disk since I am pleased with my performance. However, I'll keep your suggestions on file so if I go bigger on a consistent basis, and need to squeeze out more performance I'll give it a shot.
I notice that you are using four disks. I was thinking in the future of getting a double external Hd enclosure. Would linking this to a eSata card give me comparable results to what you are achieving, or is it necessary to go with a 4x HD enclousre to be worth doing? Is is possible with such a system to get dual usage from the same external HD by seperating the drives into two partitions; each drive partitioned into 1x Raid, and 1x normal back up.
Or does the usage of a Raid system make this impossible to seperate and partition on the one hard drive? To do what you are proposing, will I have to have two completely different external hard drive systems: one for Raid, and one for external back-up?
Would an internal Raptor drive be an easier solution to a Raid system for increasing the scratch disk speed?
Mike
Im thinking of using an external IDE drive that I have laying around with time machine. I would be connecting it to my g5 with firewire 400. The actual IDE drive is 7200rpm. Do you think this will work good for time machine? Is it okay to use FW400?
Here's a post with my current setup. The day that I posted that, I had planned on migrating my user data to the 'data' partitions, but currently it's just photography stuff.
That should tell you a lot about how I partitioned everything. The few times I've changed disk setups, a spare SATA drive or two has let me do it without too much fuss - clone partitions off disk to be re-purposed, check data, erase first disk, rinse, repeat.
I have a SeriTek four-port eSATA card. I have no complaints with it. I had a SeriTek two-bay enclosure, but it died after a power outage (yes, I have a UPS, yes it was on it, no, I don't know why - one too many power bumps, I guess). I replaced it with two Vantec eSATA/USB enclosures like the one I already had for TimeMachine.
That should tell you a lot about how I partitioned everything. The few times I've changed disk setups, a spare SATA drive or two has let me do it without too much fuss - clone partitions off disk to be re-purposed, check data, erase first disk, rinse, repeat.
I have a SeriTek four-port eSATA card. I have no complaints with it. I had a SeriTek two-bay enclosure, but it died after a power outage (yes, I have a UPS, yes it was on it, no, I don't know why - one too many power bumps, I guess). I replaced it with two Vantec eSATA/USB enclosures like the one I already had for TimeMachine.
Once again, thanks for the response.
Looking at your set-up answers my question about partitioning part of a hard drive for a raid array, leaving the rest of the drive to be used as normal for other purposes. It's definately working for you all this time. Is the difference that noticeable when using this Raid set-up over what you were doing previously?
I already have an eSata 4 external port card and am halfway there for what you suggest - just need the external HD enclosure. It sounds intriguing for a long term project to boost the performance of my G5.
Another interesting idea that someone mentioned on the G5 Apple Discussion Forums was using four seperate hard drives, each loaded with one task:
hard drive 1 - OS drive
hard drive 2 - Application drive
hard drive 3 - files drive
hard drive 4 - scratch disk
The theory presented was that each drive would deal indpendently with each major segment of a computing task avoiding much searching back and forth across one or two hard drives. That sounded to me like something within my own technical ability to grasp since I haven't a clue about raid. But your idea is worth a try as well.
Thanks for your insights.
Mike
I've been using something like the current setup for close to 2.5 years, so things are a bit foggy in my memory. The system was faster when I was working on billboards. For general Photoshop use though? I can't really remember. That's why benchmarks are useful - they make me feel better about my decisions. If you're only using Photoshop to add "I CAN HAZ CHEEZEBURGER" to a picture of your cat or toddler, there's probably not much point.
There's no real reason to keep your OS and Apps separate. If you haven't, read the Mac Performance Guide, specifically this pages about general setup and Photoshop setup.
Also, that setup doesn't have any backup drives. If you have 10.5, I'd use TimeMachine. It does slow my G5 down for a few minutes when it runs, but it's only a problem when I'm playing games. I just turn it off for that.
I know i got the same setup. It's a great upgrade and i still can't justify getting a mac pro for just using logic pro. Still great machines.
I just got a powermac g5 dual processor 1.8ghz, 1 gb ram, 80gb hard drive, for $400 CAD!!! I love this thing! Im using it as my main computer, and it runs circles around my dual 800mhz quicksilver!!! People say that the powermac g5's are no good, but I think they are amazing!!! They handle iLife and iWork 09' perfectly! This rant is just to tell everyone how good my new g5 is!
Wait until you get the 2008 8-core 2.8 Mac Pro or the new Nehalems. They will run at least 8x to 10x faster than the G5.
How do I know? I owned the same model, albeit with 3GB, and I also owned a previous single core 867 mhz quicksilver.
I need a legacy machine with my G5. I just sold my Quad and 2.0 Dual Core and got the 2.3 Dual Core for this purpose. But am missing my Quad already. I will stuff it with as much ram as possible and the 4500 512mb Quatro card.
Hoping I won't notice too big of a slowdown from my Quad...
Hoping I won't notice too big of a slowdown from my Quad...
I just got 2600 on my Air!
I still want a Powermac G5 or early Mac Pro once they get cheaper. I just need it as a server with lots of drives, both would be much quieter and cooler then the Powermac g4 pulling that duty now.