Mac Pro G5 questions

[charlfourie]

Hi there everyone,

Recently I upgraded my windows laptop for work purposes. So now I have a spare laptop. Posted it up on local classifieds checking to see what someone will offer me for it.

I would rather trade than sell and get something and might not buy for myself.

So the one offer that did come up was for a 2006 Mac Pro DP 2ghz G5, 2GB RAM and 120gb HDD. I was used in a sound studio and they have upgraded to Intel Macs.

I spend a lot of time working on specific photographic projects and shoot a varied amount of Fine Art images. And I was thinking this could be a really fun tool to get for nothing basically.

Just want to pick the brains of the forum a bit.

The obvious limitation with the G5 units come in no support beyond 10.5, currently the machine is loaded with 10.4 but I have sourced a unused copy of 10.5 still in the packaging which I will get if I go for this offer.

Correct me if I am wrong.
With 10.5 I can run Lightroom 2.x and Photoshop CS4 I can upgrade to memory to at least 8gb and slot in two SATA drives.

All in all a very solid machine to be used exclusively for editing.

Or I am missing the boat completely? hehe

Thanks in advance.

 

[Hellhammer]

There was no Mac Pro G5. It's either Power Mac G5 or Mac Pro as all Mac Pros are Intel. Depends when it was made as only some 2GHz G5 PMs support up to or more than 8GB of RAM

 

[charlfourie]

There was no Mac Pro G5. It's either Power Mac G5 or Mac Pro as all Mac Pros are Intel. Depends when it was made as only some 2GHz G5 PMs support up to or more than 8GB of RAM

Power Mac G5 then, my bad.
The model number of this one is M9032LL/A

 

[Hellhammer]

Power Mac G5 then, my bad.
The model number of this one is M9032LL/A

Then it can take up to 8GB

 

[phussann]

I have a G5 that I've had for many years. Love it—it's still a great workhorse! However, I'm facing the same problem as far as not supporting newer software. Specifically LR3 and CS5.

I think if you can handle staying with LR2 and CS4, then it's a no brainer. For me personally, unfortunately I see an iMac (and intel processor) in my not too distant future. I'm using LR3 on my laptop and find it superior to LR2, BUT I really dislike editing photos on my laptop. Now, if only those lottery numbers would come in... ;o)

 

[goMac]

Depends entirely on the laptop you're offering as trade... It's entirely possible the laptop would actually be faster than the G5 if it has a Core processor. The G5's became pretty slow by 2007 standards.

The G5's are pretty solid, but also dead end machines. You won't be able to run any current software on it. I wouldn't invest too much in upgrades.