Hi, I'm looking at some PowerMac G5 systems out of curiousity, and I remember hearing they had some problems. Liquid cooling failure seems to be the biggest, I haven't heard much else. I also heard only some liquid-based systems have this issue. Anyone here have enough experience with this to recommend a model that won't be failure-prone but still fairly high-end?
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Most reliable Powermac G5 model?
- Thread starter retta283
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I'd go for the Late 2005 2.3 GHz Dual-Core. No liquid cooling to worry about.
Yep, an air-cooled dual core model is what Id go for. I have the 2,3ghz's little brother 2.0Ghz DC and it has done everything Ive asked of it - quite snappy for how old it is. Definitely my fav PPC G5 that I own.
If you want speed and legacy support plus reliability, I would say both the 2.5 Quad LCS and the 2.3 DC (Dual Core) are reliable. The 2.3 DC is the best choice if you don't want messy liquid cooling to break down. The ones that are prone to leak are the 2.5 and the 2.7 models. The Quad is somewhat reliable, but due to its age, most Quads you find out there are going to be a ticking time bomb. So the 2.3DC is a good compromise as it's air-cooled.
If you just want legacy support plus reliability, I would say both the original single 1.6 PCI and the 1.8 PCI which I own are reliable. These are not fast machines, but they are really cheap to get, mostly for free. Mine was free.
If you just want legacy support plus reliability, I would say both the original single 1.6 PCI and the 1.8 PCI which I own are reliable. These are not fast machines, but they are really cheap to get, mostly for free. Mine was free.
And the 1.6 can run Jaguar which might be a bonus to the OP.
My only "wish for more" with the a1047 PCI SP1.6, SP1.8, & DP2.0Ghz etc is the 4gb memory cap. Dont get me wrong, my a1047 DP2.0Ghz is an fine machine but certainly slower in all aspects. I dual boot 10.5.8 and Linux off of it, pulling light duty living out on my workbench in my garage. It did have a PSU failure, but PSU failure I think is an eventual par for the course on any old box and shouldn't/doesn't detract from its reliability. Anyhow, if legacy support is your thing, an A1047 makes great sense but the 16GB of an a1177 is very, very handy - all said, a much more responsive and zippy PMG5 box. For contrast, I use my a1177 for music production because it has more grunt and that 16gb ram is a big part of that performance boost IMO.
If I was going to drop actual money on one, Id definitely look towards an air-cooled a1177.
If I was going to drop actual money on one, Id definitely look towards an air-cooled a1177.
Low End Mac has a compiled segment on G5 reliability detailing all the statistics.
For more information, MacInTouch had something more verbose available.
For more information, MacInTouch had something more verbose available.
Interesting. That explains the steadiness of my 2.3DC and the issues that I had with the 1.8Ghz G5 in my old job. A ram chip failed on that Mac in the first year and the LB failed in 2013.Low End Mac has a compiled segment on G5 reliability detailing all the statistics.
For more information, MacInTouch had something more verbose available.
My Quad seems to have fallen somewhere in the middle. Neither good, nor bad. I've had no issues with it since I got it so there's that.
I have both a single 1.6ghz (with the original 10.2.7 disks) and dual 2.0ghz. Solid as rocks, and the 4gb ram limit hasn't been an issue in either Leopard or Linux for me. Neither have had any issues or replacement parts installed (just bigger hard drives and extra ram added). For general usage they feel the same to me (even web browsing for the most part). The dual runs hotter than the 1.6, but neither really kicks the fans in very often or smokes me out of the man cave in the summer. Video converting and/or compiling software is eons faster on the dual 2ghz though. Building Arctic Fox on the 1.6ghz took roughly 7.5 hours, while on the dual 2ghz it takes about 3.5 hours (and as a reference building AF on a 1.5ghz g4 mini takes 10 hours, and a 1.83ghz core2duo takes 2 hours). While i'd love to have a dual core model, what i have suits my needs just fine.
Cheers
Cheers
Low End Mac has a compiled segment on G5 reliability detailing all the statistics.
For more information, MacInTouch had something more verbose available.
I’m glad someone linked to this now-deleted article.
It provided a snapshot of near-term reliability for the entire series. There was likely little interest in running a 5-year/longer-term follow-up since by 2010–11, the PMG5s were largely being treated as a forgettable dead-end. Nevertheless, it would have been interesting to see how all the G5s reported in 2006 were managing in 2010, some 1–2yrs after the end of their AppleCare coverage.
I’ve long been wary of the first PMG5 batch because of this article. When I was given a PMG5 for free, I felt relief when I went home to check its reliability profile from that article and found that the PCI-X 2 2.0DPs were fairly stable overall.
It’s been over five years of letting it run non-stop and nothing inside it has “broken”. It does have mysterious, but occasional kernel panics which tend to come up maybe once or twice a year, and the slide-down drawer door for the SuperDrive sometimes jams halfway, but for the low price I paid, it is been a solid file and network server.
I forgot to add that I would gladly take any PMG5 if I were to get it for free - no judgement. My preferences only come into play if I were to throw down hard earned cash.
I do have a soft spot for my a1047 as it was my first PMG5 & is why I invested in a new PSU for it.
On a side note, if your PMG5 PSU dies, yank out the psu & scavenge the fans. They fit nicely as replacement cpu fans in a QS & you get two of them
I do have a soft spot for my a1047 as it was my first PMG5 & is why I invested in a new PSU for it.
On a side note, if your PMG5 PSU dies, yank out the psu & scavenge the fans. They fit nicely as replacement cpu fans in a QS & you get two of them
On a side note, if your PMG5 PSU dies, yank out the psu & scavenge the fans. They fit nicely as replacement cpu fans in a QS & you get two of them
Personally, I do this for every failed ATX PSU anyway. If you're feeling extra adventurous, you can even try extracting the capacitor heatsinks for later use. Just make sure to completely discharge everything first ... and to not send anything flying into your eye.
Personally, I do this for every failed ATX PSU anyway. If you're feeling extra adventurous, you can even try extracting the capacitor heatsinks for later use. Just make sure to completely discharge everything first ... and to not send anything flying into your eye.
I have a modest collection of caps, heatsinks, fans etc. & electrical doo-dads from scavenging dead electronics equipment. Yes, I am not keen on electro shock therapy, (Experiencing this in my twenties once was enough for me - “funny“ story) so discharging is step one, every single time.
The Powermac G5 2.3 dual (April 2005) has the lowest failure rate (11% board and psu) so i would prefer this model.
Wide OS support is always a nice bonus, ideally I'd have every supported Mac OS X version loaded on it. Getting a Jaguar supported one in particular would be awesome because I'm sure it runs stupidly fast on a G5. AFAIK there are no modern usable browsers for either Jaguar or Panther at this stage, so I'd probably spend all of my time in Tiger or maybe Leopard.
Jaguar support is kind of a challenge. There's a model check on the installer and it was only ever supported on the very earliest models, the 7,2, and it's harder to tell if you're getting one vs a 7,3. I have some steps I can take to see if I can work around the installer limits for G5, but life keeps on getting in the way. I don't expect it to work on any of the PCIe models, but there are a lot of later PCI models out there, and they really aren't that different, so if we're really, really lucky, who knows?
Maybe we can get slightly better classic support out of these more powerful machines!
I have a Power Mac G5 quad core liquid cooled. I think only 3 of the cores work reliably. It's very loud (wind tunnel). I have one of the CPU cores disabled using Open Firmware. I haven't turned it on recently but it's still plugged in and everything.
I’ve got a dual 1.8, a single 1.8, and a dual 2.0. The dual 2.0 has something wrong with the AGP port, I used to use it all the time. It acted like the GPU failed but it didn’t work with whatever GPU I put in it, so everything else has been moved into the dual 1.8.
I do have a quad but I got it from good will, and it’s missing a fan and more than likely needs the LCS gone through.
The dual 1.8 is plenty quick for a PPC, 6GB of ram and a Geforce 6800 Ultra. I don’t notice a difference from the 2.0 as far as speed goes. Honestly I barely notice a difference compared to my dual 1.42 MDD G4. The RAM increase on the G5 is the biggest thing.
I do have a quad but I got it from good will, and it’s missing a fan and more than likely needs the LCS gone through.
The dual 1.8 is plenty quick for a PPC, 6GB of ram and a Geforce 6800 Ultra. I don’t notice a difference from the 2.0 as far as speed goes. Honestly I barely notice a difference compared to my dual 1.42 MDD G4. The RAM increase on the G5 is the biggest thing.
My Late '05 DC 2.3 has been rock solid for years, in both Tiger and Leopard and with fully populated PCIe slots. If you're going for gaming or video editing I would definitely recommend a Late '05 series. Whatever model you end up with, be sure to keep it clean, get good RAM and use an SSD for the best experience.
My G5 Dual 2GHz 2003 simply died after around ten years of use from one second to an other. One shutdown, and a power on and the board was dead. Around 8 years later I got a 2004 G5 with damaged housing. Changing the board included CPUs and all is running well again.
Hi davisdelo!! That sounds amazing! I too own a late '05 dual-core 2.3GHz with full 16GB RAM :-D
What kind of cards are filling all those PCIe slots? I only have got the Radeon X1900 Mac edition on it and wanting to add more stuff. Thanks!
I have the 16GB too, definitely overkill but it's neat to have. Even with all of Final Cut Studio, CS4 apps and a RAM disk running I don't think it's ever used more than 8-10GB. My PCIe cards are a Sonnet USB 2.0, AJA Kona 3, a no-name SATA II controller from ebay and the 7800GT 256MB for graphics.
I really like the internal USB port on the Sonnet card, I keep an Elgato Turbo.264 plugged in there for slightly faster Quicktime exports. Between that and the acceleration provided by the AJA Kona 3, editing video on this machine is really easy.
I'd love to get a X1900 but I'm happy enough with the 7800GT. Just about every game runs fully maxed out with it, the only thing that really chokes it is turning up FSAA. The id Tech 4 engine is a little hit or miss on it too, Doom 3 and Quake 4 don't like being turned up all the way, whereas Prey runs great with everything on. I started off with the 6600/256, I think moving off of that to anything else is about the best upgrade you can do to these old machines.
Can you tell me how fast the Elgato Turbo is? Did you have a DVD for an example. Is it possible to convert a FullHD Video to 720x576 Video?
My Dual Core 2.0ghz with 16gb RAM and Quadro FX 4500 (flashed, of course) is a nice, speedy, rock-solid machine. No issues in the three years that I've owned it. I've also got a 2004 DP 2.0ghz that's been trouble-free for the ten years that I've had it. It hates Linux for some reason, though (not video card-related. Choppy and freezes. It's a mystery)...
I don't have a DVD to test with but I did a few tests on a 2 minute clip from The Thing, 1280x540 @ 24fps. Using the AppleTV preset available in the Turbo.264 app the render time was 2:57 and it gave me an 1136x480 file @ 1453kbps. Using the Quicktime AppleTV preset render time was 8:00 and it gave me a 1280x540 file @ 2686kbps. The next test I did was to do a custom setting export to ensure the resolution was retained, audio was passed through and a matching bit rate of 1024kbps was used. The Turbo.264 app rendered in 3:20. Quicktime rendered in 8:30, which was surprising given the render time from the previous test. I think I had forgotten how slow Quicktime was at exporting h.264 files.
You can convert any source video you want with the Turbo.264, regardless of it's resolution. The Turbo.264 is capped at the resolution it can export though. It actually won't let you enter values greater than 540x800 in the resolution box when making a custom setting. It does however retain the full width if you have a clip that exceeds the 800px width limit (such as the 1280x540 file I was using).