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My Power Mac G5 and my new iMac C2D 2.4

kjs862

kjs862

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jan 21, 2004
1,298
24
I don't know why, but for some strange reason my 5 year old Power Mac G5 2.0 Ghz runs better than my brand new iMac C2D 2.4 Ghz. 5 years is a long time is the technology world, and I don't see any gains. Maybe the G5 was ahead of its time?

Don't get me wrong the new iMac is speedy, but my good old Power Mac runs better. I can leave the thing on for a week and no issues. On the other hand, with my iMac I'll put it to sleep every night and restart it more often. Who knows maybe its all in my head, or maybe its the fact that I have 6.5gb RAM in my power mac and only 1gb ram in my imac.
 
kjs862 said:
I don't know why, but for some strange reason my 5 year old Power Mac G5 2.0 Ghz runs better than my brand new iMac C2D 2.4 Ghz. 5 years is a long time is the technology world, and I don't see any gains. Maybe the G5 was ahead of its time?

Don't get me wrong the new iMac is speedy, but my good old Power Mac runs better. I can leave the thing on for a week and no issues. On the other hand, with my iMac I'll put it to sleep every night and restart it more often. Who knows maybe its all in my head, or maybe its the fact that I have 6.5gb RAM in my power mac and only 1gb ram in my imac.
Click to expand...

1GB of ram with Leopard? That's borderline masochistic.
 
Guess I'll upgrade my RAM sooner than I thought.
 
cal6n said:
That'll help but, to be honest, your PPC Mac will still be smoother.

Probably not faster, though, and that's what matters, isn't it?

According to most people, anyway...
Click to expand...

This is EXACTLY what I think. I just wrote about it in my blog:

http://www.pwrmac.com/2008/10/01/real-world-speed-freak/

Check out the last youtube video in the blog. its my stress testing my 4 year old g5 with everyday applications..
 
Take advantage of the current low RAM prices and max out your iMac. With 4GB you will have a great performing computer for a long time.

Your G5 sounds very nice though with 6.5GB of RAM.
 
I've said it many times...
The Power Mac G5 was a very fast machine when it came out, and it still is pretty much with its fast FSB.

It's just that it consumes so much power and gets very hot.

Wouldn't surprise me to find out that the G5 Quad with 7800 GT or better still is a serious machine. Sure, it can't beat today's Mac Pro, but crush a couple of iMacs..? Yep, think so.
 
kjs862 said:
I don't know why, but for some strange reason my 5 year old Power Mac G5 2.0 Ghz runs better than my brand new iMac C2D 2.4 Ghz. 5 years is a long time is the technology world, and I don't see any gains. Maybe the G5 was ahead of its time?

Don't get me wrong the new iMac is speedy, but my good old Power Mac runs better. I can leave the thing on for a week and no issues. On the other hand, with my iMac I'll put it to sleep every night and restart it more often. Who knows maybe its all in my head, or maybe its the fact that I have 6.5gb RAM in my power mac and only 1gb ram in my imac.
Click to expand...

The RAM will make a difference and are you running any PowerPC applications in Rosetta? It would be interesting to here a few more details for those of us with Power Mac G5 models that are considering whether to move to an iMac or a Mac Pro.
 
Mattww said:
The RAM will make a difference and are you running any PowerPC applications in Rosetta? It would be interesting to here a few more details for those of us with Power Mac G5 models that are considering whether to move to an iMac or a Mac Pro.
Click to expand...

Sounds like more of stability issue, with the no rebooting.
 
greenlightracer said:
This is EXACTLY what I think. I just wrote about it in my blog:

http://www.pwrmac.com/2008/10/01/real-world-speed-freak/...
Click to expand...

The validity of your claims was diminished by the statement "it's my opinion that a normal user should need about 1.5Gb (sic) of Ram (sic) if your (sic) using Mac OS 10.4, and 3gb (sic) of Ram (sic) with 10.5."

Though you do not define "normal user," RAM requirements are dependent upon applications used. Parallels and iDVD are common among what might be considered a "normal user."

Particularly when manipulating large images, is Photoshop extremely RAM hungry. It even includes its own memory management options within application Preferences (defaulting to half of what is installed). Additionally, creating video or running a simultaneous alternate OS applications (i.e.: Windows XP or Vista with Parallels) can greatly increase RAM requirements.
 
I have to say the same about my 2.0 dual core PM G5 vs my 2.4 BlackBook. I've noticed no major difference between the two, other than the fact the G5 handles video files and DVD burning far better than the BlackBook. I know that's partially due to the fact that the G5 has 8 gigs of RAM and a dedicated video card, while the MB has 2 gigs of RAM and no video card. But still- I'd think the BlackBook would be much faster, given that it's much newer than the G5. That said- I love them both. ;)
 
I've got a dual 2GHz PowerMac G5 at work with 2.5GB of RAM.. and at home I run an iMac 2.4GHz C2D with 2GB of RAM..

For daily use I find that the iMac absolutely smashes the G5 (time to load apps, etc) though I suspect the HDD in the G5 is a bit worn and past it - but there is no doubting the sheer grunt of the G5 when you need to throw a demanding app at it and it has to go off and think about it! :)

Hmm.. reading greenlightracer's blog entry, I find that my G5 even with a clean install of Leopard doesn't boot anywhere near as quickly. Time to retire that HDD sooner rather than later me thinks!
 
Kwill said:
The validity of your claims was diminished by the statement "it's my opinion that a normal user should need about 1.5Gb (sic) of Ram (sic) if your (sic) using Mac OS 10.4, and 3gb (sic) of Ram (sic) with 10.5."

Though you do not define "normal user," RAM requirements are dependent upon applications used. Parallels and iDVD are common among what might be considered a "normal user."

Particularly when manipulating large images, is Photoshop extremely RAM hungry. It even includes its own memory management options within application Preferences (defaulting to half of what is installed). Additionally, creating video or running a simultaneous alternate OS applications (i.e.: Windows XP or Vista with Parallels) can greatly increase RAM requirements.
Click to expand...

Ok, what claims am I making? Please tell me. Those numbers were just a guideline, for those who have no idea how to go through the process that I outlined in the article. If a user uses iDVD and Parallels and looks out the page outs and see that the number is too high, they will know they need more. While I'm not using Final Cut Pro or Photoshop everyday, I know I do tend to use a good bit of applications at a time, some ram heavy, and 1.5 GB got me through 10.4, and 3.0 GB is doing fine with 10.5 today.
 
My single 1.8 G5 is going great. 3GB of ram and never have any major slow downs.
I can run up to 20 apps at once when multitasking, who said G5s were slow and outdated.

Boots quicker than the iMac 2.16 Ghz C2D too.
 
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