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need some info on a powermac G5

T

tjsdaname

macrumors 6502
Original poster
I have always been in love with the power mac G5's 😱
so, I am going to sell my G4 mac mini to buy one. I was wondering if I would be better off buying a single 1.8 and buying 2 gigs of ram. or, buying a dual 1.8 and only having the 1gb of ram???



Thanks,
 
The dual 1.8 should be good and rams for G5s have gone down in price so I think it's okay to add ram. I was using a dual 1.8 before and works fine. Plus the single 1.8 only has 4 slots and can only support up to 4 gigs ( as far as I know ) The dual 1.8 supports up to 8 gigs. Take note I think Apple released another dual 1.8 model that only supports 4 gigs. Not sure about this.
 
After you decide to get a G5, I suggest that you actively search for a back-up video card. These are becoming harder and harder to find - especially if you want one of the beefy 256 type cards for larger monitors. If your card fries out and cannot be replaced - you have a non functioning system.

btw - if you have the software for the G5 already, I think it is a great computer to handle decent size files for the prices that are going on the used market. Of course you do know that more and more software is being written now for the Intel Macs. Us G5 owners are being left behind. For me this isn't a problem because my current software can do everything that I need it to do.

Good luck.

Mike
 
well, I can get a dual 1.8 with 1gb of ram and a 160gb HD for 349$
I think thats a pretty good deal...

but if I do get it, I wont be running any real apps on it....
it will be for web browsing and file storage, thats really all....

use my macbook for everything else
 
Get the dual and look around for inexpensive memory. An extra 1GB costs almost nothing secondhand; 2GB is around $70-80 new.
 
Hey, I'd go with the dual 1.8 . And ram is nowhere near as expensive as that last post says. Unless you buy "apple ram" than maybe. I put 8gb of ram in my G5 for $79 . All brand new on newegg.
 
MacStu09 said:
Hey, I'd go with the dual 1.8 . And ram is nowhere near as expensive as that last post says. Unless you buy "apple ram" than maybe. I put 8gb of ram in my G5 for $79 . All brand new on newegg.
Click to expand...

Wow, then RAM prices have dropped considerably in the past 3 months, since I also bought from NewEgg. Granted, I went with a brand name rather than the cheapest available since I'd rather not worry about failures. Also, the 400MHz DDR (for the older G5s, of which I believe the dual 1.8 is one) costs about 40% more than the 533MHz DDR2. See here.
 
CPU is way more important than RAM, in G5's. I have 4GB of RAM, and a dual 1.8GHz. I cannot play 1080p, and a lot of 720p gives me grief. If you must get a G5, like I did, don't expect anything grand from less than dual 2GHz. Even then, see if you can swing a quad, or something w/PCIe.

I even have the fastest Mac AGP GPU, a flashed 7800 w/256MB and fast drives.
Focus on the CPU!
 
get a dual cpu, singles are sluggish, for the money for a 1.8Ghz you should be able to find a 2.0Ghz, i know it's not a huge difference in clock speeds but ya will notice it, specially when doing cpu intensive work 😉
 
$349 is quite a bit for the machine you specced out. I'd get a low-end Intel Mini for that price and will actually be faster. If you are going to buy a G5, I'd suggest any of the dual-core versions as they have the cheaper DDR2 memory and PCIe graphics, DDR 400mhz memory is still around $25-50 for just 1gb of name brand memory and you have to buy/install in matching pairs.

If you do get the DDR model, make sure it has 8 memory slots so you can just throw a bunch of cheap small dimms in there. Pitch the crappy FX5200 graphics card on ebay and buy ATI 9800 Pro PC card and flash it yourself and make a few bucks back too. The best upgrade to do that pays for itself 😀.
 
tjsdaname said:
I have always been in love with the power mac G5's 😱
so, I am going to sell my G4 mac mini to buy one. I was wondering if I would be better off buying a single 1.8 and buying 2 gigs of ram. or, buying a dual 1.8 and only having the 1gb of ram???



Thanks,
Click to expand...

Go for the dual 1.8!
Thats what I'm running and it runs like a dream.
Pick up some ram off new egg for cheap and you'll be very happy!

Plus the dual 1.8 has 8 RAM slots and the single only has 4
 
Dr. Steve Brule said:
Go for the dual 1.8!
Thats what I'm running and it runs like a dream.
Pick up some ram off new egg for cheap and you'll be very happy!

Plus the dual 1.8 has 8 RAM slots and the single only has 4
Click to expand...

I've had a few dual 1.8s and two had 8 memory slots while the other had 4 slots.
 
I would not get a G5 these days (again). For server issues ok, but nor for every days work.

They are slow. Compared to the Intel processors extremely slow.
I had a Dual 2.0GHz (DualCore Late05) with 8GB DDR2 Ram and a 6600 with 256MB RAM and that machine always suffered from it's lack of processor capabilities. They were almost all the time on 100%.
Neither 720p was not playable at all on a 30", nor did almost every YouTube video.

Switched to a Quad afterwards, which run like a dream compared to the dual machines. Sold it, though. It consumed more electricity than it was worth the computing power.

If you want a fast and cheap machine for every day use, get a Mac Mini with Intel Core2Duo processor. Believe me, they are faster than the G5 duals. Much faster.
 
The Core duos are indeed faster, but it is FUD to say that the G5's can not play 720p video smoothly or that it is too slow for everyday use.

Up to May of last year I was using my G5 dual 1.8 for my animation assignments using maya, and for watching 720 .mkv files without worry or slowdown. This with the stock fx 5200 and 3 gb of ram.

As of now it is my server and media center for my movies and audio.
 
treo360 said:
The Core duos are indeed faster, but it is FUD to say that the G5's can not play 720p video smoothly or that it is too slow for everyday use.
Click to expand...

I can just reflect my personal experience with that machines, same as you probably do.

My Dual G5 was not able to play 720p smoothly and that's a fact.
That may correlate to the big screen or the OS (10.4) I don't know.
 
My G5 can play 720p no problem.... For everyday use G5s are still good. Hell I still use my 12" powerbook everyday and it does what I need it to do.
 
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