Old PowerMac G4 MDD vs iMac G5

[iMetalG5]

A guy I know has been using his tired and true PM G4 MDD windtunnell for the past few years. He said he is ready to get rid of it (yikes!) in favor of an iMac G5. Not having a lot of cash on hand (he doesn't use the evil credit card thing) thanks to his refund from uncle sam he says he has enough to purchase an iMac G5 17" outright.

But the thing he was wondering was how much better is the iMac G5 vs his old PM G4 MDD wind-tunnell? Not knowing anything about the PM G4 I wasn't sure.

The only intensive work he does is video editing on an amature level. The rest is just basic stuff like web, email, word, excel, etc...

He was considering upgrading his PM G4 MDD but felt that the iMac G5 is a better deal overall.

Thoughts??? I'll pass them along to him as he is too lazy to sign up here.

 

[iGary]

A guy I know has been using his tired and true PM G4 MDD windtunnell for the past few years. He said he is ready to get rid of it (yikes!) in favor of an iMac G5. Not having a lot of cash on hand (he doesn't use the evil credit card thing) thanks to his refund from uncle sam he says he has enough to purchase an iMac G5 17" outright.

But the thing he was wondering was how much better is the iMac G5 vs his old PM G4 MDD wind-tunnell? Not knowing anything about the PM G4 I wasn't sure.

The only intensive work he does is video editing on an amature level. The rest is just basic stuff like web, email, word, excel, etc...

He was considering upgrading his PM G4 MDD but felt that the iMac G5 is a better deal overall.

Thoughts??? I'll pass them along to him as he is too lazy to sign up here.

What are the specs on his MDD?

My single 1.25GHz MDD with 2GB OF RAM runs righ alongside my G5 iMac with most Photoshop actions. MOST.

I'd reccomend buying a single 1.8 G5 and loading a few gigs of ram into it if he already has a monitor, but if he is dead set with the iMac, tell him he'll need at least a gig, preferably the max to get smoking performance out of it, imho.

 

[CanadaRAM]

You have to ask him:
What attracts him to the iMac G5? Is it the new LCD screen that is swaying him?

Does he have or is he ever likely to use a PCI card interface (for audio capture or specialized DSP cards)? Probably not.

Does he particularly want Tiger and the iApps?

The cost/benefit of installing a CPU accelerator into a MDD G4 just isn't there. Ditto with high speed hard drives. You'll get an improvement, but it will be marginal.
Increasing the RAM is good on any machine but will not increase speed beyond the nominal speed of the machine.

 

[iMetalG5]

Ok the specs for his PM G4 MDD are as follows:

PowerPC 7455
dual 867 Mhz
1GB of RAM / RAM Type PC2700 DDR
60 GB HD
CD-RW/DVD-ROM
32 MB NVIDIA GeForce4 MX graphics card
Bus Speed: 166 MHz
Running OS: 10.3.7 (he said he can't update it anymore than this)

He bought this the day it came out he said back in the summer of 2002. He used a 17" CRT Sony for the first two years and got a 20" LCD by DELL for it last year. He wants to sell the LCD to a co-worker to help finance the iMac G5.

He is looking at the 1.6Ghz version but I told him to wait until next week to see if they get upped. He said he loves the iMac design because of the space saving. He is into the all-in-one design rather than a tower and seperate monitor. He said he does not care about expandability because he is not a power user. Although he does want to do video editing since he got a new MiniDV camcorder.

I personally think he should just go for the iMac since it might be more of a pain to upgrade his wind-tunnell. And boy does that thing howl.

 

[cubist]

A 1.6 is going to xbench around twice as fast. The key advantage is the faster FSB. His ears will thank him, and he will save a bunch of desk space.

Dual 867 is not a bad computer for folks who don't mind the noise and have room for it. He may be surprised how much he gets for it when he goes to sell it.

 

[iMetalG5]

he just told me he would love to upgrade to Tiger and definitly needs iLife 05. I think it makes much more sense to get the iMac G5 than to try to upgrade his MDD even more.

As cool as his MDD looks its just not a workhorse anymore (i guess?). He really wants to start making short films as a hobby and I don't think the MDD was made for that back then. Maybe it was... he also likes to use iPhoto a lot.

He is not going to sell the MDD, he's going to donate it to his mom as they are still using a Compaq w/Windows 98!? and the thing barely runs. It only has 128MB of RAM and a 10GB HDD. He says it literally takes them 1/2hr to even sign onto DSL.

After he saw my iMac he was sold I think. He just loves the idea of how thin it is and the all-in-one design. And he said he won't miss the 20" LCD vs the iMac's 17" LCD.

I told him maybe he should save up and get a PowerMac G5 (new revision!) and he just looked at me and said, "What would I need that for????" heh, i'd love one!

 

[iGary]

he just told me he would love to upgrade to Tiger and definitly needs iLife 05. I think it makes much more sense to get the iMac G5 than to try to upgrade his MDD even more.

As cool as his MDD looks its just not a workhorse anymore (i guess?). He really wants to start making short films as a hobby and I don't think the MDD was made for that back then. Maybe it was... he also likes to use iPhoto a lot.

He is not going to sell the MDD, he's going to donate it to his mom as they are still using a Compaq w/Windows 98!? and the thing barely runs. It only has 128MB of RAM and a 10GB HDD. He says it literally takes them 1/2hr to even sign onto DSL.

After he saw my iMac he was sold I think. He just loves the idea of how thin it is and the all-in-one design. And he said he won't miss the 20" LCD vs the iMac's 17" LCD.

I told him maybe he should save up and get a PowerMac G5 (new revision!) and he just looked at me and said, "What would I need that for????" heh, i'd love one!

Well it sound slike he is sold on the iMac.

He oughta wait for rumoured revisions, though, and get 20" if he can afford it.

768MB of RAM is the minimum, I noticed a real Photoshop performance spike (and general system performance) at 1GB.

Tell him to enjoy!

 

[CanadaRAM]

What iGary said.
The iMac G5 /iLife /Tiger bundle will be ideal for him. Since he has a functioning machine, he has some time to wait for the opportune moment for the iMac purchase. Don't forget there may be printer rebates as well.
He should be able to get some money for the monitor and G4.
Remind him to do the Firewire "mind meld" between the machines, assuming that Tiger has a similar migration assistant to Panther.