Power Mac G5 Dual Core in 2022

[Certificate of Excellence]

If you dig a bit, in the auction description the seller does state it is an a1047 which are dual cpu & not the later a1117 970mp multi core models. Still a good pmg5 & an ok price for local pickup when you consider what it comes with but consider I picked up my A1117 DC2.0ghz w/ 23” aluminum ACD & wireless KB locally for $40 just a few years back.

 

[dextructor]

Linux due to drivers not being as finely tuned for Linux and the OS sapping cpu cycles where OSX doesn't.

Again, I haven't tested Linux on a G5 for years but what used to itch my OCD was less than perfect GPU drivers and the Audio system using over 10% CPU - whereas it's nearly transparent in OSX.

In my recent years using Linux I learned a lot, and unfortunately there's good news and bad news:

ALSA it's the lightweight and simplest way to use sound depending on your setup (in my iMac G5 and PowerBook G4) I don't had any slowdown by using this method.

PulseAudio offers some "benefits" (not for my or my use) case but it adds an level of complexity and obviously eats more CPU cycles to do it (since it is a audio server). And it's the only way that I could configure the iMac G5 speakers properly without distortion (but I rarely use speakers, I almost always use my headphones or the USB DAC headphones)

JACK I never used and I don't know if it had any PPC compatibility, but it's aimed to audio professionals (maybe it's even more system demanding than PulseAudio?)

PipeWire it's actually what I use and it have the "flexibility/compatibility" of ALSA, PulseAudio, JACK but done the right way. I configured with only ALSA but I have the benefit of tweaking without the complexity that ALSA demands.

Using to listen my FLAC collection on Linux using MPD+NCMPCPP if I feel fancy to enable "visualization effects" (I don't but we all have some days) it uses 12% or 15% tops on my iMac G5, so I'm pretty satisfied with that result. I never have any OSX fair comparison because I don't like to use iTunes to manage my music (and iTunes don't like FLAC anyway). Do you have any player suggestions?

Of course that optimizations done outside Apple's blessed OSX had come a long way (maybe they will "never be perfect to some enthusiasts", but at least it's an "modern" alternative) and it's hard to tweaked it right to properly run this software that they never being designed to it.

 

[ponzicoinbro]

Congrats! I do all my music production work on my Dual 2.0 G5, i love it as much as i love Cannons, what a great band!

Yeah good band with great videos. I didn’t know that singer is half West Indian. Now I know why their reggae track is very authentic. She’s very cool.

 

[Dronecatcher]

Do you have any player suggestions?

MoreAmp and Vox ?

I convert any flac files I come across to 320kbps mp3 - if there is any fidelity loss I can't tell, my hearing has been shot since jumping out of an aeroplane years ago 😉

 

[dextructor]

MoreAmp and Vox ?

I convert any flac files I come across to 320kbps mp3 - if there is any fidelity loss I can't tell, my hearing has been shot since jumping out of an aeroplane years ago 😉

Didn't know about MoreAmp, but I give it a test on Vox, isn't perfect for my needs, but it get's the job done. So let's get the "results". In my iMac G5 the Linux it's slightest lighter than OSX performing the same task that it's listening to FLAC music. Here's the screenshots and the CPU utilization on the top bar. (Linux with 12% and OSX with 20%)

About the subjective quality of the bit-rate on music files. I try to listen always FLAC files that I ripped or buy, and if I can't to download from trusted sources that care as much for quality files as I'm.

I try to be as objective as possible, but I can "feel" sometimes more difference when using good equipment comparing 320kbps MP3 vs FLAC, but the genre, the music and so many things can contribute to a better experience (and obvious when comparing lossless music).

Last year I finally coud get my hands on what I consider a great USB DAC for my setup: Cambridge Audio DACMagic Plus. It has twin Wolfson WM8740 (I really like the Wolfson sound signature) and it's compatible with my Macintoshes only on Leopard (Linux works as well), PC's, Android Phone and if I feel fancy enough I use the optical cable out from my TV and it's an amazing experience!

And the DAC drives my almost 20 year old Grado SR125 to complete the setup. So I'm sorry that your hearing isn't as great, but you too have a good taste on music from I can see on your posts and videos.

 

[Dronecatcher]

In my iMac G5 the Linux it's slightest lighter than OSX performing the same task that it's listening to FLAC music. Here's the screenshots and the CPU utilization on the top bar. (Linux with 12% and OSX with 20%)

Looks like PPC Linux audio has improved based on those figures - I guess in actual use it'd never be an issue anyway I just have an annoying habit of watching those CPU meters too much!

 

[dextructor]

Looks like PPC Linux audio has improved based on those figures - I guess in actual use it'd never be an issue anyway I just have an annoying habit of watching those CPU meters too much!

You and I are from a time that every CPU cycle matters, optimizations and anything that can make our machines perform better. And more resources not necessarily are to be wasted with poor code or bad choices of software. In my case I like the meters and indicators to have an idea where my resources are going.

But with everything take with a grain of salt. I tried my Linux (Void it's the distro that I'm most comfortable with) build until I was satisfied enough that I can reproduce it in my every other machine, so my experience it's virtually the same, independent of my machine and mood for the day, but I'm still learning and optimizing as the times goes by.

Probably there's some more experienced users in our forum with different builds(stock or custom) that can share their results like @wicknix @Lastic and others.

 

[stokowski]

Congrats on getting a G5 again! 😎 They (late 2005 models) are still somewhat capable machines if you can live with older software. I hold them dear since the late 2005 model was my first Apple tower computer (a couple of months before I got my Mac Pro 3,1 which is still a DD). All that was in 2019 when those machines were already considered junk by the general public. I was so intrigued by my first PowerMac 11,2 that I got a second one, a third one and eventually a fourth one (kind of obsessive I know). Now I have three assembled ones (different configurations) and one is in pieces serving as a spare. What I especially love about them is the option for PCIe cards which opens the door for many upgrades (e.g. putting an Airport card from a more modern MacBook inside the G5 or repurposing old PC graphic cards to flash and use them in the G5). I really enjoyed upgrading mine and researching what can be done hardware-wise and software-wise.

We're tinkerers and enthusiasts so we still see potential (to a certain degree of course) in those machines which is good because they are quite frankly fascinating pieces of tech 😀.

Hi netsrot39,
I have a question regarding your PCIe Airport Solution for Dualcore PowerMac G5 late 2005: What parts did you buy that worked with the built in drivers. I had the original Bluetooth and Wlan Card, which unfortunately died after several years.
Thanks and greetings, stokowski

 

[netsrot39]

Hi netsrot39,
I have a question regarding your PCIe Airport Solution for Dualcore PowerMac G5 late 2005: What parts did you buy that worked with the built in drivers. I had the original Bluetooth and Wlan Card, which unfortunately died after several years.
Thanks and greetings, stokowski

Hello stokowski. I simply bought a PCIe to Mini PCIe adapter and used the BCM94321MC that can be found in early Intel MacBooks, Mac Pros and iMacs. I think I also had success with BCM94322MC. Both of these should work under Leopard out of the box but I know for a fact that the BCM94321MC will definitively work in 10.5 OOB. Under Tiger (non-Server) these cards will need kexts that can be found in Mac OS X Tiger Server but I haven't tried it yet. Concerning the PCIe to Mini PCIe adapter, it does not really matter which one you get. I've ordered a bunch a few years ago from China and they all work. You do not even need to buy ones with antennas since you could use the built-in antennas from the G5 (though you would have to take out the logic board to extend them because they appear shorter than they really are due to being taped down to the case behind the logic board).

I do not know if getting an original Apple BCM94321MC matters but I would if I were you since I haven't noticed price differences between the Apple ones and ones from other manufacturers. Said card can be had for around 5 $ / €.

In summary you should get:

• Apple BCM94321MC
• PCIe to Mini PCIe adapter (if you go the extra mile and take out the logic board you won't need additional antennas, otherwise yes)

 

[wicknix]

Well for the sake of comparison, i also did an audio test with the same mp3 and used mplayer on both systems to keep it fair. Leopard used 29% cpu, and Linux came in at 18% cpu use. I had nothing else running (app-wise) on either system except for system monitors.



Cheers

 

[Dronecatcher]

Leopard used 29% cpu, and Linux came in at 18% cpu use.

Foul!

On the Linux side you have 2 Pulse entries, 2 mplayer and 1 smplayer totalling 13.9% CPU
OSX has Terminal and mplayer totalling 10% (Terminal is eating 7% due to it's updating and transparent GUI - adding "-really-quiet" on my system brings Terminal use down to 0.7% for mplayer audio)

 

[stokowski]

Hello stokowski. I simply bought a PCIe to Mini PCIe adapter and used the BCM94321MC that can be found in early Intel MacBooks, Mac Pros and iMacs. I think I also had success with BCM94322MC. Both of these should work under Leopard out of the box but I know for a fact that the BCM94321MC will definitively work in 10.5 OOB. Under Tiger (non-Server) these cards will need kexts that can be found in Mac OS X Tiger Server but I haven't tried it yet. Concerning the PCIe to Mini PCIe adapter, it does not really matter which one you get. I've ordered a bunch a few years ago from China and they all work. You do not even need to buy ones with antennas since you could use the built-in antennas from the G5 (though you would have to take out the logic board to extend them because they appear shorter than they really are due to being taped down to the case behind the logic board).

I do not know if getting an original Apple BCM94321MC matters but I would if I were you since I haven't noticed price differences between the Apple ones and ones from other manufacturers. Said card can be had for around 5 $ / €.

In summary you should get:

• Apple BCM94321MC
• PCIe to Mini PCIe adapter (if you go the extra mile and take out the logic board you won't need additional antennas, otherwise yes)

Thanks, netsrot39! I will go this route. I´m using Tiger and Leopard. I hope this Apple Card vom 2006 should work out of the box with 10.4 because 10.5 entered the game not before 2007 and so there should be the necessary kexts. If not, I will aks for further advice.
Greetings, stokowski

 

[wicknix]

Foul!

On the Linux side you have 2 Pulse entries, 2 mplayer and 1 smplayer totalling 13.9% CPU
OSX has Terminal and mplayer totalling 10% (Terminal is eating 7% due to it's updating and transparent GUI - adding "-really-quiet" on my system brings Terminal use down to 0.7% for mplayer audio)

View attachment 2041259

I was just looking at total system cpu use when playing an mp3. Check conky and xrg stats. Either way neither is horrible.

Edit: no optimizations on either. Just stock configs.

Cheers

 

[dextructor]

mplayer totalling 10% (Terminal is eating 7% due to it's updating and transparent GUI - adding "-really-quiet" on my system brings Terminal use down to 0.7% for mplayer audio)

I was just looking at total system cpu use when playing an mp3. Check conky and xrg stats. Either way neither is horrible.

Edit: no optimizations on either. Just stock configs.

I appreciate both methods, but the "problem" it's when comparing even the same software unless it's the exactly to the point version (assuming it was compiled using the proper and optimal settings), all the rest of the system it's different even being *NIX systems do the difference in architectures, libraries etc.

I don't know why there are 2 instances of the softwares in some cases even on my machines (using almost the same packages and configs in X86_64 and PPC64 Void installation) but it's fare to assume that is standard procedural operation. So if you consider that Smplayer it's a front-end to Mplayer and even so it's fairly lightweight in the grand total of usage, so it's a matter of choice what O.S. suit's you better to the task you wanna perform.

And in my case I didn't start tweaking on Linux governor's and other things that could make some optimization difference, it's fairly stock configuration as well. I just installed all packages from repo and build "my custom" version for my machines

 

[Dronecatcher]

I appreciate both methods, but the "problem" it's when comparing even the same software unless it's the exactly to the point version

Seriously, I don't have any beef with Linux audio in terms of simple playback performance - was just illustrating that previously, just knowing there were more processes running compared with Core Audio was a niggle in the back of my mind.

But obviously, given that I've used my Macs over the years to produce lots of music, I'm always going to favour OSX and Core Audio, as Linux as a recording platform is virtually non-existant.

 

[MarkC426]

Fired up my DC G5 today (first time in 10+ years, since got cMP).
Wooowww...it is still really fast at startup, and not as noisy as I remember......😛
All that retro software...😆

There are 8 ram slots (2 empty atm), but had only put 8gb in (assume this takes 16gb...?)

Screen sharing was on, so tried to connect with cMP....
It shows up in Network, but unable to connect......😕
It may be coz Firewall is on (on the G5)...?
Currently have my cMP connected via Ethernet to router, so I presume just connect the G5 to the other Ethernet port.

Need a DVI to HDMI cable to try again.
I daftly checked screen sharing was on then disconnected the old monitor.
It's a big faff to unpack and setup the monitor again, as office is tight for space.
Will connect to one of my cMP displays when I get a cable.

Update:

Wasted £10 on a cable......😕
Left DP connected from cMP, and connected G5 to HDMI, got this message when selected input.....!



Connected old DVI monitor.....still not able to screen share.
It says Ethernet 2 (G5) has self assigned iP...is this correct...?
Firewall (G5) has screen sharing added to allow box.
If I use Go/Connect to Server in Finder it shows the G5 name, but that is all.

In retrospect, it may actually be Intego Netbarrier (on cMP) blocking it now, as it's set to block ALL incoming/outgoing on local network.

Should I be using a network hub, rather than direct connection...?

 

[MarkC426]

Without getting too off topic, I connected my G4PB via ethernet (doh, should have done this in the first place, rather than mess around with monitors etc). Turned local network connections (in Netbarrier) to allow.
Still nada.....
Is there some 'magic' required to screen share a G4 or G5 with intel machine.....?
I am literally just turning on screen sharing, then on other machine, either use screen sharing app, or use finder/go/server.
The 'shared' mac shows up when using the server route, but nothing visible.

 

[Amethyst1]

Screen Sharing uses VNC so you could try a VNC client on the Intel machine.

 

[MarkC426]

Screen Sharing uses VNC so you could try a VNC client on the Intel machine.

Can you elaborate on this......😛
I am lacking in 'networking' knowledge......🤯

 

[lepidotós]

I'm still not entirely sure... has anyone shoved an 80+ Gold power supply in a G5? Is it even possible? Looking at official G5 power supplies it doesn't seem so, but I don't really know.​

 

[stokowski]

Hello stokowski. I simply bought a PCIe to Mini PCIe adapter and used the BCM94321MC that can be found in early Intel MacBooks, Mac Pros and iMacs. I think I also had success with BCM94322MC. Both of these should work under Leopard out of the box but I know for a fact that the BCM94321MC will definitively work in 10.5 OOB. Under Tiger (non-Server) these cards will need kexts that can be found in Mac OS X Tiger Server but I haven't tried it yet. Concerning the PCIe to Mini PCIe adapter, it does not really matter which one you get. I've ordered a bunch a few years ago from China and they all work. You do not even need to buy ones with antennas since you could use the built-in antennas from the G5 (though you would have to take out the logic board to extend them because they appear shorter than they really are due to being taped down to the case behind the logic board).

I do not know if getting an original Apple BCM94321MC matters but I would if I were you since I haven't noticed price differences between the Apple ones and ones from other manufacturers. Said card can be had for around 5 $ / €.

In summary you should get:

• Apple BCM94321MC
• PCIe to Mini PCIe adapter (if you go the extra mile and take out the logic board you won't need additional antennas, otherwise yes)

Hi netsrot39,
I put the things together and Airport works in 10.5 but not in 10.4.11. I have two further questions:
- In 10.5 the BlueTooth Part of the BCM94321 is not recognized. Is it the same with your configuration and is there a way to make it functionable?
- Did you or some other guy manage to get Airport working with 10.4 without a new install of the server version?
Greetings and thanks,
stokowski

 

[netsrot39]

Hi stokowski,

In 10.5 the BlueTooth Part of the BCM94321 is not recognized. Is it the same with your configuration and is there a way to make it functionable?

Bluetooth is not part of the card and even if it was it wouldn't work because Bluetooth uses USB protocol as opposed to AirPort that uses the PCIe protocol. If you want Bluetooth simply buy a Bluetooth dongle with a "Cambridge Silicon Radio" chip inside and it should work out of the box (even ones with Bluetooth version 4.0 will work!)

Did you or some other guy manage to get Airport working with 10.4 without a new install of the server version?

Until now I haven't tried since I hardly use Tiger on my G5. As far as I know you do not have to install the server version but you have to take the appropriate kext files from the server version and copy them over to the non-server version. I'd also appreciate it if someone else chimes in on this.

 

[MacFoxG4]

After a five year hiatus, I’m so pleased to announce I have a G5 again - namely a 2005 2.0Ghz Dual Core.

It’s in excellent condition and came with 5Gb RAM so for my needs requires no further upgrade - I have no complaints about the GeForce 6600 LE GPU either, despite forum experts proclaiming it a POS….

Like my Quads before it is doesn’t suffer from thermal problems and if anything the fans on this are even quieter.

For some reason, folk on Youtube seem to think the G5 is dead in the water for getting online, so I’ve done a video showing it web surfing, doing Social Media, playing 720P Youtube, streaming bandcamp and playing local 1080P h264 video.

Nice to see the PM G5 get some love. I own a 1.8 DP 7,2 myself and I do like it, though I will admit that I sometimes wonder if I should have held out longer for a Dual Core model instead.

 

[ww2_1943]

Here's that eBay 2.3DC if anyone here wanted one. $135 shipped is a slapping deal.

EDIT- I just noticed it’s a dual processor. I don’t feel bad now lol

I wish I saw this sooner 🙁
I’ve been looking for one!

 

[lepidotós]

Yeah, that's on me, my bad. If only! I do see them going for not too much more, like $150 or so. Not as good of a value without the monitor or speakers though.​