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PowerMac G5 6GB vs 9GB

A

andyrugbyref

macrumors member
Original poster
Dec 27, 2012
32
0
I am thinking about upgrading my G5 powermac dual core 2ghz.

Currently it has 6gb Ram, with all slots full.

I am tempted to stick another 4gb RAM in (taking out 2x 512 sticks to make room).

Would I see a significant performance boost? I know this may sound strange as the obvious answer is likely to be yes, but not always.

I run Open Office, Photoshop CS2 and Final Cut.

Thanks
 
It depends what you are using your G5 for.
You can always check Activity Monitor and see how much RAM you are using.

When you import a lot of material in FinalCut project and it gets a lot more complicated (color corection, effects, transition, few audio tracks....) then check Activity Monitor ans see how much RAM it uses.
 
Last edited:
What kind of hard drive do you have in there? Either the better rpm HDDs, or a SDD would be more beneficial than more RAM I would think.

Give Photoshop a bigger scratch disk to work with too. We were using it with 512MB RAM on 1.8 single G5s with no issue back in the day in my school's photo lab.
 
Jessica Lares said:
What kind of hard drive do you have in there? Either the better rpm HDDs, or a SDD would be more beneficial than more RAM I would think.

Give Photoshop a bigger scratch disk to work with too. We were using it with 512MB RAM on 1.8 single G5s with no issue back in the day in my school's photo lab.
Click to expand...

Just ordered an SSD from OWC, so that should help.
 
i own a Powermac G5 1.8GHz Single Core with 8 GBs of Ram.....it doesn't really make a difference, at any given time I am only using about 1-2 gigs. I suppose CS4 or Final cut Pro would change that but your best bet is getting an SSD
 
There is 12GB in my quad G5 which is easily my most heavily used machine. I rarely have any more than 3GB used at a time. Leopard just doesn't need the kind of memory that 10.7+ needs. The dual 2.0 G5 that I still use for playing video on the TV used to be my main setup, and with 4GB of RAM, I still felt like it was more than sufficient for daily tasks. I always wanted to max out my quad for novelty sake, but I realized that it really isn't even close to necessary.
 
Check your activity monitor, do you have any page outs? If it's zero, 9Gb won't be any benefit to you. You will notice an SSD though. Be sure to get a 2.5">3.5" adapter.
 
Hrududu said:
There is 12GB in my quad G5 which is easily my most heavily used machine. I rarely have any more than 3GB used at a time. Leopard just doesn't need the kind of memory that 10.7+ needs. The dual 2.0 G5 that I still use for playing video on the TV used to be my main setup, and with 4GB of RAM, I still felt like it was more than sufficient for daily tasks. I always wanted to max out my quad for novelty sake, but I realized that it really isn't even close to necessary.
Click to expand...

Thats my worry I am doing it just because I can ;)

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OrangeSVTguy said:
Check your activity monitor, do you have any page outs? If it's zero, 9Gb won't be any benefit to you. You will notice an SSD though. Be sure to get a 2.5">3.5" adapter.
Click to expand...

Thanks I will run some tests and check it.

Got loads of the adapters.
 
andyrugbyref said:
Thats my worry I am doing it just because I can ;)

----------



Thanks I will run some tests and check it.

Got loads of the adapters.
Click to expand...

One thing to note is that you should order a SATA II SSD. Newer SATA III SSDs have issues with the SATA I chipset in the PowerMac G5s. Personal experience and others have confirmed it.

Another thing to note is that you will not get full performance out of an SSD due to the bottleneck SATA I chipset. Just figured I would inform you ahead of time. You will however see a definite improvement.
 
Altemose said:
One thing to note is that you should order a SATA II SSD. Newer SATA III SSDs have issues with the SATA I chipset in the PowerMac G5s. Personal experience and others have confirmed it.

Another thing to note is that you will not get full performance out of an SSD due to the bottleneck SATA I chipset. Just figured I would inform you ahead of time. You will however see a definite improvement.
Click to expand...

Thanks appreciate it.

I have ordered the correct one, through OWC (as they guarantee compatibility). SSD
I tried 3 SSDs I have lying around, all to no avail (because of the problem you mentioned).
 
andyrugbyref said:
Thanks appreciate it.

I have ordered the correct one, through OWC (as they guarantee compatibility). SSD
I tried 3 SSDs I have lying around, all to no avail (because of the problem you mentioned).
Click to expand...

Even SATA III hard drives won't work. They must have a jumper to set them to SATA II compatibility mode in most cases...
 
Well I decided against the memory upgrade for now, but I have ramped up a few other things.

so now
120gb SSD from OWC (nice speed bump)
Ati 1900 xt - nice card but noisy

Switched the ATI cooler for a arctic cooler accelero L2 and it is whisper quiet (although takes up a fair bit of space).

Running well now as my main machine. Does everything I have asked of it.
 
Altemose said:
Another thing to note is that you will not get full performance out of an SSD due to the bottleneck SATA I chipset. Just figured I would inform you ahead of time. You will however see a definite improvement.
Click to expand...

There is a guy at cubeuser.de who has tested SSDs and a 1TB Samsung HDD at the stock SATA-I port and via several tested SATA-PCIe Cards in his Quad (even a SATA-III card with modified firmware) and he found that the Samsung drive still is faster, because, even with a SATA-III-PCIe card there seems to be something limiting.
Interesting insight, if one compares prices.
 
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