Powermac G5 Dual 2.0 w/ isight $900 - good buy?

[kellen]

Hey all,

Just wondering what the pros and cons of the powermac g5 dual 2.0 are. Here are the specs from the person:
Processor: Dual 2 Ghz PowerPC G5
Memory: 2 GB DDR SDRAM
230 GB Hard drive space
ATI Radeon 9650 256mb graphics card
Superdrive DVD burner
(2) Firewire 400 ports
(3) USB ports
(1) Firewire 800 port
Bluetooth
iSight Camera
Restore CDS
Original Box

Trying to find the pro's and con's of this make/model. Couldn't tell which one it is from apples website (ie. 2005 version vs. 2004).

Also I figured I could sell the isight for ~150, so price would be 750.

No warranty, these reliable? They aren't the liquid cooled ones are they?

Hows price sound?

Thanks,

Kellen

 

[justinm]

i would buy it

seems like a great deal.

 

[Squonk]

That looks like a good deal to me! Have you priced against eBay to see the going rate on G5's? I cannot speak to things to watch out for on these...

 

[Sdashiki]

2.0 is probably a 2nd gen, that graphics card wasnt an option on the 1st gen I believe and yet was no better than the 9800 128.

the bluetooth is a nice add-on, as is the RAM and HDD space.

price seems about right, just short of spectacular.

and not keeping the iSight is a bonus for you.


if you get it, jack up the RAM to 4GB and add another internal HDD.

 

[ziwi]

Seems like a fine deal based on the fact that I just sold one of the PCIe ones for $1100 and that was for the stock nvidia card, 4.5 GB Ram and a 160 HD - so the one you have seems better equipped and cheaper.

 

[Multimedia]

EveryMac.com Is Your Best Source Of Legacy Hardware Information

Seems like a fine deal based on the fact that I just sold one of the PCIe ones for $1100 and that was for the stock nvidia card, 4.5 GB Ram and a 160 HD - so the one you have seems better equipped and cheaper.

According to Everymac.com the 9650 was not a stock AGP video card on the first two versions of the dual 2.0GHz model. So that's perplexing. But the price is definitely right.


Always go to EveryMac.com for legacy hardware system information.

 

[LaDirection]

This is PCI-X not PCI-Express. You will not be able to update your graphic card with any retail ones (i.e. Radeon X1900 256 G5 Edition).

I believe ATI used to sell the x800 for the PCI-X G5,s but was discontinued (I might be wrong).

However at $900 it is still a good deal. You can easily upgrade your hard drive(s). Your card was the minimum back then to drive a 30" display. If you need it for work, don't mind the fact that you can't boot into windows through bootcamp on PPC, then by all means get it.

If you don't have a screen for it, consider the price of a screen though. For example if your work requires at least a 23" cinema display, getting a new Intel iMac might be more interesting, depends on what you want to do and your budget.