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PowerMac G5

M

macdatadrive

macrumors regular
Original poster
Apr 25, 2011
126
0
The city of Macintosh :)
Hey Guys.
Remember a couple of months ago I said I was in love with a iMac G4? Well, that's happened again:rolleyes:.Instead though.... it's a PowerMac G5....:eek: So I need to know if it's worth it...
Okay here goes...
I have a white Intel iMac. It's a damn good machine... but I found a 2.5 Ghz PowerPC dual G5 for 50 bucks with adobe creative suite and ilife, iwork, ms office, etc... and apple 20 cinema display + keyboard and mouse. Any problems I need to know about?

Cat
 
You should know that Leopard is the last supported OS X release on that box. I am running a PowerMac G5 Quad with both Tiger and Leopard on it, and I do find from time to time that there are versions of programs that are simply not supported on PPC, or not supported before Snow Leopard. You will run into occasional issues, but they will be far and few between. However, as time goes on, we can expect them to get more numerous.

That is the "minus" side of the equation. The "plus" side is that you will find a 2.5 GHz PowerMac G5 under Tiger just screams along. Very fast - I added a 120 GB SSD boot and Applications disk, and the machine is really snappy - much, much faster than my 2.2 GHz Intel MacBook Pro. Also, there are tons of older and very useful programs that only run on PPC that you get access back to again, and that has made it worth it to me. A few notables for me: CocoViewX, the Remind widget and PodCalculator. All excellent, and all PPC only.

PLUS, if you are an "old timer" and ever used Mac OS itself (prior to Mac OS X), you can regain access to all your favorite old "classic" programs via Tiger's Classic environment, or the wonderfully named Sheep Shaver application which creates a virtual Mac OS machine on your Mac OS X machine.

All in all, I would go for it. Quite aside from all of the above, it just feels good to drive a PPC - you are "thinking different" - living PPC in an Intel world. Go for it!
 
Where do you live? For 50 bucks I would hop on it like NOW!

I just got my first PowerMac G5 a few days ago. Dual 1.8 with 1GB Memory. Runs great on Leopard. But I will be adding more memory and probably a bigger HDD. At worst you have a $50.00 piece of art work.
 
That's a GREAT deal! 50 bucks for everything! They really are great machines, but as Mac 57 said, Leopard is the last supported OS on PowerPC so bear that in mind, although I think Leopard is still a very usable OS and to be honest there's not a lot you can do in SL or Lion that you can't do in Leopard. Also realize that they are pretty darn powerful machines, and you get decent graphics cards for them etc. so I'm guessing you'd be doing some CPU intensive work? If you bear in mind that support for PowerPC in applications in dropping fast but there's nothing wrong with the old versions of apps, right?

I'm sure you know all of the limitations of buying and using a PowerPC Mac in 2011 as you said in your original post that you were 'in love' with the iMac G4's

Th G5 will blow the G4 iMac out of the water and I reckon it'd give you white Intel iMac a run for it's money! Enjoy using it and keep us posted!

I myself am getting a dual PowerMac G5 in April :)

EDIT: Also, just to add, I'm pretty sure the dual 2.5ghz are liquid cooled, so beware, there have been numerous issues about the LCS mucking up. But for $50, still a great, great buy!
 
Yeah, I would inspect the liquid cooling system before purchasing. I heard you can purchase new O-Rings to help fix some leaks if any are present. But that is as much as I know, mine is air cooled.
 
Did you ever purchase this bundle? Just curious as it was such a good deal! The 20" Apple Cinema, mouse and keyboard are a great added touch and all for $50.

I still Use my G5 Quad all day!
 
For $50? Of course it's a good deal! Even if the OS becomes a little outdated for surfing the web, it'll still make a good stand alone computer, and you'll get your money's worth out of it in the meantime. I'm using a dual 2 GHz PowerMac G5 running Leopard to type this, and it's a nice machine. I got this one at a yard sale cheap because the seller said it's "one of those Mac things" so they had no idea if it worked. Of course it worked. It's a Mac. :)

My advice to you would be grab the Mac, quick, before somebody else snatches it up!
 
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