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PowerPC G5 1.6 or Dual 2.0 which is better.

N

nig451964

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Feb 19, 2009
7
0
Hi,

Just about to purchase a Apple Power Mac G5, need to know : is going for a dual 2.0ghz Powermac worth an extra £100 on the price?.

Seems a daft question but I am on a tight budget and going to have to do some serious legwork to get the additional funds...

I shall be using the PowerMac for photo's , web browsing, listening to music and watching films. I won't be using it for any encoding/movie editing etc. So really I am buying it because of OSX more than anything else.

Please could somebody advise in real terms what I would notice if I did plum for the higher powered unit.

Many thanks..
 
The G5 is £120 for the 1.6ghz Single CPU, the Dual is going to work out at about £230....
 
Look at photos I have taken, no photoshop work (not into that)..
Listen to music, have a large library (6000+) which has taken me years to get.
Browse the net... have concerns about youtube and how well it would handle basic flash. I don't expect it to handle HD.

Basic stuff really, oh and drawing using a graphics tablet.

Thanks for your help.

What do you think?. is the 2.0Dual overkill?
 
nig451964 said:
Look at photos I have taken, no photoshop work (not into that)..
Listen to music, have a large library (6000+) which has taken me years to get.
Browse the net... have concerns about youtube and how well it would handle basic flash. I don't expect it to handle HD.

Basic stuff really, oh and drawing using a graphics tablet.

Thanks for your help.

What do you think?. is the 2.0Dual overkill?
Click to expand...

Get the dual. Even web browsing can be demanding for older 1.6 g5's doing flash, plus it probably has a more powerful gnu.


Sent from my iPad 2 using Tapatalk
 
Ok, thanks guys.

I will go cap in hand to 'bread knife' and beg for small mercy's.
 
nig451964 said:
...using the PowerMac for photo's , web browsing, listening to music and watching films. I won't be using it for any encoding/movie editing etc. So really I am buying it because of OSX more than anything else.
Click to expand...

i can only answer based on using a 1.6 and a dual 1.8g5 system, but the difference between the two was dramatic on an 'every day' basis. everything on the dual system was WAY faster. same drives, memory, video card, etc.

that said, based on the things you listed for usage, i don't think i'd spend the extra money for the dual 2.0. everything you listed would work fine on the 1.6, and with the extra money you could save for a faster boot drive (ssd?) and/or extra memory at some point. a decent video card would also be a must when using 10.5.? as it really needs video support to fly.

you will be stuck at 10.5.?, but as long as that works for you, it should be a decent system. best of luck.
 
4JNA said:
i can only answer based on using a 1.6 and a dual 1.8g5 system, but the difference between the two was dramatic on an 'every day' basis. everything on the dual system was WAY faster. same drives, memory, video card, etc.

that said, based on the things you listed for usage, i don't think i'd spend the extra money for the dual 2.0. everything you listed would work fine on the 1.6, and with the extra money you could save for a faster boot drive (ssd?) and/or extra memory at some point. a decent video card would also be a must when using 10.5.? as it really needs video support to fly.

you will be stuck at 10.5.?, but as long as that works for you, it should be a decent system. best of luck.
Click to expand...

Thanks for your input on that, I will go home and speak to the missus ( just finishing night shift )....
 
mate go for the dual, its a LOT faster.
and you should have no dramas with the pen, as long as your talking WACOM. all bests are off using anything else.

cheerio, you may wanna look up the wacom webby for info on drivers though.

cheers

V.
 
it seems it always comes down to one thing , and thats can a ppc Mac play flash videos online , yes it can just not on HD 1080p, i installed the browser tenfourfox on my iMac G3 700mhz running tiger (10.4.11) and it plays in the browser window most youtube videos at 240p and it is watchable , i can always let the video load first if i want to watch fullscreen
i had a iMac G5 1.8ghz (gone into bad cap nirvana) and it had no problem playing youtube videos even fullscreen at 480p and some up to 720p , which is perfectly watchable

so i would go for the 1.6ghz G5 , if you are on a budget , you can always get a better graphics card , more ram, Hdd's , even SSD ..when your budget allows it again , so no need to get a mortgage now to upgrade and £120 for a working G5 1.6 is a really good price , as you struggle to find a working mini G4 for that money here in the uk
 
Last edited:
MacHamster68 said:
it seems it always comes down to one thing , and thats can a ppc Mac play flash videos online , yes it can just not on HD 1080p, i installed the browser tenfourfox on my iMac G3 700mhz running tiger (10.4.11) and it plays in the browser window most youtube videos at 240p and it is watchable , i can always let the video load first if i want to watch fullscreen
i had a iMac G5 1.8ghz (gone into bad cap nirvana) and it had no problem playing youtube videos even fullscreen at 480p and some up to 720p , which is perfectly watchable

so i would go for the 1.6ghz G5 , if you are on a budget , you can always get a better graphics card , more ram, Hdd's , even SSD ..when your budget allows it again , so no need to get a mortgage now to upgrade and £120 for a working G5 1.6 is a really good price , as you struggle to find a working mini G4 for that money here in the uk
Click to expand...

Why watch youtube video with TenFourFox when you can do it with about half the CPU use in MacTubes? MUCH much much better.
 
OP: Consider dual core..

Hey, just wanted to throw this out also.. Dual core 2.3 will run 1080p with no problems. Once I get my G5 Quad I will post my performance with 8GB of memory and the geforce 7800 GTX which is coming with my Quad G5.

With all the more modern codecs + quicktime my pb g4 can play up to 720p.
 
Thank you everyone for your thoughts. I plummed in the end for a G5 1.6 with free mac keyboard and mouse.

Really looking forward to using this as a replacement for my netbook.
 
zen.state said:
Why watch youtube video with TenFourFox when you can do it with about half the CPU use in MacTubes? MUCH much much better.
Click to expand...

i agree better for the CPU definitely , i just did want to point out that it is after all possible if you use a appropriate browser and not safari
 
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