Quad core G5 upgrades

[joris-]

Hi Folks,

Have been reading mac rumors for quite a time now and just love the site!

Hopefully I can get my questions answered here!

I could buy a Quad core G5 powermac for about 300Euros ( with keyboard&mouse ) ( good deal or not? )

I'm a student and would like to use it for photo editing and video editing.
The benchmarks tells me it's not such great device but once again, student = no money

Are benchmarks ( from geeckbench ) a good source for rating?

I would also concider upgrading the hardware a little bit, budget 500 euros ( so i could use it again if I have money to buy a better one )

Does it support SSD drives? About the ram memory, 1333Mhz?

What do you guys think? I heard SSD and some more ram gives a big boost to the performance... or are there other things i should concider upgrading? ( videocards? )

I would also try to upgrade the CPU, is it possible to upgrade the 2,5ghz to a Intel core I7? ( does this upgrade makes it a 8core ?? )

Or am i just dreaming? (pheeeww those mac pro's looks soooo good! )

Thanks in advance, sorry for the bad english and to many questions!

All the best and kind greetings,

Joris from belgium!

 

[robbieduncan]

You cannot upgrade to any form of Intel CPU.

 

[skinniezinho]

see my sig.

 

[chrismacguy]

Hi Folks,

Have been reading mac rumors for quite a time now and just love the site!

Hopefully I can get my questions answered here!

I could buy a Quad core G5 powermac for about 300Euros ( with keyboard&mouse ) ( good deal or not? )

I'm a student and would like to use it for photo editing and video editing.
The benchmarks tells me it's not such great device but once again, student = no money

Are benchmarks ( from geeckbench ) a good source for rating?

I would also concider upgrading the hardware a little bit, budget 500 euros ( so i could use it again if I have money to buy a better one )

Does it support SSD drives? About the ram memory, 1333Mhz?

What do you guys think? I heard SSD and some more ram gives a big boost to the performance... or are there other things i should concider upgrading? ( videocards? )

I would also try to upgrade the CPU, is it possible to upgrade the 2,5ghz to a Intel core I7? ( does this upgrade makes it a 8core ?? )

Or am i just dreaming? (pheeeww those mac pro's looks soooo good! )

Thanks in advance, sorry for the bad english and to many questions!

All the best and kind greetings,

Joris from belgium!

My advice would be to put your 800 euros towards a used iMac/ Mac Pro 1,1 (I see Mac Pro 1,1s go for GBP 950 or so, so thats about €1100 or so), as both provide you with a lot more power, and enough resources to get done what you want to get done, while giving you a decent Intel Mac, which allows you to run the latest software. (Personally I really recommend what I did, which was first gen Intel iMac, and then save till you can afford a new Mac Pro w/ Cinema - which as a student should be enough power for me for the next half-decade)

 

[joris-]

Oke,
Guess i will look around for a mac pro or imac,

thanks for the answers and great guide skinniezinho

 

[zen.state]

My advice would be to put your 800 euros towards a used iMac/ Mac Pro 1,1 (I see Mac Pro 1,1s go for GBP 950 or so, so thats about €1100 or so), as both provide you with a lot more power, and enough resources to get done what you want to get done, while giving you a decent Intel Mac, which allows you to run the latest software. (Personally I really recommend what I did, which was first gen Intel iMac, and then save till you can afford a new Mac Pro w/ Cinema - which as a student should be enough power for me for the next half-decade)

You're clearly a senseless GHz chaser and don't get why people love PowerPC in the first place. Stick to your crappy intel Macs that die within 3 years.

 

[d88co88]

You're clearly a senseless GHz chaser and don't get why people love PowerPC in the first place. Stick to your crappy intel Macs that die within 3 years.

Well first, my mom's first gen MacBook is still running strong, no problems whatsoever. And what is that? A little over 4 years? And second, he said he's going to be doing photo and video editing. And clearly, intel macs ARE better at doing that. I say save for a used iMac or Mac Pro.

 

[Transporteur]

You're clearly a senseless GHz chaser and don't get why people love PowerPC in the first place. Stick to your crappy intel Macs that die within 3 years.

Personally, I'd rather compute at supersonic speed with a Mac Pro for three years, than wasting my time waiting for PPC to complete the tasks and therefore wasting money every second. But then again, that's just me.
But the three years is just ridiculous anyway. The Mac Pro (Intel FYI) has a MUCH lower failure ratio than any G5 before.

Anyhow, I guess you picked the wrong person to blame. Watching his sig, he probably has more PPC than Intel machines!

 

[alust2013]

You're clearly a senseless GHz chaser and don't get why people love PowerPC in the first place. Stick to your crappy intel Macs that die within 3 years.

Clearly a senseless GHz chaser? The suggestion was to get a computer that can actually run today's software and run it well. Seeing as PPC is growing more and more weakly supported, it's a bust to buy into it these days, as it looks like it may be completely obsolete soon.

 

[zen.state]

Thoughts for the last 3 posters:

I would say that even as deep as our culture has been in tech the last 3 decades at least 90% of people still have far more power than they ever need. I do freelance tech work of all sorts and cannot even count how many clients of mine have $3000+ systems when they could just as easily get by with a $100-200 used Mac. When it comes to your average net user they could get by with a $50 G4 tower off craigslist. It may not play youtube videos (a benchmark of the truly senseless) but thats not actually what computer are for. They do lots of other things that don't require support for flash which is easily the least optimized software on earth.

The only people with valid excuses for needing the absolute bleeding edge hardware/software combos are professionals that are at the top of the industry. Please don't try to tell me that some run of the mill graphic design/sign company needs a tricked out Mac Pro. The argument a consumer needs that much power is even more ridiculous.

It's this same over consumption and always needing more mindset that is the very reason the tables have turned from how things should be. The x86 mindset is to make software the dominant one in the relationship. This is the very reason Intel invented the Moore's Law concept in the first place. This is what has created all the GHz chasers and it's those very people that feed the very monster that wants to kill their wallet every 18 months. People with "advanced" hardware and primitive tech minds. Victims by choice.

The best way to always do things is to optimize the software for the hardware. This is what the PowerPC/RISC architecture has always stood for.

The G5 is one example of a problem Mac. All others don't have anywhere near the same problems. We could discuss x86 hardware issues for weeks.

I would happily take part in a productivity competition with any typical intel Mac user with my G4 1.8GHz. True geeks know how to milk computers for all they have to offer. They don't need a bunch of extra power to make up for their lack of computer prowess.

 

[mulo]

Oke,
Guess i will look around for a mac pro or imac,

thanks for the answers and great guide skinniezinho

imacs are the macs that give you the most bang for your buck.

 

[MacHamster68]

as much as i would like to join in the debate "dont waste money on a intel Mac because apple could announce a transition to via processors because they get a better deal from via and wont support intel any longer which then makes intel crappy old processors that are not worth investing in and using them , when apple started developing OSX they started from the first moment to get OSX run on intel ,which would explain why the first version of OSX did run totally full of bugs (cheetah and puma ) so it would not surprise me if they would not work on getting LION run on a totally different platform already , apple just puts in their fancy boxes today what is cheap to get , you can disagree , but after i had a go with morph OS on my overclocked eMac (1.42)
i cant be convinced any more that intel is really faster then the ppc platform
because it is not the hardware that makes a OS fast its the OS that makes the hardware fast

so i did not want to join this endless discussion , so back to the G5 2.5 quad
yes it still is a very capable computer and it will still perform very well if you dont try the very latest apps which are anyway only improved for intel and made to run crappy on PPC
but the G5 quad is a PowerMac with a liquid cooling system ...another way from apple to get people to hate the PPC platform , yes its true it will leak more often then it stays dry , but in my opinion apple did try everything to make the transition to intel more convincing
so why are now so many new iMac's having various little problems ..another transition in sight ?not tomorrow but apple might be working on that
love to see the faces if it would happen to people who just bought a new iMac and then getting told sorry but we go to another platform because intel is not up to standard any more for us ,because that was exactly what happened to PPC users in 2006 who bought these PowerMac G5's , and dont push it away to far , there are others out there who are working on cheaper and faster processors and very important more energy efficient which means cooler running which is a necessity for apple to make thinner iMac's in the future

so yes get a PowerMac G5,as for that price you will never get a intel Mac anyway , but do yourself a favor and choose not a liquid cooled one unless you can refurbish the liquid cooling system on a regular basis

 

[666sheep]

joris-, if you need to use Intel only software (like CS5) your choice is clear, but if a little older versions are good for your purposes, you could buy this Quad.
Especially for this ridiculous price For €300 I'd buy it myself (even if it would be base config).
Decent upgrades for it should be under €500, with a little dose of creativity and research.
- SSD for boot and apps
- 1-2 TB HDD for files
- 16GB RAM (you didn't say how many it has now)
- PC Quadro FX4500 - easy to flash
- PCIe eSATA card - not necessary OFC

 

[chrismacguy]

You're clearly a senseless GHz chaser and don't get why people love PowerPC in the first place. Stick to your crappy intel Macs that die within 3 years.

1) How dare you call me a senseless gigahertz chaser, not only are my recommendations valid, but my typing/coding machine is a 133Mhz PowerBook 1400c from 1996, with Mac OS 8 and System 7.6 thankyou very much. For video editing/photo editing no PowerPC Mac is worth purchasing if you have any plans to stay remotely current. You obviously havent got a clue what your talking about if you think it is (HD on a G4 is painfully slow if it does it at all, and the G5s that can do it are all LCS and will fail). It should also be pointed out, for your benefit, the last Mac I bought is a Quadra 840av, which truly is at the bottom end of the Mac CPU scale, but I use it for VHS -> Stills capture, and it does this under System 7.6 like a champ. (It also has the best DSP setup Ive found on a Mac that old)

2) My Mac Pro is hardly tricked out - its the lowest-end Pro, and I only got it as I need expandability (You just try running ProTools without an internal card- it just doesnt cut it, I also needed more than 1 FW800 port (I have 3 in use currently)), and Im hardly a gigahertz chaser (This Mac took me 5 years of saving, and will last me the next decade, as my G4/450 did)

3) until I bought my Mac Pro my main desktop was a relatively-tricked-out 450Mhz G4 (FCP v1/v2... oh yeah), so I know perfectly well what can be done on PowerPC machines, and much as I love PowerPC Architecture, and my PowerPC Macs, its impossible to say "Get a G5 when only 300 euros more would get you a Mac Pro which will last you twice as long" is good advice. Especially if your a student, who needs it to last as long as possible. (Any moving on CPU argument is moot as 10.6 is Intel Only, and Intels will run 10.7, which will be supported long after 10.5 is dropped)

4) I will quite happily take you up on a challenge with your G4, Id like to see a 1.8Ghz G4, even 1.8Ghz Dual G4 handle what I throw at my Mac Pro on a regular basis, while powering a 30" cinema (I have the 27, and the 30 is the closest with a standard input) - That is I want your G4 to run what I, as a normal prosumer video editor doing a comp sci with maths degree run (Symbolic Mathematical Computation in Mathematica 7, Rendering HD Video in Final Cut and Motion and Shake 4, and ofc ProTools and Logic Studio). My Mac Pro was bought because I need the power and expandability, not because I wanted the shiny case or wanted to boast about the Ghz rating.

5) Transporteur - I definitely do, I have 4 Intel Macs, and 10 PowerPC ones - and that number is slowly increasing, as I get machines based on purpose-performance, and if a PowerPC Mac will do it, then I do it with a PowerPC Mac, same applies to Intel and 68K.

 

[Transporteur]

... but after i had a go with morph OS on my overclocked eMac (1.42)
i cant be convinced any more that intel is really faster then the ppc platform

You can't POSSIBLY think that the Intel processors we're talking about here (Core Duo architecture cause that specific tech is what replaced the PPC), are not faster than any PPC Apple ever used? Apparently we're not talking about PPC 6 and Nehalem, but still, it is not only power/watt, the pure computing power of those chips is far far superior to the PPC architecture of the last decade (the G5 is almost 10 years old now).

Apparently the OS has to be written to apply to the specific instruction sets in order to utilise the processors correctly. If not, even the fastest hardware won't to any good. However,

 

[MacHamster68]

You can't POSSIBLY think that the Intel processors we're talking about here (Core Duo architecture cause that specific tech is what replaced the PPC), are not faster than any PPC Apple ever used? Apparently we're not talking about PPC 6 and Nehalem, but still, it is not only power/watt, the pure computing power of those chips is far far superior to the PPC architecture of the last decade (the G5 is almost 10 years old now).

Apparently the OS has to be written to apply to the specific instruction sets in order to utilise the processors correctly. If not, even the fastest hardware won't to any good. However,

hmm with your last sentence you did overwrite what you said before and agreed to my assumptions that apple did never really intended to use PPC in the long run for OSX and planned the transition to intel right from the start
but lets hear what steve jobs said about the move to intel on the wwdc 2005 and the secret life of OSX since year 2000
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doVyNVxovX8
and for apps running on intel and PPC what is so difficult to tick a box like explained here from steve jobs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcfGsOKXO5M&NR=1
i mean if developers of apps are not able to tick a simple box then i dont even want to try to use their app
i just find it a bit unfair
to declare my PowerMac G5 dual core 2.3 which shipped in mid 2006 as ancient and therefore useless to run modern software despite it was shipped month after the early intel mini's so did 3 of my now 4 eMac's 1.42's , the 4th is a overclocked 1.25 which is indeed already 6 years old
and a mini intel core duo 1.66 not to mention the core solo 1.5 which are still fully supported and can run the latest OS and latest software while my PPC G5 was not worth for apple to develop their snow leopard for it ..as that is what apple said when they announced that snow leopard would not support ppc , so for me apple really just plays with peoples money and constantly force them to upgrade , if apple did not offer OSX and didn't have such lovely computers like the iMac g3 ,iMac G4, and for me the eMac is just a lovely design , i would never thought about switching to Mac as the new ones i find just as gadgets and OSX is on that way becoming a gadget with OSX LION too, they even killed apple talk in snow leopard

sorry but nobody can convince me that a mini core solo is better and superior then my PowerMac G5 dual core 2.3 , even if apple tries to do just that, why i mention the core solo 1.5 , just because here in the UK you get both for about the same price , ok i got my PowerMac way cheaper then any intel Mini , and for me its just a great computer the G5 PowerMac

 

[Transporteur]

sorry but nobody can convince me that a mini core solo is better and superior then my PowerMac G5 dual core 2.3 , even if apple tries to do just that, why i mention the core solo 1.5 , just because here in the UK you get both for about the same price , ok i got my PowerMac way cheaper then any intel Mini , and for me its just a great computer the G5 PowerMac

You can't compare CPU architecture by price, especially not if they are years apart, and even worse is comparing single core with dual core.

Clock per clock, the Intel Core architecture (and all its successors) is faster than the G5. Period.
However, it is not 277% faster (1.66GHz single vs. 2.3GHz dual). If you compare processors, compare them fair.

 

[MacHamster68]

yes i know that why i took the 1.66 core duo as example , i only mentioned the 1.5 core duo because that would have been just the on i could have got for about the same money if i had bought my G5 2.3 dual core on ebay ,as people ask far more for the 1.66 core duo ,
geekbench points 2195 for my PowerMac G5 dual core 2.3 last time i checked with only 2 gb ram but should achieve some more if i fill up the ram to max and the mini core duo 1.66 achieves about 2148 according everymac .com my iMac core duo in the sig gets 2424 with the standard harddrive and 2648 with the 10000rpm velociraptor 600gb , so that means according geekbench points the systems are more or less equal when i put the velociraptor into my G5 ,once i finished the G5 anodizing the case is getting done next month ,could get it done earlier ,but i get it for a really good price done next month from a mate in germany in snow white then it will become my main computer with 2 x 20" cinema displays and a better GPU

 

[zen.state]

You can't compare CPU architecture by price, especially not if they are years apart, and even worse is comparing single core with dual core.

Clock per clock, the Intel Core architecture (and all its successors) is faster than the G5. Period.

I can just picture you sitting in front of your computer saying.. "UGG UGG Me need faster puter!@# GRRRR SMASH!@#"

You guys that base everything on "speed" really have no idea how inept you make yourself look.

You people are so thick headed and goonish that you don't even get the fact that there might be people in the PowerPC forum that actually like PowerPC. We love and embrace the RISC architecture for a reason (one you will never understand) and choose to use it. We even continue to spend money on it.

 

[chrismacguy]

I can just picture you sitting in front of your computer saying.. "UGG UGG Me need faster puter!@# GRRRR SMASH!@#"

You guys that base everything on "speed" really have no idea how inept you make yourself look.

You people are so thick headed and goonish that you don't even get the fact that there might be people in the PowerPC forum that actually like PowerPC. We love and embrace the RISC architecture for a reason (one you will never understand) and choose to use it. We even continue to spend money on it.

I dont think youve ever done any kindve work that requires computing speed to be competitive, have you, because if you had you wouldnt be spouting such utter claptrap. Much as all of us (I noticed that since Ive shown I own more PowerPC Macs than most people, you havent even responded to my reply to your idiocy) love PowerPC, there are plenty of things that it cannot do in any configuration that runs OS X (As powerful as POWER5 is, you cant run OS X on it, and you cant run the tools I need on it excluding Mathematica, and I do in fact run Mathematica on my Universities POWER based cluster, but its still no match for having it locally when Im not paying for cluster time to use it). As capable as any PowerPC Mac is, my Mac Pro is faster. Period. Some of us cant spend 4 hours a day waiting for computations to run, or 3 hours for things to render if there is a faster option as we have other things to get done (Especially if your doing things commercially - as being slower than the competition costs you business, every single time). If not using an architecture I love makes me competitive, you can bet your bottom dollar Im going to do it, instead of sticking with a different architecture that costs me money and time. RISC cannot make up for the lack of extra cores and speed, it also cant make up for its users inability to grasp basic common sense

If you want to use PowerPC go for it, just dont come screaming at me when I suggest it isnt the best idea for every user. It isnt. There is nothing you can do to change that one iota, so have a nice day, and let us recommend sensible ideas in peace without going crazy over something that is a sensible suggestion for the uses the OP had in mind.

Also, please take my up on my offer of a challenge, you said you would, and I have enough time, courtesy of my Intel macs to ensure I can prove to you that certainly for my use, no PowerPC Mac is as good as my Mac Pro.

P.S. The only "inept" person here is you. And thats because you are some PowerPC Fanboy who like most fanboys, has completely lost touch with the real world.

 

[zen.state]

You're only confirming the very things I accused people like you of. I do respect you for still using some older Macs but your basic mindset is the polar opposite of mine.

Maybe YOU do need all the power you have but I can assure you that many Mac Pro owners do not. I know many. I speak from experience not delusion. For the record.. I deal with PowerPC and x86 hardware on a daily basis. I specialize in computer cluster setups for research and also do consulting of all sorts. I know all about high level computing and do it each and every day. A computers limitations are almost always user based.

What ideas do you have for the challenge? How do we compare results? I look forward to it or any ideas you have to make it happen.

 

[Transporteur]

I can just picture you sitting in front of your computer saying.. "UGG UGG Me need faster puter!@# GRRRR SMASH!@#"

You guys that base everything on "speed" really have no idea how inept you make yourself look.

Well, that was me till about a year ago when I purchased the 8-core that sits under my desk. However, that machine is barely able of handling more than two papers documents, so yes, in the near future your characterisation will fit again.

Enough sarcasm, I will now return to my good old typewriter and continue writing my paper. You inept computer guys with your strange machines! My typewriter gets it done just as good!


I guess you absolutely concur to the statement a very famous man once said about storage; 640k is enough for everyone!

 

[chrismacguy]

You're only confirming the very things I accused people like you of. I do respect you for still using some older Macs but your basic mindset is the polar opposite of mine.

What ideas do you have for the challenge? How do we compare results? I look forward to it or any ideas you have to make it happen.

"people like me" - I spend nearly all my recreational computer time below the 1Ghz barrier, and my main machine for personal use is a Dual 867 G4, I am forced to use faster machines for actual work as I need the speed to get stuff done (Try mathematical modelling on a G4... it just doesnt run fast, and saving 20 minutes per simulation, when your trying to get through 500 or more of them is enough to move architecture - in effect Intel has given me an extra hour of sleep a night). I own and use 5 times as many PowerPC or 68K Macs as Intel ones, and was until Oct 2010 one of the holdouts using OS9 professionally (I still use it for personal use, I still have OS 9 only tools, and heck, the last time I used System 7 was only 25 minutes ago)

As far as the challenge goes, one of the best tests is the MathematicaMark benchmark in Mathematica, as its tests are actual Mathematical computation, and tend to mimic the range of "stuff" I do on a daily basis, and is pretty portable and I think getable as a trial - I cant send you the stuff I do on a daily basis easily, as not only is Mathematica being pernickety, Ive forgotten how to persuade it to export it in something I can easily send across the web - if your Mac can MathematicaMark over 3.93 then Id be prepared to switch back. (Without these pieces of software a direct comparison is difficult, as they are what I use every day - If I only did Office Work Id still be using my Quadra or possibly my PowerMac 7500/8200 - since I get most done in the Classic Mac OS (7 or 8) and ClarisWorks 3 + MS Office 4 - no useful internet other than email can be a blessing, and I prefer the UI and raw uncluttered nature of these apps over iWork in OS X)

Also in regards to mindset - I love using older computers, and I love PowerPC, but there has to be a point when you just cant use it professionally. Your mindset seems to be inept and rather juvenile - just because you love something doesnt mean it can work for everyone, this is what you are not only failing to even see, but are failing to understand. I know where your coming from, I just see that where you come from as an untenable position. I mean, stating that Im a Gigahertz chaser, without even noticing I use a lot of PowerPC Macs, and even use 68K, shows your pretty inobservant and fairly glued to a "OMG They Use Intel, I must hate on them for using something that actually does what they want, because everyone should follow my (in many cases dumb) architecture choice, becuase I know whats best for everyone" mentality. I happen to have the current Mac Pro only because you caught me 3 months after a once-every-seven-years upgrade. My next desktop upgrade will be in 2017 or so, not before, and I only have a MacBook Air over my 12" and 15" PowerBooks because I have serious back problems, and carting a PowerBook, even a 12"er through airports was becoming more of a pain every month - this is why I have the lowest-end-air - its not performance I need, but the lightness. If you can build me a PowerPC machine, that can run OS X, and outperform my Mac Pro for all the stuff I do, with the same software (Final Cut Pro 7, Logic Pro 9, Motion 4, Shake 4, Mathematica 7/8, iLife '11 and Celtx 2.9), and use identical peripherals (27" Cinema, preferably with the capability to use 2, so that when the time comes I can add a 2nd one) then I will sell the Pro and buy said machine, sadly that is pretty impossible (Especially keeping up with my Mac Pro running mathematica, as it computes stuff incredibly fast - it even edges out some slower 8-core machines, and a Dual 2.5 G5 only achieves 1.22 - so Id expect a maximum of 1.6 from a Dual 1.8 G4 with SSD and stacks of RAM - not that either of those really impacts the score, since its based on number-crunching ability only)

Oh, and I know most users dont use these machines to their full potential - I just happen to be one of the few who does serious multitasking with proper applications, instead of one of the far too common "I need a Mac Pro to use facebook" muppets. I believe transporteur is in the camp of actually needing the machine too...

 

[Transporteur]

I can totally see your point that most people buy computers that have way more power than they would need in the near future. However, considering constant software changes (especially in terms of web development), this isn't the dumbest thing to do as those machines will last for many years.
10 years ago anyone would have agreed that the internet (browsing) doesn't require more than 500MHz. Try running current websites/apps (and I'm not talking Flash here) on those machines. You can do as much optimisation as you want, which btw isn't cost effective (bad practice from a software engineering POV, though), the machines just won't be able to run it in a way modern machines do. HTML5, which finally steps up to replace Flash in every single point, although rumoured to be less demanding, still kicks those old systems in the groin. Your 1.8GHz G4 should be able to run bespoken features in a satisfying way, but go 3 years back, those machines won't be able to do so. Quick sample, try me.com.

It is, however, not merely an issue of computing power, rather than platforms being abandoned, which is why current software won't run on them any more although their processing power would still allow them to run.
To sum up, we've got two factors here. The sheer inability to keep up with current software from a processing power POV, and the inability to run current software because people decided to move to another, (in case of PPC vs. Intel) better platform.


Anyhow, where exactly is your problem with admitting that the Intel core architecture is faster clock per clock than the PowerPC 5? That's everything I said two posts before. How can you possibly go off on that (100% true) statement and accusing me in a way I can't even re-iterate. Do you know my demands? Clearly not.
As well as stopping with your senseless insults, you should stop generalising other people's computer usage and reflecting your usage to theirs.

 

[zen.state]

chris:
We can't base it on raw mathematic ability. Your machine would obviously trounce mine. What I was thinking is more a real world productivity type of test.

I did mention productivity from the beginning:
"I would happily take part in a productivity competition with any typical intel Mac user with my G4 1.8GHz."

If I needed to crunch all that math like you and many of the clusters I setup do then I would have a Mac Pro. The stuff I do on my own Mac is much more R&D and database oriented. That is why I have 3.5TB on a 10 year old Mac.