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Quad G5, Should I Buy It?

PowerPC74 said:
That was why I sold my Quad, but I sold it for $350 and only paid $50 for it.

I put a power cord( $10 ) and a video card ( $20 ) into it, but I never found a real use for it, other than making a few $ when I sold it.
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From February 2017 to June 2020, my Quad was my primary Mac. Web browsing, word processing, graphic design, email, etc.

I had a definitive use for it. With 16GB ram, I devoted half of that ram to a Ram Drive by creating four ram disks and then raiding them. That served as my scratch disk and held the profile and cache folder for TenFourFox. I also had the app itself in there.

The only reason I stopped using it was that banking websites and a lot of other websites where I pay my monthly bills were starting to break, despite all my workarounds.

But for three years it was a great Mac to use as a primary machine.
 
m1maverick said:
Came across this Ebay listing:

RARE Apple A1117/A1177/A1047 PowerMac G5 Quad 2.5GHz

Starting bid is $200 with no bids. It's 10 miles from my location so no need to worry about shipping cost / damage. Always thought it would be cool to have the quad but I've shied away from the water-cooled systems. Where would I look for any potential coolant damage? Do any of the pics show the area where this would be? Looks like it would need a thorough cleaning due to the animal odor / barn find.

I'd love to hear everyone's thoughts.
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Only you can answer whether to buy it. Objectively it’s a large boat anchor in 2024.

So it comes down to how much having a high end ppc box from 2 decades ago matters to you.
 
eyoungren said:
From February 2017 to June 2020, my Quad was my primary Mac. Web browsing, word processing, graphic design, email, etc.

I had a definitive use for it. With 16GB ram, I devoted half of that ram to a Ram Drive by creating four ram disks and then raiding them. That served as my scratch disk and held the profile and cache folder for TenFourFox. I also had the app itself in there.

The only reason I stopped using it was that banking websites and a lot of other websites where I pay my monthly bills were starting to break, despite all my workarounds.

But for three years it was a great Mac to use as a primary machine.
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So you are saying a half a decade ago you put the most powerful PPC Mac in deep storage because you couldn't use it anymore.

That's not a ringing endorsement of why someone would want to buy one now.


As I say, if your hobby is rebuilding LCS they are a great machine.
 
PowerPC74 said:
So you are saying a half a decade ago you put the most powerful PPC Mac in deep storage because you couldn't use it anymore.

That's not a ringing endorsement of why someone would want to buy one now.

As I say, if your hobby is rebuilding LCS they are a great machine.
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I have no idea why you are posting here, seems weird (considering your user name too). Like you are in a wrong forum or at least in a wrong thread and do not realize it. 😵‍💫

As a multiple Quad owner: it's a potential problem which must be handled before it causes problems. No wet coolant system is meant to be untouched for 20+ years. But it's not like you need to do it all the time or even every 5-10 years. Do it now properly now and then maybe next time in the 2030's. Hardly a real hobby. :rolleyes:
 
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PowerPC74 said:
So you are saying a half a decade ago you put the most powerful PPC Mac in deep storage because you couldn't use it anymore.

That's not a ringing endorsement of why someone would want to buy one now.


As I say, if your hobby is rebuilding LCS they are a great machine.
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No. That's not what I said at all.
 
m1maverick said:
Came across this Ebay listing:

RARE Apple A1117/A1177/A1047 PowerMac G5 Quad 2.5GHz

Starting bid is $200 with no bids. It's 10 miles from my location so no need to worry about shipping cost / damage....
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Only you can answer that question. It's not a Quad. If you want that Powermac, make the seller a reasonable offer. They will probably part with it for a lot less than $200 if you can pick it up.

I have a 2.3 DC and a 2.5 Quad. I have rebuilt the LCS on my Quad twice. No matter how carefully I rebuild it, it always seems that one of the CPUs won't calibrate. I can use the computer for a time, before it overheats and I get the red overheat LED. OTOH, it only took me a couple of hours to completely disassemble, clean, and rebuild the DC completely. Thermal calibration went flawlessly, and it is my favorite PPC Mac. It is so quiet, I can barely hear it under my desk. The Quad would definitely be much faster at multi-core tasks such as rendering a video. But for normal everyday use, or gaming, there's no perceptible difference. Honestly, I wouldn't recommend a LCS PPC Mac to anyone, and will be selling my Quad to someone who wants to try to rebuild it, or convert it to air cooled.
 
eyoungren said:
I had a definitive use for it. With 16GB ram, I devoted half of that ram to a Ram Drive by creating four ram disks and then raiding them. That served as my scratch disk and held the profile and cache folder for TenFourFox. I also had the app itself in there.
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What was the reason for creating a RAID from the RAM disks? Typically a RAID is created to increase availability, speed, or to create a larger single volume from several smaller ones. I would think being a RAM disk availability isn't improved nor would speed. Was it the latter? Or perhaps some other reason(s)?
 
m1maverick said:
What was the reason for creating a RAID from the RAM disks? Typically a RAID is created to increase availability, speed, or to create a larger single volume from several smaller ones. I would think being a RAM disk availability isn't improved nor would speed. Was it the latter? Or perhaps some other reason(s)?
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There is a 2GB limit for ram disks with PowerPC. So, I made 4x 2GB ram drives and then used a Terminal command to concatenate them into one 8GB drive. So, RAID 0.

It provided a noticeable performance increase for T4Fx and Photoshop (everything was in RAM). Although, it was less noticeable with PS. I just made sure to keep a copy of the things I wanted in there elsewhere (on a HDD). Every time I rebooted (or crashed) I'd copy that stuff back to the ram drive.

I also tended to drop videos into the ram drive and would play them from there rather than from a local disk or a network drive. They played smoother.
 
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bkmoore773 said:
Only you can answer that question. It's not a Quad.
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I don't mean to be a jerk, but that was the consensus at post #3 and #4 on the first page.

bkmoore773 said:
If you want that Powermac, make the seller a reasonable offer. They will probably part with it for a lot less than $200 if you can pick it up.
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And, at the bottom of page 3, OP says it was sold.


bkmoore773 said:
I have a 2.3 DC and a 2.5 Quad. I have rebuilt the LCS on my Quad twice. No matter how carefully I rebuild it, it always seems that one of the CPUs won't calibrate. I can use the computer for a time, before it overheats and I get the red overheat LED. OTOH, it only took me a couple of hours to completely disassemble, clean, and rebuild the DC completely. Thermal calibration went flawlessly, and it is my favorite PPC Mac. It is so quiet, I can barely hear it under my desk. The Quad would definitely be much faster at multi-core tasks such as rendering a video. But for normal everyday use, or gaming, there's no perceptible difference. Honestly, I wouldn't recommend a LCS PPC Mac to anyone, and will be selling my Quad to someone who wants to try to rebuild it, or convert it to air cooled.
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I have the same, only my Quad came with an LCS in good condition and that still appears to be the case. It looks a lot like I am the exception to the rule in this thread though.
 
bkmoore773 said:
Only you can answer that question. It's not a Quad. If you want that Powermac, make the seller a reasonable offer. They will probably part with it for a lot less than $200 if you can pick it up.
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That was the intention if I decided to buy it. The reason for posting here was to get feedback from the forum regarding LCS based systems, specifically the quad. I had no use case for it, just a hobby system to add to my collection.

Long ago I had ruled out buying an LCS based PowerMac for the reasons many, including yourself, have mentioned. One of the primary concerns was the limited use it would see. I didn't want to buy it, play around with it, put it aside, and when I came back to it find the LCS had leaked. At least if I were using it regularly I might detect an issue due to fans ramping up.

But given this one was close by where I could possibly inspect it / pick it up (and avoid the common shipping damage that happens with these and cMPs) I figured why not if it was in good condition. My thought was to offer them $100 thinking the convivence of not having to ship it and my having to clean it up (rodent smell) would make that a reasonable offer.

As it turned out not to be a quad and the reinforcement of my original reasons not to buy an LCS based PowerMac I decided to pass. It also sold over the weekend and is no longer available. Now the thread has turned into a general discussion on buying LCS based PowerMacs, which is interesting in and of itself.
 
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