Recommended RAM G5??!!

[kiemposan]

Hi Guys,

my studio has just upgraded to G5 2.5 powermacs in the last week, and just started using OSX! anyway the guy who bought them isnt really up to date with technology so we only got the factory standard 512ram with them, I think he believes that with the fast processors everything will run lightning fast even with this much ram, as he is used to a G4 (old) with quite a bit of RAM. But im guessing that now we are using Panther this is going to be more RAM intensive than os09 even on a more powerful system.

Probably not making too much sense, but basically how much RAM would you guys recommend for these systems? i guess as much as possible but bare in mind we have just bought them and are in the process of buying loads of updtaed software as well.

Cheers.

PS We do Graphic design work, Photoshop, Quark Illustrator, web stuff etc. no movies or that though

 

[iGary]

Crucial.

You ought to have at least a gig.

Just by a pair of 512's for each and you'll have a gig and a half.

 

[simie]

What ever ram your put in those new G5's, make sure that they are matched pairs, this means that the size and the speed and make are the same eg. 2 sticks of Crucial 512MB with a speed of PC2700.

 

[James Philp]

As well as what other people have said, get as much as you can legitimately afford. It will really give the machines longevity! It seems a Gig is minimum on any system these days, but get as much as you can.

 

[Blue Velvet]

As iGary says: 1.5gb (2x512 extra) is a nice amount to have.

We have 2.5gb each in our 3 x 2.5s at work and you can throw anything at them...

 

[AmigoMac]

As iGary says: 1.5gb (2x512 extra) is a nice amount to have.

We have 2.5gb each in our 3 x 2.5s at work and you can throw anything at them...

Even TextEdit?

Awesome... OT, myiBook with 768 MB runs perfect, can't imagine 1.5Gb

 

[mduser63]

I second the recommendation to add a gigabyte of RAM to each of them. I have 2 GB in my G5, and it runs wonderfully for the kind of stuff you're doing. You'll be glad you added the extra RAM.

 

[AppleAce]

What ever ram your put in those new G5's, make sure that they are matched pairs, this means that the size and the speed and make are the same eg. 2 sticks of Crucial 512MB with a speed of PC2700.

Ummm, the PM G5's take PC3200, *not PC2700.

 

[iGary]

As iGary says: 1.5gb (2x512 extra) is a nice amount to have.

We have 2.5gb each in our 3 x 2.5s at work and you can throw anything at them...

Well of course, dear.

I have 2 gigs in my G4 and it out-benches my iMac, but I didn't want to scare the lad.

And I do some serious rendering in Text Edit.

 

[Cooknn]

Crucial.

You ought to have at least a gig.

Just by a pair of 512's for each and you'll have a gig and a half.

I've got a Gig of Apple Ram in my G5. Do you think it would be cool to add another Gig of Crucial Ram? It's like $120 for Crucial and $300 for Apple

 

[anubis]

I recently found out the hard way that not only do the dimms have to be installed in pairs that are the exact same size and speed, but the dimm layout configuration must also be the same. For example, I just tried to install a crucial 512 pc3200 cas3 dimm with a 32x16 chip layout and a crucial 512 pc3200 cas3 dimm with a 64x8 chip layout. My G5's immune system rejected this ram, classifying it as an unmatched, and therefore, unsable pair.

For those who aren't familiar with chip layout: dimms are boards that contain several black chips. Each chip has a certain amount of memory capacity. A 16x32 dimm has 16 chips, each with 32 megs of capacity (16 chips x 32 megs each=512mb dimm). A 16x32 dimm has 8 chips on one side and 8 chips on the other side. A 64x8 dimm has 8 chips with 64 megs of capacity each, all on one side.

So in conclusion, when installing G5 ram, don't try to mix and match brands, or even the same brand and different batches. The memory really has to be purchased at the same time from the same vender in the same purchase order to have any guarantee that it will work.

 

[Jovian9]

I agree with getting at least 1.5GB's of RAM in there. I have a 1.8GHz iMac G5 with 1.5GB's of RAM and it seems to be about the perfect amount. Right now I have 9 tabs open in Safari, iCal open, I'm burning a 92 minute movie in iDVD 5, importing a 2-hour clip from my DVR into iMovie 5, have iTunes open, Excel and Word, and I'm downloading the 10.3.9 Java update.....with absolutely no problems. 1.5GB's seems to be the magic number for me.

 

[simie]

PC2700 is the slowest ram that you can put in a G5, It is recomended though that you buy PC3200 ram. Any that you do purchase should conform to JEDEC specifcation.

Read this article by Apple for futher information and installation instructions.

http://www.info.apple.com/usen/cip/pdf/g5/memory_c.pdf

Its the CAS timings that noone knows if G5's makes use of, for example anything faster than CAS 3 - If you mix ram that is CAS 3 with other ram that is CAS 2.5 then all ram will operate at CAS 3, which is the slowest timings.