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Scored a used G5 have questions

K

kaitlin4599

macrumors member
Original poster
Nov 27, 2013
87
10
United States
scored a used powermac G5 dual processor from early 2003 gonna pick it up on tuesday from craigslist not knowing anything about macs seeing as how it has the much older AGP slot for the graphics card do i need to buy a mac specific AGP graphics card or will any old AGP graphics card work? seller says it comes with a 128 meg ati 9600 thanks for your time









Power Macintosh G5 2.0 DP (PCI-X) Specs (Power Mac G5, M9032LL/A, PowerMac7,2, A1047, 1969): EveryMac.com

Technical specifications for the Power Macintosh G5 2.0 DP (PCI-X). Dates sold, processor type, memory info, hard drive details, price and more.
everymac.com everymac.com
 
kaitlin4599 said:
scored a used powermac G5 dual processor from early 2003 gonna pick it up on tuesday from craigslist not knowing anything about macs seeing as how it has the much older AGP slot for the graphics card do i need to buy a mac specific AGP graphics card or will any old AGP graphics card work? seller says it comes with a 128 meg ati 9600 thanks for your time









Power Macintosh G5 2.0 DP (PCI-X) Specs (Power Mac G5, M9032LL/A, PowerMac7,2, A1047, 1969): EveryMac.com

Technical specifications for the Power Macintosh G5 2.0 DP (PCI-X). Dates sold, processor type, memory info, hard drive details, price and more.
everymac.com everymac.com
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Stick with the ATI 9600 - anything better won't make much difference unless you intend using it for gaming.
 
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kaitlin4599 said:
well i would like to mess around with some mac games from the era i simply want thins machine as i never owned one and wanna see what its like and enjoy it
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I'm not a gamer but I dare say the 9600 will be sufficient for most PPC games of that era - the money spent on another GPU would be better spent on a SSD and/or more RAM as a performance boost.
 
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kaitlin4599 said:
well i would like to mess around with some mac games from the era i simply want thins machine as i never owned one and wanna see what its like and enjoy it
Click to expand...
I recall buying this brand new the day it was available to purchase. All the chatter about what awesome systems the new G5s are. Great system but unfortunately it ended up not powering on some years later so I ended up selling it on CL. Got about $100 for it which I thought was a good deal for an obsolete, non-functional system. Wish I would have kept it. I've thought about buying another 2003 dual processor G5 but I already have a 1.8GHz PCI G5 which suffices for my Power PC needs.
 
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I like mine alot. Ive got the DP 2ghz a1047 PCI variant (with the neutered 4gb DDR max) and the DC 2ghz A1117 and I routinely come back to them in my PPC rotation - great boxes IMO. Someone inevitably speaks to their propensity to guzzle electricity comparative to new macs (which isnt untrue) but truthfully I'm ok with the extra few dollars a month on my electric bill to enjoy these boxes.
 
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kaitlin4599 said:
well i would like to mess around with some mac games from the era i simply want thins machine as i never owned one and wanna see what its like and enjoy it
Click to expand...
Well, lf you want to play Mac games, a G5 is actually the worst way to go. Basically nothing on Mac by that point was exclusive to the Macintosh. They were all multiplatform, assuming they came to Mac at all, and you'd be far better off with an Windows XP x86 build. Mac in this era was an inferior platform to play games on.

If you want Mac games, you want a G4 that can run OS 9 natively. Classic Mac OS is where 90%+ of the exclusive games are, and Classic under 10.4 has trouble playing those games. Or, you could go with an early Intel Mac, which can also run Windows XP. Either way, a G5 is not really the answer.
 
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Doq said:
Insert bit about their propensity to guzzle electricity compared to newer Macs here.
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$25 additional per month for a 2.3DC and a Quad G5 operating at full power 24/7. Ten displays between them (one a 4K HDTV), plus accessories.

I worry far more about my 300W Torchiere lamp and when it was running, my 5ton A/C unit which can draw 5,000 to 7,000W per hour.

:D :D :D
 
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repairedCheese said:
Well, lf you want to play Mac games, a G5 is actually the worst way to go. Basically nothing on Mac by that point was exclusive to the Macintosh. They were all multiplatform, assuming they came to Mac at all, and you'd be far better off with an Windows XP x86 build. Mac in this era was an inferior platform to play games on.

If you want Mac games, you want a G4 that can run OS 9 natively. Classic Mac OS is where 90%+ of the exclusive games are, and Classic under 10.4 has trouble playing those games. Or, you could go with an early Intel Mac, which can also run Windows XP. Either way, a G5 is not really the answer.
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To be fair, I do do the majority of my own PPC gaming on a Grahite and QS PowerMacG4 but as op already owns the G5, there's plenty of games they can enjoy on it. Here's a thread discussing PowermacG5 and 10.4.11+ gaming options. Some that I enjoy and come to mind include:

Unreal
UT99
UT2004
Q2
Q3A
Starcraft

Op can play around with os9 via sheepshaver or Classic on their PMG5 and if they want it can pick up something that runs os9 natively down the line.
 
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Dronecatcher said:
@kaitlin4599
OS disk images available here.

I'd recommend Leopard.

My Dual G5 here doing stuff:

Click to expand...
That mouse clicking would drive me insane….. 🤪

I turned on my DC G5 about 6 months ago, and it runs just like it did before I got my cMP in 2010.
Apple made Macs that ‘just worked fantastic’ back then.
I wish I had the time to play about on it more…..🥲
 
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kaitlin4599 said:
@Certificate of Excellence any idea what mac os i should toss on this i wanna do a clean fresh install also where would i find such os aside from fleabay
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I'm not who you tagged, but there are two schools out there (three if you want to include Classic). One school is solidly pro-Tiger and that includes those who want to run Classic and the other is solidly pro-Leopard.

Generally it comes down to what you want to do. Classic and older apps and a 'faster' OS, then run Tiger. The most updated apps you can get with the most compatibility, run Leopard.

I'm in the Leopard camp. I want things to be as updated as I can and the ability to run the latest apps I can. But aside from that, Leopard is far more compatible with Windows systems and has a much more modern print server functionality than Tiger. If any of that matters, you'll find Leopard easier to use and far more stable in a mixed PC/Mac environment. I only run Tiger if I have to.
 
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kaitlin4599 said:
@Certificate of Excellence any idea what mac os i should toss on this i wanna do a clean fresh install also where would i find such os aside from fleabay
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@eyoungren spoke to this well. I too am on the Leopard side of that argument - there are a number of aspects to the OS that I prefer over Tiger. With that, I do typically run two partitions on my G5s - one with Leopard or Sorbet and one with Tiger if I need it or classic although I dont find myself leveraging Tiger much at all as the majority of the titles I tend to gravitate to are universal windows/macintosh titles. When I was playing these originally, I was 110% gaming on win boxes. I did not transition to Mac until 2006ish with my first mac purchase. My desires do not lay so much with discovering and exploring mac only titles as they are revisiting games I played (and still have retail boxes of :D ), so nostalgia driven for me.

@Dronecatcher linked to the place we all go for OSX dmgs.

Good luck. :)
 
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Certificate of Excellence said:
@eyoungren spoke to this well. I too am on the Leopard side of that argument - there are a number of aspects to the OS that I prefer over Tiger. With that, I do typically run two partitions on my G5s - one with Leopard or Sorbet and one with Tiger if I need it or classic although I dont find myself leveraging Tiger much at all as the majority of the titles I tend to gravitate to are universal windows/macintosh titles. When I was playing these originally, I was 110% gaming on win boxes. I did not transition to Mac until 2006ish with my first mac purchase. My desires do not lay so much with discovering and exploring mac only titles as they are revisiting games I played (and still have retail boxes of :D ), so nostalgia driven for me.

@Dronecatcher linked to the place we all go for OSX dmgs.

Good luck. :)
Click to expand...
The ONE thing I very much miss about Tiger is theming. Shapeshifter and APE broke with Leopard and that was pretty much the end of it. Magnifique, Candybar and some other apps were great for Leopard but it was basically changing colors and icons. Shapeshifter allowed you to change the entire style and was highly reminiscent of Kaleidoscope with OS9. To my great joy, I found BBX Mercury for Tiger/Shapeshifter at one point and was able to use the same theme I'd used under Kaleidoscope/OS9.

Unfortunately, the nature of what I use(d) my PowerPC Macs for meant Leopard and I had to settle for icons and a black theme (which I found only after a long hard search over several years). I'm not about to install an OS I can't use just so I can look at the pretty themes. It sucks, but that's the way it is.
 
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