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The case for a G5 to a Mac Pro owner
- Thread starter MrCheeto
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I sold my G5 in the original box back in 2021. Didn't get much - around $250. I think the buyer was buying for the sentimental value. I believe most of the value was in the box LOL! I'd agree with the OP in that from time to time, the G5 would sound like it was taking off from a runway. It was all original and had maxed it out at 4 GB RAM (woot woot!). I used the G5, mostly with CS4 and my favorite game at the time SIMS. Occasionally I would rip CDs as well.
I have since replaced it with two cMPs: a 2010 and a 2012, both 2x3.33GHz, 32GB and 48GB RAM respectively, one with an HD 7950 3GB GPU and the other with a Radeon RX580 8 GB, one running Big Sur and the other Monterey with OCLP. I'm very happy with my setup.
I plan to keep my cMPs for a few more years.
I have since replaced it with two cMPs: a 2010 and a 2012, both 2x3.33GHz, 32GB and 48GB RAM respectively, one with an HD 7950 3GB GPU and the other with a Radeon RX580 8 GB, one running Big Sur and the other Monterey with OCLP. I'm very happy with my setup.
I plan to keep my cMPs for a few more years.
They seem to be hard to maintain from what I gather, and we're getting into the long haul with these guys. I do not know if there is any recourse for leaking fluid, and blown caps could be wrecking boards. I fear these will become incredibly rare to find working in the next 15 years or so.
Certainly you'd have to need a pretty good reason to make the investment to maintain a G5 as a main system; I surmise it is not worth it. Gone to the point now where I'm starting to move away from machines with dedicated GPUs to reduce failure rates in the long term. Some of those 2000s GPUs were junk, even a bit newer. I burn through Nvidia 7000 and 8000 series cards, I put at least 5 8800s into a Windows box before I gave up on them.
Certainly you'd have to need a pretty good reason to make the investment to maintain a G5 as a main system; I surmise it is not worth it. Gone to the point now where I'm starting to move away from machines with dedicated GPUs to reduce failure rates in the long term. Some of those 2000s GPUs were junk, even a bit newer. I burn through Nvidia 7000 and 8000 series cards, I put at least 5 8800s into a Windows box before I gave up on them.
BTW, if a G5 PowerMac can be donated to MacPorts (provided it is located in US, of course), that would help many people here.
Relevant discussion about pre-built ports: https://trac.macports.org/ticket/66288
Relevant discussion about pre-built ports: https://trac.macports.org/ticket/66288
Actually, the fastest leopard machine would be the mac pro 3,1
and the fastest tiger machine would be the mac pro 2,1
Sorry what? I already started a thread called “Most Powerful Leopard System” and it was concluded that a max’d out 4,1 would be the official winner, though the 5,1 unofficially boots Leopard no problem.
I’ve also read here that Leopard doesn’t generally check hardware and will attempt to boot and the only thing preventing it from doing so would be unsupported hardware such as the Nvidia 320m. For instance, I will be checking if I have an Nvidia 9400m in my white unibody MacBook and if so will attempt to boot 10.5. Officially, this system was released with Snow Leopard as a minimum but it seems to have complete similarity to a Leopard-era Mac.
I’m running Leopard on my 2.26GHz 8-core 4,1 Pro and I’d be surprised if the earlier Pro’s come close in performance.
Some here have speculated that I could get Leopard to boot on Westmere chips and therefor support 12-cores. This would require flashing to 5,1 so I am reluctant to try and just need somebody to confirm this before I go ahead but that would almost certainly be the fastest Leopard-capable machine.
I’ve also read here that Leopard doesn’t generally check hardware and will attempt to boot and the only thing preventing it from doing so would be unsupported hardware such as the Nvidia 320m. For instance, I will be checking if I have an Nvidia 9400m in my white unibody MacBook and if so will attempt to boot 10.5. Officially, this system was released with Snow Leopard as a minimum but it seems to have complete similarity to a Leopard-era Mac.
I’m running Leopard on my 2.26GHz 8-core 4,1 Pro and I’d be surprised if the earlier Pro’s come close in performance.
Some here have speculated that I could get Leopard to boot on Westmere chips and therefor support 12-cores. This would require flashing to 5,1 so I am reluctant to try and just need somebody to confirm this before I go ahead but that would almost certainly be the fastest Leopard-capable machine.
I wouldn’t bother trying to install since that’s a very time-consuming process of checks and edits.
Instead, it has been supposed that Leopard would just check the CPU model and so long as drivers for everything are supported it would finish booting. Otherwise it will KP in every other case. Therefor, one would simply need an existing Leopard install (let’s say 10.5.8 for safety and since Nehalem supposedly wasn’t supported until 10.5.6) and a way to spoof their CPU ID. That, or some magic boot-arg that would tell it not to even check CPU ID.
My fingers remain crossed.
Instead, it has been supposed that Leopard would just check the CPU model and so long as drivers for everything are supported it would finish booting. Otherwise it will KP in every other case. Therefor, one would simply need an existing Leopard install (let’s say 10.5.8 for safety and since Nehalem supposedly wasn’t supported until 10.5.6) and a way to spoof their CPU ID. That, or some magic boot-arg that would tell it not to even check CPU ID.
My fingers remain crossed.
I have booted Leopard on a late 2010 MacBook Air with the 320M. I just had to remove the GeForce-related kexts to prevent a kernel panic.
You can actually run Tiger on a
MacPro3,1.Which makes the card pretty much useless on Leopard. The 4870 is as good as it gets with graphics acceleration.
Hopefully you’re not saying that your partitions are no longer showing up.
If you’re interested in skipping the install process and just want to do a simple image restore, I could make a fresh Leopard boot image, compress it and upload it today. Do you have a hosting site you’d recommend?
As I said, the whole install deal just will not work. I feel it isn’t worth the time editing the installer, troubleshooting, starting over etc.
Well it actually installed and booted on a Poly Unibody MacBook, which shipped with 10.6.1.
It does not check the ID of the board, just the CPU. Since the white Unibody MacBook uses the same Penryn chip as so many Leopard notebooks, it had no trouble recognizing the ID and continuing.
I now have a Leopard Boot image that can be restored to any drive using any Mac and then tested by simply allowing it to boot or mounting the drive to a booted machine and editing any kexts or such that must be modified. I could upload the compressed image, or does somebody know of a good reliable 10.5.8 Hackintosh build that could be restored to a drive similarly? I think 10.5.8 is best because there are some Macs that will simply KP if using 10.5.6 or earlier, even different builds of the same point release.
It does not check the ID of the board, just the CPU. Since the white Unibody MacBook uses the same Penryn chip as so many Leopard notebooks, it had no trouble recognizing the ID and continuing.
I now have a Leopard Boot image that can be restored to any drive using any Mac and then tested by simply allowing it to boot or mounting the drive to a booted machine and editing any kexts or such that must be modified. I could upload the compressed image, or does somebody know of a good reliable 10.5.8 Hackintosh build that could be restored to a drive similarly? I think 10.5.8 is best because there are some Macs that will simply KP if using 10.5.6 or earlier, even different builds of the same point release.
Attachments
no, after putting my rx570 and my nvme back in, it behaves properly again. could be just my cd's since they are not original leopard cd's, just burned ones
I wonder who will "collect" G5's in the future? I have a few, also a few G4 MDD's, and i have thought about getting rid of those, as i dont use them much, if at all, but what about the Amiga/X68000's and a bunch of Silicon Graphics boxes that i own, they also hardly ever get used.. but cant see to let go of them. Probably i "will" let the G4 towers go somewhere along the line, but ill keep the G5's at this stage. I also have 2 fully maxed out 1,1's, that also get zero use. Maybe i should have a big clean out...
yeah you can emulate pretty much anything these days, but typing away on a PC keyboard attached to for example a MISTer/PC emu C64, no way even comes close to the tactile feeling you get from using a real C64 attached to a CRT. Its definitely a delima.
I guess it comes down to if you have some sort of personal attachment to said machine, be it the G5, a Sharp X68k, or a C64.. Its different for everyone.
Emulation is great, but its not the same. More so when you have different input/output devices attached.
(note: i should update that sig lol)
yeah you can emulate pretty much anything these days, but typing away on a PC keyboard attached to for example a MISTer/PC emu C64, no way even comes close to the tactile feeling you get from using a real C64 attached to a CRT. Its definitely a delima.
I guess it comes down to if you have some sort of personal attachment to said machine, be it the G5, a Sharp X68k, or a C64.. Its different for everyone.
Emulation is great, but its not the same. More so when you have different input/output devices attached.
(note: i should update that sig lol)
Alright. I’m convinced. I won’t miss the G5’s or the Mini. They’re listed. The only PPC I’m keeping is a G4 Mini for OS 9 and general compatibility/bridging. Same reason I have the Quadra.
I’ll admit that I am nostalgic for a lot of the G4 era stuff. When I was first getting into Apple, G4’s were the second-hand go-to. It was not uncommon to repair PowerBooks and make them work smoother with YouTube etc. all the way up to Snow Leopard and even a little into Lion days. I got my hands on an MDD G4 and just had fun seeing what it was capable of. I ran Tiger on it and most of my Tiger memories are on that machine. The experience included not just UI but the sounds of the fan, drives, the clunk of the optical tray, being surprised with just how modern it was in 2009, the glow of the light and the sound of the built-in speaker. I also relied on a 12” PowerBook for a little over a year around 2012. Still have great memories of that.
Fact is, though, the limitations in practicality plus maintenance (batteries, power supplies, caps, spinning drives, IC’s etc) has turned me off from ever having either of those again. I know the Mini won’t last forever but it takes up such little space, never has a backlight or rechargeable battery fade over time, and doesn’t disturb anybody’s sleep with its operating volume.
Thanks, all.
P.S. in another thread there was a question of a 10gig Ethernet card for a G5 and I was able to track down such a device from a particular supplier. Every reference to the card by the supplier is in relation to the G5. How possible is it to make such drivers work with an Intel 10.5 Leopard Mac? The supplier was called small tree and I believe the controller chip was Intel based.
I’ll admit that I am nostalgic for a lot of the G4 era stuff. When I was first getting into Apple, G4’s were the second-hand go-to. It was not uncommon to repair PowerBooks and make them work smoother with YouTube etc. all the way up to Snow Leopard and even a little into Lion days. I got my hands on an MDD G4 and just had fun seeing what it was capable of. I ran Tiger on it and most of my Tiger memories are on that machine. The experience included not just UI but the sounds of the fan, drives, the clunk of the optical tray, being surprised with just how modern it was in 2009, the glow of the light and the sound of the built-in speaker. I also relied on a 12” PowerBook for a little over a year around 2012. Still have great memories of that.
Fact is, though, the limitations in practicality plus maintenance (batteries, power supplies, caps, spinning drives, IC’s etc) has turned me off from ever having either of those again. I know the Mini won’t last forever but it takes up such little space, never has a backlight or rechargeable battery fade over time, and doesn’t disturb anybody’s sleep with its operating volume.
Thanks, all.
P.S. in another thread there was a question of a 10gig Ethernet card for a G5 and I was able to track down such a device from a particular supplier. Every reference to the card by the supplier is in relation to the G5. How possible is it to make such drivers work with an Intel 10.5 Leopard Mac? The supplier was called small tree and I believe the controller chip was Intel based.
Ask the supplier if the OS X drivers are for PPC only or if they’re a universal binary.
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What Amigas and SG systems do you have? I currently have an A1000 and years ago I used to own a Personal Iris, an Indigo, and an Indy. The latter three I took to my companies recycling pile during one of my basements computer purging endeavors. I regret that now, especially the Indy as it was in perfect condition.
I am considering letting go of my A1000 (I purchased it as a retro bright project along with wanting to learn about the Amiga as I had never used one). Aside from doing the retro bright work and turning it on just to see how it works I have barely done anything with it. I even purchased a Gotek drive for it along with an adapter to permit its use on a modern flat screen.
I also have a IIgs which I acquired for the same reasons as the A1000 and, like it, it has seen little use. So I may let it go too.
It's not that I don't have room for these systems but I'd rather seem someone get some enjoyment out of them instead of them just sitting in the basement. I collected these (and other systems) over time with the intention of using them and, years later, I haven't done much with them so I can no longer fool myself into thinking I'm going to ever do anything with them.
There are a few systems that see little use but I plan to keep for nostalgia purposes (like my Apple ][ Plus) but the A1000 and IIgs don't fit that category.
ok now that it's settled i can drop this byte
I don't really see much of an advantage of the G5's case to the Mac Pro's. They may look similar superficially, but the differences are very apparent. Other than the obvious second optical bay on the Mac Pro's case, which is absent on the G5's case, expansion card room has been expanded on the Mac Pro's case, and the Mac Pro's case has more storage bays compared to the G5's case. One of the few ups I see the G5's case over the Mac Pro's is potentially cooling, as having two massive exhaust fans is better than just the one on the Mac Pro's case. but overall, I feel that the G5's case is probably a downgrade and you should probably just seek out a Mac Pro case as Apple intended.
Oh wait.... you didn't mean the chassis?
I don't really see much of an advantage of the G5's case to the Mac Pro's. They may look similar superficially, but the differences are very apparent. Other than the obvious second optical bay on the Mac Pro's case, which is absent on the G5's case, expansion card room has been expanded on the Mac Pro's case, and the Mac Pro's case has more storage bays compared to the G5's case. One of the few ups I see the G5's case over the Mac Pro's is potentially cooling, as having two massive exhaust fans is better than just the one on the Mac Pro's case. but overall, I feel that the G5's case is probably a downgrade and you should probably just seek out a Mac Pro case as Apple intended.
Oh wait.... you didn't mean the chassis?