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Trade G5 for Mac Mini?

OrangeSVTguy

OrangeSVTguy

macrumors 601
Original poster
Sep 16, 2007
4,127
69
Northeastern Ohio
Well someone offered their 1 month-old 2.23ghz C2D Mac Mini with 1gb and 160gb HDD for my G5(the one in my sig). I really-really-really hate to do it as I love my G5 but the Mini is more future proof and would be my first Intel Mac. 4gb would be enough for me but is that model capable of 8g?

How well does SL run on the Minis? Better than Leopard? I would also plan on purchasing Win7 for it, what's the best version I should get?

Thanks.
 
I don't think the mini can do 8GB, but don't worry about it. Get the mini. So many things are starting to require an Intel CPU -- Snow Leopard for starters. You're going to hit a dead end on what you can add to your G5 computer very soon.

We've got some G5 computers at work that are running Panther (10.3) and thus can't be upgraded to any version of Firefox above 2.x. I just saw a note that YouTube won't work on those computers as of March 13. Yes, we are cheap beyond belief. But stuff like that will happen to you much sooner on a G5.
 
How about some geekbench numbers?

Power Mac G5 (June 2004)
PowerPC G5 (970FX) 2.7 GHz (2 cores) >>> 2263

Mac mini (Early/Late 2009)
Intel Core 2 Duo P8400 2.26 GHz (2 cores) >>> 3056

8 gigs for the mini is $360. ouch.

and you should check that "1 month old" statement.

current minis, released in Oct 2009 shipped with *2 gigs* of ram.

early 2009 minis, released a year ago, shipped with 1 gig...
 
Take the mac mini because of the x86-architecture. ppc is running out. It was the better cpu but Apple mean have to change to intel :(
Mac mini is safe for future. Upgrade ram(4 or 8 gig) and enjoy. its powerful enough for normal using and small and quiet.
good deal i think.
to the question with your os.
I sold my mini last month it runs very useful. No reason for installing only leopard.
But be careful the mac mini only support 2 displays. (mdp and mini-dvi). If you want to use more than 2 screens keep your g5.
How many harddrive storage do you need?
Mini only has one 2,5". You only can use 750-1000gb.
 
Yeah, the new Minis will take up to 8GB of RAM. OWC has tested it and sells kits for it. On the early 2009 models, you will need to update the firmware. OWC has also run several benchmarks with the Mini+SL using 2-8GB of RAM. One thing that surprised me was that the processor seemed to make the biggest improvement after about 4GB of RAM. The 2.53 was a good bit quicker in most of the tests.

Check out the results here.
 
OrangeSVTguy said:
Well someone offered their 1 month-old 2.23ghz C2D Mac Mini with 1gb and 160gb HDD for my G5(the one in my sig). I really-really-really hate to do it as I love my G5 but the Mini is more future proof and would be my first Intel Mac. 4gb would be enough for me but is that model capable of 8g?

How well does SL run on the Minis? Better than Leopard? I would also plan on purchasing Win7 for it, what's the best version I should get?

Thanks.
Click to expand...

OrangeSTVguy...you're killing me here! Dont give in!:eek:;)
 
NIPRING said:
OrangeSTVguy...you're killing me here! Dont give in!:eek:;)
Click to expand...

LOL!

It's so tempting! I don't know if I should go through with it or not. I really like the G5 but just starting thinking about adding a BD drive to it and 500gb HDD and 4gb of memory, dual-booting, etc...

This is the only reason he wants to trade because he misses his G5... I want to make sure I don't wind up like him.

I don't care about the whole Intel thing and softeware not being supported in the future. The G5 is still a great computer and with current software, it's still good for "ME" for at least a few more years.
 
I still do enjoy it very much but I think I'm gonna take the plunge and finally dive into Intel. :eek:

If I don't like it, I'll just pitch it for another G5 :D Not like they are hard to find ;)

Thanks all for the support and suggestions.
 
Well I traded it and I'm typing from it now. I just formatted an external USB HDD to GUID and used Superduper to clone my drive over. Boots up and works great without a hitch. This was the newest model with 2gb of DDR3 so I get the 256mb of video memory. I also got the box and everything including the SL disc so I may just do a fresh install once I buy a larger 2.5" HDD as the 160gb stock seems kinda small.

Even while running of a USB drive, everything seems as snappy if not snappier than my RAID0 I had on my G5.

So I think I got a good trade. I got a one month old Intel Mini with warranty for a 5 year old G5. I guess we'll see in a couple weeks how I like it but I sure do miss the G5 though.
 
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