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Upgrading a G5

mlswanso3470

mlswanso3470

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Mar 1, 2008
3
0
Twin Cities (MN)
I just recently purchased my new toy, a Power Mac G5... I'm curious about upgrading, I'm more than capable of doing it, but I'm used to the PC terms and hardware specs... so getting the right hardware that is compatible with the Power Mac is new to me.

I have:
1.8ghz single
2.5gb of RAM (2 x 1GB, 2 x 256MB)
160gb HD
no airport / bluetooth installed
10.5

I have limited money right now so what do you all think would be the first area I should upgrade? I would like to have a bigger, faster hard drive but I'm concerned about getting the right speeds. Most of the SATA drives on newegg are all 3gbps and I see the PM specs at 150mbps.... thoughts?
I'd also like more ram, my hope is that might improve the speed of the machine a little (which would be nice). But I'm not sure about brands for memory, I know that I need PC3200 though... thoughts?
For Airport, I need to get an Airport Extreme card right? How do I get bluetooth in too?

So basically, I'm looking for tips on upgrading this nice computer, which would help more? What should I get? Is there something better than newegg?

Thanks everyone!:D:apple:
 
Adding the Airport card is pretty easy, you just need a standard Airport Extreme card. Try to find the antenna attachment for your tower if you don't already have it (little T-shaped device that plugs into a special port on the back of the machine). Adding bluetooth is much harder if you want the OEM module; these were never sold in a kit to be added to that model.
 
Buy the Raptor HD / 10K rpm boot drive..

mlswanso3470 said:
I just recently purchased my new toy, a Power Mac G5... I'm curious about upgrading, I'm more than capable of doing it, but I'm used to the PC terms and hardware specs... so getting the right hardware that is compatible with the Power Mac is new to me.

I have:
1.8ghz single
2.5gb of RAM (2 x 1GB, 2 x 256MB)
160gb HD
no airport / bluetooth installed
10.5

I have limited money right now so what do you all think would be the first area I should upgrade? I would like to have a bigger, faster hard drive but I'm concerned about getting the right speeds. Most of the SATA drives on newegg are all 3gbps and I see the PM specs at 150mbps.... thoughts?
I'd also like more ram, my hope is that might improve the speed of the machine a little (which would be nice). But I'm not sure about brands for memory, I know that I need PC3200 though... thoughts?
For Airport, I need to get an Airport Extreme card right? How do I get bluetooth in too?

So basically, I'm looking for tips on upgrading this nice computer, which would help more? What should I get? Is there something better than newegg?

Thanks everyone!:D:apple:
Click to expand...




Since you have the older SATA interface, the best you could do is to go for Western Digital's Raptor 150 Gig drive which is the only 10K rpm drive right now, plus it is a 150Mb/s drive.
I use it a start up drive in my G4, that gives you killer speed and a SCSI like power for a small budget.
 
You could also upgrade the video card. The best one you can get is a 7800GT which i think is about 300 or so on ebay.
 
stinkey diver said:
You could also upgrade the video card. The best one you can get is a 7800GT which i think is about 300 or so on ebay.
Click to expand...

That was Quad G5 only. Since its PCI-E. Or are you referring to flashing a PC card? I don't think they made 7800GT's for AGP, a true AGP version. They came with a PCI-E bridge or something?

Remember all G5 are AGP except the Quad G5.
 
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