I did not say that your G5 was not useful, or even that a new Mini is inherently more useful, I just said that benchmarks indicate that unless you need 16gb of ram (and can accept slower ram at that) that the Mini is computationally far faster than that machine. It happens all the time. I have machines of various types that would've cost not just $3,000, but $30,000 (albeit in 1998, not 2005) and they're still as useful as they were the day they were new.

As far as PCs and Macs go. x86/Windows based PCs can be just as useful for just as long as a Mac. (if not longer, see below) I've got a machine that was new (and admittedly, slow computationally) in 2003 as my main server, and if I wanted to load Windows onto it, it'd technically be able to do everything my newest machine does, it would just take longer.

It just happens that my newer machines do it all faster and use less energy doing it.

My particular example is a bit less extreme. Another PC I have was new in late '05 and similarly to the G5, is useful and would be able to stand in as my main machine, so there's no questioning that for right now, a G5 would be able to be a main machine.

(below)

The question is how long. Mac OS X has an extremely bad history of longevity in terms of new software. 2003's 10.3 can't run but firefox 2, which admittedly runs on Windows NT4, whereas 1999's Windows 2000 will run the latest firefox.

The 9400, while good for a integrated GPU, is definitely not faster than a card like a X1900. It's roughly the same speed as a dedicated X1600, maybe a little slower than a 7800.

That being said, some games might well run better on the mini.

My games work well under the mac mini, as I sold the G5 on ebay for 750.00 + 35.00 shipping.

Given the fact that the G5 was a good computer it was also huge and no-a-days I'd like the smallest computer.

The mini is 2lbs the G5 48lbs.

480 watts for the G5; 100 watts for the mini...

I also scored a Powerbook 17" not the hi rez model 1.67Ghz on ebay for 465.00, it's in perfect condition. it came with 1 gb ram but I bumped it to 2GB, the 100 gb hdd is fine for me B/C when I sold the G5 I kept the 1tb HDD and sold it with the 400GB hdd.

I bought a mini stack v3 from owc and installed the 1tb in that so I use it for the powerbook and the mini, I boot off the 1tb as that was my main drive on the G5 where I had everything.

I pretty much got rid of all my computers, what I had 2 months ago to now.

2 months ago I had PMG5, Powermac AIO, Powerbook 15" hi rez (but that was in ok shape, there were dents and such it was from craigslist) and a Compaq presairo 15.4" screen with an AMD processor (wasn't that fast at all)

Sold them bought the mini (that can do windows) and the 17" powerbook.

That was a cleanout as to what I needed as opposed to what I wanted..and the mini has applecare on it and when I bought the PB on ebay the squaretrade warrantee was 47.00 for a year so I got it... don't kick in until 12/14/2009 to 12/14/2010.

The extra money I made on all of that I put into my savings...

So I can honestly say the Mac Mini IS faster than the G5, it runs m games faster and smoother, Adobe runs alot faster...

I don't use the internal hdd I use the FW800 connected to the mini with my 1TB hdd.