Just bought a dual G5 to replace a 700MHz eMac, so obviously I'm far from the bleeding edge... I don't see myself needing to upgrade in the next 3-5 years (unless I get filthy rich in the meantime).

I don't even have a G4 yet!

Dual 1.8 GHz Power Mac G5 purchased new - August 2004. Still running strong 5 years later as my daily Mac.

I don't anticipate needing to upgrade until the release of Mac OS 10.7 - and then I'll just hand it down to my Mom (currently on an iMac G5 1.8 GHz single processor).

If it counts, I have an iMac G5, and the last time I bought a real mac was back in 2005. Old iBook G4 that I destroyed, I have never purchased one of my more recent macs.

how much further can ANY software company go with OS's... I mean really OS's are ment to RUN programs...

Look at some people who are still running OS 6 on a mac classic or a SE/30... 7.5.6 on a performa.... 8.0 on a 9600....look at os 9.2.2 I have that on my AIO and it is fast and snappy and it runs the internet VERY well...and people are happily running and doing pretty much the basic tasks that people with 4K machines are doing...but doing it on 15-20 year old Macs...

If you figure that out you know how much money they saved not being into LAGS? ALOT.....

It's just like little johnny needs a new computer so mommy and daddy buy him one and 3K monster just to write emails and play a game....Duh!!!

Man I remember when I was younger 16 (in 1982) and if I asked my parents to buy me a computer,,,, they would of said, "Go Get A Job" and save up for it... Not today, parents give their kids everything and the kids "don't have to save up"...

it's funny I was thinking people upgrade color classics (I had one) and they run the internet or word, excel... and actually the startup's of the old OS's are so much faster because of the fact there is no BIG requirements on overhead, like there is now...

what's next in 10.7? just an update... just like 10.6 is... companies look for the bottom line, making money, apple is not different...

Then apple will release 10.7 that can run NATIVELY on PC's and the Mac machines will be so much cheaper B/C of that... That will cheapen Apple So much in my opinion... but they make more money on iPods, iPhones....

Bleeding edge... not me... I bought a few NEW macs and tell you the truth the used ones worked out better...#1: cheaper, #2: can run all the apps everyone else can, #3: Did I mention it was cheaper, more money in MY pocket. not corporate...

Don't get me wrong, I Love Apple, I work on Macs and PC's (for 17 years) and I hate PC's..... Like I say to People PC's S*ck!!!!!

And some people say it's a status thing... not to me... PC's just S*ck!!!!!!!!! all around.... Mac's rule!!!!

To add to my original post:

I will be upgrading to the 8-core Mac Pro when I finally retire my G5. I fully expect 6-7 years of continuous service from such a machine.

I got a Dual 1.8Ghz G5 w/ 1GB (4x256MB) RAM and a 160GB HDD off of Craigslist for $240 (was 280)

Runs great. Did a few upgrades. Swapped the 160 for a 1TB Green HDD (Western Digital) and threw in 6GB RAM (4x 1GB and 4x 512MB). Also swapped the DVD-+RW for a faster one (4 speed DVD-+RW Before, 16x now w/ DL burning).

Also swapped the video card (AGP 8x Pro GeForce 5200GT w/ 64VRAM for a Flashed GeForce 6200 w/ 256MB GDDR2 VRAM)

Rocks now!

To add to my original post:
I will be upgrading to the 8-core Mac Pro when I finally retire my G5. I fully expect 6-7 years of continuous service from such a machine.

Click to expand...

Well, when you retire your G5, they may be up to a 12-core Mac Pro. (See http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=3645, "Gulftown")

Speed is of coarse the driving factor for most using the Mac Pro. I think the loss of PPC support will eventually get a lot of people to move on once Apple stops releasing security updates and whatnot for Leopard. Also, I would bet that many developers are going to quit coding PPC software here very shortly as well. Adobe is one of the big ones for sure. You also have to keep in mind a lot of Mac Pro users aren't just buying a $3000+ system to watch YouTube. Many of these people are professionals who use the computer to make money, so they need faster Macs that run newer software. Many of these people got rid of their G5's years ago. The pro user is more likely to upgrade more frequently than the guy who buys a budget Mac just for home use.

I bought the last of the G5s, a dual core with 7800GT and 2.5 GB of RAM when it was brand new.

It was a great machine, but with the switch to Intel suddenly $500-1000 worth of PC parts made a much better Mac than you could buy from Apple. I sold it last year and have been using a Hack as my main machine ever since.

I hopefully can keep my G5 for a long time, I Love the design.... simplistic and tough...

I recieved my Mac Mini from Ebay Mini 2009 model and it seems that my G5 is just as fast, my info is in my sig...

Can you imagine if apple ever went back to PPC Chips.... PPC IS faster than intel X86... If there was a NEW PPC chip for Mac in 2009 it would be alot faster...

Think of this...

If the G5 Chip had 4MB Cache per core.... how fast would it be? FAST!!!!!!

I think the main problem with PowerPC is that the G4 was stuck at around 1.6 GHz, and the G5 was just too hot and power hungry to ever put into a laptop.

the reason why Apple didn't keep going with the G5...


There are 6 parts to it...

in the end it's Jobs that said "Apple And Microsoft need each other"

Dual 1.8 GHz Power Mac G5 purchased new - April 2004 IIRC. Upgraded to 1.5 GiB and OS 10.5, still going strong. I hope to upgrade to a Mini next spring/summer, but that may not happen.

Still going strong, why get a mini?

a newer vid card for the G5, more memory and a faster HDD... come to about 250.00 and more speed...

That is what I did and my G5 screams... 16GB ram the max in the machine, ATI X1900 and 2 HDD's with 16Mb MB and one with 32MB cache...

I would not switch to a Mac mini:

- slower, more expensive hard drive and more expensive optical drive (if you ever want to replace it)

- only one HD and one optical drive

- non-upgradable non-discreet graphics card

- non-upgradable CPU (the newest ones do not use a socketed CPU anymore)

- hard to upgrade memory

- lower RAM ceiling (maybe your processor is fast enough, but you run out of memory)

All of these things lead the Mac mini to have a much shorter useful lifespan. The Mac Pro (or G5) can be upgraded and last a lot longer.

While the G5 can still be useful, there's already an OS and software it won't run. The Mac Mini is faster than his G5. The MacPro of course would be a lot better but it's 4 times the price of the mini.

Yes, the hard drive in a mini is slow but it still boots faster than a G5. It would have been nice if Apple had made the case slightly larger and fitted a 3.5" drive. Still, plug in a FireWire 800 drive and boot off it and you'll really see the G5 look sluggish.

While the G5 can still be useful, there's already an OS and software it won't run. The Mac Mini is faster than his G5. The MacPro of course would be a lot better but it's 4 times the price of the mini.

Yes, the hard drive in a mini is slow but it still boots faster than a G5. It would have been nice if Apple had made the case slightly larger and fitted a 3.5" drive. Still, plug in a FireWire 800 drive and boot off it and you'll really see the G5 look sluggish.

I have a 7200 rpm drive in my G5 and it boots Leopard faster than my 5400 rpm MacBook Pro boots Snow Leopard. I can plug a new SATA drive in 5 minutes and get 150 MB/sec. With the mini you can plug FW800 and get 80 MB/sec or spend half an hour to replace the internal hard drive.

A Mac mini with an SSD might be cool though. Use the SSD to boot and have all your apps and everything and use an external FW800 for bulk file storage and backups. Mac mini has 300 MB/sec SATA so it would be fast.

and are you going to move to Macpro..?
do you see benefits of ditching your machine in favor of a macpro (besides speed)...?

How often do you buy Mac's?

Jim

Click to expand...

Hiya Jim.

Actually I have an MacPro '08 first and recently I'd acquired a PPC G5 - i know that's not normal... lol

Usually I'll buy a Mac when I discover there's something I need... could be a speed bump or a dedicated machine for a simple task..

In this case, I just need a machine to download stuff. The G5 was cheaper than a MacMini.

The Powermac G5 is no where near obsolete...

I use my PMG5 more than I use my new Mac mini...

it is snappier than the mini...

Don't get me wrong the mini is great but I prefer the G5.

And I finally aquired a PCI-E WiFi card to replace the USB WiFi, the PCI-E is alot faster than the USB and it came with 2 antenna's and it's a B,G and N card.

that is one of the most unfair comparisons ever...

"snappier..."

let's see.. you have a VERY modern, fast, high cache 1TB 3.5" drive in the G5...

16GB ram...

and you're comparing it to a 120gb laptop drive in a 2gb ram equipped system...

that mini will school the g5 in calculations hands down, but your over-equipping a horribly dated system with an absurd set of upgrades.. then comparing it to a stock mini.. big surprise what's faster...

this isn't even bringing into play the fact the g5 has a dedicated video card and the mini has integrated graphics.. on the upside, your x1900's shader level is pitiful by comparison, but ohhh, you're comparing apples to sour grapes since it can't run directx games anyway...

let's also take into consideration system cost... that G5's config would have been well over 3-4000$ easy when new given that ram alone (i'm out of touch with apple pro workstation prices)... and a mini is an entrylevel system priced and build from componets at a cost to the consumer of.. 600$?

edit:

as for being obsolete.. that g5 is long past obsolete.

will it run most modern Apple "PRO" apps, for which it was designed? NO

will it run current operating system from ANY vendor? NO

will it connect to modern display technology? NO

will it waste more power booting up that that mini will consume running all evening long? YES

edit x2:

now, this doesnt mean the g5 is a bad machine per se, just that it's NOT a viable example of modern computing anymore. as such, you should feel proud to have one fo the fastest "vintage" macs out there... but you, and a number of other users dead set on the superiority of ppc need to realize that the rest of the world abd apple has moved on, and if you can't jive with the fact that apple doesn't make computers the way you like them anymore (read; hot, loud, and ppc), perhaps you need to either not buy another computer again and figure out what you're going to do in 20 years when the g5 gives out, or deal with the fact that you're on unsupported hardware from this point out, and apple and the rest of the entire software world who have been waiting for 3+ years now for apple to kick the ppc's out of their support lineup, so that we can finally have an os optimized to MODERN cpu's, really don't care about a single thing that's going on in the legacy ppc world.

You know, there is a *big* difference between 'being obsolete' and 'being usable'. The G5 is very obsolete in computing terms, but its still usable

I typed up a big long post, and the forum software ate it, and I don't feel like typing it again.

That's fine, I didn't have time to read it anyway

It was something like this:

1. obsolete - who cares

2. pro apps - only recently, and the older version doesn't become invalid and worthless upon release of newer version

3. yellow dog linux

4. define "modern display technology". exists DVI > HDMI and DVI > MiniDisplayPort adapters.

5. concession on this point - G5 eats a lot of power

Thanks for the abridged version... I'm totally with you on points 1, 2 and 5. Don't know about 4 (I thought DVI was current technology), and I'm not going to say anything about Linux since I'm perfectly happy running Tiger, which IMHO is the best modern OS I've ever used.

For: Defor:

You can say what you want that is your opinion and that's fine.

But my point it that I don't have 3-5K to keep up with the LAGS (Latest and greatest Syndrome) I have more important things in my life like my 3 yr old daughter than to worry or spend money upgrading year after year.

My post about the PMG5 being snappier, yes it is so what?

My PMG5 runs everything I need to pro apps included... Do you upgrade Hardware and software every other year?

There are alot of people who cannot or will not upgrade year over year B/C technology changes so much that one can go broke keeping up, do you upgrade your car every 2 years? does it stop working after 2 years, after 4 years?

I have been in the I.T sector for 17 years and even companies that have DTP and web designers are still running G5's and cranking out work, some are running G4's also and they get the same results.

There are people running older versions of Office, photoshop on Color classics, 6400's, 6500's, PM G3's, PMG4's and getting the same results albeit slower.

Games are another story..

OS'es... one does not need to upgrade to the newest os'es everytime a new one comes out, why would you need to? 10.5.8 is fine for my PMG5. There are some features that were taken out from 10.6 that I do not like..

The upgrades to my G5; well it's maxed out, I won't run out of memory, the HDD's are fast I need to get a 1.4 TB hdd for the 2d drive bay to replace the 400GB B/C I need the space; and the graphics are fast, not the up to date but the machine as a whole is fast and I like it, works for me and that all that matters.

That beats the heck out of shelling 3-5K for a new machine.

It eats power... well so do G4's also... My PS in this machine is 600watts... ok the mini eats up 100 watts... the mac pro eats up; "Mac Pro 980W Power Supply"

My Dual 2.7 G5 is more than powerful enough for what I do - lots of CAD, some 3d rendering and light photo and SD video editing. So far, I see no reason to upgrade to an intel system, there are no killer apps that are intel only and I have an intel hackbook for the rare occasion I might want to run an intel only program.

I can't afford $5k every two years or even $10k every four just to keep up with apple's latest and greatest, and it doesn't seem necessary.

My only complaint is that the G5 is a space heater (idle temps around 51 degrees C), so I have to run AC more often than I'd like... but I don't expect a similarly specced mac pro to be any better.

Ok, so in this thread or another one I said I sold my G5 and bought a Mac Mini... I was NOT impressed with the Mini.

People said it would run circles around the G5, Somethings it did somethings it didn't.

And snow leopard, yawn.... just an update....

So I recently bought off of ebay a PMG5 2.3 Dual core for 460.00 + 45.00 shipping.

I know the debate about the latest and greatest but I have all of the software I need and quite frankly I do not need the LAGS...

I sold the Mac Mini and turned a profit.

Call me nutty but so be it....