Getting a New G5 Tower

midnightz · Apr 7th, 2006, 11:39 AM

Hi all-

I am getting myself and my wife new towers and was curious what you think of the Macs. I am a Super Power user and my wife is not as much as she does ordinary things on hers now. I am starting to get the beach ball of death (BBOD) on Safari, Suitcase and Sherlock (Hmmm, all 'S'-odd!). I always upgrade myself last from servers to home units.

I can still get the older Duals as well from my local place and then of course there are the new G5 Towers.

This would be the configurations I am looking at the Dual-core 2.3GHz PowerPC G5 or the Two dual-core 2.5GHz PowerPC G5 processors.

The blue tooth is sort of odd, but hope not to expensive to put in.

I have a Radeon 9800 in the tower I will be replacing, but its a G4 and probably non compatible. I might just in that case set up the g4 as slave for Photoshop tasks or keep it just in case

something happens.

The price is pulled from Apple site (you know its over-priced)

This would be my setup for a 2.5 Quad:

Specifications

2.5GHz Quad-core PowerPC G5
2GB 533 DDR2 ECC SDRAM- 2x1GB
250GB Serial ATA - 7200rpm
NVIDIA GeForce 6600 256MB SDRAM
AirPort Extreme + Bluetooth built-in
16x SuperDrive DL (DVD+R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)

$4,248.00

OR

Specifications

2.3GHz Dual-core PowerPC G5
2GB 533 DDR2 ECC SDRAM- 2x1GB
250GB Serial ATA - 7200rpm
NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT 256 MB SDRAM
AirPort Extreme + Bluetooth built-in
16x SuperDrive DL (DVD+R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW)

$3,448.00

----------------------------------------

At any given time I will have running:

Terminal and various small apps
Photoshop, GoLive, Dreamweaver and Illustrator
Entourage
rBrowser
SSH Shell
iChat
Safari and Firefox\
VPC with XP (on occasion but you can stream musicchoice.com)
BBEDIT

And tons of dual monitor madness.

What are you opinions on what G5 to Buy and what are the downfalls of each, esp. since the Quad might be fast but have bugs.

Thanks

MacAndy · Apr 7th, 2006, 12:28 PM

Hi, just a quick tongue-in-cheek comment... unless you're an Apple Certified Tech or use something like Cocktail on your Mac each and every time you do something, you will not be able to ward off the beachball of death regardless of how fast that gorgeous new tower is rated. The software and slower RAM will each find ways of making your blisteringly fast tower [when doing non-application-related things] chug to the tune of a MacLC II.

Since the OS is incapable of preventing problems like permissions errors and font/pref/hard drive corruption the beachball of death will continue to be a regular guest on your monitor.

Sorry to rain on your parade, I had a brand new iMac G5 die on me and various other issues in the past three weeks that have turned me into a spiteful old curmudgeon. I was pretty much spiteful and old to begin with, this just helped things along.

I hope you enjoy your new toys.

midnightz · Apr 7th, 2006, 12:49 PM

I haven't purchased any yet but the BBOD is annoying to say the least. I love my machine its a workhorse but it is old. I was thinking of slaving the old tower to the new to do background thinking. I am old school Apple certified but not in the new hardware as its not my primary focus. Cocktail is cool, but I can do alot of that stuff via the terminal.

RISCHead · Apr 7th, 2006, 03:25 PM

I would wait (if at all possible) for the intel versions to be announced.
That will cause a price drop on the Dual/Quad G5 PMs and you might be able to pick up for cheaper than now.
Additionally, you would also have the option of going for the new ones

and triple-boot with Windows and Linux - I have no idea if this is desirable for you or not, but simply given the current slew of Bootcamp posts, its probably worth a mention.

If you're a power user and know how to run your system, I wouldn't worry about bbod.
I've been running my Dual G5 PM for nearly 2 yrs now and no significant bbod issues.

[Edit]: For what you want to run, I would throw more than 2 GB of RAM at it. More like 4GB. I would get the base quad - you're unlikely to be CPU bound with that.
I wouldn't worry about chipset issues with the quads - the G5s are based on Power4 technology - the current state of the art is Power5+, and IBM's been making multi-core Power chips for a while now, though the PowerPC970MP is new for last year.
Certainly given the $$ you're planning to throw at this, I would watch and wait for the intel line to be released - give or take another6-12 months.

CanadaRAM · Apr 7th, 2006, 03:38 PM

Please do not take MacAndy's post seriously.
He is (tongue in cheek, he qualified) extrapolating a unique personal experience which, in my opinion, cannot be generalized across the Macintosh line.

For your configurations, I would suggest (of course) that you buy only the minimal RAM from Apple, and get reputable third-party RAM with a longer warranty and a lower price. I have yet to be convinced of the benefit of ECC RAM over nonECC RAM unless you are running a server or an engineering workstation.

Thanks
Trevor
CanadaRAM.com

RISCHead · Apr 7th, 2006, 03:44 PM

	Quote:			Originally Posted by CanadaRAM
	Please do not take MacAndy's post seriously. He is (tongue in cheek, he qualified) extrapolating a unique personal experience which, in my opinion, cannot be generalized across the Macintosh line. For your configurations, I would suggest (of course) that you buy only the minimal RAM from Apple, and get reputable third-party RAM with a longer warranty and a lower price. I have yet to be convinced of the benefit of ECC RAM over nonECC RAM unless you are running a server or an engineering workstation. Thanks Trevor CanadaRAM.com

Agreed, I wouldn't bother with ECC RAM for home use.

midnightz · Apr 7th, 2006, 03:59 PM

	Quote:			Originally Posted by RISCHead
	I would wait (if at all possible) for the intel versions to be announced. That will cause a price drop on the Dual/Quad G5 PMs and you might be able to pick up for cheaper than now. Additionally, you would also have the option of going for the new ones and triple-boot with Windows and Linux - I have no idea if this is desirable for you or not, but simply given the current slew of Bootcamp posts, its probably worth a mention. If you're a power user and know how to run your system, I wouldn't worry about bbod. I've been running my Dual G5 PM for nearly 2 yrs now and no significant bbod issues. [Edit]: For what you want to run, I would throw more than 2 GB of RAM at it. More like 4GB. I would get the base quad - you're unlikely to be CPU bound with that. I wouldn't worry about chipset issues with the quads - the G5s are based on Power4 technology - the current state of the art is Power5+, and IBM's been making multi-core Power chips for a while now, though the PowerPC970MP is new for last year. Certainly given the $$ you're planning to throw at this, I would watch and wait for the intel line to be released - give or take another6-12 months.

The Intel G5 towers are slated for around Sept - October for 1st generation and surely will have some vaporware burps. The second generation somwehere in mid 2007 to be perfected, the reason I am looking at the Dual Core 2.3. I guess when the Intel G5 Towers do come out, I will just sell this one if I get it or slave it.

I agree on the RAM as well on non ecc and at 4 GB's because of the load that I throw on them when in production.

I am between the two towers, I have the quottes where I am located with tax (8.25%) for the dual 2.3 at 3,259 to 3,502 (the lower with standard video card) with tax that is for 4.5 GB's and NV 7800.

RISCHead · Apr 7th, 2006, 04:09 PM

agreed on the burps - but ya know that at least some people on this board will be dumping their G5 towers

and you will get a deal - plus its also likely that the retailers will try to move the G5 towers (likely with some pricing discounts) to make room for the intel line - so if you can ride out the summer, buy yourself a nice christmas gift of two G5 towers plus something extra with the cash left over

Of course, if $$ is no issue (may very well not be, just me being cheap) or if you truly need it now, then go for it.
Buy stock and upgrade yourself - CanadaRAM makes valid points about memory purchasing practice - though if you're experienced at this, you certainly know what to do.

ender78 · Apr 8th, 2006, 05:45 PM

If you're looking at two machines, I would recommend one Dual/Quad for the Photoshop work and an Intel iMac for the wife. Regradless of when the Pro Intel Mac's arrive, availability of Photoshop CS3 will be the big open question. For everyday use, I would buy an Intel iMac any day.

Lawrence · Apr 8th, 2006, 07:32 PM

It's a shame that Sonnet doesn't have an intel processor upgrade card for the G5 yet,
I guess we'll have to wait until after the fact before anything pops up out of the wood work.

D