Buying a Power Mac G5...

[kevintroy]

I've ALWAYS wanted to own a genuine mac and I can't really afford the price tag of them, anyway I was on eBay and I came across this:

 

click me

 

I was wondering, how well would this system work if I installed SL (10.6)? I would mainly be using the computer for general internet surfing and light photoshop use (making avatars and signatures, nothing too resource consuming) and listening to music/watching youtube videos. My aims are to buy it for the £250, buying some extra ram for it and attaching my 500GB external hard drive. sound good? that way I have a mac that is half decent and have only spent around £300/350 once I add RAM.

 

Can I just buy any DDR ram and stick it in? or does it have to be Apple's own brand five-times-the-normal-price ram?

[Nameci]

I am not sure about the RAM, but most is that RAM should come in matched pairs. Better still if you could find a PowerMac G5 2.3 Dual Core not the Dual processor one. You cannot install Snow Leopard, SL are for Intels only. The latest that you can install is Leopard.

 

See my sig.

[flakmonkey]

The 2.0GHz dual processor G5s are more than capable of running all of the UB apps in CS4 very well, we have one here doing just that and its a very useable bit of kit. Getting as much RAM in there as you can afford is essential. The G5s are very picky with their memory, avoid the cheap stuff at all costs unless you enjoy kernel panics and go for Crucial or Kingston branded PC-3200 memory for uni- and dual - processor models. ScrumpyMacs usually have fairly good deals on 2GB pairs.

 

It looks like the G5 you're looking at is the earlier dual 2.0 which will take up to 8GB of memory, but I'm not too sure about that 64MB graphics card in there for photoshop use. You wont be able to use the advanced GPU features with that card, you're better off with a 256MB card if you can find a G5 fitted with one (they tend to be quite rare) or a 128MB card and use the "allowoldGPUs" plug-in from Adobe. GPU upgrades aren't cheap on these so for that reason I'd be inclined to look for another G5 such as this late 2005 one: http://tinyurl.com/36mkdya. That will have a 4GB max RAM limit and standard 3.3V PCI slots but that's still enough for CS4 which is the latest you can run on a PPC Mac. Grab one of these whilst you're about it too: http://tinyurl.com/35oveq4.

 

If you find a 2.0 dual-core or a quad core G5 in your price range then go for it, the lowliest 2.0 dual-core is around 15% faster than the 2.0 dual processor G5 and the dual core G5s can take up to 16GB of PC-4200 DDR2 memory and come with the much faster PCIe bus.

 

Whatever you get you're going to end up with something very useable and the G5s were beautifully screwed together machines that should give you plenty of service.