Geeks Special - Quad G5?

[duewix]

Hey Everyone,

Not sure if anyone saw this but on geeks.com, they are selling refurbished quad-core G5 powermacs for $379. I have ordered from them before and have always been happy. Plus, getting this particular model with some semblance of a warranty is appealing to me.

What do you guys think of the price?

 

[spiceyokooko]

Why would anyone want to buy a quad-core G5 would probably be a better question :b&w:

The G5 was just a stop-gap between the older G4's and the newer Intel processors and as such it wasn't a particularly good stop gap.

 

[ClassicHasClass]

Why would anyone want to buy a quad-core G5 would probably be a better question

Here we go again.

To the OP, $379 is on the face a reasonable price. They can still do a lot, and the quads had fewer issues with their LCS and power supply than the other G5s.

 

[duewix]

Yes, I agree that for production, a Quad G5 would not be my first pick. That's why I have a Mac Pro (and a small heard of PCs, etc). However, I think the majority of us, at some level, have certain systems that we have always wanted and would love to add to our collection for purposes of tinkering, exploring or simply admiring. Most of us cannot fulfill all our computing needs with a IIfx and rocket but we'd love to have one.

To drill down to the root of my question, I guess I am asking if one wanted a Quad G5, should one by the one I mentioned or wait for a better deal?

 

[Hrududu]

$379 would probably be a better deal if it didn't have only 512MB of RAM and a 250GB hard drive. I got mine more than a year ago for $80 less.

 

[uniserver]

i would just want to know what was refurbished,

The delphi liquid cooling system?

Re-Flow the BGA memory processor on the back of the main board?

maybe bad hd?

but i guess a warranty is nice

 

[Unknown_K]

It probably was just cleaned and tested working.

Quad G5s will probably come down to $150-175 or so in a year or two but that is probably the lower limit and will become collectable for being the last PPC Mac after that.

Like anything else it depends how fast/bad you want it.

 

[Byrd]

It's still a beast, both in performance and power usage, but I agree with Unknown_K in that you're buying it most likely as a collectable, as opposed to a machine that can be used for a good few years yet. If you want "that machine", you can pick up Mac Pros for a few hundred more, much more versatile units and even the 1,1 models are still decent (and cheaply upgraded to something much better).

Most Quads have died, and those that haven't been serviced/overhauled now will most likely go too. In a few years time, owning the "last, great PPC" that works will be a good collection piece.

 

[uniserver]

iv got a dual G5 2.7ghz,

I'm always looking for leeks.

it's a little annoying waiting for your computer to break

 

[Cory5412]

If you have to have a quad G5 for whatever reason (collecting, whatever) -- then I suppose any price you're willing to pay is the right price, but I'm on the "there are far better computers for $380" train, myself.

Hell, the new chromebox will outperform most if not all of the G5s, computationally, at this point, and its OS will be receiving updates for at least two years, depending on if Google/Samsung can sell any.

 

[CelGen]

From what I have heard, the second revision of the G5 where they started using PCI Express they got a lot of the previous issues with leaks and ROHS garbage sorted out. They even figured out how to locate the antennas too so that they wern't stuck in in a missive grounded box. From my last job it showed too because out of the many dead G5's we got in we never saw a Rev 2. We only ever heard of them being used by other people with no signs of trouble. I'd totally pay that much for a quad G5. It gives you the fastest possible PowerPC mac you can get with Classic backwards compatibility with damn near everything and it will last almost forever as well.

 

[ClassicHasClass]

The quad has among the lowest rate of LCS failures, but that doesn't mean it doesn't fail, of course. However, my hard-working quad has been running without significant issue since when I bought it new, doing tasks ranging from basic browsing to building TenFourFox and editing HD video. It helps that it is in a low-dust room and has ample ventilation.

 

[mac2geezer]

If someone is really looking for a Quad G5, Richard Martin over on Lemswap has a couple for less than $250, shipped.

 

[register]

It gives you the fastest possible PowerPC mac you can get with Classic backwards compatibility with damn near everything and it will last almost forever as well.

Do not forget that you need to stick with 10.4 instead of 10.5 if you need Apple's Classic support. As SheepShaver on recent Intel gear is a well working solution I would think twice if I wanted to buy outdated hardware to run the emulation of an even older system software.

 

[ClassicHasClass]

"well working" ? Sheepshaver has significant compatibility problems with most OS 9 apps, far more than Classic does, particularly with respect to games. And without MMU support, it will never run anything later than 9.0.4.

If I just had 68K software, Basilisk II works reasonably well for that. But if you have PPC software, particularly software from the OS 8 and 9 era, Sheepshaver is very hit-and-miss. I couldn't even get it to install OS 8.6 without a lot of screaming and fiddling. I'm surprised it runs Classilla as well as it does.

I appreciate Sheepshaver for what it is, but as an emulator, it's no good for any serious use and certainly no substitute for Classic or a real, honest-to-Vishnu OS 9 Mac.

 

[register]

I apologize for missing some SheepShavers malfunctions. I use it for a special drawing application I purchased years ago and it works perfectly well for that purpose, very stable and fast. The current vendor of the software asks half a Kilobuck for an OS X version of the software that combines any bug of the old version with a few cosmetic adaptions. So I keep at using the old version. The only annoyance for me is that SheepShaver does not support recent trackpads well (at least using Lion). But with an iMate adapter you could just use an old ADB mouse and a Wacom pad, which also provides a perfect classic tactile feedback.

Recommendation for PPC users that are interested in using old software on recent hardware: Visit the Macintosh Emulation site (E-Maculation). Undergo the inconvenience to install SheepShaver and check if it might be a solution in your case. Note the existence of SheepShaver Wrapper and installation instructions ;-) A usable ROM file can be obtained from a System install CD. Be aware of the fact that even experienced comrades encounter difficulties and that SheepShaver has some bugs, so it might turn out not to meet your needs.

After I made it to the point of running SheepShaver it was quite easy to replace the default Mac OS installation by my preferred setup. I just copied my preconfigured System Folder into a place where it is accessible for SheepShaver at startup and selected the Mac OS implementation with the Startup Drive control panel (the late version lets you pick one of several System Folders on the same volume).

 

[CJ_Miller]

I am looking forward to getting a quad G5. My current fastest macs are my last-generation OS 9 machines - MDD and TiBook DVI. My quad i7 has a MacOS partition which is handy for everyday use, but not for production. This year I am definitely getting a quad G5 for running my last-generation PPC Mac software, the bus speed will be a huge improvement over my G4s.