How much can I get for my G5?

[Mike Richardson]

This is the cheapest G5 I could find that didn't say Parts or Repair on it:

http://cgi.ebay.com/power-pc-g5_W0QQitemZ250494997439QQcmdZViewItemQQptZApple_Desktops?hash=item3a52aa53bf&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14#ht_500wt_1182

$247.50 - bidding type auction. someone got lucky

http://cgi.ebay.com/Apple-PowerMac-Dual-G5-1-8Ghz-512MB-MEM-160GB-HDD-FAST_W0QQitemZ290344109697QQcmdZViewItemQQptZApple_Desktops?hash=item4399db8681&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14#ht_5807wt_1167

$535 - Buy It Now.

Low End Mac Deals

1.8 GHz dual (PCI), $469, DV Warehouse

1.8 GHz dual (PCI-X), $500, Mac of All Trades

All of those are bone stock or almost stock.

I would put the value closer to $500, it's just that you can get a good deal on eBay, so depending on how you look at it, the value is less.

The G5 is still holding excellent value. How many 5 year old PCs do you know of that are still worth 25% of their original sale price? Most PCs that old are crushed. The G5 still has excellent functionality at this point and I think the only thing that will kill it off will be the mass proliferation of Intel-only apps.

Sometimes I wonder if Apple really does do things to try to make it hard to use old Macs. You spend $2000 on a Mac and it lasts for 7 years (assuming I can get another 2 years out of a G5 before hitting major Intel roadblocks) and Apple doesn't really like that. When this G5 is finally retired, I'll get an 8-core Mac Pro and I expect to get another 7 years unless they do something artificial to limit that.

 

[Christopher]

In about 10-15 years time they'll probably be making their own processors and video cards. Take that Hackintosh!

 

[MacManiac1701A]

Well on ebay I sold my G5 for 750.00+35.00 shipping.

 

[lighting]

That's about in line with average prices, considering I bought a dual 2.7 G5 for $550 on eBay sans video card and HDD.

Whoever was saying 1500 was way out. You can get an early Mac Pro for that.

 

[ClassicHasClass]

The best native video card you can get for it is the 7800GT 256MB. I believe this was only ever sold as a BTO option on a new dual core G5 so they're quite hard to find.
You can flash certain models of PC 7800 or 7900 with a Mac ROM, and that's usually the cheapest option.

I have also heard that X1800s will work in a G5 but I'm not 100% sure on that one.

My quad G5/2.5 (8GB RAM, etc) has a 7800GT. Money well spent. I intend to get a lot of wear out of this machine; it's served me well for 3 1/2 years already.

 

[Mike Richardson]

The best native video card you can get for it is the 7800GT 256MB. I believe this was only ever sold as a BTO option on a new dual core G5 so they're quite hard to find.
You can flash certain models of PC 7800 or 7900 with a Mac ROM, and that's usually the cheapest option.

I have also heard that X1800s will work in a G5 but I'm not 100% sure on that one.

My quad G5/2.5 (8GB RAM, etc) has a 7800GT. Money well spent. I intend to get a lot of wear out of this machine; it's served me well for 3 1/2 years already.

As long as we have some browsers still being developed, then PPC will be able to hold on for a good long time. Safari 4 is still compatible with old iMac G3s so it would be surprising to see them just hack off all PPCs in one fell swoop.

It looks like Flash Player 10.1 will support PPC eventually so that's good.

 

[ClassicHasClass]

The best native video card you can get for it is the 7800GT 256MB. I believe this was only ever sold as a BTO option on a new dual core G5 so they're quite hard to find.
You can flash certain models of PC 7800 or 7900 with a Mac ROM, and that's usually the cheapest option.

I have also heard that X1800s will work in a G5 but I'm not 100% sure on that one.

My quad G5/2.5 (8GB RAM, etc) has a 7800GT. Money well spent. I intend to get a lot of wear out of this machine; it's served me well for 3 1/2 years already.

As long as we have some browsers still being developed, then PPC will be able to hold on for a good long time. Safari 4 is still compatible with old iMac G3s so it would be surprising to see them just hack off all PPCs in one fell swoop.

It looks like Flash Player 10.1 will support PPC eventually so that's good.

Well, the end is near. Adobe AIR 2.0 won't support PPC anymore, for example, so I confidently expect Flash 11 to be x86 only. Myself, I'm gearing up to running off my own Caminos or Firefoxen in the same way I run off Classillas in the future, both because I use Tiger, and because this G5 -- one of the last, mind you, I bought it in 8/06 -- is now 3 1/2 years old, and frankly it's a cold Intel world out there. :-/

 

[Mike Richardson]

I don't think it would be too hard to keep a PPC build of Camino and/or Firefox going, assuming they don't start loading it up with x86 assembly or something. As long as they don't use any Snow Leopard specific features. Even if they went Leopard only (since who uses Tiger on Intel Macs still?) - then that still keeps it running on G4s and G5s.

 

[ClassicHasClass]

I don't think it would be too hard to keep a PPC build of Camino and/or Firefox going, assuming they don't start loading it up with x86 assembly or something. As long as they don't use any Snow Leopard specific features. Even if they went Leopard only (since who uses Tiger on Intel Macs still?) - then that still keeps it running on G4s and G5s.

I'm worried they're going to take a page from Google (the company I love to hate these days) and start using architecture-specific JavaScript JITs like V8, which currently only runs on x86 and ARM because -- supplies! -- no one has done the work to convert to POWER opcodes. Unfortunately, it's the next logical step.

Mozilla has had some internal discussions about causing the runtime to require some of 10.5's built-in APIs such as Core Data. That will hurt, because I need to use some Classic apps I have no substitute for (and I like OS 9), so I'm on 10.4 on my PowerPCs forever. What may have to happen is, like Classilla, I start backporting later code from "Gecko 2.0" or whatever to the Gecko 1.9.x that still runs on 10.4. Fortunately Firefox 3.6/Gecko 1.9.2 still does (I have to investigate Gecko 1.9.3).

 

[zerotypeq]

You can always dualboot between tiger and leopard.

 

[Mike Richardson]

I have 10.5 on my G5. I don't see why you should limit yourself to 10.4. Just get a nice souped up G4 to run your Classic apps, and then you can run them on the real OS 9 and not in the environment.

My OS 9 rig has a 1.8 GHz Single G4 processor (got lucky at the recycler one day) and 1 GB RAM. Since OS 9 can't use dual processors anyway the speed is actually faster than Classic Environment on my G5.

I'm worried they're going to take a page from Google (the company I love to hate these days) and start using architecture-specific JavaScript JITs like V8, which currently only runs on x86 and ARM because -- supplies! -- no one has done the work to convert to POWER opcodes. Unfortunately, it's the next logical step.

Does Safari 4 have a JavaScript JIT? I know it has some kind of faster JavaScript deal in it. That means they had to support PowerPC specifically, so hopefully we'll get to hold on to it for a little while. (or were they lazy bastards and just left in the old code for PPC???)

Mozilla has had some internal discussions about causing the runtime to require some of 10.5's built-in APIs such as Core Data.

What will it achieve though? They can store data some way right now so why change only the Mac version arbitrarily to "Core Data" when everyone else is using "some proprietary method" which works fine? I also thought Core Data was in Tiger.

 

[ClassicHasClass]

You can always dualboot between tiger and leopard.

That makes no sense; then I might as well use a different system that boots OS 9 and a KVM or something rather than boot into a lesser emulation. The whole point of Classic is not necessarily compatibility, though it is more compatible than SheepShaver, but that I can use Classic apps and my regular apps at the same time. Rebooting just to jump in and out of my favourite, wickedly fast audio editor is silly. Leopard doesn't have it, so it doesn't let me. Of any group out there, I'd understand this one to understand that at least. >

The other reason I don't use Leopard is purely the fact I think it looks worse. I really don't like the visual changes Apple made; getting rid of the pinstripes was a good thing, but Tiger has that, and I personally don't like the really deep greys and more garish control colours.

Mike, Safari 4 has probably an opcode-type JIT (it's been a long time since I looked at WebKit in detail) but I don't think it goes lower level than that right now. It's inevitable however. I don't know what to tell you about Mozilla's 10.5 support, you're asking me to justify the actions of an organization that I sometimes don't understand. (OTOH, I can see their being unwilling to not support an OS that Apple themselves now doesn't support other than probably a couple more odd iTunes, QT or Safari updates.)

 

[zerotypeq]

Well, if and when tiger loses modern browser support you still might want to get on the entire internet. A kvm is a great idea if you have the space for another machine and if so go right ahead.

 

[Mike Richardson]

Camino 2.0 just came out - still supports Tiger and PPC. Yay for now, I guess.

 

[QuadSix50]

Camino 2.0 just came out - still supports Tiger and PPC. Yay for now, I guess.

SeaMonkey 2.0 was also released, and the Mac version is just gorgeous! Also runs quite fast, but it seems that 10.4 is the minimal OS X supported.

http://www.seamonkey-project.org/

 

[macgeek417]

Grrr. I still use 10.3.9

 

[ClassicHasClass]

Well, if and when tiger loses modern browser support you still might want to get on the entire internet. A kvm is a great idea if you have the space for another machine and if so go right ahead.

Or I roll my own browser. Which, of course, I have *never* done before.

 

[Mike Richardson]

Grrr. I still use 10.3.9

Any Mac that can run Panther can run Tiger, that's the thing. Even a Power Macintosh 7500 with a G3 card can run Tiger.

Tiger may be the most compatible OS Apple has ever released. 1995-1997 (with a CPU upgrade) and 1997-2007 (stock CPU).

It's sort of a special version of OS X. It still runs Classic Environment, it runs on so many different Macs, it still has AppleTalk printers.

Leopard is also quite compatible too. I've never heard of it running on a beige Mac but it can run on a Blue G3 with a G4 upgrade and a video card upgrade. So that gives you 1999 (with CPU upgrade) and 2000-2009 with non upgradable G3 Macs excluded. You don't even have to use any hacks at all except for one Open Firmware change if your CPU is less than 867 MHz.

Compare these to Snow Leopard, which runs on 2006 and up. That's why it's such a a harsh cutoff in comparison.

 

[macgeek417]

...but upgrading would require pulling money out of my MacBook savings!