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MDD 2003 vs G5 1.8 single
- Thread starter senrew
- Start date
Macdrone
Well-known member
Whichever unit is not giving you problems. The G5 runs hot and is more prone to failure, but is newer so with SATA and faster bus speed probably feels quicker. I dont do anything heavy with my PPC's these days so I dont see much difference. You may depending what your doing with them.
novusgordo
Well-known member
For OS X, I'd probably choose Leopard on the G5. The MDD would be better as a Tiger/9.2 dual-boot. Also, the MDD power supplies are notoriously troublesome.
TheWhiteFalcon
Well-known member
Neither machine is super reliable, TBH. The 2004 1.8GHz was one of the least reliable G5's, but the MDD's on average aren't much better.
If you don't need more than two disks or one optical drive, and you don't care about running OS9 natively I'd pick the G5 though. Most of the failures on the SP 1.8 2004 seem to be ancillary components:
If you don't need more than two disks or one optical drive, and you don't care about running OS9 natively I'd pick the G5 though. Most of the failures on the SP 1.8 2004 seem to be ancillary components:
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novusgordo
Well-known member
Any way to mitigate that if you do get a working unit?
TheWhiteFalcon
Well-known member
Hrududu
Well-known member
Tiger will run pretty nicely on either machine, and Leopard will run pretty well on both too I would imagine. The G5 advantage is of course the MUCH faster system bus, double the RAM, and more graphics card & SATA HDD options. If I were to pick, I'd of course go G5 in this situation. Now if that is a dual 1.25 or 1.42 G4, things may be a little different.
Get both and benchmark 'em!
There used to be talk about late G4s being faster and feeling faster than early G5s, and that would be a perfect opportunity to test them.
But, it ultimately depends on what you want to do. I believe that G5 also has a higher RAM ceiling, and so if you're going for OS X, that's the no-brainer.
But, the MDD is really probably where you want to be for OS 9. The only better configuration I can think of for any work that's CPU-heavy in OS 9 is the fastest single-upgraded QuickSilver you can get, which will run 1.5GB of RAM and should be easier to get and set up and waste less hardware (aka entire second idling CPU) than the faster MDD configs.
There used to be talk about late G4s being faster and feeling faster than early G5s, and that would be a perfect opportunity to test them.
But, it ultimately depends on what you want to do. I believe that G5 also has a higher RAM ceiling, and so if you're going for OS X, that's the no-brainer.
But, the MDD is really probably where you want to be for OS 9. The only better configuration I can think of for any work that's CPU-heavy in OS 9 is the fastest single-upgraded QuickSilver you can get, which will run 1.5GB of RAM and should be easier to get and set up and waste less hardware (aka entire second idling CPU) than the faster MDD configs.
senrew
Well-known member
Well, I've got both up and running. The G5 is running Leopard, the MDD has Tiger. G5 has the max 4GB RAM, but I'm stuck using a crappy old PCI video card from a B&W because I don't have a single card that'll work in the AGP slot on the G5. The MDD is pretty maxxed out. Only 1.7gb ram, but the BTO Geforce 4 video card.
I need to come up with a usage scenario before I can really decide which to keep around I think.
I need to come up with a usage scenario before I can really decide which to keep around I think.
novusgordo
Well-known member
I'd tell you to keep the MDD and send me the G5 
except a. shipping from FL to BC would be expensive b. G5 cases don't ship all that well anyway.
except a. shipping from FL to BC would be expensive b. G5 cases don't ship all that well anyway.
asaggynoodle
Well-known member
Don't care what anyone says, that G5 is going to be a much more enjoyable experience as far as performance is concerned. Especially with web browsing, you will see a stark difference.
The only time you're going to really get ahead of a Single G5 system, with a Single G4 (Even the latest), is if you're pushing atleast a 1:1 or higher clock speed. My 2Ghz PowerBook G4 was still only about ~20-30% faster overall than that 1.8Ghz G5. That thing was what I would consider just tolerable for a modern browser experience.
The only time you're going to really get ahead of a Single G5 system, with a Single G4 (Even the latest), is if you're pushing atleast a 1:1 or higher clock speed. My 2Ghz PowerBook G4 was still only about ~20-30% faster overall than that 1.8Ghz G5. That thing was what I would consider just tolerable for a modern browser experience.
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Given that 1.8 to 2.0GHz is a 10% increase in clock speed, if you had a 2GHz G4 and it was "only" 20-30% faster than a 1.8GHz G5... that's honestly extremely impressive.
Almost impressive enough to suggest that perhaps Apple should have NetBursted the G4 and just gunned for higher frequencies. If this is true, a dual 3GHz G4 would have been an utter powerhouse, relative to Power Macintoshes and PowerBooks that actually shipped, of course.
It would be interesting to see a comparison, although a lot of things like "browsing the web" will be subjective unless you run a few tests:
All three of these on browserbench.org would be neat to see on both the G4 and G5, probably under TenFourFox since I'm not 100% sure that, say, the versions of Safari on 10.4 and 10.5 will even run all of these tests.
All of that said, not 100% sure if "web browsing" is a particularly good task or use case, for security and performance reasons.
Perhaps you can run some DNG conversions or Gaussian blurs or Cinebench on them as well.
Almost impressive enough to suggest that perhaps Apple should have NetBursted the G4 and just gunned for higher frequencies. If this is true, a dual 3GHz G4 would have been an utter powerhouse, relative to Power Macintoshes and PowerBooks that actually shipped, of course.
It would be interesting to see a comparison, although a lot of things like "browsing the web" will be subjective unless you run a few tests:
All three of these on browserbench.org would be neat to see on both the G4 and G5, probably under TenFourFox since I'm not 100% sure that, say, the versions of Safari on 10.4 and 10.5 will even run all of these tests.
All of that said, not 100% sure if "web browsing" is a particularly good task or use case, for security and performance reasons.
Perhaps you can run some DNG conversions or Gaussian blurs or Cinebench on them as well.
tsundoku
教授か何か洗練された者
When 10.5 was first released, my primary computer was one of these single 1.25GHz G4s. I installed it on a spare disk to test and switched over to it several months later, and I have no memory of 10.4 performing better or 10.5 feeling slower. I continued to use it happily for another four years or so, although I eventually installed a dual-processor card. Given that experience, I don't really think there's much reason to avoid 10.5 unless you're getting very close to the minimum requirements (say, under 1GHz).
I have very little experience with Power Mac G5s of any kind, but I remember hearing a number of anecdotes from the time about the first G5s, especially the low-end ones, tending to feel less snappy than the last and best G4s at everyday use, even if they were better at specific "pro" tasks. I forget most of the details by now. Either way I doubt you'll notice a massive difference between the two.
I'm partial to the G4 because I lived on one for a long time, but I'm not sure what you intend to do with it. If you want to, the G4 could be expanded a fair way (dual CPUs, USB 2.0, SATA, etc.) for not much money, all of which I did over time. I am not familiar with what kind of worthwhile expansions exist for a single 1.8GHz G5, but it looks like adding a second CPU is not possible, which makes it less interesting in my opinion. I don't recall the G5 being such a significant improvement over the G4 that a single G5 at 1.8GHz offers anything over a pair of G4s at the same clock or even at 1.42 or 1.25GHz.
EDIT: I just took a casual glance at eBay and observed that dual 1.25GHz CPU cards for this machine are very cheap now. If you're patient you may even find better ones.
I have very little experience with Power Mac G5s of any kind, but I remember hearing a number of anecdotes from the time about the first G5s, especially the low-end ones, tending to feel less snappy than the last and best G4s at everyday use, even if they were better at specific "pro" tasks. I forget most of the details by now. Either way I doubt you'll notice a massive difference between the two.
I'm partial to the G4 because I lived on one for a long time, but I'm not sure what you intend to do with it. If you want to, the G4 could be expanded a fair way (dual CPUs, USB 2.0, SATA, etc.) for not much money, all of which I did over time. I am not familiar with what kind of worthwhile expansions exist for a single 1.8GHz G5, but it looks like adding a second CPU is not possible, which makes it less interesting in my opinion. I don't recall the G5 being such a significant improvement over the G4 that a single G5 at 1.8GHz offers anything over a pair of G4s at the same clock or even at 1.42 or 1.25GHz.
EDIT: I just took a casual glance at eBay and observed that dual 1.25GHz CPU cards for this machine are very cheap now. If you're patient you may even find better ones.
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