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For some strange reason I snagged an original 1.6 G5 tower

Unknown_K

Unknown_K

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Browsing ebay late at night before bed can make for some odd acquisitions.

Today I got in the original model G5 1.6Ghz in pretty decent condition. Sold for $30 shipped (one of those $.99 cent auctions plus shipping).

I think the cases are cool looking (and this one looked pretty clean) so I bid .99 expecting to not win. Oddly enough it works fine after I loaded OSX 10.4 on it, just needed a HD.

Are all the G5 towers pretty much custom builds (FSB, programming for specific CPUs, motherboards all different,  etc)? I can see why Apple said the hell with it and went x86 so fast after switching to the G5.

I wonder what is faster my Dual 1.33 MDD or the G5 1.6.

 
Trash: the earliest G5s came from the factory with a special G5-specific build of Mac OS X 10.2, and all subsequent models had some version of 10.3 or 10.4.

A late-model G5 from between early April and late June of 2006 probably came with 10.4.6, as that point release of the OS would've been current during that time frame, and since the last G5 was discontinued in August of that year, that would pretty much include the very last G5s ever produced.

EDIT: By your exclamation, I assume you've already found this out for yourself!

c

 
I was surprised they ran 10.3. Should check to see if I need a patch installed since mine is the first model.

Kind of funny how large the G5 tower is yet only holds 1 optical and 2 HDs compared to a smaller MDD that can have 2 optical and 4 internal HDs. So much space just for CPU and cooling.

 
I'm guessing they need all that extra space for airflow, I wonder how that cool that machine could stay if it used the case as an extension of the heatsink..

 
I think they went with Aluminum cases for heat reasons as well. Apple has a history of using plastic cases (easier to style) whiles PCs were metal boxes.

 
Even if it runs it won't last for long.

The first generation G5's have a terrible reputation for dropping dead due to RoHS problems and thermal flexing, not to mention the LCU equipped models leaking.

 
I, too, have an LCS-equiped G5 (it's a Quad as well). It won't cool the CPUs (so it's basically useless because it overheats before it gets anywhere). At least it's not leaking.

c

 
People like the Quad G5s provided the LCS hasn't taken out the power supply and/or motherboard.  Once the LCS is rejuvenated it will be fine.  I think they will be a good collectable Mac in the future (last of the PPC) and still hold their own for some tasks provided you don't mind a rising electricity bill.

I once recall reading that the single 1.6 G5 is very closely related to the MDD than other G5s.

 
Byrd said:
I once recall reading that the single 1.6 G5 is very closely related to the MDD than other G5s.
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I have no idea what context that could be in. It's the same guts as all the other first-gen G5s; the motherboard is missing some components (only one CPU connector and half as many DIMM sockets are soldered on) but everything that's left is the same you'd find on the 1.8/2.0ghz dual CPU models.

 
All the G5s run 10.4, but if you're looking for a Mac OS 9 system to run Mac OS 9 software, I wouldn't bother, compared to just putting a single really fast CPU into a Digital Audio or QuickSilver, or (if you can find such an ugprade) an MDD that'll boot 9. I'd really only "recommend" a G5 if you're completely strapped for space and you need something that can run tenfourfox(1) and old Mac applications.

The G5s are kind of a neat historic footnote at this point. Incrementally, and considering only raw performance factors, ignoring the fact that most G5s were less expandable than the G4s, they made sense as the next generation of Power Macintosh. Seen as a whole product, they had fewer slots than the MDD and QuickSilver and held fewer disks than anything since the desktop G3, and they used a whole lot of power compared to their predecessors. In addition, they weren't universally faster than the G4s they were replacing.

In addition to all of that, as uniserver said, the Netburst-based Developer Transition Kit (which had like a 3.2GHz P4 with HyperThreading in it, so not even the fastest Pentium 4 or Netburst chip) totally killed it benchmarking (and doing actual work) against everything except the quad.

The Quad itself is a really interesting kind of sidenote/footnote for Apple. They were announced and sold after the Intel transition was, for sort of the same reason the "For Mac OS 9" Power Macintosh G4 was introduced in 2003. Apple needed something to keep Photoshop and Final Cut users happy between the 2.7GHz G5 and the impending release of the Mac Pro.

It's worth noting that the Quad isn't typical PowerPC performance. It is over twice as fast as every other PowerPC Mac ever built, including the 2.7GHz system, due to IPC improvements. That alone makes it really interesting but sort of unfair to talk about in some ways.

One day I'll probably pick up a G5 of some sort as they continue to drop in price. If I had to say I had an ideal one, it'd be the 2.3GHz PCI Express (dual core, one chip) model with air cooling, just because it's fast enough to do anything I'd ever do with a G5 (10.5, Office 2008, Creative Suite 3, all from when I had my Core2 iMac in 2007-2009) and one of the more physically reliable systems.

(1) Typical warning about how I feel old releases of Mac OS X should be kept off of the Internet because of potential security issues.

 
Cory5412 said:
In addition to all of that, as uniserver said, the Netburst-based Developer Transition Kit (which had like a 3.2GHz P4 with HyperThreading in it, so not even the fastest Pentium 4 or Netburst chip) totally killed it benchmarking (and doing actual work) against everything except the quad.
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Do you have an actual link to a benchmark done on the DTK hardware? The recipients of those things were *strictly* banned from publishing any benchmarks run on them, under pain of death (IE, lawsuit for breaking your NDA.) There were articles published in which people repeated vague hearsay-ish things about how quick the machines "felt", but I would challenge you to find a benchmark that shows a single core NetBurst "Killing" a contemporary G5. (Okay, so if I go with the Geekbench 2 score of 1951 for a Pentium 4 540-based Hackintosh that is almost twice as high as the 1074 produced by a *2003 vintage* 1.6ghz single CPU Power Mac G5... but guess what, the Pentium 4 is clocked twice as fast. That's hardly "killing it".)

 
An upgraded MDD is probably a better value then an early G5 especially the last OS 9 booting version (if classic means anything to you). The G4 series was one of the most upgradable macs made, the G5 is the least upgradable.

The G5 1.6 has a lower rated PS then the other models, it doesn't seem that power hungry nor generates too much heat.

 
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