12-19-2008, 07:58 PM

Hi my first post on this forum.

I'm currently upgrading an old Mac G4 800 dual that has finally become unacceptably slow with photoshop ( OK just about everything). I am wandering whether a G5 2.7 would still be considered a wortwhile investment as a moderate upgrade? Or is it better to just bite the bulllet and buy the newer Macpro? here in Aus a G5 2.7 sells for about A$1600 the current macpro about A$3900. Used macpro's are very hard to find!

While the Macpro eight core is undoubtedly faster speed always comes at a price....... and I understand the current model will be replaced in Feb

My main use for the Mac is serious digital photography where i often end up with large files....... the old G4 is really struggling with this!

Advice frm seasoned G5/Macpro users would be appreciated

12-20-2008, 06:30 AM

A g5 would be acceptable for a couple more years IMHO. I wouldn't break the bank until 2010 at least. My 07' macpro is going to do me a couple more years at least

12-21-2008, 09:17 AM

Hi,

I have the same Mac your looking at PowerMac G5 dual 2.7GHz, 2.5Gb RAM, ATi 9650XT graphics card. At work I have a Dell XPS with Core 2 Quad 2.4GHz, 4Gb RAM, 8800GT graphics and my PowerMac is just as quick - once I upgrade the RAM to 8Gb it will be a flying machine!

I run Photoshop on both machines - the works PC gets more use obviously but from time to time I do work at home over weekends and thats how I've made the comparison.

I'd also love to buy a Mac Pro however I will be buying a 30" cinema display first as the PowerMac G5 is running just as quick as Intel's at the moment.

Snow Leopard 'MAY' be compatible with the PPC platform too, so it will be good until the next OS upgrade if thats the case. So unless you want to game or run heavy 3D applications I'd say go with the G5. Reason I say that is because the nVidia 6600 Ultra is the best GPU you can fit and thats quite old now for gaming etc.

Hope that helps!

12-21-2008, 11:38 AM

I would not get the G5 as a long term investment. Adobe hasn't exactly been shy about releasing apps without PPC support and I could see them dropping it altogether in the not too distant future (same goes for Apple).

Have you considered getting a consumer machine to tide you over for a bit until a used Mac Pro comes down a bit in price? You often see pros spending huge amounts of money to get a "pro" machine and then not really using all that horsepower.

The dual 2.75 Ghz processors are probably no faster than the dual core chips in the current base 20" iMacs, the only limitation you'd have is the 4GB RAM limit (which may or may not be a dealbreaker, depending on the types of files you usally work with... but as far as I know Photoshop can only address 4GB anyway as it's 32bit).

12-22-2008, 04:46 AM

IMHO! Hold out as long as you can, after the swap in Feb and get a new Mac Pro, the bottom line, again IMHO, the Mac Pro is a beast! It will last for ever! I got mine a year ago, it wasn't cheap and I just finished paying it off. But it was so worth it for me. I'm a graphic/ web designer so I used masive files some times (not when doing web design) and the pro has NEVER let me down.

The cost is huge! But like most things Mac it's built like a tank!