01-18-2009, 12:39 PM

Hey all,

I'm new to the board and was hoping for some feedback on an issue. I'm a filmmaker with computer woes. I bought a G5 1.8 ghz dual process back in '04. It was great then, but now I have FCS 2 and CS3 running on it with OS 10.5. It's not the state of the art machine it once was.

I have zero cash for one of those new MacPro machines that start at $3,000.00. They look amazing but for me for now they will always be on the other side of the window store front and not coming with me.

The issue is I don't have that capitol right now because I'm not just editing these movies I'm producing and most of my own cashing is going into production costumes, on set equip etc.

I thought about selling my G5 and got depressed at how low they sell, I can't even make enough to get one of those illegitimate machines manufactured by that (nameless) company that Apple is having bouts with. (Please no discussion about that issue).

I've determined that the best course of action is to supe up my G5 the best it can by doing the following:

RAM-I have 2 gigs right now. I'm going to upgrade to 4 gigs (the max for my G5)

Internal HDD-Right now I have an 80 gig ATA. I'll leave the apps running on there and put in an addition 1 TB hitachi SATA.

External HDD-HD video takes up a lot of space and I have more than one project going on. I have a WD 500 gig drive. It has eSATA capability, so I'm going to put in an eSATA card from newegg.

The last thing I can think of upgrading is the graphics card. Anyone know the best graphics card I can get for this machine?

Also if no one tells me otherwise I'm going to assume the best places to get these things are NewEgg and Apple Palace.

I don't think I'll find myself in a position to get a new machine till 2010. Anyone have any suggestions of something else I should add for a different component than the ones I have in mind? I just want to make this G5 the best post production machine it can be for HD video 1080i and 1080p. I can't do playback on video players in 1080p as I understand that's due to the slow processing. But I can still edit. Any feedback would be much appreciated.

01-19-2009, 05:10 PM

There was just a thread about this (well, the video card issue, at least):

getting a new graphic card for a 1.8GHz PowerPC G5

01-21-2009, 02:13 PM

I'm considering a G5 soon for fun upgrades and video/photo editing and music production. I miss a desktop machine and I can also not afford a Mac Pro! Your best bet is to do the upgrades you mentioned but get the highest possible card available for your G5! Good luck!

01-23-2009, 10:48 AM

Thanks for the help!

01-23-2009, 03:50 PM

One more thing to consider:

If you can afford it, buy 2 WD Raptor drives and set them up in a RAID 0 array in the OS X install. You'll also get a performance boost out of standard 7200rpm drives.

The Raptor's alone have made quite a difference on my design studio G5s.