Looking to buy used Powermac G5

Hi,

I'm looking for a Powermac G5, at least a 1.8ghz. I'm also after one which will upgrade to at least 8gb of RAM. I know there are G5 powermacs which can be upgraded to 4, 8 and 16gb, so my question is, when I'm looking on ebay for example, what info can I request from the seller to check this? Is there a model number that will be present on the machine for example which will tell me what the RAM can be upgraded to?

For starters, the machines capable of 16gb of DDR2 ram are the last generation of G5s (dual core 2.0, 2.3 and quad core 2.5) these should be listed as dual core, but check with the seller. These machines were from mid to late 2005.

The rest of the G5 line used DDR sdram, for a max of 8gb (depending on model).

The early 2004 edition of the 1.8 G5 was a "value" system and only has 4 ram slots. Ask the seller how many ram slots are available, on a "normal" tower there will be 8, this includes the 1.8 from 2003 and the rest of the line.

My recommendation: Try to get a dual core to maximize your investment. Not only does it take cheaper and faster ram (DDR2) but also features PCIe video, which is much faster than the old AGP.

Otherwise, try to get a dual processor since you'll be guaranteed it'll have the 8 ram slots.

Good hunting!