PowerMac G5! Good buy or not?

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I am looking into buying a Powermac G5 for 200 dollars. It is in good condition but is lacking a graphics card. The seller said he took it to the genius bar in a apple store and they said that that was the problem.
Here are the specs
Processor Dual 1.8GHz PowerPC G5

Frontside Bus 900MHz Elastic

Cache 512KB on-chip L2 cache per processor

Memory 256MB DDR400 SDRAM

Memory Slots Four DIMM slots (Pairing required)

Hard Drive 80GB 3.5" 7200RPM 1.5Gbps Serial ATA hard drive

1 free bay

Optical Drive 5.25" tray-loading SuperDrive

Graphics and Sound

(dead)Graphics NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 Ultra with 64MB DDR SDRAM on an 8x AGP card

Dedicated AGP Pro slot

Monitor Ports ADC port

DVI port

Supports dual monitors

TV In/Out Composite and S-Video outputs (via DVI port and adapter)

Audio In/Out 3.5mm analog and optical digital TOS-Link inputs

3.5mm analog and optical digital TOS-Link outputs

Speakers built-in speaker connectivity

USB Three USB 2.0 ports

FireWire 400 Two, FireWire 800 One

Ethernet 10/100/1000BASE-T ethernet port (with Auto-MDIX)

Modem 56K v.92 modem

AirPort AirPort Extreme ready

Bluetooth Internal Bluetooth module optional Expansion Slots Three 33MHz 64-bit PCI slots

My primary uses are for graphic design and photo editing (Raw Time Photos Portfolio) and I was wondering if this would be a good machine for those purposes. I can pretty much do upgrades to computers myself so replacing the graphics card shouldn't be a problem.

Also what is a good graphics card to upgrade with this machine?

If anyone has any kid of experience with this all please let me know how easy/hard of a process it is, any feedback would be greatly appreciated.
 

pigoo3

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I am looking into buying a Powermac G5 for 200 dollars. It is in good condition but is lacking a graphics card. The seller said he took it to the genius bar in a apple store and they said that that was the problem.
Here are the specs

Graphics NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 Ultra with 64MB DDR SDRAM on an 8x AGP card

If this computer is "lacking" a graphics card...why did you list one?

- Nick
 
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That was the previous one in the machine. I am guessing it died. It was on the guys craigslist advert.
 

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That was the previous one in the machine. I am guessing it died. It was on the guys craigslist advert.

I actually just bought one of these G5's on Friday. $200 is a fair price without a working video card. It would be nice if it had more ram (like at least 1 gig)...but whatta ya going to do.;) To get you to 1 gig of ram (512meg x 2) will run $40.00.

512MB PC3200 DDR 400MHz CAS 3.0 184 Pin 64x... (3200DDR512) at OWC

A replacement GeForce FX 5200 video card will cost you about $50-$60...I've been watching the auctions for them on e-Bay.

So it will cost you about $100 to get this $200 G5 into a decent operational shape. You could check e-Bay as well for fully functional dual 1.8ghz G5's.

Here's an auction that ended a couple days ago:

Power mac dual 1.8ghz 4gb ram 500gb HDD wifi card+more - eBay (item 230386944550 end time Oct-11-09 23:28:33 PDT)

This went for $302...it came with a 500gig hard drive & FOUR gig of ram. It did have a bent handle/foot.

If this $200 G5 computer is local & you don't have to pay shipping...that's a big plus. If you buy off e-Bay it will cost you $40-$60 in shipping.

Hope this helps,

- Nick
 
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**** man thanks for all the input. How does the one you got run? pretty fast?
I just do not wanna be disappointed, but i figure it was such a high end model computer so there has to be some goodness still left in it.
 

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**** man thanks for all the input. How does the one you got run? pretty fast?
I just do not wanna be disappointed, but i figure it was such a high end model computer so there has to be some goodness still left in it.

It runs pretty good (I haven't benchmarked it or anything)...andI'm sure it's not as fast as my Mac Pro. I guess it all depends on what you're going to do with it. It will run PPC software quite well!

Also remember...this WAS a high-end computer back in 2005...it's now 2009!;) But it's still no slow-poke!:)

- Nick
 
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One note you will need a Mac compatible graphics card. Very, very few PC cards will work in your G5. Look on eBay and such for say a flashed 6200 card with 256MB VRAM.

Best operating systems once you beef up the memory are Leopard OS X.5 and Tigers OS X.4. Make sure you purchase the black coloured DVD known as the full retail install and do not buy silver grey colouref restore or so called 'Drop In' discs as they are extremely model specific.
 
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Thanks for the feedback. Yeah I mite wait and save my funs for a mac pro. I have decided I will use my iMac 2.4ghz for a year or so more and then try and pick up a mac pro off craigslist!
 

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Thanks for the feedback. Yeah I mite wait and save my funs for a mac pro. I have decided I will use my iMac 2.4ghz for a year or so more and then try and pick up a mac pro off craigslist!

I think that an iMac 2.4ghz is a pretty good computer to "suffer" with until you can get a Mac Pro!;)

- Nick
 
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When you kick that old box of bolts to the curb...ship to me and let me suffer..be good to keep soda pop and candy on..Right Pigoo3. He..HE.
 

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When you kick that old box of bolts to the curb...ship to me and let me suffer..be good to keep soda pop and candy on..Right Pigoo3. He..HE.

There you go man...soda, candy, and a computer...and you're good to go!:)

Piece of chocolate cake would be nice too!;)

- Nick
 
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LOL this computer is great for what I do but It only comes with a 250gb Harddrive and I am looking for alittle bit more, since I do a **** of alot of photo editing and a minor amount of video editing. I have read reviews about taking imac my imac and adding a new harddrive. I think its possible but very risky! Have ether of you had any experience with opening one of these bad boys?
 

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LOL this computer is great for what I do but It only comes with a 250gb Harddrive and I am looking for alittle bit more, since I do a **** of alot of photo editing and a minor amount of video editing. I have read reviews about taking imac my imac and adding a new harddrive. I think its possible but very risky! Have ether of you had any experience with opening one of these bad boys?

I haven't upgraded or opened one of the newer Intel iMacs like yours...but there are a number of "DIY's" on the internet, and "How To" videos on You-Tube.

Here's a video to get you started:

YouTube - How to Change the Hard Drive in a 24" Aluminum iMac (Finally HD)

Good luck,

- Nick
 
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Yeah I have watched that before. SCARYYYYYYYY I am pretty confident I can do it though. Ill let you know how it goes if I try it!
 

pigoo3

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Yeah I have watched that before. SCARYYYYYYYY I am pretty confident I can do it though. Ill let you know how it goes if I try it!

You can do it! Just take your time, be patient, and read & watch a few of the DIY's before digging in.

Have the correct tools as well.

- Nick
 
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Bearing in mind, despite the video link, it is not the easiest job in the world, have you considered popping say a 1TB drive in an external case and connecting via USB2 or Firewire? You could then back up your photo work with ease, l;eaving the internal for the operating system.

An external drive, partitioned with say 100GB for a duplicate OS, and 900GB for your photos etc. would be the go and backups are really essential these days!
 

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