Rendering on a budget: Powermac Quad

Hey buds, i'm finally making the switch to mac, and i'm very excited. Unfortunately my wallet is not,so guys i'm doing lots of rendering in blender. I use tons of photoshop and gimp,at the moment i have a pc E5200,2.5 2gb of ram. i have a budget of 1,100 dollars. would a quad g5 of sufficient or a step up from my pc.

could i get a professional renders/ graphic intensive renders done at a modern speed?