Well, I think I'm ready to make the switch... at least I'm thinking of it.

Here's my situation: I have the opportunity to buy a very clean, used 1.6 Ghz PowerPC G5 with 2 gigs of DDR SDRAM, OS-X 10.4.11 and a 70 gig SATA and WIFI and a 17 inch LCD for under $500......
here's my question : is it usable (powerful enough) for a CS3 and associated, supportive software only (Capture NX, etc.) use..... (in other words - photo processing only).


I'm considering this as JUST using it to get my feet wet with a Mac and evaluate how well I like it.

I know a lot of you are power users... and I have a Quad Core and a Dual Core PC, which are fast, but come with all the associated Windoz headaches. I'm getting extremely tired of this twice a year reloading ritual and I am standing on the edge of my patience... is this G5 a machine that I can live with for a year along side of one PC for other work

Thanks guys for any experienced input.

Terry

Edited by Terry D on Apr 07, 2008 at 06:21 PM GMT

Well...it will work, but it wont be lightning fast. for under 500...i would probably do it. RAM and HDs are a quick fix and relatively cheap.

drew.bowser wrote:
Well...it will work, but it wont be lightning fast. for under 500...i would probably do it. RAM and HDs are a quick fix and relatively cheap.

Can this machine go higher than 2 gigs of ram? I have about 3 terabytes of USB HD storage, so that's taken care of.

Thanks Drew.

T

I think the G5 will be fine for those programs. I ran CS1 and 2 on my G4 PPC Macs before going Intel with the latest gen iMac and they were just fine with enough RAM on the PPC G4 machines. That is a pretty good price for the setup. You'll dig OS X!

forestmage wrote:
I think the G5 will be fine for those programs. I ran CS1 and 2 on my G4 PPC Macs before going Intel with the latest gen iMac and they were just fine with enough RAM on the PPC G4 machines. That is a pretty good price for the setup. You'll dig OS X!

Ah, a fellow Nikon shooter... CS2 or CS3 will probably be OK, but how about Capture NX ...

If I were you I would try to at least buy a Dual core or Dual processor.
Here is an article comparing them.
http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/powermac_g5/faq/powermac-g5-performance-speed-comparison.html

Heres a quote from the article
"MacWorld reviewed this single processor model as well and concluded that it is not the system for "anyone who does computation-intensive work"

Nic Pyle wrote:
If I were you I would try to at least buy a Dual core or Dual processor.
Here is an article comparing them.
http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/powermac_g5/faq/powermac-g5-performance-speed-comparison.html

Heres a quote from the article
"MacWorld reviewed this single processor model as well and concluded that it is not the system for "anyone who does computation-intensive work"


That was an interesting read Nic. I did some research and the one that I am looking at is an iMac G5... 1.6

I have just popped for a Nikon D3, so spending a lot of money on another computer right now is out of the question... maybe in about 6 to 8 months.

I had hoped that this unit would suffice for a bit.

I have a G5 1.8 with 2gb of RAM. I run both Photoshop CS3 and Lightroom. While not blistering fast I find it more than adequate for my needs.

You can pick up a refurbed 20 inch iMac from apple for $999. I'm pretty sure it would smoke the G5. I think you should pick up the G5 for $500 because thats a good deal, turn around and sell it on ebay for a profit and pick up the imac. Of course on the other had I've heard the 20 inch screen isn't very good for photography. Its a hard decision, I guess the 1.6 would work though.

3 Gig of memory is the max on that model

umeboshi wrote:
I have a G5 1.8 with 2gb of RAM. I run both Photoshop CS3 and Lightroom. While not blistering fast I find it more than adequate for my needs.

Thanks umeboshi.... that's good to know. I could step up later this year...right now, this price sounds managable.

Cheers,

Terry

mike.way wrote:
3 Gig of memory is the max on that model

Thanks Mike...

Nic Pyle wrote:
You can pick up a refurbed 20 inch iMac from apple for $999. I'm pretty sure it would smoke the G5. I think you should pick up the G5 for $500 because thats a good deal, turn around and sell it on ebay for a profit and pick up the imac. Of course on the other had I've heard the 20 inch screen isn't very good for photography. Its a hard decision, I guess the 1.6 would work though.

I think I'm gonna go for it Nic. It is in real nice condition... my local PC dealer and friend made a minor repair on it and has it in use at his office, so I feel pretty confident in the deal.

If all goes well, I could learn my way around it and trade up by the end of the summer.

I really appreciate the input guys... Thanks!

I use CS3 and Aperture on a 2.16GHZ imac with 2GB Ram and they work fine and dandy with not much slowdown even when running firefox/itunes and msn in the background.

Chris

You really DON'T want a single 1.6 even if its a bargain. You have to remember, even with PPC's higher clock for clock vs Pentium 4 and the like, this is still a slow computer. A dual core Mac Mini (very cheap) will be faster for all non-graphics-card-requiring (and neither Photoshop or Cap NX REALLY utilize the graphics card) applications if equally spec'd, using a core 2 duo processor.

Pretty sure 4GB is Max.

jmz313 wrote:
Pretty sure 4GB is Max.

Thanks JMZ...

Taylor Barrett wrote:
You really DON'T want a single 1.6 even if its a bargain. You have to remember, even with PPC's higher clock for clock vs Pentium 4 and the like, this is still a slow computer. A dual core Mac Mini (very cheap) will be faster for all non-graphics-card-requiring (and neither Photoshop or Cap NX REALLY utilize the graphics card) applications if equally spec'd, using a core 2 duo processor.



Very interesting Taylor... your saying the graphics card is irrelevant to NX and CS3 operation?

chris78cpr wrote:
I use CS3 and Aperture on a 2.16GHZ imac with 2GB Ram and they work fine and dandy with not much slowdown even when running firefox/itunes and msn in the background.

Chris

That's good to know Chris... thanks.

Terry D wrote:


Very interesting Taylor... your saying the graphics card is irrelevant to NX and CS3 operation?

It's not totally irrelevant -- all video cards contain digital/analog converters within its RAM, and the quality of these can affect how quickly you are able to edit or make adjustments to your photos in Photoshop. But in general, you're much better off spending your money on good RAM (not video card RAM, but computer RAM) than splurging on a video card.

if you are asking about cs3 and lightroom being functional on this computer the answer is yes. Up till two month ago I was running both on a powerbook 1.4 gig g4 processor with only 16 megs video ram.

was it slow? yes
did it cause me to take a lot of time waiting for pics in lightroom? yes
could I do what I needed to? always

Realize that getting this machine is a stopgap solution for you. It will be faster then the current setup you have but you will be wanting to replace it soon enough. If you haven't already gotten it by the time you read this you may want to think about how long you can go before you NEED to replace your current machine and start saving up. If you already bought it... welcome to the dark side my friend; enjoy the mac. It will be better then any PC you could have gotten and you may find that the summer is too soon to NEED the upgrade and wait till a new processor version comes out then use the imac as a backup

enjoy

Nic Pyle wrote:
You can pick up a refurbed 20 inch iMac from apple for $999. I'm pretty sure it would smoke the G5. I think you should pick up the G5 for $500 because thats a good deal, turn around and sell it on ebay for a profit and pick up the imac. Of course on the other had I've heard the 20 inch screen isn't very good for photography. Its a hard decision, I guess the 1.6 would work though.

That is a good deal on the 20" iMac refurb. I just bought a 24" iMac refurb and am extremely happy with it. Don't know what you mean by the screen not being good for photography in the 20" model. Have had no trouble editing photos on mine and would assume the 20" would give no problems either.

Craig B. wrote:
Nic Pyle wrote:
You can pick up a refurbed 20 inch iMac from apple for $999. I'm pretty sure it would smoke the G5. I think you should pick up the G5 for $500 because thats a good deal, turn around and sell it on ebay for a profit and pick up the imac. Of course on the other had I've heard the 20 inch screen isn't very good for photography. Its a hard decision, I guess the 1.6 would work though.

That is a good deal on the 20" iMac refurb. I just bought a 24" iMac refurb and am extremely happy with it. Don't know what you mean by the screen not being good for photography in the 20" model. Have had no trouble editing photos on mine and would assume the 20" would give no problems either.


The new 20" screen is a TN panel (6 bit color depth) and not up to the standards a photographer should expect. The 24" is an IPS panel like all the previous iMacs.

Have three years experience iwth 1.6ghz g5 tower, 4 gbs ram, and good graphics card, and it works great with cs2, but lightroom and cs3 were so slow that I sold it and bought a mini, which did smoke the g5, and now I run a imac and laptop both intel, and they continually prove how slow the g5 was, not just slow, but it would lag and stall often.

Even an Intel Mac Mini or a MacBook will smoke a single processor G5.

Don't buy this machine as an introduction to Macs.

You really need to get a Mac with an Intel processor.