Apple Power Mac G5 Desktop

Great! With my 512mb, I can have about 5 design pr ...

Strengths: Speed, Beauty, Memory. Quiet for it's speed and size.

Weaknesses: Humongous. Loud Superdrive. I don't believe I've ever heard a computer with such a loud CD drive.

Summary: Great! With my 512mb, I can have about 5 design programs running and working without slow down... I have a g5 at work and the fans seem much more quiet than my own g5. With 1 gig of ram - I believe I could open all the programs in the dock and still have okay performance. Great with movie production - SuperDrive with 8x speed rocks. It takes me about 10-15 minutes to burn a 4x DVD-R from IDVD, which of course takes less time (4-5 minutes) upon burning more discs thereafter.

IDVD launches in about 20 seconds.

Frankly, I thought the g5 was going to be heaven. I do believe it is near heaven, but more like a moon away from heaven. Don't psych yourself out thinking that it can do every bit of rasterizing and media burning in 5 seconds or less, because you will be disappointed (of course if I had more ram, it could probably be heaven).

Note to GRAPHIC DESIGNERS: Rasterizing a vector file from Illustrator to Photoshop still takes a while, depending on the vecor file size - but the time it takes is SIGNIFICANTLY less (you don't have to take a break). I was using a g4 emac previously, and I could play a game of 1-man pool during the time it took to rasterize an intense 11x17 document to 300 dpi.

Overall, I am very happy with my g5 and I believe it will keep me happy for the next 3-4 years as long as I max out the ram.

100% of People (4/4) found this review helpful. Was this review helpful or unhelpful for you?

  Report this as inappropriate.

 There are no comments for this review. Post a comment.

I've been using my G5 for graphics, photography re ...

Strengths: Multi-Processor power; up to 8 GB DDR 400 3200 RAM Limit; Four PCI-X expansion slots; Stylish, elegant design; Easy open case with 9 whisper quiet fans for cooling. An strong package that works hard.

Weaknesses: OEM Video Card (Mine's an ATI 9600 Pro/64MB DDR SDRAM) is not up to the system's abilities; lack of hard drive upgradability is disappointing unless you go with a PCI-X SATA RAID upgrade-espensive!

Summary: I've been using my G5 for graphics, photography rendering(Adobe Creative Suite), video compositing (FInaol Cut Express, iMovie, iDVD) in the work area. I don't play computer games on my Mac, but the abilities of the system would be very limited unless I upgraded my video board to a Radeon 9800 Pro which is very expensive to do. Overall, the computer is a HUGE upgrade from my previous G4/500DP (Gigabit Ethernet) Mac, and has abilities that I've not yet touched. I added a 2nd 250GB SATA Hard Drive since I do so much video work and creative work with Photoshop and Illustrator, all olf which need a large scratch disk to be optimized. Together with an external 160GB FireWire 800 HDrive, I have ample disk space for all my projects and have the ability to back up my work every evening using La Cie's disk utilities. I ran my previous Mac using a hardware RAID system , which I may end up adding to this G5 as time goes on and my needs increase. There are two companies that are producing internal mounting systems for 3 and 4 hard drives, and using a SATA RAID PCI-X driver system that I am considering upgrading this G5 with. Box stock the G5 is a wonderful, powerful, elegant desktop Mac, by far the most comprehensively advanced (over its previous sibliings) Mac ever made. I routinely have 3-4 programs open and working simultaneously, and have only experienced two "kernal panics" where the computer could not keep up with my demands. I opted for the 1.8Ghz version to save $500 versus the 2.0Ghz model, and I think I made the right choice for economic reasons. I added the internal BlueTooth module, and Airport Extreme card, so I operate the G5 without bothersome USB cables cluttering up my desk using the BlueTooth wireless keoboard and mouse. Overall this is the best computer I've ever owned without any doubt. I am planning on keeping this Mac for 2-3 years of heavy use so I purchased AppleCare's 3-year coverage also. I feel like I got my money's worth with this G5 1.8GHz DP model; since the new models were announced last week I feel very glad that I purchased this Mac when I did because this one can expand its memory to 8GB....I now am operating it with 2.5 GB. The revised model lineup has the 1.8Ghz model with only 4GB of DDR RAM ability. Apple really did its homework regarding the design of the G5 desktop models, both externally and internally. Overall I am a happy G5 camper who has no buyer's remorse over getting a revision #1 of the most powerful Mac lineup ever made.

75% of People (6/8) found this review helpful. Was this review helpful or unhelpful for you?

  Report this as inappropriate.

 There are no comments for this review. Post a comment.