Bying a macmini/iBook or second hand G5 to replace aging H4 tower?

drboardrboar
Posted:
in Genius Bar edited January 2014
I currently have a both a dual core PC and a Sawtooth connected to one nice 20" TFT. Despite a 1.2 GHz G4 upgrade ,750 GB SATA drive and a ATI 8500 the G4 takes to stuttering more and more.



My dream replacement: A "xMac".

What is aviable:

iMac: I do not need the screen and then I would have a second screen for the PC to clutter my desk

Mini: OK byt way to small HD need external HD

iBook. Do not need a portable but were I live the price difference between the iBook and the macmini lackning both screen and batteries and keyboars is 100-150 USD.

A reconditioned G5 with 2x2GHz and 1.5GB RAM will be only a bit more then 1/3 of a iBook/mini! And still be a substantial boost in performance compared to the old G4.



I feel that the current Macs during 2009-2010 will be replaced by much faster i7 and i5Core CPUs.

With quadcore i5Core replacing dual cores they will be 3 times faster or so....





So take the cheap way out with the G5 that will last me perhaps 2 years or so but also lock me out of OS 10.6 (bad) but I will have plenty of HD space (good)

Going for the iBook I will have 10.6 (good) but will have to use external storage devises. (bad).



So here I am and having a very hard time to pick a replacement for my old G4.

Reasons for pick one over the other??

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 3
    MarvinMarvin Posts: 15,326moderator
    The quad cores likely won't arrive until next year so buying a new Mini or Macbook now, you'd still get 10-12 months or so use.



    I posted an upgrade guide for the Mini hard drive and Ram if you feel comfortable opening up the machine but you are still buying the Mini + HDD + Ram. If you're not comfortable with doing that sort of thing or if price is very important, the G5 tower would probably be the best bet.



    The performance will be pretty close between all the machines as they are all 2 x 2GHz and the G5 chips are almost on par with the intel ones. Software tends to run better on the Intel chips as the optimizations are better but they are about even.



    The new machines allow you to run Windows software but besides this, the G5 should do just fine and is much easier to upgrade.
  • Reply 2 of 3
    drboardrboar Posts: 477member
    I ordered a refurbished dual G5.(one year warranty) I get close to the performace of a new macmini but the macmini cost 2 1/2 times as much. Now I also have room for a second HD internally.



    Now I can hold out to 2012 or so I think, then hopefully there will be an xmac...
  • Reply 3 of 3
    kareliakarelia Posts: 525member
    Despite the Intel and PowerPC numerical clock speeds being near-equal, the Intel processors perform quite a bit faster at most tasks. And with Snow Leopard's optimizations and OpenCL, the Intel machines are going to get even that much better, while the G5's have pretty much peaked.



    I'm not saying a G5 won't be a good machine, I had one for a while, but have no illusions; an Intel machine, even a Mini, will destroy any PowerPC machine in CPU power, with the possible exception of the quad-core G5.
Sign In or Register to comment.