Buying used: MDD 1/1.25GHz or G5 1.6?
I am looking to buy my first desktop Mac and have been presented with the following used machines:
either a dual 1GHz or dual 1.25GHz MDD (2 different systems)
or
G5 1.6GHz (single)
All of these machines are approximately the same price and with the same or similar RAM, disk, etc. configurations.
I currently have an iBook G4 1GHz so both should offer a noticeable increase in overall performance. I am planning on doing some software development, video editing with iMovie and maybe Final Cut Express HD down the road, as well as every day stuff (email, web, chat, etc). I'll be looking forward to Leopard as well.
Any comments? What would you buy in this situation? I'd much prefer an iMac 20" Intel but it would be priced more than twice as much as any of these machines mentioned. I just do not have the budget for it right now.
either a dual 1GHz or dual 1.25GHz MDD (2 different systems)
or
G5 1.6GHz (single)
All of these machines are approximately the same price and with the same or similar RAM, disk, etc. configurations.
I currently have an iBook G4 1GHz so both should offer a noticeable increase in overall performance. I am planning on doing some software development, video editing with iMovie and maybe Final Cut Express HD down the road, as well as every day stuff (email, web, chat, etc). I'll be looking forward to Leopard as well.
Any comments? What would you buy in this situation? I'd much prefer an iMac 20" Intel but it would be priced more than twice as much as any of these machines mentioned. I just do not have the budget for it right now.
Comments
This site has a good comparison of the two:
http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/G5/G5_vsG4MDD_review.html
http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/G5/G5_vsG....html#storytop
In the second link, you can see that although the dual G4 1.25 might seem faster in terms of clock speed, it's actually about half the speed of the 1.6GHz G5 in a lot of the important tests.
I couldn't believe when I saw how cheap the 1.6GHz G5s were going for on ebay recently. I saw some going between £500-600.
I'd personally go for the G5. The system buses in the G5s are much faster (800MHz+) compared to the 167MHz or so in the G4 towers. This means much higher throughput (up to 5x), which is essential for video encoding and HD playback.
This site has a good comparison of the two:
http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/G5/G5_vsG4MDD_review.html
http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/G5/G5_vsG....html#storytop
In the second link, you can see that although the dual G4 1.25 might seem faster in terms of clock speed, it's actually about half the speed of the 1.6GHz G5 in a lot of the important tests.
I couldn't believe when I saw how cheap the 1.6GHz G5s were going for on ebay recently. I saw some going between £500-600.
Thanks for the feedback. I think I'm going to go for the G5. The price seems very reasonable and if I decide it doesn't have enough power, I can resell for at least what I paid.