[osxisfun]

During panther nite i finally picked up my dual g5. Got 10% off and bought keynote for $50 bucks to boot. I was about to place my order on amazon when i checked out macrumors and saw the rumor (which turned out to be true) about the 10% off special.

In three words. I love it.

I have not suffered from the "fish pump" sound.
I do have the chirping sound but i know all i have to do is download chud to get rid of it. I may wait for 10.3.1 to fix it.

I got panther the same day so i went from a dual 867 running 10.2 to a dual 2 gig running 10.3. so i can't say how much of the speed if from the cpu and how much from panther.

i have older firewire drive and did not (yet?) suffer from the data bug.
My ipod synced up great. (after deauthorizing my old g4)

The rainbow seldom pops up.

When compiling my c++ app the fan will turn on until the compile is complete.

The noise:
This machine is quiet. I never owned a cube but i would imagine it to be like this. (except when i am compiling my c++ apps)

I can also tell if a program has hung because the fan will kick in. The fan level between my dual g4 (with the upgraded fan) is like night and day.With the g4 on if i left to go sit on the couch and watch tivo i would still hear it. Now i don't.

The speed:
Everything runs great on it. Again, i am not sure what is panther and what is the dual g5 but the whole os has a "fluid polish" in my interactions with it.

Its driving both my apple 20" lcds and it runs great.


Expose:

Expose is fast but with two monitors and dozens of windows open (at least 2) when i hit the minizme button (on my mouse) it can stutter a bit. Basically it skips some of the fluid minimizing and cuts to the end. No problem as i could not see my self working with out this feature any more.

Ram:

I had the stock 512 ram in there for 4 days. I bought 2 512 sticks from crucial figuring they know memory. It was rated at 3200 speed and they do have a "g5" menu option on their web site. Which is a good thing. The cost was actually lower them my old ram people so i will by from them in the future.I would recomend at least a gig of ram. 1.5 if you are a develop that leaves lots of apps open.

Putting the ram in was very easy. Each of the 2 dimms goes in a separate bank inside. The fans came out and went back in easy. The inside of the machine is more beautiful than any outside of any pc i have seen.

Bluetooth:
I bought the first blue tooth module from apple (dlink) way back when i bought my t68i and it works fine.

Keyboard:
Call me crazy but i love this keyboard. It has just the right amount of spongy-ness for me.

Mouse:

I moved my M$ intetllimouse over and originally installed their drivers. didn't like the speed options it gave me.so i am currently trying out USB overdrive.
Expose and the mouse works great.

KVM:

I recently bought the ADC KVM from compu-cable and actually called them before buying the g5 to make sure it works. I am happy to report it does. my pc and main apple LCD share with each other well. I like this product very much.

Overally i am very happy with my dual g5.

Great job Apple!

[zigzag]

Same story here - when I saw the 10% off deal I jumped. I've gone from an 800 iMac w/ 10.2 to a dual w/ 10.3 so for me the speed bump is huge. I probably would've been just as well-served with a 1.6 but I've learned that I tend to outgrow my machines quickly so I went ahead and got the dual.

I've always been noise-sensitive so my last 2 machines have been a Cube and a FP iMac. The iMac was quiet most of the time, but when the fan blew, it blew pretty hard, and the CD mechanism was often extremely loud, depending on the disc. The Cube is completely silent but for the occasional drive noise.

Because it has continuous fans, the G5 is obviously a little louder than the Cube and the iMac (except when the iMac gets hot), but considering the amount of power it packs, it's amazingly quiet. I have it under my desk right now, but I suspect that if I moved it to the outside of my desk, I might have trouble hearing it at all. In a typical office you'd have to make an effort to hear it.

I did notice the "chirp" noise (which I would describe as an extremely faint screeching sound when opening/closing a window) and an occasional faint clicking (like a Geiger counter). And if I put my ear right up to the grille I could hear a faint beep (although this might be what others describe as a chirp). I suspect that these sounds would be masked by the fans in any other machine, and would be completely inaudible in an office or store environment. Anyway, I installed the CHUD tools, turned off "Nap" in System Prefs>Hardware, and they disappeared.

I also installed some extra RAM, and after getting to know the machine's physical features, I concluded that if someone told me it was underpriced, I wouldn't argue with them. The machining, and all the little features like the drive trays and removable fans, are remarkable in a machine that's available for as little as $1800. All of this stuff had to be designed and tooled from scratch.

My favorite feature is pretty mundane: the front panel Firewire port. It's a real pleasure to be able to connect DV cams and Target Disks without crawling behind the machine or relying on a hub.

My verdict is also

[Busemann]

I plan on upgrading to a dual G5 as well (from a MDD 1.25), but the chirping noise issue is what stops me.. Does anyone know if Apple will fix this other than using the CHUD tools? On the Apple discussions someone said they would have a fix (new PSU) by Nov. 1, but nothing has since happend.

has anyone recently bought a dual and not experienced the noise!?

[-Q-]

I'm vaguely aware of the noise, but it's really easy to tune out for me. I notice the fan on my server (my old beige) more than I notice the chirp.

But I do love that Dual G5!

[zigzag]

FWIW, I've noticed that even after installing the CHUD tools, I can still hear the Geiger Counter effect about once a day or so for a 5-10 seconds. It seems to happen on its own - maybe the machine is indexing or something? Or maybe it's the drive. Anyway, it's faint and not bothersome.

I think a lot of the noise about noise in the G5 is a result of the fact that it's otherwise such a quiet machine. I would still buy one.

[Link]

Yeah, computers tend to be noisy. My bro's imac for example makes some rather loud video card noises that I never noticed until one day when it was quiet and I was bored :shrug:

[Arkham_c]

I've only had my G5 since Monday night. It's a dual 2GHz with a Radeon 9800 and 1GB of OEM RAM (got a great deal -- $2599 new). I installed Panther on it before it ever even booted up. I had the chirp, but I installed CHUD and it's a distant memory now.

This machine is amazing. I haven't found anything yet that maxes out both processors.

Doing gaussian blurs on 80+MB images is real-time.

In RTCW, NOLF, Max Payne, Quake 3, THPS3, and Jedi Knight II I tuned on all options and FSAA 4x (where available) and ran at 1600x1200 and every game was at least 80fps. I downloaded the UT2003 demo and will try that when I get home as well.

It's quiet too. Much quieter than the B&W G3 that I was using before, and about the same as the Sawtooth G4/450 I sold to help pay for it.

It does warm up the room where I keep it though. I was up until 2am the day I got it, and I noticed the office getting warm.

Overall, I can't think of anything I don't love about it so far.