[JRobinson]

I am considering replacing 3+ year old PowerMac G5 with an iMac. I currently use my PowerMac to serve music and video to my Apple TV devices. I also use Handbrake and MTR fairly often. Finally, I use Thunderbird to help filter the spam from my Yahoo mail that Yahoo doesn't filter (which is a lot). Needless to say, the PowerMac runs 24/7. Would the iMac be a good replacement? Would someone recommend something else?

[Simon]

The stuff you do can be handled very well by an iMac. In fact unless you have a quad-core 2.5 GHz G5, a brand new iMac should definitely be faster at Handbrake/MTR.

Running an iMac 24/7 is not a problem either.

But you should probably wait to buy another couple of days since the iMac is very likely to be updated within the next two weeks.

[JRobinson]

What about power consumption? Does the iMac consume substantially less power than the PowerMac or the Mac Pro?

[Simon]

iMac maximum continuous power is 200 W for the 20" and 280W for the 24".

Power consumption on the MP depends on how many drives and PCIe cards you have installed. Its power supply is rated for 1440 VA though, just to give you an idea. This example 2.8 GHz octo MP consumes 155W in idle and 318W under max load. Plus you'll have to add the monitor to compare to the iMac's numbers.

[JRobinson]

So the iMac's maximum continuous power consumption is 280W for the 24"? What about when it is idle? How does that compare to the minimum Mac Pro with the standard graphics card, one internal hard drive and 4 GB or RAM? Are there any power consumption numbers for the old PowerMac G5 computers?