[ballzdeep]

I am getting a new 'not refurbished' store demo G5 2.5Ghz Quad tomorrow with 8x1gb sticks of ram and a 250gb hard drive. This machine is also coming with a standard 1 year applecare since it hasn't been 'sold' yet and it's in perfect condition because it was only brought 'out' once a week for a demo of a 36" lcd!

What I am asking for, is a 'guide' on what I should do to max it out. I was going to get 16gb or ram, but that's too expensive. I can do it for 1/4-1/3 the cost and get 8gb instead. I am doing heavy HD video editing and want to max out the insides with probably 4 hard drives in raid 0. What are the expansion limits to this machine, what is the best video card for it other than the standard geforce 6600 256mb card, etc etc etc. I want to know everything about this machine! Anyone have any good references? I will be using FCP HD (latest version) as well.

LMK any suggestions on components I should get.

thanks!

[mduell]

The PowerMac has 2 drive bays, so if you want more drives than that you'll have to buy a third party hack to add some in other compartments.

The best video card is the FX4500, but the 7800GT isn't much slower and is a lot cheaper.

[ballzdeep]

know anywhere online that sells the 7800 gtx? according to barefeats it's the better 7800 card for the g5 quad

[mduell]

There is no GTX for the Mac, only the GT.
Some people may have flashed PC 7800 GTX cards for the Mac... try strangedogs.

[ballzdeep]

what's the best non quaddro card for the g5 quad that is available for purchase currently?

[mduell]

The 7800GT, which I mentioned in my first reply.

[ballzdeep]

Originally Posted by mduell 

The 7800GT, which I mentioned in my first reply.

I can't find the 7800gt available anywhere on the net or at my local mac stores. Any tips?

[mduell]

I thought the Apple Store online had it, but it looks like they've pulled it or never had it.

The Mac video card upgrade market has been tough for the last couple years. The high-end AGP cards for the earlier PowerMacs are impossible to come by. Apple keeps cutting off production before demand dies down.

[boston_errol]

Your best bet is to buy the X1900 G5 edition. They have some at OWC.

[MysticSage71]

Why would you possibly want to buy a quad G5 instead of a MacPro? Final Cut as gone UB and the MacPro will support bettervideo cards as well as 4 drives out of the box....

[mduell]

Originally Posted by MysticSage71 

Why would you possibly want to buy a quad G5 instead of a MacPro? Final Cut as gone UB and the MacPro will support bettervideo cards as well as 4 drives out of the box....

I gathered from the first post that he doesn't have a lot of money to spend, needs a lot of RAM (which is more expensive in the Mac Pro), and is getting a great deal on an open-box unit.

[MysticSage71]

Originally Posted by mduell 

I gathered from the first post that he doesn't have a lot of money to spend, needs a lot of RAM (which is more expensive in the Mac Pro), and is getting a great deal on an open-box unit.

he doesn't have much money to spend but hes talking about maxing out everything, 8gb ram (what roughly 1000$?) and 4 hardrives....I'd like to have not a lot of money to spend also! MacPro would be a way better investment when talking that kind of money...

[Ken_F2]

I have to agree. Apple is phasing out the G5 (i.e. no new models), so I don't see any reason to choose that platform unless it is for professional use and you have applications that specifically require that platform.

Certainly, one doesn't buy a G5 if they plan on using FCP or Photoshop.

[pantie sniffer]

Originally Posted by Ken_F2 

Certainly, one doesn't buy a G5 if they plan on using FCP or Photoshop.

Yeh because a G5 is absolutely useless at running them!...purleeeeese

[Ken_F2]

A year ago, the G5 still got the bulk of support on the OSX platform. But things are clearly changing. More and more developers are spending their time to optimize for x86, and they aren't spending the time to do the same for the G5, because it is considered a dead-end.

[CIA]

Whatever. I'm running a Quad G5 with 4.5 GB of RAM and a 7800, and it's FINE for FCP, Motion, Photoshop and the like, running all at once. I have a 250 and a 500 in the apple bays, and got a G5 Jam running two 74GB raptors up front. The raptors are on a internal SATA card.
According to temp monitor they run cooler then the 2 drives up top in the normal bays.
Anyway, I have a 4 drive case now, and I'm waiting for the hopefully cheaper Highpoint 2314 card to come out so I can just stick all 4 raptors (I have two 150's running in a FW800 case) into that and use eSata to hook em up.
Long story short. 8GB of ram is fine. Scour ebay for a 7800 or x1900 and be happy, you are getting a good deal, and a machine that will last you just fine for several years.
I started saving for my new machine about a month after I got the quad. By the time I need a new mac, I should have enough saved to get another top of the line machine.

Don't get a PCIe Firewire card if you are going to run external drives, the speed of them is abysmal.
I get about 70MB a sec from my RAID-0 FW800 Raptor 150's, and 138-140MB a sec from my internal RAID-0 Raptor 74's. Any (New) good drive, single, will nearly max out FW800. At least on the G5's which have notoriously bad FW800 speeds. My WD 500 drive pumps 60-65MB a sec solo on the internal Apple bus.
(Note these are for Empty drives, those speeds drop as they fill up)
Look into a Griffen PowerMate also, they are great for FCP.

[ballzdeep]

Thanks for all the replies.

I decided to get the ATI 1900 256 from OWC, I read a review on it from barefeats (from Nov 2006) and the performance on that card is almost as good, and sometimes better than the 6800gt... wow.

As for getting a g5, the price I am getting for the system, upgraded card, and 8gb ram is a few hundred LESS than a 1gb ram, 2.66intelxeon, 250gb, + ati x1900 512(upgraded) card from the apple store direct... if I got the same system specs in the mac pro, I would be paying 2.25 times what I am paying now, and this system only came out year ago.

[CIA]

What are you using for displays? I drive two 24" dells and am very happy. I'm slightly tempted to sell both and go with a single 30", but need to spend more then 5 min in front of one before I decide.
The Dells run at 1920x1200 so I can playback 1080p at (near) native rez, which is nice. 1920x1080 trueHD vs 1920X1200, so I have a little extra letterbox action, no worries. I read that the 27" version is ok, but a little grainy as it also is just 1920x1200.

[ballzdeep]

I've done dual setup... and didn't like it. The gap in the middle of a spanned desktop sucks for me. However, if two displays are for 2 different systems, then it's ok. I can work with 2 systems on one desk. But not 1 system on 2 displays.

I have a 30" dell and it's perfect. I'd prefer an apple display, but the price for them is a ripoff. I may have a fast system compared to some, but it doesn't mean I like throwing money around for no reason. One thing to remember about the big displays, or multi display, is that you have to make sure you are sitting back far enough... it's like being too close to a television, you get dizzy and you have to move your neck around just to see everything. I have mine back a good 3.5 to 4 feet from my face.

[goMac]

Originally Posted by ballzdeep 

As for getting a g5, the price I am getting for the system, upgraded card, and 8gb ram is a few hundred LESS than a 1gb ram, 2.66intelxeon, 250gb, + ati x1900 512(upgraded) card from the apple store direct... if I got the same system specs in the mac pro, I would be paying 2.25 times what I am paying now, and this system only came out year ago.

I'd still take the Xeon. It's probably twice as fast, and more expandable.

[Lateralus]

Christ people. He's already said what he intends to buy. Either help answer his original question or move on.

[jpuckrin]

I am a happy Quad owner. Just got the X1900 and I recommend the upgrade. If you have extra cash put it into an external storage solution.
-J

[Parvez]

GOD!! What the hell do you guys do with sooooooo much ram? Isn't 1 or 2 GB enough? 8x1GB ? OMG! That's very expensive and I wish I had so much money.

[chris v]

Originally Posted by Parvez 

GOD!! What the hell do you guys do with sooooooo much ram? Isn't 1 or 2 GB enough? 8x1GB ? OMG! That's very expensive and I wish I had so much money.

To answer your question, no. 1 or 2 gb is often not enough. My work machine is maxed out at 1.5 GB of RAM, on a machine on which I need to run daily Photoshop CS2, Illustrator CS2, Illustrator 10, Quark 6, Mail, Transmit, DragThing, iTunes, and sometimes GoLive and InDesign. The swap files eat hard drive pace for lunch, and if I have an app in the background for a while, I get the beachball for 30 seconds when I switch back to it. So instead of being able to just launch all the apps I might need for the day every morning, I'm constantly having to quite & re-launch things throughout the day. I know it's only a few seconds each time, but over the course of 2 or 3 years, that time adds up.

My home machine on the other hand, has 3.5 gb of ram in it, and it flies through whatever I throw at it. 2.5 to 3 gb of ram has been shown through benchmarks to be the sweet-spot for Photoshop, as well -- much less, and it performs much more poorly with large files, because it's constantly accessing virtual memory on the hard drive.

[SierraDragon]

Yeah, I know Ballz apparently has most of his decision made, maybe even the purchase done by now. However I do recommend that folks considering hardware purchases, especially of heavy graphics apps like FCP, think hard about what app version(s) they intend to run in the future, and do a life cycle cost analysis.

Those of us running heavy graphics apps should be very wary of investing in last-generation hardware when the world has been designing to the capabilities of new MacIntel hardware for many months now. E.g. FCP already is rumored to have a MacIntel-only version upcoming, and new 2008 apps are very likely (IMO 100%) that will only run on MacIntel hardware. News re: FCP, Shake, etc.:
<http://thinksecret.com/news/0702finalcutpro6.html>

Note that none of the above suggests that a G5 purchase is necessarily inappropriate. It may make total sense for a short term (1-2 years life cycle), especially if one does not intend to upgrade to the latest app versions or to entirely new apps as soon as they come out.

Note too that RAM prices, as always, are falling. The price of 2-GB RAM DIMMs from OWC has fallen 40% or so since the MPs were first released.

-Allen Wicks

[Theodour]

The handful of professional shops I've personally been exposed to use older, cheaper to purchase hardware -- previous generation refurbs -- almost exclusively for production. The only guys that had the cutting edge hardware were the IT guys (for testing purposes -- like to see if it will help or hinder the flow) and the production managers (because they can).

Seriously ... having the latest and greatest is sheer bliss, but even the latest gen. G4s are STILL FAST from a practical and bottom line standpoint (ie. I've saved 20 grand on 10 boxes, and they are more than capable of meeting and exceeding the needs of our workflow).

[ballzdeep]

Yes, I have gone ahead and purchased the system, I also threw down a little extra $ at OWC for the ati x1900 256mb g5 pci-e 16x card since I couldn't get the geforce 6800gt since you can't buy it commercially seperately. GREAT card!

Reason I need so much ram is for HD video editing (up to 2 hours of timeline at once) + other apps running.

[CIA]

I'm editing in SD here, using the latest FCP version on my Quad. I got that Highpoint 2314 card I mentioned earlier, and it seems to work ok. I ended up buying four 250GB drives and built a RAID 5 out of it. For Reference:
Single WD 250 drive on the eSATA card gets me about 60MB/sec
All 4 in a RAID 0 got me 225MB/sec.
Switching to the RAID 5 dropped it to about 160-170MB/sec.
This was tested using KONA's tool.
I went with the 250GB drives because I found em for $60 each on dealmac.
One odd note about the Highpoint card. It's very Un-OSX to setup and use, and for some reason when the driver is installed (needed to use the card) my Kernel_task hovers at around 80-100% CPU usage. When I uninstall the driver it drops back down into 1-2% range.
I'm tempted to sell it and step up to the Sonnet eSata card, even tho it costs more.

[mduell]

CIA: What's the write performance like for the RAID5 array?