New Mac purchase dilema...

S

SPZ

Veteran
Dear mac users,

I have a problem. I've been working with a g5 2.7 dual for 2 (or is it 3?) years now. The machine's CPU , according to the ONLY certified apple repair centre over here, the total for the fix is about 1000 USD. This is a ton of cash to repair a 3 year old machine. Here are my scenarios:

In my scenario, what would you do? I cannot afford a top of the line Macpro. I can, however, get and manage a loan of about 4000 USD.

Would you fix the G5 or go for a new machine? If going for a new machine, which one to keep me going for HQ Prores 4:2:2? What configuration? The budget is the above mentioned 4000 USD.

Thanks in advance!
 
The way the economy is over here, I would just get the mac fixed instead of going 4 grand into debt. Unless you can make that money back fairly quickly with the new computer just get the old one fixed. as far as the HQ prores 4:2:2, not really sure. It is all about the money right now for my company.

this link may help.
http://www.apple.com/finalcutstudio/specs/
 
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I'd do the same as well. A G5 is a great machine with plenty of IO capabilities. Of course a MacPro will go faster but IMHO it's not worth putting another 4K.
 
SPZ I have a G5 2.0 with 5.5 gigs of ram and I run 5 terabytes of space on firewire 800 and its a great machine. I run over sixty gig of apps not counting music and graphics files and it has never let me down. I have been thinking of upgrading to a 8proc and I watch the apple refurb site for the 8 procs and at the moment there are only the $4000 models but they usually have the 8 proc model for $2400. They come and go all the time. If you can live with that price and put in either 8 gigs or 16 gig of ram you can do it for about $4000. OWC has the best price on ram that I have seen so far for the 8 Procs. 32 gig for $2500.

It really depends on how much rendering you do on an ongoing bases. If you only render a little then check Craig's list for a G5, I have seen them pretty cheap there some times. If you render a lot then you would be better off getting a newer machine with as much ram as possible and at least 8gig which is only 1 gig for each processor. The 8Proc's do render quite a bit faster but if your not doing days of rendering then its time to go have some tea of lunch or render at night.

Also it depends on what version of software you are running and how much it will cost to upgrade those that need to be for the Intel Mac. It can get expensive quick to upgade 6 or 8 apps. For now I'm sticking with my G5 because most of my stuff I shoot of DVCPro 50 because I go to DVD 95% of the time with my projects.

Good Luck
 
I have both a dual 2.0 G5 and an Early 2k8 8 core in my studio and use them side by side. The G5 running Tiger and FCS is still a beautiful thing, the very paragon of reliability. The Intel MP is faster for rendering and graphics intensive stuff, and even though it certainly isn't 3k USD faster I'd still upgrade for future proofing. I'd also do your own CPU replacement on the G5 with parts you get from the internet even if it takes awhile to find them. Order that thing on credit, the whole world is going to explode anyway.
 
Thank you all for your opinions. I went with fixing the g5. Following much thinking, and listening to everyone's suggestion, I went with fixing the G5. I'm currently running 4gb's of ram and use the Radeon 9650 card. I figure if I'm fixing this I might has well up its performance. Any suggestions to make this g5 a capable HD machine? Its capable of HD editing, no doubt (native dvcpro HD), but would like to make this the fastest and most eficient it can be...

Thanks...

EDIT- Will probably get that loan and go for a 2.8 Octo Mac simultaneously. Because I really need prorez to mich diferent sources of HD footage and work with them HQ in realtime...
 
I've priced out a 2.8 octo Mac with 10 GB of Ram, three 1 TB hard drives in RAID 5, and two 24" ASUS HD-LCD monitors for just under $4500. I just specced out the 500GB internal drive and base 2GB memory from Apple and priced out the upgrades from Newegg.
 
davbeisner said:
I've priced out a 2.8 octo Mac with 10 GB of Ram, three 1 TB hard drives in RAID 5, and two 24" ASUS HD-LCD monitors for just under $4500. I just specced out the 500GB internal drive and base 2GB memory from Apple and priced out the upgrades from Newegg.
Click to expand...

Great Deal! I wouldn't need the monitors, so probably I can get all this for 4000?
 
Dear all,

I just couldn't believe a near 3 year old computer could die like that. Not believing in such bad luck, I searched the net and figured out something very worrying. THIS FAILURE IS HAPPENING EVERYWHERE.

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1294739&tstart=0

http://www.xlr8yourmac.com/systems/G5_coolant_leaks.html

So while I'm p%ssed Apple is being silent about this and letting uninformed people paying their mistakes, I take this opportunity to inform any G5 Dual 2.5/2.7/ Quad 2.5 to REALLY look into their liquid cooling system for leaks, or similar symptoms.

I'm in Asia, and can't make any noise, but you guys can!

That freakin g5 cost me 4500 USD back then... Frustrating, and I'm very, very upset! Repairing it will not guarantee much longer life span... If its a design flaw, what's preventing it to happen again!?
 
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