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    Power Mac G5 vs Alu iMac?

    Discussion in 'Apple and Mac OS X' started by blurb23, Mar 25, 2008.

  1. blurb23

    blurb23 Notebook Consultant

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    My friend has a PowerMac G5 tower (1.8Ghz single core, 512mb RAM). We were wondering how fast my new Aluminum iMac would be compared to that (2.0Ghz C2D, 1GB RAM (to be upgraded to 2GB later)).

    Are there any benchmark comparisons for these two models?
     
    blurb23, Mar 25, 2008
    #1
  2. Ayle

    Ayle Trailblazer

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    It would definitely be faster but I can't tell by how much...
     
    Ayle, Mar 25, 2008
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  3. ZaZ

    ZaZ Super Model Super Moderator

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    Also depends on what your are doing.
     
    ZaZ, Mar 25, 2008
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  4. Chris27

    Chris27 Notebook Deity

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    Your computer should be considerably faster, especially with any type of multitasking going on. I find the G5's in the campus computer clusters over here to be rather slow. If I remember correctly, for average day to day tasks a pentium 4 is faster than a G5 (although the comparison is a bit apples to oranges). So G5 < pentium 4 <= pentium m < Athlon 64 < core duo < A64 x2 << core 2 duo.
     
    Chris27, Mar 25, 2008
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  5. blurb23

    blurb23 Notebook Consultant

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    Just in general, I suppose.

    But, I guess specifically some video encoding (not heavy or anything, just converting formats and such), running multiple programs at once, a light bit of gaming (I'd figure that the 2400XT would be better than an old 9800PRO, but considering just how bad the 2400s are, I'm not sure), iLife, just general stuff like that.
     
    blurb23, Mar 25, 2008
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  6. Modly

    Modly Warranty Voider

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    I used to have a 1.8GHz G5, which blew when the transformer out back went boom.

    Compared to the dualcore 2.3GHz I had for a while after that, it was slow, but the 2.3 was actually faster at some things than my 8-core 2.8GHz Mac Pro. (Booting takes twice as long with my Mac Pro, but that's partially due to the ECC RAM test). Other apps that I use are optimised for PPC processors, which also meant they would work faster on less.

    If you get a dual processor G5, I'd have to say it will match a Core 2 Duo of the same speed or beat it slightly, plus you can get more RAM in a G5, and do it cheap. (My 2.3 could max out at 16GB, at about $380).

    The only reason to not consider a G5 powered machine is that many newer apps won't be compiled for PPC. This may still be a while off before this happens, but it will come.
     
    Modly, Mar 25, 2008
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