---------- Original message ----------
Subject: Low Power G5
Date: Sunday, 22. April 2012
From: Old G4 <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
> My G4 MDD is nearing the end of its miserable life (bad power supply,
> power manager system, starting problems, etc.).
Which one do you have?
> I want a G5 PowerMac for internet, video encoding, a little Halo and
> Star Trek, etc., but I _need_ the least power draw with the most
> reliability I can get as my machine is usually on 22.5 hours a day.
That could be problematic...
> I want to avoid the iMac motherboard G5 and > 2.3 GHz models which are
> just too hot (I leave my doors open often here in San Antonio, TX),
> unless a really good case (argument) is made for it, but all others
> are fair game.
The best G5 in terms of power consumtion, if you can say so, is a Dual-Core
model i.e. Late 2005. Use either the 2.0 GHz or the 2.3 GHz model, both are
air cooled and you won't have any liquid cooling issues with it.
But, as with all > 1 GHz Power Macs, you will have a bad ratio for performance
over power consumtion.
My G5 Dual-Core 2.0 GHz did draw around 90W/h when idle and around 130 when
doing something under Mac OS X 10.5.8.
Look at the Geekbench performance figures of Mac systems:
Power Mac G4 Cube 450 MHz:
285 points (i.e. low performance, low power)
Power Mac G4 Quicksilver Dual-800 MHz:
668 points (still low performace, but way more power consumption)
Power Mac G4 FW800 Dual-1.42 GHz:
1234 points (acceptable performance, but high power consumption)
Power Mac G5 (original i.e. PowerPC 970) Dual-2 GHz:
1697 points (acceptable performace, but high power consumption)
Power Mac G5 "Late 2005" Dual-Core 2.0 GHz:
1813 points (acceptable performace, high power consumption)
And you won't get any better than this with PowerPC-based Macs.
Power Mac G5 "Late 2005 Dual Dual-Core 2.5 GHz liquid cooled "Quad":
3317 points (good performance, very high power consumption)
COMPARE TO:
MacBook Pro "Late 2008" Core 2 Duo T9400 2.53 GHz (two cores):
3422 points (good performance, low power consumption)
In other words, if you want to go for power consumption, either accept low
performance: this unfortunately won't have you watch YouTube videos.
Or go for Intel-Macs.
Or build your own Hackintosh. (CAUTION: may be illegal in your country!)
> I'm hoping to get wattage figures from some of you with machine and
> kit specs. Power draw at the wall is most helpful to me. I'm using
> an APC BR1500G which gives me wall power on the LED screen.
I don't know where to find power figures, but you can get performance figures
at
Geekbench: http://browse.geekbench.ca/mac-benchmark/
> I plan to use a 9800 XT or Pro (I have 3) and am also interested in
> what those draw, as I might also use a flashed RIVA TNT.
So this is the reason you want a Power Mac, hah?
If you really have to go for a PowerPC-based system, I always found an
MDD/FW800 with the Dual-1.42 GHz G4 to be the best choice. You can expand it
with cheaper PCI/AGP cards, get the cheaper (slower) memory DIMMs for it and
have 4 IDE disk drives in it.
In terms of performance you don't loose a lot compared to the G5s, except the
liquid cooled models, which will introduce new problems -- especially on old
systems.
As for a G5, the Dual-Core model "Late 2005" seems the best, as it introduces
PCI-Express and DDR2 memory. You can get at least 8 GB DDR2 memory for the
same money you'd get 2 GB of DDR memory for the earlier G5s.
With the Dual-Core PCI-Express G5 you won't be able to use your Radeon
graphics cards though.
> As philosophical recompense for your effort, I am thinking (seriously)
> about trying to shoehorn my future G5 into a Mac Pro case. Any
> history or experience on that subject would be welcome.
If you get a G5 in a G5 case, what's the BIG difference to the Mac Pro case
really? Or do you desperately need a second optical drive?
Cheers,
Andreas aka Mac User #330250
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