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"Quiet and very fast, but expensive" on by longofest
Pros: Very, very fast and quieter than you'd expect. Nice port/expandability options (see caviat in cons)
Cons: older PCI cards won't work in PCI-e slots, expensive
Summary: I have had my brand new Quad for about a month now as an upgrade to my aging Dual 1Ghz Quicksilver 2002 machine that has served me well over the years.
Setup was very easy. The migration assistant worked as advertised (placing old computer into target disk mode and transfering old info from it to new computer took 45 minutes), and I was up and running in under an hour (not bad for as much crap as I have).
I was a little disappointed that I could not move some of my expansion cards over to the new PowerMac because the new Mac uses the advanced PCI Express slots for all of its expansion, which is not backwards compatible with PCI cards despite the name. However, I knew this going in, so its not too bad. Number of ports and expandability is great. I really like the inclusion of 2 Gb Ethernet ports on this revision, which allows me to sync my PowerBook with one cable, and connect to the net with another.
Performance is great. I used an application that I had written to compare one CPU from my Dual 1Ghz to 1 CPU from the Quad, and the Quad is about 4x faster (this is just one CPU). The app was Alti-vec heavy, so keep that in mind. A less alti-vec heavy app saw a less dramatic speed improvement (more like 2.5x faster, which is more like the clock-speed differential).
While my app was not multi-threaded and was able to reside completely in each processor's Cache (so it is only useful in comparing the processors themselves), I can say that general tasks also feel much snappier as well.
Final notes: the liquid-cooling of the Quad does wonders to keep its noise down way low. It is less than half as loud as my G4, and is quieter than my PC as well. Nice job Apple.
I recommend this if you have multi-threaded Apps that can use all 4 processors to their fullest. The machine has been good to me so far, and I believe it will be good to you as well. Of course, get Applecare as well. You never know... -
"Awsome and the most powerful thing ever!" on by Cnetisgay
Pros: you know everything's good about it
Cons: there aren't any
Summary: Its awsome beats pc's and has mac os x
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"Reviewer's cons are a bit misguided." on by optimus
Pros: Crunches more numbers than any other production desktop, can handle up to 16 GB of RAM, PCI Express, it has the best industrial design on the market.
Cons: If you want bluetooth order it with the Quad. If not, Apple will not sell you a card later and you will end up having to use a USB bluetooth adapter.
Summary: This is a very serious machine. Price out a Dell Precision Workstation and you'll soon realize how much money you'll save buying a Powermac.
Daniel Drew Turner writes: "The bad: Wireless AirPort card not included in default configuration; external modem; poor AirPort reception; difficult to add second drive; no RAID option."
As for an Airport card not being included and gets poor reception, this machine comes with dual gigabit ethernet ports. Wireless is ONLY a last resort for workstations where cabling is an issue. Why in the world would anyone want to use wireless with a Powermac?!?!
As for no internal modem, have you ever heard of having plan B or plan C? Well, modems are plan Z. They may be a viable backup plan for a notebook but not for a serious power user. Also, see previous remark about networking.
As for the difficult to add second hard drive, you'd have to have your hands bound in duct tape to not be able to install a second drive. Here is how it's done: remove the side cover (only one lever to do that), screw the supplied round head screws into the hard drive and slide it into the slots, turn the retainer tab so the drive doesn't slide out then plug the sata and power cables into the drive, put the cover back on. After that you have to briefly go into disk tools to format the drive and...viola!...your done. At least that's how I did mine and now I have two 250 GB sata drives internally.
When I swapped out the graphics card that was even easier. I removed the cover, swapped cards, reinstalled the cover and booted up. That's it. Mac OS X installed the drivers as it was starting up and by the time I was logged in everything was done. I have never experienced that sort of thing on a Windows box. NEVER.
As for the no raid option, you can do software raid on the two internal drives. However, serious users tend to opt for a serial raid card or FW800 with an external drive set up. This is probably the best way to go since you aren't taxing the internal cooling and power supply. Outside of a server application I have yet to see anyone trying to stuff three or more drives internally. -
"Switched from Dell XPS to Mac Quad G5 - What a GREAT move !!!" on by ezflyer54
Pros: GREAT OS (10.5), NO virus, adware, malware problems !!!
Cons: Jealous PC/MicroSoft users who also hate my iPhone :)
Summary: I started working with PCs and MicroSoft software before "Windows," but when I saw Vista, I knew now was the time to switch. I've been interested in Macs for a long time , but just made the jump with a slightly used Power Mac Quad G5 (Duel 2.5 GHz). This Mac is great. I have 4.5 GB of memory, a 750 hdd, and another 150 hdd, and an external 750 hdd for Time Machine. This is a beautiful machine, very powerful, and MUCH quieter than my old Dell. Did I mention GREAT Apple support !!!
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"the best computer I have seen!!!! !!!!! !!!!! !!!!!!! !!!!!!!!" on by darkblast93
Pros: speed,hard drive,picture,design,end much more! and the nice apps.
Cons: no raid thats kind of sad (its a rime get it?)
Summary: a very good computer for art design but it has no raid wich was dissipointing
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