TR Forums

Does anyone know if these Mac Pro's came with IDE or SATA drives? I'm looking at acquiring one soon...

My PowerMac with a Dual G5 has sata drives. I assume you're talking about a PowerMac there, if you're talking about a Mac Pro (intel cpu) they should all be sata.

All G5s have SATA drives, too. Any G4 has IDE.

I did mean PowerMac sorry. I've since tried to have some sense talked into me and probably will not get one, but ohhhhh I want to.

lonleyppl wrote:

I did mean PowerMac sorry. I've since tried to have some sense talked into me and probably will not get one, but ohhhhh I want to.

Don't, unless you're a hobbyist working with odd flavors of Linux. I say that as someone who still has a few dual G5's to look after.

OS X on PowerPC is a dead platform. Your final OS will be Leopard (10.5), two revs back, and app support is dying with it. While what they can run, they run well, you've got considerable limits. Replacement parts are also more costly than they're worth.

I like the dual G5's technologically, and performance-wise, but unless you can get one super-cheap though (by super-cheap, I mean $100 and under, though they're probably worth a tad more), I'd get something else just due to what you can't do with them, which is slowly increasing.

Not to mention the high power consumption and heat from those old CPUs.

Yeah, that's probably good advice. They're cute and fun, and I like playing games in OS 9 on my B&W G3, but a G5 doesn't give you ANYTHING over an Intel Mac at this point.

LoneWolf15 wrote:

lonleyppl wrote:

I did mean PowerMac sorry. I've since tried to have some sense talked into me and probably will not get one, but ohhhhh I want to.

Don't, unless you're a hobbyist working with odd flavors of Linux. I say that as someone who still has a few dual G5's to look after.

OS X on PowerPC is a dead platform. Your final OS will be Leopard (10.5), two revs back, and app support is dying with it. While what they can run, they run well, you've got considerable limits. Replacement parts are also more costly than they're worth.

I like the dual G5's technologically, and performance-wise, but unless you can get one super-cheap though (by super-cheap, I mean $100 and under, though they're probably worth a tad more), I'd get something else just due to what you can't do with them, which is slowly increasing.

Well, that was one reason. It would be used mainly under Linux, though I really need to start learning the basics of OSX. I've seen quite a few in good cosmetic condition on eBay for less than $100. The main reason I want one is because they're they only way I'll buy an Apple product (used), I want a desktop again just because I want a desktop again, heat isn't an issue (and I'm not paying for electricity), it'd be only lightly used (or possibly not, depends on if I folded with it when not messing with Linux and OSX, playing Diablo II or document editing) and (main reason) because they're gorgeous. I absolutely love the aesthetics of the PowerMac/Mac Pro.

[Edit]
Lonewolf, I'd be happy to take one off of your hands for shipping + a nominal fee. I'm even only slightly joking (but only because I'm guessing you won't accept)!

If you're wanting a cheap real OSX box, why not look at a used Intel Mac Mini? The first-gen Intel ones have Core Duos or Solos and can't run Lion, so you might find some cheap.

lonleyppl wrote:

Well, that was one reason. It would be used mainly under Linux, though I really need to start learning the basics of OSX. I've seen quite a few in good cosmetic condition on eBay for less than $100. The main reason I want one is because they're they only way I'll buy an Apple product (used), I want a desktop again just because I want a desktop again, heat isn't an issue (and I'm not paying for electricity), it'd be only lightly used (or possibly not, depends on if I folded with it when not messing with Linux and OSX, playing Diablo II or document editing) and (main reason) because they're gorgeous. I absolutely love the aesthetics of the PowerMac/Mac Pro.

[Edit]
Lonewolf, I'd be happy to take one off of your hands for shipping + a nominal fee. I'm even only slightly joking (but only because I'm guessing you won't accept)!

They belong to my workplace, so it's not a matter of "won't" as much as "am unable to".

Personally, Craigslist would be my first spot. I admit, for every one person with a reasonable price on their used Mac, there are five who think it must be worth 20% more because it's a Mac; while that might be true for the right model, it is not for the G5 tower.

Just helped a colleague get a late model Macbook (Core 2 Penryn, Geforce graphics) off CL for an unheard of $350, because it needs a new inverter cable; the display backlight occasionally turns off. It's going to stink to repair (Apple = design first, engineering for repair = 2nd or 3rd), but with a $15-30 cable, we'll have a laptop worth about $200 more than he paid for it.

Got my dad a 20" aluminum iMac from a business moving to PC about two years ago for $550. I just upgraded it to Snow Leopard (it had Leopard, and I don't want to confuse him with Lion, he's not really a computer guy) this past month. It's all about watching, knowing what you want, and being the first to jump in.

Use everymac.com for specs --it's the best site I know of for that sort of thing.