upgrade power mac g5 quad

Hi Norah,

Memory can be upgraded to 16GB using up to 4 sets of these...

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/Other%20World%20Computing/4200DDR2M4GP/

Speed cannot & never be upgraded, sorry, well actually a bit possibly with a better Graphic Card, japamac lists G5 PCIe options are listed here:

http://www.jcsenterprises.com/Japamacs_Page/Blog/71BBF3EF-9713-4C53-8B80-26771F8 A4087.html

For Wireless I recommend...

http://eshop.macsales.com/item/NewerTech/MXP2802NU2C/

BTW, here's my Quad...

Hardware Overview:

Machine Name: Power Mac G5 Quad

Machine Model: PowerMac11,2

CPU Type: PowerPC G5 (1.1)

Number Of CPUs: 4

CPU Speed: 2.5 GHz

L2 Cache (per CPU): 1 MB

Memory: 10 GB

Bus Speed: 1.25 GHz

Boot ROM Version: 5.2.7f1

NVIDIA GeForce 7800GT:

Chipset Model: GeForce 7800GT

Type: Display

Bus: PCI

Slot: SLOT-1

VRAM (Total): 256 MB

Vendor: nVIDIA (0x10de)

Device ID: 0x0092

Revision ID: 0x00a1

ROM Revision: 2152.2

Displays:

VGA Display:

Resolution: 1920 x 1080 @ 60 Hz

Depth: 32-bit Color

Core Image: Supported

Main Display: Yes

Mirror: Off

Online: Yes

Quartz Extreme: Supported

The only qualification I would add to BDAqua's excellent response, is that performance can indeed be improved for certain applications, such as Photoshop.

Beside the graphics card upgrade, which is a given, performance of Photoshop is improved substantially with the addition of a dedicated, large-ish internal drive for Photoshop's scratch disk, e, g, a 160 GB or larger fast hard drive, or even a 140 GB0 or larger SSD,

In my case, I'm upgrading a 2.5GHz PowerMac(PPC) G5Quad with a mutant, flashed 550MHz nVidia GeForce 7800GTX, 1,700MHz graphics card with 512MB VRAM to drive dual high-end 22" CRTs, 16 GB of RAM (yes, you can observe a difference in the performance of Photoshop going from 12 GB to 16 GB of RAM), lots of internal and external hard drives, and an ATTO SCSI card to drive a tabloid-size transparency scanner and a film scanner. I do plan to get the SSD as soon as I get a Sonnet G5 Jive mounting system.

Cost-wise, I'm still coming in ahead of a new equivalent Mac Pro, and I'm retaining the ability to run thousands of dollars of irreplaceable custom software in Classic under Tiger 10.4.11.

As of version 11.x ("CS 4") and higher, Photoshop uses the GNP on the graphics card to speed up many operations, that's why a fast and powerful graphics card makes such a substantial difference.

I could go into the details of why a dedicated and large internal hard drive for Photoshop's scratch disk can also make a huge difference in performance, if you confirm that you are in fact using or intending to use Photoshop.

As far as the wireless adapter, I went with the ASUS USB-N10 EZ N USB network adapter instead of the NewerTechnology unit, just because I was a little put off by its "cradle" idea, and the ASUS is incredibly compact, and two bucks cheaper. 😀

Two additional things that speed up performance of the G5 Quad in any application both in Tiger and in Leopard are disabling both the unforgivably intrusive, useless Spotblight and the utterly superfluous Dashboard toy. I find the free EasyFind more than competent, robust and agile as well as totally inconspicuous and unobtrusive. EasyFind finds stuff that Apple has declared off-limits to Spotblight.

Personally, I have also disabled the intrusive Time Machine on my auxiliary Leopard boot volume, and that also contributes to a significant increase in performance. Instead, I rely on SuperDuper for backups. However, I fully understand that many users will want to keep Time Machine.

Normally, I run under Tiger 10.4.11 but I do have that auxiliary 10.5.8 boot volume just in case I run into stuff that requires at least Leopard.

I could not be happier with my setup. As far as OS features, I'd still be running Panther if Photoshop 11.0.2 ran on it, but that version of Photoshop requires Tiger.

flashed 550MHz nVidia GeForce 7800GTX,

Don't forget, 512 MB VRAM (just say NO to the 256 MB cards)

The only real contender worth considering.

Buy here .

japamac wrote:

flashed 550MHz nVidia GeForce 7800GTX,

Don't forget, 512 MB VRAM (just say NO to the 256 MB cards)

Well, yes, that's what I typed above:

flashed 550MHz nVidia GeForce 7800GTX, 1,700MHz graphics card with 512MB VRAM

[emphasis added]

This the one I bought just 11 days ago (hope I got it right) 😮 :

japamac wrote:

…Don't forget, 512 MB VRAM…

The only real contender worth considering.

Buy here .

Incidentally, japamac, on your site you say that "for most users, the Geforce 7800 GTX is the fastest card available, but for some, the Quadro is more relevant."

Would you care to elaborate on that last sentence regarding the quadro being more relevant for some users?

Thanks in advance.

Would you care to elaborate on that last sentence regarding the quadro being more relevant for some users?

geforce vs quadro

japamac wrote:

… geforce vs quadro

Thanks! 🙂

Do I gather correctly then that the users you referred to in

"for most users, the Geforce 7800 GTX is the fastest card available, but for some, the Quadro is more relevant."

are those users involved in 3-D, CAD, Rendering, video, etc?

3-D and CAD, yes.

Some specific scientific apps as well.

Rendering video and graphics is probably better with the GTX, as is use with FCP, Adobe software, etc.

Of course gaming belongs to the GTX.....

Thank you, japamac!

Looks like I indeed made the right choice, then. When it comes to performance improvements. Adobe apps and VueScan are all I care about at this point. 🙂

The help I've been getting from you, BDAqua and others on these discussion boards has been invaluable, just something I can never repay.

Now, on to investigate the G5 Jive by Sonnet. But that's another thread…