[Closed] iMac G5

They use the PowerPC chip, which have subsequently been replaced by Intel chips. For a few years there was cross-compatibility between operating systems and software, but this has ended for the latest stuff. You might want to consider that before spending that much on one.

If you want a mac and have a screen already i'd go for a new mac mini (c.£500). They have the latest chips and even though they are slower than current iMacs, a current mac mini is 5x faster than the fastest G5 iMac.

G5 chips are now very dated in the mac lineup - you won't be able to run the latest version of OS X on there (Lion). I believe Leopard was the last version to support PowerPC chips.

A modern £400 PC (assuming it's an i3 or i5) would walk all over the G5.

For £400 you should easily be able to find a second-hand Intel Core2Duo based Mac Mini (just add a monitor and keyboard).

There was also a fault with a number of the G5 motherboards - the capacitors on them swelled up and popped.

Mine went that way and had to be repaired by Apple.

Also - it had the most annoying fans in the world which speed up and slow down endlessly. The whine from them was irritating.

Spend a little more and get one of the alu iMac intel machines - my core2duo machine is as good as the day I bought it. Worth the extra in my opinion. And beautiful, to boot !

Or as others have said, a Mac Mini, although I've had two of those and never found the display as good on any of the monitors I tried as good as my iMac's....

I paid £90 for a fully upgraded PowerMac G4 over 2 years ago - can run all the old versions of Adobe apps like photoshop, but like the others say, Leopard is pretty elderly.

c£300 will get you a secondhand mac mini with intel Core 2 Duo chipset that will run lion ok.

If you like tinkering, go for it. But if there's a good chance you'll stick with macs, look at the apple refurb store and go for a mac mini or macbook pro. I got my macbook pro, latest model for £750 refurbed.

Thanx for the replies....i really like the iMac design, all-in-one, as space is limited.
Dont really want a seperate tower and monitor/screen.
Budget is only around @150.....
Internet, browsing, bit of word processing and photos....really dont use computers for much more!
Use iPhones throughout the household and itunes a lot.....so was looking for some sort of Apple desktop-thing to tie all of them together!
Sad-i know- but do like Apple stuff....

The G5 - if you get a good un - is still an amazing bit of design...

It'll do all the stuff you ask - as would a G4 'lampshade' model - even cooler (I've still got one of those...)

I like the all-in-one approach too....

I bought a G4 Mac Mini two weeks ago to run as a database server as it uses about 1/3rd of the power of the old Dell PowerEdge - plus it goes to sleep every night and wakes itself up at 7:00am.
It's a slow compared to my quad core workstation but it seems at least as fast as the old server (and this is searching a database of 4.7 million records!) and it's completely silent and the performance is fine considering that 99% of the time it sits there doing nothing! Total cost was £75.00 delivered.

I like it so much I've just bought a dual core Mac Mini for £130 which I may use to replace another Poweredge Sever that runs 24x7, or to set it up for my girls to use in the house.

I like the all-in-one approach too....

Macs are great for general use though. Get an Intel powered one if possible so you can run the latest browsers.

I have had a G5 for 6 years or so. Never missed a beat. I still use it in preference to my Macbook Pro for word processing, or anything where I want a lot of screen space. Good bit of kit.

If anyone has a 90w power supply for the 22" hd cinema screen (AI 1082)they want to part with please let me know.