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G4s and G5s

T

TheStu

Moderator<br>Mobile Devices & Gadgets
Moderator
Those of you with G4s and G5s, can you playback 720p or 1080p trailers from Apple? Every now and again one can find great deals on g4 imacs and sometimes g5s and I was thinking about the idea of a kitchen computer to watch movies on in addition to everything else.

When i was in school I was able to playback multiple (at least 3) 1080p files simultaneously on the quad 2.5GHz G5 in the lab. But a PowerMac is a little impractical in the kitchen non?
 
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G5 machines are still like ~$250+, and besides the cost, and the power consumption and slowness and lack of x86 capability (yeah this is becoming important even for macs), there are Regor+785G combos on newegg for $105. Old macs just don't make sense when you can build a respectable high-frequency dual core machine for the same money and shove it in a low profile matx case. Even grossly overclocked, the athlon would consume less power than the G5, would be capable of running snow leopard as well as do a damn fine job of virtualizing windows 7 (or vice versa). Seriously the G4/G5 are just not capable enough for a 21st century geek's HTPC. If you just whimsically wanted a G4 as a print server then that's different.
 
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but its a REAL MAC. i think g4 and g5 and KIRF fanboys/girls - mypod folks 🙂

a quad 2.5ghz G5 is like a jet engine - in terms of heat and noise when it gets going - to playback 3 1080p files?? a freaking q6600 can do that for half the watts
 
Emulex said:
but its a REAL MAC. i think g4 and g5 and KIRF fanboys/girls - mypod folks 🙂

a quad 2.5ghz G5 is like a jet engine - in terms of heat and noise when it gets going - to playback 3 1080p files?? a freaking q6600 can do that for half the watts
Click to expand...

It was never that noisy, the 2.5 and 2.7GHz Dual Duals had integrated water cooling. Instead of a giant heatsink like the current Mac Pros, and the PowerMacs that came before them, there was a block, pump, rad and fan in each!

I know that I could build a system, but it is kind of hard to build an all-in-one. I don't have a spare nice widescreen laying around, and I was looking at a 17 or 20" iMac. You can get them for like $250-300. You price me a complete new SFF system for $250-300 and I might consider it. But with an all-in-one, I have a contained system, with SFF I have 2 big boxes instead of one, at least 4-5 cables (power, power, video, audio, network) instead of 2 (power, network).

There are advantages to going with the iMac in this instance.

This system will be in the kitchen, and will stay in the kitchen. It will be so I can look up how to convert teaspoons to liters, maybe check emails on occasion, and stream media to. I cannot think of a reason for x86 compatibility.
 
well then just get an ipad 🙂 it can drive a screen. it can use a keyboard/mouse.

i do agree anything less than 2560x1600 display just stinks once you get used to it 🙂
 
Emulex said:
well then just get an ipad 🙂 it can drive a screen. it can use a keyboard/mouse.

i do agree anything less than 2560x1600 display just stinks once you get used to it 🙂
Click to expand...

iPad is $499, and although it would make a great kitchen computer, I am not sure how well it would do with a ton of streaming.
 
well if you were serious about osx86, and want quartz extreme and all that, it would be about $450 (including a refurbed 1080p/22" dell for $139). well, let me look over the HCL for 10.6.2...

alright, a pentium e6300 (this is the only non-core2duo wolfdale that supports VT-x) is $75, a GA-G41M-ES2L is $58, god can you believe these prices, $60 for 2 gigs of 1066, $33 for an ASUS 8400 GS.. that comes to $226, a 500GB F3+DVD burner brings it to $300. you're on your own with the case and PSU, but this is essentially what you get with the $1200 iMac besides the "all in one" part. I cant see anything on ebay that competes with the <$500 DIY machine except this

http://cgi.ebay.com/Apple-iMac-G5-1...iewItem&pt=Apple_Desktops&hash=item35a92825dd

but can this decode 1080p on the CPU? 1.8 GHz single core? i don't like it and i'm not sure you could get a core2 duo imac for under $600 and you definitely aren't getting an imac that does 3.4 ghz on the stock cooler, can be virtualized into a home server, expanded for storage and/or throughput yada yada yada.
 
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alyarb said:
well if you were serious about osx86, and want quartz extreme and all that, it would be about $450 (including a refurbed 1080p/22" dell for $139). well, let me look over the HCL for 10.6.2...

alright, a pentium e6300 (this is the only non-core2duo wolfdale that supports VT-x) is $75, a GA-G41M-ES2L is $58, god can you believe these prices, $60 for 2 gigs of 1066, $33 for an ASUS 8400 GS.. that comes to $226, a 500GB F3+DVD burner brings it to $300. you're on your own with the case and PSU, but this is essentially what you get with the $1200 iMac besides the "all in one" part. I cant see anything on ebay that competes with the <$500 DIY machine except this

http://cgi.ebay.com/Apple-iMac-G5-1...iewItem&pt=Apple_Desktops&hash=item35a92825dd

but can this decode 1080p on the CPU? 1.8 GHz single core? i don't like it and i'm not sure you could get a core2 duo imac for under $600 and you definitely aren't getting an imac that does 3.4 ghz on the stock cooler, can be virtualized into a home server, expanded for storage and/or throughput yada yada yada.
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I already have a Hack, I know how to do it. The problem is SPACE. I am looking for an all-in-one, I like the design of the g4 iMacs, and the G5s and above sort of look like TVs anyway, and all I want to know is if they can handle at least 720p.

I know that we are all geeks and nerds and love to do what we do. But for the love of christ, can we please actually answer people's questions first, and then offer alternatives and 'You should do this instead, it is much better' later? I don't give a shit if that hack you priced will blow me and make my dinner, I do not have unlimited space, I have no room to place even a SFF and monitor unless it was Mini-ITX and those are too freaking expensive.

So, someone, please answer the question, or don't, but for right now, I just want to know the answer.
 
alyarb said:
probably 720 with that attitude.
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I'm sorry, but I have just seen so many threads where a person is asking Question A and the first 7 responses are all 'Don't do that, you should do B instead, A is stupid'. I just want an answer, so I apologize for textually snapping... but really I just want an answer.
 
I had a dual 1.8Ghz G5 at work, before they replaced it with a new iMac. From what I remember 720p was okay, but 1080p was pushing it and it would halt from time to time.. it also depends on the codec used.. QT was a big push, but AVI/MKV wasn't horrible.

I remember them making a white Core Duo iMac... maybe that?
 
well you're talking 1 core with 1gb of ram for the cheaper machines. how upgradeable are the macs that have everything shoved into the lamp stand? I mean don't complain if you get K7 decoding performance and can't upgrade.
 
honestly - tape a friggen ipad to the kitchen. or a hp mini with ion netbook. why put a friggen server in an area that is congested already??

there's a pic of a dude that cut out a cabinet and inset the ipad - slick. 720p? all day long. 1080p? yes but the screen isn't 1080p so that's kinda irrelevant.

my wife uses the dell mini-9 (OSX) and when i get a kickstand maybe the ipad-16/3g to pick out the recipes and cook them.

thank god for women - cooking - childraising - least i can do is rig up something cool to help them along.

to be honest - if you have a kid - throw a small flat panel in the kitchen - because they are gonna rob the big-screen(trust me on this) - then you can watch your own tv on the ipad/flat panel in kitchen.

If you have no kids - cool too.
 
Emulex said:
honestly - tape a friggen ipad to the kitchen. or a hp mini with ion netbook. why put a friggen server in an area that is congested already??

there's a pic of a dude that cut out a cabinet and inset the ipad - slick. 720p? all day long. 1080p? yes but the screen isn't 1080p so that's kinda irrelevant.

my wife uses the dell mini-9 (OSX) and when i get a kickstand maybe the ipad-16/3g to pick out the recipes and cook them.

thank god for women - cooking - childraising - least i can do is rig up something cool to help them along.

to be honest - if you have a kid - throw a small flat panel in the kitchen - because they are gonna rob the big-screen(trust me on this) - then you can watch your own tv on the ipad/flat panel in kitchen.

If you have no kids - cool too.
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I have no children, and I rent, so i can't go cutting. The kitchen system wouldn't be a server, my desktop is the server, it just needs to receive the data. I just need something that won't take up a huge amount of space. I might be able to put a small shelf in the kitchen above the stove, which would be big enough for something mini sized, and the monitor, but no way is there anywhere for a tower. That was why I was asking about older iMacs. The price is reasonable, the screen is large and easy to see (netbooks not so much) and they run OS X which I prefer. If what I am getting is that they cannot do it, then so be it, no kitchen computer then.
 
TheStu said:
iPad is $499, and although it would make a great kitchen computer, I am not sure how well it would do with a ton of streaming.
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It wouldn't since it can't do Flash.

I was able to get my iBook G4 1.33ghz to run 720p video. That was running Tiger. It wouldn't do it with Leopard. It would occasionally drop frames though. Of course QuickTime video is GPU accelerated. Flash, forgettabout it. 😱

For that purpose, I think you're best going with a mini-ITX PC system.
 
what? i do a ton of streaming airvideo and youtube and all the tons of free apps.

flash is lame - there will never be any support for powerpc flash gpu enhanced. the only reason they want flash is DRM.

there is no reason flash is needed to play video - it never made sense from day 1 why you'd shove video into that container when plenty of other methods worked fine (from day 1). people just got lazy.
 
I had a Dual 867 G4 at work that could do 720p (not flash) fine.

From what I remember of the lamps, they went up to like 1.25. I think that would suffice. We had some 800mhz lamps that seemed like they could play 480p trailers fine but stuttered on 720p.

This guy seems to like his 20":
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=892769

I think the G4 would work great in a space where you may have to change viewing angles constantly. You'd never have to move the base.

EDIT: Although, if it was me, I'd probably go for a ASUS EEETop, for just streaming and casual websurfing and stuff.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883220017&cm_re=ion-_-83-220-017-_-Product
 
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Imported said:
I have an old iBook G4 collecting dust.. wouldn't know though.
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I have the PowerBook in my sig, and I know that it cannot handle 720p video, though I am not sure how much of that is the chip, and how much is the half broken heatsink that allows the CPU to overheat in a heartbeat. So, a 1.33GHz G4 chip in a PowerBook cannot do it (probably), but I do not know if the laptop chips were different from the desktop ones or not.
 
bearxor said:
I had a Dual 867 G4 at work that could do 720p (not flash) fine.

From what I remember of the lamps, they went up to like 1.25. I think that would suffice. We had some 800mhz lamps that seemed like they could play 480p trailers fine but stuttered on 720p.

This guy seems to like his 20":
http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=892769

I think the G4 would work great in a space where you may have to change viewing angles constantly. You'd never have to move the base.

EDIT: Although, if it was me, I'd probably go for a ASUS EEETop, for just streaming and casual websurfing and stuff.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-017-_-Product
Click to expand...

Yea, but at $600 I could build a Mini-ITX system with a better GPU, and get one of those Gigabyte cases with the built in VESA stand (that I think swivels!).

If the 1.25 can handle 720p, that would be great, and I did see that someone made a 1.92GHz G4 chip that can be dropped into the iMac (after the complicated taking apart process) and that should certainly be able to handle it.

The matter is just getting the iMac g4 and the Daystar chip for a good price (and being able to find the daystar chip).
 
I have a 17" 1Ghz G4 iMac (in my kitchen) with the GeForce MX graphics so it isn't core graphics accelerated but it is quartz extreme accelerated. I have 1.25GB of ram in it and a 200GB 7200 RPM drive. Despite all of this it's just fast enough to do 480p consistently from Apple trailers and I can barely tolerate it to browse the web even without Flash. It couldn't do 720p if its life depended on it.

Single cpu G4 is an emphatic no. I want to replace mine with a faster G5 iMac or a Core Duo iMac, but I like the old lampshade footprint 🙁
 
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Emulex said:
but its a REAL MAC. i think g4 and g5 and KIRF fanboys/girls - mypod folks 🙂

a quad 2.5ghz G5 is like a jet engine - in terms of heat and noise when it gets going - to playback 3 1080p files?? a freaking q6600 can do that for half the watts
Click to expand...

The jet engines were the MDD G4 DP and the one after that...
 
Tegeril said:
I have a 17" 1Ghz G4 iMac (in my kitchen) just before the FX5200 so it isn't core graphics accelerated but it is quartz extreme accelerated. I have 1.25GB of ram in it and a 200GB 7200 RPM drive. Despite all of this it's just fast enough to do 480p consistently from Apple trailers and I can barely tolerate it to browse the web even without Flash. It couldn't do 720p if its life depended on it.

Single cpu G4 is an emphatic no. I want to replace mine with a faster G5 iMac or a Core Duo iMac, but I like the old lampshade footprint 🙁
Click to expand...

I love the iLamp footprint. If it was possible to connect the screen over DVI, I think the coolest thing (that would definitely do 720p) would be an early intel Mini shoved into the dome, it would almost certainly fit in there. But then I am again looking at many hundreds of dollars. Easily double the cost of just the G4 iMac. But, it is more appealing, and arguably, better looking than a mini-ITX hack.
 
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