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[SS4Gogita]

I have a chance to get a new Apple G5 on Monday for relatively cheap. Right now this is what I have:

AMD Athlon 64 3400+ @ 2.4 Ghz
1GB RAM (DDR PC3200)
120GB HD
Generic DVD burner (I forget what brand, but it's held up nicely)
GeForce 6600GT AGP

This is what I'd be getting:

* Dual-core 2.3GHz processor
* 1.15GHz frontside bus
* 1MB L2 cache per core
* 512MB RAM, (up to 16GB)
* 250GB Serial ATA hard drive
* 16X SuperDrive DVD±RW
* NVIDIA GeForce 6600 with 256MB of GDDR SDRAM, one single-link DVI port, and one dual-link DVI port
* 3 PCI Express expansion slots
* 1 FireWire 800 port
* 2 FireWire 400 ports (one on front)
* 4 USB 2.0 ports (one on front)
* 2 USB 1.1 ports (on keyboard)
* 2 internal hard drive bays (one occupied)
* Audio: optical digital audio input, optical digital audio output, analog line-level input, analog line-level output, front headphone minijack and speaker
* Networking: Dual 10/100/1000BASE-T (Gigabit) Ethernet ports; integrated wireless antenna; optional AirPort Extreme and Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR
* Includes Apple Keyboard, Mighty Mouse, USB keyboard extension cable, DVI to VGA adapter

I'd just be doing generic stuff. Whatever word processing I can do, and some video/audio editing possibly. I don't do a lot of gaming, but if I can on this it would be nice (I don't have too much experience with Apple computers). The rest would be daily stuff (Intarweb, IRC, etc.). Is this an upgrade? Downgrade? HLP

 

[Lhadatt]

I want to say it's roughly equivalent, or in the same neighborhood as what you have. Unfortunately, I'd have to dig for the benchmarks to say for sure. Don't sell your AMD system for that unless you really want the Mac - I mean, it would probably be a fair trade, but I think you would be better served by saving for an Intel Mac (Xeon Mac Pro?).

The G5 was ecclipsed a while ago by Intel and AMD. The Athlon 64 you have is pretty good, so I want to say it should at least match the dual-G5 in performance. The G5 machine is hampered by its 512MB of RAM - OSX really needs more to be effective. Sure, it runs fine with what it's got, but give it 1GB or more and it will be pretty nice.

I'll update this if I can find any benchmarks.

 

[Lhadatt]

OK, some Photoshop benchmarks with your Athlon 64 3000+ and a G5 Dual-2.0 GHz. Note that the G5 here has a slower HDD and more RAM (1GB).

http://www.chaosmint.com/benchmarks/powermac-g5-ps7bench/

Considering that your G5 is dual-2.3GHz, with a faster HDD, and roughly the same graphics card as your Athlon, the G5 might be a little bit faster.