Help a noob! Deciding over used Mac Pro

[USSR]

Hey guys,

I received a free G5 dual 2.0 PPC mac, but I'm looking to get a Mac Pro to replace a 10 year old Sony Vaio. I'm a college student, so I'd like to stay within budget (< $1000 for a Mac Pro tower).

There's currently one for sale on craigslist for $1k with the following specs (please view below).

So, is this a good deal for the price? What sort of speed advantages would I notice compared to my dual 2.0 PPC? I don't really do any hardcore gaming, just play CS:S on Steam and use lightroom to edit photos. I would like something that has the potential to handle some new games though... If this isn't a good deal for the money, what should I be looking for?

Thanks for any help!

2x 3Ghz Dual-core Intel Xeon processors (4 cores)
10GB 667Mhz DDR2 RAM memory (8 slots filled... 4x 512MB + 4x 2GB)
1.33Ghz bus speed
Seagate 750GB internal hard drive (installed under optical drive, freeing up the four SATA hard drive slots)
ATI Radeon 5770 1GB video card (two Mini DisplayPorts and one dual-link DVI port... yes, this can drive THREE monitors!)
Pioneer DVR-117D optical drive DVD+DL/CD RW
Mac OS X 10.7.2 installed and disc included
Bought in 2007, no longer under Applecare
MacPro1,1 model identifier
Five USB 2.0 ports (2 in front, 3 in back)
Four Firewire ports (1x FW400 in front + 1xFW800 in front + 1x FW400 in front + 1x FW800 in back)
Two ethernet ports, microphone and speaker ports
Four PCI-Express slots (1 taken up by video card, 1 taken up by two-port external Sonnet Technologies eSata card)
Includes Apple keyboard and mouse
Includes latest Adobe CS 5.5 graphics suite (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Acrobat, Dreamweaver, After Effects, etc.) and Microsoft Office 2011 (Word, Excel, Powerpoint, etc.)

 

[Neodym]

If you are prepared to reduce details on latest games (the 5770 is probably close to the maximum possible regarding graphic card performance) and perhaps add a SSD as system partition that tower should last you another 2-3 years. It should already be a significant speed increase over your 2.0-G5.

Later down the road you can also upgrade that machine to 8 cores if Lightroom would support multiple cores (don't know about that).

Exactly whether that is a good deal I can not tell from here. The next real step up would probably be a 2009 model (MP 4,1) - maybe you could find a good deal for a 4,1 and get some dollars for your Powermac to finance the difference.

 

[dknightd]

Any Macpro will be much faster than your G5.

That looks like a good deal (especially if you can use the included software - make sure you get install disks and license keys). Seems like a well set up machine. It is old 1,1 but still usable. If you don't need or want Adobe CS 5.5 then maybe overpriced - I'm not up on the market.

 

[SandynJosh]

Hey guys,

I received a free G5 dual 2.0 PPC mac, but I'm looking to get a Mac Pro to replace a 10 year old Sony Vaio. I'm a college student, so I'd like to stay within budget (< $1000 for a Mac Pro tower).

There's currently one for sale on craigslist for $1k with the following specs (please view below).

So, is this a good deal for the price?

That's a lot of computer for $1K. Make sure it's not an attempt to cheat you out of your money.

 

[octomac]

Hey guys,

Includes latest Adobe CS 5.5 graphics suite (Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Acrobat, Dreamweaver, After Effects, etc.) and Microsoft Office 2011 (Word, Excel, Powerpoint, etc.)

If he is going to transfer the licenses for these to you that price is a bargain.

 

[Loa]

Hello,

If you still "get by" with the vaio, that Mac Pro will be a roller coaster ride!

At that price with the 5770 and the RAM, it's a pretty good deal. Don't wait too long.

For the apps, make sure the guy gives you the boxes and/or receipts, otherwise it would be the same as downloading them illegally.

Loa

 

[USSR]

Hey guys, thanks for the help! Turns out I found a Mac Pro 1,1 locally with the 2.0Ghz processor, 1TB HD, and 8GB ram for $400. Only downside is it has a graphics card that needs replacing, so I'm going to flash a 5770 and I've already bought two Intel Xeon 5355s to swap in. So for about $650, I think I'll have myself a pretty good setup.

If anyone's curious, I'll post geekbench's before and after numbers in an update.

Thanks again!