Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

iMac G5 + leopard = Smart?

N

necrox

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Dec 7, 2010
17
0
Hi,
I have an question, I have iMac G5 1.8GHZ 2GB of ram 250GB HDD and nvidia 64mb video.
I'm thinking to install leopard, but I'm afraid will it be fast?
I will use:
Photoshop CS2, iTunes, Skype, iChat, safari, quick time and others.
Will it be fast? I mean, will software will run fast or slow?
 
necrox said:
Hi,
I have an question, I have iMac G5 1.8GHZ 2GB of ram 250GB HDD and nvidia 64mb video.
I'm thinking to install leopard, but I'm afraid will it be fast?
I will use:
Photoshop CS2, iTunes, Skype, iChat, safari, quick time and others.
Will it be fast? I mean, will software will run fast or slow?
Click to expand...

I got that exact same iMac. I ran photoshop cs3 extended easily on it. photoshop alone requires more than the rest you listed so you are safe there. I originally had Tiger for the OS and upgraded to leopard. I felt a slight speed increase upgrading to leopard.
 
Some software won't run on Tiger will run on Leopard. Time Machine is nice and Spaces is very useful. I liked Expose, Front Row, and Spotlight better on Tiger though.
 
The software wont run any faster than in Tiger.

I would only upgrade to Leopard on a G5 if the software required it. Or if you need the newer facilities like time machine backups.
 
Leopard will run fine on that setup, I ran it on a G4 powerbook for a little while, and it worked fine.
 
Leopard on a 1.8 G5 will be fine, you will be getting an OS that is far better supported then Tiger that should run at virtually the same speed, Plus you will get extra useful features like Time Machine, no reason I can think of not to do it
 
The speed increase from Panther to Tiger won't be as great as from Tiger to Leopard. You won't know fast until you upgrade to Intel though. The slowest and oldest Intel Mac that someone tossed in a dumper will run circles around a iMac G5 assuming it (Intel Mac) still works. :p
 
The software will run equally as fast (or slow) on either 10.4 or 10.5. However, some people report that the system feels faster with 10.4- I however, ran 10.4 for three years on my G5 iMac and have run Leopard for the past two years, and I have never been able to discern any difference.

Tiger is no longer receiving updates or security patches, while Leopard still does, and most likely will until the release of 10.7. For instance, if you want to run Safari 5, you'll need Leopard. If you want an iPhone 4 or an iPad, you'll need Leopard (unless you have another machine to synch with the device). Last night's update to Quicktime 7.6.9 is only for users of Leopard 10.5.8- Tiger users are not supported with this patch, which fixes a number of security issues. Although some might argue that security concerns on a Mac are unfounded, I believe it's better to have a patch and not need it than need a patch and not have it.
 
I have Leperd running on my PowerBook G4 with 1.25GB of ram and I have no troubles running PS CS2, iTunes and safari.

I think you will be fine.
 
The trouble is that Leopard is expensive, for example, £117.99 for Amazon in the UK. At that price I think we'll stick with Tiger on our iMac G5 and keep the cash till we buy a new iMac and discard the G5, probably next year.

(This year instead of replacing the G5 as we had planned, we bought a 13" MacBook Pro. So we do have access to Snow Leopard on that.)
 
hi,sorry im new to forums,let alone mac rumors so yeah.:eek:

Would it be wise to buy a second hand g5 imac with leopard on it?I can't afford a brand new imac and i'm not going to be running lots of heavy programs.It will be my first mac ever.
 
killerqueen said:
Would it be wise to buy a second hand g5 imac with leopard on it?I can't afford a brand new imac and i'm not going to be running lots of heavy programs.It will be my first mac ever.
Click to expand...

Generally, I wouldn't advise it, even if you're not going to run "lots of heavy programs". Of course, it depends what price you'd have to pay for one compared to an Intel iMac. And if you want to use AppleWorks, it was dropped from the iLife package supplied with iMacs when the Intel iMacs were introduced, so if you need that, you may need to buy a G5.

We bought our iMac G5 in December 2005. The next month, January 2006, Apple introduced the first Intel iMac and my sister bought one. She can upgrade to Snow Leopard and we can't. Snow Leopard will be supported for sometime to come, whereas Leopard is only likely to be supported till Lion appears. Also some of the iLife apps that come with the iMac have significantly improved since the G5, iPhoto for one. And then there's what BornAgainMac wrote above in this thread (post #9).

BornAgainMac said:
The slowest and oldest Intel Mac that someone tossed in a dumper will run circles around a iMac G5 assuming it (Intel Mac) still works. :p
Click to expand...

So if you want to buy an iMac of that sort of age, I should buy an Intel from 2006 rather than a G5 from 2005 or earlier.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back