Refreshed iMac g5 rev B or new one?

[jmmac]

Hi,

I'm driving myself nuts trying to decide between a rev B iMac g5 and the new isight g5. I had initially decided not to buy the new one because I don't really need isight or the remote, although I'm sure they'd both be fun. So I thought I'd save the money and get the slightly older one. My indecision is really about whether or not the rev B's are unreliable. I know that the rev A's had LOTS of big problems but I'm unclear as to whether these issues have continued to be as significant in the rev B's.

Anyone out there have any thoughts or experience with this. Anyone else considering the same issues?

 

[Danksi]

Hi,

I'm driving myself nuts trying to decide between a rev B iMac g5 and the new isight g5. I had initially decided not to buy the new one because I don't really need isight or the remote, although I'm sure they'd both be fun. So I thought I'd save the money and get the slightly older one. My indecision is really about whether or not the rev B's are unreliable. I know that the rev A's had LOTS of big problems but I'm unclear as to whether these issues have continued to be as significant in the rev B's.

Anyone out there have any thoughts or experience with this. Anyone else considering the same issues?

Apple updated their website with the new iMac about an hour before my Rev.B turned up on my doorstep. I didn't open the Rev.B, turned down Apple's CDN$400 refund offer, returned it for free, ordered the Rev.C - the rest is a blur.

My Rev.C iMac runs quietly and a lot cooler than I've heard the Rev.A's and B's run. Time will tell how much more reliable the Rev.C's are.

I hardly use the iSight, but it's there if I need it. Same goes for FrontRow. This machine is in our home office, not the front room (not big enough for that at 17inch).

Other considerations:

Though the iMac Rev.C is capable of 2.5Gb total memory, it's limited to just 1.5Gb total - unless you're willing to pay $'s for a 2Gb stick at the moment. That said 1.5Gb's should be enough for most iMac users.

The back panel is not as user accessible as the Rev.B's. I'm unclear as to how user-servicable the Rev.C actually is. The memory slot seems to be the only easily accessible part. Not a problem so far, but I'd be p*ssed if I had to ship the machine back to have something 'simple' replaced.

I was looking forward to the included Might Mouse, however it's been a disappointment and after a lot of trial and error with various adjustments, I'm now using my old Logitech Notebook Plus optical mouse with better results.

In the end I felt more comfortable about getting the 'latest' revision machine, since it should hold it's value more than the previous revisions - in theory at least.

 

[ebow]

Refurbished 2.0GHz 17-inch rev B's are available at the Apple Store for $949. That's a very nice discount from the $1499 ($1399 educational) price they were originally at (i.e. what I paid for mine). But there is the issue of fan noise. My rev B sure gets "noisy" pretty easily. It's not as noisy as my wife's generic PC tower, but I'm not thrilled about it. So if $1299 ($1199 educational) is in your price range, I'd go for the rev C for that reason, if nothing else.

 

[FoxyKaye]

OTOH - the Rev. B machines being sold through Apple refurb are more than 30% less of their original cost in May/June (when I bought mine). And, the 17" is available at 2GHz - which may or may not have any real impact on speed given the new 17" at 1.9 GHz has DDR2 RAM and PCIe graphics.

However, I also think the Rev. B models will have as much "staying power" as the Rev. C models - aside from RAM and graphics, the Rev. Cs are nothing but flash. I say, save yourself some money and get a refurb Rev. B - you'd also be able to get the 20" refurb for less than a new 17" or 20".

I also like having some user servicable parts inside my iMac - three years from now I can drop in a Blu-Ray DVD, even larger SATA HDD, and upgrade the RAM to a full 2GB if I want. The Rev. Cs look quite difficult to open up and work with...

[Edit]: I also think that the fan noise issue seems to vary wildly by machine - I can count the times on one hand I've really heard my fans rev up on my iMac, but I have friends with Rev A/B machines that really do have noticable fan noise. That being said, Apple seems to have calmed at least some of the cooling issues from the Rev. A machines in the Rev. B machines.

 

[jmmac]

Thanks for the replies. Yes, the fan noise and the temps are the things I'm most concerned about. I actually have the refreshed one on my desk right now (BTW -- it's actually even more of a discount because it was a demo model from the store -- anyone ever buy one of those?). I added a temp monitor and when going for a while, the HD runs at around 50C and the CPU at 60-65C.

A couple of things have me a little nervous. When I burned a CD it made A LOT of noise for about half of the time -- that was clearly the drive. But the CPU temp went up to about 84C. When it got hotter, I definately noticed the fan noise ramp up. Are these things typical? It's very, very quiet if I'm just surfing the web, using office and playing tunes. These are just some initial observations.

I've got almost about a week and 1/2 to decide. But I appreciate the comments. It definately helps to hear what others have experienced.

 

[Danksi]

A couple of things have me a little nervous. When I burned a CD it made A LOT of noise for about half of the time -- that was clearly the drive. But the CPU temp went up to about 84C. When it got hotter, I definately noticed the fan noise ramp up. Are these things typical? It's very, very quiet if I'm just surfing the web, using office and playing tunes. These are just some initial observations.

With the CPU running hard, so I can start to notice the fans, my CPU doesn't go above 68'C - it's usually running around 55'C.

 

[prostuff1]

I have a Rev B and i can hear my fans on all the time...but i also run folding at home 24-7 and that makes the fans go crazy. If i stop folding the mac goes back to normal and all is quiet.

I cant tell you what my CPu usually runs at but my DVD burner does get kinda noisy when i burn CD's and stuff. It is kinda weird and annoying but i have never had a bad disk come out and i have burned quite a few discs.

I love my Rev B and if i ever feel i need an iSight i will go buy one and the same with Front Row. I hope Apple releases it for other macs so i can use it on my iMac.

So it really comes down to wether you will NEED the new features. Personally i would go with the older Rev for less money and then upgrade as need be.

 

[minimac]

If you get a refurb Rev B. I hope it's not the one I returned. It was noisy as heck, couldn't stand it! I have the Rev. C now and love it.

 

[pknz]

I would go with the Rev C just for the more moderness of it, DDR2 RAM, X600 graphics card is better and iSight. Go for it.
I am slightly jealous because of that .1GHz you have over me

 

[DakotaGuy]

You might want to consider waiting until January just to see what will happen. The rumor is that the iMac could be one of the first to go to Intel and if that happens it should be significantly faster acording to many on this site. The rumors are all over the place though and I am one that believes Apple would want to cycle all G4 products out of the line up before they mess with the G5 models, but who knows anymore what will happen.

 

[Crikey]

I have a Rev A G5 iMac, which works great. I've heard of others having problems with them, but so far mine is a very satisfactory computer. The Rev B systems were available when I bought mine, and I was tempted by their better benchmark scores, but I saved about $800 buying mine and don't regret it.

I always kinda wanted an iSight, so I'd be tempted by the new model, but I also suspect I'd rarely use it after initial experimentation. The Rev B has a built-in modem, which the Rev C / iSight model lacks, so if you need to compute somewhere without broadband you'd need to buy an external modem for the iSight model.

Good luck!


Crikey

 

[Crikey]

You might want to consider waiting until January just to see what will happen. The rumor is that the iMac could be one of the first to go to Intel and if that happens it should be significantly faster acording to many on this site. The rumors are all over the place though and I am one that believes Apple would want to cycle all G4 products out of the line up before they mess with the G5 models, but who knows anymore what will happen.

My own take on this is that the iMac just got updated and won't be converted to Intel CPUs for six months or so. And when it does, there is a pretty good chance that Apple's "consumer" computers will use Intel's "consumer" chips, the Celeron line. So don't get too excited about how fast your new Intel iMac might run.


Crikey