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I've been offered a apple power mac g5 2005.

I was just wondering if I could upgrade the machine to a decent standard. I..e upgrade the operating system, maybe up the processing power.

The specifications are here: http://support.apple.com/kb/SP37

Could you tell me if its a good idea to get it, and could I upgrade it ?

Know anyone / any references to projects such as this.

Thanks

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Latest OS X supporting the G5 is 10.5, which you can check by looking at the system requirements. Whether it's a good idea to get it depends on a lot of factors, which are highly subjective (e.g. if you have lots of money to spend or how many other machines you have, what you want to do with it, etc.) Therefore, this question isn't really a good fit for Super User, sorry. – slhck♦ Sep 13 '12 at 18:09
give it to me, i've been wanting one – ekaj Sep 13 '12 at 20:55
What could is a 7 year old pc that can only run a 7 year old operating system. – Ramhound Sep 14 '12 at 12:46
@Ramhound What good is a 1 month old machine that can only run a 1 month old operating system? – Hawken Sep 14 '12 at 21:07
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Nothing wrong with the question. Why close? he could put Linux onto it and add an SSD drive. It'll run perfectly fine. – Matt H Sep 18 '12 at 9:31
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closed as not constructive by techie007, slhck♦ Sep 13 '12 at 18:05

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1 Answer

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It is a nice machine based on a powerPC CPU. This means you can not run the latest OS X.

But it should be fast enough to use as a secondary computer. Just do not expect to play modern games on it. For anything else (e.g. surfing the web) it will do fine.

Optinal upgrades would be a more modern HDD (which usually makes less noise, are faster and bigger) and maybe some old memory. But none of these are really needed and trying to make it up to spec with modern computers will be more expensive than just buying a modern computer.

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Upgrading the hard drive is a great idea, and you should be able to upgrade the RAM too. I had one of these and I enjoyed it as a jukebox too. – Randolph West Sep 13 '12 at 17:58

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