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It still blows my mind when I think about how a modern Android Tablet like a Nokia T20 in many ways is more powerful than this Power Mac G5, and cost many times less than this did when it was new, but still cool to see the Power Macs getting support from the community to this very day.

Up until this year, I was using a dual 2.0-GHz PowerMac G5 as my main audio workstation and produced multiple gold records with it. i bought it from a computer recycling center for $80 in 2016 to replace my aging G4

I got one of these as soon as it came out. I believed the hype. I got the top-spec dual 2.0GHz G5. Spent a bloody fortune on it. The logic board died 3.5 years later.

It is usable. In Germany electic heaters are out of stock, you could use one of those as replacement

Using a Mac Pro 5,1 with dual-X5690s, 1TB SSD and 8TH HDD, triple 4K monitors. Works like a charm with the latest Mac OS thru OCLP. The old Mac Pros were timeless machines. I can even simultaneously emulate Windows and Linux on it owing to 48GB of RAM.

Oh I remember droooooling over the G5 back in the day. Could not afford it. But I actually did have the chance to buy a first generation Intel Mac Pro though my first job. I still remember being amazed by the engineering and quality of the case alone. No sharp edges, everything fits and feels heavy and premium and professional. It's even beautiful on the inside. Gorgeous, even. Such a great computer it was.

That case is still the best looking traditional PC case out there. The way the latch works and how beautifully it's laid out inside is unmatched IMO. I use a maxed out Intel '08 for audio production and it still absolutely flies.

Ah man, OS X used to look so nice. Much better than it does in recent versions.

These machines hold a special place in my heart. I have the highest end build to order model from 2003 with the dual 2.0 processors, 2GB RAM, and the 9800 graphics card (complete with it's own cooling fan) and that machine is the most powerful computer from 2003 that I could ever imagine using. It is impossible for me to believe that it's almost 20 years old when it still can do so many modern tasks.

I'm excited to see you testing MorphOS. Sure, the G5 is a sucker for energy but the idea of bringing new life to old tech still fascinates me.

Just bought a number of old PowerMac G4 and G5 for 'lightroom' photography. My film scanner needs the older machines for compatibility. Besides, they are beautiful machines.

Oh my, this video brought back so many memories! I used to be so obsessed over the looks of this case in particular, and it still looks great to this day. It inspires you to turn it on and start editing video right away or something. Also a pretty nice space heater in the winter it seems, lol. Microsoft also used one of those to test Xbox 360 games IIRC, as the CPU came pretty close to the one inside of that console.

Due to space, I have to get rid of my old G5. I booted it up recently. It is amazing how well Logic Pro 8 runs compared to what you get on modern machines, and with a fraction of the CPU horsepower.

I’ve got a Quad Core G5 and I’ll be completely honest all I’ve ever run on it is MorphOS. Definitely the best MorphOS machine out there as I’ve also got a MacMini G4 and PowerBook G4 so I’ve got something to compare it to.

just to add, the liquid cooling on the later G5 was insane because it used automobile grade coolant, Dex Cool, which it was surprising because it is corrosive. also. nice to hear there is gonna be a new video of someone running MorphOS and on a G5. i was literally looking for a recent video of someone running it on a G5 a few days ago. MorphOS always have mystified me and i never had the chance to use it

I have an 05 dual processor sitting by my desk because the applications on it, I own, I don't have to rent them like you do on newer machines, and Photoshop ect still work fine.

I've started looking on eBay. I want a maxed-out quad. A beautifully designed system IMHO, back when Apple still got the need to elegantly design form, function and upgradeability. I doubt I'll ever own one, but I still feel this is a truly iconic Workstation

Just got my G5 back after a 10 years. I don't have a DVI-D converter on hand so hoping it works well - the fans are running and the light is on so that's positive! I hope it still has FCP installed along all the goodies that are too numerous to mention! Thanks for your video. Long Live the PowerMac G5! (FWIW: I purchased mine in 2004)

Of course it is still usable. I have a few. One I use as a door stop or sometimes as a paper weight. Occasionally I hide books in it's gutted shell just in case the farenheit 451 folks come to raid my home. I even use it as a cheese grater to sprinkle on my pizza. My other G5 1.8ghz is used to watch movies and tv shows. My other G5 2ghz is used to edit movies, mix audio and edit photos or graphics. These two work excellent for what I need them to do.

We got the younger Intel brother of Power Mac in our office, and although we called it "heater" we never heard those fans. What a beautiful and functional case design! Our heater is still in the server room somewhere, running Docker containers in Linux!

we did have the same G5 in my agency and I had to use it a few times due to some old hardware that only ran on that system. Man...this really made me apcreciate all the modern stuff like SSD we got nowadays.

I still use my Quad G5 today to run old graphic arts software that still works well for me. The main reason that I bought it used many years ago is bc it is the fastest Mac that can run the Classic environment, even faster than a Classic-native machine could.

fun fact I use a modded power Mac g5 case to house my pc, from the outside it looks 100% original and I love it so much

I'm so glad I have one of these. It's just gorgeous when you crack the case and then have the clear plastic casing as well. It's function and art within perfect balance.

When I was a kid and me and my family used exclusively Macs, I encouraged my dad to buy the Apple AirPort w/ Time Machine and it was a really great and convenient way to have universal network attached storage for backups for all of the computers on the network. It was also a pretty good N router.

I used my G5 for a long time, but alas, she succumbed to leakage from the cooling system and I had to retire her. I am using a 2012 Mac Pro now, running Monterey!

I remember our AV lab in high school having 4 of these and walking into them humming every day. I used to love that sound. OSX Leopard was a great OS too. I was given an extra license by my teacher for my black MacBook.

I bought my june 2004 Dual 2.5ghz a little over a year ago, I rebuilt the LCS and cleaned up the leaked coolant and then proceeded to max out everything ram and nvidia 6800 ultra DDL video card, I love to run the older Power PC Mac games and mess around with the audio and video editing tools.

Thanks for this video. Folks are using the G5 to this day with various applications. It is a professional computer with an amazing design topology which produces top class audio results. I use it (G5 2004) with Logic Pro and audio card for mixing and mastering. Core Audio is Worldclass to integrate audio processing flawlessly, internally and externally.

Tech KZfaqrs gotta stop that VPN privacy bullsh*t myth. It feels especially scammy when tech KZfaqrs do that, because they should know better.

I'd say it's more than the end of the powerpc era, it was the end of when they built quality into every aspect of their systems. I'm very familiar with that fan noise, as that was the first thing I heard walking into my lab when a colleague's intel machine in that same style case was churning smoke out the back. I loved mine, when it was the most practical way to get a machine with 16GB of memory, and eventually a 64-bit operating system. Then firefox "Updated" itself into an intel-only binary. The mighty mouse is great, and I still use it on a newer computer. That squeezing the sides to push all your open windows onto the screen at once was the best feature I have ever seen in a user interface. Overall, buying that thing was a permanent lesson in intentional obsolescence. It had the specs to be the top of the line for about a year. I built my own 8 core machine soon after that. Never again, apple.

I've got a maxed out 2012 g5 . I use it everyday for making beats. I use it for all my scoring demos. It never fails me.

i still have one of these cases, i actually have a cluster of raspberry pi's inside it as it hides it all and looks stunning at desk along with pc and laptops

9:50 - those Macs often "can't detect the temperature" when in sleep mode - for whatever reasons, but it happens. Sometimes it takes hours, sometimes it happens five or ten minutes after "going to sleep" - the take-off mode kicks in, and the only thing you can do is to force shut it.

Down in my heart, I still have hope for PowerPC.

Here is an iMac G5 user, yes, its possible, Office on MacOS X and Wayfarer and Iris on MOS :)

I had the G5. It consumed 200 W idling and a lot more when in use. Bought my configurstion for 2500 Euros. Sold it a couple of years later for 2300 Euros. What a deal. My energy consumption dropped *extremely* after I sold the G5.

I just acquired a Working Power Mac G5, Single Processor... It works but it's in need of work. I've never had any Power Mac's so this will be a learning Experience

I'm not a big Mac fan, though i did get to use the cheese grater in college during my media studies days in the mid 2000s and it is still my favorite case design. I wouldn't mind having one in my collection. Hell even if i could only get a hold of the case without working internals i'd totally rock it as a modern PC

My old G5 is still the workhorse in my music recording studio. It doesn't lack for power. It does lack in the ability to use newer software, but Pro Tools 9 and Reason 3 are all I really need.

I believe we had one of these at work at my last place because someone had convinced the people that paid for them that they needed it for doing the graphics for the website. The website was never that great and this wasn't needed. Someone clearly didn't know what they were pissing council tax payers money on.

I have. G5 and it still looks great, I used a LC 475 to put a 113 page magazine together, great video nicely done!

I own the PowerMac G5 with the Dual 1,8 GHz CPU, 6 GB DDR SDRAM and FX 5200 GPU, which runs on Mac OSX 10.5.9 Sorbet Leopard. I mainly use it for old school gaming and music production. I installed games like Warcraft III, The Sims 1 and The Sims 2 (NoCD patch doesn‘t work for me on Sims 2 unfortunately) and DAWs like Logic Pro 8 and Ableton Live 7, which surprisingly ran fine.

Yes, please do a revisit of Morph OS. I'd like to give it a try on my Mac G5.

I bought a dual 2.5GHz one of these back when I could barely afford it - it was great for code building. But 1 week after its warranty expired, it leaked coolant all over itself and burned out both processors. The coolant heavily corroded the inside of the machine, destroying its beauty in the process. Shame - I would've still had that as a show piece to this day if I could - it was beautifully designed.

When i was in college, we used to bring our macbook pro remotes into our lecture hall (300+ seats) and point the remote up and press PLAY. It caused all the macs to start playing the first song in iTunes. I was a horrible person lol.

Thank you Chris. I really appreciate it and that was exactly what I was trying to do. No fuss and helping people get on with what they need

Its interesting because the first PPC mac cpus were much smaller and less power hungry compared to the pentiums of the time while being more powerful depending on what you were doing. They were considered more forward thinking compared to the pcs.

I've still got my Dual 2 Ghz G5. It still works as well as the day I first had it. I'm loathed to get rid of it as I always loved the machine - the build quality and attention to detail is impeccable. Sadly it's been gathering dust under my desk for some time though... Maybe I'll give that Sorbet Leopard a try to give it a new lease of life! Great video!!

still the greatest retro channel of all time !

I remember a number of years ago when David covered this machine, and had to carry it on a dolly through a mall lol

Was hoping you would upload again. Definitely not disappointed. Love me some Apple goodness.

*Good morning from Thailand, Dan! Greta video! love your stuff! Not a fan much of Apple really though, but the video was cool! Amiga then PC!* 💪👍

I use the same mighty mouse to this day. The 360 scrolling is something I've gotten so used to that it's infuriating to use a mouse without it.

I used one at work when they were first released! I loved the way the fans sounded - felt like a big cat sitting next to me! A real beast of a machine !

after you mentioned it, I found that adjustment wheel under my Pro Mouse, and I have to say: thanks for the hint! and it actually does something. turned to the right the click is heavier, turned to the very left, it is much easier to click. I acutally set it to easy-click now.

Great machine. I was one of the bozos(as jobs would put it) who bought a G5 iMac 6 months before they announced the move to intel. Thanks Steve. A bunch. 5 macs and two laptops later I still have apple but have recently built my own PC which for me was a massive achievement with my limitations. It really really flies and was built much cheaper than an equivalent mac. The apple silicon stuff does look good though…

Thank you for your hint regarding "Sorbet Leopard". I will give it a try when I have time. A friend of mine gave me a Power Mac G5 4 x 2,5 GHz with 12 GB RAM as a gift, that looks brandnew. 😄

I just finished my job training as a media designer in 2003, so I remember using this Mac from while I was still working as a media designer. IIRC this was also the time, when we left QuarkXPress behind and went with Indesign instead. Later on, we got some fancy new flatscreen monitors as an upgrade, as well as an upgrade to OSX - what a wild ride it was. After that, Macs were banished from our agency completely, as Dell workstations with Windows were far cheaper for the performance of a similar priced Mac.

i still use mine on the regular, mainly as a media machine/backup archive. i maxed out the RAM to 8 gigs and have a 3 fb drive and it’s fast considering it’s age! I don’t connect it to the web but it’s I can DJ with it, as the early version of Serato Scratch Live works fine with the hardware despite its age. I have the Adobe suite cs2 which still works, as does the VLC player. and yes it’s a great space heater in the winter!

Really miss my dual G5. Still hoping to get a replacement power supply for it someday. Still have the original Cinema Display for it too…

Thanks for the video, very interesting. I own the same G5 at 2Ghz but equipped with the second version AGP 8x and PCI with PowerPC 970Fx CPU produced at 90nm, therefore less voracious of energy than the first G5 series produced at 130nm. The 90nm production made it possible to create CPUs clocked up to 2.7Ghz, the first to be cooled with a liquid system, which in reality was not necessary but made the G5s seem much more powerful than they were. For those trying to understand how powerful the G5s are, I can say, based on tests carried out on real applications, that this machine is as fast as a 20" iMac equipped with a 2.1Ghz Core2Duo cpu; in some cases it is faster in others slower, especially in the graphics subsystem, which was basically equipped with an nVidia Fx5200 Ultra or an Ati 9600, clearly better than nVidia.For a certain period I was able to use an nVidia 7800GS 256Mb which unfortunately only lasted a few months and then failed. for this machine the best choice falls on the ATI, like a 9800Pro, which has better features, both at video level and at OpenGL level, despite being an older product than the 7800GS.The problem is that these cards being very pushed in top performance , durability over time is always an unknown factor. The 970Fx cpu have the advantage of consuming less (measured 160watts at 220v 50Hz) at full capacity and with Apple ADC 22" 1600x1024 monitor under the same power supply and heat up very little, less than a first generation MacPro 1.1; after 3 hours of rendering 3D with the cpu at 100%, the temperature detected was around 68° celsius degrees - 154.4°F - while in idle, the temperatures oscillate between 43° and 49° celsius degrees - 120°F -. a fresh thermal paste that has been stored for at least 3 months and a deep cleaning of the PowerMac before performing these tests. Unfortunately I have been able to ascertain that on many G5 machines the basic problem of fast spinning fans and high temperature cpu are due to the failure of the HeatPipe system which is still used today in modern heatsinks, from laptops to desktops. If the heatpipe doesn't work, the heat generated by the CPU will remain confined in the thick layer of copper and aluminum present at the base of the heat sink, raising temperatures even beyond 80°. To check if a heatsink works well, you need to heat its base with a gas flame (without cpus ;) ) and check "by hand" that the heat is distributed quickly to the upper parts of the heatsink. It's a pity that Apple has abandoned PPC technology, still supported by IBM today with its Power10, but abandoning Intel in favor of Silicon was my way, a return to the past where Risc technology has always been considered better of the CISC counterpart adopted by Intel and AMD.

remember my cousin having one of these beautiful machines I;ve been considering getting one even now in 2024

Ironic how I was just watching videos about the Power line of Macintoshes!

We've got one. Makes an excellent side table now.

I bagged a g5 along with a 2009 mac pro today. I was surprised when I opened it and found it had the WiebeTech g5 jam installed.

This computer is way ahead of its time 😊

We still have one for ligher computing purposes. It has a 10 GB of RAM ( will probably max it out to 16 at some point ) a new SATA drive and the most important upgrade an Quadro FX 4500 videocard. A severe improvement. The reason why I haven't want with an SSD is because these machines are very picky when it comes to them. a good fast and with descent amount of cache mechanical drive will perform just fine.

I’m not sure if anyone has mentioned this but the reason the fans ramp up like that is that they need to be recalibrated with the ASD (Apple Service Diagnostics disk for the machine.

Thanks, you made me feel better about considering upgrading my aging mini. If you can do video editing on it, it should be powerful enough for me.

10:24 it sounds like a jet aircraft 😂

confused when i downloaded and opened soft soft . I couldnt find any good and informative video for beginners to help

The dock and icons look stunning for the time and still even better than todays flat, 2D dock

i can see why they switched to intel later on, holy shit look at the size of those cooling blocks!

Great video, I was a Linux / Windows nerd during the 90'ies up 'til 2011 when I had my first real run in with MacOS/OSX.

Ah the old PowerPC's, part computer, part space heater.

Those aren't PCI-Express slots, they're PCI-X. PCI-X was just PCI with more pins to get up to 64 bit, and some clock shenanigans. Not a ton of platforms had PCI-X

Great video. I own a PowerMac G5 that I’ve maxed out but not enough time lately to tinker with. I’ll download Sorbet one of these day since I’m curious about it. Also have 30” Mac monitor with it

If I used one of those skinny Mac mice, I'd develop arthritis.

still wish apple offers this as a case option for their current 2019 mac pro, even if one has to order it online

10:35 sounds louder than having 100 drones flying above your head

Love the old-era look of MacOS... much much more visual than "minimalistic" of today. Today looks like 1982 C64 GEO.

现在是2024年，而前些天因为安装AVID HDX系统的MACPRO出问题，我重新启用安装ProTools HD3系统的PowerMacG5工作. 完全没问题哈哈😀

Running a couple of Mini's myself these days but man the G5, makes a lovely side table for a lamp.

Still looks modern.

What a brilliant video. Love the Sorbet update

So what you’re saying is that a Mac Pro 3,1 door should fit on a G5 case?

Been using mine for retro gaming.

Still got my Dual Processor G5 too, though it's currently configured as an Xbox 360 Alpha 2 devkit. What do you usually do with yours when it's not in use? Does it stay in storage?

I still have my PowerMac G5 1.8GHz with 8GB RAM! Adobe CS2 is running very fast, and I play some old games on it while keeping my feets warm. 😃😉 I will try another OS on it, morphOS or the other one.

Watching this and commenting via a 1.42ghz G4 eMac, running Tiger. Cheers.

Saying the revision used water cooling is a bit misleading. It used a vapor chamber-style heat sync, but a heat sync nonetheless.

I have one of these. Question is... How can I connect a modern high-res display monitor to it? All the displays these days have HDMI connectivity which apparently requires an adapter to hook up to a "display port" but the G5 doesn't have the kind of display port that is required. I'm confused. Any help???

Fans are too small to be effective enough, hence the high temps.

Stick an M1 Mini in there (I mean there is plenty of room,you may not even have to remove anything) and enjoy that nostalgic look with contemporary performance.

Sorbet Leopard does not contain anything from Snow Leopard or any of the Snow Leopard Beta’s. This is a misconception that keeps being perpetuated in reviews. Sorbet Leopard is 10.5.8 with some tweaks and themes bundled.

Great video Dan! I loved it!

Great video. Thanks for sharing, I also dream of a. G5. Before it was introduced I did not want Apple do go that route, because I knew it was hot and optimized for the server environment and the loss of altivect (Power 4). The G5 did have Altivect to my surprise, limited, but great. I loved the machine and used it at the University. Power: Yes that is an issue, and for most people running an hot Ryzen with an NVIDIA. 200+ watts gpu makes no sense and it's just irresponsible.

Wanted to thank you for a great vid. Helped a lot. I've been trying to get going in both soft soft and didn't get very far. TNice tutorials vid helped a