help selecting Mac G5 components

[amadadevilla]

Hello : I am trying to decide on the components of a Power Mac G5 dual processor that would best suit my needs. Specifically I need to process files created by Canon EOS 1Ds digital SLR and utilize Adobe PHotoshop 7 or better in a fast and efficient way. I am considering whether I need to invest in 2 GB of Memory or can I get efficiently with 512? Should I consider the Serial ATA hard drive of 2x250 or can I do well with the standard 160GB? How about the ATI Radeon 9800Pro graphics support? Would the standard 9600 do for my needs? Any advise you can give me would be appreciated. Price is an issue and that is the reason for my questions. Thank you. Amada

[MousTalaat]

I just received my dual G5 3 days ago and having done that homework, MY decision was for the following:
1- Added 1 Mb of Kingston memory ( 2X512) until the 2 Meg kits come down to a comparable price ( at which time I will go to 5.5 Mb
2- Added another 160Gb SATA (Seagate as the one that came with the system) disk and created two important partitions on that second disk: 20 Gb for Adobe Scratch and 10 Gb for OS Swap
You will always need additional storage but it is better to later add external Firewire 800 drives for back-up and additional storage
3-Adobe Photoshop CS is extremely fast (did not do exact timing) with this configuration for converting my 1Ds Raw files (almost instanteneous).
4-As for the 9800 it is more suited towards animation, 3D rendering and hence minimal advantage over the 9600 for Photoshop workSo mine was off the shelf (not custom built) and purchased.
This is MY experience and I hope I was of help

[Mel_Hill_Photography]

From all that I've read, adding at least 2 gigs of ram gets you into the "sweet-spot" for PSCS.
I added two gigs but will add another gig very soon so I can give PSCS 2 gigs of it's own.

I've now had my G5 2gig dual for a week and this is how I modified it for my use as a PS machine
added a second 160 SATA Drive ($150) and
downloaded Atto express stripe
so I could run my drives in both RAID 0 volumes & Standard volumes.

Each drive has a boot volume (standard) and a scratch (RAID) and storage (RAID)
30 gb boot X2 - 30 gb scratch - 200gb storage
I did have a bit of trouble doing the config of the drives (from a FW boot drive)
It seems that OS10.3 has some issues with permissions. If you got this route
and run into problems I'd be glad to give you the advice I received from one of the PS / Mac gurus...

best,
Mel

[Chad_Dahlquist]

got my new G52x2 a bit ago and did some testing with memory

512 (which I knew would be slow)
1 gig, 1.5, 2, 2.5
at 1 there were more slowdowns than 1.5 or 2
at 1.5 most things went fine unless I have more files opened which I tend to do a lot so I went for the two gigs
got Crucial memory and worked fine
so now have 2.5
that way if I have running a few extra aps and room for my OS should I hit the 2 gig ceiling

just for grins I tried some high end cas2 stuff and didnt help speed at all
one of the cas2.5 I had (mushkin) was actually a tad slower ??
so go to crucial.com and pick up your memory
me I went with the 2 gigs as the extra punch once in a while was worth it to me

HD upgrade wise I am waiting for the new Raptor drives to come out and will run two of those then use FW800 external drives or my network for storage.

[amadadevilla]

Hello y'all: I just came back from vacation to find your wonderful help regarding my question on Mac components. Thank you . it has been very helpful. I am wondering what is the advantage of buying Memory from Kingston as opposed to Apple. Also I understand that the HD of 160GB may not be enough and you are suggesting addding another HD of 160GB fro Seagate. I am not sure I understand what you mean by partitioning the second disc. Could you explain? Thanks. Amada

[MousTalaat]

I purchased the Kingston memory because of its reliability ( have been upgrading all the previous Macs with it and not a single failure). I am able to get the memory at a less expensive price than buying the equivalent from Apple.
Partitioning a hard disk means dividing it into multiple logical disks for grouping and productivity purpose.
I partioned the first disk into two logical disks 30Gb for the OS and applications and the remaining for data files.
The second disk is partioned into 3 partitions 20Gb for Photoshop swap ( a kind of virtual memory for Adobe appliations which gives better performance when it is not on the same disk as the application) 10 Gb for OS X swap ( the same concept but for OSX) and the remaining is for data files ( mostly RAW images). The sizes of the swap partitions are more than needed and hence I use them also for temporary storage of certain files. Back up is done on external Firewire drives.
Memory is the most important for Adobe applications but after installing 1Gb additional memory, it fulfills my current needs until the 2G kits prices are in line with 1 Gb kits.

[Chad_Dahlquist]

if I was going to put in another HD I would skip the seagate and go wit hteh new 250 gig hitachi myself or for more speed go with external storage and get the new Raptor drives
also WD drives are nicer than seagate in my thoughts
the Seagate drives are fine but they are not as fast as others out there
www.storagereview.com