Four G5s, in ONE PowerMac? It's the fabled G5 QUAD!

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Today we're checking out a Quad G5 - that's right, there's TWO DUAL-CORE PowerPC G5 processors in this 20 year old behemoth!
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#Macintosh #Linux #PowerPC

[@RadoslawKasprzak]

Hi Sean. Proud owner of two of these g5's here. You've got the best and reliable version of quad g5 ppc. These won't leak, but i would suggest replacing thermal paste on these cpus and north bridge which is located between case and motherboard. You have to remove everything including motherboard to do so. Get some temp reporting software to check what is actually happening before you put too much stress on it. Also, you probably won't remember this, but i'm a guy with that quad g5 ppc who played on your g5 minecraft server during ppc week. We even exchanged few words at that time.

[@elitexcomputing8802]

Was there a change in the hardware for these that helped them not leak?

[@RadoslawKasprzak]

@@elitexcomputing8802 Water blocks are completely different. These newer revision gasket o-ring nevel leaked in my case. You still need to check periodicaly to spot early any leaks. Removing LCS(liquid coolig system) and separating procesors from waterblocks. I would also recommend replacing coolant for something like destilled water and anti corrossive, anti freezing, growth prevent solution. You can compare all LCS revisions on the internet. This one is the latest and probably the best . One of my quads still have original water blocks, second one has experimental modern water blocks. Who knows if this will change reliability.

[@montex66]

In 2009 my quad G5 sprung a leak and over heated. Took it to the local Apple store and they gave me a Mac Pro 4,1 as a free replacement even though the AppleCare had expired. While I missed the old girl, the Xeon processor beat the G5 in everything I could throw at it. Was nice to be around when Apple treated their Pro customers very well.

[@RadoslawKasprzak]

@@montex66 Surprising that Apple even cared. Xeon processors are completely different architecture, much better and powerfull. Too bad we do not know what lcs was used in yours late G5. There were three i think mostly known revisions of lcs. Might be something different as well.

[@elitexcomputing8802]

@@RadoslawKasprzak that’s great to know. Drain flush and fill with distilled and something like utopia sounds like an easy maintenance to do.

[@TRLTheRandomLab]

I said this on Ken's video too, but the really dumb thing that baffles me about the quad G5 is the fact Apple decided to use GM Dexcool antifreeze as their coolant of choice. It was well known in the auto industry to corrode and ruin parts of the engine, most notably, intake gaskets. By the time the G5 Quad came out, General Motors was already subject to several lawsuits from Dexcool ruining their vehicles. When there was plenty of other fine coolants for computers back then, I don't know why Apple thought it was a good idea to use a controversial automotive coolant that's known for corroding anything metal.

[@tobiwonkanogy2975]

it was likely cheap and maybe they were both at CES

[@JoeyPerleoni]

I’ve never even heard of antifreeze being used to liquid cool a computer. Is that a common thing? Sounds disastrous.

[@SoulcatcherLucario]

@@JoeyPerleoni yeah man i'm a certified tech and the very thought of using antifreeze _terrifies_ me to hell and back

[@tobiwonkanogy2975]

@@SoulcatcherLucario glycol aka antifreeze is used in all kinds of water systems with varying metals .Black Iron pipes carrying most of the water but could be galvanized ,copper, plastic, brass etc. Those systems use anti rust compounds or just oils for lube and the glycol is anti freeze . it offers some freeze protection . thats why its in a car that can be in -30 degree weather driving down the road.

[@SoulcatcherLucario]

@@tobiwonkanogy2975 oh i know, i'm just talking about liquid cooling a pc here haha

[@raphaelbruegger]

Hi Sean, so nice! I got the same at home, still running fine, sporting 10.5.8, 16 GB RAM, two SSDs and a nice Quatro. It‘s my backup Mac.

[@alimehdiyev1]

Wow!

[@yxles]

@@alimehdiyev1 Woah a spec like that and its just your backup? My computer cant even beat that lol

[@joepepsi]

which quadro card?

[@eduardocarrasco8830]

@@joepepsi should be the FX4500, which can be found as mac oem versions or you can flash a pc version. Arguably is the fastest card for the G5 at that time, though now is known that the 7800 GTX and some X1900XT can run on the G5 as well.

[@eduardocarrasco8830]

Now, not all FX4500 pc versions can be flashed, they can be easily spotted because on the back they have a L shape plate for the RAM. The other ones can't be flashed for the G5.

[@FennecTECH]

“Grade a Cupertino work” Yep. Thats definitly exactly what it is. And they are still doing it to this day!

[@raven4k998]

woe WOE

[@ericwood3709]

Fun fact: You can use the CPU modules from this system to upgrade slower late 2005 model G5 systems. I turned a dual 2 GHz into a dual 2.5 GHz by doing just that. It uses the original solid state heat sink (which is absolutely massive) and works great.

[@fsfs555]

As someone in your last video commented, your video card isn't supported for OBS: you need a minimum of a GF8000 or Radeon HD series for OpenGL 3.3 support and none of those had PPC versions. I've been meaning to experiment with setting up a Debian 11 install and then, once it works, swapping in a PC video card without flashing it to see if Debian picks it up and configures it. That sort of thing works on a Mac Pro with some unsupported video cards under OS X (no early boot video but the card comes alive once OS X loads the kexts for it) so it may work here too. If it works I sadly don't have any post-GF7000 or Radeon X series AGP cards to test for OBS support in the early G5s but I do have plenty of modern PCIe cards to test in the later ones.

[@ElectrofizzStudiosCo]

Could you install multiple video cards? Since it has multiple PCI-E slots? Maybe a more modern PC card + original.

[@fsfs555]

@@ElectrofizzStudiosCo Possible, though the limited available PCIe lanes (one 8x, two 4x) will hamper performance. You'll also have to rig something up for high-end video cards that require additional power connectors, especially if you're already running a Quadro or X1900 or something that uses the lone onboard power connector.

[@dsgamecube]

You could technically put just about anything in there, no? I'd love to see a modern-ish single-slot video card, like an RX 560, in there. It'd be hilariously overpowered for CPUs from 2005, but it should work as long as you can run updated Debian.

[@GarthBeagle]

Sean, do you have a killawatt? I'm very curious how much power this actually draws when fully under load, running something - ideally with the 17" ADC monitor.

[@windowsxpnt2347]

With the quad core pmg5, you would want the aluminium Cinema Display

[@TheSeanUhTron]

Probably in the area of 1.21 gigawatts.

[@dickkickemthereckoning7425]

how much power it actually draws? All

[@adiamondforever7890]

About equal to a 400 watt room heater, very noticeable. I haven't checked mine with a calibrated ammeter or wattmeter yet. Works on 10.5, having trouble with FreeBSD. Have fun

[@orestes1984]

I had an Xserve G5 until the power supply blew up. It was like a plane taking off, and ran hot. Ideally you would have your own room for it. I'm sure with this thing it would run a bit quieter than my Xserve did. But the biggest issues with the G5 were heat and inefficient cores. But that's what you get when you're so anal about running chips that aren't AMD64 based and designed to run in servers. The G5 was never really even designed to run in a desktop let alone a laptop.

[@kungfujesus06]

Oh yeah, the "illegal instruction" is likely because one of the video codecs being linked to are compiled with VSX support forced on. There was a bug a while back with at least one of the media codecs that I had to submit a bug report for where the their configure script detected the presence of altivec and immediately assumed it meant it had VSX (VSX didn't come until POWER8).

[@eggnorman]

I bought one of these about a year ago and went on a binge of getting it as upgraded as possible, regardless of price. The result: - Nvidia GTX 7800 GT (I also have the Quadro but it doesn't run Minecraft as well) - 12GB of RAM - an eSATA card - a FireWire 800 card - a Sonnet G5 Jive with three 500GB hard drives This machine is literally the permanent machine at my family home. I can't bring my computer home every time I come back from uni, so that G5 serves as the machine I use when there.

[@bagintheback]

are you guys still using it today

[@AarhusStreespix]

Sonnet Tech did a bootable eSATA 2.0 controller way back. I got hold of one of those (way back) and replaced one of the eSATA connectors with an internal connector, so that I could achieve 3 Gbit/s throughput on my boot disk 😎

[@beeffeter456]

The quad G5’s have a very very well sealed water cooling system. The earlier water cooled models were much more unreliable and prone to leaking. I think Ken’s machine was a pre late 05 machine, hence why it blew up from dexcool leakage. I have 1, also externally damaged (thanks shipping) that was bought untested. I’m getting the parts delivered soon since it seems to work. I really hope it ends up going well, since apparently the water cooling system is known to have failing pumps and clogging coolant at this age (but not likely to explode, again they are over sealed after the reporting of leakage). If you did see corrosion, it’s like a nasty cinnamon roll color, so if it was leaking you’d be able to see it. If you do rebuild the LCS, please for the love of god post it. I really want to either get the system rebuilt or convert it to air cooling. These machines are too cool to die.

[@JohnSmith-xq1pz]

PowerPC Mac behold this is my perfect form! It's over 9000!!

[@DavidRavenMoon]

I worked at Sony Music a while back (graphics department). They had a storage room full of G5 towers. It was sad to see. They switched everything over to Xeon Mac Pro towers and 27” iMacs. The iMacs were actually a bit faster.

[@simcapener6935]

Were they trashed, donated, or e-wasted?

[@mountainmanmcbeachfront5296]

@@simcapener6935 They would just open the door and laugh at them periodically

[@delorean8526]

A few months ago, I picked up a dual-core G5 (two single cores @ 1.7) out of a trash pile and brought it home. Sure enough, the cooling system leaked all over and ruined the inside, seeping under the cpu pins on the board. While pulling it apart, everything I pulled seemed to be more corroded than the last. The only thing that was in semi-decent shape ended up being the shell, so I currently have it sitting while I try and scrape enough time together for an ATX conversion

[@lewislauricella1416]

I've still got my G5 Quad 2.5 set up and working - it's only used for legacy OSX app usage and occasional archival work, but despite the machines reputation, it's still going strong 👍

[@startedtech]

Oh, I bought one of these a decade back on Craigslist for like $25! The fans on mine were soooooo loud when doing anything, it was crazy. Ended up selling it to someone else a little while later. (Powerpc macs are what really got me into computers around ~2011 since they were dirt cheap and I was ~13, wish I still had some of em)

[@haramaschabrasir8662]

There were actually at least three different iterations of the liquid cooling system. The first one wich came with the 2.5 GHz dual processor G5 was prone to leaking. The second iteration came with the 2.7 GHz G5, Apple switched from first to second generation liquid cooling mid production of the 2.7 GHz. So there are 2.7 GHz models with the old and the new liquid cooling system. The third iteration of the lcs came with the G5 quad and it was NOT prone to leaking. It works perfectly fine for years, but of course after 15 years now they are starting to show their age. It hurts to see so many people on KZbin turning these things on withot taking a look at the old lcs first.

[@kenm2709]

I actually had the 2.5 Dual with liquid cooling, it never leaked but the Power supply gave out, I replaced it but in the end the machine was way too slow and it's fans would rev up every time I did something simple as open an application, the early and mid G5s were a nightmare in my opinion, when they made the late 2005 G5s they seemed to have worked out all the kinks, my G5 quad has been nothing but reliable and it doesn't ever rev up its fans.

[@haramaschabrasir8662]

I think the 2004 dual 2.0 GHz model was also good. I owned one in 2008 and it was neither slow nor too hot. It roughly matched the speed of a 2.0 GHz Core2Duo MacBook Pro. Unfortunately this thing became quickly outdated after 2008.

[@Acoustic_Theory]

Your channel is my binge-watch, this is neat content. I enjoy learning about non-Windows hardware from the days when things were less commoditized and standardized, and companies could create unique out of the box solutions.

[@brokenelectronics3665]

Okay, let's jump in here. I actually have two PowerMac G5 Quads. My pride and joy is the Quad that is paired with it original 30" Apple Cinema display, and it's original Apple Bluetooth keyboard and mouse. Yes, the one button Bluetooth Apple Mouse. Still, you are not wrong about the rarity, there were a limited number of them sold in the first place.However, let's try to put an end to the myth about the liquid cooling. The early liquid cooled G5's did have a huge issue with cooling problems. Note the famous Computer Clan episode where Ken's G5 made a guge POP, smoked, and turned out the lights. (Note, that was not a Quad.) Yet, by the time of the Quad, Apple had solved the liquid cooling problem. Indeed, many people, including myself, would say the only liquid cooled PowerMac to consider is the Quad. Problems with the cooling system for the Quads wer few and far between.

[@Wind5387]

sounds like a nice setup. I had a similar experience with a dual 2.7 power supply exploding on me, and this was a free PMG5 that someone gave to me and I didn't know anything about it 😂 One thing I am wondering though, and Action Retro also mentioned in this video, is that earlier G5 Quad models had 1 pump and later models had 2 pumps. Does anyone have ideas on whether one was more reliable than the other, or were they about equal?

[@brokenelectronics3665]

@@Wind5387 That's not exactly right. All the G5 Quads had the same liquid cooling system. It's the two earlier liquid cooled systems, the dual processor 2.5 GHz from 2004, and the dual processor 2.7 GHz from early 2005. There are some of those which were upgraded to the better cooling system, but I have never actually seen one. If I ever ranibto a DP 2.7, I might pick it up if it were cheap enough, just from the collection standpoint. I'd be real careful about running it though. Hrutkay Mods has a couple of videos on trying to convert a 2.7 to air cooling, with limited success. It's interesting viewing though.

[@Wind5387]

​@@brokenelectronics3665 I see, thanks for the clarification. It's good Apple finally got their act together for their last PPC systems. It's a shame the early liquid cooled G5s were so unreliable, and as I've also just learned, they went ahead and used the same coolant that was blowing up GM engines. They seem like such rushed/afterthought designs. The only other PMG5 that I find particularly interesting are the ones with the 1:3 processor/FSB, (the late 2004 version), which might be (one of) the least risky PMG5s to get.

[@brokenelectronics3665]

@@Wind5387 A really nice machine is the dual core 2'3 GHz late 2005. It's fast. and it's air cooled, so it's very reliable. I've got one that was my go to Power Mac until I lucked out on my first Quad. The dual core 2.0 GHz models are also really nice, I have two of those.

[@markmuir7338]

Awesome video - funny and informative. Brings back memories of my dual 2.5GHz Power Mac G5 with water cooling. A few days after the 3 year warranty expired, it kept randomly going to sleep. I followed Apple's helpline advice and ran diagnostics on it - during which both CPUs melted and the machine never booted again. Turned out the coolant had leaked, but the leak wasn't visible until after I removed the "warranty void if removed" CPU shield. While disassembling it, some remaining coolant dripped all over the rest of the case, corroding it heavily. I really wanted to keep that machine as a display exhibit - I always marveled at its beauty. A few years later my Dad dropped it off a shelf and heavily dented the case 🥺😢.

[@dr.shuppet5452]

The existence of this machine and the fact it's still quite usable nowadays inspires me to try to modify my rx2620 for desktop use and compare it to the PowerMac G5, although the fact that it's a server without good GPU support and its unique CPU architecture sometimes requires patching of modern software makes it a little tricky.

[@fluffycritter]

I bought my dual-core G5 about a month before the Intel transition announcement, because Apple was having a pretty big rebate on a G5 bought alongside Logic Pro 7. It's pretty clear that Apple was trying to get one last hurrah with the G5 in the music recording world. I continued to use that G5 for many years after, even when Logic stopped natively supporting PPC, because it was pretty good as a file server. Then I replaced it with a Synology NAS and my power bill immediately dropped by half; that dual G5 was using as much power as everything else in my home combined!

[@aegonthedragon7303]

Always wondered if modern cooling fluid would work on these, just to avoid further damage caused by Dexcool. I have its 2ghz cousin so no worries there, but I consider it special since it was made around 2 weeks before the Mac Pro launch so perhaps I have one of the last PPC’s built and it goes like a champ still.

[@Elflavio92]

Love learning about these rare machines! Keep it coming!

[@LazyBunnyKiera]

I'm with you on that gpu cap, I'm 100% sure that GPU cap was replaced by someone else too. It's even a different color. My guess.. they just used a heated knife or spoon or something. Probably did what they could in a pinch, since it was probably holding up some studio sessions.

[@kaitlyn__L]

Or one of those butane torch soldering irons.. (shudder). Those are basically a brûlée torch making a knife hot anyway, but sold specially for that purpose 😅

[@nightw4tchman]

2:36 That is exactly where I've found every single G5 PowerMac I've ever found. Apart from one that was used on a show I helped install.

[@stu2779]

I have a 2004 duel 2.5 G5 I rebuilt the LCS in mine. It is not really too hard. There is a couple of threads on Mac Rumors forums that give some pretty good instructions on how to rebuild it. I also used modern cooling fluid to refill it, I used Primochill PC Pure 32 fluid which is much less problematic then the Dexcool that was used as the original coolant.

[@philexile2954]

I have one of these sitting in my attic. I’ll have to dig into it.

[@JeffTiberend]

Makes me glad that I was able to get my hands on the Dual G5 PowerMac. They are so cool. I just miss my eMac and iMac that I used to have.

[@magfal]

For software houses that release PPC software these also made a lot of sense for a good while.

[@Linuxpunk81]

I had one of these, sadly one of the coolant motors seized and fried 2 cores. I loved that machine though

[@TechMadeEasyUK]

I picked one of these up in 2014 and did a very shaky hand-cam video on it. It was an awesome machine even at that time and I used it quite happily for video editing for a year or so before I went on haitus, I ended up selling it to someone after I moved to Nigeria (hence the hiatus), for all I know it's still running somewhere in a house in Abuja! Awesome find, if I had the space I'd seek out another one in an instant.

[@j.m.7580]

Great video! Had a Quad G5 a while back and sold it. What a beast! Have fun with it - hope to see it again in future videos.

[@eduardocarrasco8830]

I saw one guy recently that air-cooled a dual G5, I wonder if the quad G5 can be done the same, I don't see the LCS solution to be smart or efficient at all. Perhaps at that time it was the best solution, but nowadays there are plenty of air coolers that outrun big AIOs. Maybe perhaps would be great to build a LCS from newer parts and power it from the G5.

[@brucesyvertsen2147]

really enjoy these deep dives into old Apple hardware

[@Cyber_Horse_Studios87]

I did have a dual processor single core G5, and it was… an interesting machine. I could never get it to work right, and while it was a nice machine to have I don’t exactly miss it. Always sounded like a jet turbine when I turned it on, and thankfully it never blew up.😅

[@AsaBowes]

Love your T-shirt , the best two of the Doctors from the new series

[@banks3388]

Most people with these models replace the water coolers with air coolers, there is a diagnostic tool that adjusts the fan speed on mac garden that basically fixes it... Ken actually did a video on it and it works fine.

[@tenminutetokyo2643]

You actually got one shipped that didn't get destroyed in the mail. I tried that 3 times and every one was smashed. Jam in new modern small caps too.

[@sorphin]

I have a Late 2005 Quad G5 I bought from a cad guy (it still had applecare on it (which is good because its boot drive failed))... thankfully, because it's a late 2005, no leaks. sadly, like yours, the 'handles' got mangled (in my case, the top on 1 side in the front and back).. still going strong though, was and is a workhorse. At one point, added 4 1TB drives w/ ZFS to it for extra storage. It's one of my "I'll never sell it." machines. I would however replace/repair the broken shell part(s) if i could. As an aside.. that capacitor on the video card was not OEM (you can tell that if for no other reason it doesn't match the other 2 in stripe coloring).. someone who couldn't solder replaced it.

[@bigjnsa]

I used one of these back in 2004-5. I honestly believe it was and still is the best computer I've ever used. I reimaged mine with Linux and I could run OS 9 and OS 10 at the same time, 3 displays, man I miss that machine

[@CobraTheSpacePirate]

I got one and refurbished it. It needed a new pump controller/PCB that I ordered and lots of cleaning etc.. It had minor leaking. Got MorphOS and Fienix dual boot running on it.

[@elitexcomputing8802]

I would so be pulling that all out, flushing the rads and pumps and replacing all of that tubing with modern ZMT. I bet a fluid refresh in combo with new tubing you could make it bulletproof.

[@JohnSmith-xq1pz]

But would a pump that old and high millage be okay? I imagine the seals and stuff would be pretty worn

[@elitexcomputing8802]

@@JohnSmith-xq1pz seals on the pump/water block could be refreshed pretty easily. I’d love to get my hands on one and pull it all apart.

[@JohnSmith-xq1pz]

@@elitexcomputing8802I suppose yes new seals could be made on a laser cutter or something assuming standard one's wouldn't fit

[@TCOphox]

18:04 Perhaps it means that OBS is trying to use some sort of unavailable CPU extension? I know that some super new programs for Windows will spit out something like "illegal instruction" when an older x86 computer lacks AVX2 extensions. So considering how old the G5 is, that could be the reason why. Maybe you could compile OBS locally? That could be worth a shot though you might want to compile it with two CPU cores instead of all of them in fear of overheating.

[@John-mg7fb]

I had a dual G5 Power Mac years ago. It was not liquid cooled. It was a space heater. LOL it legit would cook your legs under the desk and cook your face and arms on the desk. Amazing machine for it's time and I couldn't get it to bog down no matter what I threw at it. Mine died due to a dead Power supply. There was no G5 Powerbook because it would melt. 🙂

[@Wind5387]

I've been searching for one of these for a while now, and this video definitely helps out with things to look out for. It's actually a bit difficult to find a good amount of info online about these things, I guess because there are so few of them. But these things are still really interesting computers, considering they never really advertised these things and they were released just before they announced the first Intel machines. They sort of did the same "last hurrah" things with a few of their last PPC Macs, like the last PowerBooks having the high res displays and the last PPC iMacs having iSight (and from what I hear, the G5 iSight iMacs were their least problematic iMac G5s). Can't wait to get my hands on one of these. 👍🏾

[@TrackDayMaker]

I wonder if replacing those spring clamps with worm gear clamps would help

[@jimseibyl5140]

I have a later quad and I monitor temp and visually inspect once in a while, but it’s been solid ever since I bought it new. I do have a “cpu module” in a box (pumps and cpus) just sitting on a shelf I got a while ago in case I ever need it.

[@VenomStryker]

I love your new "talking head" videos while before it was just the screenshot with your hand moving around. This is much better!

[@FrDismasSayreOP]

Not an Apple fanboy, but that is a beautiful unit, expandable, modular... so nice. Nice job!

[@graz27]

Great video and I have one myself that still works and no leaks. But the amount of electric these things use is crazy and costs a small fortune to run one for hours at a time, so I dont fire it up that often.

[@amitsm64]

Omg last PPC!

[@Shiunbird]

Hello there! I had such G5 for a few years and ended up swapping for a dual core late 2005. It generates ¼ or less of the heat of the Quad, so I've never heard the fans spin up - and it's enough fast for daily tasks, especially with Adelie. The Quad was loud and I didn't have the guts to maintain the LCS. I regret selling, though. It was maxed up with 16GB ECC, the Quadro 4500 and SATAII SSDs. =) edit: I've also tried modern GPUs (trying to get stuff sorted with the nouveau folks) and a Thunderbolt card. =)

[@0tiochico]

I wonder if somebody figured out to use it sideways or upside down to avoid the leakage over the power supply.

[@DavidMarvin]

The way you had the terminal with Debian beneath it, it just made it look like the monitor had a blue bezel and it said Debian instead of Apple.

[@JoelRosenfeld]

I remember that intel announcement. It really convinced me that Steve Jobs was a really good salesman, because most of my friends just accepted it as natural after hating on intel for a decade. Remember those "toasted bunny" commercials? I'm blown away that the G5 saw use all the way through 2020. That's really impressive. What did the recording studio migrate to?

[@MonsterReporter]

Im definitely gonna pull some G4 shenanigans

[@YearsOfLeadPoisoning]

Old Mac Pros are fantastic for music production. I'm using an '08 with quad Xenons and 64Gb RAM and a bunch of dirt-cheap 1-5TB HDs. I have never considered upgrading. It's the best computer I've owned.

[@xJMSports]

I have the quad g5 with a quadro graphics card installed, bought it from a recording studio as well for 40 bucks a few years ago. Amazing to think the quad core qith the quadro gpu was 10 grand back in 05.

[@Miasmark]

I got a DC 2GHz and had to replace the power supply and all the ridiculous nonsense to do that. Looking at the specs on the power supply it will be very hard to replace with any sort of modern equivilant as [ignoring the 24V monitor power input] the volts and wattage requirements for the 3.3 and 5 V rails are coocoo bananas. I have some ideas but I am not certain its much better as the power supplies are of a similar vintage. hopefully the supply of power supplies for these does not run out anytime soon.

[@TheBasementChannel]

So the previous owner could have actually managed to skip the entire Intel period of apple machines 😂 Power PC to M1.

[@ActionRetro]

Hahaha indeed!

[@kaitlyn__L]

RISC to RISC! (And dust to dust…?)

[@bwgti]

So glad to see it works! Interested to see where this is going.

[@olinewman]

After watching the vid, i fired up mine, Purring like a kitten. But after all the talk of coolant leakage, i'm seriously considering flipping the dvd drive 180 and turning the whole unit upside down!

[@Zahgurym]

I'll never understand how psu on the bottom actually became the standard... especially since that trend started around the same time as water cooling became popular. Lol

[@MichaelSidneyTimpson]

Did you buy it from the Springs Theater in Tampa, Florida?

[@fnjesusfreak]

Did I see a logo for Delphi Radiators on the cooling unit? They had a factory near here, in Lockport, NY.

[@takeshi7]

I had always heard by the time the G5 Quad was available all of the liquid coolers were the more reliable type. I heard the earlier dual 2.7 G5 was the one that initially had the less reliable liquid cooling system.

[@brokenelectronics3665]

Okay, in my main Quad, I put in an eSATA PCIe card, which is great, as far as the fastest speeds from a external drive. The enclosure I got also has USB 3, so it's great for transferring data to newer machines. I also put in a Firewire 800 card, which has an internal port. I connected an internal Firewire drive, which is the boot drive for Tiger. I put in an Nvidia Quadro with half a gig of vram, I think that's the most powerful card you can run on a late 2005. I tried hard to get USB 3 to work, but there just aren't any drivers available. I tried to use Snow Leopard drivers, which seemed to install, but the card just wasn't recognized. The main SATA drive boots Leopard, and the other SATA bay switched between Fienix and Sorbet. (Edit) I forgot t mention the IDE Bluray disk player. It is pretty cool tone are to watch Blurry movies on that 30" display.

[@kenm2709]

The real question is how many G5 quad are still in service today? The one in this video finally got retired in 2022, just Imagine how many studios still have a G5 quad running an old version of logic running a whole studio.

[@georgeh6856]

PowerPC was pretty much done in the consumer computer space after this, but the PowerPC architecture and derivatives were and still are being used in servers, specialized computers, and possibly embedded devices.

[@eMorphized]

Yet IBM already has a server architecture in its Z/ platform.

[@morecrappysketches]

The water coolers wouldn't always leak, but after they get old enough they would often fail. I have two quads and they both overheat quickly due to failing pumps. No leakage. I'll need to get them rebuilt, which is no small task. Anyway, when you inevitably beef this thing out, you can try to get ahold of an Nvidia 7800GTX 512MB card, which is the fastest you can get in there. The 512MB card wasn't just a RAM bump. It had significantly higher core and RAM clocks. It was never officially available for Macs, but there are hacked ROMs out there for it. They're not easy to find, though. I've also tried using 4GB RAM sticks in it with no success, though one of them did work in an iMac G5 2.1ghz iSight, pushing it up to 4.5GB, so it looks like the G5 really is capped at 16GB RAM unless you have some sorcery to use. You can also try to find a bootable SATA 2 card for it. I believe there was only one that was made by FirmTek, though the model number escapes me at the moment.

[@ProgrammerInProgress]

That cached data is an absolute time capsule of the goings on in 2002

[@robertcraane7910]

I'm a PCy-guy but that case is such a gorgeous thing! Wish I had one for a built!

[@mikek1187]

I was surprised to see Delphi's name in the water cooling bay, but in retrospect, water cooling wasn't that big back in 2005. Apple no doubt had to source the radiator and hoses from automotive parts manufacturers (a la Delphi). Also, those hoses look STRAIGHT from an engine bay. They have a silicone-based jacket, which is why the hoses have a semi-shiny appearance. Seriously, take a look at any of your water cooling hoses in your car's engine bay and compare them to what's in your G5...they look identical in make, right? All in all, a very cool and unique CPU cooling solution that's literally built from car parts, LOL.

[@tobiwonkanogy2975]

dont forget metal/nylon braiding , tough goshdarm tubing

[@NIBtechsupport]

I’m excited to see lots of videos on a quad G5. I still want one to this day

[@NIBtechsupport]

And please couple it with a 30inch Cinema Display! test performance, Final Cut 7, modern web browsing, KZbin, a Quadro

[@brendanhoffmann8402]

Love this! I so idoised these types of computers. I have 3 G4 MDDs from a recording studio here. I was hoping he might not want them back since none of them work 100% but one does have a working power supply. Unfortunately he wants them back... they have his pro tools cards in them apparently...

[@shinysky8119]

"Motuaudio" yeah it indeed come from a studio, I love it

[@drewfranklinaustin]

If I remember correctly they also made an air cooler model of the g5 too apparently it was super loud like xserve loud 😂😂

[@JackS425]

I just got my Quad G5 working last night after having the LCS torn apart for like a year. I'm interested to see what yall do in the future with this baby

[@wjckc79]

I remember when IBM was promising Apple multicore PowerPC chips running at 8ghz by 2006 or something. When that road map clearly wasn't happening, it aided in the switch to Intel. Realistically, Apple must have quietly developed and had OSX (maybe even 9) running on Intel for years in order for the transition to happen so seemingly fast and smoothly.

[@chriscalderon1337]

I've got a G5 Quad in storage. Last I checked it wasn't leaking but it overheats, so either the pump is dead or the liquid has all dried out. :(

[@mlthmp]

Always wondered if there were any CPU upgrades for these

[@pjsampras7072]

Sean, imagine is you could get KVM or Xen based PPC based virtualization on this monster to make it the ultimate test bed for PPC OS Shenanigans

[@nickynikos]

11:55 Tux be like « all your PowerPC are belong to us »

[@brandonacevedo9574]

You can remove the outer shell by taking it apart and unscrewing the screws within the inner frame

[@half-qilin]

I have to wonder if replacing the water cooling with a really, really beefy air-cooling setup would be possible.

[@johntrevy1]

The mighty G5, more like the Pentium 4 of PPC.

[@dems42blubb]

The illegal instruction error might be an indicator that debian unstable is targeting a PowerPC architecture newer then the G5 PowerPC CPU. Like the ones used in the Raptor computing workstations Talos II and Blackbird. What you could do, if you want to have an up to date Software stack is, use Gentoo Linux or maybe FreeBSD. But definitely Gentoo can be configured to target the G5 CPU specifically. But be warned, installing Gentoo might be quite some work. Good luck tough.

[@MarcoGPUtuber]

Beautiful!

[@NullStaticVoid]

Always loved the powerPC era of Mac. They were much more user friendly in terms of hardware. Especially the Mac pro era just before the aluminum tower. But the aluminum tower G4 and G5 weren't bad. Except the card slots it's pretty tool-less. People may be chuckling about the G5 quad being in service in a music studio. Well I have a 201 Mac Pro that has been in service in my studio for 10 years already. 12 cores, 64 GB ram, 2 video cards and 2TB SSD.. Its still viable. Reservior Docs?

[@setoth1234]

Sean, please try to get the AirPort runway card and attach the Mini PCIE card inside, as the Wi-Fi was a BTO option, and getting those cards is troublesome.

[@whahappa]

I have one of these, it's fantastic

[@sysierius]

I also have the the g5 quad But with 16gb ram and a quadro fx 4500. Only thing i miss in it is the airport extreme

[@mountainmanmcbeachfront5296]

You should do a video on OS9-early OSX music production software. Would be pretty cool.

[@dennisp.2147]

I know a hardcore Mac fanboy who did just that. He went out and bought the quad-core G5 so he wouldn't have to deal with the shame of using a machine with an Intel CPU in it. He was like that Japanese soldier in the Philippines in 1972 who refused to surrender.

[@moki5796]

Could you do a 7z benchmark on this thing? Simply install p7zip-full from the package manager and run the command "7z b" to benchmark the CPU. I'd be curious how powerful those 4 cores really are.

[@Megabobster]

Get a passive PCIe to m.2 adapter, then install an NVME drive. You almost definitely won't be able to boot directly from it, but if you put the Linux /boot and /boot/grub on some small partitions on a normal SATA device, you might be able to put / on the NVME drive. Basically using the hard drive to chain load booting from NVME. I've done this on an older x86 machine to great success, but I have no idea if it will work on PPC. My experience with GRUB on PPC is very limited, but on x86 at least it will also chain load Windows boot loaders. So even if the machine's BIOS (or PPC equivalent, idk) and OS X's bootloader don't support NVME, if OS X has drivers for it you might be able to use GRUB and a Linux installation to chain load OS X off the NVME drive.

[@ActionRetro]

Great idea!

[@andrewdunbar828]

Yaks are a type of cattle, gnus aka wildebeests are a type of antelope.

[@ry6000]

This is my dream PowerMac G5!! I've always wanted to buy one but have been afraid of the coolant leakage issues; I can't wait to see what you do with it! Really excited for the PCIe cards :)

[@brandonupchurch7628]

I've noticed a lot of libraries for linux have in the x86 space went to requiring SSE2 at minimum, when I tried Debian Sid on a Pentium III last week, anything that needed MESA for opengl would fail with Illegal instruction, then when I went down to Debian Stable, the same game I was trying to run still failed to load with Illegal Instruction because OpenAL requires SSE2, so perhaps since ppc64 runs on later not Apple hardware some of the libraries have moved to relying on instructions only seen on later PPC CPUs.

[@naguam-postowl1067]

I know it is hard but use gentoo with a secondary recent PC to run the build of packages

[@naguam-postowl1067]

At least Debian are making efforts for reproducible build but building the whole archive without sse2 is a rough task

[@IdRatherNotHaveAHandleThankYou]

Do check out box86 - might let you run x86 on G4 macs! You might even be able to run _Steam,_ since that works on the Raspberry Pi. I don't think it'd work on G5s, something to do with endianness. Nice Doctor Who shirt, by the way!

[@adilsongoliveira]

I really don´t like Apple products but this machine is a beauty. The engineering is awesome.