G5 imac noise vs G4 tower

lancebug · Post by **lancebug** » Sat Dec 03, 2005 7:29 am

I have an oportunity to get a g5 imac to replace my g4 800mhz tower in my home project studio. Noise is already a challenge with the g4 tower even with my containment efforts. My question is: How bad is the noise from the G5 imac? Is it a substatial upgrade up from my G4 quicksilver or would I be better of trying to upgrade the processor on the G4 to a dual 1g processor? My application is primarily amateur, i.e. recording myself,friends etc... I run protools,live,reason and dp4.5. I belive the g5 is a 1.8ghz version. Tx, Lance.

kikocoolray · Post by **kikocoolray** » Sat Dec 03, 2005 8:40 am

I recently made this same upgrade (from a 733mhz quicksilver tower) to the g5 iMac. It's MUCH quieter than the tower was... And much faster.

And if you max out the RAM you'll be in good shape.

I was skeptical about using an iMac vs. a tower, but so far so good. and the price difference b/w the 20" G5 iMac and a tower with monitor was so substantial I haven't looked back. . .

depthofield · Post by **depthofield** » Sat Dec 03, 2005 9:14 am

I second that; i just upgraded from an 867mhz quicksilver tower to a 2ghz imac g5. Huge difference. I used to be able to hear that damn G4 fan in the next room; the imac g5 puts out a gentle murmur - you'll hear it, but it won't keep you awake at night. Only problem is, you can't really contain the noise - at least you can shove a tower under your desk and deaden it, whereas the imac is always out. Awesome machine though, for 2 grand...

John Jeffers · Post by **John Jeffers** » Sat Dec 03, 2005 9:19 am

Sorry for the derail, but I have a quick question for the iMac users. I'm under the impression that the iMacs have pretty limited expandability. No PCI slots, or room for a second internal hard drive, correct? So, you're stuck with Firewire or USB for everything?

kikocoolray · Post by **kikocoolray** » Sat Dec 03, 2005 10:40 am

Sorry for the derail, but I have a quick question for the iMac users. I'm under the impression that the iMacs have pretty limited expandability. No PCI slots, or room for a second internal hard drive, correct? So, you're stuck with Firewire or USB for everything?

That's right. I run a firewire interface and firewire audio drives just fine on mine, though.

John Jeffers · Post by **John Jeffers** » Sat Dec 03, 2005 10:43 am

kikocoolray wrote:
Sorry for the derail, but I have a quick question for the iMac users. I'm under the impression that the iMacs have pretty limited expandability. No PCI slots, or room for a second internal hard drive, correct? So, you're stuck with Firewire or USB for everything?
That's right. I run a firewire interface and firewire audio drives just fine on mine, though.

Right, thanks. Again, sorry for the interruption in the thread.

lancebug · Post by **lancebug** » Sat Dec 03, 2005 1:52 pm

Yeah, I guess thats the second part of my question.What is the bottom line on using firewire and usb 2.0 hubs (but mostly fw really) with high bandwidth periferals such as multichannel a/d/a interfaces and audio/video scratchdisks. I am using a motu 828 fw interface as well as an mbox. I also have a bunch of usb controlllers and such all spiderwebbed out from an added usb 2 card. I have been using an internal hard drive for my primary write drive but I have 2 firewire external harddrives, so that setup is changeable. I do a pinch of video stuff as well so I guess that would also have to go all firewire too.

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G5 imac noise vs G4 tower

G5 imac noise vs G4 tower

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