Powermac G5 - Revision history

CursedSilicon at 21:12, 3 December 2025

2025-12-03T21:12:26Z

← Older revision		Revision as of 14:12, 3 December 2025
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	Due to me taking the suggestion of a friend far too literally (ilu Ben please don't hate me) I own '''''~~seven~~''''' G5 Quads		Due to me taking the suggestion of a friend far too literally (ilu Ben please don't hate me) I own '''''FOUR''''' (soon five!) G5 Quads


	'''Despite this only one of them is functional!'''		'''Despite this only one of them is (as of December 2025) functional!'''


	All Mac G5 Quads were made with "~~water~~ cooling" loops, due to the thermal output of the CPU's at the time. (105 watts of heat in 2005 is a lot, though with what Intel puts out these days seems rather pedestrian!) '''''however calling it water cooling is incorrect.''''' It's actually radiator fluid! Specifically ~~"Dex-Cool" or AntiFreeze~~.
			All Mac G5 Quads were made with "liquid cooling" loops, due to the thermal output of the CPU's at the time. (105 watts of heat in 2005 is a lot, though with what Intel puts out these days seems rather pedestrian!) '''''however calling it water cooling is incorrect.''''' It's actually radiator fluid! Specifically glycol.


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	Two 240GB SATA SSD's. '''Due to Apple's flaky SATA controller most drives won't work as negotiating SATA 3 speeds down to SATA 1 causes the controller to instead hang. You may want to find drives that have a SATA1 jumper option to prevent this!'''		Two 240GB SATA SSD's. '''Due to Apple's flaky SATA controller most drives won't work as negotiating SATA 3 speeds down to SATA 1 causes the controller to instead hang. You may want to find drives that have a SATA1 jumper option to prevent this!'''

			ATi Radeon X9150 (Mac vBIOS flashed)

	~~As the G5 Quad contains four PCI-E slots (of varying bandwidths) I've arranged them as follows~~


	~~240GB NVME drive via PCI-E adapter (PCI-E x4)~~

	~~10G Intel X520 SFP ethernet adapter (PCI-E x8)~~

	~~Slot blocked by dual-slot GPU (PCI-E x8 otherwise)~~

	~~ATI Radeon X1950 (vBIOS flashed for Mac operation)~~


	The NVME drive is purely used for Linux. GRUB will load a kernel from the SATA drive and is configured to pass root=/dev/nvme0n1p1 allowing the root filesystem to be run off NVME. As a bonus, moving the Mac "k2_sata" kernel module to be loaded on-demand instead of at boot will save 5 seconds off the Linux kernel boot time.


	~~The system currently dual boots OS X 10.5.9 "Sorbet" Leopard and Gentoo PPC64~~


	~~Unfortunately G5 Quads cannot run Tiger due to missing fan control drivers. If installed, the fans will eventually ramp to 100% as a failsafe mechanism.~~

	[[File:Mac G5 Quad (front).jpg\|thumb\|G5 Quad (Front)\|none]]		Unfortunately G5 Quads cannot run Tiger due to missing fan control drivers. If installed, the fans will eventually ramp to 100% as a failsafe mechanism.[[File:Mac G5 Quad (front).jpg\|thumb\|G5 Quad (Front)\|none]]
	[[File:Mac G5 Quad (rear).jpg\|alt=G5 Quad (Rear)\|none\|thumb\|G5 Quad (Rear)]]		[[File:Mac G5 Quad (rear).jpg\|alt=G5 Quad (Rear)\|none\|thumb\|G5 Quad (Rear)]]

CursedSilicon at 08:07, 7 September 2024

2024-09-07T08:07:08Z

← Older revision		Revision as of 01:07, 7 September 2024
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	Apple's G5 Powermac's are rather infamous, being Apple's "last gasp" of PowerPC. The PowerMac G5 '''''Quad''''' in particular is easily among Apple's most unloved and slapdash engineered products.		Apple's G5 Powermac's are rather infamous, being Apple's "last gasp" of PowerPC. The PowerMac G5 '''''Quad''''' in particular is easily among Apple's most unloved and slapdash engineered products.



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	Unfortunately G5 Quads cannot run Tiger due to missing fan control drivers. If installed, the fans will eventually ramp to 100% as a failsafe mechanism.		Unfortunately G5 Quads cannot run Tiger due to missing fan control drivers. If installed, the fans will eventually ramp to 100% as a failsafe mechanism.

	[[File:Mac G5 Quad (front).jpg\|thumb\|G5 Quad (Front)]]		[[File:Mac G5 Quad (front).jpg\|thumb\|G5 Quad (Front)\|none]]
			[[File:Mac G5 Quad (rear).jpg\|alt=G5 Quad (Rear)\|none\|thumb\|G5 Quad (Rear)]]

CursedSilicon at 08:06, 7 September 2024

2024-09-07T08:06:26Z

← Older revision		Revision as of 01:06, 7 September 2024
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	Unfortunately G5 Quads cannot run Tiger due to missing fan control drivers. If installed, the fans will eventually ramp to 100% as a failsafe mechanism.		Unfortunately G5 Quads cannot run Tiger due to missing fan control drivers. If installed, the fans will eventually ramp to 100% as a failsafe mechanism.

			[[File:Mac G5 Quad (front).jpg\|thumb\|G5 Quad (Front)]]

CursedSilicon at 08:05, 7 September 2024

2024-09-07T08:05:58Z

← Older revision		Revision as of 01:05, 7 September 2024
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	Unfortunately G5 Quads cannot run Tiger due to missing fan control drivers. If installed, the fans will eventually ramp to 100% as a failsafe mechanism.		Unfortunately G5 Quads cannot run Tiger due to missing fan control drivers. If installed, the fans will eventually ramp to 100% as a failsafe mechanism.

	~~[[File:Mac G5 Quad (front).jpg\|alt=Mac G5 Quad (front)\|none\|thumb\|Mac G5 Quad (front)]]~~
	~~[[File:Mac G5 Quad (rear).jpg\|alt=Mac G5 Quad (rear)\|none\|thumb\|Mac G5 Quad (rear)]]~~

CursedSilicon: Created page with "Apple's G5 Powermac's are rather infamous, being Apple's "last gasp" of PowerPC. The PowerMac G5 '''''Quad''''' in particular is easily among Apple's most unloved and slapdash engineered products. Due to me taking the suggestion of a friend far too literally (ilu Ben please don't hate me) I own '''''seven''''' G5 Quads '''Despite this only one of them is functional!''' All Mac G5 Quads were made with "water cooling" loops, due to the thermal output of the CPU's at..."

2024-09-07T07:50:36Z

Created page with "Apple's G5 Powermac's are rather infamous, being Apple's "last gasp" of PowerPC. The PowerMac G5 '''''Quad''''' in particular is easily among Apple's most unloved and slapdash engineered products. Due to me taking the suggestion of a friend far too literally (ilu Ben please don't hate me) I own '''''seven''''' G5 Quads '''Despite this only one of them is functional!''' All Mac G5 Quads were made with "water cooling" loops, due to the thermal output of the CPU's at..."

New page

Apple's G5 Powermac's are rather infamous, being Apple's "last gasp" of PowerPC. The PowerMac G5 '''''Quad''''' in particular is easily among Apple's most unloved and slapdash engineered products.

Due to me taking the suggestion of a friend far too literally (ilu Ben please don't hate me) I own '''''seven''''' G5 Quads

'''Despite this only one of them is functional!'''

All Mac G5 Quads were made with "water cooling" loops, due to the thermal output of the CPU's at the time. (105 watts of heat in 2005 is a lot, though with what Intel puts out these days seems rather pedestrian!) '''''however calling it water cooling is incorrect.''''' It's actually radiator fluid! Specifically "Dex-Cool" or AntiFreeze.

The water cooling loops were designed and manufactured by American car maker GM Auto's engine radiator subsidiary. Your G5 Mac literally uses car parts to cool its CPU's! It's any wonder Apple ditched IBM.

It's possible (and desirable) to replace the entire cooling assembly, the 68KMLA forms calls it the "New Blood Mod" though I have not yet performed the repairs on my units due to cost.

Anyway. The one singular G5 Quad I have working is effectively a maxed out G5 Quad. The specifications are listed below

4x 2.5Ghz PPC64 G5 CPU's (2c/2t)

16GB DDR2-667 (or 800? I forget the max speed) RAM. In theory the chipset can support 32GB but nobody has managed to get one operating with that much memory.

Two 240GB SATA SSD's. '''Due to Apple's flaky SATA controller most drives won't work as negotiating SATA 3 speeds down to SATA 1 causes the controller to instead hang. You may want to find drives that have a SATA1 jumper option to prevent this!'''

As the G5 Quad contains four PCI-E slots (of varying bandwidths) I've arranged them as follows

240GB NVME drive via PCI-E adapter (PCI-E x4)

10G Intel X520 SFP ethernet adapter (PCI-E x8)

Slot blocked by dual-slot GPU (PCI-E x8 otherwise)

ATI Radeon X1950 (vBIOS flashed for Mac operation)

The NVME drive is purely used for Linux. GRUB will load a kernel from the SATA drive and is configured to pass root=/dev/nvme0n1p1 allowing the root filesystem to be run off NVME. As a bonus, moving the Mac "k2_sata" kernel module to be loaded on-demand instead of at boot will save 5 seconds off the Linux kernel boot time.

The system currently dual boots OS X 10.5.9 "Sorbet" Leopard and Gentoo PPC64

Unfortunately G5 Quads cannot run Tiger due to missing fan control drivers. If installed, the fans will eventually ramp to 100% as a failsafe mechanism.

[[File:Mac G5 Quad (front).jpg|alt=Mac G5 Quad (front)|none|thumb|Mac G5 Quad (front)]]
[[File:Mac G5 Quad (rear).jpg|alt=Mac G5 Quad (rear)|none|thumb|Mac G5 Quad (rear)]]