A Big MAC never tasted so Sweet.

[Watchin]

Additional note on Memory makers
Crucial, Corsair, Kingston, Micron, Infineon
are all well know retail name brands (at least to me).

Crucial has memory from Scion to Dodge-Viper levels (to use a car analogy)
Corsair is middle of the road, Kingston has two main lines
(ValueRam is cheap end, HyperX is the high end),
Micron is up and down but I've found thier
memory to be spec fuzzy (ie it don't match the label sometimes),
Infineon is mainly Laptop from what I've seen.
AData has been around for a while (what I got) but usually only sells OEM,
so the retail must be an overstock dump.

As a note - when the memory makers are testing chips for thier high end
lines and some don't quite make it, they retest and sell as lower speced
units, so even though the chip may be "capable" or CL2 or DDR800 almost,
it gets re-speced (in the onboard rom) to CL2.5 or 3 and DDR400 or lower
so they can sell it. You can get a deal this way. BUT as a precaution I
always run a full multi-pass through diagnostic on the memory right after
I install it. I use a SUSE Live-CD Linux distro and boot to the memory tester
it does a fairly good job of beating the bits.

[SharpShooter10D]

Wow Greg thtnks for all the info andd the link to the AData memory.
I went to New Egg and check the price and it was the lowest i have seen for 512 Mem modules.

I read nearly every review on the Adata memory and they all seem to be very supportive of the memory. Most of the people who bought it were doing allot of over clocking but I wont be doing that.

You seem to be very happy with this brand as well so that is very incouraging.
I figured I could buy 4gigs of memory for less then what you would pay if you bought a gig from Apple.

Adata 512MB 184-Pin DDR SDRAM Unbuffered DDR 400 (PC 3200) modules on New Eggs site goes for $35.66 which is pretty darn good.

Apple sells there Memory Module 1GB DDR400 PC3200 2x512 DIMMS for $250.00.

Exactly who makes Apples memory i have no idea so i don't really know how to compare them Adata.

It sure is tempting though because $285.66 for 4 giggs iss allot better then $250.00 for 1gig.

I've never used the SUSE Live-CD Linux distro to be honest i'd never heard of it until just now.

Pretty much I have always bought my memory installed it and hoped for the best.

Corsair is what is in my PC and I am somewhat familure with Kington
but I have been looking pretty hard at Crucial too.

Buying the AData memory would definitely make it possible for me to buy some other things i need with the money i would save.

I have allot to contemplate thats for sure.

Thanks again.

Have a great day

Randy

[SharpShooter10D]

Well I made my decision and made my purchase.

After researching. price checking, compamy policy checking and doing allot of rechecking of what I just checked I bought 4 ( 1Gig modules ) from Crucial.

I thought about the AData memeory but i had never heard of them and
Crucial has been around a long long time.

The reviews on the AData were positive but it was the long standing reputation of Crucial and the good price that swayed me in the end.

I chosse the free delivery so I most likely wont see the ram until one day next weeek.

Modules I Bought

1GB DDR PC3200 • CL=3 • UNBUFFERED • NON-ECC • DDR400 • 2.6V • 128Meg x 64
The price per module was $136.98 and I see the price has dropped since I bought mine to $132.99. A difference of about $3.99.

The Link below is to the Memeory Module I bought on Crucials website.

http://www.crucial.com/store/MPartspecs.Asp?mtbpoid=8D9BE1ADA5CA7304&WSMD=Power+Mac+G5+%28Dual+2%2E5GHz+DDR%29&WSPN=CT392184

Now I am going to set my sites on Adobe Photoshop CS2. I was just going to buy PS CS2 and Illustrator CS2 but after seeing what the two would cost as seperate components I found I would be better off to buy it in one of the suites.

Photoshop CS2 costs $599.00 and Illutrator CS2 is $499.00 for a total of $1098.00.
After looking at that I noticed I was only $101.00 short of the Premium Suite which sells for $1,199.00.

So I guess I will go ahead and purchase the Suite might as well!

Have a great day everyone.

Randy

[marokero]

Wow Randy, you're going all out!

[TonyK]

Ya, if he has so much money to burn he could send some to Austin and Houston (area). I'm sure Vance and I could find a use for some extra $$$. :)

[SharpShooter10D]

Hey Alberto,

Well lets just say I'm going as out as I can without breaking the bank.
Unfortunately it's a never eneding cycle, when you upgrade one thing you
have to upgrade something else to make the first thing you upgraded work...*LOL*

It's kind of like....Going from a volkswagon to a Funny Car the Volkswagon runs fine on regular gas but don't try putting that in a Funny Car. Graphic programs like Adobe
Photoshop as we all know are powerful and very memory intensive. So if I get one I need to get the other ( MEMORY ) or Photoshop will sit there sticking it's toungue
out at me going....NEENER NEER DUDE! :)

Hi Tony,

I'm far from rich and don't have all the money to burn..Whaaaaaaaaaaaa

I just make a goal and save toward it. Theres allot of fishing trips, camping trips I passed up in oredr to save up for this shopping spree. :)

Believe me if I was independantly rich I would surely send some of the wealth
the Texas way. :)

I guess it could appear that I am well off by the purchases I have made and being close together but believe me it's money saved over time and sacrifices made in order to have it to spend.

The MAC G5 only came with 512MB's of ram and as we all know for doing serious graphic work when working with large PSD files and RAW files that just isn't going to cut it. I also (Down The Line ) intened on converting peoples 8mm Videos to digital and that will be another chunck of money spent. So I will have to start my cycle all over again to save towrd that goal.

When I win the lottery though I will gladly add Austin and Houston to my list of places to send all that doe that will be weighing me down . HEE HEE!

Sometimes i wonder if missing all those trips was worth it...Then I look at my shinny silver box sitting on my desktop and say......DANG RIGHT! HEE HEE.


Have a great day you guys.

Randy

[TonyK]

I'm just toying with you Randy. I am a cash/carry person and understand saving up for stuff now. It took us too many years to get out of credit card debt and I have no desire to return to it.

Congrats on all of your wise purchasing decisions.

[SharpShooter10D]

Thank you Tony,

My ram finally came today Yippe!

I wasn't sure I was going to be able to install it the first module was a bear to get in that slot but perserverance payed off. After the first module went in the others were a piece of cake. I was kind of glad I got the ram for other reasons too, it gave me an excuse to open the MAC up and take a good look inside....WOWZERS! What a machine.

I almost thought something was missing because I was so used to seeing all those cables and wires running everywhere in PC's.

I installed the ram, closed the lid, fired her up and walla! Tiger saw all 4.5GBs of ram. I was sweating it because I have already heard some stories of people having problems with Tiger but so far I have done ok.

She boots very fast and loads all the programs so far without a hitch.
My Adobe Creative Suit is on Back Order darn it, I bought it from CDW so I will have to wait and see how it performs on Tiger.

One of the things that really blows me away about the MAC is how quite it is. With my PC running I can't hear the MAC at all and they say there are 14 fans in the beast but I only counted 8.

Garage Band is allot of fun but I have discovered that you really need to do several things.....Intsall Jam Packs and get a controller keyboard. The loops Garage Band comes with are minimal just enough to wet your appetite but thats it. I treid playing a melody with the MAC keyboard but that wasn't much fun at all.

Dash board is a hoot......I can keep track of weather almost anywhere and in real time plus with the parcel tracker I can keep track of all my
purchases...LIKE MY RAM! HEE HEE.

One thing I recommend to anyone thinking of getting a MAC.....replace the MAC Mouse with a Logitech MX 1000 it is Saaaaaaaaweeeeeet!
It performs all the functions that the MAC mouse and keyboard had to do together but by itslef.

I still use the MAC keyboard because of obvious reasons but now I don't have to use the ( OPTION KEY PLUS MOUSE ) to copy or past or do my scroll of web pages from the scroll bar.

All in all I am a very happy camper I have never had a PC perform this well or be so easy to upgrade. I thought a MAC would be hard to upgrade but other then a stubborn memory module it was a snap.

Well I am off to learn more about this shiney new box on my desktop
I can't wait to try creating a DVD that should be possible now with the extra RAM.


Have a great day.

Randy

[marokero]

Glad everything is working out okay for you! Yeah, that I don't understand at all... why Apple still doesn't include at least a dual button mouse. I got a Kensington programable mouse the first time around but the buttons started wearing out - clicks didn't work as such, more like click and drag, the buttons were getting stuck. So I trashed it and got a Logitech MX510 which works just as well, except I can't assign keystrokes to each individual program, something I really liked in the Kensington.