PowerMac G5 Quad (Liquid cooled) resale value

[Meowster]

In mid 2020, I managed to purchase a HUGE Apple device joblot, which contained many older model MacBooks, iBooks, PowerMacs and a few iMacs (One iMac Pro!) and a couple of iPads. This was an excellent purchase, especially for £250, I'm not joking. The owner was nice and all and agreed to take down the price to £200. This was the best deal of the year for me.

Anyways, in the joblot was a PowerMac G5. Now, I'm no expert on PowerMacs but I had a suspicion that this may have been the liquid cooled variant due to the odd power connector shape. Turns out, I was right and it turned out to be the PowerMac G5 Quad 2.5GHz. 

I've had quite a bit of fun with it throughout the 2 years, and even took it to a local retro tech nerdy meetup thing. But now, my time with it has ended and I'd like to let someone else mess around with this cool machine. Can anyone suggest a price for this lovely beast? I did extensive eBay searching and sadly didn't find a single one on the UK eBay page. 

[da na]

Well, unserviced it'd probably be a few hundred, like $400-600 depending on local market. If you've replaced the coolant and that sort of thing it would be a bit more. 

[Meowster]

3 minutes ago, Mel0nMan said:

Well, unserviced it'd probably be a few hundred, like $400-600 depending on local market. If you've replaced the coolant and that sort of thing it would be a bit more. 

I have opened up the LCS one time, and to my surprise there was no leaks or crystals forming yet. Its quiet too so that aspect of the Mac is fine in my opinion

[da na]

3 minutes ago, Meowster said:

I have opened up the LCS one time, and to my surprise there was no leaks or crystals forming yet. Its quiet too so that aspect of the Mac is fine in my opinion

That could be on the higher side of prices I suggested, seems like great condition. 

[Meowster]

Just now, Mel0nMan said:

That could be on the higher side of prices I suggested, seems like great condition. 

I might be able to add some photos of it to the post later, but can't do that now as still at work and don't have the pictures on hand haha

[BondiBlue]

Those are very nice machines, but they're only worth so much to a collector who really wants one. Here in the States a stock G5 Quad would go for anywhere between $100-$250 depending on specs and whether or not they have any issues, such as the cooling system. What are the specs of your G5?

 

If you can find the right buyer they're worth a decent bit more than that, but it all depends on the specs, your location, and the buyer. 

 

30 minutes ago, Meowster said:

One iMac Pro!

Seriously?! That computer originally sold for no less than £4,899, so getting one of those in any kind of a lot deal is incredible. It didn't age particularly well, but it's still an incredibly nice computer for what it is. Nice find!

[Meowster]

8 minutes ago, BondiBlue said:

Those are very nice machines, but they're only worth so much to a collector who really wants one. Here in the States a stock G5 Quad would go for anywhere between $100-$250 depending on specs and whether or not they have any issues, such as the cooling system. What are the specs of your G5?

 

If you can find the right buyer they're worth a decent bit more than that, but it all depends on the specs, your location, and the buyer. 

 

Seriously?! That computer originally sold for no less than £4,899, so getting one of those in any kind of a lot deal is incredible. It didn't age particularly well, but it's still an incredibly nice computer for what it is. Nice find!

Indeed the joblot was a great find! If I can remember correctly, my machine is equipped with 2 250GB hard drives, a GeForce 6600, 4.5GB of RAM (weird configuration I know) and I've given the whole chassis an inside to out clean by stripping nearly everything down. 

If you're curious about the iMac Pro specifications, I think it was the base model 2017 one, with no additional changes to the hardware.

EDIT: Oops, forgot the CPU. Its the dual CPU 2.5GHz variant, resulting in a total of 4 usable cores

[BondiBlue]

15 minutes ago, Meowster said:

Indeed the joblot was a great find! If I can remember correctly, my machine is equipped with 2 250GB hard drives, a GeForce 6600, 4.5GB of RAM (weird configuration I know) and I've given the whole chassis an inside to out clean by stripping nearly everything down. 

That's not too bad at all for a G5. If the exterior of the case is in good shape (especially the bottom feet - they're super easy to destroy if they're dropped, see the video below for a good example of one destroyed in shipping) then you shouldn't have any issues getting a decent price for it. I can't give an exact estimate as I'm not in the UK and don't know how the vintage Mac market is doing over there right now, but if I was selling that machine here in the US I'd ask $250 minimum. 

 

And it's actually not too uncommon to see weird RAM configurations in those machines. I picked up a 2006 Mac Pro 1,1 earlier this year, and it has 9GB of RAM. I have no clue why the original owner didn't pull the stock 1GB out, but they didn't. 

18 minutes ago, Meowster said:

If you're curious about the iMac Pro specifications, I think it was the base model 2017 one, with no additional changes to the hardware.

That's still not a bad machine. 8 core Xeon W, 8GB Vega 56, 5K display, 32GB of RAM, etc. I'd love to get my hands on one of those in about a decade to see how well they hold up. 

21 minutes ago, Meowster said:

EDIT: Oops, forgot the CPU. Its the dual CPU 2.5GHz variant, resulting in a total of 4 usable cores

That's a sweet machine. I've always wanted to get my hands on a Quad, but every time I find one for sale locally it's either immediately gone, it has major functional issues, or it has major cosmetic issues. I managed to get a single 1.8GHz G5 system for free a few months ago, and it's in mint condition. I think the actual highlight of that deal was the free 23" Cinema HD Display that came along with it. 

 

Here's the video of the G5 that was destroyed in shipping. It's a sad fate for many of these cheese grater G5s and Mac Pros. 

 

[Meowster]

38 minutes ago, BondiBlue said:

That's not too bad at all for a G5. If the exterior of the case is in good shape (especially the bottom feet - they're super easy to destroy if they're dropped, see the video below for a good example of one destroyed in shipping) then you shouldn't have any issues getting a decent price for it. I can't give an exact estimate as I'm not in the UK and don't know how the vintage Mac market is doing over there right now, but if I was selling that machine here in the US I'd ask $250 minimum. 

 

And it's actually not too uncommon to see weird RAM configurations in those machines. I picked up a 2006 Mac Pro 1,1 earlier this year, and it has 9GB of RAM. I have no clue why the original owner didn't pull the stock 1GB out, but they didn't. 

That's still not a bad machine. 8 core Xeon W, 8GB Vega 56, 5K display, 32GB of RAM, etc. I'd love to get my hands on one of those in about a decade to see how well they hold up. 

That's a sweet machine. I've always wanted to get my hands on a Quad, but every time I find one for sale locally it's either immediately gone, it has major functional issues, or it has major cosmetic issues. I managed to get a single 1.8GHz G5 system for free a few months ago, and it's in mint condition. I think the actual highlight of that deal was the free 23" Cinema HD Display that came along with it. 

 

Here's the video of the G5 that was destroyed in shipping. It's a sad fate for many of these cheese grater G5s and Mac Pros. 

 

Thanks for that, it really helped me out a bit to decide on a price. Mine is in almost perfect condition, it stands straight and the feet don't seem bent anywhere. I'd say there might be a shortage of these in the UK at this moment, since coming across any vintage Macs or in general any old computers can seem quite difficult here, most the stuff I buy for my collection is either imported from other countries, most coming from the US but some are from Sweden, Australia etc. I think I might set up an eBay auction on it since these machines, like I said are quite uncommon in the UK since the sad truth is, many companies and individuals throw away or dump their old computers/tech. It makes me sad how these poor old machines are being thrown away more commonly

 

 

[BondiBlue]

1 minute ago, Meowster said:

Thanks for that, it really helped me out a bit to decide on a price. Mine is in almost perfect condition, it stands straight and the feet don't seem bent anywhere. I'd say there might be a shortage of these in the UK at this moment, since coming across any vintage Macs or in general any old computers can seem quite difficult here, most the stuff I buy for my collection is either imported from other countries, most coming from the US but some are from Sweden, Australia etc. I think I might set up an eBay auction on it since these machines, like I said are quite uncommon in the UK since the sad truth is, many companies and individuals throw away or dump their old computers/tech. It makes me sad how these poor old machines are being thrown away more commonly

I have seen countless examples of perfectly good vintage machines being thrown away, and it's always sad to see it happen. The G5 Quad wasn't a big seller since it was launched so close to the Intel transition, and less than a year before the first Mac Pro was launched. Older, lower end models are easier to find, but the Quad is tough. 

 

Good luck selling it!

[Space646]

2 hours ago, Meowster said:

In mid 2020, I managed to purchase a HUGE Apple device joblot, which contained many older model MacBooks, iBooks, PowerMacs and a few iMacs (One iMac Pro!) and a couple of iPads. This was an excellent purchase, especially for £250, I'm not joking. The owner was nice and all and agreed to take down the price to £200. This was the best deal of the year for me.

Anyways, in the joblot was a PowerMac G5. Now, I'm no expert on PowerMacs but I had a suspicion that this may have been the liquid cooled variant due to the odd power connector shape. Turns out, I was right and it turned out to be the PowerMac G5 Quad 2.5GHz. 

I've had quite a bit of fun with it throughout the 2 years, and even took it to a local retro tech nerdy meetup thing. But now, my time with it has ended and I'd like to let someone else mess around with this cool machine. Can anyone suggest a price for this lovely beast? I did extensive eBay searching and sadly didn't find a single one on the UK eBay page. 

Actually, maybe I would like to buy it