Moving Overseas Again... What To Do With My Mac?

[ian27]

Hey guys,

This is my current situation...

I have a PowerMac G5 2.0GHz DP, 2.5 gig of RAM and quite a lot of hard drive space. I work a lot in design, including some very CPU intensive animation work in software such as Maya and Shake.

But here is the dilemma...

I currently live in Costa Rica but will be moving to Australia in March. I am not sure if it is worth me shipping my current Mac, or buying something new when I get to Australia. A friend has already said he will buy my G5 off me for $2000.

Now to ship my computer from here to Australia will cost me about $1000 which I have, but that is about all that I have. So I can now ship the machine or buy another in Australia with the $3000 that I'll have (the $1000 I have saved for the shipping + the $2000 that I would get from my friend who will buy the G5).

I'm not sure what I can get for $3000 but I would be hoping to buy another PowerMac although I know that most of them now come with Intel processors.

I know that UB versions of the animation software etc have now been released... But does anybody know what their performance is like on the Intel? In addition, can I take out my additional internal drive that to have in my G5 and install it into an Intel PowerMac?

Man, I really have no idea what to do, so any advice at this point would be very much appreciated.

Thank you in advance...

Ian

[Kees Buijs]

Although I can say little over the software questions, the price you get for your mac seems to be very nice.

You can try to look on the australian APPLE STORE site to find out how much the charge for their macs and/or find a APPLE shop at the new address and ask them (email or browsing their website) what it would cost to buy another mac.

Be aware that some software might run into trouble when it is not designed for INTEL mac's.

What kind of shipping do you use. How long does the shipping take. Also take into account that the MAC might become defective during shipping.

$3000 looks to me like a nice amount of money to buy yourself a very nice new complete mac.


Good luck, Kees

[ian27]

Thank you Kees...

I checked out the Australian Apple Store and their cheapest PowerMac was $3999... :S

So I will have to do some shopping around and see if I can find something more affordable but will still work for me. I think an iMac will probably be too slow, so I could always try eBay or something similar.

Thank you.

Ian

[sgould]

$3999 is Australian dollars. About $3500 US. Still expensive but about the same price as UK.

[lbj]

Are you able to count it as a checked bag on your flight? I often see travelers retrieving large items/boxes from the baggage carrousel.

[Giaguara]

Hi Ian, most likely it will be a better for you to sell the Mac, but keep its hard drive (or bring all your data on an external hard drive) and bring that over, and get a new Mac.
Your Mac is a lovely machine, but it will be heavy to ship over. If it has additional value (sentimental etc) that will bring to another consideration, but in general.. you probably will have a lot of things to bring or ship over anyway.

[symphonix]

I agree with Giaguara on this one. The PowerMac is fairly big and hefty and would cost a lot to get over here to Australia. You'd probably need to insure it, too, or risk it getting damaged on the way over.

I can assure, that there is no shortage of Macs over here, new and used, and the prices aren't as bad as they used to be thanks to a strong Aussie dollar at the moment. There are plenty of Apple retailers and service techs and Apple Australia's warranty service seems to be pretty good. For warranty reasons alone I'd leave your G5 Powermac behind and pick up a new one when you get here. We are only about 2 weeks behind the USA in terms of delivery dates for the latest models.

Best of luck anyway. Where in Australia are you moving to?

[ian27]

Hey, thanks for the advice guys - I really appreciate it...

Symphonix, I will be in Brisbane this time... Where are you located?