Just a quick note that Adobe has confirmed that the next version of After Effects will not run on PowerPC (G5, G4, etc.) Macs. The reasoning is given here on Michael Coleman’s blog (he’s the product manager for After Effects).
We’re among those who have been hanging onto our reliable old G5 workstations; this news is dragging us into the 21st century. Fortunately, Apple has made it a bit easier by offering refurbished Intel MacPros from their online store at some very attractive prices, complete with warranty and free shipping. We just received a pair of 3.2 GHz 8-cores (while we were at it, we got a pair of new Cinema displays as well – we had both been using original 22″ Cinema displays; Trish paid $4k for hers when it first came out – but it’s been worth it), and might order a third machine soon for the music/podcast studio. Click here and scroll down to see the current models on offer; they do come and go (I’m a bit bummed we didn’t jump on a cheap 2.8 GHz 8-core that was up there this weekend). They have a lot of Intel-based MacBook Pros up there as well.
Part of this upgrade has meant dealing with new RAM configurations, among other things. We’re in the middle of a bad-RAM story; I’ll post more on that after we have a resolution (and try a different vendor for our third machine).