Powermac G3 300MHz, did I pay too much?

imho

thats a great entry level Mac...

save some dollars and buy a G4/600 from Daystar and you will have a nice little machine which will last for several more years.

acedickson said:

I bought my first Mac today. After buying a car with most of my income tax I didn't have enough for a PB or iBook, so I bought the PM. I got it for 132.50 shipped, is that a good deal for the following specs?

G3 300mhz
320MB RAM
40GB HDD
OS X Panther
Keyboard & mouse (unspecified)

Auction Link: Powermac G3 300MHz

I'm going to pull the 64MB stick and throw in another 384MB (256MB & 128MB stick) and add my 60 GB HDD in there with it. Plus my DVD burner and DVD ROM. Besides it'll be better than this PC I'm on. Pentium sub 200MHz, 2GB HDD, 64MB RAM running Windoze.

I'm so excited to finally get a Mac. I can't wait for summer (maybe sooner) to buy a Powerbook and possibly and iMac G5.

Click to expand...

I have no idea what the market is for these things, but $100 doesn't sounds unreasonable to me at first blush.

Until October I was still using a G3 at 350 MHz with 512MB RAM, similar in specs to yours, and it could keep up for all the everyday stuff. But make no mistake, rendering even just a 5-second fade in iMovie can take what feels like all day.

The two things I would be most concerned about are the general condition of the components, as with any used item, especially one that has been used a lot as this one says it has, and also that they are not including OS restore/install CDs. If you have any serious problems, those could really come in handy. It also might be technically illegal or something, I don't know, since I assume they are keeping the "freshly installed" CDs for themselves/other uses.

Best of luck, I hope it works out.

A computer with ADB and USB ... now that's rare.

Wow! That's actually a great deal! Good beginner's computer!

That is a pretty good deal. I wouldn't have paid much more than that, but that is definitely not bad, even with the shipping charge. You can upgrade that thing to 1GHz for about $250, which might be a worthwhile investment if you plan to use OS X. I remember using Jaguar on my 300MHz Wallstreet and it wasn't exactly fun.

Good show, Lad! Good show! Take great care of it.. upgrade everything in it you are comfortable with doing yourself, and give it a NAME for God's sake! My first mac had a name. She was Lola. and no, she didnt walk like a woman but talk like a man..unless i set the voice to Bruce. Have fun with your new computer, and any questions can be answered here!

Yeah just to give you a heads-up, that things going to be reeeal slow with OS X... Either upgrade the processor or promise us you won't let this give you a bad impression of Macs...

Dissent and Commentary

Not to sound like a poor sport about it--as an entry-level machine you may have done well--but for four times the cost you could have got a Mac Mini, which we all know is smaller and superior, not to mention a fair bit quicker with OS X and the latest software/hardware.

To recap someone above--you've done well, but don't let its slowness with OS X discolour your love for the system and the general hardware. All the best!

-- Andrew

If it's any consolation...

I am STILL using, (on a daily basis) , my PowerMac Blue and White G3. It's upgraded with a PowerLogix 550Mhz G4 with Altivec(which is no longer made, but Sonnet Technologies has upgrades up to 1 Ghz if your willing to live with a 66mhz System Bus). 1 Gig RAM, 1 80gig EZquest Firewire HD for DV, 1 160gig Lacie Firewire (It's daisy chained to my 80gig Which is powered off only when I do video. The 160gig is almost a perfect drive, the blue light on it is a bit annoying) OS 10.2.8, Panther is a performance hog with a system that sports a minascule 100mhz bus. Try and get jaguar and update to 10.2.8, It's the most stable version. I haven't turn off my computer in about 4 months. Last week I had a power outage, that doesn't count!!! Hee hee!

It's no speed demon, but for daily task, such as Web Browsing, email, Word and Powerpoint there's no difference in performance if you had a G4.

Photoshop CS runs surprisingly well. I work on RAW and Jpeg images imported from my Nikon D70 that are any where's from 3.5 to 5 megs in size and .psd files reach 70-100 megs easily, but still runs like a champ),

Illustrator is a bit slow, I wouldn't recommend doing large vector graphics.

Final Cut Pro 4 runs like a champ. I'm not lying, I have no problems importing and editing Standard NTSC DV. Rendering times can be daunting, but the kicker is, you're almost guaranteed it'll do the job even if it needs to render 10 hours overnight) OSX is the key component for task like this, and 10.2.8 does the job. You'll need a PCI hack to get FCP 4 to run.

Way too slow for Poser 5, Don't even think about it.

Adobe Premiere and After effects run a tad slower than FCP, but they should be on the shelf if you have FCP.

iLife is just fine, actually FCP is faster than iMovie, use it if you got it! Don't bother going 6 deep in Garage band either!

Don't let this machine define how all macs perform, just judge the OS and it's stability cause I don't know anybody out there that has a 6 year old PC that can do the same!

In closing, I am currently in the market for a G5! Wish me luck, as I wish you the same!

Yep, I'd say ya done good! Stick a G4 ZIF in that puppy like the others have suggested, but BE SURE to upgrade the graphics card with at least a Radeon 7000 PCI. That will also make a big difference in OS X performance. Sounds like you got the RAM situation covered. Welcome to Macintosh! 🙂

For a blue & white, I think you got a very good deal. I would not spend more than $100 or so on upgrades, however, as you won't get your money back when you sell it, neither will you make it as fast as any of the current Macs.

Nice find. I wouldn't spend to much in upgrading it. Just get used to the Mac OS and save up for a new Mac Mini in the future.

lasuther