Upgrading BW G3 to G4

If you really wanna upgrade your PM, you won't find much speed increase, unless you take a much higher clockspeed. There are very few differences between G3 and G4, G4 just supports velocity engine, but there is not much difference in speed per MHz. Get a Solo Mini, it will be much faster than any G4 available, and it has many new features not supportted by B&W G3.

Probably better off buying a used mini if you want to do anything more serious than web surfing. It just doesn't make sense to spend lots of money on a B&W G3 anymore.

If you need a tower, a PM G4 would be the best soloution. Try also http://www.usedmacs.com.

GimmeSlack12 said:

Yeah that was the advice I was expecting to get. There are actually some good deals on Ebay for some used Dual Quicksilvers, and I would like that expandibility. The only purpose the Mini would serve for me is a media station, and I will not be ready for that for another year or so.

Click to expand...

How much do you want to spend ideally and what will you be using it for?

I know you wanna spend less than .5k, but a Mini would serve you well.

You can put up to a 1gHz G4 Zif into that thing, which is pretty damn fast. But as was mentioned, if you have a 400mHz G3 and you put in a 400mHz G4, you'll have the same response in non-altivec applications, though OSX will run a bit smoother.

Also keep in mind that if, for example, you have a 300mHz b/w and you buy a 550mHz G4 Zif for cheap, though it won't be fast by most standards it will be almost twice as fast as what you have now, so you'll definitely notice a bump.

However, to do a lot of the functions of even a sawtooth, you need to:

upgrade the HD (G3 stock drives run at 5400rpm)
upgrade the optical drive (if you want dvd playback)
upgrade the graphics card (the one in there won't handle dvd video; and remember, PCI only)
deal with the 1gig max RAM (but max it out!)

If it's already pretty pimped out, then you'll get a damn good response from the upgrade of the processor. My suggestion would be to upgrade all of them if you can do it for cheap, but chances are you can't, and you should only do it if you are completely in love with your case. For Tiger, I would say at the VERY LEAST you should max your RAM and get a better graphics card (though it will run on the card you have, just not very well). The plus is that your bus speed is the same as the early G4s (100mHz), so you're going to get good performance out of the upgrade.

I would pick up a G4 cheap and turn your G3 into a server, or find another use for it (mine is a dedicated audio recording machine).