Originally posted by vdubskey
So in other words, its useless for OS X, one more question, i see a bunch of G3 macs on ebay for arround 200 bucks, and i know there are cpu upgrades for these things, is Sonnet the only place you can get upgrades, is there an upgrade that is capable of running OSX on a G3 machine?
Well, OSX will run on any G3 machine (although Panther technically requires a mac with built-in USB support, which means anything other than the Beige G3s), and I've done it with reasonable success on a 333 iMac with lots of RAM--it's slow, but usable, even with Classic. I've even used it on a 266 beige G3, but that's pretty slow.
That said, if you want to upgrade a Blue and White G3 (which, if you've got a monitor, is a much better eBay buy than an iMac with a similar processor speed, and might well be usable as is, depending on what you want to do with it), there are options other than Sonnet. I'd check out the listing at Other World Computing (
http://www.macsales.com/ ).
They have ZIF socket G4s for the B&W machines for well under $200. If you get lucky, that means you can get a B&W G3 for about $180, a processor upgrade for $170, and a copy of Panther for $130, $70 if you're a student. That's $480 for a G4 Mac tower with a couple PCI slots, or $310 for a G3 Mac with Panther (that, at least, is a good deal if you don't mind the speed).
Problem: An upgraded G3 with Panther is still going to have a slow graphics card, more limited expandability, and a slower internal architecture, so for just a tiny bit more money, getting something that has a G4 built in is probably worth it. If you're sticking with the G3 then the price is more competitive.
I've seen eMac 700s and single processor G4 towers go for as low as $400 on eBay; even kicking in for a new copy of Panther, either of those systems is only $530 + shipping, so you're coming out well ahead of an upgraded G3--no 3rd party processor hassles, better internal components, and no upgrading to mess with yourself.