Custom G4

[codycartoon]

I have been thinking about building my own g4...it seems to be pretty cheap:

Sonnet g4 1GHz $550
Logic Board $150
22 pin powersupply $70 (here (http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3411522450&category=14912) )
80 gig HD $100
Video Card $100
RAM $30

Wow, $1000 for a 1ghz g4 mac...not bad...has anyone done this? If so do you have any advice? Is ther anything im missing(besides the case)?

Thanks
-cody

[cb911]

dude, do you now what you're doing?

anyway, good luck putting it together if you go ahead with it! :)

[Chaszmyr]

Only $30 worth of RAM? thats not enough. And you are going to have to buy the operating system and stuff too... You also need at least one optical drive and you'll probably want speakers. And you didnt detail the specs on the system youre building, but it looks to me based on your prices and such that the low-end imac would be a better deal.

(The iMac comes with a 15'' LCD, a keyboard, mouse, apple pro speakers, and an apple warranty.. Though admittedly the processor speed isnt quite as good)

[mattmack]

Originally posted by codycartoon
I have been thinking about building my own g4...it seems to be pretty cheap:

Sonnet g4 1GHz $550
Logic Board $150
22 pin powersupply $70 (here (http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3411522450&category=14912) )
80 gig HD $100
Video Card $100
RAM $30

Thanks
-cody
The only prob i see is the limits of the logic board. I assume you are using a gigabit ethernet board so you are limited to 100mHz bus with PC100 ram. You could probably find a 500mHz processor on ebay for cheaper. And not suffer much in preformance. What are you planning on doing with it? Do you want to play games on it or just email and web surf? I was looking into doing it a while back and since apple has somewhat standardized components it is pretty straightforward but still a little cost prohibative. I would probably save a couple a hundred more and get a low end tower when the new ones are released
I would up the video card from the cheaper nvidia to an ATI imo only.
The other issue is Apple had a different power supply on the Gigabit ethernet boards so you want to make sure the board is the right one for the power supply

[codycartoon]

Only $30 worth of RAM? thats not enough. And you are going to have to buy the operating system and stuff too... You also need at least one optical drive and you'll probably want speakers. And you didnt detail the specs on the system youre building, but it looks to me based on your prices and such that the low-end imac would be a better deal.

(The iMac comes with a 15'' LCD, a keyboard, mouse, apple pro speakers, and an apple warranty.. Though admittedly the processor speed isnt quite as good)

I have a few extra optical drives, the jaguar OS, and sound sticks so i am not worried about that.

If i used a 800mhz chip i could have saved $210 i could have used that to buy more ram a bigger harddrive w/e

the iMac is a great machine...but its non-upgradable...
while if i build a $1000 machine i will have an upgradable solid g4...

-cody

PS. my primary use for this is editing on FCP3

[SoonToGetAMac]

I would get a "real" Mac if you are doing anything serious. If anything goes wrong with this machine, you can only blame yourself or eBay, but if you buy from Apple you can blame them:cool: .

[Pancake]

I found this link one day. Hope it helps.

http://www.macopz.com/buildamac/

[mattmack]

Originally posted by codycartoon
I have a few extra optical drives, the jaguar OS, and sound sticks so i am not worried about that.

If i used a 800mhz chip i could have saved $210 i could have used that to buy more ram a bigger harddrive w/e

the iMac is a great machine...but its non-upgradable...
while if i build a $1000 machine i will have an upgradable solid g4...

-cody

PS. my primary use for this is editing on FCP3
If you're usikg it for FCP I would go for it. Let me know how it turns out. It should be a solid well functioning machine. Good Luck

[wsteineker]

Do it and let us know what the final specs and cost were. I'm looking to do something similar so that I can have a cheap yet powerful PPC web server for my site (still in dev). Good luck, man!

[SoonToGetAMac]

yeah, sorry i forgot to say lots of luck! I'm sure it'll turn out great.