I want to upgrade my G4 iMac 20"....

[About2SwitchOvr]

I have a 20" iMac, G4, superdrive, OSX, 768 ram, 80 gigs, etc...
The current (stock) video card is the NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 Ultra w/ 64mb of DDR SDRAM.

I am wondering if I can upgrade the video card. The only games I play on here are CC:G and Civ 3. I just think that if I uped the video card, the games would run a bit smoother (not that bad, now), and I'd be able to scroll through pdf's with large pictures files in them.

Has anyone upgraded their iMac?

Thanks!!!

[mikeyredk]

Nope you cannot upgrade the video card. I say upgrade the ram remove the 512 and place a 1 gig chip in.

If you want to play games and want to be expandable you should go for the powermac

[neoelectronaut]

Upgrade...an iMac...

LMAO...

Upgrade....


LMAO!

*sigh...

Okay. Besides the RAM and Airport Card, you ain't upgrading anything in that thing unless you decide to crack open the sucker like an egg.

[vraxtus]

Upgrade...an iMac...

LMAO...

Upgrade....


LMAO!

*sigh...

Okay. Besides the RAM and Airport Card, you ain't upgrading anything in that thing unless you decide to crack open the sucker like an egg.


I second that... but even if you crack it open everything's soldered onto the logic board... so no hope there.

[About2SwitchOvr]

I second that... but even if you crack it open everything's soldered onto the logic board... so no hope there.


thanks for the input guys..

[QCassidy352]

just curious... regarding the PDFs, are you using preview, or acrobat reader? Because my 1 Ghz powerbook lags terribly with acrobat reader, but can handle any PDF flawlessly with preview.

[About2SwitchOvr]

just curious... regarding the PDFs, are you using preview, or acrobat reader? Because my 1 Ghz powerbook lags terribly with acrobat reader, but can handle any PDF flawlessly with preview.

I use Preview to view pdfs...
the pdf I was specifically referring to, was the Wash, DC metro map, zoomed in, full screen (rather, maximized). When I don't zoom in, it's fine, but when I do zoom in, to look at the street names (etc...), it lags terribly, when scrolling up/down.
I don't want to come off as complaining, but rather, being curious...
Why does it lag, when I'm zoomed in, and not, when I'm not zoomed in? Is it that the computer is using more resources, to zoom in, while making it look sharp at the same time? (that's the only reason I can think of)

[senseibiz]

I had the same problem, I wanted to upgrade my imac. So I did. I sold it and got a G5. lol......

[Coca-Cola]

There is a G4 upgrade available for the G3 iMac. You just yank out the motherboard and have a company solder a new G4 chip on. But that does little for the graphics card. My iMac has a 8MB card in it. I now have 32 in my powerbook, and your complaining about 64? Geez. Maybe in the far off future a company will be buying G5 chips and mounting them to G4 iMac motherboards. I hope the iMac G5 will have make some innovations into the whole upgradable graphics card area. Remember how great it was to have a door on the bottom of the iMac to upgrade the ram? I want a door to upgrade my graphics card.

[Horrortaxi]

In addition to not being able to do it, it would make no difference whatsoever in doing anything with PDFs.