Desktop PowerPC Macs

[keremtezcan]

Hi!
I have some questions.
1. Does anybody here have the Mac Mini G4? How fast is it?
2. I can't find any Power Mac G4 Cubes anywhere on EBay (uk). Is there a place where I could buy one for under £150?
3. What is better, the Mac Mini G4 or the Power Mac G4 Cube?
4. Does the Power Mac G5 Hard Drives have a specific name, is it SATA 1,2 or 3? Can I use an SSD?
5. If you had to put the following in order, what order would you put them in in terms of speed etc?
Mac Mini G4
Power Mac G4 Cube
Power Mac G4

[Ariii]

Originally Posted by keremtezcan

Hi!
I have some questions.
1. Does anybody here have the Mac Mini G4? How fast is it?

The Mac Mini G4 isn't that powerful, but it works great for everyday tasks like web browsing, etc. It's a lot slower under Leopard, even though the speed is acceptable. Without a RAM upgrade, Leopard is slow.

3. What is better, the Mac Mini G4 or the Power Mac G4 Cube?

The G4 Cube isn't as fast as the Mac Mini G4 with the stock CPU, GPU, and RAM, but it is much more upgradable than the Mac Mini, and with upgrades it is undoubtedly faster, and will have great performance under Leopard. You might be able to buy one that already has some upgrades.
Even though the upgrades are slightly expensive, it isn't that difficult to find a reasonably-priced upgrade if you look.
Plus, the G4 Cube is a collectors item as well as a decent machine .

5. If you had to put the following in order, what order would you put them in in terms of speed etc?
Mac Mini G4
Power Mac G4 Cube
Power Mac G4

Power Mac G4
Power Mac G4 Cube
Mac Mini

[nilk]

My G4 Mac Mini was incredibly slow mainly because it had a 4200 RPM drive (it was one of the early batches), even after I installed 1GB RAM. If I booted off a faster external drive via Firewire 400, it was much faster.

It sometimes had trouble keeping up with GarageBand, and I think that was because of the CPU.

It worked fine for whatever version of iMovie I was using it with at the time (I think '06, before the rewrite). Though I was only working with SD video and uncompressed files I think; I don't think it could handle HD video well if at all.

While it might work ok for basic web browsing, it has problems with video sites like YouTube that use Flash. I've never tried it with HTML5 video, though I don't imagine it would fare better. I think the H.264 codec is the problem, and there is no GPU acceleration to make up for the lack of CPU power in that case.

[Zotaccian]

G4 itself is a pretty old CPU, it has SDR FSB running at 167MHz on a Mini while at the time there was Athlon 64's and similar on the market. Maximum official speed Apple clocked the G4 in Mac Mini was 1.5GHz. Now the time is passed it by even more and naturally it cannot compete against multicore CPU's, it will feel sluggish even in basic use. The Mini itself is still nice looking and quiet computer (unless stressed) and if you understand that it's an old computer and put it to use where it's raw power is not a problem then I think you'll be fine. Hooking it up to a tv and playing DivX class videos or similar is one thing that Mini can handle.

[MisterKeeks]

Originally Posted by keremtezcan

4. Does the Power Mac G5 Hard Drives have a specific name, is it SATA 1,2 or 3? Can I use an SSD?

SATA 1.

Officially, all models in the Power Macintosh G5 series, regardless of architectural differences, support two 1.5 Gb/s Serial ATA (SATA) hard drives.

Yes, you can put an SSD in a Power mac G5.

[cocacolakid]

Apple made 4 different speed G4 Mac mini's.

A 1.25Ghz, 1.42, 1.33, and 1.5

All were single core CPU's.

Everymac.com is a very handy website for reference on any Mac

http://www.everymac.com/systems/appl...x-macmini.html

And the main index so you can find the other Macs you might have interest in:

http://www.everymac.com/

The single biggest problem with the mini's is that they are basically not upgradeable. You can't upgrade the GPU (or CPU). You can upgrade the RAM but the G4 mini's max out at 1GB of RAM. (the G4 Power Mac's can handle more and are a better choice if you want to upgrade anything since you can upgrade everything). I do not have experience with a Cube, but as others have said, they can also be upgraded and it's not uncommon to find them with many upgrades already, including CPU upgrades, which were very pricey back in the day. The Cube also maxes out at 1.5GB of RAM.

[Intell]

A moderately upgraded Cube will outperform a Mini at everything and a well upgraded one will outperform any stock G4. The G4 Mini's were Apple's poorest preforming G4 line.

[wobegong]

This will help in your decision - Upgraded Cube vs Mini 1.4.

General : http://www.barefeats.com/mini01.html
Gaming/GPU : http://www.barefeats.com/mini01b.html

[ybz90]

The Mini is by far the worst (edit: I'm referring to in comparison to an upgraded cube), though it has the advantage of a slightly smaller footprint and lower power consumption. Also, cube G4 upgrade kits are near impossible to find. I've had a G4 cube that I've been looking to upgrade when I have time, but it's been in storage for about a year now.

[zackkmac]

Where is the iMac G4 in this? Kidding.

I had a G4 Mini at one time. It was an Apple refurbished unit and I ordered the lowest-end model, but somehow I was lucky enough to receive a very high end model and Apple allowed me to keep it as it was their error. Excited as I was it still was not a very powerful computer...and I ended up swapping for a PowerBook G4 17". Never had a Cube before so I can't comment on it, but I would definitely trust everyone else stating that an upgraded Cube would blow a G4 Mini away.

There is a PowerMac G4 Cube with Intel Core Duo Mini innards on eBay and looks well-made and clean, but it is $1800.

[Intell]

Originally Posted by ybz90

The Mini is by far the worst (edit: I'm referring to in comparison to an upgraded cube), though it has the advantage of a slightly smaller footprint and lower power consumption. Also, cube G4 upgrade kits are near impossible to find. I've had a G4 cube that I've been looking to upgrade when I have time, but it's been in storage for about a year now.

The hardest Cube upgrade to find is the ultra rare gigabit Ethernet card. Next hardest is the CPU. Those popup on eBay a few times a month. Graphics cards are fairly common for the Cube as are hard drives. Other miscellaneous upgrades like the VRM/DC-DC board and cases can be found as well. Also, an upgraded Cube uses less power when idle and under full load than a Mini doing the same tasks.

If you're wanting a period Apple screen, the Cube does offer the possible advantage of an ADC port allowing you to use one of Apple's Studio displays on it for the trade off of no CoreImage.

[Lil Chillbil]

Originally Posted by keremtezcan

Hi!
I have some questions.
1. Does anybody here have the Mac Mini G4? How fast is it?
2. I can't find any Power Mac G4 Cubes anywhere on EBay (uk). Is there a place where I could buy one for under £150?
3. What is better, the Mac Mini G4 or the Power Mac G4 Cube?
4. Does the Power Mac G5 Hard Drives have a specific name, is it SATA 1,2 or 3? Can I use an SSD?
5. If you had to put the following in order, what order would you put them in in terms of speed etc?
Mac Mini G4
Power Mac G4 Cube
Power Mac G4

1. I have a 1.42ghz mac mini with 1 gig of ram and its fast enough to look up recipes on foodnetwork.com
2. try craigslist
3. The mini g4 kicks the cubes arse around the block even with a 1ghz upgrade because of a faster front side bus and processor and faster ram
4.you can use a sata 1 hdd or ssd in a powermac g5
5. depends on the specs but if were talking max specs then a Dual 1.42ghz mdd max ram and a ssd beats out all other g4 computers

[Falstaff]

I have owned and upgraded a couple of g4 cubes. While it can be done, you will always have a max ram ceiling of 1.5gb.

Heat and voltage are other issues you have to take into account. There are instructions in how to increase the voltage on a stock vrm or you can look for the rare after market vrm that has all the mods done to it already. You can also put in a faster video card. But all this isn't going to increase the stock bus speed which can be a bottle neck.

Google the cubeowner web site as it has tons of upgrade info on the cube. But be forewarned that it can get very expensive.

[keremtezcan]

Lol there are no Power Mac G4 cubes on Ebay or Craigslist. I live in the UK, and I can't find any power mac g4 cubes!

[ybz90]

Maybe you could get someone to ship you one from stateside? I see a few for $50 and under in Boston Craigslist right now.

[wobegong]

Originally Posted by keremtezcan

Lol there are no Power Mac G4 cubes on Ebay or Craigslist. I live in the UK, and I can't find any power mac g4 cubes!

There's a couple UK ones on UK eBay... http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/Desktops-A...nkw=apple+cube

[keremtezcan]

Originally Posted by wobegong

There's a couple UK ones on UK eBay... http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/Desktops-A...nkw=apple+cube

They are either from the US (shipping is more then the product itself)
Or they are just way too expensive (450mhz Cube for £200!)