Owners of G4s ONLY

[forgiven]

I am condsidering buying a G4 tower before MWSF....

1)what model do you have (be specific with hardware extras)?
2)are you satisfied with the performance?
3)what are you unsatisfied with?
4) how well does it handle OSX?
5) how well does it handle Final Cut Pro 2 or 3?
6) Would you buy your same computer today if you could, or would you wait 3 weeks for MWSF?

 

[evildead]

My G4

This is what I have:

867Mhz G4 Quicksilver
1.25GB RAM
60GB HD
CD-RW
Gforce2 card (the cheeper one)
USB 2.0 PCI card
SoundSticks and iSub
'17 Apple LCD


I love it!! It is very fast and OS X works great with it. My budy that has a 500 G3 pismo is mad at me for how fast OS X runs. Even classic mode works pretty good. I dont use FCP so I cant tell you much about that. There are a few things I wish I did diffrent and some suggetions:

RAM (get a ton of it!!)

HD.. im all ready out of space I need more!

supperdirve - I opted for just the CD-R.. now I wish I got the supper drive. Backups are a pain in the ass in CD-R media

Soundsicks - great!

LCD - the best monitor I have ever seen (exept for the '22 that is)

VidCard - works fine for me.. im not a gammer but I can get 100 fps and 80 fps average on unreal.

As for waiting for a few weeks... do it. I dont know if the new Macs will be that better or if they are even going to be any new ones... but if there are you can get the latest or you can get a deal on the old ones. If the new ones support DDR.. I would get the new ones.

 

[forgiven]

867 dosn't supprot DDR? by the way, did you get my email?

 

[agreenster]

G4

400 mHz (poor old thing still works great)
1.0 gig RAM
internal 10 gig HD (application/system drive)
internal Maxtor 80 gig HD (document drive)
DVD
Rage Video Card (another old one, but still games great)

This is still a very good system, believe it or not. Im heavy into 3D animation, and it still does what I want it to.

RAM is cheap. I agree with evildead. Stock up. You can max out for less than 150 bucks.

Even if you get the bottom of the line Quicksilver, you'll be happy. Just Ram up.

 

[evildead]

RE:

Originally posted by forgiven
867 dosn't supprot DDR? by the way, did you get my email?

yeah.. i just read it... I sent you back a responce.

Sadly ... no DDR for the quciksilver

 

[dantec]

I have nearly the same machine as evildead but a little bit different:

867mhz Quicksilver,
384 Ram (OS X runs fine and I usually run 6 or 7 apps at a time, no probs.)
40HD (How could you use any more than 30? I currently only have used 15 gigs, with 3 iDVD projects, 9 games, and Office bla bla bla... How do you guys fill it up???)
DVD-RW (works great with iDVD 2)
GeForce 3 (just a nice extra, but not needed for everyone...)
Sounsticks & iSub (my iSub looked like a fine piece of art which didn't need to be ignored so it actually sits up on my desk)
17" Studio Display (I could have gotten 22" but my desk won't fit (my computer sits at a corner angle of my desk) with such a big screen, soundsticks, isub and the actual computer on my desk as well).

I love my Powermac and considered it to be one of the finest works of computers in their history (just try finding a Dell this powerful, that can burn DVD's, run a modern OS, and have beauty!)

 

[dantec]

Not long ago...

I installed OS 10 on my dad's sage iMac (450 mhz, also 384 Ram). I found it very very impressive speed wise, but that might be because of my dad's preffered 800x600 resolution.

The one complaint I have with OS X is everything can be slow at times with the 1280x1024 resolution (17" studio displays use this). If you switch this powerful computer back into 1024x768 resoloution you will see how zippy os x really is (amazing, try it). The problem is 17" displays don't give the best clearness with 1024x768 because it originally has the 1280x1024 number of pixels on its screen. This means when the resolution is reduced 2 or more pixels must emulate and try and turn into 1 pixel.

When I mean slow at times, is when you are copying things in the background, and doing stuff the for some reason require the processor (like those darn aqua progress bars).

I really don't understand why apple can't shift aqua to your 3d card!!! All macs who run X have a 3d card (it is even required). Although some ibooks and 1st gen imacs might have some difficulty, the processor can help out too, making one aqua progress bar taking 1/3 (or even less) of my process or power).

[Edited by dantec on 12-19-2001 at 04:54 PM]

 

[evildead]

HD full

I can fill a HD in a weekend. I have thosands of files... most are on CD for back up and becuse of no room. Im looking at a Western Digital 120gig for $200.00 to add ontop of my 60gig HD.

 

[eyelikeart]

My G4 Tower

It's a G4 400.

320 MB RAM, 16 MB VRAM...

Great machine. A little over a year old now. Does everything I need it to do and more. Haven't run X on it, however, since it's a production computer and I need all my apps to run as fast as they can whenever I need them.

I'm personally waiting for MWSF and the new line of towers to come out....but if u wait long enough u may be able to get a killer deal on a current one!

 

[Scab Cake]

Here're my specs:

G4/867
640 megs/RAM (soon to be 1G)
100 gigs of hard drive space
Superdrive
17" LCD
Zip 250 internal
Airport 2

Let me tell you, I was going to wait until January to see if the G5's came out, but I couldn't wait and I couldn't be happier. OS X runs BEAUTIFULLY on this machine. I know that faster machines will be out in a few months, but I've been saving up for this thing for over a year and it's my first mac. I haven't noticed ANYTHING disappointing about this machine. Of course, if I were you, I would hold out for 3 weeks. Not to say that I wouldn't be happy with this machine, but I was trying to hold out for about 3 months...couldn't have done it. 3 weeks is a different story. 3 weeks is a little easier to wait. And, if you bought one now, you probably wouldn't have it shipped for a few days, and then two weeks later newer, faster, and cheaper machines may appear...You'll kick yourself.

 

[Ensign Paris]

HD Info

I always seem to have enough space on my quicksilver, but I run out of it on my powerbookG4 which I use one hell of alot more!

I found that buying two 180gb 10000rpm drives and running them in raid 1 (OS X.1 Offers it!) Gives me ample space, but then again its not portable!

Guy

 

[forgiven]

thank you

thank you for all the help...i think i'll wait 'till MWSF after all...

keep the comments coming though...this is a pretty interresting dialogue...simply put people just braging about thier G4's

 

[PretendPCuser]

Why buy?

Do you absolutely have to buy before MWSF? If you can afford to wait for a month or two, you're likely to pick up the same system you'll get now for a couple hundred bucks less. Or for roughly same price get a better system.

Just my 2 centavos

Now on with the gratuitous system hijinx:
400Mhz G4
348Mb Ram
OS 9.1
10Gb+40Gb internal
DVD
blah blah blah
and yada yada yada

works well

(OT - anyone have a problem with external Maxtor 40Gb Firewire drive?)

Oops, gotta go see LOTR. (I know. I'm so not cool).

 

[MacAztec]

G4...

This is what we got, and how it works:


G4 Dual Processor 800MHz
1.5 Gigabytes of SD-RAM
SuperDrive
OS X.1.1
130 Gigabytes of space
Harmon Kardon Sound Sticks w/ iSub
FCP 2.0
Cannon GL1
Sony TRV-30
17 in. LCD Display

Everything works great on this machine. I use FCP for all my video-editing, and it is done in a jippy. You need RAM to work efficiently in X. I have all the space for video editing, thats what we do. The SuperDrive is great for everything.

Did you know you dont need to get the superdrive ONLY with a new mac, and use iDVD? Buy the Pioneer A-103 DVD burner. Put it in, reboot, and put a blank DVD in. Guess what. . .iDVD pops up. This only works with THIS drive.

 

[menoinjun]

Dual 533 G4 (digital audio)
512mb RAM
40 gig 7200rpm HD
Adaptec SCSI card 2930(osx is fine with it even though I don't use it)
17" Apple CRT (NICE!!)
Sound Sticks w/sub
Canon 1220U scanner
Epson 888 Printer
OS 10.1 & 9.2.2

Am I the only dualie owner here? I absolutely love my machine. It flies!! I betcha you can't see too much a difference between this and an 867. I could have had the 733 with the superdrive for the same price, but I figure I can get a dvd-r later. I'd rather have the speed. OS 10.0.4 was kinda slow...but now it flies at 10.1.1!! Classic is ok most of the time, but if I need to do some serious editing in Photoshop, Illustrator, or Flash, I boot into Classic. Besides, virtuagirl isnt available for OS 10 yet!!

About waiting, definetly wait the extra three weeks. You can't afford not to. If you buy something now, there is a very good chance that you could get something substantially better for the same price in January. Besides, wouldn't it be really cool being one of the first to have the coolest new thing? You could be the envy of this site!

-Pete

(if you ever can afford it...get a dual processor!!)

 

[forgiven]

what graphics card are you using in that config??? with FCP2 you are using OS9...does FCP slow down or speed up in OSX??

 

[Kid Red]

WAIT!!

Wait til Jan for the simple fact that the top of the line NOW will be the bottom of the line then. So you end up saving almost $1000 by waiting.

Not mention we could all be surprised and get a juicy new G5 (I know, wishful thinking)

 

[forgiven]

that was pointed toward:

Mac_User and ptrauber

 

[MacAztec]

Graphics

NVidia GeForce 2MX W/Twin View

 

[Xapplimatic]

How to fill a 30 or 40 GB drive.. (?)..

In one word:

VIDEO.

If someone has three video projects on a 30 GB drive and is only using 15 GB total all things considered, then those must be very small video projects indeed, or the person has all day to waste shuffling raw and edited footage back and forth between Mac and DV tape.. If you're into video, go for nothing less than 40 GB if you edit projects that are over an hour in length or work on multiple projects.. More is better. Higher RPM drivers are better too.

 

[imspace2]

My system

Macintosh SE
CPU: MC68000
CPU speed: 8 Mhz
RAM: 4
ROM: 256 k
7.5.5

 

[bunge]

Originally posted by dantec
40HD (How could you use any more than 30? I currently only have used 15 gigs, with 3 iDVD projects, 9 games, and Office bla bla bla... How do you guys fill it up???)

Easy. I have a video file, 2 hours of MJPEG, that alone is just over 40 GB. I'll edit it, and ultimately compress it as MPEG2 for a DVD, but with all of the menu graphics and such, the whole project is over 50 GB. This doesn't include any system software or programs. Just data. Ouch!

I capture analog video with an Aurora Fuse. I love it.

And personally I'm really happy with my TiBook 667 G4. It runs OS X really well as far as I'm concerned. It'll keep me happy until I break down and by a dual processor desktop machine. I'm assuming that every desktop currently available runs faster than this laptop, and this is just fine. I do light work with video, audio and large graphics and I've been completely satisfied. I can't even imagine a dual 800.

 

[britboy]

G4 500 Tibook
384 Mb ram
20 Gig

OS 10.1.1 runs fine most of the time, although i'm deffinitely thinking of getting some more ram. As soon as more than three applications are running at the same time it slows down quite severely. Classic runs like a dream though : )