about to buy a G4 Power Mac "QuickSilver" Set Up

[cheekybobcat]

So I am about to buy a G4 Power Mac "QuickSilver" Set Up. I was wondering if anyone knows what the capabilities are of this computer...
Can the RAM be upgraded to 2 or 4GB? Graphics card?
As far as I know, Leopard can be installed so I am good with the OS but I just want to make sure that I can update it a little bit.
Oh, and a friend told me the Power Mac is like a Mac Pro but older. Is this true? Like can the Power Mac house multiple processors and hard drives?

mod can probably delete this, i think this is the wrong forum...

 

[Saliwa]

Be careful, the next OsX will probably not support G4 cpus if that is a problem for you.

 

[mBurns]

Be careful, the next OsX will probably not support G4 cpus if that is a problem for you.

We're a far way off from that being a major issue. Also, most people say that no PPC chip will be supported in the next OS revision.

 

[Yoursh]

Quick rundown of upgrades.

Quicksilvers have 3 slots that take PC133 ram. PC133 are available in up to 512MB. That means the Quicksilver can be upgraded to 1.5GB of ram.

Video card upgrades are available but are getting harder to track down. None are made anymore but are still out there on ebay and resellers. You need a Mac specific model of the cards or a modified pc card. Google around for more info.

Leopard's minimum requirement is for a 867Mhz processor. The Quicksilvers had processors from 733MHz-1GHz. So it depends on the specific model your getting. Note-you can get 10.5 running on a slower processor by tricking the installer. I've done it myself and it does work. (though it runs slow)

There is space for multiple hard drives but the earlier Quicksilvers can only see up to 120GB hard drives. Another thing that can vary depending on the model your looking at.

Powermacs were the high-end desktops back in the PPC days. Apple just changed the name with the change to intel.

 

[jay1097]

How much are you paying for this set up?

Also a powermac is the ppc version of the mac pro.

 

[cheekybobcat]

$180

 

[jodelli]

$180

If it works and the seller is reliable and it's at least 867 mhz I would buy it.
This is only my opinion, of course.

One of my computers is actually a Sawtooth with a 1 ghz Sonnet upgrade and 1gig of PC 133 ram with 110 gb of hard drives. The video can be a little chunky on streaming video but iMovie works fine.

jodelli

 

[jodelli]

Try Mactracker
http://mactracker.dreamhosters.com/

It has specs and comments for nearly any Mac, including three Quicksilver models.

 

[Igantius]

....
Oh, and a friend told me the Power Mac is like a Mac Pro but older. Is this true? Like can the Power Mac house multiple processors and hard drives?

mod can probably delete this, i think this is the wrong forum...

Not a bad article here:
http://lowendmac.com/musings/mm07/1008.html

Yes, the processor is upgradable - and I'm sure that barefeats did some speed tests in this area, so I would look there.

I'm in the UK, and although processor upgrades have come down in price, personally I would rather put the money to a new computer - however, I'm sure they're cheaper in the States and considering how inexpensive the machine is, it could be a good (and economical!) move.

 

[gnasher729]

There is space for multiple hard drives but the earlier Quicksilvers can only see up to 120GB hard drives. Another thing that can vary depending on the model your looking at.

Small correction: The Quicksilver can actually see bigger drives, but it will only use 128 GiB = 137 GB on a larger drive. That is important because 120 GB drives start to become hard to find. And it has to be an IDE drive, not a SATA drive. Of course, you can buy a cheap USB 2.0 PCI card (the difference between those that say "Macintosh compatible" on the package and those that don't is $20, there is no other difference) and attach a cheap USB drive of any size, or attach a firewire drive. There is no size limit for external drives.