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agp g4 350mhz revival. will it work?

T

the next reviva

macrumors regular
Original poster
Nov 29, 2003
113
0
hey everyone! i was thinking of maybe gettin an old agp powermac, and kinda gearin it up for some minor graphics work and ilife 04 apps. goin through ebay (sucker heaven) i think i could make a nice lil system for pretty cheap. but maybe im ignorant.

powermac agp 350 - $300
Sonnet encore 800mhz g4 processor upgrade- $275
northwestern raptor 10k rpm 36gb hard drive - $130
radeon 7000 (if i find i need it) - $50?

so there we have my thoughts on a new system. would it work? any compatabities issues?would this system rum jaguar, panther, or X?i dont really mind usb 1.1 or pc100 ram (i already have a gig of ram) any thoughts on why this might be a bad idea. thanks for takin a look.
 
Sure!

Just one thing: it has AGP?
Maybe getting a better (Radeon 8500 / 9000) grfx card would suite you better?

I haven't heard of any compatibility issues with the Sonnet upgrade cards. Haven't had much experience: just one 1.2 GHz upgrade for a Cube, which works perfectly!

Have fun!
 
IIRC, the first APG Mac was 450mhz. Also, if you do get an AGP (G4) Desktop, then make sure you get a Geforce4MX or Radeon 9000 (or better), those cards will give you Quartz Extreme, which makes the OS much much faster.

You can expect to pay somewhere around $400 for a rock-gut AGP Powermac. If you want to burn DVDs, look at www.xlr8yourmac.com to see which DVD-R/W drives will work with iDVD/iTunes/Finder or else you will regret it later.
 
Originally posted by crazzyeddie
IIRC, the first APG Mac was 450mhz. Also, if you do get an AGP (G4) Desktop, then make sure you get a Geforce4MX or Radeon 9000 (or better), those cards will give you Quartz Extreme, which makes the OS much much faster.

You can expect to pay somewhere around $400 for a rock-gut AGP Powermac. If you want to burn DVDs, look at www.xlr8yourmac.com to see which DVD-R/W drives will work with iDVD/iTunes/Finder or else you will regret it later.
Click to expand...

hey yeah they make 350's http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2784510535&category=14912

also, i cant take advantage of quartz extreme with a 8500?

and yeah, ill prolly get an aftermarket pioneer superdrive (the one in the emacs) for a hundred bucks or so.
 
Originally posted by the next reviva
hey yeah they make 350's http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2784510535&category=14912

also, i cant take advantage of quartz extreme with a 8500?

and yeah, ill prolly get an aftermarket pioneer superdrive (the one in the emacs) for a hundred bucks or so.
Click to expand...

(Yes, the 350 and 400 MHz also had AGP configs)
Every AGP grfx card with ATi's Radeon chip, or nVidia's GeForce 2 or better will give you Quartz Extreme.
The Radeon 8500 and 9000 perform about the same. Both have 64 MB VRAM, both GPU clock about the same speed. But the 8500 also has TV out, which can come in handy. The 9000 supports ADC, but your G4 doesn't.
So I would go for the 8500! Gr8 card.
 
The 8500 will do Quartz Extreme, but costs as much or more than the 9000, and is no longer made, so whatever you buy is not under any sort of ATI warranty. The 9000 is the current card being sold in the place of the 8500.

Also, there was never a 350mhz G4 processor made. So either this is an after-market processor card installed in this machine or the seller is trying to pull something funny.
 
Originally posted by crazzyeddie

Also, there was never a 350mhz G4 processor made. So either this is an after-market processor card installed in this machine or the seller is trying to pull something funny.
Click to expand...

Watch out....

See this to see for yourself.

The first G4's were 400, 450 and 500 MHz. But after a couple of months Motorola couldn't deliver the 500 MHz anymore (times were heading for the worst)... so Apple lowered the G4's to: 350 , 400 and 450 MHz.
The 350 (also the first 400) were both AGP and PCI grfx (actually the same as the B&W G3 config) configured.
Only about 18 months later was Moto finally able to deliver 500 MHz + G4's.... oef, we are glad with IBM
 
Actually, the 350mhz was ONLY PCI graphics, because it was, as you said, based on the B&W G3 motherboard. DO NOT buy a computer without an AGP slot!!!! This includes a 350mhz G4, also called Yikes!. Make SURE that the machine you buy has AGP, or else you are really setting yourself up for a disaster.
 
excellent excellent excellent:D

btw, anyone have any experience with the raptor, or a like drive? does the 10k rpm make a ton of difference? is it loud??
 
The 350 was based on both the "Yikes!" (G3 B&W, PCI grfx) as "Sawtooth" (AGP) model....

Both are possible!

Read this

But I agree! Only buy if you are certain about the AGP grfx.
 
Since youre talking about a Raptor, im assuming youre going to add SATA to this machine? IMO, SATA is NOT worth it. They are louder, and they dont help that much. You would be better off spending that money on a 120GB+ ATA drive.
 
A 10k RPM SCSI disk is very fast... (eh.. SCSI 2 or 3) and can make alot of difference.
And don't forget that 128 GB is max volume on this IDE connector.
Maybe getting a ATA 100 (or 133) PCI card, with large (128 + GB) 7200 RPM disk is a good idea?
 
Why do you need this really fast drive? You said you were mainly going to be using iApps... more info would allow me to make a better recommendation.
 
Re: agp g4 350mhz revival. will it work?

Originally posted by the next reviva
hey everyone! i was thinking of maybe gettin an old agp powermac, and kinda gearin it up for some minor graphics work and ilife 04 apps. goin through ebay (sucker heaven) i think i could make a nice lil system for pretty cheap. but maybe im ignorant.

powermac agp 350 - $300
Sonnet encore 800mhz g4 processor upgrade- $275
northwestern raptor 10k rpm 36gb hard drive - $130
radeon 7000 (if i find i need it) - $50?

so there we have my thoughts on a new system. would it work? any compatabities issues?would this system rum jaguar, panther, or X?i dont really mind usb 1.1 or pc100 ram (i already have a gig of ram) any thoughts on why this might be a bad idea. thanks for takin a look.
Click to expand...

I totally understand the appeal of putting together a system yourself, but that all totals up to $755, right? I apologize if you already know this, but for around that price, you can get a refurbished eMac from the Apple Store. And for not much more, you can get a new one. Granted, the hard drive won't be as fast as the Raptor 10k RPM, and you won't have anywhere near the internal expandability. I believe your PC100 RAM will work, but PC133 might be required. Anyway, just throwing that thought out there.
 
Originally posted by crazzyeddie
Why do you need this really fast drive? You said you were mainly going to be using iApps... more info would allow me to make a better recommendation.
Click to expand...

Yeah.

For normal use a 10k RPM disk is a bit overkill... ;)
And you are not looking for an exceptional fast Mac, :)

So why not stick to a modest 60 GB orso 7200 rpm ATA disk, connected to the internal IDE controller. You can always "upgrade" it even more with a SCSI 3 card, or ATA 133 with a faster disk.
 
The main advantage to getting a desktop machine is you can add alot to it, and swap things in and out. You can also add a dual processor upgrade later, if you feel like it, add more PCI cards, upgrade the graphics, etc.

eMacs are fine machines, dont get me wrong, and perhaps this might be a good starter machine for just the iApps?
 
350 agp

hi all,

I have the 350 agp in question, and have upgraded with a sonnet 1ghz processor. This sytem works well for me with 10.2, garageband, photoshop etc. Runs dreary Halo well.

You will need a 64mb graphics card though as I found performance suffered with only 32mb.

Fear not though it will all work! Do look at the quicksilvers' as a possible without the upgrade costs might be worth a thought.

Written this on a pc, it pains me to say 1.7ghz amd not a patch on the above system^.

Good luck with your impending purchase.
 
haha you guys are prolly right. i suppose i dont rlly need the 10k, it jus sounds nice;) as for the emac, i really dun wanna be limited to expansion. as fast as new systems are coming out, i want this next system to linger a while b4 it goes to the heap
 
OK, the next reviva. Here is what I recommend:

(your config):
powermac agp 350 - $300
Sonnet encore 800mhz g4 processor upgrade- $275
___________________________

(I wouldn't do this):
northwestern raptor 10k rpm 36gb hard drive - $130
radeon 7000 (if i find i need it) - $50?

(my advice):
60 GB 7200 rpm ATA HD
ATi Radeon 8500 (make sure it has an AGP grfx slot)

(and install that 1 GB RAM!)

And have alot of fun with it!
 
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