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agp g4 350mhz revival. will it work?
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crazzyeddie
macrumors 68030
Something the poster might want to consider is an eMac. You can get them fully equipped with SuperDrive for $999. The eMac would be faster than an upgraded Powermac, unless you add a 1.2ghz or faster upgrade since the RAM and bus speeds of the eMac are faster.
If the poster is looking for a long-term solution in the desktop G4, he might be asking too much from it 🙂 🙂 You need to remember that the Powermac would only have a 100mhz bus and 2x AGP, while the eMac has a 133mhz bus and 4x AGP, and the new G5's have 10 times the bus speed of that Powermac with 1000mhz and 8x AGP, plus SATA built in.
If I was planning on buying a machine just for iApps, and didnt need HEAVY processing power (G5-grade), I would definitely get an eMac. They are Apple's best current value. Later on, when the eMac becomes too slow for iLife '06 or the user outgrows the machine, G5 desktops will be alot less expensive and will be more current that an old G4 desktop is now, seeing as how PCs were much ahead of the Mac at the time with CPU, RAM, AGP and bus speeds.
However, I completely agree with the above post concerning the do's and don'ts of upgrading an old G4 tower.
If the poster is looking for a long-term solution in the desktop G4, he might be asking too much from it 🙂 🙂 You need to remember that the Powermac would only have a 100mhz bus and 2x AGP, while the eMac has a 133mhz bus and 4x AGP, and the new G5's have 10 times the bus speed of that Powermac with 1000mhz and 8x AGP, plus SATA built in.
If I was planning on buying a machine just for iApps, and didnt need HEAVY processing power (G5-grade), I would definitely get an eMac. They are Apple's best current value. Later on, when the eMac becomes too slow for iLife '06 or the user outgrows the machine, G5 desktops will be alot less expensive and will be more current that an old G4 desktop is now, seeing as how PCs were much ahead of the Mac at the time with CPU, RAM, AGP and bus speeds.
However, I completely agree with the above post concerning the do's and don'ts of upgrading an old G4 tower.
MacsRgr8
macrumors G3
True about the eMac.
Just two things:
1) the eMac has a built-in display. This can be an advantage or a disadvantage. Really depending on the the needs, i.e. got an LCD display already?
2) VRAM = max 32 MB, Radeon 7500.... Not all that gr8, I'm afraid. But this also depends on the needs of the poster.
So, have no display, couldn't care about gaming, no need for LCD?
Get the eMac
Got an LCD, want TV-out, like games?
Do the G4 + upgrades....
Tough one.
PS. Don't forget: The G4 350 is 4 (at least) years old. So is the motherboard, the IDE controller, USB ports, etc...
Just two things:
1) the eMac has a built-in display. This can be an advantage or a disadvantage. Really depending on the the needs, i.e. got an LCD display already?
2) VRAM = max 32 MB, Radeon 7500.... Not all that gr8, I'm afraid. But this also depends on the needs of the poster.
So, have no display, couldn't care about gaming, no need for LCD?
Get the eMac
Got an LCD, want TV-out, like games?
Do the G4 + upgrades....
Tough one.
PS. Don't forget: The G4 350 is 4 (at least) years old. So is the motherboard, the IDE controller, USB ports, etc...
MoparShaha
Contributor
I'm going to have to chime in here and say don't get an old Power Mac. An eMac would be a much better value. If you really want the tower configuration, cough up a little more for a single 1.25 GHz G4 Power Mac from Apple. This would blow away both the Sawtooth and the eMac, for only a little more money.
MacsRgr8
macrumors G3
500 bucks is alot of money... (difference between eMac and Single G4 1.25)
Quickly summed up:
G4 350 + all "advised" updates: $ 750,- (included 1 GB RAM?)
eMac Combo: $ 799,- (128 MB RAM)
G4 1.25: $ 1299,- (256 MB RAM)
Edit: I do agree on the fact that the 1.25 Ghz will blow the "old" G4 away. And the fact that the 350 still is a 4 (and-a-half?) year old machine, may make you reconsider.
Quickly summed up:
G4 350 + all "advised" updates: $ 750,- (included 1 GB RAM?)
eMac Combo: $ 799,- (128 MB RAM)
G4 1.25: $ 1299,- (256 MB RAM)
Edit: I do agree on the fact that the 1.25 Ghz will blow the "old" G4 away. And the fact that the 350 still is a 4 (and-a-half?) year old machine, may make you reconsider.
hmm very mixed opinions. monitors arent a problem ive got a few. lol. the problem with the extra money macs are that im lookin to get a mac straight from the money i make sellin my pc (prolly round 700) so i dunno if 1250 is in the cards right now. but as it turns out, i may be in the position to inherit an dp 1.25ghz g4😀 😀
Way off key maybe.... just so funny watching people post and trying to explain that the 350 was not a G4 nor did it have AGP when the links to apple and other things available proved this point. Just good humorous reading late at night 😀
blue&whiteman
macrumors 65816
complete ignorance. I have a blue and white G3 upgraded to a G4. also, I have a radeon 7000 32mb pci video card in the 66mhz pci slot with a quartz extreme pci hack. for 2d its perfect, snappy, expose works well and I run my desktop at 1920x1440. saying pci would be disaster is a very wrong assumption and also gives very misguided information.
seriously start checking out specs before you talk... you're likely to tell some people some real b.s. - just go to apple.com/support, click on specifications, and vioala - you can find out instantly that there is a 350 agp sawtooth, as people have been trying to tell you...
matt
<edit>
anyhew, i have an older friend who just wanted to do the same thing, and i really can't recommend it that much - but if you want to do it, get yourself an ati 8500 - you can flash the pc cards (just the 64 meg ddr cards) to a mac super easy, cause ati released an update that flashed the card without checking the rom first. so you can walk off with an 8500 nice and cheap like. you'd be stuck with a system running on a 100mhz bus, blah blah blah.
go inherit that 1.25 dual 😉
matt