Dual G4 450 mhz - upgrade or leave it alone?

[Flojomojo]

Hi all -- longtime lurker, first post. I've been a Mac fan and user since my SE in college, but I haven't owned a Mac since the 68K days. I've recently felt the urge to own one at home again since I've pretty much completely switched over at work. Been using Ubuntu Linux at home which is fun but not easy.

I just won a dual-G4 450 mhz machine on Ebay. It's coming with 256MB RAM, and I just scrounged another 512MB from an old PC I'm no longer using, so I should be OK for light Tiger use. I suspect I'll be booting into OS9 once in a while too, just because I can.

Question: is the OEM ATI Rage 128 Pro worth pulling and replacing? I don't expect to be playing any games on it (other than nostalgic abandonware from way before the birthdate of my "new" G4). I've seen cheap Radeon 7000s on Ebay, but I don't know if the speed bump would be worth bothering with.

Any ideas? Offers of free hardware? Thanks!

 

[Eidorian]

Yes, the Rage 128 Pro is WELL worth swapping for a Radeon 7500. Make sure it's a Mac version though.

 

[Flojomojo]

Thanks. The thing I see on offer is definitely a Mac card, but it's a 32MB Radeon 7000. Still worth it?

I don't want to put a lot of money into my toy unless I'll see the difference in performance.

 

[Ryan T.]

Thanks. The thing I see on offer is definitely a Mac card, but it's a 32MB Radeon 7000. Still worth it?

I don't want to put a lot of money into my toy unless I'll see the difference in performance.

I think you might be looking at a PCI graphics card. Make sure you're looking for an AGP chip for your dualie.

 

[Flojomojo]

Yup, that's a PCI card I was looking at. I didn't think the 2x AGP slot would provide much more. If there's a real difference in throughput I'll sit back and wait for an AGP card to wash up on shore.

 

[Eidorian]

Yup, that's a PCI card I was looking at. I didn't think the 2x AGP slot would provide much more. If there's a real difference in throughput I'll sit back and wait for an AGP card to wash up on shore.

You WANT the AGP card.

 

[Flojomojo]

A friend has offered an AGP Radeon (just plain Radeon) 32MB card. It's a boost over the Rage 128 Pro, the price is right (one beer) and I think I'll be satisfied with that. Thanks again!

 

[Anonymous Freak]

A friend has offered an AGP Radeon (just plain Radeon) 32MB card. It's a boost over the Rage 128 Pro, the price is right (one beer) and I think I'll be satisfied with that. Thanks again!

That's a good one. The 'just plain' Radeon is actually better than the Radeon 7000. The Radeon 7200 is about the same, and anything higher numbered is better.

 

[belfast-biker]

If you pick up a Radeo 9700 on ebay for £30, the boys at strangedogs can reflash it to be AGP2x and put a Mac ROM on it for about $40.

Still massively cheaper than buying a Mac specific onn, and if you upgrade the processor, your video card is still definitely worthwhile.