G4 Upgrade Advice

[Lord Blackadder]

Hmm, I read a lot about SATA cards and disks - do they really make a difference from regular (P)ATA?

I bought an SIIG 2-channel SATA card and 2 IBM/Hitachi 250GB 7200RPM SATA hard drives. Compared with the G4's original 40GB hard drive disk performance was up 10%, not to mention all the extra capacity.

However, I don't think that these SATA drives are much faster than the same drive in PATA. Either way though, a brand-new drive and SATA/PATA card offers more capacity and higher speed than an OEM drive on the slower built-in PATA bus.

One more thing - the original 40GB hard drive in my dual-533MHz Digital Audio G4 was LOUD. The new IBM drives have been much quieter, even though there are two of them.

 

[4JNA]

it's all about perspective i guess. very biased here as i freaking love to upgrade g4's. cheap, easy, lots of options, and yes, at the end of the upgrade i always have more in the project than just saving and buying a mini.

but it's not a mini. its big, and has lots of room for drives, and the parts fit into all sorts of interesting CASES and places.

having done several from the same starting point as the OP, i would add memory first (1gb or more), video card second (prefer the 9800), and a bigger/better hard drive last (pata is fine, sata if you can). and don't pay the going rate for the airport card , go USB and get wireless for less than $20. have fun, and best of luck!

 

[Lord Blackadder]

Keep in mind the big downside to the G4 tower as opposed to the Mini -

CPU Architecture. The G4 simply cannot hope to match the Intel Core in the Mini - the Core clocks higher, is faster clock for clock, has a much higher frontside bus, and is available off-the-shelf at thousands of computer stores nationwide at continually dropping prices. The G4 can only be upgraded using kits from a handful of vendors and are not cheap for what you get. In 3-5 years or so development and sales of G4 kits for the Mac will likely be either history or very low production/high price.

The G5s probably won't have the same long lease on life that the G4 did. The G5 is a more expensive CPU and I'm not sure that IBM would sell small lots of them to comanies like OWC, and PowerLogix for upgrader kits. The future clearly belongs to Intel.

At the moment though, if you pick up a G4 tower cheap, it can be worth upgrading. Just keep in mind that buying the tower is the cheapest part - a CPU, DVD-RW, RAM, HDD/PCI card and video card can easily cost you as much as a new Mini. The major advantage is you can upgrade as funds permit, rather than spending $600 all at once.