I have decided to go this route instead of the G5 iMac because of the anemic video card and the PowerMac G5 because of the price. I do want to know how upgradeable the G4 PowerMac is. CPU wise I don't see me needing to upgrade that in a while but how about max RAM and video card? Will it take the fastest ATI or nVidia out there?
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How upgradeable is the PowerMac G4 Dual 1.25GHz system?
- Thread starter GameGuru
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It will handle the biggest video card they make (that is 2x agp) wait, is that right? i am almost positive that it is 2x but some one smarter then me tell me. And you can put alot of ram in it also.
Max RAM is 2gb.
Beware though, they're extremely noisy.
So noisy, I spent a lot of money on a new fan kit from Verax for my dual 1.42, (about $US250-300) because it was doing my head in.
See:
www.g4noise.com
Having used one at work (dual 1.25) for a year and having upgraded to a 2.5 G5, the difference is like night and day... if your handle says anything about you, you may find it a bit anaemic for CPU-demanding games.
You can find more info here:
http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/powermac_g4/stats/powermac_g4_1.25_dp_mdd.html
Beware though, they're extremely noisy.
So noisy, I spent a lot of money on a new fan kit from Verax for my dual 1.42, (about $US250-300) because it was doing my head in.
See:
www.g4noise.com
Having used one at work (dual 1.25) for a year and having upgraded to a 2.5 G5, the difference is like night and day... if your handle says anything about you, you may find it a bit anaemic for CPU-demanding games.
You can find more info here:
http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/powermac_g4/stats/powermac_g4_1.25_dp_mdd.html
He should look for a used or refurbished low end single G5 powermac(1.6 or 1.8),Imac does have a low end chip and you are stuck. These machine's will be a much better long term investment vs old G4 machine or new iMac.
Many gamers here keep a PC as well just for gaming.
Why don't you keep the one you've got?
I would never buy a Mac for gaming: 1001 other things yes, but if I was really into the latest games, I guess I'd buy a PC (without DVD) or console.
As well as hardware limitations, the range of titles just isn't there.
Why don't you keep the one you've got?
I would never buy a Mac for gaming: 1001 other things yes, but if I was really into the latest games, I guess I'd buy a PC (without DVD) or console.
As well as hardware limitations, the range of titles just isn't there.
man i would be careful about buying one of these through ebay you crazy? get one from a proven dealer of used Macs. etc.
In most things that G5 will be better or even and they have Tiger coming. (but on your original question any powermac is very upgradeable and faster G4 upgrade cards are coming but G5 is the future G4 is the past)(edit).... I have a 1.4 G4 machine quicksilver with a geforce3 and gig of mem by the way.
In most things that G5 will be better or even and they have Tiger coming. (but on your original question any powermac is very upgradeable and faster G4 upgrade cards are coming but G5 is the future G4 is the past)(edit).... I have a 1.4 G4 machine quicksilver with a geforce3 and gig of mem by the way.
The single G5 1.6GHz is going for about double the dual G4 1.25GHz on ebay right now. I think I will go with the G4 because it has awesome performance as this PC World Review shows:
"But enough tech talk: How does it score on speed tests, and is it worth the extra money? We ran a video-encoding test on the 1.25-GHz Mac, a dual 1-GHz Mac, and the single-processor 933-MHz Mac (all with 512MB of RAM). Using a 3-minute 30-second video test file shot with a Sony digital camcorder, we encoded the files with Apple's iDVD utility into MPEG-2.
The 1.25-GHz Mac was able to encode the file in 2:47, versus 3:48 for the dual 1-GHz machine and 5:46 for the 933-MHz Mac. That's an impressive gain that yields real-world return on investment for graphics pros.
We also ran cross-platform tests (using Adobe Photoshop) to see how the top Mac compares to a new 3.06-GHz Pentium 4 PC with Hyper-Threading. When applying a Gaussian Blur filter, the machines ran neck-and-neck. But on all other tests (Sharpen Edges, Unsharp Mask, Despeckle, Convert to RGB Color, and Resize Image), the 1.25-GHz Power Mac G4 (with its large cache) outpaced the P4."
I think something that is as fast as the P4 3GHz CPU is fast enough for my first Mac ha ha.
"But enough tech talk: How does it score on speed tests, and is it worth the extra money? We ran a video-encoding test on the 1.25-GHz Mac, a dual 1-GHz Mac, and the single-processor 933-MHz Mac (all with 512MB of RAM). Using a 3-minute 30-second video test file shot with a Sony digital camcorder, we encoded the files with Apple's iDVD utility into MPEG-2.
The 1.25-GHz Mac was able to encode the file in 2:47, versus 3:48 for the dual 1-GHz machine and 5:46 for the 933-MHz Mac. That's an impressive gain that yields real-world return on investment for graphics pros.
We also ran cross-platform tests (using Adobe Photoshop) to see how the top Mac compares to a new 3.06-GHz Pentium 4 PC with Hyper-Threading. When applying a Gaussian Blur filter, the machines ran neck-and-neck. But on all other tests (Sharpen Edges, Unsharp Mask, Despeckle, Convert to RGB Color, and Resize Image), the 1.25-GHz Power Mac G4 (with its large cache) outpaced the P4."
I think something that is as fast as the P4 3GHz CPU is fast enough for my first Mac ha ha.