iMac g3?

[masterjedi73]

CPU: PowerPC 750

CPU Speed: 233 MHz


How good is this machine? What can it or can't it do? I've seen some advertised for around $60.00. Is that a good price?

 

[applemacdude]

CPU: PowerPC 750

CPU Speed: 233 MHz


How good is this machine? What can it or can't it do? I've seen some advertised for around $60.00. Is that a good price?

it is good if your gonna use os 9...

 

[leftbanke7]

CPU: PowerPC 750

CPU Speed: 233 MHz


How good is this machine? What can it or can't it do? I've seen some advertised for around $60.00. Is that a good price?

A lot of what you can and can not do depends on what it is you want or do not want to do. I am still running a Beige G3 (albeit upgraded a bit) and outside of doing video editing or playing the top of the line video games, it has been a solid performer for me going on almost 6 years now.

The Rev A iMac and my computer have quite similar specs. My comp runs Jaguar pretty well (although I don't get to use the benefits of Quartz Extreme), iTunes works nice and all of my internet and word processing programs have little to no problems For 60 bucks, I'd say go for it. You can get a processor and Firewire card upgrade from Sonnet Tech (www.sonnettech.com) for not too much money and have yourself a pretty solid machine.

Another path you could take is the Beige G3 AIO (all-in-one). It's essentually an iMac (similar specs) minus the "beautiful" Bondi Blue cover but with much more expandibility (it has PCI slots as the iMac does not). ZIF upgrades are fairly inexpensive as is RAM for this (but you will need low profile sticks).

One final path I'll suggest is a B/W G3. They are inexpensive, have a larger system bus, more VRAM (16 Megs which enables you to benefit from Quartz Extreme in OSX), more room for RAM upgrades and no 8GB partition crap as you would get with the iMac Rev A and Beige G3 AIO. Downside...BYOM...bring your own monitor.

Hopefully this helps you somewhat.

 

[millhouse]

while the blue and white g3 does have the faster bus and bigger HD capacity it does not come quartz extreme ready, i own one myself (just got it last year) and while the card in it has 16 megs of ram it is on a pci bus (no agp slots here) and is a rage pro 128, you need at least a radeon or geforce on an agp bus to use QE. however you can buy a pci radeon and use a hack to push quartz onto the pci bus rather then the non exsistant agp bus. aside from that these machines can be upgraded to 900mhz g3, 800mhz g4 or 1ghz g4 as well as a gig of ram max, i own one at g4 450/448mb ram/50gb hard drive storage and it works great, i use it to do all my graphics stuff (student in training!) but it all depends on what you want to do, if your not gonna do lots of altivec intensive stuff pick up the 900mhz g3 upgrade and about half a gig of ram and a blue and white would run quite nicely.

 

[leftbanke7]

Ahhh, that's right, I forgot about the AGP requirement. Thanks for catching that.

while the blue and white g3 does have the faster bus and bigger HD capacity it does not come quartz extreme ready, i own one myself (just got it last year) and while the card in it has 16 megs of ram it is on a pci bus (no agp slots here) and is a rage pro 128, you need at least a radeon or geforce on an agp bus to use QE. however you can buy a pci radeon and use a hack to push quartz onto the pci bus rather then the non exsistant agp bus. aside from that these machines can be upgraded to 900mhz g3, 800mhz g4 or 1ghz g4 as well as a gig of ram max, i own one at g4 450/448mb ram/50gb hard drive storage and it works great, i use it to do all my graphics stuff (student in training!) but it all depends on what you want to do, if your not gonna do lots of altivec intensive stuff pick up the 900mhz g3 upgrade and about half a gig of ram and a blue and white would run quite nicely.

 

[whocares]

For 60 bucks? I get one just to gain bragging rights about owning a *real* (original Bondi Blue) iMac.

You can know most common stuff on it like e-mail, browsing, word processing, moderate photoshop. Even some video if your a patient person... It should even be quite zippy in OS 8/9.

 

[Colonel Panik]

I've got an iMac 450DV sitting in the other room. It runs Panther fine, though without the Quartz Extreme effects. I stuffed it with a Gig of RAM when I got it. If you want to surf, email, word process, it's fine for that. In fact, if you're not too pushed, you can do more advanced tasks on it. Remember, this was a very fast machine a few years ago, and unless you're going to be folding proteins or visual effects rendering, there's no need for a fast machine. I used my iMac for video editing, photoshop work, QuarkXPress...
The 233 iMac is of course slower than my 450, but it's still a well capable machine. It would serve perfectly as a web server. It's fanless, and apart from a little noise from the HD, it's silent. I earned a lot of money using my iMac... (eyes mist over, everything goes wavy...)

 

[Veldek]

There was a report floating the net some time ago, where someone installed OS X on a 233MHz iMac. He said, he was surprised how good it ran, so I would say that you can even use OS X unless you plan to do more than just word processing, web surfing and e-mail.

 

[Spock]

Can You tell me where You are getting a Bondi iMac for $60?

 

[mara]

There was a report floating the net some time ago, where someone installed OS X on a 233MHz iMac. He said, he was surprised how good it ran, so I would say that you can even use OS X unless you plan to do more than just word processing, web surfing and e-mail.

I´m running Panther on a 233 Mhz rev B iMac. It runs on reasonable speed. It depends but it should be ok for internet, mail and iTunes. For basic tasks. It is good that the the iMac has the USB which the beige G3 is missing? My iMac has 192 Mb of RAM and well the RAM is the key. I think with 256 it should be quite fine. For 60 bucks I would by it =)

However I´m using primalry 700 Mhz iBook (640 Mb) and after that using 233 Mhz iMac is pain...

 

[masterjedi73]

Can You tell me where You are getting a Bondi iMac for $60?

Actually, there's some very good deals on these machines on ebay. You'd have to be careful and make sure you know what you're getting, but most of the sellers looked reliable. I've seen them from $20. - $150.