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Is this powermac any good?

H

hipollito

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Sep 9, 2010
26
0
Well, after I bought the imac g3 for my office I liked it it´s up and running.

Now I am looking at a powermac g4 for me, since I don´t have a lot of money and want to give my macbook pro some time to rest...

So I can get one PM g4 450 mhz, 256 ram, 20 g HD it is the AGP model. I want it for gmail, web surfing, chat, etc...the only big thing I would like to do is setup a little home made music studio...Do you think this Mac will get the job done?? I don´t know if it will be able to run logic pro, or something, I have logic pro on my macbook, so having it on the G4 would be great. I have a 6 channel amplifier and two big speakers that I want to hook up to the G4 as I said a tiny studio...

So, what do you think is it worth it? Maybe it will run an older version of logic pro...??

Thanks
 
get a PM G5 mate, thier cheap enough. Ive used a Dual 1.25 G4 Mdd for a while and while okay, for an extra 50-60 bucks grab something that will run rings around any G4...

good luck..
 
Well yes...I really want a G5 but I was just checking for one of them and right know they are just to expensive for me, I live in Mexico and the g4 I am telling you about is $85 bucks, and the cheapest G5 I found is %650....:(

That´s a big difference, and since I just bought my MBP 3 weeks ago I am still paying for it...so the G4 is the best I can do right know!! thats sad...but I really want to change my desktop PC, slow, ugly and just hate it!!

Thanks though!! but do you think the G4 is good?? I think I will be upgrading over time!

Thanks!
 
hipollito said:
Well yes...I really want a G5 but I was just checking for one of them and right know they are just to expensive for me, I live in Mexico and the g4 I am telling you about is $85 bucks, and the cheapest G5 I found is %650....:(

That´s a big difference, and since I just bought my MBP 3 weeks ago I am still paying for it...so the G4 is the best I can do right know!! thats sad...but I really want to change my desktop PC, slow, ugly and just hate it!!

Thanks though!! but do you think the G4 is good?? I think I will be upgrading over time!

Thanks!
Click to expand...

I have a 400 mhz sawtooth and its pretty good for its age. It can do web surfing ok but you would need something faster for a music studio. Maybe look for a dual processor MDD or Quicksilver if you cant afford a G5.
 
Any less than 867MHz or dual 500MHz and I would avoid it. I have several G4 powered systems, and the only reason I still use them is nostalgia. I'm on my 500MHz Cube right now, and while I do love this machine, its just slow. Thats with 1.5GB of RAM, a 7200rpm hard drive, and a Radeon 7500 graphics card. In other words, don't expect much at all from a 450MHz G4. Its really not going to feel any faster than a G3.
 
as its all about money or better the lack of it , have you considered a
eMac 1.42 ghz , they take up to 2gb ram , so easy to upgrade once you got the funds , they have the ati radeon 9600 graphics with 64mb vram , with screen spanning doctor you can connect a second display (vga)

but the best thing about the eMac 1.42 its the most trouble free Mac ,and the last 1,42 models shipped in 2006 so only 4 years old ,and still more capable then a mini G4 due to more ram and better graphics card and best of all its cheaper then a mini

so as the MDD's are usually priced above the eMac
i would consider the PowerMac quicksilver despite slower system bus, but loads of pci slots for all sorts of cards and still capable for most tasks ,

but if its about value for the money and not so much about expansion slots get a eMac 1.42
 
Only G4 machines I'd ever buy at this point are the last PowerBooks and a dual 1.42. At this point, PowerPC is on its last legs. I want to bet that iTunes 10 is the last piece of Apple built PowerPC software.
 
PowerGamerX said:
Only G4 machines I'd ever buy at this point are the last PowerBooks and a dual 1.42. At this point, PowerPC is on its last legs. I want to bet that iTunes 10 is the last piece of Apple built PowerPC software.
Click to expand...

yes , but for a home music studio the G4's are still more the adequate , loads of peeps out there using them still for that purpose, because a intel Mac would be overkill for that purpose ,and not really economical as they cost quiet a lot more ,and with intel comes you need new "studio" software , which is not really cheap either , but older ppc versions of the same software cost far far less , and sometimes is even included if you buy for example a quicksilver that had been used in a studio so as the op doesn't have hundreds of dollars to spare a g4 around 1 ghz + is a good choice
 
PowerGamerX said:
Only G4 machines I'd ever buy at this point are the last PowerBooks and a dual 1.42. At this point, PowerPC is on its last legs. I want to bet that iTunes 10 is the last piece of Apple built PowerPC software.
Click to expand...

I love my dual 1.42 MDD. Its really quite fast even by todays standards. Its faster than my 1.5 year old top of the line HP. :rolleyes:
 
If it's truly the best you can get for your money, then I guess you could buy it...but I think you'll be disappointed, unless you're willing to sink more money into upgrading it. I've got a Dual 500MHz G4 tower (same basic system except with an extra processor and gigabit ethernet) in the closet that is frustratingly slow compared to modern hardware. If it's all I had to use, I'd bump the RAM up to 1GB+ and live with it just fine, but they're just not worth sinking much/if any money in to at this point.
 
Wow !!! Thanks for your comments, I guess I was excited to find a cheap G4 and I did not see beyond that...but yes I think you are right, if I buy it and want to upgrade lets say only 1 gb of Ram I will spend about $260 bucks, with 2 g of ram $420 bucks...so yeah maybe I can look for a cheap emac or G5.

What do you think about an imac G5??? I will keep on hunting for a g5 or emac!!

THanks!!
 
hipollito said:
Wow !!! Thanks for your comments, I guess I was excited to find a cheap G4 and I did not see beyond that...but yes I think you are right, if I buy it and want to upgrade lets say only 1 gb of Ram I will spend about $260 bucks, with 2 g of ram $420 bucks...so yeah maybe I can look for a cheap emac or G5.

What do you think about an imac G5??? I will keep on hunting for a g5 or emac!!

THanks!!
Click to expand...

I'm assuming that since you bought your MBP recently it's either new or a refurb. In that case, I would just use that. It will run circles around any PPC machine still in its lonely existence, except maybe the G5 quad for certain tasks. MBPs are great machines, and your money would be much better spent on stuff for that, rather than an outdated, slow machine. (not that there is anything wrong with an old G4 for fun)
 
Yes, my MBP is new, and I was dreaming to get one for a while, i guess that since I had the imac G3 I was just excited to have old macs, but I found an emac with good processor speed in $200 bucks, but I will keep on looking and saving to see what I can find, also next week I will be in laredo Texas so maybe I will find something...who knows!!

But yeah actually I was thinking of using the MBP but for the mini studio I would like an imac or powermac, so its stays on my desk connected to everything.

Do you by any chance know where I can get one at Laredo??

Thanks!
 
Why do you need a PM G4 if you have a new MBP? I had a G4 quciksilver as my main machine till I got my Macbook, ater that the G4 was just way to slow,and it had 1.5GB ram,and a 867Mhz processor,the G4 your looking at won't be able to do really anything sadly.And your stuck with Tiger.
 
Home Studio

Buy an Imac/Emac on eBay, put an Imic usb audio card and run it through your amp. That's all you need.
 
You should buy a PMG4(digital audio) or better to have at least a 133mhz system bus and pc133 memory. A quicksilver could make the job, too, but i don't recommend you to buy the the single 733mhz configuration. This one doesn't have any L3 cache and only have 256k of L2 cache. So, it is slower than a 466mhz g4 with 1Mb L2 cache at 233mhz. Other models of quicksilver (dual 800mhz, single 876mhz) have 2MB of L3 cache, so these one are so faster.
 
What model numbers are these power mac G4s? If you know the model number, it will be easier to find out the amount of RAM and hard drive space, etc. I have an old power mac G4 myself and for basic tasks it is great.
 
G4 AGP: PowerMac3,1 , M5183, M6921, M7232, M7629, M7824, M7825, M7827

Gigabit Ethernet: PowerMac3,3 , M7891, M7892, M7893

Digital Audio: PowerMac3,4 , M7627, M7688, M7945, M7681

Quicksilver: PowerMac3,5 , M8360, M8493

Quicksilver 2002: PowerMac3,5 , M8493
 
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