more upgrades or mac mini?

[zen.state]

hi all,

I have a b&w G3 thats been heavily upgraded. it currently has a G4 500 cpu, 1gb ram, 120gb 72k 8mb hd, 32 mb radeon 7000 and a pioneer 8x superdrive.

I am wondering if I should maybe upgrade the cpu again (to either a G4 600 which many get to run at 650 stable or a G3 1.1 ghz zif) or buy a mac mini.

the upside to a mac mini is I would then have 2 systems and run them off kvm. the downside is that a 1.25ghz mini with a good kvm is going to cost over twice what a new cpu would. a bit of a hard choice for me. I am really leaning toward the mini but want to be sure its worth it on my tight budget. if I choose the mini I could have it by mid june.

thoughts?

 

[36183]

the mini can be overclocked to 1.6 ghz if your willing to change the heat sync. i suggest the min over another upgrade, because your reaching the limit on upgrade you can do on your g3 powermac.

 

[brandon6684]

I would just go with the mini. While not much fast the FSB on the mini 167MHz as opposed to the 100MHz of the B&W, no to mention the CPU is slightly faster, the mini has USB 2.0 and the mini has faster memory. Also, like you said you'd have two separate systems.

 

[JzzTrump22]

Go for the mini. I would sell your current machine and get the mini with the money you make.

 

[shadowmoses]

Maybe you should get rid of your B&W and replace it with a Mirror door powermac G4 these are expandable and can be picked up on ebay for good prices. Anyhow if you want a mac mini i would wait until the Rev B is released before purchasing as i can imagine some nice updates for the MINI.

Thanks

 

[macbaseball]

Maybe you should get rid of your B&W and replace it with a Mirror door powermac G4 these are expandable and can be picked up on ebay for good prices. Anyhow if you want a mac mini i would wait until the Rev B is released before purchasing as i can imagine some nice updates for the MINI.

Thanks

I agree. the mirror door Pwoer Macs are at an awesome price right now. You can even get a dual, which will out preform the Mini even if it is at a slightly higher speed.

 

[zen.state]

think what I will do is get the mini next month. within a month after buying it I plan on buying a 1gb ram stick and 72k hd. with those upgrades it will run nice and smooth. going to do both upgrades at the same time so that I only have to open it once.

going to keep my current mac because with all the money I have put into it and how cheap a new mini is there would be no way I could ask even the value of a mini. better to keep it to help take some load off the mini. since my current mac has 1gb I can have it do several tasks and leave the mini be for any task at hand. so in turn my old mac will make the mini faster in a way.

main reason I decided on the mini is that the 1.25ghz cpu is 2.5x faster than my current cpu and the bus is almost twice the speed. I do a lot of encoding in both audio and video so a cpu 2.5x faster will be VERY welcome.

can't wait to get it! thanks for all the advice you guys.