power mac g4 user group fun

[bmorris]

i have an old power mac g4, the quick silver with a 733 ppc chip.
i wanna up it as far as i can go.
does anybody know any good websites or user groups for power mac g4 users? or mod-ers?

 

[Firefly2002]

http://discussions.apple.com/category.jspa?categoryID=113

Apple Discussions for people with G4s before MMD/FW800 (meaning, Yikes! G4s to QuickSilver)

If you want to "up it as far as you can," then upgrade to 2 GB of RAM (1.5 GB if it's a QuickSilver), a Dual 2 GHz G4, and install a Radeon 9800, as well as getting an SATA controller and putting two TB drives in RAID =p

 

[Lord Zedd]

If you want to "up it as far as you can," then upgrade to 2 GB of RAM (1.5 GB if it's a QuickSilver), a Dual 2 GHz G4, and install a Radeon 9800, as well as getting an SATA controller and putting two TB drives in RAID =p

The money spent on that would be better put towards a dual 2/2.3/2.5/2.7ghz G5 instead. Any of those will be much faster than a maxed out G4 ever could be.

The G5 has a bus for each CPU (instead of sharing one) that are 10x+ faster each, faster RAM, faster graphics slot, faster graphics cards, SATA from the start, run much quieter, compatible with Leopard out of the box, have USB 2.0 and firewire 400/800 built-in, 2 Ethernet ports and have usb/firewire/headphone ports on the front.

The G4 is a great machine but once you start thinking of replacing the CPU the upgrade value goes downhill real quick.

 

[Firefly2002]

From a realistic standpoint, Zedd's absolutely right. I was being a little flippant, and then forgot to be reasonable, lol.

If you want to upgrade the CPU, I'd try ebaying a Dual 1 GHz or so.... new HDDs are never a bad investment since you can plunk them anywhere. RAM you can't, but it's cheap, so go for it if you need it.

Anything past that, I'd go for a G5. You can get them cheap now.... a little over $1000 for a dual 2 GHz, I think.

 

[Blue Velvet]

I have a 733 Quicksilver with 1.5gb of RAM which I put a SATA card and three drives into to use as a home server. It runs Tiger and I access it using screen-sharing... about all it's really good for these days.

 

[McIntosh]

Unless you use a lot of software that makes use of the the G4's SIMD unit (better known as AltiVec or Velocity Engine) I would recommend you a seccond hand G5 too or a dual 1,25GHz G4. Newertech has a dual 1,8GHz CPU upgrade with Freescale's MPC7448 with 1MB on chip L2 cache and an improved SIMD unit. However, it is sold out. A faster graphics card costs you about $150.00. An SATA card without a disk $80.00 a new dual G4 CPU card $260.00. RAM: well this is expensive. A 512MB module costs at least $120.00. Are you sure you want to spend that much money for upgrading your old system?

Sonnet PCI cards:
http://www.sonnettech.com/product/computercards/index.html#pcipcixcards

G4 CPU cards:
http://eshop.macsales.com/MyOWC/Upgrades.cfm?model=139&type=Processor&TI=2709&shoupgrds=Show+Upgrades

Daystar Forum:
http://daystar-forum.com/

I hope this helps.