Powermac G3

[sabien14]

Hi, someone's offered me a powermac g3 for free, well, I saw they had no use for it, asked and they happily obliged.

Hypothetically, is it possible to turn this into a worthwhile device? I've done some research, its not airport compatible but it would take a PCI wireless card, and as far as I know it can be upgraded to 1GB of ram, which isn't too bad a start.

Problems would be the hard drive is (I think) 6GB, but I've got quite a few knocking about anyway, so my next question is how many could it hold, and what kind would be compatible. My final question is, what would be the best OS to install, it probably wouldn't be able to handle the last few versions.

Thanks alot.

 

[Hrududu]

I used a blue and white G3 as my primary system clear up until 2005. They can be as useful as you want it to be. A blue and white G3 with a 1GHz CPU upgrade, 1gb of RAM, fast HDD and 64mb Radeon 7000 can be very useful assuming Mac OS Tiger runs the programs you want to use.

 

[Goftrey]

Hey, first of, lucky you for getting a PowerMac G3 for free!

to answer your questions, I'd definitely stick 1gb RAM in it and a PCI Wireless card, I'd alo get a PCI USB 2.0 card slot as USB 1.1 is pretty much unusable these days. As for the hard drive, these Macs take the standard Ultra ATA IDE Hard Drives but I think you'd be able to stick an SSD in there... I'd run tiger aswell as that is latest and greatest OS a G3 can run.

Hope this helps and keep us posted!

 

[zen.state]

Add a SATA card and you have a perfect file server. Thats what I would use it for.

 

[sabien14]

Thank you very much for helping me out. I'll get a hold of tiger, I'm gonna have a go at it anyway. If anyone knows where I can get a 1ghz CPU, that would be really appreciated, otherwise, thanks again!

 

[adcx64]

Try eBay.

 

[Nameci]

or OWC...

 

[macEfan]

Also note that the maximum hard drive these can address is 128gb. You might want to get an IDE/SATA controller card if you want larger hard drives.

 

[sabien14]

Duly noted and much obliged.

 

[zen.state]

Thank you very much for helping me out. I'll get a hold of tiger, I'm gonna have a go at it anyway. If anyone knows where I can get a 1ghz CPU, that would be really appreciated, otherwise, thanks again!

Keep in mind that 1GHz G4 will run the 100MHz system bus at 66MHz in a B&W G3. It's the only way the older logic board can deal with that CPU. You would save money and get similar performance with a G4 500-600MHz which will keep the bus at the full 100MHz speed. I can tell you from experience that a 600 on a 100MHz bus is very very close to a 1GHz on a 66MHz.

Honestly though if you want to go to the trouble of a CPU upgrade and the thrill of upgrading a Mac tower spend 60-80 on a low end G4 AGP tower and upgrade it. You can get CPU's up to dual 1.8 or single 2GHz G4 for them and every single part in the computer will be much much faster vs. a G3. The RAM alone will be 3x faster or higher on a G4 AGP board.

If you just want a file server though then just buy a SATA card. You only need a dumb box (really slow computer) to run it as a file server and any G3 is more than fast enough for that. A place to fit 5-6 hard drives without needing an enclosure for each.

 

[Dane D.]

OWC is sold out and most likely they are gone for good. Look for a cheap G4 system, and an after market G4 cpu. They run circles around G3s. I only use my G3 for email, music, internet (with Flash turned off) using Camino 2.1 and website production. For other tasks like iMovie, iDVD, Garageband that need a strong FPU, a G4 is the way to go.

G3s were good but not great. They lack FPU power, but are just fine for mundane tasks or serving music.

Unless you are a collector, the PowerPC is dead in terms of software and support.

 

[Nameci]

PowerPC is not dead, yet.

 

[adcx64]

http://powerpcusers.com

nuff said

 

[Dane D.]

No they are not dead for the uses I listed. But if you have to make money and time is money, a MacPro quad or better is the way to go. I use a quad MacPro and need a machine that can handle CS4 apps and AVCHD. My Art Director uses a G5 and CS4 apps, they run slow. For the modern world, a Intel-based system is a most.

It all depends on what you, the end-user need and what software you have. At home the PowerPC is fine, for work not so fine.