Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

PowerMac G4 Fully Loaded Project Realization

Nameci

Nameci

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Oct 29, 2010
1,944
13
The Philippines...
Hello every Mac Enthusiast,

I just wanted to share my joyful moment.

Finally, I have 100% realized my project. A fully loaded PowerMac G4 1.42GHz Dual Processor.

My iSub finally arrived this afternoon and wow! it sounds really good.

Edited:

For the Specs:
Tower: PowerMac G4 MDD FW800
CPU: 1.42GHz PPC G4 Dual Processor
RAM: 2 GB (Maximum you put)
ODD: 1 x SuperDrive and 1 Asus DVD/RW/DL
HDD: 2 x 320 GB WD Caviar on Raid0
Gfx: ATI RAdeon 9700 Pro Mac Edition (BTO Card)
Monitor: Apple Cinema Display HD 23" (Acrylic Frame, 1920 x 1200)
Speakers: Apple Pro Speakers and Harman Kardon iSub
USB 2.0 Pheripheral: USB Card with NEC chip
Webcam: iSight
Wifi: Apple Airport Extreme
Bluetooth: Apple Bluetooth Card
Keyboard: Apple Pro Keyboard
Mouse: Apple Pro Mouse

(I have ditched the wireless keyboard and magic mouse to make it more authentic)

OS: Leopard 10.5.8
 
Last edited:
Nameci said:
Hello every Mac Enthusiast,

I just wanted to share my joyful moment.

Finally, I have 95% realized my project. A fully loaded PowerMac G4 1.42GHz Dual Processor.

My iSub finally arrived this afternoon and wow! it sounds really good.

For the Specs:
Tower: PowerMac G4 MDD FW800
CPU: 1.42GHz PPC G4 Dual Processor
RAM: 2 GB (Maximum you put)
ODD: 1 x SuperDrive and 1 Asus DVD/RW/DL
HDD: WD Caviar 250GBto
Gfx: ATI RAdeon 9700 Pro Mac Edition (BTO Card)
Monitor: Apple Cinema Display 22" (Acrylic Frame)
Speakers: Apple Pro Speakers and Harman Kardon iSub
USB 2.0 Pheripheral: USB Card with NEC chip
Webcam: iSight
Wifi: Apple Airport Extreme
Bluetooth: Apple Bluetooth Card
Keyboard: Apple Aluminum Keyboard
Mouse: Apple Magic Mouse

(I still have the original White Keyboard and Apple Pro Mouse)

OS: Leopard 10.5.8

The last remaining 5% would be the OWC Mercury SSD for the boot drive... and I am done with this hell of a G4. :D
Click to expand...

The only thing my ultimate G4 would have is Idve got a 23" Acryllic over a 22" (That extra inch makes all the difference resolution wise - 1600*1024 vs 1920*1200), but thats still a very sweet G4 :D (I could pimp mine like that, but instead I just get new Macs as its easier)
 
I would love to have a 23", but I would not spend more on this baby(not for now :D), unless there would something that would come up with the price being reasonable enough.

Its like rebuilding and restoring old school cars...
 
Guess it deserves some pics :D
SSD will give you a lot of speed,this week I will install a 233X 8Gb CF Car in my powermac,guess it will speed the things up too,altough not as much as real ssd..
 
Yeah I guess so, got to grab a digicam... :D

Think it looks good on original apple pro keyboard and mouse rather than the aluminum keyboard and magic mouse. Retro look and authentic.
 
Last edited:
Not bad. The SSD is going to be really cool, you should post some performance stats when you have it finished. Geekbench, Cinebench, your boot time etc.

I have some similar stuff in my old G4 Quicksilver. I upgraded the cpu to a 1.8ghz G4 from newertech, I have a Radeon 9800 pro, a WD Raptor, USB 2.0 card, SATA card, isight, bluetooth, etc. What I really want to do next and probably the last thing is upgrade the superdrive. :)
 
Just a question,do you have a pci-sata card,or you use the ide interface?
If you use the Ide interface,will you buy a native IDE SSD or a SATA SSD and a cheapo sata do ide converter from ebay?
 
Hello,

Instead of the SSD, I opted for a bootable RAID0. I bought 2 identical Seagate Barracuda 7200 rpm 320GB drive from OWC, as well as a Sonnet PCI USB board. Man! that was an NEC chip in there.

Installed, set up as software RAID0 from disk utility. Installed Leopard fresh and transfered all the infos from time machine backup.

It seems snappier than my previous setup.

Keep you updated. :D One happy camper here.

Picture1-1.png


XBench Disk Test

Picture1-2.png


About 80% Faster on Sequential not that much of improvement on Random.
 
Last edited:
Great upgrades and all round setup. I used to own a dual 1.42 MDD myself.

Just wondering why (unless you live in the country side) you would buy hard drives from OWC? They tend to charge 5-15% more for generic parts like hard drives compared to your average local PC parts shop.

I like the drive performance in your benchmark. For comparison I have added my xbench drive score for my non-raided WD Caviar Black 1TB with 64MB buffer on a FirmTek SATA PCI card. I use the first 120GB of the drive as a boot partition. It performs well on it's own and beats your raided setup in random tests quite handilly. How much gain do you normally see in a RAID vs a single drive of the same type/brand? Just trying to estimate the kind of gain I will see if I do RAID. Think I would buy 2x 640GB WD Black as they are known as the fastest 7200rpm magnetic drive on earth.

picture2nb.jpg
 
chrismacguy said:
The only thing my ultimate G4 would have is Idve got a 23" Acryllic over a 22" (That extra inch makes all the difference resolution wise - 1600*1024 vs 1920*1200), but thats still a very sweet G4 :D (I could pimp mine like that, but instead I just get new Macs as its easier)
Click to expand...

Today I have received my 23" ACD HD Acrylic from the mail. This is PM G4 nirvana for me... Old 22" will go to my daughter's PM G4 1.25 Single... Yeah, 1920 x 1200 really makes a difference.
 
Last edited:
Nameci said:
Today I have received my 23" ACD HD Acrylic from the mail. This is PM G4 nirvana for me... Old 22" will go to my daughter's PM G4 1.25 Single... Yeah, 1920 x 1200 really makes a difference.
Click to expand...

It really does. And now your daughter has probably gained a very nice display for her machine (Even though I *have* a 27"er on my main machine - Anything over 23/24"s really is a luxury nobody really needs that much - I used to have a 23" Acryllic... wish I'd kept it now as I think I may have to purchase another for my G4 MDD.... The design is unparalleled.)
 
Nothing more I guess on this setup, except for additional data storage. Or I guess for another 23" ACD HD display but I have no use for another display, this 23" that I have right now is more than enough for my needs. It is my main mac and I love it.

Or maybe, I will start to reduce the fan noise and make it a little bit quieter.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back