Upgrade G3 processor

with the money you can use to update that you can buy yourself a fairly decent sawtooth g4

 

It all depends what you are planning to do with it. Give it a bit more ram and the latest os X and you can use it as a server of some kind.

 

G3 to G4

I updated mine b/w G3 to a G4 550 from Newer Tech (I think that was the brand) it was sweeeeeet! TO the best of my knowledge from semi-recent research that is the top of the line for that era of G3.... but as I said it was semi-recent recearch.... and b/w G3 specific.....

Have fun it is a great CHEAP fix....

 

You are forgetting some things, bigger and faster harddisk, better videocard to take advantage of os X. But you still have a slow front side bus, you will see a big boost in speed, but it doesn't go as fast as a newer mac.

 

You are the perfect candidate for a mac mini, which will blow you away, relative to a beige G3. You'll get 1.25ghz of processor power, not to mention an infinately better gpu, system bus, modern ports, bigger HD... Keep the old G3 as a OS 9 machine, but don't upgrade it unless you can find a processor and ram for waaaaaay cheap, and I mean like under 200 bucks.

 

mac mini, does that all, faster,cheaper, bigger hard drive, its easier (and cheaper )to buy a new computer

 

I also have a beige G3 that will (probably) be updated. For $200 from sonnet you can get a 700mhz upgrade chip...G4. That would be fine for me anyway. I won't be running OS X however, probably stick with 8.6 or if I get ambitious I may upgrade to 9.2.2 to take full advantage of the G4 and the USB card I put in (it works but some things like scroll wheels on mice don't work w/o 9+). I also am putting in the $19 to add 4mb of ram to my 2mb vid ram...for whopping total of 6mb! But its worth the $19 imo. I already have 224mb ram and thats fine for this old beast. The only way that these upgrades won't happen is if the mac mini sees a 1.8ghz processor and 5400rpm hd and maybe the ability to take a 2gb ram chip THIS SUMMER! If not, this beige is gonna be rockin' and I won't stop using it until the mac mini does meet those specs, even if I have to wait for intel inside.

**edit**
Looks like I'm crazy enough that I may even update my PM 7200/90 to 400mhz for $90 and run Seti on that too!