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Upgrades for PowerMac G4?

Joshh1

Joshh1

macrumors regular
Original poster
Nov 14, 2007
118
0
Northern Michigan.
Hey guys, I just recently acquired a G4 power mac Gigabit Ethernet. (Dual 450's I believe isn't here yet. :p)
I actually don't know the specs of it at all, a friend of mine grabbed it for me.


I'm just going to use it for regular computing, but do you guys have any suggestions on upgrades? I'm thinking a new hdd for media storage, 2 X 512 mb sticks of ram and a new video card (Preferably $120 or less) but something that supports dual monitors. (I know the stock Ati Rage doesn't support them so.) and then of course a USB 2.0 PCI card.
I don't have the money to upgrade the processor, so that's out of the question. I'd also like to get a superdrive or just a dvd-rw.

Thank you guys in advance. :)

-Josh.
 
Video card: I would say a Radeon 8500 from eBay they are pretty cheap and a good match for the processors. If you want core image you will need to get a Radeon 9200 or better or a GeForce 5200 or better. If you are more adventurous and want the best bang for your buck flash a dirt cheap used PC video card but make sure you choose carefully and follow the guides precisely.
http://themacelite.wikidot.com/start

RAM: Buy used as well, SDRAM in general is fairly expensive but some money can be saved this way. PC100

HD: The max is 128GB unless you get an SATA or ATA add-on card.

DVD: Most IDE burners work great even lightscribe works if you download the free Mac driver. You should be able to get one for $25-30 off of newegg.
 
Definitely go for a gig of memory,and, as velocityg4 said, pick up a DVD-RW drive off of Newegg. If you have the money, get a SATA PCI card and pick up a 2550GB SATA drive (only like $55 at this point).
 
Thanks guys.
Now will the ATI radeon 9200 from OWC work well?

Now to see how much money I have and how much I can spend. :rolleyes:

Edit: Also, any IDE optical drive will work? Basically just plug and play?
 
NOTE--PC133 RAM will also work in that machine. Check RAMseeker, older Mac RAM has dropped in price quite a bit in the past few months...
 
disconap said:
NOTE--PC133 RAM will also work in that machine. Check RAMseeker, older Mac RAM has dropped in price quite a bit in the past few months...
Click to expand...
However now a days you have to be careful. As some are no longer backwards compatible. I think there was a problem with this with Kingston memory.

edit:
Joshh1 said:
Now will the ATI radeon 9200 from OWC work well?
Click to expand...
Wow that price is high:eek:
For that you could get a Radeon 9800 off of this guy on ebay. He has a great rating and his sales history lists a few cards like this one. It is probably flashed but that really does not matter.

Or save buying a 9200 on ebay they go for $75-85. Here is one from the same guy.

Note on all of his cards he charge $20 shipping.
 
Alright Thanks. :)


I was gonna say the OWC one seems a bit much, I'd rather buy from a store. but I'd also rather save $30. :p

Edit: Also, was just wondering. Say I end up with a PCI graphics card. Would it be best to use the ATI rage for one monitor and the PCI for the 2nd? Or will this not work?

(Sorry i'm a total noob to dual monitors. hahaha)
 
Really, don't bother with a PCI graphics card! Quartz Extreme does not work over the PCI bus without a hack (not sure the hack even works in 10.5) and regardless it'll still be pretty darn slow - not to mention that it'll nearly saturate the PCI bus, leaving a USB 2.0 card starved for bandwidth if/when it needs it.

Find a cheap flashed Radeon 9700/9800 on eBay and pop it in. It'll run two displays (two VGA or one DVI, one VGA). It'll be way, way better than running a main display off the PCI bus.

FWIW, I have a (flashed) Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB in a Gigabit Ethernet PowerMac and it works just perfectly.
 
^ I agree a Radeon 9800 would be a good choice.
You can install another hard drive in the bay below the optical drive (at least on the models with Zip drives).
 
Velocity has a point though--there is plenty of PC100 and PC133 RAM that won't work in Macs. That's why I suggested RAMSeeker, you can search by model for compatible RAM with solid return policies...

But yeah, PC133 RAM works just fine, it just operates at 100mHz.
 
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